So the prospects of a massive war in Eve came and went this week. When I say massive, I really mean it. The largest Power Blocks in the Game looked at each other, rolled up the sleeves and began a staring contest. If this went down, it would be a new Great War.

More below the Fold Full Disclosure: I'm part of the CFC, allied with Goons.

A decent history of it can be found in The Mittani's CEO Update. That one links to TheMittani.com, but if you want to look at where most of nullsec was reading about it on Kugutsumen, or Kugu as most people call it. That thread's name has been changed partly for trollololol and the fact that the war didn't start.

To help you out, Here's the Sov map. The CFC is in the North. From Executive Outcomes to Convicted. The HBC is TEST/PL, and generally all things Southern (Except CVA) out to Nulli Secunda and NCdot. So yes, the Two largest Powerblocks in the game. Probably 10-15k PvP characters on each side (not counting alts)

I was not a fan of the War. Wars between friends do not end well. It made me think back to when Jonah Goldberg was doing the book tour for Liberal Fascism about how fights between people that know each other really really well are the Nastiest. Hence how nasty the war on the Ostfront was. I slowly started to warm to it, because to take part in a new Great War in Eve, would have to be experienced.

It would be a War of Extermination between these two blocks, The CFC and The HBC. It has been discussed recently (Before Montolio went on the Screw FA and Fuck Goons run), on Shit on Kugu podcast (Audio is very NSFW), and Mister Vee (Probably the best FC i've ever flown under, and a Goon) stated the only thing that was stopping it were the massive structure grinds. If you have never done this before, I can see why you wouldn't think it would be much of an issue. It is a terrible problem with the current Sovereignty mechanics in Nullsec. These structures have massive amounts of Hit Points, and it's some of the most boring shit you'll ever do. So thats why all the "pubbies" on Fail Heap, or on random non-Sov bloggers/posters keep egging it on. If you refer to the Latest CSM Minutes, CSM 7 has meant fuck all to any one that lives and fights in Sov Nullsec. Game Mechanics literally stopped a year of Game content in it's tracks. Thanks CCP/CSM7 your game mechanics and lack of attention to them stopped the biggest War in the history of your Game!

Now on to the CEO Update. When The Mittani issues an update like this, he's prepping the CFC war machine. The next move would be Montolio's. From then, if War was to break out, there would be a State of the Goonion, probably on Thursday or Friday. Judging by history, Everyone in the CFC would be advised to Be in VFK (Goon Capital) in Alpha fleet, or whatever doctrine called, to listen to the SOTG with instructions to follow. In the update you can see the start of the Propaganda War. We don't hate you Test Grunts, we have issues with your leadership. Your Leadership is steering you wrong. I have Seen it used in almost every Bloc War since I've started playing in Null.

Fortunatly, It did not happen (Links to a bunch of the Ramp up to War are linked at the beginning). All the conspiracy people are up to thier usual :Goonspiracy: or it's all about the TECH! notions, but I take alot of this at face value. If you peruse The Eve Subreddit (Test is nominally a Reddit based community) You can see in these CFC/HBC posts random Test dudes going why are we going to fight Goons? We Like Goons. Now most of these threads will be off the main page, so look around if you want to. I think that Montolio ended up having a bunch of people around him that were not happy with the Goons, not the average line member, and that's what was driving him. Could be wrong.

I'm fairly certain that it will go down at some point. Perhaps it would be better,for my side, if it happened now. That's why I was warming to it. In the future, the slides might tip more and more the HBC's way. The North has traditionally been where the Great Coalitions in Eve happen, but it's all so where they die.

Update: So holy shit. There was MASSIVE Battle last night in Lowsec. By Massive, I'm talking upwards of 3000 pilots. Eve did just about everything but die. I was in the first Alpha Fleet coming down to help from VFK when the Jabber ping hit that Shit was Real, and get down there. I crashed on the entry gate, and then it took me over an hour to load system again. In a 3 hour fight, I think I fired 5 shots. The Tidi was amazing. It was also the top story on Reddit all morning today. That link has some good screen shots.

Here's a great video of it:

I really dodged a bullet by not posting last week. I was about to post about how this was all talk and really over blown. Then everyone one in these two Powerblocks were literally at Defcon 2 on Tuesday when The CEO update went live. Thankfully I'm as bad at postmaking as I am at Eve, and that's pretty bad.

Last Eve Related thing. So the CFC was camping some bads in their staging system in NPC Venal. NPC Null is the same rules as Sov Null (Bubbles, Bombs), but you can't take Stations, nor in-cap their services (Things like Cloning or Ship fitting thereby denying people in the station from doing things). DaBigRedBoat (DBRB, or Boat) was Leading this fleet. Boat fleets are to be experienced. Personally I don't mind them anymore, but initially they can be really sketchy if you don't know what you are getting into as my bud Wartzilla found out. So yea. Boat is FCing a Das Uber Boot Fleet (SlowCats, or Sentry Drone Deploying Carriers), when Faction Warfare Dreadnaughts got dropped on him. He Escalated With Supers. That is how it works in Eve. Subcaps Escalate to Capitals Escalate to Super Capitals. Anyways Enjoy Boat freaking out on coms and Some Titan Doomsday's. 1080 full screen it.

As for larger gaming. Man, Really haven't been able to do too much. This is the time of year where I earn most of my money, so I've been busy. Plus a bunch of RL stuff (Prayer team, I could use your help) on top of that. I have enjoyed playing Fluidity:Spin Cycle on my 3DS.

The only thing I'd point you to is to listen to two episodes of The Nerdist. Episodes 306 and 307 where they actually get to interview Gabe Newell. Both were pretty fascinating. I will admit that if it wasn't Valve behind Steam, I'd be like fuck you and your DRM. With Valve it's more like ok, I'll put a little trust with you since you've been nice to me. I know there's some Steam haters here, and that's fine. I do agree that my relationship with Valve has been more of a Dance than the traditional Developer-Customer model.

A side note, Hillary Testified this week about Benghazi. One of the guys that we lost was Sean Smith aka Vile Rat. He's in the logs up in the CEO update. He left a wife and small children, so if you have a chance, head over To the Donation page for his family.

If you play Eve there's a Moron Channel. It's AoSHQ

I'm always open to the Horde for Gaming stuff, send me your posts to AosHQGaming at gmail dot com and We'll get them up.

Now for Dude:

If you don't have a PSP or Vita (good for you in realizing that the Vita is dead), NIS has re-released the PS2 version of Disgaea 2 for $9.99. If you have a PSP or Vita, get that version as the extra content is really nice but I dropped 400 hours into the PS2 release so it's no slouch either way.

In news to shock no one, Own3D will be no more after this week as they've run out of money. There have been reports for a year now of streamers not getting paid so it was inevitable. Still don't under stand why CBS bought into them as right after the deal they made another deal with the competitor, Twitch which has been king for quite awhile now (before gaming was broken off of Justine.TV.

Eurogamer and Digital Foundry runs what they've heard on the upcoming new Xbox

Eurogamer and CVG talks about Sony possibly dropping the DualShock controller

A demo for Metal Gear Revengence finally came to America and isn't attached to Zone of the Enders collection.

Hey NRA, if your going to qq about games, you shouldn't be releasing a game after the fact, no?

Feel like playing a boring game? CCP threw Dust 514 into Open Beta

Gas Powered Games reveils a kickstarter then a few days later lays off 40 people

If it wasn't for the fact that I have eshop games that I can't transfer because Nintendo are morons, I would really love to buy this Fire Emblem 3DS. But what ever. I would say "You lose this time Nintendo" but lets be real, I'm buying the new Fire Emblem game no matter what, especially after playing the demo a few times which continues the progression that the series has made over the years.

Considering how badly the WiiU has been getting a drubbing in sales since release (it's barely over 16k these past few weeks in Japan) , Nintendo needed a home run in announcing games and frankly I think they did a good job even if they broke their newer stance of not announcing games till they were close to completion. Other than the games we already know about that are coming, they hit on a new Yoshi game, Monolith Soft's upcoming game tentatively called X, WiiU Party, a Shin Megami Tensei - Fire Emblem crossover (which is hopefully as good as the Pokemon - Nobanaga's Ambition game for the DS) and talked about a new Zelda game and a HD release of Wind Waker (which will hopefully get it closer to the fidelity that the art deserves even though it still won't be 1080p)

Yay, though we didn't get Namco x Capcom, we're getting a US release of fanservice game of Project X Zone that throws in Sega's characters as well. Out some time this Summer.

Xseed going back to the well by announcing the last of the Project Rainfall games, Pandora's Tower will be getting a US release.

If you dig good dungeon crawlers (though admittingly they've become easier as the series has progressed) and a 3DS, be sure to check out the demo of the upcoming Etrian Odyssey IV on February 7th. Can't wait for the game to be released on the 26th (and the demo carries over into the retail game).

Grasshopper Manufacture announced their next boxoffice failure, Killer is Dead this past week. Looks really good with it's No More Heroes play style wrapped up in the under-rated Killer 7's aesthetics

Finally get a release date from RedLynx on the upcoming Trials pack for the PC containing both 360 games. Out on March 21st.

The First half of the death of THQ happened last week as Sega picked up Relic and Company of Heroes IP. Koch Media picked up Volition and the Saint's Row IP with the publishing rights to the Metro sequel from 4A Games. In a move to secure their current work, Crytek on Homefront 2 bought the IP for the small amount of $500k. Ubisoft picked up the publishing rights for the South Park game and bought the THQ Montreal studio (which is funny since that studio was run by Patrice Desilets who was one of the creator's of Assassin's Creed who bailed on Ubi in the middle of Brotherhood). Turtle Rock's (Left 4 Dead) upcoming Evolve has a new home in Take Two. Though understandable in why no one bought Vigil Games (Darksiders series) it's sad to see them dead though Platnium Games and Sony Santa Monica has been hitting Twitter in trying to hire the displaced workers. The big enchilada is going to be when they auction off all of the IPs as I would be curious in who grabs Homeworld. But all in all, I have to say I'm kinda surprised in the low amounts of cash that won these assets.

Also the demise of THQ, WWF err...WWE has moved the rights to Take Two. For the love of God, please let them hire syn Sophia to make the games. They need work and a going back to the N64 wrestling game basics is what is needed. I mean, other than the Fire Pro Wrestling series, there isn't a more revered series than AKi's wrestling games on the 64.

Sony making money? WTF It's okay though, Kaz Hirai still thinks their TV sector can compete by high priced TVs.

Bethesda is actually going to be releasing the DLC to Skyrim next month at a 50% off for it's first week. It should be.....interesting.

YES!! We get a new trailer for the Dark Arisen expansion pack for Dragon's Dogma that carries a release date. Though a little clunky and the FPS can shit the bed on occasion, more Dragon's Dogma is a gud. Though I wish the pack wasn't going to cost $40 if you own Dragon's Dogma but you should be able to get $10 for the game as the retail version of Dark Arisen will come with the base game.

Almost Human, the devs of one of my favorite games of 2012 are happy that they sold 600k copies of Legend of Grimrock. Them happy means I'm happy.

If you dig JRPGs, the biggest one in a long ass time was released last week by the name of Ni No Kuni by the way of Level 5 and Studio Ghibli. Sure is quite a few great reviews and has been selling quite well. Sadly Namco and Digital River sold too many of the CE and had to cancel orders at the last minute.

Though Polyphony Digital is mainly known for the Gran Turismo series, their first game, Omega Boost (which was an awesome mech game) will always hold a special place in my heart. Well, someone (Born Ready Games) went back to that well with their new release Strike Suit Zero. It's also one of the first games that announced that it will have Oculus Rift support. Pretty cool for only $20.

Thats about it for the week.

Posted by: Gang of Gaming Morons! at 09:17 AM | Comments (143)
Post contains 2574 words, total size 17 kb.

37 Maybe the others are enjoying the weather.... I wish I was

Posted by: gigg at January 27, 2013 10:14 AM (9DTx6)

106 100, 103 ---- Heh. 102 --- Virginia, but he can't be picky about where he goes. I'll add yours to the chorus that says he ought to consider going straight to grad school. A decade or two ago, or certainly back in my day, I'd tell him to get a job with an outfit that will send him to grad school. Today? Doesn't seem like that's gonna happen.

Posted by: Margarita DeVille at January 27, 2013 11:15 AM (C8mVl)

120 Vic, you have a brother who's a Ph.D. chemist?  I knew there was a reason I liked you

Posted by: chemjeff at January 27, 2013 11:22 AM (BBWjt)

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