It was likely a foregone conclusion that the agreed upon Christmas truce between the two sides fighting World War Bee 2 in EVE Online would get back into the fight with gusto, but perhaps nobody was expecting this. On December 30th, Goonswarm and PAPI forces clashed at M2-XFE over an Imperium Keepstar in a fight that will likely be remembered in the game’s history annals.
Both sides committed massive resources to the field, with an initially reported 5,000 combatants, 706 titans, 500 supers, and 600 Faxes among the ships drawn into the fight. The battle was already causing a large number of Titans to go pop, with an initial report pointing out that 76 Titans were destroyed. By the end of it all, both sides lost huge numbers of hardware, with five Supercarriers, dozens of Carriers, and hundreds of Titans and Dreadnoughts being taken down in the fight. All told, 23 trillion in ISK was lost, resulting in approximately $300K USD blown into space dust. The fight also brought an astonishing album of images from the front lines.
The battle at M2-XFE is the cap on an already active 2020 for EVE Online, both in terms of World War Bee 2 and in general updates. In fact, the event even won an award from us here at MOP itself. CCP Games provided a rundown of the past year in the last episode of Pulse for 2020, which you can watch in the embed below.
Today a followup of this battle occurred in the same system to contest the Hull Timer of the same Keepstar Citadel. It turned out to be a monumental decisive victory for the Imperium. 120 titans belonging to PAPI destroyed. Another 10.6 Trillion ISK in assets gone while the Imperium took minimal losses and not a single Titan or Supercarrier lost.
Yeah, that loss was partly due to PAPI having a bad plan, and the fact that the server crapped itself and people would get in to the system with only hull registering, to get shot out of the sky. Gotta give it to Goons though. They got in there right after restart, and were ready hours beforehand. But, as Asher said, “this is a win, not a victory.”
I thought Titans were the biggest ships in the game… are there bigger ones? I guess i’ve been OOL for too long.
I have absolutely no interest in playing EVE, but reading about it is fascinating.
I remember when killing Steve was a big deal. Now 100’s of Titans die in single battle. Guess CCP needs an even bigger and more expensive ship now.
Also, these kinds of fights and wars show yet again how the best content in MMOPRGs is the one that users create themselves (and I’m not talking only about PvP – same thing can be applied to PvE gameplay, for example user-designed dungeons for people who like grinding those). Shame that most game developers are still unable to comprehend this and still don’t provide enough tools for people to create such content.
Landmark was well on it’s way with regards to player-made content. Some people had made some fascinating battle arenas that showed some real promise. Unfortunately, people were so so upset about it being “attached” to the EQNext project initially that they wouldn’t even try it out and Daybreak felt they had to can the game.
Bleh
The battle a few nights ago for the hull timer showed the limits of the game, though. Goons loaded all their ships in hours beforehand, and when PAPI tried to send their ships in, they trickled into the system, getting pegged as they came in. Which means, due to the game limits and CCP allowing so many Titans in game, you will never be able to take down a large coalition, as the software just can’t handle it.
My last count of kill mails has 252 titans dead, 124 Imperium and 129 PAPI, so a pretty even split. Both sides are warming up to do it again for the final timer, which comes out at 01:00 UTC.
CCP has as much as promised a dev blog about the fight. Enough titans have died, with more possible, that we might even get some sort of marker or monument at the site.
EVE has provided me with more entertainment over the years than any other game I’ve never played… and probably a few that I have.
I’m not sure I’d actually enjoy the experience of being in the cage with the wild animals, but how I love these glimpses through the bars.
76? Over 240 titans died, roughly 120 on each side. Also round two is tonight and consensus is it’s going to be even bloodier.