A massive conflict is brewing in EVE Online, where ships worth 1 million US dollars could be destroyed. However, the community assumes that not much will happen. Too much is at stake.
In EVE, players invest insane amounts of time and energy into building their ships. Players gather increasing value and invest it into their ships for the moment of the big battle. In such a battle, these ships can then be permanently destroyed. When the player’s prized ship turns into an incoherent mass of pixels, days of work go up in smoke.
As you can exchange real money for the in-game currency ISK, some like to calculate and say: The ship is worth millions of ISK and thus also hundreds of US dollars.
If there should be a major battle in EVE, gaming magazines write: “Now 300,000 US dollars have been destroyed.” This happened four years ago in February 2014. A pilot took a wrong turn and a huge conflict ensued.
The opponents from back then are now back and planning a “1 million dollar battle,” but the community assumes that it will be a terrible flop and nothing will happen.
A player has now opened a thread on reddit, describing the background story of the conflict so that even non-EVE players can understand it.
Megalomaniac Space Dictator vs. Casino Boss
In EVE, there’s a kind of self-proclaimed arch-villain and super villain, The Mittani. He leads the “Goonswarm Federation,” a coalition of gamers that comprises about 15,000 people.
The Mittani has his own website with his name and a Twitch channel. It’s a mix between a cult of personality and smart propaganda, leaning towards “dictator of a medium-sized villain state.”
They have dominated EVE for a long time. However, over time it appeared as if The Mittani was getting megalomaniac. He “rented” his army of players to games like H1Z1 to cause chaos. That was in the spring of 2015.
In addition, he started a Kickstarter campaign to pay a well-known sci-fi author to write a book about a war in EVE that he had won. That was the last straw.
This ego trip rubbed the EVE community the wrong way and resistance against The Mittani formed. The “richest man in EVE,” a guy named Lenny, financed a resistance with his immense wealth, and they ultimately crushed The Mittani and his group. This happened in the spring of 2016.
Mittani’s “The Imperium” had to retreat and lick their wounds.
However, the “richest man in EVE” was only so rich because he made his money through EVE-related betting. In connection with the CS:GO betting scandal, his account was banned. The developers CCP were evidently afraid that the gambling scandal would spill over to them as well. And without the financier, the Moneybadger coalition fell apart.
However, the remnants of this coalition are still powerful space factions.
The Mittani ultimately swore to take terrible revenge, and the following months became an arms race of the various parties with some nasty intrigues.
2 Insanely Expensive Fleets Face Off Tonight
Now The Mittani is back, and a battle date has been set. Tonight at 9 PM, two fleets worth about 1 million US dollars are supposed to face off.
However, many assume that no shots will be fired, as so much is at stake for both sides that the pilots are hesitant to send their valuable ships into a battle where so many hours of work can be destroyed. It is therefore possible that both fleets will just stare at each other for hours and shout at the other what cowards they are from a safe distance.
But maybe the players are in for a surprise.
An example of a nasty intrigue in the run-up to the conflict:
In 1 hour he lost everything he had built in 14 years of EVE Online
