Eve No Question is Stupid Thread - August 27, 2020

I was able to read /u/Eve_Asher's post when I was contacted about it by Panfam today, asking for my blessing to make a post about how Goons doxxed me. They then made several posts (masking the doxxed information) which have been removed by mods. I decided to write this longer essay in order to give mods no excuse (low effort, includes doxxing information etc) to remove, and also to answer Asher properly.

Asher's post was humbly written and had some valid points. I think there are some truly decent people among Goons leadership, and the prominent figures. I believe if they had their way, the outsider perspective toward Imperium would have been much more positive. Some examples here include Jay, Merk, Aryth, and Asher. I think Goons have one of the more progressive Codes of Conduct, and they are inclusive (of IRL worldviews, etc). I can see the influence of Merk and Aryth in these positive aspects.

Asher compiled a solid presentation of his side of Eve history and claimed a cultural change in his post yesterday. It mainly pertains to how they overcame the SA culture. I believe efforts have been made, but the culture is still largely intact. This is mainly due to some other prominent people in Goons, particularly the metagamers; including Mittani, DBRB, BBTB, Jibrish, Tuzy, John Hartley, and so on. Let's go over particular issues by item.

One claim was that Goons have grown past doxxing. I understand there is no "department of doxxing" anymore, or it's not done in an organized manner. I appreciate, after this much history, I am still not swatted. But this proves that there is still doxxing in Goons. The culture trickled. The person is tolerated.

Apart from doxxing, in his post, Asher doesn't deal with general toxicity and gaslighting too much. When he does, uses the official line. Meta Show toxicity is brushed off as roleplaying. Member toxicity is brushed off as "everyone has edgelords" or "these are not leaders".

Let's begin with the Meta Show. It's problem is Mittani's style. You can say it's roleplaying. But it has consequences. That style, the talking points, the koolaid trickles down to linemembers. We have to deal with it later on when we are in mediums with Goon linemembers, such as r/Eve, CSM Discord, TIS Discord, and others. It has game-eroding consequences.

For example, for past 4 years I couldn't discuss supers/titans/umbrellas on these mediums without some Goon coming in and killing the rational debate with ad hominems. Why wouldn't they? I couldn't even discuss game balance issues rationally with Mittani on the very episode he invited me, without him using the opportunity to mock me. In this episode I came in wanting to talk about how I symphatize with people losing their income, how I understand there needs to be objectives for supers in space so hunters can hunt them, and how there are many nuances such as CCP wanting to reduce faucets. But the only thing Goons remembered was "Olmeca killed his playstyle", and it has been a major talking point parroted by any Goon linemember since then. This is one example among many how the style on the Meta Show just erodes the game when we could have meaningful conversations about game balance. It is those conversations CCP is moving from when making game balance changes, and they are lethal to the game's health. Hell, even Hilmar wasn't immune from this (remember blackout being tied to Hilmar's bonus?).

About the gasligthing, it wasn't only me. Mittani publicly admitted several times that he uses target calling boogiemen to create cohesion and make their lives harder. Just think of how many MAJOR boogiemen Mittani has gone through merely past few years. Gevlon, Gigx, me, now Vily, Brave, more... You won't see Vily or Gobbins making weekly shows about how some enemies are backstabbers. If you wan't to see how motivation creation should look like, just contrast Dunk's awesome Not the SOTA series with Meta Show. Dunk is like the antithesis of Mittani and has been effectively proving that you don't need toxic gasligthing in order to motivate your people.

Moreover, if you are the kind of leader who uses that then you'll get the kind of people who responds to that prominent in your alliance and culture. The theme trickles down, and even if you guys are all friendly in your organization, meetups and so on; it is us non-Goons who have to deal with the toxicity. If you go through this collage (taken from Reddit, ingame local and Goon jabber) you'll find some very ugly shit. People like this or this will be brushed off as random linemembers. But some of these people have been veteran players, such as members of Amok, and their Goon affiliations didn't suffer at all despite their actions being reported. Instead, the same culture extended in how Goons brigaded those topics.

No, you can't brush the Mittani off "roleplay" nor as it has non-roleplay consequences. And you can't brush the toxicity as "random outliers" because it's cultural and fostered in a top-down manner. Both of these support the Panfam/TEST case that Mittani and the leaders who contribute to the culture should be removed.

The other theme was gaming vs metagaming. Asher gave us insight on how Goons moved away from "helldunks or blueball". It might be spot on, and Good for them. But this doesn't change the fact that the most boasted Goon achievements of late have been metagame achievements. The Judgement Day, and the MER victories have been celebrated and advertised way more than battle victories. Enabled by CCP's changes in 2016-18 abundance era, Goons shifted the game's culture to a point where MER became the most important metric of who is winning. To this day Goons are obsessing with irrelevant metagame details like having to push their own name for WWB. In my view, this culture, that values and emphasizes metagame skills over gaming skills, contributed to the great stagnation we are barely recoving from.

Asher also mentions Goons don't like renting. And renting is disliked for legitimate reasons. But in my experience rental space has been a great provider of daily content and ship in space BEFORE it became bot-only until every single large entity embraced the umbrella model and fencing all those targets in space who'd otherwise be renters. And the space became exclusively botlands today. And there being exclusive alliances that didn't admit new players among the list of relevant and powerful alliances, was actually good for the game.

And then there is the line that "Goon CSMs advocated against supers and thus aren't metagaming". In my experience, when it came to game balance, Goon CSMs and leaders choose very careful lines to defend such that they are just enough nerfs to their playstyles to be able to demonstrate that they aren't metagaming (both to CCP and to players), but I haven't seen a Goon proposal of real self-undermining consequence. In contrast, I've seen many times where a CSM member or two became The Supreme Defender of The Game-Stagnating Krab when serious stuff is being discussed. A public example (so that I can use) is Blackout. Goon response to Blackout (on Meta Show etc) and the game balance line has been "make local a benefit you can get from structures in space (e.g. observatories)". While that LOOKED LIKE a compromise for the hardcore turtling playstyle (as it wasn't defending local as is), the trick was that a proposal which would help infrastructure-holding alliances was particularly chosen to defend how local should look like. In reality that situation wouldn't have made space more dangerous at all; because people would only rat/mine under observatories (which all alliances would have to provide) and once their observatory is hit they wouldn't undock. Goons ofc aren't clueless to not realize this, but they carefully chose this line to LOOK LIKE they aren't defending the hardline PvE player stance of "local is fine". I can say that the CSM 14 has been full of similar experiences.

Overall it all boils down to the "us and them" culture fostered by Mittani and few prominent people in Goons. I've seen it affect the game and the Goons themselves in many ways. I've seen them ban their people from having fun in NPSI fleets because they took these fleets' activities personal and political (while they were just looking for content, and Delve had content). I've seen them jeopardize entire CSM summits because they took changes made by CCP personal. I've seen them constantly flaming game balance proposals because "the enemy" is making them. It was funny to learn on RonUSMC's Ironbank Interview about how the entire WWB started by how Goon-affiliated alliances turning a Goon-friendly bank against the Goons. It's not just roleplay. It's a carefully endorsed and flourished culture. I see Goons recover from it if they admit it and amputate it. But it's game-eroding, and the anti-Goon side of this war has every right to declare it so, and target it.

submitted by /u/Olmeca_Gold
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Ironic

Posted: 27 Aug 2020 03:22 PM PDT

submitted by /u/galendil
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New Goons!

Posted: 27 Aug 2020 04:44 PM PDT

submitted by /u/namahanna
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Good Guy Goon helping The Little Guy

Posted: 27 Aug 2020 12:43 PM PDT

submitted by /u/namahanna
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A fun throwback to the post that got a senior GSF leadership member banned from SomethingAwful because he bragged about tracking down another alliance's leadership's OkCupid and outing them as gay.

Posted: 27 Aug 2020 08:25 PM PDT

submitted by /u/AbsoluteTruth
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Watch me summon the Goon posters:

Posted: 27 Aug 2020 07:42 PM PDT

submitted by /u/Cpt_Soban
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Asher says that goons aren't the bad guys anymore, but have you ever looked at 1DQ?

Posted: 27 Aug 2020 05:31 AM PDT

submitted by /u/Peaceful_Whale
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Goons in 2020

Posted: 27 Aug 2020 08:09 AM PDT

submitted by /u/Elowenn
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A simple pamphlet in response to 'goons are the good guys'

Posted: 27 Aug 2020 05:44 PM PDT

submitted by /u/Cpt_Soban
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That's a Risk

Posted: 27 Aug 2020 12:03 PM PDT

submitted by /u/kaladindm
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CCPlz make triglavs invade Jita

Posted: 27 Aug 2020 07:29 AM PDT

You can downvote me now

submitted by /u/CharlyGoyo
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Miniluv

Posted: 27 Aug 2020 07:35 PM PDT

submitted by /u/StalkingMantis
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So you're a tough guy Like it really rough guy Just can't get enough guy Chest always so puffed guy?

Posted: 27 Aug 2020 03:23 PM PDT

submitted by /u/StalkingMantis
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Logical Fallacies - What Goes Around Comes Around

Posted: 28 Aug 2020 12:37 AM PDT

submitted by /u/Robbbin_Hood
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Hype video for Imperium Rokh doctrine: all aboard the SuperTrain

Posted: 27 Aug 2020 03:55 PM PDT

submitted by /u/Zathos_Renraku
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Oh no! Red on mah killboard. NOOOOO!

Posted: 27 Aug 2020 03:58 PM PDT

submitted by /u/StalkingMantis
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The sorrows of Mittens

Posted: 28 Aug 2020 01:40 AM PDT

submitted by /u/Wiros
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Good Guy Goons hang their allies out to dry once again

Posted: 27 Aug 2020 11:50 AM PDT

https://br.evetools.org/br/5f47fd4f338f340013ea8fc3

Since the good guys rules lawyers need an AAR: Goons allies got baited into escalating caps on their daily minute of ansiblex hate with INIT bringing a yucky Munnin fleet (which apparently goons hate) and Goons bringing a sac fleet.

Then the bad guys, Legacy, defended their space while goons left their allies to die.

submitted by /u/couldntleaveblank
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New painted dramiel model from ThreeDeePrint on Etsy. Bigger than other models and is a great print.

Posted: 27 Aug 2020 02:42 PM PDT

submitted by /u/overworked_dev
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I started playing Eve awhile back but didn't get very far. Just picked it up again and got to the same point in the tutorial missions. Check out the timestamps!

Posted: 27 Aug 2020 01:42 PM PDT

submitted by /u/bluetieboy
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Stainhub news

Posted: 27 Aug 2020 01:21 PM PDT

submitted by /u/Imelstorm
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Data suggests Niarjas impact on HS trading hubs is not significant