Warning: this is a long and nerdy post.

I have been playing EVE again lately, a Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game wherein an average of 25,000+ players mine asteroids, blow up computer-controlled pirates, and most importantly, battle other human players over large swaths of virtual territory. Players come together in the forms of corporations, and corporations form alliances. Player membership in alliances can number in the thousands. I currently belong to a corporation made up (mostly) of Ars Technica players, and in turn we belong to an alliance named GoonSwarm. While the actual active membership of GoonSwarm is unknown, estimates vary between two to four thousand players. GoonSwarm is fighting a huge war with another alliance named Band of Brothers (BoB).

Three events surfaced today that allegedly link employees of CCP, the company who produces EVE, to helping directly BoB or other alliances in the game. When the allegations were made public on the official EVE forums, one of BoB’s most high ranking officers admitted to having CCP developers as friends and/or personal contacts via MSN Messenger.
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Now that winter’s over and riding season is coming up, I’ve re-activated my accounts on EVE Online, the massively multiplayer online role playing game. Yeah, the timing doesn’t make sense, but EVE gives me something to do instead of traverse my deal of the day sites, looking for something to buy.

For those of you not familiar with the game or the genre, EVE is a game where you play a pilot in the far future. That’s about as common as the experience is among players, because after the initial tutorial, the game is pretty much wide open. If you want to mine asteroids all day, you can. If you want to trade heavy water or giant secured containers all day, you can. If you want to raise the Jolly Roger and gank newbs as a pirate all day, you can. If your idea is political intrigue, strategy and command, and forging (and busting) alliances, then EVE has that for you, too.

I’m not sure how long I’ll play this time. I know I said back in July that I was done with MORGs, and that I wasn’t too keen on EVE’s bugginess, but for now it’s a good game for me to pick up and put down when I want. The unique system of training characters in real-time, even when the player is offline, is a real benefit in that regard. I don’t have to worry about grinding out another 1,337 murlocs or tomte to make my next level. I set “Missle Bombardment V” and come back four days later. If I play, great. If not, my character still progresses.

For now I’m out running missions and trading crap back and forth with other players. I’m not sure if I will join another corporation (a group of players), there was a lot of politicking and other b.s. when I played last time. I also don’t want to commit myself to being ready for a player-owned station assault at 5:15 PM Eastern or running security detail for a mining operation. On the other hand, the majority of the game happens “in the corporate world,” and most of the exciting stuff just isn’t possible while playing solo.

We’ll see.

I’ve been playing Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Games for quite a long time. I started with Everquest at launch, then Dark Age of Camelot, then Shadowbane, then City of Heroes, (beta-tested Star Wars Galaxies at some point in there), then World of Warcraft, and finally EVE Online. I played Everquest for about three or four months, then ditched out for Starcraft and a few other games (Master of Orion II comes to mind) until picking up DAOC during launch month in October or November of 2001. I have probably had an active subscription to a MORG ever since.

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Lady Jaye and I play a lot of World of Warcraft, a massively multiplayer online game wherein two factions - Horde and Alliance - battle head to head. We play on the same server as our friends Alexa and Father Figure, along with some other folks with whom I played Dark Age of Camelot. At any rate, my main character is to the point where he has to do less and less combat against the computer generated foes of the realm and more and more combat against the human-played characters from the other faction.

Person versus Person combat, or PvP, is mostly done in the Battlegrounds these days, special zones within the game that pit two teams of players against each other. The first zone, Warsong Gulch, is limited to 10 players a side. Arathi Basin pits 15 from each faction against each other. Lastly there is the massive Alterac Valley, wherein the Horde battles the Alliance in a 40 on 40 battle royale. There is also PvP out in the “wild” of the game world. Any player, from level 1 to level 60, can engage in combat as long as they are “flagged,” indictating their willingness to fight. This applies to the “PvE” and “RP” servers, as players on the “PvP” and “RP-PvP” servers are perma-flagged and can be attacked at any time.

“So fucking what?” you’re asking. What’s the point of this post?

Well, one of the rewards for PvP is honor. Honor allows you to increase your reputation with certain factions within the game, such as the undead Defilers, and gain access to special equipment. Honor also allows you to gain up to 11 titles in the game called “ranks.” Each rank gained grants a player access to more special equipment, arms, and armor. You gain honor by killing players, winning a Battleground, or by achieving objectives within a Battleground, such as taking over a mine, tower, graveyard, etc.

Now, just like in fifth grade, players earning honor are graded on a curve. The amount of honor your earn for the week (Tuesday ~1PM EST until the following Tuesday at ~6AM EST) is compared against all of the other players of your faction. My 80,000 honor points of last week put me in the top 150 Horde for the week, because I earned more honor points than the ~1850 other Horde players on my server. There is no hard and fast threshold for rankings. Players are not only compared against each other for the week, but also by a matrix of time spent in PvP, previous standing, etc. Because I am a relative newcomer to PvP, I am only ranked in the top 400 overall for my faction, the Horde.

The short story to all of this is that PvP is a multi-layered competition. Not only against the other faction as you try to kill enemy players, but also against your fellow faction mates. This is especially true for all of the hardcore PvP players who do nothing but assemble superstar groups and play in the Battlegrounds. These superstar groups run waiting lists of which other, lesser, players hope to gain the attention of. If you’re one of the lucky “midcore” players such as myself who only play 4 - 6 hours of PvP a day, you can get a spot in a superstar group. These guys communicate over VOIP technology such as Teamspeak or Ventrillo and have multiple strategies for every Battleground. They even have strategies based on the teams they are facing, and opposing player strengths and weaknesses.

At the pinnacle of the PvP ladder is the rank of High Warlord (for the Horde, that is — the Alliance has its own unique ranks). Only one person per server may be the High Warlord at any one time. For those with enough time, dedication, and skill to play to this level, attaining the rank of High Warlord often turns political. Formal organizations of players, called guilds, often want one person to become High Warlord and will metagame to keep other players from attaining the ultimate PvP rank. Common methods include dropping from that person’s group once combat starts, or refusing to group with them in the first place.

So welcome to the drama. This weekend I had the honor to join some of the upper echelon PvP players on my server for some action in Arathi Basin. I logged onto their Ventrilo server. Almost immediately, the group leader, who is on the path for High Warlord, began complaining how folks in his last group quit mid-game so that he couldn’t progress. Insulted and upset, the group leader launched into a tirade about obtaining — and keeping — the rank of High Warlord so that no one else from a competing guild could get it. What follows is a rough transcript of what he said.

“I’ve already quit my job so I can play for the next two weeks. How much does it cost to have someone play your character? Group two, hit the mine. I know leveling services run $12 an hour. I could pay someone to play my character 24 hours a day and just get a few points of honor per match. I don’t care. Three incoming to the blacksmith. Even if I get 1000 honor points per match and played 24/7 I would out grind them. I don’t give a fuck if I have to pay someone to play my character every day for a year, these fuckers aren’t getting to High Warlord. I am going to get that rank and hold it. I don’t care. Oh yeah, four at the stables, fight at the flag.”

This type of talk continued for over two hours. Every match. Every waiting period between matches. Even as I disbanded from the team, and presumably well afterwards.

The super scary thing to me, however, wasn’t the idea that he quit his job to play. It wasn’t his plan to stay up for three days straight to keep playing. It was that mid-stream this guy would calmly issue orders for the rest of the squad. We didn’t win every match, but even in our losing bouts we put up a great fight. It was if the strategic part of his brain detached from the rest of his mind and he was able to continue his tirade and still direct the other 14 players in combat. At no point did the team leader’s voice raise above a regular speaking tone. He was calm. He was monotonous. And it was scary.

Competition gone too far? The eventual effects of playing such an immensive genre? The underpinnings of an addictive personality, or the aftermath of rejection? As in all things, I’m sure it’s a combination of these that set our team leader over the edge. As my friend Father Figure said to me, “it sounds like he’s gonna crack.” The group leader was very friendly, and went out on a limb by including a relatively “n00b” PvP player like me to his team. So on behalf of your emotional well-being buddy, step away from the computer.

Keerdak, my orc in charge of buying and selling things on the player-run auction house, woke up to find a giant tree in the capital city.

Great Father Winter was telling everyone to get in the spirit — I think he gives quests, but Keerdak is very young and probably isn’t elligible.

Suddenly Keerdak rocked forward! Someone had hit her with a snowball! She turned around and everyone was throwing snowballs at each other:

There was a vendor selling holiday treats, seasonal wrapping paper, and special recipes to make gingerbread cookies and egg nog.

I also saw this fellow, whose mount had been transformed into a familiar face. I’m not sure if that’s a quest reward, or a random treat, ala the All Hallow’s Eve celebration in October.

I’m back into World of Warcraft again, as some of you know. For those of you who don’t know what WoW is, it’s an online role playing game set in the realm of Azeroth, the setting for three previous offline computer games. Basically, two factions — the human-led Alliance and the orc-led Horde, battle against each other and the virtual game world for power, territory, and wealth. It’s a lot less epic than that, but for those of you disinterested in the game it won’t make much difference to you anyway ;)

So anyway, one of the great things about WoW is that the game developers will slightly change the game world during major meatspace holidays, such as Christmas and now Halloween. During Christmas you could eat virtual candy canes or throw snowballs at other players. For Halloween, certain computer-controlled non-player characters will trick or treat you once per hour. The effect is random and has no real bearing on gameplay, but considering that Blizzard didn’t have to implement this at all I’m majorly impressed.

The tricks and treats I’ve seen so far include “floppy” latex-style masks in the visage of the different playable races. Here’s my character Tarhoof, a bovine-like Tauren hunter, with a floppy female orc mask on:

After my first hour with the orc mask was up, I ran back and got my second trick or treat — this time I turned into a gnome pirate — notable for two reasons: 1) I’m a fucking pirate, BOOYAH! 2) gnomes are part of the Alliance faction, and as such are my enemy. Talk about a spooky costume indeed!

I set out of town with my lion companion, Tsavo:

I happened to have a magic lantern and a pick-axe for a secondary weapon. Now I was not only a pirate gnome, but a grizzled old prospector pirate gnome!

A frontal view:

Ready for action and drawing my bow:

Time to shake my prospector pirate gnomish booty after slaying a renegade Tauren:

The attention to detail is what makes World of Warcraft the most advanced and superior online game I’ve ever played — and boy have I played a lot of them. Stilts wondered what his favorite game, Dark Age of Camelot, had planned for Halloween. I think last year the moon had a witch flying across it. Better than nothing, but don’t you want to be a rump-shaking privateering, gold-rushin’ gnomish adventurer for Halloween?

Listen up, this is very important. The long awaited MMORPG Pirates of the Burning Sea has just announced a closed beta. Fill out this form (registration in their forum is free and required), and you might be accepted. This game has a lot of promise and I’ve been following it for at least two years, as far as I can recall.

I’m not sure when signups close, so hurry up!

To get you in the mood, I recommend checking out the What is your pirate name? quiz on fidus.org. My result was the same as the last time I took it up in Rockville:

Bloody Jack Rackham.

Fuck yeah.