Cultural Differences

As those of you not living under a digital rock may be aware, BoB is no longer.

See: https://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=990381 if you do exist under 10 thousand tons of e-rock.

Since then, we have made a beeline (hah, bee joke!) for Delve, understandably, along with the rest of our motley crew of allies (Pandemic Legion, Razor, ZAF, UNL, etc), well-wishers (everyone that hates BoB) and space ninjas (hi TCF!). Since then, we have been steadily gaining ground in systems in Delve.

And, as always, The Mittani has kept us fed with verbose pornography comprised of intel and spy and forum dumps of the delicious tears of our enemies and their associated pets and corporations. It’s certainly been fun reading about what our enemies think of us and the former Band of Brothers, their supposed allies!

These pieces in particular caught my eye:

Yeah, warping long range support to the gate at 0km… brilliant stuff right there. But on the other hand, do we have guys in SCA who have experience in managing such big fleets and are willing to step up to the task?

3) The GBC fleets are making use of inexperienced FC’s.

And someone’s response:

We do have skilled FC’s in SCA – I know that the CEO’s and senior directors of all of the corps are in contact with each other, and a chain of command has been posted elsewhere on the forum. Furthermore, if you are an FC (eg, for previous alliances or corporations you’ve been in) then please notify the CEO of your corp, listing your experience and proficiencies, so that you can be utilised.

All of the above have one thing in common: every last person is complaining at the lack of leadership and this for me highlights one of the most fundamental differences between the GS and GBC (Greater BoB Community) cultures.

All of the GBC posts indicate their complete and utter inability to function independantly outside of a hierarchical command structure. The GBC members have gotten so used to the absolute dominion of their BoB, and I hesitate to use the term, masters. When faced with a situation where they have no leadership and no clear instructions, they simply clam up and stop functioning as what is, actually, a reasonably decent combat force.

Or it would have been, had they not had their free will repressed by an overly rigid command structure and an overbearing focus on achieving BoB’s goals and thwarting the advances of their enemies. It would be hard for anyone to fight for others’ objectives while having at best, a tenuous hold on the space they occupy.

By contrast, the culture of the Swarm is, actually, very reminiscent of an actual swarm. Except with a thousand times more individuality. This is helped by the fact that, for the Fleet itself at least, the game isn’t everything. We come from outside the game and coming as we do from a drama-filled shitstorm of a forum (somethingawful.com), we are mostly fiercely individualist and self-interested to the point of obnoxiousness.

In this we share something with Pandemic Legion, who, after the first Delve Invasion, reset standings to us not because their opinions of us changed or because we’d offended them. It was simply that they

were interested in fighting stuff and having fought alongside us, they decided that we’d be a fun target to fight and blow up on sight. We enjoyed the challenge of fighting, for a change, someone who was simply out to kill as many of us (often repeatedly) as possible.

There is something so wonderfully pure and refreshing about fighting an enemy who just wants you dead because he likes the fight and not because of some half-baked ideological hatred based on a misplaced superiority complex.

As a result of being a collection of retards who would probably shoot one another if we didn’t have enemies to shoot, we tend to get on rather well with the concept of “stepping up” to lead a fleet. There is always someone who will get people blown up for fun. People are actively encouraged to blow their fellow goons up. It is a perfectly acceptable thing to do – getting your own guys killed.

Every goon FC, barring a few exceptions, has learned to command this way. I learned to FC by killing hundreds of goons repeatedly. DBRB, another one of our most celebrated FCs learned the same way. It is the cornerstone of our playstyle – the ability to do whatever you want providing you aren’t systematically retarded…

I truly think that alloiwing your members the freedom to do what they want is the way forward. Because in this, the famous Yahtzee is right. EVE is frequently turned into a second job by alliance leaders for whom EVE is a major part of their lives and they want their corpmates to do the same.

Please don’t.