How Eve Players Pulled Off the Biggest Betrayal in Its History

Personally I think that if you believe that you're still in the delusion phase where you're projecting your fantasy of what playing Eve should be like, compared to what playing Eve is actually like. That fantasy lasted a long time for me, like 3/4 years.

In reality battles are copying someone's prescribed fit, click a direction to align, letting your squad leader warp you. Eventually you might actually get a fight, which consists entirely of clicking the first name on an alphabetically sorted list and pressing F1. There's no skill, only the adrenaline rush of losing something you spent 2 weeks grinding for.

And don't forget, you spend 2 hours or even days between each of these battles waiting to even start the fight.

The big contradiction in Eve is that the thrill comes from permadeath, but it's only a thrill because the grinding is onerous. If everyone had infinite isk, no-one would play it because the fundamental combat gameplay is super boring.

RIP: vilerat. Hope you're somewhere laughing your ass off about this knowing that your legacy lives on.

An excerpt -- I added a few paragraph-breaks:

If you play this stupid game, you may not realize it, but you play in a galaxy created in large part by Vile Rat’s talent as a diplomat. No one focused as relentlessly on using diplomacy as a strategic tool as VR. Mercenary Coalition flipped sides in the Great War in large part because of Vile Rat’s influence, and if that hadn’t happened GSF probably would have never taken out BoB.

Jabberlon5? VR made it. You may not even know what Jabberlon5 is, but it’s the smoke-filled jabber room where every nullsec personage of note hangs out and makes deals.

Goonswarm has succeeded over the years in large part because of VR’s emphasis on diplomacy, to the point of creating an entire section with a staff of 10+ called Corps Diplomatique, something no other alliance has. He had the vision and the understanding to see three steps ahead of everyone else – in the game, on the CSM, and when giving real-world advice.

Vile Rat was a spy for the Goonfleet Intelligence Agency. He infiltrated Lotka Volterra; he and I cooked up a scheme where we faked VR blowing up one of Sorenson’s haulers full of zydrine in Syndicate – this was back in 06 when zydrine mattered – and that proved to Lotka Volterra that he had gone ‘fuck goons’. BoB invaded Syndicate, then shortly thereafter GSF went to Insmother, allied with Red Alliance, and plowed over Lotka Volterra’s territory, all with Vile Rat’s aid. He came back in from the cold and became one of the most key players in the GSF directorate.

His influence over the grand game and the affairs of Nullsec cannot be overstated. If you were an alliance leader of any consequence, you spoke to Vile Rat. You knew him. You may have been a friend or an enemy or a pawn in a greater game, but he touched every aspect of EVE in ways that 99% of the population will never understand.

[0] https://imperium.news/rip-vile-rat/