Saturday, April 28, 2012

Burn Jita: Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing or Something More?

Jita is one of the main trade hubs in High Security (HighSec) space in EVE Online and Goonswarm and their allies began launching large scale assaults there yesterday, in a a move titled "Burn Jita".  Today, this evening is when the full assault would begin and last through the weekend.  The reason behind this attack is (that I've been able to suss out) an attempt to shake up an economy that's grown stagnant and a High Sec populace who are under the impression they have some security in High Sec.  Also, because they can. This has made news across the gaming community from EuroGamer to Kotaku and of course the forums are all a flutter with trolling/counter-trolling/pseudo-Occupy rhetoric/"The Sky is Falling" and assorted game mumbo jumbo.  Hell, I'm suddenly up to my knees in EVE again. 

While I do not support or endorse any of Goonswarm's schemes or piracy I am fully impressed with their logistical abilities (not to mention coordinating such a massive operation).  I also support their anti-bot rhetoric.  However it is CCP and their "let the players do it" attitude that really impress me.  EVE is not an easy or forgiving game and as a sissy carebear I spent a lot of time paranoid and eventually never ventured into low or nullsec (especially as I grew further from the "never fly more than you're willing to lose" mentality).  New Eden is a scary place.  CCP keeps it a scary place, it allows Goonswarm to attack the heart of trade in New Eden, and allows schemes, double-dealing, fraud, and multitudes of virtual Madoffs and Toecutters a wide latitude of action.  And that's awesome.  I can't wait to see what happens after this.  Hell I might get back in the pool once and for all instead of being a sissy pisspants.

An aside:

I certainly think the entire "Burn Jita" assault could be more effective if they had just attacked and not said anything about it.  As it is, traders had fair warning and since space stations can't be destroyed their stuff is safe and some can trade remotely between stations.  Hell, in the time I played I never went to Jita.  I always heard it was a spammer shithole to make Nar Shaadar look good so I just never bothered.  My forecast is that while yes a lot of ships are being destroyed (even more so than usual in Jita) - a glance at EVE-Kill shows that most of the ships are garbage noobships and pods (though I'd rather lose my ship than get podded) or the slew of Goonswarm Tornadoes that ate it between 20:51 and 21:22 (apparently they use a Red Chinese human wave attack style aka Zerg Rush or 'Nids).  I'm curious in the long run how this is going to make a serious change to EVE and New Eden.  I can see how this might lead to a decentralization of trade (which isn't) a bad thing but it won't mean much in the long run.  Attacking Jita certainly won't collapse or destroy the economy of EVE (though I'm kind of curious how many people are going to rage quit or suspend their account until the mess blows over).

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