The Empire Wins: Eve Online’s Year-Long War Ends With Epic Retreat

Eve onlineThe latest player-led war has come to an end, not with a bang, but with a cavernous moan. Those on offense have turned around and the defenders are doing everything they have to run them over.

The massive coalition known as PAPI campaigned for 55 weeks in a quest to destroy the Empire, led by Alex “The Mittani” Gianturco, before losing the will to fight. By the way, Eve online Developer CCP Games told Polygon that fighters destroyed more than $ 3 million worth of game ships and virtual infrastructure in the conflict dubbed World War Bee 2.

“This is as real as real conversations,” Brave Collective’s Dunk Dinkle said on a live address for your fleets, in what amounted to the PAPI concession speech. “The war is over and we have lost.”

Things started in the summer of 2020 when, on July 5, war was officially declared. A fleet commander known in the game only as Vily told Polygon at the time that he ran some 52,000 player accounts. At the end of the conflict, CCP says that more than 100,000 accounts were involved in one way or another.

“When we started this war, we knew we were going to fight to the end,” Vily told Polygon at the time. “For us, this is a war of extermination. This is a war to the death. Our goal is the removal of Mittani and The Imperium from Eve online. […] We are here to purge them. “

The conflict raged for months before the first big engagement, which took place in October 2020. It was then that some 8,825 accounts logged in for the the biggest player versus player battle in video game history. But the battle was inconclusive and, just a few months later, in January 2021, players once again compromised their ships in record numbers. Some 13,700 accounts were ready for battle when eve he buckled under the weight and ruined his plans.

“These numbers are unrivaled,” the CCP wrote in an autopsy at the time, “and incomparable numbers […] They lead to uncharted territory when it comes to performance. Neither side of the war, or the CCP, can, could or will predict the performance of the server in such situations. “

That uncertainty continued to expand throughout 2020 and into 2021 as the CCP toyed with the gambling economy behind the scenes. Leaders on both sides say those changes made their job prosecuting the war more complicated.

“We reworked the industry system a bit,” admitted Peter “CCP Swift” Farrell in an interview with Polygon. (He had previously seized Elise Randolph in eve.) “There are more kinds of things that are included in these [warships now], including in-game resources that were not actually used that much, as well as others, such as other components that must be obtained from explorers. “

While players in distant corners of the game who rely on exploration for their fun benefited, replacing the ships that PAPI and The Imperium had brought in became increasingly difficult. For these and other reasons, PAPI’s fleet commanders and the players themselves were opposed to the prospect of launching the final push into enemy space. When his fleets rallied for that offensive, word came that the allies along the front line were retreating. With their flanks exposed, most of the assembled capsuleers opted to turn and run.

“As I have said before, the war will be decided by morale, not by naval battles,” Dinkle said. “The will of our coalition is gone, so the war is over. The Empire stood strong, did not waver, and survived the fiercest assault ever seen in eve. I offer sincere congratulations to all the pilots of The Imperium, and especially to their leaders, who kept their community strong and intact during this long year of war. They have been shown to be stronger than all of eve that he pushed against them. “

The Empire, for its part, refuses to mark the end of hostilities. The CCP said it took Gianturco’s forces less than two weeks to regain the territory they had lost in the past 13 months. Now they seek revenge.

“You chose this path,” Gianturco said in a fiery live broadcast. on Twitch shortly after PAPI began to retire. “You had every opportunity to choose a different shape. […] My people are hungry for revenge. You have failed and you have failed ugly. “

The CCP notes, however, that both sides retain most of their most powerful warships. With more daylight between them, look forward to many months of ad hoc battles across the New Eden galaxy.