Peeking In On The New Wardec System

With everyone talking about unified inventories, CCP Sreegs, and missile trails, we should check in on the new wardec system, specifically some of the new features introduced that allow us to peek in on any war by any alliance, past or present. Since Inferno is less than a week old, and since wars run for a week minimum, we'll see what is happening in the present.

It's hard to really say that the Carebear Conventicle is schooling Goonswarm in this war, since the Carebear Conventicle seems to be docked up, doing absolutely nothing. All of the kills have come from the eight mercenary groups the Conventicle have managed to attach to the war. They pretty much advertised to all-comers that if they wanted to kill Goons, they could join with the Conventicle in doing just that. Successful from a mercenary/defender perspective. Under the previous system, the war would be zero ISK versus zero ISK. The Carebears would be docked up, complaining on the forums on how they would just like to be left alone, the Goons would be off doing Goon things.

This seems a tad embarrassing. Test sets out to punish Issler Dainze for being on the CSM and being bad at it. The lesson here is that Test Alliance is easy pickings? The lesson here is that if the CFC isn't flying around in 2000 man blobs, they don't really have much of a clue what to do on their lonesomes? Granted, the Hondas have 20 allies helping them out. Checking today (I screencaptured all these images last night), the numbers have only increased in favour of The Honda Accord.

To be fair, I'm thinking that most Goons and Test don't even realize they are at war with anyone until they're popped in highsec. WTFs in corp chat, after winding up in their pods or back at home station. Then to senior personnel to explain what a wardec is to them. Hell, they mostly live in null, why would they need to know about wardecs? You minimize local when you enter highsec, right?

We can't look at current wars without checking out what EVE University is doing. There are twelve mercenary groups attached to this war, yet they haven't done much of anything to assist Kelduum's Ovis Army. All of the kills seem to be coming from EVE University pilots. So kudos to them for holding their own against the po-po.

In reality the EVE University/Space Police fight is fairly even, the big boost coming from this particular pod kill by Kermit Pental (she tried to kill me just last week), which is a nice feather in the cap for any corporation/alliance during any war. It's actually more a testimonial to including implants on killmails than anything else.

"Don't shoot until you see the whit of their eyes."

Richard Whiteyes cried himself to sleep that night.

The RvB numbers here are almost entirely pre-Inferno. CCP/CSM kindly requested of the RvB folks to stop their war and restart under the new system. Currently they are on a 48 hour hiatus. What the hell is RvB going to do with themselves if they can't shoot each other in the face? 48 hours is going to be an eternity for them.

Impressive kill numbers, nonetheless.

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The mercenary system seems pointless as a marketplace. When a defender can add as many allies/mercenaries as they want, there's little in the way of searching for the best. There's little in the way of financial competition. Most are willing to join for free. Unquestionable Prosperity Alliance, for instance, is attached to 71 wars at the time of this posting. They aren't being particularly effective in any of them (all eleven members, of which at least two are alts.) If they weren't offering their services (we use that word very loosely here) for free, I would doubt they'd ever get employment in a mercenary role.

If CCP's intention is to create an actual marketplace, where merc groups compete with each other based on skill, then defenders should be limited in the number of allies they can add to a war. This would force defenders to be more choosy with who they invite onto their side, monetary considerations would have a greater chance of playing into the decisions, a merc group's resumé would actually matter. As it stands now, mercs can't charge for their services, because their histories, their successes, mean nothing, because defenders can add twenty, thirty, forty tom, dick and harry merc groups for free, it doesn't matter that they're scrubs, defenders are adding as many free bodies as possible. There's no consideration or thought involved in choosing allies under the current system. (I may write about this entire issue all on its own.)

For the most part, the new wardec mechanics, as well as all the UI systems in place to support it, are fantastic. But there still needs to be some iterating, especially the ally/mercenary system, but all-in-all CCP can chalk this up as 95% win.