Wednesday, June 6, 2012

The Word on Who Blobbed Who

I have noticed an increasing trend in the rhetoric of Factional Warfare. It is a trend of accusatory language and blind convictions of your own rightness. FW has long been home to such conversations as "you guys blobbed us," "you brought battleships to fight our battlecruisers," "we brought a fair fight and you ran," or "ecm is gay." However, more and more I seem to be finding that these arguments are becoming increasingly intense, both in the terms of the convictions of the parties on either side, and their polarization on any given issue.

But these arguments are so absurdly pointless. Is it perhaps in our nature somehow to demand that our enemies follow a certain set of conduct guidelines, while at the same time being blind to our own blatant disregard of them?

I can't tell you how many times I've heard on comms about how awesome we are, and how our enemies suck, only to switch to my friendlies tab and say "well of course we won, look how much shit we brought." It seems everyone in eve is so convinced on their own awesomeness that they cannot believe their victories are due to a simple out-massing of their foes. Moreover it seems there's a feeling, when "blobbing" an enemy, that somehow it "isn't the way we normally fight" or "this fight wasn't that important." Well the guy on the other end probably doesn't agree.

Do the Minmatar blob the Amarr? Oh my, yes. Do the Amarr blob the Minmatar? You betcha, by golly. The only difference is which foot the shiny Cinderella slipper happens to be on.

Though I am loathed to go any further into this, here's an example from the other day. I joined a mixed Minmatar gang (I had really been trying to avoid them in my little corner, due to all the scrubs in fleet) just before a BC fight was going to go down in Lamaa. We jumped into them with more or less equalish numbers (for the love of god don't quote who had what at me, I really don't care), and the Amarr immediately dropped an Archon.

So we ran like little girls. Or we executed a strategic withdrawal. Whatever.

The Minmatar might see dropping an Archon on BCs it as an asshole move that ruined a good fight.

The Amarr might see it as them only doing what we have done in the past, and us cowardly running away.

You know what I see? I see that the Amarr had a trump card and used it. We didn't have one, so we left, losing a few BCs. That's all that really needs to be said about it. Eve is real, god dammit.

It's just pointless to rage about issues that will never, ever, be resolved. You'll never see one party in the "who is a bigger blobber" debate step back and listen to a rational argument. The debate is simply one of inherent intractability. Neither side will ever convince the other, and both just end up mad at each other. I've been blobbed so many times, regardless of which militia I've been in, that I can tell you, without a doubt, that each side does it. Hell, I do it.

Lately I've taken to calling myself out in local as I'm participating in anything that could be called blobbing. In another recent fight, I was sarcastically told by the other side that I should bring more next time. I heartily agreed in local. Obviously it was true, cause I had some armor damage. Can't have that, now can we.

So here's my message: to the Amarr, to the Minmatar, to the Gallente, to the Caldari, and to anyone else in eve who has found themselves having these arguments -- get off your high horse, you're a blobber too.

So kindly shut the fuck up.

--Galdornae

7 comments:

  1. Oh and yes, I'm aware of the irony of this post, given the name of my blog.

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  2. LOL. I was the unfortunate FC of that little fleet dropped by an Archon. Did we care? No. But we did have a fail Falcon pilot in our mixed fleet. http://kuanyida.tumblr.com/post/24202352032/to-troll-or-not-to-troll

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    1. You're actually thinking of a different time, but that doesn't really change my point :)

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  3. I have a feeling that this is made worse by having fleet members removed from the overview. While sensible, in terms of making the overview less crowded it can have the effect of players not realizing just how many people they actually have with them. When you can only see your enemy and yourself, of course it looks like they have more :)

    This does of course work both ways.

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  4. We totally dropped an archon. It was indeed a blob. We were expecting more of you. Didn't happen. Oh well.

    I actually do make a point of knowing our fleet size. Most of my complaints in local are intended solely for my own amusement and your annoyance.

    If I am serious, I will open a convo to discuss. Despite being a troll and a smartass, I am actually pretty laid back and reasonable. I just give you guys shit in local because you guys do the same.

    Would I rather have close fights where skill plays a bigger role? Sure. But, I also know that when our gang meets a smaller gang, we will naturally engage merrily. So, yeah, we all blob. And it makes sense.

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  5. Doesn't everyone have a seperate overview TAB to show friendlies so you can change between them during a fight to see remaining numbers?
    Oh!

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