EVE Community Spotlight: SirMolle
Alliance warfare in EVE Online is a defining aspect of the game. EVE's setting of New Eden is a sprawling galaxy of over 5000 solar systems, where players are free to build empires, establish vast enterprises, and do whatever is necessary to maintain dominance over their competitors -- be it financial, political, or military. All of that freedom to do what you choose eventually leads players, collectively, into one another's sphere of influence, triggering bitter and protracted warfare. That's the nature of EVE -- the setting provides potential, but it's largely the players who drive the game. In what has been aptly described as "the largest virtual conflict ever waged", the Band of Brothers Alliance (BoB) has stood at the forefront of that struggle for dominance in EVE Online for years.
As an alliance, their strength is undeniable. But the power they've gained has sparked a fiery resentment from the much larger non-BoB playerbase in EVE, polarizing the community into those who either love or hate them. In many cases, it's been the latter. After all, for some time, Band of Brothers' goal was to control all space in New Eden, beginning in the lawless frontier of 0.0, where most alliance warfare rages, and eventually consolidating control over Empire space and its commerce. Band of Brothers set a goal for territorial control that's simply not possible in the game, however. The times have changed, and now the old paradigm of territorial grabs characteristic of the epic conflict with The RedSwarm Federation has been replaced with the MAX campaign, and a different nemesis -- the Northern Coalition. As vendetta-turned-alliance policy, MAX is intended to be a wave of destruction that cuts through the hulls and holdings of their opposition.
The man behind the MAX campaign, and the Band of Brothers alliance, is SirMolle. Massively recently spoke with SirMolle about the pressures of leadership, the impact Band of Brothers has had on the game, and the endgame of control over New Eden.
When the Maximum Damage (MAX) campaign was announced, along with its stated goal of laying waste to the holdings of your enemies, some of the initial commentary I heard from other players was along the lines of, "Kill everything? That's the plan?" What are the other dimensions to MAX beyond trying to obliterate your enemies?
For us, MAX is simply the next step, as we are not going for more territory, we are only out to lay waste to our enemies, and to settle some grudges. We could invade and hold territory, but that's a path we have been down before, and it's not really worth the effort to have and hold too many regions. Many people frowned at us when we started, but as we have seen the results speak for themselves. The number of capitals and supercapitals killed are enormous, and we are just on our first leg of the MAX campaign.
We saw RA fold away and hide in the Drone Regions, and crack under pressure, internal or external doesn't matter. What matters is that they did crack, and that we were a part of it. The campaign affects everyone, even if they are not actively involved, or affiliated, and ripples outwards all over.
Any plan that is not K.I.S.S is bound to fail. MAX is just that: Stupid Simple.
Is the endgame of control over New Eden something that can be realized in EVE with the current game mechanics, and with the powerful opposition that Band of Brothers is up against?
Yes, totally. Fear, economics, politics, firepower... add it it all up, and you can by relatively small means control New Eden, and its people. The opposition is too fractured to really matter. They don't get along, and they do not share a common goal apart from "Shoot BoB!!!", and simply shooting us will not make us go away.
The endgame might be far away, it might be next to impossible, but it stays as our goal.
Until the day the opposition can lay aside all their other differences, they will never be a real threat to us. They tried in Delve, and failed. They couldn't coordinate, and couldn't work together long enough. And so the most powerful and biggest-ever coalition in EVE failed to put enough pressure on us to break us.
For a time, the shadow cast by Band of Brothers over the game made it very popular among EVE's playerbase to be "anti-BoB." You're one of the most famous players in EVE Online, although it's been a long time since you were active on the game's forums. Have negative public perception and some of the more clever propaganda used against Band of Brothers had an impact on what you do?
You will never see me debating on forums, you will never see me arguing on forums. It's very seldom that I ever reply to anything, and that has always been the case. When I have something to say, I say it, and if it's not really worth mentioning, I keep my mouth shut.
What everyone else thinks of us is of no importance, we have always been called every bad name under the sun, and we really enjoy people trying to badmouth us in every way they can possibly think of. Propaganda works on the feeble-minded, and I really do not count myself among those people.
As for fame... I really don't care about that part, contrary to popular belief. It's something that comes with being with the best players in the game, and I'd much rather see them getting the recognition they deserve than me.
