Guest Post: Theomachy Event Summary

From time to time, I allow guest posters to share their thoughts on this blog. The topics generally revolve around PvP or – as in this case – important events in the Eve community.  My corporation, Repercussus, hosted a player-run event with several dozen billions worth of prizes up for grabs, called Theomachy on August 9th.  What follows is the event summary written primarily by Roland Cassidy and Riela Tanal of Repercusus, with editorial support from several members of the corporation.

Please note: Repercussus corporation members were forbidden from participating in this event in an effort to ensure an absence of favoritism.

Theomachy: “Battle of the Immortals”

Thus far one of the largest-scale, completely player-driven events in EVE Community history was conducted Saturday, August 9, 2014. After a grueling, explosion-filled 4 hours of battle royale on CCP's Singularity server, one pilot, James Ogeko, emerged victorious. For James’ efforts, he won a Barghest and 24 PLEX along with a special CCP prize. Read the details below to discover how James and many others earned such rich rewards and had so much fun doing it! As one prize winner said, “...[this was] literally the best time I know I will ever have in Eve!”

The Event

Originally starting as a recurring in-corp event done by Repercussus (RP) of RAZOR Alliance, called EVE Hunger Games, the event was brought to the greater Eve community in large part by the efforts of RP's own Riela Tanal. After garnering support from key sponsors that included:

• CCP

• Somer Blink

• WarpToMe Gaming

• The Angel Project of Sindel Pellion

• Eve Radio

• Jonathan Pride of jonpryde.net

• Brendan Anneto

The RP event team, led by Riela, also received publicity support from various communities such as EVE Online Forums, Eve University, and TheMittani.com. Theomachy itself took more than 5 months of planning and staging to complete, with most of the final touches and construction of the arena only taking place with a combined effort of the full event staff in under 48 hours. The Theomacy website and other various promotional ties started as early as 16 days prior to the massive battle that offered 400 slots to those brave and suicidal enough to spend their Saturday afternoon locked in the throes of internet spaceship combat.

400 pilots registered to take part of the fray, which fittingly started with a bang in large part thanks to an Events Team smartbombing battleship sending all participants into fresh clones to a staging system given out only moments before the beginning of the event. Upon waking up, all contestants were warped to a pair of Titans, where they eagerly waited to be dropped into the arena in which everyone would fight for both glory and prizes.

The fighting arena originally ranged across the entire system and included 10 beacons and almost all the celestials. The rules allowed for players to warp to beacons and celestials at range and to pilot manually away from these fixed locations. Safe spots, bookmarks, and warp-ins were disallowed. Each beacon contained several of the hundreds of various ships, crates, secret items and flavor items that could be used to destroy the other contestants. All beacons were meticulously constructed and placed for the players’ disposal. Some prizes revolved around specialty "troll fits" ships placed in the game with full knowledge of being underpowered or flawed, but with which could earn additional prizes for being killed in or killing others in it.

The Staff

The Overseer teams were divided into two distinct groups, the Hunter group and the Events team. Hunter teams were given specific periods in which they were to become more aggressive towards players, probing out characters who were hiding and biding their time until the end, enforcing rules and disqualifying violators, dispersing the larger groups and setting up additional bubbles to ensure pods eventually went down. It became a frantic race between contestants to engage and withdraw before the Overseers dropped onto grid. With many pilots commenting that the hunter team added a level of stress to each encounter, everyone knew they were only moments away from the tide being turned away from their favor.

Events Staff were charged with generating opportunities for contestants to gain edges over their counterparts, with the chance to pick up T2 equipment, high-grade implants, mobile depots, and other game-changing items at the risk of fighting off Overseers or taking part of various scripted and equally frantic moments: Dreadnaughts brawling each other as contestants fought each other for a chance to come in and scoop some of the precious loot left behind in their smoking husks; a "surprisingly territorial" industrial fleet hell bent on salvaging all the things; several ill-fated convoys of industrials carrying modules; the noted 'betrayal' of one of the Overseers and the formation of a roving Guristas Pirate fleet with a bounty of 1 PLEX being offered to the killer of the Dread Pirate Ex Omega, and many other surprises to the battlefield. Both staff teams stated that they had a great time providing immersion and depth as well as a sense of immediacy to the event.

The Combat

As noted in prior versions of the event, a popular tactic is the temporary alliance between pilots, truces lasting long enough to further the interest of all parties involved, and that dynamic was expected and encouraged to a point. The biggest group was by far Brave Newbies with a few ad hoc groups forming at no more than 8 or so members. The Hunter team specifically wanted to target the large groups that could otherwise overpower the smaller groups and individuals, eliminating blobbing as a guaranteed victory via dispersion and harassment tactics; leveling the playing field for the lone wolf. While the event killboards are still just beginning to tally the butcher’s bill, an estimate of over 107 Billion ISK worth of ships have been reported thus far.

The End Game

In the end, once the field reached 40 participants, the players were called to a final beacon. With bubbles surrounding an area of 250 KM out, the field began slowly shrinking as referees maintained strict range limits of the field. Each minute bringing the competitors closer together, disqualifying the cowardly and those forced out of bounds. In the tense last minutes the final two combatants faced down.

The final brawl which came down to a Drake and a Navy Caracal engaged in for the final purse including 24 PLEX, a Barghest, Eve Source, and Collector’s Edition, lasted several minutes as the two rare and hard won T2-fit ships bashed on each other at extreme close ranges, each wishing to be the victor claiming the top prize. James Ogeko from the corp Calamitous-Intent of Feign Disorder alliance and Dan Radermaker from Evolution corp of NCdot alliance faced down one another in the best of brawls. When the smoke finally cleared, after taking a brutal thrashing of 28,328 damage at the hands of James Ogeko's originally 'troll fit' Passive Tank Drake, Dan Radermaker's impressive T2-fit Navy Caracal finally fell leaving the runner-up pilot a lucrative second purse, too. James Ogeko was crowned champion and his Drake was left floating before a smoldering Leviathan and the system-wide mass of wreckage. After 4 hours of smashing running, brawling, shouting, sweating, and podding in what can only be described as one of the greatest player-run spectacles yet seen in Eve, Theomachy finally concluded.

The Watchers

Missed out on the action of Theomachy first hand? Never fear! Three Twitch streams were maintained by our combat camera team. Jonathan Pryde, LorcasTV, and Sindel Pellion were streaming from different vantage points.

Jonathan Pryde: Part 1 (Stream Crashed at End), Part 2 (Resolved Crashing Issues)

LorcasTV: Stream

Sindel Pellion: Stream

Parting comments from the Repercussus team in response to the scope and overall outcome of the event was that of optimism that most folks had a great time, lots of internet spaceships were exploded, and that we look forward to hosting further events in the future. The organizers would like to give a special thanks to all the sponsors who made this event possible and to all the contestants who were willing to navigate the perils of downloading Singularity to take place in this awesome event.