Burning Pods - The Alliance Tournament Redux
After a long period of silence, we thought it was time for a blog regarding the alliance tournament. We haven’t forgotten about it; in fact, we’ve been working on a few changes.
The underlying idea for the next tournament is to have it more closely resemble normal combat in EVE. We want to give more freedom to the alliances to effectively use different strategies and tactics. Hopefully all the changes combined will give us more surprising and interesting matches to watch on EVE-TV, in addition to providing a well-rounded challenge for all the teams. Now keep in mind that not everything is set in stone. The changes mentioned below can be reversed or altered. The tournament is currently scheduled to go on shortly after the deployment of Revelations 2.
To start it off: the factions are showing a bigger interest in the tournament and one way this is shown is in the all-new option of being sponsored by one. This sponsorship will affect you in several ways, one of which is having the faction pay half of your entrance fee.
Another change is that we will allow bigger teams. We are thinking of setting the maximum number of pilots per team to 10. Will every team field 10 pilots in a match? Perhaps, but it’s not likely because we want to maintain the point system for ship classes. This means every team will get a set amount of points to use on ships of varying classes and sizes, with the 10-pilot rule being the only real maximum. We haven’t worked out the numbers yet, so I couldn’t tell you how much a battleship is worth right now. Unlike last time you do not need to register 10 pilots, but any pilot in your alliance can fight in the tournament.
Furthermore, we’re thinking of determining the winning score in two ways: you score points by winning the match, and you score points by destroying enemy ships. This means that a team that loses all their ships in a match can earn points and a win, if the team destroys higher point ships on the other side. We are considering a killboard to keep track of the points scored in this manner.
Another big change involves modules; we are thinking of allowing a lot more than last time. Even EW is an option (and podding, too). The reasoning behind the latter is this: first of all, we dislike the idea of giving teams a huge advantage because they have the ISK to buy implant sets, but we don’t want to rule them out completely. So the compromise, at the moment, is that teams will have to risk losing their implants. Second, we really want this tournament to more closely resemble real combat in EVE, and podding is a part of that.
The prizes are subject to change too. It will be a cash reward, first of all, and other rewards will be based on the faction of your choice. We have no plans at the moment to create new ships which are then sold for ISK to collectors, or to give away motherships. You are fighting for honor and glory. You will have to be ready for anything and everything.
