Big fights are not foreign to EVE Online, and this weekend was no exception. Over 6000 players crammed into a single system to fight, pitting four major power blocs of players against each other.
The fight, which took place Sunday morning, saw players crammed into the null-sec system of X47L-Q, and became the ground upon which four major power blocs fought: The Imperium, PanFam, Winter Co, and B2, with the Imperium and B2 on one side, Panfam and Winter Co on the other.
The fighting broke out thanks to the Imperium and B2 coalitions kicking off timers on Fraternity (another large EVE player coalition of which Winter Co is an ally) Fortizars in multiple systems. The two sides staged the inevitable battle, coalescing on the system of X47L-Q.
BREAKINGOver 6,000 pilots from Imperium, B2, Winter Co, and PanFam are currently battling it out in X47L-Q!! Check out live coverage from The Imperium perspective: https://t.co/fJpVNmNdJY#Tweetfleet #EVEOnline pic.twitter.com/STB1sotHPo
— EVE Online (@EveOnline) March 12, 2023
As EVE Online has long dealt with, shoving thousands of players into a system can cause some...problems. One way around this is a mechanic called Time Dilation, or TiDi, to slow things down and make commands easier on the server during these large-scale fights. However, despite this, there are limits.
While the goal initially was to kill the Fraternity Keepstar in the system, if you bring 6000 EVE players together, it's going to turn into an all-out brawl. And that's exactly what happened. However, the players weren't just fighting each other, but the clock as a server downtime was scheduled at its normal time for a few hours after the fight began.
As such, the normal downtime occurred, kicking players off the server. When they attempted to log back in, the node which hosted the system wouldn't respond. EVE Online's server monitor on Twitter reported issues with this as well, stating that there were issues with log-ins with the affected system.
We are currently investigating ongoing issues in the system of X47L-Q - there are heavy loads in the system and a few are experiencing disconnects and long login times, we are working to get normal service restored as quickly as possible. #tweetfleet
— EVE Status (@EVE_status) March 12, 2023
As has happened throughout EVE's history, a node death occurred, the hamsters spinning the servers up seemingly giving up last night during the fight. This isn't new, and it's something that CCP Games has noted in our interviews with them, especially during World War Bee 2. In this arms race between the players and the server team at CCP, as more players are added to these fights, the server team has to find new ways to squeeze more out of the servers to keep these fights going.
And while 6000 players in one system fighting it out is a lot, it's not the record holder, which occurred during the aforementioned World War Bee 2, when over 8000 pilots crammed into what became known as the Fury at FWST-8.
Since the battle yesterday, players have been taking to the EVE Online Reddit to celebrate, commiserate, meme and do all the things EVE players do after a major fight. One report of note has to do with a rollback that seemingly occurred in the system after the downtime, where players who had successfully escaped the system found themselves right back there. CCP Games' CCP Swift has also taken to Reddit to state that the company is looking at the logs both before and after the node death in the system and will report their findings.
The usual questions have also come up from players who are wondering what CCP might do to help alleviate these issues from happening as more and more fights escalate in the current player war. This includes some players who seemingly confident that the fight might have seen the Fury at FWST-8 record broken, especially given how many players were in the Pure Blind region during the fight staging for the battle at X47L-Q.
At the end of the day, when the dust settles, it looks like it was a victory for the defenders, Fraternity, and their allies as the Keepstar is still standing. This was conceded by Imperium commentators as well on their stream last night in the aftermath of the battle.
It'll be interesting to see how CCP responds to the node death, reported roll back, as well as any hard numbers they might have for the fight. However, if you've got a few hours to kill and want to see how the fight played out in real time, The Imperium was streaming the battle live with commentary from its start on through the Node Death and into the night. We'll embed this below for your convenience.
