Yulai local was close to breaking 1700 when I jumped out and was in the 1600s for a long time. CCP wasn't forcing those players into the system under lag-intense situations. Every one of them chose to be there. Don't pack that many people in one system and cry about CCP using lag to win.
No npcs were ever even deployed to protect the Promised Land portal generation. This was entirely between capsuleer pilots. [tentatively] On our side were the 2 NATION model Revenents, Rote Kappele's 20[?] man shield cruiser group, with another maybe 25 of HORN's ahac, and then our cobbled National lot of maybe 10 ever in system at once. It isn't CCP's fault that out of the many hundreds of people that were at or trying to get to Yulai, the anti-Nation forces put together. . . . 1 single wing that was maybe 100 people, and by accounts on both sides Promised Land had very little lag. You can claim railroading, but that's a farcical thing in the face of your own inability.
[ 2011.01.23 21:46:13 ] Master Kuvakei > Operation complete. Proceed to the Promised Land.
[ 2011.01.24 00:15:49 ] Citizen Astur > Conduit established. Portal generator secured.
Take a long look at the 2 and a half hours you had. You all could have done something in that time. Many of you chose not to even try. I at least respect every person who decided to come anyway. I respect Rodj for coming to the field alone repeatedly to snipe at targets. I have no respect for anyone acting like a child and throwing their toys from the pram because they spent only 1 single hour in standard large-scale nullsec fleet combat conditions.
The problem presented here are two-fold:
Firstly, the fail in Yulai. The server was obviously reinforced, 1700+ people is NOT standard in any high-sec location besides perhaps Jita on Sundays, and even then it usually stabilize around 1000 most the time I'm there, and while this is very rare, I will admit, it's still 700 less than Yulai yesterday on a reinforced node that, IIRC, capps on 1000 pilots anyway.
CCP did expect crap-loads of people. But frankly, 1700 guys is still far more than even most null-sec mega-fleet fights get.
Lagg to me was, believe it or not, managable. Until the 1600 mark, mind you. The ONLY thing, OOC, that save the NATION ship's asses were the nice thing called module-lag – not one sorry guy in there could do anything but manually sycle his/her weapons, with no indicator on when/if it fires and very occational hit-notes. This effectively kills at least 80% of the DPS-output of... well, everyone. All the guys in there knew it, all the anti.nation, all the pro-nation, all the random guys.
IC? Nation was saved because for some bizzare reason, 1700 capsuleers showed up to observe without fiering their guns.
Secondly, the situation in Promised Land. After Yulai I put on auto-pilot to the last high-sec system on the way, as ordered by the FC(s) of the SYNE fleets. Then I went downstairs to make food (I was starving, quite frankly) and when I returned I was just jumping into my target system. The fleet had for some reason dropped from 87 guys øast I looked to 8. I left it and asked in SYNEpublic for a new invite, as it would seem from reports there was a SYNE fleet on it's way down the pipe.
I was never responded ot and never invited to another, so after a while I ignored the urge to jump in and go down and went back home, to sleep. The reports I heard continusly claimed the last high-sec gate was camped by pirates and the scattered reports claiemd anything from 30-40 to 60-80 guys or whatever, it was very confusing.
There are two options, regarding that; Either there really WERE a camp there that big, or it was miss-information to dishearten the anti-nation guys. "What's the point in going if we only feed all the pirate blobs from here to Promised land?" Maybe even both.
Underlining issue was the two super-tanked Revenants in Promised land and Ghost Hunter's chimera, and their RR between each other as reported.
So let's get this straight – there are two pimped-out super-carriers and one carrier allready in Promised land, there are a fleet of Nation-sympatizers allready there with nearly unbreakable capital-support, there was a reported Pandemic Legion gang helping out, and all the pirates between High-sec and Promised land.
And you folks *dare* to wonder why people did not show up. No-one likes to go off on their own to feed the killboards and ego's of hundreds of possible folks all along the way. That anyone of the fleets even made it there is a feat I find amazing considering the fact they act on a very random gathering of people – SYNE folks, many loyalists form different factions, random tag-alongs an what's more. Keeping the fleet even LOOKING like a fleet with that huge number of random participations is impressive.
Beyond the annoyance of Yulai and the insulting idea that we were all to *cowardly* (you don't want to pat your ego with this kind of shit, trust me) to show up in Promised land with that level of confusion and disheartening intel leveled agaisnt us, the thing that really DO vex me is some of the comments I managed to see in Yulai before I re-logged my way out. For instance, I recall Jialei Jian saying something along the lines of "Mellow in you impotence" or whatever.
Before I stop being constructive (if I ever were) and start getting bitchy (I likely am) I'll simply end this with a piece of my mind; There are NO brag-rights to a victory achieved by a failing in the game-engine or other out-of-our hands phenomenon. If the RP'ers and people backing Sansha want to brag, do so when YOU actually win, not when the lag hands you an auto-win on a golden platter, because I refuse to believe that anyone in Yulai under that condition is dumb enough not to realize who won the Sansha's fight for them, and claiming otherwise is insults none of you want to make.
Railroaded? No, I don't think so. But CCP have proven they know their playerbase to the point where they can anticipate responces and set things up accordingly.
Yesterday's events went down as they did due lag and later very unfavorable terms to most people who were there to help Kuvakei, rather than blow him up.
