Another enormous virtual space battle has kicked off in Eve Online involving thousands of ships and real-world players engaged in what could be the most expensive dust-up in the games decade-long history.
While the battle is still ongoing, over 2,200 players were engaged in the main battle with real-world cash losses estimated at about $200,000. Players in Eve pay a subscription and use real cash to buy equipment so the loss of ship represents a larger investment than time alone.
"...today's battle happened literally by accident: system control (sovereignty) was dropped in a key staging system due to a mistake," said Alexander “The Mittani” Gianturco, the CEO of the Goonswarm Federation. "This then escalated into the largest battle in Eve history, which delightfully our forces seem to be winning."
A similar accidental jumping into a key area also kicked off a huge battle last year. While more players were involved in the last year's scrap - about 2,800 - the current battle involves many high-level players and big gun slinging ships.
The battle has been waging for over 15 hours now and has seen 50 Titans, a capital class starship which is valued at about $5,500, be turned into space junk; ouch.
As for who wins this blood bath? It seems the CFC, which Gianturco's clan is associated, have claimed victory and are just cleaning up the stragglers. "They've lost the ability to kill any more of our Titans and we're still killing theirs, as their force quality has degraded. So this is mop-up as they try to extract."
Check out the cinematic trailer for Eve Online's latest update Rubicon.
