Over 2,000 spaceships, including dozens over a kilometer long, with powerful weapons that can annihilate smaller ships in a single shot, are raining fire down on the few remaining defenders of the Ticonderoga, a space station that orbits a barren planet called ZXB-VC II.
This all takes place in EVE Online, the popular space themed online roleplaying game, which captured attention last year with a battle lasted 22 hours, cost 20 million virtual soldiers, and $300,000 in real world dollars.
EVE Online is known for its truly massive games — all players play in a single galaxy, New Eden — and for its player-driven, laissez-faire approach to galactic economics, politics and warfare. The interactions in this player-owned space are so complicated and vital, that CCP, the developers of EVE, had to hire an economist. Greece’s new finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, has blogged extensively about it.
And this is a chance to see a battle happening in real time. See the strange beauty of a virtual battle, attack ships a kilometer long firing off the shoulder of Delve, laser beams glitter in the ash around the Ticonderoga battlestation, all these moments, like the $4,200 in destroyed spaceships, will be lost in time.
(Image: EVE Online)
