EVE Online New Eden Open PvP tournament: The Carnage Begins

An overview of the $10,000 New Eden Open, an EVE Online PvP Tournament with indexed links to match coverage.

Mat Westhorpe

Published: Nov 18, 2012 08:44 pm

The studio was set, the technicians were ready, the teams were waiting in the wings and the CCP presenters were centre stage. The first salvoes of the New Eden Open were about to be fired.

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The live stream of EVE Online‘s $10,000 PvP tournament was opened by the usual presenter, Kristopher ‘CCP Soundwave’ Touborg who, when not moonlighting as a media personality, works as the Lead Designer on the spaceship MMO. He was ably assisted by in-studio experts CCP Fozzie and CCP Dolan, both of whom were recently recruited from the player ranks to work as a game designer and a community representative respectively.

After brief introductions and an explanation of the tournament rules, the first match was underway with Fozzie and Dolan providing commentary. Viewers of the own3D.tv stream were presented with a wealth of information. Beyond the main view focusing on the orbital arena filled with spaceships, the bottom third of the screen was populated with slickly presented data that could more accurately tell the story to those who could interpret it. For newcomers, however, it would be unavoidably bewildering. Fortunately, the commentators did their best to explain as they went.

With the first weekend of organised spaceship violence out of the way, there were winners and losers, giants and giant-killings. There was excellence, there were some WTF moments and a jolly good time was had by most, all wrapped up in a slickly presented livestream. I bet you’re sorry you missed it now.

But all is not lost, in the following few posts you will find a brief overview of how each match played out and an opportunity to watch the combat in full. Read on to get the best out of your spaceship eSports viewing experience.

For Your Viewing Enjoyment

The art to enjoying the matches is not to worry about the details too much and to just let it soak in. Watch the light show and let the commentators show off their encyclopedic knowledge of the ships and combat mechanics. If you can appreciate the subtleties of the ship compositions and fittings, all the better, but don’t worry too much. Instead, try imagining the probable panic on team voice comms as the players desperately scramble to make their strategy work, because believe me when I say that EVE has some very dedicated players and they will really want this.

After all, there’s $10,000 up for grabs.

Amateur Expertise

An important thing to look out for as you watch the matches is the fleet composition. The ship choices and team composition in each fleet can give a general idea of what strategy the team will be attempting. This is a real rabbit hole which can only really be figured out as you go – even veteran players will only be making educated guesses. But key points to remember:

Each team can field up to 8 ships, each individually piloted.
The total points value of the ships can be no more than 70, with costs weighted by effectiveness and power of each ship.
Common fleet setups will see 2-3 large ships (battleships/battlecruisers/command ships) supported by a logistics repair cruiser (mid-sized non-combat ship) and an assortment of smaller destroyers and frigates.
Smaller, quicker ships are used to slow down (tackle) target ships, allowing larger damage-dealing ships to bring their slow but powerful weapons to bear.
Destruction of lynchpin ships like logistics cruisers (Oneiros, Scimitar, Guardian, Basilisk) and bonus-providing “gang-linked” vessels (appropriately fitted command ships and strategic cruisers) can turn the tide quickly.
Other tactical advantages can be gained with the inclusion of Electronic Warfare ships which can reduce the enemy’s effective range (target dampening), drain their capacitor energy (“neuting”), make their weapons less accurate (tracking disruption) or shut down their ability to target altogether (ECM – Electronic Countermeasures).