The Fountain War - A History of Gaming's Biggest War

The Fountain War was the biggest war in Eve Online, and by extension, the biggest war in gaming history. It was between the two largest alliances in Eve Online and many allies, it lasted months and key events during the conflict turned on spies, diplomacy and straight up bribery. There's nothing approaching this in any other game and I think the story is worth telling.

I got the idea after seeing the Kickstarter to write a Dramatized version of the Fountain War by an established author - I hope after watching this you realise there's a story here which lends itself to being retold in dramatic fashion.

[maragazh]

"It is just a game, chill out"
Eve online players: "I didn't fight in the fountain war for you heretics"

[actionms]

"To win a war, winning a battle is not enough. You have to make it no fun for the opposing side... by trolling"
-Sun Tsu, the Art of War

[MrThorne]

EVE is a game I'll (probably) never play. Yet the stories of the wars and the politics is just interesting as hell.

[nlmdpuy]

Fought for TEST in 5 battles, lost everything and died with my brothers in 6VDT.

Never forget.

[astralbody]

As a newer player to Eve online, this is just like taking a history lesson.

[Despond]

This game is technically and politically more complicated than most people's real lives lol.

[lamorte]

First page of the book.

"This story is based on real internet spaceships"

[Bram]

I have no idea how to play Eve, nor have i ever played it, but this is just epic

[Chironex_Fleckeri]

Never underestimate the power of the Australian timezone - Sun Tzu, Art of War

[uzimakiking]

You're telling me redditors LOST against trolls?


*IMAGINE MY SHOCK*

[toysoldier]

To hell with the book, they should make a movie based on this war.

[Drefsab]

EVE is one of those games that's probably more fun to read about than it is to actually play for most people. I spent years in EVE and enjoyed my time there, but honestly the headline-grabbing events like the Fountain War are few and far between. For your average player, EVE is 99% downtime and 1% action. Mining, hauling, plexing, scanning, mission running, salvaging, ship spinning, scamming in Jita...that's what most of your time is spent in. It requires a pretty massive time investment.

But, man, *nothing* comes close to the scale of conflicts you see in that game. It amazes me how much real-life money gets blown into space dust in some of those battles.

[PTankman]

This both makes me want to play Eve and reminds me why I stay far, far away from it. It pushes the personal investment into the game waaay too far for me. All stuff on this level does is make me really stressed.

But I guess that's why I'm basically a space trucker with a hobby for fighters in space games.

[exstasis]

1:54 I lolled so hard when I heard "We're not here to ruin the game. We're here to ruin YOUR game." Seems like they're a fun group to hate, and every good story needs a villain.

[galenwrathweld]

"We won't last long against those dreadnoughts!"

"We'll last longer than we would against those titans, and we may just take a few of them with us."

[richardchabot]

I flew for Test in the Fountain War at the time. Those almost 3 months coming up to the loss of 6VDT were a highlight of my eve existence (I started back in 2006). It was rough trying to always be ready no matter what, but the experience and being part of a big chunk of Eve history was and still is Gold to me.

Thanks for this video.

[KawasakiOnly]

This war was barely few months after i started, i just arrived in nullsec as part of test allaince for the first time in my eve live. And just a few weeks after joining them, CCP announced the ressource change. And then it all started, a huge propaganda, organisation, fights, i think i saw more memes in that war than on 9gag - brilliant, funny, propaganda memes - as many that you could make a homepage out of it.

Leaders has pushed us into war, money didnt matter in the beginning. They threw ships at us - go and fight for us. Usually in eve you first pay for the ship and if you lose it you get reimbursed, it was the other way around. It was an amazing war, we have fought and killed so many fleets. We have lost many fleets, we actually donated and helped at transporting, mining, building. Every single slot did count. The TEST Alliance back then appreciate every single helper, no matter how small.

We got stuck in places for hours and days because we have been camped and we feared our ships would never see the homestation again. We have been in fights which wouldve been lost and suddenly another fleet showed up, like the cavallary - they wouldve been enemies but suddenly the FC calls, this fight: they are fighting with us - keep shooting.

Overall this war was the most intensive game experience i ever had in my entire gaming carrier which is now 20 years long.

Since then im preparing for the next war of that size. The hope for a second one of this kind is what keeps me playing eve every day.

[GreenFont]

I was on the TEST side of this conflict, and I have to say that Scott's coverage is balanced and certainly reflects my experience of it all.

[royalassassin]

I don't really play Eve but I have a friend who has played for about 10yrs now and he is apart of Goon Swarm. I remeber when all this stuff was happening and he was explaining it all to me. It was the most epic thing in a game I have ever heard of and probably will be for a looong time to come. I'm glad you have brought it back up and told me a book is being made. Idk if my friend knows of it and both of us will gladly purchase and read it when released. :) Also great vid Scott keep up the work

[JVIdeoclips]

side note: this war was so intense, and so many people left eve looking for a new game, that for a time our ranks on empyrion swelled with EX-goonswarm members, and with the extra hands were were able to win a war we stuck in on our game, so it effected things on whole other games in significant ways!