Diamond frogs - GalCop - Adamant toads tell all

[Cosmos]

You mean Frontier are actually geniusses and pre-cognitioned the Goon move to ED and made all their usual tools worthless?

I'm shocked. ;P

"open only" -> nope
"we need player groups" -> nope
"we neeeeed player run economy" -> nope
"we neheheheeeeed player owned shtuff" -> nope

https://media.giphy.com/media/QgixZj4y3TwnS/giphy.gif

Result: A game with amazing potential turned into a boring grindfest and PvE scriptedness.

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I'm still confused...

Why are goons a bad thing?

I've played with people from the something awful forums in many other games over the past ten years. Nearly all of them that i've met are good company to talk to.

First of all they aren't but in some folks minds anyone who deviates from a contrived PvE hugfest is deemed bad. It largely comes down to people taking what people do in computer games far too seriously.

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Repost from reddit and I am not sure this is the correct forum for this but oh well.

Spoiler

Used to be a Diamond Frog member for a month or two got kicked out for being weird (i am schizophrenic).
Most of you already know this stuff but I have something to say.
DF (a something awful forum only group http://forums.somethingawful.com/) aka eve goons apparently uses Galcop as their 'We are not eve goons' PR front. In reality, DF being goons apparently intend to start wars with SEPP - AA - Borco and several other DG factions. The only thing preventing this is supposedly the fact that DF is still in their 'We are not eve goons' PR phase. Once the wars start DF high command apparently considers GalCop completely expendable and expects GalCop to either fold or get kicked out of the faction. They intend to leave EGP alone because allegedly 'The russians have played a better goon eve game than even we have. We tried to get in with Fdev and they chose a russian dictator instead.' They will probably sit on the sidelines while EGP dismantles PP if they get their PP faction. DF has already started a minor war with AA by mass hauling exploit gems in hopes AA lose Ackerman station http://imgur.com/a/WAVOy . At one point there was rumors of DF trying to trick the other DG factions into war with each other then take over the ashes.
DF is possibly heavy on PR and constantly hides behind the 'we are not eve goons' GalCop name.
Most frogs are forbidden from posting on reddit or the Fdev forums 'brown sea' as they call it so as to not interfere with high command and the PR people doing their lies and politic work. http://imgur.com/a/eqyKl
Adamant Toads is considered their 'expendable pubbie (non-SA) scum' faction, but it has taken on a life of it's own with it's own leadership.
DF is currently in downtime after the DGs but Big Toad (head honcho) promised blood to be spilled in buckets once downtime is done.
Discord chat log----- 'Also isn't the DG PR thing done and now we can start throwing firebombs? Felix "3" Dyson - Last Friday at 12:37 PM are you lanus and no we have a plan'-----
That was a member of high command hinting at big moves.
I think DF is amassing alliances using their GalCop name for as long as it is useful.
Almost all of High command is very skilled in PVP due to being prior eve goons. Every goon is trained in PVP, but since PVP doesn't take over systems much, Doot, one of their high command is very skilled at manipulating the BGS to DF's own ends.
High command instructed us specifically not to update which systems we own on any DB but DF currently owns about 10 systems. lovedu, Piku, 63 G. Capricorni and a few others. All in anarchy.
The DF discord has a bot programmed by Ursine Catastrophe (another High Command) that can track who is KOS and what faction they are in. Along with a lot of other neat programming tricks.
The numbers of people active in DF are inflated in inara. The application requirements apparently state you register as DF in inara. There are approximately less than 100 people in the DF discord including people who no longer play and just have discord running and only about 10-20 are actively playing E at any one time. If someone quits, they don't get booted out, they apparently just get put in a reserves wing. The main reason they can output so much chaos is because their BGS master Doot supposedly knows exactly where to strike. DF also never does attacks or ops in open. The rule was 'never be open' (or zakuz will kill you). http://imgur.com/a/UXQkp mainly so they can attack without any consequences.
The main Ops channel that I know of for lower grunts was http://imgur.com/a/unBV5

As a side note: I was banned from Something Awful for threatening to post this, Zakuz, the head of DF PVP literally told me not to let it out that GalCop is their expendable PR front. I am now KOS to all DF fleets and everyone in DF blacklisted me from their friends list.

Also as a side note: I was the one who did the mysterious 1 ton for GalCop in DG3 and was required to keep secret about it if Fdev never fixed DG3.
http://imgur.com/a/qAhPY
I found that mission randomly and felix figured out that Fed systems randomly spawn these precious gems missions. Drop the mission and turn in the now stolen gem.

Edit: If any frogs care to dispute these claims or want to know why I posted them, they are free to make a post since most of you people blocked me from your friends list and then got me banned from the SA forum after being a loyal goon for 6 years. So I am washing my hands of goonery and being reborn as a competent player/person.

To be honest I'd probably kick you as well. If you leave a group for whatever reason its best just to move on and not have a cry about it. You seem to be getting upset about people *playing the game*.

Very odd.

 

[Vonpritz]

Goons were always fun to play with in M&B Napoleonic Wars.

Except I always got rekt by their cavalry.

 

[fantasmic]

To my knowledge, this was never said by any member, current or former, of the Diamond Frogs. I believe it was sourced from that "other" space game.

Indeed, it was not my intention to imply otherwise. My point is that the frogs intentionally leave their ties to these people intact, not that they literally are these people.

 

[Vandaahl]

My point is that the frogs intentionally leave their ties to these people intact, not that they literally are these people.

Thats pretty convenient

 

[DNA-Decay]

Without getting anyone to make an Org Chart, can someone knowledgeable speak to the linkages and origins between these groups?

The Something Awful Goons
The Eve GoonSquad & Mittani etc
Diamond Frogs
Adamant Toads
Space Poultry
GalCop

Are we looking at an organisation that creates a lot of fronts for different purposes? And how large are they?
Can they call on the resources of the parent organisations? For example does their video production crew do work for other fronts in other games?

For example Dabir's account was only used for bug reports until weighing in just now in this thread with expertise and inside knowledge.
Is this Kermit?, AngryMog?, DarthBlingBling? - haven't seen you guys on this Forum for a while.
Perhaps staying out of 'The Brown Sea' - on orders from above? or busy running some other accounts? or taking a well earned break after Rise To Power? or just natural attrition?

The Diamond Frogs have provided excellent entertainment, and a vigorous presence in the game.
I have to acknowledge that their antics are a delight - Emperor's Grace anyone? Rax and Jane on the live stream? Educating Ed on xenoterrorism?
But I find it hard to see how one could have any straight dealings with this organisation. For example how would you negotiate a territorial arrangement? Communism Interstellar had some choice words on this topic.

There is a history of duplicity here that's hard to shake:
On the one hand -
The fun loving, pluralist pranksters! The cheerful, arrogant life of the party! The happy local group for local folks.
on the other -
The war-by-any-means-necessary, infiltrators, dissemblers, quaffers of the salt tears, backed by a horde of hundreds; who take no prisoners and no know bounds.

[Post 7 in this thread for example of both funny and bad ethics from GalCop members: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/277547-Heavy-World]

 

[nosleepdemon]

Man I *wish* the SA players could actually cause chaos in the game, but really all it amounts to are textual changes. The rest is pretty much in your heads because: no player owned factions (PP does NOT count!), no player owned stations or storage, very little in the way of territory worth keeping, soloyolo mode, and very few ways to control the economy. If it were actually possible to organize players on a large scale and genuinley affect the galaxy, I might actually consider joining one of these player run giant-basement-virgin powertrips.

 

[Lunchmunny]

Without getting anyone to make an Org Chart, can someone knowledgeable speak to the linkages and origins between these groups?

The Something Awful Goons
The Eve GoonSquad & Mittani etc
Diamond Frogs
Adamant Toads
Space Poultry
GalCop

Are we looking at an organisation that creates a lot of fronts for different purposes? And how large are they?
Can they call on the resources of the parent organisations? For example does their video production crew do work for other fronts in other games?

For example Dabir's account was only used for bug reports until weighing in just now in this thread with expertise and inside knowledge.
Is this Kermit?, AngryMog?, DarthBlingBling? - haven't seen you guys on this Forum for a while.
Perhaps staying out of 'The Brown Sea' - on orders from above? or busy running some other accounts? or taking a well earned break after Rise To Power? or just natural attrition?

The Diamond Frogs have provided excellent entertainment, and a vigorous presence in the game.
I have to acknowledge that their antics are a delight - Emperor's Grace anyone? Rax and Jane on the live stream? Educating Ed on xenoterrorism?
But I find it hard to see how one could have any straight dealings with this organisation. For example how would you negotiate a territorial arrangement? Communism Interstellar had some choice words on this topic.

There is a history of duplicity here that's hard to shake:
On the one hand -
The fun loving, pluralist pranksters! The cheerful, arrogant life of the party! The happy local group for local folks.
on the other -
The war-by-any-means-necessary, infiltrators, dissemblers, quaffers of the salt tears, backed by a horde of hundreds; who take no prisoners and no know bounds.

I am simply another Goon here. So take my words for what you will. My forum posting history on these very boards will show that I was involved with several of the what is now known as Diamond Frogs before they were Diamond Frogs. I recently left them over me feeling they were being too restrictive on my own .... proclivity for violence. However, I don't harbor any ill will to them anymore. (admittedly, I was pretty        when I left) However, this has all been more than likely said on the boards before and no one listens.

Somethingawful.com is a large pay wall restricted website that has... a history on the web. However, a lot of their gaming reputation was built by the "Goons" success in Eve. I won't claim to know the exact origin of the Goons. I joined the website when playing Age of Conan to join those cool dude bros during that game. However, the website has something around 200k active subscribers last I checked. Of those people, only a fraction play in each various game, with likely many of them never "joining" the main group playing the game, and many games never generating enough interest, or being suitable, for in game affiliations. Effectively, its a bunch of randoms whose sole link is the website.

With all of that said, that means that the people who formed the "Goon" group or whatever you'd like to refer to them as, are not in any way connected, beyond being subscribers of the same website, unless of course an individual played other games and perhaps joined those groups. As far as I know, the Goons in Elite have never had any ties that matter to any of the other groups in games. Keep in mind, a Goon group that forms in a game is formed solely at the discretion of those players who decide to start up a group..

Again, having left prior to the formation of Diamond Frogs, I cannot speak to the how they came about. But I do know that the loose affiliation of people that were messing around at the beginning of the game, with Emperor's Grace and the Palladium cloud and such, never wanted to identify with the Goonswarm of Eve beyond the name. It seems that the reputation was unfairly being levied against them, all the while trying to build community and story content in Elite.

I do know that GalCop is exactly as LiquidCatnip said on the reddit GalCop exposition thread near the start of the Dangerous Games. There are several individually sovereign groups that decided to form the Galactic Cooperative, only one of which that is Diamond Frogs.

I don't know if ties, or actual affiliation exists, between the Adamant Toads or Space Poultry, though the orders that I refused to follow that led to me leaving in a "meltdown" were to not kill Space Poultry cops. I think this happened because Space Poultry are allies or something.

I also do know that in no way do any of the above have "parent resources to draw upon." There is no organizational structure there. Diamond Frogs is just a bunch of chill cats that decided to make the most of their in game world time who happened to all subscribe to the same message board. The main reason you don't see a lot of posts from the Diamond Frogs on these boards, is that the organization tends to not want to paint itself in a poor light, and experience from other games tells most of us that uncontrolled forum posting by members of a given group can paint an organization in a bad light. This aspect is particularly important to the Diamond Frogs as they are tired of people having this irrational Goon Fear of them simply because they have members who have at one point referred to themselves as Goons.

Heck, as far as I know, I'll be better off elsewhere in this particular game, because the Diamond Frogs have decided to shed the reputation of other SA groups, and I don't really qualify at the best of times, as that implies decency and morality, and I prefer to play a bad guy in games like these.

Keep in mind, I went exploring back in March of 2015 and eventually just logged out. Space madness killed my interest in Elite. I came back shortly before Horizons, and stayed with them long enough to participate in the Dangerous Games. But by all indications, they are nothing more than a group of players who take their roles seriously as fun-loving, community orientated peeps with guns on their space ships.

I can, by virtue of being within the discord for a lot of his posts, certify that the OP of this thread was awkward at the best of times, and downright uncomfortable to communicate with at the worst. I can be accused of the same I suppose. Then again, I also am a former Diamond Frog because of my inability to follow orders, so there is that.

 

[the100thmonkey]

Communism Interstellar had some choice words...

Heh. I thought we'd been rather circumspect, personally.

Our policy has always been that salty tears can only be given, never taken.

 

[Cmdr Dubstep Dragon]

Repost from reddit and I am not sure this is the correct forum for this but oh well.

Used to be a Diamond Frog member for a month or two got kicked out for being weird (i am schizophrenic).
Most of you already know this stuff but I have something to say.
DF (a something awful forum only group http://forums.somethingawful.com/) aka eve goons apparently uses Galcop as their 'We are not eve goons' PR front. In reality, DF being goons apparently intend to start wars with SEPP - AA - Borco and several other DG factions. The only thing preventing this is supposedly the fact that DF is still in their 'We are not eve goons' PR phase. Once the wars start DF high command apparently considers GalCop completely expendable and expects GalCop to either fold or get kicked out of the faction. They intend to leave EGP alone because allegedly 'The russians have played a better goon eve game than even we have. We tried to get in with Fdev and they chose a russian dictator instead.' They will probably sit on the sidelines while EGP dismantles PP if they get their PP faction. DF has already started a minor war with AA by mass hauling exploit gems in hopes AA lose Ackerman station http://imgur.com/a/WAVOy . At one point there was rumors of DF trying to trick the other DG factions into war with each other then take over the ashes.
DF is possibly heavy on PR and constantly hides behind the 'we are not eve goons' GalCop name.
Most frogs are forbidden from posting on reddit or the Fdev forums 'brown sea' as they call it so as to not interfere with high command and the PR people doing their lies and politic work. http://imgur.com/a/eqyKl
Adamant Toads is considered their 'expendable pubbie (non-SA) scum' faction, but it has taken on a life of it's own with it's own leadership.
DF is currently in downtime after the DGs but Big Toad (head honcho) promised blood to be spilled in buckets once downtime is done.
Discord chat log----- 'Also isn't the DG PR thing done and now we can start throwing firebombs? Felix "3" Dyson - Last Friday at 12:37 PM are you lanus and no we have a plan'-----
That was a member of high command hinting at big moves.
I think DF is amassing alliances using their GalCop name for as long as it is useful.
Almost all of High command is very skilled in PVP due to being prior eve goons. Every goon is trained in PVP, but since PVP doesn't take over systems much, Doot, one of their high command is very skilled at manipulating the BGS to DF's own ends.
High command instructed us specifically not to update which systems we own on any DB but DF currently owns about 10 systems. lovedu, Piku, 63 G. Capricorni and a few others. All in anarchy.
The DF discord has a bot programmed by Ursine Catastrophe (another High Command) that can track who is KOS and what faction they are in. Along with a lot of other neat programming tricks.
The numbers of people active in DF are inflated in inara. The application requirements apparently state you register as DF in inara. There are approximately less than 100 people in the DF discord including people who no longer play and just have discord running and only about 10-20 are actively playing E at any one time. If someone quits, they don't get booted out, they apparently just get put in a reserves wing. The main reason they can output so much chaos is because their BGS master Doot supposedly knows exactly where to strike. DF also never does attacks or ops in open. The rule was 'never be open' (or zakuz will kill you). http://imgur.com/a/UXQkp mainly so they can attack without any consequences.
The main Ops channel that I know of for lower grunts was http://imgur.com/a/unBV5

As a side note: I was banned from Something Awful for threatening to post this, Zakuz, the head of DF PVP literally told me not to let it out that GalCop is their expendable PR front. I am now KOS to all DF fleets and everyone in DF blacklisted me from their friends list.

Also as a side note: I was the one who did the mysterious 1 ton for GalCop in DG3 and was required to keep secret about it if Fdev never fixed DG3.
http://imgur.com/a/qAhPY
I found that mission randomly and felix figured out that Fed systems randomly spawn these precious gems missions. Drop the mission and turn in the now stolen gem.

Edit: If any frogs care to dispute these claims or want to know why I posted them, they are free to make a post since most of you people blocked me from your friends list and then got me banned from the SA forum after being a loyal goon for 6 years. So I am washing my hands of goonery and being reborn as a competent player/person.

I Was Kicked out of Diamond frogs for being better than every one all the time, YOU DONT SEE ME CRYING, you see them crying , because they realized their mistake after the fact


=p but me and df are still cool,

 

[V'larr]

Result: A game with amazing potential turned into a boring grindfest and PvE scriptedness.
First of all they aren't but in some folks minds anyone who deviates from a contrived PvE hugfest is deemed bad. It largely comes down to people taking what people do in computer games far too seriously.
To be honest I'd probably kick you as well. If you leave a group for whatever reason its best just to move on and not have a cry about it. You seem to be getting upset about people *playing the game*.
Very odd.

Salted goons are tasty [squeeeee]

(There's nothing wrong with taking games seriously so long as it doesn't adversely affect other people...not that I expect a goon to accept that )

 

[DNA-Decay]

I do know that the loose affiliation of people that were messing around at the beginning of the game, with Emperor's Grace and the Palladium cloud and such, never wanted to identify with the Goonswarm of Eve beyond the name.

Sorry, you'll have to refresh my memory here.

My understanding is that the Diamond Frogs took down Emperor's Grace in a BGS operation in Novas early this year.
Before that operation EG were a Triple Elite Player Group with strong connections to FDev.
After that operation EG were revealed as having highly inflated numbers on INARA, and the next time I looked, the EG forum was down for non payment and their INARA membership was listed as being just 2 two blokes.
Back story being that "Emperor's Grace" was the name of a Minor Faction that exited in many many systems, and that by taking the name for a Player Group, that group could have a huge head start in the BGS. But FDev nuked that by creating system dependent Emperor's Grace Minor Factions, and setting them up as Novas' Emperor's Grace, with only one system.


I can't quite tell from your post -
Are you saying that Emperor's Grace, Paladin Consortium and the Diamond Frogs have common roots in the Eve GoonSwarm?

 

[Dabir]

Without getting anyone to make an Org Chart, can someone knowledgeable speak to the linkages and origins between these groups?

The Something Awful Goons
The Eve GoonSquad & Mittani etc
Diamond Frogs
Adamant Toads
Space Poultry
GalCop

Are we looking at an organisation that creates a lot of fronts for different purposes? And how large are they?
Can they call on the resources of the parent organisations? For example does their video production crew do work for other fronts in other games?

For example Dabir's account was only used for bug reports until weighing in just now in this thread with expertise and inside knowledge.
Is this Kermit?, AngryMog?, DarthBlingBling? - haven't seen you guys on this Forum for a while.
Perhaps staying out of 'The Brown Sea' - on orders from above? or busy running some other accounts? or taking a well earned break after Rise To Power? or just natural attrition?

Sorry, you'll have to refresh my memory here.

My understanding is that the Diamond Frogs took down Emperor's Grace in a BGS operation in Novas early this year.
Before that operation EG were a Triple Elite Player Group with strong connections to FDev.
After that operation EG were revealed as having highly inflated numbers on INARA, and the next time I looked, the EG forum was down for non payment and their INARA membership was listed as being just 2 two blokes.
Back story being that "Emperor's Grace" was the name of a Minor Faction that exited in many many systems, and that by taking the name for a Player Group, that group could have a huge head start in the BGS. But FDev nuked that by creating system dependent Emperor's Grace Minor Factions, and setting them up as Novas' Emperor's Grace, with only one system.


I can't quite tell from your post -
Are you saying that Emperor's Grace, Paladin Consortium and the Diamond Frogs have common roots in the Eve GoonSwarm?

Alright, let's be absolutely 100% clear here. I'll even make it really easy, goons will be in bold and non-goons in italics.

• 'The Something Awful Goons' can depend on who you ask but it really just means anyone who's registered an account on SA.

• GoonSquad/Goonfleet/Goonswam/whatever they're called this week is an organisation of most EVE-playing goons, including several goons who registered on SA specifically to join GoonSquad ('J4Gs', or Join for Goon) and passed whatever test they were asked to pass. From what I've seen this can vary from 'just go post in other sections of SA to prove you're willing to be a part of the community' to 'post a video of you acting like Goku' depending on the first impression the person makes. The Mittani is either GoonSquad's leader or at least a high-ranking figurehead.

• Diamond Frogs are a group containing most Elite-playing goons. There's undoubtedly some goons who started playing EVE because it was set in space, got disillusioned with the game and with GoonSwarm, quit and later decided that Elite looked like more their sort of thing. It looks like Lunch is saying that in the early days, before we were the Frogs, some of us may have wanted to use the name for the intimidation factor. He could be right but my memory's not fantastic. Let's leave that as neither deny nor confirm. What I will say is we were a lot less organised back then, and current DF leadership has almost no overlap with whatever loose leadership existed before we became the Frogs. I don't believe there's anyone who's an active member of DF and GoonSwarm, but I'm open to being corrected.

• Adamant Toads are a publically-recruiting sub-group of DF consisting of non-goons who want to fly with the Frogs. Some Toads have registered on SA and become Frogs, and some Frogs (including myself) also hang out in the Toads' public chat channels.

• Space Poultry are a non-goon group that were put in the game near us before they'd even heard of us. We've tried to be good neighbours and we're on good terms with them, hence us asking Lunchmunny not to shoot their cops.

• GalCop, the Galactic Cooperative, is a coalition of a dozen or more groups (we keep getting more and I've lost count), of which DF/AT is a member. AFAIK DF is the only group in GalCop with goons in it, but there could be one or two others I'm not aware of.

• Emperor's Grace were not goons but just another player group. They somehow achieved Triple Elite status but, thanks in large part to our efforts in Novas, were revealed to be paper tigers. Also unrelated to EGP, which has caused no end of confusion for people who're coming back after long-ish breaks.

• Paladin Consortium are also not goons. They were a member faction of GalCop but chose to part ways amicably after the Dangerous Games. I think they had some sort of public announcement explaining why at the time, I'm having a devil of a time finding it now. They're definitely good people. We've helped each other out in the past and I'm sure we'd help them again if asked.

• I'm Dabir, also known as MAN JACKSON. I'm not a member of DF high command, but I've been playing since shortly after release (kicked in £20 for the KS) and flown with the goons the entire time, with occasional breaks. I've only really posted in bug reports thus far - and those a fairly long time ago - because I prefer to cut down on the number of large forums I have to keep track of. If I absolutely have to find out about current events, Reddit seems to do the trick, but I don't even go there much. I've never played EVE and I only know what I know about GoonSquad from what other people have told me. And I'm definitely a bad pilot. If you run into me, say hi!

I should probably have been clearer about the "We're here to ruin YOUR game" line, that's not a DF line or attitude, more of a GoonSwarm thing. There's probably goons in other games who have the same sort of attitude, but we don't. I was commenting on it in a generic sense, since Goose brought it up. We're not here to ruin the game or anyone's game, we'd much rather do fun things for everyone.

I realise there's some people in this thread who'll never ever be convinced by anything I say. To these people, all goons are evil mastermind superstrategists who lie about everything, and won't rest until everyone who's playing a video game is crying into their salad, and also all play EVE, and probably kick puppies too. All I can say to that is that it must be a very frightening world you live in and I do feel sorry for you. I can shoot you a few times and call you a dumb noob if it'd make you feel better.

 

[Boomer Kay]

Result: A game with amazing potential turned into a boring grindfest and PvE scriptedness.

Well, that is your summary and that is certainly the constant croaking of "the usual suspects".

For me it's one of the most awesome games I've played in the last 10 years (which were mainly dominated by WoW and CoD clones), which offers unparalleled freedom for a pilot and his ship.
That's it's "potential" and that's what it delivered to the point. One man and his ship.

That a bunch of goons (I'm not talking about Diamond Frogs or GalCop or any player group in general or specifically, more about the players who percieve themselves as "goons" and think of that as a worthwhile playstyle!) who can't occupy themselves without conflict and some cult-like structure and having everyone being at "their mercy" (because if they start losing, they'll not "gg" and move next, they'll go out to "ruin your game") cannot enjoy that sort of freedom is .. unfortunate. That's why I'm here to help - don't worry, we'll get ya'll there.

 

[DNA-Decay]

Let's be clear here ... goons will be in bold and non-goons in italics.
(snip)

I appreciate the answer - clearly taken time and effort to respond.
For outsiders it's very hard to have clarity about the Diamond Frogs.
Who they are, and what they are trying to achieve.

• I'm Dabir, also known as MAN JACKSON. . . If you run into me, say hi!

"Join the Army, travel the world, meet interesting people . . ."

Space Poultry are a non-goon group

This surprises me. For some reason I thought they were the DF recruitment arm before the Adamant Toads was created.

I should probably have been clearer about the "We're here to ruin YOUR game" line, that's not a DF line or attitude, more of a GoonSwarm thing.

Indeed, and to be fair - I'd not heard it before this thread. But it is the spectre that haunts DF.
Those who are suspicious of DF say that - all the good, fun and community minded things that DF do are just PR smoke and mirrors.
There's an old joke about a retiring politician talking about how he wants to be remembered:

Spoiler

I built six bridges in this town - but do they call me Ronald the Bridge-Builder?
I made peace between the insurgents and the conservatives - but do they call me Ron the Peace Maker?
No - you fxxx ONE goat.
One Goat!

it must be a very frightening world you live in

Maybe 'Dangerous Game' rather than 'frightening world'.
Hollow squares definitely raise my pulse.
I'm always watchful of Players and Groups.

The best predictor of future behavior -
is past behavior.

 

[Dabir]

This surprises me. For some reason I thought they were the DF recruitment arm before the Adamant Toads was created.

We might well have sent a few their way in the early days, before we saw a need to set up the Toads. Not quite the same as being our recruitment arm, just a friendly nearby group.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

It largely comes down to people taking what people do in computer games far too seriously.

Like being in another mode? Which is hiding, cheating, a hugfest, cause to try to disrupt other modes, reason for endless 'no fair' threads. Just because people can avoid the annoyance of berks and play the game like they want to. You mean that kind of 'far too serious'?

 

[Boomer Kay]

You mean that kind of 'far too serious'?

More like quitting your job in order to make playing games your job, which requires games to actually mimic a "job" and less a game:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304887104579306663398628476

 

[V'larr]

More like quitting your job in order to make playing games your job, which requires games to actually mimic a "job" and less a game:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304887104579306663398628476

Is going from a lawyer to a fulltime EVE player really a step down though?

 

[fantasmic]

Is going from a lawyer to a fulltime EVE player really a step down though?

More of a lateral transition. You'd probably end up working with a lot nice people, though.

 

[Marra Morgan]

I'm still confused...

Why are goons a bad thing?

I've played with people from the something awful forums in many other games over the past ten years. Nearly all of them that i've met are good company to talk to.

That's been my experience too, when I used to do RP with some the EVE Goons years ago.

Interesting thread though. Looks like there are both pros and cons to these large player groups!