EVE Online alliances are vast, sprawling entities, at their peak crewed by thousands of players from every corner of the world. Over the last two weeks, their top players have been clashing for money and glory in the EVE Alliance Tournament VIII – an epic, 64 team competition broadcast live over the internet, commented on live by expert commentators, and with prizes including limited edition ships, and 50 billion ISK. For those of you unfamiliar with ethereal fake space-money, that's about $2500 in straight up, real-life cash. Internet spaceships are serious business.
If you've missed out on the action, fear not. You can watch the finals of the EVE Alliance Tournament VIII on June the 19th and 20th, from 1500 GMT/UTC until 2100 GMT/UTC here .
Scheming and dastardly plots have always been at the forefront of EVE, and this tournament has been no exception. One match saw the Agony Unleashed alliance being resoundingly crushed by the Hydra Reloaded alliance. Both are old, well respected conglomerates, but when Agony only had one ship remaining in play the match took a strange turn: the Hydra team offered to forfeit the match, self-destructing all their ships in exchange for 3 billion ISK.
Agony refused, and in a bold and nonsensical move, Hydra self-destructed anyway. It's been alleged that both teams had actually bet against themselves, a move that's being heralded either as radical, out of the box genius, or complete anathema to the spirit of the tournament by the EVE playerbase.
If you're interested in more information and coverage on the 2 qualifying rounds, including the Hydra/Agony fiasco, the EVE Tribune has you covered.
Andrea Varotsis
