Who is Rise of Legion?

This past week we received an instant message imploring us to hurry into IRC Chat for a major event. We logged in to find almost thirty members of the alliance known as RiseofLegion (ROFL) who decided this past week would also be the time to announce themselves to New Eden in rather dramatic fashion. ROFL fancies themselves the first major EVE/Dust 514 alliance and one look at their roster reveals not only a lengthy list of MAG luminaries, but veterans of EVE and several other FPS cultures as well.

We had the chance to sit down with ROFL Alliance Leader Mitauchi on some of the questions many are asking, like the Zerg rumors, becoming synonymous with Dust 514, fighting against the Goons and why MAG chest-thumping is irrelevant.



MAG Worldwide: Wonderful! Thanks for taking some time to talk with us.

Mitauchi: No problem, we welcome the opportunity. You mind if I call you John? MAG Worldwide just seems too formal.

JOHN: We've heard hints of your alliance but nothing concrete before now. Why all the recent activity?

Mitauchi: Well John, recently I sat down with the rest of ROFL leadership and discussed whether we felt the time was right to really “go public” so to speak. Up till now we hadn’t really been keeping anything secret from anyone, but we also hadn’t put our name out there in the community. Primarily we have been focusing on getting our new players trained up in Eve over the course of the last year or so.

Obviously with the recent activity you have seen we have decided that the time is right to make ROFL a more vocal and active part of the Eve/DUST Community and this is just the beginning. All of our members are really excited for Dust and what it potentially means for the Eve Universe.

JOHN: Some pretty notable MAG players have joined your alliance, Why?

Mitauchi: Each member has their own reason for joining their clan/corp, and those organizations have their own reasons for choosing to become part of our alliance. As you might of read in my blog, I had envisioned the MAG community as being one of the primary stakeholders in the development of DUST 514. Dust offers them a sort of rebirth as an FPS player, where they can wash away a lot of the meta-gaming smack and develop new friends and enemies.

While a good FPS player’s core skills will translate from one game to the next, Dust 514 will be different because it has captured the essence of Eve. ROFL offers FPS players the opportunity to work with other DUST enthusiasts, many of which are veteran Eve Pilots and are really familiar with Eve gameplay mechanics and how CCP intends on translating these same mechanics into DUST. For example, in Dust a FPS player will be challenged not only get kills or deal with vehicles, but also deal with a completely different “tanking system” then what most other shooters offer.

There are also things like resupply, coordinated troop movement, and support fire (orbital in this case) which most FPS players are familiar with but CCP has taken a slightly different take on. Just the unfamiliar territory that the Eve Universe represents makes more skilled gamers inclined to learn as much as they can so they can be ahead of the pack when it comes to adapting in this new hostile environment. ROFL is the merger of these gaming communities and the represents what hopefully all alliances will become. Imagine if every alliance had its own army and fleet. That would be awesome. The gameplay opportunities are unending, orbital strikes are just the beginning.

John: Your EVE history mentions victories over both Pandemic Legion and The Goons. Those are some pretty formidable enemies to have wouldn't you say?

Mitauchi: Quite formidable opponents.  Fortunately for me I was but a grunt, only first cutting my teeth when those battles went down, one man in a fleet of hundreds. John, I will tell you what though, it was the best time I ever had in the game. I woke up in the morning, logged onto Eve and jumped in a fleet set out to destroy our enemies. PL (Pandemic Legion) held Fountain (a region of Eve 0.0 Sov) at that time and they were tough fighters even then. I have a lot of respect for PL. Our group is not on that type of level yet and ideally our focus is more around the development of Dust and how we can make our community grow through joint operations in both Eve and Dust 514. No plans of world domination at this time. lol


John: What makes ROFL different from some of the other alliances that have popped up?

Mitauchi: Real FPSers want the persistence, they want their gameplay to matter more than a Killboard stat or just last for a single match, Dust will offer that to them. Your abilities and skills aid your platoon to seize a district of a key territory, which allow your corp to eventually take the planet and add it to the systems your alliance controls. This ripple effect is similar to the CCP video: The Butterfly Effect. Dust offers to give those present and future ROFL members the same feeling that Eve Online has given our Pilots. ROFL offers the best of both worlds. A group of established Eve Pilots who are fully committed to seeing Dust 514 succeed and expand to into a permanent fixture within the Eve Universe.

John: What are the goals of your alliance?

Mitauchi: I think we would like to become synonymous with Dust 514. I really think where many Eve organizations have shied away from the opportunities Dust presents or said they will just wait and see, we embrace the potential of Dust. ROFL wants to push CCP to not only develop this consistent universe but push it further and make it as intertwined with Eve Online as possible. I want our fleet to have to perform logistics to move troops and vehicles to new regions for upcoming campaigns. It would be cool for Dust troops to erect giant planetary defenses to protect POSes and other space assets. The possibilities are endless.

In the short term we just want to really dig in and fully have fun with the Dust Beta and focus on the continued development of our members.

John: We recently mentioned using the different contract types as different games modes to prevent monotony, what’s your take?

Mitauchi: I really believe that with all the different elements of gameplay you are going to have within Dust 514, culminated with the territorial disputes and influence of major space entities, you will be hard pressed to become bored with this game.

John: According to your bio, you were a MAG player for short time as well. Any old scores to settle?

Mitauchi: The short time I spent playing MAG was great. While I made some good friends, I never really got into the whole chest thumping, smack talking thing. So while I may have some..err admirers, I wouldn’t say I have any blood-feuds ready to pop off.

John: Your blog also recently addressed players with shifting loyalties, this can be a big issue among console players, how do you combat it?

Mitauchi: By seeking out like minded gamers, clans and corporations to help strengthen your forces this issue really begins to solve itself. There are no smoke and mirrors here. We do not make grand promises that we cannot deliver. We work as a team to accomplish goals, some small, some large, but at the end of the day those experiences bring our membership closer together. We can train any player with the right attitude to go far in either game, that is not the difficult part. The challenge is always finding players who have the same vision and are willing to stand with you to push your collective vision forward.

John: We've heard claims from critics that ROFL is a zerg alliance, respond.

Mitauchi: John, I flat-out dispute the fact that ROFL takes any part in playing Starcraft as an alliance! No but seriously, calling someone a zerg alliance is a bit silly and is typically done by people that just really do not have proper tactical support to counter a simple flanking maneuver.

John: What aspect of Dust 514 excites you most?

Mitauchi: Wow that is a tough one! Ummm Everything?!? CCP have given the FPS player that is tired of meaningless match to match gameplay an opportunity. Not to just play in a fully established persistent universe, but to help mold that universe in a way none of us really would have thought possible before. CCP is giving you a voice, not just on the battlefield issuing commands, but our voice within the development of DUST. CCP has always listened to player feedback, now so more than ever. This is the FPS players chance to get in on that and feel what it is like to shape his universe, from the battles he fights to the actual mechanic of his game. It is truly exciting John.

John: Your group made a pretty big splash in the Dust514.org IRC chat this weekend. Was it a show of force?

Mitauchi: We had a small group of our guys for a meeting that day. While Dust Beta is still to be released, many of our players are unable to attend some of the Dust conversations we have in Eve Online so they have been stuck with just talking to alliance mates on forums. I mentioned the IRC and a good place to have some DUST convos and I think the whole group just spilled in there in a matter of minutes. While we were definitely not trying to troll or disrupt anything I think we did make the moderators a little stressed out. Needless to say all preemptive banning was reversed and we plan to return to IRC for many more good chats with our new DUST friends.


John: We researched your Killboards and spoke to some EVE players and saw a decent EVE presence, could this make you a target?

Mitauchi: As I am sure all the new players to the Eve Universe will find out, everything in Eve you do makes you a target. I am sure Dust will be the same.

John: What aspect of Dust 514 are you the most concerned about?

Mitauchi: I really hope CCP pushes forward with their plans for having DUST 514 impact sovereignty in a real way. Dust need something meaningful to tie the worlds of DUST and Eve into one real universe, and while orbital bombardment is cool, it just won’t do it. We need something to look forward to where Dust Soldiers have equal impact to the universe as Eve Players do at some point in the not so distant future. I would also like to see that all Dust players we be able to take part in the community Eve has developed such as the Eve Forums and voting rights for the CSM. In order to be relevant these things should be open for DUST Players.

John: The much-maligned ZSA, was threatened with annihilation by The Goons for what many perceived as tough talk, does this concern you?

Mitauchi: Well not really. I think if you come into an established game such as Eve and start thumping your chest you will have repercussions. Best know your surroundings before your go pissing in peoples cereal.

John: You're an EVE vet, how well is the pc community receiving Dust?

Mitauchi: I think after Fanfest things look a lot brighter. The attendees received the game well and genuinely seem excited about it. Only time will tell, but I am hopeful. The true test will be if Dust starts picking at their sov rights then we may see a change of opinion.

John: The time's yours, anything else you'd like to share is fine.

Mitauchi: First John I would like to thank you for your time and interest in our organization. To anyone else reading over this I would like to just say the following. RISE of LEGION is not the best choice of alliance for every Eve or Dust Player. We have our own culture and way about things. We are young and still developing. But what we do have is experienced gamers, a solid team, and lots of good times. We balance discipline with fun, tactics with determination. If you want to find out if ROFL is a good place for you or your corporations please visit us @ http://riseoflegion.com/.