Just shut your cake hole them aye? I think most of us are sick of it. We LIKE the damn game. Why do you have to try and tell us we do not. I highly doubt you are psychic.
As I said, I'm anal: you can put a period at the end of the sentence, but I'm not going to interpret a "Why" as rhetorical.
I'm not psychic, but then, I'm not founding my discussion on mind reading. I'm founding my discussion on, "this is the logic on how my opinion works." It's fair game to dismantle that logic, and I'm open-minded enough to listen, but if you're going to attack me for just having an opinion I'll point out the problem with that.
At the core of this is not me being a big loud troll trying to tear EVE Online a new one. At the core of this is me discussing some very serious ramifications to come with what happens when an EVE Online "spy just screwed a few thousand players, years of work." Why it's allowed, and what it means.
A lot of you will interpret this as an attack because you've been on several threads where people tell you EVE Online sucks and you suck for playing it. I am not doing that. At least not directly -- there's a little bit of that going on, but it's related to the topic at hand: the spy who blew up BoB, and how appropriate that really is.
(And the reason why this is the most exciting use of my time right now is because most of the threads around here are idle banter about "best/worst moment/character/whatever in a game." Getting into the meat of how EVE Online entertains is comparatively fascinating.)
My advice to you: if you think a serious logical discussion about EVE Online's viability will ruin your enjoyment of the game, do not read my posts. More importantly, don't reply to them. As I said, I'm anal.
Maybe I'm just getting in trouble over the semantics of what a "gaming purist" or "gaming purity" is. Really, games are in themselves very difficult to encapsulate - they're as diverse as life itself. There's also many ways in which a thing can be considered "pure" - a "video game purist" is more offended at censorship or localization cutting features. Perhaps I should say "gaming mechanic purist" or something like that, as it might help to understand that my priority is on entertainment derived from a game itself, even were played in a vacuum, and not the drama surrounding it (or anything else).
Now, I'm a boardgamer who has been collecting and playing boardgames since I was young. About 30 years now. I was there when the BoardGame Geek started. I've been through arguments much like the one you are offering now (most recently, the struggle between Eurocube gamers and Ameritrash gamers).
The reality is that there is no gaming purity as you claim. Games and their mechanics evolve to meet the tastes of the people playing them. And the term fun is completely subjective to the individuals involved.
EVE Online (which I haven't even tried, but my friends play) is a game that involves out-of-game maneuvering as much as in-game maneuvering. The political aspect of the game continues, even when you log off. And there is some level of security, if you even took time to read the BoB CIC report (they had a lot of their stuff under lock and key that the one spy couldn't even defect). Your in-game persona can even play itself while you aren't on (so every penny you put in still counts even if you aren't always on).
The problem is that you took a elitist point in your posts. While your points on why it's not a good game for some, EO is actually a lot of fun for a certain number of people. I'll give you an example - right now, Battlestar Galactica the boardgame is one of the TOP games in the community. It is one with a mechanic of a traitor who can pop up at any time and totally ruin the plans of the other players. It's a political co-op with a spy. You can't trust anybody, so you spend a lot of time just doing what you can. AND PEOPLE LOVE THIS GAME. I like this game. Your "gaming purity" definition would exclude this game as a "fun" game. That's a crock of s**t. We enjoy it because it builds up suspense, anxiety and some uncertainty to the repeated strategy that worked for a few games. That's as pure as playing something like Agricola.
The reality is that if you don't like a game, don't play it. You sound like you're flustered that people play the game because it detracts from something. If it's not detracting from your life, don't sweat it. Just let it go.
Maybe I'm just getting in trouble over the semantics of what a "gaming purist" or "gaming purity" is. Really, games are in themselves very difficult to encapsulate - they're as diverse as life itself. There's also many ways in which a thing can be considered "pure" - a "video game purist" is more offended at censorship or localization cutting features. Perhaps I should say "gaming mechanic purist" or something like that, as it might help to understand that my priority is on entertainment derived from a game itself, even were played in a vacuum, and not the drama surrounding it (or anything else).
Now, I'm a boardgamer who has been collecting and playing boardgames since I was young. About 30 years now. I was there when the BoardGame Geek started. I've been through arguments much like the one you are offering now (most recently, the struggle between Eurocube gamers and Ameritrash gamers).
The reality is that there is no gaming purity as you claim. Games evolve to meet the tastes of the people playing them. And the term fun is completely subjective to the individuals involved.
EVE Online (which I haven't even tried, but my friends play) is a game that involves out-of-game maneuvering as much as in-game maneuvering. The political aspect of the game continues, even when you log off. And there is some level of security, if you even took time to read the BoB CIC report (they had a lot of their stuff under lock and key that the one spy couldn't even defect). Your in-game persona can even play itself while you aren't on (so every penny you put in still counts even if you aren't always on).
The problem is that you took a elitist point in your posts. While your points on why it's not a good game for some, EO is actually a lot of fun for a certain number of people. I'll give you an example - right now, Battlestar Galactica the boardgame is one of the TOP games in the community. It is one with a mechanic of a traitor who can pop up at any time and totally ruin the plans of the other players. It's a political co-op with a spy. You can't trust anybody, so you spend a lot of time just doing what you can. AND PEOPLE LOVE THIS GAME. I like this game. Your "gaming purity" definition would exclude this game as fun game. That's a crock of s**t. We enjoy it because it builds up suspense, anxiety and some uncertainty to the repeated strategy that worked for a few games. That's as pure as playing something like Agricola.
The reality is that if you don't like a game, don't play it. You sound like you're flustered that people play the game because it detracts from something. If it's not detracting from your life, don't sweat it. Just let it go.
However, my point wasn't "I'm a gaming purist and dislike EVE Online and therefore EVE Online sucks." My point was, "the kind of things I like about games, I don't see in EVE Online, so it's not the game for me -- your milage may vary."
In the quote you mentioned at the top of your post, I'm trying to explain that using the term "gaming purist" was inadvertently misleading. I'd explain why again, but it'd probably just be misinterpreted again. I was not suggesting I'm the Pope of gaming by using that term.
So, while I agree with everything you said, your entire post was based off of misinterpreting that quote.
The only thing for me to really "just let go" of is people misinterpreting my posts. I could do that. It's as much as disservice as a service, however, to simply shrug and say, "well, that person doesn't understand what I said, but I can't be buggered to clarify."
Then the problem is not what you said, but how you said it. I mean, I was trying to agree with you but your tone was totally over-the-top elitist to the point I had a hard time reading the remainder of your posts.
Take that for what it's worth and just move on. I think everyone understands that you are "picky" when it comes to what games and game mechanics you like. That's a more appropriate term than "purist."
1) And is standard fare in many others, Diplomacy as just recently pointed out. Mutliplayer turn-based strategy games have many examples, both board games and computer. Card games are commonly more involved with dealing with the mind of the other players than the mechanics of the game (Sheepshead and Bullshit immediately come to mind, though a lot are known by various other names).
True, but the trouble with this argument is that EVE Online is not Sheepshead/Bullshit/Poker. EVE Online is exactly what it is: a game where you grind a lot of minerals to build up ships that presumably will fight with each other to establish dominance on various sections of space.
Can I still qualify it as being part of the game when that is completely circumvented by one person pushing a few buttons and destroying an empire, without needing to fire a shot? Can I still qualify it as being part of chess when the opponent overturns the chess table?
I'm not so sure either of us can answer this. Truth of the matter is, some EVE Online players are extremely ticked off about what happened to BoB, other EVE Online players are saying "that's politics" and the admins are being remarkably closed lipped about their intentions. Why should they care, as long as the subscriptions come in?
2) Eve continues to grow in subscription numbers, despite it being clearly stated as policy that they are hands-off in cases where no game rules are broken, and despite the fact that it proudly proclaims their flying space ship and robust economic model, or 'grinding minerals', as you prefer to term it.
I don't like the argument that "if it's popular, it must be good." McDonalds is popular - it's not five-star dining. World of Warcraft is several hundred times more popular than EVE Online - do we determine from this that World of Warcraft must be several hundred times more fun?
EVE Online's subscription numbers come from something, but it could just as easily be the drama, not the fun of the game.
Could you prove that those that play Eve are not having fun?
A helpful post from the Eve forums: the following is what it says on the back of my original 2004 box version of eve online (yes there has been box versions available in the past):
"Immerse yourself in the vast virgin territories of EVE, where power is the holy grail and the ultimate aphrodisiac. Conceive a new life without boundries, where murder, plunder, betrayal, and delusions of grandeur will lead you to boundless glory. Or to the brink of ruin. The galaxy is yours to control if you have the brains, strength and cunning to succeed."
Not 'the galaxy is yours to control if you grind minerals'.
Their policy in practice in 'the challenge of taking on human beings with other human allies becomes more interesting than battling crap AI trolls for another pot of gold'.
CCP however does take action when a bug is exploited, or something specifically against the EULA and rules occurs, like hacking account passwords. I'd give more links to examples, but it's already late and this should be sufficient to let someone do their own homework.
As for what 'fun' is, it's in the eye of the beholder, so for anyone to claim another was mistaken in what they feel is fun is to attempt to impose your views over theirs.
Deep breath, people. Defend your views with passion, yes, but no unlimbering the flamethrowers, or I'm going to get annoyed because I have to ban people.
Then the problem is not what you said, but how you said it. I mean, I was trying to agree with you but your tone was totally over-the-top elitist to the point I had a hard time reading the remainder of your posts.
Take that for what it's worth and just move on. I think everyone understands that you are "picky" when it comes to what games and game mechanics you like. That's a more appropriate term than "purist."
If I could go back in time, I'd take back the use of the word "purist," but I'm not sure that'd do anything for people figuring I must be a stuck up twit. I write a bit like an academic because I'm very logically driven, but that's not the same thing as being stuck up. If more people could deflect that kneejerk judgment, I'd be a happy camper. You can think of being so logical as a mental disability, if you like.
What's kind of sad at this point is that I heard the call to arms by the CIC was mostly ignored by the other older, more established BoB members. CCP apparently is going to do nothing at this point to roll back anything, and some of the allied members of the former BoB are talking about allying with other Corps.
What a set-back. I'd be a bit frustrated, but if you let someone have the keys, you better have something planned in case they sell the building.
As a person whose alliance was crushed beneath BoB's heel during the MAX campaign, and as a person who has been battling them since well before the "Great War", I am quite pleased to see BoB get ripped to shreds. Yeah they'll be back, but they won't be the same again. I think it's great for no other reason than the coalition politics (BoB coalition vs. Northern Coalition) gets really old really quickly. Now, hopefully 0.0 will devolve into a massive free for all. As it should be. None of this will stop me from leaving EVE in a month for Jumpgate Evolution, BUT it's still nice to see BoB implode spectacularly before I call it quits
First off I have to start with \o/ Bob is DEAD! woooooo!
ok now with that out of the way, first off It wasn't a spy. A Bob director of BNC, and full director status in the executor corp defected. While I personally would have liked to see another combined invasion of the south, and beat them back into NPC stations, for alot of folks this is nothing but finally being able to see Karma take its toll.
A lot of you will interpret this as an attack because you've been on several threads where people tell you EVE Online sucks and you suck for playing it. I am not doing that. At least not directly -- there's a little bit of that going on, but it's related to the topic at hand: the spy who blew up BoB, and how appropriate that really is.
My advice to you: if you think a serious logical discussion about EVE Online's viability will ruin your enjoyment of the game, do not read my posts. More importantly, don't reply to them. As I said, I'm anal.
You've been antagonistic from the start. I offer as evidence your words as posted:
1) Your opening post. Not entirely sure what reaction you expected to your oversimplification of the issue.
Oh no, I understand completely. The game itself is such a dull floating economic simulation that major scandal screwing over other players adds some desperately needed excitement.
2) Followed up by casting aspersions as to the character of people who would enjoy Eve.
Some people can enjoy it. These people are usually so fished in by the power fantasy of an unregulated player economy that they rarely pause to realize that what they're doing wouldn't amuse a person without 2 years of time invested in it.
3) New post, more passive-aggressive insults.
It's almost enough grounds to say that dedicated EVE Online players are involved in a bad habit. But, again, I speak as a gaming purist.
4) Your definition of gaming purist, and while you're at it, you round it off with condescension. Unless your usage of 'average philistine' means something else in your world.
Lately, I've realized us gaming purists are a weird bunch. It's like going to a wine and cheese festival and meeting people who find disgustingly moldy cheese and rancid wine to be worth the whole trip of being there because, after decades of consumption, they've found there's a certain aspect about these unlikely sources that embodies what being a true wine and cheese enthusiast is. Yet, the average philistine would be content with a bottle of supermarket red. So it is with a purist and WoW, and EVE Online feels like something else entirely - a block of fruitcake at the wine and cheese festival.
5) Generalizations and insults.
However, the game is not fun to play, and I am, first and foremost, a gamer. Not the reveler in human misery and belittling others that you apparently need to be to enjoy this kind of "player-driven" game, as you described it here, where it's so important to preserve "human failure" that the game needs to take second.
6) Start of with equating people who enjoy player-driven systems with the Nazis. Follow it up with more generalizations, and describing people attracted to Eve as suffering under an illusion. Followed by outright factual errors (hacking accounts is against the rules, and CCP takes action), interpretation that developer influence in the game is preferred (read up on why the Council of Stellar Management formed). Finish with more generalizations insulting the character of people playing Eve. Garnish with suicide cult reference.
geldonyetich said:
Look at it this way: the holocaust was participant/player-driven. No GMs or rules around to hold those Nazi's hands as they butchered millions of people. It was extremely poignant, but it's still not fun to be a part of. It's a really interesting tangent to consider: a game can be an epic failure in terms of how good it is to play, but still generate a great deal of spectacle value.
(Well, Godwin's Law has been met. Feel free to lock er' up. )
And it is a spectacle, that's pretty much most of what EVE Online is in terms of the value it offers to players. This whole "EVE Online Politics: A Spy Just Screwed A Few Thousands Players, Years Of Work" is proof that EVE Online sucks as a game: what kind of game says it's okay for the opposing team utilize an underhanded means to wipe out all the points you team scored?
EVE players love this stuff because it's basically all the game has going for it. I mean, you're grinding asteroids and churning out ships and parts all day, you're afraid to lose all your hard work, and something finally breaks and it's a giant relief. It creates an illusion that something meaningful is happening. All that hard work seems worth it... but the reality may be we're just witnessing a broken game self-destructing and choosing to interpret it as "politics."
Who knows, maybe the whole way this ordeal will play out, it'll be the end of EVE. BoB will quit en masse, the rest of the players will suddenly realize, "shit, what if that happened to us - my account could get hacked tomorrow, my faction disbanded, and the developers won't do anything to fix it." The EVE Online staff is then forced to either meddle more in player' dealings or watch as their baby implodes. Either way, they're screwed: meddle, and there goes the spectacle, don't meddle, and there goes any security the players had.
However, to theorize this would be the end of EvE would be assuming that the people currently playing EVE Online were doing so for a reason other than spectacles just like this. Heck, they'd probably get even more subscriptions, people hoping to be a part of the next major self-destruction wave. To an extent, their choice in how to react to this pretty much proves their motivation: "We're not meddling because we realize the spectacle is a higher value than our game integrity: when players cheat, it's just more fun to assume that's part of the game."
I look at that and I say, "No thank you, sir, I shall play a game of monotonous activity where my progress can be sabotaged with the admins' blessing." You can feel free to play it if this possibility excites you. This paragraph, in a nutshell, encapsulates what EVE Online has always been.
8) More indications that Eve players are deluded for not agreeing with your view of game design, and are enjoing 'train wrecks' by mistaking them as 'politics'.
However, I find EVE Online's handling of it to be crudely done - it's dynamic content at the most brute-force implementation. A really refined dynamic content implementation should be regulated in such a way as to create a more satisfying gameplay experience, in my philosophy. What EVE Online has leads to train wrecks which, fortunately for EVE Online, many of its players interpret as "politics."
In other words, realism does not equal fun. It's interesting in adhering to the realism aspect, sure, but does it make the best game? There's where I step off the train before it wrecks.
9) The 'Eve players don't want to hear my truth' post. Even with your supposed caveat that people are allowed to enjoy what they want, how could these paragraphs be interpreted as anything other than your continued pattern of condescension to those who don't share your view?
Maybe a lot of EVE Online players don't want to hear that the cake is a lie: that for the most part a lot of the "politics" in EVE are basically a bunch of unregulated snafus that end up hosing a lot of what would be a balanced play experience; that the actual game itself (one of flying ships and grinding minerals) isn't so much fun as the drama surrounding it.
The reason why they don't want to hear it that it's this illusion that makes the game work. Once ensnared in that illusion, you're now in "a world filled with great risks and challenges [...] a fun game, that the success is sweeter, and even failure can be work the glory of the journey."
However, by calling it out as what it really is, I'm not lying: it's the truth. You can rage against that all you like, you're just shooting the messenger. Granted, a messenger who sits around all day broadcasting the same message might seem worthy of shooting. But, if you didn't want him to do that, you probably shouldn't be trying to actively engaging him in an argument.
I apologize to Theo Samaritan for repeating myself, again, but apparently some people didn't get what I was saying. As my fortune cookie says, "You find beauty in ordinary things. Appreciate this gift." A lot of people probably see me posting the obvious and think I'm trying to gouge them with it. They're jumping at shadows: the obvious is the obvious, nothing more, nothing less. If you try to make the obvious something else, you've slipped outside of perceiving it as what it is.
I'm assuming this is specifically addressing the very first question:
Can I still qualify it as being part of the game when that is completely circumvented by one person pushing a few buttons and destroying an empire, without needing to fire a shot? Can I still qualify it as being part of chess when the opponent overturns the chess table?
I'm not so sure either of us can answer this. Truth of the matter is, some EVE Online players are extremely ticked off about what happened to BoB, other EVE Online players are saying "that's politics" and the admins are being remarkably closed lipped about their intentions. Why should they care, as long as the subscriptions come in?
In other words, we're trying to figure out if a player defecting and taking a bunch of your assets with them is considered "part of the game."
A helpful post from the Eve forums: the following is what it says on the back of my original 2004 box version of eve online (yes there has been box versions available in the past):
"Immerse yourself in the vast virgin territories of EVE, where power is the holy grail and the ultimate aphrodisiac. Conceive a new life without boundries, where murder, plunder, betrayal, and delusions of grandeur will lead you to boundless glory. Or to the brink of ruin. The galaxy is yours to control if you have the brains, strength and cunning to succeed."
Well, okay, the marketing speak on the back of the 2004 box says EVE Online is all about accruing power through any means possible. I'd say that was really substantial, but the back of (grabs the first game on his desk) Space Siege says:
"A devastating alien attack forces earth's last survivors to flee as the Kerak menace threatens to wipe out mankind entirely. As Seth Walker, your split-second heroics under heavy fire can save humanity as you transform into an unstoppable cybernetically enhanced killing machine."
Can you see my point? The marketing speak on the back of the box is really insubstantial stuff. It doesn't fairly reflect the conduct of the game, so much as the setting being spun in such a way as to seem exciting to the players.
Their policy in practice in <a href='http://www.massively.com/2008/11/01/interplay-between-ownership-and-game-mechanics-in-eve-online/' target=_blank>2005,
Their actions had a mixed reception by the EVE playerbase at the time, the concepts of ownership and criminality in the game not having been fully explored (or exploited) until that point. Some glorified the GHSC's actions. Others, however, were horrified that this was allowed by EVE's creator, CCP Games, and called for the MMO developer to respect claims of ownership in the virtual space. Lovell writes, "It is in this range of responses that one may catch a fleeting glimpse of the minds of people and reactions to events in reality." He goes on to point out that all games must have winners and losers. If one can simply change the rules of a game because they've lost, or drastically reduce the risks of losing... there wouldn't be much point to playing.
This is primarily an article about propertly ownership in online games. The end comment that Lovell wrote is suprisingly simultaniously supportive and condescending of BoB's disbanding. On one hand, if changing the rules to avoid losing is bad, then it would be bad to reverse what happened to BoB. On the other hand, playing outside a normal fleet engagement is technically how BoB was disbanded to begin with. In the end, inconclusive.
[li]To make this perfectly clear, the EVE Intergalactic Bank was NOT an in-game mechanic. It was purely player-organized and ?driven, and thus open to exploitation within the confines of the game mechanic.[/li]
[li]CCP is against scams and scam artists of this nature in-general, but so long as people abide by the EULA, funds or assets acquired through what one would term fraud and/or embezzlement in RL are within the context of the game at-large, and thus not actionable by CCP.[/li]
[li]They realize that the game economy is very real, and represents countless hours of effort in EVE Online to amass these sums of ISK. Fraud exists in this virtual world we have all created just as it does in RL; ?Buyer Beware? would seem to apply.[/li]
[li]What CCP does NOT want to do is introduce boundaries or restrictions with respect to these issues, up until the point where something would affect the overall game mechanic. In that respect, they are very much a ?hands-off? company.[/li]
This does establish that, at least by 2007, they had a very clear policy of not interfering with any actions undergone by the player that abides by the EULA.
However, were these policies established for the good of the game, or simply because it'd be too much overhead to try to police the game to a level of anything more than they're willing to put in the EULA?
And this is far from the only example of high-profile malfeasance in EVE. As far back as mid-2005, the Guiding Hand Social Club staged a devastating attack on the Ubiqua Seraph corporation that inflicted 30 billion ISK of damage and remains infamous to this day, while in 2006 the player at the head of the EVE Investment Bank disappeared with a reported 700 billion ISK. It takes balls to let this kind of thing go on, but the success of EVE Online is proof that this is exactly the action some players are looking for.
Another event like what happened to BoB, but it doesn't establish much in terms of the initial question of how EVE Online came to support these policies and why.
an earlier article that touches on the draw of Eve: 'the challenge of taking on human beings with other human allies becomes more interesting than battling crap AI trolls for another pot of gold'.
I never said dynamic content wasn't a brave new frontier. However, this article seems to agree with me that doing dynamic content right is hard, and apparently this article believes EVE Online hasn't broached this brave new frontier right.
CCP however does take action when a bug is exploited, or something specifically against the EULA and rules occurs, like hacking account passwords. I'd give more links to examples, but it's already late and this should be sufficient to let someone do their own homework.
Sure - but do they do this because it's the right thing to do, or do they do this because it's easier?
What proof, exactly, would one need to find to establish that EVE Online allowing the in-game aspects to be "completely circumvented by one person pushing a few buttons and destroying an empire, without needing to fire a shot" was the right thing to do?
It's hard to say. I was never arguing that EVE Online doesn't currently do this, however. That's what those articles demonstrate. (Except for the last one, which is more optimism for future dynamic content games.)
As for what 'fun' is, it's in the eye of the beholder, so for anyone to claim another was mistaken in what they feel is fun is to attempt to impose your views over theirs.
This is generally true. However, where does one draw the line? If I'm going to say, "sure, you may not like it, but someone will" then I'm pretty sure I can encapsulate most of human experience. "Lets see - pain isn't fun, right? Oh, no, then there's the masochists to consider."
What have I left out that would change the meaning? You claim we misunderstand, yet even those that agree with your sentiment take issue with your presentation. At what point will you accept evidence that you need to reconsider your tone?
Your use of 'purity' was the tip of the iceberg. To borrow your analogy, consider my post as me being a messenger broadcasting warning that there's more beneath the surface you need to address. By all means, shoot at the messenger, as he's just trying to help you get your message across to people otherwise turned away.
What have I left out that would change the meaning? You claim we misunderstand, yet even those that agree with your sentiment take issue with your presentation.
Here's the clarification I edited in (I'm moving it here):
paulgruberman said:
1) Your opening post. Not entirely sure what reaction you expected to your oversimplification of the issue.
Oh no, I understand completely. The game itself is such a dull floating economic simulation that major scandal screwing over other players adds some desperately needed excitement.
Look what I was replying to [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.86745.1293533], the fellow said I didn't understand why it's so significant when this stuff happens. I was explaining I had been there - I played the game - I knew exactly why it's so significant when stuff like this happens: because it brings enjoyment to an otherwise pretty boring economic simulation.
2) Followed up by casting aspersions as to the character of people who would enjoy Eve.
Some people can enjoy it. These people are usually so fished in by the power fantasy of an unregulated player economy that they rarely pause to realize that what they're doing wouldn't amuse a person without 2 years of time invested in it.
Could you go over what you quoted off the back of the EVE Online box again? Apparently the EVE Marketing department itself thinks the same of their playerbase. In this particular case, I was approaching the veteran angle and how the game can be alienating to the newbie.
3) New post, more passive-aggressive insults.
It's almost enough grounds to say that dedicated EVE Online players are involved in a bad habit. But, again, I speak as a gaming purist.
What I meant by this is, as a person who enjoys the aspects of games I did not find in EVE Online, I would not be entitled to say that EVE Online players are involved in a bad habit. I literally meant what I wrote here, I wasn't performing a backhanded insult.
4) Your definition of gaming purist, and while you're at it, you round it off with condescension. Unless your usage of 'average philistine' means something else in your world.
Lately, I've realized us gaming purists are a weird bunch. It's like going to a wine and cheese festival and meeting people who find disgustingly moldy cheese and rancid wine to be worth the whole trip of being there because, after decades of consumption, they've found there's a certain aspect about these unlikely sources that embodies what being a true wine and cheese enthusiast is. Yet, the average philistine would be content with a bottle of supermarket red. So it is with a purist and WoW, and EVE Online feels like something else entirely - a block of fruitcake at the wine and cheese festival.
You see, if you happened to be the kind of gamer who enjoys fruitcake, you think the game is great, and I'd be fine with that. Who says wine connoisseurs are better than cheesecake connoisseurs? Not me. Unfortunately, by calling myself a "gaming purist" I made it sound like I was talking for all games. Something I later regretted.
5) Generalizations and insults.
However, the game is not fun to play, and I am, first and foremost, a gamer. Not the reveler in human misery and belittling others that you apparently need to be to enjoy this kind of "player-driven" game, as you described it here, where it's so important to preserve "human failure" that the game needs to take second.
Again, look specifically at what I was replying to, and you see why this is not a generalization nor an insult but specifically referring to this guy's post [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.86745.1294710]. He was going on an on about how "player-driven content = fun game" and I was saying, "not for me, because a lot of the game takes place on the outside, and I prefer the game takes place on the inside."
6) Start of with equating people who enjoy player-driven systems with the Nazis. Follow it up with more generalizations, and describing people attracted to Eve as suffering under an illusion. Followed by outright factual errors (hacking accounts is against the rules, and CCP takes action), interpretation that developer influence in the game is preferred (read up on why the Council of Stellar Management formed). Finish with more generalizations insulting the character of people playing Eve. Garnish with suicide cult reference.
geldonyetich said:
Look at it this way: the holocaust was participant/player-driven. No GMs or rules around to hold those Nazi's hands as they butchered millions of people. It was extremely poignant, but it's still not fun to be a part of. It's a really interesting tangent to consider: a game can be an epic failure in terms of how good it is to play, but still generate a great deal of spectacle value.
(Well, Godwin's Law has been met. Feel free to lock er' up. )
And it is a spectacle, that's pretty much most of what EVE Online is in terms of the value it offers to players. This whole "EVE Online Politics: A Spy Just Screwed A Few Thousands Players, Years Of Work" is proof that EVE Online sucks as a game: what kind of game says it's okay for the opposing team utilize an underhanded means to wipe out all the points you team scored?
EVE players love this stuff because it's basically all the game has going for it. I mean, you're grinding asteroids and churning out ships and parts all day, you're afraid to lose all your hard work, and something finally breaks and it's a giant relief. It creates an illusion that something meaningful is happening. All that hard work seems worth it... but the reality may be we're just witnessing a broken game self-destructing and choosing to interpret it as "politics."
Who knows, maybe the whole way this ordeal will play out, it'll be the end of EVE. BoB will quit en masse, the rest of the players will suddenly realize, "shit, what if that happened to us - my account could get hacked tomorrow, my faction disbanded, and the developers won't do anything to fix it." The EVE Online staff is then forced to either meddle more in player' dealings or watch as their baby implodes. Either way, they're screwed: meddle, and there goes the spectacle, don't meddle, and there goes any security the players had.
However, to theorize this would be the end of EvE would be assuming that the people currently playing EVE Online were doing so for a reason other than spectacles just like this. Heck, they'd probably get even more subscriptions, people hoping to be a part of the next major self-destruction wave. To an extent, their choice in how to react to this pretty much proves their motivation: "We're not meddling because we realize the spectacle is a higher value than our game integrity: when players cheat, it's just more fun to assume that's part of the game."
I was still replying to this post [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.86745.1294710] - I had edited that out of my previous post and made it into its own post because the thread had moved on.
Again, look at what I was replying to. It was a testament on how "participant-driven action automatically equals good," and the holocaust (according to Godwin's law) was the inevitably overblown example of how it was not. Again, this was fair, because it was logically correct: participant-driven action equals good? No! Look at the holocaust!
I was wrong about hacking thing, but you'll notice that where I used it here was an example of, "what a player might think because of what happened to BoB." It was abstract enough I didn't think it through very well.
If you interpret it as being "a backhanded insult" to describe the very real truth that the spectacle is an important part of EVE Online, then that's your own decision. Some hardcore EVE Online fans on this thread have said that a time or two: the politics make the game exciting. The "drink the kool aid" jab was pretty much the other side of the coin: again, true, and therefore fair.
7) Generalizations and backhanded insults again.
I look at that and I say, "No thank you, sir, I shall play a game of monotonous activity where my progress can be sabotaged with the admins' blessing." You can feel free to play it if this possibility excites you. This paragraph, in a nutshell, encapsulates what EVE Online has always been.
How is this an insult and a generalization? All I'm doing is summarizing, at the end of a lengthy post, how the game is to me.
8) More indications that Eve players are deluded for not agreeing with your view of game design, and are enjoing 'train wrecks' by mistaking them as 'politics'.
However, I find EVE Online's handling of it to be crudely done - it's dynamic content at the most brute-force implementation. A really refined dynamic content implementation should be regulated in such a way as to create a more satisfying gameplay experience, in my philosophy. What EVE Online has leads to train wrecks which, fortunately for EVE Online, many of its players interpret as "politics."
In other words, realism does not equal fun. It's interesting in adhering to the realism aspect, sure, but does it make the best game? There's where I step off the train before it wrecks.
This might be "true, therefore fair" or this might be "exaggerating a spy just screwed a few thousand players, years of work as a train wreck." Either way, it's not that out of line.
Realism does not equal fun, most would agree. So I step off the train before it wrecks - why wouldn't I?
9) The 'Eve players don't want to hear my truth' post. Even with your supposed caveat that people are allowed to enjoy what they want, how could these paragraphs be interpreted as anything other than your continued pattern of condescension to those who don't share your view?
Maybe a lot of EVE Online players don't want to hear that the cake is a lie: that for the most part a lot of the "politics" in EVE are basically a bunch of unregulated snafus that end up hosing a lot of what would be a balanced play experience; that the actual game itself (one of flying ships and grinding minerals) isn't so much fun as the drama surrounding it.
The reason why they don't want to hear it that it's this illusion that makes the game work. Once ensnared in that illusion, you're now in "a world filled with great risks and challenges [...] a fun game, that the success is sweeter, and even failure can be work the glory of the journey."
However, by calling it out as what it really is, I'm not lying: it's the truth. You can rage against that all you like, you're just shooting the messenger. Granted, a messenger who sits around all day broadcasting the same message might seem worthy of shooting. But, if you didn't want him to do that, you probably shouldn't be trying to actively engaging him in an argument.
I apologize to Theo Samaritan for repeating myself, again, but apparently some people didn't get what I was saying. As my fortune cookie says, "You find beauty in ordinary things. Appreciate this gift." A lot of people probably see me posting the obvious and think I'm trying to gouge them with it. They're jumping at shadows: the obvious is the obvious, nothing more, nothing less. If you try to make the obvious something else, you've slipped outside of perceiving it as what it is.
Well, you were on a pretty good track with the research. How about you keep that up and stop attacking me by digging through my history like a common muckraker? Yes, that was another "backhanded insult" justified by being completely true.
paulgruberman said:
Your use of 'purity' was the tip of the iceberg. To borrow your analogy, consider my post as me being a messenger broadcasting warning that there's more beneath the surface you need to address. By all means, shoot at the messenger, as he's just trying to help you get your message across to people otherwise turned away.
I've already expressed my desire for a time machine to go back and take back the use of 'purity.' Failing that, I'd settle for you taking the effort to shift that bit in your brain. You can interpret that as an insult too, if you want, but I honestly just wish you'd let that 'purity' thing go. And when I say honestly, there's no sarcastic inflection to it. Nothing I write has a sarcastic inflection - I might emphasize with italics, but sarcasm serves no purpose, I don't use it.
It would be really nice if you were setting out to help me here, but when so much of what's going on is apparently trying to find ways to incriminate me, it's hard for me to believe that's what's happening.
I have a very simple mindset in that I prefer that the issues be attacked, not the people. Message boards are not a competition for me, I only care about, "does this concept work." It's an INTJ thing [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTJ#Characteristics_of_INTJs], apparently.
geldonyetich, you constantly refer to 'Eve players', not to the person you are replying to. Small wonder there's going to be misconceptions about who you are talking about. The entire point of my post was not to attack you, but to bring to your attention the full extent of the problem with how you are presenting yourself. If this doesn't convince you of the intent of my post, then I cannot see why you posted yours: ISTJ
Lastly, you've built your logic on the base that political intrigue and espionage are not part of the game. I gave you examples backing up CCPs publicly released statement advertising it as a core part of Eve. You have given no examples to back your statement that it isn't, and now assert that it's laziness instead of good policy. Please provide something to back up this beyond your continued assertion that your opinion is truth.
[edit: since it's nearly 4am and I'm spending longer and longer correcting the increasing number of spelling mistakes I'm making due to fatigue, and less time on continuing to argue the point, I'm off for the night/morning.]
If I could go back in time, I'd take back the use of the word "purist," but I'm not sure that'd do anything for people figuring I must be a stuck up twit. I write a bit like an academic because I'm very logically driven, but that's not the same thing as being stuck up. If more people could deflect that kneejerk judgment, I'd be a happy camper. You can think of being so logical as a mental disability, if you like.
Actually, the problem is that you're being the opposite of logical. You're using words that connote objective judgment and then say 'it is only my subjective opinion'.
I don't say one thing and mean another. When I say "it is only my subjective opinion" it is to make it clear it is a subjective opinion. This is because, as far as I've been able to determine, a decision about whether a person is writing objectively or subjectively is in the mind of the reader. I have to clarify due to this limitation.
Or you're putting the conclusion in the premise like this:
geldonyetich said:
paulgruberman said:
1) And is standard fare in many others, Diplomacy as just recently pointed out. Mutliplayer turn-based strategy games have many examples, both board games and computer. Card games are commonly more involved with dealing with the mind of the other players than the mechanics of the game (Sheepshead and Bullshit immediately come to mind, though a lot are known by various other names).
True, but the trouble with this argument is that EVE Online is not Sheepshead/Bullshit/Poker. EVE Online is exactly what it is: a game where you grind a lot of minerals to build up ships that presumably will fight with each other to establish dominance on various sections of space.
Where's your support for the fact that EVE is not "Sheepshead/Bullshit/Poker," that it's not a bit of "Diplomacy," that it doesn't look to sci-fi like Dune--where one traitor brings down an entire noble house--for inspiration?
Simple: because I meant it literally, not figuratively. EVE is EVE. Though you can find a resemblance, it is not Sheepshead. I then go on to explain what EVE is:
You just keep making the same assertion over and over again about how the game is about resource gathering and space combat, and then ask whether corporate espionage and intrigue has a place in the game. That's called stuffing your conclusion in your premise--that's the exact opposite of being logical.
The whole thing was a premise, no conclusion was made. I was saying if EVE Online is EVE Online and not Sheedshead/Bullshit/Poker (if it is a game where you grind minerals to build up ships and establish dominance on various sections of space) then what?
Can I still qualify it as being part of the game when that is completely circumvented by one person pushing a few buttons and destroying an empire, without needing to fire a shot? Can I still qualify it as being part of chess when the opponent overturns the chess table?
That's a misstatement: the resource gathering and space combat cannot be "completely circumvented by one person pushing a few buttons." It can be circumvented by *someone trusted with buttons that can destroy "an empire" if they choose to turn traitor* which is a big difference.
Technically, "someone trusted with the buttons that can destroy an empire" is inclusive within the definition of "one person pushing a few buttons and destroying an empire." Just because I didn't mention every single detail does not mean they were not implied.
See, I can overturn the chessboard just by being invited to play--in order to push those buttons, I first have to be given access to the buttons, right? With your analogy you make it sound like anyone that plays the game has access to those buttons, and that's just not true, is it? The logic of your analogy is flawed.
This particular case we agree that they are not exactly the same. Analogies are problematic in terms of the details lost between them. I wrote the chess thing as an extreme example to provoke a mental exercise in the reader: what are the specific differences between the two?
Offhand, the specific difference between overturning the chessboard and destroying a corporation from the inside is that somebody has to be negligent. If that is the case, does negligence qualify an underhanded means to secure success? In EVE Online, it does, but I'm not entirely sure if this is because the developers realized they could not properly enforce this, or if it's because grief play makes for a better game, or what.
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