It's been an age since my last post, and not much has changed.
Well, a ton has changed, but the underlying sentiment from February 2015 -- that real life is displacing any time for meaningful Eve interaction -- has calcified. This week I logged in for the first time in months to reallocate attribute points and to update the skill queue, but I won't renew my subscription when it lapses in about five weeks.
I'd like to think that if I had more time, I'd be incredibly keen on jumping into World War Bee against the Imperium. Much as I enjoy TheMittani.com, my brief spell in an Imperium-affiliated corporation was repulsive. The median age of Eve's players is ~32 (more data here), but I would have guessed otherwise based on the wretched (i.e. racist, misogynist, homophobic) language scattered all over the Imperium's web presence. It's not just an Eve thing; take a loot at the gaming community's other sporadic descents into madness, e.g. "gamergate." But, for a game that so notoriously requires a bunch of smarts to master, it's a shame it doesn't always bring social graces. Or just kindness.
(Surely there are lots of very nice people on Eve: I've been one of them, and I've written before about a couple of others I encountered. I suppose this is another instance of a mindset having a loud mouth disproportionate to its adherents.)
Then again, I was an active player for a year-ish, and PvP never really caught my passion. Even before my daughter arrived, there was just so much other real-world content to latch onto.
All that said: I'm not liquidating my assets, and if circumstances change and allow me to make a subscription meaningful again, I'll jump right back in my Ishtar (or Kronos or ... something else) and happily putter around.
Showing posts with label eve community and culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eve community and culture. Show all posts
Sunday, April 10, 2016
Friday, April 4, 2014
There are good folks in New Eden
After Die Hard, Scrooged is my favorite Christmas movie. It starts with a pair of promos for a TV network's rendition of A Christmas Tale: the first from milquetoast execs, the second from the boss, Frank Cross. The latter is meant to make viewers terrified to miss the special, and it sets the tone with a bevy of "similarly" terrifying issues: acid rain, drug addiction, international terrorism, freeway killers.
Ah, freeway killers. Ran into them. Twice.
The first time was kind of a stunner. I had picked up a contract to haul a bunch of stuff from point A to point B in the game's high-security (high-sec) area. High-sec is new-player friendly, a usually pretty safe if boring sandbox to figure things out. Alas, I was suicide ganked, i.e. my ship blown up out from under me, and then someone picked up all the precious cargo from the scraps (I'll explain the suicide part in a bit). I had a browser window open over most of the game and caught a flash of red, heard an explosion, but didn't see it happen. Dang. I did, however, get kill rights on the offender, i.e. I could later fight them without fear of retribution from the in-game cops.
My capsule docked, and I started puttering in the market, shopping for a new cargo ship with my insurance money and trying not to think too much about the now-lost collateral I had to give up to snag the contract. In the midst of this, I got a message from another player who'd been nearby, saw what happened, and followed the offenders. (Yes, offenders: the in-game cops showed up and blew away the guy who killed me, which was predictable, hence the suicide part of suicide ganking; however, he had an alternate account simultaneously logged in or a colleague in the area who scooped up my cargo, which is perfectly legal.) He sent me the location in case I was interested in sweet vengeance, and he also offered to just blow him up if I sold him those kill rights (a cool mechanic). Not being anywhere near my regular crash pad and combat ship, I just gave him the rights and, not too much later, got a notice telling me the attacker had been blown up. Nice!
Around the same time, I also got a message from another player. He offered condolences on my loss and offered me an invitation to join his tiny, four-player corporation. They're more into the player-versus-player (PvP) aspect of the game, which I'm not quite ready to jump into (of my own volition, at least), but it was a nice offer, regardless.
The other time I got destroyed, it was totally my fault: I picked up a contract that would take me into low-security (low-sec) space, where guns are freer to fire without repercussion. Sure enough, I blindly jumped into low-sec just hoping for the best. I was immediately warp-scrambled (i.e. I couldn't escape with my faster-than-light drive) and my poorly-defended ship was blown away in seconds. I completely deserved it.
And, I learned from it, too. I discovered a filter built into the map that lets you see how many pilots have been in a particular area in the last half hour, and also how many kills within a similarly tight window. There are some other useful views, too. This meant that before I picked up my next contract going into low-sec, I checked recent activity and made an informed decision about whether to take the contract. I did, and got in and out unscathed. And I now have, too, a new ship hull to train up for: the game has blockade runners, which can equip extra protections (even a cloaking device) to deal specifically with low-sec space. It's about 20 days of skill-training time, and I might queue up the long ones when I'm next on vacation.
Ah, freeway killers. Ran into them. Twice.
The first time was kind of a stunner. I had picked up a contract to haul a bunch of stuff from point A to point B in the game's high-security (high-sec) area. High-sec is new-player friendly, a usually pretty safe if boring sandbox to figure things out. Alas, I was suicide ganked, i.e. my ship blown up out from under me, and then someone picked up all the precious cargo from the scraps (I'll explain the suicide part in a bit). I had a browser window open over most of the game and caught a flash of red, heard an explosion, but didn't see it happen. Dang. I did, however, get kill rights on the offender, i.e. I could later fight them without fear of retribution from the in-game cops.
My capsule docked, and I started puttering in the market, shopping for a new cargo ship with my insurance money and trying not to think too much about the now-lost collateral I had to give up to snag the contract. In the midst of this, I got a message from another player who'd been nearby, saw what happened, and followed the offenders. (Yes, offenders: the in-game cops showed up and blew away the guy who killed me, which was predictable, hence the suicide part of suicide ganking; however, he had an alternate account simultaneously logged in or a colleague in the area who scooped up my cargo, which is perfectly legal.) He sent me the location in case I was interested in sweet vengeance, and he also offered to just blow him up if I sold him those kill rights (a cool mechanic). Not being anywhere near my regular crash pad and combat ship, I just gave him the rights and, not too much later, got a notice telling me the attacker had been blown up. Nice!
Around the same time, I also got a message from another player. He offered condolences on my loss and offered me an invitation to join his tiny, four-player corporation. They're more into the player-versus-player (PvP) aspect of the game, which I'm not quite ready to jump into (of my own volition, at least), but it was a nice offer, regardless.
The other time I got destroyed, it was totally my fault: I picked up a contract that would take me into low-security (low-sec) space, where guns are freer to fire without repercussion. Sure enough, I blindly jumped into low-sec just hoping for the best. I was immediately warp-scrambled (i.e. I couldn't escape with my faster-than-light drive) and my poorly-defended ship was blown away in seconds. I completely deserved it.
And, I learned from it, too. I discovered a filter built into the map that lets you see how many pilots have been in a particular area in the last half hour, and also how many kills within a similarly tight window. There are some other useful views, too. This meant that before I picked up my next contract going into low-sec, I checked recent activity and made an informed decision about whether to take the contract. I did, and got in and out unscathed. And I now have, too, a new ship hull to train up for: the game has blockade runners, which can equip extra protections (even a cloaking device) to deal specifically with low-sec space. It's about 20 days of skill-training time, and I might queue up the long ones when I'm next on vacation.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Day 9: Welcome!?
Shortly after the first post went up, I found this interesting essay about Eve posted at Polygon.
Lots of things stand out. I mentioned one already: some kind of overlap between playing Eve and building a model ship. But the presence of just one woman quoted in the article sparked a memory of something my wife said nine days ago: she suggested I create a female character ("capsuleer") to see whether I'd be harassed because of the character's (and other players' supposition about my) gender.
Unfortunately, there are lots of examples that dovetail with that kind of behavior toward women: reporter Josh Mattingly's harassment of game designer Laralyn McWilliams, threats of violence toward Anna Sarkeesian, the #1ReasonWhy hashtag before the 2013 Game Developers Conference, a professional gamer's wretched treatment at the hands of her coach, and the inane disbelief of Aisha Tyler's love of video games, to name a few.
All of which are awful. And while I think the vast majority of game players are as appalled by this behavior as I am, I think there's also a much broader exclusionary mindset among game-players than many folks realize or want to admit. In addition to the attention toward the poor treatment of women who play games (and even as characters), there's lots of vitriol toward other populations: beyond the more obvious awful language about e.g. gays and blacks during in-game trash talk, there's much nasty language about new, unskilled, and casual game-players. I even demure from using the word "gamer" because it's often part of the "You're not a [real] gamer because [arbitrary X]." And even though I'm squarely in the middle when it comes to game-buying and -playing demographics, might innate sense of gamer-ness
Many of PBS Game/Show's videos focus on community, and most recently (as of this post, and embedded at right) tried to define "gamer"ness. Beyond this one, host Jamin Warren asks questions about racism, the portrayal and stereotypes of men in games, trolls, sexual orientation, violence, and even (relevant to my wife's initial suggestion) playing a character whose gender is opposite your own.
When it comes to language and welcome-ness online, I often think of a Penny Arcade comic from 2004 that, tongue only mildly lodged against cheek, remains relevant. That caricature, though, is a small but disproportionately loud and impactful population. A more contemporary and thoughtful look into that discomfort-minded population comes from the University of Manitoba, who found strong correlation between trolling (granted, just one type of exclusionary act) and the "dark triad" of narcissism, machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Yowser.
The aforementioned Polygon essay makes clear that trolling and griefing are a big part of Eve. And that's not my cup of tea. But, that essay also spotlights some of the polar opposite -- facilitators, helpers, and generally nice folk -- and that sounds pretty swell. I hope to stumble into more of the latter than the former. Eve lets players create three characters per account. If I decide to create a second character, I'll probably make her female, and we'll see what happens.
Lots of things stand out. I mentioned one already: some kind of overlap between playing Eve and building a model ship. But the presence of just one woman quoted in the article sparked a memory of something my wife said nine days ago: she suggested I create a female character ("capsuleer") to see whether I'd be harassed because of the character's (and other players' supposition about my) gender.
Unfortunately, there are lots of examples that dovetail with that kind of behavior toward women: reporter Josh Mattingly's harassment of game designer Laralyn McWilliams, threats of violence toward Anna Sarkeesian, the #1ReasonWhy hashtag before the 2013 Game Developers Conference, a professional gamer's wretched treatment at the hands of her coach, and the inane disbelief of Aisha Tyler's love of video games, to name a few.
All of which are awful. And while I think the vast majority of game players are as appalled by this behavior as I am, I think there's also a much broader exclusionary mindset among game-players than many folks realize or want to admit. In addition to the attention toward the poor treatment of women who play games (and even as characters), there's lots of vitriol toward other populations: beyond the more obvious awful language about e.g. gays and blacks during in-game trash talk, there's much nasty language about new, unskilled, and casual game-players. I even demure from using the word "gamer" because it's often part of the "You're not a [real] gamer because [arbitrary X]." And even though I'm squarely in the middle when it comes to game-buying and -playing demographics, might innate sense of gamer-ness
Many of PBS Game/Show's videos focus on community, and most recently (as of this post, and embedded at right) tried to define "gamer"ness. Beyond this one, host Jamin Warren asks questions about racism, the portrayal and stereotypes of men in games, trolls, sexual orientation, violence, and even (relevant to my wife's initial suggestion) playing a character whose gender is opposite your own.
When it comes to language and welcome-ness online, I often think of a Penny Arcade comic from 2004 that, tongue only mildly lodged against cheek, remains relevant. That caricature, though, is a small but disproportionately loud and impactful population. A more contemporary and thoughtful look into that discomfort-minded population comes from the University of Manitoba, who found strong correlation between trolling (granted, just one type of exclusionary act) and the "dark triad" of narcissism, machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Yowser.
The aforementioned Polygon essay makes clear that trolling and griefing are a big part of Eve. And that's not my cup of tea. But, that essay also spotlights some of the polar opposite -- facilitators, helpers, and generally nice folk -- and that sounds pretty swell. I hope to stumble into more of the latter than the former. Eve lets players create three characters per account. If I decide to create a second character, I'll probably make her female, and we'll see what happens.
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