One player spent 10 years exploring every corner of Eve Online
polygon.com
polygon.com
I loved Eve Online when I played it in the mid 2000s but its point and click mechanics as well as you'd have to wait days even weeks to acquire skills in some cases made me lose interest in the game. It has its addictive qualities too where you feel you could go on playing it forever while knowing you have got to stop playing it for your own good.
Years later I got introduced to Elite Dangerous and it's been a lot more fun than Eve. Elite gives players the opportunity to fly by binary stars, fly through neutron star jet cones to overcharge fsd drives, combats close to stars, land on planets and even more simulated activities. If you have a VR the game becomes a unique experience. The game's map is based on Milky Way galaxy and the systems are procedurally generated. I remember last year the devs announced approx 112000 individual systems were discovered and this is about 0.028% of the total. Anyway, a few months ago I solo traveled to Sag A* and returned later to the bubble (where Solar system and surrounding systems are). It took me 2 weeks to complete the trip and at times it was pretty boring. On the other hand it is the only game that let me experience the stress of flying near a black hole and I am grateful to the devs for making it possible.
When I jump from that game to EVE, it's very obvious to me that EVE is not for explore. You can do that of course, but you will be bored fairly quickly even compare to games like Freelancer.
In Freelancer, every "star system" that I jump into gives me a feeling of mysterious, until I cruise through every inch of the map, and memorized every cruise path and hidden "Wormhole"s.
In EVE, every system feel like the same. Yes, they have different layout, NPC and background, but still, it feel like repeat.
I believe EVE is more of a game of politics. A game about ruling, conquer and team work. Explore? not so much.
I don't know, maybe because the map of EVE is too big to provide saliency. In Freelancer, every map is manually made to service the background story, so each one is different in their own ways. Also, because the map is so small, you can make them vibrant easily.
I agree a virtual environment would be preferable, although rather than representing the surroundings visually (which has a lot to distract from tactical decision-making), I'm picturing something like a higher-definition version of Elite Dangerous' IFF interface (with the little dots showing their relative angle to the ship).
It feels like a living universe, planets are varied and wild, the creatures are inventive, as are the vehicles, you can build bases, Terra from areas, plant crops etc, it’s a really relaxing game.
that said, of you love Elite for it's fantastic flight mechanics, you probably won't love No Man's Sky, at least not for the same reasons anyway.
This reminds me of the same confusion I had with Starbound: why do I have all these features that require me to settle down in one place to get the most from them when the game wants me to explore the far reaches of space? These things seem to pull in opposite directions.
Starbound at least lets you put a teleporter in your base so you can always return quickly no matter where in the universe you are.
There's no requirement to have a base of any sort. If you want to be purely nomadic with just a small ship, you can. But, bases are fun to build and design. Provides a solid income if you want it. From a psychological point of view, it's also nice to have a place to call home in the midst of a vast and nearly infinite universe.
It's a very flexible play structure.
The heart and soul of Eve is based on its "single shard" system, where there is no opt-out. As a result, actions have consequences; decisions matter. Players who don't leave "empire space" are relatively safe, but if they're transporting something particularly valuable, other players will weigh that against losing their own ships to the empire police. Players drive the "Background Sim" in Eve: prices of commodities and manufactured items are set by the players who sell and buy them, they depend on the ebb and flow of non-stop warfare, affecting even players that never leave "empire space".
In ED, you can join with a few friends and team up to do stuff like mining, hunting other ships, transporting goods. In Eve, you can do that, too. Or join with a few thousand friends and deal with the politics, espionage, specialization, and sometimes bureaucracy that goes along with any thousand+ person organization. There are lots of characters that never even pilot ships, instead specializing in industry, for example. Well organized teams tend to succeed (for whatever definition of success they choose). The tools used to manage such organizations is impressive, and can mirror those in "real world" orgs of that size, covering not only tings like wikis and forums, but Slack integrations, videoconferencing systems, bespoke ERP systems for industry, and HR systems for managing people. Eve's developer (CCP) encourages this by providing an API[1] that lets external services interact with the game.
I would love a hybrid Eve/ED system- it would be very cool to pilot small ships in the Eve universe. I'd love for Eve to be able to expand beyond the 8000 star systems.
It's a trade-off and clearly most people prefer the faster and simpler gameplay mechanics of other MMOGs, although we also have the neverending Star Citizen that seems to be chasing the realism angle even harder and has gained quite a following. I wonder what everything is going to be like once we have real capable VR.
https://i.imgur.com/iteL09L.png
That took about 2 months of real time, playing 1 or 2 hours a day. It was pretty epic, I loved being able to discover these completely new systems, placing my name on them for as long as the game lasts (which I hope is a long time).
I understand it can be much more fun in the game than the real life and that's why people do it, but I just wonder if it's just escapism, avoiding the challenges of the real world?
I can create a business that does things only in computers and use the funds to buy other things only in computers, how is that different than a game?
Games are life with an easy mode, and many things which are "not real" are just as fulfilling as things that are "real".
Accumulating wealth is mostly just a game anyway once you have the basics covered, and when you start thinking about it too hard everything is equally unreal in that nothing has any worth outside your own arbitrary values.
If the system is working properly, you should mostly be able to accumulate wealth only if you provide value to everyone else. That's the theory anyway.
There's this meme I see on HN sometimes that every use of time is equally worthwhile, and that any value judgments are arbitrary.
Highly skilled communities should value work that creates some value, above noodling around in games.
I've played lots of games. But I know they aren't real, beyond helping me relax, or maybe learn skills that transfer out. I agree with the OP that we shouldn't spend all our effort in games. I'm similarly skeptical of things like the fashion industry, super professional sport etc too but that's just me :)
That is nothing but modern ideology and wishful thinking. The reality is, there is a global competition for resources and providing value to others is only useful when it benefits yourself. Those who claim to have a societal model where everyone can happily accumulate wealth while benefiting others and hurting nobody, know exactly what they are doing.
> I'm similarly skeptical of things like the fashion industry
There's a good example of perceived value vs. objective value. Ask some fashionista why they wouldn't wear the same outfit every day.
I'm not claiming that. I'm claiming that activity in the real world economy is generally more beneficial to others than activity in a video game.
The world economic system, flawed as it is, is taking at least some KPIs in a direction I think is unarguably good: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.IMRT.IN
> I'm not claiming that. I'm claiming that activity in the real world economy is generally more beneficial to others than activity in a video game.
> The world economic system, flawed as it is, is taking at least some KPIs in a direction I think is unarguably good: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.IMRT.IN
Isn't the world of Warcraft economy larger than the GDP of some countries? Where is the line between "real world economy" and virtual economies that impact "real world" economies?
Why is your experience exactly the amount that’s beneficial, but the article’s subject is beyond okay?
Could it be that you have found and excavated the amount of value in gaming that works for you personally, and that amount may differ for others?
I'd argue that 90% of our "real" economic activities are basically just red queen games as well.
Besides, say, actively participating in the production of basic food and shelter, what is valuable work?
A follow-up, how would you defend the value system I'm asking for as non-arbitrary?
It seems arbitrary, but if some billionaire pays you a million dollars to bite her toe off, that's still immensely more valuable than the 10 years spent in the article because a million dollars worth of obligations were just released to someone who will (on average) spend them.
Money is just a note of a generic obligation (aka debt) from the rest of society in that currency.
The need for food and shelter only requires a small percentage of our collective time these days. The much larger part of our economic activity is not grounded in that need, though it may be convenient to make other people think that working 40 hours a week is just barely enough to earn the right to exist.
HN is not free in the purest sense. Companies/ideas/agendas are presented to you. It a way it's a platform and platforms are usually free and offer at least some network effect value.
So, "valuable work" is just work with financial benefits? If I save 100 poor people's lives it's worth less than if I drive a millionaire around for $10?
Loyality gained from those 100 poor people could allow trust between you that allows you to gain additional value (100 poor people trained becomes a powerful army). While the 10 dollars you gained while driving around someone you missed 100 dollar opportunities.
But I'd say to a first approximation, economic effort defined towards the pursuit of maximising arbitrary stats in a video game, is less likely to be valuable work.
That's really all I'm saying. Just because its hard to define objectively, shouldn't mean its a free-for-all, and that we accept that all activity is equally useful (or un-useful.)
We can and should use our judgement here.
Not a perfect signal, but if someone will pay you to do it, your work is probably valuable to them.
This gets distorted by wealth inequality and probably half a dozen other factors, which is why it's not perfect.
Not everything that's valuable fits neatly into a market context, of course. Exercise and hiking are valuable to me, but no one will pay me to do them. Games might similarly be an opportunity to develop in some way (many games are engaging because they involve some kind of skill) and provide recreation and maybe weave some social fabric. But they're often limited and have diminishing returns compared to some other opportunities...
Right. I think therefore the thing is, to be conscious about the purpose of those games, ask questions about what kind of value they bring to their players and the society at large.
Are they opium for the masses?
> Right. I think therefore the thing is, to be conscious about the purpose of those games, ask questions about what kind of value they bring to their players and the society at large.
> Are they opium for the masses?
Is it wrong to want to devote time to being idle/non-productive? Must we spend every waking moment perfecting our every aspect? Are we afforded no moments of respite beyond sleep?
People have mentioned food and shelter but also there is much value in KNOWLEDGE and science because that helps us ensure food and shelter. Say astronomy, maybe one day it will give us shelter (in terms of knowing what to do) from an asteroid hitting the earth.
My question for myself is, why should I play these games when the real life is like a game too but one which is much more challenging, much more important and much more valuable, from which we can learn much more, if we take our aim to be learning.
This is somewhat devil's advocate-ey, but what's to stop someone living off social benefits and accruing EVE online wealth? (Low ohysical standard of living/prestige, high virtual prestige)
Modern MMO's aren't good enough to replace the real world- yet. When they are, some subset of the population will pop on their VR machines, plug in the feeding tubes, and that's it. Unless you want to get rid of social benefits/make social benefits actually dependent on trying to get a job, you can't really stop people doing this.
At one point a really good player was going to quit the game. He wasn’t able to pay his real life bills, planned to get a second job just to survive and keep a roof over his head.
Turned out that another member (director) was loaded in real life, and he really didn’t want the other guy to quit, he had him send all his real life bills and paid them for him.
If you think about it, he really paid him a real life salary to have him work in a virtual world. And who doesn’t want to work as a pirate space mercenary for a living? :p
This is awesome and horrible at the same time.
What happened? Is the rich guy still paying the bills of this poor chap?
I think it's a massive economic barrier. How much does it cost to have an online experience of socialization or eating with equivalent quality to an offline one? People still take vacations, pack up their bags, and fly on planes to meet others and eat food. When will a virtual meeting and a virtual burger every be as good and cheaper?
How many people can now "walk" the streets of Venice who could never afford to travel there, but their friend has a VR and they got to experience it. It doesn't have to be better or cheaper to be opening doors for people today.
The same goes for museums that were an early use case of possible applications for virtual reality. In practice very few people are interested in virtual reproductions of even the greatest treasures of mankind that draw millions of people yearly to see them in real life.
We will see more in the future. There are many potential eras/scenarios.
And that seems good, but it's actually a problem. One finds purpose in the in-game reality which gives one motivation to withdraw -- the game gives the feeling of progress and success, the feeling that's supposed to help us motivate ourselves to survive and contribute to our tribe. But the success is really just changing numbers in a database.
I say this as someone who games most days.
If what we do in the game could somehow benefit people who are outside the game THAT would mean it provides "real" value.
If the value it provides is only entertainment for other players then I would say it only provides VIRTUAL value :-)
Wealthy people can purpose far more of their time.
Accumulating capital works like you say, bit we have work to do otherwise.
Improving basic wealth is possible, and does not impact capital much. Some, but not to a degree many, if not most will be concerned about.
It should be OK for ordinary people to be a bit wealthy. Arts, research, even just play are all rewarding, important.
For a reasonable amount of our time, yes. People can and should do what they want. It is not necessary we tighten this all up to some totalitarian optimum.
The homeless person is driven by basic needs and wants. The billionaire is not.
A person of modest means, who works very little to meet them has significant wealth.
Off grid type people, who are successful in their investments get the return of time, as another example.
* Wealth is the measure of ability to buy people's time and scarce resources
* Wealth is the measure of the ability to do things for their own purpose
Real businesses ultimately provides a service for real people. It's bringing value to people this world, while a game is just literally some bits shifting in a computer.
Why waste time learning chess when you can join the military?
Why type into a box on Hacker News when you can have conversations with people face-to-face?
Why waste time watching any movie when you can do those kinds of things in real life?
Why even bother with the abstract nonsense of money at all instead of just growing your own food and learning to make things for yourself.
Different people get pleasure from different things and if you're going to judge one it seems weird not to do so evenly.
People whose chosen redirections of their own drives give them high social status -- the builders and commanders -- like to look down on those who choose activities that don't lead to power. IMO, this is conservation of ego, nothing more. We want to feel good about ourselves, so when we gain power beyond that which is required to propagate our genes, we say, "this is because I was a better person than that other guy." We don't like to acknowledge that we're just masturbating a slightly different way.
IMO, the important question is whether playing an MMO actually fulfills your individual values. I know for me with EVE the answer was no, but that's not to say I can't picture an MMO that would. I would bet that for many currently playing it the answer is also no, because we do have addictions, us humans. But I wouldn't turn up my nose at the whole playerbase by any means. After all, who are we on this site to point fingers?
I don't think anybody's doing that. It's more like we should be asking questions about what is going on with this thing? Does it make sense that a lot of people spend so much time on it? Or does it not? Can the games be made better? How?
If the games are good for the society at large then maybe tax-payer money should be used to support their further development. Would make sense right?
And before that the same argument was made about television. And before that the same argument was made about comic books.
My dad and his friends used to just ride their bikes and play games with the neighborhood kids. Can you believe it!? People doing things not directly related to corporate success hierarchy!? It must seem so pointless to you...
For what it's worth, I'm not a gamer myself, but I don't see how it's any worse/better than people reading a bunch of fiction books or any other leisure activity.
Some people get really into jigsaw puzzles, crossword puzzles, Sudoku, solitaire... Other people play online video games.
I tried that once. It was awful.
>“People say, ya know, ‘Get a life,’ and ‘This is a waste of time,’” Sae continues. “They have to understand that I only did this for an hour and a half each day just to unwind after work. I wasn’t killing myself doing this.”
Or you could have poked around a video game.
To me, and a lot of other people, there's a real opportunity cost this person has been willing to assume, and I'm not about to pretend I think it was worth it.
what I'm trying to say is, not all hours are interchangeable in terms of opportunity cost. it should be okay to just be totally unproductive for one or two hours out of the days. not everyone can accomplish something meaningful in every single hour.
It is okay to waste time, or fritter it away doing something you value and nobody else does; I felt it important to say, though, that I don't think this was a laudable achievement.
Why? Why are any of those things worth doing or learning? Because you say they are?
So there's no value in happiness and joy according to you? If something doesn't produce something or teach you something it is worthless?
If your view on life is that bleak then I don't know that there's anything I can say to help you.
Books? They benefit the author of the book but you don't get addicted to a book. You may learn something from it about joy and love and life and once you acquire that learning you have it you don't need to read the book again every day.
I'm medically handicapped. Sometimes I can't go anywhere. Playing games to occupy my mind helps me not go crazy.
When I'm in a lot of pain, sometimes playing games is the best way to occupy myself because I can't inadvertently make an ass of myself. It's easy to come across poorly when you feel awful and telling people you feel awful is usually not taken to mean "I'm not trying to be rude." It's taken to mean "I'm entitled to be an ass because I have a good excuse."
As I've grown stronger, playing gradually harder games has played a role in my recovery and rehabilitation. It helps me exercise my mind and keep working at various recovery goals in a low key fashion on my worst days.
Playing games can be educational. I sometimes ditch games because I feel their mental models are a bad influence and I play a lot of games to educate myself about various things.
"Idle hands are the devil's workshop." Keeping oneself harmlessly occupied can be a big improvement over fucking shit up because you are bored, frustrated, not at your best, etc.
Mental occupation serves as distraction from pain and can be medically useful. I've read some things that indicate mental occupation can reduce the need for pain killers.
In a world with 7 billion people and climate change, playing a game can be more environmentally responsible than "exploring the real world." There are plenty of tourists out there just trashing things in the name of Disnified, predigested "adventure."
But Microsoft did a study that didn't use stigmatizing terms like disabled or handicapped. They just asked about what things trip people up in day-to-day life and 60% of respondents indicated they had varying degrees of trouble with day-to-day tasks.
My first-hand observation is that mildly impaired people actively eschew stigmatizing labels. If you aren't so severely impaired as to require accommodation to function at all, life works better if you don't find some stigmatizing label.
Previous longer comment on that by me here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19811988#19815635
So I strongly suspect most people playing a lot of games have needs not unlike mine, they just are less severely impaired than I am.
Furthermore, my final point -- about the value of getting your adventures in virtual form instead of absolutely trashing the planet to satisfy a desire for adventure -- potentially applies to anyone.
I’ve Climbed Everest 21 Times. It’s Not the Mountain It Used to Be.
https://newrepublic.com/article/154201/ive-climbed-everest-2...
Tourism and environmental damage: How travellers are ruining the world
http://www.traveller.com.au/tourism-and-environmental-damage...
So, with games, movies, books, music and even paintings - if I my brain picks up the process first and isn't impressed or curious by that aspect, I lose interest. This is mostly common with movies and games, where the cost and expanse of the created world often require some level of formulas/trope. It is the inverse in a lot of music, where I am fascinated by the process and production a lot and can appreciate it at both levels more. Similarly with great TV - recently I watched season 2 of Fleabag and realised I was lost both in the story telling and in wonder/amazement at it's construction and execution.
Before full time work and a kid, there was a certain amount of time I could afford to lose myself in another person's creation, but nowadays if I start seeing the scaffolding, I can't unsee it. For this reason I am also starting to be drawn back to the sciences. I sometimes worry that I am finding it hard to relate to a lot of art and human expression because of this, so I try to 'lose' myself in it - but so much art (and predominantly so many games) require a lot of scaffolding.
Interested if anybody else can relate and share how they deal with this.
The first thing that happened to me was I became aware that there is a production quality bubble in commercial media that keeps most people sealed in and once that popped I got more and more interested in obscure art related films, music, scenes, etc. like the things you would find on ubu.com.
A lot of my old art school friends are still in this edgy mode and they no longer respect any populist media. Somehow I’ve come full circle because I got bored once I started seeing the “scaffolding” in all the radical 20th century and contemporary stuff too.
Now I just try to find the free space where people are developing something new and involve myself somehow either as an early spectator or a participant.
To put it simply, if you start watching Netflix as an anthropologist then you might enjoy the scaffolding once again.
There was a curious incident recently where Game of Thrones episode had a Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts coffee mug visible in some scene. It broke the "magic", revealed the scaffolding for most people.
But if you believe in fire-breathing giant dragons then why not also believe in multi-verse where things from Starbucks universe can occasionally mingle with Game of Thrones. It's magic!
The Flying Princess Leia scene in Last Jedi was dumb, but that made me love the movie more. The Original Trilogy had a bunch of dumb moments in them too, but JJ Abrahms Force Awakens had none of them (it had a different kind of stupid ;) ) and felt soul-less to me.
Maybe even an excuse to sit there and not really think about much of anything in particular for a while. Let your brain have some big slow thoughts while you watch imaginary space flow past your imaginary spaceship’s cockpit.
Reminds me of stories I read about people who played Red Dead Redemption 2 purely for the chores and exploration of the land.
..not a place to learn and grow..Let your brain have some big slow thoughts..
When I do mind numbing chores like washing dishes, mowing the lawn, laundry; I can’t help but sit inside my head and have conversations with myself about whatever is deemed important at that moment. As insignificant as these micro chats may be, they’re growth. In turn, learning/experiencing myself to a deeper level.
Two quotes come to mind:
Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. -Oliver Wendell Holmes
Baby steps, Bob. Baby steps. -Dr. Leo Marvin
Each new experience, grande or otherwise builds our character.
Exploring in a video game suffers none of those barriers.
Is it escapism if one’s life has no room (in time, in money, in attention span) for physical astronomy, but does have room for virtual astronomy — with its lower requirements at the cost of its unproductive result?
- You can easily find an ingame-"Job" that's fun and fitting for you, which is not as easy in the real world
- You don't have obligations (at least not in the beginning)
- Success can be archived in a pretty much known way (i.e. leveling up, grinding that specific NPC for about n times ...) instead of the rather arbitrary and sometimes luck-depended way of being successful in real life
No it's more like why not work for yourself instead of working for someone else, for some part of your time. Educate yourself. If you work for someone else you get paid but really you are working towards the goals of whoever pays you. Work towards your own goals instead.
But if your goal is to visit all virtual galaxies in a single game produced by some specific game company ask yourself isn't there anything more worthwhile I can accomplish in 10 years?
Relaxation is of course important but it is important in order to restore our strength to work on the real challenges in our life. Games are great just like amusement parks are great. Coney Island Baby!
I believe such great determination would be better applied to something less virtual. 10 years is a large chunk of our life and you can accomplish lot in 10 years if you are determined.
I also find it somewhat ironic that you question the purpose of this form of entertainment created specifically by a company by suggesting that someone's time is perhaps better spent starting a company. This form of escapism exists because a company made it possible for people to escape.
Clearly, you wonder if something is a bit crazy with these games, but have you ever wondered if the companies behind them actually provide value to their workers or customers? Starting a company isn't always a possibility or solution to people's problems, and not all companies provide value to society. In fact, some actively extract value from society.
0: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/most-americans-cant-afford-a-50...
If you worked towards starting a game-company like this you would learn many valuable real-life skills about software engineering coding and running a business. Your time would be better spent than the time of those who play your game.
That is really what happened here as far as people who created the game are concerned. They spent their time very wisely. But even better if they created a game with outstanding educational value, of value to others besides themselves.
Maybe their next game will be more like that now that they have acquired the skills to do it. I'm not saying Eve is not educational though. Maybe it is.
EVE costs money wikipedia doesn't?
> It is a myth that a large share of people can’t cover a $400 emergency expense. Why does the story persist?"
> The question comes from the annual “Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households” by the Federal Reserve. The report finds, in 2018, that 61% of adults would cover a $400 unexpected expense using cash (or its equivalent)."
> The report states: “Twelve percent of adults would be unable to pay the expense by any means.”
> The report also goes out of its way to make clear that some of the 39% who wouldn’t use cash might still have $400 in the bank: “It is possible that some would choose to borrow even if they had $400 available, preserving their cash as a buffer for other expenses.” In a footnote, the report even cites a 2016 study finding that 76 percent of households had $400 in liquid assets, even after taking into account monthly expenses.
> The common misinterpretation of this finding in the study is particularly strange in light of two other questions on the same survey. The Fed asks respondents whether they are able to pay all of their bills in full. Only 17% say they can’t pay some bills.
> The Fed also asks respondents how a $400 emergency expense that they had to pay would affect their ability to pay their other bills. Eighty-five percent report that they would still be able to pay all their bills. Only 14% say that the emergency expense would result in their not being able to pay some bills.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-04/the-40...
> Instead, as the Fed report makes clear, though “the remaining 4 in 10 adults” “would have more difficulty covering such an expense,” many of them would be able to make it work by carrying a credit card balance or borrowing from friends and family. (Presumably some of these adults are 18-year-olds borrowing from their parents, but I’m not sure about that.)
If your last resort is credit or friends and family, you are by definition unable to afford the expense in question.
> The report states: “Twelve percent of adults would be unable to pay the expense by any means.” I’m dubious about that as well. In any event, 12% is a lot less than 39%. The report also goes out of its way to make clear that some of the 39% who wouldn’t use cash might still have $400 in the bank: “It is possible that some would choose to borrow even if they had $400 available, preserving their cash as a buffer for other expenses.” In a footnote, the report even cites a 2016 study finding that 76 percent of households had $400 in liquid assets, even after taking into account monthly expenses.
So they are not "by definition unable to afford the expense in question". May of them just find it inconvenient.
Make no mistake, even 12% figure is too high. Still, it doesn't support the argument that "most Americans can't even afford a $500 surprise bill", and it speak to the click-baity nature of modern media.
The severity of failure modes. In games you can just start a new character; in real life you are broke, or worse.
It's more "low effort, high reward" compared to RL challenges in general, but games like EVE are not "low effort" at all. Perhaps it's the low physical effort and lack of real risk required that makes them so attractive.
You can - for example - die in-game (most games) and re-spawn, reload, restart or whatever. The possible outcomes are known and constrained to what seems a non-damaging locus.
Meanwhile progress is designed in, immediate (relative to real life) and palpable.
1 is creation vs consumption continuum, where you have e.g. designing a course as an expert (you're likely to derive little value other than financial but has huge value adds to those interested) vs. watching tv (purely passive). so this is clearly not purely passive despite being a sort of passive activity, more towards active i'd say, which is healthier/more fulfilling imo.
another is real life vs virtual life, which i think you're more interested in here. i personally agree in so far as i've "wasted" many years of my life on virtaul things (key differentiator) that were sort of fun, but when i look at what could have been with 10% of that time i just feel utter disgust. long story but no matter: it may be in 10 years time he feels the same, or not. obviously he kept a job and whatever else, so in some sense it's well earned leisure time.
i would add a third dimension: how does the activity enrich my daily life. people watch TV to get informed, entertained or to unwind. if you explore EVE with the goal to get informed, you'll surely waste your time. but if it's entertaining/unwinding, then why not. it's visual fiction.
but, we know these non-fiction book things are designed to be addictive (ladder climbing/achievement elements for games, timing elements for television, reward intervals for both) and so the pathological case is important to examine.
key question then in this case is, imo: to what extent was this driven by pathological vs. non pathological behavior? in my personal case, which is why i have so much regret, is that it was so darn easy to plow more hours in, to the detriment of the rest of my life, due to the design of the game. if it's genuinely not for him, then i agree, not an issue. i would personally consider it exceptional however.
i agree. fortunately, for myself, when i made that experience i realized how much of a waste of time it could be, and i paid attention to that ever since. (always planning and deliberately choosing what to watch on tv, or read, etc) i don't get motivated by points in a game but by experiencing adventures, solving puzzles, etc. these things can be valuable (engaging your brain away from work, etc)
ironically, the most mindless (that is, not planned and less deliberate) thing i do these days is reading hackernews.
You often find enlightening and inspiring and educational comments here, also entertaining ones :-)
and i am not the only one. there is a reason why there is a feature to limit your time here :-)
got to keep an eye on that.
It's simple; because it creates happiness to the player.
Why did you type that comment? Maybe because it creates happiness to you in the form of intrinsic reward when your question is answered or you simply become happier when expressing your thoughts. It's all for feeling joy in the end.
If you ask 'why' enough times to anything, you'll ultimately reach the conclusion that there no real deeper meaning to life so might as well live it in a happy way while you're here.
ironically, contrary to its name, it appears that elite: dangerous is actually less PvP than EVE. and there are expedition groups with hundreds of ships to explore the galaxy that last months, or even years.
"it gives a sense of the vastness of the galaxy" because while they use some form of FTL jump to make traveling those long distances possible it still can take some tens of minutes to travel within a solar system to get from one planet to another.
i don't know how accurate their model is, but i believe of it is sufficiently close it can be a great learning experience.
Value is subjective, and not everything revolves around money. All it takes is for someone to like the game and they’re good.
What value does the creation of Eve Online bring to its customers, if they're never allowed to play it?
It does bring value to them the value of entertainment. But trying to accomplish something in real life would probably bring them more value in real life, why because that would then be what you are trying to accomplish. Value in real life. If you strive towards gaining some real-life value you are more likely to gain that than if you just strive to be entertained by a game and getting them game-points.
Now some games allow you to turn the game-dollars into real dollars. But the dollars you gain are dollars someone else loses. It is zero sum. No actual new value is created, no actual useful things are created, no actual useful new knowledge is being gained or created. The only value created is entertainment and there's nothing wrong with that. But it might give you more satisfaction to actually accomplish something in real life with all that effort you're putting into the game. I'm not saying you do, but in general and in this case reported in the article.
Why is it more fun?
We have innate motivations to explore, create, trade, communicate. But there's a lot of extra work surrounding it:
Solving a coding problem is fun, but organizing and neatening and testing and documenting is not (as much).
Creating value and trading it for money is fun, but trying to understand international tax law is not (as much).
A government can harness innate productivity by stopping stopping it.
Or just understand that different people have different preferences....
But as an active GH and regular guitar player, comparing it to an actual guitar isn't fair. I enjoy playing actual guitar as an exercise in creativity. I play GH to enjoy music more interactively rather than creatively.
The purpose of GH is to make you think you can play like a real guitar hero, but based on your experience it seems like it doesn't really do that.
GH COULD be better at teaching real guitar playing but I assume it is not better because it's purpose is not to teach but to get you addicted to the game.
How do you wait until never?
I was wrong, in one sense - the impact was far greater than I had envisaged.
It was very difficult to imagine my parents having social media accounts and iPads back then. But now they do. I don’t see why VR will be any different.
I think VR will be more disruptive than the internet (although synergistic) - the clue is in the name. An alternate reality is about as impactful as you can get.
The internet enabled new ways of doing things. There were things that were literally impossible before we were online. VR doesn't do that. It's great tech, it's very clever, it improves on whats there now but ultimately it's just a fancy monitor and a new sort of mouse. There's nothing that can be done VR that can't be done outside of VR. That is a very limiting factor for it's impact on the world.
Don’t want to further the argument, but at least we identified the point we diverge on! We’ll see.
If you haven’t been to any kind of VR meet-up or hacking group, research lab or whatever, I’d recommend taking any opportunity to do so, as it might change your mind. An example I saw recently was research therapeutic use of VR in hospitals, with incredible effect sizes. And that kind of thing is just baby steps.
That is much like saying there's nothing that can be done in a telephone call that can't be done by telegraph. You just pass around information.
I believe the killer application of VR will be tele-presense. Avoid the traffic jams and airport delays.
You could say we can already have a video conference. But the point is that video-conference is simply not Hi-Fi enough. It is not the same thing as having the people in the same building and room actually. That is why people still do business-travel at great cost even though they can have a video-chat or video-conference.
It's another question as to when VR will become Hi-Fi enough to enable tele-presence almost indistuinguishable from real presense. 5G may not be enough. We may need 6G. But once we're there there's much less need for business-travel, commuting will be done for pleasure not for business.
It's pretty incredible, and these articles are never not fun to read about. There's also from time to time the World of Warcraft articles that pop up on HN.
Having interesting people to talk to, and shared experiences, made it all worthwhile.
They do have magical qualities though. I look forward to my next MMO addition.
You can purchase (with real money) an item called PLEX, which can either be applied to your account to extend your subscription, or sold to another player for in-game currency. There are many players who pay for their subscription by farming in-game.
“People say, ya know, ‘Get a life,’ and ‘This is a waste of time,’” Sae continues. “They have to understand that I only did this for an hour and a half each day just to unwind after work. I wasn’t killing myself doing this.”
Someone else telling me something is a waste of my time is pretty meaningless to me. And I also try not to tell other people they are wasting their time. I think a better way to convey that idea is to ask (e.g., my 5 y.o. son) "are you getting something out of doing this activity?" And if the answer is "yes", then who am I to judge. And if the answer is "no", then I either leave it at that and let them figure it out, or as in the case with my son, try to guide him towards doing something more productive or rewarding.
To me now, it's a really weird thing for someone to say to someone else you are wasting your time. Your time is only wasted if you think it's wasted.
To be sure, this is different if you're being paid by someone else. If you are doing something and your boss says stop wasting time, then maybe you comply. After all, if someone is paying for your time, then it's really their time, isn't it?
Since I am only doing social media, that is in some way better. #NoItsNot
I remember some old MUDs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD I didn't play much but I tagged along with some committed players. In that MUD (I don't recall the name) death was a serious consequence, something like a 25% exp hit when you die... serious consequences. Also the players role played pretty hard. No need for silly language but if you were a knight you were expected to be helpful, etc. Everyone played along.
One day a little trash talk happened when unexpectedly some high level dark players who you rarely saw (they had their on private island on the MUD and rarely left) hassled some random user in a big city. I was hanging with the knights and then all hell broke loose. Most of the players involved died (including me who was dumb enough to grab a sword I couldn't handle and ... it was cursed so I started attacking at random, dark guy's didn't like that).
The great part was that for years afterward people read and commented on other people's description of the fight. Totally organic event, serious consequences for all involved... it was great.
When games like WoW came out I was just ... not interested if there wasn't really anything on the line.
Eve looked awesome, but man I got a family and career ;)
I don't like skill injectors much, especially once it became possible to buy them with real world money... the classic pay to win scenario. They did it in the name of attracting new players because the game was difficult to get into. So, they've engaged in the race to the bottom trying to appeal to the people who don't want to invest the time and effort needed to grow in the game.
Like the original Everquest, the difficulty was what made the game worthwhile... you really value things if you have to work and learn to get them.
I played for years, but ultimately I stopped because of the skill injector changes and because the combat model is too dated, and that was limiting the rest of the game. Specifically, the fact that offense (e.g. lasers) subtracted from defence (armor, shields, hull) until they were down and ship go boom.
It didn't matter what side of your ship faced the enemy, which direction they were in, what the local conditions were (with the exception of some global conditions on a per system basis) and the weapons all did the same thing... the only differences were the visuals and ranges. The whole ship was one homogenous mass - no critical sections or systems, so it didn't matter where or what you hit.
Because of the above, the rest of the design was limited to things that would modify the above. Combat strategy was limited to surprise, stacking the odds in your favor, and knowing every detail about how the systems, ships, and bugs worked.
All that said, some people found creative ways to make it fun, and it's still the best MMO I've ever played.. no other game has ever gotten my heart racing like Eve. That's mostly due to the way the game was managed... scams, lies, all the worst of human deceit... but you could still "win" for a little while.
The main thing that killed it for me was the frustration of large battles - when the server was running at frames per minute and apparently impossible to assign more resources to the server even if you told them where a battle was going to happen. This just wasn't fun.
I think if they'd just spent the time on a major rework the game would still be growing today.
On the server side, the design is still better than any other I've seen, it's too bad they were so handicapped making it even better.
It's almost impossible to catch a fast cloaky hauler if they know what they're doing. It's been a while, but if I recall, you wait on the gate for around 15 seconds, then decloak, pulse your MWD, cloak, and immediately change directions. It's almost foolproof if you execute correctly. Now use a frigate like an exploration ship, and it's even easier.
I’m not a big gamer, but one of my favorites was Cataclysm Homeworld [1].
Part of the gameplay was navigation. But there was a strange artificial limit to rotating the map—it had a hard stop. Which I guess eliminates the need for instrumentation.
But I’m thinking with these programmatically generated worlds, it would be a mad skill to navigate in unlimited 3D orientation—infinite planes.
Anything like that in the wild?
1) it reads like shit 2) screenshots even shows the player char is female? 3) it feels so freaking forced.
I know i am probably downvoted now like hell but I am so sick of this movement to get rid of gender in text. It started with all of this ‘the programmer, he or she ...’, then everything was a ‘she’ (any male coders in modern textbooks anymore?) , and now all are ‘they’...
Call me conservative but I don’t like it. And tech is especially affected...
Every stupid js conf only has gender neutral toilets. And people fucking hate it. But no one dares too say it loud. Too easy to get banned...
btw being from the UK, "they" singular in text is normal, especially in this case where the gender of the player is unknown, and seeing he/she here would really trip me up (as it does when I read older articles from the US that use "he" arbitrarily). It's a style thing, but one I've always liked as more accurate.
Things will get out of balance the more it is forced, because with every politically correct motion, there is an equal opposite motion. All that is achieved is further polarization and misunderstanding.
To say the articles’ use of ‘they’ is normal in the UK feel duplicitous. I’ve read my fair share of British literature, newspapers and articles. The text feels completely alien to British writing.
I can't speak for the British writing you've read, but as a Brit living in and having grown up in the UK, singular non-gendered "they" is normal and common in both formal and informal text. Could be a function of my social context or the writing I've been exposed to, it's true. We all have our own perspective.
For example: "Could the person who left their umbrella please pick it up?"
However, here it is used in a rather new setting for a specific and known individual. This is a rather new phenomenon pushed by the transgender and genderqueer community.
I am specifically addressing the latter usage of the form 'they' in the third person singular. Do you agree this form is new? If not, could you give references to earlier usage than, say 1990?
I thought it was a fairly universal idea that there’s an high level of amount of gender imbalance with regards to professional programmers. Most frequently seen at programming meetups and conventions. Maybe it’s not commonly accepted as a problem in your sphere, but I’d bet if you asked around you’d get answers that surprise you.
Don't you think that by emphasizing the differences by forcefully changing our accepted speech, you are making it harder for women to enter the sphere?
To be able to fight, but refraining from fighting, is what makes us human. It allows us to show mutual respect and to form true connections.
Since the article is about the player more generally (the article discusses the player in other games), and the player prefers not to be gendered, I think "they" is appropriate here.
"Every one must judge according to their own feelings." That's a nice example on how it can be used. Most of the older examples include "every" or "any" before using they. I think I need to study that part of the language as (at least in some situations) it seems like a nice way to get around using a generic form.
In my language journalists created a new word for it that was met with resistance first, but it doesn’t corrupt another word and it has been added to all dictionaries and is used heavily.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/10/opinion/pronoun-they-gend...
I do not think a formal 'they' is improper, or a new innovation e.g. see comment here (https://www.lexico.com/en/grammar/he-or-she-versus-they) (I might amend this later to add some examples with some google-fu, but it shouldn't be hard to find some 17th-century prose). See also the comments and answers here https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/108457/is-using-...)
That said, the author misuses and misapplies the construct, as the gender seems known to me from a quick pass of the article, and as mentioned by other commenters. Yes, it feels forced and it usually doesn't -- you probably have already encountered similar examples before, but did not notice them.
We don't know the gender here.
It's probably more likely they just wanted to remain anonymous rather than this being part of some sort of movement to eliminate gender in text
So the only acceptable option by this line of thinking is that the default pronoun should be 'he/him'. This attitude seems something a little different from 'conservative'.
I agree that "they" is awful, and I would definitely prefer that we just have to make the unknown pronoun always be "she" if that is what everyone needs to not throw an inequality tantrum.
From this information the gender of the player is unknown, and since the article is about the player, not the avatar, gender neutral pronouns are appropriate to maintain journalist integrity.
From your comment it sounds like you’re attributing gender politics to this article where there isn’t necessarily any.
The fact that they play a female character does not mean they are female.
Conservative definitely checks out
I'm from the UK, it might be normal to occasionally say they when you don't know the name, gender and have an image but I don't agree with others that the way this article is written isn't very stilted as a result.
I think the wider debate has probably sailed. I remember the confusion at having to add a fourth gender (beyond M/F/other) to an input dropdown list on a system 10 years ago. It's probably a textarea now.
I thought this referred to a group known as the Katia Sae? Is this a person?
But worse, and I think more likely, it shows you are intolerant to change. I think that, equally likely, it shows you are just plain intolerant to some people.
There are two kinds of changes: for the better and for the worse. Being always pro-change would make one an idiot.
Everyone is intolerant to some people. Apparently you are intolerant to intolerant people.
I’m not sure if it’s something to get up in arms about, but it’s not really something to be bothered by either in my opinion.
My opinion is that pronoun doesn’t matter regardless of whether it’s he/she or they. They just seems marginally less effective at conveying information.
A good example of this is pretty much any football (soccer) stadium. For matches most of the crowd are men and a large number of them are drinking more than usual. Heck, I've been in a stadium with a 50/50 crowd: even when the toilets were split 2/1 for women in favor of men there was always a long queue for the girls and nothing for the boys.
Bathrooms are clean if you clean them. It is also more hygienic and gives a better impression of the place. Saving money by gendered bathrooms and only cleaning the bathroom once a week belong in the same gender discrimination category as other cost-saving tactics that involve gender.
Hover-pee is a really common thing for women, and the results are what you imagine bthey would be.
This is what I was replying to. Bit of a confusing way to say “enter a room containing a urinal” if that’s what you actually meant.
(I cringe every time someone uses the euphemism 'bathroom' to mean toilet. Like, we all know you are not going to take a bath in a pub after two pints right?)
Where people go to rest.
Or the wash room.
Where they go to, erm, wash.