So to answer the Blog Banter question, "What's on the other side of that plateau?", this is it. We are on the other side of the plateau. We as a playerbase have chased off any decent human being that wants to play. We have distilled ourselves down into everything that is wrong with humanity and convinced ourselves that it is all some kind of elaborate inside joke. We are what is wrong with the game, and the worst part of it is that we hold CCP hostage. Every time they try to expand the game or draw in new players, we create a scandal to sabotage their efforts. I hope CCP can find a way to get away from depending on EVE as their main source of revenue, because that's the only way EVE will ever get better and grow.I 100% agree that we are our own worst enemies for this game expanding beyond its current status. For every helpful EVE University, there are a hundred high sec war deccing corps preying on newbie mining or missioning corporations and killing them for fun and little profit. For every Angel project, there are a hundred scammers. For every Aideron Robotics corporation that helps new players get on their feet and into PvP in low sec, there are a hundred corp awoxers.
And any attempt to give the new players, those most vulnerable to the depredations of veterans, any semblance of reasonable protection is met with howls and outrage.
It would be funny if it wasn't the first ring of the bell sounding the eventual death knell of EVE Online.
Anyway, go read his whole post.
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It does not at all surprise me that someone from hisec would have that attitude.
ReplyDeleteHisec has a disproportionate amount of the "worst EVE [and by extension humanity] has to offer": from the "tears into lulz" hisec deccers, to the entitled narcissist carebear who thinks every game, MMO or not, should center on him/her as the One Hero to Rule Them All ... to the asocial who wants to play MMOs as if they were single-player games.
Funny thing is, if ALL of those particular kinds of players would all "give a little", EVE could be awesome, and EVE probably COULD sustain 50k+ a day (with some "ecological" fixes, of course). But they don't, they won't, they can't. Why? Because as OP pointed out -- they are the worst of humanity.
Then there's the sov null blocs -- by and large their leadership consists of megalomaniacal Mittani-wannabes that care only for their precious "Solar Empires" (and killboard stats, can't forget the :l337PvP: too!), and while they may be great statisticians and "managers", have NO fucking clue how to lead or motivate people. I'd call them mid- to high-functioning Aspies, but that'd be an insult to Asperger's patients everywhere.
He's right that there's a ton of fuckheads in EVE, but what to do about that? Simple. We make like the Spartans and fight 300:10,000 odds, and all die in glorious fires.
That, or you could lay down and kiss the feet of the asshat "Persians" like a carebearian boy-lover.
You don't seem to understand the point.
DeleteThe issue is that people who may become good targets later are treated so awfully on their beginnings, that they will quit and not become a long term player.
Those who can accept this situation as new players are those who will quickly turn to the bad boys, leaving only few players as sheeps. And that's an issue if there's not enough sheeps and too much wolves.
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DeleteI _understood_ the point perfectly -- that EVE is full of bad guys and badder guys, and there are approximately 5 "decent" people left in hisec. I got that, loud and clear, thanks.
DeleteClearly you're of the camp that believes "if you disagree with me, it must be because you're stupid", so if it amuses you to think me stupid, please do so.
I happen to be well-acquainted with ecology -- in fact I have written a couple of blog entries about just that: ecology as it relates to EVE.
On that subject, I would say, that as "66%" of the population lives in a fenced-in pasture known as hisec, protected by electric fences that help keep the "wolves" (-5 and below) at bay, while sheepdogs known as CONCORD avenge the rest of the flock, munching mindlessly on rocks or red crosses, quietly unaware of anyone else except to think of them as NPCs ... I'd say that the sheep are doing very, VERY well.
In fact, I'd say the sheep are doing SO well, that if you increased their hisec population much more, you'd cause an _over_population problem. Competition for now-scarce resources like asteroid belts, ice fields, anoms and complexes, not to mention manufacturing/research slots ... push the sheep population much higher without some serious ecological changes to the game, and you'll find a bunch of sheep dying tearfull of "content-starvation", as missions are the only "on-demand" resource available.
I must have been lucky. The vast majority of players I've encountered (in hisec, mostly) have been great folks. Mentors, teachers, builders, leaders, socialites, bi-polar lowsec assassin / nurses. Folks helped build corps, established POSs, creating webs of relationships that still exists to this day.
ReplyDeleteAre there mean folks in EVE? I expect so. Are there asshats. Yup. Are the communities of elitist sexist pigs that in any normal world I'd block in an instant. Yup. Welcome to real community. Sorry folks, that asshat in the picture frame over there is you. EVE reflects reality folks.
Is the community in EVE worse that others? I'd say no. Does the game allow ourselves to exercise our inner dictator? Yup. Do the game mechanics allow us to do things that we'd never consider in real life? Yup. Guess what, it was designed that way.
Despite the game mechanism allowing stuff like this, EVE university exists. Red/Blue. Players mentor other players. As any system becomes more complex, more niches exist for organisms to occupy, the richer the ecosystem, the stronger it becomes. The more complex organisms become, the number and types of niches increase.
Be thankful that our community is a vibrant as it is, for it means there is still energy here. Once the community is down to a handfull of different voices, once the choices we have become stagnant and simplified, then the ecosystem will die.