[And now for some sleeping fever fueled musings on concepts and definitions]
"You do not have to be powerful to be successful."
A quote from my public chat.
Power is defined
here as: Strength
Success is defined
here as: Personal Achievements
The conversation
was one that started, as conversations often do, off of another
aspect of fact and opinion. I was discussing a disagreement I had with a player
about new players not being able to catch up to old players. In that
conversation I pointed out the fallacy of the statement because
things max out and more skill points only create more options. I also
said that I felt the desire to receive something to balance the game
for new players vs old was only an unspoken desire for "shiny now".
My words taste of,
"pay your dues" but I feel they are more, "play the game".
I have a dislike for those that seek instant gratification due
to personal lust. I want many things. I really do. I
don't want to grind through Minmatar Battleship V and Gallente Battleship V
before I fly my Machariel. But I will. It isn't pay your dues so
much as the way the game is laid out. Not liking it because one
cannot have something now doesn't make it bad.
What it often is
is a craving for power. The basic advancement of video games has been a
steady rise in power. Once levels up, gains experience points
or whatever they decide to call them and one improves from there. The
level one was at before is always lower then the level one gets to. This
is the main factor of the early dissatisfaction the real time
training gives to people.
Yet, it isn't that
way. Power in Eve is an intangible substance. There is
the base power that we all understand. It is what causes people to list
for Titans in their earliest hours. For a Titan is the biggest ship and
therefore conceptually it seems as if it should be the most powerful. Yet
a Titan is led by a pilot and the Titan relies heavily on two small, harmless
creatures. One is the cyno ship, so small and cute, a tiny beacon of
wonder that can save a Titan from death. The other is
the logistics ship that brings it fuel and maintains the POS that it
logs off in.
Is the Titan
powerful without these things? It was not created to be able to care for
itself. It is powerful but only in a role. The cyno
frigate holds enormous power by a simple self destruct command by its
pilot or even better a non activation of the cyno field. Manipulation,
control, they are all aspects of power that are not physical.
The leader of a
large corporation or alliance will often have millions of skill points in
corporation management The entire point of the skill tree is to
enroll members, expand the corporation and eventually create alliances, hold
Sov and such wonderful things. But they are
not psychically powerful as a battleship is a
physical Representative of power. Yet who would not consider
the leader of said group powerful?
Then if you look
at the trickle effect of power as it works its way down to the command structure
of the game. The battleship pilot is a powerful player but they are a
piece moved by the greater aspect of their corporation or alliance or
even a smaller representation of their role in fleet.
And what about a
name? Even the weakest pilot can become something eyed with caution due
to no more than their corporation or alliance. Look at the endless
arguments for AFK cloakers and their ability to lockdown a system when they may
be in no more than the smallest most fragile and gunless of frigates.
Eve is composed of
so much textured concepts that sometimes people solo because they can establish
more of a personal identity. It is easier to feel
ones strength when one is alone. But as long as battleships
greatest fears are often embodied in the small, fragile bodies of
frigates, strength is not the defining measures of power.
If power is such
an intangible and flexible concept
then success is the same. The is a desire to be successful.
It may not be a goal but the desire is there. From success one can
build power. However, from power one may not be able to
build success if power is only defined as strength.
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