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Rambles in July

Phew! Serious posting is exhausting stuff. Time for a skip post.


I love Eve. Sometimes, I think people wonder if I do with all the serious posting. I've been working on my weekly CSM post. I try to keep up with it during the week as not to miss little things that might interest people. It has a side effect of weighing my thoughts on various directions based off of things I've read or things I've discussed lately.

There are a lot of weighty topics in Eve. I am endlessly fascinated by the depths we, as players, go to and through to create and interact with the world we are in. The topic of activism has arisen over the last few days. It has managed to crest the tide of bitter negativity that has coated the greater Eve social sphere. But, I am amazed by it. I am amazed by us, to be honest.

The nature of the game gives the player no specific aim. That does not mean it is aimless. What that seems to develop is concepts. Eve is full of concepts. And those concepts spawn from the players. Only, it is not quite a 1 to 1 ratio of player to concept. Instead, we are in this great push and pull where we act and react to each other inside of our concepts as they merge with other peoples concepts. We create goals and we fight for those goals because if we do nothing we have nothing.

It is pretty amazing. Thinking is a lot of fun. The problem is that thoughts, actions, concepts, and things do not exist within the clean sterile void that we create them. They exist inside the game. The game with its good parts and its bad parts. Its joys and its irritation. The game which is full of people who are all playing a game.

We can't forget the game part. For every fantastic idea and amazing concept we have to remember that we are people playing a game.

When topics are discussed I often ask people what is in it for that party? What is it in for the line member? What is in it for the logistics pilot. Why should I follow you? Why should you follow me? Why should anyone give another their game time for another persons goals. I think that we focus so much on content that is created we forget that we have to give people reasons to want to do that content. We get so caught up in the conceptual goals and the beauty of numbers, figures, and what makes sense that all of the bits and bobs and inconveniences of having to log off and go have dinner with your family because you have to go to work in the morning get shunted aside.

But they are still there.

This is my work weekend. I work every other weekend. That means that I miss a very busy time for most people. It is not good or bad it simply is. I've worked weekends my entire adult life and this particular schedule is amazing to me. I have every other weekend off. It's exciting. But what it means in Eve is that I can often name make weekend timers. For anyone who plays structure games, making timers for the weekend is a thing. People have the weekend off after all. Except for those like me, who work weekends. It interrupts things.

And that's okay. Because, we are playing a game. I don't mean it in the condescending way that people use it when someone is affected by a loss. I simply mean that when talking about, looking at, working with, conceptualizing, creating, imaging, planning and plotting Eve, we shouldn't forget the game part.

I don't mean fun. Fun is nebulous and defined by the individual. I find this blog fun. I find my Jaguars fun. I find answering questions for the 100th time for someone new to the game fun. I find PvE fun. I find PvP fun. I don't find some aspects of the meta game fun. I don't find forum warrioring fun. I do find changing my portraits fun. This list goes on and on. It only matters in so far as that fun is relative to me.

And that means fun is relative to other people as well. Even when I don't understand it.

So, I'm going to stay over in this corner and rampage about having my version of fun. And I'll keep reminding people that I am, still playing a game. A serious game. A spaceship game. A game where my fun comes in responsibilities, chores, and cares. A game where I interact with thousands of people both by conscious and unconscious knowledge. A game where today I may fly and tomorrow I will fall.

A game that is a game.

I told Psianh I'd write something negative. Oh well. It's the last day of July. Welcome an August of Eve Online.

Comments

  1. The math in Eve is fun. At least until it becomes tedious in it's repetition, and then I write a spreadsheet which removes the math from the game. :(

    It's been the best and worst part of Crius. I've gotten to sit down and figure out the math again, which was the most fun I've had in Eve for a awhile, at least for a few days. Then it got soul crushingly monotonous, so had to re-author spreadsheets.

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