Hello, me.
When I awoke, I was told that many of my crew had settled, somewhere, married and retired. The majority, however, seemed content to wait for my return from deep sleep. Yes, my slumber has come to an end, though the nagging threat of existential doubt still lingers on. Should I walk again, pilot again those vast hulks of my armada, in spite of all the dead in the past? Should I allow myself to risk the lives of ever more of those I consider as my comrades or fellows? The old crew and me held us a meeting, and they were all ready to go, after years, ready to get that last fat salary to afford the mansion of their dreams.
I felt a tiny bit sorry for them, when they died in Abyssal space.
Showing posts with label Eve. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Eve. Show all posts
Clone monologues 19
Hello, me.
In the aether of New Eden, there is a sense of impending change. Capsuleers of all obediences are moving assets and ships all over the place, as if some huge conflagration was about to happen. People usher prophecies of thousands of conflicts about to burst into existence, of empires about to crumble and of the darkness of space swallowing whole regions.
I am about to take certain dispositions to ensure that I am able to function in this new paradigm. I have no idea where you will next wake up but, please, do not forget to update your clone. If things are going to get messy, we will need it sooner than later.
Do it.
In the aether of New Eden, there is a sense of impending change. Capsuleers of all obediences are moving assets and ships all over the place, as if some huge conflagration was about to happen. People usher prophecies of thousands of conflicts about to burst into existence, of empires about to crumble and of the darkness of space swallowing whole regions.
I am about to take certain dispositions to ensure that I am able to function in this new paradigm. I have no idea where you will next wake up but, please, do not forget to update your clone. If things are going to get messy, we will need it sooner than later.
Do it.
The end of virtual worlds
Edward Castronova has officially put an end to his MMO blog, Terra Nova.
I remember reading his 2007 book, Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun Is Changing Reality, and being fascinated by the idea that there were so many interactions between "the real world" and "the virtual worlds", with people "migrating" to virtual worlds because those provided more value to them than "reality", a reality that, in turn, had to adapt in order to recapture the attention of people. To me, the individual strategy of spending one's time in a "virtual world" because the "real world" fails to satisfy is one of "losers", and by "losers" I mean Hugh MacLeod losers as described in the Gervais Principle series by Venkatesh Rao. It is, in a way, a rational choice. (But let us remember that rational choices can be very wrong depending on the underlying premises.)
Edward Castronova suggests that virtual worlds left the front stage because they tried to be everything in one place and the trend is extreme fragmentation of functions.
I wanted to state that Eve Online remains true to the "dream", though it remains a small game from a small company. The large scope of its features might be the drawback that will prevent it to ever rise to mainstream level, in the current state of the internet. (Inside the game, there is in fact a fragmentation of playstyles: some players use the game as a chat tool, others for pvp, others play the economy, etc.)
Funnily enough, the schadenfreude that permeates Eve Online, and that Edward Castronova's text hints at very eloquently above, is both key to the success of this game and a guarantee it will never be the game for everybody that World of Warcraft strove to be.
The utocrats in CCP, publishers of Eve Online, learned to let go a little bit. They know that they only co-author the game experience, which results from the actions of the players within the sandbox they designed.
TL;DR (too long; didn't read): if you are looking for a virtual world, try Eve Online. It can be a cruel place but it is uncertain that virtual worlds can be anything else... And the internet spaceships are real pretty.
I remember reading his 2007 book, Exodus to the Virtual World: How Online Fun Is Changing Reality, and being fascinated by the idea that there were so many interactions between "the real world" and "the virtual worlds", with people "migrating" to virtual worlds because those provided more value to them than "reality", a reality that, in turn, had to adapt in order to recapture the attention of people. To me, the individual strategy of spending one's time in a "virtual world" because the "real world" fails to satisfy is one of "losers", and by "losers" I mean Hugh MacLeod losers as described in the Gervais Principle series by Venkatesh Rao. It is, in a way, a rational choice. (But let us remember that rational choices can be very wrong depending on the underlying premises.)
Edward Castronova suggests that virtual worlds left the front stage because they tried to be everything in one place and the trend is extreme fragmentation of functions.
It's interesting to reflect on why TN existed and why it went away. For a time in the last decade, there was a sense that an immersive 3D communal place was a substantial thing unto itself, and likely to become an important media offering. That has not happened. Instead, we've seen an unbundling of the parts of virtual worlds. Sociality went to Facebook. Complex heroic stories went to single-player games. Multiplayer combat went to places like DOTA and Clash of Clans. Economy games went to Farmville and the F2P clones. Virtual currency went to Bitcoin.
I wanted to state that Eve Online remains true to the "dream", though it remains a small game from a small company. The large scope of its features might be the drawback that will prevent it to ever rise to mainstream level, in the current state of the internet. (Inside the game, there is in fact a fragmentation of playstyles: some players use the game as a chat tool, others for pvp, others play the economy, etc.)
Perhaps virtual world designers were the latest incarnation of the utopian community builders of the 19th and earlier centuries. "If only we set up the rules correctly, people will naturally have a blast together!" No; I guess they won't. Not even if the utocrat can control physics down to the very atoms. Not even if the art and sound of the world is heavenly. Not even if people are given thousands of meaningful missions and wonderfully uplifting stories. Perhaps the mere presence of Others breaks whatever dream people are trying to have.
Funnily enough, the schadenfreude that permeates Eve Online, and that Edward Castronova's text hints at very eloquently above, is both key to the success of this game and a guarantee it will never be the game for everybody that World of Warcraft strove to be.
The utocrats in CCP, publishers of Eve Online, learned to let go a little bit. They know that they only co-author the game experience, which results from the actions of the players within the sandbox they designed.
TL;DR (too long; didn't read): if you are looking for a virtual world, try Eve Online. It can be a cruel place but it is uncertain that virtual worlds can be anything else... And the internet spaceships are real pretty.
Project Compass and the "box" in "sandbox"
In which I react to a micro-incident in Eve Online, eager to share and marvel at a creative endeavor by fellow players.
Worlds beyond the wormholes
In Eve Online, you find your fun in many ways, but the core gameplay is one of many-flavored combat. (Miners don't extract fun from the game; they extract ores.) Stellar systems, for example, are categorized primarily in function of the restrictions to combat. You can fight in known space (empire, low-sec and 0.0) and in something called wormhole space, a wondrous network of mysterious interconnected stellar systems which appeared later in the life of the game.
Combat is supported by other forms of gameplay which provide the elements necessary for a good fight. For example, players can have their characters engineer the production of industrial items, like guns, often using space structures called Control Towers.
And then there is emergent gameplay: methods to fun that CCP, the developers of the game, did not necessarily think about beforehand. Even though they do not directly encourage or condone each of these methods, they strive to provide a favorable context for players to come up with creative ways to enjoy the game, whose most vaunted feature is its focus on sandbox gameplay and player-influenced narrative.
1300 light years from the center of New Eden...
Back to wormhole space: a few roleplayers decided their characters would launch an in-game initiative to research its location using advanced mathematics. Poetic Stanziel explains: "Project Compass' mission statement was to determine the location of w-space (aka Anoikis) with respect to k-space (aka New Eden). And further down the line, to map Anoikis systems with respect to each other." If it still sounds a little bit cryptic, what about this: to simulate the wormhole systems in its software, CCP gave them coordinates somewhere in the same tridimensional virtual world already host to known space. Project Compass used a little-known function of Control Towers to calculate those locations, using those equations. They invested time and in-game money to build a network of Control Towers for this purpose.
Knowing where the wormhole systems are in the virtual world has no in-game consequence, as wormholes are the only way to travel there (you cannot travel directly to another stellar system, much to my chagrin). It does not help in any way to perform better in the game and its in-game acquisition takes a lot of hard work (out of game, the information can actually be found in the public data dump). Its relentless pursuit is thus of the foremost importance and extremely fun.
Well, was actually, because the Crucible 1.5 patch removed this possibility: "Control towers in wormhole space no longer reveal distance in the Control Tower Management window." This change kills Project Compass before it completes its virtual astronomy masterwork. Time to remember that the sandbox is a box!
Why
Project Compass, because it is shared with the community, contributes much more to Eve Online than just the fun of the players involved. Why was this, admittedly extremely niche, method to fun patched out of the game?
I would guess a purely technical reason. CCP has no interest in punishing players finding unlikely fun with minor game mechanisms and playing around the enigmatic quality of wormhole space.
Chances are the developer(s) who championed this change of the rules never heard about Project Compass until the patch went live. If that is so, I hope that, in the future, they manage to squeeze some time in-between two daily scrums to watch the fragile mini-systems of fun that grow like lichens on the most unlikely parts of their game. And when those rare varieties of fun are roleplaying-based, CCP has one simple way to soothe their pain while changing a rule: just maintaining the coherence of the game narrative by providing a background explanation to the change.
Whatever the reason, when players explore the physics of the game, they tread the thin frontier between emergent, exploratory gameplay and the exploitation of game mechanics for combat or griefing. That is why the developers removed the methods to create deep space safes, used by some to park ships in space out of reach of all would-be probers (explorers), or why they prohibited the use of "grid fu" to manipulate the shape of the immediate viewable environment around the ships of player characters.
Someday, some capsuleer will stumble upon bits of code in-game and argue on the in-character forums about the possibility that New Eden is an artificial world.
The discussion is going on in this forum thread and on the Poetic Discourse: Thoughts from a graduate capsuleer blog post.
Worlds beyond the wormholes
In Eve Online, you find your fun in many ways, but the core gameplay is one of many-flavored combat. (Miners don't extract fun from the game; they extract ores.) Stellar systems, for example, are categorized primarily in function of the restrictions to combat. You can fight in known space (empire, low-sec and 0.0) and in something called wormhole space, a wondrous network of mysterious interconnected stellar systems which appeared later in the life of the game.
Combat is supported by other forms of gameplay which provide the elements necessary for a good fight. For example, players can have their characters engineer the production of industrial items, like guns, often using space structures called Control Towers.
And then there is emergent gameplay: methods to fun that CCP, the developers of the game, did not necessarily think about beforehand. Even though they do not directly encourage or condone each of these methods, they strive to provide a favorable context for players to come up with creative ways to enjoy the game, whose most vaunted feature is its focus on sandbox gameplay and player-influenced narrative.
1300 light years from the center of New Eden...
Back to wormhole space: a few roleplayers decided their characters would launch an in-game initiative to research its location using advanced mathematics. Poetic Stanziel explains: "Project Compass' mission statement was to determine the location of w-space (aka Anoikis) with respect to k-space (aka New Eden). And further down the line, to map Anoikis systems with respect to each other." If it still sounds a little bit cryptic, what about this: to simulate the wormhole systems in its software, CCP gave them coordinates somewhere in the same tridimensional virtual world already host to known space. Project Compass used a little-known function of Control Towers to calculate those locations, using those equations. They invested time and in-game money to build a network of Control Towers for this purpose.
Knowing where the wormhole systems are in the virtual world has no in-game consequence, as wormholes are the only way to travel there (you cannot travel directly to another stellar system, much to my chagrin). It does not help in any way to perform better in the game and its in-game acquisition takes a lot of hard work (out of game, the information can actually be found in the public data dump). Its relentless pursuit is thus of the foremost importance and extremely fun.
Well, was actually, because the Crucible 1.5 patch removed this possibility: "Control towers in wormhole space no longer reveal distance in the Control Tower Management window." This change kills Project Compass before it completes its virtual astronomy masterwork. Time to remember that the sandbox is a box!
Why
Project Compass, because it is shared with the community, contributes much more to Eve Online than just the fun of the players involved. Why was this, admittedly extremely niche, method to fun patched out of the game?
I would guess a purely technical reason. CCP has no interest in punishing players finding unlikely fun with minor game mechanisms and playing around the enigmatic quality of wormhole space.
Chances are the developer(s) who championed this change of the rules never heard about Project Compass until the patch went live. If that is so, I hope that, in the future, they manage to squeeze some time in-between two daily scrums to watch the fragile mini-systems of fun that grow like lichens on the most unlikely parts of their game. And when those rare varieties of fun are roleplaying-based, CCP has one simple way to soothe their pain while changing a rule: just maintaining the coherence of the game narrative by providing a background explanation to the change.
Whatever the reason, when players explore the physics of the game, they tread the thin frontier between emergent, exploratory gameplay and the exploitation of game mechanics for combat or griefing. That is why the developers removed the methods to create deep space safes, used by some to park ships in space out of reach of all would-be probers (explorers), or why they prohibited the use of "grid fu" to manipulate the shape of the immediate viewable environment around the ships of player characters.
Someday, some capsuleer will stumble upon bits of code in-game and argue on the in-character forums about the possibility that New Eden is an artificial world.
The discussion is going on in this forum thread and on the Poetic Discourse: Thoughts from a graduate capsuleer blog post.
Clone monologues 18
Hello, me.
In the past year, I have mostly dealt with logistics, that is, moving ships and assets from one base of operations to another. The carrier has seen repeated use as the Epsilon Lyr capsuleers have traveled space in their quest for a new stronghold to forge their destiny in. My crewmen, like the true space nomads they have become, barely ever leave their jumpsuits. And today, once again, we are on the move. The morale is high, but this is not the life I wanted. I long to experience another time-dilated space battle in my glorious Abaddon, like the one yesterday.
I might receive more than I asked. When you awaken, pray that your life will be violent, and leave out the short part.
In the past year, I have mostly dealt with logistics, that is, moving ships and assets from one base of operations to another. The carrier has seen repeated use as the Epsilon Lyr capsuleers have traveled space in their quest for a new stronghold to forge their destiny in. My crewmen, like the true space nomads they have become, barely ever leave their jumpsuits. And today, once again, we are on the move. The morale is high, but this is not the life I wanted. I long to experience another time-dilated space battle in my glorious Abaddon, like the one yesterday.
I might receive more than I asked. When you awaken, pray that your life will be violent, and leave out the short part.
Experiences with space democracy
This post is part of the EVE Blog Banter, a monthly Eve Online blogging extravaganza maintained by Seismic Stan. The polls have just opened for the election of candidates to occupy the 14 seats on the 7th Council of Stellar Management. To kick-start a topical CSM-themed banter, CCP Xhagen - fierce champion of freedom of speech and in his words, "the guy that gets yelled at when the CSM dudes do booboos" - has offered this question: "How would you like to see the CSM grow, both in terms of player interaction and CCP interaction?"
Pay to vote
The Council of Stellar Management (CSM) is a group of players elected by the player-base of Eve Online. It originates with the publisher of the game rather than the community itself, and its main mission seems to be to allow players to contribute meaningful ideas to the development and exploitation of the game beyond the playing itself. CCP, the publisher, seems to believe there should be no taxation without representation, so the right to vote is not given to actual persons but to game accounts: players get as many votes as they have accounts (sometimes two or more). Subscribers, not players or characters, have the right to vote.
One of the main hurdles on the digitization of the real life voting process is indeed the necessary verification of the voters's identity. The set of processes devised by the democracies of the 19th century to ensure transparency in elections does not function so well over the Internet. Unlike what happens in South Korea, where players have to provide their Social Security number before they can play online games, CCP cannot know for sure the identity of the players. They have settled for the next best thing, their database of accounts.
Liquid democracy?
CSM members are representatives, they gather physically to hold meetings, they elect a chairman, etc. This part is very traditional, too much for my taste in fact. This game is a sandbox, a space to explore alternatives and boldly go where no elective process has gone before! Thus, one thing I would like to see is something different. I have an example that I intend only as a starting point. The German Pirate Party has implemented within its ranks a system of direct democracy called "liquid democracy". In a nutshell, the word "liquid" refers here to the way you can delegate your vote on a specific topic to somebody you trust on this issue, and this person can in turn delegate his vote to somebody else, etc., in a flow. Search for it and you will find explanations of the concept, such as in this wiki.
Bring on the science fiction
I am not saying it would be a good idea to implement such a system as is, I am saying that Eve Online is a game, not an actual country, and though hundreds of people depend on it for their livelihood, they can also take much riskier stances and innovate like crazy, and it might just work, thanks to all those brilliant minds in the community and in the company.
Check other Eve Blog Banter articles on the same topic:
Further Resources
CSM Vote-Match (candidate/voter compatibility test)
Jita Park Speakers Corner (discussion forum)
Council Candidates Voting Page The Council of Stellar Management - Implementation of Deliberative, Democratically Elected, Council in EVE by Pétur Jóhannes Óskarsson (CCP Xhagen)
Pay to vote
The Council of Stellar Management (CSM) is a group of players elected by the player-base of Eve Online. It originates with the publisher of the game rather than the community itself, and its main mission seems to be to allow players to contribute meaningful ideas to the development and exploitation of the game beyond the playing itself. CCP, the publisher, seems to believe there should be no taxation without representation, so the right to vote is not given to actual persons but to game accounts: players get as many votes as they have accounts (sometimes two or more). Subscribers, not players or characters, have the right to vote.
One of the main hurdles on the digitization of the real life voting process is indeed the necessary verification of the voters's identity. The set of processes devised by the democracies of the 19th century to ensure transparency in elections does not function so well over the Internet. Unlike what happens in South Korea, where players have to provide their Social Security number before they can play online games, CCP cannot know for sure the identity of the players. They have settled for the next best thing, their database of accounts.
Liquid democracy?
CSM members are representatives, they gather physically to hold meetings, they elect a chairman, etc. This part is very traditional, too much for my taste in fact. This game is a sandbox, a space to explore alternatives and boldly go where no elective process has gone before! Thus, one thing I would like to see is something different. I have an example that I intend only as a starting point. The German Pirate Party has implemented within its ranks a system of direct democracy called "liquid democracy". In a nutshell, the word "liquid" refers here to the way you can delegate your vote on a specific topic to somebody you trust on this issue, and this person can in turn delegate his vote to somebody else, etc., in a flow. Search for it and you will find explanations of the concept, such as in this wiki.
Bring on the science fiction
I am not saying it would be a good idea to implement such a system as is, I am saying that Eve Online is a game, not an actual country, and though hundreds of people depend on it for their livelihood, they can also take much riskier stances and innovate like crazy, and it might just work, thanks to all those brilliant minds in the community and in the company.
Check other Eve Blog Banter articles on the same topic:
- Freebooted: Blog Banter 34: The Rise of the Spaceship Politicians (check for new links)
- Killers, Thieves and Lawyers by Corelin @ Mad Haberdashers
- Credibility by Ender Black @ Pod Goo
- Blog Banter 34 by Nikolaj Vincent @ EVE Stratics
- Blog Banter 34 by Scitor Nantom @ Tilt180
- Blog Banter 34 by Drackarn @ Sand, Cider and Spaceships
- Spaceship Politics by Mara Rinn @ Rinn's Rants
- A CSM for all parties by Emergent Patroller
Further Resources
CSM Vote-Match (candidate/voter compatibility test)
Jita Park Speakers Corner (discussion forum)
Council Candidates Voting Page The Council of Stellar Management - Implementation of Deliberative, Democratically Elected, Council in EVE by Pétur Jóhannes Óskarsson (CCP Xhagen)
Space captain: real-life corporation wants its name back
The players of the online game Eve Online manage many useful websites and services and one of the most significant is Dotlan. Dotlan provides the community with an efficient interface to exploit the game's public API.
Wollari, who runs the site, mentioned on Twitter that a real life company got in touch with him about an in-game corporation, included in his site's database, which was using their trademark. Wollari directed them to CCP, the publisher of the game.
I have no idea about the specifics. The founder of the in-game corporation could have consciously used the name of an existing company. Or it could be a case of making up a random name without knowing it already exists. In both events, the use of an existing trademark and the reaction of the company are of interest.
I was discussing yesterday with a graphic designer about logos. There are untold numbers of them and making sure the one you create is unique is a logistical nightmare. At least, the aforementioned company has plenty of search engines to identify any issue with its name. The world of pictures is not as easy to search as the world of words. A logo, like a name, is supposed to be unique. But everything has already been made. Words, pictures, guitar riffs... and cool-sounding corporation names. It is OK at some level, but not always, and certainly not for the next thousand years. How to deal with the scarcity of the resource?
This situation is exacerbated by the ubiquitous connection that redefines our society. Back in the days, we could bear the same name and nobody would know about it. Today, a real corporation can search its name on the Internet and take issue with a fictitious corporation using its name in an imaginary science-fiction universe.
Perhaps both words and logos could be assigned more insubstantial qualities. Right now, there are legal ways to ascertain your ownership of a name, but no cloaking device, no way to dampen the "signature radius" of a content on the Internet outside of the website you operate, signalling that "this is just for me and my pals, please leave me alone"; also, there is no invisible guardian angel hovering over your content on the Internet, making sure no one misunderstands what it is connected to. There is only the relentless purge of copies of names for dubious benefit to the society.
DUST 514 to be free-to-play: what next?
CCP announced that their online first-person shooter DUST 514 will be free-to-play. It means that we expect any owner of the supported gaming platform (PlayStation3) to be able to experience the game, at release, in a reasonably enjoyable fashion without having to pay an entry fee. Some players will provide revenue to the publisher by acquiring virtual goods to enhance their gaming experience.
Besides the fact that free-to-play is such an established business model nowadays, with huge hits such as League of Legends and World of Tanks, there are specific reasons why this announcement makes sense. The Eve brand is not known in console gaming circles, despite the buzz that has been growing around the development of DUST 514. CCP needs to diversify its income and there is no easier way to capture the attention outside of its traditional sphere of influence than by giving away the game.
Sony has a disproportionately high stake in this game, since it is both exclusive to their platform and allows them to reach to other gaming communities. If we do not pay the product, I guess we are the product. The competition from Facebook and Apple and who knows what must have Sony desperate to grow their flock and provide a credible alternative. In this world of abundant content, trading the entry fee for future microtransaction revenue makes sense if you are confident in the quality of your game.
Anyway, I am curious to see how the advertised connection between Eve Online and DUST 514 performs and what effect it will have on both gaming communities. Designing it seems like a recipe for headaches.
For Eve, we have one and soon two online games, a few books (my review of The Burning Life), a boardgame (my review), plenty of user generated content... I still think a small game for smartphones would make a nice addition to that.
I hope we can see more meaningful connections like that in the future, within the contexts of the Eve universe and of games in general. I dislike transmedia when its purpose is only to cover all bases.
What next?
There are many other games where I would enjoy this kind of cross-games interaction. For example, month-long play-by-email turn-based strategy games could connect with real time strategy games (for battles) or infiltration games (for espionage), etc. It would make some kind of long gaming continuum. This possible trend might mean some feature-rich games could drop features and those features would become complete games on the most relevant platform. Games might focus on what they do best and connect with complementary games based on previous features. MMOs are very feature-rich so I would not be surprised to see other announcements about games connected to MMOs. Wargaming.net (World of Tanks) might provide the combat game for Bioware's Star Wars MMO, for example!
Games might be created from the ground up with this connection in mind, like DUST 514, or they could reach to other games later in their career. The "connection feature" could redefine online games and the market of games.
Or DUST 514 could tank. We'll see!
Besides the fact that free-to-play is such an established business model nowadays, with huge hits such as League of Legends and World of Tanks, there are specific reasons why this announcement makes sense. The Eve brand is not known in console gaming circles, despite the buzz that has been growing around the development of DUST 514. CCP needs to diversify its income and there is no easier way to capture the attention outside of its traditional sphere of influence than by giving away the game.
Sony has a disproportionately high stake in this game, since it is both exclusive to their platform and allows them to reach to other gaming communities. If we do not pay the product, I guess we are the product. The competition from Facebook and Apple and who knows what must have Sony desperate to grow their flock and provide a credible alternative. In this world of abundant content, trading the entry fee for future microtransaction revenue makes sense if you are confident in the quality of your game.
Anyway, I am curious to see how the advertised connection between Eve Online and DUST 514 performs and what effect it will have on both gaming communities. Designing it seems like a recipe for headaches.
For Eve, we have one and soon two online games, a few books (my review of The Burning Life), a boardgame (my review), plenty of user generated content... I still think a small game for smartphones would make a nice addition to that.
I hope we can see more meaningful connections like that in the future, within the contexts of the Eve universe and of games in general. I dislike transmedia when its purpose is only to cover all bases.
What next?
There are many other games where I would enjoy this kind of cross-games interaction. For example, month-long play-by-email turn-based strategy games could connect with real time strategy games (for battles) or infiltration games (for espionage), etc. It would make some kind of long gaming continuum. This possible trend might mean some feature-rich games could drop features and those features would become complete games on the most relevant platform. Games might focus on what they do best and connect with complementary games based on previous features. MMOs are very feature-rich so I would not be surprised to see other announcements about games connected to MMOs. Wargaming.net (World of Tanks) might provide the combat game for Bioware's Star Wars MMO, for example!
Games might be created from the ground up with this connection in mind, like DUST 514, or they could reach to other games later in their career. The "connection feature" could redefine online games and the market of games.
Or DUST 514 could tank. We'll see!
Eve Online has shards
The single most vaunted feature of Eve Online, along with the focus on sandbox gameplay, has to be its single shard universe. All players are able to interact with each other in the context of the game. The single shard leverages the full potential of the community.
This is a marketing lie. Another shard of Eve Online has existed for years in China. My understanding is that this quasi-clone of the original version was created to comply with Chinese rules. Some of these rules are about the nature of content, e.g., the possibility to destroy a capsule ("podding") has been removed. Other rules are about capital ownership. CCP just announced a new partnership with TianCity to publish Eve Online in China. I thought this press release would be a good occasion to reflect about the Chinese shard.
Right now, the Chinese players explore a world that is but a copy of the one explored by the global players. They cannot interact with other players. In my opinion, being exclusive in such a way betrays the ethos of Eve Online. This is obviously a business compromise, but the role of content creators is to accommodate business and technical impediments.
What would have made sense, if the law compels CCP to prevent Chinese customers to interact with non-Chinese, would have been having the Chinese customers play in a different part of the game universe. Trouble is, this will not happen. The background is intricately burrowed into the game system as in, a massive quantity of game objects are not background-neutral. Ships are obviously the result of the industry of specific civilizations. The same for Captain's Quarters, faces, plenty of skills, etc. A whole new series of stars and planets would have to be generated and named. The expansions have been built around a peculiar narrative, etc.
But still, it bugs me. I need to rationalize this other shard because, in the back of my mind, I still hope that at some point a grand unification of the Eve universe will happen.
Then again, maybe an entirely different set of human empires is located on the other side of the Jovian empire. The Joves are not talking, but have been feeding these empires with technology originating from Dodixie and Amarr. Or it could be a case of the parallel universes.
In the future, I hope this situation gets solved. Perhaps TianCity will go beyond publishing a clone. To keep with the spirit of Eve Online, they ought to make sure that their customers can explore a world that is truly theirs and not a carbon copy of the first one, minus some stuff that the Chinese government dislikes. This way, the fantasy that there is only one instance of the Eve cluster will be maintained.
This is a marketing lie. Another shard of Eve Online has existed for years in China. My understanding is that this quasi-clone of the original version was created to comply with Chinese rules. Some of these rules are about the nature of content, e.g., the possibility to destroy a capsule ("podding") has been removed. Other rules are about capital ownership. CCP just announced a new partnership with TianCity to publish Eve Online in China. I thought this press release would be a good occasion to reflect about the Chinese shard.
Right now, the Chinese players explore a world that is but a copy of the one explored by the global players. They cannot interact with other players. In my opinion, being exclusive in such a way betrays the ethos of Eve Online. This is obviously a business compromise, but the role of content creators is to accommodate business and technical impediments.
What would have made sense, if the law compels CCP to prevent Chinese customers to interact with non-Chinese, would have been having the Chinese customers play in a different part of the game universe. Trouble is, this will not happen. The background is intricately burrowed into the game system as in, a massive quantity of game objects are not background-neutral. Ships are obviously the result of the industry of specific civilizations. The same for Captain's Quarters, faces, plenty of skills, etc. A whole new series of stars and planets would have to be generated and named. The expansions have been built around a peculiar narrative, etc.
But still, it bugs me. I need to rationalize this other shard because, in the back of my mind, I still hope that at some point a grand unification of the Eve universe will happen.
Then again, maybe an entirely different set of human empires is located on the other side of the Jovian empire. The Joves are not talking, but have been feeding these empires with technology originating from Dodixie and Amarr. Or it could be a case of the parallel universes.
In the future, I hope this situation gets solved. Perhaps TianCity will go beyond publishing a clone. To keep with the spirit of Eve Online, they ought to make sure that their customers can explore a world that is truly theirs and not a carbon copy of the first one, minus some stuff that the Chinese government dislikes. This way, the fantasy that there is only one instance of the Eve cluster will be maintained.
A short night
Some kind of emergency signal is blaring. After a vain and quick struggle, barricaded under a large pillow, the fat man fails to contain the noise and awakes. The cabin is empty but for him, a mound of clothes and what could pass as a bed in a place with little room and taste.
INTRUDER ALERT, says the alarm in the alien language.
The fat man gets dressed in a hurry, checks his weapons and prepares to open the door.
Sudden silence takes him off balance.
He stops before committing to the lock, pays attention like a bad kid at school in a streak of concentration.
Silence, silence and a big fat door.
He moves the lock with dancer's grace and slides through into the unknown. Barely thinking: not now, not now, not now...
A DIFFERENT SCREAM/ALERT. Some system is hurting.
Fat man goes hunting.
INTRUDER ALERT, says the alarm in the alien language.
The fat man gets dressed in a hurry, checks his weapons and prepares to open the door.
Sudden silence takes him off balance.
He stops before committing to the lock, pays attention like a bad kid at school in a streak of concentration.
Silence, silence and a big fat door.
He moves the lock with dancer's grace and slides through into the unknown. Barely thinking: not now, not now, not now...
A DIFFERENT SCREAM/ALERT. Some system is hurting.
Fat man goes hunting.
Stranded
The fat man has an air of authority around him. He is seating lazily, hands on his shirt, waiting for the crowd to move. Next to him crouches a child with the stern eyes of a watch dog.
A villager comes forth, chances a request. With an unshaven smile, the petty lord denies it.
You want the key to the sky, but I just do not see what's in it for me at this stage.
A ruckus.
Guys... guys, guys. I'm just sayin', I'm not actin' in your best interests that's for sure, but think about it. You used to hate your old life. Now you have a purpose, a new home to build, and I am totally ok with that. I'm not killing, I'm not raping anybody.
We tried your ways, we tried the statistics and the satellite, and it did not work out for us. Now let us try my way, violence that could be and a tax in food and women. I am not un-gentle but please accept I do not consider myself exiled here by misfortune and this terrible crash. I had a long look around and I like what I saw. This is my place.
The fat man is the new lord of this virgin world. He can be; planets far from Empire space are rarely exploited as they should be. Barring a deployment of troops and industries for planetary exploitation, Fat Man can hope to live long and happy. The child is the sole survivor of the noble family who commissioned the ship. He used to be a baby, a toddler; he now is an uneducated blue blood savage. The wreck's riches are still many; some systems function flawlessly. All are keyed to the genetic pattern of the orphan.
As long as the boy can bring power and light in the community, the fat man will rule.
A villager comes forth, chances a request. With an unshaven smile, the petty lord denies it.
You want the key to the sky, but I just do not see what's in it for me at this stage.
A ruckus.
Guys... guys, guys. I'm just sayin', I'm not actin' in your best interests that's for sure, but think about it. You used to hate your old life. Now you have a purpose, a new home to build, and I am totally ok with that. I'm not killing, I'm not raping anybody.
We tried your ways, we tried the statistics and the satellite, and it did not work out for us. Now let us try my way, violence that could be and a tax in food and women. I am not un-gentle but please accept I do not consider myself exiled here by misfortune and this terrible crash. I had a long look around and I like what I saw. This is my place.
The fat man is the new lord of this virgin world. He can be; planets far from Empire space are rarely exploited as they should be. Barring a deployment of troops and industries for planetary exploitation, Fat Man can hope to live long and happy. The child is the sole survivor of the noble family who commissioned the ship. He used to be a baby, a toddler; he now is an uneducated blue blood savage. The wreck's riches are still many; some systems function flawlessly. All are keyed to the genetic pattern of the orphan.
As long as the boy can bring power and light in the community, the fat man will rule.
The bike and the barbecue
This post is part of the EVE Blog Banter, a monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to him. The twenty-sixth topic comes from @KatiaSae of the much praised To Boldly Go blog, who asks us: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. As an astrophotographer, I've found it in the stars and planets of New Eden. Where have you found it? Perhaps you've found beauty in the ships we fly? Maybe it's the sight of profits being added to your bottom line? Or maybe it's the pilot portraits you see in the comm channels? Where ever you've found it, write about it and post an image." Don't be afraid go beyond the simple visual aspects of EVE as well. Is the EVE Community in itself a thing of beauty? What makes EVE the game, the world, the Community, so appealing to you?"
Beauty in the last three days
I have a bike and it is the most beautiful bike ever. Truckers are jealous so they keep trying to run over it. If they manage to dismantle it, they will sell the parts to Russian robots. I push the speed to 11!
Picture of the barbecue you can sometimes hear old pilots banter about. Everybody is tending his marshmallow. On the audio channel, the Slovakian fleet commander is telling jokes in broken English.
Check other Eve Blog Banter articles on the same topic.
Beauty in the last three days
I have a bike and it is the most beautiful bike ever. Truckers are jealous so they keep trying to run over it. If they manage to dismantle it, they will sell the parts to Russian robots. I push the speed to 11!
Picture of the barbecue you can sometimes hear old pilots banter about. Everybody is tending his marshmallow. On the audio channel, the Slovakian fleet commander is telling jokes in broken English.
Check other Eve Blog Banter articles on the same topic.
- CrazyKinux's Musing: Beyond nebulas and shiny ships
- Freedom: the beauty in EvE » A Mule In EvE
- where the frack is my ship?: Blog Banter 26: Love at first sight
- BlogBanter 26: EVE … beautiful … « One capsuleer against all
- Blog Banter 26 « Mad Haberdashers
- » Blog Banter 26: Beauty of EVE – To Boldly Go To Boldly Go
- Down By Law: Blog Banter #26: "The Beauty of EVE" (OOC)
- Blog Banter #26 – Beauty « Roc's Ramblings
- Banter #26: Beauty is in the eye of the markets | Diary of a Garbageman
- Progression's Horizon: Blog Banter 26- Carry It With Us, Or We Find It Not
- Blog Banter 26: The Beauty of Eve « A Scientist's Life in Eve
- Freebooted: BB26: The Beauty Between the Lines
- Eve Opportunist: EBB #26 : Beauty is destruction.
- Blog banter #26: EVE shines, and not just visually « Diary of a Pod Pilot
- Learning to Fly - Spinning ships since 2003
- BB26: Beauty, in certain conditions | A Missioneer in Eve
- Dying in Lowsec (One Hauler at a time)
- EVE Blog Banter #26 – Beauty « Evehermit's Blog
The space commute
This post is part of the EVE Blog Banter, a monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to him. The twenty-fifth topic comes from @Tetraetc - Tetra's EVE Blog, who asks us: "Have Alliances and the sovereignty system limited the amount of PVP and RP potential in Null sec? Imagine a Null Sec where anyone could build outposts wherever. Would the reduction of the alliance game mechanic, and the removal of the sovereignty game mechanics (or the modification of it from Alliance level to Corp level for that matter) force more PVP into Null sec, or would giant power blocs like the NC still form themselves?"
Strategic warfare: blobbing
How do you get your fix of player-versus-player adrenaline if you need to travel a long way before locating ships your in-game organization allows you to shoot at? For those who revel in the proverbial "good fight" rather than in-game commute, the game loses value. This can happen in empires: the Northern Coalition and the Clusterfuck Coalition are, for the time being, "best friends forever". You can travel for dozens of jumps and keep within the boundaries of friendly space. Drone Russians and their allies too occupy huge tracts of space and make their best not to interfere with each other's business (some of them, if rumors are to be believed, due to the laws of robotics).
When roaming pvp is time-consuming, fleet battles are incredibly more so, with hours lost waiting for gigantic fleets to move. Logistic bottlenecks (rally point, FC, titan bridge, liquid ozone, cyno ship, etc.) become the main obstacle to reach desired critical numbers on the battlefield. Why the swarms ?
1. Two fishes will eat one fish.
2. Military tactics on a strategic level are designed around lag, which makes and unmakes victories. Lag makes it important to occupy a strategic system before the enemy and for as long as possible.
Blobbing, that is, refusing to engage with nothing less than an obvious advantage and a sun-blotting quantity of ships, thus emitting waves of soul-crushing lag, becomes the rational tactic. (My perception, not necessarily an ubiquitous reality in all of 0.0.)
Are alliances the problem?
As far as I know (I was not a capsuleer back then), functional alliances predate the game mechanism providing an umbrella organization to friendly corporations. It is one of those instances when new features help structure what was essentially the spontaneous evolution of the political system from its corporation-based origin [insert Darwin quote]. One could argue that the geopolitical landscape of 0.0 nowadays is really shaped by the decisions of bloc leaderships; perhaps will we see someday the introduction of a coalition game mechanism (with actual alliance-like mechanisms or through an evolution of "treaties", a proposed game mechanism purportedly designed to help small entities finding their place in the 0.0 geopolitical ecosystem).
As long as strength lies in numbers
Groups of players will keep forming functional alliances at a strategic level as long as it makes sense, as long as they can find an advantage in this situation. The need for protection, the ambition to conquer, the desire to exploit, are all best served by people cooperating on a grand scale.
If both the alliance game mechanism and the current sovereignty system are modified so that corporations become the sovereignty unit in 0.0, large fleet battles will become more difficult to engineer. However, players will find different ways to collaborate and to replicate alliance functionalities. For example, they can establish huge standings list like the one Curatores Veritatis Alliance manages, or they can reuse the high-sec Red vs Blue concept of warring corporations, which ties players not to common territory but to common enemies. Mega-corporations would certainly see a surge, with massive influx of players into a few corporations, thus decreasing the biodiversity of 0.0. Reducing the role of alliances does not sound to me like the easy fix to commuting warfare. Modifying the sovereignty system itself (the way a system is conquered and exploited) might do the trick if, somehow, it becomes overkill or counter-productive to bring a blob to a battle.
Check other Eve Blog Banter articles on the same topic.
Strategic warfare: blobbing
How do you get your fix of player-versus-player adrenaline if you need to travel a long way before locating ships your in-game organization allows you to shoot at? For those who revel in the proverbial "good fight" rather than in-game commute, the game loses value. This can happen in empires: the Northern Coalition and the Clusterfuck Coalition are, for the time being, "best friends forever". You can travel for dozens of jumps and keep within the boundaries of friendly space. Drone Russians and their allies too occupy huge tracts of space and make their best not to interfere with each other's business (some of them, if rumors are to be believed, due to the laws of robotics).
When roaming pvp is time-consuming, fleet battles are incredibly more so, with hours lost waiting for gigantic fleets to move. Logistic bottlenecks (rally point, FC, titan bridge, liquid ozone, cyno ship, etc.) become the main obstacle to reach desired critical numbers on the battlefield. Why the swarms ?
1. Two fishes will eat one fish.
2. Military tactics on a strategic level are designed around lag, which makes and unmakes victories. Lag makes it important to occupy a strategic system before the enemy and for as long as possible.
Blobbing, that is, refusing to engage with nothing less than an obvious advantage and a sun-blotting quantity of ships, thus emitting waves of soul-crushing lag, becomes the rational tactic. (My perception, not necessarily an ubiquitous reality in all of 0.0.)
Are alliances the problem?
As far as I know (I was not a capsuleer back then), functional alliances predate the game mechanism providing an umbrella organization to friendly corporations. It is one of those instances when new features help structure what was essentially the spontaneous evolution of the political system from its corporation-based origin [insert Darwin quote]. One could argue that the geopolitical landscape of 0.0 nowadays is really shaped by the decisions of bloc leaderships; perhaps will we see someday the introduction of a coalition game mechanism (with actual alliance-like mechanisms or through an evolution of "treaties", a proposed game mechanism purportedly designed to help small entities finding their place in the 0.0 geopolitical ecosystem).
As long as strength lies in numbers
Groups of players will keep forming functional alliances at a strategic level as long as it makes sense, as long as they can find an advantage in this situation. The need for protection, the ambition to conquer, the desire to exploit, are all best served by people cooperating on a grand scale.
If both the alliance game mechanism and the current sovereignty system are modified so that corporations become the sovereignty unit in 0.0, large fleet battles will become more difficult to engineer. However, players will find different ways to collaborate and to replicate alliance functionalities. For example, they can establish huge standings list like the one Curatores Veritatis Alliance manages, or they can reuse the high-sec Red vs Blue concept of warring corporations, which ties players not to common territory but to common enemies. Mega-corporations would certainly see a surge, with massive influx of players into a few corporations, thus decreasing the biodiversity of 0.0. Reducing the role of alliances does not sound to me like the easy fix to commuting warfare. Modifying the sovereignty system itself (the way a system is conquered and exploited) might do the trick if, somehow, it becomes overkill or counter-productive to bring a blob to a battle.
Check other Eve Blog Banter articles on the same topic.
- CrazyKinux's Musing: EVE Blog Banter #25: And by Alliance you mean.....?
- BB25 What sov changes will come? | A Mule In EvE
- Confessions of a Closet Carebear: Alliances and Sovereignty
- Blog Banter 25: Nerfing Nulsec « OMG! You're a Chick?!
- Have Alliances and the sovereignty system limited the amount of PVP and RP potential in Null sec? | Nitpickin's
- Blog Banter #25: Alliance and Sovereignty Limiting PvP in 0.0? | Sarnel Binora's Blog
- Blog Banter #25 - Mad Haberdashers
- Alliances and sovereignty | Eve Online Focus
- ...Shall we not Revenge?: BB 25: What if the Alliance vanished?
- Blog Banter: Alliances and Sov
- EVEOGANDA: BB25: Sov 'n Go!
- » TBG:EBB#25 – Alliances and Sovereignty To Boldly Go
- Freebooted: BB25: Leviathans of the Deep
- Wrong Game Tetra ~ Inner Sanctum of the Ninveah
- EVE Blog Banter #25 – Human nature what art thou? | Way of the Gun
- Who cares about Sov? - Hands Off, My Loots! ~ well sorta like an entry! :p
- The 25th EVE Blog Banter: Alliances and sovereignty - The Phoenix Diaries
- Wandering the Void…my EvE musings. – Blog Banter: Alliances and sovereignty
- (OOC) CK’s Blog Banter #25: How To Break EvE. « Prano's Journey
- Captain Serenity: Blog Banter #25 - Crappy mechanics
- Helicity Boson » Blog Banter #25 Nullsec and sov.
- BB #25 – “With whom lie the advantages derived from Heaven and Earth?”
- Boom! Hull-Shot?: It's the End of the Eve as We Know It
- sered's lives: EVE Blog Banter #25 - Size does matter
- 25th EVE BB – Medieval Solutions to Spaceship Problems | Inventions of a New Eden Industrialist
- Eve Blog Banter #25: “Have Alliances and Sov Limited PvP and RP in 0.0?” « Align Outbound
- Banter 25: Sovereignty, Alliances and Power Blocs | TheElitist
- Blog Banter 25 – But I just left all that! « A Scientist's Life in Eve
- Nobody likes losing « One capsuleer against all
- >>>Vigil Ant: Alliances and SOV by Munny's eyes.
- Latro's Bunker: Blog Banter 25 -Nullsec and Sov
- A "CareBears" Journey » Blog Banner #25: Alliances and Sovereignty, and their affect on PVP and RP
- Blog Banter #25 – Unstoppable « Roc's Ramblings
- Nobody likes losing « One capsuleer against all
- EVE Blog Banter on PVP in Null Sec « Evehermit's Blog
- Sleepless in Space: Blog Banter #25: Moar Low Sec!
- More to come...
Do not pronounce the J word
"The North" refers to the Northern part of the fictional Eve star cluster from Eve Online, specifically territory held by the player-run Northern Coalition power bloc.
"Jumping" is the act of using a stargate to transport one's space ship from one star system to another one. Active stargates emit impressive quantities of light.
"Lemmings" has been adopted into Northern Coalition fleets to designate players who carelessly and/or unknowingly disobey orders to hold on the gate and instead jump to the next star system, probably to be ruthlessly dispatched by an enemy fleet.
"Do not pronounce the J word" refers to the fact that, in "military conditions" (bad audio system, fleet commander is not native English speaker, did not pay attention anyway, watching TV at the same time, choking on noodles while piloting one's ship, somebody spoke on corp comms at the same time, wife screaming, oh my god revolutions in Arab countries), it is imperative to assume that when you utter the words "Do NOT jump. The enemy would kill you!" a statistically significant number of players will notice that your sentence includes the word "Jump" and thus will jump. Then somebody else notices the activating stargate and thinks "everybody is jumping! I will not be the last" and you get the so-called jumping-off-a-cliff lemming effect.
Clone monologues 17
Hello, me.
So I had me a facelift. It's all the rage currently. Satisfied by the result, not mightily but satisfied. The power and magnificence of my station need to be properly displayed on my face for any potential crewman to behold. Nowadays, with all the competition in 0.0, plus one fine carrier to man, I need to pump up the propaganda to recruit enough.
So my face is like a new flag. The Man. Sign here and here.
Some of the juvenile enthusiasm is gone, though, and you can read it on my skin. The Tau Ceti Federation is no more, just a hollow shell against name-stealers, a reminder that all glorious things come to pass and I am no different. We just need to make the best out of the time left.
You will read much more in the mirror the day you replace me, count on it.
So I had me a facelift. It's all the rage currently. Satisfied by the result, not mightily but satisfied. The power and magnificence of my station need to be properly displayed on my face for any potential crewman to behold. Nowadays, with all the competition in 0.0, plus one fine carrier to man, I need to pump up the propaganda to recruit enough.
So my face is like a new flag. The Man. Sign here and here.
Some of the juvenile enthusiasm is gone, though, and you can read it on my skin. The Tau Ceti Federation is no more, just a hollow shell against name-stealers, a reminder that all glorious things come to pass and I am no different. We just need to make the best out of the time left.
You will read much more in the mirror the day you replace me, count on it.
The Burning Life
Category: Science-fiction novel
Page count: 330
Language: English
Author(s): Hjalti Daníelsson
Publisher: Gollancz (Orion Publishing Group)
Year of publication: 2010
ISBN: 978-0-575-09017-0
In a very distant future, human civilizations have emerged from an age of darkness in the star cluster known as New Eden. The conflicts between them are resolved in space battles daily led by immortal capsuleer captains. One of them attacks and destroys Drem's colony, killing all the people he ever cared about. Drem vows to avenge himself.
The setting of the novel originates with Eve Online, a massively multiplayer online game.
Review
Spoilers below, including the ending.
The first official novel-sized adaptation of the Eve universe was The Empyrean Age (2008), by Tony Gonzales. In my opinion, it was a weak book, definitely not only-100-books-in-your-island material, but I remember enjoying it. Things were happening: a war between two superpowers was in the making.
The Burning Life, on the other hand, disappointed and bored me, much to my surprise. I really do like some "chronicles" (short stories) the author, also known as CCP Abraxas, has published on the official Eve Online website, for example The Part Where I Play the Devil and A Beautiful Face - but there are plenty more. Some of these short stories rock and contribute much to the background of Eve. Hjalti Daníelsson is very good with scenes and the best parts of The Burning Life are just that: scenes, short story material. The meeting with the Upright Man springs to mind, and could as well be an Eve chronicle.
But story? Lively narration? Not there. Turning pages was a little bit painful at times.
The relationships between the characters, Drem and Verena to begin with, made me cringe. I find it difficult to express why. Perhaps because they were way too much predictable and lacking, well, character? We could have done without the romance. We know Drem and Ralea are going to make it to the end; not once did I fear for their life. Even the factions look bland. The Blood Raiders, this horrific sect of butchers, are almost made into a bunch of normal people with suburbian values. There is way too much morality, trust and due process in this book. We get to see how even pirate factions function with the kind of rules and organization you find in the corporate world. That is okay at some level, but it also detracts from the aura of these criminal cartels.
I did not like the way the book looks like a guided tour of the four empires and the most important faction pirates. It looked too much artificial, reeked of marketing imperatives. I did not buy the book to "learn the setting of Eve", I did it for the story, and even potential Eve players who buy this book are looking for a story rather than a wiki.
I thought this structure made New Eden look smaller than it was. More than five thousand star systems, trillions of inhabitants, and the killer of a drug dealer (what's that supposed to deserve, a slap on the hand?) cannot hide anywhere? The universe in the novel is for my taste considered too much from the peculiar point of view of capsuleers rather than normal people.
The synopsis is good if ironic for an Eve player. The elevator pitch: "A missioning carebear (player character -pc- who avoids conflicts with other players) destroys a pirate colony during a mission; a non-playing character (npc) loses everything during that event, and decides to go on a quest for revenge." The novel speaks about the consequences of the casual slaughters perpetrated by player characters between two bio breaks. It is a fun premise for a story.
The anticlimactic ending, though conceptually interesting, failed to impress me. It proposes again consequences, but from the npc world to the pc one. In a nutshell, the npc extort a promise from an unnamed capsuleer to steal the assets of his alliance. This kind of theft is a common occurrence in the game. Corp thieves are now able to better roleplay their misdeeds! As an Eve player, seeing and making this kind of connections entertains me, the same way I was entertained when A Beautiful Face (see above) explained the consequences of the "character picture-swapping" in-game functionality.
In conclusion, the overabundance of stuff kills the potential of the story. The book has its moments (mewling True Sanshas, Gallentean body artists), but becomes boring after a while. I am certain CCP Abraxas can do much better, if he does not let anything go in the way of his story, and I hope he will grace us with more good reading in the future!
Page count: 330
Language: English
Author(s): Hjalti Daníelsson
Publisher: Gollancz (Orion Publishing Group)
Year of publication: 2010
ISBN: 978-0-575-09017-0
In a very distant future, human civilizations have emerged from an age of darkness in the star cluster known as New Eden. The conflicts between them are resolved in space battles daily led by immortal capsuleer captains. One of them attacks and destroys Drem's colony, killing all the people he ever cared about. Drem vows to avenge himself.
The setting of the novel originates with Eve Online, a massively multiplayer online game.
Review
Spoilers below, including the ending.
The first official novel-sized adaptation of the Eve universe was The Empyrean Age (2008), by Tony Gonzales. In my opinion, it was a weak book, definitely not only-100-books-in-your-island material, but I remember enjoying it. Things were happening: a war between two superpowers was in the making.
The Burning Life, on the other hand, disappointed and bored me, much to my surprise. I really do like some "chronicles" (short stories) the author, also known as CCP Abraxas, has published on the official Eve Online website, for example The Part Where I Play the Devil and A Beautiful Face - but there are plenty more. Some of these short stories rock and contribute much to the background of Eve. Hjalti Daníelsson is very good with scenes and the best parts of The Burning Life are just that: scenes, short story material. The meeting with the Upright Man springs to mind, and could as well be an Eve chronicle.
But story? Lively narration? Not there. Turning pages was a little bit painful at times.
The relationships between the characters, Drem and Verena to begin with, made me cringe. I find it difficult to express why. Perhaps because they were way too much predictable and lacking, well, character? We could have done without the romance. We know Drem and Ralea are going to make it to the end; not once did I fear for their life. Even the factions look bland. The Blood Raiders, this horrific sect of butchers, are almost made into a bunch of normal people with suburbian values. There is way too much morality, trust and due process in this book. We get to see how even pirate factions function with the kind of rules and organization you find in the corporate world. That is okay at some level, but it also detracts from the aura of these criminal cartels.
I did not like the way the book looks like a guided tour of the four empires and the most important faction pirates. It looked too much artificial, reeked of marketing imperatives. I did not buy the book to "learn the setting of Eve", I did it for the story, and even potential Eve players who buy this book are looking for a story rather than a wiki.
I thought this structure made New Eden look smaller than it was. More than five thousand star systems, trillions of inhabitants, and the killer of a drug dealer (what's that supposed to deserve, a slap on the hand?) cannot hide anywhere? The universe in the novel is for my taste considered too much from the peculiar point of view of capsuleers rather than normal people.
The synopsis is good if ironic for an Eve player. The elevator pitch: "A missioning carebear (player character -pc- who avoids conflicts with other players) destroys a pirate colony during a mission; a non-playing character (npc) loses everything during that event, and decides to go on a quest for revenge." The novel speaks about the consequences of the casual slaughters perpetrated by player characters between two bio breaks. It is a fun premise for a story.
The anticlimactic ending, though conceptually interesting, failed to impress me. It proposes again consequences, but from the npc world to the pc one. In a nutshell, the npc extort a promise from an unnamed capsuleer to steal the assets of his alliance. This kind of theft is a common occurrence in the game. Corp thieves are now able to better roleplay their misdeeds! As an Eve player, seeing and making this kind of connections entertains me, the same way I was entertained when A Beautiful Face (see above) explained the consequences of the "character picture-swapping" in-game functionality.
In conclusion, the overabundance of stuff kills the potential of the story. The book has its moments (mewling True Sanshas, Gallentean body artists), but becomes boring after a while. I am certain CCP Abraxas can do much better, if he does not let anything go in the way of his story, and I hope he will grace us with more good reading in the future!
Gaming propaganda
I made this poster in reference to a coalition of "alliances" of players of Eve Online.
In the context of this game, part of the playground is dominated by such space-holding alliances of hundreds of players who share unity of purpose in some of their activities. Morale and the will to overcome obstacles are key to their success and survival, many of them being involved in a virtual war against those who would conquer or resist them. Moreover, the strategic necessities of internet spaceship warfare prompt these alliances to enter into treaties of mutual assistance in order to muster bigger fleets and reach the breaking point of their common adversaries first.
Demoralization of their foot soldiers and betrayal by their peers are two of the biggest dangers alliances face. As such, Eve Online has proven a fertile ground for disinformation, marketing and propaganda.
The poster above supports the cause of the Northern Coalition, a group of thousands upon thousands of players from all over the world, who play together when they connect to the game. Tau Ceti Federation, my alliance, belongs to the Northern Coalition and takes an active part to the defensive war against powerful invaders from the South. The ebbs and flows of this conflict makes for exciting evenings, both as a participant and a spectator.
The "bring a point" words make a reference to the in-game ability of some equipment to stop enemy ships from fleeing the scene of their impending demise by "tackling" or "pointing" them. Any brand new player can bring a point in a battle besides Brobdingnagian dreadnoughts and make a difference, as pointed out in an older and famous "every ship counts" piece of propaganda by Goonswarm.
The team spirit can sometimes manifest in jingoistic or totalitarian prose, which make for a fun read and a good laugh, as illustrated by Razor Alliance's Ministry of Propaganda and Morale.
I used the official Northern Coalition "best friends forever" slogan, alliances logos designed by their respective authors, and a screenshot from some battle in the North a few weeks ago. The image features ships of all sizes, from the puny frigate to the gigantic titan.
This is my football.
Clone monologues 16
Hello, me.
In two days, supposedly, a huge coalition of bad willing alliances is going to attack the peaceful guardians and gentle capsuleers of the Northern Coalition, of which the Tau Ceti Federation is a pillar.
The IT Alliance did not begin this war with a victory. In Saranen, a low-sec system obviously used for logistical purpose by SirMolle's throng, a glorious fleet of the Northern Coalition has defeated a poorly coordinated fleet, reinforced a FinFleet starbase and held the ground.
One of the key factors of this victory is the introduction of the new secret weapon, the Arbinought: a cruiser-sized capital ship which I was honored to pilot in battle.
What, "pictures or it did not happen"?
I hope you take notes, son. If I'm dead, you're the one in charge of propaganda here.
In two days, supposedly, a huge coalition of bad willing alliances is going to attack the peaceful guardians and gentle capsuleers of the Northern Coalition, of which the Tau Ceti Federation is a pillar.
The IT Alliance did not begin this war with a victory. In Saranen, a low-sec system obviously used for logistical purpose by SirMolle's throng, a glorious fleet of the Northern Coalition has defeated a poorly coordinated fleet, reinforced a FinFleet starbase and held the ground.
One of the key factors of this victory is the introduction of the new secret weapon, the Arbinought: a cruiser-sized capital ship which I was honored to pilot in battle.
What, "pictures or it did not happen"?
I hope you take notes, son. If I'm dead, you're the one in charge of propaganda here.
Broken motorbikes
This post is part of the EVE Blog Banter, a monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to him. The topic of this special installment is: "Why do you love EVE Online so much?"
"Enemy ships in sector 37!"
When it's the nineteeen-eighties, and you take a kid, of the male brand, not one of those pink-wearing doll-scolding Muggles, a regular kid, around 9 or 10 for example, and you give him access to a TV set in the Western world, sometimes, things happen. Marvelous things. Space ships appear on the black and white screen. Some of them huge, bulbous "star cruisers" crewed by a fish-like alien race. Some of them nimble fighters ready to unleash their vengeful payload upon that-which-is-not-a-moon, the ultimate vessel of evil in the galaxy (not speaking about SirMolle)... But we all know it's a trap. It's the eighties and the kid watches the final battle above the Death Star in the Return of the Jedi and, then, there is no return to Earth, the moment has defined him, the sky is now where the game begins.
I already knew what spaceships were
A long time ago, before they began selling internet spaceships, merchants used to sell motorbike toys, able to cross the span of a small table with their pretend motor. I must have been a solid 5 or 6 back then, and I had such a bike, for which I remember manifesting only mild interest. At school, I had a friend who had something much better up his sleeve. This enterprising fellow was building himself a space ship.
Now, any five-year old engineer will confirm to you a space ship takes time and effort to assemble. And what good are friends for if not to lend a hand to such endeavors? While not up to date about the latest developments in spaceship-building technology, I was aware that space ships were made of pieces of metal and where do you find pieces of metal? In motorbike toys, that's where. I decided to sacrifice mine in order to win myself a spot in my friend's space ship and I managed to extract some sort of a thin rod, obviously the core component of any man-made technology.
When my friend invited me to his place, I was conceivably excited. Perhaps would I be able to go with him on a test flight above the city? I kind of remember that he was appreciative of my offering of the rod, but told me the space ship's structure, while well on its way to completion, in the other room just behind the door, was not yet open to viewing. He would finish it later. I left his house with a sense of regret because I would have to wait a few more days before being able to co-pilot our saucer. Will you believe what happened next? The bastard did not mention the ship again, and I assume he has left the planet without me.
Flash forward
Elitist jerk : "Lose the stabs"
Gabriel DiCozza : "[random smack]"
Random Local passerby : "[witty retort]"
My friend left in a space ship and all I got was this lousy massively multiplayer game, Eve Online. Sometimes, holy shit lag is spiking, and the logs they show nothing. Sometimes, the magic kicks back in, and I am back to the battlefield above Endor. Rarely, I get a Proustian whiff of eternity, I switch the music back on, and it's like a shot of pleasure, I remember what it was like to be a noob in 1.0 and how fun the game was, how happy a child I was, when flying a space ship never seemed so close.
Check other Eve Blog Banter articles on the same topic.
"Enemy ships in sector 37!"
When it's the nineteeen-eighties, and you take a kid, of the male brand, not one of those pink-wearing doll-scolding Muggles, a regular kid, around 9 or 10 for example, and you give him access to a TV set in the Western world, sometimes, things happen. Marvelous things. Space ships appear on the black and white screen. Some of them huge, bulbous "star cruisers" crewed by a fish-like alien race. Some of them nimble fighters ready to unleash their vengeful payload upon that-which-is-not-a-moon, the ultimate vessel of evil in the galaxy (not speaking about SirMolle)... But we all know it's a trap. It's the eighties and the kid watches the final battle above the Death Star in the Return of the Jedi and, then, there is no return to Earth, the moment has defined him, the sky is now where the game begins.
I already knew what spaceships were
A long time ago, before they began selling internet spaceships, merchants used to sell motorbike toys, able to cross the span of a small table with their pretend motor. I must have been a solid 5 or 6 back then, and I had such a bike, for which I remember manifesting only mild interest. At school, I had a friend who had something much better up his sleeve. This enterprising fellow was building himself a space ship.
Now, any five-year old engineer will confirm to you a space ship takes time and effort to assemble. And what good are friends for if not to lend a hand to such endeavors? While not up to date about the latest developments in spaceship-building technology, I was aware that space ships were made of pieces of metal and where do you find pieces of metal? In motorbike toys, that's where. I decided to sacrifice mine in order to win myself a spot in my friend's space ship and I managed to extract some sort of a thin rod, obviously the core component of any man-made technology.
When my friend invited me to his place, I was conceivably excited. Perhaps would I be able to go with him on a test flight above the city? I kind of remember that he was appreciative of my offering of the rod, but told me the space ship's structure, while well on its way to completion, in the other room just behind the door, was not yet open to viewing. He would finish it later. I left his house with a sense of regret because I would have to wait a few more days before being able to co-pilot our saucer. Will you believe what happened next? The bastard did not mention the ship again, and I assume he has left the planet without me.
Flash forward
Elitist jerk : "Lose the stabs"
Gabriel DiCozza : "[random smack]"
Random Local passerby : "[witty retort]"
My friend left in a space ship and all I got was this lousy massively multiplayer game, Eve Online. Sometimes, holy shit lag is spiking, and the logs they show nothing. Sometimes, the magic kicks back in, and I am back to the battlefield above Endor. Rarely, I get a Proustian whiff of eternity, I switch the music back on, and it's like a shot of pleasure, I remember what it was like to be a noob in 1.0 and how fun the game was, how happy a child I was, when flying a space ship never seemed so close.
Check other Eve Blog Banter articles on the same topic.
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