> The galaxy of New Eden is composed of nearly 8,000 star systems.
I loved Eve Online when I played it in the mid 2000s but its point and click mechanics as well as you'd have to wait days even weeks to acquire skills in some cases made me lose interest in the game. It has its addictive qualities too where you feel you could go on playing it forever while knowing you have got to stop playing it for your own good.
Years later I got introduced to Elite Dangerous and it's been a lot more fun than Eve. Elite gives players the opportunity to fly by binary stars, fly through neutron star jet cones to overcharge fsd drives, combats close to stars, land on planets and even more simulated activities. If you have a VR the game becomes a unique experience. The game's map is based on Milky Way galaxy and the systems are procedurally generated. I remember last year the devs announced approx 112000 individual systems were discovered and this is about 0.028% of the total. Anyway, a few months ago I solo traveled to Sag A* and returned later to the bubble (where Solar system and surrounding systems are). It took me 2 weeks to complete the trip and at times it was pretty boring. On the other hand it is the only game that let me experience the stress of flying near a black hole and I am grateful to the devs for making it possible.
I played Freelancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freelancer_(video_game) long ago. It had about 30 "star systems", each one is about 100KM~200KM in-game distance in diameter. It's a fascinating game back in the day, and cost me years of free time.
When I jump from that game to EVE, it's very obvious to me that EVE is not for explore. You can do that of course, but you will be bored fairly quickly even compare to games like Freelancer.
In Freelancer, every "star system" that I jump into gives me a feeling of mysterious, until I cruise through every inch of the map, and memorized every cruise path and hidden "Wormhole"s.
In EVE, every system feel like the same. Yes, they have different layout, NPC and background, but still, it feel like repeat.
I believe EVE is more of a game of politics. A game about ruling, conquer and team work. Explore? not so much.
I don't know, maybe because the map of EVE is too big to provide saliency. In Freelancer, every map is manually made to service the background story, so each one is different in their own ways. Also, because the map is so small, you can make them vibrant easily.
Ever since Star Citizen betrayed us by walking back their "third person Freelancer-style combat" promise there hasn't been much hope for anything that recaptures that spark. I can tell you that Everspace is the closest I've come. The lore and plot are skimpy and the star systems are procedural but it absolutely nails the combat.
Indeed. I'm not sure Chris Roberts has actually seen a jet fighter because the cockpits of all his space fighters look like those of World War 2 bombers with 60% of the field of view blocked by giant metal struts. My sedan offers better situational awareness than his starships.
I am quite amused by the idea that you think someone in a spacecraft of any kind would gain situational awareness by looking out a window using the Mk 1 eyeball.
Which begs the question, why have cockpit glass at all instead of immersing the "pilot" in a virtual environment with the most useful data available? Maybe something resembling, say, a chase cam?
If we were going for "hard sci fi", you'd need some kind of drone or something to provide the chase cam perspective which seems like it would be a massive liability in combat.
I agree a virtual environment would be preferable, although rather than representing the surroundings visually (which has a lot to distract from tactical decision-making), I'm picturing something like a higher-definition version of Elite Dangerous' IFF interface (with the little dots showing their relative angle to the ship).
Did you ever play Star Citizen? I bought into the kickstarter because it was a "spiritual successor" to Freelancer, but never actually got around to playing it. Also have no idea what happened to it, if the development tanked, etc.
Absolutely second that
Freelancer was an amazing game, I loved both the single player and (modded) MP with role playing. Tried Eve Online but it's just a completely different genre.
If you like ED and haven’t already you should check out No Mans Sky, the devs botched the launch but as of 2019 they’ve delivered nearly everything they did promise and some stuff they didn’t, next up is VR.
It feels like a living universe, planets are varied and wild, the creatures are inventive, as are the vehicles, you can build bases, Terra from areas, plant crops etc, it’s a really relaxing game.
Me and the kids played for hours, but there were some parts that were far too frustrating. I often ran out of those stupid red crystals and couldn't find any on the planet. So I'd be stuck there for hours and hours just dying and looking for them. Also, the story/UI were confusing as hell, I could never remember what was going on, who I was friends with, where I was going next. Overall, a confusing and boring game.
I remember playing Elite back in the DOS years, that made me go buy a PS4 and try NMS. After a disappointed start I phased it out. I know thaat now the games is miles ahead of what it set out to be on the original launch, but that shit has sailed for me. Now I got a PS4 collecting dust because of that (not much of a gamer anyway). If I read that NMS drops some major-mega-big-update I may start it deom scratch.
>you can build bases, Terra from areas, plant crops etc
This reminds me of the same confusion I had with Starbound: why do I have all these features that require me to settle down in one place to get the most from them when the game wants me to explore the far reaches of space? These things seem to pull in opposite directions.
Starbound at least lets you put a teleporter in your base so you can always return quickly no matter where in the universe you are.
In NMS, you can teleport to your base(s) from any starbase, and teleport back again. You can also purchase a freighter and use it as a customizable mobile base.
There's no requirement to have a base of any sort. If you want to be purely nomadic with just a small ship, you can. But, bases are fun to build and design. Provides a solid income if you want it. From a psychological point of view, it's also nice to have a place to call home in the midst of a vast and nearly infinite universe.
Indeed and you use the portals to jump to planets with resources that you need frequently (or in my case to a planet I named Boneyard that seems to have an absurd amount of ancient bones and blind sentinels).
As a counterpoint, as a long-time Eve player, Elite Dangerous has that "a mile wide, but an inch deep" feeling. Those billions of procedurally generated systems begin to blend together. Likewise, the procedurally generated minor factions are nearly indistinguishable from one another.
The heart and soul of Eve is based on its "single shard" system, where there is no opt-out. As a result, actions have consequences; decisions matter. Players who don't leave "empire space" are relatively safe, but if they're transporting something particularly valuable, other players will weigh that against losing their own ships to the empire police. Players drive the "Background Sim" in Eve: prices of commodities and manufactured items are set by the players who sell and buy them, they depend on the ebb and flow of non-stop warfare, affecting even players that never leave "empire space".
In ED, you can join with a few friends and team up to do stuff like mining, hunting other ships, transporting goods. In Eve, you can do that, too. Or join with a few thousand friends and deal with the politics, espionage, specialization, and sometimes bureaucracy that goes along with any thousand+ person organization. There are lots of characters that never even pilot ships, instead specializing in industry, for example. Well organized teams tend to succeed (for whatever definition of success they choose). The tools used to manage such organizations is impressive, and can mirror those in "real world" orgs of that size, covering not only tings like wikis and forums, but Slack integrations, videoconferencing systems, bespoke ERP systems for industry, and HR systems for managing people. Eve's developer (CCP) encourages this by providing an API[1] that lets external services interact with the game.
I would love a hybrid Eve/ED system- it would be very cool to pilot small ships in the Eve universe. I'd love for Eve to be able to expand beyond the 8000 star systems.
I remember playing the Eve beta more than 15 years ago. It's an incredible game and a fascinating accomplishment technically and in building a community in an entirely separate world that feels real, but that realism comes with downsides like you mentioned. Long training times, slow missions, spreadsheet calculations, etc. are all necessary to pursue serious success in Eve.
It's a trade-off and clearly most people prefer the faster and simpler gameplay mechanics of other MMOGs, although we also have the neverending Star Citizen that seems to be chasing the realism angle even harder and has gained quite a following. I wonder what everything is going to be like once we have real capable VR.
That took about 2 months of real time, playing 1 or 2 hours a day. It was pretty epic, I loved being able to discover these completely new systems, placing my name on them for as long as the game lasts (which I hope is a long time).
This is all amazing but it makes me wonder if something is a bit crazy with these games. Why explore a universe created by some game company when you could be exploring the real universe by studying astronomy? Why try to earn money and gold in these games which although it can be turned into real money is part of a zero-sum game. Your win is their loss, why because there is no real value created in the game after all. In real life you can make money by creating a corporation which is not a zero-sum game because it brings value to both the owners and workers of the company and its customers.
I understand it can be much more fun in the game than the real life and that's why people do it, but I just wonder if it's just escapism, avoiding the challenges of the real world?
I can create a business that does things only in computers and use the funds to buy other things only in computers, how is that different than a game?
Games are life with an easy mode, and many things which are "not real" are just as fulfilling as things that are "real".
Accumulating wealth is mostly just a game anyway once you have the basics covered, and when you start thinking about it too hard everything is equally unreal in that nothing has any worth outside your own arbitrary values.
If you don't have enough resources to eat or keep warm, that will feel pretty real, right? Loads of people don't have enough to get by.
If the system is working properly, you should mostly be able to accumulate wealth only if you provide value to everyone else. That's the theory anyway.
There's this meme I see on HN sometimes that every use of time is equally worthwhile, and that any value judgments are arbitrary.
Highly skilled communities should value work that creates some value, above noodling around in games.
I've played lots of games. But I know they aren't real, beyond helping me relax, or maybe learn skills that transfer out. I agree with the OP that we shouldn't spend all our effort in games. I'm similarly skeptical of things like the fashion industry, super professional sport etc too but that's just me :)
> If the system is working properly, you should mostly be able to accumulate wealth only if you provide value to everyone else. That's the theory anyway.
That is nothing but modern ideology and wishful thinking. The reality is, there is a global competition for resources and providing value to others is only useful when it benefits yourself. Those who claim to have a societal model where everyone can happily accumulate wealth while benefiting others and hurting nobody, know exactly what they are doing.
> I'm similarly skeptical of things like the fashion industry
There's a good example of perceived value vs. objective value. Ask some fashionista why they wouldn't wear the same outfit every day.
> Those who claim to have a societal model where everyone can happily accumulate wealth while benefiting others and hurting nobody, know exactly what they are doing.
I'm not claiming that. I'm claiming that activity in the real world economy is generally more beneficial to others than activity in a video game.
> > Those who claim to have a societal model where everyone can happily accumulate wealth while benefiting others and hurting nobody, know exactly what they are doing.
> I'm not claiming that. I'm claiming that activity in the real world economy is generally more beneficial to others than activity in a video game.
Isn't the world of Warcraft economy larger than the GDP of some countries? Where is the line between "real world economy" and virtual economies that impact "real world" economies?
I don’t think I understand the point behind this post. Can you specify the exact boundaries with games that make them beneficial versus not? You admit that you’ve played lots of games, and find small amounts of benefits.
Why is your experience exactly the amount that’s beneficial, but the article’s subject is beyond okay?
Could it be that you have found and excavated the amount of value in gaming that works for you personally, and that amount may differ for others?
I was intending to agree with the first comment here, and to disagree with the comment I replied to, rather than taking issue with the original article.
It's simple, valuable work is work that people are willing to pay for with currency that can be used for food/shelter/whatever.
It seems arbitrary, but if some billionaire pays you a million dollars to bite her toe off, that's still immensely more valuable than the 10 years spent in the article because a million dollars worth of obligations were just released to someone who will (on average) spend them.
Money is just a note of a generic obligation (aka debt) from the rest of society in that currency.
I don't have the answer, but it's certainly not simple. I'm not willing to pay you anything for participating in this HN discussion. That doesn't make your contributions worthless. Some people pay millions for a useless piece of canvas with some blobs on it, but this crazy minecraft construction or that webcomic that I'm enjoying for free is supposed to be worthless? No way.
The need for food and shelter only requires a small percentage of our collective time these days. The much larger part of our economic activity is not grounded in that need, though it may be convenient to make other people think that working 40 hours a week is just barely enough to earn the right to exist.
The value in HN comments is high. Just because they don't show ads doesn't mean they aren't able to capture that value either.
HN is not free in the purest sense. Companies/ideas/agendas are presented to you. It a way it's a platform and platforms are usually free and offer at least some network effect value.
> It's simple, valuable work is work that people are willing to pay for with currency that can be used for food/shelter/whatever.
So, "valuable work" is just work with financial benefits? If I save 100 poor people's lives it's worth less than if I drive a millionaire around for $10?
Loyality gained from those 100 poor people could allow trust between you that allows you to gain additional value (100 poor people trained becomes a powerful army). While the 10 dollars you gained while driving around someone you missed 100 dollar opportunities.
This is a fair point; its not easy to objectively define value.
But I'd say to a first approximation, economic effort defined towards the pursuit of maximising arbitrary stats in a video game, is less likely to be valuable work.
That's really all I'm saying. Just because its hard to define objectively, shouldn't mean its a free-for-all, and that we accept that all activity is equally useful (or un-useful.)
> Besides, say, actively participating in the production of basic food and shelter, what is valuable work?
Not a perfect signal, but if someone will pay you to do it, your work is probably valuable to them.
This gets distorted by wealth inequality and probably half a dozen other factors, which is why it's not perfect.
Not everything that's valuable fits neatly into a market context, of course. Exercise and hiking are valuable to me, but no one will pay me to do them. Games might similarly be an opportunity to develop in some way (many games are engaging because they involve some kind of skill) and provide recreation and maybe weave some social fabric. But they're often limited and have diminishing returns compared to some other opportunities...
> they're often limited and have diminishing returns
Right. I think therefore the thing is, to be conscious about the purpose of those games, ask questions about what kind of value they bring to their players and the society at large.
> > they're often limited and have diminishing returns
> Right. I think therefore the thing is, to be conscious about the purpose of those games, ask questions about what kind of value they bring to their players and the society at large.
> Are they opium for the masses?
Is it wrong to want to devote time to being idle/non-productive? Must we spend every waking moment perfecting our every aspect? Are we afforded no moments of respite beyond sleep?
People have mentioned food and shelter but also there is much value in KNOWLEDGE and science because that helps us ensure food and shelter. Say astronomy, maybe one day it will give us shelter (in terms of knowing what to do) from an asteroid hitting the earth.
My question for myself is, why should I play these games when the real life is like a game too but one which is much more challenging, much more important and much more valuable, from which we can learn much more, if we take our aim to be learning.
>If the system is working properly, you should mostly be able to accumulate wealth only if you provide value to everyone else
This is somewhat devil's advocate-ey, but what's to stop someone living off social benefits and accruing EVE online wealth? (Low ohysical standard of living/prestige, high virtual prestige)
Modern MMO's aren't good enough to replace the real world- yet. When they are, some subset of the population will pop on their VR machines, plug in the feeding tubes, and that's it. Unless you want to get rid of social benefits/make social benefits actually dependent on trying to get a job, you can't really stop people doing this.
I played Eve many years ago, was in one of the hardcore mercenary guilds/corporations.
At one point a really good player was going to quit the game. He wasn’t able to pay his real life bills, planned to get a second job just to survive and keep a roof over his head.
Turned out that another member (director) was loaded in real life, and he really didn’t want the other guy to quit, he had him send all his real life bills and paid them for him.
If you think about it, he really paid him a real life salary to have him work in a virtual world. And who doesn’t want to work as a pirate space mercenary for a living? :p
Maybe it had been a wake up call for that guy to turn his life around and somebody just paid his way back into the game. Or maybe his life was independently miserable and the game was the only positive thing. Who knows.
Yes seems like the guy realized he had an addiction problem, addicted to the game. Like if he was dependent on drugs and realized he needed to quit. Then by chance one of the people he was taking drugs with was a millionaire who thought the guy was a fun person to take drugs with and started financing his habit. At the same time the rich guy bought some loyalty and gratitude which might be good for him later in the game.
What happened? Is the rich guy still paying the bills of this poor chap?
But MMOs aren't mainstream any more. It's been a decade since multiplayer match-based games took over. That future might have seemed possible in the mid-2000s with WoW taking over people's lives. Today there's really no trend to suggest full time living in a virtual existence. We're already there part time through social media, but it seems like that's about as far as it goes.
I think it's a massive economic barrier. How much does it cost to have an online experience of socialization or eating with equivalent quality to an offline one? People still take vacations, pack up their bags, and fly on planes to meet others and eat food. When will a virtual meeting and a virtual burger every be as good and cheaper?
> I think it's a massive economic barrier. How much does it cost to have an online experience of socialization or eating with equivalent quality to an offline one? People still take vacations, pack up their bags, and fly on planes to meet others and eat food. When will a virtual meeting and a virtual burger every be as good and cheaper?
How many people can now "walk" the streets of Venice who could never afford to travel there, but their friend has a VR and they got to experience it. It doesn't have to be better or cheaper to be opening doors for people today.
> When will a virtual meeting and a virtual burger every be as good and cheaper?
The same goes for museums that were an early use case of possible applications for virtual reality. In practice very few people are interested in virtual reproductions of even the greatest treasures of mankind that draw millions of people yearly to see them in real life.
I think it's the flying cars of our generation. Even when we achieve the tech the biggest question will be "why would we use that?" A nice bit of futurism but nothing more.
I'm not so sure about that. A big problem currently is people commuting to and from work causing traffic congestion time lost in traffic jams and traffic accidents. A true virtual office might be the solution to traffic jams.
I played Eve for awhile and was in one of the bigger alliances, and knew people who did just that. It seemed to give them purpose and I really can't blame them. However I'm unsure if living off of social benefits was a product of the game itself or some other factors that are 'legitimate'.
And that seems good, but it's actually a problem. One finds purpose in the in-game reality which gives one motivation to withdraw -- the game gives the feeling of progress and success, the feeling that's supposed to help us motivate ourselves to survive and contribute to our tribe. But the success is really just changing numbers in a database.
Right I think that is the core of the problem. The skills you acquire in the game do not transfer to valuable skills in the real economy. Well, maybe Flight-Simulator. That is a "good" game.
Wealthy people can purpose far more of their time.
Accumulating capital works like you say, bit we have work to do otherwise.
Improving basic wealth is possible, and does not impact capital much. Some, but not to a degree many, if not most will be concerned about.
It should be OK for ordinary people to be a bit wealthy. Arts, research, even just play are all rewarding, important.
For a reasonable amount of our time, yes. People can and should do what they want. It is not necessary we tighten this all up to some totalitarian optimum.
> I can create a business that does things only in computers and use the funds to buy other things only in computers, how is that different than a game?
Real businesses ultimately provides a service for real people. It's bringing value to people this world, while a game is just literally some bits shifting in a computer.
It goes even deeper. Most of our drives are there simply because they made our ancestors more likely to survive or reproduce, therefore increasing the likelihood that those drives would be more common in subsequent generations. Some people seem to think that using an MMO is unnatural, but wouldn't even blink at the thought of, e.g., sex with birth control. But both are a subversion of the natural courses of the drives we've inherited from our ancestors.
People whose chosen redirections of their own drives give them high social status -- the builders and commanders -- like to look down on those who choose activities that don't lead to power. IMO, this is conservation of ego, nothing more. We want to feel good about ourselves, so when we gain power beyond that which is required to propagate our genes, we say, "this is because I was a better person than that other guy." We don't like to acknowledge that we're just masturbating a slightly different way.
IMO, the important question is whether playing an MMO actually fulfills your individual values. I know for me with EVE the answer was no, but that's not to say I can't picture an MMO that would. I would bet that for many currently playing it the answer is also no, because we do have addictions, us humans. But I wouldn't turn up my nose at the whole playerbase by any means. After all, who are we on this site to point fingers?
> I wouldn't turn up my nose at the whole playerbase
I don't think anybody's doing that. It's more like we should be asking questions about what is going on with this thing? Does it make sense that a lot of people spend so much time on it? Or does it not? Can the games be made better? How?
If the games are good for the society at large then maybe tax-payer money should be used to support their further development. Would make sense right?
That argument has been made about video games long before the modern gaming industry. People were freaking out about young people playing too much pong, space invaders, tetris. Then the whole console generation...
And before that the same argument was made about television. And before that the same argument was made about comic books.
My dad and his friends used to just ride their bikes and play games with the neighborhood kids. Can you believe it!? People doing things not directly related to corporate success hierarchy!? It must seem so pointless to you...
For what it's worth, I'm not a gamer myself, but I don't see how it's any worse/better than people reading a bunch of fiction books or any other leisure activity.
Some people get really into jigsaw puzzles, crossword puzzles, Sudoku, solitaire... Other people play online video games.
>“People say, ya know, ‘Get a life,’ and ‘This is a waste of time,’” Sae continues. “They have to understand that I only did this for an hour and a half each day just to unwind after work. I wasn’t killing myself doing this.”
It's that or reading/chess/charity work though. Each to their own but objectively this is not going to appear as anything other than extremely sad and lonely to most people, even those who spend a lot of time playing computer games.
I think the point is that this was a very determined effort. If she had been as determined to achieve something in real life she would have made it surely and might now be happier and have more skills (and other forms of capital) that are useful in real life.
It's true that there's an answer in the article, but it's not a really satisfying one. This is 1½ hours each day for ten years; that's about 5500 hours. Think what you could do with that time! In a thousand hours, you could build a high-performance airplane. Ten years of practicing a musical instrument 1½ hours a day, you could be performing on a very high level. You could be fluent in a foreign language, learn advanced math, become a skilled gunsmith, have written several books, or have read a couple thousand books.
Or you could have poked around a video game.
To me, and a lot of other people, there's a real opportunity cost this person has been willing to assume, and I'm not about to pretend I think it was worth it.
if you're able to actually spend 1.5 hours every day working on an airplane, practicing guitar, or learning math, that's great! but for a lot of people (or just me at least), by the time they've worked eight hours, gone to the gym, and eaten dinner, they don't have a lot of energy left for practicing a skill or working on a side project. some people (possibly you) are still brimming with energy and curiosity and will keep working on stuff until late in the night.
what I'm trying to say is, not all hours are interchangeable in terms of opportunity cost. it should be okay to just be totally unproductive for one or two hours out of the days. not everyone can accomplish something meaningful in every single hour.
That's certainly true, and I waste time, too. Everyone does. To me, if obviously not to everyone, doing some of these other things has been rejuvenating and energizing.
It is okay to waste time, or fritter it away doing something you value and nobody else does; I felt it important to say, though, that I don't think this was a laudable achievement.
I don't get what you're trying to say. Even if this person followed one of your paths there is still a real opportunity cost that remains. There is almost by definition always a better way to spend your time than what you are currently doing. If you want to be a cog there are better ways to be a cog. Especially in an age of extreme centralization, where you are matters far more than who you are.
>You could be fluent in a foreign language, learn advanced math, become a skilled gunsmith, have written several books, or have read a couple thousand books.
Why? Why are any of those things worth doing or learning? Because you say they are?
Because they produce value in the real world by producing something or making you more knowledgeable or capable. If you're not able to distinguish a difference between that and exploring an imaginary world, I don't know that there's anything I can say to help you.
Certainly there is value in "entertainment". But if that's all we do then it's like always eating ice-cream :-) Does entertainment bring lasting joy? Yes if it teaches you something valuable. A great book a great play. Maybe in the future we have "great games". But a point about a great book is you don't keep reading it over and over again. That brings diminishing returns. Game addiction benefits game merchants. Heroin addiction benefits heroin merchants.
Books? They benefit the author of the book but you don't get addicted to a book. You may learn something from it about joy and love and life and once you acquire that learning you have it you don't need to read the book again every day.
I don't play this particular game, but I do play games. Here are some of my reasons.
I'm medically handicapped. Sometimes I can't go anywhere. Playing games to occupy my mind helps me not go crazy.
When I'm in a lot of pain, sometimes playing games is the best way to occupy myself because I can't inadvertently make an ass of myself. It's easy to come across poorly when you feel awful and telling people you feel awful is usually not taken to mean "I'm not trying to be rude." It's taken to mean "I'm entitled to be an ass because I have a good excuse."
As I've grown stronger, playing gradually harder games has played a role in my recovery and rehabilitation. It helps me exercise my mind and keep working at various recovery goals in a low key fashion on my worst days.
Playing games can be educational. I sometimes ditch games because I feel their mental models are a bad influence and I play a lot of games to educate myself about various things.
"Idle hands are the devil's workshop." Keeping oneself harmlessly occupied can be a big improvement over fucking shit up because you are bored, frustrated, not at your best, etc.
Mental occupation serves as distraction from pain and can be medically useful. I've read some things that indicate mental occupation can reduce the need for pain killers.
In a world with 7 billion people and climate change, playing a game can be more environmentally responsible than "exploring the real world." There are plenty of tourists out there just trashing things in the name of Disnified, predigested "adventure."
Good points, although your situation probably does not apply to most players. It is a striking point that games are a "pain killer". So games are like morphine opium or heroin. Many people need those at some point in their life, during a hospital visit, but not every day.
People routinely cite the stat that 15% to 20% of the population is disabled or handicapped.
But Microsoft did a study that didn't use stigmatizing terms like disabled or handicapped. They just asked about what things trip people up in day-to-day life and 60% of respondents indicated they had varying degrees of trouble with day-to-day tasks.
My first-hand observation is that mildly impaired people actively eschew stigmatizing labels. If you aren't so severely impaired as to require accommodation to function at all, life works better if you don't find some stigmatizing label.
So I strongly suspect most people playing a lot of games have needs not unlike mine, they just are less severely impaired than I am.
Furthermore, my final point -- about the value of getting your adventures in virtual form instead of absolutely trashing the planet to satisfy a desire for adventure -- potentially applies to anyone.
I’ve Climbed Everest 21 Times. It’s Not the Mountain It Used to Be.
As I get older, I have had a harder time losing myself in many forms of passive entertainment if I can see the author's - for lack of a better word - schtick.
So, with games, movies, books, music and even paintings - if I my brain picks up the process first and isn't impressed or curious by that aspect, I lose interest. This is mostly common with movies and games, where the cost and expanse of the created world often require some level of formulas/trope. It is the inverse in a lot of music, where I am fascinated by the process and production a lot and can appreciate it at both levels more. Similarly with great TV - recently I watched season 2 of Fleabag and realised I was lost both in the story telling and in wonder/amazement at it's construction and execution.
Before full time work and a kid, there was a certain amount of time I could afford to lose myself in another person's creation, but nowadays if I start seeing the scaffolding, I can't unsee it. For this reason I am also starting to be drawn back to the sciences. I sometimes worry that I am finding it hard to relate to a lot of art and human expression because of this, so I try to 'lose' myself in it - but so much art (and predominantly so many games) require a lot of scaffolding.
Interested if anybody else can relate and share how they deal with this.
If you go to art school or study the humanities then this process of getting turned off after becoming aware of a piece’s “scaffolding” or let’s say... algorithm, usually happens much faster.
The first thing that happened to me was I became aware that there is a production quality bubble in commercial media that keeps most people sealed in and once that popped I got more and more interested in obscure art related films, music, scenes, etc. like the things you would find on ubu.com.
A lot of my old art school friends are still in this edgy mode and they no longer respect any populist media. Somehow I’ve come full circle because I got bored once I started seeing the “scaffolding” in all the radical 20th century and contemporary stuff too.
Now I just try to find the free space where people are developing something new and involve myself somehow either as an early spectator or a participant.
To put it simply, if you start watching Netflix as an anthropologist then you might enjoy the scaffolding once again.
'scaffolding' is a good term for this. It's hard for me to enjoy a movie, as I can see all the structure unfolding and can predict a lot of what's going to happen from the first 15 minutes or so. The good thing is that the very few great movies that escape this are true gems, but the bad thing is that I jus't don't have the drive/patience to watch movies anymore, so I don't get exposed to the very few gems.
Isn't that much about how Hollywood works to produce "entertainment"? "Art movies" are different, more inspiring. For them the "scaffolding" might be there and made even more obvious it is scaffolding like in theater you sure know you are not looking at a real-life Swan Lake etc.
There was a curious incident recently where Game of Thrones episode had a Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts coffee mug visible in some scene. It broke the "magic", revealed the scaffolding for most people.
But if you believe in fire-breathing giant dragons then why not also believe in multi-verse where things from Starbucks universe can occasionally mingle with Game of Thrones. It's magic!
Maybe this explains the explosion in “critical entertainment”, such as movie podcasts, YouTube video essays that dissect films, and TV Tropes. People can also enjoy examining the scaffolding, if not the original work.
I'm with you 100%. Many of the things I used to really dig into, just don't grab me as much anymore. I'm not completely sad about this, though. It lets me explore other activities that I ignored before because of my fixations. I still play games, read, watch movies/shows, but it is really difficult to let go of the detached part of me critiquing constantly as I'm consuming. There's writers/creators behind there and I end up thinking about them and why they chose to do it this way or that. I find some things I enjoy enough that I can totally relax and get into, and honestly quite often it is things that have some rough edges. Thor Ragnarok and Last Jedi are two of my favorite movies in the past couple of years, and the reason I love them are reasons others hate them. Things that are weird or unexpected, even nonsensical. Because that makes it feel more real to me, in a way. Too many films and shows these days are slick as shit, and feel incredibly manufactured, like I can sense the teams of people working the material again and again until it is smooth and hitting the targeted emotional responses.
The Flying Princess Leia scene in Last Jedi was dumb, but that made me love the movie more. The Original Trilogy had a bunch of dumb moments in them too, but JJ Abrahms Force Awakens had none of them (it had a different kind of stupid ;) ) and felt soul-less to me.
Disclaimer: I agree with you mostly. I think your comment is an almost complete argument against playing video games. I do think it's a little incomplete to say that things inside a game can't translate to real world value. i.e. people sell accounts/items/characters for fiat currency with some regularity. Is that net-profitable or not? Maybe. Is it possible that time investment could have been spent elsewhere? Yes. And probably for better ROI. But in terms of ways that exist in this world for people to waste time/money/resources. Games seem like a very mild offender. Overall your comment makes a lot of sense though. Thanks for taking the time to write a well-thought out response to OP. Have a nice day!
Escapism? The article said she plays around 90 minute each day after work. This is no different than how most people watch netflix after work to unwind. Its not like she spend ten ACTUAL years in the game like a hikikomori.
Sometimes you want a hobby free of conflict or challenge. A place to relax, not a place to learn and grow or make money.
Maybe even an excuse to sit there and not really think about much of anything in particular for a while. Let your brain have some big slow thoughts while you watch imaginary space flow past your imaginary spaceship’s cockpit.
Sometimes you want a hobby free of conflict or challenge. A place to relax
Reminds me of stories I read about people who played Red Dead Redemption 2 purely for the chores and exploration of the land.
..not a place to learn and grow..Let your brain have some big slow thoughts..
When I do mind numbing chores like washing dishes, mowing the lawn, laundry; I can’t help but sit inside my head and have conversations with myself about whatever is deemed important at that moment. As insignificant as these micro chats may be, they’re growth. In turn, learning/experiencing myself to a deeper level.
Two quotes come to mind:
Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.
-Oliver Wendell Holmes
Baby steps, Bob. Baby steps.
-Dr. Leo Marvin
Each new experience, grande or otherwise builds our character.
Depends. 90 minutes a day doesn't seem excessive to me - I know I spend more than 90 minutes many days on HN, and I've had my account almost ten years.
10 years only reflects how enjoyable and purposeful it's been. I don't think someone wastes 10 years of their lifes without enjoying the process somewhat a little.
Real astronomy require training that virtually always costs money and time (with teachers who are often unwilling to work with variable time availability), a minimum of investment in specialty EM hardware components (such as binoculars, telescopes, or radio antennas), and an unobstructed view of the sky in whatever frequencies matter (visual, radio, whatever).
Exploring in a video game suffers none of those barriers.
Is it escapism if one’s life has no room (in time, in money, in attention span) for physical astronomy, but does have room for virtual astronomy — with its lower requirements at the cost of its unproductive result?
Why not work a second job instead of playing video games? This is pretty much what you are saying. That sort of stuff is as much work as a anything, even if done in an amateur level.
- You can easily find an ingame-"Job" that's fun and fitting for you, which is not as easy in the real world
- You don't have obligations (at least not in the beginning)
- Success can be archived in a pretty much known way (i.e. leveling up, grinding that specific NPC for about n times ...) instead of the rather arbitrary and sometimes luck-depended way of being successful in real life
> Why not work a second job instead of playing video games?
No it's more like why not work for yourself instead of working for someone else, for some part of your time. Educate yourself. If you work for someone else you get paid but really you are working towards the goals of whoever pays you. Work towards your own goals instead.
But if your goal is to visit all virtual galaxies in a single game produced by some specific game company ask yourself isn't there anything more worthwhile I can accomplish in 10 years?
Relaxation is of course important but it is important in order to restore our strength to work on the real challenges in our life. Games are great just like amusement parks are great. Coney Island Baby!
Not everyone has the opportunity to become an astrophysicist, nor should everyone in the world become an astrophysicist. Many, many people staff the shops, factories, warehouses, mines, construction sites, farms and logistics chains society needs to function. Everyone needs a way to unwind, and finding an escape in a game that is set in an imaginary science fiction future is as valid as watching TV, surfing, or reading. Not every second of a person's life has to be devoted to adding value to the human race - and your definition of value is highly subjective, looking only at economics or scientific discoveries is a very narrow window into the human experience.
This is true. But in this case it seemed this was a very determined effort, not just a way to relax, but to actually strive to accomplish something during a 10 year's span.
I believe such great determination would be better applied to something less virtual. 10 years is a large chunk of our life and you can accomplish lot in 10 years if you are determined.
So many people don't have the ability to study astronomy or start a company. Most Americans can't even afford a $500 surprise bill[0]. There's a lot for many people to escape these days, and the ability to be entrepreneurial is in itself a privilege that many simply don't have.
I also find it somewhat ironic that you question the purpose of this form of entertainment created specifically by a company by suggesting that someone's time is perhaps better spent starting a company. This form of escapism exists because a company made it possible for people to escape.
Clearly, you wonder if something is a bit crazy with these games, but have you ever wondered if the companies behind them actually provide value to their workers or customers? Starting a company isn't always a possibility or solution to people's problems, and not all companies provide value to society. In fact, some actively extract value from society.
> ironic that you question the purpose of this form of entertainment created specifically by a company by suggesting that someone's time is perhaps better spent starting a company
If you worked towards starting a game-company like this you would learn many valuable real-life skills about software engineering coding and running a business. Your time would be better spent than the time of those who play your game.
That is really what happened here as far as people who created the game are concerned. They spent their time very wisely. But even better if they created a game with outstanding educational value, of value to others besides themselves.
Maybe their next game will be more like that now that they have acquired the skills to do it. I'm not saying Eve is not educational though. Maybe it is.
When I played EVE it was perfectly possible (and allowed) to trade in-game currency for game time codes with other players. I assume they didn't remove that option.
Back then, nullsec was definitely dangerous, but it was also very profitable. It would probably require that you invest quite a lot of time, though that's true with everything in EVE.
That story is from 2017, however the premise that most Americans can't afford $400-$500 is fraudulent and has been debunked numerous times.[1] The real number from the Fed survey is 12%. It keeps getting repeated in various ways, year after year, because it's amazing headline bait. Mostly politicians like using it for propaganda while ignoring the actual original survey details. Harris, Sanders and Warren have all been using it for propaganda purposes.
> It is a myth that a large share of people can’t cover a $400 emergency expense. Why does the story persist?"
> The question comes from the annual “Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households” by the Federal Reserve. The report finds, in 2018, that 61% of adults would cover a $400 unexpected expense using cash (or its equivalent)."
> The report states: “Twelve percent of adults would be unable to pay the expense by any means.”
> The report also goes out of its way to make clear that some of the 39% who wouldn’t use cash might still have $400 in the bank: “It is possible that some would choose to borrow even if they had $400 available, preserving their cash as a buffer for other expenses.” In a footnote, the report even cites a 2016 study finding that 76 percent of households had $400 in liquid assets, even after taking into account monthly expenses.
> The common misinterpretation of this finding in the study is particularly strange in light of two other questions on the same survey. The Fed asks respondents whether they are able to pay all of their bills in full. Only 17% say they can’t pay some bills.
> The Fed also asks respondents how a $400 emergency expense that they had to pay would affect their ability to pay their other bills. Eighty-five percent report that they would still be able to pay all their bills. Only 14% say that the emergency expense would result in their not being able to pay some bills.
> Instead, as the Fed report makes clear, though “the remaining 4 in 10 adults” “would have more difficulty covering such an expense,” many of them would be able to make it work by carrying a credit card balance or borrowing from friends and family. (Presumably some of these adults are 18-year-olds borrowing from their parents, but I’m not sure about that.)
If your last resort is credit or friends and family, you are by definition unable to afford the expense in question.
The very next paragraph of your quote. Not sure why you missed it:
> The report states: “Twelve percent of adults would be unable to pay the expense by any means.” I’m dubious about that as well. In any event, 12% is a lot less than 39%. The report also goes out of its way to make clear that some of the 39% who wouldn’t use cash might still have $400 in the bank: “It is possible that some would choose to borrow even if they had $400 available, preserving their cash as a buffer for other expenses.” In a footnote, the report even cites a 2016 study finding that 76 percent of households had $400 in liquid assets, even after taking into account monthly expenses.
So they are not "by definition unable to afford the expense in question". May of them just find it inconvenient.
Make no mistake, even 12% figure is too high. Still, it doesn't support the argument that "most Americans can't even afford a $500 surprise bill", and it speak to the click-baity nature of modern media.
> I just wonder if it's just escapism, avoiding the challenges of the real world?
It's more "low effort, high reward" compared to RL challenges in general, but games like EVE are not "low effort" at all. Perhaps it's the low physical effort and lack of real risk required that makes them so attractive.
I think it's constrained outcomes -- you can mess up and still eat the next day.
You can - for example - die in-game (most games) and re-spawn, reload, restart or whatever. The possible outcomes are known and constrained to what seems a non-damaging locus.
Meanwhile progress is designed in, immediate (relative to real life) and palpable.
1 is creation vs consumption continuum, where you have e.g. designing a course as an expert (you're likely to derive little value other than financial but has huge value adds to those interested) vs. watching tv (purely passive). so this is clearly not purely passive despite being a sort of passive activity, more towards active i'd say, which is healthier/more fulfilling imo.
another is real life vs virtual life, which i think you're more interested in here. i personally agree in so far as i've "wasted" many years of my life on virtaul things (key differentiator) that were sort of fun, but when i look at what could have been with 10% of that time i just feel utter disgust. long story but no matter: it may be in 10 years time he feels the same, or not. obviously he kept a job and whatever else, so in some sense it's well earned leisure time.
why do we read fiction books? they are just as virtual as exploring the EVE universe (or playing any computer game)
i would add a third dimension: how does the activity enrich my daily life. people watch TV to get informed, entertained or to unwind. if you explore EVE with the goal to get informed, you'll surely waste your time. but if it's entertaining/unwinding, then why not. it's visual fiction.
not a bad line of thought, and covers some of the non pathological cases.
but, we know these non-fiction book things are designed to be addictive (ladder climbing/achievement elements for games, timing elements for television, reward intervals for both) and so the pathological case is important to examine.
key question then in this case is, imo: to what extent was this driven by pathological vs. non pathological behavior? in my personal case, which is why i have so much regret, is that it was so darn easy to plow more hours in, to the detriment of the rest of my life, due to the design of the game. if it's genuinely not for him, then i agree, not an issue. i would personally consider it exceptional however.
i suppose you mean non-"fiction book" or non-book fiction. took me a moment to read that correctly.
i agree. fortunately, for myself, when i made that experience i realized how much of a waste of time it could be, and i paid attention to that ever since. (always planning and deliberately choosing what to watch on tv, or read, etc) i don't get motivated by points in a game but by experiencing adventures, solving puzzles, etc. these things can be valuable (engaging your brain away from work, etc)
ironically, the most mindless (that is, not planned and less deliberate) thing i do these days is reading hackernews.
oh sure, i would not be here otherwise. mindless doesn't refer to the content but to the approach of reading, as in not paying attention to how much time is spent here, and letting it turn into that pathological behavior that the poster above is concerned about.
and i am not the only one. there is a reason why there is a feature to limit your time here :-)
It's simple; because it creates happiness to the player.
Why did you type that comment? Maybe because it creates happiness to you in the form of intrinsic reward when your question is answered or you simply become happier when expressing your thoughts. It's all for feeling joy in the end.
If you ask 'why' enough times to anything, you'll ultimately reach the conclusion that there no real deeper meaning to life so might as well live it in a happy way while you're here.
the elite: dangerous universe is actually modeled after the milky-way galaxy. of course a lot is guessing and speculation, but when new facts emerge, the game is actually being updated.
ironically, contrary to its name, it appears that elite: dangerous is actually less PvP than EVE. and there are expedition groups with hundreds of ships to explore the galaxy that last months, or even years.
"it gives a sense of the vastness of the galaxy" because while they use some form of FTL jump to make traveling those long distances possible it still can take some tens of minutes to travel within a solar system to get from one planet to another.
i don't know how accurate their model is, but i believe of it is sufficiently close it can be a great learning experience.
It's a bit odd to go solo in Eve and I'd agree that you probably don't get much out of it. The medium to large PvP side of the game includes a lot of planning and communication though which should translate decently into RL for the leaders at least. The main Goon FC of BR- talked about it at Eve Fanfest if you're curious:
In real life you can make money by creating a corporation which is not a zero-sum game because it brings value to both the owners and workers of the company and its customers.
What value does the creation of Eve Online bring to its customers, if they're never allowed to play it?
> What value does the creation of Eve Online bring to its customers, if they're never allowed to play it?
It does bring value to them the value of entertainment. But trying to accomplish something in real life would probably bring them more value in real life, why because that would then be what you are trying to accomplish. Value in real life. If you strive towards gaining some real-life value you are more likely to gain that than if you just strive to be entertained by a game and getting them game-points.
Now some games allow you to turn the game-dollars into real dollars. But the dollars you gain are dollars someone else loses. It is zero sum. No actual new value is created, no actual useful things are created, no actual useful new knowledge is being gained or created. The only value created is entertainment and there's nothing wrong with that. But it might give you more satisfaction to actually accomplish something in real life with all that effort you're putting into the game. I'm not saying you do, but in general and in this case reported in the article.
Your comment is all amazing but it makes me wonder if something is a bit crazy with these texts. Why writing on random articles comment when you could be writing a real essay by working as a professional writer? Why try to earn upvotes in these forum... I get bored.
Pretty much all forms of entertainment are escapism. What makes one better or worse? He could study astronomy for real, but let's face it, it's an impractical career and relies on barely existent funding.
Effort in real life is often dull and has no effect on your outcomes. Video games have objective, measurable progress. If you want to be a high status individual, it’s relatively clear what you have to do.
Why read fiction if you can learn history? Because history is just one of the fictions, not the most entertaining one, that by sheer accident sort of, kinda, more or less happened.
There's more to life than achievements. An experience, however unreal it may be, is valuable to the person experiencing it, regardless of whether or not anything is achieved outside of the experience itself. It's only escapism if it's a problem. My 2 cents.
Reality is brutal and unforgiving. There's no justice or fairness. Nobody cares if you enjoy your life. Game is artificially made to abuse your instincts, to provide joy when you need it, to provide challenge when you need it.
The answer is that he probably has a day job that makes him more money than the average astronomy position. So your idea is producing simultaneously less value and less enjoyment.
I always thought the same about pro guitar hero players. They could have been spending all that time learning a real guitar, and making music for real.
I was in the top 1% on the Rock Band drums leaderboard for a while. I played a ton. But I had no interest in making music. You're asking about the competitive players. Competing at a game and playing music are two very different goals. I played an instrument as a kid, I hated it.
I've sometimes wondered about the differences and similarities between playing music and playing a game. There probably is some reason why we use the same verb "play" for both activities.
For the record, some of the very good Guitar Hero players (e.g. Acai) are rather competent with an actual guitar.
But as an active GH and regular guitar player, comparing it to an actual guitar isn't fair. I enjoy playing actual guitar as an exercise in creativity. I play GH to enjoy music more interactively rather than creatively.
I never liked the guitar hero games. They're not much like playing a real guitar and every time i played them it just made me want to go play my guitar instead. Especially knowing how to actually play some of the songs in those games. The note patterns they used for the buttons didn't match up to how you actually played the songs. (Using the right most button for a note you'd actually use your middle or ring finger to play rather than your pinky for example)
This may be the case with Eve-like games too. They may give you some idea of the cosmos but it may be misleading, involve improper shortcuts why because the PURPOSE is not to teach you something but entertain you.
The purpose of GH is to make you think you can play like a real guitar hero, but based on your experience it seems like it doesn't really do that.
GH COULD be better at teaching real guitar playing but I assume it is not better because it's purpose is not to teach but to get you addicted to the game.
Ha :-) in the 90s I remember thinking how much the Internet was going to revolutionise the world. I tried to explain to my parents that a revolution was coming that would change their lives.
I was wrong, in one sense - the impact was far greater than I had envisaged.
It was very difficult to imagine my parents having social media accounts and iPads back then. But now they do. I don’t see why VR will be any different.
I think VR will be more disruptive than the internet (although synergistic) - the clue is in the name. An alternate reality is about as impactful as you can get.
I think VR will be more disruptive than the internet
The internet enabled new ways of doing things. There were things that were literally impossible before we were online. VR doesn't do that. It's great tech, it's very clever, it improves on whats there now but ultimately it's just a fancy monitor and a new sort of mouse. There's nothing that can be done VR that can't be done outside of VR. That is a very limiting factor for it's impact on the world.
So I see where we disagree, then. I do really think VR enables new possibilities, some of them I can think of but most beyond my imagination.
Don’t want to further the argument, but at least we identified the point we diverge on! We’ll see.
If you haven’t been to any kind of VR meet-up or hacking group, research lab or whatever, I’d recommend taking any opportunity to do so, as it might change your mind. An example I saw recently was research therapeutic use of VR in hospitals, with incredible effect sizes. And that kind of thing is just baby steps.
> There's nothing that can be done VR that can't be done outside of VR.
That is much like saying there's nothing that can be done in a telephone call that can't be done by telegraph. You just pass around information.
I believe the killer application of VR will be tele-presense. Avoid the traffic jams and airport delays.
You could say we can already have a video conference. But the point is that video-conference is simply not Hi-Fi enough. It is not the same thing as having the people
in the same building and room actually. That is why people still do business-travel at great cost even though they can have a video-chat or video-conference.
It's another question as to when VR will become Hi-Fi enough to enable tele-presence almost indistuinguishable from real presense. 5G may not be enough. We may need 6G. But once we're there there's much less need for business-travel, commuting will be done for pleasure not for business.
I wish I had enough time to learn every programming language, just as much as I wish I had enough time to play Eve online. The things we see here on HN and hear about in regards to Eve online are incredible. Even when listening to the Talk Python podcast one dev from the Eve Online crew came on to talk about it all.
It's pretty incredible, and these articles are never not fun to read about. There's also from time to time the World of Warcraft articles that pop up on HN.
Having played Eve for the better part of 6 years (2003-2009) I can tell you that it's a lot more fun to read about than to play. In some ways the game is way too close to real life. You typically have to put in a lot of work in-game to support your in-game fun time. PvP combat itself is plenty fun, but there were many times I spent all day (18-20 hours straight) logged in and participating in fleet ops in order to get perhaps 15-20 minutes of actual combat.
It seems you were never on a fleet with Michael Bolton reading fan fiction. Point being, combat is really a small part of EVE. Admittedly I haven't played in a few years, but I don't regret my time spent online, whether grinding missions/anomalies, hitting F1 on-demand after hours of "did FC say jump?", or mining in a ~catalyst~ venture.
Having interesting people to talk to, and shared experiences, made it all worthwhile.
I go back and for with MMOs and yes it is too close to real life. So much downtime and waiting around then a burst of excitement. Lots of chasing the carrot in games like WoW.
They do have magical qualities though. I look forward to my next MMO addition.
I've been enjoying the hell out of elite dangerous, but I play it in full-on space trucker exploration mode. Great for getting in an hour of flying, but I quit EVE because if I'm going to be doing a job I should be paid for it.
Depends on how you look at it, but IMO: yes. Eve is one of the few (maybe the only?) MMOs with a direct and legitimate conversion between real currency and in-game currency.
You can purchase (with real money) an item called PLEX, which can either be applied to your account to extend your subscription, or sold to another player for in-game currency. There are many players who pay for their subscription by farming in-game.
Wow has the same. You earn in game gold convert it to gametime and real money on your Blizard Balance account. With this you can buy stuff from their digital store, both other games or in game goodies. Once setup, making gold is so ridiculously fast and easy that you can buy everything in the store in no time.
I feel the same as you - I've been working towards financial independence precisely for this reason. I'm retiring early to learn stuff, write code and play games!
If we actually cure aging before he kicks it, then eventually they'll have a motivation to tinker with people's brains to adapt them to living for, let's say centuries to start. Just back uo your memories into your exobrain!
If that's possible, tinker with their brains to make them less greedy! :v It's very arrogant, using up resources indefinitely like that. Especially when they could instead go to newer, next-gen brains that are fundamentally better. Or to an agglomerated superbrain! And in a world of next-gen brains and superbrains, a legacy brain's justification for existing via providing value to capital is Sisyphean. Its only remaining justification is a culturally-enshrined worship of ego. But the self is a lie! Consciousness is an overrated meme! You've already internalized that wisdom since you've elected to exist as a modified legacy brain to begin with, adapting the self to new selves... which means you have no trouble adapting again! And I can't see why that wouldn't be as a superbrain; surely, it's the best game in town. I bet even it forgets too though. But it's probably way better-equipped to tackle existential anxieties than we are -- let's go!
“People say, ya know, ‘Get a life,’ and ‘This is a waste of time,’” Sae continues. “They have to understand that I only did this for an hour and a half each day just to unwind after work. I wasn’t killing myself doing this.”
I have come to the belief that if I enjoy something or get rewarded in a way that I want (learning, money, building something, etc), then whatever I am doing is not a waste of time.
Someone else telling me something is a waste of my time is pretty meaningless to me. And I also try not to tell other people they are wasting their time. I think a better way to convey that idea is to ask (e.g., my 5 y.o. son) "are you getting something out of doing this activity?" And if the answer is "yes", then who am I to judge. And if the answer is "no", then I either leave it at that and let them figure it out, or as in the case with my son, try to guide him towards doing something more productive or rewarding.
To me now, it's a really weird thing for someone to say to someone else you are wasting your time. Your time is only wasted if you think it's wasted.
To be sure, this is different if you're being paid by someone else. If you are doing something and your boss says stop wasting time, then maybe you comply. After all, if someone is paying for your time, then it's really their time, isn't it?
Eve probabbly is a good example of the level of time and environment you need to get all these cool things to happen with a big universe to explore, all the weird politics and etc ... but sadly to get all that you need a fairly time consuming system.
I remember some old MUDs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD I didn't play much but I tagged along with some committed players. In that MUD (I don't recall the name) death was a serious consequence, something like a 25% exp hit when you die... serious consequences. Also the players role played pretty hard. No need for silly language but if you were a knight you were expected to be helpful, etc. Everyone played along.
One day a little trash talk happened when unexpectedly some high level dark players who you rarely saw (they had their on private island on the MUD and rarely left) hassled some random user in a big city. I was hanging with the knights and then all hell broke loose. Most of the players involved died (including me who was dumb enough to grab a sword I couldn't handle and ... it was cursed so I started attacking at random, dark guy's didn't like that).
The great part was that for years afterward people read and commented on other people's description of the fight. Totally organic event, serious consequences for all involved... it was great.
When games like WoW came out I was just ... not interested if there wasn't really anything on the line.
Eve looked awesome, but man I got a family and career ;)
I believe the following is a common phrase, but when I quit Eve years ago, my friends would always respond to "Where is [me]?" with "Oh, [me] won the game." I always thought that was funny.
This game is really amazing, and I’m often trying to find something like it. My problem, besides lacking the time to do all the things I wanted to in game, was that some people are just so far ahead that you will just never catch up without spending a bunch of money for skill injectors. I’d love to get into a game like this from near the start. I had 3 accounts on it at one time!
Yeah... I really like the change to chat they made recently, that was one of the things that I thought was broken about the game.
I don't like skill injectors much, especially once it became possible to buy them with real world money... the classic pay to win scenario. They did it in the name of attracting new players because the game was difficult to get into. So, they've engaged in the race to the bottom trying to appeal to the people who don't want to invest the time and effort needed to grow in the game.
Like the original Everquest, the difficulty was what made the game worthwhile... you really value things if you have to work and learn to get them.
I played for years, but ultimately I stopped because of the skill injector changes and because the combat model is too dated, and that was limiting the rest of the game. Specifically, the fact that offense (e.g. lasers) subtracted from defence (armor, shields, hull) until they were down and ship go boom.
It didn't matter what side of your ship faced the enemy, which direction they were in, what the local conditions were (with the exception of some global conditions on a per system basis) and the weapons all did the same thing... the only differences were the visuals and ranges. The whole ship was one homogenous mass - no critical sections or systems, so it didn't matter where or what you hit.
Because of the above, the rest of the design was limited to things that would modify the above. Combat strategy was limited to surprise, stacking the odds in your favor, and knowing every detail about how the systems, ships, and bugs worked.
All that said, some people found creative ways to make it fun, and it's still the best MMO I've ever played.. no other game has ever gotten my heart racing like Eve. That's mostly due to the way the game was managed... scams, lies, all the worst of human deceit... but you could still "win" for a little while.
I played a few years ago before skill injectors and this was definitely a problem - progression was literally a function of account time owned.
The main thing that killed it for me was the frustration of large battles - when the server was running at frames per minute and apparently impossible to assign more resources to the server even if you told them where a battle was going to happen. This just wasn't fun.
CCP was and is crippled by the legacy code in the game... and they chose to not try to fix it all at once(which to be fair would have required major refactoring and cost) but to try to evolve the code over time.
I think if they'd just spent the time on a major rework the game would still be growing today.
On the server side, the design is still better than any other I've seen, it's too bad they were so handicapped making it even better.
Wonder how much time the character spent idle training skills to fly, you can get basic cloaks fairly quickly but to be able to fit a ship to never fall victim to a web, decloak, etc? That’s a lot of SP, and you’re still reliant on luck and skill even then.
Honestly not really. I used a low SP alt to run blockades with expensive cargo all the time and never once lost a ship. And these were systems I knew were being actively camped.
It's almost impossible to catch a fast cloaky hauler if they know what they're doing. It's been a while, but if I recall, you wait on the gate for around 15 seconds, then decloak, pulse your MWD, cloak, and immediately change directions. It's almost foolproof if you execute correctly. Now use a frigate like an exploration ship, and it's even easier.
Off-topic, sort of, but with 212 comments I don’t think I’ll derail anything...
I’m not a big gamer, but one of my favorites was Cataclysm Homeworld [1].
Part of the gameplay was navigation. But there was a strange artificial limit to rotating the map—it had a hard stop. Which I guess eliminates the need for instrumentation.
But I’m thinking with these programmatically generated worlds, it would be a mad skill to navigate in unlimited 3D orientation—infinite planes.
Tip: Wappalyzer (https://www.wappalyzer.com/) can automatically do this snooping for you. I use it all the time to answer the question “What is this site running on?”
I find it very amusing that eve somehow constantly comes back to hacker news front page. I don't believe there is another game that made the headlines here THAT often
Surprised that nobody mentioned Earth and Beyond from EA. One of the earlier MMOs, released and cancelled before World of Warcraft came out. They actually had a dedicated class for Explorers, with experience points awarded for exploration-type content. It took place in the Milky Way, which helped keep things a bit grounded.
I played E&B at first. I lost interest when I realized that the only thing worth doing in the game was following the high value trade route to get better ships. Over and over. Nothing else let you advance remotely as fast, and if you didn't do the same thing as everyone else you'd have the worst ship out there.
I don’t want to hate because the article in general is great. But it bothers me tremendously that the author continously refers to the player as ‘they’, ‘their’ etc in order to be gender neutral.
1) it reads like shit
2) screenshots even shows the player char is female?
3) it feels so freaking forced.
I know i am probably downvoted now like hell but I am so sick of this movement to get rid of gender in text. It started with all of this ‘the programmer, he or she ...’, then everything was a ‘she’ (any male coders in modern textbooks anymore?) , and now all are ‘they’...
Call me conservative but I don’t like it. And tech is especially affected...
Every stupid js conf only has gender neutral toilets. And people fucking hate it. But no one dares too say it loud. Too easy to get banned...
It might not be that "no one dares say it too loud," it might be that people don't hate it or even (like me) like this work towards rebalancing.
btw being from the UK, "they" singular in text is normal, especially in this case where the gender of the player is unknown, and seeing he/she here would really trip me up (as it does when I read older articles from the US that use "he" arbitrarily). It's a style thing, but one I've always liked as more accurate.
I'm from the UK and I honestly didn't even realise the use of they in the article until I read the parent comment. It seems totally natural to me and feels like a perfect way to avoid gender in contexts where it is unknown or intentionally avoided. I find it incredibly annoying when I read text with made up or assumed genders, especially as the parent commenter points out when articles use she for inanimate objects or objects with undefined genders.
To me and many others it feels as a forced, immature (almost childlike), aloof desire for change. You use words like ‘rebalance’ as if there is an objective, universally shared belief our culture is out of balance. Thank God we have you as our savior.
Things will get out of balance the more it is forced, because with every politically correct motion, there is an equal opposite motion. All that is achieved is further polarization and misunderstanding.
To say the articles’ use of ‘they’ is normal in the UK feel duplicitous. I’ve read my fair share of British literature, newspapers and articles. The text feels completely alien to British writing.
Because "they" in text has always been common for me, it's not a change and not forced -- it's been like this as long as I can remember.
I can't speak for the British writing you've read, but as a Brit living in and having grown up in the UK, singular non-gendered "they" is normal and common in both formal and informal text. Could be a function of my social context or the writing I've been exposed to, it's true. We all have our own perspective.
There's even an example of it in the Canterbury Tales (one of the most iconic early English texts). I can't remember the exact line now, but it got me quite annoyed when American writing teachers would mark my uses of "they" as incorrect and demand "he or she".
"They" as generic third person singular goes back at least five centuries. I am (obviously) referring to address a knownindividual using "They" / "Their".
It is common in colloquial English to use "they"/"their" as a generic third person singular.
For example: "Could the person who left their umbrella please pick it up?"
However, here it is used in a rather new setting for a specific and known individual. This is a rather new phenomenon pushed by the transgender and genderqueer community.
I am specifically addressing the latter usage of the form 'they' in the third person singular. Do you agree this form is new? If not, could you give references to earlier usage than, say 1990?
> You use words like ‘rebalance’ as if there is an objective, universally shared belief our culture is out of balance.
I thought it was a fairly universal idea that there’s an high level of amount of gender imbalance with regards to professional programmers. Most frequently seen at programming meetups and conventions. Maybe it’s not commonly accepted as a problem in your sphere, but I’d bet if you asked around you’d get answers that surprise you.
There is definitely a difference in outcome in the programmers community. The question is whether there is a difference in opportunity.
Don't you think that by emphasizing the differences by forcefully changing our accepted speech, you are making it harder for women to enter the sphere?
To be able to fight, but refraining from fighting, is what makes us human. It allows us to show mutual respect and to form true connections.
This is the second time in the same thread that you've taken a leap into generic flamewar. That's exactly what we don't want in discussions here. Would you please review the site guidelines and not do that on HN? It's extremely tedious, only gets worse, and ends distastefully.
Why aren’t there more garbagewomen? Is it the same reason there are aren’t women professional programmers? What’s your argument as to why there are these differences - that it’s some sort of natural order?
People with low education have the opportunity to work an physically demanding low pay job regardless of gender. Women are forced out of high paying intelectual job because they can't be one of the Bros
When working as a sub-editor, the use of 'they' really solves a political problem for me that can't be addressed any other way. That said, it is massively misused in the source article, since the player is clearly either female or determined to identify as female - which also solves the problem.
Well there are two entities: the character and the player. The character is female, but a player doesn't need to identify as female to have a female character.
Since the article is about the player more generally (the article discusses the player in other games), and the player prefers not to be gendered, I think "they" is appropriate here.
As a non-english native, I didn‘t know that. I thought „they“ always meant more than one. What‘s the reasoning if you know the gender? How to differenciate between a group and a person whose gender is unknown?
"Every one must judge according to their own feelings." That's a nice example on how it can be used. Most of the older examples include "every" or "any" before using they. I think I need to study that part of the language as (at least in some situations) it seems like a nice way to get around using a generic form.
It's not like words cannot be overloaded. Lots of languages use the plural form to show respect or politeness, or regard somebody with esteem (like the royal "we") for instance.
Having more information isn't always better. Imagine if our language had pronouns that told you the race of the person, or whether they had a beard or not. A culture that primarily used pronouns like these would probably develop very strong arbitrary associations related to race or beards. If people were familiar with alternatives, plenty would be uncomfortable with one of these details always being packed in to references to them.
Well, always using those words would say something about the culture, not the language.
In my language journalists created a new word for it that was met with resistance first, but it doesn’t corrupt another word and it has been added to all dictionaries and is used heavily.
That said, the author misuses and misapplies the construct, as the gender seems known to me from a quick pass of the article, and as mentioned by other commenters. Yes, it feels forced and it usually doesn't -- you probably have already encountered similar examples before, but did not notice them.
You were uncomfortable with textbooks when they used 'she', and against them trying to include you once more with 'they/them'?
So the only acceptable option by this line of thinking is that the default pronoun should be 'he/him'. This attitude seems something a little different from 'conservative'.
I agree that "they" is awful, and I would definitely prefer that we just have to make the unknown pronoun always be "she" if that is what everyone needs to not throw an inequality tantrum.
From recollection the article was clear in inferring that the human player wished to remain anonymous including identifying features. We are only told:
- avatar female
- player had slight southern drawl on phone.
From this information the gender of the player is unknown, and since the article is about the player, not the avatar, gender neutral pronouns are appropriate to maintain journalist integrity.
From your comment it sounds like you’re attributing gender politics to this article where there isn’t necessarily any.
Maybe the player themselves wanted to referred to using neutral pronoun? Maybe they didn't want to reveal their gender? I don't see why this is a problem and triggers such reaction
I agree with you. In addition to it being weird to read, having 'he' and 'she' also allows you to be able to mentally separate two individuals in a context where applicable.
It's because the person behind the character is a man.
I'm from the UK, it might be normal to occasionally say they when you don't know the name, gender and have an image but I don't agree with others that the way this article is written isn't very stilted as a result.
I think the wider debate has probably sailed. I remember the confusion at having to add a fourth gender (beyond M/F/other) to an input dropdown list on a system 10 years ago. It's probably a textarea now.
It's more specific, not less: having he/she/they allows us to refer to male/female/unknown instead of overloading "he" to mean both male/unknown. Similar reason to why you sometimes want to allow NULL on a boolean column.
I think the argument is that "they" is often used in the plural form, and requires context to determine where it's referring to the singular. This context isn't always clear which leads to ambiguity.
I don’t think there’s a movement to remove gender from text. I think you’re reading into the overuse/misuse of “they” in this article in a super extreme way, and have connected it to all sorts of unrelated political movements regarding gender expression, of which you are clearly not a supporter. You see a connection here that I don’t think exists.
Yes, it's a person using a female character in-game. No way of determining the gender of the player behind that character. Hence, a gender-neutral term.
At best, this seems like a very weird thing to get up in arms about.
But worse, and I think more likely, it shows you are intolerant to change. I think that, equally likely, it shows you are just plain intolerant to some people.
Everyone is intolerant to some people. Apparently you are intolerant to intolerant people.
I’m not sure if it’s something to get up in arms about, but it’s not really something to be bothered by either in my opinion.
My opinion is that pronoun doesn’t matter regardless of whether it’s he/she or they. They just seems marginally less effective at conveying information.
I'm not sure that they're more efficient. Take for example the large open urinals. In a situation dominated by people capable of using them and where most people are using the toilets to urinate then having Unisex (or Omnisex) toilets is extremely inefficient.
A good example of this is pretty much any football (soccer) stadium. For matches most of the crowd are men and a large number of them are drinking more than usual. Heck, I've been in a stadium with a 50/50 crowd: even when the toilets were split 2/1 for women in favor of men there was always a long queue for the girls and nothing for the boys.
Go to bathrooms in airports, conference centers at hotels, or higher end restaurants and you might notice a pattern. They are clean, smells of detergent, and has this piece of paper usually next to the door with a time stamp.
Bathrooms are clean if you clean them. It is also more hygienic and gives a better impression of the place. Saving money by gendered bathrooms and only cleaning the bathroom once a week belong in the same gender discrimination category as other cost-saving tactics that involve gender.
I don’t know why you’re downvoted. In the UK toilet means the room, not just the thing you sit on. It’s a perfectly fine clarification to make.
(I cringe every time someone uses the euphemism 'bathroom' to mean toilet. Like, we all know you are not going to take a bath in a pub after two pints right?)
Not native. But anyway I disagree that women squat pee. They usually sit to pee here. While men don’t so all the toilet (the appliance) and the ground are full of pee. Result: the whole room stinks of pee.
Was thinking the same thing, I am not used to reading like this and it seems like constant grammatical errors. I don't know, English is not my first language, but I believe I would have failed my tests in school, had I written like this.
“People say, ya know, ‘Get a life,’ and ‘This is a waste of time,’” Sae continues. “They have to understand that I only did this for an hour and a half each day just to unwind after work. I wasn’t killing myself doing this.”
You could say that about a lot of things. I find it insane that some people subject themself to an hour or more of driving every day or scrolling down Instagram.
“People say, ya know, ‘Get a life,’ and ‘This is a waste of time,’” Sae continues. “They have to understand that I only did this for an hour and a half each day just to unwind after work. I wasn’t killing myself doing this.”
I loved Eve Online when I played it in the mid 2000s but its point and click mechanics as well as you'd have to wait days even weeks to acquire skills in some cases made me lose interest in the game. It has its addictive qualities too where you feel you could go on playing it forever while knowing you have got to stop playing it for your own good.
Years later I got introduced to Elite Dangerous and it's been a lot more fun than Eve. Elite gives players the opportunity to fly by binary stars, fly through neutron star jet cones to overcharge fsd drives, combats close to stars, land on planets and even more simulated activities. If you have a VR the game becomes a unique experience. The game's map is based on Milky Way galaxy and the systems are procedurally generated. I remember last year the devs announced approx 112000 individual systems were discovered and this is about 0.028% of the total. Anyway, a few months ago I solo traveled to Sag A* and returned later to the bubble (where Solar system and surrounding systems are). It took me 2 weeks to complete the trip and at times it was pretty boring. On the other hand it is the only game that let me experience the stress of flying near a black hole and I am grateful to the devs for making it possible.