I was originally thinking of writing something a bit more lighthearted for Friday, but I came across this little post in Kotaku from Wednesday:
A game that prides itself on its no-holds barred/Machiavellian environment* in a space economy is the only place I'd expect to see something like this. Sure, it makes for fascinating reading, but I know I couldn't handle this sort of shenanigans. It'd be like watching real work intrude on my gaming fun.**
Oh, and the spreadsheet aspect of EVE isn't something that I'm enamored of, either. Sure, I'm good at spreadsheets, and I use them even outside of work, but it's not something I like to do but rather something I have to do. Like keep track of college data so we can drill down on what universities mini-Red #2 should be focusing on when we go to the college fairs.*** Or working out the cost details on house projects. But if you want to be good at EVE, you need to run spreadsheets. LOTS of spreadsheets. And that doesn't spark my interests.
Still, more power to those who love to play. It's the difference between respecting somebody who is good at the old Avalon Hill boardgame Diplomacy and actually playing it: the people who are best at both may not necessarily be the people you want to hang around with in real life.
*With the major exception of out of game threats of violence being met with a perma-ban.
**The main reason why I won't read A Song of Fire and Ice and other, gritty SF/F novels is because if I want to read about gritty realism and how characters must suffer and die, I'll go turn on the news.
***Seriously. There's not enough time at those things to cover every university that is there, so you have to focus on the ones you're most interested in. Add to that the complexity of finding universities that have majors that you're interested in --English or Chemistry is easy, finding a university with a Music program that has an Oboist, not so much-- and you've got the makings of a pretty challenging environment.
"But if you want to be good at EVE, you need to run spreadsheets. LOTS of spreadsheets. And that doesn't spark my interests."
ReplyDeleteIf you want to do a few specific things, like run a large alliance or a serious manufacturing operation, you will probably find your job made easier by tracking some things that way, the way you would any operation that has a lot of data. But after eleven years playing EVE the whole "spreadsheets in space" thing seems way overblown.
But that is the thing about EVE, even the players argue about what it really is, because you can go in so many directions. You don't have to run a manufacturing operation, but you could if you wanted.
If I were to play EVE, it'd be trying to eke out a living as if I were on Star Wars' Outer Rim: just getting by with some trading. But EVE's reputation is such that I doubt that people would leave a small time trader alone.
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