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Why do so many EVE players think they are superior gamers?

Author
Alexzandvar Douglass
Motiveless Malignity
Deepwater Hooligans
#141 - 2012-08-06 16:02:20 UTC
I play World of Warcraft and do well for my self, my Guild does 25 man Heroics. I play WoW to enjoy the simple pleasure of loot raining from the sky and beating large monsters with sharp and blunt objects. I love working hard to down a difficult boss with m friends.

I play EVE to enjoy the emergent experience and get the satisfaction of working with my friends to achieve difficult goals. I love to build things, to blow something up with something I build and sit back and say: With my friends and I, we built that.
Sarcasim
HOW to PEG SAFETY
#142 - 2012-08-06 16:11:13 UTC
Taranius De Consolville wrote:
Hiya

Quite simply because EvE Online is not a large game. Hence when big alliances make small decisions they affect most of the EvE universe

= Ego - Superior Attitude

WOW - Millions if players with Thousands of realms across three main server groups i.e US/EU/China and Japan - Millions of guilds. No one pays attention to anyone outside of there guild because the actions of one guild do not affect the realm the said guild is on.

Im afraid it is as simple as that.

In short

Small player base - Sandbox - Small decision by big alliance - thousands of players affected = Ego = Superior Attitude

Big game - non sandbox - no one cares - move on

Hope this helps



Well said sir.
Jame Jarl Retief
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#143 - 2012-08-06 16:11:57 UTC
Lexmana wrote:
Jame Jarl Retief wrote:
wall of text

That was an awful analysis. You have a very superficial view of EVE, probably because you are used to play other games that lack depth of gameplay. So you're saying that EVE is not competitive because it is unbalanced? That is like saying that life on earth is not competitive because it is unbalanced.


It depends on your definition of competition. Consider a simple example - when I used to live in a third world country, my earning potential, no matter how well I did, was a bare fraction of my earning potential now, in a second world country. Same goes for my quality of life. I was competitive, strictly speaking, within the scope of the country I was in. But I was no competition financially to someone performing the same tasks but living in another geographical area.

If you narrow your view a little bit, and focus on the simple fact that EVE is a game, you have to recognize a few limitations. First, a game is supposed to be either fun (entertainment value) or challenging (competition). The challenge is EVE is hampered by very many things. And fun, which can be derived from winning in competition, is thus affected as well.

See the example I made of a tennis match which is 1v16. Unbalanced, not fun (at least not for the kid facing the team of 16), not challenging (for the team of 16). It doesn't improve any of the participants in any way, really.

Now compare that to a very simple, but also competitive game of chess. Two people, 1v1. Balanced board, though since someone has to make the first move, you can argue white has the initiative and thus the advantage. But since the color is decided by a coin flip, you can write it off as chance. Beyond that, the victor is the superior player. It leads to a match that is much more rewarding to participate in or even observe. Compared to a 1 vs 16 cluster****. Why? Balance. Each participant has an even chance.

This translates into some other genres very well. In FPS games, for instance, a bullet in the head is a bullet in the head. It is usually irrelevant whether it comes from a pistol, a rifle or a cannon, it is equally fatal. It typically also doesn't matter what kind of armor the target character wears, what his level or rank is, how many (s)killpoints he accumulated, etc.

This is not to say the situation is fully balanced. An older character would have access to better guns (more precise, less recoil, more ammo, different scopes, etc.) The element of rock-paper-scissors also comes into play. A pump action shotgun at 100m won't do you much good against someone in a prone position holding a supported belt-fed fully automatic weapon. It is never really even. But between terrain, line of sight and other elements, you can make it work. And of course there's always teamwork.

But at least you never feel like it is a complete, senseless, one-sided loss with absolutely no chance of winning or even coming out even. Where at best, absolute best, you might escape with your pod. Which is also why most FPS games have server auto-balancing. When one team begins to severely outnumber, the numbers are equalized forcefully. This is often taken one step further, if one team is too good, teams can be scrambled in interests of maintaining the level of challenge.

I'll grant you this may be hard to understand. I see a lot of people in EVE who execute 10v1 attacks, and consider it a job well done. I don't find it beneficial at all. Payout is tiny, split 10 ways off of 1 target, the loot too. Challenge is nonexistent, entertainment value is questionable as well, unless you're the sort to set fire to an anthill with a blowtorch and giggle.

Now, when it comes to EVE where this is impossible to enforce, short of taking fights into their own private instance, there's not much choice. Though I'm reminded of Pirates of the Burning Sea game design. It was deeply flawed in many ways, but it had some sensible designs. For example, when one ship got within engagement range of another, they were pulled into their own private instance where the fight took place. This is not to say the fight was always 1v1, other people had a few seconds to reach the "fight location" entry point before it collapsed, so 1v10 was still very possible. And port battles, that is 20 vs 20 battle royale for control of a port, were limited to just that - 20 ships per side. It prevented the ludicrous 500 vs 5 roflstomp that we saw in SWTOR when it came to world PvP, for example.

On a personal note, I find a 500 vs 5 beneath me. Which I guess is why I am having such difficulty in EVE, where it is probably an ideal scenario. But that is probably because I view it as a game - something meant to entertain or challenge. Not to simply crush someone you can easily crush for the sake of the crushing (and digital pixels).

So it all depends on how you choose to look at it. There's no right or wrong way. EVE has many things that make it unique and worth playing, for what it offers in some areas. I just had to train myself not to expect the same quality of the experience offered by some other games in some other areas. That's all. Like I said, it's not good or bad, it just is. With all its flaws and shortcomings. All we can do is live with them or move on.
Jame Jarl Retief
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#144 - 2012-08-06 16:18:35 UTC
Taranius De Consolville wrote:
Hiya

Quite simply because EvE Online is not a large game. Hence when big alliances make small decisions they affect most of the EvE universe

= Ego - Superior Attitude

WOW - Millions if players with Thousands of realms across three main server groups i.e US/EU/China and Japan - Millions of guilds. No one pays attention to anyone outside of there guild because the actions of one guild do not affect the realm the said guild is on.

Im afraid it is as simple as that.

In short

Small player base - Sandbox - Small decision by big alliance - thousands of players affected = Ego = Superior Attitude

Big game - non sandbox - no one cares - move on

Hope this helps


Yes and no.

In WoW you as an individual could have a certain pride of achievement. For instance, you could join a 2v2 arena and reach the top spot. And while arenas were not global, but separated into battlegroups (I believe something like 12 servers per battlegroup?), it was still something, to be a top dog (or 2) out of twenty thousand or more players.

And this victory wouldn't be predicated on how long you have been playing the game. It wouldn't be based on your ship/fittings and their quality. It certainly wouldn't be based on how much money you can throw into the game to buy said ships/fittings. It was just you and your buddy vs 2 other people, in a highly balanced, highly contained scenario. Gear would be meaningless, everyone wore the same PvP sets for their class, which were equivalent in power.

And when you got to the top, you knew it was YOU, and your teammate, playing together, that achieved this. You can't buy that.

Compare that to EVE - characters with a hundred million SP engaging new people with off-grid alts boosting or neutral reps? I'm sorry, but in some other MMOs you'd be laughed out of town for such cheap theatrics.

It's just a different mentality, I guess. Not better or worse, just different.
Sarcasim
HOW to PEG SAFETY
#145 - 2012-08-06 16:22:13 UTC
I beta tested pong and have played almost every major MMO since. Eve requires many things tha ta typical mmo does not. Yes your told what to do by your fc and get your fit from tried and tested fits before you, but this is no different then following script in a raid.

Eve requires knowledge and application of said knowledge to play. It requires interaction with others to effect change on a global level.

Eve has real results for failure. In other games when you fail you respawn no big deal. You fail in EVE and you may have lost months of hard work and isk. Real risk real loss.

All these things dont make EVE better people or players it just makes EVE a better game.

LAST EVE is not for everyone.
War Kitten
Panda McLegion
#146 - 2012-08-06 16:24:27 UTC
Dearest OP,

I believe your ignorance of the skills involved in Eve PvP leaves you in a poor position to pass judgement on those skills.

But nice troll.

8/10

I don't judge people by their race, religion, color, size, age, gender, or ethnicity. I judge them by their grammar, spelling, syntax, punctuation, clarity of expression, and logical consistency.

Raya Chandragupta
Observant Eye Inc
#147 - 2012-08-06 16:30:23 UTC
Requirements for success in Eve: you know how to google, you speak English (or at least German or Russian) to have access to online sources and other players, you know how to use a spreadsheet, and you bring lots of time - mostly to obsess about details (ship stats, fits, market prices etc) and for endless hours of grinding (placing market orders/contracts, reshipping, fitting, finding targets, fleet buildups, corporation management, fueling pos, bashing pos, hauling stuff around, setting up your mining bots etc.). Some very basic psychological finesse can't hurt if you run a corp. That's about it.

Eve requires more intelligence than a simple FPS game, but the average Eve player is still dumber than a sack of bricks (though, that doesn't mean he isn't drowning in ISK or hasn't got an awesome killboard efficiency. Eve is crapping free ISK at every corner and killmail whoring/blob grinding aren't intellectual feats either). Eve markets/industry are extremely simplistic compared to RL markets and much easier to manipulate. You don't need to have an MBA to make shitloads of ISK there, being an obsessive-compulsive hobby accountant is completely sufficient.

Btw, anyone playing a videogame for 18 hours a week (like the average Eve player according to the official survey) instead of spending the time on someting useful or creative (like writing a book, learning an instrument to perfection, getting an additional degree, making real money at real markets, being active in charity organizations, teaching origami to jobless steel workers, coding your own game, or 1000 other worthwhile things that will not just be some stale memories once the servers get shut down or your subscription expires) is per definition an idiot, a failure, and a menace to society.
Alexzandvar Douglass
Motiveless Malignity
Deepwater Hooligans
#148 - 2012-08-06 16:38:36 UTC
Raya Chandragupta wrote:
Requirements for success in Eve: you know how to google, you speak English (or at least German or Russian) to have access to online sources and other players, you know how to use a spreadsheet, and you bring lots of time - mostly to obsess about details (ship stats, fits, market prices etc) and for endless hours of grinding (placing market orders/contracts, reshipping, fitting, finding targets, fleet buildups, corporation management, fueling pos, bashing pos, hauling stuff around, setting up your mining bots etc.). Some very basic psychological finesse can't hurt if you run a corp. That's about it.

Eve requires more intelligence than a simple FPS game, but the average Eve player is still dumber than a sack of bricks (though, that doesn't mean he isn't drowning in ISK or hasn't got an awesome killboard efficiency. Eve is crapping free ISK at every corner and killmail whoring/blob grinding aren't intellectual feats either). Eve markets/industry are extremely simplistic compared to RL markets and much easier to manipulate. You don't need to have an MBA to make shitloads of ISK there, being an obsessive-compulsive hobby accountant is completely sufficient.

Btw, anyone playing a videogame for 18 hours a week (like the average Eve player according to the official survey) instead of spending the time on someting useful or creative (like writing a book, learning an instrument to perfection, getting an additional degree, making real money at real markets, being active in charity organizations, teaching origami to jobless steel workers, coding your own game, or 1000 other worthwhile things that will not just be some stale memories once the servers get shut down or your subscription expires) is per definition an idiot, a failure, and a menace to society.


You can't be menace so society if your to busy grinding up those Minerals for your next Super Carrier.
Liafcipe9000
Critically Preposterous
#149 - 2012-08-06 17:03:11 UTC
be sure to contract all your stuff to me when you quit THE GAME Blink
Jame Jarl Retief
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#150 - 2012-08-06 17:24:43 UTC
Sarcasim wrote:
Eve has real results for failure. In other games when you fail you respawn no big deal. You fail in EVE and you may have lost months of hard work and isk. Real risk real loss.


This is really not true for the most part.

In WoW, for example, if you die in PvE you suffer durability loss. Back in 2005 when I was raiding Molten Core with 40 other people, a raid wipe was painful financially. I remember disastrous raids where I came out with a full set of broken plate armor that cost 20-30 gold coins to repair. This was a HUGE amount of money. Days and days and days of farming to make that back. It's no different from losing a ship in EVE.

It's just in WoW the loss is handled more gracefully. Instead of dealing with shopping and refitting, which let's face it is just busy work, you simply press one button, X gold gets subtracted from your bank and you're off to fight another war.

Now, in PvP you sort of have a point, there was no durability loss there. Which ENCOURAGED world PvP! Many times people engaged against impossible odds because they had nothing to lose by dying, and everything to gain (honor points, if they succeeded). Compare that to EVE, where 99% of people will run from anything perceived as unfavourable to them.

See, there's two sides of the coin. You can encourage something, by making losing meaningless, but by rewarding a victory. You can also discourage something, by making losing painful, and giving little reward for victory. This is EVE's approach.

And in competitive PvP (arenas, rated battlegrounds), the loss was not measured in gold, but in standing. If you lost, you lost standing, which in turn limited your rank, things you could buy, etc., as certain armors and weapons were rank-locked and could not be traded.

In other words, the game had VERY tangible and sometimes very painful consequences for losing. You can lose months of hard work in EVE. You can just as easily lose months of hard work in WoW. I've seen teams claw their way up to the top over a period of weeks, only to crash back down to 1600 rating in a few hours. It happens there like anywhere.

Same goes for many other MMOs. It's just the penalty for the loss is different. In EVE it usually simply translates into X ISK, where you often determine what X is (see "don't fly what you can't afford to lose"). In other games, it translates into repair bills, standings losses, rank losses (where both determine gear you can wear, weapons and abilities you can use, etc.), Repair bills translate into gold. In the games that have territory control, a loss can also lead to a loss of territory. Not to mention EVE is not the only game where player looting is a feature.

For instance, in Darkfall no items were ever destroyed. See above, where I mentioned rewarding victory? Or punishing loss? Darkfall had 100% of both. If you killed someone wearing a full set of plate, you got that full set of plate in the loot. Unlike EVE where rigs are always destroyed, and the bulk of modules as well. That is, the % of total value that you get as loot is small relative to the price of the whole package. Compare that to Darkfall's 100% of the total value is looted upon death, transferred from the loser. Made killing far more important and way more profitable. Though the game was so badly flawed in so many other areas it's been on life support since launch. But to be fair, it has had a lot more competition in the fantasy MMO genre than EVE had in Sci-Fi space MMO genre (which is none).

There's also Mortal Online, where besides looting there were nifty features such as being able to break into a person's house and rob it. Or pickpocketing. Yep, you could sneak up on them and steal stuff they were carrying. And guards did not automatically attack if you did something wrong, they had to be called for, unlike Concord. Etc., etc.

So, all in all, EVE is actually halfway down the spectrum, between hardcore and Helly Kitty Island Adventure. Which is why I find it funny when people say EVE is harsh and unforgiving. Please, the game is very kind in many ways. There's high sec, which is very safe unless you're doing something very stupid, and 60% of the population lives there. There's ways to dodge wars. There's insurance and payouts, even if you suicide gank (something that no other MMO I know of has). Dock in station and you are 100% safe. Where even in "carebear" WoW on PvP server you could easily be killed in your own faction's capital city, in front of 200 other people. And if you were good, you could even escape after killing someone like that. Guards weren't see-everything godmode like CONCORD. Though I understand a few expansions later they introduced sanctuaries which are safe PvP-free zones same as EVE's stations.

So, honestly, EVE isn't all that hard, and it doesn't punish losing all that much. And it's no more dangerous than most other MMOs out there. The only thing it REALLY does differently is that it allows scamming, cheating and stealing. Something most "civilized" MMOs do not. In this respect, I absolutely have to take my hat off to EVE. Though I strongly suspect this was done not so much by design but just to avoid dealing with all the petitions. EVE has enough technical issues to occupy petition queue besides scamming, cheating and stealing petitions inflating it even further. So like many other things, it may have been a byproduct of a simple business decision.
Seishi Maru
doMAL S.A.
#151 - 2012-08-06 17:50:03 UTC
Nerf Burger wrote:
I see it all the time, players claiming superiority because of the game they play, but in EVE the level delusions of grandeur are far beyond anything I've seen.

To me this seems like a fallacy of logic.

For one thing, it doesn't take any special skill to play EVE. You don't need twitch skills like you would in a first person shooter game and you don't need macro-ability or micro-ability or actions per minute like you would in an RTS game. All that is required is knowledge, know what weapons to use, know what you can kill and can't kill, and know what can kill you. Copy a popular fit and listen to your FC and you are as effective as you can be. Your personal skills as a gamer are totally irrelevant for the most part. Know what direction to fly and know game mechanics to succeed. As far as I can tell, there is nothing that really takes skill in EVE, all that is needed is knowledge on what to do, which any simpleton can acquire over time. You could even argue that WoW takes more skill than EVE. So why is it that so many EVE players think they are so special?

Personally I see EVE as a knowledge-based game, not a skill-based game. If anything, this is the kind of game people would be comfortable with after getting sick of losing in skill-based games. I think EVE is a great game, but there no reason to pretend like because we play it, we are somehow smarter or more hardcore than other gamers. There are skill based games that are more hardcore than EVE and require more thought.

Set me right, EVE forum dwellers, what makes you superior?



In eve you need SOCIAL skills.. as they are much more powerful in this game than having 150 million SP.....
Alavaria Fera
GoonWaffe
#152 - 2012-08-06 18:07:29 UTC
Alexzandvar Douglass wrote:
You can't be menace so society if your to busy grinding up those Minerals for your next Super Carrier.

At least with a super carrier you can't accidentally jump instead of bridge...

Triggered by: Wars of Sovless Agression, Bending the Knee, Twisting the Knife, Eating Sov Wheaties, Bombless Bombers, Fizzlesov, Interceptor Fleets, Running Away, GhostTime Vuln, Renters, Bombs, Bubbles ?

Douca
VEX NATION
#153 - 2012-08-06 18:19:43 UTC
Nerf Burger wrote:
Why do so many EVE players think they are superior gamers?


Simple, Because if you can make it here, You can make it anywhere!
Alavaria Fera
GoonWaffe
#154 - 2012-08-06 18:22:26 UTC
Douca wrote:
Nerf Burger wrote:
Why do so many EVE players think they are superior gamers?

Simple, Because if you can make it here, You can make it anywhere!

But we blob, I can't take a blob with me elsewhere.

Triggered by: Wars of Sovless Agression, Bending the Knee, Twisting the Knife, Eating Sov Wheaties, Bombless Bombers, Fizzlesov, Interceptor Fleets, Running Away, GhostTime Vuln, Renters, Bombs, Bubbles ?

Hiyora Akachi
Blood Alcohol Content
T O P S H E L F
#155 - 2012-08-06 19:33:41 UTC
Yes you an, just not as big a blob as you can take with you in EvE.
Sotah Osodin
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#156 - 2012-08-06 20:29:00 UTC
Spy 21 wrote:
Lady Spank wrote:
Nerf Burger wrote:
ThisIsntMyMain wrote:
We don't. We think youre inferior.


Can you give a clue as to why? Maybe a response that someone can read and actually have reason to think you may be right.

Right now you are just proving my point. Thanks


Nerf Burger
Security Status 0.0

Republic Military School [RMS]
Member for 29 days

CURRENT CORPORATION
Republic Military School [RMS] from 2012.07.06 03:30 to this day



The fact that you have to hide on an alt proves you are inferior.


Exactly!
It takes at least a year just to learn what it is that you actually still need to learn to effectively play this game. There levels of skill and knowledge that are not even apparent before then...

Like in the original "Dune"....

"I see plans within plans..."

S


This is the truth.
Lin-Young Borovskova
Doomheim
#157 - 2012-08-06 20:31:50 UTC
Quote:
Why do so many EVE players think they are superior gamers?



Because they know nothing else.

brb

Sarcasim
HOW to PEG SAFETY
#158 - 2012-08-06 20:52:04 UTC
Jame Jarl Retief wrote:
[quote=Sarcasim]Eve has real results for failure. In other games when you fail you respawn no big deal. You fail in EVE and you may have lost months of hard work and isk. Real risk real loss.


This is really not true for the most part.

In WoW, for example, if you die in PvE you suffer durability loss. Back in 2005 when I was raiding Molten Core with 40 other people, a raid wipe was painful financially. I remember disastrous raids where I came out with a full set of broken plate armor that cost 20-30 gold coins to repair. This was a HUGE amount of money. Days and days and days of farming to make that back. It's no different from losing a ship in EVE.

LMAO yea a repair bill for gear sure does hurt when you can solo a dungeon. PFFT get real WOW was the bigest carebare kids game I played. I played everquest over wow bc it provided more challenge. Still pales in comparison to the depth of eve. WOW has been dumbed down to nothing. I am ashamed to admit I even played it tbh.
Kunming
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#159 - 2012-08-06 21:04:13 UTC
Persistent universe...

What u kill or lose on this server has an impact, minor or major, on each and every player. This gives a sense of "power" the more you are influencing other players; be it direct combat or indirect market manipulation.

What is funny though when grunts in a large alliance get cocky and think they are running the show. I have been around alot to say that "every dog has its day"...
Korsiri
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#160 - 2012-08-06 21:24:07 UTC
Because Darwinism works.