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Decline in numbers... starting to turn into RAPID!!!

First post
Author
Whitehound
#761 - 2015-09-01 13:59:11 UTC
Tippia wrote:
Whitehound wrote:
So you have no proof and claim proof is irrelevant?

No. I'm saying that what you're trying to prove is irrelevant. ...

So you have no proof, or are you saying loss is irrelevant?

In any case, if you have no proof of a loss, or believe losing is irrelevant, then where is the risk?

If there is no loss then there cannot be a loser and everyone must be a winner. Is this what you are saying?

Loss is meaningful. Therefore is the loss of meaning likewise meaningful. It is the source of all trolling.

Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#762 - 2015-09-01 14:01:57 UTC  |  Edited by: Tippia
Lucas Kell wrote:
No, you're interacting with a rock. You're competing with me, but interacting with the rock. Yes, you can categorise it into PvP or into PvE if you wish, but when looking at the 3 definitions it's competitive PvE.
…except that there still is no “E” that you are “v”:ing. The rock is not opposition — it's just a resource. There is no “versus”.

It can't be “competitive PvE” if there is no PvE involved, now can it?

Quote:
We are both doing PvE, and competing while doing it. We are both interacting with the environment, not with each other.
You're interacting with each other, actually, and you're not really doing any PvE. If you're going to start count passive “interaction” (in quotation marks since it's entirely one-sided) as PvE, then the term becomes almost useless as a descriptor and differentiator. Ship spinning is PvE under this expanded definition; docking a a station is PvE; theft is PvE — it's become so loose and all-encompassing that it no longer describes anything coherent.

Quote:
The label "competitive PvE" just helps further describe the type of content beyond the definitions of PvE and PvP.

…and that label only helps if it actually points to something that isn't covered by the concepts of PvE and PvP. The previously mentioned scoreboard slapfight is a good example. However, if it starts to intrude on and blur the lines of PvE and PvP, it is anything but helpful.

Whitehound wrote:
So you have no proof, or are you saying loss is irrelevant?
Repeating the question will not change the answer; relying on strawman argument means you've lost. Again: no. I'm saying that what you're trying to prove is irrelevant.

Quote:
In any case, if you have no proof of a loss, or believe losing is irrelevant, then where is the risk?
Irrelevant. Risk is no more a prerequisite than a loss is (unsurprisingly, when considering what “risk” is), and there most definitely can be a loser without loss. This is yet another case where you simply do not get what a word means. Every time you've tried this approach, you've lost the argument and come out looking very silly — do you really want to go down that road again?

Oh, and you still haven't provided those definitions, you know… again, a simple post number will do if you don't know how to copy/past or use links.
Salvos Rhoska
#763 - 2015-09-01 14:05:11 UTC  |  Edited by: Salvos Rhoska
Whitehound wrote:
Tippia wrote:
Whitehound wrote:
So you have no proof and claim proof is irrelevant?

No. I'm saying that what you're trying to prove is irrelevant. ...

So you have no proof, or are you saying loss is irrelevant?

In any case, if you have no proof of a loss, or believe losing is irrelevant, then where is the risk?

If there is no loss then there cannot be a loser and everyone must be a winner. Is this what you are saying?


You lost the sale and the profit.

Someone else got it, as a result of competetion with you in their interest against yours, and due to interacting accordingly.

You lost. They won.

All of this is supremely ironic when put up against your post sig.
Dersen Lowery
The Scope
#764 - 2015-09-01 14:13:58 UTC
So what if we actually looked at game environments simply as opportunities for player interaction, instead of insisting on a dichotomy that works better for games that have dedicated "PVE" and "PVP" servers, and PVP flags, and all the rest of it?

That's the first change Sugar Kyle got for lowsec, even before she was a CSM: she had low-level anoms added back in that were frequent locations for fights. The resources are a reason for people to be there, and if there's no contesting of those resources, bonus! You get it all for yourself. Otherwise, more potential places for interaction besides gates and stations is good, right?

Then you can look at the relative difficulty of creating conflict as terrain: gates and stations are huge, obvious beacons; anyone with the scanning window open can immediately warp to an anomaly; POSes often have to be hunted down, as do signatures; and finally you have missions and escalations, which are designed to be relatively difficult terrain for any visitors not sent there by an agent.

You have NPCs that shoot back, but even that is finally just another kind of terrain.

Proud founder and member of the Belligerent Desirables.

I voted in CSM X!

Avvy
Doomheim
#765 - 2015-09-01 14:16:14 UTC
Well if a declining in numbers thread turns into a what is PvP and what is PvE thread, I guess people don't think there's anything wrong with the numbers.

Salvos Rhoska
#766 - 2015-09-01 14:18:31 UTC
Some good points there in terms of opening up possibilities for new game designs.

But PvP and PvE are not a dichotomy, or each others opposites on a spectrum.

They describe two completely different things.

PvP, is simply player vs player.
PvE, is simply player vs NPC/AI.
Dersen Lowery
The Scope
#767 - 2015-09-01 14:19:49 UTC  |  Edited by: Dersen Lowery
Avvy wrote:
Well if a declining in numbers thread turns into a what is PvP and what is PvE thread, I guess people don't think there's anything wrong with the numbers.


Any "EVE is dying" thread eventually settles into wonkery about how best to revive the game, which involves understanding the game first, which is apparently very hard for some people, and so here we are.

Salvos Rhoska wrote:
Some good points there in terms of opening up possibilities for new game designs.

But PvP and PvE are not a dichotomy, or each others opposites on a spectrum.

They describe two completely different things.

PvP, is simply player vs player.
PvE, is simply player vs NPC/AI.


I understand the definitions, I just don't think they're useful abstractions for understanding a game like EVE.

Are missions PVE? Well, the game creates an environment for you, terrain to navigate and enemies to shoot, so yes. But you also get LP, which you can use to buy things from the loyalty point store. The smart money is on selling those things on the market, and whoops! Suddenly that's not PVE anymore.

That's why I think it's more useful to see environments as terrain in the game world, rather than insisting on applying a model that makes more sense in completely different games.

Proud founder and member of the Belligerent Desirables.

I voted in CSM X!

Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#768 - 2015-09-01 14:21:24 UTC
Dersen Lowery wrote:
So what if we actually looked at game environments simply as opportunities for player interaction, instead of insisting on a dichotomy that works better for games that have dedicated "PVE" and "PVP" servers, and PVP flags, and all the rest of it?
The main problem is communicating this to the players coming into the game. After all, that's why this discussion comes up so often: because some assume that PvE, as it is almost always implemented, exists in EVE when in reality, it's just what you describe.

Hence the whole “go back to WoW” cliché — some assume that they can pick an environment without interaction, when no such thing exists in the game, and when they figure this out, they leave.

Quote:
You have NPCs that shoot back, but even that is finally just another kind of terrain.
Ding ding ding.
Whitehound
#769 - 2015-09-01 14:21:58 UTC  |  Edited by: Whitehound
Lucas Kell wrote:
[Trading is primarily a PvP activity as you buy from or sell to players.

This is where I actually disagree and say that it is still competitive PvE.

You do give your items to a broker, and you do pay the broker and the station fees and taxes. This makes it an interaction with the environment. The item also disappears out of your hangar and is no longer in your possession, but in possession of the broker. Now the broker is giving you a guarantee for returning the item in case of an unsuccessful sale or to pay you the requested amount of ISK.

All your further interactions at this point are merely to instruct the broker on the price. Other players can not see you, they do not know who you are (until the after the sale) and you do not have to be present for the sale to occur, you do not have to be in the same system and not even logged in. One can actually unsubscribe from the game, but your orders will remain in the game. I just mention this here to point out how remote and disconnected a player can be in what some want to describe as "Player versus Player".

When then other players look at the market do they not see you. They see the broker who is holding the item for you. They are only looking at the environment in no other way as a miner who is looking at an asteroid. When you then fight over the price can you not target the other player. At best can you instruct your broker to change the price after you have seen the prices of all the other brokers.

In the end can no one cause you an actual loss and without it is there no actual risk, because it is the environment that protects you from losing items. Just like two miners who fight over the same asteroid. One of them will make the final mining cycle, while the other will have an empty cycle.

No matter how much one imagines to be fighting the other player in marketing do two miners, who are fighting over the same rock, not actually fight each other but engage in competitive PvE.

Loss is meaningful. Therefore is the loss of meaning likewise meaningful. It is the source of all trolling.

Lucas Kell
Solitude Trading
S.N.O.T.
#770 - 2015-09-01 14:27:01 UTC
Salvos Rhoska wrote:
Your views are the same as his.
Read the thread and you how your, and his, positions have been annihilated already.
Ascribing to his views is an automatic concession of defeat.
I've not and have no intention of reading his posts, however if they go on to say that competitive PvE exists, then you can't have "annihilated" his positions, since you're clearly wrong.

Salvos Rhoska wrote:
Your If Im mining the same rock as you, Im in direct competition and interaction against you (as per your own definition of PvP).
The resource is finite. Either you, or I, get it, as a result of competition.
Competition, yes. Interaction, no. You are interacting with a rock. You know how mining works, correct?

Salvos Rhoska wrote:
Its PvP with buy/sell orders.
That the item itself is a non-player element, is not relevant.
Fact is we are engaged in competition over it, player versus player.
I already stated that trading is PvP, with the single exception of the NPC traded commodities, which are competitive PvE. For those commodities, if the prices didn't change, it would be pure PvE. Because the prices change it means you compete with others and so becomes competitive PvE.

Salvos Rhoska wrote:
Competetive PvE, as a concept, doesnt exist within EVE (or arguably, anywhere, except when people try to label a banana as a boomerang, just cos they want to, regardless of whether it makes sense or not. Try throwing a banana. It wont act as a boomerang, no matter how much you call it that, or think it superficiallyblooks like one.).
Wrong. You're simply misunderstanding the difference between interacting with a player to compete with people and interacting with the environment to compete with people.

Salvos Rhoska wrote:
This is even more the case in EVE, than in other games, because we all exist in one single environment (no instancing), and are all affected directly by the actions of other players, in all aspects of the game, no matter how near or far we are to them.
Then by your own definitions, PvE does not exist.

Out of curiosity, if I were to ask you to feel the temperature of some water, would your only answers be "hot" or "cold", as "warm" and "cool" are just marketing buzz words?

The Indecisive Noob - EVE fan blog.

Wholesale Trading - The new bulk trading mailing list.

Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#771 - 2015-09-01 14:27:30 UTC  |  Edited by: Tippia
Whitehound wrote:
Lucas Kell wrote:
Trading is primarily a PvP activity as you buy from or sell to players.

This is where I actually disagree and say that it is still competitive PvE.
Where is the PvE?

Quote:
You do give your items to a broker, and you do pay the broker and the station fees and taxes. This makes it an interaction with the environment.
No, it really doesn't. That is just a UI abstraction, not any kind of activity; much less any kind of interaction since the broker in question doesn't even exist.

At no point are you interacting with anything other that other players. There is no “E” to “v”.

Quote:
In the end can no one cause you an actual loss and without it is there no actual risk
…none of which matters since neither loss nor risk has anything to do with what defines PvP.

Quote:
No matter how much one imagines to be fighting the other player in marketing do two miners fighting over the same rock not actually fight each other but engage in competitive PvE.
…except that there is no PvE, just two players directly competing over the same resource. You are effectively saying that a tug of war is not PvP; that they're really fighting the rope in their attempts to make it be on their side. This is, of course, complete nonsense. The rope is just a tool the players use to — very directly — compete.
Salvos Rhoska
#772 - 2015-09-01 14:28:32 UTC  |  Edited by: Salvos Rhoska
Im beginning to wonder if there is an extent of refusing to accept and recognize that other players playing a game against/with you are real people.

Its certainly common enough online in terms of how some people regard other posters online, ingame or in social media.

A form of internet related sociopathy.

There is a trend to see them almost as somekind of one dimensional artificial NPC, who is not entirely as human, complex and real as you yourself are.

The notion of "competetive pve" is a sublimation of this.

Instead of seeing them as actual real people as players interacting with you in competition, you view them as part of the artificial NPC/AI environment and backdrop of the game.

Hence "competetive pve".
Suddenly its no longer actual people you are competing against, but PvE.

Effectively a dehumanisation of other players, by a preference to frame the competition as essentially NPC/AI elements, and as PvE.
Whitehound
#773 - 2015-09-01 14:29:00 UTC
Tippia wrote:
Irrelevant. Risk is no more a prerequisite than a loss is (unsurprisingly, when considering what “risk” is), and there most definitely can be a loser without loss.

When risks, losses and gains are irrelevant then what is the point of having a competition?

Loss is meaningful. Therefore is the loss of meaning likewise meaningful. It is the source of all trolling.

Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#774 - 2015-09-01 14:30:45 UTC
Whitehound wrote:
When risks, losses and gains are irrelevant then what is the point of having a competition?
To see who wins and who can then brag about being the best.
Dersen Lowery
The Scope
#775 - 2015-09-01 14:30:53 UTC
Tippia wrote:
Dersen Lowery wrote:
So what if we actually looked at game environments simply as opportunities for player interaction, instead of insisting on a dichotomy that works better for games that have dedicated "PVE" and "PVP" servers, and PVP flags, and all the rest of it?
The main problem is communicating this to the players coming into the game. After all, that's why this discussion comes up so often: because some assume that PvE, as it is almost always implemented, exists in EVE when in reality, it's just what you describe.


And that's actually another reason why I don't like "PVE" or "PVP". When you think of playing a PVE game, what's the first thing you think of? Honestly, when you think of playing a PVP game, what's the first thing you think of? Not EVE in either case, most of the time. The giant, world-eating PVP game is League of Legends, which is nothing like EVE. The other big names are mostly lobby shooters.

So on the one hand you get your people who want instanced content, but on the other hand you get people wanting 20v20s and fair fights--most PVP games have teams and matchmakers, after all. The terms are inherently counterproductive when applied to EVE, as can be demonstrated by the fact that every thread that uses them rapidly decomposes into incoherence.

Proud founder and member of the Belligerent Desirables.

I voted in CSM X!

Whitehound
#776 - 2015-09-01 14:35:53 UTC
Tippia wrote:
Whitehound wrote:
When risks, losses and gains are irrelevant then what is the point of having a competition?
To see who wins and who can then brag about being the best.

Who is winning and who is losing? And did you not just say that it was irrelevant? Is the point you are trying to make irrelevant?

Loss is meaningful. Therefore is the loss of meaning likewise meaningful. It is the source of all trolling.

Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#777 - 2015-09-01 14:37:07 UTC
Dersen Lowery wrote:
And that's actually another reason why I don't like "PVE" or "PVP". When you think of playing a PVE game, what's the first thing you think of? Honestly, when you think of playing a PVP game, what's the first thing you think of? Not EVE in either case, most of the time. The giant, world-eating PVP game is League of Legends, which is nothing like EVE. The other big names are mostly lobby shooters.

So on the one hand you get your people who want instanced content, but on the other hand you get people wanting 20v20s and fair fights--most PVP games have teams and matchmakers, after all. The terms are inherently counterproductive when applied to EVE, as can be demonstrated by the fact that every thread that uses them rapidly decomposes into incoherence.

True enough, but short of launching “EVE” as an interaction template on the same level as “PvE” and “PvP”, those two are still the ones that will be used. Of the two, PvP is the one that describes what EVE has to offer. It's just that it's a far more fundamental version than the conditional variants offered by your regular PvP fare.

But sure, that creates a similar set of problems too: we hear complaints about unfairness and unmatched engagements — stuff you might expect from conventional PvP — almost as often as we hear about the PvE confusion.
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#778 - 2015-09-01 14:39:22 UTC  |  Edited by: Tippia
Whitehound wrote:
Who is winning and who is losing?
Depends on what the contest is about.
In a coin flip, the winner is usually the one that can predict guess which side of the coin will land face up, and even though the coin goes back to its owner — so no loss and no gain — there is still a winner and a loser.

Quote:
And did you not just say that it was irrelevant?
Nope.


Now, how about you provide those definitions… hmm?
Estevan Valladares
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#779 - 2015-09-01 14:44:46 UTC
Markus Reese wrote:
Estevan Valladares wrote:
Do you notice that no matter the issue risen, someone has to always blame it on of the following things:

- Carebears
- Sov
- HiSec
- NPC corps
- Null Mechanics

And thus far, there is no reason to believe such things really impact the lives of significant number of players.


Isn't that the entirety of what makes up eve?


Are you being funny or you really think that ?

WorldTradersGuild.Com [WTG] - We are here for the long haul

Bagrat Skalski
Koinuun Kotei
#780 - 2015-09-01 14:44:57 UTC
Tippia wrote:

In a coin flip, the winner is usually the one that can predict guess which side of the coin will land face up

What if one will guess it will land on face up and the other will guess it will land on the other side down?
Or they both guess right in other words.

Quote:
there is still a winner and a loser.


Really? SO BINARY.