Feb 6
Single Player Gamers Don’t Get It
Slashdot put up a post today covering James Egan’s fantastic rundown on the BoB debacle. If you haven’t read about it yet, please do, totally accessible for even non-EVE players like me.
What struck me was one of the highest rated comments on the Slashdot post:
by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 06, @02:55AM
In other news, I just killed Revolver Ocelot in MGS. It was a really tough fight but I managed to pull it out. Can I get my own Slashdot article too?
It’s … really dumb, obviously, but beyond that it shows a staggering misunderstanding of what online gaming *is*.
Comparing even the most casual of interactions in an MMO to completing something in a single-player game digs right into the heart of the online disconnection a lot of players have nowadays. It’s possible that guy was just being a dick and saying MMOs aren’t that interesting, but I think it’s more likely he buys into the same logic that’s created the incredibly foul Halo 3 multiplayer experience. A significant portion of younger players, I think, just don’t care that there are real people on the other end of the line. They type things, they say things, and to them the voices and text responses are just as much a part of the game as the orcs and weapons. Like we’re NPCs put there for his amusement.
I’m cranky on this, I know, but John Gabriel’s mighty theorum is powerful stuff. Meanwhile, the connection, the sense of not being alone, the community are all greatly serving those of us who see the little text popping up in the lower left-hand corner as more than just background noise.
6 comments6 Comments so far
Even MMO players might not understand why that event in EVE is significant. It’s not a report of some guild taking down an NPC, it’s two huge groups of players vying for dominance. It not only changes the course of the game for everyone in BoB and Goons, but very likely will impact all 250k players in EVE to some degree.
I shouldn’t worry about it – Anonymous Coward there could have achieved the same effect with a snappy “TLDR”, but with far less effort expended.
Stuff like this actually makes me want to play Eve! Too bad I hate spaceships and slow combat/travel. :P
I’ve been fascinated by the BoB/Goonswarm saga in EVE for quite some time now, even though I’ll never play that game (it looks awesome, it’s just very much not my thing).
As an aside, I wonder if by “younger players” you mean “younger FPS players.” The younger players I’m in contact with all day, every day, are acutely aware that they’re dealing with other, real people online. Do they have poor impulse control? Sure, often! But they regularly demonstrate things like remorse and compassion as well.
What he’s saying is that something happening in EVE is not that interesting to most non-EVE players and probably shouldn’t be an article written up on slashdot.
To be fair, the Slashdot article linked to Massively, which kind of assumes its readers understand the implications of this kind of thing. I’d imagine a Wired article might go into more detail about how EVE works, why this matters so much, and why it’s interesting that this sort of community developed in a virtual world.