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James 315 - An Apology and an Appeal

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Vaeliel Blue Republic RvB - BLUE Republic 15	Posted - 2013.02.14 17:52:00 - [1] - Quote THE APOLOGY James, I'm sorry. I understand now, I did not before. See, I thought what you've been doing for 8 months now was an elaborate and brilliantly executed troll on a scale not seen in High Sec before. Oh, I was wrong. This is going to be TL;DR to a lot of you, but if at least a few people read this and understand what I now understand, I'll count it as a win. You probably wonder: "Who the hell are you, and why should I care what you have to say?" I started as a total newbie in 2006. A glance at my killboard will tell you what you already suspect to be true: I'm bad. I'm no elite PVPer, nor am I an especially gifted carebear. I just play the game to play the game. But I've been around to see a LOT of Eve's history. Recently a gentleman by the name of James 315 came to my attention via the forums which I lurk from time to time (and post here and there). I read all of MinerBumping.com because of this, from his first post about the "conquest of Halaima" to the present day and his bid for CSM. I was certain what I was witnessing was an epic troll, that the Code and all of his rhetoric were simply a gambit to get as many tears as possible from his chosen targets. I was right, in a way. But what I didn't get was WHY he was doing it. "For the lulz" seemed to be the best explanation (as indeed it's the only necessary explanation for one's actions to be valid), but then I started reading his other literature. Bit by bit I started to realize that James 315 is not a troll or a bully doing evil for evil's sake in a game about being as big a bastard as you can. I'm going to say this on its own line, because it is probably the most important realization I've had about him and it's very important to the rest of my message: James 315 truly loves Eve Online. I don't mean he likes playing it. I don't mean he gets a kick out of it and it's his favorite way to pass time. I mean James 315 loves Eve Online to a point where he feels his life would be lesser for its loss. He loves Eve Online to the same point that the poet loves the word, that the artist loves the blank canvas. I honestly am not being facetious or trying to exaggerate: James loves Eve Online. He has been trying for at least the past year now to save it. (Part 2 follows)
Vaeliel Blue Republic RvB - BLUE Republic 15	Posted - 2013.02.14 17:52:00 - [2] - Quote Part 2 PARALLELS The first game I ever played with full world open PVP was Ultima Online. This was in the 90's, back when my parents had AOL dialup on a 28.8 modem. I was 14 maybe. It was the first MMO that had a true sandbox style of play. You could guild up with like-minded individuals and accumulate wealth through trades like blacksmithy and bowcraft and mining (industry?), you could hunt those who had fallen to evil ways (bounty hunting?), or you could be the most feared group of murderers and thieves imaginable (piracy?). Territory was held by economic supremacy and brute force (buy a castle, kill anyone who comes into your territory). Hell even miners were picked on constantly. There was a town called Minoc with a big mine just outside the town line. Murderers would roll through it and kill all the carebears, leaving their piles of ore on the ground and slaying their pack animals. The years went by. Every new patch moved the game in a specific direction, almost imperceptibly, until the day they introduced Trammel. It was then I knew that the game I had loved for years was well and truly dead. Basically, they split the game into two worlds, Trammel and Felucca. Trammel was a carebear paradise themepark. No PVP, no looting player corpses, no rewards from monsters unless you hit them first. They removed 90% of the risk, removed 90% of the penalties for death, and added a ton of carebear focused features. The population became selfish and entitled, risk-averse, entirely focused on a carebear grind so they could buy a house and display their shiny 2D pixels on the front porch. Felucca was the old world, open PVP and no rules. It was a wasteland. The pecking order was gone, the rewards for being in Felucca were minimal. Origin Systems, under the heel of EA Games, had catered to the carebears with gusto. In short, there was no reason to play anymore unless you enjoyed a slow grind for very little reason. It was the first step for the industry toward WoW themepark-style MMOs. The very game that in closed beta allowed creator Richard Garriot's character to be cooked alive in a wall of flames during a speech (http://ultima.wikia.com/wiki/Killing_Lord_British), had descended into a carebear hell of endless grind with no risk or final goal. It was a loss for the fledgling world of persistent-world online games, and Blizzard watched it happen from the shadows. It's fair to say that WoW rose from the ashes of the sandbox MMO and an endless line of clones followed... ...Until a company called CCP created Eve Online. (Part 3 follows)
Vaeliel Blue Republic RvB - BLUE Republic 15	Posted - 2013.02.14 17:52:00 - [3] - Quote Part 3 PARALLELS cont. If you were drawn to Eve for the same reasons I was, Part 2 should have horrified you. "But that won't happen to Eve," you may think. You're wrong, it's already begun and has been happening for years. It's the slow pace that gets you. It's those risk-averse carebears full of their sense of entitlement pushing against the original vision of the creators. It's the rise in power from creators and visionaries to CEOs and Vice Presidents who now have to answer to shareholders and show profits and ever-increasing numbers. You don't notice it unless you watch closely for years, and then one day a sweeping change hits and you become aware that you aren't playing the same game you've loved for those years. I started my Eve career as a miner. I used my rookie ship until I could afford a Cormorant which could fit 7 mining lasers. Mining was actually dangerous then. In a 0.8 system. There were ore thieves, can flippers, and people warping around trying to start fights. There was no such thing as an "ore bay", so miners generally mined to jettison cans (jetcans). I had a Raven blow up my jet can and lock me. You could do that. Aggression mechanics were much less punishing. You didn't become "criminal flagged", you received a limited timer where the aggrieved party could attack you without Concord intervention. This technique was used to bait players who didn't understand relative strengths of ships and combat mechanics into firing on you, which then awarded you the right to defend yourself. Ultima Online, in its older days, was similarly structured. A thief in plain clothes would steal something from your backpack. You would attack, and the thief would pull out a ridiculously powerful magic crossbow and shoot you in the face until you died. To parallel this for you - the criminal flagging system introduced with the latest CrimeWatch update was exactly the same thing Ultima Online did to aggression and thievery mechanics when they changed the notoriety system to be far less forgiving to criminals. The last CrimeWatch update was so similar to the Ultima Online changes way back when that I'm almost certain CCP simply molded them to fit their game. Criminally flagging an aggressor makes him open to attack from everyone, providing a huge deterrent to aggressive behaviors without outright making them impossible. There are many examples of these kinds of nerfs to aggression in Eve's history; I won't outline them here as James 315 has already done so in much of his writing. The criminal flag and murder count mega-update for Ultima Online occurred roughly 3/5ths of the way from release to the Trammel implementation if I remember correctly. (Part 4 follows)
Vaeliel Blue Republic RvB - BLUE Republic 15	Posted - 2013.02.14 17:53:00 - [4] - Quote Part 4 THE PROCESS OF DEGRADATION So now that we are aware that there is an existing case study in how an open sandbox game can degenerate into a WoW-like carebear themepark, we can come up with a set of prerequisites and observable steps from one extreme to the other. In both cases, the game started as a harsh and dangerous world where stepping out of the safety of established territory (towns, .8 - 1.0 systems) carried big risks for those that didn't understand the mechanics of the game. Those who did had the freedom to be very creative in how they played the game. In both cases, it was the more risk-averse and self-entitled gamers that became the loudest and most vocal. In both cases this subset of the population believed that the game was stacked against them, that they were victims of the system. It did not enter their minds that they might just be playing the wrong game. This segment of the population believes whole heartedly that it is the game that is flawed. In Ultima Online, this came from the miners outside Minoc who were preyed on by "reds" and the dungeon carebears that thought it was unfair when 5 guys sweeped through "their" dungeon murdering as they went. In Eve it is the miners in the belts who have complained for years that they are victims of depraved lunatics who are abusing the rules of the game to cause them harm. It is the mission runners that complain when they don't background check people who then go on safari and blow up their billion-isk carebear boats. "The game isn't fair!" they cry to the developers. "It should be against the rules to make me change my behavior!" So they file petitions, they file GM tickets, they cry on the forums. They respond to any outside influence that disturbs their gameplay with vulgarity, fallacious logic and/or an astonishing degree of hostility. Watch the number of TL;DR posts, posts that insinuate I have a mental disorder and need medication, posts accusing me of being James' alt, and posts full of outright hostility that this thread will gather. Little by little the endless stream of this feedback influences development decisions. Each new iteration of the game, each new patch, takes away a little of the initial freedom and adds a little consequence. This is not the fault of the developers. They're listening to the loudest voices. Players like myself don't file a petition when the developers take away some of my freedom; that sounds absurd. But should it? I miss the danger that used to be present in HighSec. I miss seeing badgers named "Grand Theft Ore" flying around asteroid belts yoinking ore from jetcans. I miss watching people who couldn't be bothered to understand aggression mechanics get canflipped and shot. Those are parts of the game I love that will never come back. Ask yourself this: How much does Eve really punish players now who can't be bothered to think and understand the game? How smart and on your toes do you actually have to be now to survive in the game and make progress? Trammel was the result of people who believe that if a game's rules did not cater to what they want to do, the game is flawed and it is the responsibility of the developers to fix it. And Eve HighSec is quite a bit more than halfway to Trammel. (Part 5 follows)
Vaeliel Blue Republic RvB - BLUE Republic 15	Posted - 2013.02.14 17:54:00 - [5] - Quote Part 5 JAMES 315, AND THE APPEAL I've laid my arguments down now. There will be a LOT of posts full of vitriol and I will not be popular here. Those folks who disagree (which for a large part will represent the Trammel demographic described above) will have probably stopped reading far before now. For those who have read and understand what I'm saying, let's take a closer look at the actions of James 315 over the past year. The appeal part of this is that you read what he's written. Be aware that his writing style has a dry humor to it that people seem to have some difficulty picking up on and that he uses subtle hyperbole and will insert remarks that are not necessarily serious; just keep your eye on the overarching narrative. People get bogged down in the details. Items from James' CSM platform, specific statements he's made, specific things he's done. Pull back from that and look at the big picture here. This is a player who has been carrying out a deliberate plan for at least a year. Look at all of his actions and his statements, what he's written, his blog at MinerBumping (a relatively recent phase of his overall plan). The man wrote a manifesto. The point I'm making is that all of his actions (again for at least the past year) have been in line with a goal. I don't know about you, but I have had precious few times where I followed an overarching plan for more than a few months out of game. He has been systematically attempting to expose the trends within the game that I've explained above. His blog and the New Order are vehicles for exposing how the most vocal subgroup of the Eve player base thinks, acts, and feels about the game. For the sake of readability and narrative, he calls them "miner tears" and mocks them, but make no mistake his goals are very clear. These are the people CCP listens to the most. His New Order hides behind HighSec mechanics to conduct their operations in near-untouchability. I know, because I've been watching and playing this game for six years, that the mechanics he is using are a direct result of the influence of the people he is using them against. Emergent gameplay and an amusing blog to read are essentially bonuses. The underlying goal is to systematically expose the flaws in the system to show those who are paying attention EXACTLY how far towards Trammel Eve has gone. This isn't "clever use of game mechanics to produce lulzy miner tears", this is "look at how far from the original vision this game has gone, and read the unedited words of the people who have brought us here". He takes the hours to crop and position screenshots of what these people are saying rather than typing it for a reason. (Part 6 follows)
silens vesica Corsair Cartel 683	Posted - 2013.02.14 17:54:00 - [6] - Quote Wall-o-text taken to a whole new level. Did not read. Tell someone you love them today, because life is short. But scream it at them in Esperanto, because life is also terrifying and confusing. Malcanis for CSM8
Vaeliel Blue Republic RvB - BLUE Republic 15	Posted - 2013.02.14 17:54:00 - [7] - Quote Part 6 He chooses to present these things the way he does because frankly, if he wrote like I am now (srs bizniss) nobody would read it and he'd be dismissed as a fanatic. It's another dimension of the plan: expose as many people as possible to the truth regardless of how he has to dress it up. The content of the message is far more important than the wrapping in this. He believes he can't afford to take a chance that it won't be read and seen. His use of the New Order and emergent gameplay to achieve an audience for his message was not at first clear to me. Now that I get it, I'm honestly not convinced all of the members of the New Order realize what they're a part of. To a lot of them, it's having fun and playing the game in a way that wasn't expected. They're in it, as they say, for the lulz. To James 315, they are literally exposing people to the message he's been trying to send to the Eve community for (again) a year now. The lulz get attention, so that's how he dresses the message. I'm not saying he's not enjoying what he's doing. I'm saying that's secondary to his overall goal. The next phase of his plan is now to achieve a seat on the CSM so that he can bring his message directly to CCP. He has a following, he has effectively polarized the playerbase, and now it's time to up the ante even further. I don't know if this is the culmination of his plans or just the next step, I don't think I understand his goals and his methods enough to say. I want to talk about James' CSM platform a little, and then I'll end this mammoth thing. If you've read it, it's radical and downright absurd. However, look at it again with the knowledge that this is a phase in an overall plan that he has been carrying out with laser focus. As you read it, put it in the context of what I've just shown you: James does not just "say" things. He uses words and actions as vehicles for messages. Because of this, I have to assume that his CSM platform, as stated, is actually formulated to have an effect rather than to be taken literally. The words are the wrapper for the message, not the message itself. I get the gist of it; he doesn't believe he'll accomplish what he's saying but he knows that the direction CCP is going needs to be changed and quickly. Presenting radical ideas may be the most efficient way to change that. So James, I'm sorry. In a post some weeks ago I explained my position that the Code was a framework for trolling miners. I now see the full picture of what you're trying to accomplish. I hope everyone else does before Trammel comes to Eve. Thank you.
Bobby Hatless TEAMSTERS 7	Posted - 2013.02.14 17:55:00 - [8] - Quote whatevah...
Unsuccessful At Everything The Troll Bridge 2120	Posted - 2013.02.14 17:55:00 - [9] - Quote Just stop. *Since the cessation of their usefulness is imminent, may I appropriate your belongings?*
Beckie DeLey Living From Scraps 329	Posted - 2013.02.14 17:55:00 - [10] - Quote Dude. So... i started an industry blog at www.derbk.com/eve There i am preparing a guide to all things related to manufacturing. Check it out!
Karl Hobb Stellar Ore Refinery and Crematorium 1124	Posted - 2013.02.14 17:56:00 - [11] - Quote You must now give yourself up to the New Order of High-sec. Become a Knight, become a bumper, donate, buy shares, whatever. High-sec is worth saving. Carebears must be excised wherever they are found. If you're not already part of a bloc, this is the best guy for CSM8.
Doc Fury Furious Enterprises 1042	Posted - 2013.02.14 17:56:00 - [12] - Quote Meine augen! The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the ho's and politicians will look up and shout 'Save us!' and I'll look down, and whisper 'no.'
Kate stark 125	Posted - 2013.02.14 17:57:00 - [13] - Quote can i get a tl;dr?
Herzog Wolfhammer Sigma Special Tactics Group 2442	Posted - 2013.02.14 17:57:00 - [14] - Quote This thread is probably part of the griefing process.
Rain6637 Team Evil 451	Posted - 2013.02.14 17:58:00 - [15] - Quote Herzog Wolfhammer wrote: This thread is probably part of the griefing process. pahahhaha Vaeliel wrote: THE APOLOGY James, I'm sorry. I understand now, I did not before. one miner down http://themittani.com/ \| http://evenews24.com/ \|\|-áVincent Athena, I made something for you: http://i.imgur.com/hrxcc.jpg
Complex Potential Blackstar Privateer Consortium Enigma Project 202	Posted - 2013.02.14 17:59:00 - [16] - Quote Confirming that threads about James315 are started by loonies these days.
Vaeliel Blue Republic RvB - BLUE Republic 15	Posted - 2013.02.14 18:00:00 - [17] - Quote Edited posts for formatting because posting straight from Notepad is bad. Sorry bout that.
Verfanny Seamap Solutions 13	Posted - 2013.02.14 18:00:00 - [18] - Quote Kate stark wrote: can i get a tl;dr? "I am simply a humble pilot. James 315 is awesome. Repent!" Or something like that...
Generals4 Liandri Covenant 1719	Posted - 2013.02.14 18:02:00 - [19] - Quote Complex Potential wrote: Confirming that threads about James315 are started by loonies these days. These days? I thought they always were *-Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.*
Rico Minali The Straw Men Dark Therapy 1216	Posted - 2013.02.14 18:07:00 - [20] - Quote I have to say, what James does doesnt affect my game, and I dont really take notice of his actions or forum posts about it. However I agree with what you are saying and if Eve ever did really lose the risk element in EVERY PART OF NEW EDEN, I would quit. I know many other would to. Not because I am a pirate, ganker or anything, I dont harvest 'tears' I simply pvp. Everywhere. If the day came that I can not pvp anywhere I want to (by honourable or nefarious means, whichever I fancy at the time) I will quit Eve. Trust me, I almost know what I'm doing.
Markku Laaksonen EVE University Ivy League 76	Posted - 2013.02.14 18:08:00 - [21] - Quote That someone posted between parts 5 and 6 is intolerable. Lock the thread, please.
baltec1 Bat Country 5222	Posted - 2013.02.14 18:09:00 - [22] - Quote Complex Potential wrote: Confirming that threads about James315 are started by loonies these days. There was a time they wern't?
Mai Khumm Carbon Circle Tactical Narcotics Team 465	Posted - 2013.02.14 18:09:00 - [23] - Quote Stopped reading after "THE APOL....." insert witty saying here twitter - @AzamiNevinyrall
Mc Scam Royal Amarr Institute Amarr Empire 21	Posted - 2013.02.14 18:10:00 - [24] - Quote I read it, now I'm 87 years old. Nah srsly I'll bookmark this egg for later.
Alice Saki Suddenly Spaced Out Suddenly Spaceships. 30127	Posted - 2013.02.14 18:11:00 - [25] - Quote What is so good about Bumping a Miner? I lack any Moral Fiber :D
silens vesica Corsair Cartel 687	Posted - 2013.02.14 18:13:00 - [26] - Quote Markku Laaksonen wrote: That someone posted between parts 5 and 6 is intolerable. Lock the thread, please. Thread, ganked. Tell someone you love them today, because life is short. But scream it at them in Esperanto, because life is also terrifying and confusing. Malcanis for CSM8
John E Normus New Order Logistics CODE. 24	Posted - 2013.02.14 18:15:00 - [27] - Quote Welcome aboard and thank you for sharing. +1
Orbital Dyke Republic Military School Minmatar Republic 3	Posted - 2013.02.14 18:16:00 - [28] - Quote good read also: funny reading other peoples responses to this thread what the fack are those letters am i supposed to interprate those to form comprehensible words and ultimately sentences CCP lock dis fred INIT!!!!
Gianna Thirostin State War Academy Caldari State 14	Posted - 2013.02.14 18:19:00 - [29] - Quote I for one hope James doesnt make CSM, if only for the reason that poses and gameplay outside hi-sec needs a look at. With his bleating clogging up the CSM, other much more worthwhile viewpoints from Eve wouldnt be heard. "Saving hi-sec" can and should wait
Beckie DeLey Living From Scraps 329	Posted - 2013.02.14 18:24:00 - [30] - Quote Gianna Thirostin wrote: I for one hope James doesnt make CSM, if only for the reason that poses and gameplay outside hi-sec needs a look at. With his bleating clogging up the CSM, other much more worthwhile viewpoints from Eve wouldnt be heard. "Saving hi-sec" can and should wait Meh, i might give him my third vote, if nobody else turns up. I already know who to give my first two votes, might as well make the third one the joke option. So... i started an industry blog at www.derbk.com/eve There i am preparing a guide to all things related to manufacturing. Check it out!

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