Brujo Loco
Brujeria Teologica
1351
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Posted - 2014.08.27 23:37:42 -
[1] - Quote
From my own experience here, eve is extremely niche, even beyond other niche games.
The type of person that will enjoy this game needs to derive satisfaction from a very thorough and highly personalized set of variables, that will NEVER appeal to mass media mainstream gamers, mainly localized quest hubs, easy to spot quest locators, tangible rewards in several degrees of colors, interesting/funny backstory of the world, format of "quest" delivery, visual candy in the form of explosions of rainbows and a degrad+¬ palette easily applied to avatar clothes/weapons and assorted knicknacks like pets , of which EVE HAS NONE, despite some attempts.
Speaking honestly I don-¦t think it-¦s a matter of intelligence, but more of a deep seated neurosis of some sort on which rewards are gained via emotional support and bonding with others that will at worst decry your attempts only because they didn-¦t think of it first ... and at best entice you to generate "content" that gives food and quells the specific needs of the sub-group you adhere to in the in-game strata that inevitably leaks into the "real world".
EVE is in short, a medieval clan/house/tribe simulator on which specific hierarchies of dominion and lordship are acknowledged and respected in the hopes of you either rising in the ladder of your own commune or destroy them utterly for your own gain.
Feudal Intrigues are common, even expected of any serious power player, and even the devs themselves WANT the edges of space to be the Focus Point of their portrayal of the game. This further isolates the game itself as the deeper you go into the well of relationships, only real power-mongers and those in the know for a variety of reasons "get eve".
This leaves a huge chunk of the player base alienated, as they are constantly being assailed by information and disinformation of things that only affect them in sometimes highly veiled forms like mineral or module prices, and usually end up being things of no real importance to them (they sometimes can-¦t even acknowledge these things affect them in the least)
So they end up then, forming the second sub core of the game besides the power mongers and their retinues, the isolated clans/tribes that try to eke out a living of sorts in the wastelands or in claimed territories, each of these with customs as common and bizarre as any other cultural group counterpart in the real world. This alone, is true for many games, and eve due to the way it is shown distills this idea into an amazing hodgepodge of ethnic mixes both culturally and politically.
All regular players are accustomed to a very plain and simple form of "belonging" in most modern mmos, dubbed "themepark" because the effort you place into it is minimal as you practically "spectate" and have grown accustomed to it.
They just want to enjoy the ride so to speak, go here, kill this, get this , rinse and repeat. It is a simple formula, it works and trust me, I have met highly intelligent people that enjoy this for the sheer simplicity, which doesn-¦t make them less intelligent, they just want to enjoy the ride, since they derive fun from many other outlets.
So to go back to my point, it-¦s is simply a matter of establishing very real connections with others and here lies the success of certain corps and alliances to others.
It-¦s a well know topic of discussion that this is a key and vital point for eve longevity (besides sunk costs fallacies) , because the appeal of the game increases as your sense of responsibility to your corpmates is increased and you actually feel rewarded (emotionally) by this act and like many others have jokingly or not explained elsewhere, the need to belong is exploited even against your interests.
This is my own opinion, been here for a while to think in deep about this and it-¦s just the tip of the iceberg of this marvelous game of Neurotic Appeals ,and for me, it has never been about intelligence (the raw concept/construct) but more about social bonds.
Many can argue that this can apply to other MMO-¦s, and in a sense yes, but here, where the embellishments of the ride are so barren, it-¦s plainly obvious.
Marvelous game, hotbed for many many studies, I could literally spend my whole life just trying to unravel some of the webs of this game as it pertains to social interaction, Alienation (M. Seeman concept) and Anomie , If it were up to me I would try to spend hardcore college funding just studying Anomie in this environment, there-¦s years of hard data waiting to be made into papers here, i could even make a PhD Thesis out of this game-¦s Anomie variables, and that without taking into consideration demographic data applied to Social Trending.
Ahhh, love this game!
Inner Sayings of BrujoLoco:
http://eve-files.com/sig/brujoloco
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