21 ms·

One player spent 10 years exploring every corner of Eve Online

360 points by mmastrac 7y ago

miguelmota 7y ago
I've never played EVE Online but the explorable universe looks pretty incredible https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPFII3ozSHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPFII3ozSHI
giancarlostoro 7y ago
I wish I had enough time to learn every programming language, just as much as I wish I had enough time to play Eve online. The things we see here on HN and hear about in regards to Eve online are incredible. Even when listening to the Talk Python podcast one dev from the Eve Online crew came on to talk about it all. It's pretty incredible, and these articles are never not fun to read about. There's also from time to time the World of Warcraft articles that pop up on HN.
- Merad 7y ago
  Having played Eve for the better part of 6 years (2003-2009) I can tell you that it's a lot more fun to read about than to play. In some ways the game is way too close to real life. You typically have to put in a lot of work in-game to support your in-game fun time. PvP combat itself is plenty fun, but there were many times I spent all day (18-20 hours straight) logged in and participating in fleet ops in order to get perhaps 15-20 minutes of actual combat.
  - SN76477 7y ago
    I go back and for with MMOs and yes it is too close to real life. So much downtime and waiting around then a burst of excitement. Lots of chasing the carrot in games like WoW. They do have magical qualities though. I look forward to my next MMO addition.
    - zrobotics 7y ago
      I've been enjoying the hell out of elite dangerous, but I play it in full-on space trucker exploration mode. Great for getting in an hour of flying, but I quit EVE because if I'm going to be doing a job I should be paid for it.
      - 83457 7y ago
        Just out of curiosity, do some people actually get paid for work in the game for others?
        Merad 7y ago
        Depends on how you look at it, but IMO: yes. Eve is one of the few (maybe the only?) MMOs with a direct and legitimate conversion between real currency and in-game currency. You can purchase (with real money) an item called PLEX, which can either be applied to your account to extend your subscription, or sold to another player for in-game currency. There are many players who pay for their subscription by farming in-game.
        PeterStuer 7y ago
        Wow has the same. You earn in game gold convert it to gametime and real money on your Blizard Balance account. With this you can buy stuff from their digital store, both other games or in game goodies. Once setup, making gold is so ridiculously fast and easy that you can buy everything in the store in no time.
  - billfruit 7y ago
    Perhaps designed around similar lines, but enjoyable with spending shorter amounts of time is "Foxhole".
  - retzkek 7y ago
    It seems you were never on a fleet with Michael Bolton reading fan fiction. Point being, combat is really a small part of EVE. Admittedly I haven't played in a few years, but I don't regret my time spent online, whether grinding missions/anomalies, hitting F1 on-demand after hours of "did FC say jump?", or mining in a ~catalyst~ venture. Having interesting people to talk to, and shared experiences, made it all worthwhile.
- fossuser 7y ago
  I think it’s a lot more fun to read about then it is to play. The stories are very cool though.
  - smitty1e 7y ago
    My college roomate in the early 90s announced that an entire week (24x7 hours) of his life had been devoured by a MUD. Since I am only doing social media, that is in some way better. #NoItsNot
    - Thaxll 7y ago
      24×7 is nothing, long time mmorpg players are close to a full year of in-game playing.
      - smitty1e 7y ago
        Nutty, ain't it?
- duxup 7y ago
  I'd like to live forever. I find so many things I'd like to try and learn, and sadly there's just not enough time.
  - xvector 7y ago
    This is my goal in life. I hope one day I can contribute as much as possible to the ultimate goal transcending our bodies.
    - mutt2016 7y ago
      Have you read Neil Stephensons fear? Or daemon ( I forget the author)
  - shrimp_emoji 7y ago
    You'll forget it anyway. :3
    - antepodius 7y ago
      If we actually cure aging before he kicks it, then eventually they'll have a motivation to tinker with people's brains to adapt them to living for, let's say centuries to start. Just back uo your memories into your exobrain!
      - jdnenej 7y ago
        Unfortunately the only company offering exobrain backups will inject a desire to buy their sponsors products in to your memory.
      - shrimp_emoji 7y ago
        If that's possible, tinker with their brains to make them less greedy! :v It's very arrogant, using up resources indefinitely like that. Especially when they could instead go to newer, next-gen brains that are fundamentally better. Or to an agglomerated superbrain! And in a world of next-gen brains and superbrains, a legacy brain's justification for existing via providing value to capital is Sisyphean. Its only remaining justification is a culturally-enshrined worship of ego. But the self is a lie! Consciousness is an overrated meme! You've already internalized that wisdom since you've elected to exist as a modified legacy brain to begin with, adapting the self to new selves... which means you have no trouble adapting again! And I can't see why that wouldn't be as a superbrain; surely, it's the best game in town. I bet even it forgets too though. But it's probably way better-equipped to tackle existential anxieties than we are -- let's go!
- ben_jones 7y ago
  If like me you were curious: https://talkpython.fm/episodes/show/52/eve-online-mmo-game-powered-by-python https://talkpython.fm/episodes/show/52/eve-online-mmo-game-p...
- corndoge 7y ago
  From the article: “People say, ya know, ‘Get a life,’ and ‘This is a waste of time,’” Sae continues. “They have to understand that I only did this for an hour and a half each day just to unwind after work. I wasn’t killing myself doing this.”
  - checkyoursudo 7y ago
    I have come to the belief that if I enjoy something or get rewarded in a way that I want (learning, money, building something, etc), then whatever I am doing is not a waste of time. Someone else telling me something is a waste of my time is pretty meaningless to me. And I also try not to tell other people they are wasting their time. I think a better way to convey that idea is to ask (e.g., my 5 y.o. son) "are you getting something out of doing this activity?" And if the answer is "yes", then who am I to judge. And if the answer is "no", then I either leave it at that and let them figure it out, or as in the case with my son, try to guide him towards doing something more productive or rewarding. To me now, it's a really weird thing for someone to say to someone else you are wasting your time. Your time is only wasted if you think it's wasted. To be sure, this is different if you're being paid by someone else. If you are doing something and your boss says stop wasting time, then maybe you comply. After all, if someone is paying for your time, then it's really their time, isn't it?
- sidcool 7y ago
  Same here! I haven't been able to learn a new programming (well) language in the past 3 years. I get to understand basic syntax and have to move on.
xwdv 7y ago
Eve is probably most interesting game and community to read about that I never actually feel like playing in.
- duxup 7y ago
  Eve probabbly is a good example of the level of time and environment you need to get all these cool things to happen with a big universe to explore, all the weird politics and etc ... but sadly to get all that you need a fairly time consuming system. I remember some old MUDs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD I didn't play much but I tagged along with some committed players. In that MUD (I don't recall the name) death was a serious consequence, something like a 25% exp hit when you die... serious consequences. Also the players role played pretty hard. No need for silly language but if you were a knight you were expected to be helpful, etc. Everyone played along. One day a little trash talk happened when unexpectedly some high level dark players who you rarely saw (they had their on private island on the MUD and rarely left) hassled some random user in a big city. I was hanging with the knights and then all hell broke loose. Most of the players involved died (including me who was dumb enough to grab a sword I couldn't handle and ... it was cursed so I started attacking at random, dark guy's didn't like that). The great part was that for years afterward people read and commented on other people's description of the fight. Totally organic event, serious consequences for all involved... it was great. When games like WoW came out I was just ... not interested if there wasn't really anything on the line. Eve looked awesome, but man I got a family and career ;)
  - checkyoursudo 7y ago
    I believe the following is a common phrase, but when I quit Eve years ago, my friends would always respond to "Where is [me]?" with "Oh, [me] won the game." I always thought that was funny.
    - duxup 7y ago
      I like to think there is a victory screen.
cf498 7y ago
Without getting killed or loosing a ship once
- snuxoll 7y ago
  Wonder how much time the character spent idle training skills to fly, you can get basic cloaks fairly quickly but to be able to fit a ship to never fall victim to a web, decloak, etc? That’s a lot of SP, and you’re still reliant on luck and skill even then.
  - jniedrauer 7y ago
    Honestly not really. I used a low SP alt to run blockades with expensive cargo all the time and never once lost a ship. And these were systems I knew were being actively camped. It's almost impossible to catch a fast cloaky hauler if they know what they're doing. It's been a while, but if I recall, you wait on the gate for around 15 seconds, then decloak, pulse your MWD, cloak, and immediately change directions. It's almost foolproof if you execute correctly. Now use a frigate like an exploration ship, and it's even easier.
rdtwo 7y ago
It’s a lot more fun to read about in 10 minutes then to experience in the 10 years it took to do it
Krasnol 7y ago
Does anyone know what gallery they run this on: http://gallery.saganexplorations.net/# http://gallery.saganexplorations.net/# ?
- xymostech 7y ago
  Based on snooping around the javascript, it looks like probably https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallery_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallery_Project
  - Krasnol 7y ago
    Thank you.
  - teddyh 7y ago
    Tip: Wappalyzer (https://www.wappalyzer.com/ https://www.wappalyzer.com/) can automatically do this snooping for you. I use it all the time to answer the question “What is this site running on?”
Vaslo 7y ago
This game is really amazing, and I’m often trying to find something like it. My problem, besides lacking the time to do all the things I wanted to in game, was that some people are just so far ahead that you will just never catch up without spending a bunch of money for skill injectors. I’d love to get into a game like this from near the start. I had 3 accounts on it at one time!
- misnome 7y ago
  I played a few years ago before skill injectors and this was definitely a problem - progression was literally a function of account time owned. The main thing that killed it for me was the frustration of large battles - when the server was running at frames per minute and apparently impossible to assign more resources to the server even if you told them where a battle was going to happen. This just wasn't fun.
  - Accujack 7y ago
    CCP was and is crippled by the legacy code in the game... and they chose to not try to fix it all at once(which to be fair would have required major refactoring and cost) but to try to evolve the code over time. I think if they'd just spent the time on a major rework the game would still be growing today. On the server side, the design is still better than any other I've seen, it's too bad they were so handicapped making it even better.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Accujack 7y ago
  Yeah... I really like the change to chat they made recently, that was one of the things that I thought was broken about the game. I don't like skill injectors much, especially once it became possible to buy them with real world money... the classic pay to win scenario. They did it in the name of attracting new players because the game was difficult to get into. So, they've engaged in the race to the bottom trying to appeal to the people who don't want to invest the time and effort needed to grow in the game. Like the original Everquest, the difficulty was what made the game worthwhile... you really value things if you have to work and learn to get them. I played for years, but ultimately I stopped because of the skill injector changes and because the combat model is too dated, and that was limiting the rest of the game. Specifically, the fact that offense (e.g. lasers) subtracted from defence (armor, shields, hull) until they were down and ship go boom. It didn't matter what side of your ship faced the enemy, which direction they were in, what the local conditions were (with the exception of some global conditions on a per system basis) and the weapons all did the same thing... the only differences were the visuals and ranges. The whole ship was one homogenous mass - no critical sections or systems, so it didn't matter where or what you hit. Because of the above, the rest of the design was limited to things that would modify the above. Combat strategy was limited to surprise, stacking the odds in your favor, and knowing every detail about how the systems, ships, and bugs worked. All that said, some people found creative ways to make it fun, and it's still the best MMO I've ever played.. no other game has ever gotten my heart racing like Eve. That's mostly due to the way the game was managed... scams, lies, all the worst of human deceit... but you could still "win" for a little while.
galaxyLogic 7y ago
This is all amazing but it makes me wonder if something is a bit crazy with these games. Why explore a universe created by some game company when you could be exploring the real universe by studying astronomy? Why try to earn money and gold in these games which although it can be turned into real money is part of a zero-sum game. Your win is their loss, why because there is no real value created in the game after all. In real life you can make money by creating a corporation which is not a zero-sum game because it brings value to both the owners and workers of the company and its customers. I understand it can be much more fun in the game than the real life and that's why people do it, but I just wonder if it's just escapism, avoiding the challenges of the real world?
- hyperpallium 7y ago
  > it can be much more fun in the game than the real life Why is it more fun? We have innate motivations to explore, create, trade, communicate. But there's a lot of extra work surrounding it: Solving a coding problem is fun, but organizing and neatening and testing and documenting is not (as much). Creating value and trading it for money is fun, but trying to understand international tax law is not (as much). A government can harness innate productivity by stopping stopping it.
  - Aeolun 7y ago
    Because blowing people up in real life has nasty consequences?
- WhoBeI 7y ago
  It's a bit odd to go solo in Eve and I'd agree that you probably don't get much out of it. The medium to large PvP side of the game includes a lot of planning and communication though which should translate decently into RL for the leaders at least. The main Goon FC of BR- talked about it at Eve Fanfest if you're curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oz4rzP-CAY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oz4rzP-CAY
- miguelmota 7y ago
  why? It's simple; because it creates happiness to the player. Why did you type that comment? Maybe because it creates happiness to you in the form of intrinsic reward when your question is answered or you simply become happier when expressing your thoughts. It's all for feeling joy in the end. If you ask 'why' enough times to anything, you'll ultimately reach the conclusion that there no real deeper meaning to life so might as well live it in a happy way while you're here.
romaaeterna 7y ago
What an act of mental illness! It's hard to imagine the depth of misery that this poor creature's mania drove him to. It must have been torture for his loved ones.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- LMYahooTFY 7y ago
  Do you think there is no conceivable way that this was valuable enough to spend someone's time on?
- corndoge 7y ago
  From the article: “People say, ya know, ‘Get a life,’ and ‘This is a waste of time,’” Sae continues. “They have to understand that I only did this for an hour and a half each day just to unwind after work. I wasn’t killing myself doing this.”
  - romaaeterna 7y ago
    An hour and a half every day for ten years (if this can be believed) at a deadly monotonous task in a game already known to have a serious addiction problem, in a genre with the same. And I for one don't believe the claim. It's fabulous. Addicts always minimize.
    - jdnenej 7y ago
      You could say that about a lot of things. I find it insane that some people subject themself to an hour or more of driving every day or scrolling down Instagram.
- tootie 7y ago
  FTA “People say, ya know, ‘Get a life,’ and ‘This is a waste of time,’” Sae continues. “They have to understand that I only did this for an hour and a half each day just to unwind after work. I wasn’t killing myself doing this.”
thtthings 7y ago
Such a loser
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.
mpfundstein 7y ago
I don’t want to hate because the article in general is great. But it bothers me tremendously that the author continously refers to the player as ‘they’, ‘their’ etc in order to be gender neutral. 1) it reads like shit 2) screenshots even shows the player char is female? 3) it feels so freaking forced. I know i am probably downvoted now like hell but I am so sick of this movement to get rid of gender in text. It started with all of this ‘the programmer, he or she ...’, then everything was a ‘she’ (any male coders in modern textbooks anymore?) , and now all are ‘they’... Call me conservative but I don’t like it. And tech is especially affected... Every stupid js conf only has gender neutral toilets. And people fucking hate it. But no one dares too say it loud. Too easy to get banned...
- brailsafe 7y ago
  I probably agree about the prose issue but what's your issue with gender neutral toilets? Seems way more efficient and far less stupid.
  - radicalbyte 7y ago
    I'm not sure that they're more efficient. Take for example the large open urinals. In a situation dominated by people capable of using them and where most people are using the toilets to urinate then having Unisex (or Omnisex) toilets is extremely inefficient. A good example of this is pretty much any football (soccer) stadium. For matches most of the crowd are men and a large number of them are drinking more than usual. Heck, I've been in a stadium with a 50/50 crowd: even when the toilets were split 2/1 for women in favor of men there was always a long queue for the girls and nothing for the boys.
  - TomMarius 7y ago
    Since there are no pisoars in these it is far more stupid
    - anewhnaccount2 7y ago
      It's healthier for the male prostate to pee sitting down.
murat124 7y ago
> The galaxy of New Eden is composed of nearly 8,000 star systems. I loved Eve Online when I played it in the mid 2000s but its point and click mechanics as well as you'd have to wait days even weeks to acquire skills in some cases made me lose interest in the game. It has its addictive qualities too where you feel you could go on playing it forever while knowing you have got to stop playing it for your own good. Years later I got introduced to Elite Dangerous and it's been a lot more fun than Eve. Elite gives players the opportunity to fly by binary stars, fly through neutron star jet cones to overcharge fsd drives, combats close to stars, land on planets and even more simulated activities. If you have a VR the game becomes a unique experience. The game's map is based on Milky Way galaxy and the systems are procedurally generated. I remember last year the devs announced approx 112000 individual systems were discovered and this is about 0.028% of the total. Anyway, a few months ago I solo traveled to Sag A* and returned later to the bubble (where Solar system and surrounding systems are). It took me 2 weeks to complete the trip and at times it was pretty boring. On the other hand it is the only game that let me experience the stress of flying near a black hole and I am grateful to the devs for making it possible.
- manigandham 7y ago
  I remember playing the Eve beta more than 15 years ago. It's an incredible game and a fascinating accomplishment technically and in building a community in an entirely separate world that feels real, but that realism comes with downsides like you mentioned. Long training times, slow missions, spreadsheet calculations, etc. are all necessary to pursue serious success in Eve. It's a trade-off and clearly most people prefer the faster and simpler gameplay mechanics of other MMOGs, although we also have the neverending Star Citizen that seems to be chasing the realism angle even harder and has gained quite a following. I wonder what everything is going to be like once we have real capable VR.
- noir_lord 7y ago
  If you like ED and haven’t already you should check out No Mans Sky, the devs botched the launch but as of 2019 they’ve delivered nearly everything they did promise and some stuff they didn’t, next up is VR. It feels like a living universe, planets are varied and wild, the creatures are inventive, as are the vehicles, you can build bases, Terra from areas, plant crops etc, it’s a really relaxing game.
xtiansimon 7y ago
Off-topic, sort of, but with 212 comments I don’t think I’ll derail anything... I’m not a big gamer, but one of my favorites was Cataclysm Homeworld [1]. Part of the gameplay was navigation. But there was a strange artificial limit to rotating the map—it had a hard stop. Which I guess eliminates the need for instrumentation. But I’m thinking with these programmatically generated worlds, it would be a mad skill to navigate in unlimited 3D orientation—infinite planes. Anything like that in the wild? [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeworld:_Cataclysm https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeworld:_Cataclysm
- kriberg 7y ago
  Off-topic funfact: one of the more eve famous players, SirMolle, was also one of the best homeworld players.
azdacha 7y ago
I find it very amusing that eve somehow constantly comes back to hacker news front page. I don't believe there is another game that made the headlines here THAT often
ericcholis 7y ago
Surprised that nobody mentioned Earth and Beyond from EA. One of the earlier MMOs, released and cancelled before World of Warcraft came out. They actually had a dedicated class for Explorers, with experience points awarded for exploration-type content. It took place in the Milky Way, which helped keep things a bit grounded.
- Accujack 7y ago
  I played E&B at first. I lost interest when I realized that the only thing worth doing in the game was following the high value trade route to get better ships. Over and over. Nothing else let you advance remotely as fast, and if you didn't do the same thing as everyone else you'd have the worst ship out there.
  - ericcholis 7y ago
    For sure. The combat only got interesting about a year before it was cancelled.

360 points by mmastrac 7y ago

I've never played EVE Online but the explorable universe looks pretty incredible https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPFII3ozSHI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPFII3ozSHI

giancarlostoro 7y ago

I wish I had enough time to learn every programming language, just as much as I wish I had enough time to play Eve online. The things we see here on HN and hear about in regards to Eve online are incredible. Even when listening to the Talk Python podcast one dev from the Eve Online crew came on to talk about it all. It's pretty incredible, and these articles are never not fun to read about. There's also from time to time the World of Warcraft articles that pop up on HN.

Merad 7y ago
Having played Eve for the better part of 6 years (2003-2009) I can tell you that it's a lot more fun to read about than to play. In some ways the game is way too close to real life. You typically have to put in a lot of work in-game to support your in-game fun time. PvP combat itself is plenty fun, but there were many times I spent all day (18-20 hours straight) logged in and participating in fleet ops in order to get perhaps 15-20 minutes of actual combat.
- SN76477 7y ago
  I go back and for with MMOs and yes it is too close to real life. So much downtime and waiting around then a burst of excitement. Lots of chasing the carrot in games like WoW. They do have magical qualities though. I look forward to my next MMO addition.
  - zrobotics 7y ago
    I've been enjoying the hell out of elite dangerous, but I play it in full-on space trucker exploration mode. Great for getting in an hour of flying, but I quit EVE because if I'm going to be doing a job I should be paid for it.
    - 83457 7y ago
      Just out of curiosity, do some people actually get paid for work in the game for others?
      - Merad 7y ago
        Depends on how you look at it, but IMO: yes. Eve is one of the few (maybe the only?) MMOs with a direct and legitimate conversion between real currency and in-game currency. You can purchase (with real money) an item called PLEX, which can either be applied to your account to extend your subscription, or sold to another player for in-game currency. There are many players who pay for their subscription by farming in-game.
        PeterStuer 7y ago
        Wow has the same. You earn in game gold convert it to gametime and real money on your Blizard Balance account. With this you can buy stuff from their digital store, both other games or in game goodies. Once setup, making gold is so ridiculously fast and easy that you can buy everything in the store in no time.
- billfruit 7y ago
  Perhaps designed around similar lines, but enjoyable with spending shorter amounts of time is "Foxhole".
- retzkek 7y ago
  It seems you were never on a fleet with Michael Bolton reading fan fiction. Point being, combat is really a small part of EVE. Admittedly I haven't played in a few years, but I don't regret my time spent online, whether grinding missions/anomalies, hitting F1 on-demand after hours of "did FC say jump?", or mining in a ~catalyst~ venture. Having interesting people to talk to, and shared experiences, made it all worthwhile.
fossuser 7y ago
I think it’s a lot more fun to read about then it is to play. The stories are very cool though.
- smitty1e 7y ago
  My college roomate in the early 90s announced that an entire week (24x7 hours) of his life had been devoured by a MUD. Since I am only doing social media, that is in some way better. #NoItsNot
  - Thaxll 7y ago
    24×7 is nothing, long time mmorpg players are close to a full year of in-game playing.
    - smitty1e 7y ago
      Nutty, ain't it?
duxup 7y ago
I'd like to live forever. I find so many things I'd like to try and learn, and sadly there's just not enough time.
- xvector 7y ago
  This is my goal in life. I hope one day I can contribute as much as possible to the ultimate goal transcending our bodies.
  - mutt2016 7y ago
    Have you read Neil Stephensons fear? Or daemon ( I forget the author)
- shrimp_emoji 7y ago
  You'll forget it anyway. :3
  - antepodius 7y ago
    If we actually cure aging before he kicks it, then eventually they'll have a motivation to tinker with people's brains to adapt them to living for, let's say centuries to start. Just back uo your memories into your exobrain!
    - jdnenej 7y ago
      Unfortunately the only company offering exobrain backups will inject a desire to buy their sponsors products in to your memory.
    - shrimp_emoji 7y ago
      If that's possible, tinker with their brains to make them less greedy! :v It's very arrogant, using up resources indefinitely like that. Especially when they could instead go to newer, next-gen brains that are fundamentally better. Or to an agglomerated superbrain! And in a world of next-gen brains and superbrains, a legacy brain's justification for existing via providing value to capital is Sisyphean. Its only remaining justification is a culturally-enshrined worship of ego. But the self is a lie! Consciousness is an overrated meme! You've already internalized that wisdom since you've elected to exist as a modified legacy brain to begin with, adapting the self to new selves... which means you have no trouble adapting again! And I can't see why that wouldn't be as a superbrain; surely, it's the best game in town. I bet even it forgets too though. But it's probably way better-equipped to tackle existential anxieties than we are -- let's go!
ben_jones 7y ago
If like me you were curious: https://talkpython.fm/episodes/show/52/eve-online-mmo-game-powered-by-python https://talkpython.fm/episodes/show/52/eve-online-mmo-game-p...
corndoge 7y ago
From the article: “People say, ya know, ‘Get a life,’ and ‘This is a waste of time,’” Sae continues. “They have to understand that I only did this for an hour and a half each day just to unwind after work. I wasn’t killing myself doing this.”
- checkyoursudo 7y ago
  I have come to the belief that if I enjoy something or get rewarded in a way that I want (learning, money, building something, etc), then whatever I am doing is not a waste of time. Someone else telling me something is a waste of my time is pretty meaningless to me. And I also try not to tell other people they are wasting their time. I think a better way to convey that idea is to ask (e.g., my 5 y.o. son) "are you getting something out of doing this activity?" And if the answer is "yes", then who am I to judge. And if the answer is "no", then I either leave it at that and let them figure it out, or as in the case with my son, try to guide him towards doing something more productive or rewarding. To me now, it's a really weird thing for someone to say to someone else you are wasting your time. Your time is only wasted if you think it's wasted. To be sure, this is different if you're being paid by someone else. If you are doing something and your boss says stop wasting time, then maybe you comply. After all, if someone is paying for your time, then it's really their time, isn't it?
sidcool 7y ago
Same here! I haven't been able to learn a new programming (well) language in the past 3 years. I get to understand basic syntax and have to move on.

xwdv 7y ago

Eve is probably most interesting game and community to read about that I never actually feel like playing in.

duxup 7y ago
Eve probabbly is a good example of the level of time and environment you need to get all these cool things to happen with a big universe to explore, all the weird politics and etc ... but sadly to get all that you need a fairly time consuming system. I remember some old MUDs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD I didn't play much but I tagged along with some committed players. In that MUD (I don't recall the name) death was a serious consequence, something like a 25% exp hit when you die... serious consequences. Also the players role played pretty hard. No need for silly language but if you were a knight you were expected to be helpful, etc. Everyone played along. One day a little trash talk happened when unexpectedly some high level dark players who you rarely saw (they had their on private island on the MUD and rarely left) hassled some random user in a big city. I was hanging with the knights and then all hell broke loose. Most of the players involved died (including me who was dumb enough to grab a sword I couldn't handle and ... it was cursed so I started attacking at random, dark guy's didn't like that). The great part was that for years afterward people read and commented on other people's description of the fight. Totally organic event, serious consequences for all involved... it was great. When games like WoW came out I was just ... not interested if there wasn't really anything on the line. Eve looked awesome, but man I got a family and career ;)
- checkyoursudo 7y ago
  I believe the following is a common phrase, but when I quit Eve years ago, my friends would always respond to "Where is [me]?" with "Oh, [me] won the game." I always thought that was funny.
  - duxup 7y ago
    I like to think there is a victory screen.

cf498 7y ago

Without getting killed or loosing a ship once

snuxoll 7y ago
Wonder how much time the character spent idle training skills to fly, you can get basic cloaks fairly quickly but to be able to fit a ship to never fall victim to a web, decloak, etc? That’s a lot of SP, and you’re still reliant on luck and skill even then.
- jniedrauer 7y ago
  Honestly not really. I used a low SP alt to run blockades with expensive cargo all the time and never once lost a ship. And these were systems I knew were being actively camped. It's almost impossible to catch a fast cloaky hauler if they know what they're doing. It's been a while, but if I recall, you wait on the gate for around 15 seconds, then decloak, pulse your MWD, cloak, and immediately change directions. It's almost foolproof if you execute correctly. Now use a frigate like an exploration ship, and it's even easier.

rdtwo 7y ago

It’s a lot more fun to read about in 10 minutes then to experience in the 10 years it took to do it

Krasnol 7y ago

Does anyone know what gallery they run this on: http://gallery.saganexplorations.net/# http://gallery.saganexplorations.net/# ?

xymostech 7y ago
Based on snooping around the javascript, it looks like probably https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallery_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallery_Project
- Krasnol 7y ago
  Thank you.
- teddyh 7y ago
  Tip: Wappalyzer (https://www.wappalyzer.com/ https://www.wappalyzer.com/) can automatically do this snooping for you. I use it all the time to answer the question “What is this site running on?”

Vaslo 7y ago

This game is really amazing, and I’m often trying to find something like it. My problem, besides lacking the time to do all the things I wanted to in game, was that some people are just so far ahead that you will just never catch up without spending a bunch of money for skill injectors. I’d love to get into a game like this from near the start. I had 3 accounts on it at one time!

misnome 7y ago
I played a few years ago before skill injectors and this was definitely a problem - progression was literally a function of account time owned. The main thing that killed it for me was the frustration of large battles - when the server was running at frames per minute and apparently impossible to assign more resources to the server even if you told them where a battle was going to happen. This just wasn't fun.
- Accujack 7y ago
  CCP was and is crippled by the legacy code in the game... and they chose to not try to fix it all at once(which to be fair would have required major refactoring and cost) but to try to evolve the code over time. I think if they'd just spent the time on a major rework the game would still be growing today. On the server side, the design is still better than any other I've seen, it's too bad they were so handicapped making it even better.
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Accujack 7y ago
Yeah... I really like the change to chat they made recently, that was one of the things that I thought was broken about the game. I don't like skill injectors much, especially once it became possible to buy them with real world money... the classic pay to win scenario. They did it in the name of attracting new players because the game was difficult to get into. So, they've engaged in the race to the bottom trying to appeal to the people who don't want to invest the time and effort needed to grow in the game. Like the original Everquest, the difficulty was what made the game worthwhile... you really value things if you have to work and learn to get them. I played for years, but ultimately I stopped because of the skill injector changes and because the combat model is too dated, and that was limiting the rest of the game. Specifically, the fact that offense (e.g. lasers) subtracted from defence (armor, shields, hull) until they were down and ship go boom. It didn't matter what side of your ship faced the enemy, which direction they were in, what the local conditions were (with the exception of some global conditions on a per system basis) and the weapons all did the same thing... the only differences were the visuals and ranges. The whole ship was one homogenous mass - no critical sections or systems, so it didn't matter where or what you hit. Because of the above, the rest of the design was limited to things that would modify the above. Combat strategy was limited to surprise, stacking the odds in your favor, and knowing every detail about how the systems, ships, and bugs worked. All that said, some people found creative ways to make it fun, and it's still the best MMO I've ever played.. no other game has ever gotten my heart racing like Eve. That's mostly due to the way the game was managed... scams, lies, all the worst of human deceit... but you could still "win" for a little while.

galaxyLogic 7y ago

This is all amazing but it makes me wonder if something is a bit crazy with these games. Why explore a universe created by some game company when you could be exploring the real universe by studying astronomy? Why try to earn money and gold in these games which although it can be turned into real money is part of a zero-sum game. Your win is their loss, why because there is no real value created in the game after all. In real life you can make money by creating a corporation which is not a zero-sum game because it brings value to both the owners and workers of the company and its customers. I understand it can be much more fun in the game than the real life and that's why people do it, but I just wonder if it's just escapism, avoiding the challenges of the real world?

hyperpallium 7y ago
> it can be much more fun in the game than the real life Why is it more fun? We have innate motivations to explore, create, trade, communicate. But there's a lot of extra work surrounding it: Solving a coding problem is fun, but organizing and neatening and testing and documenting is not (as much). Creating value and trading it for money is fun, but trying to understand international tax law is not (as much). A government can harness innate productivity by stopping stopping it.
- Aeolun 7y ago
  Because blowing people up in real life has nasty consequences?
WhoBeI 7y ago
It's a bit odd to go solo in Eve and I'd agree that you probably don't get much out of it. The medium to large PvP side of the game includes a lot of planning and communication though which should translate decently into RL for the leaders at least. The main Goon FC of BR- talked about it at Eve Fanfest if you're curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oz4rzP-CAY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oz4rzP-CAY
miguelmota 7y ago
why? It's simple; because it creates happiness to the player. Why did you type that comment? Maybe because it creates happiness to you in the form of intrinsic reward when your question is answered or you simply become happier when expressing your thoughts. It's all for feeling joy in the end. If you ask 'why' enough times to anything, you'll ultimately reach the conclusion that there no real deeper meaning to life so might as well live it in a happy way while you're here.

romaaeterna 7y ago

What an act of mental illness! It's hard to imagine the depth of misery that this poor creature's mania drove him to. It must have been torture for his loved ones.

deleted 7y ago
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LMYahooTFY 7y ago
Do you think there is no conceivable way that this was valuable enough to spend someone's time on?
corndoge 7y ago
From the article: “People say, ya know, ‘Get a life,’ and ‘This is a waste of time,’” Sae continues. “They have to understand that I only did this for an hour and a half each day just to unwind after work. I wasn’t killing myself doing this.”
- romaaeterna 7y ago
  An hour and a half every day for ten years (if this can be believed) at a deadly monotonous task in a game already known to have a serious addiction problem, in a genre with the same. And I for one don't believe the claim. It's fabulous. Addicts always minimize.
  - jdnenej 7y ago
    You could say that about a lot of things. I find it insane that some people subject themself to an hour or more of driving every day or scrolling down Instagram.
tootie 7y ago
FTA “People say, ya know, ‘Get a life,’ and ‘This is a waste of time,’” Sae continues. “They have to understand that I only did this for an hour and a half each day just to unwind after work. I wasn’t killing myself doing this.”

thtthings 7y ago

Such a loser

dang 7y ago
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

mpfundstein 7y ago

I don’t want to hate because the article in general is great. But it bothers me tremendously that the author continously refers to the player as ‘they’, ‘their’ etc in order to be gender neutral. 1) it reads like shit 2) screenshots even shows the player char is female? 3) it feels so freaking forced. I know i am probably downvoted now like hell but I am so sick of this movement to get rid of gender in text. It started with all of this ‘the programmer, he or she ...’, then everything was a ‘she’ (any male coders in modern textbooks anymore?) , and now all are ‘they’... Call me conservative but I don’t like it. And tech is especially affected... Every stupid js conf only has gender neutral toilets. And people fucking hate it. But no one dares too say it loud. Too easy to get banned...

brailsafe 7y ago
I probably agree about the prose issue but what's your issue with gender neutral toilets? Seems way more efficient and far less stupid.
- radicalbyte 7y ago
  I'm not sure that they're more efficient. Take for example the large open urinals. In a situation dominated by people capable of using them and where most people are using the toilets to urinate then having Unisex (or Omnisex) toilets is extremely inefficient. A good example of this is pretty much any football (soccer) stadium. For matches most of the crowd are men and a large number of them are drinking more than usual. Heck, I've been in a stadium with a 50/50 crowd: even when the toilets were split 2/1 for women in favor of men there was always a long queue for the girls and nothing for the boys.
- TomMarius 7y ago
  Since there are no pisoars in these it is far more stupid
  - anewhnaccount2 7y ago
    It's healthier for the male prostate to pee sitting down.

murat124 7y ago

> The galaxy of New Eden is composed of nearly 8,000 star systems. I loved Eve Online when I played it in the mid 2000s but its point and click mechanics as well as you'd have to wait days even weeks to acquire skills in some cases made me lose interest in the game. It has its addictive qualities too where you feel you could go on playing it forever while knowing you have got to stop playing it for your own good. Years later I got introduced to Elite Dangerous and it's been a lot more fun than Eve. Elite gives players the opportunity to fly by binary stars, fly through neutron star jet cones to overcharge fsd drives, combats close to stars, land on planets and even more simulated activities. If you have a VR the game becomes a unique experience. The game's map is based on Milky Way galaxy and the systems are procedurally generated. I remember last year the devs announced approx 112000 individual systems were discovered and this is about 0.028% of the total. Anyway, a few months ago I solo traveled to Sag A* and returned later to the bubble (where Solar system and surrounding systems are). It took me 2 weeks to complete the trip and at times it was pretty boring. On the other hand it is the only game that let me experience the stress of flying near a black hole and I am grateful to the devs for making it possible.

manigandham 7y ago
I remember playing the Eve beta more than 15 years ago. It's an incredible game and a fascinating accomplishment technically and in building a community in an entirely separate world that feels real, but that realism comes with downsides like you mentioned. Long training times, slow missions, spreadsheet calculations, etc. are all necessary to pursue serious success in Eve. It's a trade-off and clearly most people prefer the faster and simpler gameplay mechanics of other MMOGs, although we also have the neverending Star Citizen that seems to be chasing the realism angle even harder and has gained quite a following. I wonder what everything is going to be like once we have real capable VR.
noir_lord 7y ago
If you like ED and haven’t already you should check out No Mans Sky, the devs botched the launch but as of 2019 they’ve delivered nearly everything they did promise and some stuff they didn’t, next up is VR. It feels like a living universe, planets are varied and wild, the creatures are inventive, as are the vehicles, you can build bases, Terra from areas, plant crops etc, it’s a really relaxing game.

xtiansimon 7y ago

Off-topic, sort of, but with 212 comments I don’t think I’ll derail anything... I’m not a big gamer, but one of my favorites was Cataclysm Homeworld [1]. Part of the gameplay was navigation. But there was a strange artificial limit to rotating the map—it had a hard stop. Which I guess eliminates the need for instrumentation. But I’m thinking with these programmatically generated worlds, it would be a mad skill to navigate in unlimited 3D orientation—infinite planes. Anything like that in the wild? [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeworld:_Cataclysm https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeworld:_Cataclysm

kriberg 7y ago
Off-topic funfact: one of the more eve famous players, SirMolle, was also one of the best homeworld players.

azdacha 7y ago

I find it very amusing that eve somehow constantly comes back to hacker news front page. I don't believe there is another game that made the headlines here THAT often

ericcholis 7y ago

Surprised that nobody mentioned Earth and Beyond from EA. One of the earlier MMOs, released and cancelled before World of Warcraft came out. They actually had a dedicated class for Explorers, with experience points awarded for exploration-type content. It took place in the Milky Way, which helped keep things a bit grounded.

Accujack 7y ago
I played E&B at first. I lost interest when I realized that the only thing worth doing in the game was following the high value trade route to get better ships. Over and over. Nothing else let you advance remotely as fast, and if you didn't do the same thing as everyone else you'd have the worst ship out there.
- ericcholis 7y ago
  For sure. The combat only got interesting about a year before it was cancelled.