Wednesday, July 29, 2009

EVE Blog Banter #10: It's just a game!


Welcome to the tenth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed here. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!
This month's banter leans a little, OK a lot, on the academic side. It comes to us from xiphos83 of A Misguided Adventurer, who asks the following: " Victor Davis Hanson argues that western culture, comprising of ideals such as freedom, debate, capitalism, and consensual government, are what make western society so successful at waging war. These ideologies create a warrior who's direct participation in government, ability to think freely, and desire to remain free, fights harder and is willing to suffer more than his conscripted foe. Though a military must remain a structured oligarchy to fight a war effectively, why in a world where military conflict is as familiar as breathing are there so few alliances that embrace these ideologies when governing their members?"

Now, first I must apologize. This Banter went live on Monday, which makes me two days late. I could come up with lots of crazy excuses, but the reality is we've been getting such a lousy weather these past few weeks that whenever we get a few dry and sunny evenings we tend to spend them outside. Which is what happened on Monday and Tuesday earlier this week. That may or may not explain why we've gotten so few entries in this month's Banter. Then again, it is the summer holidays.

Anyways, lets get to business!

If I understand Xiphos83's question, we're being asked "why aren't Alliances true oligarchies made up off individual somewhat-democratic corporations that defend and protect their interest through a dictatorial structure?" I remember reading a book a few years ago entitled "The Last Ship", in which early in the book the captain of a nuclear destroyer explains that it takes a dictatorship (the military) to defend a democracy. But how do we apply this to EVE?



The answer is two fold I believe.

First their are as many possible structure for alliances as there are for corporations. And anyone who has been playing EVE long enough to be in a few corps will attest that each has its own command structure. Some are military-based, while others have a more open chain of command, if they have any. If we were to take my corporation, Phoenix Labs has an open military structure and in a communistic approach to it's wealth. That is, each member has a rank and is promoted according to performance and dedication, and each members earnings is given back to the corp. We're only allowed to keep about 2M ISKs. Now Alliances are a different type of monster and can be, and in most cases are, very difficult beasts to control, for a simple reason actually. Which brings me to my second point.

EVE Online is a game. And as in any game, weather RPG, board game, CCG, and others, is played first and foremost for fun (well except for a few wako cases). Fun, not duty. Not responsibilities. And as long as being part of a corporation, or to an alliance provides those rush of endorphins, then that's that all that will be needed to allow these gaming groups to prosper and thrive. In real life, in my professional responsibilities, the consequences of failing a task may in some cases result in my being fired, which has very real consequences. Something that just isn't the case in EVE.

Because, in the end, EVE is just a game. It's just Internet spaceships!

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Please add my post to the contributions for blog banter 10 - http://scrammed.goodfriends.ca

Anonymous said...

maybe I'm just a silly ole mule that doesn't understand questions when asked..../deepsigh. Still a good summary and damned shorter than mine :)

Prometheus09 said...

I have neveer heard of a communist corp before. That is somthing new. Your post is a hell of a lot shorter then mine as well : )

Prometheus09

http://podlogs.com/thecaptainslog/2009/07/28/blog-banter-10/

Cyberin said...

Sent you an email to get added to the blog banter emails :) In the mean time, here's a link to mine :)

http://www.newedendiaries.com/archives/Who-will-you-die-for.html

As always a good read :)

Rakanishu said...

CK your corp is awesome. Even though I don't think it would work for me I love the idea that you are experimenting with communism in a virtual game world. I referenced Phoenix Labs it in my blog banter :)

Hamno said...

I just wish my corpmates would call me Commrad Hamno, just once:)

Another entry:

http://poddedonceagain.blogspot.com/2009/08/blog-banter-10-politics-of-eve.html

Mike Azariah said...

http://podlogs.com/mikeazariah/2009/08/10/60/

Kiara said...

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