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General Discussion => General Non-RP EVE Discussion => Topic started by: Casiella on 09 Jul 2012, 19:13
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With EVE now 9 years old, many players have been playing this game longer than my daughter's been alive. Some started playing in high school and have already graduated college. The game itself has evolved tremendously even in the ~5 years since I began playing. And so we have the much-discussed "bittervet" syndrome, in which players who have been :psyccp: for so long finally reach the point of :bash:.
This is a frustrating thing because, when we reach that point, we literally become the worst thing about EVE. Not CCP's occasional and undeniable bonehead moves, but our vitriol and anger leach out and into the air (well, space) around us, poisoning everything they touch.
Conversely, the best thing about EVE are the newbies. Not the n00bs who are everyone's bane, but newbies with the right attitude to enjoy the game and the universe but have only recently gotten here.
There are a few solutions to BVS.
- Quit. There's nothing shameful about deciding that you've grown away from EVE, done all you want to do, and moving on to something else. A number of well-loved players have done this, either into another MMORPG or out of the genre completely. This often happens when RL intercedes, too, due to financial constraints or family responsibilities.
- Find something new in-game. Not everyone can do this, but think about all the bits that EVE has to offer. Maybe you've typically focused on a particular area and have never dug into, say, sovereignty warfare or market PVP or living in W-space or whatever. If you're on this site, you almost certainly roleplay already, but for some people that's the cure.
- Teach newbies. Go find some enthusiastic and intelligent newcomers and roll with them. Maybe even create a new character. Go run level 1 missions together or prowl low-sec in Merlins or explore cosmic anomalies. Even mining is fun here because everyone's spending their time figuring out how it works in a low-risk environment and socializing. Seeing the game through "fresh" eyes can do remarkable things.
- Evolve from "bittervet" to "Buddhavet". AKA the "Silver Night Path". Let the frustration wash over you and pass through you until you emerge from it implacable and unworried, just enjoying the corners of EVE that still appeal to you and not getting :evil: about a game.
Whatever you do, remember the MST3K Mantra (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MST3KMantra):
"It's just a show; I should really just relax."
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5. Get hired by CCP and fix the storyline.
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Work faster, Ken, work faster.
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Or just push them to promote Dropbear.
Seriously.
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Dropbear went back to them?
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100% confirmed, he works for CCP again (as a GM but still).
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Work faster, Ken, work faster.
And all the other things too (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAjR4_CbPpQ)
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:o I haven't seen Interstella in almost ten years.
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100% confirmed, he works for CCP again (as a GM but still).
Where did you hear this?
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From CCP Manifest directly.
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i loled with the buddhavet term
now i have set myself a new goal, attain evelightment!
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During my time in the Summit, I have (covertly) licked a number of bittervets and have come to the conclusion that they aren't half as bitter as we've been lead to believe. I'll continue my research and inform you of the results.
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Before creating Kala, and starting RP, I very nearly descended into the realm of the bittervets. Luckily, finding some great people in the RP community may have put that off for a few years :D
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I started Eve as a BitterNoob: everything good happened before I started.
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Hey, think of me. I missed the cool stuff by starting in... 2010, I think? ._.
I should probably try and make the transition to Buddhavet at some point -- but wow, that's hard. Not getting too badly bent out of shape just leads to my adoption of a fairly unmotivated stance.
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I like my bitterVet status. I've earned it through 7 years of hard work :lol:
But honestly, if your pointers about veterancy and buddaVet's are accurate then, I see NO REASON at all to opt for option 1, I'm working on number 2, I keep hoping I'll get the chance to do option 3, and frankly if I'm to self-reflect much on this I'm on a freak-of-nature version of option 4; instead of channeling serenity and letting the bitter pass over me, I condense it into a ball of bitter dedication and use it to fuel my desires for options 2 and 3, and my continued disinterest in quitting EVE.
I'd like you to explain to me however how bittervets are the worst things about EVE. I can think of far, far worse.
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I don't know if bittervets are the worst thing in all eve (personally I think that Aura's voice saying 'warp drive active' is the worst thing in Eve, but that might be because I ground tax-free refining standings for three corps on two characters through nothing but cargo runs) but I have had a few days when bitterRPvets have been the worst thing in my IG channels.
On the other hand, their stories about how cargo-expanders used to cost 20 million ISK back when an ISK was really worth something and veldspar had to be mined in frigates with pickaxes and EVA suits are pure gold.
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"I recall back when I hunted down pirates and other wanna-be's flying in lone cruisers or trio's of T1 frigates utilizing nothing but a meta-fitted cruiser, all you sad, boring, spineless hac/recon/logi bloobers roaming in fleets of 50 or more just don't understand!" /bitterragingspree :evil: :bash:
Something like that?
Incidentally the above is a factor that I find somewhat sad and annoying... :oops:
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I'd like you to explain to me however how bittervets are the worst things about EVE. I can think of far, far worse.
but our vitriol and anger leach out and into the air (well, space) around us, poisoning everything they touch.
That's how, Bloodbird. As a relative newbie, I have had my excitement of EVE dashed several times by the whining rage of bittervets. It's the biggest reason I don't read certain official forums.
Nothing, not even CCP's monoclegate, has upset me more than 'bittervets' turning every little neat thing into another crapstorm. It's like that drunk buzzkill at a party, and I just wish they'd shut up go home.
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Many can't go home. The eve they cherished an called home is long lost. I remember when the bleak lands were bleak, when there was barely anyone there to touch the kernite fields of myyhera..
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Bittervett-ism is hard to avoid when you can make pretty convincing arguments that the game actually 'was' -substantially- more interesting, more innovative, more dynamic, and more 'fun' many years ago, before little problems snowballed into game breaking issues.
There are fundamental 'problems' that have remained unresolved and have propagated over the years without being addressed, stacking issue upon issue to everyone's detriment.
For example just to throw a few out there, bot-mining, wealth-creep to absurd levels, ridiculous proliferation of extremely rare and powerful ships without game-design means to limit their use and numbers, abandonment of story progression, that sort of thing.
In other words, the conditions that made the game amazing 5 or 6 years ago no longer exist.
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Many can't go home. The eve they cherished an called home is long lost. I remember when the bleak lands were bleak, when there was barely anyone there to touch the kernite fields of myyhera..
Actually, by 'go home', I meant unsubscribe and go away.
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Many can't go home. The eve they cherished an called home is long lost. I remember when the bleak lands were bleak, when there was barely anyone there to touch the kernite fields of myyhera..
Actually, by 'go home', I meant unsubscribe and go away.
Oh, I did that a while ago :twisted:
Literature on problematic MMORPG use that I've consulted suggests that the social links people form in-game are one of the strongest maintaining factors of use, despite relatively losing interest in the game.
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This would explain why the chants of "hrr" in OOC didn't summon you the other night, Scagga. :P
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Nothing, not even CCP's monoclegate, has upset me more than 'bittervets' turning every little neat thing into another crapstorm. It's like that drunk buzzkill at a party, and I just wish they'd shut up go home.
Bittervett-ism is hard to avoid when you can make pretty convincing arguments that the game actually 'was' -substantially- more interesting, more innovative, more dynamic, and more 'fun' many years ago, before little problems snowballed into game breaking issues.
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In other words, the conditions that made the game amazing 5 or 6 years ago no longer exist.
Asshole mode, fighting bitter with bitter:
[spoiler]If it's really that bad then just fucking quit already so that those who still wish to can enjoy the game.
Edit: Sniped by Kat while typing wall o' text[/spoiler]
Normal mode, rational explanation:
I appreciate that CCP has fucked up their own game pretty good and proper. However, to a new player, there is still a ton that makes this game look awesome. I recall being blown away by the open gameplay when I was a newbie two years ago. I actually learned eve under the tutelage of a :bittervet: who could rail for hours about the shit CCP had done - but instead spent his time recruiting a bunch of newbs into a hisec missioning corp and teaching them the ropes, then leading the poor sods out to nullsec for some lols.
I appreciate that bitching about CCP and being nostalgic about times bygone is a very cathartic exercise for some people. And as a newb, the first few times you hear these stories, they're kinda neat.
The problem is that you don't hear them once in a while. You hear them all the time. It's like negative political advertising: Even if it's complete bullshit, if you hear it enough times it works its way into your mind and sticks.
So as a new player, or as a player trying to enjoy EVE, being constantly told how terrible this game is, how incompetent CCP is, how much better it all used to be, etc etc etc, is exatly was Cas said - poisonous. It becomes frustrating as an RPer sometimes because the people who have been around the longest and have the understanding of the lore and it's the most fun to pick there brains about a character concept can also be the people you want to avoild like the plague if you actually want to have fun in EVE.
TL;DR
I understand why you're bitter. Please keep it to yourself so as not to make new players bitter before their time*. They're still having fun.
* See Moros, Kybernetes
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Nothing, not even CCP's monoclegate, has upset me more than 'bittervets' turning every little neat thing into another crapstorm. It's like that drunk buzzkill at a party, and I just wish they'd shut up go home.
Bittervett-ism is hard to avoid when you can make pretty convincing arguments that the game actually 'was' -substantially- more interesting, more innovative, more dynamic, and more 'fun' many years ago, before little problems snowballed into game breaking issues.
....
In other words, the conditions that made the game amazing 5 or 6 years ago no longer exist.
Asshole mode, fighting bitter with bitter:
[spoiler]If it's really that bad then just fucking quit already so that those who still wish to can enjoy the game.
Edit: Sniped by Kat while typing wall o' text[/spoiler]
The topic is "On veterans and bitterness" so this is the place to discuss that topic. I don't bring the bitter to new players or new player forums, so you can calm right down.
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The topic is "On veterans and bitterness" so this is the place to discuss that topic. I don't bring the bitter to new players or new player forums, so you can calm right down.
That wasn't actually directed at you, you're one of the more pleasant vets. I probably could have left that out entirely, it was just a kneejerk reaction - once in a while, when rational explanation fails to get through, break out the sledgehammer for a bit, then go back to rational. At a minimum I should have clarified that it was directed at the more vitriolic bittervets even though I was quoting you. My derp.
The point is not so much that bitterness is unjustified - it most certainly is. In the two years I've been playing, I've had more than my share of :psyccp: :bash: moments, and I didn't even have to live through TEA fucking over amarr and caldari RP, and thus far TonyG hasn't touched anything I care greatly about. I count myself lucky.
The point is that outspoken bitterness is detrimental to the game over time. It brings almost nothing valuable to the game or to the players. It saps the optimism of newbs who are exposed to it.
Veteran members of a game can be and are an invaluable resource to new players (especially in a game that doesn't include an instruction manual), but in EVE and EVE RP it can be hit or miss - some of them are really helpful and others essentially encourage you to quit.
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I should probably try and make the transition to Buddhavet at some point -- but wow, that's hard. Not getting too badly bent out of shape just leads to my adoption of a fairly unmotivated stance.
So to paraphrase, either you don't engage, or you turn into Mr Grumpy?
If that's a fair translation, it describes a very familiar place...
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So to paraphrase, either you don't engage, or you turn into Mr Grumpy?
If that's a fair translation, it describes a very familiar place...
Pretty good translation.
The challenge is trying to find a way to engage that doesn't lead to Mr. Grumpy.
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I guess I never really got bittervet with the roleplay at least because it's pretty damned hard to shit all over the Federation without fundamentally changing its essence. Even with the Black Eagles..."Oh, a constitutionally questionable organization has been formed? That's nice, I'll just be in my little bubble doing what I've always been doing"
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- Evolve from "bittervet" to "Buddhavet". AKA the "Silver Night Path". Let the frustration wash over you and pass through you until you emerge from it implacable and unworried, just enjoying the corners of EVE that still appeal to you and not getting :evil: about a game.
I must not Bittervet.
Bitterness is the game-killer.
Bitterness is the burnout that brings total ragequit.
I will face my Bitterness.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the Bitterness has gone there will be nothing.
Only Buddhavet will remain.
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I ascended to BitterVet status a while back now, been playing eve since late '07 and apart from a break recently have been active virtually all this time.
And honestly, I can say with confidence that while I have enjoyed virtually all my time in EVE the days of Revelations II when I joined where oh. my. god amazing, the Chrons and and the STUFF was so awesome, it was even before the Amarr and Armour tanking buffs...
Oh and did I mention Solo-PvP existed? So incredible.
Now, I attribute this whimsical love of that age of EVE to being my formative time in this game and I dearly miss them as I had the greatest amount of fun learning this game, learning its lore and generally fitting ships so poorly from whatever I had in my loot chest that looked shiny, which slowly taught me what you ACTUALLY should use on it.
But really, the way the game sat at that time as a completed product, the only things changing where balances and the upcoming Trinity graphics engine... And I suppose I miss the simplicity of EVE actually being a finished working product and I sympathise with a lot of BitterVets who remember those times and get REALLY angry because if you compare that to how EVE looks now... its just depressing.
But I agree, those who feel this way should definately keep it to themselves largely and if you have to vent, at least do it to a sympathetic ear - someone who understands, that way you aren't ruining the newbies time because no matter what I can almost guarantee its the most fun they will have in this game, lets not ruin it for them.
-One mighty bittervet, with a love of newbies :3
Edit: Kinda off topic but a hilarious moment I remember many years ago, when I first tried out turrets for real I had no idea what ammo to use... so in a brilliant moment I looked up what ammo to use in a small railgun, I saw 'Lead' as one of the options and went "Great!" and went and bought several thousand Carbonized Lead charges.
Subsequently I MAY have raged a little at this, being so confused why the stupid bloody guns wouldn't load and all I gave up and went back to using missiles.
<3 Noob memories
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I found the steps to cure my bittervet were (prior to taking RL vacation):
1. Recruit noobs into corp.
2. Put noobs in t1 Frigs/Dessies
3. Form fleet
4. Go into low-sec and engage whatever the hell you can in 'Death or Glory' mode.
5. Rinse, Repeat.
Seriously there was nothing more fun for me to than to just break open bottles of booze and DrunkFC noobs and watch them progress from clueless scrubs to increasingly more violent killmail whores. I found just letting go of the rage and acting as a mentor and teacher to impart what I've learned in Eve to new players an enjoyable vocation in the game.
Also, noobs actually want to get into Fleets and are usually up for anything pretty much whereas elitepvp bittervets answer the question of, "Join Fleet?" with, "Nah, Rather spin my ship instead thx." :lol:
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I don't see myself as a veteran, so I get frustrated, not bitter. :)
I'll work on getting bitter once I get around to working on becoming competent (oh, sure, focusing on existing characters and not creating alts when I want to explore new things/playgroups might help with that. :P ).
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I'll work on getting bitter once I get around to working on becoming competent (oh, sure, focusing on existing characters and not creating alts when I want to explore new things/playgroups might help with that. :P ).
Nah, that's a handy way to go. (Why haven't we played together?)
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I am currently in a dark place in my EVE career. My bittervet level is so high right now i can't even stand to look at the EVE icon on my desktop.
Help... me...
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I am currently in a dark place in my EVE career. My bittervet level is so high right now i can't even stand to look at the EVE icon on my desktop.
Help... me...
I'm finding my break helps some with that. YMMV.
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I R IRL bittervet, has no time for game bittervettery.
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I'll work on getting bitter once I get around to working on becoming competent (oh, sure, focusing on existing characters and not creating alts when I want to explore new things/playgroups might help with that. :P ).
Nah, that's a handy way to go. (Why haven't we played together?)
We have. Briefly. You just didn't realize it at the time. (And perhaps don't realize it now. :) )
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Well, I remember one or two very brief "ships passing in the night" things in a corp.
Ah well, we'll fix it sooner or later.
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Well, I remember one or two very brief "ships passing in the night" things in a corp.
Ah well, we'll fix it sooner or later.
Wasn't that. *whistles*
But, yeah, sooner or later.
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Veev is sneakkeh wun :yar:
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At any given time there are only 20 players in the EVE roleplay community....
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and 18 of them are Istvaan's alts
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and 18 of them are Istvaan's alts
:3
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I've been called an Elsebeth alt and I've been called a Bacch alt.
The algebra of (attributed) althood can be amusing.
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Not sure about Bacch, but I've never had any doubt that you're not an Else alt.
/me is still trying to think who he's RPed with enough for Vieve to even notice.
/me is a bit of a recluse sometimes.
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Nullsecers like to think I am a russian alt, for some reason.
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I took option 1 years ago.
I still take an interest in Eve, however, else I wouldn't be posting here right now! I suspect that things might be different if there had ever been a clear successor to Eve. I may well have found that enough of the community that I associated with moved to a new game that I would have happily joined them once I was done with New Eden. Instead, I'm left with memories of a game that doesn't really exist any more and a kind of sadness now that most of the people I knew have drifted away. Many of them probably drifted away from MMOs altogether.
Because there is such a lack of an alternative to Eve, and because they got so much right from the outset, all those cumulative mistakes made over the years lead to a level of disappointment that's maybe disproportionate. Because I loved Eve so much, I really fucking hate some of the terrible things that have been done to it. Passion cuts both ways.
Personally, I want Eve II. I want the right people working on it. I want some of the most egregious errors of the past to be acknowledged and not repeated. I want every trace of anything ever conceived of by Tony Gonzales excised and retconned out of existence. I want the game to be dynamic and complicated and downright intimidating. I want a fresh start.
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Hmm, interesting topic. I largely agree, but it's people's subjective play experiences we are talking about or rather, people's subjective play experiences being projected onto the Eve collective consciousness.
Then there's the lifecycle thing. This is already Eve II, or Eve III. When you join the game, you adopt the current game mechanics and cultural attitudes as the game that is Eve, but change from this state is inevitable.
People complain about change if CCP introduces it. "The game is no longer the same game." People complain about a lack of change if CCP doesn't introduce it. "Factional Warfare is still useless." People become BitterVets or leave.
The next wave of people, adopting the latest prevailing reality of game mechanics and cultural attitudes as "the game", wonder at the BitterVets who seem out of touch. But the new folks enjoy the game until they too start complaining. They enter the change/stagnancy cycle.
The subsequent wave of people, adopting the status quo, wonder at the huge horde BitterVets who seem out of touch and divisive amongst themselves... and so it goes on.
It's fascinating really.
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Yeah, fascinating to me too. Especially since even if a lot of things have become particularily irritating in Eve over the years and as of late, I wouldnt even dream to get back in a past iteration of the game. People love to conveniently forget how people were already complaining the same way before.
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One of the most crushing problems to the RP community specifically is that the people who are/were big noteworthy names often do not pass on their knowledge to the next generation.
Many of these people leave, and behind them they leave a void that is very hard to fill.
Tl;dr, bittervets, moar of this plz
(http://i1251.photobucket.com/albums/hh543/HK95/aprrentice1.jpg)
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Usually most of that information is on a forum somewhere, it would just need a full time job to compile all those together.
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Are we talking about passing on knowledge of the lore, passing on knowledge of the in-game events and history, or passing the mantle of authoritah to IC successors?
(I'm not currently sure whether I should be looking for people to pass knowledge to me, or looking for people to pass knowledge to.)
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The in-game events bit is easy.
Nothing has really happened for the past four years :D
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Only if you consider the Sansha events and A'J "nothing". I find them highly interesting, useful, and significant.
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I've been called an Elsebeth alt and I've been called a Bacch alt.
The algebra of (attributed) althood can be amusing.
No kidding. I've been accused of being your alt before. :P
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I've done a fair amount of stuff.
I've been on 2 news articles, and quoted on a 3rd.
My actions during the live events were part of why an Incursion npc is described the way they are.
I helped some people get their names on an ingame object.
But, a lot of that, seems very much "in the past". ISD news has changed. Live events are paused (again). Content-related things are reduced.
So, how do you avoid telling newer players things like: "Oh, I did this, but you can't do that anymore" ? How do you avoid that kind of discouraging truth ?
How do you remain enthusiastic, when the things that you were enthusiastic about, have been reduced or removed ?
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Back in the day, ISD ran events, wrote the news and moderated the forums. It's probably not unreasonable to suggest that a fair percentage of those volunteers were drawn from a fairly small RP community. It's probably fair to say that a lot of those people were veteran players. Then, the whole thing was dismantled.
It seems like most of those people are not around, playing their old characters. Some of those old characters were lost in the wake of the T20 scandal. Others probably drifted away: left very jaded after a lot of good people were cast aside. Certainly there is a big hole in terms of what they offered as the people running events. Some people went on to join CCP in various guises, and some of them are still there, but overall, there has been a net loss, especially as CCP have not been able to pick up the baton and run more than a few yards with it.
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I read this and could help but think of this (http://www.adventuresinpoortaste.com/2011/11/16/the-ages-of-world-of-warcraft/). Curious how someone might adapt this to the life cycle of the average Eve player.
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Option 1 as of this morning, motivated by work (though I'm enjoying what I'm doing there recently). I actually want to play Eve, but 'stuff is happening' at work that makes it worthwhile not to be involved in anything that controversial. :P
My plans beyond Eve were mentioned in their forum a few times, and will stick to it; I'm dropping from online gaming as a whole. I still have the option to pursue SL or one of SL's open-source worlds, but I don't have the same drive that I used to. It's far more likely that I'll go back to my website to comment on things again (perhaps some Eve fiction now and then too), and continue a private project related to monitoring in Nagios/Icinga/etc environments.
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I have also taken option 1.
On my second month of leave, though practically I stopped playing EVE four-five months ago. I am surprised how easy the break has been and while not completely vanished yet, my interest in EVE has been steadily diminishing during the break.
Still hoping one day to read a dev blog about something I care about.
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My interest goes in cycles, I've found. I'm quite recently back from a long period of near-inactivity. Some of the recent changes annoyed me at first, but I've quickly grown used to them. Other changes I highly approve of, such as the love the tech 1 frigs are currently getting. Plus, I've had some amazing RP since returning.
On some level I'm a bitter old vet (yeah, I'm not thrilled about the Tony G metaplot either), but although I miss some of the old stuff, I really enjoy the new EVE, too.