Corp update: the GoblinGanks channel became pretty lively, many people started their gankers, soon they'll get to the point where they can apply to the corp. Come and join, let's hit the morons and slackers who refuse to read up and fight the social thinking that you need "friends" to achieve things.
"It's already replaced", "it earned its price long ago", "idc it was just a ret lol" are common responses to ship losses. However people seem to ignore an important function of a ship: to protect their pod. While you can usually get your pod out in highsec and lowsec, it needs you to be prepared and at the keyboard.
Instead of speculating, let's see some data. I processed all my solo kills from the first to the most recent. I killed 285 ships with pods, 137 ships without pods and 5 lone pods that were just floating there without ships. These were all empty and ignored in this calculation. What is common in these ships? That they were all destroyed by a single Catalyst ganker. Let's see their average costs:
But there are more interesting results here: I split the podded ships into two groups, below and above 100M value. The average value of the "cheap" ships was 47.5M, their pods worth 83.3M. The average value of the "expensive" ships was 275.9M, while their pods worth 252.6M. So the cheap barges (Covetors and Retrievers, I didn't kill Procurers) held twice their cost in pods, making their actual kill value 130M. Not bad for killing an untanked T1 barge with a 10M Catalyst.
What do I want to say besides "gankers, don't ignore T1 barges"? That the idea of using an untanked Retrievers and just replacing them only works if you keep your pod empty. If the miners would do that, gankers would sooner or later stop killing Rets, as their value doesn't really worth the gank. I leave 1-2 months old newbies alone regardless of tank because their pods usually don't worth my time. But putting an expensive clone into a T1 barge is just dumb and it seems that many people are dumb.
"It's already replaced", "it earned its price long ago", "idc it was just a ret lol" are common responses to ship losses. However people seem to ignore an important function of a ship: to protect their pod. While you can usually get your pod out in highsec and lowsec, it needs you to be prepared and at the keyboard.
Instead of speculating, let's see some data. I processed all my solo kills from the first to the most recent. I killed 285 ships with pods, 137 ships without pods and 5 lone pods that were just floating there without ships. These were all empty and ignored in this calculation. What is common in these ships? That they were all destroyed by a single Catalyst ganker. Let's see their average costs:
- Pods: 106.4M
- Podded ships: 78.7
- Not podded ships: 98.1
But there are more interesting results here: I split the podded ships into two groups, below and above 100M value. The average value of the "cheap" ships was 47.5M, their pods worth 83.3M. The average value of the "expensive" ships was 275.9M, while their pods worth 252.6M. So the cheap barges (Covetors and Retrievers, I didn't kill Procurers) held twice their cost in pods, making their actual kill value 130M. Not bad for killing an untanked T1 barge with a 10M Catalyst.
What do I want to say besides "gankers, don't ignore T1 barges"? That the idea of using an untanked Retrievers and just replacing them only works if you keep your pod empty. If the miners would do that, gankers would sooner or later stop killing Rets, as their value doesn't really worth the gank. I leave 1-2 months old newbies alone regardless of tank because their pods usually don't worth my time. But putting an expensive clone into a T1 barge is just dumb and it seems that many people are dumb.
39 comments:
So what you are saying is that this whole this is just for KB stats, like many of us thought, and has nothing to do with the "teaching" you earlier mentioned. Because this whole post is around how much you can kill in a catalyst, which if you were here to teach would be beside the point, since everyone already knows gankers can gank more value that their destroyer value.
You should just be honest mate. This whole endeavour is to get a KB higher on the ranks so you can point at it and say "look at how awesome I am". And still the answer will be "you ganked... so what?"
No matter what you do in EVE, you must be able to measure it via
- ISK
- KB stats
- Sov
Without measurements you only have "fun" aka "be horrible but be OK with that".
I measure my eve experience by the number of friends I have in my personal channel which is invite only. This is not ISK, KB stats or sov..
Also your suggestion that "fun" equals be horrible but be ok with being horrible is begging the question something chronic, even for you.
I have friends who have excellent killboard stats and who have engineered and orchestrated AT winning teams, alliance wide doctrines and enormous market successes. They have "fun". They are also measurably "elite". By your reckoning these are mutually exclusive but apparently not? The entire point of playing any game is to have fun. Whether you are good at it or terrible at it, if you are having fun the game is keeping you happy.
Your views seem to be:
you can be terrible at the game and quit.
or
you can be terrible at the game and have fun and be a loller
or
you can be elite at the game but hate it bitterly.
No, you can have a measurable goal and have fun by reaching it.
If you refuse to define a goal, you are a loller.
Right there, that's your problem. You can only see those 3 measures of success and in YOUR OPINION, if you don;t measure yourself by those, you are rubbish. The majority of the playerbase does not measure themselves on any of that. I have enough isk that I don't run out. beyond that, what does it matter? It's a number. I have a pretty blank killboard on most of my characters, except wartime kills, and again, what does it matter. And I personally hold no sov.
Your obsession with insulting anyone that plays A GAME for FUN (which is actually what games are designed to do) make you look ridiculous. Most people don't need to sit around measuring against each other to feel better about themselves. You realise that the reason you feel better is because it makes you feel superior right? And that exaggerated reaction is usually a sign that in your real life you feel inferior. It's called a superiority complex and you show almost all the signs of it. Basically it occurs when you deep down feel like you are inferior, and to counter that, you react by trying to assert dominance and superiority over others, deriving pleasure from proving yourself to be "better" than other people. Most of the time people wit ha superiority complex don;t even realise it. Honestly, I'd suggest seeking psychiatric help.
As for your measure of success, you need to measure what you are AIMING to do. Your aim, as you stated is to educate miners. You can't measure that by KB stats, and from what I can tell you are failing to educate anyone as you have no diplomacy skills.
Lets face it, look at the timing of when you came up with this plan, and the other things that were going on, and your recent posts, this whole endeavor has nothing to do with educating miners on how to tank, it's yet another way for you to try to show yourself as being better than others. You refuse to believe the goons did the interdiction for profit, and want to show that you can beat their KB at ganking. The sooner you admit it to yourself, the better off you'll be.
"Without measurements you only have "fun" aka be horrible but be OK with that."
You keep repeating this, but repetition does not make it true. You might as well keep repeating 2+2=5 because it would be just as accurate.
Ironically enough, you are actually showing the opposite.Just because you can measure something and do well according to that measurement does not mean that you are "not horrible". Your killboard favors a small subset of PvP that most people find boring or even silly. To do well on it requires very specific conditions and setups that do not translate well into other types of EVE play.
Congratulations. You have found a measurement that you can excel at because most other people don't care about that measurement. How is that any different than an Arathi Basin bridge fighter who measures his self worth by the number of enemy kills he has rather than his battleground winning percentage like most other people do?
@Lucas: the necessity of measurement is not my "opinion" its an obvious fact. You cannot even define success without goalposts and measurements.
I rather skip on your "u haz no life if u r gud in a game lol" comment.
I don't believe in sweet talking. The targets and the bystanders get the links and info they need. But that's not teaching. I'm not the first guy who post a decent barge fit. These were out since the barge rebalance. Before that, there was mining Rokhs to battle Hulkageddon. The info was always there, the M&S just CHOOSE to ignore it.
And they will choose to ignore it until something FORCES them to consider it. Which is them or other people in the system blowing up.
KB stats measure the amount of people you forced to consider becoming better.
@Jim L: everyone can define a measurement, like "number of battleships solo killed in my cruiser" and such data could be used as "skilled solo PvP measurement" and various solo PvP-ers could compete on it.
However if you measure NOTHING, you - by definition - just hang around and be useless.
"I leave 1-2 months old newbies alone regardless of tank because their pods usually don't worth my time."
Aura 1 Project: less the one month old
Kill 1
Kill 2
ChuDo Pryanik: less then 2 month old
Kill 3
there are more kills that are barely older then 2 month...
"Without measurements you only have "fun" aka "be horrible but be OK with that"."
It has been pointed to you on multiple times that games are for entertainment.
I don't measure my EVE life in ISK as I am just finding projects that keep me in game. with the so hated social people that try not play an MMO solo style as you seem to do it. A lot of those projects involve earning ISK but a lot of those are projects to experiment with theories and simulate different ways of sharing wealth.
I collect BPO's. why ? because that is the way my character identifies itself within the EVE universe.
Do I measure this as ISK ? No because if I would, I would probably not own many BPO's due to mostly horrible RoI.
According to your "must be able.." I am horrible but I can live with that.
I should have written "I leave 1-2 month old pilots alone if there are better options" A retriever with a few +2 implants is better than no kill.
The necessity of measurement is an obvious fact. I'll even go as far as saying that measurement is just always there, whether we codify it in some measurement system, or play it by ear through deciding if it's fun or not.
Necessity of measurement is not just a fact, it is an unavoidable feature of human perception.
However, the necessity of specifically Gevlon's measurement through KBs is neither obvious, not a fact. It is something Gevlon chooses to employ to further his goals.
The surprising point for me here is how much negative reaction there is to being measured in Gevlon's way.
"NO NO Please let me have fun and don't measure me by some killboard!" - i hear from the comments.
I am not sure how Gevlon's killboard measurement is in any way preventing people from having their fun. I am not sure how Gevlon's disapproval of you not using his killboard measurement is preventing people from having your fun.
It almost feels like people need Gevlon's approval to have fun.
@Gevlon
"the necessity of measurement is not my "opinion" its an obvious fact. You cannot even define success without goalposts and measurements."
It's only a fact for you though. Most of us playing don't strive to measure the success of everything we do. If we aim to have fun playing and we have fun, then regardless of what we did to achieve that fun, it was a success. You need to measure some tangible figure to have fun, and that's fine, but that doesn't mean we are doing it wrong while you are doing it right.
"I rather skip on your "u haz no life if u r gud in a game lol" comment."
The fact that you read that as such is just a further testament to the fact. I neither states you are good in game, nor did I state you have no life. I simply stated that by the fact that you find in necessary to express your superiority over others and put everyone else down shows the clear signs of a superiority complex. Your response here only furthers that, as people that have a superiority complex generally respond with aggression when confronted about it.
"I don't believe in sweet talking. The targets and the bystanders get the links and info they need. But that's not teaching. I'm not the first guy who post a decent barge fit. These were out since the barge rebalance. Before that, there was mining Rokhs to battle Hulkageddon. The info was always there, the M&S just CHOOSE to ignore it."
But if your aim is to educate people, which your own blog posts state is the case (remember, how you are saying it's not their fault, they just need to learn to fit better, etc) then you are failing at that. If your goal is to teach, then your measure of success would be how many people are taught. Chances are that you ganking people, then spewing out spam links to your blog in local is just getting you added to a whole bunch of ignore lists. Also, if you think about it, you killed their barge, then you podded them. Talking about it in local is probably pointless as chances are they got put back to a different system.
"KB stats measure the amount of people you forced to consider becoming better."
It does no such thing. KB stats just show you the number and value of kills, and that's all. You can't tell the persons actions from that so you can't tell if you forced them to do anything.
"However if you measure NOTHING, you - by definition - just hang around and be useless."
In your opinion. This is the part you keep missing out. You state this like it is fact, but it's only your opinion. Most people are happy playing games purely for fun and don't require any sort of measurement. They are not wrong for doing that. They are not useless for doing that.
one thing i would like you to elaborate: with your system of succes-measurement, how would you measure failure?
and, are youu aware, that some of your arguments about the m&s also apply to you?
"The info was always there, the M&S just CHOOSE to ignore it."
like when u talked about goon income, the average goon income and such, and i pointed u to the goonwiki and asked if u have read it before?
you way of measuring eve in numbers is a little dificult, as success in eve isn't really measurable in numbers, as it is a sandbox without a predefined goal.
of course, within the sandbox you can define a minigame that can be measured in numbers.
on a sidenote, i am really disapointed that your course already turned into the same tear collecting kb wank.off shit as the new order's.
over the last 1.5 years, you have complained many times about these douches with their "i'm so elite, and u are not" attitude, and you claimed that you are in this game to provide an alternative, and you don't. :(
why would one join your crusade, and not james'?
and, if i really want to get awesome kb stats, why join u after all ... there seem to be many ganking corps that do a much better job.
btw, as i don't consider myself a douche and wannabe elitist, i must say that i find ganking (esp with the purpose of kb stat whoring) a little lame.
i mean, consider the following in real life. let's say i am a violent person, and i go
a) streetfighting, or pub-fighting
or
b) beating up grannys in the backyard
if i do the thing in the streets and pubs, i get a lesser beatdown-count.
if i only do grannys, i get a higher count.
which one do you think gets me more kudos from society?
@Lucas: you wrote that "measuring something" is superiority complex itself. No. It's just being superior. If you say that "I do better than a bum", you aren't having superiority complex, you are just stating a fact. By measuring and trying to be better, I'm already better than everyone who doesn't measure just "have fun".
They also get mails so the links reach them. Also, the link is on my blog which I get hit count so I can say for sure that people look into it (damn, another numberical measurement)
I used the term "forced to consider" and it's guaranteed. He surely have SOME thought about the gank. Maybe it's just "nolifer douche killed me FFS" but he still had to think about it.
No, it's not my opinion that useless people are useless. If you are just hanging around, they can't be used, so they are useless BY DEFINITION.
If you say "your measurement is crap, the real EVE skill is solo nullsec roaming K:D" you have a different opinion. In my opinion he is wrong, in his opinion I'm wrong. If you don't measure at all, you are useless, that's a FACT.
@Daniel: beating up bikers get you more kudos. Beating up grannys get you more wallets and purses.
@Maxim: fun IS measurable, indeed by "number of peers approving me". So they do need my approval to have fun. Hence the bitter argument.
@maxim
"The surprising point for me here is how much negative reaction there is to being measured in Gevlon's way."
It's not that at all. It's that Gevlon states this whole campaign is about teaching the noob miners, and how miniluv are just KB whoring, and how new order turned into KB whoring, then a day into his corp, he's banging on about his KB. It's not a surprise, but it's definitely a disappointment.
"The necessity of measurement is an obvious fact. I'll even go as far as saying that measurement is just always there, whether we codify it in some measurement system, or play it by ear through deciding if it's fun or not."
Sure, humans obviously strive to fulfill desires. But in terms of playing games, often simply "having fun" is the objective, and to an external party, that is immeasurable. Gevlon seems to be of the opinion that if a third party can't measure it, then it's stupid and you are useless.
@gevlon"No matter what you do in EVE, you must be able to measure it via
- ISK
- KB stats
- Sov
Without measurements you only have "fun" aka "be horrible but be OK with that"."
Why?
Are these the only possible metrics in Eve?
Is Chribba only measurable by his ISK? If not, is he "horrible, but ok with that"
@Gevlon
<< fun IS measurable, indeed by "number of peers approving me". So they do need my approval to have fun. Hence the bitter argument. >>
I can certainly see that :D
One little caveat, just for completeness' sake. Modern game design understands and accepts that there are at least four broad categories of fun, and only one of them can be even remotely measured this way. Specifically, "social fun".
Interestingly enough, your KB measurement is useful for measuring at least two other categories of fun, which is "achievement fun" and "dominance fun".
@Gevlon
"you wrote that "measuring something" is superiority complex itself. No. It's just being superior. If you say that "I do better than a bum", you aren't having superiority complex, you are just stating a fact. By measuring and trying to be better, I'm already better than everyone who doesn't measure just "have fun""
No, I stated that you have a superiority complex, and that's show in part by the way you measure things and the way you enforce your methods of measurement on others. You pick only metrics where you can measure yourself to be better, metric which show you to be superior and you state any other metric is wrong. What about the metric of ship loss. Thanks to your ganking, I've lost less ships than you, thus I am far superior.
"They also get mails so the links reach them. Also, the link is on my blog which I get hit count so I can say for sure that people look into it (damn, another numberical measurement)"
But people clicking the link does not mean they are learning anything. If you spam a link in a system with 200 people in local, I'd be pretty surprised if nobody clicked it at all. Does that mean they even remotely care about what you've written? No, it doesn't.
"No, it's not my opinion that useless people are useless. If you are just hanging around, they can't be used, so they are useless BY DEFINITION.
If you say "your measurement is crap, the real EVE skill is solo nullsec roaming K:D" you have a different opinion. In my opinion he is wrong, in his opinion I'm wrong. If you don't measure at all, you are useless, that's a FACT."
Do you know what the word FACT means? If my aim of a game is to have fun, and I have fun, then it's mission accomplished. It doesn't make me useless just because I'm not counting some stat. Honestly I don't understand how you don't get this.
"fun IS measurable, indeed by "number of peers approving me". So they do need my approval to have fun. Hence the bitter argument"
This clearly shows you don't know what fun is, and again highlights your superiority complex. You can't have fun if nobody is recognising you are achieving higher than them. I couldn't give a shit what people think of me, it has absolutely zero effect on whether or not I have fun. I think you'll find the majority of people don't need someone patting them on the back and approving of them to have fun.
Gevlon, there is one rational statement in the comments: the number of kills cannot measure your success at educating miners.
Take, for example, a situation where you kill uncommonly dumb miner multiple times but s/he just won't learn and goes out in untanked ship over and over again. The number of kills is big, the number of educated miners is still zero!
On the contrary, if the miners start to tank their ship en masse, your number of solo kills should decline because you'll spend more time finding gankable target then before.
To measure your success accurately, you need to find out a percentage of solo-ungankable miners in highsec. If it improves over time, than you're successful. You could even use regression model with number of kills as independent variable, so that R^2 would show how much of that improvement was due to your efforts.
"So they do need my approval to have fun. Hence the bitter argument."
Now you are just being dishonest. No one here is seeking your approval. They are disagreeing with your point. That you see disagreement as bitterness speaks more to your ideological blindness and rigid thinking than it does to those who disagree with you.
@Gevlon
I do not play Eve, but I understand trolling pretty well. I know because I did and still do it from time to time. Lucas is actually a pretty good troll by anyone's standards.
As a doctor, it never ceases to amuse me when interfolk trample over semiotics in an attempt to 'diagnose' someone over the internet. The fact that he attempted that is an underhanded insult, and I am quite amused that you would play right into his goading.
I am not sure that there is anything to be gained here by trying to convince one single nay-sayer about your succes or lack of success. I think you would be best served by metrics and proof rather than trying to 'convince' trolls of your methodology. Ideas succeed or fail based on merits. You have had many experiments, most of them ended up teaching everyone something new, even if they were not as groundbreaking as you hoped they would.
Lyxi.
"NO NO Please let me have fun and don't measure me by some killboard!" - i hear from the comments.
I don't know how you heard those from the comments since no one has said any such thing. Perhaps you are misconstrueing what they are saying.
"I am not sure how Gevlon's killboard measurement is in any way preventing people from having their fun. I am not sure how Gevlon's disapproval of you not using his killboard measurement is preventing people from having your fun."
Again you are misrepresenting what people have said. No one has said Gevlon's killboard measurement is in any way preventing people from having their fun.
In reality it is the opposite. Gevlon has claimed that people who play without measurements are horrible.
No one is arguing that there is no value in measurement (although some are arguing over the true value of what he is measuring). I am pretty sure everyone here understands that there is at least some value in measurement. It is Gevlon who is claiming that there is no value in something if it can't be measured. Just because something is unmeasureable (such as social interaction, or fun, or practice, etc) does not mean it it does not have value.
@Souldrinker: maybe I was inaccurate. KB is a measurement of one ganker against the other. The more you gank, the more people you reached.
@Lucas: I never said that you can't be useless in a game. If you only want fun, you CAN do that. You are still useless though. The game is a game because this uselessness and failure has no real consequences, so you can get away with being useless.
No, I never said you can't have social fun without recognizing your achievements. You can't have fun without peers recognizing YOU, as a person. By calling you useless I refuse to recognize you, hence you come back again and again to convince me that you aren't useless. Why don't you just ignore me?
@Anon:
"I do not play Eve, but I understand trolling pretty well. I know because I did and still do it from time to time. Lucas is actually a pretty good troll by anyone's standards."
Firstly, not a troll.
Secondly, have you thought that maybe you may misunderstand what the argument is around here? Since you don't play EVE, it would not surprise me if you don't understand how a lot of it works and how the community plays. Killboards are an inaccurate kind of league table put together by third parties. Some people use them for measuring success, but most people just use them for seeing what other people are up to. Few people take the numbers they generate seriously as it relies on so many factors (such as people having submitted their API keys) and is so drastically inaccurate. Then using that killboard stat as a method of proving superiority by ganking miners is inaccurate. Then using that as a measure for how well you are educating miners is ludicrous to say the least.
"As a doctor, it never ceases to amuse me when interfolk trample over semiotics in an attempt to 'diagnose' someone over the internet."
Honestly to me, Gevlon shows signs of a superiority complex. I don't much care if that amuses you or not. I've read his blog for a while now, and aside fro mteh fact that he clearly states several times he is superior, he shows many other signs. He rigidly ranks people into 4 tiers of person, Morons & Slackers, Socials, Anti-Socials, Rationals. These are ordered tiers of which he is in the highest (the Rational) tier, and claims that everyone should strive to achieve the higher tiers. This alone is enough to behaviour typical of a superiority complex.
Then take the way he responds to criticism. It's always negative, and it's always putting him above the person he's arguing with. He's even stating in this very comments section that we are seeking his approval.
Then look at the way he selects what he wants to measure himself on. During the Fountain war, it was on wartime isk generation. During hulkageddon and now that miniluv is running an interdiction, it's ganking. When a player or group of players does anything big, he's immediately there trying to show how he does it better, and it doesn't matter to him how accurate or how independent the methods of measurement are.
"I am not sure that there is anything to be gained here by trying to convince one single nay-sayer about your succes or lack of success."
I'm clearly not the only person here against this, I may just be the most vocal. Look outside of this blog and you will see even more people with the same thoughts. When Gevlons posts get put on EN24, the comments fill up quickly with masses of negativity towards his approaches. At least I come here and comment properly without jumping straight to schoolyard insults.
@Gevlon
"I never said that you can't be useless in a game. If you only want fun, you CAN do that. You are still useless though. The game is a game because this uselessness and failure has no real consequences, so you can get away with being useless."
Again though, useless by YOUR measurements. If the sole purpose of playing a game is to have fun, and I have fun, then I am not useless ad I am achieving 100% of what I set out to do. Just because from your perspective I'm not achieving what you want to achieve doesn't mean I'm useless. EVE is not a game with a set goal. If anything, the only real set goal is to get your SkillPoint count up. Since that happens with or without me needing to actually do anything, by that measurement I'm highly useful having run 4 accounts for the past 6 years. Yet the only thing I care about is if I'm having fun. The day I'm no longer having fun in EVE is the day I quit, regardless of how many numbers I've built up.
@Jim L
Maybe i'm misconstruing. Maybe you are missing obvious clues. The only truth here is that I am entitled to my interpretation, just as you are entitled to yours.
My interpretation is that i see that people are opposed to the measurement on the grounds that they are just having fun. Which then leads me to conclude that, in the minds of these people, measurement and fun cannot be mixed. Therefore being measured somehow gets in the way of their fun.
It is an interesting phenomenon that certainly requires further observation.
<< I am pretty sure everyone here understands that there is at least some value in measurement. It is Gevlon who is claiming that there is no value in something if it can't be measured. Just because something is unmeasureable (such as social interaction, or fun, or practice, etc) does not mean it it does not have value. >>
How do you know value of unmeasurable things? The notion of value itself implies measurability.
The misconception here is that you seem to think that some things are "unmeasurable". As long as you think that there are "unmeasurable" things, you'll have no recourse to people saying that your "unmeasurable" things are actually null. You may feel there is value in fun, but have no real answer to anyone who calls your fun stupid and pointless.
A much more solid position is to assume that everything is measurable, provided you have enough imagination to find the right measuring sticks. That way when someone tries to tell you that your fun is stupid and pointless, you can reply that "hey, it actually has this value and that's how i measure it so i know it's real".
Now, Gevlon found his measuring sticks. According to his measuring sticks, individual achievement is the most important thing, while some things that you feel are important are - to him - actually valueless.
That's okay, you don't need to agree with him. But if you want to have any solid footing in this discussion, you need to find your own measuring sticks, that allow you to assign value to things you find valuable.
"You can't have fun without peers recognizing YOU, as a person."
Really? If someone is having fun, while doing what he likes, why would he need any recognition? He is already having fun, whether it's playing solo or socializing. For example - me. I have fun playing Eve and I don't care what others think about me, hence proving you wrong. You seem to be the one who begs for recognition either by trying to be someone you're not (pvp) or bragging about things, nobody else cares about (kb, isk).
"By calling you useless I refuse to recognize you, hence you come back again and again to convince me that you aren't useless."
You must be the only one getting that impression. Nobody needs your recognition - you haven't yet earned the respect to make others care about what you think. Other people might be useless to you but, surprise surprise, nobody really cares about your opinion. Rationally speaking - why would anyone? You haven't achieved anything, you aren't an expert on anything (you are a medium-scale trader with no more knowledge that a typical E-UNI trading teacher), you constantly antagonize and insult people. Hell, I bet you moderate out most of the comments telling you this and hide it behind 'spam'. Because, you know, you are the god of eve and us mortals are unworthy of criticizing you. /s
But when you take out all the arrogance of your current post and your comments, one good thing comes out. You finally stopped lying to us (and yourself) and admitted you don't care about teaching other people how to play - you just want to grind some meaningless numbers and extract tears. Nevertheless, we knew the already although I personally wished you finally came to your senses and stared doing something with a meaning in Eve. I was wrong - you still remain you.
PS. Why do you think EN24 syndicates your blog?
@maxim
Fun is indeed unmeasurable, but when someone is having fun - mission accomplished. Does he need to assign some numerical value to fun? No.
As for metrics - it is fine to use an arbitrary metric of your choosing in a game as Eve, where anyone has their personal goal. Gevlon only uses metrics which make him be on top. Fine - he can do that. But anyone can also use another metric which makes him go straight o the bottom and it will be equally valid. We, as rational and intelligent people, recognize this. But saying that one metric is better than any other is wrong. It's subjectively better, but it cannot be objectively. And Gevlon tries to persuade people, that his metrics are the only one that count. Lucas already gave an example of a counter-metric and it's just as valid as Gevlon's. And we still have the notion of fun. It cannot be measured, but everyone knows when 'fun' is achieved. When someone plays for fun (as games were designed for), it doesn't matter what numbers people throw at him. Fun is achieved. Period. I have fun in Eve and I don't care for KB. Gevlon may keep insulting me for not recognizing him and try to diminish my sense of achievement, but he will ultimately fail. I have fun and I don't care about his numbers. I can kill him anytime I want and his KB padding won't stop me. His isk won't stop me. His pseudo-arguments and robot corpmates won't stop me. There is nothing he can do to stop me, when we meet and I will have fun blowing him up. And all he can do is cry some more about his numbers. I win Eve as does everyone who plays for fun and achieves it.
@Gevlon 'I should have written "I leave 1-2 month old pilots alone if there are better options" A retriever with a few +2 implants is better than no kill.'
Put in different words: you're just a ganker. A very self-conceited one, I have to admit, but a mere ganker nonetheless.
All the talk about 'teaching'? Window dressing. Spin. Maybe self-delusion even.
If this were really about teaching, you would measure success by how many of your solo-ganks _fail_, and corp acquittance would require a death/kill ratio of at least 1:100. Because that would give an indication of how many people you got to take your advice and improve their ways.
But I can understand: tears are less work, and big kills look better when you compare your KB length with others.
I reject that 'fun' is not measurable, and I reject that the only measures in the game of any value are ISK, Sov and Killboard stats. I accept that if you want to have any claim to competence you need to have some form of measure.
Here's my main measures 1) Do I know more about the game now than I did before doing that and 2) Do I want to do that again. Both of these are obviously subjective, but they are nonetheless measures. They're also influenced by a number of submeasures that are more objective. a) How did this affect my wallet/assets? b) How much time did it take? c) How likely are future outcomes to match that outcome d)How does that action affect my future and other's future?
So Sov, ISK, and Killboards influence my measurement, but they are not the primary goals.
I'd also note that Gevlon holds no Sov and has no stated intent to change this, has liquidated his assets thus reducing his ISK potential, and is on a stated mission to reduce his Killboard. Since Gevlon is working contrary to his only 3 measures that matter, I must conclude Gevlon is either a useless loller or wrong.
One reason people track things and measure "success" in games is that learning things is fun. Having CCP give you a trillion isk isn't that fun and grinding away doing the same thing over and over to get the trillion isk isn't fun since you're not learning anything.
If you're doing an activity and you have some way to measure how good you are at an activity and you see it go up it shows you that you're learning how to do something better which is fun. I don't think having a high score in some sort of metric is very fun in and of itself, it's making it go up through learning to play better that's fun.
There are basically two ways of getting better at something: improving muscle memory and honing reaction time ("skills" basically) and learning ways of doing what you're doing better (techniques).
My read on Gevlon is that he doesn't much care about the "skill" part of doing something better but really really cares about the "technique" half. He wants to figure out better techniques of doing various things. The best metric that he can find for figuring out if his techniques really are better is to show that they work well by posting info on isk, KB, etc. and then getting people to emulate his techniques (hence him spending a lot of time on this blog, which would be rather pointless if his goal was too get the biggest wallet/KB in Eve).
This all puts him in the interesting position of being avowedly "anti-social" while at the same time for him to succeed he feels that he has to have people understand that his techniques work and emulate them (which seems rather a social activity).
For me at least, I'm a history geek so the attraction of MMORPGs is that at their best they have a history and grand narrative. Being able to take part in and influence that flow of history is what's interesting to me. I couldn't care less how many people I kill or how much isk I get unless it has an effect on the history of the game (rise and fall of alliances, etc. etc.).
One of the things I like about Eve is that there really is no right or wrong way to play. The important thing is that you are having fun. For Gevlon, he/she derives enjoyment from measuring success via ISK, KB stat, etc. That's o.k. For others it's the social interaction that makes the game fun for them, and that's o.k.
I'll never be as ISK rich as Gevlon or as skillful a PvP pilot as someone like say Zao Amadues, but I feel that I get plenty of bang for the buck out of my monthly fee.
I enjoy reading Gevlon's blog. Some of the info is quite useful and some of it less useful. I just learn to chew the meat and spit out the bones.
The "one cent punks" as Gevlon refers to them used to drive me buggy, but I've just come to accept them as something I really cannot control in the long term. They are having their own version of fun. Yes, I know, Gevlon, they are doing it all wrong in your opinion...but that's just their way.
I have enough RL frustrations to deal with. Eve is just a game...nothing else. When it's no longer fun, I spend my money elsewhere. Basic economics.
"The only truth here is that I am entitled to my interpretation, just as you are entitled to yours."
Except mine is not an interpretation. I was going by what was actually said. If you are just going to make up stuff and say that is what people mean and defend it as your interpretation of what they are saying then that is your right but it is not very credible.
":As long as you think that there are "unmeasurable" things, you'll have no recourse to people saying that your "unmeasurable" things are actually null. You may feel there is value in fun, but have no real answer to anyone who calls your fun stupid and pointless."
Not true. I have plenty of real answers. If a person wants to be dense on not recognize them that is their right but that does not make my answers not real. It just means a person is willing to appear ignorant by ignoring what is right in front of their face.
"A much more solid position is to assume that everything is measurable, provided you have enough imagination to find the right measuring sticks."
I agree, but since for many things human kind lacks the abilities/immagination to accurately measure them they are effectively unmeasureable to us. That still does not render them valueless.
"Now, Gevlon found his measuring sticks. According to his measuring sticks, individual achievement is the most important thing, while some things that you feel are important are - to him - actually valueless."
No they are not. For example, social interaction is not valueless to him otherwise why does he engage in it? Love/Lust is not valueless to him (unless perhaps you think his relationship with his girlfriend is on a contractual basis).
"That's okay, you don't need to agree with him."
I know. I am glad you finally figured it out.
"But if you want to have any solid footing in this discussion, you need to find your own measuring sticks, that allow you to assign value to things you find valuable."
That is your opinion of course. Do you know what I use to measure the value of your opinion? The price I paid for it.
@Jim L
First, paragraphs are good and were invented for a reason. You might want to use them.
Second, if you think that games are only about fun, then what are you doing reading Gevlon's blog? Because to him, games are not about fun, but rather about social modelling.
Third, devising a metric that puts you on the top is, in fact, easy. You did it yourself by providing an example of a simple metric which involves only two states of measurement - having fun or not having fun. If you are having fun, you're at the top. Woot.
Not sure how that makes you better than Gevlon in terms of creating self-justifying metrics, though.
Gevlon's killboard metric, however, achieves more than just self-justification. The KB metric has an advantage in that it reflects a fundamental objective nature of PvP. That is: destruction of other player's resources.
When i say "objective", i mean the part without which there can be no PvP, regardless of anyone's opinion.
What objective relationships does the "fun" metric reveal? Well, it reveals that Eve is a game where people can have fun or not have fun... so what?
<<< Except mine is not an interpretation. I was going by what was actually said. If you are just going to make up stuff and say that is what people mean and defend it as your interpretation of what they are saying then that is your right but it is not very credible. >>>
???
Okay, so analysis of text is prohibited with you. "Stick to the letter" is your thing. Okay, fair enough :D
<<< Not true. I have plenty of real answers. If a person wants to be dense on not recognize them that is their right but that does not make my answers not real. It just means a person is willing to appear ignorant by ignoring what is right in front of their face. >>>
You are yet to provide any of these answers, though. It seems you just assume people who disagree with you to be dense.
<<< I agree, but since for many things human kind lacks the abilities/immagination to accurately measure them they are effectively unmeasureable to us. That still does not render them valueless. >>>
The thing that you seem to completely miss is that measurement is not a thing you can choose to do and not do. Measurement is something a human mind does automatically, when encountered with any idea or entity. Even if it is a simple "like - don't like" measurement.
From there on, we either choose to improve our measuring tools, or choose not to.
The thing that puzzles me here is some people choose to not improve their measurement tools and get up in arms against people who are still looking for better measurements.
<<< No they are not. For example, social interaction is not valueless to him otherwise why does he engage in it? Love/Lust is not valueless to him (unless perhaps you think his relationship with his girlfriend is on a contractual basis). >>>
Erm, i can't speak for love etc, but Gevlon has repeatedly stated that if social interaction does not lead to in-game benefits, then he considers it pointless and not worth pursuing.
<<< I know. I am glad you finally figured it out. >>>
Now what you need to figure out is that nobody has to agree with you, either.
<< That is your opinion of course. Do you know what I use to measure the value of your opinion? The price I paid for it. >>
That's interesting.
Why do you even bother responding then?
I am not paying a lot of money for your opinion here, either.
@maxim
"Okay, so analysis of text is prohibited with you. "Stick to the letter" is your thing. Okay, fair enough :D"
Except your analysis resulting in a blatant trolling insult and nothing more. Here is is for a reminder:
""NO NO Please let me have fun and don't measure me by some killboard!" - i hear from the comments."
What you failed to see from the comments was that the responses aren't about measuring us from KB stats. The comment was that the entire endeavor is set out as a plan to educate miners, yet on day 1 of his campaign, the whole thing has been boiled down to ISK on a KB. That's no way to measure the effectiveness of teaching miners. A better measure would be to count tanked and untanked miners in belts, then repeat the process a week later, and present the differences. If more miners are tanking and/or setting up better defense, then the campaign is a success. If not, then he needs to work out what part is failing and correct that.
I don't disagree that everything is able to be, and is, measured to some degree. Measurements like fun however are not generally measurable by a third party, especially over the internet so they don;t work comparatively. The general complaint here though is not the measurements, it's the conclusions reached by those measurements and the fact that those conclusions are not relevant to the measurement. Like I say above, ISK on a KB is not going to tell you how many miners have learned.
It can't even really show you how much impact you had on the miner. I lost a mackinaw in null the other day (bounced on a rock, it was truly horrible) but in the few hours I'd been out before exploding, I'd already earned more than enough for a new mack, and since I've had the same mack since I moved back down to null, I've made billions of isk from it. I also keep multiple spares in station fitted and ready to go just in case. Comparatively a new miner in his first retriever in high sec on his first trip out won't have made much yet. A KB stat would show that I was more impacted by the loss, but an understanding of the situation around the kill would show that the high sec miner was hit far harder.
So to summarise, measurements are one thing, interpretation is another. You need to pick the measurement that provides the related interpretation to your chosen goal. In this case, KB stats are not tat measurement.
Gevlon needs an organisation that would gank miners. Because if miners are not ganked, there is no reason for them to learn to tank their ships.
I see no problem with motivating this organisation through KB stats. In fact, this would probably be the best motivation for such an organisation.
So KB measurement is well justified.
Furthermore, i see no issue at all with Gevlon proclaiming a "Games are for learning" approach and then proceeding to make lifes of potential learners harder. Games are inherently obstacle courses and are designed as such. Learning only happens through overcoming obstacles.
But even that aside, what i see all of you guys taking offense is not at the fact that Gevlon announced a teaching exercise and then started ganking. What i see you guys taking offense to are these words:
"No matter what you do in EVE, you must be able to measure it via
- ISK
- KB stats
- Sov"
Some supporting quotes:
Anon - "I measure my eve experience by the number of friends I have in my personal channel which is invite only. This is not ISK, KB stats or sov"
You - "Right there, that's your problem. You can only see those 3 measures of success and in YOUR OPINION, if you don;t measure yourself by those, you are rubbish."
Jim L - "Congratulations. You have found a measurement that you can excel at because most other people don't care about that measurement."
Anon - "I don't measure my EVE life in ISK as I am just finding projects that keep me in game. with the so hated social people that try not play an MMO solo style as you seem to do it."
... and so on in pretty much every post.
If calling it like i see it makes me a troll, then i'll happily be a troll.
What i see, however, are people that are surprisingly concerned that some goblin thinks they are worse players for not having high enough KB.
So yeah, i do believe that my initial accessment of people resisting measurement of their fun is correct.
@maxim
I'm not "taking offense" at anything. Everything needing to be measured by 3 arbitrarily chosen metrics presented by Gevlon is clearly wrong, and in the absence of supporting evidence can be ingored.
The simple fact remains that Gevlon stated himself that this was to teach miners, and that he hated miniluv and new order as it had become about tear harvesting and KB padding. Then on DAY 1, he posts about how he harvested tears and boasted about his killboard. I'm sorry for expecting his integrity to last more than a day.
"So yeah, i do believe that my initial accessment of people resisting measurement of their fun is correct."
The quotes from us that YOU PICKED show that that is not the case. The quote you picked are all showing a dislike at a player being referred to as "useless" if he can't be measured by one of Gevlon's 3 chosen metrics. It' has nothing to do with fun. You are the only one here repeatedly banging on about our fun. To be honest though I can pretty much predict your posts before you've written them.
Overall, I couldn't care less what Gevlon wants to measure me on. His opinion at the end of the day affects me to the sum of zero. If you'd stop derailing the post for long enough, you'd see that the theme here is that you can't measure "Miners taught" by a killboard. You can measure miners killed, but that's a totally different statistic. If Gevlon proceeds to work purely by KB numbers, then what makes him different from any of the other gankers?
@Lucas Kell
At this point i can only marvel at how two people can read the same text and see such different things.
I don't think Gevlon's metrics are arbitrarily chosen, and i think that these are adequate metrics to measure constructive success within Eve ruleset. I don't think you can give any other metric without adding your own rules to the ruleset.
I don't see how Gevlon bragging about KB contradicts the purpose of the entire exercise in teaching miners. Teaching requires putting pressure on the those being taught. He needed a way to put more pressure on relatively carefree miner style, and KB allows him to show that pressure is indeed being applied.
"Miners taught" cannot be measured directly by killboard, that's true. Killboard measures pressure applied to miners, but there is no telling - based on killboard alone - how much adaptain said pressure causes.
Still, there is no teaching without pressure, so you do want a metric that shows that pressure is indeed being applied. Much like any self-respecting educator needs a metric of how many people the tests for his program were administered to and to what results.
Gevlon has already provided - in further posts - a possible metric of adaptation caused, and that is a screenshot showing that people are mining in Procurers. This is a little bit more direct than KB, but needs way more samples to be viable.
Finally, the reason i go on about "fun" is because it is not enough for me to just know you don't like the three metrics. I need to know why. What's so important to you that you go up against them so much?
Unmeasured free fun is the only answer i have. Maybe you can provide a different one.
P.S: I have no feelings whatsoever towards my post becoming predictable. Predictable is not the same as wrong.
It is, however, quite curious how you seem to have feelings about my posts becoming predictable.
@maxim
They are arbitrarily chosen because they are 3 of hundreds of metrics, and at least 1 (sov) he has not previously mentioned as a measure. Then if you look back through his posts, he measures on plenty of other metrics for various reasons. These 3 appears to have just been plucked out of the air at random. Again though it's beside the point. The 3 metrics are not related to teaching miners, thus not required for the current task at hand.
"I don't see how Gevlon bragging about KB contradicts the purpose of the entire exercise in teaching miners."
Well for one, because he spent the past week complaining about how miniluv and New Order only care about KB stats, before declaring his wish to train miners, not pad a KB. So now showing a KB seems to go directly against that. Secondly because a KB stat shows only the cost of the ship. Miners won;t learn unless cost outweighs reward, so measuring cost only is like basing a shops overall efficiency by measuring only stock bought, not stock sold.
"Much like any self-respecting educator needs a metric of how many people the tests for his program were administered to and to what results."
Exactly, results. Gevlon isn't measuring results. He's only measuring the number of test participants.
"Gevlon has already provided - in further posts - a possible metric of adaptation caused, and that is a screenshot showing that people are mining in Procurers."
Except whole belts of procurers isn't rare. He needs to show an active change in behavior to change results. Counting miner types at peak times on consecutive weekends would show this with ease.
"Finally, the reason i go on about "fun" is because it is not enough for me to just know you don't like the three metrics. I need to know why. What's so important to you that you go up against them so much?"
I don;t have anything against the 3 metrics. They simply don't relate to the current situation, and they are definitely not the only 3 metrics by which EVE can be measured.
The predictability of your posts is only to highlight the fact that I realise for some reason you are overly interested in backing Gevlon, regardless of what he says. You also seem to like throwing the comments off of the track to try to "catch people out", and try to read into the "deeper meaning" behind the comments. In truth it's simple. EVE can't be measured purely on 3 metrics, KB stat's cant show the results Gevlon is claiming they show, and he's a hypocrite for complaining about KB stats being all that is important to ganking groups, then building his own ganking group based purely on KB stats.
Honestly though, I couldn't care less what you think. I don't know who you are, for all I know you don't even play EVE. You seem to not know much beyond the things Gevlon has been posting here, so I can only assume you are either a new player or not an EVE player. In the end the only thing that really matters is the results of this corporation. I've been playing EVE a long time, and I've seen these "great ideas" come and go more times than I can count. After a while Gevlon will realise he's making no real impact, and he's just banging his head against a brick wall, and he'll move on to something else. I mean read his currently "why was I ganked" vs his new order "why was I ganked" and clearly this is almost a direct copy of New Order, without all the perks of being part of the New Order. How he thinks this is going to be any different is beyond me.
<< Again though it's beside the point. The 3 metrics are not related to teaching miners, thus not required for the current task at hand. >>
I agree that they do not measure teaching progress directly.
I disagree that they are not required for the task at hand.
Like i said in a previous post, teaching miners requires putting pressure on them. KB measures that pressure.
<< Well for one, because he spent the past week complaining about how miniluv and New Order only care about KB stats, before declaring his wish to train miners, not pad a KB. So now showing a KB seems to go directly against that.>>
I don't see how training miners and padding KB can't go together. In fact, i see padding KB as a necessary prerequisite to creating a higher stakes atmosphere for the miners, where there would be incentive for learning.
The Miniluv thing was about showing how Miniluv was way inefficient even about padding KB - and thus ineffective and therefore largely irrelevant in terms of ganking pressure.
<>
Doesn't mean you don't measure stock bought at all.
Measuring stock sold when it comes to teaching outcomes is not easy. I don't think Gevlon - or anyone in Eve for that matter - can at this moment provide a reliable metric on how much learning miners actually show in responce to increased pressure.
<< Exactly, results. Gevlon isn't measuring results. He's only measuring the number of test participants. >>
Same answer as to previous segment. No tool to measure results yet, but we can at least measure participation, and it's a start.
<< Except whole belts of procurers isn't rare. He needs to show an active change in behavior to change results. Counting miner types at peak times on consecutive weekends would show this with ease. >>
I agree that Gevlon needs a better metric. But, like you said, this requires "consecutive weekends". Which means we are at least a month away before we can have any reliable data for a results metric.
<< I don;t have anything against the 3 metrics. They simply don't relate to the current situation, and they are definitely not the only 3 metrics by which EVE can be measured. >>
What are the others?
<< The predictability of your posts ... etc >>
I agree with Gevlon on a lot of things. I disagree with him where i don't, but it doesn't happen often.
My "interest" in backing him is not more worth more in highlighting than your interest in contradicting him at every turn.
As for "deeper meaning", just because you believe it's not there, doesn't mean i will stop looking for it.
Still waiting on those alternative metrics.
<< I can only assume you are either a new player or not an EVE player... >>
Not an EVE player and don't plan to become one.
My interest here is professional game design interest - gathering feedback on a game system. Which actually requires looking for "deeper meanings" all the time.
<< I've been playing EVE a long time, and I've seen these "great ideas" come and go more times than I can count. After a while Gevlon will realise he's making no real impact, and he's just banging his head against a brick wall, and he'll move on to something else. >>
Let's see if it really happens :D
It might, but our goblin here doesn't strike me as someone who is unable to learn from the past.
<< clearly this is almost a direct copy of New Order, without all the perks of being part of the New Order. How he thinks this is going to be any different is beyond me. >>
When New Order started out, it was interesting and vibrant. Starting out the same way New Order did is a strong move.
Later down the line, New Order has become irrelevant, because for all the grand words, it ultimately serves the status quo, mostly due to the personal goals of its leaders.
At the moment, i find it hard to see Gevlon settling in the same rut.
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