5 of 7 - Space Ming For Fun And Profit

(For the 5th of our 7-day blogathon, we look at a game I have returned to after a decade - Eve Online!)

What is Eve Online?

It's an MMO, set in a fictional chunk of space, in which you play a "capsuleer" - a dedicated starship pilot who has been thrust into a world of politics, war and industry. Your goal? Well, you choose. Assist one of the many factions, make as much money as you can, hunt other players - it's all valid.

I've played multiple MMOs in the past, WoW being my first. If one was to count Planetside 2 then I've tried out a good half dozen. None of them have really drawn me back, though; and I think the only reason Eve has is because it doesn't feel like an MMO.

When I say that I know that logically it has a great number of players and it is online. But you aren't special. You're just a capsuleer. There's thousands more like you. There's no destiny, no demonslaying, none of the things that are sprinkled through WoW to make one feel special despite the fact that thousands of people have done it once already. All you are here for is war and profit, and it makes no bones about that.

Another thing that draws me is the economy. It is player-driven in just about every way. The production of damn near everything is handled by other players, so all the money that changes hands goes between players. On occasion people run scams, and that is legal - you just have to not get caught. Corporations (the equivalent of Guilds, which make a lot more sense) are formed just to dodge taxes, or sharded off other Corps to declare war on rivals without dragging the main Corp into trouble.

Piracy is real. If you're in the wrong sector of space you stand a good chance of being warp scrambled and destroyed for whatever is in your hold.

It appeals to me because the system of doing things relies on thinking right before thinking fast. Like the fitting of one's ship and knowing how to use it far outweighs the ability to click rapidly. Preparation and tactical acumen is rewarded far more than reflexes. This applies to the industrial field as well as warfare; maximising one's margins, producing for just slightly cheaper and selling for just slightly more, these are the ways to high profit.

A game that combines tycoon sim and mega-starship command? What larks. And some of the starships get VERY big. A ship I can actually pilot right now can ship two Eiffel Towers stacked end-to-end, room to spare.

Daily I can swap from lengthy mining expeditions turfing out thousands upon thousands of tons of ore an hour, to exploring spacial deviations that contain precious materials and hostiles, to running missions in a swift destroyer packing banks of missiles, even going so far as defending my corporation mates with a battleship with railguns capable of firing over 100km accurately. Mining and construction are my primary passions though - nabbing blueprints for cheap, harvesting my own materials, buying the last few rare parts and selling the results on the open market for a big-ass profit.

It's not all fun and games. There's some scumbags in the community - signing into Mining chat is a bad idea at any point of the day - but you can find some really cool people with a little patience, and eventually find a corporation that you fit with. My corporation (Quantum Mining) is a good bunch, industrialists primarily, all independent though we all have skills that help each other.

Soon it is becoming somewhat free-to-play; a tiered system, wherein those that don't pay have significantly less freedom of development than those that do. It's worth it though. My skills have only recently gone beyond those that would be allowed by the "Alpha Clones" as they will be called. There's still a lot of game to be played there.

So if I ever say I am mining - that is what I mean!

Plastic, Clippers and Panel Liners

So when I was about eleven and that games and model shop still existed on Pyle Street in Newport, my mum bought me my very first GunPla.

PlaMo is a Japanese term for Plastic Models, and thus, GunPla is the term for Gundam PlaMo - and Gundam, well... Gundam is a bit of a phenomenon.

I was a kid, and I didn't understand what any of the terms meant, or where it was from. All I knew is that the 1/144 High Grade F91 Gundam was one of the coolest things I had seen IN MY LIFE. (Note: this picture is not my work.)

All I knew was, I saw it, and I wanted it. So I built it, and I played with it, and then for about six years I totally forgot that Gundam even existed.

See, I got into the plastic before I ever got into the series - into the twisty multiverse that is Gundam, the main Universal Century storyline that spans from Amuro Ray's first encounter with the RX-78-2 prototype Gundam mech all the way up to Victory Gundam, set over 40 years later. There's the other timelines, the alternate universes in which Gundams exist, including the (rather imperiously titled) Correct Century in which Turn A Gundam (my second-to-least favourite) is set.

It's essentially about a boy and his mech. Or sometimes a man. Or sometimes several men. Either way it is usually an adventure-centric sceries involving advanced mecha, almost always called Gundams or Mobile Suits, often piloted by people that shouldn't necessarily be piloting them, struggling against the forces that be.

It was the popularity of Gundam Wing, however, that really sparked my interest in the hobby. After watching the series back-to-front, plus the movie Endless Waltz, I just knew I had to get in on some of this. I mean...look at the design of some of these.

From left to right - Heavyarms Custom, Deathscythe Custom and Wing Zero Custom.

...I mean yeah, I was a teenager. So my tastes have changed since. Either way, I fell in love with the design and the franchise all over again. It took a long time after that, though, before I started really building kits again.

I started re-watching my favourite series - the 08th MS Team, which rather than being about a boy and his mech is more like Vietnam in Gundams - a couple of years ago; and just on a whim, I ordered a little diddy dude from one of the side comics, who has always been one of my favourites. A fan favourite, nonetheless. An SD version of Gundam Astray Red Frame.

This picture isn't my work either. You can tell because this one is really well put together, really neatly panel lined, and looks great. My one kind of looks like crap.

It doesn't matter though. It was the rebirth of a hobby - and now I actually had money, time, and patience.

See, before I was pretty much popping the stuff off the sprues with my fingers and kind of cramming it all together in a vague approximation of shape. I didn't take a lot of pride in the actual finished result. Owning the article was enough. All that changed, though. I decided, if I am going to do this thing again, I am going to put things on my shelf that I am proud of, that I like looking at, and that I am not ashamed to show off.

And thus...

On the left is a Master Grade version of the Wing Zero Custom, from Gundam Wing Endless Waltz. Top right - the Ez-8 and Ground Type GM Head from 08th MS Team. Below them, the Sazabi and Nu Gundam respectively - the final weapons of choice of Char Aznable and Amuro Ray, the antagonist and protagonist of the original Mobile Suit Gundam series, and all it's Universal Century continuations.

I have more. I have a pretty big To Build stack, and I do have my dream Gundams that I haven't even ordered yet. That's the nature of the hobby though.

See, taking pride in the work - using the right tools to take the plastic from the runners, cleaning them up before they are fitted together, lining them to enhance the individual details, applying the decals and stickers properly - these things give me a product I am proud of. Tiny little individual works of robotic art, that share a common universe and a common theme. They don't do anything - they sit on my shelf and remind me of the cool stuff they did in the series they were featured in.

I've always been a fan of the robots. As the intro to Megas XLR reminds us: We Dig Giant Robots. Especially Mecha - the difference being that a robot doesn't have a pilot, while a mech does.

Robot love has been a big part of my life, ever since my favourite cartoon as a kid. (TRANSFORMERS! ROBOTS IN DISGUISE!) Science fiction has always been my staple genre of choice, and especially anything that involves big mechanical stuff like this. Mecha, though - well, shows like Gundam, Macross, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Getter Robo, Patlabor and Eureka 7 use those machines to tell stories about people.

I model the outside - the mechanical shell. That's what interests me in terms of building. The stories, though, are all about people. Pride, courage, ambition, fear, love, loathing. The hope that people can see through their differences by themselves, versus the urge to force them into a new age by any means necessary. The very real lives of those fighting the war, be it against tyrannical oppression or mecha-based crime lords (or even forces beyond our reality that see evolutionary races as a threat to the stability of the universe).

So when I look at the Astray Red Frame (as captured here in the trending photomanip app Prisma)...

 

I don't just see a highly mobile Gundam with a big-ass sword and a cool-looking red V-fin stapled onto its pointy forehead. I see the pride and joy of Lowe Guele, fun-loving and easy-going member of the Junk Guild, whose talents with salvage and repair are legend and who trusts way too easily.

And when I look at these two...

...I see the Rx-79[G] Ez-8, the scrap-built and salvaged Gundam that Ensign Shiro Amada pilots in the later parts of the war against Zeon in the jungles of southeast Asia. Shiro Amada, who falls in love with an enemy soldier, and is viewed by the rest of his comrades with suspicion. In the background, Master Chief Karen Joshua's Rx-79[G] Ground Type Gundam - its head replaced with the head of a lowly GM's, after being taken off in Episode 9. One of the most impressive women in the entire series, a strong, dedicated soldier, who is ordered to terminate her commanding officer if he deviates from mission protocol.

There's stories behind each of them. (There's even a story behind the autobot Sideswipe in the backfround of that last picture.) It's not just the design that appeals. It's not just the article in question. It's the why, and the where, and the when.

...and it's honestly cheaper than going out on the piss every weekend. Hurts less too.

Anyone interested - there's a significant amount of material online that will reveal to you all the cool ins and outs of this franchise, both in terms of modelling, and the media in question. If you're not interested - well that's cool too, because honestly, this really isn't for everyone. This is me at my nerdiest, unless you engage me in questions of militaria, science fiction, or both. (Which this technically is, I suppose.)

...now I just need to get saving for the next one...

Dirty Casual, Filthy Tryhard

Remember when we used to play games for fun?

I'm not saying games aren't fun. They are. Well, some of them. Everyone finds fun in different places after all. It shows in how the games market has - in the past thirty years - broadened itself massively, and crept into every single aspect of life in some small way or other.

Remember when you could play Beehive Bedlam on your Sky box? Hell, maybe you still can. I burned literally hours on that game at my mate Josh's house. Imagine - I had my very own PC at home, a Sega Megadrive and - after a point - a Sony Playstation; and yet, we still ended up playing Beehive Bedlam.

I'm not sure how or if that ties into the point I am going on to make. It's just a memory I wanted to evoke. What it shows is this: games were already available in all sorts of places, in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Never has that been more true than today, this very moment.

There's the very obvious Triple A market, with its third-person adventure-action style games and first-person shooter shennanigans. There's the race-driving market, the RPG market, and the strategy market, both of which are vaguely niche, both of which are absolutely huge and possess incredible amounts of variety in and of themselves. Then there's the smaller games, the more indie titles that run the gamut from fairly-short-visual-novel to lovingly-crafted-farm-simulator. Looking at games specifically for mobile phones, there's subgenres a-plenty. There's crossovers all over the place.

No wonder, then, that as a community - as gamers - we are internally divided.

I'm not very good at video games. There, I said it. I'm not. I am usually surrounded by people who are better than me. I mean, I have my talents; I like a good turtle in a strategy game, and I'm fairly convinced that my unholy lust for sniping has led to some practice (as a self-deprecating and yet vaguely honorific nickname I sometimes refer to myself as Sniper X, usually just before I miss three body shots in a row).

If a game is too hard, it will take something very special to make me come back to it time and again. Because of this, a lot of games that are classically considered hard - Binding of Isaac, Dark Souls - don't draw me in at all. I'll give them a run, find them very unforgiving, not have much fun, and put them down again. Also, my attention span isn't great; I'll often find myself playing three or four different games of an afternoon, unless I really sink my teeth into one of them.

I think that makes me a casual gamer - but then, honestly...where's the shame in that?

Then there's the tryhards. Oh yes. The tryhards. I have tryharded myself, more than once; often playing something I consider myself quite good at, let's say Supreme Commander or Civ. Running at the higher difficulties, throwing in additional challenges because something something challenge, discarding fun strategies for efficiency and lethality.

...but where's the shame in that?

Honestly it seems to come down to a damned-if-you-do damned-if-you-don't scenario. It's not like both echelons of gamer aren't catered to, in the wide world of video games.

You want to talk about division, though - what's your favourite shooting game?

I can predict some of the camps for this one. If I had to set up several different camping fields at FPS-Fest 2016, they'd probably be BattleField, CODField, HaloField, DoomQuakeUnrealField, OtherField and I Don't Play Shooters (parking only).

The savagery of the rivalry there is something to behold, which I think is summed up quite succinctly by this remarkable bit of roasting in regard to the COD Infinity / Battlefield One trailer piss-off. (In terms of the roast, this is actually fucking art. Like even if I was a COD fan I'd have to appreciate it.)

MOBA? DOTA? LOL? SM...ite? MMORPG? WOW? FFXIV? ESO?

Boundaries everywhere, but...here's the thing. The way I see it, it works the same way with metal fans.

Now I'm not a HUGE Pantera fan. Nor am I massively enamoured with Megadeth. If I can't read the name of the band in the logo then I may make a noise through my teeth before giving them a listen. I'm no fan of Cradle Of Filth, Marilyn Manson post-Mechanical Animals leaves me cold, and I may get shot for this but I don't think Iron Maiden will ever top Flight Of Icarus.

However. If I see someone in the street wearing a Megadeth shirt, I know that - in one regard at least - we are on a level. We like different flavours of sonic apocalypse, but we like the apocalypse nonetheless.

Got a Green Lantern shirt on? I'm a Marvel man myself but - ay. We COMIC people. So you're more into Gundam SEED than, well, any OTHER Gundam. That's fine, cos we're Gundamaniacs or whatever the term is for us. Vampire the Masquerade? Roleplayer. Bard? Adventurer. Sebastian Vettel? F1.

I see you, Decepticon fans. I see you, Trekkies who are more into Voyager and Enterprise than DS9. I see you, Lexx lovers. I see you, folks who prefer Scotch to Bourbon. I see you, anyone who would pick a Pokemon that ISN'T Psyduck.

I see you, gamers.

There's a saying that I picked up an age ago. Nobody Beats Up My Brother But Me. I think it holds true. Like I'll lightly grill anyone that swears down that Call Of Duty is the pinnacle of gaming (and that you should only ever play it on a PS4), but I'll stand phalanx-fashion with them the moment the anti-gaming brigade roll out their lawsuits.

All too often we focus on that which makes us different. We dismiss people because we like to feel superior, we like to feel that the thing we are part of is exclusive, and that is a weakness; it's a hollow satisfaction that we gain from putting others down.

So the me that spent an entire afternoon playing Bee Bedlam rather than studying for his A-levels isn't that different to the me that was once called a "good shield guy" for sterling turtle play on SupCom, and the Terran in me isn't so different to the Protoss and Zerg in my buddies Tom and Chris. We're gamers. Different flavours, but gamers nonetheless - and if everybody looked the same, we'd get tired of looking at each other.

...now if only we could get the industry to be more inclusive in and of itself...but that's for another blog.

Two Zero One Six

So what specifically will this year hold?

Well, at the very least I want to finish writing a book. ANY BOOK. Though one of the current projects (either the serious scifi or the rather silly fantasy) would be nice. Just having one done by the end of 2016 would be wonderful.

My major writing project is a scifi - the main character used to be an intelligence agent, who was signed off the job after losing three of her four limbs to a MYSTERIOUS INCIDENT. Due to an odd medical condition, the cybernetic replacements she wears cause her constant pain. She's pissed off with this whole thing - until she's offered a place on a program to develop new power armour, which may be able to use her medical condition as an asset...

It bounces back and forth between the present (the research program, the military side of power armour development, recovery) and the past (military intelligence, tracking a terrorist). That is going to be a challenge - and a whole heap of fun.

What else, what else...?

Gaming. Far more gaming. We deserve games, don't we? Things to make us think more, play more, do more? Yes. Gaming. This will happen.

I have a few games I haven't yet tested. Card games like Aye, Dark Overlord and Boss Monster. RPGs like Microscope, Tom's Shadowrun and James' Star Wars. I think all of these need a good run at the table. In terms of video games, too - well, we'll see.

You know one of the things I am looking forward to the MOST?

One day this year - early this year, before the end of March - myself and a bunch of like-minded psychopaths will be paying a visit to the Prince Charles cinema in Leicester Square, to catch their monthly crowd-participation showing of...

The Room.

SPOONS!!!!!

...and sure I'd like to be healthier and stuff but there's fuck all I can do about that really. That's up to my body.

So what about you? What are your plans, your hopes, your dreams?

Across The Gulf Of Imagination (On Insecurity pt1)

This is the first part of a series of blog posts on insecurity. Each one will have a different theme.

I don't care what anyone says - everyone engages in escapism sometimes.

The definition of escapism is wide, of course. It is also sometimes seen as a bad thing, which leads people to shift the goalposts - THIS escapism they engage in is just normal and fine and dandy, whereas THAT escapism that those other people engage in is weird and strange.

Hobbies in and of themselves are escapist. Nobody wants to be working all the time, and it is actually unhealthy to do so; likewise, dealing with a perhaps stressful, difficult or awkward situation at home. Engaging in that 24/7 isn't something human beings can really do - at least, not any more, not in tandem with the prospect of surviving our thirties.

I defy you to find someone that doesn't do at least one thing, regularly, probably every day, that isn't engaging in direct problem solving, employment or provision of care (self or otherwise). If you can even name that person - do they seem strictly right, to you? Are they okay?

The thing is, with hobbies - they attract all sorts, and some people are quick to dismiss other hobbies, mostly through base insecurity. Of course football fans don't necessarily recognise a dedicated WoW raid group as being similar to them. Of course someone who reads a book every couple of days will find distance between themselves and a classically-trained pianist. They're different skills, different appeals, different draws - and some are more accepted by society at large than others.

Going out for a drink on the weekend is infinitely more acceptable to most of the population than getting together around a table and pretending to be dwarves, elves and wizards. Look at incidents of each on film and TV. Guarantee - most of the appearances of a D&D group will be used for comic purposes, whereas the bloke who doesn't go to the pub is the one worthy of scrutiny.

I've always held that the pursuit and appreciation of art is worthwhile in and of itself. To watch a movie, to read a book, to listen to music; all of these things are worth doing, because art is - for the most part - good for you. I have on occasion felt guilty for spending what actually amounts to not very much money on the apparent extravagance of seeing a movie in a cinema, and not long afterward, felt kind of stupid about it. Surely the two hours of experience I just enjoyed was worth the one hour's wage I just swapped for it? In most cases - absolutely, and yet another kind of escapism.

For just a while, we as humans - the Birmingham City fan, the reader, the golfer, the writer, the beachcomber, the Gnome rogue, the other Gnome rogue, the target shooter, the photographer, the choir lead, the local Scrabble champion, the Pokemon pro, the kart driver - need time to not be who they have to be the rest of the time. As long as what we are doing isn't harmful - to ourselves and others alike - then surely it's just as valid as the next person's escape?

On that topic - what's the shame in admitting we need it anyway? Speaking for myself, I play RPGs, video games, listen to music, watch movies, all of these things to not exist in the standard headspace my brain creates for me on a daily. I've been accused of being a weirdo for the RPGs (weird is a heavily over-used word these days) and a shut-in for the video games (actually I was a shut-in for different reasons but thank you). I daresay the people throwing those terms at me like attacks would be unsure as to how to survive a working week without several pints at the end of it.

Yet another form of escapism. A frighteningly common, effective, and socially-approved one. I am genuinely surprised that there are as few alcoholics on earth as there are - though I would wager a hog's head of mead on there being far more than are actually diagnosed. FAR more. Alcohol is pretty harmful though - in many ways, and to many people.

All we want, as a race, is to be okay with ourselves. We want a place, a space, a mindset that lets us be just...okay. Some get that on the basketball court. Some get that behind the wheel. Some get that rolling a twenty-sided die. Some get that drinking or smoking or fucking or dancing or laughing or crying or anything else that lets them take the mask off for a while, even if they have to put another one on.

...and some people feel the need to chide other people for avoiding the "real world", and in doing so, engage in their own escapism. Rendering judgment is easier than self-assessing, at least. Spit bile at those around you and then you don't have to drown in it. Escape, escape - anything to not face the cracks inside, the insecurity that all of us feel, and all of us fight from the moment we know who and what we are.

The longer I'm on this little rock spinning through a vast universe, the more I come to realise that this one thing is truly what unifies us all - and what divides us in equal measure.

Who wouldn't want to escape that particular thought process?

Make It All Fit

Recently at work I had a brief discussion with one of my colleagues about why guys like cars.

I think I have an answer to that.

It's the same reason why I like maths. Why I like complicated character generation systems in RPGs, or games of pure strategy; it all just fits together. There's precious little room for things to dangle in the air, uncertain and ineffable. If you can grasp the system with which you are working, it will all make sense, one way or another.

As we all know, people aren't like that. Life isn't like that.

It's so refreshing, so liberating, to have moments in time wherein the world can very much be binary - black and white, right and wrong. Spend all day trying to judge shades of grey and half measures of all kinds, and you'll welcome the opportunity to just...not, for a while.

Whatever it is that one ends up doing - playing solitaire, assembling model kits, being a submissive in a sub/dom relationship, whatever - the chance to just make things fit for a while, without needing to question them, is a valuable experience.

Some of the current events going on in the world are enough to drive one to drink. Tory members of the Coalition government shanking my country into the ground, psychotic gunmen killing innocents for little good reason, corporate manipulations and media madness - trying to rationalise it all is heavy work. A real source of mental fatigue.

When half of the world seems to be going crazy - who wouldn't want to be able to fall back on something that just makes sense?