RE: [MLUG] Re: linux game information...

[Rick <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Wed, 2007-10-10 at 14:45 -0500, Mike Miller wrote:

> But your skills might not have real-world uses and you haven't really 
> conquered the universe, just the imaginary "virtual" universe.  Compare 
> thiw with the hobby of making furniture or playing a musical instrument.
> 

Well, I've seen a lot of debate about this, but I think there's an
argument for computer interaction as a substitution for *some* of our
interpersonal interaction. I guess where I'm going with that is that,
barring some sort of electromagnetic cataclysm, computers are pretty
much here to stay, and their intrusion into our daily lives is getting
nothing but larger, so making sure that the next generation are
competent computer users/interactors/etc might be more important than
previously thought. You probably have some interesting insight into that
topic.

A recent example would be me trying to convince one of the guys that
I've known exclusively via Eve to come work at Carfax. One of the
(nice?) things about Eve is that it's one universe. So, I routinely play
with people from around the world, although I tend to hang out most with
North American players just because we share timezones. In my in-game
world, the bad guys really are the Russians =)

(luckily, my wife speaks & reads Russian, so when they're smacktalking
in local, I get to make fun of them)
> 
> > 2. it costs money, which I'm willing to pay because I acquire some
> > happiness from it
> 
> Happiness is good!
> 
> 
> > 3. you "build" or "acquire" things that can be lost
> 
> But they don't exist.  Compare with the hobby of making wooden furniture.
> 

Isn't that like saying that the results of even a successful day-trader
don't exist? Just because all the effort and result revolves around
electrons doesn't make it not real. If you read the heist article, the
30 billion that GHSC made off with was given a real world value of
around $16,500. That's a pretty significant sum to most of us. Granted,
that's an exchange rate of $0.000055 but since it's essentially free
energy added to the system, it's still interesting.

> 
> > 4. there will be occasion that I'm right in the middle of something that
> > walking away from will cause me to be very unhappy
> 
> Of coures this is a reason not to play the game -- it interferes with 
> other things.  So you need to be getting something out of the game to 
> compensate for this loss.  Happiness is gained in playing but happiness 
> also is lost because the game takes you away from other things.
> 

It *could* be a reason not to play. It's more reasonable to say that too
much of *anything* is probably a bad thing. While I'm logged in roughly
12-15 hours per week, it's always after the youngin has gone to bed and
there's still plenty of time to spend watching TV with the wife some
nights.

> So players might learn some economic principles by playing Eve.
> 

Possibly. However, I would have to say that my concern over kids
learning that "pirating is good" probably outweighs any potential
increase in their knowledge of economics. Being a pirate is a perfectly
acceptable method of living in Eve, to the point that "griefing" people
is really really hard to do without exploiting.

> Mike

Rick
-- 
breakfast noir:
..."Without thinking, I crammed that deadly sliver of metal carrying the
city's most infamous breakfast food into my maw. The tiny flakes snapped
and popped, like the fingers of a mob snitch after they found 'im. It
wasn't good cereal. But it was better than a gut fulla led."


_______________________________________________
members mailing list
EMAIL:PROTECTED
http://mlug.missouri.edu/mailman/listinfo/members