Category: The Digital Feed

Lately I’ve been playing CCP‘s EVE Online. I’ve played a lot of MMOs in my time as may be evident by my previous posts ( no links to previous posts right now, but I might add the history later ), but never has the term “Massive” been so apt. EVE is huge. When they say that it has the world’s largest game universe, they aren’t kidding. Now I understand the concept of forced perspective, and scale, and the like, but they’ve got some things right in EVE that other games just haven’t quite mastered. Like planets.

Allow me to explain.

You are a person in a slightly-larger-than-person-sized pod. This pod is then injected into a ship, which is how you play in space. The starting ship is very large compared to your pod. Like comparing a person to a whale. Now, comparing the starting ship to a space station is like comparing a 5.5″ action figure to a blue whale.

I don’t think I can emphasize that scale enough.

Comparing the starting ship to a space station is like comparing a 5.5″ action figure to a blue whale.

There we go.

When you zoom out from your ship in front of a space station, you can actually reduce the view of your ship and the station itself to little specs of pixels on your monitor indistinguishable to the human eye. Seems pointless, right? Well, consider this.

When you do this, the planets in the background stay the same [expletive] size.

Because planets are [expletive] large. And space is bigger than that.

When you warp from one destination to another, as you approach a planet, it gets very big, very rapidly, and then stays in your plane of vision as you pass it, and stays that big for a while before you finally pass it, and then it gets smaller in the distance again. But even as you zoom through space, and adjust your magnification, stars don’t change size, planets don’t get bigger or smaller, but all the minuscule little man made crap that we think is massive changes.

Welcome to the total perspective vortex…

— Vid

I know it’s been a while since I’ve made anything remotely resembling a post here, but I figure now is as good a time as any to change that. As has been mentioned at several points throughout my various posts, I thoroughly enjoy video games. It is safe to say that I like them.

To much greater values of “like” than standard.

I’ve been playing games since I was five. I got started on my Commodore 64, in fact. It is something that I have kept very close to my heart. Locked away safely in my closet. Along with my liver, as to prevent horrid, horrid delicious abuses. I am a Sci-Fi pop culture geek as well, do not get me wrong. I’ve found that the two sort of go hand in hand in fact. It– among other factors –lead me to Comic Con over a decade ago, and I’ve gone every year.

Still, I never really felt like I belonged there. It was a brief excursion into a world I was visiting more than anything. I had fun, I enjoyed it, but then I left it behind. Well, about a year and a half ago, one of the allies turned to me and said “Let’s go to PAX!”

I will not bore you with the logistics; we went. Welcome home indeed. I have never felt so at home at a convention. It was glorious. As soon as we got back, we immediately began prepping for the next year’s trip.

And so we went again this year. PAX Prime passed this last weekend, and it was five days of non-stop excellence. I have learned a great many things from my time there, which I will share with you now.

▪ Wizards are heavy drinkers, but Vikings are heavier-er drinkers.
▪ Living in downtown Seattle keeps you in shape by force.
▪ Games with friends are good, but games with strangers can be excellent.
▪ Strangers you have played games with become friends.
▪ Always try to eat local establishments. National chains just are not as good.
▪ Make acquaintances while you’re waiting in line; you already know you’re there for the same thing.
▪ 3D cameras are awesome, portrait pictures with a Landscape 3D camera are pointless.
▪ Have “personal cards” as opposed to plain business cards, and include chosen social networking method.

All said I saw some really cool people, and some really cool games. I met a few fellow Commodore enthusiasts, and got stuck in an airport– [expletive] you, Alaska Air –with an awesome game development team that I am a huge fan of– thank you, Alaska Air –and had no idea they were based locally.

I’m not going into spoilers, I’m not a gaming blog or news site. Nor am I really following through with my typical reference linking because there’s no reason for me to break the privacy of people I made contacts with through happenstance. Sure, they may never read this, but I don’t need them to. That reminds me. I left a lesson learned out of the list up above.

▪ Free swag fades, experiences last forever.

— Vid

This is too awesome to not share. I got a reviewed post published on Roger Ebert’s blog! ROGER. EBERT. I know, I know, there are so so many ways this may not be awesome but holy hell, a man with a real sense for humor and writing may have reviewed my comment and deemed it worthy!

If so?

Awesome.

— Vid

++ EDIT ++ Since having posted this, the permalink has broken, and I have been unable to locate it again. For context, the photo was a man who had lost his right arm just below the shoulder. On the stub he had a bottle nose dolphin tattooed leaping out of the waves which were on his chest. My comment had been “I think he handled that swimmingly. It really jumps out at you.”