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Twilight of the Gods |
Twilight of the Gods
| Posted by Lara on 19-Feb-2007 23:54 |
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When I was younger, it would often happen to me to dream that I am a great magician, that I can speak the animals’ language, that with a single stroke of my hand I can clean my room in a second, and later on, when I first tasted SciFi, I imagined myself being the captain of a powerful starship. The years passed by and somehow, my dreams found refuge in something better than books: videogames. God in my own world, I still lacked the subjects to admire me and recognize my greatness, but today’s technology solved that as well with online games. Yes, you’ve read well, I am referring to games.
Nowadays, a new dream haunts my sleep; this dream is about my dearest source of entertainment, of innocent fantasy slowly turning into a huge industry that no longer wants to offer you a few moments of quality entertainment, like a movie, but tends to take over your entire life and to influence you in a way from which there’s no return. This industry can bring you more real money than you have ever dreamed of, the same industry reinstated slavery and lately it’s gained one of the few qualities that differentiated games from the real world; I am talking about corruption, the kind that takes place at the highest levels.
About Gods, BoB and the almighty dollar
Although I have never been a passionate EVE Online player, I’ve always held a lot of respect for the game. The Icelanders from CCP seemed to have created a virtual world that offered a lot of complexity, that was governed by honesty and it was at the same time free – a world where your own brains mattered more than levels or skill points, and only your intelligence and wits could bring you fame and fortune. EVE is that galaxy where you start up as a lousy starship pilot to end up finding yourself in a world full of history, religion and a highly developed economy, all created almost entirely by players, after rules mainly gathered from real life. EVE is the world where your own actions can have a direct and decisive impact upon the entire population, it is that game where you can play the role of an assassin, a spy or even a hard worker, in a way extremely similar with real life. EVE is the universe where you can become the CEO of a corporation as powerful as Microsoft, but if you have such aspirations you’d have to work just as hard as in real life to attain your goals. The same EVE has its own money called ISK - and this currency has such a palpable value that it sometimes feels like real dollars. Furthermore, ISK can easily be converted in good ol’dollars, if you have the brains or – excuse my French - the balls to play it hard.
This combination of mechanisms which constitutes EVE works perfectly fine, with one condition: the limited set of rules of the game, commonly known as EULA, should never be broken. By anyone. These laws establish facts such as „thou shall not cheat”, „thou shall not hack”, „thou shall not sell virtual property for real money” and „thou shall not attain benefits which are not available by any means to other players”. If the above examples sounded like the Ten Commandments, you guessed it right. EULA is EVE’s bible and CCP, EVE’s gods.
Nowadays, a new dream haunts my sleep; this dream is about my dearest source of entertainment, of innocent fantasy slowly turning into a huge industry that no longer wants to offer you a few moments of quality entertainment, like a movie, but tends to take over your entire life and to influence you in a way from which there’s no return. This industry can bring you more real money than you have ever dreamed of, the same industry reinstated slavery and lately it’s gained one of the few qualities that differentiated games from the real world; I am talking about corruption, the kind that takes place at the highest levels.
About Gods, BoB and the almighty dollar
Although I have never been a passionate EVE Online player, I’ve always held a lot of respect for the game. The Icelanders from CCP seemed to have created a virtual world that offered a lot of complexity, that was governed by honesty and it was at the same time free – a world where your own brains mattered more than levels or skill points, and only your intelligence and wits could bring you fame and fortune. EVE is that galaxy where you start up as a lousy starship pilot to end up finding yourself in a world full of history, religion and a highly developed economy, all created almost entirely by players, after rules mainly gathered from real life. EVE is the world where your own actions can have a direct and decisive impact upon the entire population, it is that game where you can play the role of an assassin, a spy or even a hard worker, in a way extremely similar with real life. EVE is the universe where you can become the CEO of a corporation as powerful as Microsoft, but if you have such aspirations you’d have to work just as hard as in real life to attain your goals. The same EVE has its own money called ISK - and this currency has such a palpable value that it sometimes feels like real dollars. Furthermore, ISK can easily be converted in good ol’dollars, if you have the brains or – excuse my French - the balls to play it hard.
This combination of mechanisms which constitutes EVE works perfectly fine, with one condition: the limited set of rules of the game, commonly known as EULA, should never be broken. By anyone. These laws establish facts such as „thou shall not cheat”, „thou shall not hack”, „thou shall not sell virtual property for real money” and „thou shall not attain benefits which are not available by any means to other players”. If the above examples sounded like the Ten Commandments, you guessed it right. EULA is EVE’s bible and CCP, EVE’s gods.
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