Why I love English

NB: The following doesn’t related specifically to EVE, but I felt I could include it here due to the fact that this blog partially focuses on EVE writing. I excerpted it from an email I wrote on a private, non-EVE mailing list. So grab a cup of coffee and let’s talk language.

I love English, although it’s not the only language I speak and certainly not the only language I’ve studied. I love the dual origins (Germanic and Latinate) and the different emotional impact that words from each origin can have, even if they actually have the same definition. I love the propensity for puns and the way the language makes rhyming both challenging and interesting. I love alliteration and wordplay. I love the traditions of the great writers and the many flavors and accents in the language, including the accents of those who do not speak it as their native tongue. They bring an enjoyable spice to our communications, and that doesn’t even start to address how much I enjoy having an international perspective among my family, friends, and colleagues. I have no doubt that other languages have their own lovable aspects, some shared with English and some unique.

Recently, I told one of my co-workers that reading particularly poorly-written written communication causes me physical pain — not referring to simple typos, which have more to do with the physical act of using a keyboard, or even to the occasional slip-up, but to emails or fiction (or even news copy, these days) in which the author clearly didn’t reread his words or apply basic rules of grammar and usage. And I’m the sort of “word nerd” to keep Strunk & White on his desk and refer frequently during the day to a thesaurus, even though I have a very technical job.

The long-standing rule for me: if the writer won’t put time and effort into writing it, I won’t put time and effort into reading it.

I could spend all night listing things that bother me about my own writing and speaking. Self-editing really matters to me, even in quick notes at work or on the Internet. But to list a few, and in no particular order:

• Overuse of the passive voice. I now try to avoid it completely.
• Ending a sentence with a preposition. This frequently comes as a symptom of the previous problem.
• Using the word “I” too much. Though this particular post violates this badly, heh!
• Lack of clarity between subject, object, and predicate. Compound constructions have this result from time to time.
• Word whiskers (e.g. “ummm,” “uhhh,” etc.)
• Frequent mannerisms. For example, repeating “y’know?” after nearly every sentence.
• Ending a statement with a lilt or on a high note, so that it sounds more like a question.
• Using parentheses too often.
• Starting too many sentences, especially to begin an answer, with “So…”
• Misusing “e.g.” or “i.e.”, or directly replacing “for example” with “e.g.”

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. I suppose I drug this out far too long at any rate, but to paraphrase Mark Twain, “I was going to make this shorter, but I didn’t have time.”

*** Bonus: how does one pronounce the word “ghoti”?

Phase change

A few days ago, I said:

We need a new creed, that of the knowledge nomad who cares much more about what you know and what you do than who you are.

‘Who you are’, in the public sense, depends on the accident of your parentage and birth. I didn’t choose to be Sebiestor from the beginning, though now I embrace it. Amarrian, Gallente, Caldari, Minmatar: these reflect our parents. Not us. And even as we weave our own meanings into the tapestries of our cultures, we redefine them and begin to evolve them to something new. Hopefully something better.

But ‘what you know’ and, even more so, ‘what you do’? We each have a great deal more control over these markers. For capsuleers like us, that holds more true than for any other subset of our species.

Don’t let someone decide for you. Learn what you want to learn. Do what you want to do. Define yourself. And as you do that, you will establish your value in the great marketplace of humanity, where the currency is not ISK or any local coin, but reputation.

The knowledge nomad takes control of her own value and changes her activity, location, and skillset in a way that she believes will evolve her reputation and value in the direction she wants. She is highly mobile, flexible, and adaptable in every sense. You cannot contain or restrain her. The most you can do is convince her.

I am a knowledge nomad. Before I am Minmatar, or Sebiestor, or a woman, I am that. I choose to define myself that way, both in words here as well as in deeds and how I live my life. Many more like me exist, and we will band together to shape New Eden in our image.

Static nations and corrupt power centers represent the past. Fluid, self-organizing, ad hoc networks of free beings represent the future. Right now, we capsuleers represent the phase change on the slippery interface between the two we call the present.

And the nations will never understand.

Political leanings

My political leanings tend to have lots of nuance and complexity and evolve over time. Generally, however, I support the Minmatar people if not always the Minmatar Republic. This means that I have pro-Angel leanings and distrust Shakor, but would rather see almost anything than an upsurge in Amarr power (even under a ‘reformist’ administration like Jamyl’s). And I support New Eden: humanity as a whole in all our fractious, jabbering diversity.

In capsuleer politics, I generally support -A- and their coalition (including my brothers fighting under the Ushra’khan banner) against CVA and the Provibloc. The current fight in the North does not push me in one direction or the other, as long as whoever controls it uses the resources there wisely in a way that benefits us all. And as for the Goons, they will not stay down for long. I just intend to stay out of their way.

More than anything else, I work in the service of knowledge. I believe that scientific and technological progress can do far more to advance humanity and all of New Eden than mindless violence and destruction. (That said, those who do not bother to fly defensively and appropriately will get nothing but scorn from me.) To echo the ancient cyberbattle cry, Information wants to be free! Even more, Information deserves to be free! This freedom refers to the spread of ideas, not to a lack of price. Rewards of all sorts can provide powerful motivation, and so creating or discovering something new brings value. But that value comes about through use and transfer: if you lock information away, you destroy it.

We need a new creed, that of the knowledge nomad who cares much more about what you know and what you do than who you are. In coming days, I will have much more to say about this.

Playstyle Tolerance: Carebears versus PvPers

NB: I had most of this written prior to Helicity’s rant. And I generally with much of that rant, actually, but after further reflection I realized it went too far and I needed to respond. Other worthwhile posts include those from Black Claw, Kirith Kodachi, Kant Lavar, and Luccul.

For all the talk about “carebears” in one direction, and “pirate Nazis” or whatever in the other direction, these folks really miss one of the core points about EVE: playstyle diversity.

Pirates and other PVPers need the folks they call “carebears“. Who else will produce their ships and modules and ammo and drones? Who else will buy the loot they pick up from their enemies’ wrecks so that they have ISK for new equipment and other fees?

And the real “carebears” — not just non-combat players, but those who express total moral outrage at not being left alone — need the PVPers. Who else will buy their stuff in significant quantities, or create demand by destroying other people’s stuff (that will then need replacement)? Yes, individuals might take a loss due to ganks or gate camps, but a bit of care can avoid most of that. And at any rate, we still make profits over time. Rewards require risk, after all. (Related to this, not all non-combat players actually count as carebears.)

Look, this should all be really obvious to everyone. But evidently it’s not, whether due to willful ignorance or an inability to play well with others (meaning sometimes you have to lose graciously).

We can’t all get along in-game, because that would get boring. In fact, we really shouldn’t: EVE revolves around competition in various guises. But can’t we all get along out of game?

CCP rides the Cluetrain

Get on board with the Cluetrain.

CCP Games rides the Cluetrain. Not perfectly, and sometimes they take a wrong step, but they’ve gotten onboard.

They talk to us, and not just with a flat corporate voice. We don’t get too much MBA-speak from them. I don’t want it, and I don’t think you do, either. They’ve got some cool people in there, and not all of them work in community management. If they locked away their devs and only worked through the community team, we’d lose a lot. Right now, we can bat around ideas, talk about problems, get insight on various decisions, and get confirmation that they love games, science fiction, net culture, and (of course) Internet spaceships as much as we do.

Some devs could use a little coaching, of course, as we’ve seen in recent months. Sometimes the Loving Mallet of Correction gets deployed a little strong, or they lock their designers and programmers up in their Viking mead halls and we don’t get to understand what happens. But more communication will always make the players happy.

I have great respect for Kaarback, but I could not possibly disagree more strongly with the suggestion that we should keep the devs from talking to us. In a communication vacuum, players get angry, developers misunderstand, and problems crop up. When we can short-circuit that process and get passionate people – players and devs – talking to each other, much better things happen.

Using Yahoo! Pipes, I keep a CCP Devs feed. Basically, I take the EVE Devs feed from EVE Search and filter out the moderators and whatnot. I don’t care about locked threads or edited flames, but I do care about seeing them engage on awesome player-created content, talk about championing feature requests, and sometimes even show us their warts.

Much love to the community folks, but they do something even better than just act like a mouthpiece. They keep us engaged, talk to us about community-specific stuff, and hopefully teach the other devs how to interact with us.

Let’s keep riding the Cluetrain.

UPDATE: Kaarbaak posted a well-thought-out rejoinder, to which I commented that we more or less agree. I want CCP to humanize themselves, solicit general ideas, and fix the CSM process. I don’t want them taking forum polls on whether a certain stat should have a 5% or 6% bonus (though dealing with dedicated playtesters on Sisi is another matter entirely).

Diversity in roleplay

Many of us have struggled a great deal IRL with the question of the “melting pot” versus the “salad bowl” (and some folks just want the “pudding dish” anyway). This issue has raised its head for well over a century in the United States, and some folks in Europe have suddenly run into this issue and haven’t even begun to come to grips with it. But the core question, both in large societal issues and Internet spaceship roleplay, comes down to the same thing: do we all have to do the same thing, in the same way?

If one person or group gets well-known for a particular take on something, that certainly does not preclude others from doing their own take. I’ll say publicly what I’ve said privately many times: I’m not fond of Electus Matari’s approach to Minmatar-ness. So what? They do what they do, Ushra’khan does what they do, and the rest of us do what we do.

Not even the Amarr and Minmatar RPers are in a single alliance or bloc. Look at U’K versus EM versus a hundred other smaller groups, for example. Those with similar views and styles will eventually gravitate to each other. And I imagine that Federation RP (and Caldari RP and, I dunno, rogue drone RP) has tremendous amounts of room in it for different approaches.

To take one of many RL examples, consider Christendom. You have fundamentalists, Catholics, the prosperity preachers, people who claim Jesus was gay, people who claim he was black, people who get very irate with the previous two groups, die-hard “the universe was created in 6 24-hour days” creationists, creation-thru-evolution-ists, people who claim that the Kingdom of God is a condition of the heart, people who claim it’s Heaven, people who claim it’s coming in 2012…

But, despite all these things, you have groups who believe they have the correct understanding and everyone else is wrong. You have groups who take the whole thing as literally true, and others who take the whole thing as literature, and every imaginable shade in-between.

Sounds a lot like every RP and fictional universe community in which I’ve participated. Unity? Way overrated. The fact that somebody already has their own RP going in a given direction shouldn’t stop somebody else from doing their own. In the best case, you both end up feeding off each other and playing together. In the worst case, just ignore each other and do your thing.

I can’t imagine a more trivial subject of controversy than whether one roleplays a transhumanist Internet spaceship pilot correctly.

Space nomads

In New Eden, many pilots live in a defined area for substantial periods of time. This might mean a particular solar system, or a constellation, or some other zone. They work the same agents, mine the same belts, prowl for ratters, defend their sovereignty, or work the same trade routes.

Nomads don’t fly thay way. We move from place to place over time, always looking for what’s on the other side of the stargate. We don’t consider ourselves to belong to a particular nation or to own some volume of space. Instead, we go where we want, when we want, to do what we want. We travel and tinker and trade and, yeah, take.

So we don’t have twenty different ships in our hangar. We have a industrial ship and travel light. This week, I live in Essence, and the next week I’m back home in Metropolis before spending some time in Syndicate or Lonetrek.

A nomadic lifestyle doesn’t necessarily mean operating independently, though for some pilots it might. We fly together as a clan and we support each other in our endeavors. We set goals and achieve them, both for individual and group benefit. But that “group” means us, not some larger state to which we should owe allegiance due to the happenstance of our birth.

I am a Thukker. The world will decide whether it sees me as one or not. But I fly Thukker until I die.

Image credit thesocialnomad

NaNoWriMo pledge

Sharpen your pencils.

Every year, a group of enthusiastic writers pull together and support each other, pushing themselves to knock out an actual novel during National Novel Writing Month. Generally, most writers have the most trouble with just getting their butts into their seats and knocking out that first draft. So NaNoWriMo (which doesn’t really restrict itself to one particular nation) pushes you and your friends to write a complete 50k-word novel during the 30-day month.

I will do this in 2009. I will write a fifty-thousand word science fiction novel as part of NaNoWriMo. This might mean less frequent blogging here, but I can pay that price to finally look people in the eye and say, “yes, I actually have written a novel.”

Will you?

Image credit the trial via Flickr

What I want to see in a CSM candidate

CCP announced a call for candidates for the Fourth Council on Stellar Management recently. I don’t have any intention of running at this time, but I have thought about what I’d like to see in a candidate. I’ve heard that parties, or at least shared platforms, may have started to develop among players. In lieu of that (at least for now), two areas concern me principally.

Immersion

I care about the “Prime Fiction,” EVE canon lore and background. I care a great deal about feeling that we inhabit this fictional universe. Note that this doesn’t always require roleplay, though that certainly can contribute. CCP has already noted that they will fix the “corrupt” astronomical data, which provides a great example of what I mean by this. So I want to see candidates that care about immersion.

In particular, I want CSM candidates who will champion player participation in the storyline. We may not have the outsize influence that Tibus Heth does, but we want to feel that what we do matters. The STPRO defeat of the FDU and subsequent moving of Caldari megacorps into Gallente low-sec has started to light the way, and hopefully we will see that increase. In fact, factional warfare could use a good dose of immersion, because the problems with plexes (speed-tanking Vigils, anyone?) really disrupt this feeling.

I also want to see the CSM continue to address faction standings recovery so that players can align with the so-called “pirate factions” even after having run missions for some time. Note that I don’t think that CCP should make it easy, just possible.

And of course the CSM needs to keep an open dialogue with CCP on Incarna (ambulation / “walking in stations”). We’ve started to hear that it should come in a 2010 release, but we need to understand this vastly increased scope, what it will mean, and how it will grow the player base and allow us to inhabit New Eden more fully.

Mechanics

Of course, I love the game itself of EVE Online, too. In addition to the FW mechanics I mentioned, we need further low-sec upgrades, perhaps a scaled-down version of  the nullsec changes coming in Dominion or more. Moving level 4 agent missions to low-sec might play a part in this, but the fixes to low-sec should encompass much more. I don’t have all the answers, but I want CSM members who understand the issues and believe in the value that low-sec space can bring to EVE.

In general, I want CSM members who believe in boosting over nerfing. For example, rather than nerfing ECM and jamming, let’s see target painting get upgrades. As players come forward with reasonable arguments about what doesn’t work, fix those things rather than bring down the competition. We want to feel awesome, not mundane.

I’d like to see the CSM push for more ship types, both factional and T2. Factional battlecruisers, another class of T2 destroyers, and something based on the tier 3 battleships  (a glaring hole). EVE has tremendous variety in the sandbox, but I want to see more.

So who will stand?

Image credits Bruno Postle, arnaud bertrande, and tim_d via Flickr

Open letter to the Gallente Federation

Question: What do you call a President who invokes a law you don’t like?

Answer: A traitor!

Look, Federation, you created this situation. For all your endless preaching about “democracy”, you’ve instead set up a government where one man gets to run things according to his own whims using his own paramilitary thugs to make sure he gets his way.

Not that his military direction did you any good as Caldari capsuleers ran roughshod over every system your own militia supposedly swore to protect. Sure, they killed a lot of ships and the crew on them, but what did they achieve, besides breaking the hearts of thousands of mothers?

Proponents of republican rule try to convince you that it means rule by the people through representatives who do what the great nation wants. They don’t want to talk too much about representatives who, once in office, do what they want, throwing the voters just enough red meat to get their drooling support for the next election.

Decide for yourselves whether your president, or any president, really differs very much from a king.

Or from an empress, for that matter.