Why do you call it "content"?

Communications Center General Discussion
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Well, in this particular case, you might be doing both.

I take it that you are just annoyed by the fact that someting generally seen as a leasure activity (playing a game) can be the same as something that’s generally seen as a work activity (creating content). Did I get that right?

Creating content can mean a lot of different things: Writing a book, drawing an image, recording a song, creating a mod, and yes - playing a game.

Anyway. You have stopped responding to my arguments, and instead looped back to just repeating your claims without backing them up. Why is that?

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As I pointed out in the beginning, this is just a troll thread that came from another thread.

1 Like
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Not at all. I am object to a gross mis-use of a word. I have no issues with EVE.

I find it extremely telling that the things you just listed as content creation were all productions of tangible, persistent assets… a book, a picture, a song. You didn’t mention taking an action such as waving your hands. I think that just proves my point.

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If you’re not completely full of baloney, please do elaborate. What “other thread” spawned this?

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I don’t feed trolls.

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So, I guess it was the former then.

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You are right, that was an oversight. I should know how pedantic you can be by now. To use your own words again: “That’s obviously not an exhaustive list”. Add “acting or singing on a stage” or “reporting the news on the radio” to that list. They are not tangible, persistent assets, yet generally considered to be content.

By the way: How is anything in Eve online a “tangible asset”? After all, your shiny ships and planets and citadels are all just fleeting visual representations of a couple bytes in a database.

And there also was that word again: “persistent”. I have a feeling that you like building strawmen: You pick that one argument that you think you have a rebuttal for and ignore all others. As an example, while we are at it: You seem to think that to qualify as content, something has to be persistent. Yet you still haven’t answered my questions regarding that point:

Where does it say that said thing needs to be persistent? And how long does it need to persist? A day? A Year? A Century?

Nothing lasts forever after all. CCP might remove T3 Cruisers from the game with the next patch. Does that mean they are not content, because they may not exist forever?

Or like I also mentioned earlier: Every year there are small numbers of special edition ships given out by CCP, such as the Tempest Tribal Issue or the Apocalypse Imperial issue. For some of them, there may not be a single one left in the game. Does that mean that they have never been content, because they did not persist?

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If they have been removed from the game, then they are not part of the content of the game. This game used to have “learning skills”. That used to be part of the game content. They are not part of the game content any longer. They do not exist in game, you cannot show them to me. It is the same with actions.

As I have said several times, actions are ephemeral. They are transitive by nature. It is not measure of time that makes something persistent or not. It is by it’s nature. A ship can be built and destroyed in seconds. That does not make it transitive. A fight can last for many minutes. That does not make it persistent. It is the nature of a fight that it is not a persistent entity.

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Is a battle an action?

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It depends. A battle could be a series of actions. A battle could also be content, if it is persistent. Not sure if such a thing exists in EVE, but in other games a certain location can be a permanent battle, usually featuring permanently-spawning NPCs. That battle is part of the game’s content, because it is always there. When the cluster boots up, that content exists even before any players have logged in. It is in the game. Always. That is the content of the game.

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Not what I asked. Is a battle an action?

If a battle is a series of actions, then it is not an action. Unless a series is an action in your world.

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Asked and answered.

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So, a battle is not an action then, and all your talk about what actions are and aren’t is completely besides the point?

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We are running around in circles.

Let’s recap. You claim that what players do in a game cannot be content. Ok. What is the definition of content?

Noun
content (countable and uncountable, plural contents)

(uncountable) That which is contained.

You do not agree with that definition, and you claim that content needs to also be a thing, because if it’s not a thing, it cannot be contained. What does “to contain” mean?

Verb[edit]
contain (third-person singular simple present contains, present participle containing, simple past and past participle contained)

(transitive) To hold inside.

Cool, that works mostly for things. But there’s also that:

(transitive) To include as a part.

That doesn’t require a thing (which by your definition is tangible and persistent) now, does it? But let’s just assume something needs to be a thing to be able to be contained, just for the fun of it.

So what is a thing?

Noun
thing (plural things)

That which is considered to exist as a separate entity, object, quality or concept.

You do not agree with that definition either, and claim that a thing needs to be tangible and persistent. Also - exist is a difficult word. What does it mean?

Verb
exist (third-person singular simple present exists, present participle existing, simple past and past participle existed)

to be; have existence; have being or reality

And what does tangible mean?

Adjective
tangible (comparative more tangible, superlative most tangible)

Touchable; able to be touched or felt; perceptible by the sense of touch

That can’t be it, because nothing in Eve can be touched, and you apparently accept that some things in the games are content. So, what else?

Possible to be treated as fact; real or concrete.

Might work. But the things there are in Eve are arguably not real. Is there something better?

Comprehensible by the mind; understandable.

There we go, that works.

And what does persistent mean?

Adjective[edit]
persistent (comparative more persistent, superlative most persistent)

Obstinately refusing to give up or let go.

Nah, doesn’t fit.

Insistently repetitive.

Doesn’t fit either.

Indefinitely continuous.

There, that might work. But those are complicated words again. What does indefinitely mean?

Adverb[edit]
indefinitely (not comparable)

In a manner that is not definite.

Alright. And continuous?

Adjective[edit]
continuous (not comparable)

Without stopping; without a break, cessation, or interruption

So, something is persistent if it is without interruption for an undefined amount of time.

So, let’s put this all into a single sentence:

Even by your strange definition of “content” and “thing”: Content is that which is considered to be as a separate entity, quality, object or concept without interruption for an undefined amount of time, is comprehensible by the mind and is held inside.

A battle meets all these criteria, as does a gatecamp, as does a fleet operation, war, campaign, … And really, if we go by the actual definition of “content” they don’t even need to, because content is just “That which is contained”. It doesn’t need to be tangible and it doesn’t need to be persistent. You just made that up for whatever reason.

So, you are redefining the meaning of a whole bunch of words to try and convince us that players cannot create content in Eve. Next you will probably tell me that another one of those well established definitions is not correct. And I really have to wonder: Why?

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Why? Because of empirical observation and common sense. If you put a box on a table, you can put things into the box. For example, a ball or a pencil. You cannot put actions into the box. The box cannot contain actions. They are not content.

Your stubborn and continued insistence that a box can contain a sneeze or a kick in the groin is preposterous in the extreme and flies in the face of any rational thought process.

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I never claimed that a box can contain a sneeze, nor did I stubbornly insist on that. You are mistaking me for someone else. But the idea has some merit. If you want to go into the intricacies of that, we can do that in private messages. But that would be highly philosophical.

Anyway - do you know what common sense means? You are here, being told that you are wrong by everyone but yourself, and you have to rewrite dictionary definitions of words to argue your standpoint. Common sense would be to consider the possibility that you are actually wrong.

I think what you mean is not common sense, but a feeling. And feelings, while strong, are not always correct. And trying to convince all of Eves community to speak differently just based on a feeling is a futile endeavour.

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So, you agree then, that a box cannot “contain” an action?

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Stop trying. This has nothing to do with the topic at hand.

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This is PRECISELY the topic at hand.

I will assume, by your earlier refutation, that you do NOT feel that a box can contain an action. An action is not content. The ball and the pen are the contents of the box.

It is exactly so with EVE. You can create a starbase or a corporation. These are like the ball and the pen. You cannot create a miner-gank. This is an action, and like a sneeze, it is not content, now matter how insistent you are that it is.

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And I will call that a slam-dunk, point-proven topic win.