TL;DR: SovietWomble helped me better understand and appreciate EvE online by describing his clan’s attitude toward DayZ.
For those who haven’t heard of him, SovietWomble is a Twitch streamer who regularly edits funny/weird/amazing/stupid moments in the games he plays with the Zero Fucks Clan into YouTube videos, usually titled “Random (insert name here) Bullshittery”.
Setting aside for the moment that, A: His videos are hilarious; gaze upon this clusterfuck from ARMA 3, and B: The ZF clan would fit in with the rest of EvE like a well-tailored glove (they are, in Soviet’s own words, cunts), Womble himself is also surprisingly insightful about the video games he plays, and I recently came across a moment from one of his streams that I think is particularly applicable to EvE.
That moment is when he describes the origin of his clan’s name: Zero Fucks. For those of you who don’t want to watch the video; the clan started out in DayZ, which is a lot like EvE both in how nonconsensual PvP is a core part of the game, and that some people get really bent out of shape when the inevitable happens and another player murders them for no discernible reason.
The general idea was that, since surviving forever without dying and losing all your gear even once was inherently ludicrous, the name of their clan would reflect the attitude they took about it: Zero Fucks. They were going to die at some point and lose all their gear, so better to just accept that and have fun anyway.
I followed EvE in the gaming press since about 2008/2009, and I had a damn good idea of what I was getting myself into when I finally started playing three months ago. Nevertheless, I have to credit SovietWomble’s Twitch stream for considerably easing my entry into EvE and helping me adjust my point of view toward the gameplay. While I still get irritated at someone blowing up my ship without warning or cause I don’t feel incandescent with rage or fall into a depression like I might have done before listening to him explain the Tao of Zero Fucks.
Honorable mentions from that particular stream include:
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Soviet’s description about how immersion is not always fun, using the original DayZ mod’s scrap metal bicycle as an example of unrealistic gameplay that keeps things fun. For someone who tends to see EvE through the lens of “does this make sense from a lore perspective” this is particularly relevant, since it helps me understand CCP’s game design decisions re: hisec and criminal status.
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His (long) description of how game development works, which starts around here at 41 minutes in. In it he discusses things like how the DayZ standalone’s developers have to deal with the game’s code and can’t just change things with a proverbial snap of their fingers, what he thinks they’re actually doing wrong, and how people claiming the DayZ standalone game is a scam want a clear “good guy, bad guy” story when the situation is a lot more nuanced (at around 51 minutes in).
I followed EvE in the gaming press since about 2008/2009, and I had a damn good idea of what I was getting myself into when I finally started playing three months ago. Nevertheless, I have to credit SovietWomble’s Twitch stream for considerably easing my entry into EvE and helping me adjust my point of view toward the gameplay. While I still get irritated at someone blowing up my ship without warning or cause I don’t feel incandescent with rage or fall into a depression like I might have done before listening to him explain the Tao of Zero Fucks.
Honorable mentions from that particular stream include:
-
Soviet’s description about how immersion is not always fun, using the original DayZ mod’s scrap metal bicycle as an example of unrealistic gameplay that keeps things fun. For someone who tends to see EvE through the lens of “does this make sense from a lore perspective” this is particularly relevant, since it helps me understand CCP’s game design decisions re: hisec and criminal status.
-
His (long) description of how game development works, which starts around here at 41 minutes in. In it he discusses things like how the DayZ standalone’s developers have to deal with the game’s code and can’t just change things with a proverbial snap of their fingers, what he thinks they’re actually doing wrong, and how people claiming the DayZ standalone game is a scam want a clear “good guy, bad guy” story when the situation is a lot more nuanced (at around 51 minutes in).
