The Lost Art

The lost art of artful deception.  Most of what one ever needs to know from others is what others themselves do not know one needs.  Confused yet?  Okay, what happens when you say something wrong among a group of your peers?  They correct you, right?  What happens if you say something wrong on purpose, knowing they will correct you?  You learn something without asking them to give you the answer.  They are none the wiser, and you walk away with something you did not have before, knowledge with no primary source.

Oftentimes, one may find me making bold predictions, speaking in platitudes, or grandiose terms, waxing philosophical about this or that state of the game, the people that play it, and in general the human condition.  Am I right in my predictions a fair majority of the time?  I would like to think so.  I did predict a number of months ago that Scalding Pass would become the new proxy war for SC and NC once the SC campaign inevitably failed in a most miserable fashion.  I was also told at the time I made the prediction that I was the only CEO in the entirety of the alliance who even remotely touched on a topic or concern of that nature.  I once predicted what would happen to a rather unsavory member who led a coup and took a couple dozen of my more hardcore members with him, enticing them with promises of riches and glory, as he was my better, he told them, and they need only follow him to partake.  Twelve months in advance I said, he will have not a friend in the world, just you wait, I said.  Twelve months later he was begging anyone to take him in, because he lost it all.  Fancy that.  Do some of my predictions seem outlandish and absurd at the time, and on occasion even more so after the fact?  Perhaps.

People underestimate carefully constructed falsehoods and more often than not, will fail to even realize that the speaker is not wrong by ignorance, but by volition, or even not so much that they are wrong, but they are antagonizing or emphatic in such a way as to glean what they want from those around them.

The more mundane and two dimensional character could be best surmised as what we commonly refer to as a troll.  But one who strives to master the written and spoken word and make predictions based upon it, is known as a soothsayer or oracle.  Now, I am not so bold as to believe I have some preternatural ability to foresee future events more so than I am so keenly aware of my surroundings that often the air feels thick to me before something stirs in the shadows. Having bred myself early on in the game as a scout, and having scouted countless roams, I have had the unique opportunity of consistently being in a position where I may simply watch and observe.  Thus I may not have as much a preponderance of experience as some, yet I understand things just the same.  Without sounding too sure of myself, I believe this is why I often find myself as one of the top fleet commanders wherever I go.

More so than that, however, in keeping this novella on topic, I find myself gleaning information constantly wherever I may find it.  In alliance chat, watching local, reading the EVE forums, Scrapheap, talking to my own members, alliance members, leaders, intelligence channels, you name it, I am usually lurking in the shadows somewhere.

I find it more amusing when people seem to revel in pointing out my obvious mistakes or misinformed opinions and ideas, because quite often, I will have simply said whatever popped into my mind concerning the subject, knowing full well someone will leap at the opportunity to tell me the truth and correct me, thus giving them a false sense of superiority.  Gotcha.  None the wiser they are, none the wiser.

Perhaps, this is why I am also the Intelligence Officer for the alliance, no?

A month or two ago, I made a bold prediction, that by the time of the summer expansion, people would likely be leaving 0.0 in droves, out of a lack of faith in the game mechanic or any eventual resolution to said mechanic.  The rhetoric served its purpose and meted out its eventual end and I am happy with that, and I would be amused to find anyone who looks back on that period of the game, and wonders if I am a loon or not for predicting a part or parcel of the ubiquitous EVE is dying argument.  I hope they find it amusing, to be played like a violin.

Now, this has obviously not been the case, in the sense that 0.0 is alive and well, and anyone who knows the history of the game, knows 0.0 was a better place when fewer people were in it anyways.  However, what has changed has been exactly what I feared, but could not bring myself to say.  People are losing faith, but they find themselves unable to do the unthinkable, and like a deer in headlights, they are simply staring at a train wreck waiting to happen, unable to move out of the way.  The air, ambiance, environment, feel, undercurrent if you will of 0.0 life has dramatically changed.  No longer is CAOD filled with fun content and immense and yes sometimes trivially overblown rivalries, keen interest, and excitement, but is instead filled with this subtle sense of frustration.  Posts made, threads started, sit idle for an hour, two hours, maybe more, before people even bother to tire themselves with caring anymore.   You hear words like stale, pointless, what does it matter when it comes to who wins what, and who loses.

There are the Goons, simply wanting to return to their roots in Scalding Pass, and remember a time when, as implied, the game and 0.0 life itself, had a flare for the fantastic.  There is Atlas, reeling from having the very game mechanic they took advantage of, along with -A- to render all of Providence impotent, turn around and annihilate them time after time.  Now, mismanagement aside, or preemptive strikes that slowed the momentum of war, and etc. the general idea is that it seems quiet, too quiet.

It seems that the initial shock, anger, disbelief, and denial over the fallout from Dominion has now turned into apathy.  What does it matter anymore, they say, why fight over the same space over and over, they ask, why bother, some of my own members will say from time to time.  Why has expansion after expansion been released for two years, and nothing has really changed, they pine.

Why, indeed.

...but out of the murky water rises a figure of doubt, in the back of our minds, that asks, "Whose fault is it really, the game developers who raised the bar and failed, or the players who reached too high to begin with?"

Interestingly enough, who knows what I myself do in fact, believe or not, as I said, maybe I am right, maybe I am wrong, I care not whether anyone thinks I am wrong one moment from the next, I only care about the truth, however I can find it.

So the next time someone starts poking at my opinions, claims, or predictions, you can imagine me sitting behind my monitor laughing as I revel in them providing me the information I actually wanted to begin with, and knowing they will forget ever having given it to me, like a thief in the night.  This is not to say I am never wrong, that would be a pretty ludicrous claim, but that I do my very best to never say something unless I know I am either right, or I am wrong on purpose because I am simply blathering out whatever comes to mind at the moment.

Life is only worth living if you can accept that it is truly, in the end, a Divine Comedy...

...and this game is no different in that regard.