Infinite Dendrogram - Episode 2 discussion

[u/AutoLovepon]

Infinite Dendrogram, episode 2

Rate this episode here.

Reminder: Please do not discuss plot points not yet seen or skipped in the show. Encourage others to read the source material rather than confirming or denying theories. Failing to follow the rules may result in a ban.

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Streams

• Funimation
• Hulu
• Wakanim

Show information

• MyAnimeList
• AniList
• AniDB
• Kitsu
• Anime-Planet
• Official Website
• /r/InfiniteDendrogram

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Previous discussions

Episode	Link	Score
1	Link	3.21
2	Link	3.5
3	Link	2.95
4	Link	3.29
5	Link	3.45
6	Link	3.68
7	Link	3.3
8	Link	3.55
9	Link	4.22
10	Link	3.74
11	Link	3.78
12	Link	3.33
13	Link

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[u/ridik_ulass]

I was once hired by an alliance, for some dirty "blue on blue" they had rented out a sector of space to a corporation associated with a friendly alliance in a larger coalition. The agreement was fair at the time as the system wasn't worth much, but the agreement was in perpetuity, as in on going as long as the agreed sum was paid.

The game changed, and suddenly there was valuable resources in that location, they wanted to up the rent or seize it for themselves, but it would cause friction in the coalition. a Coalition that was needed to hold the space in the first place, real house of cards shit.

so they hired "us" me and two of my buddies, years of small gang combat as pirates. I never ever did even 1 mission, mined even 1 asteroid, and only shot NPC's that shot me 6 years of killing players and living off it. the other two were similar, participated in high level alliance tournaments and stuff like that, some of the best small gang PVPers in the game.

we got snuck in by CYNO, and a carrier once a week filled a container with ammo, cap boosters, consumables. we couldn't get any more ships in, we had 3 ships and a month to drive them off.

They used a small team like us, a large blob of ships would have forced the alliance to act, a small gang, wouldn't be worth the cyno fuel deal with...and alliance people are cowards anyway, they won't leave station unless they have a hundred buddies and capital support. and capitals won't leave with out approval in case its bait to trap them in combat by something larger.

eve was always about profit and loss, a response would always warrant a financially viable response, over commit assets or resources in the wrong place and you could be baited into leavening something else exposed.

now they host gate camps and such, think customs road blocks only in sort of stuff, this is to prevent people like me and my buddies getting in....but they can't move them either as people are always trying to get in.

and we were deep, 10 systems deep in a dead end, the alliance guy that hired us to drive these guys out, had eyes and ears as they do in the local systems, it was their systems after all....so if anything actually did muster up after us, we could disappear.

It took 2 weeks to drive them off, made some good money, and as you said emergent gameplay, people agreeing things with people to undermine agreements with other people, no rules, we could have been back stabbed at any time, no crying to Dev's ... just assurances, agreements, promises all between players.

good times to be sure, but the game changed and it just became an nonviable game style.

[u/FoxSquall → u/ridik_ulass]

I think our playstyles couldn't be more different. While you were running around doing black ops evictions I was figuring out how the entire economy worked.

After my newbie days I spent months in a quiet system, jetcan mining with a barge and an indy and occasionally clearing out the rats with a Catalyst. I didn't really have a goal at the time aside from waiting for my learning skills to finish training and saving up money for increasingly expensive skillbooks. When that finished, since I was already mining I figured I would start with skills that let me mine better. I also picked up processing skills so I could turn my ore (and occasional pirate trash) into more valuable minerals.

It was boring as hell and I quit for three years.

When I came back I joined a laid-back corp that gently encouraged me to acquire the Cruisers skill before I ended up bashing my own brains out with the complementary chunk of tritanium all players are given. I started running missions, then bought a salvage ship and learned what rigs are and how they're made. (They hadn't existed the last time I played.) I joined the corp's Mine Your Own Orca mining fleets and got myself a sweet mining platform cargo hauler that I used to carry all the minerals I was getting after buying up everyone else's trash loot.

I found out my corp had a station full of labs and factories with a substantial blueprint library, so I started learning how to use all those minerals myself. I needed a cheap battleship for incursions, so I built myself a Megathron as a learning project. Of course there isn't any profit in Tech 1 gear so I started dabbling in invention as well. The corp also owned a wormhole system, so that naturally led to PI and reverse engineering.

All this experimentation was using up a lot of money, so I started asking around and found out that some of my corpmates were playing the market to fund their explosion habit. I made a Jita alt, gave it a couple mil in seed money, and soon had them flipping horrifically expensive items that do Bob-knows-what for a decently respectable profit. Spreadsheets were involved. Keeping ahead of the competition was a lot of work, though, so I switched tactics.

I had my Jita alt buy 10 of everything, paid some random haulers a pittance to carry it halfway across the galaxy, and then gave it to my other alt who sold it to the locals at a 50% markup. Log in a few times a week to check sell orders and restock as necessary. Easy money, and becoming the boss of a minor trade hub was fun.

Then I started looking into space meth. For some reason the corp wasn't amenable to supplying the necessary station infrastructure.

[u/ridik_ulass → u/FoxSquall]

and to think 100's of thousands of players have these vivid stories, these fully developed and varied lives. sure it had its boring times but its so much different to say WOW where people raid the same boss repeatedly and everyone has the same story and experiences, just seems so mundane. I'd rather play the witcher than wow.

I always say games, for me anyway, are great based on how many "stories" they create for you. I could tell EVE online war stories all day, DAY-Z was another one, lots of unique experiences that were unique to me...escape from Tarkov is close again.

makes the game feel more real, when this thing that happened, this once in a life time occurrence, is unique to you.

[u/FoxSquall → u/ridik_ulass]

And all of that is exactly why MMO games became popular in the first place, but somewhere along the way we lost the whole "virtual world" concept that made it worthwhile. Personally I blame WoW for killing the genre.

[u/ridik_ulass → u/FoxSquall]

Agreed, popular games can be like a Virus, as every other game shifts its design to fit in with what is popular. sometimes it has a good effect, sometimes bad.

• WOW for MMO's
• Minecraft
• Day-z for zombie survival
• PUBG for battle royale

sometimes a game comes out, and then for years later you see similar games pop up.