[HN Gopher] Eve Online is getting Microsoft Excel support
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       Eve Online is getting Microsoft Excel support
        
       Author : skilled
       Score  : 100 points
       Date   : 2022-05-07 08:48 UTC (14 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | m0llusk wrote:
       | It is amusing that Eve Online is often derided as being a
       | "spreadsheet game" which is removed from immersive play. There
       | are lots of columns of numbers, but no real way to interact
       | directly with ships as pilots. Still interesting, but this seems
       | to embrace calculation dominated simulation interaction.
        
         | causality0 wrote:
         | _no real way to interact directly with ships as pilots._
         | 
         | This is not true. EVE has had manual ship control using the
         | arrow keys for over a decade. It happens to be totally useless
         | but it is there.
        
         | singron wrote:
         | It's not a cockpit simulator or anything, but there is a small
         | part of the game some people play where you actually pilot
         | ships.
        
         | crest wrote:
         | It immerses you into the world of amoral high level accountants
         | of large cooperations.
        
           | formerkrogemp wrote:
           | > It immerses you into the world of amoral high level
           | accountants of large cooperations.
           | 
           | Hey, we accountants aren't amoral! How many ethics classes
           | are programming folks required to take?
        
             | gerdesj wrote:
             | Individual accountants are not amoral. Accountancy, however
             | 8)
             | 
             | No, this is the old saw about "money is the root of all
             | evil" which is bollocks - it's "The love of money is the
             | root of all evil" which is still bollocks but at least
             | likely. So that's the motivation for the usual crap trolled
             | out at accountants.
             | 
             | It is ironic (hypocritical?) that us lot on HN are familiar
             | with the difference between a hacker and a cracker in IT
             | terms and yet deign to decry accountancy.
             | 
             | The tools of your trade in accountancy can be used for both
             | getting your books in order and with some additional
             | thought and effort: fraud. The real world parallels are so
             | obvious and if you happen to read Terry Pratchett, you will
             | encounter the "Dark Accountants".
             | 
             | Accountants and lawyers are often seen as an expensive
             | enemy/cost centre. The funny thing is that IT is often seen
             | in the same way by everyone else, including accountants and
             | lawyers!
             | 
             | So, kids: you might be able to fiddle up a cluster of webby
             | funkiness. If you can't work out how to turn a profit from
             | your coolness, you might need an accountant to do all the
             | boring stuff like making money work properly.
        
               | gerdesj wrote:
               | Now I come to think of it, accountancy could learn a bit
               | from IT. OK IT is about 100 years old and accountancy has
               | been running for millenia and double entry and the three
               | ledgers are quite well understood. Avoiding tax seems to
               | occupy the minds of far too many people. Instead of
               | fixating on a 20% "loss" to tax, why not try to increase
               | production/sales by say 30%. Cost your time on each
               | endeavour and see which makes the best return.
               | 
               | I think accountancy needs something like the CVE system
               | too. So when a new tax avoidance measure is discovered -
               | CVE number deployed, description, patches by vendor/govt.
               | etc etc. In the UK, when you do your Self Assessment tax
               | thing, you could simply declare which CVEs you
               | accidentally used for a 50% discount this year but full
               | payment next year and those not declared run 200% if
               | found out.
        
             | tomrod wrote:
             | A koan.
             | 
             | A man observed a single small demon in a city. "Surely this
             | is the most righteous of cities, for only a single demon is
             | found among them!"
             | 
             | He later saw four monstrous demons beleaguering an old man.
             | "This must be the most wicked sort, for four demons haunt
             | upon him!"
             | 
             | Describing his experience to the local priestess, he was
             | corrected. "The city is so wicked that it only takes a
             | pitifully small one to rule them. The old man is a paragon,
             | for even four of the strongest demons could not fell him."
             | 
             | The man left, enlightened.
        
             | User23 wrote:
             | Three immediately come to mind: foreign corrupt practices,
             | user data privacy, and sexual harassment.
        
             | jayd16 wrote:
             | It didn't really imply that all accountants are amoral. In
             | fact, specifying implied the opposite...
             | 
             | Although methinks you doth protest too much. /s
        
             | ocdtrekkie wrote:
             | Not a single one in most cases. Which explains tech
             | companies these days.
        
             | pessimizer wrote:
             | One.
        
       | cpach wrote:
       | So this game has been going for nearly twenty years? Pretty
       | awesome.
        
         | xeromal wrote:
         | Eve is one of those guys I like to read about, but never have
         | played.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_B-R5RB
         | 
         | This is one of my favorite stories. Hope this interests you.
        
           | cpach wrote:
           | A virtual battle that has its own Wikipedia article. Quite
           | impressive :)
        
             | xeromal wrote:
             | And cost over $300,000 USD in damaged ships.
        
               | monkeybutton wrote:
               | So do the game developers hang out, watch and pop some
               | champaign when an event like that goes down?
        
               | Xeronate wrote:
               | We all do because the time dilation* is so bad it takes
               | 10 minutes to have a button click register (not joking).
               | 
               | *time dilation is a hack the devs added to make it so
               | their servers don't crash when many people are in the
               | same space. It essentially slows the game down relative
               | to the number of people in a solar system.
        
           | ocdtrekkie wrote:
           | As someone who has played, given them money, been involved in
           | the politics, played their FPS and been on its player
           | council, and attended Fanfest in Iceland...
           | 
           | To he honest, reading the stories is far better than playing
           | the game.
        
             | tpmx wrote:
             | !
             | 
             | So why is the game not worth the effort?
        
               | dddrh wrote:
               | The running joke is that you win EO when you finally
               | quit.
               | 
               | As a game and meta-game it's layers are deep and
               | enticing, but it can be all consuming of your life if you
               | aren't careful.
               | 
               | Many of the ways to play involve putting the game ahead
               | of real life obligations.
        
       | justusthane wrote:
       | Eve is a game that I love to read about, but have never played
       | and probably never will. Same with DF.
        
         | godman_8 wrote:
         | DF?
        
           | MaxGabriel wrote:
           | Dwarf Fortress
        
             | elihu wrote:
             | I haven't gotten into Dwarf Fortress either, but I do enjoy
             | the Dwarf Fortress bugs twitter from time to time:
             | https://twitter.com/DwarfFortBugs
        
               | kadoban wrote:
               | The Boatmurdered epic is also great fun, for those that
               | find DF interesting but don't necessarily want to
               | actually play. https://lparchive.org/Dwarf-Fortress-
               | Boatmurdered/Introducti... looks right from the first
               | page.
               | 
               | It's _very_ funny in parts, and gives a great sense of
               | the insanity that game can contain.
        
           | lloeki wrote:
           | wild guess: Dwarf Fortress
        
         | fragmede wrote:
         | For some reason, Factorio doesn't have the same effect.
         | Writeups and Youtube videos about it are interesting, but not
         | in the same way.
        
           | cheeze wrote:
           | Because Factorio is actually a blast to play and it's
           | easy/approachable. EVE is hard to get into, and harder to
           | stay into.
        
             | ThunderSizzle wrote:
             | Also, budget. Factorio is a one-time spend. EVE is
             | subscription based, and good luck getting to the point
             | where you can pay for the subscription entirely from casual
             | game play.
             | 
             | That's always was in the back of my head while playing EVE
             | in various trials.
        
         | evandale wrote:
         | I'm the same. It's a fascinating game and I've given it a
         | couple of tries but I get the feeling you really need friends
         | or be outgoing enough to make friends in-game. It's not a game
         | you can play by yourself in my experience.
        
           | Victerius wrote:
           | EVE is a game that goes on 24 hours a day, right? Meaning I
           | stand a chance at losing my ships when I'm sleeping or
           | otherwise not available to play. I've already tried a few
           | 24/7 games and I just can't.
        
             | xwdv wrote:
             | The flip side of this is even when you're not playing
             | you're making progress.
        
         | tigerlily wrote:
         | Nah you should definitely dive into DF, losing is fun.
        
           | Buttons840 wrote:
           | DF is getting a UI overhaul for a Steam release. I will be
           | trying the game again after it reaches Steam. Worth keeping
           | an eye on.
        
           | lelandfe wrote:
           | I had a summer where, Matrix-esque, I stopped seeing the
           | ASCII in DF and it became a marvelous experience. I lost that
           | quickly, and even tile sets weren't enough to hook me again.
           | 
           | For those scared of or put out by the same, the upcoming
           | Steam release might be the ticket:
           | https://store.steampowered.com/app/975370/Dwarf_Fortress/
        
             | npteljes wrote:
             | I put it on my wishlist a while ago, but I'm not holding my
             | breath. Almost two years now since it has the steam page.
        
       | klysm wrote:
       | I learned a lot about how markets work playing EVE as a kid. The
       | complexity of the game is pretty beautiful.
        
       | NelsonMinar wrote:
       | Odd fact; Eve Online's servers were written in Stackless Python.
       | The last reference I can find about that is from about 2015,
       | perhaps they've since migrated. Although looking now I see
       | Stackless still gets updates and credits CCP Games for financial
       | support, so maybe they still use it.
        
         | gmueckl wrote:
         | I would assume that Eve Online has expanded and evolved so much
         | since development started in the late 90s that migrating any
         | significant part of the existing code base to a different
         | language is risky. Not only would you lose the existing,
         | battle-tested code, but also the experience and institutional
         | knowledge around the existing development environment and
         | language.
        
       | causality0 wrote:
       | If the ability to trade real-world money for ingame currency
       | hadn't ruined the game for me I'd still be addicted to it. Still
       | haven't decided if that's a good or bad thing.
        
         | User23 wrote:
         | The Plex system is still pretty clever though. It doesn't
         | create new ISK so it's not inflationary.
        
           | causality0 wrote:
           | Yeah but it still creates the constant temptation to just buy
           | back your losses and it also lets you put a dollar value on
           | everything you do. I quit after I realized I was grinding for
           | $1.72 an hour.
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Recent and related:
       | 
       |  _Eve Online x Microsoft Excel announced_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31284972 - May 2022 (4
       | comments)
        
       | rektide wrote:
       | Worth noting that EVE already has a fairly competent API[1]!
       | 
       | It's been a long time since I played but there was also a good
       | range of tools to snarf in world data. For example as you
       | navigated your spaceship around & looked at the various regional
       | markets, the game would download effectively csv files, which
       | were easy to look for & read. This lead to a market-data-
       | gathering service called Eve Market Data Relay[2] where these
       | files would be shared. And a website EVE Central for viewing. A
       | couple years latter EVE created official API endpoints for this,
       | but there still are third party services for market data[3]- tbh
       | Im not sure why. Notably this wiki page already has advice for
       | Excel integration!
       | 
       | Creating game-worlds which, like the real world, can often expose
       | & share & make connectible their data & mechanisms is a frontier
       | I keep hoping we see expand. Being able to modify & expand our
       | experiences of gaming feels like a more unbounded creativity that
       | I hope we get to play with.
       | 
       | I do wish CCP would make a server where people were free to
       | explore bots & hacking the game client. For a while the python
       | interpretter running the game client could be accessed & you
       | could directly script you ship. "Go to this warp gate. Jump.
       | Approach this enemy. Lock. Fire." The idea that we could learn
       | programming & explore artificial agency in such a rich universe
       | was hughly compelling to me, is a vision I hope eve or some.other
       | game eventually offers options in.
       | 
       | [1] https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/EVE_Swagger_Interface
       | 
       | [2] https://github.com/gtaylor/EVE-Market-Data-Relay
       | 
       | [3] https://wiki.eveuniversity.org/API_access_to_market_data
        
         | bovermyer wrote:
         | EVE Online and Destiny/2 have amazing APIs.
         | 
         | I will never play EVE again - not my thing - but I'm frequently
         | tempted to write _something_ that uses the Destiny 2 APIs.
        
         | krono wrote:
         | The EVE API got me into programming, real life investing and
         | trading (through a "could I apply this in real life?" light
         | bulb moment), and unleashed my interest for mathematics.
         | 
         | The game itself also made me into somewhat of a cynical and
         | incredulous person - I'm undecided whether or not that's
         | something negative :)
        
       | [deleted]
        
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