Yarr, lithium has been found. About 6am this morning, Singapore time.
I briefly thought about racing to the scene of the underground metal blob to hog a mine site when I logged in at 8am, but regained some sanity and realised there wasn't going to be any time to change, eat breakfast, get to work and so on if I spent about 30 minutes just jogging to the ulu spot where lithium was found.
Besides, it apparently only has one use besides research, which is fireworks.
And I was already in a guild who had planted a mine (for research) and a public mine (for everyone who wanted to use it and break it).
I figure as long as I don't run out of leather, it'll get increasingly more costly, but always possible to fix a mine in order to get ~2500 ore out for ~75 metal.
And judging by the low population, there should be room for more mines eventually. And I'm sure there's more than one lithium blob out there if anyone had the patience to go look.
The good news is that research and technology along the Egypt-wide front is moving again. New fit of energy, second wind, another spurt, and all that. I get these guilty episodes where I feel I ought to contribute something to global research, but a) I don't have the time, and b) I have an awful personal hangup about flinging resources into a black hole which will ultimately benefit everyone.
It's weird. Because I had no compunctions about flinging resources into a black hole which will ultimately benefit me (and a couple other folks) by winning me an achievement/title/prize thingmajig.
Some folk have commented that maybe there should be some kind of title or achievement for research. I wonder if that will impel me (and other like-minded people) to donate more stuff?
I get caught up in the world's biggest case of social loafing whenever research is mentioned. It's really weird. The goal is ginormous. 50,000 of whatever. It makes my dinky little 100 or 1000 contribution feel pathetic. Logically speaking, it gets us closer to an overall goal, but it feels like I'm wasting my time for not much gain, whereas that 100 or 1000 could be put to much better use if I kept it for myself and built something personal with it, and created something tangible.
There's no record of who did the research. It's truly nameless pro bono contribution. (Yes, you can brag about putting in how much of whatever on channels. If there's a bottleneck and you find the material, then your name goes up in lights, yes.) But for everything else, it's pretty much, oh "this guild is doing it" "these guys do a lot of research" but it's not specfically named or recorded, so-and-so donated how much of what.
There's also a distinct amount of "Oh, these guys want to do it, why should I spoil their fun?" A couple folks seem to have made it their sole goal to fling tons of stuff at research. Why should I take away from my personal goals to try and be selfless when there are other selfless (or martyr-minded) guys already doing it?
I'm okay donating where I already have plenty of something. Let's say I have 1000 of a resource and research needs 20. No problemo. Thing is, it usually goes in the other direction. We need 1000, and I'm struggling to amass 20 here. I need at least a half-half ratio to feel comfortable, I make 10, research gets 10. Better yet, me:research 75:25. I get 15, research gets 5.
Meanwhile, there are other folk who are making the resource and chucking it all into research because they a) have no other goal besides research, including no personal ones b) plan to quit soon after with no long-term sustainability in mind or c) have plenty of time to play atitd and so can churn out obscene amounts of resource for both personal and research goals.
At which point, since I do have a few personal goals and am focused on long-term sustainability, I hit the "oh jeez, let's let them do it then" stage and take myself out of the donation equation.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
The Centre Cannot Hold...
A couple days ago, tehm quit.
Or rather, he decided to go on an extended sabbatical, as some political animals on the global B! channel put it.
Quit in the ATITD context is a little strong. It implies a hissy fit of drama, and an official click-click of menus to immediately cancel billing, which immediately boots you out of Egypt access, no "ten days still remaining" crap like other MMOs who have a commercial impetus to suck as much money as they can from as many people as possible.
So no, tehm didn't really quit. His account is still paid. It might patiently cease to exist if he stops the billing at some point, and his name fade away into the annals of history like hundreds of other people (me included, on shard A.)
What he has declared in his bio (or /info) is that he's taking a break. Possibly for good.
I happen to be one of three other people in his home guild who have a more in-depth knowledge of exactly what drove the decision, by virtue of being in his home guild and overhearing a chat 12 hours ago.
Alas, my skewed timezone only gives a partial chat, so I don't have all the facts, but basically, he seemed to have come to a realization that ATITD was draining all of his time, it was an addiction that he didn't have the discipline to moderate, and he had been out of a job for a year so it was way past time to sally forth and face real life and go for some job interviews.
At which point, my only impulse would be to cheer the guy on and say go for it. We'll miss ya. We wish you'd come back in a more moderate fashion when your life allows, but when the gaming is eating into actual RL functioning, it crosses into addiction territory and it's time to stop and face what you've been avoiding using the game as an escape.
So in that sense, it is a good decision, personally and on an individual scale.
For the virtual social community though, it is a little more of a hollow loss, since he was one of the centres, the drivers, the hubs, the whateveryoucallems that gel together social networks by virtue of knowing everybody and everyone recognising them, etc.
Virtual Egypt B will be a little quieter now that he's chosen not to play.
I'm still hanging in there, by virtue of the fact that I've got lots on my plate being a one-man guild, but as I mentioned, for others who thrive more on the social interaction, that's going to come as a big enough blow that they may start thinking it's no longer worth hanging about.
Folks may start to peel away at the edges, who knows.
See, we hit another bottleneck for the past few weeks. We need to find lithium. So far, we're not getting any handholding like we did for silver, and we probably won't, because a number of GMs and folks have made it very loudly clear on B! that they don't want the handholding, it's within our ability to find. So most likely Teppy will listen.
I'm content enough to wait as is, but who knows if others might.
I've always wondered. Shard B is populated by quitters. :) Or rather, the fallout from those who lost interest and lost the will quickest. Or those who found something way more interesting and renumerating to partake in, if we look from another perspective.
If they quit once, why not a second time?
Will the plummeting population be even more drastic than the steady decline on shard A?
Or rather, he decided to go on an extended sabbatical, as some political animals on the global B! channel put it.
Quit in the ATITD context is a little strong. It implies a hissy fit of drama, and an official click-click of menus to immediately cancel billing, which immediately boots you out of Egypt access, no "ten days still remaining" crap like other MMOs who have a commercial impetus to suck as much money as they can from as many people as possible.
So no, tehm didn't really quit. His account is still paid. It might patiently cease to exist if he stops the billing at some point, and his name fade away into the annals of history like hundreds of other people (me included, on shard A.)
What he has declared in his bio (or /info) is that he's taking a break. Possibly for good.
I happen to be one of three other people in his home guild who have a more in-depth knowledge of exactly what drove the decision, by virtue of being in his home guild and overhearing a chat 12 hours ago.
Alas, my skewed timezone only gives a partial chat, so I don't have all the facts, but basically, he seemed to have come to a realization that ATITD was draining all of his time, it was an addiction that he didn't have the discipline to moderate, and he had been out of a job for a year so it was way past time to sally forth and face real life and go for some job interviews.
At which point, my only impulse would be to cheer the guy on and say go for it. We'll miss ya. We wish you'd come back in a more moderate fashion when your life allows, but when the gaming is eating into actual RL functioning, it crosses into addiction territory and it's time to stop and face what you've been avoiding using the game as an escape.
So in that sense, it is a good decision, personally and on an individual scale.
For the virtual social community though, it is a little more of a hollow loss, since he was one of the centres, the drivers, the hubs, the whateveryoucallems that gel together social networks by virtue of knowing everybody and everyone recognising them, etc.
Virtual Egypt B will be a little quieter now that he's chosen not to play.
I'm still hanging in there, by virtue of the fact that I've got lots on my plate being a one-man guild, but as I mentioned, for others who thrive more on the social interaction, that's going to come as a big enough blow that they may start thinking it's no longer worth hanging about.
Folks may start to peel away at the edges, who knows.
See, we hit another bottleneck for the past few weeks. We need to find lithium. So far, we're not getting any handholding like we did for silver, and we probably won't, because a number of GMs and folks have made it very loudly clear on B! that they don't want the handholding, it's within our ability to find. So most likely Teppy will listen.
I'm content enough to wait as is, but who knows if others might.
I've always wondered. Shard B is populated by quitters. :) Or rather, the fallout from those who lost interest and lost the will quickest. Or those who found something way more interesting and renumerating to partake in, if we look from another perspective.
If they quit once, why not a second time?
Will the plummeting population be even more drastic than the steady decline on shard A?
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
The Secret of the Black Fox
Playing a game with plenty of downtime enables an idle link-surfing of youtube, to find some really good stuff.
After a day or two of serious Weird Al Yankovic indulgence, following some links led me into filk (again) - specifically Mercedes Lackey Herald stuff, which I note with some delight, she hasn't been able to shut down on youtube. Either that, or she's figured out that this is essentially free advertising and word-of-mouth to people who would otherwise NEVER have heard of her crap.
Mind you, I made a specific special effort to order her music CDs when I happened to be on a long business trip to the US about four years ago. This was before such conveniences as V-POST, and involved some hefty effort timing logistics so that the package arrived at my hotel before I left.
If not for initial illegal downloads, I would have never figured out that the 'poems' scribbled at the back of the Herald novels were actual filk songs with music attached to them.
Anyhow, jumping from Mercedes Lackey vids (of which I'd already collected all the CDs I wanted), I ran into the enigmatically named
The Secret of the Black Fox.
It's really good. The singer is some gal I'd never heard of, in a Celtic vein, with shades of Loreena McKennitt. The lyrics are sexy. And oh my, the video editing is spot on, despite what the video author declaims.
So now I find myself at Heather Dale's website, staring at a bunch of $10 an album mp3 downloads and giving serious thought to procuring a few. Smart digital-age lady.
If the name "Black Fox" weren't already used by several comics, I'd be so tempted to create a CoH/CoV character right about now.
After a day or two of serious Weird Al Yankovic indulgence, following some links led me into filk (again) - specifically Mercedes Lackey Herald stuff, which I note with some delight, she hasn't been able to shut down on youtube. Either that, or she's figured out that this is essentially free advertising and word-of-mouth to people who would otherwise NEVER have heard of her crap.
Mind you, I made a specific special effort to order her music CDs when I happened to be on a long business trip to the US about four years ago. This was before such conveniences as V-POST, and involved some hefty effort timing logistics so that the package arrived at my hotel before I left.
If not for initial illegal downloads, I would have never figured out that the 'poems' scribbled at the back of the Herald novels were actual filk songs with music attached to them.
Anyhow, jumping from Mercedes Lackey vids (of which I'd already collected all the CDs I wanted), I ran into the enigmatically named
The Secret of the Black Fox.
It's really good. The singer is some gal I'd never heard of, in a Celtic vein, with shades of Loreena McKennitt. The lyrics are sexy. And oh my, the video editing is spot on, despite what the video author declaims.
So now I find myself at Heather Dale's website, staring at a bunch of $10 an album mp3 downloads and giving serious thought to procuring a few. Smart digital-age lady.
If the name "Black Fox" weren't already used by several comics, I'd be so tempted to create a CoH/CoV character right about now.
Friday, April 16, 2010
Can World of Warcraft Save the (Real) World?
In a serendipitous bit of irony, I meandered my way to this TED video while growing acres of flax repetitively in ATITD:
Jane McGonigal: Gaming Can Make a Better World
I alternatively cringe and nod in agreement at various points in her talk.
She's astonishingly bubbly. Crazily optimistic. I suppose you have to be, if you work in a place whose motto is "I am making the future."
I think her four points about how gamers are super-empowered hopeful individuals bouncing off the walls in glee in blissful productivity wishing for epic wins are just a teensy bit deliriously hopeful. Not to mention, generalizing with an extremely broad brush.
I think most gamers who mindlessly play their games like a ritual are following in the footsteps of the age-old TV habit, of coming home, turning off their minds to 'relax' and are simply going through the motions, living the unexamined life.
Even those who are playing out of a desire for achievement, clear feedback, social rewards and recognition, prestige, being loved and respected are simply being human. Why the hell do most people want an epic win? For the epic lewt, of course. Maybe for a short-lived burst of fiero - the emotion of triumph. It's surely not because of a narrative that they saved the world.
I think she's projecting. Projecting hard about what she wants to see in people.
Maybe I'm one of those outliers who wouldn't know a social network when it bites me in the face (yea, I'm not on Facebook, call me a paranoid privacy addict) and her idea that lots of other folks are learning about social relationships are by and large accurate, but I don't think her generalizations can apply to even most people, let alone everybody.
True, I derive a certain amount of bliss in the illusion of productivity, by completing goals and hitting achievement levels and getting clear feedback. I'm not sure that means I want to be in a state of blissful productivity 24/7 though.
Sure, I'd like to think of myself as really optimistic and being able to save the (real) world, but hrm, I'm not sure I'm learning the lessons she says I should be learning through being a fanatical gamer.
Perhaps to be content with her over-arcing sweeping talk, I have to add some specific qualifications about the types of games that we have the potential to learn from.
I do think most MMO games are accurate enough microcosms of real life to learn some maturity lessons about how to deal with people - how to cooperate, how to come into conflict and resolve it (or not), how to manage drama and emotions, how to herd cats (um, people), how to create visions and unite disparate people into a team (or not), etc...
And by trial-and-error plus an accelerated timeframe plus social anonymity and lack of age stratification and other social/gender boundaries and the possibility of restarts and resets, MMOs turn out better than real life for teaching these sorts of things.
If you've got the right type of game, you can learn an amazing amount about self-motivation and other external computer skills (website maintenance, forum moderation, wiki editing, programming, graphic design, video editing, etc.)
If you're playing something like ATITD, you'll learn quite a couple esoteric things like excel spreadsheets, macro programming, mathematical calculations, unsoweiter IF you were motivated enough to even begin the learning process (which quite a few folk in here don't.)
Presumably if you're playing Eve Online (and motivated enough), you'd learn a great deal more about economics, profit/loss asset management as well as navigating and manipulating the darker sides of human nature via politics.
I guess you'd have to ask a WoW gamer what they're learning from World of Warcraft. I wouldn't presume to comment.
One theme seems to come up in my commentary. The question of individual motivation. I think she skims that completely in her talk and assumes everyone has 100% rah-rah motivation. Just going by firsthand experience, the amount of lazy people (who are often waiting for handouts) I've met in games... that's so not true. Lots of people give up in games all the time. Just like real life, golly gee.
Instead, we need to find the 1-3 percenters. The ones that don't give up. The ones who raid whatever tier of raid boss WoW is at now. The ones who leap at the head of exploration in ATITD, or plod along with patient persistence grinding away productively.
The ones who maybe turn up at a TED conference ready to change the world. Find out what drives them.
Probably lots of different reasons. Possibly lots of selfish reasons. Who knows?
Jane McGonigal: Gaming Can Make a Better World
I alternatively cringe and nod in agreement at various points in her talk.
She's astonishingly bubbly. Crazily optimistic. I suppose you have to be, if you work in a place whose motto is "I am making the future."
I think her four points about how gamers are super-empowered hopeful individuals bouncing off the walls in glee in blissful productivity wishing for epic wins are just a teensy bit deliriously hopeful. Not to mention, generalizing with an extremely broad brush.
I think most gamers who mindlessly play their games like a ritual are following in the footsteps of the age-old TV habit, of coming home, turning off their minds to 'relax' and are simply going through the motions, living the unexamined life.
Even those who are playing out of a desire for achievement, clear feedback, social rewards and recognition, prestige, being loved and respected are simply being human. Why the hell do most people want an epic win? For the epic lewt, of course. Maybe for a short-lived burst of fiero - the emotion of triumph. It's surely not because of a narrative that they saved the world.
I think she's projecting. Projecting hard about what she wants to see in people.
Maybe I'm one of those outliers who wouldn't know a social network when it bites me in the face (yea, I'm not on Facebook, call me a paranoid privacy addict) and her idea that lots of other folks are learning about social relationships are by and large accurate, but I don't think her generalizations can apply to even most people, let alone everybody.
True, I derive a certain amount of bliss in the illusion of productivity, by completing goals and hitting achievement levels and getting clear feedback. I'm not sure that means I want to be in a state of blissful productivity 24/7 though.
Sure, I'd like to think of myself as really optimistic and being able to save the (real) world, but hrm, I'm not sure I'm learning the lessons she says I should be learning through being a fanatical gamer.
Perhaps to be content with her over-arcing sweeping talk, I have to add some specific qualifications about the types of games that we have the potential to learn from.
I do think most MMO games are accurate enough microcosms of real life to learn some maturity lessons about how to deal with people - how to cooperate, how to come into conflict and resolve it (or not), how to manage drama and emotions, how to herd cats (um, people), how to create visions and unite disparate people into a team (or not), etc...
And by trial-and-error plus an accelerated timeframe plus social anonymity and lack of age stratification and other social/gender boundaries and the possibility of restarts and resets, MMOs turn out better than real life for teaching these sorts of things.
If you've got the right type of game, you can learn an amazing amount about self-motivation and other external computer skills (website maintenance, forum moderation, wiki editing, programming, graphic design, video editing, etc.)
If you're playing something like ATITD, you'll learn quite a couple esoteric things like excel spreadsheets, macro programming, mathematical calculations, unsoweiter IF you were motivated enough to even begin the learning process (which quite a few folk in here don't.)
Presumably if you're playing Eve Online (and motivated enough), you'd learn a great deal more about economics, profit/loss asset management as well as navigating and manipulating the darker sides of human nature via politics.
I guess you'd have to ask a WoW gamer what they're learning from World of Warcraft. I wouldn't presume to comment.
One theme seems to come up in my commentary. The question of individual motivation. I think she skims that completely in her talk and assumes everyone has 100% rah-rah motivation. Just going by firsthand experience, the amount of lazy people (who are often waiting for handouts) I've met in games... that's so not true. Lots of people give up in games all the time. Just like real life, golly gee.
Instead, we need to find the 1-3 percenters. The ones that don't give up. The ones who raid whatever tier of raid boss WoW is at now. The ones who leap at the head of exploration in ATITD, or plod along with patient persistence grinding away productively.
The ones who maybe turn up at a TED conference ready to change the world. Find out what drives them.
Probably lots of different reasons. Possibly lots of selfish reasons. Who knows?
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
The Exodus Begins
It seems a couple months is the lifespan of a game for a dabbler.
No, no, not me. My ATITD neighbor has decided to pull up roots and call it quits.
My somewhat freaky Euro ATITD neighbor, who also plays Champions Online, Eve Online and other games for three months before getting bored, and is re-venturing back to LOTRO.
I can't say that I'm crushed.
Nor can I say that I'm delighted. Not yet anyway, not until Teppy gets off his arse and actually puts the abandoned property act in effect on this shard and allows us to claim other people's shit as our own. :)
Instead, it's an odd mix of vindication and trepidation.
Vindication because I pretty much smelled the signs from the get-go. As hardcore and fast-moving as he tried to be, he didn't seem cut out for a long term stint at ATITD, having way too much emotional baggage where he shouldn't really get so worked up, and despite his attaining all the technology 'first' over me, he didn't set up his infrastructure for long term sustainability.
On a larger scale, I also smell the signs of Teppy's misjudgement of Dunbar's Number. Shard B has capped at over 300 paid accounts. Maybe 400 if you stretch it for the alts and the one-monthers. It's not going to hit the 1000 of the old shard for sure.
pibe's not the only one quitting. Another newbie who never made it past level 8, Savanni, also made a big pompous "I'm quitting" announcement and said farewell, distributing stuff to all and sundry.
And these are the ones who make a hoo-haa about it. For every one of those, there must be nine others who silently slip away when the game no longer interests them.
So herein comes the trepidation. I'm not really to call it quits. Heck, I've barely gotten started. I like the smaller size server. I actually see herbs and rare spawns on this shard because I'm not competing with so many damn hardcore nuts who scarf it all before I do.
Egypt hasn't even unlocked Advanced Metallurgy yet. That paves the way for much more interesting technologies and things.
Yet, it is true that there are parts of ATITD which are reliant on having sufficient numbers. Acrobatics has been having issues because of the low population. If my region gets too thin in people, other group stuff can't be done.
If -crucial- people leave, the social 'centers' upon which others revolve around, large holes will be knocked into vulnerable relationships and networks.
For sure, I know if tehm and Verix, the two vets that I have been pallying with, leave - I can only hang about for a month or two more before having no one to talk to and connect with.
And you can't control this sort of stuff. The more people go, the more people get bored, the more people will leave, and it turns into a vicious cycle of no one around in a promising land. (Cue Vanguard.)
That's what's gotten me a little scared.
No, no, not me. My ATITD neighbor has decided to pull up roots and call it quits.
My somewhat freaky Euro ATITD neighbor, who also plays Champions Online, Eve Online and other games for three months before getting bored, and is re-venturing back to LOTRO.
I can't say that I'm crushed.
Nor can I say that I'm delighted. Not yet anyway, not until Teppy gets off his arse and actually puts the abandoned property act in effect on this shard and allows us to claim other people's shit as our own. :)
Instead, it's an odd mix of vindication and trepidation.
Vindication because I pretty much smelled the signs from the get-go. As hardcore and fast-moving as he tried to be, he didn't seem cut out for a long term stint at ATITD, having way too much emotional baggage where he shouldn't really get so worked up, and despite his attaining all the technology 'first' over me, he didn't set up his infrastructure for long term sustainability.
On a larger scale, I also smell the signs of Teppy's misjudgement of Dunbar's Number. Shard B has capped at over 300 paid accounts. Maybe 400 if you stretch it for the alts and the one-monthers. It's not going to hit the 1000 of the old shard for sure.
pibe's not the only one quitting. Another newbie who never made it past level 8, Savanni, also made a big pompous "I'm quitting" announcement and said farewell, distributing stuff to all and sundry.
And these are the ones who make a hoo-haa about it. For every one of those, there must be nine others who silently slip away when the game no longer interests them.
So herein comes the trepidation. I'm not really to call it quits. Heck, I've barely gotten started. I like the smaller size server. I actually see herbs and rare spawns on this shard because I'm not competing with so many damn hardcore nuts who scarf it all before I do.
Egypt hasn't even unlocked Advanced Metallurgy yet. That paves the way for much more interesting technologies and things.
Yet, it is true that there are parts of ATITD which are reliant on having sufficient numbers. Acrobatics has been having issues because of the low population. If my region gets too thin in people, other group stuff can't be done.
If -crucial- people leave, the social 'centers' upon which others revolve around, large holes will be knocked into vulnerable relationships and networks.
For sure, I know if tehm and Verix, the two vets that I have been pallying with, leave - I can only hang about for a month or two more before having no one to talk to and connect with.
And you can't control this sort of stuff. The more people go, the more people get bored, the more people will leave, and it turns into a vicious cycle of no one around in a promising land. (Cue Vanguard.)
That's what's gotten me a little scared.
Friday, April 02, 2010
The Tyranny of Levels
A surprise drama bombshell landed today in ATITD. The news that Pameow, one of the powergaming Elders of the colossal public works guild Camel Sands, was fed up and planning to quit at the end of the month's subscription in two weeks' time.
Of course, there's still two weeks for her to change her mind and have the allure of the desert sing in one's veins, but the driving out factor seems to be a tantrum issue with levels and the exclusionary process that prevents lower-leveled folk from even picking up the Test, or the skill, etc.
I find it odd.
Perhaps my experience with the game has always been that of exclusionary levels, so I have no other basis of comparison.
The crux of it seems to be that there are about 3 people who are higher level than everyone else, and so they unlocked Tests that only they can participate in, thus setting up a completely uneven playing field where they get to do it first and win easiliy.
I'm still trying to figure out why this would be so galling when the whole game is set up for this sort of potential conflict. Some Tests are way easier when you do it first before anyone else can. It's not a new thing. Some skills are only unlocked when you hit certain levels. Some rare buildings and metals can be monopolized, leaving you to schmooze and trade if you want a whisper of a chance at getting it.
In this case, the levels issue is all about patience, time and unrelated hard work. If others have achieved the levels, it must be possible to. Probably from passing Tests that give them an extra level. If you wanted that, then you should have worked at passing all the Tests they passed. Possibly giving up time for other things.
If not, then just wait, and as more tests and principles unlock, you'll get to that level eventually. What's the big deal?
It's the obsession with coming in first without wanting to go through the effort that others are willing to go through, imo.
Sadly, as times change, one will discover that there are folks out there willing to put in a heckuva lot more effort to "win" than an old vet remembers doing... and that's the point the vet rolls up his socks to compete once more, or kicks a hissy fit that either ends in "this is a flawed game/system" and/or "I didn't really want it anyway."
Here's the other irony. Both of those statements could be the absolute truth, especially after a major epiphany. But folks will still think that you're either a sore loser or well-meaningly try to re-entice you into what they still enjoy (but you don't, not anymore).
I guess it is human nature.
Of course, there's still two weeks for her to change her mind and have the allure of the desert sing in one's veins, but the driving out factor seems to be a tantrum issue with levels and the exclusionary process that prevents lower-leveled folk from even picking up the Test, or the skill, etc.
I find it odd.
Perhaps my experience with the game has always been that of exclusionary levels, so I have no other basis of comparison.
The crux of it seems to be that there are about 3 people who are higher level than everyone else, and so they unlocked Tests that only they can participate in, thus setting up a completely uneven playing field where they get to do it first and win easiliy.
I'm still trying to figure out why this would be so galling when the whole game is set up for this sort of potential conflict. Some Tests are way easier when you do it first before anyone else can. It's not a new thing. Some skills are only unlocked when you hit certain levels. Some rare buildings and metals can be monopolized, leaving you to schmooze and trade if you want a whisper of a chance at getting it.
In this case, the levels issue is all about patience, time and unrelated hard work. If others have achieved the levels, it must be possible to. Probably from passing Tests that give them an extra level. If you wanted that, then you should have worked at passing all the Tests they passed. Possibly giving up time for other things.
If not, then just wait, and as more tests and principles unlock, you'll get to that level eventually. What's the big deal?
It's the obsession with coming in first without wanting to go through the effort that others are willing to go through, imo.
Sadly, as times change, one will discover that there are folks out there willing to put in a heckuva lot more effort to "win" than an old vet remembers doing... and that's the point the vet rolls up his socks to compete once more, or kicks a hissy fit that either ends in "this is a flawed game/system" and/or "I didn't really want it anyway."
Here's the other irony. Both of those statements could be the absolute truth, especially after a major epiphany. But folks will still think that you're either a sore loser or well-meaningly try to re-entice you into what they still enjoy (but you don't, not anymore).
I guess it is human nature.