On the way to lunch today, I queried two collegues about Eve Online, their favourite way to spend evenings and weekends:
<masak> So, are people confused by all the detail when they first
join?
<jonalv> Of course.
<masak> And how do you... handle that? How do you make it easy and fun
for people to get up to speed?
<jonalv> Well, people tend to find the fun in it themselves. As to
getting up to speed, they simply have to start in one end and unwind the whole
thing.
<Gpox> It is complicated. There are occasional jokes about the
learning curve
involved.
<jonalv> Nowadays people have the wiki to help them get started as
well. There wasn't one when I joined.
I think the parallels to the Perl 6 community are so clear that I don't even need to point them out.
I'm sure there are many differences between multiplayer online games, but the
social dynamics seem very similar to what we have over at
#perl6. Which brings me to today's thesis:
The Perl 6 community has the structure of a MMORPG.
We have just as much fun, and — what's perhaps more important — the bits we're putting together won't end up being owned by Blizzard Entertainment or CCP Games. Instead, we're building something that we ourselves and others will find directly useful during a large part of our lifetimes. I'm not out to devalue online multiplayer roleplaying games, just pointing out that there's perhaps an extra dimension to the acheivement we get to feel in the Perl 6 community.
Just for the heck of it, let's take the analogy one step further.
Ahem.
So, you want to join the Perl 6 community? If so, congratulations! You're about to embark on a quest that will seriously impact your day life, your habits and your sleep patterns. You will be building things, fighting unknown dangers, and communicating with your peers in order to make sure people are maximizing the benefit to the team and to the quest.
Here are the different classes you might want to occupy:
Warrior
One who actually fights the creatures out there, who braves new, possibly lethal dangers every day. In short: a Perl 6 application writer.
Being a warrior requires strength (you will have to hit the keyboard a lot when writing all the code, and the code will mercilessly hit you back... often), some dexterity (because working around known bugs requires adaptability) and perhaps a bit of charisma (should you want to collaborate with people, it's good to be pleasant).
We're currently on the lookout for warriors, so if you think you have it in you, be sure to stop by #perl6 and help us equip you for the perilous quest you have before you.
Priest
The priest is important for the group, but doesn't put himself in the way of direct danger like the warrior. Instead, they perform vital tasks with their hands at a safe distance. In the Perl 6 world, priests submit bug tickets, write tests and answer newbie questions on the #perl6 channel.
Being a priest requires intelligence (because their job is mainly to increase the collective knowledge of the group), constitution (because it's a lot of work) and perhaps a bit of charisma (so we don't bite the newbies).
I must say that I admire the priests. The impressing thing isn't in the incantations themselves, which are individually quite basic. The impressing thing is that their favour from the gods doesn't seem to run out. moritz++ and KyleHa++ especially come to mind. I'm sure there are slots for a few more priests too.
Mage
In the flurry of activity during a quest, the mages are the ones who wield forceful spells in the form of new features in our implementations. The mages know some pretty hefty incantations, but they speak in codes (like "Haskell", "Parrot" or "Lisp") so that us mere non-initiates can only stand by in admiration when they get going.
Being a mage requires wisdom (because, hey, you're implementing a compiler), intelligence (in figuring out how to fix the bugs and still pass the test suite), and constitution (because it's a lot of work).
Learning to be a mage looks nigh-impossible, but our mages assure us that there's actually not that much to it. And the rewards are of course enormous: you get to have an incantation of yours immortalized in millions of installations around the world.
Healer
Some people are in the group to make sure the group is doing well, and that no-one is critically low on hit-points. Discussions can sometimes get heated or sharp, by which point we're very glad to have the people around who are specially trained to see beyond the ego and help us focus on the important parts of the picture. We simply need to be reminded at times, that we're (as S01 expresses it) "a bunch of ants all cooperating (sort of) to haul food toward the nest (on average)". We don't need to agree always on everything, but keeping the group coherent is important, and healers do their magic in the background to help us with that.
Being a healer requires wisdom (to know where and when to intervene),
intelligence (to know to pick the right soothing words), and plenty of
charisma (to get it across that -Ofun is what we're
optimizing for).
I think many people jump in as healers now and then during our quest, but we also have one permanently employed high-level healer among us. TimToady++.
Archer
As for long-distance influence, and reaching outside of our own circles, the archer fills the important role of blogging, tweeting, iron-manning and generally making a positive noise about Perl 6, which can reach people far away.
Being an archer requires strength (again, typing is hard, and commenters/other bloggers might shoot back at you), and dexterity (you need to be fluid in expressing yourself). Having intelligence, wisdom and charisma — something I as a simple warrior often find myself wanting more of in my blogging — is not a necessity, but sure helps in getting your point across.
In conclusion: LFA, n00bs?
The Perl 6 community is on a pretty awesome quest. If you'd like to enter as one of the above classes, you're sure to find your place as a productively contributing members. Filling several roles is perfectly fine too, but people tend to find their specialties and favourites.
As to when we'll be "done", who knows? When is an MMORPG "done"? All we know is the quest we're on until April is our most ambitious yet, and that it's guaranteed to be an interesting set of months on #perl6 until then.
(Careful postscript: I know that Eve Online might not be a role-playing game in any strict sense, so if you plan to write a comment that amounts to that, consider writing "Your post made me go download Rakudo" instead. The Eve Online bit was mostly how I got to thinking along these lines in the first place.)
Very nice post, thank you! I fell I should come back to Perl6 MMORPG to glorious battles
Re:I like your style
masak on 2009-08-14T09:19:44
Thanks for the kind words. And yes, come back to us when you can. There's much to do on the quest before April.
It has been interesting to see how the strategic marketing for Eve works to bring new players online. A few thoughts on how this could translate to Perl.
I think Perl is already doing some of the key things, with the Ironman challenge, etc., but could do more.
btw, I have quite a large codebase of Perl which is used to access download game data from EVE's out-of-game API store in a Database and to present those in various ways on a website for "corporation/guild" members, so this allows me to indulge two of my favourite things at the same time !
