There was a lot to talk about in the world of Apple/Mac gaming today, but I’ve had a hard time getting around to posting about it. I’ve avoided the internet and TV since early this morning, when I learned of the death of Sean Smith, aka Vile Rat or Vilerat, from EVE Online and a couple of internet forums. He was killed yesterday in Libya, along with the US Ambassador and I believe two others. He leaves behind a wife, two children, and a helluva lot of friends.
One of the nice things about having your own little site on the internet is being able to write just about anything you want, but I’m finding it hard to write about this.
I knew him first from an online forum, but I better knew him as a player in EVE Online, having chatted with him online quite a bit while I was active in EVE. I even met him briefly in real life at gathering as well, and he was one of those rare types – somebody who was the same person online and offline – a really nice guy, really sharp. Surprisingly, or maybe not, the media outside of the gaming world is covering his link to the gaming world.
Many knew him through the Council of Stellar Management, which is an elected group of players who meet with the developers of EVE Online. He was best known for being a diplomat and spy in EVE Online, two things that many try, and most fail at – it requires a helluva lot of patience, nerve, and self-discipline, while at the same time being able to put things that you had invested a lot of time in behind you when they didn’t pan out. He was considered among the best, if not the best, of players, in those professions.
Due to the nature of his actions in EVE, a lot of things he did on behalf of the groups that he was a part of were never mentioned publicly. If you read the nearly 50-page tribute thread in EVE Online, you can get a glimpse of the kind of player he was – many players/groups who were on opposite sides to him still respected him, and more than a few developers/support at CCP/EVE Online talked about him as well.