EVE General Discussion

I’m imagining a development meeting, where CCP sat down and discussed putting religions in game and it went something like this.

Dev1 – So, what should we add to the game? Is there anything we left out?

Dev2 - What about religion, I mean most societies have some type of religious character. If we want it to be as immersive as possible shouldn’t we have religions, and have priestly skills.

Dev1 – Ok then, what skills would a priest have?

Dev3 – Well, they talk a lot. They seem to talk about everything like they’re authorities.

Dev 2 – We already added skills for negotiation, diplomacy etc under trade? Wouldn’t that cover it?

Dev 3 – Most of them aren’t very diplomatic, they’re mostly a, ‘my way or the highway’ bunch.

Dev 1 – We can’t skill for talking out of you’re ass anyway, The Mittani would sue.

Dev 2 – What about skilling them for inducing guilt in other players, they make me feel guilty for thinking about sex.

Dev 3 – Oh yeah, I know this gay couple, and man, are the religious people all over them trying to get them to repent.

Dev 1 – Come on guys, we can‘t give them a skill that will make players feel guilty, how would that even work?

Dev 2 – Well they like to talk about sex and marriage a lot, we could…

Dev 1 – The characters don’t have sex…and I don’t see how listening to a bunch unmarried virgins or pedophiles helps in the real world, why would we add it here?

Dev 3 – What about running soup kitchens and helping the poor, that’s good?

Dev 1 – No.

Dev 2 – Collecting for religious charity…

Dev 1 – Jita scammers.

Dev 3 – Peddling influence to politicians to get their way.

Dev 1 – CSM

Dev 2 – What about giving moral guidance…sorry I can’t say that without laughing

Dev 1 – So what you’re saying is that there isn’t a single thing that priests do in the real world that we could put into Eve to improve play, what a waste of time.

Dev 3 – Yeah pretty much, but I think I might be an Atheist now.

The End

I believe that the OP isn't talking game mechanics. (love how some players attribute priest to healer or character class).

The priesthood or shamans role in society is to teach that societies morals and tend to be the glue that keep it together.

If anything the priests of Eve are the traders. The Eve social model is based around hyper-capitalism. So naturally the traders, both in objects, favors or politics are our high priests.

In the meta game however we have a priesthood of various cults of personality. An example of this is that if you post something bad about mittens you get a deluge of goon related shenanigans. This is an act that is part of their social norm, indoctrinated by mittens. He is their priest, a guiding hand that molds the societies morals and taboos. Now i could go on to say the other things priests are sometimes know for ;) but that would be mean.
Now lets look at the carebear priests, they are there and their moral codes define others around them, in different ways.

So lets face it the Heirophants and Priests of Eve are it's CEO's, Alliance leaders and those cults of personalities that we all are guilty of following.

Join the real world my friend - those of us who live in mainly secular countries (UK for me) do fine until the religious nuts are allowed to publicise their mental illness and screw our no-religious lives

and i thought it was

a political class, a warrior class and a producing class.

but wait ... there you go, you just have to assume religion = politics and there is your solution


... but that can not be, after all religion is not about controlling people, its about faith so, disregard what i said

There are people that fit the clerical class description of being guides to others on "morality".

James315 comes to mind, whether you agree with him or not, he provides in game moral guidance to some players. That is part of the clerical role.

And as other people have stated the politicians in the game fill some of the clerical role functions as well.

We can, and many of us in real life do. The function of priests in life is to "guide" their disciples, the fact that there is a "sacred" association here is fairly irrelevant (imho).

In the end we all depend on other people for guidance in certain matters, religious people turn to the representatives of their religion (priests, monks, imams, ...). Non-religious people tend to turn to science for their answers, as such you could consider their professors, researchers etc as their "priests", as they are the people we look to for answers when we ourselves have none.

As such in EVE you could see alliance/corp leaders, veterans and such as "priests" as they provide guidance to those following or listening to them.

It's quite simple, actually.

About reality and stuff we see and live:

- Science tries to tell us the rational HOW (stuff happens, how is it made of etc). It's mostly matter and chemistry / physics based.

- Philosophy tries to tell us the rational WHY about stuff, it's mostly mind and think based (ofc we had ample expansions into economy, sociology etc).

- Religion tries to tell us the irrational WHY about stuff, it's mostly soul-spirit-faith based.


Unsurprisingly in the past Religion was possibly the first to have born. Humanity knew little, even a bolt would be some unknown worth seeking for an answer off a witch and similar.

From the above we see a branch: in history age we see the first philosophers, they try and put the unknown and the human mind into a more rational framework.

From the above we see a branch: in later history we see the first scientists, they try and put the unknown and the human *brain* into a more rational framework.


The more the time goes on the more we know about the unknown and our physical body. The less physical questions are left to philosophers and the less spiritual questions are left to "priests".

They are all 3 a pyramid of human values, what happens is that mankind are focusing more and more on the pure material life and putting their own kind in the place where once used to be gods.
Basically RL is slowly drifting towards EvE.


In EvE we are so full of ourselves that there's no space left, neither for philosophers nor for "priests".

but I guess since the 14th of August is clearly make **** up day every time you do a spread sheet you do the work of god! you good little priests!

Poe's Law

I suspect we just found one.