EVE General Discussion

-.-

Uh huuuuuuuuuuuuuh. You don't say.

James is being a pirate in an extortion racket on the one hand (a well done racket too and well within the rules) but on the other hand, he's doing something that people stopped doing a long time ago, and hence the result he gets now.


And thing that people stopped doing was, they stopped honoring ransoms.


So in the end, all they are doing is ransoming and honoring it. Back in the days of yor, when I had a mullet, most pirates honored ransoms. Some even survived on them and as it never was a huge fountain of ISK to begin with, they had to work hard to survive on them. I do recall some cases of forcing players to eject.
(Stealing a ship - now that's pirate!)

But by 2008, it was common knowledge that pirates did not honor ransoms or the chance of it being honored was low, such that paying one was merely more milking before the gank you got anyway. This happened for 2 reasons (by my observation):
- The killboards only know "ISK destroyed" and there's no mechanic for "ISK ransomed/commandeered" as any measure for a lowsec pirate. The proliferation of the importance of "stats" (parallel to the obsession with ISK in highsec) and no way to track other-than-kill exploits made ransoming somewhat en-creditable.
- A lowering of player standards. When someone wanted to call themselves pirate, they acted like a pirate or some loose suggestion (per the pirate code - note "Code" - get it?) if pirate and so killing was not priority one. Robbing players who should have known better (but I used to fly a rookie ship through Amamake BEFORE WTZ and never got ganked) and/or who had much to lose (and should have known better) was priority. But that kind of player was eventually replaced by the player who killed everything that moved followed with a barrage of "LOLFAIL NEWBFHAG BOOM HEADSH0Y GBTW!". And that came AFTER paying a ransom. So people decided not to pay ransoms. Heck it was a liability even in any convo with them because anything you said was "Oh look! TEARS!!" Of course if you didn't say anything it was "OH look, so upset he can't even type! TEARS!". Overall it was impossible to get any communication through anyway.


Some would say that WTZ also killed piracy - I would have to agree but if WTZ had never been implemented, it would not have mattered in the long term because who goes through space where it matters now? Nobody unless they really have to or want a fight.

Combined with the rollplaying aspect of CODE. and what specifically they are doing, even a highsec sperglord like myself has to agree with the OP.

Woah there. That's just taking it too far.

First off, if you travel through Uedema with that much cargo then you probably deserve a gank.

Second, if 10mil/yr was really the only thing you had to do then I might buy into this extortion racket. But as I recall (and perhaps I recall incorrectly), purchasing a permit also requires you to put some goofy tagline in your bio about how you support CODE. So, what pricetag do you put on a principle? Probably more than 10mil.

This CODE thing is getting annoying. It's just like Justin Beiber, I don't want to know anything about it, but everywhere I look it's forced down my throat.

It's like some kind of sick cult. Drink the kool-aid already.

Mindless minions can be found most places

I have no problem with ganking, but do preferre to call a spade, a spade.

I'm a spade

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh................... nope.

Let's drink to that~

True, but most people use alts for hauling, who cares about the bio of a 'utility' alt that very few (if any) of your in-game associates even know about?

James' explanation (people don't pay because they refuse to admit they don't have 100% control on 'their' game) struck me as spot on, at least for the 'single player, min/maxing' types. I find it also explains the 'excessive' rage that often happens after a gank.

Didn't you know? Any discourse or lack thereof after getting blown up is TEARS, because spacepixels are super important and people who get popped must be infuriated.