EVE General Discussion

Earlier today, we received a clarification on what the procedure should be if someone claims that they are contemplating suicide due to your actions (or other reasons for that matter) in game.

GM Harmonia clarification

To put it concisely, and please DO correct me if I am wrong, if someone mentions contemplating suicide in game you should immediately report the incident (and relay what was said via logs/EVE mails/or snapshots of the local window as appropriate) to CCP. In response CCP will immediately report the issue to the players local authorities so that they can take whatever action they feel is necessary to ensure the persons well being.

To me, this is the correct solution, but there was some resistance to the idea in the thread when I defended CCP's policy in this matter. For the record, this has always been CCP's policy.

If we report a claim of considering suicide in response to in game actions (or out of game actions for that matter) to CCP, and they forward this information to local authorities one of two things are accomplished.

1: If the person was serious, steps have been taken that will perhaps save their life. I can think of no finer result.

2: If the person was simply trying to play the pity card to guilt the other party into reimbursement or refraining from normal PVP in game (Suicide Tanking) , and has no true intention of taking his own life, he can explain that to the local authorities and it will be properly documented... thereby significantly reducing the chances of encountering this ploy again. This also has the side benefit of reducing false claims that ultimately make it more difficult for someone who is indeed experiencing severe depression to be believed when they attempt a cry for help.

For the sake of this discussion the form of this we are most likely to see (where a person mentions committing suicide for losing a ship or being about to lose a ship) we can refer to as Suicide Tanking.

I'm not entirely sure why some people have objected to this policy, but I support it fully.

What are your thoughts?

EVE: Suicide Hotline Online

I only think when I'm being paid to.

So basically you don't like what the GM said and have made a post encouraging people to **** up the petition/reporting system by way of protest thereby highlighting how injustly you think the Mittani has been treated and how ridiculous CCP are being.

Rather than torture yourself with this unduly, offer to deprive CCP of your hard-earned RL iskies and find another sandbox. Oh I know, you're being perfectly sincere..............

I say this as someone who thought the Mittani's apology genuine (he knows he's been a prick even if some of his disciples want to indulge in internet pedantry and logic somersaults) and that loss of the chairmanship was enough.

I haven't got an issue with the Mittani, he's a big boy, he'll get over it, the tortured bleating on his behalf is a bit ordinary though.

While this was amusing for a while I am going to go ahead and point out that parts of this community are truly disgusting. This thread for whatever reason just drove that reason home.

Edit: it was the title actually.

Luckily EvE Online is a great game.

People who are seriously contemplating suicide and say so need help, and should get it. We as a community can help with that without sacrificing our ability to play the game. A quick petition in this circumstance is not too much to ask.

People who are guilty of Suicide Tanking, making false claims to evoke pity and gain advantage, need a deterrent... thus the title of this thread.

Yes, I wanted to bring attention to it, hence the title.
No, people honestly contemplating suicide are not Suicide Tanking.

But people who do pull this crap, and it is far more common than you would think, actually make it far harder for people to take the ones that actually need help seriously.

I suppose people who don't engage in frequent combat don't see this sort of thing very often (and that's not a slam against the large portion of the player base who do not) but for those of us that do or have in the past it crops up fairly frequently. Not as frequently as death threats mind you, but often enough.

Clarification is the purpose of the thread, and raising awareness of the proper and approved way to handle it.

If this still evokes disgust, you've missed the point.

It's more common than you would think, you'll find several recordings on YouTube or EVE files or archived on various corp forums outlining tales of depression and the like due to misfortunes occurring to them in game.

A brief glance at the forums today will show you dozens of amusing examples of this, do you really think we won't see an increase in frequency in game?

It doesn't really matter how frequently it occurs though, so long as people know what they are supposed to do if/when it does occur.

We need a hidden abooboo forum accessible only to people with a sec status of 5 and with at least 1 exhumer loss on their killboard. They come here to discuss how sad they are and such.

No worries, thanks for going back and reading through it.