My EVE

Seriously? You just spent a half dozen paragraphs reinforcing the idea of virtual actions not being related to real world actions, but virtual peer pressure (oh noez! not the peer pressure!) is bad, mkay?

There is virtual (and quite deliberate) peer pressure on players all the time to buy plex to fund their game activities, such as purchasing ships, training, modules and alts to support corp and alliance fleet doctrines, that they need to keep up or risk being left behind. Where are your tears for those players?

Only problem with that is, some of this input isn't armchair psychology. I'm surprised you didn't add "and generalizations to gloss over the uncomfortable truths involved." Oh. You weren't being intellectually honest, just showing some jaded 'tude. I get it.

+1 to cribba

Says the person who likes to make sweeping generalizations of whole groups of people.

This is a very blurry line with eve. You think how you ethics of your actions depends on how well you know someone.

While I would agree that a person shouldn't trust someone else until they know them, I do not think this is a good ethical line to draw.

I think the question is whether something is in game or out of game.

Let me give you an example:

1) Lets say I talk to you on vent and tell you I will not steal from you or your corp in eve.

Is that in game or out of game? I think its clearly out of game. It is an out of game promise about how I will behave in game. Yet this is often treated as if it is "part of the game" and therefore ok for me to break that promise. I am not necessarily passing a judgment on people who do this but I myself would not do this.

Moreover, I guess I will admit that if I find out someone did this “in game” I do tend to lose respect for them and not just their in game “character.”

The problem is different views about what is “in game” and what is an “out of game” conversation about what will be done in game. What most people understand as an out of game promise to act a certain way is often construed by eve players as "just part of the game." This is why eve might have a bad reputation.

Honestly this topic just goes around in circles because there are always those who do not believe in dualism and who believe that how you act directly correlates to who you are as a person, regardless of what context you're doing it in. It's frustrating, but hey.

can you give me an example of a non-dualisitc philosophy that has similar characteristics to whats going on in EVE? You know, like a mean one or a deceitful or hurtful one?

I'm not coming up with anything that hasn't been wiped off the face of the earth.

Actually, in poker you are lying your ass off constantly... either through verbal misdirection or body language. You are trying your best, usually in very subtle ways, to convince the other playing that it's safe to bet a large sum on the outcome. It's called a bluff.

Frankly, nobody forced the "mark" to spend a penny on his hobby. He knew full well he was spending cash to buy destructible/stealable in game items.

As far as the EVE video spending more time to show details of HOW to build up the trust of the ruthless players that ganked you previously, and how to finance your EVE gaming entirely from the proceeds... they absolutely should have!

Subscriptions would have gone through the roof.

I'm not so sure that we can say virtual behavior is without real world effects. If I were on the committee charged with determining if Remedial (former goon executor) could sit for the bar, the fact that he absconded with a large amount of his alliance ISK would way heavily on my mind.

On the other hand, all this really says is that those in finance related professions might not want to engage in large scale corp theft, simply because the regulatory bodies of those professions are hyper vigilant about handling client funds. (Before anybody wastes their time though, the Mittani is retired from practicing law).