EVE New Citizens Q&A

Alaric are you talking about carebears or spoiled children?

Carebear = Inevitable victim

If you never allow yourself to assume the role of 'victim' you cannot rightfully be called a carebear.

A few common signs of carebear, in my opinion:

* It is almost as though their real-life (AFK) self worth is related to their character's assets and ISK.

* They have an extreme aversion to any loss or risk. They never see it as the cost of having fun or a new or different experience.

* They don't accept responsibility for their own actions or inaction. If they make a mistake, or do nothing to prevent something bad happening, they always blame others.

* They complain about game mechanics that don't benefit themselves, yet completely ignore the gameplay of others that may benefit from the same game mechanics.

* They respond to a wardec with outrage, rather than preparing for war.

* They rarely if ever ask or accept advice on how to improve their EVE experience.

* They consider themselves disadvantaged, be it ISK, skill, pilots, etc., rather than trying to be creative or even accepting their position and working within the limitations.

I've lived about half my >5 year EVE life in hisec. I like to do manufacturing, mining, hauling, and missions. My killboard is pathetic, and dominated by losses. I figure if I ever end up with only a rookie ship to my name, I can recover from that, and I just hope there will be an epic story to tell about how it happened. I do not consider myself a carebear.

Amen brother, amen.

If you do more PVE and less PVP then me I will classify you as a carebear, without wanting to sound condescending. There are many moments I am "carebearing" or "bearing it up" myself.

When used in a derogatory sense I mean a player with too large a sense of entitlement, who genuinely thinks he should be exempt of all hostilities. This doesn't extend to just miners and missioners, and can even encompass PVPers. If you have a 99% ISK efficiency killboard I'm likely to label you as a carebear as well.

This stemming from players that only attack when they are absolutely sure they will win, never take a hit "for the team" and are ultimately concerned with meaningless statistics. The key to carebearism is risk aversion.

Quite the opposite.
Warp core stabilizers are a module specifically designed for surviving interactions with other players.
An untanked mining barge is very carebear.
A warp stab'd mining barge indicates the intention to both encounter and survive other players.

One bear cares significantly more than the other.

Carebear is more than just risk adverse. Everyone in this game limits the risks to their assets, because they will lose them if they don't. No, carebear is much more than that:

For example, running missions in highsec doesn't make you a carebear. A carebear will run missions while not only ingoring the reality that other players can still attack you in highsec, but then raging if/when it happens with claims that CCP/Concord should prevent it.

For example, mining in highsec doesn't make you a carebear. A carebear mines roids believing they have a fundamental right to do so without interference, and then flips out when someone stops them from mining until they pay a protection racket fee.

For example, hauling goods from point A to point B through highsec doesn't make you a carebear. A carebearl hauls valuable goods expecting undisruptable movement across highsec, only to cry on the forums that someone destroyed their ship to steal/loot their valuable cargo.

For example, buying goods and reselling them for profit doesn't make you a carebear. A carebear trader incorrectly assumes all buy orders are guaranteed, and flips out when they find incompleteable buy orders exist specifically to lure them into buying overpriced, slow moving assets they can't make a profit on.

For example, manufacturing goods in this game doesn't make you a carebear. A carebear expects everything they build to be profitable, and complains about how unfair it is others have cheaper sources of materials or rare limited edition blueprints.

For example, being in a noob corp doesn't make you a carebear. A carebear refuses to leave the noobcorp because they can't cope with the knowledge that in player run corps your corpmates may attack you without concord intervention.

Fundamentally, a carebear is someone that believes they deserve to operate in a risk-free, immune to non-consensual PvP environment.

Carebear is a term used in every Multiplayer game where the person doesn't submit to being entertainment for another person in a PvP situation. (Being cannon fodder for a better equipped player)

Eve Carebear is a player who avoids situations where you will get podded by better skilled/fitted pilots at all costs.

Every other MMO its basically not becoming a punching bag for a PvPer.


In Eve though unless you are loaded up with implants that run into the billions dying is something you have to make contingencies for as it will happen at some point.

Though the term Carebear has come merely to be used by people that try to provoke non PvPers into a fight. Kind of like how Gank, meaning killed by multiple people, is now a generic term for being killed in general

Let's be honest, how often do you hear someone say "I got ganked... and got away"? No, getting ganked means dying. If you escape, it's "I almost got ganked today."

Carebear or carebearing is a verb to me. Calling someone a carebear can be derogatory like using "noob."

See also nullbear, yarrbear.