Crime & Punishment

Also, we should ban PvP in highsec, because any situation which can potentially cause loss brings out the badfeelz.

/s

I think my issue with the Erotica 1 scam (it's unclear if the OP's story is the same in terms of level of victimisation, presumably not) is that it isn't game victimisation, though.

It's real life victimisation posing as game victimisation in order to morally legitimise itself, which is ethically very messed up.

If you're a pirate who demands singing ransoms, that usually lasts about 2 minutes, and if you're a decent pirate you then let your victim go. Even if you blow them up they lose ISK and that's it. It's, at worst, light-hearted short-lived mockery of your victim. That's fine.

If you're a standard scammer, you steal a large amount of ISK and perhaps even mock your victim in-game briefly, but that's it. That's fine.

If you're Erotica 1 you take everything your victim owns (including their character) and make all your profit...

...then you spend 2 solid, excruciating hours making fun of their real life speech impediment, making fun of their wife with your buddies, openly mocking them when they get upset and then threatening them with action from the developers when they start understandably insulting you for all the stuff you've subjected them to. Then you post it online to mock your mark even further.

Which, in my books, goes far FAR beyond any kind of legitimate scam this game should support, and well into sociopathic psychological abuse that doesn't even convey a lesson beyond "people are awful."

My 2 cents.

The guy wasn't my friend and I'm not the OP ;)

I'm referring to one of the original victims of this scam which highlighted it's ethical murkiness.

Yes, the victim enters the scam of their own free will, due to foolishness and greed (as with all scams). However, there's a clear moral difference between spending 2 hours recording yourself and your buddies mentally dissecting someone's real life persona with the fake promise of giving them their stuff back and a quick, private "lol, you got scammed sucka" evemail message or something.

If someone were to scam me for my ISK and say: "Arkus Kane is a gullible buffoon", that's fair game.

If someone were to scam me for years of in-game effort and then delight in telling the whole world that and then start laughing at my RL income, looks, choice of romantic partner, intelligence of my kids or whatever...that's different

If you listen to the old "bonus room" recordings, you can tell that the scammers don't really care about the ISK they're making. Their purpose is to methodically make their victim feel as upset and vulnerable as possible in real life using a combo of bully and classical "interrogation" techniques for a prolonged period, which I think is highly unpleasant.

Yeah, it's "optional". But you just took everything from someone, and then promised this desperate person that they'd get it back by being utterly humiliated, knowing that they're upset enough at present to go along with it. You also know you have zero intention of actually giving anything back, but you're going to do it for hours anyway. Pretty low just to get some "luls".

If intelligence agencies use very similar strategies to break people mentally IRL (humiliation, shaming, further coercion through greed etc., false promises, very long dialogues with multiple anonymous "interrogators") and such techniques are being used to upset people rather than for any kind of profit, I don't think you can argue the "it's totally harmless, stop treating everyone like babies lol" like you legitimately can with lots of in game scams.

Another of those lies of the humiliators.
EvE is not like any other MMO. Pixel Stuffs has values which is for eg calculated when Titans get clashed. But when it is convenient, to cover humiliation, it suddenly gets to "but it is only pixels".
Well Suiccied Ganker will never get attached to their cheap catalysts, but others put a lot of "virtu"-sweat into gaining "shiny ships" and stuff.

Even in WoW stuff has more virtual value to the player, but no Player in WoW can get really bankrupt.
In EvE you can get bankrupt. This fact makes you more aware to losses.

AND:
again, this is a planned game of humiliation, where hopes of the victims will be pushed up and crushed again and again.

Read the article I've linked that includes Sohkar's opinion on the matter. He disagrees with you. The so-called victim's abhorrent racist behavior is something you seem to conveniently excuse. Maybe you're ok with slurs or have a bias yourself?

The reasons you state for the official action are incorrect. It tells me your limited understanding of the matter.






The fact that the person losing a game is also losing their emotional composure does not change the fact that "only pixels" are lost. You are showing your true colors with your rant that now extends to ganking? Your "virtu" sweat is your business. Stop flying ships you can't afford to lose, and stop handing over your EVE life savings to a scammer. Worse yet, stop expecting sympathy because you did either of these things and decided to blow your top over it.

Walk down any street in any city on the planet and you can spot victims waiting to happen at a glance.
We all see them and throw our arms in the air when they become a victim.

Some learn, Others just maybe like being victims.

The problem is CCP appears to want its cake and to eat it too.

They market "HTFU", "Be the villian", 'Everything is fair game" and 'sandbox'....but then appear to be performing behind-doors star-chamber executions of players who cross the line into 'real world harassment' we hear...BUT they don't seem to actually directly accuse these people of real life harassment from what I have seen...

Look closely.

Notice how they insinuate 'real life harassment' with timely genericized forums posts, yet don't seemingly sack up and directly accuse the people being banned? Is this for fear of losing a slander/libel suit perhaps?

Now, if you are going to ban someone for 'real life harassment', then shouldn't you be making that clearly the case, informing the person and community of that, and let the chips fall where they may in any real life slander/libel counter-suits, confident you can defend your claims of 'real life harassment'?

No?

Well...then how about stopping this insinuating of real-world harassment that you can't (or won't) defend in RL!

My beef here is that CCP isn't living by its own HTFU creed IMHO. It appears they are meta-sliming players with 'real life harassment' insinuations, but then not sacking up to officially go on record with those accusations and back it up in RL.

This is for me very telling on the validity of said 'real life harassment'....

The solution?

How about just coming out of the road-to-nerfdom closet and saying you just don't LIKE these players, and you are banning them for that simple reason, then live with the player backlash consequences?

BE HONEST.

F

Yep. It was a perception problem, not a moral problem that was being addressed.

The only way dragging someone into voice comms as part of a scam is legit is if you are roleplaying and don't break character the entire time, IMO

Actions committed via game mechanics are largely different than actions committed via social conduct with a player.

The standards in regards to gameplay are:
- No exploitation of game mechanics
- No excessive harassment of individual players
- No intentionally creating excess server load or server problems

The standards in regards to social conduct are:
- No use of hate speech
- No intentionally attempting to cause grief to a player
- No real-life harassment

While I may be missing a point or two, we can see exactly why this makes things like "the bonus room" fall into question, where as ganking, scamming, wardeccing, and general PvP via game mechanics does not.

I've defended the bonus room before on account of the severity of the judgments laid against the members, and the use of words like "torture" and "sociopath" which are far beyond the scope of what happened.

I do however take exception to those who fail to see the difference between actions via game mechanics and actions via questionable social conduct. The bonus room falls into the latter category, as do certain instances of scamming and AWOXing. If CCP's position is as stated, I would be very worried if I were someone who likes to message scam/AWOX victims after for tear collection. Your time very well may come to an end. It is however a stretch to claim this would ever apply to perceived griefing via gameplay.

TLDR: If you are using gameplay mechanics to achieve your fun, have at it hoss. If you are using communications with players to achieve your fun, reference Wheaton's Law.