EVE New Citizens Q&A

I've seen players call me things like *** recently, and I want to know where the line is between acceptable insults of others from pirates and unacceptable.

I really don't think that has anything to do with in game actions, and I don't think there's any attitude that people could have a problem with. What makes you think that?

Technically...

- racism, sexism, pron, gay-bashing and things along those lines are not okay and should be reported.

- excessively foul language (or picture links) is not tolerated and should be reported.

- harassment is not tolerated and should be reported.


Realistically / in practice....

- Outside of obvious examples of racism, sexism, bigotry, etc (that are not part of some role playing thing) there is a "grey line" with what you can get away with saying.
NOTE: the "grey line" is not really defined and DEVs/GMs reserve the right to make judgement calls. Use your best judgement and view things from the context of the situation rather than the word/phrasing itself.

- if kept within the context of the game or game-related activities (including role playing and forum posting) people are allowed to hurl "mild" insults and/or take action against you in the game.

- "harassment" is rather narrowly defined by CCP. Because this is a PvP game at its core, another player bothering you is not "harassment" by itself.
To even have a "harassment" petition considered...
----- you have to make an effort to avoid those bothering you (moving one or two systems over is not enough... and running into the same gate/station camp repeatedly without taking precautions is considered your fault).
----- you have to show that it is the same people chasing you (randoms bothering you any "corner" you go to should probably make you consider if it is something YOU are doing).
----- the aggressors can't be getting some kind of tangible reward from bothering you (if you keep getting blown up or hunted because you pack your ships full of "shiny things"... you should not expect to left alone).



tldr 1; GM rulings are based more on the "spirit of the rules" rather than the "letter of the rules."
tldr 2; you are going to grow some thicker skin. We are all adults here and a lot of us enjoy "stirring the pot" for "funsies"

There is a mentality here where we kind of expect nubbins to play for a fair bit of time (a few months to a year) and intimately understand the systems in EVE (both macro and micro) before making suggestions on how to "improve it."

Plus, the big problem that a lot of us veterans see is that many proposed "solutions" or "improvements" affect other systems/mechanics without considering the ramifications to other playstyles, the markets, and (most importantly) how players WILL abuse it***



*** EVE is notorious for having players that can abuse and game certain systems and mechanics is subtle, but bonkers ways.
Some examples:

- when Titans were introduced they were the "kings" of ships. So absurdly expensive that only a few alliances could build them. Fast forward a few years and players have constructed them by the dozens (I think the total number of active "buses" is now up in the mid thousands range)... resulting in a number of nerfs (because players were beginning to use groups of them as "frontline" combat ships that were functionally immune to most subcapital configurations).

- when Faction Warfare was re-vamped... Loyalty Point rewards were given out based on the value (based on global in-game average) of an enemy ship you killed. Some enterprising economic gurus took advantage of this.
They used their ISK to buy out an entire market worth of cheap goods... sold half of it at hyper-inflated prices... loaded up the other half onto ships belonging to character in one faction... then blew them up said characters' ships with other characters on the opposing faction... got the massive amount of Loyalty Points... cashed out... and repeated the process.
I think they got about 1 or 2 TRILLION isk from doing this... and then started to buy out 30-Day PLEXs (Pilot License Extensions)... sending those prices soaring.
CCP had to step in to stabilize the market (almost unheard of) and remove all the ISK from the perpetrators.
A few weeks later they reduced the LP gains from killing ships to a piddling amount to prevent further abuse.

I can list a bunch of other ones too if you want.

I'm not sure exactly what you are talking about nor do I fully recall the situation but I have a vague recollection of an incident that I think happened around the The time of the Jita riots where a player said something at a Dev on the forums that I think was something like "go die in a fire" and action was taken against him because it was interpreted as a RL threat which to me is a joke.

That is like if you said to someone "I hope you get the clap so it burns when you pee". Clearly no one is threatening to hunt you down and force an affected prostitute to infect you with an STD. Nor was anyone threatening to burn anyone. Those are both wishing bad karma on someone. Not that I am saying that wishing ill happenings on someone is a good or acceptable thing but it is clearly distinguished from violent threats and when you intentionally muddy the line between the two then you take away some legitimacy from the more serious one in your attempts to make the less serious one seem more like it.

I think the thing to take away from this is that it depends on who you are and who the claim is against. Bullying is a huge part of this game as is virtual and emotional violence and the actual targeted destruction of real life assets as in when someone spends money to buy plex to pay for stuff in game and then has it stolen from him or destroyed with the intent to cause emotional trauma. So you'd have to have a pretty serious and clear cut case in order to get action unless it was against someone that works at CCP or is on the CSM.

Got it.




Then WoW and Eve have the same rules regarding foul language directed at others, if Memphis' understanding is accurate.

Alright, but I was specific towards language used by other players. It would appear that any bad language is a no-no, if Memphis' account is accurate.

http://oldforums.eveonline.com/?a=topic&threadID=52024



This all has pretty much seem to have answered my question.

I find the best response is to neither stoop to their level nor below.

Throwing gasoline on a fire is not an effective method of extinguishing a fire.

However, I have had lots of success dousing flames with:

* Agreement.
* Compliments.
* Humour.
* Self-deprecating humour.

"You're right! I was a total moron. I don't know what I was thinking. Must have had my head up my *** to not see that coming. To help me maybe graduate from being a total idiot to perhaps just a partial idiot, do you have any suggestions?"

I'm just going to post the links to rules and if you feel something someone has said to you violated these rules please file a support ticket.

The rules are located in the following places:

http://community.eveonline.com/support/policies/eve-tos
https://community.eveonline.com/support/policies/eve-eula/

The two links above apply in-game and out of the game (forums)

The Forums have additional rules located here: http://community.eveonline.com/support/policies/forum-moderation-policy/

Chat Channel Rules are located here: http://community.eveonline.com/support/policies/chat-rules/

All policies can be located here: http://community.eveonline.com/support/policies/

If you have specific questions please file a support ticket asking a GM for clarification of the rules and policies.

CCP writes the TOS in such a way that they retain a lot of flexibility. Just because it says vulgar language is not allowed does not mean you will be punished for using it. Just that CCP retains the right to do so, which they usually reserve for excessive cases. Even then punishments are not usually permanent or even long-term.

CCP is like the school teacher on the playground. When some kid runs over crying about what you said they'll probably give you a slap on the wrist and say "bad boy". But what they are really thinking is what a snotty little tattletale. And now the other kids on the playground despise him as well.

Whereas if you pushed a kid off the slide and he cracked open his head, then they would take real action.