Crime & Punishment

So as everyone knows for the most part in EVE you can do w/e you want or can to get ahead.

Scam, lies and piracy are all viable strategies. So it makes me question what if any are the benefits to having any sort of moral compass at all in this game?

I just dont see any benefit to being allies with concord, and not being the greatest scumbag possible.

There are grand rewards for those who can scam and steal the best, but nothing for those who play by the rules. The honest good guys i guess have nothing to gain, and everything to lose.




NOTE: no i was not scammed, cheated or blown up in anyway in the creation of this post, just something i thought about sitting in jita

Not been playing that long but I don't want to be a bad guy, I look forward to doing more fighting but fighting for a point, not killing new players or pods in high sec, I could be playing eve wrong and missing the fun but I don't want to do bad stuff to people for the hell of it

Lore-wise, morals don't get along too well with being a capsuleer. I know nobody cares about EVE's lore anymore, but do take a look at the chronicles when you've got a minute to spare. In one of the stories (the one about a mortal sabotaging a battleship) you can read about a capsuleer clearing out a Gurista mining operation and killing many innocents in the process.

Besides, you never know who you can trust here. EVE reminds me of DayZ. You can talk all you like about your moral qualities, but in the end of the day, when you see a neutral, you'll likely choose to shoot him in the face or GTFO.



You can thank CCP, who tried to rework the stillborn bounty hunting system a few years ago, but still screwed it up. Most players don't care about highsec carebears if there is no personal interest involved, and I can understand them. A lot of people say that I actually am a very kind and tolerant fellow, despite the impression I'm trying to make in this game, and will help other players with advice and ISK if I like them. But you won't make me waste my time with the rude, the lazy, and the stupid, who are also found in abundance in the general public. There's something else to people that should be taken into account aside from their being "good guys" and "just simple folks trying to make their living here" (no, I'm not making this up).



You are seriously overestimating the rewards of scamming and piracy here. I'll hazard a guess that most EVE's undesirables who choose to screw up other players for profit don't make any more ISK than someone doing PvE, if not less.

Instead, you should see the distinction between working hard and working smart. Those of the Jita dwellers spamming primitive scams in local won't earn much. They must be very lucky co catch someone new to this thing into their nets, and I doubt they'll have much to steal, anyway. The best scammers always think out of the box, they get close and personal with their victim and sometimes prepare for months before making the heist. Sounds like effort, doesn't it?

Same thing with PvE: you can AFK mine in highsec all your life or slowly grind through L4 missions (one character for combat, another for salvaging ) - or you can look at more efficient ways to earn ISK: go to nullsec, do incursions, get into big market trading, etc. Heck, one Russian has even figured out how to get those L4 missions on par with incursions in terms of ISK after an in-depth analysis, and has written a massive guide about it.

I guess, the reason why you think scamming is so lucrative is the five people who relentlessly spam in Jita local and make an impression that there's a lot of scamming going on. Trust me, if it really was that awesome, everyone would be doing that. Same thing with suicide ganking. It's a psychological illusion of a sort. I doubt you'll ever hear someone bragging: "Yeee, I warped to that belt and then I mined the **** out of them rocks! Then I went AFK and mined some more! It was sooooo awesome!". What is more likely to catch your eye is expensive gank killmails and stories of resounding heists. It's hard to believe that CCP even used to make villainy their selling point. Good times it must have been...

Then don't. That's the great thing about Eve. In fact, one of the main reasons CCP allows all that bad stuff, is to cause people to band together to stop it. Without evil there can be no good.

But the OP does point out the valid fact that being a "good guy" is not rewarded directly by game mechanics very much. That is because this is a sandbox game set in a dystopian future where the whole idea of who are the "good guys" is purposely nebulous. Is the Amarr Empire, and its tradition and order a force for good, or are the (formerly) enslaved, but morally imperfect Minmatar the good guys? Even outside the canonical lore, CONCORD (which is primarily just a game mechanic) is not a force for "good" but more a force for neutrality limiting capsuleer conflict, rather than fighting for good. I mean, they'll completely look away and let one large corporation full of warmongers smash a small, peaceful corp full of industrialists into dust for a mere 50M ISK! Sure, they'll stop coming to the aid of repeat offenders or thieves, but otherwise, they really make little judgement on the morality of capsuleer actions.

In Eve we make our own morality and stories. We pick sides and fight for what we believe in, or perhaps for who pays us the most ISK. Often, taking advantage of another player's mistake, carelessness, weakness, or gullibility is a way to get ahead, but it isn't the only way. There are players, like say Chribba, who have parlayed their honesty and "goodness" into a space career and Chribba particularly, has earned more ISK from his "goodness" than probably all but the largest heists and scams in the game. Some of the best corps are full of loyal, and law-abiding players who work together for a common prosperity, only shooting a weapon in self-defense.

But as a full-time, PvP sandbox you always have to account for your defense. It is what makes the game interesting and near unique and is part of what allow player-driven content to take place. Players will attack you for all sorts of reasons from ideology, because you have something they want, for fun, because you mutually agreed to an honourable space fight, or maybe because you insulted them, but whatever the reason, don't take it too personally as this is a PvP game. We are all fighting for the limited resources and power in New Eden and CCP has designed the game to intentionally put us at each others throats.

It's a sandbox. Fight whomever you want for whatever reason you want. Or don't. It's your choice.

In my case, ISK and people being excited to see you is a reward I'm very happy with. Not to mention that my role is pretty unique makes it even better.

/c

I reckon he probably has a super-villain chair and is planning on purchasing an underground volcano lair with PLEX.

If you think Chribba is a 'good guy'....well.......

Then you don't know him very well.

*runs off and hides in a wormhole*

“So it makes me question what if any are the benefits to having any sort of moral compass at all in this game?”

Groups in eve are defined by their culture – their moral compass. And it is important to keep true to that culture because it is what your members expect, what gives them a purpose. Without the trust of your members, you are a nobody. We are all role-players even if they tell you otherways. Some of us have a very twisted code of conduct and what is acceptable by some groups may be a no-go for others… but we all play the role we chose for our avatars.

Back to your point. Being the greatest scumbag possible also means that no one can or will trust you. At the end the trust you earned is all that matters in eve. They trust you with being a competent FC, they will follow you, they trust you with being an honorable business man, you can wield their trillions, they trust you not to blueball them, you get content.

Just for reference: No, awoxing blue titans, even if they belong SC, is not something that is compatible with my moral compass. In the end it did more damaged than it helped and members made it very clear that they don’t want something like this ever to happen again, Snuffed even lost some corps over this.

Same is true for awoxing corp assets. For instance, in w-space you will never find a decent group ever again if you are a known awoxer. A few hundred billion isk are simply not worth it.

my chars are a bit Yin and Yang

Over the years I have helped a lot of people out and given isk or fitted ships and advise.

On the other hand some of my chars are just dam right evil and like blowing stuff up.

So im either classed as a good guy or just a plain daft fruit bat

Every new bro I kill I talk to, try giving them fits or giving them more of an extended direction to play the game better. Now maybe I'm giving them a fit for a better fight next time but the ******* in me will only let me be nice for so long.