EVE General Discussion

Because people are stupid.

Next question please.

Look who's back!

Miss me?

Trust is the currency of our interrelationships with people. Without trust you have only functional interrelationship pro forma. "Can I be assured that what you'll do when my back is turned will be the same as what you do when you're being watched?" The answer to this question will determine the characteristics of all behavior that will follow.

The often overlooked, but most significant bond of trust is based on the question of, "Am I safe if you have access to me while I'm asleep?" Being able to sleep soundly and safely is possible only if certain conditions are met. When asked about the significance of their jobs, policemen will invariably say, "Because of us, you can sleep at night." This doesn't mean your mind would be so preoccupied with worry you couldn't sleep were it not for them. It means no one is going to do anything to you while you sleep.

This particular condition affects all higher animals in reality. In a predator/prey environment, both the predator and the prey must sleep. It is a biological necessity. Where to sleep, when to sleep, how long to sleep is a huge determinant factor in a species' behavior - behavior which in turn characterizes it as a species. The fox's prime time is to sneak into the hen house while all the chickens are asleep. Then, make off with one!

For humans, the conditions of the wild are so far behind them this sort of biological imperative has relegated itself to the subconscious. Humans prefer to view trust in terms of lying, or theft. Will the help steal the silverware? When she says she's going out with the girls, is that what she really does? However, breach of this trust has the same effect on humans as it does with all other species. Break that bond of trust and it can never be repaired.

So, if you lie, cheat and steal, or if you sneak up on weaker people then attack them (destroying their valuable property and laughing at them as you do it), whether in a game, or not, the species of human will read that psychologically in a consistently concrete way, and will react accordingly, all the way into the subconscious. This is a condition that cannot truly be overcome by exercise of the will, as it is a reaction to a condition which defines the reality - What is the landscape? Where are the threats?

What is particularly nauseating is then the offender trying to cloy his or her way back into the zone of being trusted, a condition they've destroyed forever. It makes the person look so shameful and craven as to be hideous to view, and is a just reward in itself for taking so lightly this bond of trust upon which we as a species rely so heavily for our survival as a species.

Not always - I mean, from a certain perspective, I don't play characters I don't want to play, but not all of them have been characters I have really cared for. Some I tried just to try that sort of character, others because I was running the game at the time.

The point was that you can;t compare it to a board game at all, since there's not only one set of rules in the game, there's a multitude of playstyles, which is why I compared it more to playing cards, where multiple different games can be played with the same deck, and people can choose to change which game they play at any moment.

While somewhat true, the definition of "PvP" varies. EVE was designed to be primarily a PvP game, but it wasn't designed primarily to be a "pew pew" game. PvP comes in many forms from shooting someone in the face to market transactions. The idea that the core gameplay mechanic is shooting other players is as absurd as claiming the core gameplay mechanic is mining asteroids, both are simply part of the game.

You heard about the bonus rooms right? Ganking events are generally not designed as a form of grief, the intention is to rack up kills, not to rack up people being upset. I find it hard to believe that CCP actively support one players intention to purposely upset another player. The reason they don't always act when it happens is because intent is difficult to identify. Again look to the bonus room to see what happens when that intent is clear.

No. I was so glad you were gone.

Absolutely, I would totally dunk miners in RL but the law prevents me from behaving that way.

Mandatory Zizek:
"At the same time, there is the much more unsettling opposite idea of the domination of my screen persona over my "real" self. Our social identity, the person we assume to be in our social intercourse, is already a "mask" that involves the repression of our inadmissible impulses. But it is precisely in the conditions of "just playing" - when the rules regulating our "real life" exchanges are temporarily suspended - that we can permit ourselves to display these repressed attitudes. Take the proverbial impotent shy person who, while participating in a cyberspace interactive game, adopts the identity of an irresistible seducer or sadistic murderer. It is all too simple to say that this identity is just an imaginary escape from real-life impotence. The point is rather that, since he knows that the cyberspace interactive game is "just a game," he can "show his true self" and do things he would never have done in real-life interactions. In the guise of a fiction, the truth about himself is articulated. The fact that I perceive my virtual self-image as mere play thus allows me to suspend the usual hindrances which prevent me from realising my "dark half" in real life. My electronic id is given wing."

I think it just boils down for some that Eve is their life.