EVE General Discussion

Oh ok, I hear this one a lot.

"I have nothing against ganking, BUT YOU GUYS ARE DOING IT ALL WRONG!!!1"

If you weren't butthurt, then you wouldn't be all hung up about whether or not we're being honest about our motivations. You wouldn't care.

Now please tell us, what did you lose?

This reminds me of a beaten animal loyally returning with gratitude to it's abusive master. High sec carebears are wild.

we have been hearing this argument pretty much since i started playing and likly since the game started .. history tells us that you are wrong.

yes this is a neiche game. we are perfectly fine with that as long as it stay true to its purpose. CCP has a clear target customer and is catering to that. (and no its not the gankers even if they are included) so seriously get with the program or do yourself a favour and get out. wow is not for everyone and neither is EvE .

and if a direct quote from the devs doesent open your eyes im gonna put you in the troll pen and stop trying to make you see my point. it is clear you dont care for anything but your own entitlement. hf fly safe and i hope to meet you in wh space (given you ever undock)

♪♪The Code never bothered me anywayyyyy♪♪

-Princess Elsa, Disney's Frozen

Well you did say that you want people "to be honest about why they pick on easy targets." The implication of that is that you are bothered by the fact you think some players lie about why they shoot weaker targets then themselves or that you think you know better at why some players commit such acts than they themselves do.

Well, to put you at ease and salve your bother, I will tell you why I shoot "easy targets". These reasons are personal, and may not reflect why other players do so, but since you did imply that I, or other players like me, lie about why we do what we do, I think it worthwhile to explain.

I am motivated by a various (and sometimes varying) combination of the thrill of stalking a target, the satisfaction of taking the resources of another player instead of having to grind them myself, being part of a collective effort to impose our will on the game universe, and an altruistic motivation to create content, and to enforce the risk vs. reward design of the game.

The first two are quite base, I will admit. There is something primal though about scouting a target, laying a trap or ambush, and springing it without them catching wind of me. Sure, the rational part of my brain knows that they are most likely watching Netflix or making a sandwich in the other room while they AFK mine or haul in highsec, but there are always a few wily ones that smoke the imminent gank just in time to get away. Along with that is the satisfaction of taking their hard earned loot for yourself. You are really "winning" Eve by taking resources from another player with a fraction of the effort they spent collecting it. That is, by all definitions, smart (although perhaps immoral) play. In fact, the players who want to be shot the least are the ones you need to shoot the most as they are the ones with the most valuable stuff. I know I am at my most reluctant to PvP when I am moving a few billion worth of goods in my hauler.

The "higher" reasons I shoot weaker players than myself are also quite clear to me. There is great long-term motivation in knowing you are part of some larger effort to make a mark on New Eden. The New Order has set a goal to reshape highsec, and has made progress. Almost every highsec resident knows about CODE. now, and has experienced or witnessed the consequences of autopiloting, AFK mining or reckless hauling. I have no illusion of how complete our control is, and it shouldn't be complete given it is highsec, but there is great satisfaction in seeing the riskiest of bad behaviours diminish year after year. Hulks, which used to be the norm, have been replaced by Skiffs as the most common ship in belts. That is a direct result of our collective efforts to explode the low hanging fruit of any yield-fit miner we can catch and is most satisfying to see.

More generally though, even before I pledged my efforts to reshape the face of highsec in the name of the Saviour, I originally decided to "Be the Villain" in this game as that is how it has been designed. CCP made the game so that the players would serve as antagonists and create content, so some time after my first attempt at Eve failed after 6 boring months of nothing happening to me in highsec, I decided to try again as a "bad guy" and make something happen. So I made a pirate and got to work, enforcing consequences on the complacent and those taking risks, while generating content and player interactions along the way.

Risk vs. reward is important to enforce, given that in Eve it is only the players who do that in highsec. It is almost impossible to lose a miner or hauler to NPCs, so if no one is willing to call the other players on their choice to fit yield modules over tank modules, then the game is lifeless and one-dimensional. For fitting choices to matter, there has to be some pressure on highsec residents, and I don't mind culling the lazy and greedy, especially if they are carrying some valuable stuff I can take.

I know exactly why I shoot other players, and usually "easy targets" as you would define them. Simply, it is because they have something I want, or they are not complying to my will in the space I claim, and I do this for the greater reason of creating content and enforcing risk vs. reward in highsec. Now, that may not be why everyone else does it and I won't claim to know what motivates others like you are. But I do know that regardless of the reason, it is completely legal and intended game play. Therefore, it really doesn't matter why they do what they do. Whether you are getting shot by some psychopathic tear collector playing from inside an insane asylum, or by someone who sees you have made a mistake and wants to take your stuff, you have to react the same to that threat and defend yourself.

I have finally decided to tip my toes into the shark infested waters of New Eden after years of reading about it, partly in response to the incredible opportunities on offer to those that grab them with both hands, partly because it's free dammit. The various "criminal" groups that operate look to be examples of people that have done so in their bid to influence the game, I'm going to enjoy it here the underlying dynamic is insane.

I think I may try to gank someone in the near future, I'll probably fail miserably but I don't care because it looks like fun.

After all Eve is a game, and games are for having fun.