EVE General Discussion

We were doing it before you ever heard of this game.

Piracy is a negative income occupation.

The golden age of piracy in EvE ended when people started dishonoring ransoms AND killing everything that moved for the sake of the almighty killboard.

whatever would come up, people will game it to nothing.

I could imagine a different kind of status, or a reputation status similar to security stats. Basically you pay a ransom with a "pay ransom" instead of give money button, and if you die in the same constellation as the person you paid, or get killed by that person within some amount of time, they lose reputation. This would actually help players learn who the real pirate is versus the scammer. Of course in the midst of this idea I hear the crying alrady "What if I don't kill the ransomee in the same constellation!! waa waaa!".

Well then, perhaps in order not to get blamed, you now have to protect that person. Who, after all, sits on a gate ransoming people without control of the system so much that they cannot assure safe passage?

Oh wait - there are no real pirates who would control and secure a space lane. It's all just random camp/blob without any real actual game going on. I forget.

Cancel the order for the eye patch.

(Though imagine if you have to have a certain high reputation as a REAL pirate to get an eye patch from NEX? Just thinking... nothing will change)

Ironically I like this idea. Put in collateral of some sort on the back end to discourage cheating like a short term contract. Set the date and time yourself, isk up front sort of deal. Could use a variation of the contract system really for it as its got most of the code in place for a formal agreement.

Then as a pirate you could create formal ransom agreements, escort, free to pass etc and upon scramming them simply offer it as a pop up window to the victim. Victim could fight it out or accept the terms, or offer a counter offer within the same system. Set the time frames etc, "taxation" cuts etc. Then like contracts you could check it to see if they upheld them, dishonored them, how many they had, isk values etc. Itd not only be a formalization but a validation of true piracy...epeen and ehonor and all that jazz.



But as to the OP Piracy as a Golden Age is long dead. I agree with Herzog on this one. Its BOOM HEADSHOT!! stuff now. Its just far to easy, theres no real repercussions and its an alts game. Low used to be fun as did null a lot more than it is now. Players created it to be that way themselves and have noone else to blame really. Imo its about Eves "bigness" or rather smallness and population growth thats created that though.

Dont get me wrong Eve is fun, its about building and blowing things up but at the same time its simply changed. Some of its good change some not so good and its just a matter of perspective and opinions regarding which is which. Opinions are like assholes everyones got one and they all ******* stink.

Piracy is indeed fairly broken as a game mechanic. To begin with, piracy is really just a matter of semantics. Except for FW folks, you are always a pirate to your target. Regardless of what ever 'cause' you fight for, all that PvP is just the same as what 'pirates' do. Ransoms are pretty much the only functional difference- indeed low sec guns will fire on someone calling themselves an anti-pirate the same as they will for me and my Black Rebel friends. Only FW really qualifies as fighting for a legitimate national military. Everyone else is a pirate or hired gun- all random PvP is a form of piracy.
It goes to the issues of low sec. Generally, in Eve the closer something is to a RL counterpart, the better it works. Like a large fleet with specific roles being filled works remarkably like a RL battle fleet- and it works well. But piracy in Eve doesn't reflect it's RL counter part very well- the Age of Sail.
In short, we have no way to intercept passing (preferably soft targets) traffic in low sec, except to camp gates which requires large ships to absorb gate fire- where most pirates favor small, hit and run type ships.Our other option is camping a static plex, which means usually no one runs the plex and only comes to fight- not exactly 'piracy' in any meaningful sense. The truth is, we do mostly arranged duels because we're PvP enthusiasts. Piracy is a pretext for enjoying PvP.
In the grand scheme of null being a resource producing area, and high sec being the market areas, then low sec should be that dangerous passage between the two where pirates lurk and can halt unescorted traffic.
I think bubbles should work in low and not null- to reflect the local authority of your sov -claiming alliance in null, and the lack of security on the long low sec route to empire space to sell those wares. That would put more requirement to actually escort those resources to market rather than just blast thru low sec fearing little other than the rare gate camp. It would allow 'pirates' to act like pirates rather than just PvP enthusiasts, which is probably a more accurate description of most pirates.
We suffer from the negative connotation of the term 'pirate' without actually doing hardly anything differently than everyone else. Whether you shoot people to collect kill mails or moon goo, it's all functionally the same. If anything, our ransoming of ships and pods is more civilized than anyone else, who are almost universally NBSI.

Sorry to burst the bubble on piracy in Eve. But it's nothing like non-pirates seem to think.