Crime & Punishment

For what its worth:


I was scammed for the first time (and last) by my first CEO for over 2bil isk (Corp investment pyramid scheme to fund his terrible pvp habits.) I have had my hauler ganked (learned to fit shield extenders and invulns and warp-to-0), shown the error of my ways while being horrible at solo PvP (learned not to forget to load cap boosters), killed in a low-sec entry system (learned not to ignore my autopilot route). In 2009 I started an Industry oriented corp from nothing to having over 50 members in hi-sec and had over 13bil in assets stolen by a trusted associated with access to sensitive corp hangars (learned how to better manage Corp roles).

I spent most of my time mentoring my members through the nasty bits of Eve, working and FCing through grief-decs, ganks and scams, passing my experience and knowledge on to my members. Hoping to impart wisdom before they fell victim.

I took that corp and all the miners, carebears and n00bs in it to a null-sec alliance and built it into over 75 members and topped out the killboards four monthes running and made a ton of isk while I was at it. RL took a turn for the absurd and I gave all my members away to another corp in the alliance to be able to manage my time better.

The point is, if you learn, you will profit in this game. If you taught those players anything, your actions, however you may feel about them, may have done some good. I would though offer that the feelings you experienced could very well be used as a catalyst for improving the Eve experience for others as a CEO yourself. Personal code of honor is a good thing and you will find many who are like minded and will return the good works done with loyalty and service.

Just remember, loyalty and service should not necessarily translate into roles and access to corporate hangars. Trust, just not too much.

- HV

Only situation in which I feel remotely bad for setting a trap and pulling it off is if the target is brand new to the game. (e.g. 96 hour old toon, and I didn't realise that until after setting the trap)

If you have the skills and capital to fly a Hulk you are not brand new.

But this is EVE - a game with two rules.

1) If you can't afford to lose it, don't undock in it.
2) Never trust anyone unless you can punch them in the face IRL.

Your short-term employers broke both. TBH if I were you I'd have shot the pods too.



Edit: You can have a fun playsession in this game where you lose in-game wealth. I remember the first time I suffered a significant ship loss (only a Myrmidron but was a fair bit of my wealth at the time, maybe 20% of what I owned) - I found a highsec to C1 wormhole and thought 'Let's explore this'. Ran three sites, got jumped and popped in the third one by three competent pirates.
That play session was memorable. Had a lot more fun losing ~50m ISK than I would have had making 50m running l3s in the same time.

Never feel bad. Eve is a place where people will kill you for .01 isk if they could. It's cold and unforgiving and you need to be.

If you want to consider yourself a pvper you'll have to get over feeling bad for destroying other people ships, because it will happen a lot. You need to think of it as if you are a boxer, your opponent should not be getting in the ring if being punched in the face in this context is going to seriously bother him (in this case EVE is the ring). If you want to be a pvper in low sec get used to the idea of your sec status getting low, very low. Being -10.0, people often seem to feel like I deserve to lose my ships but I look at it this way: If you came to low with a point fitted you're here to fight, probably to gank some easy target, the fact it didn't go well doesn't entitle you to sympathy. Besides that you and I are in the same boat, the only difference is that if your sec staus is high it's because you care about it (some because it makes them feel they are "good" by having high standing) and I don't care about my sec status. Someone has to get this pvp ball rolling though and I'm willing to give it a shove, whether you're ready or not.

People are often hesitant to engage, I have no idea what is running through their heads but most people even sitting in an obvious place and seeming to me like they want to fight but for some reason will not lock and aggress me until after I attack them. Since I'm -10.0 they do not even face consequences for doing so, so I tend to have to give them some, shall we call it incentive...Being the first to engage will drop your sec status but no pvp happens if someone doesn't start it, so be prepared to open fire on someone who may not "deserve" it so to speak. The line between pirate/non-pirate, good/bad is blurred and often crossed and your security status does not reflect what you are, but don't for one second, think that sitting next to a neutral in low sec is safe because he has 5.0 sec status. Despite my -10 security standing I do live by a code of my own, it basically boils down keeping my word once given, although other than ransoms, I almost never give it. I'm a pvper first and a pirate second. I want the killmail from your ship but I want the ransom from your pod but a ransom demand is not worth a damn if it's not backed up by the threat to follow through if you're not paid. I don't scam and while I won't say I never suicide gank highsec carebears, it is very rare. It's up to you to decide where you draw the line, so what do you consider dirty play?

The alternative is to try your hand at fighting only willing enemies in high sec but in my experience these are often traps or docking games and even though not every fight is a trap a good deal of them are. Suspect flagging may have complicated things but someone else will have to help you there, it doesn't apply to me so I didn't bother to learn it.

Are you refering to Theory666?

I feel a lot different opening fire on a wartarget or pirate(or anyone I can legally engage) in lowsec, than I would about ganking someone in highsec, vs shooting a "corpmate".
Its like the difference between Rocky beating up Apollo Creed in the ring, and breaking guy's fingers for a loan shark in a back alley.

I'm more or less the same way. My first and only scam was in UO, a fake house selling scam before they could be traded securely. I felt like ****, and I've never scammed in game again.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not averse to pvp. I'd even be okay with griefing in hi-sec and war deccing mining corps to exploit them and all that fun stuff.

The line for me is I don't enjoy earning the trust of a person then betraying them. To me that crosses a personal line I have. Of course, anything short of that line is fair game...

Even if you feel bad you probably understand that this "freedom" of action is why a lot of people play the game. This game is famous for its hostile nature. You can decide if you are going to help other people in this hostile game or be part of the group that are in essence its villains. Player villains are what make the game challenging and interesting for the players. Do some people enjoy playing the role too much? Probably. But if noone wanted to play that part, Eve would become very dull fast.

-J

"The silence is deafening."

It's not doing nasty things.

It's creating stories. That's the reason every ship is built - to be exploded in a way that tells a story.


Signed: Someone that found an AFK Slepnir in lowsec last night with a 1400m ISK clone.