EVE General Discussion

Apologies for not quoting all, but it's for keeping the post easier to read.

TLDR: Future property laws may end up forcing CCP to either shut down or bend to governmental international and national rules anyway. So the question of should a gank be profitable is easy: yes, but penalties will end up being more severe.

You my friend, are more or less spot on. What you wrote down is the exact behavior of what is going on here. I too favor to limit the strong in favor of the weak, granted that I would only punish a consequence of an "illegal" action and not the action itself. (so don't make ganks harder to do, but make the punshiment more severe if you gank)

What you wrote down defies human civilization. Essentially, the Darwinism approach can not be applied to human societies. It's simply because we as humans have developed more intelligence than the average animal. So implementing Social Darwinism in EVE is possible, but then the natural course of action is to limit the strong. CCP doesn't really want to do that, but they are on thin ice here. At the end of the day, we're all human beings. And in the real world, our national laws protect the weak from the strong. Suppose you would gank me with your friends in EVE and I would get a few of my friends and come to your house to wreck the place or worse actually harm you, then your constitution protects you from my actions. And to be honest, I'd rather have a beer with you than anything else, but that's beside the point.

The problem is that there's a thin line on the matter of property. This question has been asked before by those who favor the strong: "Why shouldn't you be able to rob people of their valuables for profit?" The answer is that nearly in all countries in the world (if not all), such actions are unconstitutional. And of course, it's just a game right? Yes, I agree, but how much of the effort someone has put into a game (or perhaps even RL money) should be protected by government law? There are no laws yet on property law in relation to online games, but this will likely happen with mmos becoming more popular each generation.

And then too, CCP will need to bend to the rules (whether they like it or not) and protect the weak from the strong. After all, if you see a person walking around with lots of dollars in a suitcase, you can't rob him, because if you do, you're going to jail (or maybe receive a death penalty in some countries). At some point, online gaming ends up falling under the same property rights as real life property does. All those of you who favor the strong in EVE may hate it, but if you all really think about it. It's what your constitution is all about: Protect an individual against another or a group of individuals. So you too are protected by it in real life, and likely, in your online gaming actions as well.

Nothing. At that point, it's no longer a game, but gambling and/or an investment scheme. There's also pretty much nothing to suggest that anything of the kind will ever happen. All cases that people like to cite in relation to such activities have been cases of real-world crimes being committed over virtual goods, rather than the other way around.

…and just like gambling is a different thing from investment banking, companies will be able to say that, no, nothing you put in will in any way guarantee that you get anything back.

You mean the same humans who fled earth and it's galaxies to go through Eve gate and eventually become the Gallente/Amarr/Caldari/Minmatar people, or do you mean the players who control the pilots that have no bearing on the innerworkings of a game based on intergalactic spaceships?

If you mean the player, keep in mind that when you play free online poker, you run the risk of becoming broke, regardless of how much time you sit at the table. It's simply the nature of the game you elect to play.

You don't actually own any of your in-game currency, CCP does. As such, CCP is free to redistribute it among any of its players. If they wanted they could drain everyone's wallet at the next downtime and give it to the Mittani, or Chribba.
It'd probably kill Eve, but it wouldn't be illegal.

Also I don't think we should be looking to emulate Russia or China too closely.

Second life is an entirely different kettle of fish, people can and do make a living wage in second life because linden dollars can be exchanged directly for real life currency, which is why it is a taxable income, if you try that in Eve, CCP will ban you, and rightfully so.

Linden dollars (SLD) are listed on a few exchange rate sites, ISK is also listed, but only as the Icelandic Krona, not the virtual version we are familiar with.

China and Russia are totalitarian regimes, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to see them try and interfere in virtual worlds, fortunately countries like that are not the norm.

I'd suggest looking up the laws that govern CCP then. See how that applies. Beyond that, it wouldn't belong in this post since that would include hacking the account and doing a pilot-pilot transfer. Awoxing, scamming ingame et al is not against the virtual laws of CCP's world.

We are talking about using a spaceship for it's intended use; to blow up another spaceship.

Agreed, but the post was in reaction to the question: why can't you gank someone for profit. And also in reaction to Soltice's excellent comment.

Back to the topic at hand then: Yes you should gank for profit. But as I said before, the punishment for doing so should be more severe. It's now the weak individual vs the strong group. Then the weak individual should form up as well right? You're absolutely right, but not everyone plays an MMO the way you must play it. If that would be the case, then CCP would have to force players out of the NPC corps and have them join with player-corps. (Come to think of it, would that be a bad thing I wonder?)

Anyway, as far as the topic goes, let's not de-rail any further. Though I do find these conversations on forums very interesting. That's what you get when you've studied sociology I suppose .

Yep I'm sure the Icelandic government is going to implement a virtual property law that effects a company that is one of its biggest exporters, and has more customers than the entire population of the country they govern.



Actually I'm from the UK, we don't have an official written constitution. We've never needed one.

Others have played as carebares even longer. No where does is say pirating has to yield a profit. Pirates should be able to pirate in hi-sec if they choose just not profit from it.

Pirates have been in Eve for exactly the same amount of time as the carebears, namely a decade, which bizarrely enough is the exact amount of time that Eve has been around. Your statement is an outright falsehood with regards to Eve.

Why shouldn't you be able to rob people of their valuables for profit?