EVE General Discussion

I'm much nicer on the forums than I am in RL.

It is fun to shoot people.

Now that we've covered the unlikely example of your "RL best friend back stabbing you in EVE", lets go on to a more common situation. The total stranger chatting you up and then betraying you, or the random ganker.

These are usually two different types of players you are likely to meet, so we'lll divide it up.

The Random Ganker:

As a general rule this type of person view's EVE in a very superficial way. They often are not interested in the deeper playstyles or content available. They view it as a big game of Counter Strike and look for targets of opportunity when ever and where ever they can. They don't invest emotionally in the game and could care less if you do, to them the objective is to score as many kills as possible any way they can.

This is a completely valid playstyle, just as it is in any other competetive game involving combat that you could care to mention.

The Corp Thief or Infiltrator:

This type of player is operating on a deeper level than the Random Ganker. He has a goal and the challenge for him is to attain that goal using his intellect by any means possible. To him, EVE is as much a social networking challenge as much as anything else.

His goal is usually either financial (he wants to amass a fortune quickly by taking YOURS) or his goal is political (he wants to take your resources and thereby put you at a disadvantage in other area's of the game).

This too is a valid playstyle, as these goals are encouraged strongly in this game. The victim is equally aware that this is a valid playstyle in the game and his goal is to successfully defend himself from these threats.


Interestingly, we hear no complaints when any of the types of play above are thwarted. Instead there is much excitement and loud boasting. Often, stopping the above players is considered to be the highlight of a persons EVE career.

Perhaps you should think about that for a moment.

I do understand roleplaying. If people were really roleplaying than this would be a defense. Call it the "roleplaying defense." But the thing is a conversation where you are discussing the game eve and agreeing that we will not steal the assets of the other person in that game is not role play. "Cearain" would not be talking ot "Lors Dornick" about an eve game. That is the problem.

Now again I do not say that its impossible to justify lying to others with the role play defense. I'm just making a few points.

1) its not so clear that when I talk to someone on vent using our real life names and talking about real life stuff as well as what we will do in "the game eve" that we are roleplaying.

2) There is a difference between talking about a game and what we will do in a game and talking "in game." If I tell a friend that I will not take his stuff in the game eve online I am not pretending I am "cearain" telling him that.

Hence the lines are blurred.

I can't answer for everyone. I can only say think for yourself. Are you lying to people in game because you are role playing a character that is very evil and you are just doing that as best you can? Or are you lying to people online so you can take their stuff and save money on subscriptions and/or personally benefit from not having to run missions.

Take for example a stupid scams that you see in contracts over and over. Someone will list a "Navy raven" and what they actually listed was a plain raven. Or maybe they say the list a set of implants as a full crystal set but the omega implant is a grail implant. Or maybe they list 2 betas instead of an epsilon. Are these people doing this because they are "roleplaying" a bad guy or are they doing this for personal real life gain of not having to grind missions or saving money on subscriptions? Does it matter that they recycle characters to keep putting these contracts up - or is it still roleplay?

I'm not saying this is conduct is horrible. I'm just saying its not clear that the roleplay defense really works here.

Why is this going to be unlikely? Is it unlikely that your real life best friend would bluff you in poker?

Honestly if your best friends does a grab and run on you in EVE, he isn't your best friend.
It's not quite like bluffing in poker or cheating at Monopoly, the time invested in a MMORPG is huge. It would be a **** move to ruin many months of your friend's efforts 4 no raisins, no?

That would depend entirely on your relationship with your best friend and how competetive it is. For many guys, who have been buddies for years, it would be the source of much amusement (once the yelling stopped).

Also, losing all of your assets in EVE ruins absolutely nothing unless you place a disproportionate value on non-existant items that don't belong to you to begin with.

Most people play this game for fun.

There is a difference between placing a disproportionate value on something and saying the value is completely non-existant. You value your internet spaceship assets. If you didn't you likely wouldn't play at all. If you didn't value the assets, to some extent, then there would be no excitment in the game.

I value my internet spaceship assets at somewhat less then the cost to buy them with plexes. So yeah when I lose something expensive I feel it. I don't go crazy and rage at everyone like an idiot. But yes there is some value of what was lost.

You keep wanting things to be black and white but they aren't. You want to claim the internet spaceships have absolutely no value. You also want to claim that anything you do remotely relating to eve couldn't possibly mean you are a ____ in real life.

Your mind seems unable to grasp certain subtle distinctions that blur these lines.

I distinctly remember Diablo 2 item scamming ruining a few friendships in my social circle back when we were 12 years old.

Stealing all the stuff I've spent two year accumulating by playing with my best friend creates true grief, in that ruins the fun that I can have in Eve. After the yelling stopped, it would be hard to trust that guy just as much as BEFORE the **** move. Friend or not, trustless abusive relationships suck. Why would your ''friend'' do this except to **** you off? (Assuming he already has access to the corp hangar). I don't have time to waste with idiots who can't see how pissing off your best friend for no reason is a bad idea.

You answered your own question!

The people that don't play 'fairly' aren't immoral - they just have a different perception of EVE than you. They see it like an elaborate version of COD, but you see it as some sort of fluffy game where the only bad guys are the NPCs.

EVE is about PVP, in many different ways. It's not players being immoral - it's you not realising what kind've game you're playing.