EVE General Discussion

It's more the 'victim mentality' and it's not just in EVE.

Increasingly in today’s western society, everyone is a victim of something, and they want compensation for it damnit.

Someone has to pay for their feelings of victimhood and since, inside EVE, CCP does not recompense them financially for their hurt feelings they substitute this by giving themselves a payment of moral superiority over the other gamer that merely bettered them in an internet spaceship pvp game .

It’s all kind of funny and pathetic at the same time.

Makes me want to blow up some internet spaceships tbh.

I think only immoral people in EVE are those who spend years in a corp and then suddenly screw out everyone in a heart beat because they feel bored.

Well, anyone using the animal world as an analogy for what we do is just simply incorrect. We can't know what they're thinking. And so, we can't know their motivations. We can only observe their behavior and infer what they are doing and why. But it's all in reference to what we are as human beings, not a lion on African plans.

On the other hand, we are animals. And if we gain enjoyment from torturing other's, then why shouldn't the animal world be the same? And so there are examples to draw upon. I would dare say that there are examples of both empathetic and sadistic behavior in the animal kingdom. I'll not get into the specifics because that's not really what this thread is about.

Yes, I contradict, even myself. It's purely an example of why animal analogs are poor substitutes for proper descriptions in this thread. Anywho.

The simple answers are: people derive enjoyment from others' suffering. People derive enjoyment from others' pleasures. People derive enjoyment from their own suffering. People derive enjoyment from their own pleasure. And this happens at random times in the same person and different people. That pretty much wraps up why everyone in this game does what they do.

I don't need to know why people do what they do. It's all human nature. The only real morality in the real world is that which people choose to observe in obedience of the law and socially acceptable behavior if one is inclined to participate in society as a contributing and accepted member. But, we have very different laws in Eve, places of lawlessness. However, there is a social imposition of morality in most groups as well as an absence in some. Then again, the absence of socially acceptable behavior is acceptable and expected behavior for one to be accepted in some circles. So, I'd say, if you're trying to understand the whys then go pick up a sociology book and start reading. They've got it pretty spot on.

This is the part of it that I have had trouble with from the start. Maybe it's a 'me' thing, but my morals and ethics follow me where ever I go. It's not optional.

So I guess you never play games like BF3 or CoD?

Interesting question - I play COD2 often and when I smack someone in the head with a rifle butt I giggle like Loreena Bobbit in a sausage factory.

But there is no labor for COD or most of the FPS games. You get killed, you respawn, and that's that.

Certainly the "expensive death" approach gives us reason not to compare EvE with a FPS.

There's the sandbox element to consider too. in the majority of FPS games, there is NOTHING else to do but kill the other players or get killed.

So if you launch an FPS game, it's already accepted that you will kill and get killed.

But many could say that EvE is also such, or decide, this sandbox and all, that is how they will play it. I could imagine with deep pockets - or a penchant for cheap frigates - having everything set up in a station next door to a lowsec dangerous system, a player could be set up in almost the same manner as if in a FPS. Get killed, respawn, (make sure clone is updated!), get in new ship lined up next to say 100 others like it, and be back in business 1 or two jumps away soon enough, GCC a factor depending on system sec status.

That's not really the issue here. Some can and will set up that way, and God bless them if they can find enough fights that way to make it matter.

It's about being an asshat and griefing, not PVP.

Again, were I a closet asshat, I would still claim it's the way the game is supposed to be played, or that I am roleplaying a douche, or whatever, but the mark of morality is based on how you handle it.

You can be a soldier, ordered to occupy a foreign land, much against the will of the people living there, shoot enemy soldiers, and maintain your post.....

or you can kill and sexually assault non-combatants, destroy farms on a whim, and use fragmentation grenades to clear houses.

If you do the latter, do you still say "hey, I was just serving my country"?

If you grief the defenseless, relish in the tears, smack talk them in local, post the chat logs (leaving out your insults to them of course) or make a youtube, can you say "hey I was just playing EvE"?

I'd say folks that play just because they enjoy kicking over someones sandcaslte for the fun of it would likely do the same thing in RL if the lack of consequense in Eve was also part of the RL. If they wouldn't then they don't understand that the two actions are basically the same. You destroy someones work product from the only thing we have in life, time because you find taking something away from another and inflicting pain in itself enjoyable. I would bet if you could get away with it in RL you'd do the same thing in RL.

Someone in an early post pointed out quite elequently that Eve is different than a FPS because the only goal in an FPS is to kill other players and there is no real cost of death. There is also no persisted items of value like we have in Eve.

It's funny you fear RL consequence to your in game actions. Maybe if you think being an "asshat" is no big deal you might want to ask how it would get someone upset enough to share their opinion of your actions in a very difficult to misunderstand in RL manner.

You might claim that folks that take "not playing well with others" in a game as a serious breach of RL morality are "crazy" but I'd remind you a big piece of the folk we share this space marble with consider just the "thought" of an immoral act as the same as having done it.

What is moral is a very tricky subject and I believe impossible to define as an absolute but I do know that if I do something to someone for fun that I wouldn't like happening to me I might need to rethink why I'm doing it.

Issler

same goes for random explorers. I'm just here for the data.....why you got to kill me?