Crime & Punishment

Congrats on the first kill.

My first solo kill was a Harbinger. I docked as soon as he started shooting me. Not to play station games, but to Google what a Harbinger was and look at my combat logs to see whether he was using long or close range weapons :). Then I undocked to glory.

I've always defined a carebear as someone who wishes for and plays Eve like it was a single player game.

A carebear is no longer a carebear when you enjoyed that rush just before you died more then the loss you had when it all ended .

That's step 1, getting out there and getting that first kill and first solo kill.

It's easy to be calm when you have the situation under control. Tonight we flew our 6 man gang against ~20 FW targets in armor cruisers with logi support and even with an overview that full and a malediction looping round to get a warp in for his fleet while we are quickly swapping targets trying to drop one of their ships before the logi can react and no one falters. The malediction finally gets a warp in for his fleet and all they catch is our engine trails. As bad as it looks on the surface we know what to do and have this under control.

Step 2 is the ability to keep your head on straight when things get hectic and you can even predict what the enemy is trying to do, it also involves pushing the chills until after the fight ends. A fight like that one felt like about 30 seconds, the FRAPS was 11 minutes. Sadly we never did manage to break the logi chain, not surprising since their logi = our gang for numbers.

However, you officially lose your carebear status as soon as your income stream becomes a tool to set your enemies on fire and not as a means of expanding you collection of ships for you to look at yourself in.

Surprisingly, sometimes carebears get it right.

This is a tricky question, but it has multiple answers.

The easiest?

You are no longer a carebear when you care very, very little about those three little letters that keep a person grinding away at space rocks and shooting little red crosses that will just spawn over and over again as long as you "take gate" or hit "accept mission."

You are no longer a carebear when you stop being confined to a belt, a deadspace pocket, or a beacon. It is that moment when you realize that you are helping or creating meaningful emergent content within the sandbox.

Then, ofc, I can always be smug and say that you are only not a carebear if you are Code-compliant.

My wife would tell you that no longer being a carebear requires you to live in null. This coming from a null bear who builds my ships for me, a high sec resident.

Essentially YOU are the gauge on whether or not you are a carebear anymore.

The realization came to me right before incursions were nerfed. I hated the "I gotta fit green mods, and blue mods, and purple mods.......I GOTTA FITZ ALL THE MODZ!!!!!" elitist mentality of said community. I took my earnings from that final week, plexed up some accounts, and did my tour of duty out in null sec.

Then I resubbed a few months and blew a bil on ****-fit AC Jaguars at 70-100 mil a pop and lost them all trying to teach myself PvP in faction warfare(to little avail.)

Then I found a deep love for market and forum pvp.

Then....

I found the New Order and Belligerent Undesirables, and knew I was home.

Carebeardom is in the eye of the beholder. It is also a title that you can shed on your own, without the justification of the "baddies of EvE Online." Just saying.

He screams whilst safely deccing highsec carebear corps who can't fight back.

PRRRRRRO PVP.

I believe its the moment when you can no longer bare to care. You either unsub or awox the crap out of the person who was, a moment ago, your best space buddy and steal his stuff.

Or at least fit the orca in a way that's not worth your time or effort. License is more reliable though. :)

My first suicide gank the guy asked my why I killed him, "Because you were the first one who didn't warp off." I knew ganking in a brutix was a foolish waste of money, but wanted a guaranteed kill. How was I supposed to know he was flying a 100+ million isk retriever with storyline mining upgrades and faction drones?

I really need to see if he's still mining... maybe he has a new ship?

I disagree with the notion that a player that avoids combat is not a pvper. "Carebear" is repeatedly redefined by winners and is used as an excuse to demonize and laugh at the losers. Remember that everything in eve is pvpable.. You can't tell if a person is a pvper or not based on whether they avoid combat.