EVE General Discussion

I don't really know what the bonus room thing is, nor do I care. But does this announcement mean that we can no longer ransom and/or extort players as part of pirate activities? Because that's what it sounds like.

I could be ransoming a ship, and the victim could say that I'm utilizing his in-game assets in order to harass them in real life, because the threat of loss of their assets means more to them than the time they invested into the game, and makes them feel real, tangible grief. Anyone who pays for PLEX could also, theoretically, say that I'm harassing them in real life when attempting a ransom because I affect their real-life finances, and not only their in-game progress.

Even I have to agree that these explanations would fit within Falcon's definition of harassment. So, I'd like to know what we can and can't do. Because it really sounds like we can no longer do anything, as long as the target claims to feel real-life grief.

I can't help but point out that when the last statement was made, we pretty much all said that super vague statements that nobody can interpret to really mean anything don't solve any issue.

Until an actual concrete statement is made for people to work with, you'll just have to keep posting the same vague thing since nobody can tell what you mean.

If it bothers you then quit and find a game that supplies random players with that kind of detailed info.

Oh...right...none do.

I guess it's time to get used to single player games.

Mr Epeen

We can ransom, scam, repeatedly kill, steal, laugh at, point fingers and whatever you want to do (within the EULA)... INGAME against the CHARACTER. The second you start to target the PERSON behind the character is where the problem potentially will arise and then it depends on the intent, severity and CCP's discretion what, if any, the implications will be.

So people who have a working brain and see the game for what it is and leave it all in game, no problems there, go have fun. But for the few folks who apparently have issues making that clear distinction between a game and RL (or do this on purpose for whatever psychiatric evaluation-worthy reason) it, again, needs to be made official and public that CCP doesn't accept that ****.

I fully support this. Eve is a virtual world, and activities should remain inside the virtual world. Using Eve assets as a mechanism to get people on coms and humiliate/emotionally abuse them is not part of the game, and Eve assets should not be used for that purpose.

Right, I understand this. But what I want to know is what stops the victim from claiming that he was being harassed as a "person behind the character" each time someone else tries to do something he doesn't like. Because from what I've read on this matter so far, it doesn't look like the "bonus room" scamming involved any sort of out-of-game interpersonal relations in which people had to reveal their identities, or anything of that nature. I could be wrong of course. If you were ransoming me right now, what would stop me from claiming that your actions made me cry/depressed/suicidal in real life, and that I was tangibly affected out of game by your behavior? Or that I was forced to buy a PLEX to pay the ransom you demanded, because I had no ISK otherwise, and didn't want to lose my ship?

I just want CCP to address these inconsistencies.

Keep in mind I'm not picking sides here. I haven't yet developed a stance on this bonus room thing, which I'm just now becoming familiar with.

Are recordings any different than chat logs in terms of their nature?

The only way I can see for this to be true is based on a technicality, because EVE doesn't provide the capability for you to record voice chat, and any communication out-of-game, even about in-game activities, can be considered can be considered out-of-character.

For example, can a person be banned for ransoming a corporation member in an awox-style attack, if he's communicating with the victim on a corporate TS/Vent server, and not using in-game chat?

There's a 3 hour recording on sound-cloud of a man and his wife taken past breaking point, when they already had possession of all his assets. Not only did they not stop when it when it was clear that the man was agitated well beyond necessary, but they further increased their efforts to humiliate him. To top this off, they then uploaded the audio of this as a trophy for what great job they had done to these individuals, and shared them publicly.

Now, I absolutely love scamming and making people sing for their pod (even if they still blow it up anyway). I however, do not appreciate when people find it necessary to break an individual down to point of physical distress for the sake of self enjoyment alone. There is no other word that describes it better, than simply 'harassment'. There was no in game advantage to it, at all. This unfortunately is not an easy task to summarise in a simple catch-all rule, which is why people may cry that it's vague, but honestly, it's the best they can do.

Now, there's going to be a lot of "victim blaming" by people who haven't experienced it, and that's fine. I used to be the same way before a group of people felt it was necessary to launch a campaign against myself, resulting in two swat invasions of my home for the sake of seeing a reaction out of me. Just because my FPS clan beat their favourite FPS clan out of a bracket.

It's very difficult in those situations, when receiving such hatred that you can't comprehend as to why you're deserved of it, when you simply play a video game for the hope of having fun. You make decisions that at the time are fuelled by emotion, that don't seem so logical in hindsight. It's tough.

These people in question of the Bonus Room selectively targeted 'prey' that they hoped they could illicit a response out of. They've selectively chosen someone who has shown to be emotionally unstable, in the desires to watch them crumble for means of self entertainment. Their 'prey' have all their assets on the line, and are asked to do "just one more thing". It's sunken cost fallacy in play, their 'prey' believe that they can do just one more thing to see their troubles go away. That's why they don't stop. It's the same reason someone with a gambling addiction doesn't simply stop, they think they can get it back.

That's why HTFU doesn't apply to the victims, and why should they anyway? If they simply just had all their stuff taken away from them, and stopped there, then they should have HTFU. But they didn't. They crossed the line into making a person break down. It's an attack on the person at that point, well beyond their avatar.

I implore people to go out and scam. It makes the risk factor of EvE so great. Take all their stuff in a grand heist. Get them to sing for their pod. Just exhibit a bit of human decency if you decide to add the human factor by taking it out of EvE.

So is the line for real-life harassment going to remain vague?

Some of us enjoy harming other players with a passion, and the boundaries between character and person are bound to be crossed without clear guidelines on what isn't allowed.

If you think you might have crossed a line, you probably did. Clear lines would only be abused and make a mess for the GMs. With a grey area, they can better decide on a case by case basis without internet lawyers going "technically" on them.