Crime & Punishment

Being away for the holidays, I did not get a chance to comment on the recent Announcement From Gorila thread before it was locked. I am therefore making this post, as I feel my viewpoint is important.

I started playing Eve back in early May of 2014, about 8 months ago. To date, I have never been ganked in high security space. That's not what got me into the Anti-gank (AG) community. I learned of ganking and the Anti-ganking channel via someone mentioning buying permits in the rookie help channel. Since that time, I have become very much on the side of the AG community, primarily in opposition to CODE and their backers. Not just because I like to play the good guy -- which I do -- but more so because of what I have seen and heard from both sides over the last 8 months.

Each side has vocal members claiming the other side is toxic. But what I have personally witnessed over my last 8 months is a lot of arguably toxic activity coming from the CODE side and very little if any coming from the AG side.

I don't have anything against role playing, but I expect players to remain civil and respectful towards others. If tempers flair over "bad guy" activity, I think it is important that the "bad guy" be able to step out of character and attempt to explain and defuse the situation. In my 8 months, I have never seen the "bad guys" step out of character, except in forum posts where the "bad guys" use it as a tool to attempt to paint the AG community in a bad light. When this happens, a person role playing a bad guy becomes indistinguishable from someone who is truly trying to hurt people, albeit through a game. To borrow a quote from a movie, "Deep down you may still be that same great kid you used to be. But it's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you."

Furthermore, this role playing, if that is truly what it is, should not extend outside the context of the game. But an argument can be made that it does. I would argue that the take over of the Anti-ganking channel by CODE in late December went beyond role play into attacking the mechanics of the game that allow players to communicate. That is perhaps debatable, but it's not the only example. There are the blogs. CODE players troll me personally about my Eve blog, which stretches and arguably surpasses what qualifies as role play. The fact that "tear collecting" is a phrase gankers use is also evidence that their intent goes beyond role play into attempts to emotionally attack real people. When the Anti-ganking channel was taken over, before I was muted I suggested that perhaps they had stolen Gorila's account, and my suspicion was met with laughter by members of CODE. Given the severity of what I was suggesting, it would have been a good time for a good person within CODE to step out of character to set the matter straight. That didn't happen. Then there was the whole bonus room fiasco. None of these things by themselves prove anything, but all of these things together start to build a convincing case that it is CODE and their ilk that are the real "toxic" community. It is for this reason that I hold such a dim view of CODE, and the reason I am rather harsh towards Gorila for joining up with CODE and allowing them to vandalize the Anti-ganking channel, even if it was only for a short period of time.

Maybe I've got it all wrong. But CODE has spent the last 8 months convincing me I'm not. It takes time to build trust. Right now, I trust that members of CODE are generally disrespectful towards other players and are a detriment to the Eve community. If that is not really true, it will take at least as long to undo that damage to my perception of them. I know there are likely those within CODE that believe they are good people and that some of the AG community is unjustly biased against them. But perhaps this viewpoint has been taken to the extreme to where general respect has been lost, and it has led them into becoming the very thing they claim not to be.

Believe what you will. I believe that honor trumps all. I may not agree with some of the folks in the AG community on certain issues, but it looks to me that most of the time their hearts are in the right place, even when I think they are wrong. For that, they have honor. It saddens me that I can't say the same for CODE.

I know some CODE members have reported receiving real life threats from members of the AG community. I am not personally aware of any such threats. But I would like to emphasize that I do not condone such activity. Real life threats are never appropriate. If someone feels they have been wronged in a serious way, they need to maintain proper discipline, keep a cool head, mind their tongue, and report it. But always remain respectful.

CODE. members play the role they have defined in their RP style. Thanks to the freedom the game allows. They aren't here to be the "good guys" which is a very relative statement depending on which "side" we see the things.
Hijacking a chat channel is part of the gameplay too, as long as the things doesn't cross the RL line, line that a lot of the "victims" cross without any boundaries. These "victims", taking this game too much seriously, reinforce the thing to continue in this CODE RP, it's a common mechanism in the human race behavior.
At the end we are all players, playing into the same universe, even if it can disturb some people out there.
And CODE. is part of this environment.

If CODE. was some millions of lines of code (no pun intended) and command script instead of real players, would it change something?

Oh goody,

Another corp to perma dec. I will just slot you in to start in a few weeks.

I know who you are, I have seen you talk in AG. You don't see it because you are one of them.

Yeah,

My original response I wanted to post was "Pot... meet Kettle"

LOL

Cannibal Kane does not sleep. He waits.

Edit: Also, loving the Blood Raiders jacket you've got there! I was thinking of getting the Guristas set.

End of the Argument: Role Play vs Real Life

I'm making one last statement regarding the argument that who someone is in game does not reflect on who they are in real life, and the impact it has had on relations between CODE and the Anti-ganking (AG) community.

This argument has been going round and round lately, and it's getting tired. Forum participants are tired of it, Anti-ganking moderators are tired of it, everyone is getting tired of it. So I'm saying one last piece and then letting it go.

I have never outright suggested that the average supporter of CODE is a bad person in real life. What I have suggested and continue to believe is that by pushing the boundaries of role play too far (under the assumption that it is role play), they have made it very difficult for others to distinguish between role play and real life. That the argument persists incessantly is evidence of that. Some CODE supporters will say on forums or elsewhere that in game behavior does not reflect on who people are in real life, but their argument always ends there. Have you ever seen one of these people step out of character about specific incidents and demonstrate that there is a good friendly person underneath? I haven't. Not to say it hasn't happened, but I haven't seen it. I want to see it. I haven't. It makes their argument feel shallow and suspect.

Ultimately, it should be no surprise that some people continue to question the real life character of CODE members and affiliates. It is the bed they have made for themselves. They blame the AG community for not being able to tell the difference between role play and real life when it is they who bare much of the blame for making it so incredibly difficult to tell in the first place.

I write this not to badger or berate CODE members and affiliates. I write this hoping they will read it, consider my words carefully, and start to change the manner in which they conduct themselves. I will take a leaf of faith and accept that the CODE community is mostly good people. But you have to do something too. Step out of character more often, leave the whole "tear collecting" meme behind, and try to show people that you are here to have fun and not just to trample on the fun of others. Do that, and you will find many people, myself included, be much more amiable towards you. I will never join you; I like playing the good guy; but I and many others would very much like to play against you with more a feeling of confidence that we play against friends.

Not enough bacon IMO

I have some pillows going cheap In Jita. Just pop one under your head when reading these type of threads and if you drift off to happy la-la land your head lands on said pillow.

Right, because all the actual death threats that have been documented and reported to CCP came from CODE players.

Sorry, reality says otherwise.

As for the cesspool that is/was 'Anti-Ganking', I found it endlessly amusing to see 'white knights' get run out of the channel...or flat out banned....for trying to help the 'poor ganking victims'.

The AG garbage was so bad that Gorila left and joined CODE.

CCP needs to actually shut down the entire channel because it is so toxic that it really does give the game a bad name. Permabans need to be handed down. I estimate over 90% of the 'regulars' in that channel violate the EULA repeatedly and with malice aforethought.

So I urge everyone to report the entire AG channel.

The chat logs need to be pulled and just about damn near everyone in that channel needs a ban. Hopefully a permanent one.

Get Chribba mad at you and find out....:)