EVE New Citizens Q&A

A "Carebear" is a very specific term. Here is how I define it;

Anyone who does everything they can to avoid ship-on-ship PvP and...
- proceeds to whine about being "forced" into such a situation (usually on the forums and/or petitions)
- refuses to learn from the experience and adapt accordingly.
- wants the game be changed to suit their needs and perceptions.

So you can be an Industrialist or Miner or Mission Runner... but not be a "Carebear."


edit: in general... it is used as a "catch all" term for any activity or playstyle that others perceive as "without risk" or "non-PvP"... or merely as a derogatory term to either make people mad or show affection (similar to "nerd" or "geek" or "dweeb" in real life).


tldr; in my eyes... as long as you do not fulfill the three criteria I listed above the edit... you are not a "Carebear." Carry on.

bumping a miner and then running away is a bigger carebear act than mining

I have to wait for my skills, they are all in Orca stuff at the moment.. It was what i was training for before my girlfriend got mad.. So i wanted to finish that up so i can support my Corporation a bit more, but that skill plan is basically complete in 6 days, then after that i am focusing 7mil SP on the PvP stuff, then back to Orca (i know it is going to take a long time to get 7mil SP.. But i prefer to have somewhat of a plan so i can have a guide) but ill be involved in PvP after 9 hours of my Orca finishing, already got the fit ready and waiting in my hanger (Condor, not going to expensive for my first few rounds).



Haha! Thanks! That is what i thought :P

And thank you both for my first too likes :P haha! I'm already on the road to greatness :P haha!

That is a very definition of a n00b, not a carebear, IMHO. Carebear is just plain non-PvP fighting character.

A non-carebear is someone that takes action to protect themselves from predators.

A carebear is someone that whines to CCP whenever someone tries to prey on them.

I'd also add that carebears generally feel a sense of solidarity with each other, while non-carebears see someone else losing as an opportunity. A carebear might see a Hulk killmail linked and think "why did those bad gankers harass a harmless miner?". A non-carebear (that mines) will think "Excellent. Less competition for my ore, and so I'll get more ISK for it. Their loss, my gain. Now, do I offer to sell the ganker a replacement ship, or is there too much risk that will make them notice me?"

An example of pvp-carebears are some gate-campers

they'll stomp lone pilots all day
but as soon as a small roaming fleet appears ... they are gone



it's why coalitions in nulsec are formed, the more people you have with you, the less individual risk you take

Carebear guide

the so-called peeveepee crowd has more carebears %wise than the whole EVE population.

Indeed these High-sec "PvPers" are very much like Georgy Porgy if you recall the rhyme. I like to kill reds and suspects in High and notice that many will commit an act and then hide in station til the flag wears off.

carebear is a term used to refer to someone that avoids PvP pure and simple.

A lot of people like to put other stuff into it but you can look up definitions for it on google or urban dictionary and come to your own conclusions.

If you want to look at it from a philosophical stand point the continuum or duality that has carebear and hyper competitiveness at it's extremes is the old ego versus universal oneness. Or maybe empathy versus selfishness. I like to call it the little me versus big me duality.

The way that I break it down is into competitive game play versus cooperative game play. In that duality as other's have said it's not so much what you do as it is why you are doing it. Carebear is a mindset or a perspective not a way of acting although there are certain traits that typically go along with the mindset the doing aspect in my opinion is not part of the definition.

Many people who are hyper competitive assume that people who don't like competition do not like loosing or that people who are competitive really like winning and neither of those can be said as truisms. From my personal experience as a carebear I can say that my most negative experiences that I can recall in competitive situations in very early childhood are situations where I "won". On the other end of that if you look into the psychology of gambling addiction you will find that while the typical gambling addict will claim that they like winning they don't actually feel a sense of satisfaction until they have lost everything. So I don't think you can say it comes down to winning and loosing.