EVE General Discussion

According to self-reporting, we have instances of persons playing this game that have impairments to their empathetic faculty.

Is everyone in EVE a sociopath? No. Some might be.
Does everyone in EVE have a psychiatric disorder? No. Some might have.

Are there douches in EVE? Yes.

On the otherhand, why do people get so defensive on the part of claiming "Im really a good guy IRL, I just play a bad one in EVE".

99.9% of EVE doesnt care who or what you are IRL.

I agree. In fact, I bet the amount of "anti-social" or belligerent behaviour that goes on in this game is disappointingly low for the designers of the game. CCP spent much effort making us vulnerable to the other players, but if you look at the economic numbers it seems people much prefer to just gather resources and build things then actually go out and destroy each other's things. In aggregate we produce 3X what we destroy each month, and more worryingly, over 30X the value of goods leaves the economy each month by people quitting the game than by destruction. Even in New Eden most players seem to prefer to cooperate together to hoard and build wealth, rather than revel in destruction and sociopathy as some on the forums would like you to believe.

I love that Eve allows open play with real loss that includes crime, wars and unbalanced PvP. I really love the player-driven economy that all of this enables. But I don't think it provides any insight into human nature other than how humans best choose to operate within the rule set of this particular game.

This is why a lot of CCP's null sec sov efforts have failed. They thought that if they did things like make space unequal (like with the anomaly nerfs around 2011-12), people would fall all over themselves in a killing frenzy to get better space.

What ended up happening is that more and more people and groups started COOPERATING more, forming bigger coalitions and groups like OTEC. Human IMO aren't either naturally competitive or cooperative, but rather opportunistic and will do whateve ris best in a given situation.

I think EVE does teach a bunch of lessons about real life behavior. Look at how EVE has nominally better rewards outside of high sec yet many people never leave. This means that for many (but not all) human,s safety IS more important than either freedom or wealth.

And look at scams, scams prove that even in an environment where EVERYONE is screaming "be careful", greed and haste can still overcome good sense, because without those 2 things scams can't exist.

Look at awoxxing and corp theft. In a game were this is actually true, it still happens. It means that even people on guard can be duped, and some people will trust even when trust isn't warranted.

On and on. Some people try to make up self serving scenarios about what EVE teaches us about real life (the main one is the 'sociopath in RL' bs), but if we really pay attention, EVE can teach us valuable lesson about people.

There is no better example or study to be had anywhere else on the subject of what happens when ultra-atomized people (individualism) goes up against people under some actual civilizational approaches to organization (nationalism/tribalism/factionalism/ethnocentrism).

Yes it's true. And it's a perfect study in human organization and the effects. No individual is going to be a hero and single-handedly get anything real done. But then we also lend much credit to our own madmen, saying "he killed 6 million!" when in fact he personally killed only a tiny fraction if at all.

And nowhere else is that driven home as hard than in this petri dish.

When you have one "group" (of "the other" or "they who are not in any group") that is "all about me me me me" and "what that guy over there is doing might be wrong, but it's not harming MEEEEEE" versus another actual group where everybody is aligned on anything from identity to commonality of objectives and acts on the needs of their side, the latter is going to win every time.

Don't believe me? Just look at the real world. I know "Hurrr durr Eve is not the real world!" yes but humans occupy the real world and humans play this game too. You can swap out space ships for castles and lasers for swords, as has been the case with every MMO and even FPS games with team play, and you will get the same result.

Do we need to run comparisons between "groups" where everybody ruthless competes with each other versus actual groups where they all look out for and help each other? (This is why I don't pay much mind to calls to hate those "groups" that all help and look out for each other as if they are the cause of my troubles. Everybody who ever tried to screw me over looked, sounded, and spoke the same language as me).


And the worse civilization gets the more the point gets driven home. Or for a less scenic route to a shorter conclusion you see the same thing in prison: if you are not "with" any group then your butt will look like O instead of *.

I know this grates on people, just like when the baddies in a game get organized. It grates on people because it's already stalking everybody IRL: the organized groups that all look out for and help each other will always steamroll the crap out of you and ensure that they have the jobs while you don't, while they get to live well while you don't, while they get into positions of power while you scream impotently in the wilderness with no platform and being an "un-person".

This is the one thing I would hope that people take away from this "game". So we can finally, one player at a time, put to death this hyper-atomized mindset of self-absorption and solipsism that will be the end of western civilization.

We hang together or we hang separately. Still don't believe me? Just hang around in the Uedama-Niarja pipeline. Or go to nullsec alone.

Or if you are offline try a no-go zone in your own country where the people who will beat you up for being there are the ones breaking the law, but still get away with it and act with impunity merely because they banded together such that the cops are afraid of them physically and/or politically.

We see this constant crap of "Everybody in Eve is competing. You undock you are competing with everybody!" But notice how those who band together and compete with everybody else not in their group does far better? Legends in this game have been made on that. Even if you did become the king of solo PVP or corner a market in something you won't even be a footnote.

You won't make a difference. And you won't be able to avoid being made an example of, to have your story serve as little more than a warning for others.

The social experiment of Eve is already proven for the real world. Don't take what is learned here lightly. You can be John Galt all you want at your own peril. How far does that get you in Eve? Now you know how far that will get you in a real society.

Don't want to burst a bubble here, but if you equate time with the monetary value you -could have- created instead of playing silly videogames...

...than you already wasted that time/money. Your POS doesn't have a $10.000 value, but it signifies $10.000 you have -already- 'lost'. From that perspective, destroying it and your time invested into it seems like a charity. It may reveal to you how you are putting your energy into something a meta-level more virtual and pointless than the otherwise possibly also virtual and pointless real life (mehh). Feels like your whole brains-in-jars argument is there to protect you from this realization.

Unless of course we suspect that people aren't playing games to create value, but to have fun. But disregard that thought. I'm just part of the great evil simulation that's designed to confuse you, drive you into desperation, and make you escape into a tad less complex simulation.

I hope The Supervisor won't delete me for revealing this to you. Please disregard me - it may save my existence.

I'm relying on memory for some of this... so bear with me if I say some things that are inaccurate.

I started playing in 2006... left in 2009 and came back with Alpha's being added. I have a picture in my head of how Eve was fairly early on and of how it is now.

I believe that Eve was more trusting and peaceful back when I started then it is today. It still was fairly cutthroat... but there was a bit more trust and a bit less belief that everyone in your corp is a potential awoxer or spy for goonswarm (because everyone is a spy for goonswarm, right?). I was part of a corp where a toon built up trust for over a year, got named as a director to reward that trust... and stole everything. The corp that was created out of that theft was completely dictatorial and untrusting... for good reason.

Back in 2006 and 2007 the instances of that happening were either less frequent or less publicized. Now... the way that corp ended up after that theft is pretty much the default for all corps in EVE. Theft is expected. Awoxing is expected. Nobody trusts anyone.

In general, society's general behavior is dictated by the worst actions that are tolerated by society. If society allows constant sales phone calls... the societal norm switches from always answering your phone to only answering if it's someone you know. The behavior changed due to the worst use of the phone that's allowed... not more positive potential reasons (hey, it could be my grandma calling from her friends phone).

Eve is no different in that regard. We see what happens in Eve that is allowed by the game. Scams. Awoxing. Corporate theft. It may not be the majority of players... but we see it happen and realize that some number of players do that activity. Because it's possible that anyone could do those things... we behave based on the assumption that everyone is a threat to do those things. In the end... I think we reach the point of saying... "Well, everyone else is doing that stuff... so I might as well do the same."

And that essentially leads to the dystopian wonderland of EVE that we all love. Eve is on a road where it constantly becomes more paranoid and aggressive towards other players. That's a natural result of seeing creative players finding more ways to screw each other over... and not being confidant that your corp mate won't do that to you.

Careful every time I stated something like that the d-bag patrol would flag-brigade my post and get it removed. (Metaphoric)Vampires can't stand reflection.

This post is pretty close to being a political question and should be closed by the moderators, but lets just call all it a philosophical discussion and it should be good.



There is, I think, a tendency for people to want to believe that people are generally "good." (non-violent and respective of other's rights).

You may think you have an answer, but I would ask you to pause and re-think it. One thing to remember is that we humans are animals and if you know animals, than you know how savage and brutal they can be. There is nothing pleasant or kind about nature. Many predators, if given half a chance, could eat you.

It's important to remember that Eve online is just a fictional world, and in here were immortal. One way to make Eve more like the real world would be to give us just one life. No more immortal capsules. If you get podded, it's game over, you can't play Eve ever again. The exact way people would respond to this, I don't know, but I would venture to guess people would be a lot more peaceful and take less risks, although I still think there would be violence and real killing.


Ill just get straight to the point, humans are violent animals and will often take every opportunity they can to survive and thrive. They can be cruel, vindictive and callous. This isn't to say they all are. Humans are also some of most social animals around and be incredibly cooperative. It may seem strange, but humans have traits of both social cooperation and violence. The reason for this is because the adoption of any one strategy would lead to failure. An overly violent society would destroy itself in a bloodbath. While an overly cooperative society would be vulnerable to a few violent people. (like a herd of sheep being killed by 1 wolf). Therefore, we humans adopt a balance, were cooperative with those we can trust when its in our interest, but at the same time, were always on the lookout to utilize violence in order to take advantage of others. This is because using violence, while incredibly risky, can also be really rewarding.


You could see this happening in Eve online, Just imagine if everybody In null space decided to ally, end war and have everlasting peace! Sounds cool? Well, as you should already know, it'd end in abysmal failure. The reason is, because, say as a result of the peace, people would let down their guards. There would be less lookouts, ships wouldn't be tanked as well, and basically, people would become big fat juicy targets ripe for plucking. If some "a-hole" decided to go around and kill these fools, he could make a killing and have a easy time of it! It'd be like lambs to the slaughter! Ultimately, this wouldn't last, factions would form and war would break out again.

Now, if your one of "those" people, you may believe that if we just got rid of the "a-holes", we might be able to have ever lasting peace. But this is impossible in my opinion. You'll never be able to get rid of them, because the opportunity for them is too great. So long as there are people with lots of juicy resources that can be taken in a instant, there will be those who work to take that away. Because it is often easier to steal someone's else resources than it is to gather your own. You may disagree with it, but its a fundamental fact of life.


Some take issue with the fact that I am saying Humans can be violent animals, but I say to you: just take a look at history. For the vast majority of history is filled with the rise and fall of empires. Empires that plundered and conquered other empires and kingdoms. You might even be able to draw comparisons between the real rise and fall of empires between the rise and fall of various null-sec alliances.

In this regard, Eve helps dispel the notion that we humans are all peaceful and cooperative. Were not.

Now, let's reverse the previous hypothetical I proposed above where we would only have 1 life in Eve. What would happen to the real world, if we became immortal like in Eve, where violence and death became much less of a consequence. I would dare say that any person that still held on to the ideal that humans are most peaceful would soon lose such an ideal.

If we where immortal IRL as in EVE, there would be no point to violence.

I kill you, you kill me, we all kill happily together till we get bored of it and actually do something constructive, together.

Well, real life is more complex than EVE, but if you think there would be peace in the real world if we were immortal, than your simply naive. If there would be no point to violence in real life while immortal, than why do we have violence in eve? We have violence in eve to take resources!, or sometimes just for the pleasure of it! This wouldn't change in the real world, where the prizes would be even greater. Your living in a fantasy world! And unluckily for you, if someone wanted to stop you if you were immortal, they could just lock you in a cage, take your stuff and be done.