Crime & Punishment

High level summary:

The initial question was: "I think the current CONCORD system is dumb. Please find an alternative system below. Discuss."
Feedback was requested and received.
The results have been analyzed.
The conclusion can be found at post 44 on page 3.

I've been trying to figure out what specifically it is about suicide ganking that bothers me so much. Then I started thinking about it in terms of real life crime and punishment. And the metaphor that came to mind is that suicide ganking is basically like being robbed on the street at knifepoint. In both cases someone is going about their daily business, when somebody else unexpected does something illegal.

For the purposes of this post, the person being attacked will be referred to as the "Defender", the ganker will be referred to as the "Aggressor", and CONCORD will also be known as the "Authorities".

(A) In real life, the problem with crime is that the Aggressors aren't always caught. You could get robbed and file a police report. But the odds are, for a small crime it isn't likely that the robber will actually get caught by the Authorities. This isn't the case with Eve. CONCORD knows who everyone is and where they are at all times within they jurisdiction.

If you want to make Eve more like real life, put a percentage on whether or not CONCORD will show up at all, based on the security status of the system (1 = 100%, 0.8 = 80%, 0.5 = 50%, etc.), instead of the current system where they always show up, but it can take more time. If they do show up, there has to be some truly painful consequences to the Aggressor. If not, it sucks to be the Defender. This is also equivalent to going to the seedier parts of town because there's less competition and better potential to make money, but you're taking a chance in doing so.

(B) Right now in Eve, the response of the Authorities is the real life equivalent of catching the Aggressor within seconds, but then just taking away the knife, letting them keep the money, and allowing them walk away while the Authorities say: "We'll be watching you for the next ten minutes. But then you're free to rob the next guy. We'll see you then."

So, that leaves us with what can be done to bring punishments in Eve a little closer to real life. A couple of simple ideas:

1. Financial penalties: the Aggressor pays back the Defender for the value of the assets lost. If the Aggressor doesn't have that much, their income will be garnished (at say, 50%) and the proceeds will go the Defender until the value is paid back. Anything entering the Aggressor's wallet will be fair game for seizure; or

2. Something equivalent to jail: CONCORD will actively hunt any ships flown by the Aggressor for a period of time (say, 48 hours). This will force the Aggressor to stay docked up (in jail) or flee justice (to low-sec of null) for that time period; and/or

3. Boost the CPU and power grid of all dedicated mining vessels, to allow them to fit sufficient tank to survive an attack long enough for the Authorities to arrive. Since the boosting of Destroyers and the adding of Tier 3 Battlecruisers is like allowing Aggressor to carry an AK-47 instead of a knife, it's only fair that Defenders be allowed to have the choice to wear body armor instead of just the current knee and elbow pads.

(C) I don't have problem with suicide ganking being part of the game. But what bothers me is the lack of real consequence. A drop in security standings is like having a criminal record, so that should be kept. Removing insurance from suicide ganking was just common sense. It was like an Aggressor going to an insurance company and saying: “The Authorities took away my knife when I robbed someone. They let me keep the money, but you need to cut me a cheque anyway so I can buy another knife to rob the next guy.” What's needed is a real deterrent, like the threat of jail time in real life, to make Aggressors have to think carefully about the consequences of their actions, plus the chance to just maybe get away with it entirely.

Video game informed by non-consensual PvP =/= real life crime, nor yet is there a legitimate parallel between the two.

1/10.

Next!

I thought they were just pixels.

tl;dr

Pixels on a screen. Grow the **** up.

You forgot to thank CCP for giving you all the tools before. The buff on destroyers, the T3s - now it was just the time to do something good to the victims.

Exactly. Concord already considers suicide ganking to be a crime. We are treated as criminals for an indefinite time period once our sec. status falls below a certain point. A suicide ganker grinding sec. status back up is the equivalent of paying one's debts to society. Have you never heard of a "chain gang?"

That said, your biggest mistake is comparing the reality portrayed in EVE to that we have seen in real life at any given time. Do you see Apple literally declaring government sanctioned war on Microsoft and raiding their HQ with tanks? There are a lot of aspects of EVE law that do not match up with our real life counterparts. Systems of law can be arranged in an almost infinite variety, so you need to defend your arguments on their merits alone rather than making comparisons to what you feel are real life equivalents.

Agreed.



Thank you for an actual response. It's appreciated.

I hadn't thought about the chain gang, but it makes sense. My question: is the current security status system enough of a deterrent? Is the chain gang enough work for people to factor it into their decisions?

Fair point about Apple. But from a broader point, does the punishment fit the crime? Is losing a million ISK worth of destroyers a good enough consequence for blowing up a 350M ISK Hulk in space that is supposedly under the rule of law?

A broader statement:

My point for posting this isn't to start another Carebear versus PvP arguement. There are lots and lots of those out there already. I am coming at this from one perspective, but again, I don't have a problem with suicide ganking. I have a problem with the way CONCORD works because it doesn't make any sense. What I'm looking for is some real feedback on the proposed system. Why it would work, or why it wouldn't. How it could be modified to make it better. Etc. I've imbedded the robbery metaphor because I figured it would make things easier to visualize.

I could easily be convinced that CONCORD and system security should be eliminated entirely. That would make a lot more sense than the current system and would put everyone on equal footing.

BAH... wanted to say something....

just not worth the effort so it got deleted.

to the OP: are you sure this is not another whine for nerf suicide gankers? also your corp name seems to get along pretty well with this

ok; the point is this is a game and personally i want to have fun that's all. sometimes my fun seems to angry the other ppl but that's fine this is my fun; after all and the most important this is a game in the end and we play with some imaginary space pixels.