I'll reiterate the main point, since people seem to be ignoring it. Hurting people in-game for in-game advantage is not an issue and is not immoral. "Feeding off of people's tears" i.e. hurting people IRL using Eve as the tool by which to do so is immoral. Not that I have a problem with that existing, but I don't allow those people to claim to be moral.

As for Ranger's claims that "he wouldn't care if his IRL friend backstabbed him in Eve and destroyed/stole everything he had" -- what an obvious lie. Most of us know he would care and that it would affect RL to an extent. I think he actually believes his own lies though.

Another specious argument. I love how that's all the pro-gank side has in their armory. Morality isn't something you turn on and off like the bathtub faucet. If it's not on, it was never on.

Furthermore, when all the uproar by the self-same people over Incarna started, they were screaming about all the time and effort they've put into this game as justification that they get their way. When it comes to stomping on someone else's parade it suddenly becomes a simple matter of rearranged pixels.

IRL seems to come up a lot. I don't know about those who are divorced from their sanity, but I'm sitting here IRL typing away on a REAL keyboard, and sure as the world, when I hit "post" this bit of text will suddenly appear on a REAL forum and can be read by REAL people. Chess references are fun. When I lose that white bishop, it's REALLY not on the board anymore. Really.

This is the part of it that I have had trouble with from the start. Maybe it's a 'me' thing, but my morals and ethics follow me where ever I go. It's not optional.

Different games, for different play-style. You do not invest thousands of work hours to achieve something. You log in and press play. You lose nothing. In EVE you lose time. Time is only thing which "exists". ISK, real world money all of it is just time nothing more. Things dont have any value apart the fact that someone somewhere used his/her time to provide it.

Thats probably the main difference. People who join eve just to blow **** up are in the wrong game they should have stayed in CS.

Or maybe not.. Maybe not.

Interesting question - I play COD2 often and when I smack someone in the head with a rifle butt I giggle like Loreena Bobbit in a sausage factory.

But there is no labor for COD or most of the FPS games. You get killed, you respawn, and that's that.

Certainly the "expensive death" approach gives us reason not to compare EvE with a FPS.

There's the sandbox element to consider too. in the majority of FPS games, there is NOTHING else to do but kill the other players or get killed.

So if you launch an FPS game, it's already accepted that you will kill and get killed.

But many could say that EvE is also such, or decide, this sandbox and all, that is how they will play it. I could imagine with deep pockets - or a penchant for cheap frigates - having everything set up in a station next door to a lowsec dangerous system, a player could be set up in almost the same manner as if in a FPS. Get killed, respawn, (make sure clone is updated!), get in new ship lined up next to say 100 others like it, and be back in business 1 or two jumps away soon enough, GCC a factor depending on system sec status.

That's not really the issue here. Some can and will set up that way, and God bless them if they can find enough fights that way to make it matter.

It's about being an asshat and griefing, not PVP.

Again, were I a closet asshat, I would still claim it's the way the game is supposed to be played, or that I am roleplaying a douche, or whatever, but the mark of morality is based on how you handle it.

I'd say folks that play just because they enjoy kicking over someones sandcaslte for the fun of it would likely do the same thing in RL if the lack of consequense in Eve was also part of the RL. If they wouldn't then they don't understand that the two actions are basically the same. You destroy someones work product from the only thing we have in life, time because you find taking something away from another and inflicting pain in itself enjoyable. I would bet if you could get away with it in RL you'd do the same thing in RL.

Someone in an early post pointed out quite elequently that Eve is different than a FPS because the only goal in an FPS is to kill other players and there is no real cost of death. There is also no persisted items of value like we have in Eve.

It's funny you fear RL consequence to your in game actions. Maybe if you think being an "asshat" is no big deal you might want to ask how it would get someone upset enough to share their opinion of your actions in a very difficult to misunderstand in RL manner.

You might claim that folks that take "not playing well with others" in a game as a serious breach of RL morality are "crazy" but I'd remind you a big piece of the folk we share this space marble with consider just the "thought" of an immoral act as the same as having done it.

What is moral is a very tricky subject and I believe impossible to define as an absolute but I do know that if I do something to someone for fun that I wouldn't like happening to me I might need to rethink why I'm doing it.

Issler

You ever spawned in EvE with all your stuff still intact?

Specious argument.

Stuff......

I love how the griefers just tend to run the debate in circles because they can't seem to admit that acting like a bully in game is no better than acting like one out of game.

Is that too much for you griefers to process? Do you need us to spell it out any more plainly?


We don't care if you kill other players, just don't be a jerk about it and "extract tears" because that turns the whole event from being about blowing up internet spaceships to harassing the other player.

I guess you are cool with that though...because you are all dark and evil and nobody understands your pain.

So why did you play again?

It is interesting to see how that mental construct is used as some kind of protection. It's not related only to EVE, but many people seem to think that somewhere between a keyboard, cpu and modem is a line separating "Real Life" from... what, Virtual World? Fantasyland? Alternative Reality? 7th Dimension, where your acts upon other people become non-acts :D

"I might write like an angry bastard on the forums, but I'm actually pretty chill in RL"

Process this: the game is just a part of your RL.

The fact that you are unable to comprehend your own motives could be something to disturb you. But obviously you are content. So i rather leave it at that.

Unless you are willing to go through very painfull process of seeing yourself.

In the end everyone or most of the subjects are broken because they are not what they believed they are.

edit. G.Orwell 1984

Ministry of Love .

Good for you. World is full of shallow people. Its easy life.

No you are not morally challenged that makes you shallow .

Your certainty is the factor.

However i may be totally wrong. It doesnt matter you wont change and i got no intention to prove your enjoyment and feeling.

Mags, I assume you are a troll, but much like the ducks that sit on my deck I enjoy feeding the wildlife once in a while.

Not every game is the same. A lot of games have clear goals, winning and losing are clearly defined.

Many online computer games that put one player against another are designed in a way that you are intended to be in conflict with another and the cost of losing is small and there is no persistence. You play the game and it goes where it goes. When you log in tomorrow you are mostly where you were before regardless of wins or losses in previous sessions.

Eve is different. Eve allows someone to spend a lot of the only RL currency (time) that matters to build stuff. Eve also allows asshats (tm) to 'splode that same stuff with no consequence. It allows asshats (tm) to play Eve just to mess with folk, to somehow enjoy being an asshat (tm) for the fun of the tears.

Eve is as near as I can figure is the only game where asshats(tm) can actually with no consequence in game destroy the result of someone's substantial RL time persisted work product and hide in a community that seems to thinks its moral,

It's not, it is folks getting pleasure from no other benefit that causing someone else's pain. That you aren't sophisticated in your understanding of the human condition to understand that negating the result of someones efforts that cost them something they can't ever replace (their time) isn't "the way Eve works", it's your failing as a human.

Morality is a personal trait. But there definitely exists a generally accepted definition of "do on to others...". You can pretend that you are playing a game so it doesn't matter but because Eve persists the result of actual RL folks time when you ignore that rule because "messin with folk" is fun for you then you are and asshat rat bastard in game and RL.

Issler

Can you quote an insult for me? Maybe its language barrier but i cant find any. Seriously i didnt meant anything as an personal insult.

Mags,

You can ignore the content of the comments make a lot of cute derisive comments that deflect the core concept of my argument.

That argument is not all games are the same and Eve is unique in that it allows someone to invest the only real world currency (their time) to build something that persists and as a result has real value. That the act of someone destroying that "thing" just for the fun of it even though it is virtual is no different to the victim as taking something out of the victims RL that cost them the same RL currency (their time).

That you don't see how the world we live in is blurring what is "virtual" and is "real" means you are unaware of your surroundings or living in a cave.

Game or RL is exact;y the same in terms of time spent and the value there of. You can go off and say its a game but that just shows you lack of understanding. All you have is your time. If I waste your time I am harming you in a way that you can never recover from. Time can not be replaced.

You aren't smart enough I guess to understand the nature of the human experience and how the the time we have is all that matters in the end. Maybe you need to get older or have a brush with your morality. I hope you do as it may give the perspective that more aware folks have developed.

Once you understand the value of the time we have left your life can improve dramatically,

Issler

I'm suggesting that, in this game, the line is blurred. I spent two years of RL time getting the ISK together to buy that ship.

So, I can gank you whenever I want so long as I don't act like an *******?

"Tears" and KMs are p ******* boring IMO, but people offer them up all the time. :shrug: I love it when they try to convo me and tell me I'm an ******* or something; I just close the window. If you get bent out of shape by losing a ship in this game you're an idiot. If it makes you feel any better, I don't even insure my Thrashers; I usually forget.

I'll admit I enjoy the fear that is inspired when I enter local in my neighborhood, even if I'm just making a run to the trade hub. Maybe I'm different, though. I have a goal and when I reach it I'll likely stop. Well, unless I get invited to help gank a botting Hulk. Now that is a worthy cause.

Christ, can't stop posting in this train-wreck...

I'd suggest that you take a look at yourself. I know who I am, for better or for worse.

Suppose you spent two years building a ship in a bottle and your neighbor came over and smashed it against a wall.

No. I don't see the difference.

So, you apparently play for free? Must be nice.

And @ Mags, my ISK goes into my ships and equipment. You see, I have goals, and I get closer every day. What do you get out of what you do?

English isn't my native language. But, what?

That appears to be saying that you have no choice. "I am here and this is how I must behave because it is the rules."

This ****thread is still here? Really? The devs need to do the world a favor and just lock this one.

Apparently certain people can't differentiate fantasy from reality, and thus think all griefers are either delusional sociopaths, or quasi-autistic. Way to over-generalize.

And you still there ? Making things up? Interesting balance.

I would use your language.

Simple fact that you take posts personally is your problem not problem of the people who wrote them " in somewhat general sense"

Stuff....

The obligatory wiki link......

Yes, in particular.



I suggest that reading more into how the way we are allowed to speak shapes how we think and how we act can change our behaviour. For the latter, I first picked up on this hearing how Nimroy was altered in his day to day life by pretending to be Spock. If you disassociate your actions from yourself it makes for an unhealthy persona.

The justification, "It is just a game" obviously applies to games.

People go around doing things in games and saying that. They tell themselves "It is only what my online personality would do. I am different in real life." That is where the disassociation comes in.
Another possibility is that in real life they have a fa+ºade, which they believe is them since they want to believe they are good people. Yet, online they have the environment to truly express themselves.

... and yet I still manage to have fun without back stabbing people ... strange that. EVE gives you choices and so many chose to bully, lie, cheat and steal. It isn't even as though it takes more effort to gain ISK via other methods and you can end up with friends that you can trust instead of being paranoid while you wait for the prize to be big enough for one of your "cool" friends to betray you.

There is nothing great in beating those weaker than you. If you find that fun, then we know what you are.

A psychological experiment is neither real life, nor is it a mere game. But ofc your are too small/closed minded to understand something like that, amiright?


Do you know that RL economists study EVE's economy to see if they can apply what they learn here into a RL stock market? Similarly, MMO's in general provide an exquisite insight into the human Psyche. If people like you can't grasp this simple concept, then it is because you are inept... it is not because it's not factual.



Signed,
Your mental superior.

I believe that the people who do get pleasure out of being scum bags are either suffering from disassociative mental disorders or their real life outward persona is a fa+ºade.

One of the most interesting things about forum wars, is how a person can criticize and reticule someone else without every addressing the true content of their post. Now, although this should generally broadcast to the world said person's stupidity, in a world of socially challenged forum trolls it creates a facade that allows them to save face in the eyes of their dimwitted peers.

You just did that.

The post above this one is now attempting to put words into my mouth, in order to simulate a stance of higher rightness in this debate.

This came from you not me.
I never said such a thing should happen, but you posted it as if this is what you (and by suggestion others) inferred in my posts. It is a basic and rather transparent debate tactic.


Clear enough?

It is not merely a question, it is a basic debate technique. You pose a question in a certain way in order to infer things that cannot be true. Most of the time this question has nothing to do with what your opponent actually stated, it is only masked in such a way so it is made to look as though he had. A ? at the end does not change the fact that it is 100% your statement and has nothing to do with my stance nor my opinion.

So if it clear enough to you...
I should inform you that your judgement is clouded, and you should reassess yourself.

Pathetic.
Not even close to pulling your fail trolling out of the gutter.


You stated it, you thought it up and I did not. I have nothing to say about your close minded idea born of an extremely narrow view and small mind. Why don't you tell me what you meant instead, then perhaps I may have something to say about it.

Still nothing

Continue to proclaim your stupidity, I will sit back and watch.