Fatima Nefestis
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Posted - 2006.03.25 12:13:00 -
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I think the OP's football and poker analogies are bad ones because there isn't a single set of rules that applies all the way across Eve. Wherever you are on a football pitch or whichever spot you're sitting at around a poker table, the rules are applied to you consistently and fairly (at least, in theory). Low-sec is more akin to a football pitch where you know the referee will be looking at something else, or a poker game where you know the dealer and other players won't call you if they suspect you're palming or being fed information. The rules and how they're applied are quite different to those in high-sec, but they're all a part of the same game.
I'm not going to decry piracy as 'wrong' because I recognise is as being just as valid a gameplay choice as combat avoidance, anti-piracy, or powerbase building. I like the fact that pirates make low-sec dangerous; I enjoy the paranoia that the simple possibility of their presence creates. The fact that there are a multitude of reasons other than griefing to indulge in piracy (or PvP that's only tacitly rather than explicitly consensual, if you want to look at it that way) is one of the finest things about Eve, in my opinion; when I get attacked, the odds are that my aggressor is not just some socially inept teenager who's frustrated at his lack of success in real life playing out his power fantasies in an environment where he faces no real risk.
I don't assume that just because it's a valid choice of gameplay style, it's automatically 'right,' though. The other part of what makes Eve so special is that the devs specifically set out to create a morally ambiguous world where players aren't forced to play nice or abide by societal standards. Just because the ability to do something exists in-game (and isn't considered an exploit) doesn't mean that it's 'right,' just that it's a valid choice with equally valid consequences. Eve would be a lot less interesting all of a sudden if there wasn't, through security status, an explicit idea of right and wrong behaviours, and of safe and dangerous areas.
If piracy wasn't morally wrong, would it still hold as much appeal as it does? Would as many people still pirate if they didn't do so in the knowledge that they were thumbing their noses at the law and at established social convention? Would piracy still be as popular if it didn't provide people the opportunity to be rebels or bad boys and girls? Would people still join pirate corps rather than territorial alliances or the security wings of 'industrialist' corps if it wasn't for the inherent appeal, in a game, of turning to the dark side and going against societal standards, the opportunity to perpetrate and even profit from acts that most people would avoid in real life for fear of real consequences?
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