Mocam
EVE University Ivy League
430
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Posted - 2014.03.24 03:47:00 -
[1] - Quote
Ok... Here's a fun one for you:
"real" piracy:
I always found the majority of EVE players claiming to be pirates to be flat out moronic. That epithet never fit for the definition I knew from the real world.
It was more like tossing a brick into a china shop then sifting through what remains rather than actually trying to earn from it. Many such "pirates" will talk about KB's being a joke, yet still follow the "blow it up" model of piracy - kb fluffing for fun more than making income.
So I'd chatted with a few folks in the corp early on and we discussed this stuff a bit. They pointed out how you can't trust *ANYONE* in EVE so real piracy (hijacking someone then extorting funds to release them) doesn't work. Too many don't honor ransoms for it to function but, being the stubborn type I am, I kept to the idea and brought it up in "piracy career" discussions.
Well, as happened in the Uni in those days, a batch of members left at the same time and formed up a small corporation of their own. We'd discussed the topic a few times and they'd been intrigued by what I described. I'd been training for exploration covert ops and they asked me about my idea on piracy and if I might be interested in helping them try it out. I figured what the hell - theory vs practical - so I helped.
I practiced for a few days before agreeing and became really fast at locking down signals to 100% with the old scanning system. I'd help by finding and getting a lock on a good target, warp to it and let the crew know. They'd arrive at the warp-in I provided while I moved out a bit - I'd redeploy 1 probe per gate and "watch" those gates as they tackled the target and negotiated for ransom.
We didn't make a lot and still ended up popping several but it was 100% "PvP" based income. All risk, all interaction, guns pointed at and used on the targets, then negotiations... Just no KB entries when it worked.
It was mass "fun" seeing if we could do it. No it wasn't "getting rich" by EVE definitions (around 1 bill a month each - a big chunk of that from a JF we nailed) but actually being pirates by a true "real" definition. That was neat stuff to actually prove as being possible.
The problem - well, they didn't blame me for it but I blamed myself and stopped doing it: I missed a local spike as negotiations started.
For me, there was little worse than sitting in a cloaked covert ops frigate watching as my crew was taken apart by another gang. They laughed about it but I took the responsibility of "eyes" for targets & safety more seriously. I'd messed up and they lost their ships for my error. After thinking about the whole thing - I called it quits. This was as much due to my corp and situation as it was due to my foul-up.
"Technically" it wasn't against Uni rules but if I'd been discovered being involved, I'd have been told to stop -- I never demanded anything from others (ransom negotiations) nor was I shooting nor otherwise being directly hostile - I was just invisible eyes but the theme of the Uni back then was against such things and I knew this.
Oh and another fun thing I looked at back then was stealing bubbles from sloppy gate campers in nullsec. Sadly, you can't unanchor someone else's bubble (that was a fun "oh sh**!!!" education - I'd practiced timing and distances on SiSi with my own bubbles first... Someone else deploying them? I hadn't checked on that. *snicker*). This would have been a fun thing to do for very trivial income. IMO income isn't everything - it's having fun at what you do in a game. Most base their 'fun" on isk values, who gains and/or who loses more, a few others don't. That's a personal decision.
The key to this is just because others tell you something won't work, that it can't be done or isn't worth doing doesn't mean that they are always right nor that their way of valuing their game time will match yours.
Remember to keep thinking for yourself and TRY things. The worst that can happen is you get popped and lose some stuff but you might find a way to have fun in the game that few others ever thought possible. |