EVE Blog Banter #20: Griefing, Ninja Salvaging, Suicide Ganking, Trolling, and Scamming

Welcome to the twentieth installment of the EVE Blog Banter, the monthly EVE Online blogging extravaganza created by CrazyKinux. The EVE Blog Banter involves an enthusiastic group of gaming bloggers, a common topic within the realm of EVE Online, and a week to post articles pertaining to the said topic. The resulting articles can either be short or quite extensive, either funny or dead serious, but are always a great fun to read! Any questions about the EVE Blog Banter should be directed to crazykinux@gmail.com. Check out other EVE Blog Banter articles at the bottom of this post!

With the recent completion of the 3rd installment of the Hulkageddon last month, @CyberinEVE, author of Hands Off, My Loots!, asks: "Griefing is a very big part of EVE. Ninja Salvaging, Suicide Ganking, Trolling, and Scamming are all a very large part of the game. What do you think about all these things? You can talk about one, or all...but just let us know your overall opinion on Griefing, and any recommendations you may have to change it if you think it's needed."

I've been playing EVE for a fairly long time. I've heard lots of calls for "HTFU", or "Griefing is against the TOS" and my personal favorite "I hope you die of cancer." Right or wrong, good or bad, EVE is a virtual place we can be someone other than our day-to-day selves. I know some really nice guys who play EVE - guys with families, who would pull over on the highway in the rain if you were there with your flashers on - and in EVE they wouldn't bat an eye at scamming your entire corp's assets out from under you. These are genuinely good people, who play EVE to escape real life. So lets start with the inevitable fact that EVE is a game, and like any other game, is an escape from your personal reality. If you take EVE too far, and blur the lines between players in a game and the characters they play, you won't like what I have to say (hint: HTFU).

Griefing
Personally, I don't like griefing. The idea that you play to make other miserable intentionally isn't my cup of tea. But I know (or like to think I know) enough to (a) not be a good target for a griefer and (b) to give as good as I get. Mind you, I have no issue with smacktalk, or laughing at someone in local. My issue with griefing (that I don't like it) revolves around the fact that you aren't playing an MMO if you grief one particular player all the time - if you get your jollies in game from being a general ass, that's cool - but I won't be one to play "with" you since that's not my style. ASCII genetalia - fine. Hassling another player so much they emo log or even ragequit - just not cool.

Ninja Salvaging
Totally within the scope of the game. Those who take this to the next level and get the mission runner to attack them and blow up their ships? Experts at harrassment. And no, this is not griefing - unless you are doing this to the same poor sod day in and day out without looking for other targets. I have even been a rookie ninja salvager, without the part where you try to get aggro and blow up the mission runner. I love this piece of the game though. Scan down a mission runner, warp in and salvage his wrecks. Back in the day, salvage could be as valuable as the loot in the cans. Today, maybe not so much, but still valuable. In addition, performing an important service keeping New Eden green by cleaning up other people's trash.

Suicide Ganking
I am of two minds about suicide ganking. First of all, I think it's a perfectly legitimate tactic - my only concern is that even with the recent insurance changes, suicide ganking doesn't have a lot of drawbacks for the ganker. Choosing your ship wisely, you can still break even (or even make a bit of profit) when CONCORD responds to your actions, which I think is an issue since you can also collect the loot from your victim. When I mine in HiSec, I watch my overview, and if someone enters the belt in a vessel that doesn't do mining duty, I am aligned and ready to warp out. Will I survive? Not bloody likely. But I'm going to try. And if they succeed, more power to them. Confession: I have not participated in alliance suicide ganks/freighter ganks. Timing just doesn't work out. But I'd do it in a heartbeat if it worked with my schedule.

Trolling
No brainer. This one brings a smile to my face, or a smack to the forehead when I'm a victim. Total HTFU.

Scamming
Scamming takes two faces, that of the corporate mole/thief and that of the Darwinian opportunist. I think the Darwinian opportunist is brilliant, after all, you should pay attention to what you are giving your ISK for. CCP makes it easy to do this safely - and victims of these scams are frankly, stupid enough to fall for them and should learn from their mistakes. The corporate mole is a different beast, but one that has some grudging respect. Taking days/months/years to develop a character who is designed just to infiltrate (and steal) is a commitment to the game I can't make - although I do have such an alt in the works.

All of these are legitimate courses of play in EVE Online - whether you (or I) like it. So, in the immortal words of every scammer, griefer, troll, and ninja salvager: "HTFU" EVE is a dark, dangerous world, no prettier than the one we live in every day, except that we don't end up face down in an alley bleeding when we get mugged in EVE. It's a game, one that supports many paths to escape the grind of reality.

And if you want more sage advice, you can send 1,000,000 ISK to Swearte Widfarend, and I'll tell you which PI materials to produce between now and October 1st for the highest profit margins, and 1,000,000 more gets you which T2 items to focus your R&D efforts on.

Serpentis Watch and the EVE Player Blogroll

Got a note from the reputed "Blogfather" Crazy Kinux today, the third iteration of my EVE blog has made the basic EVE Players Blogroll. Crazy Kinux has been blogging about EVE for quite sometime, and if you don't know about his blog (or the rest of the blogroll) you should check them out.

Yesterday I took out my all-purpose complex Myrmidon to wander around the edges of hisec empire and probe out any interesting complexes in the less trafficked systems. Got lucky in my destination system with a hit on the unknown Complex "Serpentis Watch." A quick check of the Neocom database did not reveal anything about this complex beyond an error where it appears on the scanner but is vacant. Warping to the signal, I encountered a single acceleration gate, unguarded but for a beacon warning that the Serpentis do not take kindly to visitors. Ignoring the warning, I activated the gate, warping deeper into the complex.

Arrving in the second area, I was almost immediately targeted by a group of Serpentis pilots - mostly flying Destroyer-class ship, some in Cruisers. Examining all data on my overview, I realized there were 5 such groups, two included more advanced cruisers, likely the squadron leaders. As I returned fire and deployed drones, I intercepted communications revealing that the two command cruisers had requested backup - and that included a commander in a Bruitx-class Battlecruiser. My overview was literally full of hostile ships, pounding on my armor and wearing down my defenses - it must have been almost 20 cruisers, 20+ destroyers, the commander and his 5 lieutenants. They pounded on my ship, taxing my armor repair systems to their utmost, as my railguns and drones slowly worked through the enemy ships. At one point, they had managed to get through my armor, damaging my probe launcher and other core components directly, before they were all destroyed. As I destroyed the commander's ship, Aura informed me that an acceleration gate had just activated. Preparing for more reinforcements, I reloaded my guns and continued cycling my armor repair systems. When none arrived, I cautiously approached the gate, then, once my armor was fully repaired and my shields had partially recharged, I activated the second gate.

Coming out of warp, my overview was filled with structures, but only a handful of Catalyst-class destroyers - perhaps 4 or 5. I made short work of them as I examined the other items on my overview. Far above the main structure, there was a Smuggler's Gate, much like the ones I'd seen in Cloud Ring. Although similar, this gate looked less sturdy than it's fellows in the reaches of nullsec, so I targeted it with my heavy drones and rails, deciding to end the Serpentis secret entry to this system. As the gate began to take damage, my combat alerts went wild. Almost a duplicate squadron of vessels to the previous area were arriving through the Smuggler's Gate, hoping to defend it before I could destroy it. Knowing how close the previous battle had been, I immediately aligned to a nearby planet, activated my afterburner, and began targeting the nearest ships. Molten charges from my guns (and theirs) tore across the reaches of space, but I was better prepared for this group of pirates, and destroyed them one by one, when suddenly the gate activated again. Cursing that I had forgotten to destroy it completely, I saw another dozen ships arrive on scene, mixed cruisers and advanced frigates. Assigning my drones to finish off the gate, I continued to burn away from my enemies, peppering them with railgun charges. It was then that my chief gunner informed me that I was out of antimatter ammunition, and had only one full rack of Uranium charges I had looted from a ship in the previous area. I would have to depend on my drones to finish off this threat.
Slowly my drones worked through the ships, I would occasionally have to recall and recharge their shields as my opponents targeted them, but eventually nothing remained but the 30-40 odd wrecks. Knowing I was extrememly low on ammunition, I immediately examined the cruiser and battlecruiser wrecks looking for unused rounds to refill my empty guns, as I let my armor repair and capacitor recharge, knowing that this pirate den was closed...for now.

Serpentis Watch (Unknown Combat Site)
Room 1: Acceleration Gate, no NPCs
Room 2: 4 groups of 3 Destroyers/3 Cruisers. Destroying each Corelium Scout spawns another wave of Cruisers and Destroyers. The final wave includes a Corelium Militant Commander (gate trigger). Destroy this ship to activate the Acceleration Gate.
Room 3: 4/5 Destroyers. Multiple Structures. Attack the Smuggler's Gate to activate the final combat spawn - there are at least two of these including the Overseer.

EVE Blog Banter 17: The Ladies of New Eden

The EVE blog banter is a great way to test the pulse of the blogging community on a variety of issues. In previous incarnations the banter was one of the items I worked hard to write for regularly. It's hosted by Crazy Kinux, and the latest discusses women and EVE.

Crazy Kinux is... one of those who believes that, though the game should not be changed to specifically go after that part of the gaming population, EVE Online would greatly benefit if somehow the balance the 2 genders roaming New Eden would lean towards an equilibrium. So I ask...
What could CCP Games do to attract and maintain a higher percentage of women to the game. Will Incarna do the trick? Can anything else be done in the mean time? Can we the players do our part to share the game we love with our counterparts, with our sisters or daughters, with the Ladies in our lives? What could be added to the game to make it more attractive to them? Should anything be changed? Is the game at fault, or its player base to blame?

I think EVE suffers overall from a limited, focused playerbase. Let's face it MMOs in general target specific audiences, and although there are women in those audiences (I have gamed with women all the way back to junior high D&D), they are not as prevalent as men. What could CCP do? Well, to begin with let's look at the overall marketing strategy of EVE:
"It's your destiny - shape it as you will"

While that sounds good, it's not a clear message to sell the game to anyone, let alone women who aren't already MMO gamers. The excellent trailer created a while ago called "The Butterfly Effect" is the closest thing to a marketing piece that might, almost, appeal to a potential lady of New Eden. Why? Because women are, by and large, social creatures. I've been married 7 years and with my wife for almost 11, and one thing I see from her, the people we know, and the people we meet, is that in general, (and yes, I'm generalizng) women would look at the marketing campaign for EVE Online and say, "bleh, spaceships. Why would I want to do that?"

In reality, EVE doesn't need to change for women to play, although they may be more prone to emoragequit when they suffer the inevitable suicide gank or losec gatecamp. EVE offers everything that can appeal to women - it's a social environment (text chat, voice chat, interactions) and there are aspects of EVE that don't consume your every waking moment (various industry roles, anyone?), and there are competitive aspects to EVE (PvP, Market Gaming) that appeal to those who are more competitive. The problem is the message, and the venue. I don't see EVE ads when I'm shopping for flowers or anniversary gifts - only on my tech-geek sites. I know online advertising is targeted, but they need to reach beyond the target audience.

How does CCP market something so deep, so broad? With the easiest, broadest message: "It's your destiny - shape it as you will." If they were serious about expanding the playerbase to include women, they would need to market more about EVE than Sov warfare and large fleet battles, even though that's the endgame. Perhaps a campaign that focuses on the industrial side of EVE, especially with Tyrannis on the horizon, is the appropriate angle. EVE isn't for everyone, but right now, CCP is only marketing it to the fans. It's like telling a baseball fan how great it is to see a game in Fenway Park. They already get it - they aren't the folks you really need to market to (although you can't ignore them). A side benefit of marketing the other aspects of EVE? You would get more than just women - you would get those folks who are at best fringe fans of space/scifi - and introduce them to the grand, social world that is New Eden.

Other participants in the banter:

• Astral’s EVE Trial By Fire


• The Cataclysmic Variable


• Depths Unknown


• Diary of a Garbageman


• Errant Thoughts


• Eveoganda


• EVE SOB


• Garhead


• The Ghost’s Report


• Hydrostatic Capsule


• La Vie D ‘Une Capsuliere


• Learning to Fly


• Life in Low Sec


• Linked Dreams


• Michael Williams – Master of None


• The Nomadic Gamer


• Ombeve


• Prano’s Journey


• Random Updates (I Guess)


• Rantucket


• Record of Alva Dyson


• Starfleet Comms


• Where the frack is my ship?


• Talk Nerdy To Me


• Wench with a Wrench