Eve Online - A Skilled Arsehats Haven!
After a full year of playing, with multiple characters, spanning many of the games different mechanics, I feel I'm knowledgeable enough to post an educated review. So I'm going to be writting a few blogs of my experiences. Make note yours may not be the same (especially if being an arsehat is how you roll!)In this first installment, I'm going to bring up a fact that seems to be ever constant in Eve. It's filled with arsehats, not the same childish & immature types from WoW/CoH/etc...rather these are some smart folks! Remember that geeky kid you may have picked on, that lived for physics, well they're here, in droves. Armed with anonymity, and lacking in any restraint, they're ready to dish out the pain. Their equal opportunity too, doesn't matter what your in, if they have a good chance at nailing you to the wall, they will. Not into PVP you say, plan to be a full-time carebear in Empire High-Sec space? In Eve, you don't have a choice...sooner or later, you'll need to learn those skills or perish.
Remember hearing about that neighbor down the street, constantly paranoid that everyone is out to get them!? Man that guy was crazy right? Well the closest I've ever come to feeling that way myself has been playing Eve. It's almost a requirement to ever leary and cautious, as IF everyone is out to get you (which they are not, but many oh so many are.) Anyone with experience will tell you straight up, there is no where that your 100% safe in Eve, unless you simply don't log in to begin with. A certain amount of paranoia is necessary if you ever plan to undock from a station. It's only a matter of time before you experience your first griefer, suicide ganker, ninja salvager, or *sigh* wardec. All of which, occur frequently in high-security space. Thus if your a hardcore PVE guy, distaining from any PVP, leave Eve now, or enjoy the aspects you can do solely from a trade hub.
Now do NOT read this as I'm anti-PVP, as I personally tend to enjoy some of it!. I have a character that's solely stealth bomber/interceptor/interdictor pilot. Fleeting up with friends, trying crazy tactics, fleet vs. fleet battles, regardless of location. So what's with this article title then? I only enjoy PVP, however, if I'm fighting people who WANT to fight. I don't go out; ...seeking to ruin peoples gaming experience,
...finding & taking on easy targets to smash (miners/haulers/transports/noobs),
...ganking non-PVP travelers, ...attacking for the killboard ego (not for profit)
...griefing & tricking people (from ninja salv, jet-can steal/baiting), scamming, etc...
I don't even have a problem with pirating...to a point! It's a perfectly legitamate occupation, when it's done to make a living, and done fairly...meaning I don't condone killing people merely for yucks (without profit), or any of the reasons above. For instance, there is NO profit involved with podding a person (ransoming them yes, but just flat out podding, no). In fact, I see the killboard itself for fostering much of this arsehat behavior. After all, why would you risk your ships for no profit, if there was no way to track your bloody path of distruction. IMHO the in-game security status should be enough to say, OK here's one bad arse dude.
Now the most popular argument I see, justifying this behavior, is "Hey, the game allows me to do it, so it must be OK! I can't help it if your not good enough at this game to know how to survive against my campaign!" Well, you know, in the real world we have a thing called free will. By this justification why aren't you, "Don't hate the player, hate the game" out there stealing purses and killing your fellow man? Furthermore, if I pay off the local law enforcement (wardec), and personally send you to your maker, that's OK because I found way to use the system in my favor? The difference is, in the real world you don't have anonymity, and accountable responsibilities.
The sandbox that Eve claims is unbiased, is anything but. They've even said their design proves that human beings are evil in general. Hmm, ok, so you built a system that promotes agressive PVP, and gives multiple ways to defeat the protective systems for people that wish to be left well enough alone. The aggression mechanics both help and hurt you, you can't defend yourself without becoming a criminal yourself. All you can do, as Jim Carrey put it, is "whine and moan like an impotent jerk, and take it up the tailpipe!" High-sec Empire space has it's wardec, and many ways for battles to occur without Concord (space police) intervention. Low-sec has a mere security status hit, a few gate guns, but otherwise fair game. Null/WH space anyone is fair game.
Remember, I said these were SMART arsehats, and Eve has a huge veteren following, and they know allot of the ins and outs and how to take advantage of them. They frequently prey on the newer and less experienced, which while being easy, is simply counterproductive to the game. After all, don't we want the player base to expand? The gaming community claims the learning curse is predominantly to blame, but I call bullshit...most I've met are like eager sponges and want to learn. Yet when your young character can barely afford the meager frigate, even though they learn something by each death, it can be too much. For instance we had multiple new recruits, Yet when a war target avoids our main base area, and seeks out our new guys, contantly bullies them, takes their stuff, and sends their pod to heck over and over again, it's bound to have a bad aftertaste. I've seen so many leave the game from this, NOT the learning curve of the game itself.
I actually don't feel the learning curve is that bad, I dig numbers and fancy calculations. I recal making max angular velocity calculations early on to figure out my ideal range within my optimum, to calculating how far out my missles can hit. The curve that is bad, is learning (often the hard way) all these back-door gimmicks these arsehats use. It's been a year, and not a week goes by I don't learn something. I loved the depthness the game gives. I dispise how people, my fellow man, choose to do with it.
Take that war target for instance. Everytime I faced that instalok hurricance punk 1v1, in a comparable ship, did he try and fight me? No he ran away. Unless he had the upper hand with his fleet buddies (say 1 to 4 ratio), would he attack. I learning that 90% of the time, people will only attack if they have some clear advantage, weather it be surprise, tactical, or sheer numbers. My personal favorite is when someone in a decked out bomber talks smack after killing you in your hulk (Hulkageddon, arsehats gone wild). A sneaky little massive DPS ship, vs a defense only ship, and they're proud of themselves. Congratz, they didn't see you in time on DScan, doesn't mean your some leet pilot.
Just recently, I had a war target cross my path in high-sec while I was ferrying my Oneiros logi from null..."MMM easy candy" they must have thought. They new I only had defensive capability,no guns, but they discovered I could handle their damage fine. Since I didn't aggro I went back through the gate, and quickly warped to a safe spot. Boy that musta hurt their pride, because 30m later he was back with 3 more buddies. This time my scout was gone so I didn't know they had two others staged on the other side. So while several battlecruisers couldn't immediatly kill me, they could wittle me down, and they had both sides of the gate covered..."Drat, trapped. I shoulda logged in my safe spot!" So with superior numbers, and good tactics, they finally got little me. Proving two things, arsehats are patient, they like taking on ships that can't fight back, and even then amass ships to make odds in their favor. So without provocation, they attack, and stroke their weak egos with their 140mil killmail, and pat themselves on the back. I had to laugh when their corp said "A Corporation for the Jewish Community!" LAWL OMG I rolled on the floor... looks like these Jewish folk are no better than their WWII captors!! If this is what God-fearing people are turning into, let Judgement day come.
Second most often exuse I get "It's just a game dude" Hmm ok, lets explore it a little more. Most have difficulty making enough ISK (in game currency) to keep up with the hard lessons the arsehats are dishing out. In no other game does PVP death mean such a big loss. I never heard the term "RAGE QUIT" until I played Eve. It occurs when someone has put in allot of time into or spent allot of ISK on a ship, only to have it destroyed. It takes a decent amount of cash starting out to properly fit even a frigate, and gets exponential as you up through cruisers, battleships, T2 ships, T3 ships, Carriers... It takes a good amount of time/effort to earn enough to get into the ship you want...People are spending their REAL lives playing the game, and by the ism "time is money", and you just blew up a ship that took them 2 months (Say 50hours) of game time build, then your actions just made them WASTE 50 hours of their life, that they won't get back. Your response "it's just a gme dude." Thanks Mr.Arsehat, I'm positive they feel much better now.
"Don't fly what you can't afford" has some wisdom, along with "If you can't handle the heat, get out of the kitchen." Since IF you want to play SOME aspect of the game, you can't actualy LEAVE the kitchen can you? Nowhere is safe remember? Still, I don't care that I have 1.6bil in the bank, when I loose a 140mil ship, it STILL hurts.
Bottom line, I find Eve is having an ill-effect to my life...tired of playing a game that makes me constantly paranoid, livid when arsehats play their stupid games, and is causing me to look ever down upon my fellow man. With every lesson learned, the penalty is allot of work down the drain. Surely this isn't what we're made of, that when we're safe behind anonymity, we become evil little clowns. Ultimately games are for entertainment and social benefit, we often play them for the stress relief from work...but what do we do, when it adds more stress? So off I go to find some other way to enjoy this game, or leave it behind.
posted by B.C. @ 3:52 PM
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