My Loot, Your Tears

So I'm poking along in my Vigil, cleaning up the last of my scan hits. I warp to a Dominix hit that is half an hour old, nearly guaranteeing that the goods will be long gone when I arrive. Only in this case, what I find is a Dominix tractoring a can called "Tugboat".

I speed over to the can, which is full of loot and salvage, flip it, and immediately start my Orca pilot warping in to scoop it. I expect nothing more than a silent warp-off or maybe some mild tears, but just as the Orca finishes aligning and leaps into warp, the Dominix locks and fires upon my main's vigil.

The Orca lands and I improvise, speed-swapping my Vigil for JerkTengu, then falling into a 10km orbit around the Domi and engaging my warp disruptor. After changing to explosive damage, it's clear that he will have to run his reppers full-out to keep up, and his capacitor just wasn't going to take it. It's usually futile to try to ransom dirt-cheap Dominixes, but it's also usually useless to try to get them to shoot at you, too, so I try.

[ 2010.01.15 06:05:40 ] Paul Clavet > o/
[ 2010.01.15 06:05:45 ] Paul Clavet > 100M or your ship dies
[ 2010.01.15 06:05:51 ] STWizard > damn, i didn't know that was a tech3
[ 2010.01.15 06:05:56 ] Paul Clavet > I am of course open to counter-offers
[ 2010.01.15 06:06:11 ] STWizard > crap i thougt i was fighting a tech 1 ship
[ 2010.01.15 06:06:23 ] Paul Clavet > You going to pay up, or just die hilariously?
[ 2010.01.15 06:06:26 ] STWizard > i cant afford to loose this ship
[ 2010.01.15 06:06:32 ] Paul Clavet > How much are you willing to pay?
[ 2010.01.15 06:06:33 ] STWizard > how much?
[ 2010.01.15 06:07:09 ] Paul Clavet > 100 million

Ding. He pays. I resume firing.

[ 2010.01.15 06:07:43 ] STWizard > was that right?
[ 2010.01.15 06:07:47 ] STWizard > damn
[ 2010.01.15 06:07:52 ] Paul Clavet > BETRAYAL
[ 2010.01.15 06:08:10 ] STWizard > please let ship go
[ 2010.01.15 06:08:21 ] Paul Clavet > send 50M more and I'll let you go
[ 2010.01.15 06:08:40 ] STWizard > ok
[ 2010.01.15 06:08:47 ] STWizard > can you let ship go please
[ 2010.01.15 06:09:04 ] Paul Clavet > for 50M, yes

Of course, I once again resume firing.

Boom.

[ 2010.01.15 06:09:29 ] STWizard > it is done
[ 2010.01.15 06:09:30 ] Paul Clavet > OMG, you are about as dumb as a box of rocks
[ 2010.01.15 06:09:53 ] STWizard > i am not a pvper
[ 2010.01.15 06:10:10 ] Paul Clavet > Apparently not
[ 2010.01.15 06:10:22 ] STWizard > why are you not honoring your aggreement?
[ 2010.01.15 06:10:33 ] Paul Clavet > Because I'm an Honorless Internet Jerk
[ 2010.01.15 06:11:40 ] Paul Clavet > so what have you learned?
[ 2010.01.15 06:12:10 ] STWizard > not to give money to piratess
[ 2010.01.15 06:12:15 ] Paul Clavet > I'm not a pirate
[ 2010.01.15 06:12:22 ] Paul Clavet > I'm a Jerk
[ 2010.01.15 06:13:08 ] STWizard > you stole my loot then killed my ship after extorting money, thats about as good a definition of piracy as i can think of
[ 2010.01.15 06:13:38 ] Paul Clavet > no no no, pirates go to lowsec and fight with honour
[ 2010.01.15 06:13:42 ] STWizard > what was I supposed to learn
[ 2010.01.15 06:14:15 ] STWizard > ok
[ 2010.01.15 06:14:31 ] Paul Clavet > That'll be your homework for the week. I want 500 words on what you learned today, typed, in my office by Monday
[ 2010.01.15 06:14:32 ] STWizard > so then what you did was worse?
[ 2010.01.15 06:15:18 ] Paul Clavet > It was better for me, pirates usually have to choose between the loot and the ransom
[ 2010.01.15 06:15:23 ] Paul Clavet > I got both! See how neat that is?
[ 2010.01.15 06:16:05 ] STWizard > ok, so what would you have done?
[ 2010.01.15 06:16:27 ] STWizard > in a mission ship without countermeasures, and a scrambler
[ 2010.01.15 06:16:33 ] STWizard > against a tech3 ship
[ 2010.01.15 06:16:44 ] STWizard > nice tactic, btw
[ 2010.01.15 06:16:58 ] STWizard > i was wondering how i was gonna get that haul back to the station
[ 2010.01.15 06:17:13 ] STWizard > i like the tengu in the orca thing
[ 2010.01.15 06:18:14 ] STWizard > i did not like the loss of 150M plus my ship which i was comming to really care for
[ 2010.01.15 06:19:26 ] STWizard > so what would you have done in my shoes there?
[ 2010.01.15 06:19:48 ] Paul Clavet > Probably go buy a padded helmet and water wings?
[ 2010.01.15 06:21:41 ] STWizard > seriously, at least help me to understand what i did wrong
[ 2010.01.15 06:22:15 ] Paul Clavet > I'm not going to help you do your homework, Tyrone. I want that essay on my desk come monday morning, or you will find yourself failing this block of instruction.
[ 2010.01.15 06:26:27 ] STWizard > hmmm, ok. I see how its gonna be, so you are going to play the honorless thing thru. Thats cool.
[ 2010.01.15 06:27:43 ] Paul Clavet > I like to think it is.

From here, I hang around to try to extract tears and intel for a wardec. Hang in there, there's more lulz to be had.

[ 2010.01.15 06:27:54 ] STWizard > i have never faced a tech3 ship b4
[ 2010.01.15 06:28:10 ] Paul Clavet > I wouldn't say you faced this one per se
[ 2010.01.15 06:29:02 ] STWizard > i did for a little while till i reaized what i was, then i tried to run, hehehe
[ 2010.01.15 06:29:33 ] STWizard > what i saw was your prober ship
[ 2010.01.15 06:30:26 ] STWizard > although i was a little confused at first as to how you were gonna get the can away, till the orca showed up
[ 2010.01.15 06:31:01 ] STWizard > hehehe, then out pops the tengu and well that was bad cuz i didn't even know what i was fighting till i saw it wasn't dying
[ 2010.01.15 06:32:22 ] STWizard > my ship did better than i expected tho. tho with an orca you have the decided advantage.. if i had a scrambler i would have locked the orca and tried to get it, but it's prolly tanked too
[ 2010.01.15 06:33:58 ] STWizard > if i asked you to meet me in the station for the other 50M would it have worked?
[ 2010.01.15 06:36:59 ] Paul Clavet > I just read the things you typed, and I don't even know where to start
[ 2010.01.15 06:37:20 ] Paul Clavet > Basically, I weep for your future and hope that you'll give me your stuff when you finally quit.
[ 2010.01.15 06:38:25 ] STWizard > that bad, eh?
[ 2010.01.15 06:38:49 ] Paul Clavet > Yeah, man. Pretty bad.
[ 2010.01.15 06:38:58 ] Paul Clavet > Please go take an Agony Unleashed class or something
[ 2010.01.15 06:39:04 ] STWizard > before i quit, there will be nothing left
[ 2010.01.15 06:39:12 ] Paul Clavet > because you misunderstand a great many fundamental things
[ 2010.01.15 06:39:41 ] STWizard > well i am not used to being lied to
[ 2010.01.15 06:39:58 ] STWizard > i tell the truth and expect the same, usually
[ 2010.01.15 06:40:14 ] Paul Clavet > Then Eve may not be for you
[ 2010.01.15 06:40:26 ] STWizard > but i have learned this, not everyone is like that
[ 2010.01.15 06:40:33 ] STWizard > I will adapt
[ 2010.01.15 06:40:44 ] STWizard > I like this game
[ 2010.01.15 06:41:55 ] STWizard > come in contact with people who are free to do things they are not really free to do in life
[ 2010.01.15 06:42:21 ] Paul Clavet > Yep, I'm actually a terrible person IRL but can only show my true colors here
[ 2010.01.15 06:42:52 ] STWizard > that is precicely what i was getting at
[ 2010.01.15 06:43:34 ] Paul Clavet > Truly you are a masterful judge of character
[ 2010.01.15 06:43:37 ] STWizard > in a way, here you get to see what people would really be like if life would let them
[ 2010.01.15 06:43:48 ] STWizard > no i am not
[ 2010.01.15 06:44:01 ] Paul Clavet > The dark passages of my heart are laid bare before your seering judgment
[ 2010.01.15 06:44:09 ] STWizard > but i am pretty good at analysis of data and facts and events
[ 2010.01.15 06:44:27 ] Paul Clavet > Wreched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of unrighteousness?
[ 2010.01.15 06:44:42 ] STWizard > if i was a good judge of character, i would have let the ship go and kept the 150M
[ 2010.01.15 06:45:42 ] STWizard > what i do know, is that money both in eve and IRL is a good way to find out what people are about
[ 2010.01.15 06:45:48 ] Paul Clavet > If you were a good judge of anything you would have not sent me more money after I betrayed you once
[ 2010.01.15 06:47:47 ] STWizard > I am soooo not used to betrayal
[ 2010.01.15 06:48:53 ] STWizard > as i said in my part of the real world the people i associate with have honor
[ 2010.01.15 06:49:12 ] Paul Clavet > I see
[ 2010.01.15 06:49:23 ] STWizard > if i had read your bio, and the name of the corp, i would not have sent the first 100M
[ 2010.01.15 06:49:38 ] STWizard > much less the second. it is pretty plain
[ 2010.01.15 06:50:05 ] Paul Clavet > I thought you were an excellent judge of facts and events?
[ 2010.01.15 06:50:49 ] STWizard > the good news is that you were at least honest about being honorless, hehehe
[ 2010.01.15 06:51:03 ] STWizard > not judge, analysis
[ 2010.01.15 06:51:37 ] STWizard > i was negotiating, and not checking you out
[ 2010.01.15 06:51:54 ] STWizard > i didn't see the corp till i was in station in my capsule, hehehe
[ 2010.01.15 06:52:05 ] Paul Clavet > So when you make a deal, the other party starts shooting anyway, you still trust them to be honest in the NEXT deal?
[ 2010.01.15 06:52:11 ] STWizard > was busy fighting and calling out for help
[ 2010.01.15 06:52:58 ] Paul Clavet > Most of your corpmates run missions as well?
[ 2010.01.15 06:53:36 ] STWizard > sometimes one can appeal to reason and people sometimes act in magnamity mercifully
[ 2010.01.15 06:54:04 ] STWizard > most of them do, but they are more advanced than i
[ 2010.01.15 06:54:09 ] STWizard > in the game
[ 2010.01.15 06:55:24 ] Paul Clavet > Where do most of them hang out?
[ 2010.01.15 06:57:08 ] STWizard > we really act independantly most of the time, today i was doing missions with a corpmate then he left and i did on on my own
[ 2010.01.15 06:57:26 ] STWizard > and was salfaging, oh, shit i gotta turn that one in, hehehe
[ 2010.01.15 06:57:34 ] Paul Clavet > do you guys have a website or anything?

Remember when I told you it would get better? Well, here it is!

[ 2010.01.15 06:58:43 ] STWizard > dude, did you get the reports? I need them to turn in the mission
[ 2010.01.15 06:59:06 ] Paul Clavet > tee hee
[ 2010.01.15 07:00:45 ] STWizard > wow, that was a total win, hehehe, you did good on this one, I can't believe how vulnerable i was.
[ 2010.01.15 07:01:24 ] STWizard > please trade the reports
[ 2010.01.15 07:01:46 ] Paul Clavet > That will be 20 million ISK, please.
[ 2010.01.15 07:01:51 ] Paul Clavet > Otherwise you'll have to fail the mission
[ 2010.01.15 07:02:50 ] STWizard > dude, the mission bonus is 500,000
[ 2010.01.15 07:03:04 ] Paul Clavet > but you'll take a faction hit.
[ 2010.01.15 07:03:09 ] Paul Clavet > How much are they worth to you?
[ 2010.01.15 07:04:08 ] STWizard > they are worth the mission bonus to me, 504,000, i will just do more missons to get the standings, how much of a hit? Never failed a mission before
[ 2010.01.15 07:04:43 ] Paul Clavet > enough that it'll take about ten missions to regain them
[ 2010.01.15 07:04:49 ] Paul Clavet > more if it's a storyline
[ 2010.01.15 07:04:52 ] Paul Clavet > but I don't think yours was
[ 2010.01.15 07:05:08 ] Paul Clavet > Tell you what
[ 2010.01.15 07:05:09 ] Paul Clavet > 10M
[ 2010.01.15 07:05:13 ] Paul Clavet > I'm about to go to bed
[ 2010.01.15 07:05:15 ] STWizard > ok, all of the isk, the other part, the reward is 442,000, i will add that, and just take the LP and keep faction
[ 2010.01.15 07:05:41 ] Paul Clavet > 10 million or I'll just add them to my trophy collection and let you fail your mission
[ 2010.01.15 07:05:48 ] Paul Clavet > depends on what your time is worth, up to you
[ 2010.01.15 07:06:03 ] STWizard > alright, 10M
[ 2010.01.15 07:06:12 ] STWizard > damn, you are tough

For the uninitiated: Keep in mind that Reports is not a unique item, but rather can be bought for essentially pennies off the market.

That's about it for the actual story. I'll include the rest of the chat log here if you want to see more boneheadedness on his part, but it's not anything that you couldn't get from any other PLEX-selling underachiever.

One of the few Eve bloggers on my RSS feed is a pirate by the name of Hallan Turrek, who writes for A Merry Life and a Short One. He recently posted an entry about E-honor entitled Giving In:

Honor isn't something to be poked fun at. I see folks making jokes about the kinds of people that use real world principles in an online game. E-Honor they call it.
I don't use real world principles in an online game, I use real world principles.

Hallan, do you also refuse to bluff in poker because you're an honest person?

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: If CCP wanted to create a game in which formal ransoms and duels were possible, they would have codified it in the rules of Eve Online. Instead, they made a cold, hard sandbox where there is no single ultimate objective and a player can actualize himself in any way he wants. If you look at the original retail packaging for the game, you'll see that one of the selling points is that Eve is a world where deceit and treachery is always a possibility on every level of player interaction.

I'm sick and tired of the artificial constructs that are the "1v1" and the "ransom" being held aloft as unwritten rules that should be followed by all, under pain of social ostracism. It's no more valid than my demanding that all ninja salvagers should loot if they want to follow the One True Way, or declaring that it's obvious that those who run missions are obviously cowards in real life. There's a nugget of distaste on my part for both those cases, but they pay their subscriptions and play the game they want to play. Not only is it not my place to call for a codification of my preferences, but to imply that they are of a lower ethical or intellectual quality out-of-game because of their in-game persona would make me a real-life asshole.

Now, if a player wants to honor ransoms, and build their reputation and that of themselves to the point of being able to integrate the trust of victims to honor such ransoms into their business model, then I salute them. With no in-game rules to ensure their honesty, to have their reputation developed to the point that people just hand them money in exchange for some words in a chat window is quite an accomplishment.

THAT makes sense. Trust is earned, not granted by default. Such a business model works great for pirates like Hallan, but I exist in Eve almost exclusively for the purpose of tricking carebears into doing something foolish and then causing them to lose something they weren't really wanting to risk. By the time I've landed in a mission and warp scrambled a PvE battleship, my hand has been played, and it's highly unlikely that the victim will ever fall for my ruse again. In my case, why on earth would I do anything other than take the victim for as much as I possibly can?

What's that? Because I'm supposed to be a good and honest person IRL? Well, if that's the standard, would a truly honorable person trap and kill a battleship wandering into lowsec to run a mission or do some ratting? It's an unfair question, right? I mean, the victim of the pirate should have known the risks before he ventured into low/nullsec.

But let's keep the question in play. If you think it's OK for you to victimize the ignorant or careless, and your in-game standards are identical to your out-of-game standards, then you certainly wouldn't have any moral obligation to return a purse left under a seat in your subway car, right?

My point here is pretty obvious. You can poo-poo the "it's just a game" line, but it really is just. a. game. The rules are different because everyone either knows or should know coming into it that because their character and assets exist only as bits on a server in Iceland, anything that someone else does to those bits within the formal Terms of Service is fair game. You can either accept that reality and come play in the sandbox, or go to another game where people are mandated by the rules of the game to be nice to the folks they're hacking to death.

I respect that some folks play differently. That's just not me, and I hope we can see more respect for my kind of mindset in the future.
I honor ransoms. I honor duels. I do what I say I'm going to do. If I don't, I can't pretend it's just my character doing it, because I know better.

In the first line, you claim to respect those who don't adhere to your arbitrary in-game morality standard. In the next line, you imply that the ethics of the avatar are inseparable from those of the player. That doesn't sound much like respect to me, it sounds like an attempt to make yourself feel better about your judgmental attitude and double-standard.

You might not agree, but leave me alone about it.
Good Day

Sorry, but those who live in glass houses (blogs) shouldn't throw stones (moral judgements) and expect to escape unscathed.

Here's a tip that actually does apply equally well in-game and out-of-game: When someone points out a double standard in your code of ethics, it's usually a good idea to stop making moral judgements until you have that sorted out.

Merry Christmas!