The Little Things Matter
I've been asked recently in public comments and private messages by friends and detractors alike why I am so butthurt about the recent aggro extension kill reimbursement fiasco playing out in forums, blogs, and dozens of separate petitions. I feel that an explanation is in order for the Griefer Tears that I have been giving during the last few days. This comes in the form of an explanation of what I think makes Eve great, and why I think that even minor encroachments on that are worth fighting passionately.
Eve is a Sandbox
Eve is a single-shard game where every single player has an opportunity to interact with every other player. There is no segregation according to time zone, language, or play style. If you have a problem with someone in this game, there is nowhere to run. You can scamper off to 0.0 to avoid an opponent, but if he is competent he will pursue you. You can join an NPC corp and be immune from wardecs, but you dare not undock in anything expensive and fragile for fear of suicide ganks. If you've pissed off some aggressive player, you have to deal with him, either by fighting back or by making hunting you more trouble than his anger is worth.
(It should be noted that for now, the Eve China servers are an exception to this unity. New rumors are circulating that CCP may be merging the Chinese player base into Tranquility. The thought of thousands of new potential victims is super exciting. I wonder if there are many Chinese mission griefers? It's possible that I may have to change the Jerks logo to avoid confusion.)
In Eve, Your Decisions Matter
The “Butterfly Effect” promotional video presents the story of a rifter saving a mining barge from pirates and then joining miner's alliance in a fleet fight that very day. While hilariously unlikely, the idea of a world where what you do has impacts far beyond your personal avatar is indeed another of Eve's distinctions in a genre dominated by MMOs full of predictable, scripted, endlessly looping events. In Eve, you are the content for other players, and the other players are the content for you. The things that happened in your little corner of space today impact the game for everyone, forever.
In Eve, Your Actions Have Consequences
In World of Warcraft, the consequences of failure in PvP involve little more than a quick trip from your respawn point back to where you were when you died horribly. Usually this means less than five minutes of time lost. In Eve, failure in PvP can mean anything from the loss of a disposable ship to the destruction of the basket into which you've placed all your eggs, so to speak. This means that if you're foolish, you can transform in moments from a badass flying a state-of-the-art ship capable of incredible force projection to a pauper who can barely afford to fit a cruiser.
In Eve, Knowledge is Survival
Knowledge is more than power in Eve: Without a thirst for it, the gameplay experience becomes worse than mediocre. The five-year-old character in a multi-billion ISK faction-fitted marauder will fall every time he engages a six-month-old character who has 100 million ISK to spend on the right tool for the job. This works both for the ninja and against him: Witness my billion-plus ISK JerkTengu being slaughtered by a handful of cheap battleships. With knowledge of what you're facing, any ship can be killed.
Not only must one understand ship fittings and damage types, but the mechanics of combat aggression, gate jumping, and station docking/undocking must be understood if one is to escape a life as a pod-pilot punching bag. Most lowsec pirates can tell you about the first time they died to sentry guns before they fully understood criminal flags. Most nullsec players can tell you about the first time they encoutered a warp disruption bubble. I bet that nine out of ten of my mission gank victims will tell you that it's the first time they'd dealt with the PvP aggression timer. Most will never make the same mistake again. Knowledge of little gotchas like these are the real power in Eve, not fancy ships or piles of ISK.
In Eve, There are No Takesie-Backsies
In most MMOs, the fact that time is a one-way street and you can't revert to the last save point isn't all that big a deal. The worst case is that your party wipes in a dungeon, and you get to start back where you died to try again. In Eve, because your actions have consequences both for you and your friends, mistakes are permanent and whether the price is high or low, it must be paid.
Without These Distinctions, Eve is Just Another Crappy MMO
If you take away the sandbox, the significance and consequences of player actions, the importance of intelligence, and the finality of events, what does Eve start to look like? WoW? I haven't looked into the new Star Trek MMO, but I imagine that there would be parallels, and by all acounts Star Trek Online sucks.
Much Ado About Something
Now, for the aggro extension reimbursement thing. To be quite frank with you, I don't really care for the mechanic. It's confusing and unreliable, but the same could be said for a dozen other Eve mechanics that get ships killed on a regular basis. A lot of folks are mistakenly assuming that I'm crying big Ninja Tears over the aggro extension mechanic, when my problem is really with a senior GM that granted a petition from a carebear who had a warning from the game that he could be blown up, undocked a faction battleship, got blown up, then asked for a replacement. Yes, this is a minor issue, but allowing it to stand speaks volumes about what the GM staff and CCP as a whole think makes their game, in my opinion, the greatest video game ever launched.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: It would take ONE GM 30 seconds to fix this, and not a byte of code need be involved. Just like the POS RR mechanic, all it takes is a forum post either declaring it an off-limits exploit, or working as intended. To say that it is not a bug, not an exploit, but that they're still going to reimburse players who fall victim to it is to cut a neat little chunk out of the very things that keep Eve from being just another short-lived niche MMO.
“But Paul,” you say, gazing longingly at my stunning physique, “How is ONE freebie from ONE GM worth all this stink?” Do you really think that this is an isolated event? Stop and think for a moment about why you know about even this one occurrence. It's because the carebear in question posted his petition and the results to his public blog. How many more victims featured on this blog have had their mistakes forgiven, to cost them no more than the proverbial graveyard run? It could be half, or a quarter, or one in twenty, or one in a hundred. It could be any number and we'd never, ever know, always assuming that CCP was doing the right thing. Yeah, it could be an isolated event. The odds, however, of this being the only incident of a carebear entering into PvP and losing more than he wanted to lose, then having a GM crap a new faction battleship into his hangar are absurdly low.
But why raise such a fuss over such a minor encroachment? Because there is nowhere else to go. If Eve isn't the harsh, unforgiving world that CCP says it is, then where can I go where what the player does matters? My entire game revolves around causing players to put more on the table than they wanted to lose, and then lose it. If I can't do that here, or if, as it appears is the case, CCP is slipping ships to players who lost them because they weren't aware of some game mechanic, then I'd just as soon cancel my accounts take up woodworking. At least then I can count on nobody coming behind me and feeding a portion of my finished work into a wood chipper.
To CCP: All we want is a statement from you on this. Is aggro extension an exploit that will cause reimbursement? Is it a valid tactic whose victims are worthy of no mercy? If it's not an exploit, but reimbursements are still an option, then in what other cases can a player request reimbursement after he ignored in-game warnings and lost big?
Eve is indeed the greatest game ever made, but the temptation to discard the ideals that made it great when nobody is looking is surely strong. It is important that CCP present a unified front when talking about the policy decisions that make Eve distinctive, or the game will slip into mediocrity and die with a whimper. The little things matter.
I could not agree more. Just like a single lawsuit will set the standard for future rulings, these incidents must be challanged to avoid the game becomming a babysitter like we have seen in so many other MMOs. Much as I hate getting ganked in highsec by some shady oppertunist, I do cherrish the lessons learned, and believe it will better prepare me for the inevitable PvP.
Thanks for the most entertaining EVE blog out there.
Clarification on aggro extension's legality is definitely required. Either it's a legitimate gameplay tactic and petitioning against it should be denied, or it's an exploit and petitions against it should be granted (and exploiters punished?).
But at the end of the day, shouldn't the carebear's petition still have been denied on the grounds that he /was warned/ about the aggro when he tried to undock? Even if CCP decides aggro extension is an exploit, there's no way that noob could have missed the warning.
Imagine a situation.
Normally when fighting on a gate if you deaggress you can jump through.
If you think of this the same way.
If you were shooting his wrecks shouldn't this keep your aggression timer going for him to shoot you. Since he wasn't shooting you or anything of yours then shouldn't he be able to lose his aggression timer and then have concord react to you attack?
I understand that the aggression timers start even if you don't shoot.
But my point is when you first steal his loot. he can attack you but you still can not attack him. After his aggression against you don't you think that after his aggression timer for that attack should only last 15 minutes then go back to the he can shot you but you can't shoot him if you extend the timer by shooting his wreck. If you understand what I mean.
THIS was the point that he was making in his evemail to the GM!
where he says "very clear gap between intended function and actual".
So he got a ship back.
my second comment will be: are you really that naive that you believe that others never got ships back via a petition??
surely you must have realised that others would have tried this and may have gotten ships replaced?
Isn't the fun you have really just from annoying and blowing up their ships and hearign them cry about it afterwards?
who cares if they get a free ship back?
If they had a normal ship and insurance they'd get enough back for a ship anyways.
If they really wanted they could buy a few plex and have enough isk for a new ship anyway.
who cares how they got the ship again?
They'd still be there playing the game still anyway. just another target that you can go after again.
the final thing i'd like to say. I actually read your blog and think its kinda fun and cool what you do. I just think you really are over reacting. Wouldn't it be better to say "fuck it i'll just kill heaps more to make up for this!".
You really should forget stupid little things like this and just go back to what you enjoy. carebear tears?
ruin the game for others. but don't think that people aren't going to try to get back what they lost.
I might have to start a blog about people crying about their lovely game ruined and i'll include you and anyone thats crying about the state of eve at the moment.
Recent events are confirming EVE is a sandbox game - look what caused one kill. And I would like to see that it stays this way. Babysitting players will bring it to the bottom next to other MMOs and then it will lose the spirit of THE GREATEST ONLINE GAME.
Fully agree with Paul that every player should face consequences for what is he doing in this game, this game should not forgive mistakes. Fact that carebears don't care to know little details about the mechanic of the game is not an excuse. Ignoring multiple warnings provided by game is not an excuse. Undocking in expensive ship which you are not prepared to lose is not an excuse.
From Ninja's point of view I don't really care about which way are Devs going change the timer (if they going to change it). There will always be a way how to get tears and kills of carebears. But CCP have to make the rule clear and then follow it to the last letter.
As many of you guys here I'd like to know the same - is CCP going to take all of my hard work away by reimbursing every carebear kill or not?
Agree with above posters in clarification of rules.
Add to that, no risk Eve exists already, it is called Sisi.
Even though i consider myself a bit of a carebear I completely agree with what your saying.
Having your ship that you lost because you were an idiot who didnt understand the mechanics of eve replaced by a GM is just not on.
We've all lost shit cos we had the dumbass noob moments, doesnt mean we should get the shit back.
learning not to go out with the aggro timer on because of incidents like this is also, in my opinion, a very important lesson that should be taught to the dam bears.
EVE and EVE players pride ourselves on how hardcore we are as mmo players. The risks we take every time we undock would have the average wow player screaming in horror, this replacement policy by the GMs does not fit the EVE bill.
I would like to offer my perspective as someone that has provided in-game CS for an MMO. While I certainly agree with your points about what makes EVE great, and also agree with your outrage over this carebear getting rewarded for his stupidity, I don't think you're going to hear anything from CCP on the matter.
Some things that are clearly bugs (and hence using them is clearly an exploit), will get called an exploit by staff and you will be warned not to do them. Other things may appear buggy, but they're "working as intended." You want CCP to come forward and declare which of these aggro extension is. However, there's another option that you haven't considered: that the issue is what we called a "developer fix."
If it's a "developer fix," then it's not working as intended. However, it's not an actionable exploit, either, for one reason or another. This reasoning can range from how core it may be to gameplay or how easy it can be to do it unintentionally or without it being clear that it is a bug. Seeing as many software companies don't like to admit that their games may contain bugs, if you asked me about something that was a developer fix, I would dodge the question and give you a canned answer. It's one of those things that we neither admit that it is working as intended, that it is a bug, or that it is an exploit.
So, you want them to tell you if it's an exploit or if it's acceptable gameplay. If it's CCP's version of a "developer fix," then it's basically a bug that's not an exploit that they will not admit is a bug but will be fixed in a future patch sometime down the road. Which means they may not action anyone for it, but may replace losses caused by it as though it were a bug.
It's also possible that the rep that awarded the ship did so inappropriately. If that's the case, then all this publicity the event is getting won't produce a response from CCP, but rather more education for their staff about internal policy on the matter. If this is a mistake, CCP won't take the ship away from the player (never take something from a player that you gave to them), nor will they make any announcement on the matter. They'll just make sure it doesn't happen again in the future.
At least, that's my take on it. It's hard to speak for CCP, as each company is different and has their own policy. I guess I mostly just want to point out that there could be more going on behind the scenes than you may realize.
I have been reading about the flowing tears on this blog for a while now. This post requires a quick response from my little peanut gallery.
The same logic used to give Mr. Carebear his ship back could be applied to other game mechanics which require not being stupid (or careless).
Say I have POS in low-sec. This POS runs out of fuel. I get 24 notifications about this POS running out of fuel. The tower goes offline. Random solo-Dread pirate comes by and kills my tower, taking all its now unanchorable goodies with him. Therefore: I petition for POS to be replaced because I did not do anything about the notifications telling my POS was going offline.. which would make it vulnerable without the possibility of a reinforcement cycle.
CCP realizes my stupidity is understandable and replaces my tower and its modules to my personal hangar. All is well in the world. Makes sense to me. I've always wanted to try WoW.
Paul, I agree with you completely. I would really like to hear from CCP on this one. I am staying tuned in...
Tib
Right on man. This is the greatest game ever and what you just wrote expresses my feelings to the "T". I started out in eve just like any other pod goo wearin fool, a complete NOOB. Took my lumps and kept coming back for more till I learned. I like the fact that you have to risk things to get things. I like the fact that I can truly choose my play style. Having tried mining, ninja looting, pirating, WH space, mission running, Anoms, sov warfare, and 0.0 life. I fully understand how I play can affect the out come.
I can see how some people gloss over what your really getting at. You could give two road apples about your vic's actual ship replacement. It was the act of him getting it back and the implications it will have on future petitions, and maybe even the future of this games survivability. I say keep the tears flowin! They are warranted. Hell with out pilots like you and the passion you have in keeping this game great CCP could easily loose sight of what makes this game great. +10 to you
IO
I'd have to say, that's some serious Bull shit. This one act has just set the precedence for other acts of stupidity to be totally forgiven. It's not about the value either, it's simply the fact that it was done. CCP needs to ask themselves one question in relation to this incident (and others like it). Has what I've done improved te game play for all of EvE? And they need to be very careful how they answer it. Because if it is "Yes" then game play will be changed forever. If the answer is even "sort of" they better have a damn good justification and clearly defined practices for the future. In my opinion the answer better be "No" because I've never seem anything that was given out for free in any game that wasn't completely taken advantage of.
[...] wrote a very nice post about things that matter, and I’m going to steal his format to talk about why I don’t [...]
Late for work, so no time to read all the posts (sorry) but from what I did read, it's clear that bears have no reading-comprehension ;-) (if you don't get it, read the names of the above posters)
And, you stated the problem perfectly... It has very little to do with someone getting a ship they didn't deserve.. The problem is with CCPs complete and total lack of any commitment one way or the other... This game is excellent because of freedom and without consequences, freedom looses all meaning..
-Zan-
I wish that cop that gave me that ticket for running that stop sign would've said, "Oh, you didn't know that stop sign that had been mostly knocked over was there?? Well then, no ticket for you!" Yeah right....
We only want consistency, one way or the other, stop half-assing things, CCP!
http://stabbedup.blogspot.com/2010/08/eve-exchange-of-views-with-ccp.html
Is this your kill? Just saw this post on another blog and remembered reading something similar on here, but from a "different" perspective.
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