Many EvE players don't understand what Suddenly Ninjas is all about. For the mission and miner carebears, we're mean folks who steal your stuff. For the "l33t hardcore" PvPers, we're just some corp who grief people in highsec. But I'll tell you what we're about: Having fun with good corpmates while trying to make the game a little more challenging for players who don't interact with anyone else. We salvage in missions because salvaging is reasonably profitable, and because it gets us right up in the face of mission runners.

When this goes well, it results in tears, and tears make the game worth playing. Internet spaceships paid with internet money made from shooting internet lasers at other internet ships - it's not really anything real. When I can make some anonymous person on the other side of the country or planet scream obscenities at me - that's real. Some players understand this and handle the loss of an internet spaceship with grace, but other players just break down into four year old children. That's the two different kind of players we found ourselves with during a great fleet operation.

Our two friends are Tompoco and Adam Parvanehgohar, and they were happily pewing away at fake internet pirates when I warped into their mission ahead of my fleet. I got to work salvaging and stealing loot, but started to run into fire from a group of small NPCs who had stasis webifiers. This was going to kill my speed tank, so I aligned to a nearby celestial and prepared to warp. Our two bears must have thought they had a good target, because they locked me and then released drones at me. As soon as the drones hit, I warped off, informing my twenty-strong fleet that I now had aggression rights on these missioners and it was time to fire up the pew-boat.

It was about this time that Adam Parvanehgohar starts a convo with to attempt to gloat. I try to keep him going while docking up for a pew ship - I don't want him to leave, after all.

Adam Parvanehgohar > hows ur almost dead AF?
Khalia Nestune > :(
Adam Parvanehgohar > u stole from us =P

30 seconds later I was warping back to the mission in a gank fit Harbinger with my remote-rep fleet hot behind me. Tompoco was flying a Drake, and Adam a Dominix. I wanted to go bold and take the Dominix, but he was out of warp disruptor range when I got there, and warps off seconds after I arrive. Way to support your corpmate, bro! So I lock up Tompoco and let fly with all I have, and my RR fleet shows up seconds later and pretty much prevents me from taking any damage at all.

When I got him half into armor I stop shooting so we can attempt to ransom his ship, but he starts shooting Paul Clavet, so I take him down. He's actually got a decent fit for a mission runner. Tompoco hasn't said anything at all yet, but Adam is good for tears:

Khalia Nestune > tell your drake pilot friend I like his T2 gear
Adam Parvanehgohar > fuck u
Khalia Nestune > <3 you too

We continue salvaging and looting the field. Adam starts flying in and out of the mission with a Rifter, warping off before we can get a lock on him - not that I'm sure what any of my fleet of RR mates is going do if they get a lock on him. He tries to get RR support from local, which we jump all over:

Adam Parvanehgohar > any1 here wanna kill fags and can RR?
Barlic > I have RR, invite?
Barlic > Oh shit your the douche who warped off lol, nevermind we just killed your corp mate
Tavrek > Me too!
Barlic > Try harder next time
Zed Jackelope > Adam, you can hire Logistical Nightmare for all your RR needs.
Tompoco > You guys accidentally the entire drake.
Adam Parvanehgohar > not really running when its an eintire blobb vs a rifter
Paul Clavet > you ran in your domi
Paul Clavet > vs a BC
Paul Clavet > fail

Now Tompoco as you might have noticed is taking this pretty well. In fact, as we continue on with our fleet op, it is apparent that he's reasonable for a mission-bear, and Adam is the enraged four-year old - who didn't even lose his ship. It gets so bad that Tompoco has to call out Adam in local.

Paul Clavet > Tompoco: Always cheat, always win. The only fair fight is the one you lose.
Tavrek > Those that refuse to fight dirty are morally obligated to lose.
Tompoco > Im not complaining. I have learned from this. I think I will start doing this to carebears now.
Tompoco > =)
Barlic > Oh? You should join our corp then.
Paul Clavet > Tompoco: That's our goal, quite honestly
Adam Parvanehgohar > stop running away fags
Adam Parvanehgohar > i wanna kill u
Adam Parvanehgohar > come back =(
Tompoco > Well. I started this corp.
Tompoco > I liek it.
Barlic > Well obviously your corp mates failed, dump them, join us!
Tompoco > haha. No just adam fails.
Tompoco > I cant boot adam though. Who am I gunna steal isk from then?

At this point our RR fleet is warping off to get our salvage ships, and go harass different mission runners.

Adam Parvanehgohar > yes plz ditch me cause an eintire fleet is now running from my rifter?
Adam Parvanehgohar > everytime i head toward u, u warp off
Tompoco > Adam stop talking in local. Your making the entire corp look bad.
Emizeko Chai > you coulda told him that in corp lol
Tompoco > Naw that would involve changing chat channels. Im to lazy to do that.
Tavrek > However, your choice to do it here was pretty hillarious.
Khalia Nestune > You guys just made our night
Emizeko Chai > now you've shamed him in front of us

I like to think that this shows the difference between those who are playing the game as a game, and those who are taking their virtual ships a little too seriously. At the end of the day, Tompoco lost something like a dollar worth of 'real' value, if you were to buy the ISK (please don't). He took it with grace. We may like tears, but we all respect those who can laugh it off and carry on.