Criminals: Do You Have A Code?

Communications Center Crime & Punishment
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Back in the early days of ninjaing, I remember being involved in several discussions about whether to honor ransoms or not. I’ve talked to all manner of PvP types and found that many individuals and groups have their own set of rules, or codes, that they don’t break.

So, are there any rules you tend to follow, even informally? It doesn’t have to be a written ruleset. It could just be a personal preference.

To get the ball rolling, I always go out of my way to educate new players, especially if I just robbed them or ganked them. I don’t offer them any mercy because of their inexperience, but I always make sure to help them understand why it happened, and how to become stronger next time.

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People who honor ransoms are whiteknights. From a game theoretical perspective it only makes sense if you will repeatedly catch the victim, and that the victim will repeatedly pay the ransom. Mainly it’s just balding, divorced roleplaying r!ddit posters. who honor ransoms. I guess if you like having noobs fawn on you more than money, then it’s a net positive.

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That’s just foolish. Tears are a valuable currency worth FAR more than Isk. Isk is a depreciating asset due to inflation. Tears are priceless.

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I honor ransoms. Or I would if I offered them. I don’t need the isk but I still like watching ships pop… so I don’t offer them. I especially like it if someone gets annoyed or surprised. I don’t think I’ve offered a ransom since I was new to pvp.

I honor duels. I consider it a business thing though, playing straight gets me more fights. And I enjoy teaching.

But I’ll ball up your fight with reps if it suits me. I like ganking people that earn it. I used to use war decs both for extortion and my personal form of entertaining justice.

Whether I’m a white knight or not, my character is as legit as yours. I play for my fun and while I appreciate your brand of evil… I own my own brand of rogue
behaviors.

I may try out that game you recommended…

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I follow the following rules. The following are targets if:

  1. He is armed with weapons.
  2. He is unarmed but is operating in concert with someone else on grid or local who is armed.
  3. He is following me and isn’t a fleetmate.
  4. He is going after something I want.
  5. His name is a variation of another hostile’s name.
  6. He is in a known booster ship.
  7. My guts tell me that he is bad news.

It’s a wild west out there.

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i used to before i took a long break, basically id give them a chance to become a pirate themselves provided they could fly a solid t2 fit pvp ship, and actually wanted to learn something.

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“I’ll kill a man in a fair fight. Or if I think he’s gonna start a fair fight.”

In all seriousness, I forgot the only other “code” I abide by. I don’t steal from my own. Honor amongst thieves and all that. Plus it’s bad business.

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Fair. For me it’s an investment in the future. If I teach a man how to shoot a gun, well then he’ll stick around so I can rob him again later. Plus I might get a good fight out of it.

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Are you talking about Mortal? You should, it’s interesting just to contrast with EVE. Also, the social/emotional ups and downs are much more vivid than EvE today just because the players are packed closer together and they know each other better (which makes war and betrayal very personal).

Tip/Advice/Warning: fishing is the path to RMT in that game.

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I pay for a lot of ships with ransom money. You have some whiteknight rage going on, but i think you can both play a criminal playstyle of extortion and theft while at the same time wanting others to also learn the playstyle. It’s just a game after all.

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Is that a trick question?

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extortion in EvE has nothing to do with ransoms

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I could be wrong, but I think ransom is the single defining characteristic of extortion.

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in terms of quantity of $ there are extortion rackets in EvE that dwarf “ransom” [roleplaying whiteknights]. not sure if ur just doing semantics or whateverXD

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Yeah you’re basically not succeeding with this “i am hardcore, everyone is gay” narrative. While i’m actually extorting people you’re on the forums trying to call me out for extorting wrong? You don’t even play the game, you’ve relegated yourself to Mortal Online which looks utterly crap in comparison to pretty much anything.

Cry moar dude :sadparrot: I agree with you that the game is falling, but I’m still here having fun anyway and you sound like you’re projecting pretty hard with all the gay calling…

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As an Imperium pilot, my rules of engagement are:

  • Shoot whatever your superior officer tell you to, regardless of standing.
  • NBSI if I’m roaming solo or small gang. Not being blue is enough of a reason to shoot, regardless of any other factor.
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Ransoming Ibises is not a good business model. Looks like you get ganked more often by the NPCs :slight_smile:

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Thus, I stopped ransoms…

And yeah, I’ve been trying to get into PvE quite unsuccessfully and have had several losses doing silly things.

That Nereus loss… turns out you cannot tank a level 4 mission in one.

Honestly, though, I would say losing ships is a hallmark of my play style.

By the way, I took the liberty of looking at your immaculate killboard in reciprocity! You know what I noticed? Despite having twice the kills and half the losses… I’ve got a lot more points than you do.

That’s because I win harder fights, you see, I’m not a fleet pilot. I actually perform my own maneuver and pick my own fights. I lose more and don’t shoot as often, but it’s because I accept greater challenges. And no, nobody tells me when to jump or shoot.

I also spend most of my time in T1 ships that cost less than your modules.

I certainly participate in fleets, but I can post more than a single occasion where I’ve taken down a fleet by myself.

You’ve got 50-ish solo kills… and I’m betting they’re almost all pods where you just got the first shot.

If you look up Light Adama, the corp I ran when I was in the Orphanage, it had about the same stats as you do… doing the same playstyle as what I think you do. However, my friends and I quit the Orphanage because we weren’t getting good enough fights… then we dumped Light Adama because we didn’t want that fancy killboard scaring targets off.

You should take more risk… maybe even see how you play solo some time. Anyone can hump a hub.

Reading your killboard, you are the sort of fellow I love to fight… because you probably don’t know mechanics and you’ve been relying on fleetmates and nice ships to win for you. Guys like you don’t fare well solo because you’re too afraid of losing.

Go take some risk, you might be more effective than you think you are.

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Boom. Headshot. Maximum points achieved please enter a 3 letter offensive word for the scoreboard.

I lost a Myrmidon couple days back trying to ransom him, he pulled out a random hero ECM when i stopped firing at 5% hull and the RNG went in his favour. It was epic and the guy was crazy excited to escape. It stings when they escape in a small way and i could have played it safe and just fired that last volley instead of ransoming him, but then I’d be trading the chance of enough ISK to buy another ship for a guaranteed completely worthless killmail and some mid range modules maybe if the fairy is nice. You should do ransoms when they make sense at least I think. Maybe not on an undock or in a mission with rats shooting you, but there are plenty of times you probably have a minute to roll the dice with the dude :blush: Ships bought with dirty money smell better inside and that guys narrow escape was way more fun than another killmail for the peen.

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I’ll keep that in mind and maybe try one if the opportunity presents itself…

Most of my kills aren’t really that valuable and I’m on the dirty edge of losing the bastard to docking or jumping by the time I kill my target.

I can appreciate the interaction of it, and I’ll try one if I get a fight in a belt and I’ve got the margin to demand it.

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