EVE mechanics on checking player douchery

Communications Center General Discussion
#1

There are:

  1. Kill rights
  2. Bounties
  3. Standing ratings
  4. Criminal Status flags
  5. CONCORD response in High SEC

Did I forget anything else?

So far all of these things are meant to penalize for “misbehavior.” Seeing that as it is, is there a side of EVE that encourages good behavior? Let’s see:

  1. Some Agent Missions (awards standings but can penalize in other standings)
  2. Incursions? (maybe invites cooperative playing)

Anything else I’m forgetting?

What about good behavior encouraged towards other players? I can only think of one:

  1. Chat Channels, for example the Help Channel that can assist new players.
#2

There is no good or bad play, especially not measured by any meaningless NPC mechanics. If you talk to somebody, or see what she/he is talking, you get a much better idea about a person. Except maybe roleplay, don’t judge players by their ingame actions.

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#3

If you require a reason to be good, you’re not.

The game allows for more freedoms than many others, indeed it offers more freedoms than real life does. Without those freedoms Eve would have been just another MMO and fallen by the wayside long ago.

If you want to be be good, be good, there is opportunity to do so, many have made their names in Eve by doing so.

If you want to explore the darker sides of the game, feel free to do so; shooting someone in the face then stealing their stuff, in a computer game, does not make you a bad person.

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#4

Actually, that is THE best (perhaps the closest to true) litmus to judge a player by - one’s actions are after all what speaks loudest. If not by their actions (and words, granted - but words are typically merely another sort of expressive action), what should we be basing our opinions of other players? :wink:

I understand that you are separating player from character (“in-game”) here - but ultimately someone who is generous and kind is not likely to be trying to ruin another player’s day, and conversely a real-life dickhead is not going to turn philanthropist in-game. People’s characters shine through in their in-game actions - if anything, their true character is revealed, as they don’t have to face real-life consequences, such as jail or the chair…

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#5

Be The Villain

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Eve has always been about choices for people in game. If you wish to be a hero then do so, if not there is still space for you here… This is a brave new world after all… New Eden is vast.

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#6

Appreciate the responses. I posted this thread because of other recent threads and comments in them, namely the What would you change in Eve if you could thread and the thread I posted earlier Good things about playing EVE where someone commented about douche behavior.

This got me thinking that EVE does do as much as possible to curb bad behavior with consequences provided through in game features, but does it do enough to balance the other end? That is why then I listed some of the things in game that supposedly keeps players in check, but really nothing to promote what could be good behavior in the game.

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#7

The problem is that you can’t really judge a player by bounty, kill rights on him and criminal status flag. It would be absolutely incorrect to say that “podding that guy” in lowsec is a bad thing without knowing the context, however anyone who does that will get a security hit and, possibly, a kill right. Bounties are usually set randomly and are not considered an indication of a bad mannered player by anyone. Concord response also can be triggered without doing anything bad. Basically the things you named simply have no meaningful connection with bad or good deeds from the player perspective.

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#8

Reward good behavior:

  1. Right-click, send money.
  2. Contracts, private item exchange (gift) contract.
  3. Standing ratings.
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#9

I think its because being good is a reward in itself. It rewards you with good mood and people look at you differently. Are more helping and can even give you something.

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#10

Normally, I’d agree, however I guess I judge things from a point of view like this, even tho I can do a thing without consequence ( RL ) because over the net we can ‘get away’ with it I find that someone who can’t resist their impulses to do something when it effects others and they do it over and over means they don’t have any good amount of control over themselves.

People like that are not evil per say, but the lack of control tells me they are unpredictable, meaning it’s best to keep them out of your sphere because they will just bring problems upon themselves and those around them, it take much more control to behave when you don’t have any consequence for an action you may take against another, while this is only a game there are real people behind the keyboard, and the time I was in a Corp and seen a senior member brow beat a newbie in the Corp really put me off, it was just ugly to watch someone do that to another.

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#11

Do you really believe this?

How one acts in an imaginary setting with different constraints and rules provides very little insight into the character of the individual, other than perhaps how they approach game playing. There are no consequences in our shared virtual world so how one acts is completely different. There is no reason to suppose that someone who “kills” an imaginary avatar is more likely to kill a real person : every reputable psychological study done on role players and video game players has concluded that. Humans are quite capabable of transitioning back and forth from a pretend universe to reality.

The reason this thread pops up and regularly is two-fold. First, the definition of “bad” or “douchey” behaviour is often not defined properly. This is a competitive video game about fighting over resources so if someone explodes your industrial ship or lays in ambush and catches you on a gate camp they are just playing the game. Bad behaviour would be hurling racial or homophobic slurs at another human being who just beat you in a game. I will agree if you are the type to engage in vile insults over a game you are playing, that does provide insight into your real-world character, but if you just explode my autopiloting pod, that is as maladjusted as taking someone’s queen in a game of chess - that is not at all. People tend to drift between talking about in-game bad and real-world bad and these threads spin around for much longer than they need to.

The second problem, is there are actually players that project their own persona into the imaginary world of New Eden and for whatever reason, they can’t imagine that others can play the game any way else. These players see Eve as more of an elaborate instant messaging client where real people can chat and experience an imaginary place rather than as a competitive game or role-playing game. They then get personally offended or emotionally hurt when another player doesn’t behave within our real-world social norms and behaves as a dastardly criminal and come to the forums with cries of ‘sociopath’. They also tend to be overly attached to their virtual assets and view any damage or theft of them as the action of a “douche” as only a “douche” would try to hurt their feelings.

New Eden is a completely imaginary place where no-one can get hurt while playing in the amazingly complex virtual world CCP has built. Real hurtful actions are prohibited by CCP and will get offenders banned. If you find yourself being hurt because someone touched your imaginary things, that is most likely on you for treating our shared playspace as real when it is just pretend. It may take some maturity to separate reality from pretend, but not that much.

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#12

I think it depends on the in game action that is deemed as bad. Bounties certainly do not indicate a bad person, indeed any of the options that the OP listed I do not believe indicate a bad person. However my opinion changes in certain situations.

1: People that infiltrate corps in order to wipe out their assets via theft from a corp or alliance. I think that is a special sort of low that is way beyond bad.

2: Some of the vitriol that is spilled out in these forums to people. Most people wouldn’t talk like that to others in real life, but hidden behind their eve avatar then some people are just plain rude. Whilst that doesn’t necessarily make them a bad person, it would certainly make me wary of that person ingame.

#13

As a feature… Kill rights are almost worthless!!! Having to activate them, you most times miss your chance to use them at a time of your choosing. Kill rights should be automatically activated!!!

I’m a miner and industrialist and usually not in a position to avenge a ganking. But most gankers are setup almost all the same, close range hard hitters. If I want to avenge myself with no warning I should be able to just drop in on them and kite it.

Be even more funny it still trigger Concord but when they show up they don’t fire because they would know it was a kill right…

Maybe drop in the middle of a fleet of gankers and they all start attacking me and Concord blast all the ones attacking me. And I still get all the kill rights on those that fired on me.

#14

So, I want to point out that CCP obviously introduces certain mechanics into the game for the purposes of allowing players to respond to “wrongful” acts against them. Whether they are effective or not is not really the point I was exploring in this thread (although discussion is still welcomed on their effectiveness).

Rather, it’s a concerted attempt by CCP to “balance” the game so-to-speak, but the mechanics are lop-sided if you will, if one considers which is meant to “punish” (e.g. exact revenge) and which rewards. I’m talking simply game mechanics not necessarily player’s behavior, because folks who have played EVE long enough knows to weigh the odds and consequences to act a certain way and risk the mechanics of the game that respond to their actions (e.g. unprovoked gank in hi sec in a cheap ship, get CONCORDOKKEN, lose standing etc…)

So, if I were to “score” the number of mechanics in EVE that responds to “negative” behavior versus “positive” it would be 5 to maybe 3(?) if there are any mechanics that you could consider that reinforces positive behavior.

I mean, its a stretch for identifying game mechanics in EVE that might reinforce positive behavior, but I can certainly count at least five that acts to punish “negative” behavior.

Could this be what EVE might be missing then, with all the threads that ask “how would you change EVE” etc?

The question seems to come up often in other threads it seems.

#15

ah right ok, mis-understood

  • As Memphis says above Right Click > give money and gifting items to people.
  • putting reps on someone who is being ganked.
  • Helping people and offering advice (I gave some the BM for a high sec exit in a WH for example after they got stuck there)
#16

This is kinda a complex question I think you are reducing too simply. There are many mechanisms and mechanics built into the game to get players to cooperate “positively”. Some PvE, like Incursion and Resources Wars have been built to promote cooperation and minimize the room for a bad actor to disrupt the operation or to freeload. Things like shared indexes and Faction Warfare bonuses do the same in a sense, incentivizing cooperation. There are boosts and reps that make players stronger if they cooperate. Upwell structures have been designed so players can sell/trade services with each other in relative safety so both sides can benefit from an economic exchange. They may not be as in your face as CONCORD, but the game is structured in many places so helping others and cooperating with them is possible and rewarded.

However, the very nature of a competitive game pushes players to band together for protection and efficiency, while there still is that advantage to betray the other guy to your advantage. One of the core trade-offs of game theory which makes Eve such an interesting game. I think it too simplistic to just score “positive” and “negative”.

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#17

Well, I know from experience that even positivity can be met with negative response or it can be exploited by some people. :roll_eyes:

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#18

I think you’re right, though simplicity is used to often tackle complex issues. But what I read in your response is there are mechanics for player cooperation that reinforces positive behavior, like incursions, and I forgot about FW and the recently added resource wars.

Now comes the question are these effective? I think they are as effective as the mechanics that punish negative behaviors, which some had already mentioned here as not being very effective. Cooperative play with other players offers no direct reward by some mechanism as a consequence to their cooperative actions. The only consequence are usually short lived (e.g. boosts and reps) or are social responses by other players, like sending them ISK or an item, or maybe giving them status in a corp.

As in game features I don’t think FW, Incursions and Resource Wars are effective enough to promote cooperative play, because I don’t think many people play them as much.

#19

This is true. The recent Kusion betrayal of CODE comes to mind (if that actually happened)

#20

So what you’re essentially saying is that there is quite a bit of stick, but not enough carrot. Thought-provoking, and I’m inclined to agree.