Maybe this lack of “encouraging good behaviour” should tell people something. Not that it does, but that’s not the fault of the lack … and “good” is pretty relatively anyway, considering that those who see themselves as “good” often enough are not even close.
NPCs offer rewards for actions that are “good” for them, and penalize those that are not.
The rest is up to players.
EVE is full of incidents of “good” behavior, as in the eye of the beholder, being rewarded by other player/s, and vice versa for “bad” behavior being punished.
I think some people have difficulty understanding that, cos they do infact reflect themselves on their actions ingame. They dont differentiate morally between the game and IRL. That is vested in their view they are morally superior, and thus expect others to conform to that, both ingame and without.
I myself reflect my own self into the game on this character, (I roleplay myself, in an EVE setting, as if I was a capsuleer. Its “my thing”. Helps my immersion and personal involvement) but unlike these people, I dont expect or demand others to do the same, or to bend to my morality, just as I dont IRL (though I may try to persuade them to see things my way.)
I have other characters that do not reflect myself IRL.
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This is not true, but as always, it is complicated. There can be a direct connection between personality and character, there can also be a directly inverse connection. Many people “escape” into their characters, which causes them to play “who they actually want to be”, compared to “who they actually are”. Losers don’t play games to play losers. They play games to feel like Winners. That’s why 99% of the games out there make you feel like winners and why there are Achievements.
There are also true assholes, who really play assholes in video games. They are pretty sad individuals, looking for recognition, but never really achiving it.
There are also completely NORMAL people who simply play, because they want to play. Whatever the rules allow them to do is fair game, because that is how the game works. These are those who blow you up first and then help you learning not to get blown up again. People like you and me.
The character can reveal quite a lot of insight into the mindset of the player playing it. We can observe this both in the game and on the forums. Saying that it does not reveals lack of understanding of how to observe behaviour, which is not the fault of people, but the fault of educational facilities teaching everyone that “everyone is different, everyone is equal, don’t judge books by their covers”, making the vast majority of populations easy prey for those who know better.
I wanted to go into more details, but why waste the time anyway.
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True.
Id put those under the same classification as those that try to enforce their own personal morality on others, and cant distinguish between the game and IRL.
If only that was true, and so simple…
Imo, it has failed and just led to more judging and moral pontification.
Along the lines of “I only accept you, if you agree with me.” and “you are either with us, or against us”.
I’ll accept that.
People engage with this game in many different ways, and a few of them do inject their real-world persona directly into the imaginary dystopian war zone others just like to play in. There is nothing stopping you from treating everything as “real” and bringing all of your real-world morals into the game, although I imagine it would be a rather befuddling and probably even unpleasant experience. You probably can learn something about these types of players if you are sure they are genuine. Oh, and yes, the assholes are obvious although that is usually because of their “out-of-game” interactions highlighting their defects of character.
So yes, while you can learn something about character from how players treat the other players behind the keyboard, I am still not convinced though that how a player actually plays the game gives any meaningful insight into how they act in the real world as is the often heard carebear claim. The collection of incentives/disincentives and rewards/punishments are completely different and artificial, they make related choices in game to choices in real life impossible. Maybe you can infer some basic information on cognitive ability or reaction time and the like, but once you rise to the level of strategic or moral choices, a game is just a game with ephemeral rewards and non-existant consequences. And then this is made more complicated as you say by how players choose to interact with the game - some playing it as complicated board game moving around pieces with no feelings, and some as an social extension of their real life they insert themselves in and treat the other capsuleers around them as real people. But even what might appear the dimmest carebear, unable to separate reality from fantasy, may just be roleplaying such a persona for amusement or as part of a con.
Meh, you are probably right. Those that get this, get this, and are unlikely to be swayed by a random forum post from their certitude about the “sociopaths” that are ruining their space game.
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Legit sociopaths are very rare.
Your odds of coming in any kind of contact with them in EVE is vanishingly small.
Even then, its a trivial matter to get away from them, and they can only harm you in-game. At most you will lose space pixels, perhaps some pride and the indignity of their insults and goading. If it gets worse than that, submit a ticket and let CCP deal with it.
99% of the time when you might suspect its a sociopath, its just someone that wants to get a reaction out of you to supplement/justify their otherwise sad IRL.
Your best course of action is simply not to respond to them, and thereby deny them that satisfaction.
If you can do that, you might lose your ship/assets, but you still win, because they did not get from you what they wanted.
They dont want your loot, nor do they care who you are, they just want your reaction.
If you deny them that by just, simply, shutting up and not responding, you win by denying them what they want.
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