Okay, I’m going to pivot into a more on-topic post:
I think what would really help things, especially on the forums, is an official reaffirmation by CCP with regard to what this game is about. No leaving things to interpretation, no vague areas, et cetera. We need CCP, like they have in the past, to reiterate EVE’s reality as a “cold, harsh universe.” We need CCP to concretely address such concepts as the ever-present danger of PvP in all areas of space. We need CCP to explain that they never did, and never will control player behavior, as long as it falls within the game’s baseline rules (e.g. no doxxing, no scamming people out of real-life assets, stuff like that).
Most of these debates stem from this perpetual argument. In the past, we could reference official statements made by staff like Falcon, and that would put many arguments to rest, because we could point to the reality of EVE being a very specific type of game.
Why do we need this? Because forum clashes almost exclusively follow a very narrow template:
- Someone makes a thread or a post that complains about some form of EVE risk factor (e.g. “lost a barge to a gank in high-sec,” or “can’t go to low-sec to run sites because griefers are camping the gate and won’t let me pass,” etc.);
Alternatively, someone interjects into a normal, perfectly fine thread with a bait comment aimed at the “other camp” (both sides are guilty of this) - Pro-risk vets start explaining to the OP what they did wrong, and how to avoid it (some might be somewhat scathing if the OP rails or rages)
- Anti-risk vets (usually on alts) start baiting and attacking the other group, often with a high incidence of foul language, and start treating their camp as EVE pariahs being censured by the violent cavemen for merely expressing a voice of reason
- The pro-risk group takes the absolute piss out of the anti-risk group
- Thread gets cleaned/locked
It’s always like this. I have quite literally never seen it the other way around, where someone makes a thread or a post railing about the inability to cause enough damage to other players, gets a reasonable explanation from the well-adjusted, peace-oriented players, and then goes on a frothy cuss tirade out of sheer rage and frustration. Simply hasn’t happened! Not once!
Every single game-related argument can be traced to this root reason. All of the really nasty arguments polluted by things like real-life politics stem from this. Case in point: this thread, over the past few days, devolved into a crap-fest because a handful of posters started arguing that CCP is in collusion with pro-risk players (who were instantly referred to as trolls and personal attackers) in order to persecute and silence the “carebears.” Of what remains, you can see this start at around post #380.
But this is so fundamentally easy to address, just by reminding everyone about the core function of this game. CCP could quite literally make all of this go away just by refreshing everyone’s understanding that this is a sandbox in which other players can influence the way you play, even by using violence you don’t agree to, that this will never change, and as such, is open to discussion only as a matter of theory.
An official statement that all of the pirates, gankers, wardec hardmen, scammers, and cult personalities are all playing the game in an acceptable manner and within the confines of its rules, would take away most of our reasons to argue. You can’t be a “PvP troll” if the developers are saying you’re playing the game normally, and you likewise can’t be a “carebear troll” because your position is instantly rendered invalid by official statement.
Likewise, if I’m wrong about all of this, and EVE is no longer a “cold. harsh universe” where the danger of nonconsensual PvP is ever-present (which could be the case considering how this sort of phrasing has been suspiciously missing from EVE’s marketing materials during recent years), I want CCP to tell me this, and not hear it from other players.