Confessions of a Lowsec Pirate

As you'll know from my last post, I recently renounced my wicked ways of lowsec piracy to pursue other things. CONCORD were willing to overlook my sins in exchange for a fat wad of isk, and I'm now once again an upstanding pillar of the community. Well, sort of anyway - I'm still -1.3, but that'll have to do!

Having spent a little over a year in lowsec including my previous stint in faction warfare, I felt like now was an appropriate time to look back at the highs and lows of lowsec life.

Welcome to Lowsec

Being a PVPer in Eve (especially a well known PVPer) comes with certain implicit expectations. In particular, there seems to be an assumption that you're some kind of ruthless cold-blooded badass, and by admitting that 'honestly I'm actually quite a friendly guy and you know what why can't we all just get along' you might risk losing your credibility as a ferocious internet spaceship warrior.

I've made no secret of the fact that, on the whole, I tend to be unusually altruistic towards other players. It says so in big letters right at the top of the page, so hopefully it won't come as a huge surprise to any of you. Still, I admit that I wasn't completely sure whether to write this post or not; I have a reputation to keep after all! With that in mind, before reading this post go ahead and ask yourself whether your opinion of me would be significantly downgraded following the realisation that I probably wouldn't murder you in real life if we were to meet, and if the answer is yes simply substitute the contents of this post with the word 'yarr' and variety of stabbing noises, and we'll continue as we were.

Risk

Risk vs Reward is one of the great mantras of the eve playerbase - that a greater risk of loss should mean a more substantial reward for success. In most cases this is brought up from a purely financial standpoint, usually to justify or question why one way of making isk is more profitable than another. In my opinion though, it goes much deeper than that.

Most eve PVPers are risk averse, myself included. Nobody likes to lose, and when we're offered the choice between taking a risk and making a relatively small change which would eliminate that risk, it's only natural that most people choose the latter. How many times have you seen someone wait until they had overwhelming numbers before taking a fight that they could have won anyway, or reship from something comparable to their opponent into something larger or more powerful? We rationalise it as common sense - why would we risk losing when we could win? Fighting fair is, after all, not what eve is about.

However in my experience, some of the best fights come when we put ourselves in a high risk situation and come out ahead. By avoiding fights where there is a risk of losing, are we in fact cheating ourselves out of our own enjoyment?

See No Evil

The recent blog banter topic is an interesting one. The premise is this:

"A quick view of the Eve Online forums can always find someone complaining about being suicide ganked, whining about some scam they fell for or other such tears. With the Goons' Ice Interdiction claiming a vast amount of mining ships there were calls for an "opt out of PvP" option.

Should this happen? Should people be able to opt-out of PvP in Eve Online. Should CONCORD prevent crime rather than just handing out justice after the event? Or do the hi-sec population already have too much protection from the scum and villainy that inhabits the game?"

This is a debate which has raged a thousand times before, and I'm sure you can already hear the oft repeated arguments in your head - a binary clash between the griefer and the carebear, each with mutually incompatible visions of what Eve is meant to be, and both trying fruitlessly to impose their view upon the other.

In my opinion, Eve isn't meant to be anything - it is what we make it and if it changed tomorrow it would be that instead. However, it's still a meaningful question to ask whether the presence of non-consensual PVP in our Eve is a good or bad thing. I'm sure we've all had out own experiences with it, for better for worse - it permeates Eve in such a way that it's practically impossible not to encounter it. Let me tell you my story, and then you can decide for yourself.