Buhallin

@Khal 600K credits is not a lot of money. Neither is the million. Will it take some amount of effort? Sure, but probably less than a week. Our guild of 7 players is running a donation drive - we have 2 50s, everyone else is mid-40s or so, and currently have 1.3 million in the fund before I add my own considerable resources.

Do you have to work a bit to acquire it? Sure. But Belsavis (and soon Corellia) dailies turn out some serious cash, and collection of crafting materials to sell can make a stunning amount of money (my main is only 48, I have over 11 million credits through nothing but craft mat farming). Red Goo is currently selling for 2K a piece on my server, consistently - assuming some similar prices, you need all of 3 stacks collected to get the first tab.

Honestly, 600K is a pretty trivial goal for a SINGLE player - if you're really scared by it with a guild of 8-9 players, something's wrong.

@Boardwalker said: "There is a difference between harassing a character ingame to harassing someone in RL outside of the game. The MIttani asked other players to harass a character, *ingame*. No real names were used. Conversely, the Mittani and his family are being harassed in real life, where real names are known. If we must attach the "cyber bully" tag to someone, it would be to the people going after the Mittani in real life. (this does not excuse his actions at the alliance panel, which were just plain awful)"

So then why were his actions awful? Because all he ever advocated was in-game activity, which you seem to think is fine. Is it bad because he did it in person? On tape? Would it have been fine if he's pushed everyone to do the same thing on the EVE forums? In private on the Goon forums?

You've said before that you consider any action taken in the game to be acceptable. Many people disagree with that, and consider that to be what makes EVE and its community so unpleasant. "I'm only a jerk to people in the game" doesn't go a long way towards convincing anyone that you're really all a bunch of great guys.

@Boardwalker "There is a difference between harassing a character ingame to harassing someone in RL outside of the game."

To many people, this difference doesn't exist. There are real players on the other end of those characters. Using EVE as a transmission medium instead of email or Facebook does not make it acceptable to anyone other than the EVE community.

You've been very vocal about how the EVE community isn't that bad - but you're defending and justifying the very behavior that many people find repugnant. This is why you're convincing nobody. "Well, yeah, we do all those nasty things but it's all OK because it's only in the game!" is not a persuasive argument for why EVE really is a nice place.

@Digestivo Not entirely. That PvP enables people to do a lot of the griefing that people see at the heart of EVE. But the market scams, the verbal harassment, the spying and corp thievery aren't specifically about the PvP system, at least not where spaceships shooting at each other are involved.

And that's the problem - the "Take whatever you can" aspect of EVE permeates the entire game.

@Cass Lie Well, if the victims should feel the same as an FPS, then shouldn't the victors as well? EVE players like to brag on how much more intense their world is, because winning matters. But then losing matters, too. That's fine - it's what makes EVE what it is. Let's not delude ourselves, though. Way too many of EVE's players are there not to build themselves up, but for the opportunity to tear someone else down. Because making someone lose something they've worked for, well, that's the sweetest win of all, isn't it?

@Cass Lie So... There's no such thing as cyber-bullying in EVE, because the entire game of EVE is all about cyber-bullying?

Uhm... Yeah. Okay.

And the EVE community wonders why it has such a bad reputation...

@SnarlingWolf Developing software is expensive. Developing software as large as an MMO is really expensive. Developing software as large as an MMO that will meet the complete reality-defying expectations of the insane player base is really, REALLY hard.

The surprise isn't that so many games company can't make the numbers work - it's that some of them actually do.

@Boardwalker But that's entirely my point - the very risk you talk about assuming comes from the nastiness of the player base. You're happy with that - lots of people aren't. Your implication that you avoid that risk by simply not going to that particular system is also untrue. Tried undocking from Jita lately? As I've said repeatedly, you cannot do ANYTHING in EVE without being aware of the degenerates.

And no, that doesn't apply to anyone who PvPs. But if that's your argument at this point, I think we're past the point of constructive discussion here. I've tried to explain to you why people view EVE the way they do. Up to you how to take it from there.

@Boardwalker Last thought: I don't think it's condescending to disagree with anyone's opinion of the community. The problem comes from statements like this:

"The only reason the game doesnt boast the same numbers as WoW is because the majority of people are either too stupid, too lazy, or not patient enough to be successful and advance in the game."

Jef's original article wasn't quite as direct, but the theme was pretty much the same, especially with quotes like this: "The UI is horrible, they say. Is it really, though? Seeing as how absolutely everything on it has a highly detailed context menu, and 95% of its functionality can be accessed by a simple right-click, I wonder whether short attention spans are the culprit instead of subpar design."

Yes, actually, the UI is horrible. Try adding drones to your overview mid-fight if you didn't happen to have it set up beforehand. Or finding a random moon during an emergency evac. I could go on and on - those "simple right-click" menus are often nested 3-4 deep, and require pinpoint accuracy for the initial menu click on either space or a constantly-updating Overview window.

The refusal to acknowledge its problems, instead attacking the capability of anyone who raises those issues, is a big part of what makes EVE fans so incredibly annoying. The game has its strong points, as I've acknowledged - if you can't even admit to yourself that the UI sucks, your perspective is pretty much meaningless.

@Boardwalker: "Oh, and if I'm in a low or null security system and two contacts jump in, I'm cool with that. I chose to be in a dangerous system, and they chose to be there as well. If I'm careless and they attack me, it's just a consequence of my own actions. It's the risk I took for the reward I wanted. I find that exciting."

This is pretty much exactly my point. Your gameplay experience is dominated, if not completely defined, by the expectation that every other random player you see is going to try and kill you. That every trade is a scam, every call for help a trap, every transport contract may be undeliverable or leading you to a suicide gank, and even longtime associates could be spies or just decide to up and take everything you own one day. You find that exciting - and to a certain extent I agree that it is. But you cannot hold them up as what you like about the game without acknowledging that EVE is largely defined by these people. If everyone was friendly, the thrill you get wouldn't exist.

Again - I don't really care how many nice people are in the game, if every single play session is defined and dominated by the degenerates. And EVE is.