1. a). One who robs at sea or plunders the land from the sea without commission from a sovereign nation. b). A ship used for this purpose. 2. One who preys on others; a plunderer. 3. One who makes use of or reproduces the work of another without authorization. 4. One that operates an unlicensed, illegal television or radio station.Now I'm fairly sure the last two entries don't apply to EVE, but the first two certainly do. By attacking and then destroying, or ransoming, I suppose, you are robbing someone of their modules or isk. Despite what a lot of people cry, you don't have to ransom to be a pirate. It’s entirely up to the person to decide whether they want to take the time to ransom someone. Or not. The second entry sums it up more succinctly, by saying that a pirate is someone who plunders. If you take that idea you could even say that corp. thievery, scamming and highway robbery are the one and same; they are different methods by which you plunder your opponent or target. You plunder corp. hangars, you plunder peoples wallets via escrow, you plunder ship hulls for modules. Many people might not like being associated with scammers and corp. thieves. Well too bad. The problem that starts to appear is one of honour. Many people are honourable, to some degree or another, and as such they often find that abusing people's trust through corporate theft and scamming is distasteful. Just recently I had my second account in a corporation. She was there for intelligence gathering and even borrowed form the corporate hangar when my main's ammunition stocks ran low. Her primary goal was one of surveillance, not theft. In what passed for an interview I never had to lie, I was never deceitful. I suppose some would argue that I lied by omission when I neglected to mention that I had a second character who was actively hunting the corporation I was infiltrating. Now, the reason I mention this is that I am a fairly honourable person. I will honour a 1v1, if I accept in the first place, and I will fight with honour when it comes to engaging the enemy. I didn't feel bad by getting my second character into this target corporation. I felt no shame about it. The reason for this was because she was meant to passively sit there gathering information that would aid us in our fights, give us yet another edge over whatever opponents we would fight. Even though we had more of an edge, there was always a chance that we would lose when it came to the actual fight. Does this constitute piracy? I would say yes. Since my second character was supplementary to my main, her intentions were always of a piratical nature. I was making use of a resource that was up to that point, previously unavailable. And, again, this is the problem. Piracy is a way of life. On top of that we place our morals, our trust. And that causes problems. Piracy is parasitical in nature; it thrives by taking away from others, in this case, by exploiting the difference in PVP proficiency. In other cases by exploiting the trusting nature of people on the Internet. Both are legitimate tactics. In terms of my own honour I would prefer to be limited to the purely in game side of it, but EVE is so compelling, so addictive that we forget where the line is between in game and out of game. If you want to take it to the logical conclusion you could say that selling items via the market is also piracy, and indeed, many feel that the Cap Recharger II cartel is somewhat like daylight robbery. The only difference is the means. One is through the destruction of a ship, the other is through destruction of your wallet. Both are isk losses. Now, explain to me why people hate pirates so much.
Piracy. Who, huh, what?
Ifni·
Continuing with my broad stroke views on life in EVE, I though I might as well aim high, and try and categorise everyone’s favourite hobby; piracy.
Now, what constitutes piracy? Ask most people in game and you would probably receive a hail of abuse and a lot of swear words. Others see piracy as a way to get rich. Some see it as a way to do all those things they can't do, and get away with, in real life. Unfortunately none of these are what piracy is for me.
I suppose we need a definition of piracy to begin with. Dictionary.com defines a pirate as :
11 Comments
Xenios Alfar·
People dislike change and being removed of there money. More and more people are turning to piracy so people are naturally afraid. imho
Tanthius·
People hate losing. Some people cant take it all that well.
puttputt·
"Eve wasnt made to be a pvp game its all about the industry man!"
^^^
Lyticus·
Nice post, reflects my thinking, but I feel that most carebears after having their ship blown to bits by a flashing red dot after having refused a ransom dont see us as anything other than scum.
Perhaps the reason so many people hate us is that our first contact with them is not exactly on the nicest of terms :)
- Lyt
Ifni·
I say the same to the people selling HAC's at 150mil when build cost is like 40mil. And I have no choice but to pay the "ransom".
Spathi·
People dont like the idea they've lost because someone else was "better" than them. Whether the other person is really "better" or not isnt the issue. If you pay you have had to admit you lost but if you die you still lose the clone/implant/ship/mod costs. So you lose regardless. People dont like the feeling associated with loss especially if you had to work hard to get the thing you lose.
Market pricing is a legal form of robbery but since in theory more than one person can make the modules, the price is balanced by supply and demand. If you want to sell more you price it less than the competition. When you arrange a price fixing cartel is when you get the closest to piracy.
I get fanmail with abuse because they didnt pay a ransom and I sent them on a trip to their clone station. They always claim to have full insurance and a new ship fully fitted already. They usually include the threat of they will come get me. I've never seen these people again.
The flaming of pirates is just their way to express the anger of loss. Since they know they probably could not get revenge with some weapons so they resort to verbal abuse. I mean one guy said something about how europeans lose wars (I'm from London, UK). He also insulted my bounty at 505k and told me to "come back" when I had 1mil bounty. He knows he couldnt kill me and admitted it after a few evemails.
perfection·
Geeuusss well what do you call 16.5 mill for a cap recharger 2 then! or 99 mil for a vagabond. I say allow pirates into safe space!
The "industrials have been pirateering for years.
Balklanac·
I dont know I suppose when you are buying something you agree to being ripped off. Piracy well its forcing somebody to make a choice.But as for the T2 prices or huge profit mark-up on other items.Well if the competition was more fierce the prices would deflate and I am sure we would see more people taking their ships into 'more dangerous space'.Lastly what the manufacturers would loose in initial deflation they could make up in bulk
Luance DeAngeluotti·
I don't hate pirates.
I think they add spice to the game and an element of uncertainity. Going to low sec without pirates in the game would be boring.
I don't PvP because I don't have the time atm. If I had the time I would try to be a pirate hunter ;-)
As a matter of fact I would love to see more RP pirates around. They give us Empire Faction RPers something to do, like free a region from pirates.
What I don't like is gate camps with sniper setups :-(
And if you ever see me around, don't bother to ask me for a ransom for my ship. Won't pay it, never....
Adam D·
An excellent read and several points well made there, *infi* (deliberate).
I aggree with your description of piracy totally: and the reason i am leaving a comment here is to clear somthing up with those who only see piracy as *not having a choice* or *being forced to make a choice* when their ship is destroyed/ransomed by another player in unsafe space. And do not categorise the overpricing of items such as Cap Recharger IIs on the open market as piracy because there is a choice there.
To those people i ask you this: When that other player warp scrambles your ship and proceeds to destroy or ransom it;
*Had you not already made your choice* to be in that low security system in the first place?
*Had you not already made your choice* to stay in the asteroid belt/warp to the next gate even after seeing that suspicious player in local?
*Had you not already made your choice* of not fitting the appropriate countermeasures?
So my point is: *You do have a choice.* So this argument does not set apart those who destroy people's ships in low security from those who deliberatley overprice modules/ships on the market or escrow: Ifni's point still stands, and these people still fit nicley into the same category.
Thanks for reading.
Ifni·
I have to agree with you to a limited extent. I classified the Cap Recharger II bpo owners as pirates simply to highlight a point on the methods used to define someone as a pirate.
Personally, I'v only ever bought 1 Cap II and that was from a friend, so it is possible to make a choice and stick to it in regards to high technology. Unfortunately, if you want teh good stuff, be it ores or new technology, someone is going to try and profit from you. One by highway robbery in space, the other by highway robbery on the market.
Really all I want people to do is think for themselves, rather than mindlessly follow the "pirates are w*nkers" that alot of people spout. :)