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[FatHat]

http://www.massively.com/2010/02/04/goonswarm-alliance-disbanded-in-eve-online-political-drama/

and

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3210674&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=240#post372009022

Apparently GoonSwarm just blew itself up in an honorable blaze of glory, or their empire collapsed because their narcissist CEO decided to burn down Rome, depending on how you want to view it. 

GoonSwarm was, as I understand it, rather notorious for using unconventional tactics. Of course, they were also very successful with those tactics, which made people hate them even more. You can say what you want about goons, but they tend to excel at playing the villains.

What's interesting to me about this situation is that, it couldn't have happened in most other games. The reason why it couldn't happen is because game designers generally try to sandbox internet fuckwads to keep them from ruining others experience with the game.

This makes sense on a lot of levels, but I don't know if you can have effective villains without there being victims. And villains often drive the story...

[genericuser]

GoonSwarm just blew itself up in an honorable blaze of glory <SNIP> because their narcissist CEO decided to burn down Rome

_{This seems to be SA's take on this, at least.}

[nihilocrat]

Do you know if EVE allows corporations to structure their power such that the CEO is not as powerful as in GoonSwarm? I played only for about 2 months in 2005 so I figure stuff has changed vastly.

[SirNiko]

My brother plays this game, and is a member of corporation that's a part of Goonfleet which is the alliance that contains Goonswarm and their friends. I've do not play EvE, because the game is tedious to play but fun to read about. My bro has been talking this up with me, though, because this is a really big deal in the game.

My understanding is that Goonfleet rearranged their own corporate structure after they infiltrated and broke another alliance with a spy. They purposely designed the corp to have only one person with access to all this bank stuff to reduce the chances of having one of the head honchos be a spy. I'm told there's talk about maybe changing the setup to prevent one-click alliance dissolution, which probably isn't as exciting anymore now that it has happened twice.

EvE is bizarre. It's a game designed for the killer mentality, which not only allows but encourages scamming and piracy (They have an official forum for bragging about your scams). In any other game, this sort of griefing mentality would drive your players away. In EvE, it just gets them excited about scamming back twice as hard.

I guess the upside is that this gives those kinds of players a place to go. It's sort of like a voluntary purgatory.

-SirNiko

[st33d]

Draws a nice parallel with the unmoderated forum I'm on.

People explode and behave like dickheads on there, but at that point you've already grabbed a bag of popcorn and have settled back to enjoy the show.

(Not that TIGSource needs to go that way, we've already got enough entertainment with all the games.)

[jotapeh]

I played EVE for a while. Here's the real catch, from my perspective:

EVE does not just cater to scammers and the 'killer mentality'. Certainly this is permitted in contrast to the vast majority of games. But that is not the primary purpose of the game. The primary purpose of the game is to permit players to have ultimate influence over the universe and its events.

Just as there are thousands of 'pirates', there are also active corporations that simply want to play 'PvE' and mine/shoot NPCs. And then there are also 'police' corporations which actively try to enforce some sort of justice system in otherwise lawless space. That's what's so fascinating about the EVE universe, it really shows the diversity of human motive and sentiment of 'purpose'.

Unfortunately gameplay in that game feels slow and uninvolved, which is why I left it. As a conversation topic though, it can be quite interesting.

[FatHat]

EVE does not just cater to scammers and the 'killer mentality'. Certainly this is permitted in contrast to the vast majority of games. But that is not the primary purpose of the game. The primary purpose of the game is to permit players to have ultimate influence over the universe and its events.

Agreed. I wonder if you can have a game where the players have ultimate influence without the trolls though, or if the trolls/scammers are an integral part of that.

To me, I think they are, even if they do drive people away -- without a real sense of danger all you have is an amusement parks. That's not a knock on amusement parks, but the the defining factor of an amusement park is that the experience is always the same.

Unfortunately gameplay in that game feels slow and uninvolved, which is why I left it. As a conversation topic though, it can be quite interesting.

Yeah, that's why I don't play it either   I think it's more fun to read about..

[SirNiko]

I played EVE for a while. Here's the real catch, from my perspective:

EVE does not just cater to scammers and the 'killer mentality'. Certainly this is permitted in contrast to the vast majority of games. But that is not the primary purpose of the game. The primary purpose of the game is to permit players to have ultimate influence over the universe and its events.

When I use the term "Killer", it doesn't always refer to actually killing other players. Bartle describes the killer mentality to be a desire to impact the experience of other players. The drive to PvP and the drive to make a mark in the game world are really closely connected, I believe. There is, after all, a very short distance between building a space station and saying "This land is mine" and actually flying over and shooting the other person in the face so you can take their stuff.

All griefers are in the killer category. Not all killers are griefers.

EVE just strikes me as a game that glorifies this sort of behavior by tossing up a news post about the latest big money scam that really you should've seen coming, and rather than saying "This bastard shouldn't be playing", they all laugh and say "That's our EVE! The mods shouldn't touch this guy. Play another game if you want somebody to hold your hand and protect you.".

I'm not actually sure if it's possible to make a game that caters to killers but is griefer-free. The same flexibility that allows players to influence the world around them lets them influence the world to piss others off. The best you can really do is police the game (With players in EVE, or Moderators in WoW) to try to dissuade the worst offenders.

Every time you make a rule that cuts back freedom (Like setting flags that make certain players immune to attack in situations, like WoW does) you cut away part of the charm that makes it fun for all killers.

-SirNiko