I just have a simple question. Why harass high sec miners? The answer is probably obvious but I'm just weird. After all, I'm a low sec carebear. My whole game is concentrated on being as unobtrusive as possible. When I come to the attention of those who wish to relieve me of my current selection of internet pixels, I do my best to escape. And yes, that does include belt and ice mining in low sec, although my mission to collect Sisters of EVE loyalty points currently means I only mine when I need kernite to complete storyline missions.
I also don't want anyone to think I want to remove suicide ganking from EVE. I don't. I would hate to turn any area of EVE into a safe zone, although I do approve of the rules for the rookie systems. New players do need a bit of breathing room. But I watched a video of miner bumping a long time ago and I couldn't understand why the people in the video thought it was so funny.
Now, I do occasionally read MinerBumping.com, so I know that some of the activity has role playing aspects. Of course, in James315's case, the RP aspects just hide a sophisticated entertainment operation, but that just fuels the question. Why do people consider the harassment of high sec miners so entertaining?
For the same reason a 10 year old finds it amusing to hit a 5 year old. Basically it is nothing more than the need for the feeling of power over someone else's emotions (namely anger and frustration). Note that every story you see on minerbumping.com (and every other site devoted to trolling) involves a log of the emotional response of the victim, and the more outrageous the response the better the story from the harasser's point of view. Also notice that in those cases where the victim makes no communication it isn't uncommon for the harasser to make one up as a way of generating that same feeling within themselves. An example would be - "I bet he was mad when he came back from being AFK". The harasser (in-game or RL) takes their actions because that emotional interaction is the only thing that provides them with satisfaction. Random harassment of individuals isn't new, misunderstood, or original. The only thing more convoluted will be the reasons the harassers will give for their behavior which will almost always have a few common elements. One element and the most pernicious will be to blame the victim for the abuse since clearly their position of powerlessness is avoidable (they shouldn't walk down the dark alley --- it's not the mugger's fault etc..). Another element will be to assert that the harasser has no general responsibility for decency (It's my right to do ...., I don't have to play by anyone's rules..., It doesn't count as real harm since it's just a game...). All of the statements on responsibility will be variations on a theme of why the abuse imposed isn't something that really reflects the inner character of the harasser, allowing the harasser to believe in their own goodness despite the objective evidence of their actions.
ReplyDeleteRemember, Eve is real (sadly so in some cases).
Ragelle covers one possible motivation, although clearly the motivation he describes is seen in EVE in many types of play, not just in the harassment of miners. I would say that my answer to his latter line of argument, about why it's moral to blow up spaceships in an internet game about blowing up spaceships, would be that I like to blow up spaceships in a game about blowing up spaceships--a fact which clearly fully and accurately describes my inner character in real life, as he goes on to describe. He's right, and the only solution is the final solution: all EVE players must be terminated IRL. A pyrrhic victory on his part, to be sure, but a well-earned one.
ReplyDeleteOn a more serious note, anyone who's visited a high-sec belt knows that there are a lot of bots/afk miners there. Why does the distaste that many people feel for one or both of these practices spread to all highsec miners? I could give a long explanation, but the short answer is that humans naturally make moral judgements about groups of people which are 'sticky', in which people are tarred by association. We see an example of such in Ragelle's post above, where he doesn't hesitate to paint all highsec gankers with a large brush based on limited interaction with a few websites.
One fault in your first paragraph is the term "game about blowing up spaceships" that description is only one of several, equally valid descriptions (and my current one it's "a game about building spaceships") all of which lead us to the most accurate description - "sandbox". The point of the sandbox being that the tools provided are entirely in the hands of those that play in the sandbox. In a game that provides such freedom as to "blow up spaceships" in all kinds of space there's a reason to choose high sec over low, null, or WH and in general that reason largely comes down to the powerlessness of the victims. There are groups such as RvB that pvp in highsec all the time without the disparity of power or the harvesting of tears so the question for anyone examining straight out ganking is, why this form of blowing up spaceships and not some other way?
DeleteIf we are on the playground at recess the classic question which comes to mind is, Why not pick on someone your own size?
Your motivations are your own but your statement follows exactly the two elements I laid out in the original comment.
"One fault in your first paragraph is the term "game about blowing up spaceships""
DeleteYou're free to think that all those descriptions are equally valid; and that my statement is a fault; but I've played in a sandbox IRL, and EVE Online seems much more like a game about blowing up spaceships than a game about playing in a sandbox, so I'll have to keep disagreeing with you there. Obviously, in a game about blowing up spaceships, new spaceships have to be created, so the fact that some people build spaceships isn't news to me. Do you build other stuff, that isn't related to blowing up spaceships? Like, grand pianos? Would EVE still work if NPCs built more ships/stuff? Would EVE still work if NPCs provided the demand for goods, and it was a pure industry game? You think it would work equally well either way, I think the first option would work ok, the second wouldn't; or so I gather.
"There are groups such as RvB that pvp in highsec all the time without the disparity of power or the harvesting of tears so the question for anyone examining straight out ganking is, why this form of blowing up spaceships and not some other way?"
Yes, that's already the question we were answering here, so far we're up to three reasons.
And by your own reasoning as expressed my description of sandbox is correct --- "Would EVE still work if NPCs built more ships/stuff? Would EVE still work if NPCs provided the demand for goods, and it was a pure industry game?", the answer is no it wouldn't. And of course your question is entirely beside the point. That there is a ying to the yang of internet spaceships isn't news to me either and the question is still why ganking and not other forms of "blowing up spaceships"?
DeleteSo to turn that around how many gankers would continue to gank miners if the miners were all NPC's mining ore and selling it without any human interaction? Absolutely zero of the current gankers would continue their current gameplay without the human target behind the screen. The point of the exercise is the emotional response the victim gives the harasser and I feel confident standing by that point. In an MMO the interaction between players is what drives the game and those interactions are meaningless if you take away one of the two players and replace them with a robot.
And no, we are not up to 3 reasons... we are still on the first one, the emotional response of the victim is the reason for the activity.
I'm sorry, I'm going to go argue with a brick wall instead, in search of a more human interaction. Cheers.
DeleteDidn't want that argument anyway? How's that for human?
DeleteOh, I want that argument alright, the one right over here....
DeleteMarcus misses part of the point. Ragelle's stance is insurmountable, (it also happens to be wrong, but that isn't something that a person who has taken this particular stance can see) because any reaction that says he is wrong will put into the bucket of "a form of self justification." That is he is taking the stance that he is the all knowing individual. From this point any argument isn't possible because there is no interaction.This type of rejection, and assumption that you know something is an unfortunate symptom of people who buy into conspiracy theories as well. It is best to leave them be. especially when they show they like the same kind of angst they are talking down ("didnt want that argument anyway...")
Delete@Tego: What part of the point did I miss? Unless you refer to not having seen the traits you describe soon enough to avoid all this.
DeleteThe argument isn't insurmountable by any means ... the question is simple: Why gank miners in high sec? My answer is because the person doing the ganking has the emotional response of the victim as compensation for the act and without that emotional response will quit suicide ganking miners.
DeleteIf you want to argue the point start by stating clearly what the motivation is in a way that makes more sense to you. Marcus's first response was an over the top response to a point I didn't raise and a suggestion that he's justified in blowing up spaceships because of bots. Neither point actually provides anyone with an indication of true motivation other than "because I want to" which is fine but isn't really an effective argument to the original question.
I'm always open to other answers. If you'd like to see someone that ganks that has no desire to harvest tears in the way I mention head over to Gevlons blog --- his reasons are clearly outside the normal mainstream of suicide ganking.
"If you want to argue the point start by stating clearly what the motivation is in a way that makes more sense to you."
DeleteEhm. Many reasons? You do realise that there's more than ganker, each who have their own reasons, right?
"My answer is because the person doing the ganking has the emotional response of the victim as compensation for the act and without that emotional response will quit suicide ganking miners."
*buzzer* Wrong. That's just plain stereotyping there, sure that may apply for some, others it's for profit, others because "why not?" etc.
My personal reason for doing is because it's fun. The simple act of destruction is fun, doesn't matter if it's a bot that couldn't care less or an overly sensitive baby who will go berserk about it (although that's always an amusing bonus). It's the same reason people enjoy building or breaking things, they both give a sense of accomplishment,
"There was not a thing, now there is. I did this, go me!"
"There was a thing, now there isn't. I did this, go me!"
So I agree that your original argument wasn't insurmountable, just wrong. You took your limited experiences with gankers (anecdotes don't be evidence yo) and applied it to the entire group, aka stereotyping.
LOL
Delete(a) "...overly sensitive baby..."
(b) "...amusing bonus..."
(1) denigrate another human beings feelings in order to...
(2) receive feelings of "reward"....
and
"There was a (virtual) thing (belonging to another human being), now there isn't. (with complete disregard for, or anticipated and desired, the negative emotional effects on the owning player ) I did this, go me!"
The proof is in the pudding...
"The proof is in the pudding..."
DeleteHey look, Tur is here to echo Ragelle's contention that one can generalize from one (anonymous) example to all highsec gankers. Unfortunately, as Jester alluded to today, "Is EVERY "good" EVE player fundamentally a bully?"-Ripard Teg, we could easily find one pvp'er of any stripe who plays with those motivations, and with your technique of generalizing from one example to all, we've now 'proved' that all EVE pvpers suffer from "the need for the feeling of power over someone else's emotion"; a contention which Gevlon today is seriously making with a slightly different argument.
There's a simple mechanism for reporting bots, and CCP even gives you a shiny PLEX if your lead is accurate. Trouble is, it's hard to tell a bot from an ISBoxer, or even an industrialist multiboxing a small fleet while also managing their production lines. They're not an in-game problem, and they don't have an in-game solution. You can blow up their ships every so often, but does that really affect them in any lasting way? No, but a ban does.
ReplyDeleteAs for AFK miners, the "distaste" is ginned up to justify the actual reason, which is that they're the biggest, fattest, easiest targets in the game. They're unaware pilots in sluggish non-combat ships with pitiful align times, and they're frequently stationary because "just orbit an asteroid" is the sort of advice that people who never mine give too easily: if you want to risk your barge being truly helpless for an indefinite period of time while bumping a rock with a surprisingly large collision sphere, sure, do that. When we can choose orbital paths and see what they intersect in advance, maybe.
The last advantage for high-sec miner gankers is that they're fairly rare. High sec miners fit for yield because it's the rational thing to do, not because they're stupid. Maxed for yield, 99% of barges and exhumers (and certainly Ventures) will pay for themselves many times over before they see a ganker, or even a scout for a ganker. Then, when it happens, it's a huge surprise, because a high sec miner can spend years in the belts without ever seeing a single Catalyst. That, and the sense of powerlessness that is the direct correlary to the sense of power felt by the ganker, is where the tears come from.
Sorry, Marcus, your attempt to turn an analogy to RL into a call for extirpation is nothing but tears. Sweet, fallacious tears. Final solutions come exclusively and at all times from people who see fear and violence as a means to exercise power and control over other people--in real life. In EVE, I generally assume that they're ordinary people who want a more-or-less harmless medium in which they can listen to their shoulder devils for a while. But it is telling that the great prize--tears--is not an in-game item, isn't it? If it were really only about "internet space pixels," where would the thrill be? It's certainly not in the fight.
Lastly, there's a nice, clear word for your 'sticky' judgments: prejudice. Why not use it?
"As for AFK miners, the "distaste" is ginned up to justify the actual reason, which is that they're the biggest, fattest, easiest targets in the game."
Delete"The last advantage for high-sec miner gankers is that they're fairly rare"
If they're so easy, then why are gankers so rare? Now we have yet another puzzle to solve. But I'll agree, you've added a third reason to go after highsec miners, easy targets, very good.
"Sorry, Marcus, your attempt to turn an analogy to RL into a call for extirpation is nothing but tears . Sweet, fallacious tears."
Um, lol? Countering an argument by calling it tears isn't fallacious, then? Sure, satire is tears, drink 'em up, son. perhaps I should drink yours up too, responding to my satire is definitely tears on your part, right? I baited you with words, and stuff, wowzers.
"But it is telling that the great prize--tears--is not an in-game item, isn't it?"
I never said that I play for tears, so bringing that up is, in your words, "prejudice", eh? At this point, the only one of the two of us who's stated that he finds tears to be "sweet" is you :)
"Lastly, there's a nice, clear word for your 'sticky' judgments: prejudice. Why not use it?"
Because it's not more clear, and is loaded with additional connotations. Kinda like the way that I don't refer to you as a "hitler" just because you said you find tears to be sweet.
"CCP even gives you a shiny PLEX if your lead is accurate."
DeleteSource? I've given them many accurate leads but have never received a plex!
I think you could ask the same question about any other antagonistic activity (read: PvP) in Eve and find the response the same. Why bump high-sec miners? Why shoot low-sec miners? Why chase FW plexers? Why camp a gate? Why ambush wormhole anom runners? Why war dec? Why attack sov structures?
ReplyDeleteMe? I just like shooting stuff. Bumping miners in high-sec is the closest you can get to shooting them (at least more than once every 15 minutes).
Does any other antagonistic activity does have multiple co-ordinated player contested specifically aimed tear collection? Three Ice interdiction, 5 hulkageddons and New Order. Is there another activity which earns this much ire?
DeleteMostly because it is reasonably easy to do:
- no tank
- no alignment
- no local awareness
- expensive and thin hulls
- little inclination to fight back or avenge
- commonly done solo.
a delicious combination for the type of player that prefers to be disruptive. there is no interest in the ore for looting, not an action done by a rival indy.
As for NO, run goon alt with a salting of goon alts. A daily re-definition of the term carebear. An inflated ego of self importance. with random events loosely themed into conspiracy theory of RP. I treat that page with contempt and gallows humor.
"Does any other antagonistic activity does have multiple co-ordinated player contested specifically aimed tear collection?"
DeleteYes.
"Three Ice interdiction, 5 hulkageddons and New Order."
The ice interdictions are specifically aimed at market manipulation, the hulkageddons were a contest, not a tear collection. The NO, from where I sit, seems specifically aimed at making hundreds of billions of ISK, while providing entertainment for many and fame for a few.
"- expensive and thin hulls"
The bare hulls are not expensive and thin, actually. Looking at bare hulls alone, the mining ships are, on average, not expensive, and not thin.
"- little inclination to fight back or avenge"
If by inclination, you mean ability.
"I treat that page with contempt and gallows humor."
If you think that page is meant to be taken seriously, then your contempt is ignorant and meaningless. If you don't, then your complaint is nonsensical.
Would Ice Interdiction have been a success if did not involve ganking miners? And the players making isk are in the minority.
Delete3 + 5 = 8
Please name 4 for a specific contest against a PvE activity or ship class? I know of a couple of organised carrier kills, offered by the pilots of these ships. But as for a concerted and contested effort? Mining beats hands down any other activity in the game which attracts malignancy.
NO? after a long difficult day I read about someone else's greater misfortune to encounter a toe rag.
"Would Ice Interdiction have been a success if did not involve ganking miners?
DeleteWas "it" a success when "it" did?
"3 + 5 = 8"
and 2 - 7 = negative 5
"Please name 4 for a specific contest against a PvE activity or ship class?"
4 what? 4 names? Frank, Tom, Dick and Harry. What's the contest going to be?
'Mining beats hands down any other activity in the game which attracts malignancy"
So...you hate miners and want to destroy them? Sounds fair.
I would have thought reading the minerbumping blog would be all you'd need to find out. The posts are hugely entertaining.
ReplyDeleteThat's part of the reason for asking the question. When I read it I feel sorry for James315 and those he writes about. He makes everyone involved in harassing miners look sad and pathetic.
DeleteViewed through the appropriate lens, anything done in an MMO looks sad and pathetic. Consider, is there any way one can pursue self-betterment or a kinder, gentler planet Earth? Collectively we're devoting an extraordinary amount of time and money towards masturbatory internet space ships.
DeleteAs for your question, why not? In Eve are there alternative activities which offer the same kind of novel or weird experiences? If blitzing L2s doesn't produce the sort of unexpected player interactions that ganking does, then what will?
Why harass high sec miners?
ReplyDeleteFor the same reasons children kick puppies and hit smaller children in real life. The difference is in real life if an adult sees them do it they could be in a lot of trouble.
Boredom. Nothing more than that.
ReplyDeleteSince CCP has been nerfing the hell out of solo and small gang play for years, what else is there to do? Run missions? Suffer through hours of CTA and TiDi in null sec? Grind plexes and play silly back-and-forth LP games in FW? Join RvB?
These are the one that really sound juvenile... ...CCP has been nerfing the hell out of solo and small gang play for years... riiiiight....
DeleteCCP has spent 10 YEARS building one of, if not THE, greatest PvP sandboxes ever.... and so they, of course, are all about nerfing the gameplay...
One man's nerf is another mans buff... CCP plays a delicate balancing act between the carebear and the griefer... and when you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one.
Because a lot of ppl like to laugh at sore losers, and a lot of hi sec miners (or any other type of EVE player for that matter) make VERY sore losers. And it's something you can do whenever you want, targets a plenty and since you're in hi sec you have easy access to cheap gankalysts.
ReplyDeleteThis is a really good reply. Everybody likes to see the punishment of the wicked, even the conflict-averse. For example, the "War on Bots", which readers of this blog may have heard of.
DeleteJames 315 doesn't often report on people who take their lumps like an adult; those posts aren't exciting. The stories that span multiple posts are the ones about sore losers with nasty attitudes. He really likes to illustrate the ways in which miners can be "comeuppance magnets." That's the kind of punishment of the wicked that readers keep coming back for.
ZOMG!!! Anon 5:04 you hit it bro!!!
DeleteI call now for ALL Industrialists in EVE to EMBARGO ganking! That's right... I'm gonna call on NEIMC (the New Eden Industrial Military Complex... [Yea yea, which has yet to be founded]...) to Immediately cease and desist in the production and sale of ALL Destroyer class vessels used in Suicide Gang Kill Ops against the Industrial support fleets of Miners and Haulers.
When Gankalysts cost 100mISK each, that'l put a crimp in their heinous ways! LOL
Of course then the CFC will step in and totally corner the Gankalyst market and only the gankers will have Catalysts... Oh well...it was a bright dream while it lasted...
<- Currently has 70+ manufacturing slots on his indy alts, ready and willing to pump out over 1k catalysts per day, distributed via corp contracts to CODE. alliance--and I'm one of many. Perhaps highsec miners should just fit a tank on their ships, instead of wasting time on meaningless embargoes? I do on mine, and laugh as gankers die to concord without getting me past 50% shields. Surviving in highsec is not difficult, for anyone who thinks on what they're doing for even a few seconds. Those who choose to leave untanked ships unattended in belts while they go watch a movie for an hour, deserve to be blown up. Why do you want to save them?
DeleteAs a ganker I do it for the chance/hope of generating content. I was recently counter ganked and it was amazing. I Lost my ship, failed my bank and enjoyed it because my actions lead to an interesting human interaction. This is in the same vain as I started being a lowsec pirate way back when after being the victim of a pirate. That hostile player interaction lead to me exploring and enjoying other aspects of the game... Maybe my actions will do the same.
ReplyDeleteMiner bumping is EVE on easy mode, and will of course appeal to lazy or bored players, for a few minutes at least. And what the heck else is there to do before the onset of puberty?
ReplyDeleteIt's a bit confusing, because the site name is minerbumping.com, but this discussion, so far, has been more about miner ganking than miner bumping. Since you're so concerned with miner bumping specifically, though, perhaps you could provide us with a video of you successfully bumping some tough targets, to show that you actually know from personal experience that it's easy mode, and that you're not just guessing? Speaking from personal experience, bumping an orbiting skiff takes much more practice than 99% of EVE's PVE gameplay, and even much of its PVP gameplay. Now if you really want to focus in on an activity in EVE that takes no skill, how about ... mining. ~_~
DeleteAs I commented over on Reddit, it boils down to a definition of "who are the real Eve players". That comment has too many URLs for blogspot.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.reddit.com/r/Eve/comments/1syg7t/got_my_first_orca_people_hate_on_miners_but_im/ce35mf5?context=3
Every culture has a concept of "who are we" and "who we are not" as part of the shared stories they tell about themselves. Hazing of miners is part of those stories. And the majority of older players would say "we are PvPers". Newer players must bend their will to the older ones just like the "plebes" at West Point have to bend to the older ones. If you try to comprehend miner-hate (or to a much lesser degree, missioner-hate) in rational or economic terms, you can't do it.
In the book Interaction Ritual Chains, Collins argues that the interactions aren't intended to be meaningful in terms of communication or action. They're intended to evoke emotional responses to reinforce the group. That makes them rituals. And rituals are amplifiers of emotion. Successful rituals boost emotions and group cohesion.
Now, Hulkageddon was a purely economic move. OTEC was paying 10M bounties to folks who ganked hulks, when the value of the Technetium in a hulk was 70M. Getting a 6x return on investment is something well worth (ab)using.
I've also been reading Minerbumping, and have to agree that it really feels like a weird combination of 8 year old playground bullies cross-bred with mafia-esque-extortion-protection-racketeers, then wrapped in a rather thin sad veneer of do-gooder-self-rightiousness where they bizarrely claim that they are really out there trying to "help" the victims they are blowing up, podding, extorting and griefing.
ReplyDeleteMy character runs around in fast light cruisers - likes to explore, run various missions, and duel once in a while. Sitting in an enormous fleet for hours mindlessly following orders doesn't really appeal. Neither does mining - I tried highsec veldspar mining when very young, which was a meager source of cash and rather boring, so I quickly moved on.
I see two ways to try and view the New Order gankers.
Either they're (as described) bullies who take great joy in attacking the weak, often defenseless with particular focus on those who the manage to cause emotional distress....
or they're here to make Eve a better place, get rid of bots, afk'ers, and make everyone have a "better" eve experience...
Um... but if that second view was true - wouldn't their focus BE on finding the bots and AFK'ers, while letting the on-duty serious miners, clueless-but-present newbies and others go - perhaps with a lecture about how they could have more fun doing other kinds of things that the self appointed highsec asteroid police have decided are best?
I really don't see any of that. The primary focus really looks to be on causing emotional harm, enforcing extortion contracts, and generally being a-holes wearing "this is for your own good" outfits.
Wanna convince me this is all for "the greater good"? Start focusing on the good. Educate newbies WITHOUT killing and podding them while posting the grief you managed to inflict. Do the work without the stunningly obvious extortion profit motive. Get really active with CCP's bot banning crusade. Host event helping recovering AFK miners take up new professions....
I won't hold my breath.
I treat th Addicting games for girls[at page with contempt and gallows humor.
ReplyDeletei think alot of people do it for the kicks, thing that annoys me is when people gloat about killing a high sec miner... that's easy it's called grief'ing wanna gloat go to low sec or 0.0 and fight people that fight back.
ReplyDeletePeople are so quick to throw the word "harassment" out these days. I blame liberal PC culture.
ReplyDeleteWe are saving the miners from themselves and creating a better highsec. New Order agents are among the most honorable heroes in Eve, fighting the villainry of bot aspirancy on a daily basis.
ReplyDelete