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The Bushidō of Eve

Published on 21. Oct, 2008 ... written by Jacob Mei, Tags: Articles

by Jacob Mei … In EVE, there is no official code of conduct (other than the EULA and TOS that we as players agree to every time we log into the server or forums) amongst the players. I am free to target your faction/officer fitted ship while you are AFK, blast you, and then post up the kill mail for all to see and have a good laugh at. It’s the same in the world, I am free to find your Rolls Royce in the bad part of town, strip it down for parts, and leave a note in the windshield with the word HAHAHAHAHAHA, mocking your poor choice of actions. We call this freewill and it is what allows us to choose to either to listen to the angel on our left shoulder, or the devil on our right.

Now, that said, anyone who has played this game for a length of time willnotice a type of unspoken code of conduct in many players (though not all). For the sake of this article, lets call this code of conduct the Bushidō of EVE. Now I don’t claim to say everyone follows this code of conduct but in my opinion many players do follow some or all of it.

Rectitude: In EVE, many things require you to have the moral integrity to follow through with what you have promised to do or to resist temptations. CEO’s of successful corporations of every color, mining, missioning, PvP, pirate, anti-pirate, etc. need to have the integrity not to one day log in, take the assets, wallet and so forth that the corporation has amassed and walk away never to be seen again.

When you see a wallet with several figures in it, the temptation to drain it and disappear is great. In this game where you can buy blocks of time with in game money can be quite the temptation as it means you could save yourself years of real currency (to fund an account with GTC at current ISK price would be 6 billion ISK per account, that’s 225 USD saved per account. If you are like most people and you own two 2 accounts that equals 12 billion isk, or 450 USD which would be $50 over many grand theft laws in the USA).

Courage: Though this is a game you have to consider the fact that we suspend reality when we play. In our little game, PvP is always a possibility. When you really understand the consequences of hitting the undock button you show courage and willingness that at any moment you may be attacked but despite that you still come out of the station anyway. Not that long ago, GoonSwarm led a campaign against miners, in particularly miners in Hulks. We now know that despite GS’s efforts, Hulk pilots continued to do their thing and Hulk production easily outpaced their destruction. It would have been very easy for these individuals to give up and go do something else but as the numbers show many stuck to their chosen profession. If that doesn’t fit the definition of courage I don’t know what does.

Benevolence: Even a pirate shows benevolence. There are many threads on the forums in which a player praises a pirate or group of pirates who, even after blowing his ship up, took the time to show him what he did wrong, how to counter the attack next time and so forth. There are even cases of after words the pirate taking the individual under their wing and flying with them. Granted it started with an act of malevolence but those pirates didn’t have to show the individual how to fight better next time or show him what he did wrong.

Respect: This comes in many shapes in our game, from a simple greeting of an individual, saying Good Game after a battle instead of the usual flame rage, doing great things for the community and so forth. I have made more friends then enemy’s by simply saying Hello, Goodbye, GG, o/ and so forth simply because I showed respect to them when we crossed paths.

Honesty: Again, another thing that comes in all shapes in sizes and that ties to the others. Lets take the new citizens forum for a moment, if EVE were truly a game without a code of conduct, you could expect to find this forum full of misleading advice meant to hurt those who seek information, and yet to see five year vets freely helping a noob or someone who just doesn’t understand a concept in the game. Another example is the brutal honesty you will see in the forums in various threads, if you say something that might seem idiotic, expect to hear about it bluntly.

Honor: This is perhaps one of the most common virtue that EVE players have. Lets take the pirate profession once again. When one ransoms someone and they pay, its generally expected that the pirate will then let the individual leave with his ship. However if they do not, and the individual names and shames, that pirate can expect to soon find himself in a situation he didn’t want to be in, in the cross hairs of his fellow pirates.

Loyalty: It is often said on the forums that when a WarDec hits you will soon find who your real friends are, this is very true as those who will stick by you won’t leave the corporation to dodge the WD. For whatever reason they have, if a player sticks by you when the situation is tough or not ideal, that individual is loyal.

As I said in the beginning of this article, not everyone follows this unspoken code of conduct nor should one expect them to. Heck I’m not even advocating that you should follow it yourself, but it is there, even in the areas of the game you don’t expect it to.

Tags: article, Code of Conduct, E-Honor, Honour