“With the recent completion of the 3rd installment of the Hulkageddon last month, @CyberinEVE, author of Hands Off, My Loots!, asks: ”Griefing is a very big part of EVE.  Ninja Salvaging, Suicide Ganking, Trolling, and Scamming are all a very large part of the game.  What do you think about all these things?  You can talk about one, or all…but just let us know your overall opinion on Griefing, and any recommendations you may have to change it if you think it’s needed.”

A good topic to get involved with the Blog Banters again.

Griefing is a form of expression.

Now how did I come up with that?  Well, first for the purposes of this post, I’m going to use a very broad definition of griefing to cover the range of unwelcome hostile activities including those generally allowed (piracy, gate camps, ninja salvaging, suicide ganking, scams, etc.).  I’ll let others argue about what’s the acceptable level of such activities, because I think there’s as many ideas on that as there are players. But for this post, let’s consider griefing as those actions done by the first to the second that the second would decline to participate in if given a choice.

Cailais’s banter post suggested griefing is a social interaction, which made me ask myself why we don’t see it other social games. Like sports. Sports are social games too. But I realized we do see griefing in sports, too. Players in games like hockey, football, and basketball will try all kinds of intimidation tricks on their opponents. Physical bullying, verbal taunting or humiliation can often be seen in competitive sports. Watch poker sometime – you’ll likely see at least one player goading another, trying to get under their skin.

Why do people do this? Cailais’s post compared the Care<–>Grief spectrum to a Constrained<–>Freedom scale. More freedom allows more room for choice and allows greater range of expression. In real life, we are constrained by the rules and attitudes of our societies. We are not totally free to do as we please. Some need a venue to express aspects of themselves that are not suitable to express in day-to-day life. They can find outlets in games that provide a different rule set which constrains them differently. Eve constrains the player much less that society does in many areas (but not all). This goes beyond Eve and other MMOs – consider the football player who is a total bear on the field, but a the nicest of human beings at home and on the street. The rules of the game allow him to overpower the opponent, to bully him and humilate him, to treat him in ways that would get him arrested if he tried it in the shopping mall. he takes advantage of that freedom to express that part of his personality that you won’t see other than on the field.

Similarly in Eve, the game allows players to conduct themselves in a number of ways not permitted in real-life society. Scamming someone in real life like you can in Eve will get you charged with fraud and/or sued. Trashing someone’s car and looting it if they drive on your street (ie gate camp) is certainly forbidden. So players take advantage of this in-game permissiveness to let go on some of the inhibitions forced on them by societal norms. They can express that side of their personalities, and for some it’s quite a rush. While it’s not the main reason I play the game, I’ve learned to appreciate this aspect of the game. I’ve let go some inhibitions in-game, and anticipate continuing to do so.

At some point there needs to be a limit on that expression. Even in Eve, complete freedom to do exactly as you please to whoever you please won’t work. People need some structure to stand on. What gets debated is where is that limit. I’ll wager that CCP would set the line below the point that people getting griefed quit the game. And above the point that people wanting to grief quit because they can’t. But there’s a whole lot of room to express yourself in between.

So griefing in Eve and other games, in its broadest sense, can be seen as a form of expression for those aspects of our personalities that need an outlet, which are generally forbidden in normal day-to-day life.

So go express yourself.

But there’s no point in any of that if I don’t have anything to say, right? So what am I planning to talk about here? Well I find Eve a fascinating game with so much to do and to learn that I want to put out my thoughts and opinions on various aspects of the game. Some of that will be based on what I’m doing with my characters in the game, and some about what is happening elsewhere in the game, and some will be my thoughts on what others may be writing about (when I want to get into the subject beyond a simple comment on their post). While I will provide updates on what I’m doing with my characters, I don’t plan on using this as a daily journal. I’m also not much of a fiction writer, so I doubt you’ll see any fiction written here – at least not by me.

I’ve been following a number of blogs over the last few months, most of which are in the blog roll in the sidebar. These blogs all give me a sense of Eve that goes beyond my direct experience in the game, and several motivate me to try out new avenues in the game. You’ll see number of pirate blogs in the blog roll, but I’m not a pirate – I just find that these blogs open a window into that part of the game for me. I hope I can be a similar kind of window for others. We’ll see.

I hope to do a post or two a week, maybe more depending on what else is happening in my life. I’m not going to be challenging Kirith in his quest for Eve Blog Domination.  (The man must be Mr. Data – a wife, year-old twins, a job, and he still posts 2 to 3 times a day, writes articles for the Tribune and others, mines the forums, and keeps 2 toons busy in game too. And now he’s talking about running for the CSM. Did I mention he has twins? How does he do it?) But I’d like to contribute to the exchange of information and ideas about this great game, and make some new friends along the way.

Got the blog! Welcome to my Eve blog!

Now my contribution to the meme:

Luccul was born Jan 1, 2008 in Heimatar, and he spent his early days learning the ropes in and around Hadaugago. From there he went to Derelik with his first corp Strife Mercenaries, and moved with them to Lonetrek, then Providence, and then Syndicate. Strife pulled back into Placid, and the corp then disbanded and Luccul lived in Placid in an NPC corp before going to Fountain with I.M.M. From there it was back to Placid, then to Tash-Murkon with M3 corp before returning to Heimatar, where he is now.

OK, done it – whew.

So what now? Well this isn’t a one-post-only blog. I’ll follow this up with some more introductory info about both me and my chars. I’m learning about keeping a blog and I have things I want to add/change: my own theme/template, defining categories and tags, showing the blogs I follow, etc. I want to figure out plugins, and widgets, and other useful blog stuff. And getting some smileys – I’ve wanted to insert a smiley or two into this blog, but the editor doesn’t seem to have a selection to choose from.