On Kidnapping Damsels and Losing Ships

I've said it before: I don't ninja to be a jerk. It's strictly for the money and the fights. Yes, I will steal your Damsel, but only because I can resell her on contracts. I think tears are silly and are a sign that you take your games way too seriously. If you choose to play a game where you get to make your own rules, it's childish to get upset when someone else plays by their own different rules. (Tears as an aspect of social engineering is a topic for another time.)

I would much prefer to shake your hand after a fight. I might be holding your Caldari Navy Ballistic Controls in the other hand, but that's the nature of a fight: someone wins and someone loses. However, losing a ship or losing a fight doesn't mean you've "lost" at EVE.

As a former missioner, I understand why mission runners may think differently. They have invested most of their time and money and training into their special Navy Raven or Tengu and it represents the game to them. Seeing your expensive mission ship blown out from under you sucks. It's like the first time you lost at Monopoly as a kid. That sucked too. But losing a game of Monopoly doesn't mean you've lost at life. So I say again, losing a ship doesn't mean that you've lost at EVE.

Yes, that is my first loss mail from 2005 (back before dropped loot was included on the killmail) and I quit EVE for a while after that. It wasn't even because of the loss of the ship; I was upset at myself for being suckered into a fight when I thought I was helping someone. Looking back, I realize that the loss of the ship was insignificant. I gained so much more than I lost. I might have lost a ship that held value for a two-month old character, but I gained knowledge that has been invaluable for me as a player.

This background has shaped who I am as a person even while I'm stealing your mission objective. As a player, I honor ransoms and I don't lie to others. If there was such a thing, I would be an honorable ninja. Does my conscience bother me? Not really. I don't want others to rage-quit, but I know that if someone quits over the loss of a ship, then EVE really isn't the right place for them to begin with. To their credit, most people seem to take the loss of their ship pretty well. I usually send a short message to the other party after a fight, politely saying "good fight, these are the mechanics of what just happened, convo me if you want to chat PVP." The result has been some good conversations with other players, even ones who've just lost their faction fit CNR to me.

I'm not a softie. You won't guilt me into letting you go. If you've figuratively landed on my hotel on Boardwalk, you'd better believe that I'm charging full price. But I see no reason to be immature about it. I believe that a person's behavior after a fight is more important than whether or not they won.