EVE Online at Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMOG Gamers to the Next Level!

There is a peculiar philosophy of 'honor' that crops up in internet games whenever real loss is unavoidable. When playing Counterstrike, or (god forbid) trying to PvP in World of Warcraft, you kill the other guy and he loses nothing; after a momentary delay the player respawns, good as new. While people will occasionally get pissed off, the endless loss-free killing is the whole purpose of these games and nothing is really taken away from the loser. By contrast, in games like EVE, Shadowbane, Ultima Online, or the old pvp servers of EverQuest, a PvP death results in appreciable loss of assets. In these games, one inevitably witnesses the rise of a self-serving form of 'e-honor' or, in EVE's case, one might call it 'space bushido.'

In an environment where there are no rules beyond might makes right, intricate systems of mores develop that describe the socially acceptable bounds of warfare. The most 'honorable' kind of fight is a one-on-one duel; 'ganking' using multiple ships to attack a single target is frowned upon, and a pilot who loses a fight yet behaves honorably deserves 'respect' or 'props.' Certain taboos exist, such as never deliberately disconnecting from the game to avoid a fight, never using a 'login trap' to gain an advantage, or not using certain 'broken' ship setups. Among the many taboos of 'space bushido' is a ban on espionage, because if one uses spies correctly, one can win an engagement without ever actually fighting.

At its core, e-honor is a social construction that only benefits the loser. The winner has already won, through whatever means; the loser has lost substantial assets, and so is compelled to conceive of a number of face-saving rationalizations. What space bushido provides the loser is a way to cope with their loss: "Sure, I lost, but they ganked me/used a login trap/violated a 1v1, so they have no honor." Another oft-encountered saying is that a lost ship has no value, but a pilot's honor is priceless.

All of this is harmless enough. People will swallow almost any rationalization to feel better about themselves or cope with a loss; it is human nature. The problem is that some people drink the e-honor kool-aid too deeply, and begin playing EVE by a set of self-imposed rules that simply do not exist for the rest of the playerbase. It is this subset of the EVE population who often end up in an 'elite PvP' 0.0 alliance where the cultivation of an individual pilot's skill and honor is exalted. Perversely, it is in 0.0 more than any other area of the game that one needs to be willing to win at all costs. So we have ended up with a galaxy full of curiously self-handicapped alliances where military might may exist but the espionage capability is either neglected or scorned openly as dishonorable. Of course, these entities have managed to hold space - so, they argue, espionage is unnecessary. Is it? Where would EVE without espionage leave us?