A culture of mistrust in Eve-Online

Players in Eve-Online harbor a mistrust of strangers.  A harsh Player-versus-Player (PvP) culture fueled by competitive (and asymmetric) play drives a culture of suspicion about the identity and purpose of characters.  Throw into the mix "alts" (alternate characters) and one might imagine the total unravelling of a social system: "whose alt are you?"  Yet the social system of Eve-Online flourishes for it, I think.  It does so by layering a degree of nuance and circumspection in player relationships that seems unique in virtual worlds.

I think this aspect of the Eve-Online experience is fascinating because it illustrates how novel and yet sophisticated social arrangements can be constructed in online environments in response to worlds of harsh constraint.

Whose alt are you anyway?

Let's start to unravel this via a minor story that occured recently from the world of Eve-Online. A small number of players were apparently beseiged in a station for a number of days by mercenaries.  David Ammerman offers an insighful note on his observation of a mercenary moment in Eve-Online (his entire description - worth the read - is available here).  The synopsis:

A small mining corporation was war-dec'ed (War Declaration [Fn1.]) by another corporation who hired a mercenary corporation to execute their messy deed.  The small mining corporation was beseiged in a station after some loss, effectively removed from the game for a period of time.

Earlier in this series on Eve-Online (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) I framed Eve-Online as a place where players and how they organize themselves seems in constant motion.  Eve-Online is to my view an ecosystem of players in transition.  Players transition into new roles and areas over time as a means of adapting to harsh circumstances as well as opportunistically seeking better niches.

Some of this theme was touched upon when we discussed how Eve-Online recycles its losers (The moon is a harsh mistress, Anecdotal research).

The microcosm of 0.0 PvP pilots in Eve-Online to my view well illustrates this dynamic.   To work through a hypothetical set of examples.  Individuals and groupings of "professional PvPers" (using  the terminology of My friends keeper)  may find themselves:

1. Fighting as foot soldiers on behalf of a large organizations (alliances).
2. Then through the course of events turn to dual-hat roles (fighting afield for personal gain and loosely furthering their alliance's goals).
3. Perhaps even turning to piracy [Fn2].
4. Then later recycling themselves into mercenary roles.

The transition between (2.) and (3.) above, is to my mind usefully captured (metaphorically) by the 19th century practice (and earlier) of privateering.  The problem with privateers was that many operated in a grey area broaching piracy.  As a metaphor I think it well illustrates a type of transition among some professional PvPers in alliances. 

Some professional PvPers may start out as foot soldiers in an alliance but along the way acquire a second hat.  For example, some may develop an arrangement with their organization where they still work on its behalf but may also engage in activities for their own (and associate) profit and interest.  Thus they may start to attack enemy shipping - or shipping of friends of enemies - far removed from their alliance areas of concern.  They may do it for a cocktail of reasons:  a desire for a lifestyle of "pew pew" (2nd definition ), for profit and distinction for uberness within their group under the guise of economic warfare.  Unfortunately, there are cases where such far afield dalliances have lead to political trouble for the parent alliances.  Birds do come home to roost.

If such players slip into piracy - as some have - they likely fall into an activity further removed from their alliance's interests, at least on the surface.  Such players may also reconstitute themselves back into the organized struggle as mercenaries, or they may transition back into stable alliance frameworks. 

Mercenaries are an interesting player-created organizational artifact in the Eve-Online universe.  David's account (cited above) touches a number of important points:

• The best mercenary groups are very good at their craft and consider themselves "professionals."
• The best mercenary organizations consider themselves "uber" or elite.

The blacker PvP current in the estuary that is Eve-Online is as suggested above.  Many players are in transition.  This scales up to groups.  For example, groups along the evolutionary path of turning into mercenary groups may have started out as pirate organizations.  While some pirate groups may be as professional in conduct and skill as the best of the mercenaries, they are steeped in darker colors.

If you think players and their movements in this ecosystem is difficult enough to decipher and interpret, let me now introduce into the mix "alts".  Alts seem to be used by players to develop "aspects" of themselves and their player interests that cross-cut player organizations and roles.

Alternate characters are hardly anything new to online gaming.  Yet, to my view, Eve-Online is one of the most "alt friendly" MMORPGs out there (Note that there are two types of alts in Eve-Online [Fn3]).  Not only does the player culture appear to have so thoroughly incorporated them, but also because their use seems actively encouraged by the developers (e.g. CCP's "Power of Two" offer [Fn4]).

What can you do with alts in Eve-Online?  The following are common patterns of use:

1. Alts used as scouts.
2. Alts used as miners.
3. Alts used as haulers.
4. Alts allocated to research.
5. Alts for spycraft.
6. Alts as combat proxies (e.g. building shell organizations that alliances or corporations may use to disguise activities to enemies).

And plenty more.

Points 1-4 involve fleshing out in-game actitivities with additional capability.  Points 5-6 enter the real of asymmetric competition discussed in the last post in this series (PvP, asymmetry, and the information game...).

To my reckoning, 0.0 / alliance players are more likely to have alts than Empire players (the distinction between the two groups is described in The moon is a harsh mistress).

To my view, these are fairly typical social practices regarding the use of alts in Eve-Online:

1. You as a player may be referred to via your "main" (designated primary character) on voice channels.  However, on (text) chat channels you are likely refered to as whatever character you are using.   For example, "Fizzle is our CEO (though Fizzle may also have a couple of other alts)."  Your main may be your most valuable (highest skill-point) character, however, it can be an arbitrarily designated.
2. High skill-point secondary alts may become known in their own right - e.g. "DogABCD is our corporation's manufacturer."
3. Low skill-point and designated special-purpose alts may be viewed functionally:  "Wailing Wallaby is my scout/hauler/etc." (merely so).
4. You as a player may not have to reveal all your alts to your corporation/alliance, however, if you have undeclared alts the expectation is that they cannot be used against your corporation or alliance (e.g. for an enemy organization). The trade-off lies between knowing who are your alts" versus "too much information" to keep track of.
5. Most players will declare their functional alts and in fact enlist them within a single corporation/alliance - it simplifies management considerably (e.g. Not-Blue-Shoot-It issues, see NBSI and the grey problem ).

The problem with alts for players is that it turns an already difficult player relational information space (in terms of PvP, asymmetry) into a much more complicated one.   The question always lurking in every player's mind when they see a character is "whose alt is that".   It is a defensive reflex.

Earlier I suggested that the "professional PvPer" is a player who could transition from pure alliance roles to privateering roles to piracy ones.  That path could be tied to the movement of a single character across organizational and functional boundaries.  Or it could be a movement of focus and interest in alts.  "Joe may continue to leave a character in the alliance, but instead choose to focus his attention on the adventures of a PvP alt."  Joe's shift in focus in his characters are not independent actions - it is still Joe playing them.  The question is how explicitly are the two characters linked in purpose.  It gets complicated quickly.

To highlight this point.  Alts are often used as proxies by more formal player organizations to engage in grey-area struggle in Eve-Online.  Shadow corporations and groups are set-up and used as part of asymmetric competition.  My group may not want to risk open conflict with yours, but we may seek other means to undermine your interests.  For all these reasons, I think questions about how to cleanly depict player transits between roles emerge.

As illustration, the wikipedia suggests something which many pirate observers in Eve-Online have suspected - that some pirate organizations are likely shadow proxies for alliances (from here):

Motherships... Despite being intended for alliance level warfare, one of the first Motherships built actually went to a small pirate corporation. This has caused some of the major alliance powers in the game to begin controlling the construction of these behemoths, or at least try to ensure that the only pirate gangs who have them are run by alliance alts.

"Whose alt are you" is a question that permeates the process of managing players in corporations and even in alliances.  Mistrust of strangers seeps deeply into the culture of Eve-Online.  Here are but a few of the impact points:

• Characters need to appear trustworthy, longevity in well-regarded organizational frameworks is a bonus.  Such doesn't prove trustworthiness of the player, but it does suggest that that player has some investment in that character and may be less reluctant to undermine its reputation.
• Eve-Online has a sophisticated system of access-control implemented at the corporation level.  Resources can be shared amongst corporation members ("hangar access") but different characters can be assigned different levels of permission to access  different hangars (and access gear).  Typically new characters with no reputation have very few permissions.
• Earlier in this series we saw how large-scale policy decisions in alliances are driven in large part by the fear of alts (greys, see NBSI and the grey problem).

To conclude with a lighter illustration.  In 2006 there emerged a "role-playing" of sorts combat group known as the VCBees [Fn5].  From forum discussions it would appear that they started out as an alliance adjunct attack group that turned mercenary after a period of time.  They were notable for a distinctive chat style (in role), some of it is illustrated below.  What is also notable is that they are clearly alts to other characters who were marshalled and organized from time-to-time based on whenever their interests saw fit.

The VCBees affair strikes me as a bit of light-hearted alt shadow play.  But it well illustrates the deep levels of ambiguity that players in Eve-Online work with.

Who were those Bees anyway?

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Fn1.

Corporations can combat each other in Empire space after first issuing a “war-dec” and registering it within the game. The one issuing it has to pay some ISK (money).  Doing so enables them to combat in Empire space without intervention by the NPC police force.   War-decing is an Empire space protocol (read The moon is a harsh mistress  for explanation of Empire space).  In low-security and “0.0? space alliances and corporations are not required to follow this convention.

Fn2.

There is a broad spectrum of use of the term "piracy" in Eve-Online.  Most careful definitions, however, seem to involve PvP for purposes of extracting ransom.  So for example, a mining operation in low-security space might be attacked by pirates who will attack and disable their ships and give them a minute or two to transfer in-game funds to their account as ransom to be set free, else their ships and cargo will be destroyed.

Fn3.

Each account (subscription) in Eve-Online can have three characters.  However, only one account can be played at a time.  Some "alts" may be alternative characters played on one account - and cannot be played concurrent.  Alternatively players can have multiple accounts to allow them to play multiple characters simultaneously.

Fn4. 

Power of Two offer ends on Monday!
reported by: CCP Wrangler | 2007.11.09 17:34:44

Space is a cold and dark place and sometimes you could use an extra hand to get ahead or even just to survive. Power of Two gives you the opportunity to create your own minion in EVE to do your bidding, be it to obtain ISK or fight your enemies.

The Power of Two offer is open for everyone who has had an active account before Wednesday. Included is account creation and 6 months of game time for a reduced price.

Fn5. 

Example exchange (from here).

Posted - 2006.08.03 22:52:00, Mr FuglyX
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Since 2 days ago there has been loads of peopel called "VCBee xxx" xxx being a number from 000 to "n". Over 20 in Orvolle, loads in Jita.... some goonfleet alt trick or something?
This was in Orvolle Local, They all talk the same as well, its bizzare.

? VCBee 059 > u giev missl?
? VCBee 059 > u giev missl AND 50 ISKU
?? VCBee 059 > ME HERE U GIEV MISSL

? VCBee 351 > missl?
? VCBee 351 > first u giev missl

? VCBee 369 > ? corp
? xxxxxx > why are there so many of you VCBee
? VCBee 369 > we vcbe. we free!
? xxxxxx > what you mean
? VCBee 369 > we not mean!
? xxxxxx > what do you mean your vcbe. free?
? VCBee 369 > no, 10 iskies
? xxxxxx > 10 isk for what
? VCBee 369 > mssle

Comments

[dmx]

1.

Ahahaha <3 VCBees

One of my alts was a VCBee

The VC Bees have a funny little story behind them. Back when the Band of Brothers first attacked Goonfleet, we where a far weaker alliance, and generally more closer to the 'newbie blob' of legend than we are now.

At the point we had come out a fairly brutal meatgrinder of a war with D2 and somewhat injured and messed up due a leadership row within the goons as well.

So BOB (purportedly due to an ingame insult not worth repeating here) attacked our homeland, and we sort of where left wondering what to do.

We figured the best response, was in effect no response. Bore BOB into leaving. So we created an alt corp, the "VCBees" (The hint is that bees have always been the goons symbol) and hit empire on a crazy role play.

The role play was that we where sort of a group of bees raised by the goons to defend the mother land of S-U, displaced and confused, the bees hit empire to round up missiles to defend the hive. The bees couldn't decide if they where "Viet Cong" bees or "Victory Crusade" bees or so on, and to get around Empires rules, instead of shooting, we'd bump people in our ships with the trademark "Giev missl or bump?"

Occasionally we'd do suicide ganks on haulers, but generally it was more for pure entertainment purposes. Just to be outrageous and confusing , as the goons oft like to be.

Most of EVEs populous found the scenario deeply amusing, and we in fact had many non goons join in with bees of their own. If any thing it was a bit like the GENO "invasion" of habo hotel. A strange strange role play designed to elicit confusion and amusement from the host population. Some found it deeply annoying.

In the end BOB got bored and left syndicate/S-U and we all got back on our mains and went home to rebuild.

[dmx]

2.

Oh yeah. the money values there , 50isk is far less than almost any item in the game. The humor there is that 50isk wont buy anything. It was really just deliberately pointless piracy. Actually making money out of it would of defeated the purpose.

[Richard Bartle]

3.

>Who's alt are you anyway?

I'm the alt of someone who can spell "whose".

Sorry, it's Monday morning...

Richard

[SvP]

4.

It might be interesting to know that alts in industrial corps are viewed a bit differently. In my experience they're often used for comic relief and are viewed mostly as second-class citizens.

Our male CEO for example has a female alt, presumably modelled after his pet cat. She's a combat specialist with a very short fuse, often leading to amusing conversations in corp chat.

Another corp member even made his alt fall in love with her, leading to some very entertaining social drama, as she refused to have anything to do with him. The 'relation' soon turned a bit hostile; the male alt making improper comments like "yyyyyy slaps xxxxxx on the butt as he leaves station". Such comments being retaliated with a threatening of his manlyhood, either literally or figuratively. (Remember that she is the combat specialist.)

Alts in industrial corps are often used in the first 4 ways described in this article, and are therefor viewed more like tools of the main than as proper characters in their own right.

[SVgr]

5.

One more important role for an alt on the same account as your main in eve: Eve characters have a funny habbit of getting "stuck" in certain parts of the game. I have an alt who serves no other purpose than to file help requests in-game whenever my main gets stuck and is inaccessable.

On the subject of alts, I refer to myself as a "purist" when it comes to alts. I prefer to have just one online persona and I grind through the skills needed to make that one character capable of performing all the tasks. This leads to some interresting points in regard to the social aspect of the game, and the effect alts can have. Many people in my corp use pairs of characters on different accounts to work together as their own little team (eg. Miner & Hauler, or Mission Runner & Salvager). My decision to use only one character makes me more likely to team up with other players when doing things like marathon mining ops or very difficult missions which may take alot longer with just one character.

I think I'm also more likely to be cautious about my character's actions because there's not a second account for me to change to if I end up in trouble. As such, I take pride in the fact that I work harder to achieve the same goals as others. I savor every skill point because I had to make the hard choice of what is most important to train next.

To the contrary, I know someone who runs three, yes three, paid accounts for a total of 9 characters. Although we are very close, long-term in-game friends, I only know the identy of 3 of them. Our corp mates know of only two of them. Talk about paranoid... jeesh. To me that seems extreme, but I wonder how many people do that? It's possible to let one account go inactive while training a skill that takes more than a month, so I'm sure there are people who juggle a number of accounts. When I see corp-mates who are online and offline for weeks or months at a time, it makes me wonder if they could be doing something of that sort.

[genericdefect]

6.

CCP has released a sort of manifesto on player and consumer rights in their world. Download pdf here

[dmx]

7.

This thing needs a thread of its own:

CCP waxing word salad on Deliberative democracy and CCPs plan for player run governance of the game.

http://ccp.vo.llnwd.net/o2/pdf/CSM.pdf

Haven't had time to fully read it yet.

[Sequoia Hax]

8.

Your comparison of Eve-Online to an ecosystem is compelling, and from what I understand, sounds accurate from your description. Probably not a novel question but: to the extent that you consider Eve-Online and ecosystems similar, would it be possible for Eve-Online players to borrow 'strategies' techniques from organisms in ecosystems? Or for Eve-Online to contribute to our understanding of how ecosystems work? (I'm especially thinking of Sorin Sonea's work on bacteria as a superorganism.)

[blackrazor]

9.

I read the pdf document. It seems to feed back into this recent topic:

terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2007/11/do-virtual-worl.html
Do virtual worlds liberate us?
Ren Reynolds

At least, when I saw the word "liberate", I took it in the form of player rights, responsibilities, and governance, which this EVE document seems to primarily address.

The pdf includes a bibliography linking to four of Ren Reynolds essays, as well. Nice cross fertilization there; it's nice to see that game designers for the larger commercial worlds read from the works of distinguished Terranovians.

[Ander]

10.

A lot of player stories from EVE Online can be found on my website http://www.eve-pirate.com

[Benglada (EVE-O)]

11.

Your description of piracy is flawed, as i have been a straight pirate from 2003 to current (april 08 as of writing) And the purpose of pirating is "Not to extract ransom" but to "Extract maximum profit while keeping honor intact"

IT may be either more profitable to ransom, or more profitable to kill and take their items. You may think honor is not an essential characteristic of a pirate, but it is. If you fail to keep your word, no one will ever make deals with you again, and making deals is a big part of what it is to be a pirate.

[nate_combs]

12.

@ Benglada (EVE-O)

Thank you, you are right - my description of piracy is too restrictive (requiring ransom counts only). However, the motivation for doing so was to avoid having to characterize others who destroy shipping but are not pirates. While the requirement for ransom might omit many pirates/piracy from the count, I thought it would reduce the false-positive count. As you note "honor" is an important element of pirate culture - and I think the need for this is best demonstrated by ransom transactions (if victim doesn't trust you will honor the terms...).