Jester's Bystander Effect

In Jester's latest blog he describes a pitiful victim of Erotica 1's bonus room, and his lackluster plan to eliminate game play that does not fall in line with his own.

For those of you who are not familiar with Erotica 1 and the bonus room, here is the quick and dirty:

Erotica 1 is an ISK Doubler, and the Bonus Room is just an escalation of that time old scam.

For most of us Eve players, once we read the words "ISK Doubler", the jig is up.  For those of us who don't immediately see the scam for what it is, you usually lose a few billion ISK.

In this specific situation, Erotica 1 took a naive Eve pilot for a few billion ISK and assets, and had said Eve pilot on TS recording him doing various tasks that involved humiliation and degradation.  Horrible activities and poor moral character from Erotica 1 and his fellows is out on full display.  In this specific situation, the victim endured two plus hours of unthinkable injustices, all with the guise that he would receive 5x the amount of ISK he put into this freak show.  And they recorded the ordeal and put it up on Soundcloud for the whole world to listen and laugh at this poor soul!

So let me get this straight:  What Erotica 1 and his cohorts did/do is very wrong.  Their engagement in this sort of scam put the victim through a lot of mental stress and punishment.  This is one activity that I would not want to be associated with, and an activity that most Eve players would find deplorable.

But I don't think Erotica 1 or his partners should be banned as Jester has advocated.  I don't think that they should receive any punishment at all.  In my book, all they did was scam a pilot of of a small amount of ISK.  Yawn.

Jester and his fellow court jesters (laf) mostly seem to think that what Ero did was way outside of the bounds of not only Eve, but moral functions.  They are calling for his head on a spike.  How dare he scam someone out of a small sum of ISK!  How dare he use his social engineering skills to prosper!  There is no room in Eve for this sort of behavior!  This is an outrage!

Well to that I say:  Eve was not built for the typical honest social MMO gamer.  Eve was built for the scamers, the lairs, the cheats, the gankers, the win at all costs type of player.  This is our game.  Eve was built for us.  Eve is for the type of player that gets banned from WoW.  Eve is for the players who cannot play nice with others.  Eve, and the entire galaxy, is for the pilots who can see the snake pit and profit from it's existence.

Now that is my official position.  Let me begin to debunk Jester's moral high ground.

So sohkar got scammed out of a small amount of ISK, and Jester has gotten his panties all bunched up.  Jester doesn't like to hear about this sort of thing.  He doesn't want it in "his" game.  I'm okay with all that.  That is the essence of Eve:  "I don't like what you are doing, and this is what I'm going to do about it."

What I have a problem with is Jester's "and this is what I'm going to do about it".

Jester wants Erotica 1 perma-banned.  He wants Erotica 1 out of the game completely so he doesn't have to hear about these kind of atrocities.  He wants to continue living in the world within Eve that he has built for himself, which is PvPing with an "elite" group.  This event that tugs on his moral fiber is something that CCP should handle quickly and swiftly, just so Jester can sleep well at night again.

That is bullshit, and a cop-out.  If Jester really cared, he would offer sohkar some ISK from his own pocket.  The tiny amount that sohkar got scammed out of is but a pittance compared to the likes of Jester and
Rote Kapelle.  If Jester honestly feels like sohkar has been wronged and his situation deserves to be rectified, why hasn't he put his money (ISK) where his ban-happy mouth is?

Additionally, since we all know ISK is quick and dirty, why doesn't Jester reach out to sohkar and take him under his wing?  Jester is a prolific member of Rote Kapelle, he has some pull.  Wouldn't the benevolent thing to do be reach out to this poor scammed and tortured soul and bring him into the flock?  That alone is worth 100x the ISK that sohkar gave up freely to Erotica 1.

I find what happened to be completely acceptable, but even still I have reached out to sohkar and offered my services to help him acquire ISK and my advice to prevent this sort of thing happening to him again.  This is my "and this is what I'm going to do about it."

But no, this is not Jester's mission or recourse.  Jester's "Trek" travels the path of petitioning the higher ups of CCP via his CSM position to remove an element that he doesn't want to hear about or deal with.  Jester want's CCP to feed the starving children in Africa so that he himself doesn't have to.  Jester wants his sandbox and it's participants, just not that kid over there who is building something that offends his senses.

No Jester.  This is not WoW.  This is not some Facebook game.  This is Eve.  And in Eve, there are no boundries.  You will not, and you cannot, pussify Eve.  What happened to sohkar and things of that nature are one of the spices that flavor Eve.  This is not your Grandma or Aunt's MMO.  This is Eve and we don't fly what we can't afford to lose.  And if we do, we don't make that mistake again.

This is Eve and the pain inflicted from losses are a feature™.

Let's talk about the things that Jester does not like about this whole sohkar incident.

Time lost by sohkar.
Assets lost by sohkar.
Humiliation inflicted upon sohkar.
Publication of these things against sohkar.

Let me refute and rebuke these incidents with one link that Jester fully endorses:

Rote Kapelle Video

All of the victims that are showcased in this video have been subject to all of the "injustices" that Jester is condemning.  The trick is that Jester is a participant of these "injustices."  So Jester, why is it okay for you to partake in this sort of game play, but not okay for others to?

And that is what I have to say about that.  In closing, Jester, don't mess with Eve.  This is our game.  We scam.  We Awox.  We are dirty rotten scoundrels, and we will take your ISK.  We will feast on the tears of the scammed, and we will laugh in their face.  This is our Rite.  We have prospered in the face of all this, and the ignorant or naive are our Tribute.  This is Eve.  Maybe you are the one who should be permanently removed.

Fly retarded.