As some of you might know, our best frenemy RGC Godfather is running for CSM18 on a platform of… wait for it… killing ganking (among other things). For full details, check out his CSM Campaign Thread. If it’s not obvious enough from the title, allow me to spell it out for you. I think this is a bad idea for Eve. Now, to clarify, I don’t mean that ganking is necessarily good for Eve. Arguments can be made that used improperly, or in combination with other forms of harassment, it can discourage new and old players alike from participating. In fact, I created the HMA as a direct response to this kind of unwarranted hostility. However, its existence is fundamental to what makes Eve Online unique among MMOs.
Now, if Eve were a game, I could understand the desire to kill ganking. It is not fun to be ganked and games are all about having fun. However, Eve is not a game. And, that misconception is where misguided ideas like those of RGC Godfather spring from. Although Eve may, at first glance, appear to be a game what it really is is a framework. It provides an environment, rules, and tools with which players create their own experiences. Sure, Eve has pre-generated “content” in the form of missions and other things but it is Eve’s emergent gameplay that truly defines it.
Although ganking might be bad for a game, it is perhaps the purest example of this emergent gameplay. CCP set the rules. They determined where Concord operates, how quickly they respond, how much DPS is available, and what kind of tank can be fit. Then, the players decided what to do with that information. Just because you don’t like what they’ve decided to do with it doesn’t make it wrong. By taking away ganking you are taking away yet another tool from our collective toolbox. Why would you ever want to do that? Eve’s long-term success will come from making more tools not taking away they ones we have.
