Backstage - OOC Forums
EVE-Online RP Discussion and Resources => EVE Character Development => Topic started by: Arnulf Ogunkoya on 21 Dec 2015, 15:39
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Got to admit, conversations with Nauplius are a highlights of The Summit for me.
Watching these is entertaining; I've only engaged with him once in direct conversation and it was fun.
As someone who's played an extremely despicable villain, I fully understand how difficult it can be sometimes to stay consistent, to not break character no matter how funny a thing would be to say, or how good an argument is available just because the character would not say that thing.
This question might be worth a thread of it's own but let's see what we make of it here first.
What is the attraction of playing an out & out villain rather than a person who is does bad things because of their circumstances? This is not a criticism of doing so, I'm just curious as to the appeal of it.
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Hm... I'm going to split the topic before I answer, because I can think of several characters whose players might provide good answers to that question, myself included, and I don't wanna jack Naup's thread.
Done.
For me, the choice to play an outright villain stemmed from my love of the Minmatar Tribes and their underdog position among the 4 Empires. When I was starting to get into the RP scene finally, I'd already been doing solo and small gang (what would now be called micro-gang) piracy in the traditional sense (hunt, catch, ransom, destroy only if ransom declined). At that time, there were several minmatar RP corps, but almost all of them were in one of two alliances: Electus Matari or Ushra'khan. Ushra'khan's corps that were recruiting, I seem to recall, wanted 10m SP or more. I was at like 6-7m. And of course, Electus Matari required that you follow their NRDS RoE (which, as a young and eager mystified by the gloried and storied antics of pirate bloggers like flashfresh (http://i-pirate.blogspot.com/) and Kane Rizzel (http://novakaneinc.blogspot.com/) and every contributor at http://eve-pirate.com, NRDS just wasn't going to work for me).
So here I was, Minmatar pvper wanting to RP, not a fan of Gallente lore, Caldari seemed okay but were allied with Amarr, and there was Amarr... I could've gone for one of the Pirate factions, and I thought about it, but most of those active corps that pvp'd (not like there were many to begin with) had the SP requirement thing going on as well. Nature of the game. So I decided to do something a little different. Minmatar Tribal Terrorist. There was support for it in PF with the Defiants and I think a group called Bloody Hand of Matar (or something similar?).
So I thought about how to do that. One of the things I hated about the Amarr RP players back then (still do) was how many of them seemed to cleave to a belief in their characters as 'the good guy'.
John Q Amarrian > /emote waves dismissive hand at slave #94 after having slave #28 taste for poison. "You may go."
See, I didn't beat my slave, my character is a good person doing God's Great Work hurrdurr.
I'm like, "No, your character's a fucking slaver, I don't care if he cures cancer, he's a bloody villain." Minmatar and Amarr are unique in Eve, in my opinion, as they are the only clear-cut 'good' and 'bad' factions taken at face value. Obviously, the Minmatar aren't 'all good', and it doesn't take much digging through the PF to find evidence of this. And I'm certainly not saying the Amarr are 'all bad' - there's plenty of room for Oskar Schindler in the Empire.
Then I considered the essense of what a terrorist is. DMX has a line in one of his songs, "There's a difference between doing wrong and being wrong." Those are the words Havo more or less lived by. He's mad, I've drawn from lots of inspirational sources from comic book villains, movie villains, even a soap opera anti-hero. The objective was to play a character who adamantly believed that he was good, that he was right, that he was doing the right thing, making the 'hard choices' that others were afraid or unwilling to make, breaking the eggs to make the omelette while your Electus Mataris and Ushra'khans would let the People starve. Who knew and understood that the actions themselves were terrible, that he would be universally hated for them, but who believed that strongly in their necessity.
Another facet of the contemporary terrorist is that they seek to attract as much attention as possible by attempting to outdo the last major terror attack if at all possible. And then they claim responsibility and use the moment of international notoriety to push a bit of their propaganda and attempt to attract followers/supporters/recruits. At that point, it was pretty much decided for me that Havohej couldn't be any sort of moderate. He had to be the extremist, there could be no compromising his views, no wavering from the "Let My People Go" agenda. I was going to play a Chaotic Evil against the Lawful Evil of the Amarr Empire and the Neutral Good of the Minmatar Republic, and I was going to attract as much attention as possible while doing so.
As I mentioned to begin with, I think that every player whose fashioned an outright villain of their character would have an entirely different answer, but there it was for me. TL;DR - I wanted to do something none of the other Minmatar were doing at the time and play the Minmatar bad guy.
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Hm... I'm going to split the topic before I answer, because I can think of several characters whose players might provide good answers to that question, myself included, and I don't wanna jack Naup's thread.
Done.
<snip>
And of course, Electus Matari required that you follow their NRDS RoE (which, as a young and eager mystified by the gloried and storied antics of pirate bloggers like flashfresh (http://i-pirate.blogspot.com/) and Kane Rizzel (http://novakaneinc.blogspot.com/) and every contributor at http://eve-pirate.com, NRDS just wasn't going to work for me).
</snip>
Fair enough, that seems like a well thought out idea. I'm snipping that one bit because EM used to have a policy that we only required NRDS within Minmatar space (we preferred that people include the Great Wildlands in that but could be flexible). If you wanted to go full pirate in enemy space we'd cheerfully be a source of cheap ammunition & kit.
So, opportunity lost there. Pity.
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Advantages of an evil character:
Potentially large amount of attention per unit of effort expended. The natural way of interacting with an evil character (that is, attacking him) is one well supported by the game mechanics. Opportunity to explore some way-out-there ideas or activities that interest you but cannot be expressed in real life (for example, my own family religious tradition is Calvinism and I've been exploring the fringes of that intellectual movement, so-called hyper or extreme Calvinism in Nauplius's cult).
Disadvantages of an evil character:
Most normal corporation/alliance membership is closed off to you (this alone prevents most non-alts from playing a really evil character). Most "social RP" is closed off to you (who would go on a date with Nauplius or marry him or invite him to a ball). If too repulsive, you might lose almost all interaction (I tend to err on the side of being a bit silly or at worst "derpy" as someone put it rather than, say, RP'ing ripping someone's face off and wearing it; that said, I make errors and the prominence of Nauplius has probably driven out some players who have a lower tolerance for evil fiction).
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Fair enough, that seems like a well thought out idea. I'm snipping that one bit because EM used to have a policy that we only required NRDS within Minmatar space (we preferred that people include the Great Wildlands in that but could be flexible). If you wanted to go full pirate in enemy space we'd cheerfully be a source of cheap ammunition & kit.
So, opportunity lost there. Pity.
I think someone hit us up about a deal like that at some point, actually, when we were doing the highsec extortion wardecs in Amarr space. We weren't able to finalize anything, and for the life of me I can't remember who I was talking to =/
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Disadvantages of an evil character:
Most normal corporation/alliance membership is closed off to you (this alone prevents most non-alts from playing a really evil character). Most "social RP" is closed off to you (who would go on a date with Nauplius or marry him or invite him to a ball). If too repulsive, you might lose almost all interaction...
Are we only thinking evil villain who's known to all for what he is then? The Skeletor of EVE? Personally I've found that the best villains are the ones who smile at you in social gatherings to give them an alibi while their machinations make your life hell in the background. The ones who are your best friends purely because they want to get close enough to see the chinks in your armor.
I know this is already a thing in EVE using metagaming alts, but the same thing could still apply and make you a villain without proclaiming you're evil.
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Arista always sort of coughs and changes the subject when Naup comes up, as she imagines him a bit like the odd uncle at the holiday party that everyone knows will arrive, but no one wants to kick out. As his background is eerily similar to Ari's (ex-Navy, etc), I imagine her as seeing 'possibly how the chips happened to fall that way', though IC or OOC, I have no idea how it did actually happen. Hence why she never says much of anything about him, good or ill.
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I have never really defined Val as evil because I have a hard time thinking on my feet like that, she has done many, many evil things of course, but she always just tried to do the right thing at the time.
I feel however there is a disconnect with some players always wanting their character to be a hero, because in 90% of the RP Val has been involved with she was the Villian from most people's perspective. Until Khushakor Clan she fell right Into the sympathetic ineffectual Villian trope.
I notice lots of people don't like to call thier character a Villian even if they are for example a rampant slaver even though they know that might make them a reasonable and polite Villian but still a Villian. The issue is people have very good reason to try and potray their characters in a more good person bad deeds light in that RP interaction dimishes greatly if you don't.
If John Q. Amarrian talks down to their slaves and pulls them around the summit of whatnot and looks at it from an economic or power perspective then even other Amarrians tend to shun them, everyone calls them an edge lord and their RP drops off.
As a former Nation loyalist I can say opportunities for interaction get a lot thinner when you fervently support your cause and aren't super polite about it.
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As a former Nation loyalist I can say opportunities for interaction get a lot thinner when you fervently support your cause and aren't super polite about it.
I'd also suggest that if you're moderately strict about not hanging out with evil people (y'know, slavers and such) then you run short of opportunities for interaction as well, except inside your very own bubble.
"Yes, they kidnap people for slavery and sell their children for spare parts, but they're so polite" is one of those justifications I think people make to get RP. I don't really begrudge that, and indeed, it's one of the things I've consciously considered when coming back.
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My character is what people think he is. Utari doesn't see himself as a hero, and neither do I, and nor does he see himself as strictly good or bad, he simply is.
It seems he's charming enough to people to be considered polite company, and does have a strong sense of martial honour, but he's an Amarrian who's now deeply involved in a Holder's business interests.
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Ria is a simple woman. She wants to make profit.
Anyway, I can't help but feel that threads like these diminish character depth. I could come here and say "my character is x and y" or you could interact with her and possibly find out.
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It's a trade-off between an extra topic to talk about during IC interaction, and a little self-promotion and chance to brainstorm with others about your character, sure.
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It's not so much the extra topic, it's about how you approach the topic when interacting.
As for brainstorming, why would I let anyone tell me how my character should be? If people do that enough, it'll be attack of the clones all over again. Not that it isn't to an extent already.
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I don't think anyone is implying you specifically want advice/brainstorming for your character, but some others might, or be inspired by the posts here to look at/come up with their own ideas. The use of "your" in Jev's post was likely the general "your" as in addressing anyone reading, and not just the one person.
Some people don't want advice/input and that's cool, others might.
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The more edgelord your character wanders, the more of a corner you back yourselves into... with diminishing results.
A difficult tightrope to walk doing 'evil' things and still maintaining IC social contacts within RP circles.
The more 'generalist' characters have a great benefit of being able to move within the social groups, attend a large cross section of events, interact with all sorts of different folks.
I had to try extremely hard (often failing), to at least try to be somewhat charming and polite and a good conversationalist to maintain chit-chat friendships and cordial conversations with a wide RP circle and everyone doing their cognitive dissonance that S wasn't off slitting throats and drinking virgin blood a few minutes after summit cameras were off, etc.
I always thought if you kept more of that sort of outright 'evil' stuff more insinuated, hinted, but rarely shown, it made things easier for the other players to not have to completely shun you all the time.
But having an 'evil' character is just more fun, I'd say? Who doesn't want to be the bad guy now and then?
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It's probably much more challenging to be outright and consequential evil on a main character if you fancy a lot of non-shouting interaction in your day-to-day gameplay. Be too subtle like a proper villain and no one will know unless you tell them. There aren't a lot of 'evil' things you can do in this game that are visible by innocent bystanders, especially not subtle ones.
The Naupening towers were quite good content creators but they may have worked better if it'd been the other way around: Keep em operational for a while before making any announcements, see if the defenders of the faith/freedom fighters spot them.
And if you leave the path of outright evil you will have your work cut out for you as most folks prefer their black & white stereotypes as do most RPG games.
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I don't think anyone is implying you specifically want advice/brainstorming for your character, but some others might, or be inspired by the posts here to look at/come up with their own ideas. The use of "your" in Jev's post was likely the general "your" as in addressing anyone reading, and not just the one person.
Some people don't want advice/input and that's cool, others might.
Ah.
I'm trying to split myself from the stereotypical Caldari militant, with limited success so far.
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Guess you're learning about guilt by association now :)
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Guilt by association doesn't exist because people are rational beings. Right?
Anyway, I didn't realise that people have such a low opinion of the Caldarese.
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In the Silas and Nauplius case, I actually think the isolating part has less to do with the villainous actions and more to do with the choice to go specifically blood raider/sani sabik for those actions. They are playing the most extreme version of the Amarr brand, which has the result of the rest of that faction ostracizing them. And since Amarr is pretty ostracized from the rest of EVE's cultures from the get go, it pushes the Sani Sabik character into a real corner. Alien may be a more operative term than villain.
I also would contest the idea that Naup (at least, I missed most of Silas) qualifies as an out and out villain rather than a character who does bad things because of their circumstances. I think the Nauplius theology is a fairly reasonable take on one of the directions in which Amarrian society should be fracturing given all of the crises that have happened in recent memory.
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I would say that the active Amarr RP faction is predominant, rather than the other way around. It's certainly the most cohesive and numerous group.
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Guilt by association doesn't exist because people are rational beings. Right?
Anyway, I didn't realise that people have such a low opinion of the Caldarese.
If you are talking about militant patriotic Caldari, well, I don't think that's the issue. It's when said characters turn into, well, Kim, that people start to lose interest in any serious interaction beyond the usual trolling.
As for that 'humans are rational beings', that's not entirely true. It's more accurate to describe our species as 'rationalising beings' rather than 'rational beings'.
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I was being sarcastic. I fully realise that 98% of people care more about having their opinions validated than hearing a rational arguement.
And the thing is that Ria is a Khanid, so while it's not unheard of her kind to be in the Caldarese army, it's not exactly the regularity either.
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I would say that the active Amarr RP faction is predominant, rather than the other way around. It's certainly the most cohesive and numerous group.
Isn't that because the social construct is more unified once you get past the overarching nation's loyalty? At least that's the way I've understood it.
The Amarr have an emperor/empress which rules only a handful of houses in a strict social construct involving things like ritualistic suicide.
The Caldari stick together as a race and support the infrastructure of the major corporations, but beneath that it trickles down into more numerous corporations with each individual striving in their own way to support their particular corporation which then supports a parent corporation all the way to the major corporations at the top.
The Minmatar support the elders, but beyond that the handful of tribes just kinda do their own thing.
The Gallente unite under the Federation's flag, but beyond that are all about freedom and far less strictly structured.
If I got something wrong in that let me know, but from that it makes sense that the Amarr would be far more cohesive than the other races.
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I think thats actually missing the entire point of Gaven's post. He's not saying the Amarr are big or small, he's saying in general Amarr characters are kept at arms length by characters of other cultures.
To an extent sure, I can't see Minmatar Tribals, or Republic or Federation loyalists becoming super BFFs with people who are devout in a faith and Empire that holds their distant kin in chains. However, as I stated in my own post, Utari atleast comfortably gets around social circles, even if he isn't super BFF with many peeps outside of the Amarr circle.
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Pieter is a villain. The worst kind of villain, in point of fact. Pieter's a villain so vile and terrible that I can't even tell people what kind of villain he is, because just mentioning the kind of villain he is will completely derail 80% of discussions about the subject.
When you read a book about some of the terrible things that human beings have done to each other on the state level, there is inevitably a disbelief about how normal, decent, friendly, family-oriented, fathers, sons, brothers and husbands could have possibly been complicit in such things. Pieter is the answer to that question - taking only a handful of qualities that are individually considered to be 'good' qualities, he is quite capable of carrying out atrocities.
In order to play that kind of villain, it requires that the character have friends and family to which he is staunchly and resolutely faithful. It needs you to see him put a couple of kredits in the 'Homes for Orphans' tin and not suspect a PR campaign. It needs you to imagine him patting a dog on the head, smiling at a pretty girl, bouncing his daughter on his knee and sharing an intimate meal with his loving spouse.
And then you need to be able to accept that he participated in an act like breaching a civilian dome, taking down a medical aid frigate, shooting up a freighter carrying refugees or something similar. This act must grow naturally from the very qualities that made him likable, even admirable, and not contravene the habits and history that he has acquired. Moreover, he must be able to go BACK to the puppy, wife, daughter and friends without being consumed by the monstrous things his loyalties have made him do.
I wanted to play a sympathetic monster.
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Pieter: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PunchClockVillain
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The Naupening towers were quite good content creators but they may have worked better if it'd been the other way around: Keep em operational for a while before making any announcements, see if the defenders of the faith/freedom fighters spot them.
CTCS operated a POS in Amarr for 7 months, without it being spotted. After we took it down, its existence was revealed, as was the existence of a second POS in one of the other important systems of the Empire. People said that it never occurred to them to look for such a thing. So, I wouldn't count on such things being spotted, without it being clearly announced.
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In the Silas and Nauplius case, I actually think the isolating part has less to do with the villainous actions and more to do with the choice to go specifically blood raider/sani sabik for those actions. They are playing the most extreme version of the Amarr brand, which has the result of the rest of that faction ostracizing them.
Actually, I think even the Blooders look mild as an Imperial splinter group when compared to the Equilibrium of Mankind. Sani Sabik in general seems to be fairly similar to Satanism with as wide a range of expressions.
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I think thats actually missing the entire point of Gaven's post. He's not saying the Amarr are big or small, he's saying in general Amarr characters are kept at arms length by characters of other cultures.
To an extent sure, I can't see Minmatar Tribals, or Republic or Federation loyalists becoming super BFFs with people who are devout in a faith and Empire that holds their distant kin in chains. However, as I stated in my own post, Utari atleast comfortably gets around social circles, even if he isn't super BFF with many peeps outside of the Amarr circle.
Which is a big shame really as I find this to be the case as well because there are a good few characters that I imagine would be interesting to engage but due to the constraints of Amarrian lore and the cultural tensions between them I often find it too difficult to credibly do.
Pieter: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PunchClockVillain
I suppose that's got to be how I view my character nowadays. I usually adore a chance to be villainous and originally intended to in Dust and when I started playing EVE.
However unless I made a new character I wouldn't want to go darkside even if I am a terribly awkward good guy.
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In the Silas and Nauplius case, I actually think the isolating part has less to do with the villainous actions and more to do with the choice to go specifically blood raider/sani sabik for those actions. They are playing the most extreme version of the Amarr brand, which has the result of the rest of that faction ostracizing them.
Actually, I think even the Blooders look mild as an Imperial splinter group when compared to the Equilibrium of Mankind. Sani Sabik in general seems to be fairly similar to Satanism with as wide a range of expressions.
They're different breeds. EoM are a doomsday cult. I think of the Sani as being more oriented around some of Friedrich Nietzsche's ideas about "the will to power," etc. There's a certain point beyond which distinction seems important more for taxonomy than hierarchy.
I agree at least somewhat with some of the reasons others have discussed for playing villains. There are aspects of Aria Jenneth's personality (and, especially, appearance) that are descended from a prior, unambiguously evil character I played in the old Neverwinter Nights. It used to be for me that playing villains was a way to explore the margins on my own personality, find out where I was and was not able to bring myself to go. (For the record, I'm capable of vast impersonal harm, but intentional cruelty and generally being a jerk pushes past my limit in a hurry. So I tend to play very nice horrible people.) That game got old a decade or so ago, though.
Coming up with creative reasoning to justify horrible ideas and acts, however, never did get old. Neither did exploring the ways human emotion and motivated reasoning lead to tragic outcomes-- or protect us from them. As a result, I mostly play antiheroes.
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Kala is a lovely person working for some very very bad people.
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They're different breeds. EoM are a doomsday cult. I think of the Sani as being more oriented around some of Friedrich Nietzsche's ideas about "the will to power," etc. There's a certain point beyond which distinction seems important more for taxonomy than hierarchy.
I agree at least somewhat with some of the reasons others have discussed for playing villains. There are aspects of Aria Jenneth's personality (and, especially, appearance) that are descended from a prior, unambiguously evil character I played in the old Neverwinter Nights. It used to be for me that playing villains was a way to explore the margins on my own personality, find out where I was and was not able to bring myself to go. (For the record, I'm capable of vast impersonal harm, but intentional cruelty and generally being a jerk pushes past my limit in a hurry. So I tend to play very nice horrible people.) That game got old a decade or so ago, though.
Coming up with creative reasoning to justify horrible ideas and acts, however, never did get old. Neither did exploring the ways human emotion and motivated reasoning lead to tragic outcomes-- or protect us from them. As a result, I mostly play antiheroes.
After playing some RPGs for a while I decided that Elmund is the sort of person who does not justify anything. Explain, maybe, but not justify squat. I thought it would be interesting to be the guy who won't justify any horrendous acts he may or may not have done throughout his active years. The person who will, when accused of having done something horrible, will look at the accuser straight in the eye and say, "Yes, I did, in fact, do that horrible thing and you are welcome to shoot me for it. I will still defend myself, however." In fact, I decided that Elmund is going to be someone who is too sober for his own good.
Of course, I'm not sure if I'm actually successful in playing the guy who thinks justifying anything is being dishonest and incompatible with his personal values.
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Kala is a lovely person working for some very very bad people.
...... but the eye patch is the mark of true evil isn't it?
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Kala is a lovely person working for some very very bad people.
...... but the eye patch is the mark of true evil isn't it?
Woops, looks like I've been playing Utari wrong. BRB, ransoming some blues in provi.
:P
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Kala is a lovely person working for some very very bad people.
...... but the eye patch is the mark of true evil isn't it?
Only if you're wearing one when you don't actually need it.
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Pirates used to wear eyepatches so one of their eyes would be adjusted to the darkness below the ship's deck.
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Pirates used to wear eyepatches so one of their eyes would be adjusted to the darkness below the ship's deck.
Eeeeviiiiiilllllll
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I have only tried to portray Caldari characters whose personal basis of faith is in the ancestor worship of the Supreme Father Mathias Sobaseki. Where the core ideology is one of achieving the ends of Kaalakiota dominance and dominion over the Caldari people through any means necessary, because they are the Good Guys defending the vision and legacy of Sobaseki against foreign subversives and domestic dissidents.
Although for some reason, their reverance of the Caldari equivalent of Stalin or Mao as their own personal God and saviour to a degree of fundamentalism has lead others to describe them on occassion as evil; villains; monsters; or as one person put it: literally Ramsay Bolton from GoT.
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Well, that, and the things Veiki's done to the interns, yeah.
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We don't do interns anymore.
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You didn't in the first place.
That was all Veiki.
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The Veikitamo internship program and Veikitamo biomass recycling programs were both fantastic while they simultaneously lasted.
Anyway, I always thought villainy was about the creation of perspective. You know, where others might see them as evil due to their actions but where they themselves operate by their own well defined ideology/motives/beliefs/worldview, that they themselves don't see what they do as evil at all.
Most of the villainy I see in Eve though just seems more like varied forms of cries for attention.
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The Veikitamo internship program and Veikitamo biomass recycling programs were both fantastic while they simultaneously lasted.
Anyway, I always thought villainy was about the creation of perspective. You know, where others might see them as evil due to their actions but where they themselves operate by their own well defined ideology/motives/beliefs/worldview, that they themselves don't see what they do as evil at all.
Most of the villainy I see in Eve though just seems more like varied forms of cries for attention.
Eh. A lot depends on what you count as "villainy"; I think most Eve characters are pretty compromised, morally-- and therefore exactly the sort of villain you're pointing to. Nearly everybody's a mass-murderer (or an arms dealer selling to mass-murderers).
World be grimdark, yo. It's just a matter of degree. That being the case, one of my pleasures in Eve has been watching different ways of approaching and justifying that situation bounce off each other.
Aria's basic attitude is very "warrior caste": "Mass murder is my fate, station, purpose, and function in society. As long as I serve that function, I don't actually need a reason beyond it being who and what I am. A lot of people went to a ridiculous amount of trouble to create someone like me. It's what I am for. If I don't kill, I'm nothing."
Aldrith Shutaq, her mentor/tormentor, is more of the "knightly" view: "Mass murder is only acceptable if you're doing it for a cause larger than yourself-- ideally for my own cause, but I can still admire people who commit mass murder for other principles. Even if they're wrong, hell, even if I'M wrong, we're still better than mercenary scum like you."
And then you've got Che, who might actually not be a (currently practicing) villain....
(Yes, I'm semi-intentionally stretching the meaning of "villain" in the context of this discussion. I don't find traditional villainy very compelling in a universe staffed by characters with body counts in the hundreds of thousands, but the reasons for those body counts are worth examining. The main difference between Nauplius, et al, and the rest of us is that Naups is very visible and highly theatrical about it all, and delights in cruelty instead of just accepting it as a price of doing business.)
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Samira is an anti-villain. She serves a largely villainous faction, and supports some evil methods, but ultimately she believes in good and right. Just her sense of what is good and right is skewed by her upbringing.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ConditionedToAcceptHorror
I'm not sure I'd call her an out and out villain, but this thread seems to be evolving into a discussion of villainy of all degrees.
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"Anti-villain" is an incredibly apt description.
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The Veikitamo internship program and Veikitamo biomass recycling programs were both fantastic while they simultaneously lasted.
Anyway, I always thought villainy was about the creation of perspective. You know, where others might see them as evil due to their actions but where they themselves operate by their own well defined ideology/motives/beliefs/worldview, that they themselves don't see what they do as evil at all.
Most of the villainy I see in Eve though just seems more like varied forms of cries for attention.
Eh. A lot depends on what you count as "villainy"; I think most Eve characters are pretty compromised, morally-- and therefore exactly the sort of villain you're pointing to. Nearly everybody's a mass-murderer (or an arms dealer selling to mass-murderers).
I agree, and it's why most of the, "Outright," villains people try to portray come off as rather gauche to me given the setting and audience. The only reaction my characters can have to their usual one-man-corp propaganda of the deeds for attention is essentially some variation of, "Okay, cool story bro."
It's pretty obvious to me most of it is just an attempt at vaudeville-style notoriety and attention.
Given what most capsuleers do on a daily basis, they're likely already seen as a varied shade of evil from the perspective of the rest of humanity and complicit in some already immoral behaviour as a matter of course. To try and be outright evil or villainous on top of that usually reads like people trying far too hard, and pushes things into the realm of parody like they're in Spinal Tap and need to push the dial to 11 for Super Extreme Total Evil.
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You didn't in the first place.
That was all Veiki.
Des literally did do one of the interns. Ended up marrying said intern, too.
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How and why I play the bad guy is largely defined (as with many things in Eve) by what I'm trying to do as a bad guy. From cheerfully piratical Khanid to Sansha propagandist to someone who simply sees the world in terms of Us/Them rather than good/evil they all have different goals, and I get different things out of RPing them.
As I think Naup mentioned, one neat thing is that it very easily creates interaction: There is a natural space for adversaries when you volunteer to play the bad guy to their good guy!
I'd also suggest that 'Bad Guy' in terms of alignment and goals is very different from 'Bad Guy' in terms of being someone people want to interact with IC (not that there can't be overlap). You can have terrible goals and do terrible things and still be welcome (if warily) in many social circles IC (and while I think some would argue that this is a flaw - people overlooking how their character would 'really' act in favor of having the RP - I think that it is reasonable to assume that given the things even nominally 'good' podders do there might be a certain insulation between actions that people take and social consequences).
Honestly, I usually have the most fun when playing a character doing things that are pretty clearly evil!