Building on Seri's post, another thing I have constantly been bothered with, is the perceived attitude most, if not all, pirates I've ever met hold.
It goes mostly like this:
Hello there, I'm a pirate - you should be afraid of me. I am better than you. I am more skilled than you, have a finer ship, and most of all, I have friends. There is nothing you can do to stop me, truly, because I'm at the top of the food-chain, and you are my food.
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As a result of this, perhaps 1 of 20 pirates I encounter are willing to try to fight on more 'equal' terms, as in, one vs one situations with rather equal ship-classes and abilities. The rest? Either they were never alone to begin with, or in a ship that vastly out-match whatever I am in.
An example today are all the Dramiel pirates running around in their pimped 70 mill+ frigates to kill anyone who enter minor complexes. There is practically no other frigate or even destroyer that can guarantee a win against a Dramiel in a 1vs1 engagement, and they know it. There are even many cruisers they can tackle and kill with impunity.
There are numerous other examples.
Another issue I take with pirates is the underlying implication that whoever THEY fight are the gankers, blobers, cheaters, rich kids or what-not. The evil carebears (everyone except themselves) DESERVE their fate, after all, they are hellishly rich and the pirate is poor. They blob and gank pirates due ability, so whenever pirates do that, it's only fair, right?
It's the excuse-making, whining, and justifications they make, both IC and OOC, to underline that, while they ARE the true bad-asses, THEY are the factual good-guys, in terms of game mechanics.
After the end of the year 2006, I can not recall meeting one single pirate that was poor, alone or out-matched, who did not whine about this whenever asked. There have been a few who engaged me or did not flee from me when faced with a 'fair' engagement, these usually don't say anything, perhaps excluding a 'GF' in local after, regardless of outcome. These are the only ones I've ever had any respect for, as pirates.
The rest? Not so much.
I've never met a poor pirate, rarely one who was alone and practically never one that risks his ass in an up-hill battle, unless he has more than enough backup. Most pirates I ever meet, to be frank... are cowards. Perhaps I'm looking in the wrong places, and all the brave pirates of decent quality live elsewhere.
Perhaps there I'll find the fabled Vigilante-blobs too.
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While this post risks being very flammable, I'll go on regardless, if the following is considered to hot, you may remove it.
I've got a bit of a beef with VETO corp.
Not because Verone is evil or anything, or because I think all Veto are assholes in RL or whatever, no.
But there is an underlying idea going that pisses me off. Veto started years ago, as any run-of-the-mill pirate corp, and ofc during the years grew to what they are today. The problem I have is it's effect on the RP scene. Whenever anyone are tired with their 'empire of choice' as a RP faction it seems the vast majority considers piracy the only 'better' option. I can imagine the reasons why: Among them, the ability to attack anyone in low-sec or 0.0 without bias or discrimination. With the exceptions, ofc, of your own blued pirate allies.
So, as RP'ers, Veto sucks up anyone who are tired of or fed up with, empire RP or other things. Veto seems the promised land of Piracy, and other pirates too have joined over the time, making it even bigger and more 'lucrative'. Veto has a functioning pirate alliance, I'm assuming with industrial backing, and hundreds of members. Sweet - piracy, with loads of friends and a nice bit of Pro-Guristas RP on top?
How many people have offered thinly-veiled RP reasons to abandon their cause and join over the years?
Tyr Cloudstone, his CEO Thullkalat-whatshisname, Stitcher (if only for a few days) and others I can't recall atm, all made what I'd call spur-of-the-moment reason for defecting and leaving for Veto. Stitcher's reasons were the only onces that seemed somewhat legit, and he atl had the class to blame mostly himself, even if, imho, it was a cop-out. Tyr and his CEO, on the other hand?
"The Fed are not happy enough with us and did not stroke our ego enough, so we leave them to go become pirates, yay! Oh and it was all their fault to start with and all Fed-loyalists are stupid, blind and weak anyway. Bye-bye. P.S - don't try ot stop us or come for us, because now that we are pirates we are suddenly WAY more dangerous, no unstoppable!"
What a load of shit. Might as well have left in silence and offered the real RL reason: "We are tired of our old corp, it's not working or we wanted a change, so we leave for Veto, where we expect that the numbers and structure in place will keep us safe and happy and fat on loot for the rst of our lives."
I recall a fight against Veto I had years ago. We were out in a small cruiser and frigate gang of 5-6, I can't recall how many, we were looking for F1END, or rather, Sanguine Legion, a decent-sized pirate corp we had gotten into a bit of a war with. We stumbled over a few other pirates and engaged, as not all were present (scouting elsewhere, iirc) the battle was a few cruisers vs a few cruisers. I lost my nos-Rax but it was damn fun. Later I heard the pirates were all in Veto, and did not know who that was at the time.
Today? Hundreds of members. Large gangs roaming about. Camps on high-sec gates with dozens of faction battleships backed by RR logistics, jamming, commandships and HIC's. In practical terms, your near untouchable. No retribution of any value or worth will ever touch you, nor will anyone who even try to uphold the 'law'.
I nearly cried when I saw this:
What a complete waste of assets and numbers. I hope you all left for other things and got a good fight somewhere, though I allow myself to highly doubt that.
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Ultimately what this all boils down to, is that Piracy is like FW. A Broken system, sadly one that caters to much to being a pirate. Sometimes I wonder if going pirate would allow me to kill more pirates. It will at least help me have no compunction against killing all their 'neutral' friends and scouts.
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Topic: Re: Roleplaying a Pirate character.... IC/OOC observations (Read 928 times)