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[Bacchanalian]

You did not even try to speak with the people of AM afterwise, did you ? Or you just did not care of their feelings ? Not to add the whole smacking and chestbeating we had to face after, and even if we may argue that this is RP, it is again the whole point of my "uneasyness" when we start to mix infiltration with RP. Reading a lot of people (that were not even the authors of the sabotage), it sounded more like a big OOC taunt and childish mockery glued into an IC coating.

On the contrary, I spoke with Yoshito quite a bit, and Kra Ra a little.  Most of my other favorite people refused to speak to me again afterwards, namely Smoke.  Soratah threatened to come camp my front porch with a baseball bat, so I got him banned for a month from game for that comment.  v0v

For what we know of, this infiltration was not even totally RP. How could it be when Xaiah was speaking with us all OOC-ly on a regular basis ?

AM was never an IC alliance.  Had it been one, I would have. 

Note : I remember that myself had several good ooc(/ic) interactions with Xaiah and quite liked the player. I was a little surprised to hear what happened when Soratah announced the thing. He sounded very pissed.

Pissed is an understatement--he threatened to come attack me in real life.  Someone lost track of game vs life.  v0v

[Creedance Talor]

I think its time I give my 2 cents!

I personally find the use of alts for such infiltration attemtps as a way to cheat the system because you cut out the slightles breadcrumb trail because you already are the one doing it yourself. I furthermore feel that RP infiltration needs to have that dirty gritty backroom deals to it. Which will hopefully become a possibility talking in stations on evevoice. Canceling logging of dealings!

I also find that if you hire someone it always has the chance of it blowing up in your face because the guy decides to change sides because the highest bidder changes if you use alts, there is no chance of something really going wrong cause come on its simply you doing it yourself.It just adds more of a level of Immersion into it. Deep cover agents can also simply start liking the guys he is spying and shift sides. It creates a lot more immersion because there are so many things that can go wrong with that and thusly I find it the better way of infiltration!

[Jade Constantine]

I think there might also be an argument that infilitration is simply unfun for the majority of pilots you know. I know I'll likely get responded to with some disparagement - but the reality is if you have infiltrated enemy corps, and they have infilitrated you etc - both sides get more risk-avoiding, more cynical and less inclined to just get out in space and fight. Having spies inside your alliance means you end up putting time to counter-espionage or otherwise limiting your exposure and using spies as a routine tactic in space combat leads to less actual fighting when such assets cannot be ensured.

I saw this a lot in the FW campaigns SF played an ancillary role in - both militias having complete spy coverage in the other fleets and generally getting paralyzed by the whole business - continually redocking the change loadouts to counter each other and putting more focus on what the enemy gang was doing internally than what they intended to do offensively.

My point is whether infilitration is "valid RP" or not it can be argued it emphasizes quite "unfun" aspects of the game and reduces the chance of actual in-space combat and genuine face to face roleplay confrontation.

Sure its super hardcore grimdark Eve in tooth and claw appropriate to the setting and all that....

But is it actually much cop as a gameplay mechanic if (as I strongly believe) its primary impact is to reduce the incidental chance of genuine "good fights".

I can say definitively here that infilitrating enemy organizations (and sure SF has done it for intel and combat intelligence purposes) has never really improved either the quality of the game or fun from space combat for us. The conflicts I've most enjoyed over the last few years have universally been those against entities we didn't have intel assets inside because frankly - its a joy to concentrate purely on fc'ing and shooting what you see and what your scouts report rather than having to force the mind through the wheels within wheels contortions of analysing your spy reports while presenting feints and evasions on your own voice coms!

Would Eve be a better (in terms of more pure fun) game without the spying and infilitration?
In terms of space combat and risk taking I say it would be.

And I suspect if you asked a whole bunch of 0.0 players whether they'd rather have fought to the last and seen their assets burning in desperate heroic rearguard space stalingrad struggles than seen their alliances disappear in a puff of poor gamplay mechanics - they'd probably agree with me.

I guess I can see a decent RP role for an IC infiltration that discovers the smokey deals and dodgy hypocrisy (or corporate secrets) of a target organization for propaganda and PR purposes. Discovering that a Nationalist leader was covertly betraying his nation in ic trade negotiations and war-profiteering with the enemy ? I can buy that, might even make some good threads.

But infilitrating to paralyze the enemy and stop them fighting in space at all? What good does that do anyone really?

[Sinjin Mokk]

This may be an oversimplification but...

If you can pull off an infiltration or assassination or whatever through IC methods only, kudoes to you. Once you start mixing in OOC info it's a kind of cheating.

Like, say your DM goes out and buys the newest D&D module. If you wait and enjoy the story as he unfolds it for you, you're a good player. If you go and buy a copy of it yourself and read it before the game, you're a cheat.

RP in EVE is totally unregulated in the IC sense. The only thing we have policing RP is ourselves. So if a player pulls a "cheat" like what we just saw with the IRED situation, we have a responsibility to ourselves to police it. We make sure the player's characters are ignored in further IC stuff. We protect ourselves from him infiltrating our friends and allies. With word being spread, the infiltraitor will find it difficult to find a new corp and will probably end up leaving the game. Maybe he'll end up in corps that don't RP, but at least he'll be out of our hair.

[Casiella]

It might be "cheating" in a roleplay sense. It certainly isn't "cheating" in the EVE gameplay sense. That's the point I tried to make earlier, really. Not everything in EVE has to happen purely as RP.

Jade, I'd also note that, frequently, infiltration doesn't have intelligence gathering as its primary purpose. Or at least, not intelligence gathering in the sense of equipping one's fleet. It might have more to do with strategic intelligence, asset removal, or even sabotage, rather than trying to help one side "win good fights" in space.

[Jade Constantine]

Yeah certainly true Casiella, but I was more speaking from my recent experiences in the FW front. But even the removal of strategic assets stuff (ie offlining towers) can have the effect of being an easy workaround avoiding fights rather than having them. But I'll grant you - if infilitration discovers alt corps/alt production towers/vulnerability like that it *can* increase the incidence of conflict.

But my broad point was that I think current levels of infilitration spying have probably contributed to the general malaise in space combat in eve where its generally felt you are unprepared unless you have alt scouts/intel sources/spies/preparation everywhere before you even think about engaging in a shooting match in space.

[Lyn Farel]

Many players enjoy the spy game at different levels, whether as observers, spies, counter-intel, and similar roles.

Until we come to the ensuing drama when the infiltration results eventually occur, when the victim is usually not really enjoying that environnement. A lot of people litterally wank themselves over drama llamas threadwagons, but rarely the victim.

You did not even try to speak with the people of AM afterwise, did you ? Or you just did not care of their feelings ? Not to add the whole smacking and chestbeating we had to face after, and even if we may argue that this is RP, it is again the whole point of my "uneasyness" when we start to mix infiltration with RP. Reading a lot of people (that were not even the authors of the sabotage), it sounded more like a big OOC taunt and childish mockery glued into an IC coating.

On the contrary, I spoke with Yoshito quite a bit, and Kra Ra a little.  Most of my other favorite people refused to speak to me again afterwards, namely Smoke.  Soratah threatened to come camp my front porch with a baseball bat, so I got him banned for a month from game for that comment.  v0v

For what we know of, this infiltration was not even totally RP. How could it be when Xaiah was speaking with us all OOC-ly on a regular basis ?

AM was never an IC alliance.  Had it been one, I would have. 

Note : I remember that myself had several good ooc(/ic) interactions with Xaiah and quite liked the player. I was a little surprised to hear what happened when Soratah announced the thing. He sounded very pissed.

Pissed is an understatement--he threatened to come attack me in real life.  Someone lost track of game vs life.  v0v

Yes I remember the banning.

AM was still IC on the alliance level. Not internally, yes, but on the policy and alliance level, definitly (and it was not only about RP declared wars here and there).

In any case, that does not change anything to my point, it even validates it. This is exactly the kind of gap that will often follow that kind of infiltration (be it IC or not, you will always have OOC mixed with it, period). And a gap between 2 RP entities means a gap in the community. A gap in the community leads to internal bullshit/drama/ignore/blacklist (yes im definitly not even going to try to speak to you ingame again, im not a fool, but thats sad).

You just have to look at the I-RED leak or other examples and you will see that this has always caused more or less grudges and feuds between entities, that can be more or less permanent, and hard to fix or patch up.

[Casiella]

Many players enjoy the spy game at different levels, whether as observers, spies, counter-intel, and similar roles.

Until we come to the ensuing drama when the infiltration results eventually occur, when the victim is usually not really enjoying that environnement. A lot of people litterally wank themselves over drama llamas threadwagons, but rarely the victim.

As somebody who has had the corp I founded and led completely destroyed in this manner, I fully understand the frustration. But, you know, even then, I understood that it was part of the game -- kind of like losing a ship with billions of ISK in cargo to suicide gankers.

[Lyn Farel]

I understand it and as I said above, it can totally be considered as IC (much like a lot of ingame actions), even if the OOC side of buddying with the people you are infiltrating is tedious/clunky, at least.

Though the trust/moral damage is totally beyond what you can get out of a mere isk damage when both parties know that they are enemies beforehand.

[scagga]

Many players enjoy the spy game at different levels, whether as observers, spies, counter-intel, and similar roles.

Until we come to the ensuing drama when the infiltration results eventually occur, when the victim is usually not really enjoying that environnement. A lot of people litterally wank themselves over drama llamas threadwagons, but rarely the victim.

As somebody who has had the corp I founded and led completely destroyed in this manner, I fully understand the frustration. But, you know, even then, I understood that it was part of the game -- kind of like losing a ship with billions of ISK in cargo to suicide gankers.

Suicide gankers are not comparable.  I've lost billions to them but I view their tactic as valid and one you can prepare against with the game mechanics.   There are no realistic game mechanics that you can use to play eve to protect you from spies whilst preserving enjoyment of the game.

[scagga]

Let me counter..........Had she truly been a slave, she would not have flown for AM in the tourney. 
It was a last minute favor begged for by some of the leadership because she was the only one online that could fly a particular ship, but she could have easily bowed out and no one would have held it against her since it was sprung on her at the last minute.

Thanks for your reply, but I think you know well that these kind of counter-arguments can insult even an average person's intelligence, Bacch.

Someone has already pointed out why they are gravely flawed.  You can go on to tell me how you hated flying in the Alliance Tournament and how it really drained you in your efforts to stay under cover, and how serving in the alliance tournament was somehow a problem with your infiltrator status, and how you wouldn't have done it if you weren't trying to prove your 'loyalty'...

The rest of your post did not add any points to counter mine.

In essence the alt-rolling 'hi can I be your friend' infiltration methods are poor form in my view because they reduce the quality of the game and I think Jade is correct in his explanation of reducing conflict engagements. 

The rubbishness of constant metagaming nonsense was a major contributor to my evolution into a trader - a far more efficient activity than half an hour of hunting for 5 minutes of conflict and 10 minutes of lag and jumping around to second guess the other poor sod you're trying to pulverise.

[Kazzzi]

We had a pretty obvious spy in MSCS/U'K for a bit. We didn't boot him though cause he got a ton of kills. Eventually I guess he realized we knew and he left on his own, which I was actually kinda sad about since he helped make the killboard look good.

[Ulphus]

As somebody who has had the corp I founded and led completely destroyed in this manner, I fully understand the frustration. But, you know, even then, I understood that it was part of the game -- kind of like losing a ship with billions of ISK in cargo to suicide gankers.

The usual response to losing an expensive ship is "Don't undock what you're not prepared to lose".

One of my disappointments with the amount of damage a spy can do to an alliance is that if you take that concept and apply it, it comes out like "Don't invest more effort/work/personal trust into your corp/alliance (and personal relations with the members thereof) than you're prepared to have betrayed and destroyed by a spy"

And I think that leads to less rewarding experiences with corporations.

[Casiella]

One would hope that your personal relations with other corp and alliance members would prove stronger than what game mechanics can handle. In your case, Ulphus, I have every confidence that that would prove true.

[Goshien]

I find the spy concept a facisnating one for this game because of the sheer amount of effort, and the potential massive damage the moment of betrayal can do. The hard part is the OOC/IC seperation. You got two options as a spy, which is throw OOC out the window, and trust that the people you spy on won't abuse the knowledge that you are spying. This option is impossible, nobody with any sane investment in their corp can ignore this OOC knowledge or not. So the only way to effectively infiltrate is to lie on both fronts, both IC and OOC. Now your lying boldface to the people you are joining. So now it sucks for them when the truth comes out because on their end it won't be RP, it will be asshattery.

TLDR I don't think it's possible for everyone involved to disregard it as RP with the potential consequences of an infiltration. There will be butthurt and there will be drama. If ya don't give a crap about the fallout then go for it.