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[Tiberious Thessalonia]

Word.

I think piracy not having a huge impact is just about how it should be. If it's about having a measurable impact, it's starting to get divorced from piracy and going into the realm of politics where the term is indeed starting to lose its meaning.

Pirates have an impact on the single pilots they engage. Now, you're not much of a pirate unless you actually make them explode or pay their ransoms more often than not. So as the number of those single pilots starts going up, your reputation starts going up. And let me tell you... reputation is big for pirates, in an RP sense as well as an OOC gamey sense.

So, the only impact a pirate should care about is their own welfare. You don't have to bring down corps, nations, ideologies to make it as a pirate. If you do it, keep doing it and are not forced to stop, without much or at all needing to resort to another means of income, you're doing okay in my book. Beyond that, your results and (dis)satisfied customers will speak for themselves, while you lean back, lay low, have a cigar and drink your rum.

I agree with this.  For us, for example, we don't consider ourselves pirates, even though we take opportunities to attack the weak and deluded members of the CONCORD signatories (I Keed!  Love you guys!) we are actually quite aggressive against other people doing so.  This isn't so much a competition issue with the pirates as it is a competition issue with what we IC view as the other empires.  We blow up the Empire ships because we are at war with them.  We blow up the pirate ships because they are dangerous and chaotic representatives of a world gone wrong.

Well.  Until we're friends with those pirates, and then they are okay by us!

[Mizhara]

Miz, your reasoning is good, but then does any RP group really have any major impact that you can IC take seriously in Eve? If so who do you take seriously and why? I want to know so I can see what conditions or reasoning behind that and use that as driving factors to build this corp idea. Thanks in advance.

Basically, you'll want to take Gogo Yubari's advice and run with that. Add some of Silas Vitalia's sprinklings and you have a nice little pirate corp. You'll still be utterly insignificant and have no impact, but that's pretty much how it is. Pirates don't have an impact on anyone but those they happen to shoot or ransom. Even then, it'll only be a little ISK here and there. If you can make that work, all the more power to you.

To answer your question though...

There's (currently) two directly measurable ways to pewpew in Eve. Militia and Nullsec claimin'. You can point at something happening and say "I had an effect!". You can also have an effect if you wardec and properly trounce an opposing corp/alliance enough that they'll be forced to do what you want/disband or remain locked in a war they're losing too badly to sustain, but that's hard to 'measure' as such. Not exactly piratey either. Mercenaries might find themselves doing that, but it usually takes personal grievances to truly grief another corp to hell and back.

Anyway, go ahead and make some good pirate corp. I still won't be able to take it seriously as an enemy or anything else, since it'll have absolutely no effect on anything that matters, but then... very little does.

[Silas Vitalia]

Sprinklings for everyone!

[Mizhara]

On the omelette!

[Aldrith Shutaq]

I've been thinking about pirate corps in general, and why they don't seem to have the seedy undergorundy feel criminal elements ought to have. I think the general lack of law enforcement on capsuleers means that they simply don't have to be underground; most pirates wear their intentions on their sleeves, laugh over drinks with their potential victims, and generally just don't need to give a fuck. CONCORD? Sec status? They just do the trollface and call it all a joke, which by RL standards it really is.

The consequences for piracy are so minor that even supposed non-pirates will do it. How many people here can honestly say they would let an unescorted freighter pass by them in lowsec? Only a saint or an RP-bound 'nice guy' would let a pinata full of a couple billion slip past with only a friendly wave in local. I'll be the first one to admit there were a few 'incidents' where KotMC memebers would ignore our rules and join in on a militia-led freighter pop, much to my extreme annoyance. And the consequences for blowing up a few billion in assets and killing a 1000-man crew? A few points of sec status knocked off. If you had high sec status already you just suffered absolutely nothing for grand theft and mass murder. In real life a white-collar criminal who stole that much would be put away for most of their life, and they didn't even kill anyone to do it! WTF.

At this point only other capsuleers can do anything about pirates, and nobody really does so unless they become a particular problem in an area. Even then overwhelming resistance can easily be avoided; just warp off and hunt in a different constellation. However, a real criminal can be cornered, killed or locked away forever. Real criminals have to constantly dodge cops, keep their tracks hidden, and avoid people witnessing their crimes, but a capsuleer has to worry about none of this. Even 17th century pirates had to contend with powerful national navies who would hunt them down and hang them if they were captured. Where is this in EVE?

Part of my intention for the revamp of KotMC was to change this a little by specifically hunting RP pirate corps as though we were at war with them, generally fighting as hard as we can and doing everything in our power to keep them from pewing randoms. You do some shit, you pay for it, so you'd better think twice. However, we are not likely to grow into much of a threat for any of the larger pirate corps. I really can't envision KotMC becoming a major threat to say, Veto. Corp anytime soon.

Going with this line of thought, for piracy to feel like a real criminal activity, practitioners need to be treated like criminals. Since the game and PF are set up to make sure capsuleers have freedom from the law, only capsuleers can enforce any form of moral standard on other capsuleers, which happens very rarely. I'd like to change that, but I don't see KotMC making a huge impact in the overall game culture of EVE, or even the RP community. People who do 'bad things' will always outnumber and be more powerful than people who limit themselves to 'legal' or 'moral' activities.

Now, applying these conclusions to the proposed pirate corp here... It seems to me you'd like to make a pirate corp that has a ruthless, grungy and underground flavor. This would be easier in a world where a pirate is the underdog where criminals have it hard, but this is not the case for a capsuleer in EVE. I'm not sure how you'd be able to justify 'doing what a pirate has to do' when a pirate really doesn't *have* to do anything to make a living. There's no law chasing you, no people shunning trading with you, and sure you can't go to the major trade hubs but you can easily make deals with people to bring you your junk and get around CONCORD like they're not even there.

I think the element you are going to have to capitalize on for the corp is what is going to set it apart from others - the extreme opportunist angle. No loyalties, no qualms, and no guiding principle other than the pursuit of profit. Someone pays you a small fortune to backstab a local ally? You do it. Weak industrial corp setting up shop nearby? Yarr them until they cry. Gang of anti-pirates roaming around? Stomp them to show who's boss, or just lie low and not care. Basically any old non-RP pirate corp, but with RP.

[Matariki Rain]

Various points:

Definition of piracy

This keeps going round and round, with a bunch of people fixated on ransoms as a marker of piracy, mostly so they can say "No no no, we're not pirates: we never honour ransoms". I start with the statement on piracy from (current, Earth) international law and see no particular reason to depart from that:

Acts of piracy threaten maritime security by endangering, in particular, the welfare of seafarers and the security of navigation and commerce. These criminal acts may result in the loss of life, physical harm or hostage-taking of seafarers, significant disruptions to commerce and navigation, financial losses to shipowners, increased insurance premiums and security costs, increased costs to consumers and producers, and damage to the marine environment. Pirate attacks can have widespread ramifications, including preventing humanitarian assistance and increasing the costs of future shipments to the affected areas.

Forced by circumstance

Opportunists to the extreme, looking to make a profit, forced by circumstance to do what they feel they must in order to survive.

Makes sense up to the forced by circumstance to survive part. You're a podder. Do a couple of low-level missions, then retire for life to some planet on the proceeds.

Piracy might be a bit poor choice of words for this, but really the underworld feel is what is lacking.
[....]
These would be people who are drawn to individual power. Not power granted by some government or higher authority. But power built by the force of their guns and the reach of their arms. For all values of guns and arms.

This, however, has a lot of potential. Explore those different values of guns and arms and power to find combinations that work for you. Power to? Power over? You'll still be a small fish in the cluster-sea, so work out what would be motivating and satisfying to your character.

Aldrith's posted while I've been writing, advocating the extreme opportunism angle. I'd suggest having a think about how you might personalise this to you. Extreme opportunism for ship kills is normal in EVE, and nothing to distinguish yourselves. We already have the mad dogs who like to burn down buildings just to watch the glow. Maybe be the people who actually know the numbers and calculate the potential pay cheque from each encounter, declining things that don't serve your purposes and don't pay enough to be worth the various costs to you.

I'd also recommend you burn to -9.9 sec status immediately and forswear ever entering highsec as part of your IC. Outlaws shouldn't be in highsec anyway, certainly if its the main part of your organization.

IE if I see someone calling themselves a pirate outlaw and not flashy red in local, they sound a bit paper-tiger.

Have you seen Verone's sec status lately? As I write this it's -1.7, giving him access to all of highsec.

You see, I don't get this. Piracy and outlawry are completely different things in EVE. One can lead to the other, but doesn't need to: I've said plenty of times before that the trend in the last few years has been for the smart pirates to do the sec status jig like everyone else, keeping their options open and even being able to get CONCORD to aid them if they play their cards right. You don't woo CONCORD because it's the right thing to do, but because it can be useful in achieving the things you want to achieve. Do occasional cushy work for some contacts inside the police and have them ensure your file looks adequately clean.

I may harp on about this a bit, because I'm still hearing the stereotype despite it not matching my experience in space these days, and I think it could be harmful to the development of gameplay. At Fanfest I heard some of the devs talking as though pirates were outlaws and sec status told you all you needed to know about someone's threat level and behaviour. That was my Fanfest moment of wondering whether the people setting the game parameters still play the game, or whether they're seeing behaviours in some other parts of space that are completely different to life in Republic lowsec. Same for you, Silas: are the patterns different where you are? I thought you'd become a nullsecer, where some of the most vicious cut-throats have +5.0 sec from running sanctums. What gives?

[Silas Vitalia]

Regarding sec status:

I absolutely agree it's much smarter, and effective, and easier, to not grind to -9.9.  The idea is for your outward CONCORD status to reflect the character development.

Plenty of badass pvpers are +10 and plenty of idiots are -9, but for our RP-world it 'makes sense' for someone claiming to be an outlaw always on the run from CONCORD to be negative status.  From my pea-brain point of view it adds credibility, much like having a huge bounty on your head would, even though we all know the bounty system is a joke.

It's character-dressing and costume to reinforce the character persona, not anything that's useful or necessary in game.

[Silas Vitalia]

Sorry I missed your last paragraph,

In general sec-status won't give you any clue as to who you are fighting, with a negative rating only showing you they are willing to GCC, and a super-low rating giving you an indication they probably have some friends around as being able to be pointed by a small ships without facing gcc while in something big and slow can be dangerous.

As you mentioned you can easily juggle status and kill plenty of people.  The system is broken -completely-.  GCC and Killing ships in low should give you a HUGE sec hit for a long time. 

GCC and criminality need to be completely revamped. 

On a random note I think ship hulls should be permanently branded for criminal activity, as a separate issue from the pilot.  IE The Federation is sure as hell not going to let the notorious 'black pearl' into their high sec systems no matter who is flying it, based on the number of criminal actions it's taken, and a ship hull full of criminal pirates, etc.  Would also be a badge of honor if you could grab info on a 'notorious' ship in an area.

 

[Matariki Rain]

Okay, then I think this comes down to different views of CONCORD. They're just part of the landscape. Being on the run from them is a choice: you could alternatively choose to pay their bribes and do that cushy work mentioned above (and take out some NPC pirate competition while you're at it). Making that choice is your call, but, hmmm, might be interpreted as "poor impulse control" or "hasn't yet worked out how to run a proper business" rather than "ooh, badass pirate".

On the other hand, it's really helpful for my people when pirates do go outlaw. So, y'know, maybe there are new realms of roleplay to explore there.

[Silas Vitalia]

Yea, I'm still debating it myself.  If you go full negative status you just have to commit to having friends or alts do all your shopping, etc, and also being vulnerable to any passing ship to scramble you at any time. Its a commitment.

I have been living in low. To be perfectly honest imho much of lowsec is much, much fiercer than a lot of 0.0. You don't get 300 ships shooting each other, which has its own appeal I suppose.  It's smaller fights, but serious. There's a -lot- more money on the field for smaller engagements, people are flying more expensive kit, and people are generally using very expensive implants since they aren't worried about being podded. 

Most of the guys I run with are all faction BS and t3 gangs, that kind of thing.
 

[Lyn Farel]

What Aldrith said.

Depends on the point of view. For me they are, and I see no difference at all besides the means and methods involved. The goal may not be profit driven but killboard/epeen driven, they still shoot people and loot what's left of them. For me, its piracy and it fits to the definition. Be it ICly or OOCly, I hold more or less the same views, the only difference being that ICly my character despises it so much that she has become a dangerously rigid vigilante, and OOCly I want to see more RP pirates like explained by the OP.

So yes, I think it is a good idea. We certainly do not lack of pirates and NBSI and people shooting at everything that moves in lowsec, we certainly do not lack of RP pirate faction aligned entities either, but we definitly lack of real, nasty RP pirates, with a real pirate feel. One of the only corporation that makes me feel that unique pirate atmosphere is Stillwater, even if a bit different, is definitly shady and dirty under the rug.

+1

Thank you Lyn, Then I look forward to facing you in space sometime in the future!

Who are the Stillwater people, a good move would be for me to talk to them and find out what they are doing to create that atmosphere. Thanks!

Sorry, I shouldnt have brought up Stillwater for the simple reason that they are far from what you seek to create. I only cited them because they are one of the only outlaw aligned entity that makes me feel they are dirty and shady and all. I think you'd better ask Leopold Caine about it though, but they are more of a Cartel aligned corp involved in slave trade and hedonistic/mafioso underground stuff. Exactly what the Angel Cartel does.

My point was mostly about that we do not really lack of RP pirates and outlaws, we just lack of what you said above, dirty realistic pirates, not Jack Sparrows. Not that I dont like Jack Sparrows - they even existed in the 17-18th century, that was the very core belief of piracy and outlaws, even if a lot of them just tended to forget them thanks to their low ethics - but I just think what you described above with sommalian pirates can bring something else.

What I mean is that when creating a RP corp the first thing you need is a strong, original and unique identity and feel. Reading you makes me believe that you perfectly got the idea yourself and that is awesome.

[Gymir Asaadan]

Wow, what an amazing and thought provoking set of posts. I'll try to respond to some points here;

I agree with basically everyone that says Pirates little in the way of the ability to make the distinction between themselves and otherwise "normal" lowsec pvpers. There's no mechanic that really highlights being a pirate in Eve, GCC and sec status don't really count either, because let's be honest, how effective are those truely? I think everyone also agree's they are worthless.

That's why I also agree with everyone who says I need to be careful, and thoroughly plan, or at least devise the type of corp I wish to create. Since pirate is such an overused term, and even though real pirates might know what they are, I need to come up with a less overused term that these pilots can call themsevles. Short of a corp name, thats the next major hurdle.

So, I temporarily forgot the ISK to normal person's money in the eve universe value, and that does eliminate "means of survival" as a plausible reason to pirate. Leaving just power, and profit. Still a solid base I would say, at least enough to start a few wars.

Opportunism is one thing, but becoming an embodiment of "evil" for lack of a better word, wait, got a better word, damn, nope, lost it. So Evil... yeah, by that I mean not mustache curling, silent film evil, which has it's own attractions, but criminal cartel, like mexican druglord evil, is a whole different thing and I think the only way to be perceived that way would be to RP that way.

Bringing up one of my more awkward thoughts, at least to set myself up Gymir is going to need to get at least some buy in, or people to rp with to do some dastardly acts. I could use tech4 news if they'll post stories of mine, but basically to set the right light Gymir needs a few incidents where he does some hostage taking of innocents and escapes justice, but taking capsuleers hostage is a ~meh~ proposition at best. But if I just start up a thread on IGS detailing a story about taking some hundred hostages (or more) that it'd be too cheese and classless for my tastes, AND too likely to just be handwaved off by most of the community.

I'll need to develop that thought more(I have the feeling it's a good one), but basically one of the things really lacking imho in RP in general is cross sides RP, where one side takes a hit to it's reputation, or holdings, or perceived holdings, think "terrorist attack" or "bombing" that destroys a corp's office somewhere, or kills off some people and makes news. This generates a catalyst beyond facwar or racial hatred (save the minnie slaves, enslave the minnie slaves trope) that would allow for some non-generic RP to take place around it. The attacked corp would work with the attacking corp OOC to build the event, I dunno, does any of that ramble make any sense?

Lyn, I am trying, so thank you for your support, I hope I'm beating down the right path, time will tell I suppose! 

RE: Sec status; man that's a tough one, Sec status is so worthless, I mean sure, highsec and all that, woo-hoo, let's go grind on some BS's for a few months and then poof be allowed back into highsec. It's like the Pirates need to rp being hunted men and women, because pretend is about as close as current eve mechanics will let you get to being pursued by non-capsuleer forces of any magnitude. It leaves me wondering if I will go the -9.9 path to start with and then as I can "solidify" a power base, I can then slip into the BS games and regain limited, and under duress access to highsec.

New Idea: right off the bat my corp should attempt to make 'enemies' who will pursue us, IC enemies like KoTMC or Teraa Matar, et al, on both sides of the line, who, when they see us come online, their characters have motivation to come out and try to hunt us, even if OOC it's just incidental, you're in space, I'm in space kind of fighting. If I can make that happen, if I can make some IC enemies I think there is a better chance of this floating both IC and OOC long term. This is going to be heavily invested in my cross factional pre-defined RP, so if anyone has any idea's on how that would be best implemented talk to me Not that anyone in this thread has had any shortage of words!

I love Silas' idea of branding of ships as outlaw as well as the player, man that would be great. Something akin to "flying the jolly roger" Beyond just sec status. so much CCP could do with lowsec, so I wonder how it will all play out. I will talk to the stillwater peeps and see what they can suggest as well, thanks! Even though it's not a direct correlation, it's close enough to steal idea's from!

[Silas Vitalia]

I don't know how much of a pvper your are Gymir, but one of the easiest and fastest ways to make enemies is to shoot them : )

Wardec a bunch of high sec industrial corps and start pillaging and ransoming a bit; maybe with the new war mechanics they can call for 'allies' and some protections from your piracy, and hence stir up some IC motivations for/against  :0

[Logan Fyreite]

As an aside, Silas, are there any IC high sec corps that would be worth it to dec? I think Gymir is more saying something along the lines of setting up a story-arc between separate RP corps, not just establishing a reputation as a Pirate.

[Silas Vitalia]

You could anonymously let a few of the law and order RP types know which corps you have been shooting up perhaps.  And I'd wager reputation wouldn't be a bad thing, getting a few notches on your ships and so-forth.

Or speak with or join established pirates for a bit to get used to the modus operandi.