Von Keigai commented “Ganking is PVP, but PVP is not only ganking, and ganking is not a respected form. As such, you still have a lot to do. Get a real PVPer to respect you. Win a frigate battle. Just one would be a start. Then two. Yeah. Then three. Get a killboard that people must respect because it is awesome. That's your challenge. Get PVPers to respect you.”
Respect is often mentioned goal of “real PvP”. That getting a “gf” after a battle is a reward itself. Jester wrote in his PvP guide “success is rewarded with prestige, the pressing forward of larger organizational goals, financial rewards, or all three.” Since roaming PvP has no financial aspect (the loss is trivial to even an impoverished noob) and it’s not part of a campaign (not to mention that campaigns are officially to get fights as they didn’t want that region anyway), nothing but prestige left.
But there is a fundamental problem here: there is no accepted respect number. No, I’m not making the obvious point that respect is not a scientifically observable quantity like ship kill value. My point that in real life, all kind of activities that draw public respect has some form of signaling and acknowledgement system. While “bravery” and “loyalty” cannot be measured scientifically, you can get official medals in every army if you perform actions which are considered “above and beyond”. Untrue claims to be a decorated war hero is punishable crime in several countries.
The “artistic value” of a piece of artwork cannot be measured by scientific methods either. Yet there are both prizes to be earned, judged by experts and there are sites like Metacritic that collects various opinions from experts and averages this value.
Ironically, scientific value cannot be measured scientifically. You can’t say that Newton did 150 points of progression while Kepler did 62. Yet there is impact factor, counting citations (number of times other scientists found that the article was contributing to their own work) and from there, a number can be gained to measure the scientific value of a work or even the researcher.
In all cases subjective opinion of experts was formalized, netting an objectively existing medal or score that serves as a proof of merit towards the uneducated public, ending all debate. While you can argue if Joe is brave or not as that's opinionated, there is no argument over the fact that Joe got a Silver Star and a Purple Heart, proving that he was wounded in combat and his military superiors believed that he did so while performing exceptionally.
Such “PvP score” or badge could exist in the EVE community, working semi-automatically, scanning killboards for hard kills and then validating them manually. It could also work using a voting system, averaging scores given by multiple experts. Yet not even failed attempts were made to create any kind of such system. Why? Because of favoritism and the terribly easy way to cheat. Experts in the above examples were all on the same sides: members of the same army, fellow scientists, art critics. On the other hand EVE PvP-ers often belong to small groups and there is actually no group in EVE which is widely acclaimed. This is unseparable from the fact that vast majority of PvP losers refuse to accept a superior skilled opponent, claiming “outshipping”, “blobbing” or lag as reason for their defeat. Therefore the same action which is called “awesome skills” by blues of the killer, is called “gank” by everyone else.
Secondly and more importantly – unlike military heroism, art and scientific work – outstanding PvP performance can be easily cheated. Here is a solo carrier kill receiving 3200 points from zkillboard.com, due to its near impossibility, proving extraordinary skills – while in truth I simply bought this carrier from its manufacturer. I could create a titan kill report with a solo noobship if I wanted to.
Because of these reasons, “earning respect” is not simply a bad goal, but an impossible one. No matter what kind of PvP action I’d waste my time with, I would not gain an inch of respect from the public, due to lack of experts, scores and medals. There would always be a way to explain why my results doesn't count (ganking, in a blob, lucky, whatever). This of course true for everyone else. Even if you receive a “gf” from a random guy you’ll never see again, you can’t reasonably expect anyone else to respect you for it. You can spend years killing random ships without anyone taking notice or giving a damn if reminded.
Respect is often mentioned goal of “real PvP”. That getting a “gf” after a battle is a reward itself. Jester wrote in his PvP guide “success is rewarded with prestige, the pressing forward of larger organizational goals, financial rewards, or all three.” Since roaming PvP has no financial aspect (the loss is trivial to even an impoverished noob) and it’s not part of a campaign (not to mention that campaigns are officially to get fights as they didn’t want that region anyway), nothing but prestige left.
But there is a fundamental problem here: there is no accepted respect number. No, I’m not making the obvious point that respect is not a scientifically observable quantity like ship kill value. My point that in real life, all kind of activities that draw public respect has some form of signaling and acknowledgement system. While “bravery” and “loyalty” cannot be measured scientifically, you can get official medals in every army if you perform actions which are considered “above and beyond”. Untrue claims to be a decorated war hero is punishable crime in several countries.
The “artistic value” of a piece of artwork cannot be measured by scientific methods either. Yet there are both prizes to be earned, judged by experts and there are sites like Metacritic that collects various opinions from experts and averages this value.
Ironically, scientific value cannot be measured scientifically. You can’t say that Newton did 150 points of progression while Kepler did 62. Yet there is impact factor, counting citations (number of times other scientists found that the article was contributing to their own work) and from there, a number can be gained to measure the scientific value of a work or even the researcher.
In all cases subjective opinion of experts was formalized, netting an objectively existing medal or score that serves as a proof of merit towards the uneducated public, ending all debate. While you can argue if Joe is brave or not as that's opinionated, there is no argument over the fact that Joe got a Silver Star and a Purple Heart, proving that he was wounded in combat and his military superiors believed that he did so while performing exceptionally.
Such “PvP score” or badge could exist in the EVE community, working semi-automatically, scanning killboards for hard kills and then validating them manually. It could also work using a voting system, averaging scores given by multiple experts. Yet not even failed attempts were made to create any kind of such system. Why? Because of favoritism and the terribly easy way to cheat. Experts in the above examples were all on the same sides: members of the same army, fellow scientists, art critics. On the other hand EVE PvP-ers often belong to small groups and there is actually no group in EVE which is widely acclaimed. This is unseparable from the fact that vast majority of PvP losers refuse to accept a superior skilled opponent, claiming “outshipping”, “blobbing” or lag as reason for their defeat. Therefore the same action which is called “awesome skills” by blues of the killer, is called “gank” by everyone else.
Secondly and more importantly – unlike military heroism, art and scientific work – outstanding PvP performance can be easily cheated. Here is a solo carrier kill receiving 3200 points from zkillboard.com, due to its near impossibility, proving extraordinary skills – while in truth I simply bought this carrier from its manufacturer. I could create a titan kill report with a solo noobship if I wanted to.
Because of these reasons, “earning respect” is not simply a bad goal, but an impossible one. No matter what kind of PvP action I’d waste my time with, I would not gain an inch of respect from the public, due to lack of experts, scores and medals. There would always be a way to explain why my results doesn't count (ganking, in a blob, lucky, whatever). This of course true for everyone else. Even if you receive a “gf” from a random guy you’ll never see again, you can’t reasonably expect anyone else to respect you for it. You can spend years killing random ships without anyone taking notice or giving a damn if reminded.
