Hello, my name is Mirai Kautsuo and I’m an opinion piece writer and analyst of EVE industry and politics here at EN24. The thoughts and opinions written here are mine and not meant to represent those of other members of the EN24 staff team or anyone else’s.
Carebears. The ’vermin’ of New Eden, the punching bags of gankers throughout New Eden. There is a lot of hate floating in the void targeted at them. Question is, why?
EVE is not a spaceship explosion simulator, nor is it a FPS/TPS. I like to call it an economy simulator. ’How so?’, you ask. Both the ships you shoot your lasers at and your own ship, they didn’t appear out of thin air. NPCs do not sell them. It is the carebears you so hate that manufactured them. Now, I sense most people realize the fact that without carebears, the whole ecosystem would fall apart. And yet, the same people hate on carebears, trying to get them into PvP and away from mining or manufacturing or whatever they do. In my opinion, this is driven by the wish (need?) for more content. In the eyes of the majority, EVE is dying, with lack of content and developers ignoring players as the cause.
Now, this is a really interesting point. You need more people fighting to have ’goodfights’ and whatever else, but by pulling the people you need from the carebear pool, you’re (un)knowingly ’giving up’ the game. You get a big-time manufacturer to go PvP, you’re cutting a line of supply of whatever it is they’re manufacturing. And in New Eden, nothing exists without purpose. In the odd case it may even cut your own supplies off, ridding you of content. The very popular carebear classification lists many types of carebears:
I have to agree, it’s funny and all, but in most cases it just promotes unnecessary hate against the carebears it so colorfully paints in a bad light. Truth be told, there are a few types of carebears classified that are genuinely bad for the health of the game, like the Jita, Can-Not and NPC-Corp types, but everyone has the right to do whatever they want with their time in EVE and if they so choose, they can be a harmful carebear. The responsibility of limiting the impact of the harmful ones solely falls onto the shoulders of CCP. On the other hand, almost all the other types have a purpose and they need to exist if you want to keep ganking freighters in Amarr or whatever it is you want to do that involves PvP. This brings me to another point.
There is a famously ’edgy’ carebear rant on Reddit (I genuinely do not know if this is real or satire, help me out in the comments) that just astonishes me. The mentality of ’I did not consent to PvP’ is very harmful (and frankly, disgusting). By passing the tutorial, you universally agree to all types of interaction that may happen while you’re playing the game, willing or not, pleasant or not. The smugness that comes from that mentality is unreal. The fact that you manufacture the ships others use doesn’t give you the privilege to be excluded from the unpleasantries of the game. You, and only you, are responsible for your own safety in space (unless, of course, if you outsource it, in which case if it fails, flame all you want). If you are getting killed way too often as an industrialist you need to rethink the way you play the game and ask yourself ’Am I doing this right?’. Everyone has their own ways of making money; you create the opportunities for making money, either by manufacturing the equipment needed (which brings you profit too), or by being fodder of the Fedos on the hull of the ship that killed you (which is possibly of your making).
I guess the conclusion here is: it is okay to kill carebears, it is okay to go ’grr carebears’ once in a while when the scammer in Jita pisses you off, but it is not okay to hate carebears given that they are the lifeline that your much-needed content and goodfights rely on. And carebears, please, do not feel like you’re some special caste of capsuleer. You are not; you will not be granted a free pass ticket when you pass through a chokepoint and get scrambled by a gatecamp party nor will you mine in highsec without at least a slimmer of risk (except if you buy a CODE license; a story for another day).
