Trust Issues

Havn't had much time to play lately. Real life got busy this last week or so, however got some things to talk about today.

Wensley leads a corp op.
We had a corp op this morning. Taken in the Bastard's philosophy, we went out with cruisers set up to do as much DPS as possible in order to overwhelm our enemies. I won't post the details about what happened, as I am sure Wensley will do it and since he was FC, it is more appropiate if he does. However, it was great fun, and after killing an Astarte and Onyx, we went down in a blaze of glory vs a fleet of battleships, command ship, and a Falcon. Thanks to Wensley for organizing and and FCing this op, was great fun and looking forward to the next one. Also thank you to the Bastard's for the amazing idea, hope y'all don't mind we stole it!!

EDIT: Wensley posted a detail account of the operation here. Make sure to check it out!

Trust Issues
Later in the day, the report of a covetor mining in the system Jovainnon came through. Apperantly he was at a mission and we had someone within 4 AUs of him. I quickly hoped onto my helios and using a Magnetometric Quest probe, I was able to scan him down in two or three cycles. When I landed on him, I realize it was actually an Exploration Hidden belt. I quickly gave the order for my two corp mates Ronan and Novancto to warp in and get a tackle. We decided to try to ransom him, this lead to a very interesting conversation I had with the Miner.

We probably gave him 3 minutes total for him to accept our 20 mil ransom for his ship + his almost full can of gneiss. The whole time he tried to argue the fact that he did not know he could trust us, and instead that we should trust him and let him go for 5 mil, once he was away he would give us an additional 10 million. We rejected because, as I explained to him, there is nothing forcing him to give us the 10 million ISK AFTER he is gone. Finally, after a rather lengthy discussion on how he could not trust us either, we popped his ship, popped his pod (tried to ransom it but he just WOULDN'T pay!!!), and took his ore (worth about 6 mil).

This led me to contemplate his point of view. Why SHOULD he trust us? After all, did we not just busted his mission to come in and shoot at his ship (we did save him from the rats thou!!)? We are pirates after all, so it is known that we live our virtual lives (and some of us our RL I guess) killing and pillaging. So why, in my opinion, can you trust pirates (can really only speak for myself)? Here is what I came up with.

I can say over and over how we have never dishonored a ransom, but after all there is no documentation of this. The only documentation of this is the fact that there ISN'T a "...Tuskers have dishonored a ransom..." thread on the boards, but after all, not everyone that plays the game are going to go post on the boards. So really, you just have to take our word for it. The previously talked about miner tried to argue that we didn't have anything to keep us from breaking our agreement, and I disagree with that. Reputation is EVERYTHING (or at least a very important part) to a pirate. I think that everything we do we try to maintain a certain reputation. You want to be considered the greatest pirate that ever lived? Well then you better get more kills, better kills, and less losses than anyone. You want to be considered a successful pirate? Well then, depending on what your definition of success, you make have to MAKE more isk than the rest while losing as little as possible. However, to some corps (such as the Tuskers), it is not about being the best, or the most l33t corp out there.

We of course want to be known as a good pirate corporation. But Beyond that, we want to be a group of players who others can respect. A corporation that will give you a good fight, and win or lose, will not give you any smack in local (there is something to be said about good natured smack thou). And to this end, WE (as well as other corporations that strive for something similar) do have something to lose from dishonoring a ransom. We want people to know we keep our word so that we are trusted, regardless of the whole destroying-your-ship-and-making-out-with-the-loot business. If we fleet up with someone, you can be sure we wont stab you in the back. If we ransom someone, you can bet your shiny expensive ship that we will let you go (or at least return the ransom), and give you a "pass" for the agreed time (wether it is 5 minutes or a whole day). So if we go around dishonoring ransoms, pretty soon our reputation will be down the drain. We will be considered good for nothing pirates, and pretty soon will have all of New Eden coming down hunting for our heads.

But, aside from telling them this, is there a way to let someone else know that he can trust you? Or do they simply have to make a leap of faith and hope that you don't blow them up after receiving the ransom? I sure hope it is not the latter, because if it is, I don't expect to be getting many ransoms in my whole career...something that could potentially keep me in my shiny ships (well not so shiny now, more like full of rust!) for a long while without having to do any "carebear" activities.