EVE Online 2: Giant in the Sandbox (Still a terrible game for terrible people)

[illyrus]

...looking for or baiting out a fight from a roughly equal entity, you pretty much guarantee one of two things...

I always thought the problem was how the community treats loss. Losing stuff by the average Eve player is seen as a very bad thing whether it is a ship, some ISK, or pride. Loss mails are pointed out and laughed at by the entire community and Battle Reports can have some of the most absurd egos clashing in them. On one hand I find some of those funny, on the other I think it just breeds a community that focuses too heavily on stacking the odds in their favor to avoid losing.

Which is fine, wanting to win makes sense, but I think people try to focus on stacking it to the point where the fight is trivial and assume their opponent is doing much the same. So everyone ends up playing Rock, Paper, Shotgun with people wondering why everyone but newbies are picking shotgun.