"The magnificent Seven", LeberMac; I think the kid asked it of Steve McQueen. Though they rehashed the scene in "Three Amigos", and the question was put forth then to Chevy Chase.

Honor is pure undalduterated bullshit.

I was starting to write a rather long post, but Jex summarised it all very well.

I tend to disagree with Joyce.
There is a thing called warrior honour.
Not many of you kids fought in a real war. I did and I can assure you there is a warrior honour.

Only then should you be honourable if you can afford to be. Whether this is in a war (real) or not, does not matter.

Agreed Tosh.

Care to expand on that Bojan?

So.... basically what everyone is talking about boils down to this: Both in real life and in a game, being honorable is the same as being a suicidal maniac. And who gets to enjoy they're honor when they're dead?

Lets see a RL example:
An old lady is getting mugged at gunpoint. The guy is just going to take her money and walk away. I, the mighty citizen spy this dastardly deed, and quickly jump in to start punching a guy with a gun. Honorable? I get myself shot and killed, and put my whole family to grief. Nah, I did more damage by being "honorable".

In-game esample:
Wait a minute.... It's a game! Who the hell cares about dying or not?!? The game is about having fun, not setting standards for everybody to live up to.

@mogul: i could but i dont see any point at this time.

I'm the kind of person who would jump in front of a car to save someone's pet or even someone I don't know, honestly.

But it doesn't make me a suicidal maniac. I can see how someone might connect my first statement to being suicidal, but that's not the case. What is the case is that I consider putting someone else's life before my own, no matter who (or what) they are to not be "honorable" but the "right thing to do". Miharu as a character tends to demonstrate this mentality. Now she does it much less than she used to, but I suggest you read her logs (Season One and Season Two, a PDF of the first season is available here), as well as the related ones by jexkerome (Joyce) and Erik (his second set is available here) to see what I mean.

If there is such a thing as an honorable act, I believe it applies only to things we feel we must do because if we did not do them we would think less of ourselves for it. Honor, being entirely subjective depending on the individual, the culture, etc., etc., is tantalizing as a concept and an ideal but it's as frought with hazards as the difference between labeling someone a 'terrorist' or a 'guerrilla fighter'. Depends entirely on your personal point of view.

Were it not for family or a close friend, he wouldn't do anything crazy to save their ass, no.

War is the one place you won't see honor. It's hell, and it's kill or be killed, and you WILL DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO KILL THE ENEMY AND STAY ALIVE. Spare me the "Warriors' honor" bullshit; the only ones that exercised it like they should were the japanese samurai (the european feudal warriors, like Ghost, applied it only when they saw fit) and they died of it. Grandstanding and speaking about "the proper way to engage the enemy" only results in you dead, and the honorless enemy victorious and writing the history books.

Fighting with honor in this game should be easy since the only thing you lose are a few credits, and yet it doesn't happen. Everyone is "I'll reserve honor for whom I think it's worthy"; Ghost does it, Ayn does, everyone does it. The result? a few cliques of people who think everyone in theirs "has honor" and everyone outside "has none". Self-righteous bullshit left and right. So I'll fight how I want and run when I feel like it, specially since your whining about "honor" won't reduce my PK score one iota.

And for all that "if you don't play nice people won't play with you", Jayce and Jex get attacked very often, and the one who plays nice, Joyce, is barely attacked at all. See? bullshit bullshit bullshit!

/me gives jex a hug.

Awwww. you poor thing.

The honor thing applies to those you like and/or respect. If you have neither feeling towards the person, you most likely will not act with honor. And before you jump down my throat, every new combatant that you face and haven't faced before automatically gets respect, whether you think it or not. It's a blank slate.

Now, for examples of this, if I saw Jex Kerome flying around ingame, I would not hesitate to shoot him down in any way I can (provided he was messing around with my life).

If I saw Al ingame (and knew it was him -_-), I would not.

See! It's just as long as you like/respect your opponent.

I'm a european feudal warrior?

I don't reserve honor for who I think is worthy. I don't "reserve" it for anyone. You make me sound like some pious judgemental preacher. I show everyone honor until they dishonor me. It's the golden rule you learn as a kid, treat others how you would like to be treated. That's all I do.

As for applying it only when I see fit, well you're just wrong. This doesn't surprise me seeing how you're making statements about me without ever having fought me... again. You have no grounds. I very often take consequences to honor my enemy. If I'm out of ammo in an ammo based ship, I sit and let my enemy have the kill rather than run and reload. I've lost with honor just as much as I've won with it.

You're dividing everything into two categories jex and you're making a lot of generalizations about this community while doing so. I don't think anything is quite so simple. It's not a case of black and white.

I don't know why you feel the need to keep attacking me like this. I don't think I've ever fought you before jex. How good of a judge of my honor does that make you? You might want to have some actual contact with a person before you judge their conduct. As far as I can tell you're just making things up seeing as how you've never been in a situation to judge my honor or lack thereof.

Though you may have a point about honor tending to disappear in real war, this is just a game. If you die in a real war, there's no coming back. If you die in this game, you say gf, click the buyback last ship button, and go fight again. The honor is there, perhaps you're just not often in a position to witness it. You cry, "bullshit" from a distance without having real experience with the people you're judging.

@moldy: Liking and respecting can be two different things. When Spider was still here I used to fight him all the time. I really didn't like the guy, I thought he was always a jerk. But I respected him because of how he fought. As a result, though the two of us disliked eachother a great deal, neither of us ever ran from the other in combat. We both fought "honorably"

Hence "Like and/or respect"

You can like but not respect them as a fighter
You can hate but respect them as a fighter
You can both like them and respect them as a fighter

Once you get to the fourth option of hating them and not respecting them, they have no chance.

There are exceptions but this seems to be the general rule.

Ah, I see what you were getting at now.

Ghost, there's not one person here I haven't fought as one of my alts, and that includes you. So: BULLSHIT.

And the european knight simile stands: when facing another knight, they'd give out their names and titles, and fight one on one. If one fell off the horse but could still fight, the other would dismount and fight him on foot. Against a peasant, whoever, he'd run him down with his horse or strike him from the back without a second thought. Of course, if the battle turned ugly, they'd pull a Ghost/Ayn and run for it; they were not stupid.

Have you fought me?

Debating Jex is a lot more fun than debating genka, i must say, although no less futile ;D.