EVE Online player steals over $10,000 worth of in game currency

[Aeula]

http://www.pcgamer.com/inside-the-bi...nline-history/

EVE just had its own 9/11 (This happened on September 11th)

Too long to quote here but apparently someone staged a coup that saw 4000 players and an in-game corporation loose a collective total of over $10,000 worth of in-game money, leaving the guild a destitute shell and the leader permanently banned after he lashed out. The reason? Revenge!

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I personally don't play EVE Online but holy shit. The amount of backstabbing and what-not that seems to go on in that game is interesting to read, Human nature in its natural (sort of) habitat. I always find that interesting.

This isn't the first time EVE players have gone extreme. There was even a hilarious war over Anime according to the video I linked.

[Socialhealer]

ah yes losing $10,000 is just like 9/11 best analogy never.

[Aeula]

ah yes losing $10,000 is just like 9/11 best analogy never.

It happened on September the 11th. That's what I'm getting at.

Literally just a big event (for EVE Online) that happened on that day.

[Socialhealer]

It happened on September the 11th. That's what I'm getting at.

Literally just a big event (for EVE Online) that happened on that day.

ah ok, well still seems like nothing i know people who have spent $20,000 on mobile phone games, literally no graphics, just a few lines of text and numbers 3 battles a day, so 10k is literally fuck all.

[Aeula]

ah ok, well still seems like nothing i know people who have spent $20,000 on mobile phone games, literally no graphics, just a few lines of text and numbers 3 battles a day, so 10k is literally fuck all.

It's less about the money and more about the MONTHS of planning and subterfuge that ended with this. It's like game of thrones in space.

[cparle87]

This isn't the first time EVE players have gone extreme. There was even a hilarious war over Anime according to the video I linked.

Isn't that the game where you build spaceships which can be permanently destroyed and every time someone earns a special ship from a convention or something it's destroyed in days because everyone in the game dogpiles on them cause they can't stand having other people have nice things?

If so, this doesn't surprise me at all.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

This seems par for the course, based on what I hear about this game. I wouldn't bother playing this, I'd just get annoyed very fast and quit. The fact it continues to make big events is astounding though.

[Aeula]

This seems par for the course, based on what I hear about this game. I wouldn't bother playing this, I'd just get annoyed very fast and quit. The fact it continues to make big events is astounding though.

Yeah, it's not a game I'd play, but I enjoy reading about the wars and conspiracies they get into.

[oplawlz]

I honestly don't understand why people play that game, but cheers to him for winning I guess.

[Halicia]

Too long to quote here but apparently someone staged a coup that saw 4000 players and an in-game corporation loose a collective total of over $10,000 worth of in-game money, leaving the guild a destitute shell and the leader permanently banned after he lashed out. The reason? Revenge!

The reason can be put a little more clearly than this...

Guild leader demands Officer breaks "REAL WORLD" NDA with Eve's operating company, and gets passive/aggressive when Officer doesn't comply.

Guild leader keeps tabs on real world address(es).

Officer catches wind he may be losing his spot soon, so grabs everything he can from the "guild bank" and arranges a transfer of properties he has access to after a realworld meet (party) with other players.

Guild leader threatens to cut off Officer's hands before killing him while being streamed.

Guild leader is permabanned.

Two things to learn from this...

#1. As people "in the know" in Eve have mentioned, the Guild Leader was *WARNED* not to invest so much power in any single player, especially one that you ostensibly dislike so much you literally *WANT TO KILL THEM*

#2. I don't care if you've been playing for 13 years (the age of the banned account), don't be !@#$ing threatening to cut someone's hands off "over a game". It only verifies that you're the Joffrey in this story.

Oh... and the "over $10,000 stolen" was *JUST* the value of the isk "pocket change" that was stolen and easily valued... the value of the properties was much much more.

[TriHard]

TriHard MY MONEY NOW
Gimme Gimme

[A Chozo]

Yeah, it's not a game I'd play, but I enjoy reading about the wars and conspiracies they get into.

Oh yeah, it's not a game to start playing nowadays, new players are left behind. But reading about it? It's awesome. They even had wars. I remember one I ready about when some group controled pratically all the north quadrant of the universe, but they had to engage in pvp to earn their currency. One day, they finally lost one fight out of the territory - the news of their first significant defeat in a long time got around, and soon lots of other groups allied to fight the big dogs. I think one of the groups formed was called "We Form Voltron". Hillarious.

[Amerrol]

Don't think there was all that much planning. The guy was a higher up for years in that corp, and he just got sick of the CEOs shit, so he fucked everyone over while lining his own pockets. It'd be like an officer in WoW emptying a guildbank they had access too, just on a larger scale.

There was some shady dealings irl, but it's not some amazing heist as you imagine it. There's an event in Iceland that the devs have which bring representatives from some of the most influential corps in the game to discuss the future of the game. The guy who stole was one rep for his guild, and he colluded with another corp rep to transfer over a very expensive player made star base (which housed the majority of the corps player ships, effectively locking them out from using those ships), and emptying the corp bank accounts. He then would join the corp he colluded with. That's really it.

The CEO was also perma-banned because he threatened to cut his hands off or something, which adds a bit more to the drama.

Don't get me wrong, this had a massive impact on the game, but it's romanticized a lot to make it seem like this huge plot. If you want a huge plot, with months of planning, check out this doozy. http://www.pcgamer.com/murder-incorp...in-eve-online/

It's not even the biggest robbery when you take into account the amount of PLEX you would get from selling everything. A while back some dude stole $45,000 worth. While what was stolen this time was worth more in game currency (1.5 trillion vs 850 billion), the games inflation has risen a ton over the years, devaluing the in game currency when buying PLEX. It costs 500 PLEX for a month of sub time, or $20. You can buy 500 PLEX for 1.5 billion in game currency.

[MonsieuRoberts]

EvE is such an interesting place. You know there was a book published describing the major wars of the game and the different factions involved? As if it were a historical text.

It's like a microcosm of a space-faring humanity full of aspiring space entrepreneurs and moguls. Super cool.

[Ehrenpanzer]

Yawn... this has happened many times in WoW, move along, nothing new to see here

[Super Kami Dende]

Nothing new for Eve. I know a few guys that have swindled quite a lot of ISK from corporations over their time playing. One of the few games in existence where playing as a literal Pirate/Spy/Conman is a legitimate game stance.

- - - Updated - - -

I honestly don't understand why people play that game, but cheers to him for winning I guess.

Most people I know that play it, do so for the incredible freedom the game gives you in terms of what to do.

[Yunzi]

EVE Online is an example of hard-core libertarian pyramid-scheme dog-eat-dog ideology in action. It's the extreme version of what most games have to lesser extents.

Incidentally, PvP is highly restricted in most games because much as in real life, most people don't find being highly exploited and farmed for their resources to feed the expansion of powerful entities to be either a moral or even palatable situation. In the realm of "fiction", this is called Vampirism. Or for poor people in real life, it's simply called "reality".

[endersblade]

Yawn... this has happened many times in WoW, move along, nothing new to see here

Troll harder. You apparently either didn't read the OP, or know nothing about EVE.

If a player in WoW strips the guild bank of stuff and tries to leave, Blizzard CAN (not saying WILL) ban the player and replace the stuff. I had it happen to my guild back in Cata. In EVE, this sort of thing is ENCOURAGED. It's just part of the game. The person who stole everything will see no official reprimand for what he did.

[Aeula]

Don't get me wrong, this had a massive impact on the game, but it's romanticized a lot to make it seem like this huge plot. If you want a huge plot, with months of planning, check out this doozy. http://www.pcgamer.com/murder-incorp...in-eve-online/.

Jesus Christ. That story is like the script for a movie.

[notanmmmonewbie]

ah ok, well still seems like nothing i know people who have spent $20,000 on mobile phone games, literally no graphics, just a few lines of text and numbers 3 battles a day, so 10k is literally fuck all.

It actually is "nothing" when compared to those people you know who spents 20K on mobile phone games. Assuming you are talking about they actually spent 20k money. Because in EVE all these news articles will leave out that the person who robbed $10K or the person who had their $6K may have just lost the equivalent of that amount of money. Games that have tokens you can buy with irl money and exchange for in game currency have a way to compare in game currency to actual currency...but because the money can only go one way that reference number is only really good for a comparison. Like if the EVE online token costs 20 dollars and in game that token is worth 500mil ISK then thats a 500mil ISK to 20 dollar equivalency. So a ship that costs 2bil ISK has an equivalent cost of 80 dollars. That doesnt mean someone spent 80 dollars to get that ship. They *could* have but they could also have saved up all that in game currency through regular gameplay. Or as part of a guild effort to save it all up...or part saved up through gameplay while they only spent 20 real dollars to offset the cost.

In the comments section of the news articles that report stories like this its pretty common to see non gamers making comments like "GOMG how could anyone spend 6K dollars on a video game". Not knowing how the equivalency works like how i mentioned above.