Labyrinthine 'EVE Online' Scam Recounted 51
Thanks to Terra Nova for its post discussing "a lengthy, but intensely fascinating and well-written account of an EVE Online [PC MMO] player who brokered a large investment scam by creating a puppet corporation." Terra Nova mentions that the account's nefarious author "does an incredible job of explaining the complexity of MMORPG worlds, the emotional salience of interactions, and how play transforms into work", concluding: "It's a lot of reading, but it's well worth it."
For full effect... (Score:5, Interesting)
As for the story itself... it's another tale of people pushing the rules as far as they'll go to get ahead. There's a natural tendency to want to take any advantage, whether it be by exploiting others, exploiting loopholes, exploiting lax enforcement of the rules, or just grinding incessantly. And since the worst that can happen to you online is that you get IP banned or key banned (which only diminishes your standing in that virtual world), it opens up all sorts of doors for people to fulfill whatever escapist criminal fantasies they have. Is that good or bad? Well... that's almost the same debate as "games cause violence".
The really interesting part is the epilogue: after scamming what would amount to a sizeable amount of cash on EBay, he doesn't buy anything with it or flaunt it, he just gives it away. Guess there's really nothing to do once you're the richest player on the server.
Re:For full effect... (Score:5, Interesting)
It was more than that. From his story, Nightfreeze was doing a brisk, legal trade business, with a bit of pirate hunting vengeance on the side, until the developers caved into pirate requests to nerf the one real defense a trader had -- the MWD (micro warp drive). In doing so, it made the game nearly impossible for traders, so Nightfreeze decided that if the developers were going to screw around, why shouldn't he? In the end, he realized that he screwed himself in the process, getting all of that money but losing the time invested in his scamming character, so that his new character wouldn't be able to utilize that bankroll for months.
Disclaimer: I've never played EVE Online, and I'm only going by what was available in the story. It was a good story, though.
that was intense. (Score:3, Interesting)
After that disturbing recount you realize he is crazy enough to go through with it. The drama is intense as he earns his victims trust. You feel guilty for suspicous ones who require alot of coaxing, you smile and nod at the one jerk, the guy who has it comming to him.
When its all done I couln't belive it, I could never have done what he did. I wont sleep tonight thinking about poor HardHead. He lost his money but breaking his trust was the worst of all. Think about it, if Trazir gave him his money back, or gave him the full profits, Hardhead will still never be the same. Yes that irk was indeed cursed.
Re:that was intense. (Score:3, Interesting)
My point being is that it fell short of being anything near TradeWars in terms of gameplay and balance and such...
I promptly quit after about a week, when I realized that you had to mine for several weeks to get enough money to do really basic trading... it just didn't seem fun to me... the majority of the game was navigating between two jumpgates and avoiding PKing bastards.
Having thought about this quite a bit... I've come to the conclusion that there's probably not going to be a MMO that even approaches TW because the basis of the game was it's episodic consistency... you kept wanting to play because everyone gets wiped out and you'll have a reasonable chance to outwit and outplay them this next time... there's just not going to be a massive game that a) limits how much you do every day and b) wipes everyone's accounts in a non-beta situation
at least not one that a huge amount of people would play on
Re:that was intense. (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, I felt sorry for Hardhead. Defrauding Thoggins I could feel good about, but Hardhead seemed to be a nice guy.
But the one I really want to know about is Frosttt. Some newbie, flying around, and this guy hands him 300M isk --- what's he going to do with it? I'd love to see what happened to that money...
Re:He's lucky he didn't get caught (Score:4, Interesting)
Since the entire deal was in virutal currency (owned by eve online) it is governed by their EULA (see relavent portion below). No property or money was defrauded since ownership remained entirely in control of the software maker.
B. Rights to Certain Content
You have no interest in the value of your time spent playing the Game, for example, by the building up of the experience level of your character and the items your character accumulates during your time playing the Game. Your Account, and all attributes of your Account, including all corporations, actions, groups, titles and characters, and all objects, currency and items acquired, developed or delivered by or to characters as a result of play through your Accounts, are the sole and exclusive property of CCP, including any and all copyrights and intellectual property rights in or to any and all of the same, all of which are hereby expressly reserved.
Why do people have a problem with this? (Score:2, Interesting)
Childish (Score:3, Interesting)
[..] there lies a poorly designed game which rewards the greedy and violent, and punishes the hardworking and honest; and if you think about it, that's a good representation of capitalism.
Yeah, because it sucks so much to live as a hardworking and honest person in the US, UK, or Japan, compared to how amazing it is in China or was in Soviet Russia.