Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Labyrinthine 'EVE Online' Scam Recounted

Posted by simoniker on from the bad-news dept.

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."

8 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. For full effect... by Incoherent07 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When Nightfreeze originally posted this in SomethingAwful about a month ago, he posted it in about 18 hour intervals, infuriating all of his readers, but adding a great deal to the suspense.

    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.

    --
    This is my sig. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.
    1. Re:For full effect... by Osty · · 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.

      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.

  2. that was intense. by JVert · · Score: 2, Interesting
    When I first started reading I was soo excited to hear how the game worked. I loved tradewars and never found anything that could replace it. But this was definatly it. His background of becomming a successfull trader using in game skills and social skills for quick advancement; very inspiring. When he loses his family of ships you really feel the pain he is going through. So bitter to go down in a ball of flames taking out your arch enemy but losing everything you had as well, a fitting end to a story, I would have stopped playing right then, but he wasn't done yet. Even when he decides to become truely evil the emotional trauma isn't aparent untill he recounts a fantasy of how his victims will attempt revenge.

    "He would then start to pull something out of his pocket, and the entire LAPD SWAT team would open fire on him. The 9 millimeter hollow-point bullets would penetrate his soft flesh and expand, creating large breaches in each of his vital organs. They would continue to shoot through his body and exit out his back, leaving a gaping hole that would spurt out blood and various torn off chunks of cartilage. They would keep pumping round after round into his fallen, disfigured mass, making sure that he was good and dead. And when they finally got around to investigating the body, they would find out that he was reaching for a pumped super soaker pistol filled with laundry detergent."

    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.
    1. Re:that was intense. by garibald · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I actually beta-tested for Eve Online for about a week or so, hoping as you did that it would be a suitable successor to TradeWars... but, at least when I played it, it fell extremely short... there were a large number of items to trade and such, and a fair number of ships... however the trading was entirely based off of your character's skills... also, the differential between two ports was miniscule... most items having exactly the same price in every single port for an entire constellation of stars

      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

    2. Re:that was intense. by david.given · · Score: 2, Interesting
      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.

      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...

  3. Re:He's lucky he didn't get caught by servognome · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Sec. 1343. - Fraud by wire, radio, or television Whoever, having devised or intending to devise any scheme or artifice to defraud, or for obtaining money or property by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio, or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings, signs, signals, pictures, or sounds for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. If the violation affects a financial institution, such person shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both
    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.

    --
    D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
  4. Why do people have a problem with this? by Corngood · · Score: 2, Interesting

    You can be a Pirate in this game, but you can't be a white-collar criminal?

  5. Childish by Peter+Cooper · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I thought this might be worth reading until I got to this:

    [..] 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.