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EVE Player Loses $1,200 Worth of Game Time In-Game
An anonymous reader writes "Massively.com has reported that an EVE Online player recently lost over $1,200 worth of in-game items during a pirate attack. The player in question was carrying 74 PLEX in their ship's cargo hold — in-game 'Pilot's License Extensions' that award 30 days of EVE Online time when used on your account. When the ship was blown up by another player, all 74 PLEX were destroyed in the resulting blast, costing $1,200 worth of damage, or over 6 years of EVE subscription time, however you prefer to count it. Ow."
This wasn't a hack. This was a legitimate in game activity (essentially just an in-game PvP attack) which caused the destruction of cargo worth real world money.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
You can buy PLEX (Pilots license extension) in game. This means that elite players that have spent the time developing the skills to make a lot of in game money no longer have to pay to play the game. It's a good system I think, rewards the hardcore fans.
Anyways, if you buy it in game - it would have to have been sold at a station, and the system is set up that you can't take PLEX outside of a station (or at least thats how it was about 3 months ago).
So - this guy would have actually had to have bought the time codes from an online retailer, activated them while in his ship while in space - and not in the safety of a station where he could have used them. It's likely he wanted to check the best prices in verse for plex and then sell them for massive in game profit - however he activated them before reaching that destination (74 plex codes CAN take a while to enter).
It's all foolishness in my eyes - I don't have any qualms with people who want to pay for in game money - be it ISK or WoW Gold or whatever. Eve at least balances it so that if you WANT to buy in game money, the PLEX is a solid and secure way of doing it, and its pretty steady based on the market of the game, and the real world value of Plex is always constant, whatever CCP says it is ($40 for 2 plexes or whatever?).
However, this idiot basically circumvented every provision designed to stop this from happening. Had he been docked at a station this would have been impossible.
Anyways, if you buy it in game - it would have to have been sold at a station, and the system is set up that you can't take PLEX outside of a station (or at least thats how it was about 3 months ago).
A recent patch a few weeks ago opened up the ability for PLEX to be transported by ship. CCP thought that would be a good idea to allow players more control of their items and I would have to agree with them. It's helpful for those who live deep out in 0.0 and would rather buy PLEX from a corp-mate than have to travel back into the Empire systems.
It wasn't a "pirate attack", it was a sanctioned war in a trade hub where hundreds of players are on at any time and it's difficult to spot war targets in local.
Also the PLEX cards survived, but to stop scavengers that are all over the trade hubs the wreck was immediately destroyed.
Quite the red-letter day.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Well its pretty silly if you ask me - considering you can create 3 characters - you can leave one of them in high sec space to deal with PLEX if you want, without having to take your low level toon out of low sec space.
It was really a non-issue before, I don't know why anyone would have wanted it any other way. I guess it just opens itself to these kinds of stories. Because PLEX is negligable in cargo space - you can put infinite amount on a cargo ship and move them around now.
You could have some fool moving over a million dollars worth of in game plex and have them get blown up - and theres only chance that any of the loot is recoverable - meaning 1 Million dollars worth of money ends up in CCP's pockets without anyone gaining anything out of it.
Seriously, he is an idiot for taking them out of station. EVE only a few weeks ago made the change to allow players to physically move the PLEX between stations, because previously they were treated as a special item, where-in you could only convert a ETC (Extended Time Card), into PLEX (extended pilot license or something like that) in permanent station (i.e. not player controlled, or destroyable by players or other actions), and you could not leave the station if you had the PLEX in your cargo hold. But, EVE really didn't want to have to have all that extra checks to inforce these things, and let everyone know they were taking away the checks against moving of PLEX between stations, but it was at the players own risk.
No one even needs to move the PLEX, you can use them from ANYWHERE (i.e. you do not have to be in the same station as the item, or even in the same region of space, to convert the PLEX into play time on your account). The person moving them was an idiot for doing so. The only reason to move them is so that they are closer to you so you can more easily sell them in the game for in-game money (which is also the main reason to convert them from an ETC to PLEX in the first place).
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Exactly. Digital information can be destroyed with a click of a button. It's called backups, don't put all your eggs in one basket and backups.
That has basically no relevance to this story.
The ship was carrying PLEXes. They're in-game items representing a one month subscription. You purchase them with real money, and get an in-game item, that you can then sell for in-game money.
This allows people to fund their EVE addition without having to pay real money.
It allows people with lots of real money to burn to get lots of in-game money to burn.
And there is absolutely no way to make a backup of a PLEX.
No, it isn't very smart to carry all 74 of them with you at one time. You certainly shouldn't put all of your eggs in one basket. But you cannot create a backup.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
However there is also no need to ever undock with one PLEX never mind 74. You can apply them to you account (ie use the item to add 30 days to your subscription) from anywhere in the game. Yes he dies trying to get to the main trading hub in the game however he could have gone to any other station in the system and had no problems. Also he was an absolute fool for flying in a very fragile ship when another group had declared war on him (thus was able to be attacked even in the main trading hub system without interference).
Kithran
1. He could have contracted the item to be couriered and put a collateral of isk that was worth more than what the item was worth. If the courier loses it he loses nothing.
2. He couriered something while he was at war with another corporation.
3. He did not set up an instant warp bookmark for exiting the station.
4. He did not put a cloak on this ship.
5. He was in Jita. The biggest trade hub in the game. He did not have to pick up plex there.
6. There is no six (Monty Python and Eve University reference).
open source sub sim. I might start coding again for this. http://dangerdeep.sourceforge.net/contribute/
While I generally agree and would tell this guy "tough shit, should have been more careful, but it's only a game", I wouldn't say nothing of value was lost. These items do have a value which directly translates to a USD amount. So it is definitely arguable that they have a "real world value". Even if it was just ISK or another in game currency. Alternate currencies are legal and still have a real value. I think it would be interesting to see what a court would say on this. For example, if somebody had been in some way been defrauded out of $1200 worth of in-game items. Fraud is a crime, and it does not only apply to a US Dollar; it applies to any item or items of value. I would suspect most judges would throw the case out, as taking on a case like this could open the floodgates.
I am not a lawyer, nor have I ever played EVE
Eve's ToS specifically states that all in-game objects (including ISK, PLEX, etc) belong to CCP. This is the basis upon which CCP bans those who sell OR buy ISK and other game items outside CCP-sanctioned venues. As such, it's a legally difficult argument to make that the virtual objects or ISK have any real-world value since nobody could (per the ToS) pay any real-world money to get them from you. In the eyes of CCP (via their ToS), what happened here was that two players used established and functional in-game mechanics to cause the destruction of in-game objects belonging to CCP. The person who owns the account has no firm basis to bring a suit because they received what they purchased from CCP (access to the in-game PLEX objects) and the person lost those objects via well-known and well-documented game mechanics.
CCP gave them access to the objects (which is what they paid for) and through a series of events initiated by their own actions, those objects were destroyed. If I rent a car from Enterprise for a week and I blow it up with explosives on day three, I don't get to sue Enterprise for fraud because I paid for 7 days' use of a car that no longer exists because I blew it up.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."