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
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