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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."
If I remember right (and it's been a while) you can buy PLEX in game for real cash, and then exchange it in game for game cash. It's a way of A) Allowing players to exchange real money for in game money, and B) Allow players to buy their subscription using only in game money (without upsetting their finances because someone at some point paid for it).
Interesting... it almost sounds like a 'gift card' type situation, in which case there are some fairly decent consumer protection laws depending on the state (ie, in CA they are transferable and never expire). It would be an interesting lawsuit if the player tried to claim they were equivalent and that by allowing them to be permanently "destroyed" the company was cancelling/expiring the certificates (though I doubt any lawyer would take it unless it was common enough that they were able to establish a class action).
You can now undock with PLEX. The player didn't buy them with real money - he was the direction of an alliance and was using the alliance's pocketbooks for a "get rich quick" market speculation.
Of course, undocking with an active wardec going on with hostiles present in the local system and no defenses are chance at getting out...
No. That is not something they should ever do.
This is not WoW.
This is not a game for pussies.
This is not a game for you to play so don't try to change it so it is.
This is a game where getting killed HURTS, especially if you've not used any of the mitigation methods and safe practices that you should have used.
The only reason I even started playing EVE was because its not a pussied out game where you basically do nothing but grind and even death has no real loss to it.
You do not want to die in EVE. You lose skills, you lose implants, you lose your usually rather expensive ship and you lose your cargo.
There are methods to avoid it:
Stay in more secure areas.
Travel in well armed groups.
Travel in a ship with protections against warp disruptors so you can always get the hell out of dodge when something bad happens.
DO NOT EVER USE AUTOPILOT TO TRAVEL BETWEEN STAR SYSTEMS as it INTENTIONALLY leaves you wide open for a large portion of the travel time.
Most of these methods mean you earn less money, but take less risk so you have to figure out the balance.
The fact that there is an actual cost to being killed makes not being killed worth something.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
Yeah, or I could say that WoW is for dull idiots who love to simply click a button endlessly til a virtual candy pops out, while EVE is for those that prefer having a simulation of real-world economies, with all the risks and opportunities it entails, in a virtual world.
In short, don't be so fucking biased with your descriptions, if you couldn't get into EVE it doesn't mean it's just for "griefers" and people who "derive their pleasure from causing pain to others".
Disclaimer: I don't play either of them and prefer Guild Wars instead, its just I've enough common sense not to offend people just because they don't play my favorite game.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
Adding to the above to provide a bit of sense of the scales of money here.
Allowing players to exchange real-world money for in-game money:
The current rate is (roughly) $35 -> 2x 30day PLEX -> 560 million isk. 560 million isk will get you 4-5 fully equipped and fitted battleships, or halfway to a equipped and fitted capital ship. Amusingly, as with any real-world currency conversion, exchange rates vary minute to minute, based on the current buy and sell orders on the market.
Allow players to buy their subscription using only in-game money:
It costs 280 million isk to buy 30d of game time. Operating efficiently in a profitable area, you can make about 25 million an hour hunting NPCs in 0.0 or running high level missions in empire. (You will need a character who's a year old or so to be able to fly the ships you need to use to do those things) So, all considered, you can play for free, if you're willing to put in about 16 hours of sweat equity per month. Of course, to get ahead in the game, you'll also need to pay expenses like ammunition, replacing lost or damaged ships, and you'll need to be growing wealth to buy more things in the future.
This is why most games provide a reset/extra lives/resurrection feature where you don't lose all of you equipment, skills, or attributes when you die.
Diablo II multiplayer had a hardcore mode where once you died you could no longer continue with that character. I played it and got to level 30 where I lagged in a dungeon. When my connection came back I was dead. I never played hardcore after that.
The point is that a lot of time is wasted when a game doesn't have decent reset features. In this case, 6 years.
You should have tried leaving safe empire space. Lots of stuff happening around the universe away from the main mission hubs.
this is how eve has always worked. your losses are losses that's your death pently. you ship blows up its gone granted some insurance payout to help you rebuild if you insured it and if totally screwed the noob ship is givin back to you. the player knew this and moving plex even if eve now allows it is simply a stupid move. i bet his corp is pissed wile the guys they where waring with are having a party.
Welcome to the troubles that face sea captains in real life, and space captains in every science fiction setting.
In EVE, isk are currency. PLEXes are valuable commodities. They're about as good as in-game currency, and to heavy EVE players they're almost as good as real currency.
Just like some transactions IRL you can make in gold, stock, bonds, beer, or whatever you can get plenty of people to take PLEXes as payment in the game. Still, you can buy and sell PLEXes for isk.
Some players buy PLEXes with IRL currency and sell it for isk or trade it for other stuff in-game. Some players play enough and make enough in-game profit that they buy PLEXes in-game and don't pay real money for their subscriptions, at least not every month. Those are the players CCP wants to keep around anyway, as they make the high-level PvP game interesting for the other players.
We like a challenge. When I take my favorite ship into combat there's a substantial risk of losing it. Higher risks make the rewards of victory that much sweeter.
Yawn. If you really thought there was a 'substantial risk of losing it' you wouldn't take it out, unless you already had a backup that was nearly as good, if not better, or enough isks lying around that you could afford to lose it.
Higher risks make the rewards of victory that much sweeter.
Indeed. I'm no stranger to risk, I've played EVE, I played Diablo2 online "Hardcore" (permadeath) with level 85+ characters in Hell (and not just safe hillz runs) and I lost them time and again, along with piles of difficult/impossible to replace sets, uniques, and rares.
I played Everquest on Rallos Zek - with open PVP and the ability to loot opponents. I played Asheron's call on DarkTide with open PVP and opponent looting. I'm certainly no 'pussy' when it comes to risk.
In all of these games, when there is conflict, its almost always extremely one-sided. Few combats are between remotely balanced forces. And most of the time group-A knows it can't lose, while group-B knows it can't win and just wants to escape... and if its stuck around to fight its because it CAN'T escape. Nearly all combat in EVE falls into this category.
The trouble with EVE is that despite this potential adrenalin shot... EVE is still 99% tediously and drearily dull spreadsheet reading with a terrible UI and a lousying colour scheme and font. Interesting combat is rare.
Real competition is hard to find... if you want to go get blown up, that's easy, just wander off alone. But if you want to have a good fight? Good luck finding it in eve... anybody worth fighting will run if you outmatch them, or your group will flee from a group that outmatches you. Close-fights? Sure they happen... but its rare.
All the EVE advcotes will boast about how they aren't pussies, and how they love risk and a challenge. But they only love risk and challenge when they are heavily favored to win. What do they do when a stronger force shows up? They run away. God forbid they actually fight something that might beat them. Of course, this is the 'intelligent' thing to do in EVE, so you can't fault them.
IF anything it just shows how stupid eve is. Its called a greifer paradise because that's what the mechanics have dictated it must be. The game rewards preying on the weak, and brutally punishes standing up for yourself when outmatched. And a fair fight? Best to avoid those as much as possible too, as the risk of losing is great.
Get involved in 4 or 5 fair fights and there is an overwhelming chance you'll lose at least once. And you only need to lose once to wipe out any profit you might have made from the other 4.
Eve is a tediously slow game, punctuated by the occasional one-sided combat. Now and again you'll come away victorious from a difficult fight... or perhaps just escape a fight you shouldn't have, and this 'victory' will sustain you through the next patch of tedium.
I normally love games with risk and consequence. I still think eve is a waste of time.
Why didn't he have insurance on the cargo ? You can buy that too in EVE Online.
He's absolutely right, though. I've played WoW before and I've played many other games. I play Starcraft 2 (and have throughout the Beta). No other game has ever gotten my heart racing like Eve. No other game has ever gotten my adrenaline and fight-or-flight instincts so pumped up like Eve. In Eve, I jump from one system to another, I could be killed on sight. Maybe there's nothing there. Maybe some absolutely irresistable target will be just sitting there waiting for me. Maybe that irresistable target will be a trap. Will the fleet I'm in fly to this player-owned station and destroy it? Or will there be a fleet three times our size sitting there waiting for us when we get there? Will our trap work to kill off enemy targets? Or will they flood ships in where we only have seconds to try and escape? Will I play my part correctly? Or will my mishap kill off a dozen friends?
When actual, serious loss is involved (as opposed to simply re-appearing elsewhere fully or mostly intact), and you actually care about what you could be losing, it's easy to find a physiological rush coming over you in dangerous situations. That risk, that uncertainty, causing adrenaline jolts to surge through you makes it more worth the subscription cost than anything else.
I can get excited about a new game like Starcraft 2. I can be happy about playing it. But I'll never never have the rushes and highs of Eve while playing a game with a 'reset' button.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
In real life, ship the sea-lanes off Somalia and you don't just risk some money (or virtual currency); you risk your own LIFE! A real-time pirate can take your life, and rape your wife.
If your lucks fully down the plumbing he may just rape YOU (as well) before he takes your life!
Its not just $1200 you'd have lost, but your intestinal fortitude, and your continuing existence!
(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"