Bank Heist Causes Bank Run In EVE Onlne

@ddhboy:

[Dracula] Perhaps the same can be said of all MMOs. [/Dracula]

Koztah

@A.B.A:

You mean if he hadn't got caught doing that.

Koztah

@A.B.A:

+ Watch video

+ Watch video

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CE2 Sneak peek

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New Planet that will be coming to the Entropia Universe

+ Watch video

[www.planetcalypso.com]

Gonna be quite awesome once their ready to do the upgrade.

Kakkoister

@Kakkoister: Wow, Second Life 2.0? Yeah, that's precisely my idea of hardcore... Seriously man, do you know what that word means?

GravityBoots

@Twik63: In the world of EVE Online, space-Obama can't just print out billions in space-dollars to hand out to space-companies. At least, I don't think he can.

The game is one big economic simulator. The space aspect seems to just be little more than eye candy. That's the impression I got when I tried to get into it a couple of times anyhow.

Too dry for my tastes.

Cellsong

@ph15h: *evil laugh*:

What I find ironic is that both guys have names that more or less clue you in to who they are.
Bernie MADE-OFF.

Ricdic--Ric is a shortened version of Richard, Dick is a nickname for Richard. Dick Dick.

Squirrelbot3000

@-MasterDex-: Eve needs a death penalty. Clones are basically a care bear solution which lets anyone act as he/she pleases with no real world repercussions even after getting podded. Since Eve's skill based grind is purely time based and the basis of much of the game, I'd say the best way to fix the imbalance would be to make bounties effectively negate the amount of skill points preserved by clones (if not do away with clones altogether). I understand most will balk at the latter given the lengthy skill trees in the game, but the former would go a great way to establishing a risk/reward balance that just doesn't exist for griefers in Eve's current form.

@Kakkoister: Then post a video that makes the game look hardcore.

@NervousFireStarter: EVE is definitely not for the weak of heart. Every time I hear of this kind of thing from EVE it makes me want to go back in. Too bad you have to pay monthly :(

@masterdingo: You really should take that dildo out of your ass before you post on the internet. It was just one of many quick teasers they have shown off of their progress with implementing the CryEngine2.

Kakkoister

@trunkenmath: YOu clearly don't understand this website.

@trunkenmath:
care bear

Someone should set up a ponzi scheme in EvE

Morgoth

I might have to try EVE out now.

susurrate

@Ratfoot_Revived: There was one point where someone infiltrated an enemy corporation for a year. At the end he stole an entire space station and a niche flotilla of battleships.

Mecharine

this guy rules

@ludwigk:

You, wouldn't. Some people find economics interesting though.

I remember I was in a small corp/alliance holding a tiny bit of 0.0 space and we were constantly fighting a much bigger alliance 10 times our size that was in the same region. One day several huge fleets turned up out of the blue and started hammering them and their player-owned-stations (these dictate who is the holder of the system they are in, among other things). They quickly gave up fighting and started to pull out and move to another region. We spent the next few days preying on their transports as they desperately tried to move their assets out and minimise their losses. Eventually they payed us for a truce and we let them move their stuff in peace.

Turns out a large industrial alliance had their eyes on the space they occupied and simply paid some mercenaries to wipe them out. We spent the next week watching these new guys moving in and setting up their stations, wondering how friendly they were going to be to us...

Money is power in eve.

It can do a lot more things than it can in other games. Other than buying items and equipment, money in other mmo's like Wow is totally worthless, it means nothing because the game doesn't allow people to behave in complex or meaningful enough ways for money to exchange hands. All actions have little or not real effect on the game or other players, there's no value in anything a single or even a few players can do, and hence nothing worth paying for.

What you don't realise is that the game doesn't need hard coded checks and balances, the playerbase and its politics and market economy make up for that instead. Bernie madoff did far more than 150 years worth of jailtime in damage to his investors, he probably destroyed 150 entire lifetimes of work spent earning the money he lost.

What is so hard to understand for people is that having a semi realistic complex in-game economy, and real repercussions for your actions transforms the game completely. It's a double edged sword - the potential for pain and losses are much greater, but in exchange you open up a depth of play and possibilities that simply don't exist in other games. I'd rather inhabit the interesting world of eve (I don't play anymore, funnily enough) than the meaningless world of wow where players have no hope of ever affecting anything or anyone in the game.

markhilol

@Terrenius: You've never wanted to play a game where you could create a masterful plan for infiltration of a wealthy bank and pull it off to perfection and escape with shitloads of cash?

You have no soul.

@ddhboy: Reputation isn't a great indicator of somethings worth.

-MasterDex-

@chronomasakari is dizzy from the spinning of games: Yeah because it works for CCP, people continue to play and keep the game alive. People often pay real money for timecodes so they can convert them to ISK. It's a great system.

-MasterDex-

@Fluorine: He turned the computer on and got a second job.

-MasterDex-

@Kobun: They do have their ships to lose. Unfortunately, so do you. A friend of mine lost a Paladin to a griefer before. He had just gotten it after saving up for ages then that happened within a week.

-MasterDex-

@Gantz: Your Trusted Friend in Science.:

Hey always glad when people prove my points for me! Cheers...

@Meohfumado:

Jumpage Evolution is on its way mate.See you there...

@SketchyIndividual: Its easy to criticize a criticizer criticizing and...fuck it lol.

You know it's a funny story, and sucks he got kicked, but kind of a clever way to take care of bills. Do good in an MMO, steal a fraction of a banks holdings, and get some cash for it.

While I don't miss EVE at all, I will give them that it's exactly stuff like this that keeps EVE the most Unique MMO on the market today (and probably the only reason it's survived in the cursed "space/futuristic" MMO arena).

@Gantz: Your Trusted Friend in Science.: It's easy to criticize someone for being bad a witty remarks, they're a dime a dozen pal.

@FtGF: I sure am glad you guys are here to criticize and complain about everyone.

Whatever would we do without you.

Maaaaaaaaadooooofffff!!!!! /Kirk Yell

Avinash_Tyagi

@Kakkoister: A woman running... wow. You're right, it's so hardcore. I could tell, from the way that she was running along the sand that she must have gotten some of that sand in her Va-jay-jay, and yet she still runs. Hard-fucking-core, man.

masterdingo

@methan69: Pfft, EVE and SWG...

Entropia Universe, now there's a real real world economy game. They've been around for quite some time also.

There moving to the CryEngine2 soon, which will be awesome. They posted a bunch of teasers on youtube.

+ Watch video

[www.youtube.com]

Kakkoister

@Drogmir: Well the sad thing is that he got kicked off of EVE because he sold the ISK for real life money. If he did not do that then he would still be playing.

This is why I love EVE so much. No pussy respawning with only some time lost, you can destroy people!

Ryoma Wooten

Eve makes me feel like a satisfied gamer when I log on, all of the little in's and out's and if's and but's to fitting a ship, making a buck and killin' a fool. The fact that if I take an extended break from the game I still feel like I get my monies worth because the skills just keep on ticking up as you choose your 'career' path. No grinding really to speak of. Reputation maybe but you only 'need' to if you 'want' to. Good MMO.

sh0tgunn0strils

@methan69: I KNOW! It should be scaring me away, but it actually makes me want to get off my butt and play the game even more.

The community was informed of this when it happened, and most of us sympathised with him on the medical bills part.

Needless to say, CCP have banned all his known accounts for selling their property.

@Kobun: You have to admit, that's a little more lifelike than many games.

@ddhboy: Unlike, y'know, every MMO ever.
At least in EvE most of the boring grindy stuff can be automated while you go about living your actual life.

Man there's a lot of wussies around here. Let me be one of the few people to say crazy crap like this is *exactly* why I ditched WoW to start playing EvE. Wild west antics like this are what make it compelling and exciting; I take each ganking and swindle in stride as the fundamental price of a game where player actions actually matter.
Enjoy your safe little themepark, haters and complainers, I've got people to victimize.

@methan69:

For instance, read the story about Band of Brothers.

Good stuff. That's why I like EvE. A good occasional story always arises from time to time.

Boy Im sure glade in never put alot into the ebank

Befitzero

No desire to play EVE, but the sheer entertainment value I get from reading what crazy/imaginative gamers will do is enough to hope for EVE's continued success.

kneegrow

@Lion Sitter: I agree it really depends on your server. You can check inflation by how much gold costs to buy on your particular server. This is how I determine where to roll my characters =P

Zach W. R. Mollett

@Desi Quintans: If my kid was sick, I'd turn off the fucking computer and get a second job.

That is hilarious. Wow, I want to try out eve.

Dope boy hero - on a sabbatical.

So i'm like, confused. He put a down payment on a house and payed off medical bills all for $5000? What magical land does this guy live in, the 1800's?

Oceaniax

@trunkenmath: @
Don't worry I get what you were saying.

href="#c14044013">SketchyIndividual:
I think the flop is Kotaku is slowly going down in its quality of commentators who don't stop and think before they shoot-off their retarded comments. Members here act like kids.

@ddhboy: Because the only thing to do in eve at all is investment and banking.

Sabbatai

@ludwigk: Why would you attempt to define the game by one of many, many things that you can do?

How is this any different than a guild leader taking all of the gold from the guild vault in WAR and leaving? What "checks and balances" exist in any other game that equate to real life?

There is no real "death" in any game so as far as I know this exact situation could occur in ANY game, only in Eve it actually DOES. That makes it better, not worse imho. Being a victim of a scam is closer to "realism" than anything I've seen in an mmo to date. There are ways to learn about scams and avoid them just like in real life. Checked and balanced.

There is no "problem" with the power Eve gives to the players. You have just as much "power" to not put your money somewhere you don't fully trust.

Sabbatai

@Malthivarius: Opinions. Proof that simply stating yours doesn't make it a fact.

Sabbatai

@KainTheGreat is a Spy!: Ok. I'll try.

Leave me the unscripted, unpredictable universe that is Eve and you can keep your brainless PvE and no-risk-whatsoever PvP without the fun.

Sabbatai

I know all about the origins of Goonfleet, and I'm sure many SA players and associates will love being labeled as "griefers" the title doesn't quite fit.

First, there are just as many people in any corp in the game that use the same tactics one might call "griefing" to get ahead in the game. Why? Because that is THE NATURE OF THE GAME!!!!!!!

Second, it is a sure sign of an inferior player to label anyone in Eve as such.

If you sign up for a corp that has a wardec against another corp and players from that corp constantly destroy you... you either joined the wrong corp or don't know how to play. The very design of this game is to get ahead "by any means". The game allows you to accomplish your goals any way you see fit. There are no "good guys" or "bad guys".

The game is supposed to be about human society struggling in the far reaches of space, cut off from their homeworld. How or why anyone would want the game to be anything other than cut throat is beyond me.

If you don't want to be "griefed" don't join a corp and don't leave your faction's area of Empire space.

Otherwise, quit complaining and stop labeling Goonswarm members as the bad guys when they are simply some of the best players in the game.

Sabbatai

@Estel: I'm on a SPACE SHIP motherfucker don't you ever forget!

@Terrenius:

And yet, some people thrive on the microcosm and real-world simulation, so what's your point?

WoozyB

@Gantz: Your Trusted Friend in Science.: The humor is in the focus of the news sites.

Your attempt at wit was kinda of a flop, more effort next time might do it.

@Dante_Julius: *evil laugh*

@Terrenius: and I seriously doubt you have billions of dollars sitting around to be stolen either.

AZoMBiE

@trunkenmath: You saw news on a news site?
Holy.Shit.

@Ursus-Veritas: no you got it.

trunkenmath

Leave me the safe overregulated WoW economy and you can have your virtual EVE Online Wall Street sans any bailout money.

@trunkenmath: Am I the only person who read this comment of trunkenmath's wrong? I thought he meant that unusually reuters was where he found out about it, instead of Kotaku.

Confused face.

@svenhoek: On what server does linen cloth sell for 50s a stack? It can barely make you 10s on Dunemaul, or at least that's how the economy was when I left the game a couple of months ago.

@Dante_Julius: that was a good one.

economics in space!

...Nope. Still not interesting. Proof that simply adding "...in space!" to something does not automatically make it cool.

@methan69: Like I've said before, if ever there was just one game the desired the word "hardcore", it's EVE. It's completely unforgiving and so many ways for other players to dick over the entire community.

Jennacide

@octalass: Playing the WoW economy? You dont play the WoW economy, it plays you. What other game are you going to be charged 12g for a stack of fucking wool cloth?! Its only just above linen cloth, and that sells for 50s a stack. Ridiculous.

svenhoek: Fuck Fireworks. Ghostbusting.

"But 250 billion ISK was just 8 trillion of 8 percent of the bank's 2.8 trillion"

8 trillion of 8 percent is 64 billion times the original sum.

The problem with EVE is that they try to put the power into player's hands and allow them to control really important economic fixtures within the game, but they seem to lack the real-world checks and balances that make people act cooperatively, so you hear these stories all the time. If you pulled off a Bernie Madoff like this in real life, well, the man got 150 years in prison! In EVE, you might get shunned by your peers, or maybe your account gets banned. No biggie, particularly if you were planning on leaving the game to begin with.

Plus, to reiterate other people's sentiments, I don't want to fucking play investment banker in real life, why would I pay a monthly fee to do so?

ludwigk

This is great.

StinkyNelkin

@ColonelMunch: It was his son's medical bills, apparently.

Desi Quintans

@trunkenmath: I unfortunately agree. When I heard about pirates and bounties for wanted criminals, I thought that was such a brilliant concept. The only problem is that it amounts to nothing but a slap on the wrist, and the griefer can easily exploit the system by using a friend to collect the larger payouts as well. Criminals have everything to gain and nothing to lose in Eve.

This is why EVE is good for a laugh...but not to play.

Gimme a twitchy space sim and I might come on board...

Meohfumado

All this doesn't diminish EVE's reputation of being a second job that you have to pay to take part in.

ddhboy

@T3rm1n4L: Somebody pee in your oats? I thought it was pretty odd to read about a player event in a niche MMO on a major news/financial site BEFORE hearing anything about it on a fairly major gaming news site. It would be equally odd to hear breaking DPRK news on Kotaku before finding it on the BBC or Reuters.

It wasn't a dig, but an observation of an unusual occurrence. Maybe google words in a post you don't understand before trying to bite somebody's head off?

trunkenmath

@SketchyIndividual: I know, I kept screwing it up. Didnt want to post a million times trying to clean it up.

WTF happened to the damned preview button!

svenhoek: Fuck Fireworks. Ghostbusting.

@Dante_Julius: This was tooo fucking good. You just earned yourself a follower.

Marceux

@methan69: Actually SWG had this a long time ago, a working player economy. That alone made me at least try EVE once.

alzdaman

@methan69: Also took him years to do this. Just to make $5,000, that's like the worst job in the world. I mean, with all the alliances, one person would not pay too much for all that isk. The alliances control all their money. Damn, I learned too much in the few months I played until I realized it would take a year to do what I wanted to do.

Timothy Schwallie

Selling of currency is against policy but buying of currency in the form of monthly ISK subscriptions is perfectly legit.

@NervousFireStarter: I'd join up again if you could actually walk around, at least in the stations. I actually get bored of what I'm looking at too quickly to play more then maybe 5 minutes a day, so I stopped playing.

This shit is hilarious though, imo.

@svenhoek: You linked it wrong.

You do it like this

@T3rm1n4L: ...Whoah.

Cool down a bit.

I know Kotaku got a bad rap for the whole "Slowtaku" thing.

That's a by product of the format of the site. It's a gaming blog, not so much a breaking news site.

From what I see, things are organized and have gone through a few revisions before they are posted.

Reuters also has tons of staff and a "We'll fix it later" mentality, because they value speed over anything else. So it's no wonder they can pump out story after story.

Kotaku doesn't seem to have that kind of staff, nor do I think it should.

The personality their writing style brings to the industry is more than enough to bring in viewers and page hits.

In short, Don't overreact, the guy was probably surprised Reuters was even caring about this anyways.

@Reuters

svenhoek: Fuck Fireworks. Ghostbusting.

@Terrenius: Yes but in real life you're not in a SPACE SHIP!

Clearly this is the most convincing argument I've seen for the public option so far. Think of the MMO gamers, Mister President.

@NeVeRMoRe666: I guess it's just unusual. It's been on BBC News for over a day, and BBC news is hardly my primary source for the latest gaming news :P

@REUTERS?!

svenhoek: Fuck Fireworks. Ghostbusting.

@T3rm1n4L: Wow, man, way to overreact and misunderstand what he's saying.

If you knew what Reuters was, you'd see the humor out of it.

This game sounds so awesome that story about a sort of James Bond character infiltrating an organization and then setting them up in an ambush sounds so cool.

@trunkenmath: Unlike most internet trolls around the net, Kotaku never claims "FIRST" nor should it.

BAILOUT!! no wait that doesn't work, anyway im not sure if i should get back into the game or not. To real for me.

Wait... if I'm reading this right you can play MMOs to pay off bills instead of paying the $15 a month one.

wow...

Drogmir

@trunkenmath: Because Kotaku is the first for everything right? Seriously I have seen plenty of news that Kotaku had up prior to them having it up on different blogs to. That is why sir there is a little e-mail addy to your left that says "TIP US".
It's not like Kotaku is the only gamer blog so every possible person related to gaming gives them news first.

Surely EVE is insured by the FDIC.

@Pudgie'sSmokerGivesAGoodTongueing...:

Hahahaha. I dunno, if it was a serious medical reason, like a life threatening disease or a disabling one, I'd easily work my way to the top of an imaginary bank and steal the money to sell irl.

EVE is too brutal for my tastes. A full year or two of work can all be wiped out in one catastrophic incident, and your back almost at square one.

The stories that are created from this game are more then enough to keep me entertained.

svenhoek: Fuck Fireworks. Ghostbusting.

I actually applaud that guy. I don't know why but he made real profit by suckering people into his scheme. Stuff like this happens all the time in MMO's but I personally have never seen it on this scale. This is awesome.

"MY VIRTUAL 401k, DAMN YOU SPACE BERNIE MADOFF"

Dante_Julius

Goons generally don't grief EVE.

Thats where goonswarm comes in

Brishen Hawkins

I was going to settle with playing the WoW economy, but I think I'll join EVE now.

@-MasterDex-: its stories like this that made me glad I left ever. He stole money and got to screw over people with no real consequence. For all we know, he squirreled a bit away on an alt account so he can come back and be ok.

trunkenmath

Uh...I play games to ESCAPE from reality. This is exactly the kind I think I DON'T want to deal with in my leisure time. I want to play, not worry about the same things happening in my game that happen in real life.

Terrenius

The weirdest part? I heard this on reuters BEFORE kotaku.

trunkenmath

Now if only the story had ended with the explanation for the medical bills being that he was tracked down by some players who gave him a bloody lip and smashed shins, but he wouldn't tell them where he put the dough.

Pudgie'sSmokerGivesAGoodTongueing

@methan69: Especially since they're doing exactly the same thing that many of our real-life financiers are doing-- namely, grabbing whatever they can.

Bakeroo

@NervousFireStarter: It's stories like this that make me want to return to Eve.

-MasterDex-

Starting to doubt if I want to jump back into Eve.

NervousFireStarter

Even in Eve, the bankers are dirty money-grabbing b£$"!%ds!

-MasterDex-

EVE Online got punk'd hard on that one. Although I don't think there would be any reason for prosecution, I mean, cmon! It's not like he forced the buyers of the in-game currency to purchase, yknow? Those people are just desperate, if not stupid.

Kuwabara Kazuo

These stories make this game seem much more compelling than any other MMO on the market. Sure, it's economics, but it seems so real.

methan69

@Cellsong:

Or maybe you didn't try out fleet/small gang warfare?

Troyd

@Soulblighter:

Oh! My all-time favorite was to dress up as a guard NPC, cast Incognito (random NPC-esque appearance and name for 5 minutes), and have a guildmate walk around the bank, obviously snooping around everyone's inventory. I'd teleport in from under a roof, throw on my halberd, start shouting guard chatter "Thou wilt regret thine actions, swine!" and kill him in one shot. (you could attack guildmates at any time... this was also a great way to grief noobs, especially when the guildstone was locked up in my house and they didn't know how to remotely quit a guild :P)

So to anyone who wasn't paying extremely close attention, this looked like the typical death of a bank thief which happened about every 5 minutes, except that he wasn't really stealing and so his corpse was off-limits. But his corpse was packed with goodies, and many people had third-party programs that automatically opened corpses, so people would start looting him, and would be immediately slain by the REAL guards. Naturally, this would draw quite a crowd of additional looters, but they would often open up the wrong corpse (UO was very buggy about this, and most people turned off the only indicator that they were in trouble, as it interfered with gameplay) and... another corpse piles up.

I once killed and looted 8 people this way in a single go, and nobody ever knew what the hell was going on. Colored sandals, valorite plate, house addon deeds, bags full of reagents... it was amazing the things those townies would carry around.

Anyway, come to think of it, it sounds like you hate MMOs because of 14-year-old griefers like myself circa 1998. My apologies. But it sure is fun. :)

Soulblighter

@Terrenius:

Seriously? Back when UO was hardcore, I devoted most of my time to looting player houses and devising scams. I'm even proud to say that I was personally responsible for one patch to trade windows.

See, they put in secure house and pet trading at the same time. Unfortunately, nobody thought that it might be a bad idea to give pets and houses the same icon in the trade window, namely a little parchment scroll representing a deed of ownership. So I took a llama mount, named it, say, "a stone tower", and hopped on, hiding its name. I advertised whatever nicely placed house I was claiming to sell, and if somebody was willing to shell out I'd run offscreen, dismount, say "all transfer", hop back on, run back, open up the trade window... and sell them a llama. I made millions over about a half dozen scams, and only one of my marks actually convinced a GM to jail me until I returned his money.

Anyway, a few days later they rolled out a short patch that gave every pet a horse icon instead of a deed. :)

Soulblighter

@-MasterDex-: A woman I work with got into an argument with me about human nature. She was convinced that people are naturally good and caring.

I asked her how many of her 5 kids she had to teach not to lie and to share and how many were predisposed to telling the truth and sharing.

Her view of human nature is different now.

Never underestimate the power of human selfishness, even in online communities filled with "friends."

@Puffs: Haha, I've played Eve before, it's an OK game, but your not aloud to transfer your ISK back out into real world currency. While in Entropia your able to. Plus Entropia is more than just space mining/battles. (I know it's a bit more complicated than that, but that's the most exciting stuff.)

Kakkoister

@Kakkoister: Perhaps you should heed your own advice...you know the part about the dil. Anyways check out EVE and get a handle on its economy and how in-depth and insane it is before you hype a game that doesn't even have a fraction of the economy built up. Just take a look at ONE of the quarterly reports they publish and you will suddenly understand.

@masterdingo: rofl

@Estel: Why is this international news? Unless I'm mistaken and EVE is actually based in the UK (which might up the relevance factor a bit for BBC). Seriously, this is about as important to the non-EVE gamer world as any story about Africa is to anyone not in Africa (harsh but true).