EVE player runs off with ISK 80 billion Comments by Ellie Gibson

hope he gets away with it

"Stupidly complicated sci-fi MMO EVE Online

----

My name is Ellie and I like kittens and flowers. "

If a game includes a banking system that actually needs real bankers to run, then it is stupidly complicated.

----

Like you'd be saying that if this was written by Eddie Gibson.

What!? I don't know if this is the same incident but I heard a stroy EXACTLY like this early last year!?

Now either Eve players are really retarded enough to trust another player with all their dosh or EG are reporting old news.
Check MCV's article history for last year, you're bound to come across it. I would but I've just woken up /yawn

We use to sell fake blueprints in EVE as real ones and once they clicked accept trade then realised it was dodgy they would cry but by then youd logged off with your alt and doone a runner.

Performing a scam with an alt is lame. If you're going to scam people, make your real character a scammer and run with it, don't use an alt and quickly log off to run away.

yeah i agree

"Wait, he's playing a sci-fi mmo where he works as an investment manager? What's his job in real-life? A starfighter pilot?"

Genius :)

hahahaha sounds absolutely brilliant! What a top effort, he'd clearly been planning it for ages as well!

"It'd be nice if money you stole was kept seperate from your legitimately earned money in the game and so was vulnerable to being stolen off you too. "

It doesn't really work like that, money is money regardless of how you got it. In fact, the game engine won't even know how you got it since all the money would have been sent to him by other players on the basis that they trusted he would pay dividends and use the money as he originally proposed.


"Is there a way this money could be regained in game? I mean if the guy was tracked down could you regain the cash from him without ticketing some GM? (I ask as I never proceeded beyond the 2 week trial as I found this to be a stupidly complicated sci-fi MMO ;) ). If so this could be awesome rather than a pain in the ass as the Dynasty Banking CEO says, "we'll pay 2 billion for the return of the money.""

The GMs won't get involved in this, since Eve isn't a game that protects people from their own stupidity ie. if you send a huge amount of in game cash to someone, you have to deal with the consequences of it. So you shouldn't give money to someone you don't trust.

As for the bounty, it's probably a waste of time to do that. there is no way that anyone can force him to transfer the money back, and even killing his character would only serve as an annoyance anyway (if he even leaves a station anytime soon). Or, he could have a friend or alt make the kill and collect the reward for himself.

It's been said already but "Stupidly complicated sci-fi MMO EVE Online ". I lol'd. Nice story. Great MMO.

/reviews playing cards
I think it was Bernard Madoff, in the prison cell, with the laptop; up to his old tricks again, giggling.

Have played EVE now for 5 years. I earn ISK by creating alliances for people. Why can't they create them themselves you say? Well they can - except the way EVE skill system operates to reach the required skill level for alliance creation means that you would have to spend rl weeks waiting to obtain the skill - which has no other use in game. Rather than waste skill training time on this they come to me and for a payment of 200 million ISK I create an alliance for them. In order to do this I have to take control of their corporation - giving me massive 'scamming/griefing' opportunities in the process. However, I am successful at this because I have built a solid reputation creating alliances - I am trusted - and that gives me an advantage over anyone else who has trained the same skill as I have. Because it is on a single shard EVE is the only MMO where ingame reputations and histories actually mean something. If one day I did decide to rip off one of the corporations that had made me CEO in order to facilitate an alliance creation then I would never get another alliance creation job again - and unlike other games I couldn't simply go to another server or create another alt - beecause then I would have to spend another five years establishing an honest reputation all over again.

Anyway, over the past year for various reasons I have not been as active in the game as I would like. Despite this I have billions of ISK sitting in my account. I also know people who are very dedicated and very clever at playing the markets to make a small amount of ISK become bigger amounts of ISK. Therefore based on their reputation I invest my ISK with these people and, in return for having access to extra funds, they pay interest on my investment (just like real banks). This means I can continue to earn ISK even when I am not playing - which means that when I do play I can spend more time doing pew pew and less time trying to grind ISK.

Just as in the real world the key to investment is finding someone you can trust with your cash (which is actually a lot harder online as people do tend to be more annonymous and therefore less scupulous. My own EVE ''banker' is a Dutch chap I have known for 4 years. I have had rl drinkies with him and others in Amsterdam and similarly he has stayed over at mine for London pissups. In other words I know where he lives ;-) If only we all knew where our rl bankers lived - then maybe the global financial system wouldn't be in such a mess!

Hah. I used to be in a corp with Istvaan. Good to see he managed to pull off a huge coup like that, it was always something he wanted to do.

This comment is in relation to the 10 month hit, not the paltry 86 billion someone swiped.

was actually a shock when i moved bakc to wow after eve andfound that theiving would be referred to GMs :(

Not that anybody cares now that this is off the front page, but this string of story, comments, and linked stories has made me d/l the Eve Client again.

Nooooooooooo.

Me too, agparrot. Now it's sitting there, taunting me. Do you here it? Just start it up, look at that lovely Login Menu. Did you see it? The bit of the ship flash? It's calling to you. It needs you.

I don't agree this means it's a stupidly complicated game, but it certainly can be. I just ignore that kind of stuff. Like I do with politics in real-life.

nekotcha: same here. EVE really does interest me, despite me laughing and hating it way back when.

If I didn't have a wife, I'd be playing this.

there's no grounds for a GM to get involved as no game rules where broken in stealing the ISK. I assume he will have a sizable bounty on his head for a long time to come, but that assumes he is around to get got.

I guess the coolest move would be to keep the 80 bill and fly around in starting ships... it's not such a rewarding kill when it costs the dead person nothing.

heheh again tempted by this game but it is v expensive subscription I feel and I would lose my life which I am concerned by..

Well, I have had the trial running for the last three or four days, and sure enough, it is still like Digital Crack. The sense of getting my little Tristan (a small, versatile 'frigate' class ship) up to scratch for doing missions, and fleeting around asteroid belts fending rats (NPC controlled pirates, baddies and lowlife) off of other players who aren't expecting me to arrive, and are sometimes surprised, sometimes grateful, and sometimes pissed off because I've nabbed the bounty and loot from the kill, is just brilliant.

Stupidly, I have work to do, so this is just dragging me away.

Now I'm undecided what to do.. do I carry on with this new character? Should I ressurect the other character that I haven't played for the last three years, who had a sight more skills than this one? Or should I just play serial trial accounts, helping out rookies and keeping mining belts clear of pirates for other players?

Also great with friends. I left without a goodbye three years ago, I wonder if any of my buddies are left, or would even remember me.

Stupid Poverty.

@iokthemonkey

If you can name a popular game that is more complicated I'm all ears (or eyes in this case).