Historic real-life Eve monument defaced in days

UPDATE 11.04am 08/05/2014: CCP has found those who defaced the Eve monument at Iceland's Reykjavik harbour and banned them from the game for life.

Community chief CCP Falcon served notice on the Eve Online forum, saying the fact the monument was vandalised was "an insult to the entire community, not just to the individual who's name was directly targeted by the vandalism".

CCP worked with the game's community to identify four people who were responsible. It even spoke with those who were involved and members of their in-game alliance.

"We would like to reiterate that we do not tolerate this kind of behavior and will continue to operate a zero tolerance approach to dealing with harassment and victimisation in the Eve Universe," CCP Falcon continued.

Three people have been permanently removed from the Eve community, with a total of seven Eve Online accounts and one Dust 514 account belonging to them permanently banned. Another person involved has received a six month ban from Eve Online on their registered account.

All four have been blacklisted from future Fanfest events.

CCP declined to identify the four people responsible, saying it would be "contrary" to its privacy policies. "As such we will deal with this incident in line with our current policies, and the identities of those responsible will remain confidential," CCP said.

"With this in mind, we now consider this issue resolved within the Eve Universe, and any further action taken outside the virtual world relating to criminal damage or recovery of costs for repairs to the Eve Universe Monument will remain confidential between CCP Games, the authorities, and those involved."

UPDATE 1PM BST: The sticker was removable! The sticker was removed.

ORIGINAL STORY 12PM BST: The historic Eve monument, unveiled at Iceland's Reykjavik harbour last Wednesday, has already been defaced. Players visiting the country to attend the annual FanFest event seem to have been responsible.

One harmless removable sticker bearing the logo of divisive game alliance Goonswarm was photographed on the central monument pillar and was since removed. More seriously, a player name - one of more than 500,000 - on the monument base was scratched out.

The picture of the scratched name was posted to Twitter by the person who claimed to have done it, feeling he'd done the community a favour by obscuring the name of an accused troublemaker.

Eve Online maker CCP responded on the game's forum and described the scratching as "absolutely disgusting", and said the police would be involved, security tapes considered and this treated as a criminal offence.

"It's an insult to the entire community and is clearly the work a person who believes that behaviour in a virtual world is a valid reason to make a real life personal attack on someone, and deface public property," wrote CCP Falcon, Eve community manager.

"We will not tolerate this."

CCP Falcon gave the accused a chance to email and own up so the issue could be put to bed.

"We will not tolerate this"

CCP Falcon

The Eve monument, titled Worlds Within a World, celebrates the players who make the space MMO so unique, and includes the names of all active main characters in the game as of 1st March 2014. It's a world first, apparently.

The outdoor sculpture itself was designed by artist Sigurður Guðmundsson, with help from Eve Online art directors Börkur Eiríksson and Ásgeir Jón Ásgeirsson, and stands at over five meters tall. The highly polished stainless steel column in the middle is supposed to reflect the jaw-dropping Icelandic geography around it.

Underneath the monument is buried a time capsule - a laptop - that will be dug up in 25 years time, and contains videos and messages from developers and players.

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