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How Eve Players Pulled Off the Biggest Betrayal in Its History

263 points by bdr 9y ago

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
mm4 9y ago
maybe the top 1%is having meta fun, but from what I seen the rest might as well be playing Excell spreadsheets
- ablation 9y ago
  I guess they derive enjoyment from it though, otherwise why would they be playing?
  - thisacctforreal 9y ago
    (Edit: mildly off-topic, hopefully fine since GP is grey) From what I understand Eve takes a lot of real-time investment and dedication to succeed. After you get far you have to maintain the relationships you built with people, and the responsibilities you share with them. Tribal Wars (unfortunately now pay to win) and Puzzle Pirates are two games I've played that share that aspect, though both have no where near the same amount of mechanics, content, and dedicated playerbase. But yes, if lack of enjoyment/reward crosses a threshold, players quit. Which often forfeit their position in these kinds of games. edit: Not sure on the "rejoinability" of Eve, I assume it relies on the player's progress and social standing, multiplied by how lax the in-game trading rules are. (Giving away ships+currency before you quit, getting ships back when you rejoin)
    - busterarm 9y ago
      I played EVE for the better part of about 10 years. Been to Fanfest, met Mittens (and Vile Rat, RIP :() and all that. I owe my closest friendships and even my career to EVE. I'll expand on this in a bit. While I did spend a few years floundering around in the game like most players do, I was lucky enough to get close to the major political action early on when the first alliance I was a part of, ISS, collapsed. The ties and relationships that I built here got me in-system to watch the first (BoB) Titan kill with my own eyes. A few years later when wormhole space opened up, I jumped on that immediately and got involved with a corporation dedicated to taking advantage of the new resources and PvP opportunities. Within a few months I was an officer in the corporation and we had brought in some local blues doing manufacturing in a merger. I had a pretty good relationship with these guys; a group of three students from Denmark. It became clear to me right away that my corp's CEO plan here was to screw these guys over and steal all of their assets, as well as the rest of the assets of the corp and do a runner. Without cluing him in, I managed to help everyone in my corporation secure their assets and he got away with nothing but the corp's wallet, which I made an effort to drain (spread out to members) and left only about 8bil ISK. Immediately after, these students and I joined one of the most well known RP/lowsec PvP corps in the history of EVE and started our own manufacturing corporation on the side which turned into somewhat of a mini-empire. The students were programmers and I now had a practical use for a life-long hobby(but not really the inclination or skills to do professionally at the time). One of them is probably my closest friend today. We routinely discuss the idea of one of us relocating and starting a real business together. Other friends that I made in this corporation I still talk to on a daily basis...even after a few years away from EVE. Eventually our CEO had to shutter the corporation, as he took a job with CCP; most of us were getting older and finding it hard to find time for the game anyway and quit, myself included. My account still has a few hundred billion ISK sitting in its wallet. I resist the urge to pop in and get deep into the game again, but it's frequently there. I've had some breathtakingly beautiful moments and experiences with people in my life because of this crazy game. I'd done just about everything you could do in the game while I was playing it and had about 4 accounts at any given time. A lot of quitting players complain about not being able to find the real action in the game...while it's hard, everyone who can read the forums can find out who the important, active corporations are in game. Seek them out, be available and make friends and then make enemies.
      - mattmanser 9y ago
        The big trouble with eve is the time/reward factor. Ultimately you can spend a whole night trying to find fights in Eve and get 2 or 3 fights that last 20 seconds. Or you can play 10 matches of overwatch or CS:Go or DOTA that last 30 minutes in the same time. It still doesn't have a decent competitor though, elite dangerous is rubbish, still waiting on Star Citizen.
        JWLong 9y ago
        The trouble with trying to play any of those games, after having played Eve, is that none of them measure up. :/ Longinius Spear once quoted Ernest Hemmingway, in a presentation at Eve: Vegas, "There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ddR7W4LmR8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ddR7W4LmR8
        busterarm 9y ago
        This is absolutely 100% true. Edit: Actually I prefer this response: I think how true an EVE player finds the above statement is a good indicator of how effectively they played the game to begin with.
        mattmanser 9y ago
        That's simply not true, eventually you'll realize it's all a big con and it really is far more enjoyable playing those other games. Personally I think that if you believe that you're still in the delusion phase where you're projecting your fantasy of what playing Eve should be like, compared to what playing Eve is actually like. That fantasy lasted a long time for me, like 3/4 years. In reality battles are copying someone's prescribed fit, click a direction to align, letting your squad leader warp you. Eventually you might actually get a fight, which consists entirely of clicking the first name on an alphabetically sorted list and pressing F1. There's no skill, only the adrenaline rush of losing something you spent 2 weeks grinding for. And don't forget, you spend 2 hours or even days between each of these battles waiting to even start the fight. The big contradiction in Eve is that the thrill comes from permadeath, but it's only a thrill because the grinding is onerous. If everyone had infinite isk, no-one would play it because the fundamental combat gameplay is super boring.
    - yuubi 9y ago
      Anything left in space will likely be destroyed or stolen. Anything in stations (ships, parts, materials, etc) and your cash will still be where you left them. If that's a player-owned station that changed hands while you were out, or you get kicked from corp for inactivity, you won't be able to dock to get at them, but you can try to firesale them (post a contract offer to sell the lot cheap), and likely someone with access to the station will buy. Often people who are leaving will either have their assets moved somewhere they'll certainly have access to later or just liquidate (generally on better than firesale terms). Citadels (like the keepstar that changed hands) work differently: you can get everything in a citadel moved to the nearest suitable npc station at the cost of 15% of its value and a 20-day wait, worst case (google "eve asset safety" for the full details).
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  Depends. The top 1% are playing political games, beyond even spreadsheets. A percentage finds the logistics part fun, handling excel sheets and resources and production, either for their own gains or that of their corporation or alliance. Another percentage goes for the pvp, dealing with control of their spaceship, tactics, the meta of their ship and equipment vs that of their opponents. There's a lot to this game and it's not just spreadsheets, that's only a percentage of the game.
  - TheRealDunkirk 9y ago
    > The top 1% are playing political games This is the thing that absolutely flummoxes me about the "game." Most gamers are geeks, but most geeks I've known into have little patience for political games. Yet, here's one of the most-successful and longest-running MMOPG's, and it's -- from what I can gather -- almost entirely political. I just can't wrap my head around it. I even have a hard time reading these post-mortems. The whole business seems to cater to some sub-sub-sub category of geek that doesn't lie in the direction of Myers-Briggs IN?? types. Does anyone know what those types might be? (All discussion of the usefulness or accuracy of these categories aside.)
    - dmoy 9y ago
      MMOs often have alliances and political intrigue. It's not just Eve, though Eve definitely takes the cake. I've played n>2 different MMOs where there's a large cohort of politically savvy players pulling the strings. Sometimes it's just out of necessity - if you want the coolest stuff in the game you have to organize groups because that's how the game is set up. So by definition it filters success towards those that organize bigger and better alliances.
    - nmeofthestate 9y ago
      Think of open source controversies - I reckon there are plenty of geeks with the will to power.
- JWLong 9y ago
  I have had a metric fuckton of fun, in my four year career. I've rarely dealt with politics, and only used a spreadsheet, once (so far). Mostly, I just get drunk on a Friday night, with buddies, and we go blow shit up.
- mcv 9y ago
  I think it's especially the top that is playing Excell spreadsheets. That's what comes with controlling big corporations and alliances, I suspect.
myst 9y ago
It is not the biggest.
- forsakenkraken 9y ago
  Which one is bigger then? This is around 1.4 trillion. I don't think anyone has gone much past a trillion in the past.
  - thoth 9y ago
    If you take into account inflation, there is an argument for previous heists being larger... IIRC. Check out http://nosygamer.blogspot.com/2017/09/did-judge-really-pull-off-biggest-heist.html http://nosygamer.blogspot.com/2017/09/did-judge-really-pull-...
dagenleg 9y ago
It seems to me that the game turned out to be most famous Icelandic export product by far. That's pretty cute.
- lagadu 9y ago
  Well Bjork is more well known but Eve is worth more, income-wise :) IIRC Iceland's largest export is aluminum.
  - philsnow 9y ago
    IIRC this is not because Iceland has particularly rich stores of aluminum ore, but rather because refining aluminum ore into usable aluminum metal is energy-intensive and Iceland has abundant geothermal energy resources. So they import ore and export metal.
  - meheleventyone 9y ago
    Depending on what you measure the largest export of a single product is raw aluminum but industry wise fishing products as a whole are still a larger proportion. Also depending on how you want to classify it both are eclipsed by tourism right now.
  - gardarh 9y ago
    It's actually fish, aluminum being a close second: http://px.hagstofa.is/pxen/pxweb/en/Efnahagur/Efnahagur__utanrikisverslun__3_voruthjonusta__voruthjonusta/UTA05003.px http://px.hagstofa.is/pxen/pxweb/en/Efnahagur/Efnahagur__uta... To answer child, the type of electricity production is split 70 hydro/30 geothermal.
  - gaius 9y ago
    They have a big mayonnaise industry too, or did when I was there 15 years ago
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
torgoguys 9y ago
I've never played EVE but have read a bit here and there about it, and while I have no interest in playing, the epic stories that come out of it fascinate me. Is there a good place to go to find more?
- lagadu 9y ago
  There's an excellent book that covers some of the larger conflicts between ~2004 and 2009 called Empires of Eve[0]. As someone who was intimately involved with nearly everything the book describes, I recommend it. [0] http://empiresofeve.com/ http://empiresofeve.com/
  - FreezerburnV 9y ago
    Even as someone who wasn't intimately involved in everything, and was only around to see some of those things from a distance, that book is still FASCINATING. I also highly recommend it.
- gcp 9y ago
  imperium.news and /r/eve The metagame of Eve is such that you can't really find objective reporting, though. It extends far beyond the game.
tudorw 9y ago
If I had a life to spare, I'd play EVE... I'd love to watch some kind of weekly news round up, is there anything like that?
- gcp 9y ago
  imperium.news As explained elsewhere, don't expect to find 100% objective reporting anywhere.
  - tudorw 9y ago
    thanks to all, and the heads up, I guess I don't expect 100% objective reporting in the real world either ;)
  - thg 9y ago
    > don't expect to find 100% objective reporting anywhere. Especially not there. imperium.news is a propaganda website first and a news website second.
- JWLong 9y ago
  https://crossingzebras.com/ https://crossingzebras.com/ is a decent source
  - rl3 9y ago
    Any idea what in-game entity is behind that? I've been out of the loop. I know Imperium.news used to be The Mittani and is basically a propaganda outlet for Goonswarm's power bloc. Likewise evenews24.com at least used to be under the control of NC./PL as a more subtle propaganda outlet, but I've no idea what its deal is today. I have to admit that when out-of-game news sites serve as a mechanism of information warfare, it speaks very well of EVE's metagame.
    - JWLong 9y ago
      Then you'll be disappointed to know that crossing zebras appears to be the least interesting of them all. :P The founders: Xander Phoena, Niden, and Jeg Elsker hail from different groups. The corp, Zebra Corp, that the rag gets its name from, has been a part of several different major alliances, ranging from CO2, to Goonswarm, but doesn't appear to have any bearing on the reporting, itself.
lagadu 9y ago
This isn't the biggest by any stretch of the imagination.
- Lorin 9y ago
  The citadel is the biggest player owned object in the Eve universe, right? Maybe that's what they meant by biggest.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - lagadu 9y ago
    It is but it's value with fittings is only ~300 billion isk (the eve currency) which isn't that much when we're talking isk at the alliance level.
    - forsakenkraken 9y ago
      It's the biggest. Rough value of the alliance wallet, srp program and all the citadels (not just the keepstar) is about 1.4 trillion. And yes, the Keepstar is the biggest of the citadels (the smaller ones are Fortizars and Astrahauses).
      - lagadu 9y ago
        That's nothing compared to Haargoth's damage, back in 2009 or Kartoon's. Hell we've had single dudes do single corp thefts for more than that.
kensai 9y ago
I really like these Eve stories that show off the worse of humanity! They portray a reality where there are relatively few consequences for the human, so huge risks might be undertaken. If you die, your avatar has simply died. OK, you might have invested literally months-years into forming it, but still it's not the physical unique you. You can always create a new sock puppet to rule the world.
- busterarm 9y ago
  I liken it more to playing a game like Diplomacy. It's a sandbox that gives you a safe place to RP some really dastardly, evil shit. If everyone has a level head, you can go and enjoy a beer together afterwards and start over.
  - forsakenkraken 9y ago
    Yes, but in this instance he's taken assets that take a very long time to build up and left the alliance in a position which they're going to find very hard to come back from. I'm not sure many people will keep a level head there.
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  > but still it's not the physical unique you. Well, the article does say that the victim in this case wanted the perpetrator's name and address and voiced a threat in his direction - things like this can seriously escalate. There have been people killed over events happening in or around video games.
  - rhaps0dy 9y ago
    For example this: https://www.engadget.com/2008/01/20/lineage-ii-clan-rivalry-ends-in-real-life-murder/ https://www.engadget.com/2008/01/20/lineage-ii-clan-rivalry-... .
mrdmnd 9y ago
I don't play EVE because there are already enough demands on my time, but damned if this commercial (entirely done with voice comms) hasn't come close to pushing me over the edge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdfFnTt2UT0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdfFnTt2UT0
- murderfs 9y ago
  This is a more realistic version, IMO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmS9vcVNr5A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmS9vcVNr5A
  - corobo 9y ago
    GP "Oh man that looks so awesome!" Parent: "I'll stick to solitaire" The idea behind Eve is extremely appealing but damn if I'm not just done with people screaming into a microphone. I'll stick to reading the postmortems after interesting things happen
    - Anderkent 9y ago
      I believe there's interesting gameplay in smaller groups, without all the screaming, but yeah, large conflicts are fun to read about and not necessarily fun to play.
    - Mithaldu 9y ago
      The point you're missing, and what makes this funny, is that this is actually super rare. This isn't Call of Duty, you don't have children yelling random curse words at you while tea-bagging you. Voice comms in Eve is almost exclusively between allies you've been together with for a long time. As such, things getting loud is always either extremely exceptional, or fitting and unsurprising to the context. Both of these videos are accurate, and while the second one does happen, the former is the actual norm.
    - pavel_lishin 9y ago
      > damn if I'm not just done with people screaming into a microphone. Aside from the huge time-sink that's involved in any MMO, I mostly don't want to have to have a part-time job playing politics. That's what kills it for me; I love that Eve Online exists, but I have zero interest whatsoever building a whole other parallel set of friendships, alliances, etc. outside of my current life. Even if they were the nicest antithesis of League of Legends chat, I just don't have the emotional energy to put into it.
kensai 9y ago
I wonder if multi-sig contracts (not necessarily through blockchain) would preclude such incidents in the future. Concentrating so much power to a single person, inevitably makes for such "Little Finger" plays with devastating effects for everyone involved. I am watching the video of it all now here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOdXie85VX8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOdXie85VX8
rl3 9y ago
It's nice to see treachery is alive and well in EVE. I started playing EVE just prior to the Trinity expansion release in 2008, and played up until 2013. During that time I was fortunate to watch the game evolve in so many fantastic ways (walking in stations aside). I owe an unbelievable amount of fond memories to the game, most of which involved treachery (albiet on a somewhat smaller scale). That said, many of the changes in recent years have left a bad taste in my mouth. For example: Aurum, an in-game currency used to purchase items from the "New Eden Store", such as ship skins and clothing. Radical changes to character progression in the form of skill injectors. Radical changes to the PLEX system, as well as F2P. Innumerable changes to core game mechanics. Not all of these changes are necessarily bad, but they do tend to foster almost a weird sense of alienation among long-time players, especially inactives. Nobody I know really plays anymore, and it's not because they lack the time. There's this mutual feeling that the game kind of lost its way some years back, and that the golden age is over. That its soul is gone, or at least waning. I don't know how true that sentiment is, but it certainly feels that way. Of course, it's always possible we're just a bunch of really biased bittervets. It is true that CCP has had an incredible amount of missteps in the past (walking in stations, Dust 514, vampire game), and that they've inevitably had a lot of turnover in their core talent. Despite all that, EVE is still alive, which in and of itself is impressive. From a technology and art standpoint, the game is arguably better than ever right now. I just can't shake the feeling that it's stuck in an evolutionary treadmill of sorts, where things are changed just for the sake of change, and not pursuant to a strong overarching ideal or vision that was present in the earlier days of CCP. On the bright side, at least Star Citizen has no hope of killing EVE. Things such as lifetime insurance are wholly antithetical to the ideal that EVE represents. Namely: you don't get an adrenaline rush flying something expensive if you know there's zero risk involved. Elite: Dangerous (in my opinion) had the opportunity to kill both games, and failed only due to its unfortunate choice of core gameplay mechanics and P2P networking model. Four years ago it had the most advanced UI/UX of any game in existence, and arguably it still does today. Incredible artistic and technical production values unfortunately can't save a game if it has no soul.
- s_kilk 9y ago
  > I just can't shake the feeling that it's stuck in an evolutionary treadmill of sorts, where things are changed just for the sake of change, and not pursuant to a strong overarching ideal or vision that was present in the earlier days of CCP. I got the impression that the recent-ish sovereignty changes were enacted with some grander vision in mind, but then again I've been inactive for a while so idk.
nottorp 9y ago
The way I see it, they abused their position in the CSM for in game advantages. When one random player betrays another, that's fine. This wouldn't have happened if they weren't on the CSM though, which is something out of game. They should be permanently banned from both the game and their CSM positions instead of being made heroes.
- codeulike 9y ago
  Eve is all about the meta-game, real world espionage and shenanigans often happens. Its all unofficial but its kind of the unique selling point of Eve really.
  - wolco 9y ago
    Not sure why the one leader was banned trying to get real world information if one of the the selling point is about interacting outside of the game as well. Why wouldn't it be perfectly valid to attempt to scare or convince this guy in real life to give back the loot. It feels like it should be part of the game. Bonus points for getting someone fired or sleeping with someone's sister.
    - wlll 9y ago
      There's levels. Lying to get access to a groups private information and plans to gain a competitive advantage (spying in other words) is one thing, attempting to dox someone because you've threatened to cut off their hands is another.
- JWLong 9y ago
  CSM positions do not appear to have been abused. Not sure where you're getting this information. The fact that Judge was a CSM member is almost tangential to the whole story.
  - nottorp 9y ago
    Article says they were both CSM members and that the turning happened due to face to face conversations while they were in Iceland on CCP's dime. Would they have been on friendly enough terms to pull this off if they weren't meeting regularly due to being on the CSM? I don't think so...
cellover 9y ago
This article is more immersive listening to the latest EVE track posted on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/ccpgames/eve-online-redesigned-stars https://soundcloud.com/ccpgames/eve-online-redesigned-stars
bsder 9y ago
Goonswarm strikes again! RIP: vilerat. Hope you're somewhere laughing your ass off about this knowing that your legacy lives on.
- forsakenkraken 9y ago
  I don't really think we had that much to do with it. As much as I find it kinda funny. I feel sorry for the line members tho. When The Judge said he didn't mean to screw over line members, I don't know how he said that with a straight face.
forgingahead 9y ago
For current and past Eve players: How does Eve compare to the glory days of Ultima Online (1997-1998)? I've always wanted to try another MMO with the same level of freedom and consequence as early UO. Is Eve worth a try or are they just too different to compare?
- forsakenkraken 9y ago
  I've never played UO, but if it's freedom and consequence you want then EvE is what you want to try.
- lflux 9y ago
  The early game designers and devs of EVE all came, unsurprisingly, from an UO and Elite background
hellofunk 9y ago
I must be completely out of touch, because I could not make heads or tails of nearly any word in this article. In fact, I'm so out of touch, I couldn't tell if I was reading a real news item or a piece of short fiction. Damn there some areas of the tech scene that are as foreign to me as, say, hitching a tent along the Antarctic coast.
- wil421 9y ago
  I wouldn't consider this the tech scene. More like the gaming scene. A fun read but having never played Eve I am lost. Sounds like a good time though.
- rkangel 9y ago
  Short version (from the point of view of an outsider to the events): During the last big large scale conflict, an alliance called CO2 defected from its parent coalition The Imperium to the other side. This was a big loss to the Imperium - CO2 were one of their larger and better groups of fighters. It turned the tide of the war and the Imperium were left with emnity towards CO2 due to their betrayal. In the time since then, Gigx who runs CO2 has (among other things) been annoying people inside and outside his alliance over various diplomatic incidents. One of those was TheJudge who was a leader in CO2 (but subordinate to gigx). Simultaneously TheJudge was being slowly talked into betraying CO2 by a couple members of the Imperium. This was significantly helped by the three of them being on a player elected group of representatives to the developers, that meets in person a few times a year. TheJudge had enough power and control over the alliance and its assets that when he eventually decided to actually jump ship, he could sell off ships, space stations ('citadels') and other expensive things owned by the alliance. The Imperium are taking credit for this betrayal - they consider it 'revenge'. Up to now this is all classic Eve - betrayal by people you trust. The postscript is less nice though: gigx in a moment of anger asked in in game chat for real life contact details for TheJudge so that he could 'cut off his hands'. This is obviously not OK and CCP banned gigx permanently. This has the side-effect of putting the final nail in the CO2 coffin.
  - hellofunk 9y ago
    Who created this war, is it part of the initial game or are these "societies" forming ad-hoc by the players and making wars between them?
vadansky 9y ago
Is it too late to start playing EVE? Every time I hear about these great events it seems like it's the last and the game is over now.
- 0xJRS 9y ago
  I just started ~2 months ago, the learning curve is high but YouTube is your friend.
- kstrauser 9y ago
  Jump in! Disclaimer: you will die. Lots. The adage is "don't fly what you can't afford to lose". There's no equivalent of "this is my special invulnerable armor and the sword of my great-grandfather", because when someone inevitably comes along and blows you up, it'll be their special invulnerable armor etc. Also, the concepts of fraud, scams, and so on are unusual in Eve in that they're actively encouraged, or at least explicitly tolerated (with few exceptions, like you can't claim to be an official representative of the game's publisher). This is known as "adding content". As in, if you complain that user Foo defrauded you out of a few hundred dollars of in-game currency, the response will almost certainly be along the lines of "wow, Foo added a lot of content to your game, huh! You should thank them for it. You can't get that kind of entertainment from an NPC, can you?" This fosters a certain level of paranoia.
  - FreezerburnV 9y ago
    Based on the number of incredibly clever scams that exist, extreme paranoia is correct. If something looks too good to be true, it is VERY likely to be a scam. (e.g.: there are scams built around selling an item for a price that is lower than a buy order somewhere, seemingly promising free money, but when you attempt to sell the expensive item, it'll get rejected due to some quirks in how some systems interact)
    - chii 9y ago
      > get rejected due to some quirks in how some systems interac i dont think that works anymore now? Not sure...but it's human nature to scam! There's been so many pyramid schemes it's not funny!
KON_Air 9y ago
I every time I heard about EvE the image of it being "a mass of bickering old couples locked inside a large room with alliances forming and dissolving constantly" strengthens.
j_s 9y ago
This event was discussed yesterday though the article focused on a completely different aspect of the story, with much less detail: Eve Online alliance leader banned after threatening to cut off betrayer's hands | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15232168 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15232168 > thg: Classic gigX.. Not the first time he's got a "permanent" ban for making real life threats. > xiaodown's personal account: I was sitting on coms when this all went down https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15232910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15232910 > xiaodown: He ... has a history. Plus, I mean, trying to get out-of-game details like address/name is a big no-no in Eve
dsfyu404ed 9y ago
Can we get a TL;DR? (I read the article and the relationships between the parties vs events vs timeline is still confusing)
hyperbovine 9y ago
What?
technofiend 9y ago
Eve is an excellent example of a game with mostly user-supplied content in a loose framework. The game supplies a physics engine and basic rules for game components, but beyond that it is an open world. This is both a strength and a weakness: the game itself isn't that interesting or challenging without interacting with other people. But you can't really see all the game's content because so much territory is controlled by hostile teams. So unless you have nerves of steel and great skills to fly stealthed, you'll probably never see Russian-controlled Drone Regions, for example. It would be cool to have a second shard of this universe in "care bear" mode that didn't allow player-vs-player (PVP) so that people could appreciate all the content that CCP created. It might also create pressure on CCP to create more interesting non-player-dependent mechanics and content in the game.
- chii 9y ago
  > "care bear" mode that didn't allow player-vs-player (PVP) that would not be a game of EVE. It would be World of Warcraft, but in space. And not a particularly good one either. The uniqueness of EVE _is_ the free-form, non-consensual PVP. Just like in real life, you cannot say no to being mugged, or ganged upon. When making friends, you cannot really know to trust them, and if you do find trust worthy friends, you friend them for life.
  - technofiend 9y ago
    >The uniqueness of EVE _is_ the free-form, non-consensual PVP. It's just another bit in a database and only one aspect of the game. Sure, there are 1,000 experiences in Eve you'll never get anywhere else - from spinning wormholes trying to find a dread enemy, to station spinning out of utter boredom because your station is bubbled to hell and back. However it's simply not possible to see all the content on-offer in the game because PVP precludes it. I realize for some people the idea of EVE without PVP is inconceivable and that's fine, I'm just saying it's too bad because it would be fun to be able to see all of the game and enjoy other aspects of it that are suppressed by the ever present threat of PVP.
    - 9y ago
MrZongle2 9y ago
I've read a lot about betrayals in Eve, how much ISK are stolen and lost here or there, and tales of revenge. Does anybody actually have fun in this game? Like, simple this-is-a-fun-game-and-I-am-having-fun-at-the-moment fun?
- dave7 9y ago
  Lots do, yes. You make your own fun. Personally I had great times studying the market and finding / executing (entirely on my own) new manufacturing chains, attempting to gain an ever increasing margin and profit-to-effort ratio! But to each their own :)
thatonechad 9y ago
Sounds like anyone who plays this game needs to get a life.
abiox 9y ago
i feel like the only thing i hear about with respect to eve is 'betrayals' and 'theft'. is there anything else to the game? is there anything else to do besides steal?
- Synaesthesia 9y ago
  Killing and blowing stuff up I suppose. That’s most video games anyway. Some strategy too.
- luminiferous 9y ago
  Don't forget Ponzi schemes! Honestly there's a lot to do in EvE, since the economy is entirely player-run. You can be a miner, mining raw materials. You can be a trader, running arbitrage between different stations trying to turn a quick buck. You can be a pirate, preying on either of the previously mentioned roles. You can be a manufacturer, creating either intermediate goods or finished products for the open market. You can be a (different kind of) trader, buying and selling commodities, trying to time the market, etc. (This is where the space spreadsheets meme mostly comes from.) You can go out "ratting", finding and killing NPCs for goods and money. And, of course, you can go join (or start!) a corporation (guild) and own a portion of nullsec (full PvP) space, fighting with, allying with, and betraying other player corps for power and influence over nullsec. The reason you only hear about betrayals and theft are because that's what is the most interesting to write/read about with regards to EvE. While it's really cool, conceptually, that you can make a living in this game by participating in this massive player run economy, you're not going to find a lot of articles about people spending hours of their life mining internet asteroids and occasionally getting ganked by pirates.
_e 9y ago
I hope that someone who knows "gigx" in real life checks in on him. It is safe to assume that he spent a significant amount of time playing Eve to reach the level that he did. Yes, he got drunk on power and it pissed people off. I would bet that if a neurologist were monitoring his brain activity before the coup and during the coup it would be very similar to a person going through a really bad breakup, a very disturbing event or going cold turkey on a bad addiction. Hopefully what happened in Eve doesn't spill over into gigx's personal life for the worse.
stonewhite 9y ago
American ambassador assasinated in Libya, Sean Smith was also a high ranking officer at Goonfleet corp and was playing it for 6 years! A game that is able to attract these profiles is doing something very right.
- qohen 9y ago
  I, and some others, posted stuff about him further down this thread, for those who might be interested -- you can click the link [0] to get there directly or just keep scrolling through this thread. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15246021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15246021
HirojaShibe 9y ago
Okay, when is there going to be an in depth documentary series about EVE, I mean Ken Burns Style but maybe a couple of season because so much has gone in this space. Constantly every year I read or hear about some EPIC Battle/Betrayal going on in this little realm of the gaming world.

263 points by bdr 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

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mm4 9y ago

maybe the top 1%is having meta fun, but from what I seen the rest might as well be playing Excell spreadsheets

ablation 9y ago
I guess they derive enjoyment from it though, otherwise why would they be playing?
- thisacctforreal 9y ago
  (Edit: mildly off-topic, hopefully fine since GP is grey) From what I understand Eve takes a lot of real-time investment and dedication to succeed. After you get far you have to maintain the relationships you built with people, and the responsibilities you share with them. Tribal Wars (unfortunately now pay to win) and Puzzle Pirates are two games I've played that share that aspect, though both have no where near the same amount of mechanics, content, and dedicated playerbase. But yes, if lack of enjoyment/reward crosses a threshold, players quit. Which often forfeit their position in these kinds of games. edit: Not sure on the "rejoinability" of Eve, I assume it relies on the player's progress and social standing, multiplied by how lax the in-game trading rules are. (Giving away ships+currency before you quit, getting ships back when you rejoin)
  - busterarm 9y ago
    I played EVE for the better part of about 10 years. Been to Fanfest, met Mittens (and Vile Rat, RIP :() and all that. I owe my closest friendships and even my career to EVE. I'll expand on this in a bit. While I did spend a few years floundering around in the game like most players do, I was lucky enough to get close to the major political action early on when the first alliance I was a part of, ISS, collapsed. The ties and relationships that I built here got me in-system to watch the first (BoB) Titan kill with my own eyes. A few years later when wormhole space opened up, I jumped on that immediately and got involved with a corporation dedicated to taking advantage of the new resources and PvP opportunities. Within a few months I was an officer in the corporation and we had brought in some local blues doing manufacturing in a merger. I had a pretty good relationship with these guys; a group of three students from Denmark. It became clear to me right away that my corp's CEO plan here was to screw these guys over and steal all of their assets, as well as the rest of the assets of the corp and do a runner. Without cluing him in, I managed to help everyone in my corporation secure their assets and he got away with nothing but the corp's wallet, which I made an effort to drain (spread out to members) and left only about 8bil ISK. Immediately after, these students and I joined one of the most well known RP/lowsec PvP corps in the history of EVE and started our own manufacturing corporation on the side which turned into somewhat of a mini-empire. The students were programmers and I now had a practical use for a life-long hobby(but not really the inclination or skills to do professionally at the time). One of them is probably my closest friend today. We routinely discuss the idea of one of us relocating and starting a real business together. Other friends that I made in this corporation I still talk to on a daily basis...even after a few years away from EVE. Eventually our CEO had to shutter the corporation, as he took a job with CCP; most of us were getting older and finding it hard to find time for the game anyway and quit, myself included. My account still has a few hundred billion ISK sitting in its wallet. I resist the urge to pop in and get deep into the game again, but it's frequently there. I've had some breathtakingly beautiful moments and experiences with people in my life because of this crazy game. I'd done just about everything you could do in the game while I was playing it and had about 4 accounts at any given time. A lot of quitting players complain about not being able to find the real action in the game...while it's hard, everyone who can read the forums can find out who the important, active corporations are in game. Seek them out, be available and make friends and then make enemies.
    - mattmanser 9y ago
      The big trouble with eve is the time/reward factor. Ultimately you can spend a whole night trying to find fights in Eve and get 2 or 3 fights that last 20 seconds. Or you can play 10 matches of overwatch or CS:Go or DOTA that last 30 minutes in the same time. It still doesn't have a decent competitor though, elite dangerous is rubbish, still waiting on Star Citizen.
      - JWLong 9y ago
        The trouble with trying to play any of those games, after having played Eve, is that none of them measure up. :/ Longinius Spear once quoted Ernest Hemmingway, in a presentation at Eve: Vegas, "There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ddR7W4LmR8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ddR7W4LmR8
        busterarm 9y ago
        This is absolutely 100% true. Edit: Actually I prefer this response: I think how true an EVE player finds the above statement is a good indicator of how effectively they played the game to begin with.
        mattmanser 9y ago
        That's simply not true, eventually you'll realize it's all a big con and it really is far more enjoyable playing those other games. Personally I think that if you believe that you're still in the delusion phase where you're projecting your fantasy of what playing Eve should be like, compared to what playing Eve is actually like. That fantasy lasted a long time for me, like 3/4 years. In reality battles are copying someone's prescribed fit, click a direction to align, letting your squad leader warp you. Eventually you might actually get a fight, which consists entirely of clicking the first name on an alphabetically sorted list and pressing F1. There's no skill, only the adrenaline rush of losing something you spent 2 weeks grinding for. And don't forget, you spend 2 hours or even days between each of these battles waiting to even start the fight. The big contradiction in Eve is that the thrill comes from permadeath, but it's only a thrill because the grinding is onerous. If everyone had infinite isk, no-one would play it because the fundamental combat gameplay is super boring.
  - yuubi 9y ago
    Anything left in space will likely be destroyed or stolen. Anything in stations (ships, parts, materials, etc) and your cash will still be where you left them. If that's a player-owned station that changed hands while you were out, or you get kicked from corp for inactivity, you won't be able to dock to get at them, but you can try to firesale them (post a contract offer to sell the lot cheap), and likely someone with access to the station will buy. Often people who are leaving will either have their assets moved somewhere they'll certainly have access to later or just liquidate (generally on better than firesale terms). Citadels (like the keepstar that changed hands) work differently: you can get everything in a citadel moved to the nearest suitable npc station at the cost of 15% of its value and a 20-day wait, worst case (google "eve asset safety" for the full details).
Cthulhu_ 9y ago
Depends. The top 1% are playing political games, beyond even spreadsheets. A percentage finds the logistics part fun, handling excel sheets and resources and production, either for their own gains or that of their corporation or alliance. Another percentage goes for the pvp, dealing with control of their spaceship, tactics, the meta of their ship and equipment vs that of their opponents. There's a lot to this game and it's not just spreadsheets, that's only a percentage of the game.
- TheRealDunkirk 9y ago
  > The top 1% are playing political games This is the thing that absolutely flummoxes me about the "game." Most gamers are geeks, but most geeks I've known into have little patience for political games. Yet, here's one of the most-successful and longest-running MMOPG's, and it's -- from what I can gather -- almost entirely political. I just can't wrap my head around it. I even have a hard time reading these post-mortems. The whole business seems to cater to some sub-sub-sub category of geek that doesn't lie in the direction of Myers-Briggs IN?? types. Does anyone know what those types might be? (All discussion of the usefulness or accuracy of these categories aside.)
  - dmoy 9y ago
    MMOs often have alliances and political intrigue. It's not just Eve, though Eve definitely takes the cake. I've played n>2 different MMOs where there's a large cohort of politically savvy players pulling the strings. Sometimes it's just out of necessity - if you want the coolest stuff in the game you have to organize groups because that's how the game is set up. So by definition it filters success towards those that organize bigger and better alliances.
  - nmeofthestate 9y ago
    Think of open source controversies - I reckon there are plenty of geeks with the will to power.
JWLong 9y ago
I have had a metric fuckton of fun, in my four year career. I've rarely dealt with politics, and only used a spreadsheet, once (so far). Mostly, I just get drunk on a Friday night, with buddies, and we go blow shit up.
mcv 9y ago
I think it's especially the top that is playing Excell spreadsheets. That's what comes with controlling big corporations and alliances, I suspect.

myst 9y ago

It is not the biggest.

forsakenkraken 9y ago
Which one is bigger then? This is around 1.4 trillion. I don't think anyone has gone much past a trillion in the past.
- thoth 9y ago
  If you take into account inflation, there is an argument for previous heists being larger... IIRC. Check out http://nosygamer.blogspot.com/2017/09/did-judge-really-pull-off-biggest-heist.html http://nosygamer.blogspot.com/2017/09/did-judge-really-pull-...

dagenleg 9y ago

It seems to me that the game turned out to be most famous Icelandic export product by far. That's pretty cute.

lagadu 9y ago
Well Bjork is more well known but Eve is worth more, income-wise :) IIRC Iceland's largest export is aluminum.
- philsnow 9y ago
  IIRC this is not because Iceland has particularly rich stores of aluminum ore, but rather because refining aluminum ore into usable aluminum metal is energy-intensive and Iceland has abundant geothermal energy resources. So they import ore and export metal.
- meheleventyone 9y ago
  Depending on what you measure the largest export of a single product is raw aluminum but industry wise fishing products as a whole are still a larger proportion. Also depending on how you want to classify it both are eclipsed by tourism right now.
- gardarh 9y ago
  It's actually fish, aluminum being a close second: http://px.hagstofa.is/pxen/pxweb/en/Efnahagur/Efnahagur__utanrikisverslun__3_voruthjonusta__voruthjonusta/UTA05003.px http://px.hagstofa.is/pxen/pxweb/en/Efnahagur/Efnahagur__uta... To answer child, the type of electricity production is split 70 hydro/30 geothermal.
- gaius 9y ago
  They have a big mayonnaise industry too, or did when I was there 15 years ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

torgoguys 9y ago

I've never played EVE but have read a bit here and there about it, and while I have no interest in playing, the epic stories that come out of it fascinate me. Is there a good place to go to find more?

lagadu 9y ago
There's an excellent book that covers some of the larger conflicts between ~2004 and 2009 called Empires of Eve[0]. As someone who was intimately involved with nearly everything the book describes, I recommend it. [0] http://empiresofeve.com/ http://empiresofeve.com/
- FreezerburnV 9y ago
  Even as someone who wasn't intimately involved in everything, and was only around to see some of those things from a distance, that book is still FASCINATING. I also highly recommend it.
gcp 9y ago
imperium.news and /r/eve The metagame of Eve is such that you can't really find objective reporting, though. It extends far beyond the game.

tudorw 9y ago

If I had a life to spare, I'd play EVE... I'd love to watch some kind of weekly news round up, is there anything like that?

gcp 9y ago
imperium.news As explained elsewhere, don't expect to find 100% objective reporting anywhere.
- tudorw 9y ago
  thanks to all, and the heads up, I guess I don't expect 100% objective reporting in the real world either ;)
- thg 9y ago
  > don't expect to find 100% objective reporting anywhere. Especially not there. imperium.news is a propaganda website first and a news website second.
JWLong 9y ago
https://crossingzebras.com/ https://crossingzebras.com/ is a decent source
- rl3 9y ago
  Any idea what in-game entity is behind that? I've been out of the loop. I know Imperium.news used to be The Mittani and is basically a propaganda outlet for Goonswarm's power bloc. Likewise evenews24.com at least used to be under the control of NC./PL as a more subtle propaganda outlet, but I've no idea what its deal is today. I have to admit that when out-of-game news sites serve as a mechanism of information warfare, it speaks very well of EVE's metagame.
  - JWLong 9y ago
    Then you'll be disappointed to know that crossing zebras appears to be the least interesting of them all. :P The founders: Xander Phoena, Niden, and Jeg Elsker hail from different groups. The corp, Zebra Corp, that the rag gets its name from, has been a part of several different major alliances, ranging from CO2, to Goonswarm, but doesn't appear to have any bearing on the reporting, itself.

lagadu 9y ago

This isn't the biggest by any stretch of the imagination.

Lorin 9y ago
The citadel is the biggest player owned object in the Eve universe, right? Maybe that's what they meant by biggest.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- lagadu 9y ago
  It is but it's value with fittings is only ~300 billion isk (the eve currency) which isn't that much when we're talking isk at the alliance level.
  - forsakenkraken 9y ago
    It's the biggest. Rough value of the alliance wallet, srp program and all the citadels (not just the keepstar) is about 1.4 trillion. And yes, the Keepstar is the biggest of the citadels (the smaller ones are Fortizars and Astrahauses).
    - lagadu 9y ago
      That's nothing compared to Haargoth's damage, back in 2009 or Kartoon's. Hell we've had single dudes do single corp thefts for more than that.

kensai 9y ago

I really like these Eve stories that show off the worse of humanity! They portray a reality where there are relatively few consequences for the human, so huge risks might be undertaken. If you die, your avatar has simply died. OK, you might have invested literally months-years into forming it, but still it's not the physical unique you. You can always create a new sock puppet to rule the world.

busterarm 9y ago
I liken it more to playing a game like Diplomacy. It's a sandbox that gives you a safe place to RP some really dastardly, evil shit. If everyone has a level head, you can go and enjoy a beer together afterwards and start over.
- forsakenkraken 9y ago
  Yes, but in this instance he's taken assets that take a very long time to build up and left the alliance in a position which they're going to find very hard to come back from. I'm not sure many people will keep a level head there.
Cthulhu_ 9y ago
> but still it's not the physical unique you. Well, the article does say that the victim in this case wanted the perpetrator's name and address and voiced a threat in his direction - things like this can seriously escalate. There have been people killed over events happening in or around video games.
- rhaps0dy 9y ago
  For example this: https://www.engadget.com/2008/01/20/lineage-ii-clan-rivalry-ends-in-real-life-murder/ https://www.engadget.com/2008/01/20/lineage-ii-clan-rivalry-... .

mrdmnd 9y ago

I don't play EVE because there are already enough demands on my time, but damned if this commercial (entirely done with voice comms) hasn't come close to pushing me over the edge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdfFnTt2UT0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdfFnTt2UT0

murderfs 9y ago
This is a more realistic version, IMO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmS9vcVNr5A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmS9vcVNr5A
- corobo 9y ago
  GP "Oh man that looks so awesome!" Parent: "I'll stick to solitaire" The idea behind Eve is extremely appealing but damn if I'm not just done with people screaming into a microphone. I'll stick to reading the postmortems after interesting things happen
  - Anderkent 9y ago
    I believe there's interesting gameplay in smaller groups, without all the screaming, but yeah, large conflicts are fun to read about and not necessarily fun to play.
  - Mithaldu 9y ago
    The point you're missing, and what makes this funny, is that this is actually super rare. This isn't Call of Duty, you don't have children yelling random curse words at you while tea-bagging you. Voice comms in Eve is almost exclusively between allies you've been together with for a long time. As such, things getting loud is always either extremely exceptional, or fitting and unsurprising to the context. Both of these videos are accurate, and while the second one does happen, the former is the actual norm.
  - pavel_lishin 9y ago
    > damn if I'm not just done with people screaming into a microphone. Aside from the huge time-sink that's involved in any MMO, I mostly don't want to have to have a part-time job playing politics. That's what kills it for me; I love that Eve Online exists, but I have zero interest whatsoever building a whole other parallel set of friendships, alliances, etc. outside of my current life. Even if they were the nicest antithesis of League of Legends chat, I just don't have the emotional energy to put into it.

kensai 9y ago

I wonder if multi-sig contracts (not necessarily through blockchain) would preclude such incidents in the future. Concentrating so much power to a single person, inevitably makes for such "Little Finger" plays with devastating effects for everyone involved. I am watching the video of it all now here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOdXie85VX8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOdXie85VX8

rl3 9y ago

It's nice to see treachery is alive and well in EVE. I started playing EVE just prior to the Trinity expansion release in 2008, and played up until 2013. During that time I was fortunate to watch the game evolve in so many fantastic ways (walking in stations aside). I owe an unbelievable amount of fond memories to the game, most of which involved treachery (albiet on a somewhat smaller scale). That said, many of the changes in recent years have left a bad taste in my mouth. For example: Aurum, an in-game currency used to purchase items from the "New Eden Store", such as ship skins and clothing. Radical changes to character progression in the form of skill injectors. Radical changes to the PLEX system, as well as F2P. Innumerable changes to core game mechanics. Not all of these changes are necessarily bad, but they do tend to foster almost a weird sense of alienation among long-time players, especially inactives. Nobody I know really plays anymore, and it's not because they lack the time. There's this mutual feeling that the game kind of lost its way some years back, and that the golden age is over. That its soul is gone, or at least waning. I don't know how true that sentiment is, but it certainly feels that way. Of course, it's always possible we're just a bunch of really biased bittervets. It is true that CCP has had an incredible amount of missteps in the past (walking in stations, Dust 514, vampire game), and that they've inevitably had a lot of turnover in their core talent. Despite all that, EVE is still alive, which in and of itself is impressive. From a technology and art standpoint, the game is arguably better than ever right now. I just can't shake the feeling that it's stuck in an evolutionary treadmill of sorts, where things are changed just for the sake of change, and not pursuant to a strong overarching ideal or vision that was present in the earlier days of CCP. On the bright side, at least Star Citizen has no hope of killing EVE. Things such as lifetime insurance are wholly antithetical to the ideal that EVE represents. Namely: you don't get an adrenaline rush flying something expensive if you know there's zero risk involved. Elite: Dangerous (in my opinion) had the opportunity to kill both games, and failed only due to its unfortunate choice of core gameplay mechanics and P2P networking model. Four years ago it had the most advanced UI/UX of any game in existence, and arguably it still does today. Incredible artistic and technical production values unfortunately can't save a game if it has no soul.

s_kilk 9y ago
> I just can't shake the feeling that it's stuck in an evolutionary treadmill of sorts, where things are changed just for the sake of change, and not pursuant to a strong overarching ideal or vision that was present in the earlier days of CCP. I got the impression that the recent-ish sovereignty changes were enacted with some grander vision in mind, but then again I've been inactive for a while so idk.

nottorp 9y ago

The way I see it, they abused their position in the CSM for in game advantages. When one random player betrays another, that's fine. This wouldn't have happened if they weren't on the CSM though, which is something out of game. They should be permanently banned from both the game and their CSM positions instead of being made heroes.

codeulike 9y ago
Eve is all about the meta-game, real world espionage and shenanigans often happens. Its all unofficial but its kind of the unique selling point of Eve really.
- wolco 9y ago
  Not sure why the one leader was banned trying to get real world information if one of the the selling point is about interacting outside of the game as well. Why wouldn't it be perfectly valid to attempt to scare or convince this guy in real life to give back the loot. It feels like it should be part of the game. Bonus points for getting someone fired or sleeping with someone's sister.
  - wlll 9y ago
    There's levels. Lying to get access to a groups private information and plans to gain a competitive advantage (spying in other words) is one thing, attempting to dox someone because you've threatened to cut off their hands is another.
JWLong 9y ago
CSM positions do not appear to have been abused. Not sure where you're getting this information. The fact that Judge was a CSM member is almost tangential to the whole story.
- nottorp 9y ago
  Article says they were both CSM members and that the turning happened due to face to face conversations while they were in Iceland on CCP's dime. Would they have been on friendly enough terms to pull this off if they weren't meeting regularly due to being on the CSM? I don't think so...

cellover 9y ago

This article is more immersive listening to the latest EVE track posted on Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/ccpgames/eve-online-redesigned-stars https://soundcloud.com/ccpgames/eve-online-redesigned-stars

bsder 9y ago

Goonswarm strikes again! RIP: vilerat. Hope you're somewhere laughing your ass off about this knowing that your legacy lives on.

forsakenkraken 9y ago
I don't really think we had that much to do with it. As much as I find it kinda funny. I feel sorry for the line members tho. When The Judge said he didn't mean to screw over line members, I don't know how he said that with a straight face.

forgingahead 9y ago

For current and past Eve players: How does Eve compare to the glory days of Ultima Online (1997-1998)? I've always wanted to try another MMO with the same level of freedom and consequence as early UO. Is Eve worth a try or are they just too different to compare?

forsakenkraken 9y ago
I've never played UO, but if it's freedom and consequence you want then EvE is what you want to try.
lflux 9y ago
The early game designers and devs of EVE all came, unsurprisingly, from an UO and Elite background

hellofunk 9y ago

I must be completely out of touch, because I could not make heads or tails of nearly any word in this article. In fact, I'm so out of touch, I couldn't tell if I was reading a real news item or a piece of short fiction. Damn there some areas of the tech scene that are as foreign to me as, say, hitching a tent along the Antarctic coast.

wil421 9y ago
I wouldn't consider this the tech scene. More like the gaming scene. A fun read but having never played Eve I am lost. Sounds like a good time though.
rkangel 9y ago
Short version (from the point of view of an outsider to the events): During the last big large scale conflict, an alliance called CO2 defected from its parent coalition The Imperium to the other side. This was a big loss to the Imperium - CO2 were one of their larger and better groups of fighters. It turned the tide of the war and the Imperium were left with emnity towards CO2 due to their betrayal. In the time since then, Gigx who runs CO2 has (among other things) been annoying people inside and outside his alliance over various diplomatic incidents. One of those was TheJudge who was a leader in CO2 (but subordinate to gigx). Simultaneously TheJudge was being slowly talked into betraying CO2 by a couple members of the Imperium. This was significantly helped by the three of them being on a player elected group of representatives to the developers, that meets in person a few times a year. TheJudge had enough power and control over the alliance and its assets that when he eventually decided to actually jump ship, he could sell off ships, space stations ('citadels') and other expensive things owned by the alliance. The Imperium are taking credit for this betrayal - they consider it 'revenge'. Up to now this is all classic Eve - betrayal by people you trust. The postscript is less nice though: gigx in a moment of anger asked in in game chat for real life contact details for TheJudge so that he could 'cut off his hands'. This is obviously not OK and CCP banned gigx permanently. This has the side-effect of putting the final nail in the CO2 coffin.
- hellofunk 9y ago
  Who created this war, is it part of the initial game or are these "societies" forming ad-hoc by the players and making wars between them?

vadansky 9y ago

Is it too late to start playing EVE? Every time I hear about these great events it seems like it's the last and the game is over now.

0xJRS 9y ago
I just started ~2 months ago, the learning curve is high but YouTube is your friend.
kstrauser 9y ago
Jump in! Disclaimer: you will die. Lots. The adage is "don't fly what you can't afford to lose". There's no equivalent of "this is my special invulnerable armor and the sword of my great-grandfather", because when someone inevitably comes along and blows you up, it'll be their special invulnerable armor etc. Also, the concepts of fraud, scams, and so on are unusual in Eve in that they're actively encouraged, or at least explicitly tolerated (with few exceptions, like you can't claim to be an official representative of the game's publisher). This is known as "adding content". As in, if you complain that user Foo defrauded you out of a few hundred dollars of in-game currency, the response will almost certainly be along the lines of "wow, Foo added a lot of content to your game, huh! You should thank them for it. You can't get that kind of entertainment from an NPC, can you?" This fosters a certain level of paranoia.
- FreezerburnV 9y ago
  Based on the number of incredibly clever scams that exist, extreme paranoia is correct. If something looks too good to be true, it is VERY likely to be a scam. (e.g.: there are scams built around selling an item for a price that is lower than a buy order somewhere, seemingly promising free money, but when you attempt to sell the expensive item, it'll get rejected due to some quirks in how some systems interact)
  - chii 9y ago
    > get rejected due to some quirks in how some systems interac i dont think that works anymore now? Not sure...but it's human nature to scam! There's been so many pyramid schemes it's not funny!

KON_Air 9y ago

I every time I heard about EvE the image of it being "a mass of bickering old couples locked inside a large room with alliances forming and dissolving constantly" strengthens.

j_s 9y ago

This event was discussed yesterday though the article focused on a completely different aspect of the story, with much less detail: Eve Online alliance leader banned after threatening to cut off betrayer's hands | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15232168 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15232168 > thg: Classic gigX.. Not the first time he's got a "permanent" ban for making real life threats. > xiaodown's personal account: I was sitting on coms when this all went down https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15232910 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15232910 > xiaodown: He ... has a history. Plus, I mean, trying to get out-of-game details like address/name is a big no-no in Eve

dsfyu404ed 9y ago

Can we get a TL;DR? (I read the article and the relationships between the parties vs events vs timeline is still confusing)

hyperbovine 9y ago

What?

technofiend 9y ago

Eve is an excellent example of a game with mostly user-supplied content in a loose framework. The game supplies a physics engine and basic rules for game components, but beyond that it is an open world. This is both a strength and a weakness: the game itself isn't that interesting or challenging without interacting with other people. But you can't really see all the game's content because so much territory is controlled by hostile teams. So unless you have nerves of steel and great skills to fly stealthed, you'll probably never see Russian-controlled Drone Regions, for example. It would be cool to have a second shard of this universe in "care bear" mode that didn't allow player-vs-player (PVP) so that people could appreciate all the content that CCP created. It might also create pressure on CCP to create more interesting non-player-dependent mechanics and content in the game.

chii 9y ago
> "care bear" mode that didn't allow player-vs-player (PVP) that would not be a game of EVE. It would be World of Warcraft, but in space. And not a particularly good one either. The uniqueness of EVE _is_ the free-form, non-consensual PVP. Just like in real life, you cannot say no to being mugged, or ganged upon. When making friends, you cannot really know to trust them, and if you do find trust worthy friends, you friend them for life.
- technofiend 9y ago
  >The uniqueness of EVE _is_ the free-form, non-consensual PVP. It's just another bit in a database and only one aspect of the game. Sure, there are 1,000 experiences in Eve you'll never get anywhere else - from spinning wormholes trying to find a dread enemy, to station spinning out of utter boredom because your station is bubbled to hell and back. However it's simply not possible to see all the content on-offer in the game because PVP precludes it. I realize for some people the idea of EVE without PVP is inconceivable and that's fine, I'm just saying it's too bad because it would be fun to be able to see all of the game and enjoy other aspects of it that are suppressed by the ever present threat of PVP.
  - 9y ago

MrZongle2 9y ago

I've read a lot about betrayals in Eve, how much ISK are stolen and lost here or there, and tales of revenge. Does anybody actually have fun in this game? Like, simple this-is-a-fun-game-and-I-am-having-fun-at-the-moment fun?

dave7 9y ago
Lots do, yes. You make your own fun. Personally I had great times studying the market and finding / executing (entirely on my own) new manufacturing chains, attempting to gain an ever increasing margin and profit-to-effort ratio! But to each their own :)

thatonechad 9y ago

Sounds like anyone who plays this game needs to get a life.

abiox 9y ago

i feel like the only thing i hear about with respect to eve is 'betrayals' and 'theft'. is there anything else to the game? is there anything else to do besides steal?

Synaesthesia 9y ago
Killing and blowing stuff up I suppose. That’s most video games anyway. Some strategy too.
luminiferous 9y ago
Don't forget Ponzi schemes! Honestly there's a lot to do in EvE, since the economy is entirely player-run. You can be a miner, mining raw materials. You can be a trader, running arbitrage between different stations trying to turn a quick buck. You can be a pirate, preying on either of the previously mentioned roles. You can be a manufacturer, creating either intermediate goods or finished products for the open market. You can be a (different kind of) trader, buying and selling commodities, trying to time the market, etc. (This is where the space spreadsheets meme mostly comes from.) You can go out "ratting", finding and killing NPCs for goods and money. And, of course, you can go join (or start!) a corporation (guild) and own a portion of nullsec (full PvP) space, fighting with, allying with, and betraying other player corps for power and influence over nullsec. The reason you only hear about betrayals and theft are because that's what is the most interesting to write/read about with regards to EvE. While it's really cool, conceptually, that you can make a living in this game by participating in this massive player run economy, you're not going to find a lot of articles about people spending hours of their life mining internet asteroids and occasionally getting ganked by pirates.

_e 9y ago

I hope that someone who knows "gigx" in real life checks in on him. It is safe to assume that he spent a significant amount of time playing Eve to reach the level that he did. Yes, he got drunk on power and it pissed people off. I would bet that if a neurologist were monitoring his brain activity before the coup and during the coup it would be very similar to a person going through a really bad breakup, a very disturbing event or going cold turkey on a bad addiction. Hopefully what happened in Eve doesn't spill over into gigx's personal life for the worse.

stonewhite 9y ago

American ambassador assasinated in Libya, Sean Smith was also a high ranking officer at Goonfleet corp and was playing it for 6 years! A game that is able to attract these profiles is doing something very right.

qohen 9y ago
I, and some others, posted stuff about him further down this thread, for those who might be interested -- you can click the link [0] to get there directly or just keep scrolling through this thread. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15246021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15246021

HirojaShibe 9y ago

Okay, when is there going to be an in depth documentary series about EVE, I mean Ken Burns Style but maybe a couple of season because so much has gone in this space. Constantly every year I read or hear about some EPIC Battle/Betrayal going on in this little realm of the gaming world.