Jester has two great posts up today, although about two very different subjects.
The first, and the one I’ll be brief about, is about an example of someone scamming a player in EVE. Typical EVE stuff right? Not exactly, due to the extent of the scam and the intention behind it (extreme grief rather than gain). Now I’ve said here before I don’t feel a lot of pity for such victims. Anyone who hands over all of their stuff for the promise of having it double is looking for a shortcut and hasn’t learned the ‘no free lunch’ lesson in life.
But victim aside, I also don’t understand why companies don’t instantly ban any player in their game who cons people to such lengths. The average market scam? All fine and good; you are separating a fool from his money in a game. But this wasn’t about that, and such players add nothing to your game. EVE isn’t a democracy; CCP can (and should) play god and act. As Jester points out, there is a difference from positive exposure from something like the Guiding Hand Social Club scam, and the negative exposure from something like this. From a business perspective, such a player is costing you more than he is worth, make the correct business decision and remove them.
Moving beyond just this example, it’s never made sense to me why companies are often so reluctant to ban a player. Again, MMOs aren’t a democracy or a court of law, where someone must be proven guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. Ban first, answer questions later. Anyone caught incorrectly can always be credited for the mistake, but unless you have terrible tools to look into such things, most of the time you should be banning someone who did something ban-worthy. Again, the devs are gods in these worlds; they should have access and records of everything and come to the correct conclusion.
A single bad apple costs you countless accounts, and it’s nonsense that companies spend so much time and effort trying to bring in new players, and seemingly so little in removing those who drive those hard-fought accounts away.
Hardcore Casual 
I never really felt like MMOs didnt hand out bans easily. Maybe it is different now that there is so much money involved and most mainstream MMOs make it near impossible to scam people now unless it is shear stupidity on the victim. I remember getting banned/suspended from UO and EQ multiple and Shadowbane once. I was a regularly inmate at GM jail heh
I still remember the moment I decided to quit WoW and it was related to getting screwed by another player. Such experiences have a way of shattering whatever illusion (or delusion) you might be under and view the whole game in a negative light.
For example, I used to be of the opinion that cascading old content by making it easier down to the casual players was a good thing. The problem is that this shifts certain fights from ones you need to do with your core group to ones that people make time for when they can (even if it’s in a PUG).
I won’t say that everyone’s experience here is equal, but my experience was that if you had a best in slot drop that only came from one of these fights, you end up doing some old content with a PUG even though you and the core group is well beyond it.
I got screwed over three times in as many weeks in such a group and my whole outlook started to change. It wasn’t the only reason I left, but it’s actually the reason I’ve never bothered to return.
I wish games treated people more like adults,
Games need social norms. What that norm is differs per game, but it’s not something IMO that you can completely codify via rules. Many of our laws in society are there simply because they need to be for our legal system to operate. They aren’t there because people need them to know the difference between right and wrong. So in a game where the rule of law is the game gods, you just don’t need to define every little infraction. What we need is a broader definition of what the social norm is. If you are too dumb to figure out what’s right and wrong within the norm as stated by the game moderators, well that’s tough, welcome to the real world.
I don’t believe something like this will actually ever happen. We simply have too many players who are not adults, and expect someone to tell them what to do in every situation, instead of thinking for themselves. Just look at how many people now live at home until their late 20’s, compared to 20 years ago. The number of players who truly are not adults in the real sense of the word, is quite large.
“The average market scam? All fine and good; you are separating a fool from his money in a game. But this wasn’t about that, and such players add nothing to your game.”
In my experience, a very large percentage of scammers do it for the ‘tears’. Among Jita scammers, this is lower; among elaborate awoxers who steal the entire assets of corps, this is quite high.
I guess I’m not seeing your argument, because I’ve done some research into how ganking/scamming organizations work, and it’s all about tear gathering. Erotica1 is better at tear gathering than most people; normally people aren’t banned simply for being better at something in MMOs than everyone else. Usually the game company makes the activity itself illegal, and then bans anyone who does it, not just the few who are standouts, right? So, if you really want to ban tear gathering,are you going to end up banning all kinds of ganking/scamming/awoxing, or all your going to be able to find a way to separate out the tear gatherers from those doing it simply for isk?
If you have a practical way for CCP to change their rules, I’d love to see it. If you’re going to just say “no, Erotica1 is a clear outlier, there’s no need for new rules”, then I’m going to disagree, and say that there is a large swathe of people on the continuum leading up to E1, he’s not really an outlier at all, he’s just at the end of the bell curve.
Ripard is absolutely frothing at the mouth over this, introducing all kinds of crazy arguments into the debate, his main argument that he’s repeated 4-5 times by now is “Tell the story to your mother, let her be the neutral arbiter.” If mothers were the arbiters, MMOs wouldn’t exist at all and we’d be volunteering at animal shelters instead.
I’m quite open to the possibility that the rules should be changed to ban Erotica’s behavior; I just want to see concrete proposals for such rule changes. If CCP simply bans him without explanation, it would send a clear message to all scammers that any kind of tear harvesting puts you in danger of perma-account ban; which has a similar effect to simply banning tear harvesting concretely but with the added negative connotations of painting CCP as arbitrary and capricious.
p.s. “But this wasn’t about that, and such players add nothing to your game.”
The obvious reply to this is: Eve’s principal advertisement, which has been popping up in my browser for the last several years, reads: “EVE: Be the Villain.” If CCP is going to ban grief play, the first thing they need to do, even before codifying the changes in formal rule changes to the TOS, is to remove that advertisement from heavy rotation.
“Restaurants don’t have a formal “behavior” policy, but if I stand up in the middle of dinner and start shouting obscenities at other customers, I’m going to be asked to leave the restaurant.”
That’s against the law, even in public spaces. Anyway, if you start shooting other people in a restaurant, you’d go to jail, EVE is all about shooting other people. A comparison to a restaurant needs a lot more detail, to avoid that being the simple rejoinder.
“Everyone else understands EXACTLY why the guy was banned.”
He wasn’t banned.
“The cold calculated reality is that if a player is toxic enough to cost you other paying customers, the lesser evil is to just ban the toxic player even if it seems arbitrary and capricious.”
There are hundreds/thousands of toxic players in EVE, that’s what happens when your advertising slogan is “be the villain”, and you don’t ban scamming. Because CCP has spent the last 10 years advertising EVE as a toxic-friendly game, they owe those toxic players the courtesy of a warning, that they, hypothetically speaking, are making EVE no longer toxic-friendly–speaking hypothetically because it hasn’t happened yet. I personally don’t scam/taunt, but I’d be a bit sad to see those toxic players go, they serve the role of villains in the game, just like the advertisement says. We all know that the NPC villains in EVE aren’t very interesting.
sorry, threading fail
My reply was intended as a more general response rather than this specific situation. We encounter situations all the time where people make decisions and judgement calls about our fate that can be viewed as arbitrary and capricious. That may seem unfair, but it’s also largely irrelevant.
Is the issue just that you don’t want CCP to be seen as arbitrary and capricious? Why? Because it’s unfair? Or unjust?
Real life isn’t fair. Random, sudden, unaccountable things occur all the time in our daily lives. People are accustomed to dealing with arbitrary and capricious things. We rage at them, sure, but we also regularly cope with such things.
And in this case, it’s not really unaccountable even if there isn’t a formal policy against such things. Restaurants don’t have a formal “behavior” policy, but if I stand up in the middle of dinner and start shouting obscenities at other customers, I’m going to be asked to leave the restaurant.
The cold calculated reality is that if a player is toxic enough to cost you other paying customers, the lesser evil is to just ban the toxic player even if it seems arbitrary and capricious.
And honestly, it only actually seems arbitrary and capricious to those considering similar type of behavior. Everyone else understands EXACTLY why the guy was banned.
Let me fill you in on a bit more of the details here. Erotica1 has been doing this for years. CCP knows all about it, he’s quite EVE-famous. If CCP wanted to do anything about it, they should have quite simply told him to stop years ago.
This week, Jester/Ripard, the person who got the most (or second most?) votes in the CSM elections, and the game’s most popular blogger; who CCP paid multiple times to fly to Iceland and meet with devs about improving EVE, has created a shitstorm about Erotica, damaging the game’s public image to pressure CCP into making changes/taking actions that he clearly was unable to get them to do despite talking to senior devs from CCP on mumble nearly daily. The teamspeak recording Jester focuses on happened quite some time ago, IIRC–and to be fair and balanced, is not the most ‘evil’ thing Erotica has ever done, just the one Jester got ahold of.
If CCP bans Erotica now, they’ll be setting a precedent that famous bloggers can get people banned by starting shitstorms, a precedent that will serve CCP very poorly in the years to come.
This is a good point. Thanks for the context. My POV is that CCP should do whatever they must do to keep the most number of players subscribed.
If that’s banning a guy because a blogger created a controversy and people are quitting over it, then ban Erotica and send the message your subscribers want to hear.
Unfair as that is, there are plenty of real-life examples of a journalist, reporter, lobbyist, etc bringing a lot of attention and scrutiny to a situation to create change. People get fired in real-life all the time over such scandals.
That said, I tend to think that people won’t unsubscribe over it, so the best possible action by CCP is likely to just ignore it.
” My POV is that CCP should do whatever they must do to keep the most number of players subscribed.”
I agree; I don’t know what that is.
My viewpoint is that whatever they decide, should be done via rules changes, and done with careful deliberation and forethought, not as a hasty reaction to a shitstorm.
Ripard/Jester has made a number of good posts on the subject in the past, advocating abandoning the “be the villain” approach, which were somewhat convincing but I could see the other perspective as well. When he’s being emotional (read: angry), the quality of his arguments goes way down, and he starts (literally) talking about your mother.
I’m not sure there’s one right answer, there can be good arguments for staying in the current niche, or trying to expand to a larger audience, in terms of profitability. It does seem like CCP is trying to thread the needle and expand the audience without alienating their core audience, so far successfully, but this example illustrates the danger there. Ideally there’d be more sandbox MMO’s out there, so that people could choose between both options.
IMO, the safe road is to do nothing and maintain the status quo. Will Jester unsubscribe? No. And neither will most of the people ranting about the issue. Therefore reacting to the problem to appease the Jester’s of the world gains CCP very little.
The counter-argument raised here is that CCP should act rationally to protect their business interests. To quote Syn, “From a business perspective, such a player is costing you more than he is worth, make the correct business decision and remove them.”
How many players have quit the game directly due to the toxic player’s actions? How many players have been scared away because of such negative PR stories?
That said, I think your right — rules of some sort and a reversal of the marketing approach are more appropriate reactions. Banning one shark when thousands of sharks are still swimming the waters is not going to effect any significant change (real or perceived).
Add to the fact that EVE advertises “be the villain” as their slogan, the fact that for the vast majority of the years that I’ve been playing EVE, hi and lowsec have been filled with concord billboards featuring Erotica1’s face plastered all over them, with the caption “New Eden’s Most Wanted”. CCP hasn’t just tacitly allowed Erotica’s assumption of the villain role they advertise, they have celebrated it across their entire game universe. If you are going to put villainy on a pedestal, then you can’t simply remove someone from your game for being a villain, without looking like a massive hypocrite–so CCP needs to change their rules, if they want to take action here–which, again, is not a given.
HTFU fails as justification for the kind of sadism and harassment Jester was posting about. I don’t need to challenge other players to write proposals. If CCP isn’t yet ready to admit that Erotica 1 is a cancer on the community, it’s still CCP’s problem to deal with. What’re you gonna do, CCP? Ignore it until someone dies in real life?
That was probably the plan yea, ignore it until someone dies in real life or until Jester makes a big enough shitstorm that it starts getting picked up by the mainstream media.
This isn’t that uncommon really, I just saw a quote about the missing flight 370 an hour saying that the airlines are a blood on the ground industry, they won’t revamp safety issues until someone dies. Not to be callous, but there are a lot of industries that work like that, they just usually aren’t honest enough to admit it.
Your talking about the Sohkar scam. One of the funniest things I have listened to in EVE Online. I only wish I was there to participate. It certainly surpassed our previous tear-filled fest when we brought Mine Teck into our Teamspeak server (https://soundcloud.com/drtylereve/mineteck20130301). I have to say that was one of my proudest achievements in EVE as I and a fellow New Order corpmate instigated the Mine Teck ragefest.
I must say I have absolutely no sympathy for Sohkar. The guy was greedy and stupid in equal amounts. To allow himself to be lead on for over 2 hours is simply dumb. I am not even sure if it was ever confirmed he was an air traffic controller. I’d be scared if he was.
But its a slippery slope. If CCP were to ban such scamming where does it stop. Do we now ban miner ganking and bumping? Do we ban gate camps? Do we ban ingame lotteries? Do we ban stupid players from playing EVE?
“A single bad apple costs you countless accounts, and it’s nonsense that companies spend so much time and effort trying to bring in new players, and seemingly so little in removing those who drive those hard-fought accounts away.” -Syncaine
“I believe that such behavior is evil. I believe that Alexander “The Mittani” Gianturco is evil. I believe that the real person blogging under the name of Syncaine is evil. I believe that wanting to win over the opposing avatar is okay, but deliberately wanting the player behind the opposing avatar to be emotionally or physically hurt is evil. And because this wanting to hurt the *real* person behind the screen is a motivation of the *real* person committing those acts of ganking, harassment, and bullying, I do not believe in the excuse that somebody is just “playing evil”. You can have multiple identities, but not multiple sets of moral, unless you suffer from dissociative identity disorder.”-Tobold
In real life, everyone agrees when an apple is bad. You just look at it, and see. It’s tempting to want to apply that same standard to other players in virtual worlds, but it never seems to work out quite right.
And yes, I’m sorry for posting that yet again, I’m sure you’re tired of seeing it–but the entire quote applies, not just the one throwaway line as usual.
The above only works if you believe the scammer in question here isn’t costing CCP subscribers. Do you believe that?
Banning scammers would cost EVE a ton of subs, and could bring in a ton of new players. Banning only the most successful and/or notorious scammer would have a similar effect, but lesser. (I believe Erotica has scammed many hundreds of billions of ISK over the years, possibly more. If he’s not the most successful, he’s definitely at least the most notorious).
So, on balance, would it cost subs, or add them? I don’t know. If I thought I could answer questions like that with a high degree of certainty, I’d open my own gaming studio.
We’ll agree to disagree then. To me its pretty obvious this guy is a net negative for the game, which is why I’d remove him. No personal definition of evil required.
It’s pretty obvious, from seeing various asides from CCP devs and GMs over the past year, that a similar divide exists within CCP on the issue; where some devs are saying “yes, he’s a horrible villain, but EVE is big enough to include that, and where would we draw the line on this?”, and others are agreeing with you that he should be banned post-haste. On the outside, all we see to indicate that are little hints. e.g. from today “I’m well aware that that there’s opinion on both sides of the fence here that’s extremely strong, as I have my own opinions on this too. “–CCP Falcon
link to CCP falcon saying that: https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=4385887#post4385887
“To me its pretty obvious this guy is a net negative for the game, which is why I’d remove him”
Also, it’s possible to agree with the first half of that sentence, but not the second. Imagine a piece of land, with a toxic spill. If the toxic spill negatively impacts the value of the land by 3 million dollars, but the cost to remove the spill is 5 million dollars, then it’s not worth removing the toxic spill, even though it is unquestionably a net negative under either choice. It’s the same situation as when you’re looking at a criminal, you don’t just say “well, criminals are a net negative, so remove them”, you proceed according to the system of laws that the nation has in place, with liberties and protections not instituted to protect the criminals specifically, but to protect everyone. Then, people have been arguing, CCP isn’t a nation, so that doesn’t apply to them; but the calculus of costs/benefits applies to everyone. They are just switching the cost from the system of liberty/rules, to the cost of potential outrage for CCPs unilateral action.
This analogy holds pretty well, as the cry to remove him on moral grounds, irrespective of sub effects, is then analogous to government intervention due to the negative externalities of toxic spills. Those in favor of keeping him are then gamers who want to play in an apocalyptic wasteland filled with toxic spills. Perhaps I fit in that latter group, many of my favorite games from the 80’s were post-apocalyptic. Wasteland, Operation Overlord II, anyone?–but you don’t see me inviting him to my corp.
Again, my opinion is he is a net-negative to the game. If his removal costs 5m (additional lost subs) but his damage was only 3m (lost subs due to remaining), that wouldn’t be the case.
It costs CCP pennies to ban his account, and would result in more subs for EVE.
There is also no ‘slippery slope’ here. CCP is god. One day they can ban someone, the next day not ban someone for what you or someone else perceives as a similar thing. If that bothers anyone that much, they are free to leave the game.
Anyone leaving the game because this kind of player is removed, is also doing CCP a favor.
So we’re all evil but some are less evil than others. Great quotes BTW.
“It costs CCP pennies to ban his account, and would result in more subs for EVE.”
That’s certainly possible. If you think that is so, why do you think CCP hasn’t banned him already?
jesus, threading fails everywhere, if I make a wordpress account does that add an edit feature to commenting?
No editing I believe. I can as the author.
As for why he still has an account, I don’t think MMO companies in general are good about this kind of thing. When I was visiting Aventurine back in 2010, banning hackers was something we talked about, and basically they were more worried about a false accusation than getting all the hackers out asap. They have somewhat changed their stance on that now in DF:UW, but not banning cost them a ton of subscribers in DF1.
CCP has been successful in most areas, but this is an example of them failing IMO.
I also want to remind people that there are entire corps devoted to scamming people out of ISK and ships – for far larger amounts than what Sohkar lost. Psychotic Monk and his corpmates specialise in nothing else but griefing, awox’ing, and scamming. He even posts guides on how to do this on his blog. Yet Ripard Teg seems to conveniently forget about this well known scammer.
To be honest I see this as Ripard’s final farewell/hero action before he leaves the CSM. He wants to go out with a bang and make as big a noise as possible.
Do you not see a difference between someone scamming in-game, and someone dragging a victim of a con through two hours of public humiliation?
Monk regularly posts details of the scams on his website, which constitutes public humiliation lasting forever. Many other scammers do the same. Are you advocating that they all be banned?
No and it is splitting hairs. Whether you spent two hours convo in an ingame chat or via voice channel it was still the “victims” choice to be there. There are many forms of public humiliation in EVE Online and Teamspeak recordings are posted all the time.
This is why I find Ripard’s latest rant absolutely ridiculous especially with the “mother” comment. The victim in question actually threatened Erotica’s family (and later came back on and apologised).
Let’s not forget the greatest scam/spy network in EVE Online is run by none other than Alexander Gianturco (The Mittani). Of course it is in CCP’s best interests to promote this as it generates content for the sandbox. The game breeds this sort of gameplay so until CCP comes down with some ironclad rules (and they have had years to do this) nothing will change.
Oh and just to add for those with very short memories:
https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=86980
To summarise: assholes inhabit EVE in all forms, some are simply more open about being assholes. The game was built on catering to assholes. Let’s not start getting so preachy and righteous about something that CCP loves to promote.
It occurred to me that CCP may have another very valid reason for banning Erotica. Liability and legal issues.
#1 – ISK is similar to Bitcoins in that it’s a virtual currency that can be exchanged for a real world good (game time). As a result of ISK having a real-world value and it could be argued that “scamming” for ISK is a real-world crime. While that may seem like a stretch, consider that Mt Gox, the largest exchange for Bitcoins, was the victim of a massive theft of Bitcoins which resulted in them declaring bankruptcy. It’s not unrealistic to think that the same laws that will soon be created (or may already be created in some countries) could be relevant to ISK.
#2 – The victim was clearly cyber-bullied by any reasonable definition and there are already numerous laws (federal and state) offer protections that make this behavior illegal. While CCP is not the party doing the bullying, it could be argued that they are enabling the activity and not taking action after becoming aware of the illegal activity makes them liable. Again, while you might think that’s a stretch, there is plenty of legal precedent for a company being held liable for helping to continue facilitate illegal activity AFTER they were suitably informed.
It may not be in the EULA, but I think either of these reasons is just cause for CCP to ban the guy to minimize any potential liability they have in a future lawsuit.
Again though, they don’t NEED to give you a reason. They are not a governing body, they are god. Giving someone like this a reason isn’t necessary; they and everyone else would understand why he was banned.
They don’t need a reason. I meant it as more evidence as to why this is a smart business decision. If I’m CCP and I make decisions based on how they impact my pocketbook, how many players does this specific individual cost me?
You can’t blame him for EVE’s reputation — that’s perpetuated by a lot of people and as Rammstein points out, even embraced by CCP’s “Be a Villian” campaign.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe players like this cost CCP money — but the magnitude of the loss caused by just one individual is low when you consider the impact to the revenue stream through subscriptions.
But a liability in a lawsuit? That gets your attention – particularly if the emotional distress caused the person to take action that opened them up to a wrongful death lawsuit.
Or… The IRS said today that Bitcoin is property. If you are CCP, do you really want to open the door to a liable suit that places real-world value on ISK and all that entails? (i.e. taxes, criminal charges for theft, etc).
While I in no way condone what griefers do, I won’t play (and pay for) a game where operator (CCP in this case) is known for arbitrarily banning accounts for whatever reason.
It’s very simple — if they can ban arbitrarily, I won’t have any faith in my account being available the next day, so I won’t play.
My point is that it could be argued that what was done is illegal on two potential fronts. There is nothing arbitrary about banning someone over breaking the law or entangling you in a potential legal liability.
But there is [arbitrary banning].
Eve promotes its own ‘be a villain’ motto.
If they do, then they must be prepared to deal with consequences (including legal liability).
I don’t think there is much worry about that happening. CCP is notoriously inconsistent when it comes to policing its playerbase. Ever since the monocle incident they are very hesitant about pissing off their subscribers.
It would have to take some sort of legal action for them to actually do something.
I’m not really talking about Eve specifically.
I’m just saying that there *is* serious negative to arbitrarily banning people. In fact, I’m surprised I’m the first one to bring it up.
How many people won’t play / won’t pay because they feel unsure if they can count on their account being available tomorrow?
That fear to me is like the fear people have about drug tests. Are you using drugs? No, then wtf do you care if they test you? The less-than-lighting chance an error with the test happens and you have to explain yourself a little? Sorry, accepting that downside to the benefits gained.
I’m sorry, but there’s some serious disconnect here somewhere.
We are talking about *arbitrary banning* people.
Or, in your analogy, “there’s some test here that you need to pass and if you don’t pass, we’ll jail you, but we are not going to tell you what are we testing and what common foods can cause you to fail the test”.
No, removing this scum isn’t arbitrary. If he logged in tomorrow and found out he was perma-banned, he’d know exactly why.
Knowing after the fact is not the point.
It is important to be able to judge clearly whether your actions are bannable or not before you take an action.
What you’re suggesting is literally the same as banning most successful PvPers in a PvP game because the effect they have on other players morale might be a net negative for the company bottom line.
And to be 100% clear — I’m not even talking about this guy specifically.
I’m talking about your idea that game companies are gods and should ban people without ‘legal’ (as in e.g. agreed in TOS/rules) reason simply because they think that someone is net negative for the game.
My point is that I wouldn’t play such a game. I imagine I’m not alone. It may well be that arbitrary banning is going to be net negative in almost any circumstances because of this.
I am talking about this guy specifically, which is why this wouldn’t be an arbitrary banning. And CCP would be in the right to do it, anyone playing can be banned for any or no reason at any time; you agree to that when you click ‘accept’ on every EULA for an MMO.
Edit: Your line of thinking about banning top PvPers is silly, and I assume you know why.
Erotica1 is far more interesting than Deathwing, don’t you think? I have no interest in scamming, but one of my main reasons for playing EVE is that we can even have this discussion. If CCP would ban Erotica1 without warning or precedent, I would quit in protest. Still sure Erotica1 is a net negative?
Yes. People who defend someone like that being removed, either by CCP or by their own action, is a plus for the game.
I can tell you this will affect new player experience, i was thinking of subbing, but not now
If CCP do something about him i will reconsisder
I honestly don’t see the difference between this and so many other scam/grief stories that come out of EVE. Are we upset because they scammed a guy with an speech impediment? As soon as the guy hears that one of the guys is black (probably isn’t, but doesn’t matter) he never stops saying N***er. That might reduce your empathy for him.
In any case, it would be complete bullshit to ban someone for scamming when the rules specifically state CCP doesn’t take action against scammers and there is no precedent. If anything a rule change should be made to prevent this from happening in the future.
Anyway I challenge anyone to skip directly to 2:03:20 and not bust out laughing.
To be clear I would much prefer EVE if it had no scamming. I’m just against singling out one guy doing what many others are doing, except layering on a Dane Cook prank call. Change the rules and start banning them all, or don’t ban any. Stealing billions of isk that might have taken someone years to accumulate is a much bigger deal than a couple hours of this:
http://www.cc.com/video-clips/68i2h8/crank-yankers-phone-zoning
Hopefully his wife uninstalled everything but Goat Simulator
Everything after the 2 hour mark is amazing LOLZOZLZZOOZOOLLOLOL
What I find disturbing, even more than E1’s behavior, is the fact that so many people jump to his defense. Just go read the thread concerning this subject on the official forums. Hell, even a member of the CSM (Malcanis) is there defending the guy. Yikes.
Was the victim a moron? Yes.
Was it right for him to lose his in game assets? Yes.
Was it right for Erotica1 to drag him through a 2 hour humiliating and mentally tormenting process ‘just for laughs’? Fuck no.
This is the same as you getting stabbed while returning home and then have the police laughing in your face and calling you an idiot for being in that part of town.
Ans Syn is right, players like that are a net negative. Not only will I not be subbing to EVE, but I will be advising people to stay the hell away from it as well. I’m pretty certain that the majority of new EVE players sign up due to the epic battles that make the headlines, not for this sick crap.
I would like to offer what I believe is the reason for the 2+ hour humiliations. Erotica1 is extremely careful not to lie directly. Listen to the recording how he refuses to give a concrete statement to the effect of “sing 2 songs and I will pay up”. Instead he only says that he will pay if the victim has “full faith”, but never says for how long the victim needs to stay faithful. The multi-hour session is designed to last until the victim inevitably breaks down and loses faith, allowing E1 to keep the assets and his money without breaking his word. This legalese sense of personal honesty shows that E1 is a deeply disturbed individual, but I don’t think “tears” factor into his motivation.
You are deluding yourself.
A moron gets scammed by a WELL KNOWN isk doubler and scammer. Everyone is up in arms suddenly because Ripard Teg says so. Why is this suddenly such a big deal. This is the tip of the iceberg. Scams have been occurring in EVE for the last 10 years and much worse than this latest incident.
What I find amazing is Syncaine suddenly becoming an EVE carebear and even worrying about this.
“What I find amazing is Syncaine suddenly becoming an EVE carebear and even worrying about this.”
Bump. As I’ve said before, just put a parental advisory sticker graphic on the EVE login screen. “Welcome, this game is hardcore. Scammers and asshats abound. If they chat you, please right-click their name and block/ignore.” Nothing to see here.
As Chris said in the 3rd post from top, ” We simply have too many players who are not adults, and expect someone to tell them what to do in every situation…”
If they are this gullible, real life is 10x as hard. Morons in videogames need to go outside and get out of the basement. Like the guy goons bountied with 20 mining fleet alt accounts whining about his wife leaving him and how he was gonna suicide. Most of these losers have bigger problems than EVE.
Anything that helps them get out of the chair is a good thing. Friends don’t let friends go full retard.
Resolution of the matter: Erotica1 subjected himself to a bonus room, in the course of which he was ‘scammed’ out of 40+ billion ISK(possibly much more, I didn’t look at the asset list very thoroughly)(by his ingame friends who as far as I know are keeping all the loot), pod-killed himself out of all of his skill points,and ‘made’ to sing songs and read boring things aloud. After completely destroying his account himself, no doubt due to information received about CCP’s intent; CCP finished the job by banning his account and the player behind them, permanently.
the above is based on Erotica1 saying has was banned on a separate website, I haven’t found anything official on the matter from CCP yet; not sure they will add anything more on this or not.
Seriously considering DF now that CCP banned E1 without warning or precedent…