Eve Online alliance leader banned after threatening to cut off betrayer's hands

http://www.pcgamer.com/eve-online-alliance-leader-permanently-banned-after-threatening-to-cut-off-another-players-hands/?utm_content=buffer552f3&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=buffer_pcgamerfb

by bkohlmann • 9 years ago

100 72 9 years ago

pcgamer.com

ceejayoz• 9 years ago

Given the amount of role play involved in games like EVE, it must be fairly hard to make the call between "real-life death threat" and role playing a character.

In this case, the asking for real-life address seals it, but I'd imagine a whole lot of borderline threats have to be evaluated by GMs.

KirinDave3• 9 years ago

Where are you finding role play in Eve? There is none I've found after hundreds of hours of play.

LeifCarrotson• 9 years ago

The entire game is role play. You're not actually piloting a ship. You're not actually part of an alliance. In a sense, there is nothing to betray outside of the role play.

Of course, I understand what you're really describing. It's just amusing that you and I don't imagine normal behavior to be role play, and can conceive of a meeting wherein people bring their Eve personas together in a simulated star system and agree that these characters will then engage in a recursive level of role play.

eduren4• 9 years ago

It's certainly something you have to seek out in any game. Just like somebody can sit in Eve's highsec playing missions, someone playing a traditional role-playing game like Skyrim can play it as a loot simulator (fun too).

Eve and its player base encourage RP but don't force it on you. Joining Alliances is usually the easiest way. Political strife and territorial expansion is a really ripe field for emergent stories and personalities.

etjossem• 9 years ago

fairly hard to make the call

No, it is trivially easy to make the call when someone threatens harm to another player in real life.

You are right that nobody complains when pilots threaten each other in-character; everyone understands that the capsuleer characters are cutthroat and might try to intimidate each other. This is good fun, well within the spirit of the game. We're all just playing space pirates.

The problems arise when you say another player's going to be missing his hands. It's very clear here that this was the context, since it followed "whoever know[s] his real name, home address and other details [message] me." For an admin of a game, a situation this clear doesn't even take much thought - it's a straightforward reason to ban someone.

Buttons840• 9 years ago

It's a game. Isn't betraying people just part of the game? Problem is by the time someone is successful in Eve Online it's more than just a game to them.

hannasanarion• 9 years ago

It's not just part of the game, it's a top-billing feature. The whole concept of EVE is like a libertarian paradise: anyone can do anything to anybody else at any time, the only consequences are what individuals in the community think they should be (plus AI police in the noob areas).

Heck, pretending to play along with someone, and then turning traitor and killing them was in one of the first game trailers.

WalterBright15• 9 years ago

anyone can do anything to anybody else at any time

That isn't libertarianism at all. Libertarianism is you can do whatever you want, provided you do not employ force or fraud against others. There's more to it than that, but that's the core idea. Another way to say the core idea is people have inalienable rights - life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

colordrops• 9 years ago

I think you mean anarchism.

gozur88• 9 years ago

The analogy I always used when I was playing is that of a big prison yard. The strong take from the weak. The weak band together for protection.

And you don't want to get caught out by yourself.

fennecfoxen• 9 years ago

It's a game. Isn't betraying people just part of the game?

As someone who doesn't play the game I've sure gotten a lot of phishing emails for it, and an uninterested corporate response to boot.

tpeo• 9 years ago

And so the old tale of the internet tough guy repeats itself. Again.

xiaodown4• 9 years ago

I was there; AMA.

I'm in Test Alliance Please Ignore. I was sitting on coms when this all went down - The Judge stole everything not nailed down, flipped the citadel to Goonswarm, and everything went to hell.

Some background: TEST and Co2 have been best friends for about a year and a half, until recently, when (there's some one-sided propaganda in this statement) the Co2 leadership (really just GigX) decided that having friends wasn't as good as shooting everyone. So, Co2 and TEST reset standings to neutral or hostile, and commenced fighting.

Goonswarm and TEST have been, at various times over the past 10 years, best friends, bitter enemies, and - where we are now - sort of "frenemies", where we are not friendly, and we shoot each other, but we also don't invade each other's space, and we're more likely to fight together against common enemies in big fights.

So... back to last night...

TEST quickly organized a fleet of space-haulers to bring them Test Cultures (an in-game item that we jokingly have claimed as our own - http://games.chruker.dk/eve_online/item.php?type_id=2319 ), and tell them that, while we didn't like GigX, we had no problem with most of the Co2 line members and they were welcome to evacuate their assets safely with our help.

(times in pacific)

  (8:44:29 PM) pleaseignore.com: 
  Situation developing:
  
  The Judge stabbed GigX in the back. The 68FT Keepstar now belongs to Goonswarm. Many fortizars across Impass 
  belong to Test. This is a huge blow to Circle-of-Two and we hope their line members can see the writing 
  on the wall for this war now. 
  
  For now, we are running an aid flotilla, in part for the memes, but in part to sincerely extend the 
  olive branch to the line members of Co2 who remember when we were good friends. Feel free to join the 
  flotilla and bring a hauler with Test cultures to 68FT. We want to offer them our support, for the shit 
  they don't want to asset safety, because we aren't total shitheads. (I'm speaking for other people 
  because I'm totally a shithead)
  
  The war isn't over, but we just got a huge boost. Be ready to burn GigX's sov. Be ready to fleet up and 
   finish off our front, so we can help the allies who have been showing up for us. 
  
  #### SENT BY Farmstink to All online test @ 2017-09-12 03:44:29 EVE Time ####

Goonswarm, though, hates Co2, and wanted to come and screw with them, now that they owned the big space citadel where all of Co2's assets are. Well, TEST thought that would be funny, too, so I and another titan pilot created a chain of warp-bridges to help Goonswarm get to the Co2 main system as quickly as possible, so that they could play with their food.

  (8:53:30 PM) pleaseignore.com: 
  Also, this is kind of a fantasy moment for goons right now. We will be bluing them temporarily and 
  allowing them safe passage through our space while they play with their new food for the next 
  week or so. 
  
  #### SENT BY Dran Arcana to All online test/allies @ 2017-09-12 03:53:30 EVE Time ####

At one point, we thought that GigX had managed to disband the alliance entirely - which would have dropped all of Co2's sovereignty and left their space wide-open for the taking... which would have been a long night of work for us.

  (10:31:48 PM) pleaseignore.com: 
  GIGX DISBANDED CO2
  
  WOT
  
  #### SENT BY Lomgrim to All online test/allies @ 2017-09-12 05:31:48 EVE Time ####
  (10:32:17 PM) pleaseignore.com: 
  Time to toast boys. Get in fleet 1 mumble, now. Impass is free for the taking and we're fucking taking it.  
  
  #### SENT BY Xiaodown to All online test @ 2017-09-12 05:32:17 EVE Time ####

But that was a rumor - info was coming fast and loose for a while there. What ended up happening was just that The Judge was twitch streaming Co2 Alliance Chat, and when GigX got on, he made real-life threats against The Judge. Which, I mean, the rule is leave it all in-game; shooty-shooty-lasers at people in game, but have a beer at fanfest. Anyway, his twitch stream is here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/174199105 but it's long and boring if you don't play eve. I don't know what timestamp the GigX threat is made, but here are some screenshots: https://i.imgur.com/2vhedbl.png (Baekkel is an alt of GigX), and https://i.imgur.com/g966goh.png

Once everything calmed down, the "Talking in Stations" podcast had all the involved people online and did a long podcast about it: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/174164252 - and WHILE GigX, The Judge, and a bunch of notables in Eve were online, GigX announced that he had been permabanned: https://clips.twitch.tv/AdorableAmorphousHedgehogCopyThis

So, that's how it went down. Just sayin. Sorry for all the Eve Jargon.

eduren4• 9 years ago

So, that's how it went down. Just sayin. Sorry for all the Eve Jargon.

Thanks for the report from the field. All the jargon takes me back to my days in TEST.

xiaodown4• 9 years ago

Dreddit is recruiting, if you want to come back! https://dredditisrecruiting.com/

the8472• 9 years ago

Those screenshots seem more like ranting and coarse language to me than an actual thread.

xiaodown4• 9 years ago

He ... has a history. Plus, I mean, trying to get out-of-game details like address/name is a big no-no in Eve (and should be in any internet game).

Leave it in game.

umanwizard• 9 years ago

Whoever know his real name, home address and other details msg me

This is a real threat par excellence

legohead• 9 years ago

I don't understand the giving up of the Keepstar to Goonswarm. Was it not The Judge's intention to take over CO2, but just to screw it over as best he could?

JCharante• 9 years ago

Im not personally aware of who the The Judge is, but I'm assuming they were a high level director in CO2. The only way you could take over a Corp is to start a vote to elect a new CEO, and the to elect a new alliance leader you'd have the get the majority of CEOs to change their vote for lead corporation. Since there is no way for The Judge to the over CO2, the best thing they could do is take everything that isn't nailed down. There is no way The Judge would have the time to unanchored the keepstar and get a freighter there to safely extract it, so the only possible thing left was to meme CO2 and give ownership over to The Imperium.

Animats• 9 years ago

It's Game of Thrones - in SPAAAACE!

thg• 9 years ago

Classic gigX.. Not the first time he's got a "permanent" ban for making real life threats..

More background story is available here: http://evenews24.com/2017/09/12/breaking-news-co2-loses-cont...

EN24 is a dedicated EVE news website run by hobby "journalists", so don't expect much in the way of quality writing.

imron• 9 years ago

I've never played Eve Online, but I love reading about it.

Eve Online alliance leader banned after threatening to cut off betrayer's hands

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