MMORPGing Meets Greed and Deception

The December issue of PCGamer had an interesting article about a recent event in the MMO gameworld of Eve Online.

First, a little background on Eve:

• It's a traditional MMORPG set in a persistent universe
• It's sci-fi based, where each player commands a spaceship
• Players can earn in-game money, prestige, etc by engaging in trade, piracy, or whatever their heart's content
• Those who succeed at the game (read: invest a lot of time) get to build mammoth spaceships and construct large, player-owned corporations

In the article, PCG explains how an in-game group of assassins (The Guiding Hand Social Club) was retained to assassinate the CEO of one of the largest player-corporations, Ubiqua Seraph. The GHSC spent a year infiltrating the corporation, installing sleeper agents at all levels. At a predetermined time, the second in command of the corporation (himself a sleeper) lured the unsuspecting CEO into an ambush. During the ensuing fight the sleepers were awakened and the corporation looted from top to bottom. What started out as a million-dollar (in game funds) contract ended up as a multi-billion dollar coup.

Ubiqua Seraph survived the onslaught, but as a shell of its former glory. The stakeholders lost valuable funds, unique in-game items, and a lot of prestige. More valuable than anything gained however, was the time that was put into obtaining the now absent gains. (The most valuable currency in MMO's is not in-game cash, but real world time--those who play more, gain more, more quickly than those who don't play as often.)

When the event was made public on the Eve forums many players petitioned the game makers to “do something” about the fiasco--the GHSC must be punished for their dastardly deed. IMO, those folks are missing the point--the game is set up to encourage this behavior, not discourage it. The fact that such a feat could be carried out in a game of this magnitude should be celebrated as it speaks highly of the game's mechanics and players alike. (That said, I do feel for the stakeholders of Ubiqua Seraph--I can only guess at the real feelings of loss and betrayal they must have felt over the event.)

Eve Online sounds like a great game. I've been looking for a space sim that incorporates all the playability of the old BBS game Trade Wars (robust trade, lots of room to upgrade your ship, ability to create [and defend] a home in space, etc) and have played many a disappointment. Now that I've let City of Heroes lapse I might have to give it a shot. Anyone else interested?