Lawful Carp

Last week a number of our readers passed us word that "(t)he Bank You Can Trust" turned out to be yet another Eve-Online player scam - only recently revealed.  Apparently an elaborate Ponzi scheme.  A run-down of the elaborate behind-the-scenes plot is offered here.  Slashdot picked up this story and offers much fervent comment.  Yes, that place is full of ambivalent  murk, piracy, and rich analogies to "No Laws Just Greed."  Perhaps these are clear lessons of the need for transparency and regulatory structure in (virtual) worlds aspiring to grow deeper roots.

Oddly, I found myself returning to carp in winter and one NOOB's adventure with wolves...

Not too long ago someone handed us this link regarding one self-proclaimed 0.0 Eve-Online experiment:

A n00b plunges himself head first into the dark scary domain of 0.0 low security space in the MMORPG Eve Online, with only a keen sense of adventure to aid him in his merry quest. What will his exciting journeys through space hold in store for him?

Good reading material, though through the lens-of-this-curmudgeon the account feels fictionalized (I don't know this as fact).  Nonetheless it does ring truthful in some of its larger themes.  For example, finding honor among thieves and grudging community in small ponds.

A week ago my sons and I played mini-golf at a location featuring a carp pond.  After querying we discovered that the carp in their shallow waters remained there through the winter (beneath ice).  Conveniently, NewScientist.com reports this week that:

A drop in water temperature prompts the carp to store vast amounts of glycogen in their brains... This enables them to make the switch to anaerobic metabolism – which does not require oxygen – from February to April in the northern hemisphere.

Fascinating.

My wonder is this.  What do those carp - the traders, miners, merchants, and manufacturers - in that rich place called Eve-Online do in their pond at winter?    If everyone is scamming or a pirate can it still be lawful place or has it to be chaos (fn1)?

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fn1. See alignment  from Dungeons and Dragons.

Comments

[Peter Clay]

1.

I've seen in -V- alliance chat people saying, "Hey, it's that INNOMINATE NIGHTMARE guy" as he travelled through our space, so at least some of it is real. I think it's less work for it to be real than to fake all those screenshots!

I don't really understand what you mean about carp in winter; I've not personally encountered a scammer or pirate in weeks, although I spent yesterday trying to kill a member of a hostile alliance who was camping out around one of our stations. Generally in Eve you have to make your own law, in the social context of an alliance.

[Lacero]

2.

It's not entirely clear if it was a ponzi scheme or not. He claims he was making profit throgh trading, then decided to just run with everything.

It's also not clear where all the billions of isk came from. He claims it came from alliances, but won't say which ones. It's very possible the biggest scam is the amount he claims to have stolen.

[Tide]

3.

I think this is part of the "fair play" of Eve's open world, but I also think that what's disturbing about this is that this guy and other scammers use the out-of-game forums for their work. CCP endorses this kind of behavior with "buyer beware", which makes sense. But you have to wonder with people being allowed to scam others on tools outside the gameworld, and where there is no game mechanic to track or even acknowledge this kind of activity in the game itself (i.e. not like PK'ing), then it's a bit of a slippery slope IMO at least. What's the difference between having a meta-game to scam people from outside the actual gameworld and using out-of-game scripts (bots, macros) or resources (RMT) to also advance? There's a troubling lack of "boundaries" of play, and maybe that's part of the appeal; namely, to continue the drama outside the gameworld. But it just seems all kind of disingenuous. Allowing fraud, benefiting from the publicity, but not building a feature in the game to recognize the PvP affect. There's no consequences AFAIK.

[nate combs]

4.

>I don't really understand what you mean about carp in winter; I've not personally encountered a scammer or pirate in weeks

>But you have to wonder with people being allowed to scam others on tools outside the gameworld, and where there is no game mechanic to track or even acknowledge this kind of activity in the game itself (i.e. not like PK'ing)
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There is really no means of doing the "due diligence" to insure anyone is *NOT* a scammer. Arguably this is less an issue with other MMORPGs than Eve-Online -which is so heavily into a player-driven economic/financial world. Eve-Online has done a great job of nailing the pieces to insure a workable market, but that would seem as it goes. To build to the next level of financial institutions etc. would appear to require more pieces.

The traditional MMORPG avenues of "knowing the guy" or "is in my tribe (corporation)" would seem to be inadequate - witness those abuses there.

[magicback (Frank)]

5.

With the Eve world getting to the point where a type of "League of Nations" is warranted and the game-gods are probably not going to impose one, how will sovereignty and unity be realized?

Unlike the carp, Eve currently doesn't have the gene for such adaptation. Unlike the RL, the world of Eve has a safe haven for scoundrels, the real world. Unlike nations, the corporations have no sense of nationality or patriotism.

[James Grimmelmann]

6.

I have writen up some thoughts about this epiode here. My take is that the EIB came quite close to fraud and/or theft, and that it is only a matter of time before some such scheme lands its perpetrator in the defendant's chair in court.

[fritz]

7.

ok, so the EIB-scam is the exxon-scandal of the virtual hemisphere. and, yes, just like its the use in RL the scammer got away. fine. eve is not the only mmog with heavy trading going on (WoW is a mere exception in that sector), and as in RL its all about trust: whom do you trust to you give your money, your tech 2 cruiser, your epic 5-slot tsunami rifle? there is no real need for game mechanics (like eve's PK-mails), the mechanic to rule this out is a social one. get friends and reliable business partners, stay away from big promises, or fail. some of us will learn social skills no sooner than at entering virtuality. at least.

and, Nate: imho there's a lot of carps in eve (and elsewhere). but there's no need of diving the ice, as there is no solid icecap in eve. just local spots in an ocean of 28.000 people (both carps and sharks) on one server at one time. in other words: that EIB-scam was big, but nowhere as big as its environment.

one last comment: eve is a place so peaceful i finally left it.

[nate combs]

8.

fritz>
the mechanic to rule this out is a social one. get friends and reliable business partners, stay away from big promises, or fail. some of us will learn social skills no sooner than at entering virtuality. at least.
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Yes, "buyer beware", but I don't think it is fair/useful to push that entirely on personal player responsibility. Not unless the world really means for them to operate in small tribes with limited social networks, in which case why not be explicit about it? e.g. enforce it.

The RW analogy applies. In a modern society it is impossible to verify everything yourself all the time. You need to trust institutions etc.

A entirely fair question to ask is whether "banks" (and other scaled services) even in worlds like Eve-Online add much value to those places - in comments in the cited post (bank you can trust) there was some discussion about whether there were too few investment opportunities in Eve to really justify what they claimed to be doing -at least on the scale they suggested they were doing it.

I think part of problem here is hinted in some of the discussions above. Devs and players want worlds to display "emergence" and "novelty". Fair enough. But when one exceeds the capabilities/designs of that world, there may be problems. Perhaps its fairer all around to just limit these sorts of reaches to what a world can reasonably deliver.

[Lisa's Darren]

9.

CCP want EVE to be self governing, and I am sure that the playerbase would step up to the challenge if they were but given the one tool required to do it.

The means to identify people.

In the real world it is very hard to create a completely untraceable false identity. Nearly everything we do is recorded, or seen by someone, and with enough time, effort and luck, it is possible to trace just about any identity.

In EVE and other online games you can simply pass your wealth and possessions onto someone new and delete the old character, the only record that this happened and that you completely changed your identity is within the CCP databases.

In order to allow self governance there needs to be a way to trace back to a RL person, no matter which ALT or account they are playing on. This traceback doesn't need to be simple, it could require the spotting of matching patterns within a character ID, or maybe when you get close enough to a character that you have met in an alternate guise you get an automatic note to link them. This way a scammer can't completely disappear, they can change their name and appearance, but they still need to be careful as there is always a possibility someone will trace them.

So in this case, all the customers would have a good chance of recognising any of the Scammers ALTs as him, because he was a significant figure in their characters world. They could put out wanted posters which when seen by others would increase their likelyhood of spotting the scammers ALTs as him. In this was the players gain the power to self police that is currently denied them.

[Andy Havens]

10.

I can't fathom the details of this particular pyramid scheme, nor am I that familiar with the specifics of Eve's EULA or the implied, in-game (magic circle) rule set. I have heard, though, that it is very much a game where scamming is encouraged, right? I read some of the Eve forums on this subject, and many of the comments ran along the lines of, "Nobody guaranteed this wasn't a scam."

Which is one of the oddest uses of language I've come across in awhile.

Other than the publishers (one hopes), who will "guarantee" that an in-game action "isn't a scam." Especially in a game that encourages scamming. It's part of the game, apparently.

Fritz is entirel right, in this case: "the mechanic to rule this out is a social one."

There are carp in every VWpool, Nate. Some of 'em just go sleepy-bye at room temperature ; )

[fritz]

11.

another approach: we need the virtual hemisphere for being bad. killing. stealing. scamming. and dealing with the evil. thats what art is for. and mmogs, as a massive, yet simple form of art, wont deal as much with the unspeakable but the unspoken. we all want to relax as carps in a pond of stars, but we also need to be sharks some night, sinking our teeth into the flesh of strangers.

[Erillion]

12.

>>>>the account feels fictionalized (I don't know this as fact). >>>>

Can confirm at least part of the events described in the "EVE 0.0 experiment" as being true (the part about the complex running and the capital ship parade).

Dont forget that in EVE for every well known scammer there are a 100 large corporations doing a brisk and legitimate trade in EVE in game items. You just dont hear about them as they are not news-worthy.

The best defense against ANY scammers in ANY game is : "Use your common sense."

Have fun

Erillion

[Andy Havens]

13.

fritz said: "another approach: we need the virtual hemisphere for being bad. killing. stealing. scamming. and dealing with the evil. thats what art is for."

I agree. We always have. The "virtual" release of seeing, in theater or movies, or reading about evil helps us understand it. I think the same is true in games and other virtual environments.

BUT... we're not talking completely about "virtual" evil here. We're talking about real theft happening in a virtual environment. Or, we may be. Again, if Eve is meant to be "The Old West" where no laws apply, and the only rule is caveat emptor... well then, to the victor go the spoils, keep your hand on your wallet, and only do biz with people you know well. If that's the case, bravo to Mr. Ponzi.

If, on the other hand, there is a legitimate "rule" that's been broken, then this isn't a case of "stage violence," it's a case of "violence near the stage." Experiencing theft in a movie theater can mean two things. You either see somebody steal James Bond's helicopter -- which is "good" from the point of view of experience evil in a virtual way in order to understand it and yourself and blah blah blah. Or I steal your wallet while you're watching James Bond. That's still "a theft that took place while you were watching a movie," but it's a bit different, eh?

[Peter Clay]

14.

"Not unless the world really means for them to operate in small tribes with limited social networks, in which case why not be explicit about it? e.g. enforce it."

It is enforced. People who give money to strangers often lose it.

"With the Eve world getting to the point where a type of "League of Nations" is warranted and the game-gods are probably not going to impose one, how will sovereignty and unity be realized?

Unlike the carp, Eve currently doesn't have the gene for such adaptation. Unlike the RL, the world of Eve has a safe haven for scoundrels, the real world. Unlike nations, the corporations have no sense of nationality or patriotism."

I'd say the exact opposite was true - good alliances have a strong sense of "virtual nationalism". Sometimes it gets a bit too linked to real nationalism, especially in the ongoing RA versus Coalition war. Sovreignty and unity are realised through common action in adversity; dispute management isn't all that well developed, but people who make trouble can be kicked out.

I and most of the 0.0 players don't want a league of nations imposed.

[magicback (Frank)]

15.

Peter> I and most of the 0.0 players don't want a league of nations imposed.

Ah, that's the pros and cons, and perhaps the beauty, of 0.0 space. Having the government coming to impose law just ruin it the essence, paving the way for the masses.

As for nationality and patriotism, alliances and corporations are usually formed for purposes other than nationhood. Solidarity in the face of adversity may be a good foundation for nationhood, but I think current alliances and corporations are too “commercial” in objectives and organization.

A player-created dispute system between alliances and corporations would be a welcome addition I think.

Frank

[Dave Rickey]

16.

There's a pseudo-feudalistic structure emerging in Southeast 0.0 (lower right on the default map view). You have Band of Brothers, an economic and miltary powerhouse, holding sovereignty over 4 regions (Fountain, Delve, Querious, and Period Basin). For three of those (everything but Delve) they have local warlords providing the majority of the day to day defense (Mercenary Coalition in PB, Firmus Ixion in Querious, and Xelas in Fountain).

In addition, you have "renters", who pay tribute to BoB for the rights to exploit various pieces of 0.0 BoB controls. So you have a 3 layer feudal structure, with the elite Imperial Army (BoB), the local lords and their knights (MC/FIX/Xelas), and the serfs. Altogether you're talking about the close neighborhood of 10K players, about half of which is the middle layer (which is a cross between feudal men at arms and yeomen, since we draw our resources from the territory in much the same way as the renters, but have military/police duties rather than taxation).

--Dave

[Dave Rickey]

17.

Oops, lower left is SE.

[Kristina]

18.

I am new here, a law student who has been researching virtual worlds. Can anyone give me a link to some information about the above referenced "Eve -Online Player Scam". I apologize if this is something I should already know about, but I don't at this time. Thanks!
*Kristina

[Michael Chui]

19.

Kristina,

The above scam is linked, though when the article linked was written, it was not known that it was a scam. If you're looking for previous scams before that one, there have been quite a few.

The first couple results off Google are okay: here.