EVE Online Friendly Fire

A few friends and I are getting into EVE Online. It’s very different from normal Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) in that it’s a bit more realistic in the way things work than most games of these sorts. That said, the realism is kind of hard to get used to.

Okay, I know you are going to read the next section and wonder how in the hell I can call this game realistic. I will be discussing space pirates, rogue drones, warp drive and other entirely unrealistic shenanigans and such stuffs.

But that’s not what I’m talking about when I say “realistic”. What I mean by that word is how you play with others. Confused? Let me explain a bit better. Most games regulate how you interact with other. Some keep you from attacking other people all together. Some keep you from attacking those on your “side”. When you form groups, some games regulate how all the 5w33+ l00+ (sweet loot, for those not in the know) is split up with the game divvying up all goodies to everyone equally. Well not EVE! No, you can do pretty much what ever you damn well want to in this game. Sure, all actions have serious repercussions, as the following anecdote will illustrate, but you can be very, very, very bad. And accidents can happen.

So on to my story:

I get it in my head that I am darn tired of running errands for NPCs in this game (for those not in the know NPC=Non-Player Character – people controlled by the game, not by other people). So I call out my buddies Brian and Ken – they play in my DnD game – and we meet up in Armarr space to go pick some fights with computer controlled bad guys.

Now I’m the big cheese in this group. My boat is the biggest and baddest and most expensive. So I’m strutting around the gang acting all tough. Anyway, we finally find a “deadspace” zone that has a bunch of rogue drones – they are the Christines of EVE Online – as in Christine the Steven King devil car not as in the Christine of Leapsite. They are a bunch of evil machines.

So we warp into the first deadspace and dispatch the drones there. Thinking we are hot stuff, we zone into the second deadspace. The first deadspace had two drones. The second deadspace had something like 10. Still we weren’t discouraged. I quickly set out my combat satellite, locked onto the closest target and started firing. It was soon destroyed. I looted the goods and proceeded to lock onto the next closest target.

This is where the story takes a turn, so pay attention here.

I think I am locking onto a bad guy, but instead – and I don’t know how this happened – I lock onto my buddy Ken. A warning message comes up saying that I am violating the code of conduct in CONCORD held space and asks me to confirm the targeting. The CONCORD are the EVE Online police. I think for a second or so and assess that there must be some mistake. I’m trying to kill drones. So I click, “Yes, shoot the bastards”. As I am watching the fight, it becomes apparent that Ken is taking a serious beating. I ponder for a while and notice that I am the one delivering the beating. Ken is saying things like “these are some hard drones!” and “help me Obiwanchunn, you’re my only hope”. He is still oblivious to the fact that I am shooting him in the back.

Now, in my defense, I have only learned how to target things and shoot them out of the sky. I have never had to un-target anything. I don’t know how to do it. So I was fumbling around all my controls trying to take my guns offline and unload the ammo from them and all sort of other things trying to keep from killing Ken.

After I drop poor Ken to 0% shields and 50% armor, CONCORD warps in and blasts me and my kick-ass ship instantaneously to little bitty bits. It was a good thing, because I think I was going to destroy Ken if they didn’t stop me. In a cruel bit of irony, Ken came back for me and my stuff and hauled me back to a space station to get refitted. Brian continued to fight drones, unaware of the drama that unfolded behind him.

I apologized profusely to everyone. It was a harmless mistake (at least to everyone else). Ken sustained some damage to his ship, but it was free to repair. I promptly bought a brand spanking new ship, new guns and new everything. I wanted to get back out there and beat up some drones. So far I had killed just one drone and knocked the tar out of Ken. Hardly satisfying (though a little satisfying nonetheless – don’t tell Ken that please).

So I take my newest ship straight back to the deadspace zone and before I can blink CONCORD warps in and blows me and my kick-ass new ship instantaneously to little bitty bits. Once again Ken warps in, gathers my stuff and takes me back to base.

So now my 3rd ship of the night is completely fitted with guns and other stuffs, waiting to kill some drones, but I’m scared to take it out of dock.

I have asked around on the help channels and I was told that CONCORD will forgive me in a couple of hours or so. So I logged off. I’ll play again tomorrow and hopefully my ship will last the night.

I started the night with 1,500,000 credits. I ended with 800,000 credits. So my mistake cost me nearly half my cash.

It was great fun!