Okay, so im already prepared to hear all the comments about how dumb i was when i made a decision with this. Here we go.
Last night, (2/23) we had a person pop up in the english help channel and instantly started to claim that after four years in the game…they were done. The stated that all isk they had on their person was going to be given away. Because of an experience i had some years ago, i immediately stated that i was blocking this person. Right after that, the person donated 1 billion isk to my character.
Okay, here comes the experience years ago. Myself and a friend that hung out with me in the game both had a similar incident happen in a system chat. My friend ended up getting a large donation from this player and of course, hes just ecstatic about it. Exactly 24 hours later, his account was banned for receiving the isk. It took a great deal of time to get it straighten out.
So fast forwarding to last night…when i saw this person donating large amounts of isk to people, this ugly memory resurfaced. I didnt hesitate for a second to give this person their 1 bill back to them and telling them that i didnt need their isk. My instincts were just ringing off the hook about the whole deal.
Would that isk i received been nice in any other situation? Absolutely yes. Do i feel any regret for giving it back because i have red flags raining all around me? No, i do not.
Im curious about what other folks think about this. What would you had done. ( i think i already know what most people will say )
Is there still an algorithm that flags you when receiving isk in this manner. Remember, i witnessed someone get banned for it…even though years ago…it still happened.
Thats it. Fire away. Please dont send me isk…im good.
It’s always nice to have an extra billion ISK. That said I think you played it safe by returning it and blocking them. Hacked accounts, RMT, and people looking to harm someone else’s account are at least as common (if not more so) than legitimate “I’m quitting and giving it all away” situations.
For a bit of perspective, I decided around 2015 that I wasn’t likely to play EVE much, probably ever again (due to what I perceived to be the direction CCP’s development was taking). So I decided I had about 25 billion excess ISK I’d never put to good use, and determined to give it away here and there over the next few years.
It got given out in chunks of anywhere from 10 to 400 million ISK at a time, generally to people who knew what they were going to do with it (eg. not total newbies), and generally after some conversation or interaction where the person knew why and who it was coming from and for what reason. None of it was returned, although a few players said “Thanks but no ISK needed here” before sending.
I’ve slowed that down quite a bit now since I think maybe EVE has at least a bit of hope for the future. But still likely to give ISK to what I consider to be an interesting effort.
If someone sent me a billion ISK in a situation where I knew who, what and why, I’d probably accept it and thank them. If someone out of the blue shot me 1 bill, especially after my stating I was blocking them… I’d do exactly what you did.
People who use bannable methods of acquiring ISK (hacked accounts and RMT) have to „launder“ it. So they post stupid stuff like that so both innocents and intended targets appear in the „lucky winner“ group. They get the anti-TOS ISK and so do innocents, but they don’t care about the innocent. And they don’t care enough about getting all the ISK, it’s all stolen, any amount greater than zero that they get is a win.
From the anti-RMT blog post it is clear CCP does not discriminate between the benefactors, they all get banned. Innocents included.
If the person in the chat giving isk away been someone i was familiar with…that 1 bill isk would have been a blessing. Ive also used this mentality in other mmos where people help folks out with currency to get a jump on things. I guess depending on the mmo, you can pretty much tell if things feel legit or not.
All the people i used to play with in this game are all gone…so for just any random to donate isk like that like its no big deal is just suspicious to me. It would be detrimental to me to have my account banned because i got a donation like that from someone intending to do harm or not caring what kind of damage they can do to other player’s accounts.
I think you did the right thing, if you care about your account.
If you dont, then you should keep the isk, buy some plex, and engage in some RMT yourself.
I dont understand this mindset of wanting to give away everything you have when you leave the game. How do you know that in 5, 10 years EVE might become super great and popular again? Maybe youd want to play it again? And wouldnt it suck to have nothing and start with nothing again?
I have around 900 billion isk and probably another 600 or so in assets, but im not giving anything away, even though i havent really played for 2-3 years. I am thinking about returning, too. So thank god i didnt.
Im in no way interested in RMT…in no way, shape, or form.
And…900 bill? Oh my i cant even imagine having that much isk in this game. Im usually a small time player here so i would guess that much isk will be a dream. Great job.
It’s not always bad lol. I’ve given away like 1.5 billion ISK in the last few days to newer players. Didn’t tell em what I was doing just asked a few questions to see how long they been playing and their net worth was… then doubled their net worth while simultaneously announcing to them that they’ve been hacked and have 0 ISK now…
Everyone responded positively and kept the ISK, gifting ISK Isn’t a bannable offense.
If someone sends you money, and you’re not sure if it’s legit money but want to keep it, file a petition right away and ask for confirmation if it’s okay to keep that money.
You split a large amount into several small amounts. You also had a conversation with the folks you were gifting. If you had popped into the channel and done that to me?..i would more than likely kept it.
Im aware that gifting isk in the game is not bannable…however, as i said, there used to be (still is?) an algorithm in the game that flagged players after receiving insane amounts of isk.
You gave away 1.5 bill between many people. I had a person that stated that there were done and giving isk away…gave me 1 bill in a single keystroke…big difference.
Im just not taking chances after my experience with this. I came here to just get more perspective i guess. Either way, ill never feel bad about the decision i made.
I never even thought of that. I guess its just one of those “heat of the moment” deals that i never thought about that kind of stuff while its happening in front of me. Ill do that next time if the situation ever occurs again.
I now am at a computer and can properly link the blogposts I mentioned before. Note that these often talk about “buyers” and “sellers” but the shady jerks that get hacked accounts can “freely gift” ISK to both innocents and their RMT customers; to CCP it just looks like a bunch of people paid for ISK.
When it does, it’ll be some copy/paste answer that has nothing to do with your question. Then after a week of back and forth with the guy who seems determined to not understand what you’re saying, you ask to have it expedited to a less willfully ignorant GM.
After another week of waiting for a response you log in to find your ticket closed, so you say ■■■■ it and spend the billion.
Quit but gave everything away before leaving, then decided to came back, and came back to nothing, not even a shuttle or an isk.
I gave away probably hundreds of maxed bpo’s and billions of isk. I even flew around space just giving random amounts to what looked like new pilots, but I didn’t know that giving away isk could cause anyone to be banned, I hope I wasn’t responsible for that happening to anyone
Anyway when I came back I decided to go in a different direction to mining and industry so sold my main (you knew him in the forums ;)) to fund this character who had some sp.
So yeah, think carefully about giving it all away, as Solonius says, you never know if you’ll change your mind in a couple of years.
