Re-named: I lost my Azbel with my entire life’s work in the 2 weeks between logging in

Communications Center General Discussion
1

To start this off: I have been playing regularly, was subscribed, was online 2 weeks ago, had fuel inside 1 week ago and noticed the destruction the day after. I was not gone for a long time.

Hallo people,

I was told to share my story somewhere, so I figured reddit might be a good place. I have also copy-pasted this into these offical eve-forums now. This is the story, how I spent most of my private life with eve online and how CCP randomly nullified everything in one week. Enjoy:

My ingame-name is Destriouth Hollow and I have been playing eve since 2012 (8 years). During my time at university I had a lot of spare time and spent a lot of it on Eve-Online. I was leading a german Corp with around 100 real people online at teamspeak and I have always been interested in economics, hence me studying bussiness mathematics.

Over the last 8 years I spent most of my time in eve grinding for assets and plex, to accumulate eve-wealth and I always felt proud of my achievements, even if I knew, it is just a game and that it consumes too much of my life.

I don’t know the exact number of hours I spent on eve, but the hours are easily in the 5 digits, maybe even 6 digits. Ratting and mining always felt like a mind-numbing grind, but as anyone, who works for a living knows, people are willing to put in work to achieve wealth … and with the realistic economy in eve it really does feel like accumulating wealth.

Over the last 8 years, in addition to the countless hours I also put several thousand € into the game to pay for my subscriptions and plex to buy ingame assets.
Why did I put so much time and money into a game, doing something so unfun as ratting and mining? Because I liked the sense of accomplishment in accumulating wealth and assets. Also I planned to play eve for years to come and even hoped the game would stay around, until I am to old for work and can use my time for eve again. I wanted to keep playing eve for a long time, using the assets and characters I have accumulated. It felt like a hobby, that needs preparations.

Since I started eve, 8 years ago, there were always a couple themes, that eve never strayed away from. CCP always repeated these at fanfests and in blogs, and they felt like the core of eve:

  • Eve is a game of risk and reward. When you undock with something, you can lose it. If you use something, you risk it.
  • Playing Eve is a long-time project. The typical player takes breaks and more often than not, comes back at some point. When players come back, the stuff inside stations is still there and you can continue where you left of, minus some moving or asset safety costs.
  • Eve assets have monetary value. Almost everything in eve can be bought for isk, isk can be bought for plex and plex can be bought for real money. Every plex ingame has been bought for real money and can be traded for ingame assets. This is the reason big splashy fights are always reported with their money-values.
  • CCP wants players to use the new upwell structures instead of NPC-Stations. Since they want us to put our eggs into a basket, that can blow up, there is asset safety. So noone can take your assets away from you, if you are willing to pay a small fee.

The isk I grinded for and payed for in these 8 years, I used to buy BPO’s to collect, use and maybe resell. I put almost everything I owned in eve in those BPOs and ended up with every capital, module, meta-module, fighter, ammo BPO that exists, with maximal research (10/20). Obviously also some Titan and Super BPOs. I kept this stuff in a Highsec-Azbel with an NPC-Station in the same system. This way it’s all together and I can always transfer it for 1% asset safety to the NPC-Station. It was around 600b isk worth of BPOs and everything would fit into a single interceptor. I could have kept this in Jita or any NPC-Station instead, but I chose my own structure for role-playing reasons, after all it’s just as safe, minus the asset-safety. These Blueprints were the most expensive and time-consuming thing, I ever had.
It always felt like I wasted a big part of my life on this, but I felt it had value and I was proud of it. For the last 1,5 years, because of real life and work, I didn’t have much time to play eve anymore. I still logged in at least once a month to put on research jobs for my blueprints and I kept paying for my 7 accounts so that I can continue to do so.

Around the 20.05.2020 I logged in again and redid my research-jobs. On the 07.06.2020, around 2 weeks later, I read an article, talking about “abandoned deathsstars” beeing destroyed and tournament-ships dropping. I figured this was about POSes and I logged in, to check how much fuel my azbel has left. I had fueled it like a year ago with billions of isk worth of fuel and I didn’t want my BPO-research to run out, as that would waste my subscription-money.

I logged in.

This is when I noticed the new notifications:

[Album] Imgur

Apparently someone attacked my structure? It is gone? My assets are at risk? Where is the second and third timer? Where are my BPOs?

I did some research and found out what happened:
Apparently the fuel I put in a year ago has run out 7 days ago. Apparently CCP introduced a new patch in the last 2 weeks, where “abandoned” structures now don’t have asset safety anymore. Apparently “abandoned” structures also only need one timer to destroy it now, with only a couple minutes of time required to do so. Apparently the structure I used 2 weeks ago, that ran out of fuel 1 week ago was considered “abandoned” and destroyed one day ago, on the 05.06.2020. Apparently everything I worked and payed for in the last 8 years of eve online was indeed not safe, as constantly preached by CCP and destroyed 1 day ago, with one week ingame warning.

The around 6000€+ (600b) ingame value (money to plex to assets) I had accumulated, the most expensive thing I ever had, was apparently gone in 40 minutes. and 175b dropped.
If I had known about this change, I could have transported everything to the NPC-Station in 5min or refueled the structure for annother 5 years in 30 minutes. It had to run out in that 2 weeks, where CCP decided to take a dump on their former statements. Everything I accumulated in 8 years gone, because I did not play eve in that important one week.

Thank you CCP, for your awesome design-decisions.

Obviously I unsubbed the same day.

regards
Destriouth Hollow

EDIT (20.06.2020):

A couple people in this thread brought up, that I could have known about this change, because I was informed in multiple ways.

  1. Launcher. I always glimpse over the launcher news when I log in. On the 20.05.2020 I did not notice any news regarding this on the Launcher.

  2. E-Mail: I received the following E-Mails since the 21.03.2020. To my knowledge none of these contain the information about this change. At the very least it is not in the headline or the first page:

“Gathering Storm and Lightning Strikes” 08.06.2020

“Invasion Chapter 3 Now Live” 28.05.2020

“Capsuleer Day Clash event” 07.05.2020

“Eve Portal - Jita PLEX Market” 07.05.2020

“Capsuleer Day Celebration gifts” 06.05.2020

“Capsuleer Generosity Celebration” 09.04.2020

“The Hunt begins again!” 06.04.2020

“Eclipse - Quadrant 2 starts 6 Apr” 02.04.2020

“Loyalty to Lowsec” 24.03.2020

"Friendship is the best ship 21.03.2020

  1. Ingame Mail: As you can see in my screenshot I did not receive any ingame information before the 31.05.2020. Everything died on the 05.06.2020. So I had around 5 days.

  2. So the only chance I had was to constantly search the official online Forum for information or never take a break for 5 full days. This was not because I was gone for 2 years. I was just not online in those important 5 days, and that was enough.

14 Likes
2

So what brings you here then, apart from a sloppy cut n paste?

2 Likes
3

Reddit got blocked, because my account is too new ^^ But good point, I have to edit that out ^^

2 Likes
4

OMG An Abandoned Structure Owner Returns

*popcorn*

This will be epic! :rofl:

4 Likes
5

Ok. Well Ill just say what everyone else will be thinking;

If you checked in semi regularly, and you expected CCP to say something, didnt you check the regualr updates they send out? Pretty sure this was news for at least a week till it went live, and then it was pending for a week after it went live.

2 Likes
6

I’d ask for your stuff, but you apparently don’t have anything left :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

15 Likes
7

TLDR version?

1 Like
8

Yes. As you can see in the screenshots, I have been offline in the wrong 2 weeks. The perfect 2 weeks, where my 1 year of fuel ran out, the announcement was made and my structure blown up.

Is 2 weeks really ok to destroy someones 2-17 years of accomplishments?

2 Likes
9

In EVE?

It sure is.

10 Likes
10

if i would actively risk it, sure. But while am gone for 2 weeks due to changing a rule, that was consistent for 17 years?

2 Likes
11

The outrage was real before the patch, the outrage is real after the patch.

Whether or not you agree or disagree with the “no asset safety” mechanic, even many of those in favor of the mechanic do agree that CCP should have implemented a grandfathering mechanic to give one-time asset safety, even at the Abandoned state, for the structures that were currently fielded at the time of the rollout, but not for newly fielded structures, so that players would have little excuse for not knowing the risks associated with placing assets in a new structure but would be safe for those at an existing structure.

21 Likes
12

Grandfathering ALL structures at the moment of patch would basically void the main reason behind the change - clean up structure spam.
From what I read consensus was more on the lines of “ppl with more than a month since last login” should have their assets locked into asset safety, which wouldn’t help OP obviously

1 Like
13

The TLDR is that the CSM convinced CCP that a great idea would be to allow them to loot all the “casual player” citadels in highsec without risking any of their own in nullsec. The mechanic they came up with is somewhat ingenious, but CCP is probably going to lose a few customers that they never would have lost otherwise.
@Aiko_Danuja - it has begun!

12 Likes
14

Both would have helped me. Obviously my structure was placed years before the patch. Also I logged in 2 weeks prior to my structure beeing destroyed. It was also fueled until 1 week prior to the explosion. I also logged in 1 day after it was destroyed and saw it.

It’s not exactly like I have been offline for years. I was actively subscribing and playing regularly.

1 Like
15

I wholeheartedly disagree: The Abandoned state alone would make structures juicier to kill since they indicate the structure is an easy target and that the owning corp is unable or unwilling to defend it. This also indicates that the players in the corp are probably easy prey as a whole. Players bash structures for the killboard glory + griefing all the time. Players also scan structure fits to see if they are poorly fitted and will even attack that Low or Full Power - zKill has no shortage of unfitted Fortizars that were destroyed at Full Power.

Besides, as I said it’s a one time thing - the notion that POSes wouldn’t disappear and that this wouldn’t benefit going forward is absurd. The momentum would only increase, not decrease or remain stagnant, as structures are destroyed.

There are also many alternatives to encourage clearing abandoned structures that have been addressed time and time again… CCP didn’t bother to consider them. “No asset safety” did not have to be a thing.

4 Likes
16

I don’t think I was the target audience for this patch, as I was playing regularly. I also think, I’m easily in the 1% hit hardest. The way this was implemented was a middle-finger to eve players.

9 Likes
17

Personally; I dont think “Roleplaying Reasons” are a good enough excuse not to put your stuff in an indestructible station prior to going on furlough from the game, but thats just my opinion.

5 Likes
18

The fact remains: CCP changed the rules.

6 Likes
19

This patch made the strong stronger and the weak weaker outside of direct combat. Losses should occur as a result direct battle, not indirectly like this. Sigh. The official feedback thread is full of such good feedback on this that it’s not worth rehashing who said what (I could easily link a “Greatest Quotes” compilation here), but what I will say was that your story was worth sharing. CCP should give you lifetime Omega + 2x MPTC (non-transferable)…

6 Likes
20

They could have removed all NPC-Stations from the game, taking non-moved assets along. Or make NPC-Stations destructable. It’s not possible to predict these random changes with hardly any announcement time.

I couldn’t know this was the non-safe choice.

5 Likes