Ironfleet Towing And Salvage

If you’ve ever wondered why CCP seems unusually committed to reprimanding and banning folks who make real world threats (“I’m going to find out where you live in real life and come kill your pets!”), here’s why:

Mexican World of Warcraft player Bronco Carson reported to local police on Saturday that 3 men broke into his home and beat his arms with clubs and smashed his computer. It was supposedly in retaliation for Carson stalking and repeatedly killing one of the attackers wife’s character during computer video game play.

Carson admitted to police that he had been “making it hard for her to get far in the game.” He said that after repeated online threats from the woman, she sent her husband and friends over to his house to “take care of him.” Carson later said that he had made the mistake of telling her where he lived and “if her husband was man enough to just come meet me to settle this.”

2 weeks leading up to the assault he said he had been harassed by a few characters constantly during game play. “I knew that I might be messed with in the game but I didn’t really expect her husband to come looking for me. I couldn’t have been more wrong.”

Carson suffered 2 broken fingers and a fractured wrist during the assault. They also destroyed his computer and entertainment center before leaving. No arrests have been made in connection with the assault.

OK, kiddies, what have we learned?

1) Even if you like to play aggressively, spread the love around. Focusing your gankage on one person is (a) being a dick and (b) earns you bad karma, which can come home to roost in unexpected ways.

2) Yeah, it’s only a game. Until you start stalking another man’s wife and insulting his manhood when he tries to defend her. Then it can get personal. Not to mention violent.

3) If you’re going to be an online dickhead who hides behind the safety and anonymity of the internet so that your asshole behavior doesn’t have real world consequences, then (for fuck’s sake!) don’t forget the “hiding” part. Giving your online victims your address and taunting them to come over and fight you? Survey says: STUPID!

4) It’s only a game. Until it gets serious. Which unhappy day may come for the other guy before it comes for you.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not arguing against gameplay that pisses people off and I’m not defending the real-world gank that Mr. Carson suffered. (Quite the contrary, those boys need some jail time.) But I do think it’s worth pointing out that to a very real extent, Mr. Carson appears to have been a victim of his own extreme griefing and smacktalking.

Howdy, folks. Jim Bridger here.

Went out to an asteroid belt today to test my new gun setup, when I saw a Hulk mining into a jet can. Well, a can like that’s too juicy a salvage target to pass up, even if Hulks do tend to carry Tech II drones and get nasty with ’em.

Swooped in, flipped the jettisoned ore into an Ironfleet can, got it on the tractor, and began to drag it off to a safe distance. Nope, that’s not gonna work, here come the swarm of Vespa IIs, time to go.

Went.

Local smacktalk, not very nice:

moryia evenstar > jim you arse hole
moryia evenstar > come back here chicken shit
moryia evenstar > be warned every body in system, jim bridger is an active ore thief

Then comes the private convo with Moryia’s very optimistic hauler alt / companion:

Torredon Schreck > what you upto
Jim Bridger > Salvaging, as per usual
Torredon Schreck > stealing you mean
Jim Bridger > Naw, if I meant that I would have said that
Torredon Schreck > you stole from me a few minutes ago
Jim Bridger > Don’t think so, you’re not on my agro list
Torredon Schreck > check moryia evenstar
Jim Bridger > Yeah, I salvaged some ore from a can with her name on it, so?
Torredon Schreck > in my gang, you stole from hiim you steal from me
Jim Bridger > LOL, you keep using that word
Jim Bridger > Say, did you need something or did you just call me up to put ugly names on my chosen style of gameplay?
Torredon Schreck > come back to the roid belt
Jim Bridger > LOL, for what purpose?
Torredon Schreck > so i can try and kill you again
Jim Bridger > Right, and this is in my interest as a professional salvager exactly how?
Torredon Schreck > maybe you might get something out of it
Jim Bridger > Yeah, well, I prefer to pick my battles, thank you very much
Torredon Schreck > where are you hiding atm?
Jim Bridger > HIding? I’m busy salvaging.
Torredon Schreck > where
Jim Bridger > I don’t mean to be rude, but are you stupid? Why do you imagine I would tell you?
Torredon Schreck > just asking, to see if you are that stupid
Jim Bridger > LOL
Jim Bridger > Sorry, no
Torredon Schreck > so your not THAT STUPID THEN
Torredon Schreck > SORRY CAPS LOCK
Jim Bridger > No, but you are surely very optimistic to imagine I might be
Torredon Schreck > its worth a try
Jim Bridger > I know that feeling
Jim Bridger> After all I just took my salvage destroyer into drone range of a Hulk
Torredon Schreck > so do all of your corp go around “salvaging ” other ppls kit?
Jim Bridger > Check the corp description, or the blog at ironfleet.com
Jim Bridger > It will answer all your questions
Jim Bridger > Short answer: if it floats in space, we salvage it
Torredon Schreck > ok i see
Jim Bridger > Been a pleasure bantering with you, but I gotta go. Ironfleet out.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Marlenus went back in a Badger II and hauled the ore, which they had left unmolested in the Ironfleet jetcan. So the operation was, as usual, a success.

So today, I filed my first-ever EVE petition.

I avoid lag, I try to be careful, and I’m pretty willing to accept losses imposed by an imperfect gaming environment. So, in about a year of play, I’ve never felt the need to petition.

So, today. Saw a full can of ore. Went to haul some. Hauled some. Went back. Hauled some more. Docked.

Looked at local. Whoa, smack city!

LordThyGod > fuck you
Takeda Shiko > Uh?
LordThyGod > Martelenus is stealing ym ore byt the transprt full!@
Takeda Shiko > That was random and… vulgar…
LordThyGod > Marlenus
LordThyGod > So do veterans often steal ore in 30 mil ships?
LordThyGod > bitch ass baiter
Takeda Shiko > zowie
Ebodhisatva > lol
Takeda Shiko > Maybe he’s guilty as charged?
Ebodhisatva > why should he?
Ebodhisatva > he’d rather get blown to pieces
Marlenus > LOL, was busy hauling ore
Ebodhisatva > roflmao
Baron Kalan > /emote sniggers
Ebodhisatva > so you find a nice filled can
Ebodhisatva > and just take it
LordThyGod > coke on a can of quafe and die loser
Marlenus > Was a couple of full cans full, needed multiple trips
Takeda Shiko > Marlenus, that’s just wrong.
Marlenus > Obviously, I disagree
Takeda Shiko > I’m sorry that you think it’s funny
Ebodhisatva > that is indeed like leaving your brand new porsche running while being away
LordThyGod > thats my hard work jerk
Ebodhisatva > man i’d take it for a spin
Marlenus > No, the funny part was that folks think I’d be reading local while I was busy working
Takeda Shiko > Obviously, you’re a jackass, too… but whatever
Marlenus > Salvage is my profession, I take it very seriously
Ebodhisatva > lord, get some secure cans
Ebodhisatva > than you’ll be safe
Ebodhisatva > that is like making sure your new porsche is locked when you leave it
LordThyGod > THIEVING IS YOUR PROFESSION
Takeda Shiko > Salvage is blowing stuff up and using a salvager… ripping people off is stealing. And it reflects on you and your corp.
LordThyGod > you just liek to pick fight dont you?
Takeda Shiko > *Shrugs* Doesn’t matter to me too much though… different strokes and all that.
LordThyGod > want me to fire so you can come back in a BS
Ebodhisatva > it’s even better, you get to kill him
Marlenus > Agree that it reflects on my corp — have you read the corporate description? This is what we do.
Ebodhisatva > he steals and you can kill him!
LordThyGod > I hope you get banned
Ebodhisatva > that is really neat!
LordThyGod > Not when he has 7 months on me
Takeda Shiko > Unfortunately, Lord, this game has a lot of room for griefers.
LordThyGod > gotta pick on the newbs
LordThyGod > what a loser
Ebodhisatva > just kill him!
Ebodhisatva > get some friends and hunt him down!
LordThyGod > a yerar in the game and he cant make money on his own he has to steal ore
Takeda Shiko > What’s sad is he’s doing it in Higher Sec spcae
Takeda Shiko > space*
Takeda Shiko > You expect this in low sec space
Takeda Shiko > “Check me out, I just ripped off a newb! Look at all my SCORDITE!”
Ebodhisatva > ow man, if it is red in my overview, he’s screwed
Ebodhisatva > you can even wardec him
LordThyGod > I know
Ebodhisatva > it’ll cost 50 mill, but it feels soooo good
Ebodhisatva > you can hunt him down the whole frecking week
abissshooter > lol
Ebodhisatva > hell, you can even give privateer alliance 50 mill to do it for you
Dranoel > I’d kick your ass if this were RL.
Ebodhisatva > man, he won’t ever leave station
Ebodhisatva > ever
Dranoel > Nope
Takeda Shiko > Yeah, most jerkies that my old corp put a hit out on just sat in a station and played an alt
Takeda Shiko > wow… Marlenus is the CEO of the corp… of 7 members… why am I not surprised?

So far, so normal. A bunch of smack, I defend myself lightly, that triggers a lot more smack, I can deal with that. But then came the interesting part. Tell me what you think:

Dranoel > Do you liek dev’s Marlenus ?
Dranoel > Do you knwo I”m part of ISD?
Dranoel > You’ve picked a bad ememy to make.
Takeda Shiko > ISD?
Dranoel > Interstellar Services Department.
Dranoel > I hope you liek getting podded.
Takeda Shiko > Hmm… enlighten me please?
Dranoel > :)
Dranoel > We handle bugs, pettions, the help chennel and the rookie channels.
Takeda Shiko > and griefers in 0.7 space?
Dranoel > And update testing.

…

Dranoel > Thieves in RL get thier faces stommped in for stealing from me.
Dranoel > Gonna come out now that the timers over?
Dranoel > OR are you gonna keep hiding in your T@ ship
Dranoel > T2 indy just for stealing ore
Takeda Shiko > Baron, the point in question isn’t that he stole ore… it’s that he is a much more powerful veteran character stealing from a newer character in High Sec space… it’s just… tasteless
Dranoel > Thats dedication to being an asshole
Dranoel > Don’t worry, my friends in ISD will make him lose far more isk than he will gain from that ore. :D

…

Dranoel > aw he came abck!
Dranoel > Gotta run from em cause I’m not in a Osprey?
Marlenus > Right, because a transport ought to stay and fight with a battlecruiser, that would be very smart.
Dranoel > ^ Ore thief
Marlenus > Salvager, if you please
Dranoel > Smart is not stealing from ISD
Dranoel > I don’t please
Marlenus > Smart is not getting banned for threatening to abuse the powers of the volunteers
Dranoel > I hope you die a firey death at the hands of my friends.
Dranoel > I’m not threatening
Dranoel > I’m promising
Dranoel > They volunteered

Now, don’t get me wrong. So far as I know, the ISD volunteers do good work and they don’t have many special powers to abuse, if any. So I consider this an empty threat.

But I do know that CCP Games cannot afford, just now, to have people running around claiming “special connections” and threatening people with the abuse of those connections. The game doesn’t need that.

Or so it seems to me. I filed a petition and attached the logs, just in case.

Back to local, where (if you can believe it) they were still smacking me.

Marlenus > OK, petition filed
Takeda Shiko > Wow… my first petition?
Takeda Shiko > or just against Dranoel?
Marlenus > You’ve done nothing petitionable that I know of
Dranoel > Prolly me but it wont go anywhere.
Takeda Shiko > Well, i DID use a naughty word.
Marlenus > But claiming to be in ISD or to abuse ISD “powers” is banning offense
Takeda Shiko > *blushes*
Marlenus > Lotsa naughty words in the world, I’m a big boy
Takeda Shiko > Fair enough
Dranoel > Telling you that my friends in ISD are on the hunt for you, is not.
Marlenus > But that’s not what you said. No worries, gms will sort it out. I don’t care if anything happens to you, I just want them to be aware that ISD is being used as a threat.
Dranoel > I didn’t threaten you eith them
Dranoel > I warned you
Dranoel > i didn’t make the decision
Marlenus > Not my call

Which it isn’t. But I do know that the “Suspension and Ban Policy” states:

5. IMPERSONATING AN OFFICIAL EVE REPRESENTATIVE

Severe offenses may result in an immediate ban without warning; however, warnings may be given for first time offenses, followed by account suspensions of varying degree and ultimately a permanent ban if a player:

* a. Presents himself as a CCP employee, game master or other customer service representative, or a member of the EVE volunteer program.

And I’d say the claim that “Do you knwo I”m part of ISD?” sounds like presenting himself as a member of the Eve volunteer program.

One final gem from the smack, which continued at length, until a new party entered the system and became curious about it:

Felgor > Did soemoen go boom?
Daloron > nope someone did steal
Marlenus > No, but some jettisoned ore went home to a hangar the mining ship never left from.
Daloron > from a newb
Takeda Shiko > I don’t think so, but marlenus ripped someone off.
Marlenus > Mining barge does not equal newb I wouldn’t think.
Felgor > Sounds like Marlenus will soon have a bounty on his head :P
Takeda Shiko > psh… bounties are just collected by a buddy
Dranoel > Brought a Badger II JUST to steal form me
Marlenus > No point in salvaging jettisoned ore in a small ship.
Raest > that’s the spirit
Dranoel > If I had fired, he gets 15 mins to attack me in w/e ship he wants
Marlenus > Ya gotta move that stuff in industrial quantities if you want to see a decent profit.
Dranoel > I had planned on it but you stole it befor ei Could
Dranoel > I was there in my BADGER II EMPTING THE CAN WHEN YOU STOELL IT!

So many comebacks, but I was laughing too hard to type. So I let it drop with a LOL, and moved on.

So I was minding my own business, autopiloting in a speed-fitted Executioner (frigate) around the galaxy collecting parts to build a couple of Gravity Capacitor Upgrade rigs (for faster scan probing). Suddenly through my cockpit window I notice a swarm of Hammerhead IIs chewing on each other.

Well, where the drones are swarming, salvage often follows. So I scroll out to get a sense of the tactical picture, and see a Curse attacking a Raven. Since the Curse is closing on the Raven, I select the Raven, hit “approach”, and hit my microwarp drive.

Beep beep! I felt like I was driving a little Nash Rambler with Roadrunner decals as I blew past the curse just as the Raven turned into a shiny yellow triangle. I whipped out my trusty wreck-opener (don’t leave home without it) and began stuffing battleship gear into my tiny frigate hold. Three Arbalest Siege Missile Launchers, an X-Large C5-L shield booster, some Tech II Magnetic Scattering Amplifiers, and I’m stuffed. No time to look over my shoulder and see whether this dearly departed battleship has friends, just hit the autopilot and GO GO GO! With another hearty “Beep beep!” and a cloud of thruster gas, I was Out Of There.

Inevitably, there was grumbling from the feller in the Curse. A convo request later and I’m hearing a demand and an insult. Not that the demand would have been satisfied in any case, but the insult made it a very short conversation:

Geoff C > return the stuff or face war noob
Marlenus > Insult? Bye.


A good thirty second’s salvage work if I do say so myself.

From time to time, I get jet can miners who seem to think that when I find jettisoned ore drifting dangerously close to their expensive mining barges, I’ll leave it marooned and drifting, alone and unloved, simply because they ask me to. I’m always civil to these people, but I never agree to their one-sided propositions.

Sometimes, the result is smack-talk. And sometimes, it’s attempted smack-talk via a machine translator. That’s so weird, and so fun, that I usually play along (and sometimes, play a little dumb) just to see what I get.

As this conversation begins, I’m in my Crane, approaching a jet can in the vicinity of a typical farmer-Covetor, flying three drones and no doubt equipped with civilian shield boosters, eight months old and member of State War Academy. During the course of it, I made several trips back to the hangar with a hold full of ore. At the end of it, Towering warped away:

towering > plz Do not take my box ok?
Your box? I do not understand
towering > My mineral
Marlenus > Your mineral is in your ship, how could I take it?
towering > I do not hope to see you are red
towering > Do you know?
Marlenus > No, I don't understand
towering > ....
towering > You like very much thus?
towering > What froom are you in ?
Marlenus > You mean, salvaging jettisoned ore? Yes, I like it very much.
Marlenus > I don't know what a froom is, sorry.
towering > Which nation do you come from?
Marlenus > United States, and you?
towering > I feel sorrow for you
Marlenus > LOL, why?
towering > I do not like to be thus you are knowing
Marlenus > You don't like to be thus what, you don't like mining?
towering > I do not like to be bother by the person
Marlenus > You're bothered by other players playing the game?
towering > But I do not like to see your time is red
Marlenus > I'm sorry that one of this game's features is something that you don't enjoy
towering > .......
towering > The game is very good But I hope that the person is better
towering > Especially American
towering > Do not close to me
Marlenus > I don't understand what "better" has to do with it. What's better about not playing?
towering > You what stuff very much do you know?
Marlenus > I don't understand.
towering > For God sake you can go to the another place
Marlenus > But, this is where the ore is. Why would I go elsewhere?'
towering > I wanted to eat the lunch you play slowly


So the bold newbie killers from The Griefer’s Alliance actually came and found me today, as I was tooling about in an unarmed Heron doing some exploration. Naturally enough I docked, and went on about my business on another computer screen, curious how patient they’d be.

Inevitably, we conversed in local. Tiny sample:

Philix > Dude ... come on even you know smack talks ghey
Marlenus > And blowing up Ibises for a living is what, exactly?


Needless to say, he moved rapidly on to the topic of my obvious cowardice, based on my failure to to come out and fight three battlecruisers with my trusty probe launcher in one high slot and my salvager in the other.

These are some bleedin’ heros, I tell you.

Overheard in local:


Barathrum > Woe Sin is a thief!
Woe Sin > Why yes. Thank you.
Woe Sin > A guy's got to earn a living somehow.
Barathrum > Glad you admit to it
Barathrum > What a punk. I wasn't goona shoot at you if you had asked
Woe Sin > Asked? Asked what? I'm a thief, not a driveling supplicant.


Hi, folks, Marlenus here, CEO of Ironfleet and the guy you’ll hear from most at Ironfleet.com.

I’m a bit of an odd duck when it comes to ship preferences. I like cargo ships. The bigger the better.

My favorite thing to do with cargo ships is to scoop stuff, usually stuff that other people left floating in space. (You would be amazed at the goodies people leave floating in space.)

So there I was, conducting my daily sweep of the belts in my home system of the hour, when what to my wondering eye should appear but a bunch of frigates, mining into a pair of Giant Secure Cans. Only these were Giant Insecure Cans, because their navigation lights were flashing green.

Worthy salvage for Ironfleet.

A quick bookmark and warp to zero later: *scoop* *scoop* and Ironfleet is richer by two expensive containers and about 6000 cubic meters of Azure Plagioclase.

Initial response from former owners was confused but polite:


TheJudge UK > whats the point in that
Marlenus > I'm sorry?
TheJudge UK > well give the stuff back
Marlenus > I don't understand.
TheJudge UK > is that all you want to do is steal others containers
Marlenus > All? Steal? By no means. But salvaging loose cans is indeed a favorite activity of mine.
TheJudge UK > those cans where ours abd they where anchored
Marlenus > Sorry friend, if they were anchored I could not have scooped them
TheJudge UK > it sucks you want to take 500,000.00 worth of can from next to us
TheJudge UK > holding 1000,000.00 worth ore
Marlenus > Next to you had nothing to do with it, I sweep these belts every day for lost and jettisoned items, I scoop them all. I'm a salvager, it's what I do.
TheJudge UK > maybe thats a side of the game we dont see
Marlenus > I think so
TheJudge UK > we have only been paying 4 days
Marlenus > You need anchoring skill to use those cans safely, then nobody can touch them
TheJudge UK > we didnt expect all our stuff that we mined to be robbed
Marlenus > Alas, you didn't anchor, you may have thought you did but you didn't
TheJudge UK > we did
TheJudge UK > with passwords
Marlenus > You should expect *anything* you jettison to be removed unless you anchor it.
Marlenus > The password controls who can open the can
Marlenus > You need to right click and "launch for corp" or "launch for self" in order to anchor
TheJudge UK > obviously we need to understand more
TheJudge UK > thanks
Marlenus > Good luck!
TheJudge UK > cheers
Marlenus > Ironfleet out


It went downhill from there. I begin getting smacky convos:


TD MADEYE > im going to destroy your fuckin ship
Marlenus > You should have shot when you had the chance? I waited....
TD MADEYE > dont worry your gonna get it
Marlenus > Thank you friend, indeed I shan't worry


Suddenly I’m being trailed by several frigates and a couple of destroyers, all of them locking me. Not sure what their plan is — I’m not flashing red to anyone — but the smack in local is getting hot. Retarded, but hot. Sample:


Aaeko > ran away eh?
Marlenus > LOL, I sat there for ten minutes waiting for you guys to do something, then I went back to salvaging
TD MADEYE > as soon as we had you in range you warped pussy
TD MADEYE > what you did was not salvage it was stealing
Marlenus > Matter of opinion
TD MADEYE > we were there mining and you stole our shit
Marlenus > I scooped some unanchored cans, it's true.
Marlenus > But I do that every day, I keep the local belts clean
TD FITZ > so fuck off from here asshole
Marlenus > LOL, I *live* here, this is my home system


And then TheJudge could restrain himself no longer. Under the watchful eye of Concord — who were actually present in the belt at that moment, due to some unknown earlier mishap — I see:


(notify) TheJudge UK (Merlin) has started trying to warp scramble you.
(notify) CONCORD Police Officer has started trying to warp scramble TheJudge UK (Merlin)
(notify) CONCORD Police Commander has started trying to warp scramble TheJudge UK (Merlin)


There followed an enormous kaboom. And Merlin fittings to salvage.

And oh, my, the smack:


TD FITZ > i hope i meet ur sister out here some day and fuck her like u did 2 us asshole
TD FITZ > thats 2 u marlenus
Marlenus > Oh my, really?
TD FITZ > oh my yes
Marlenus > It worked for The Judge
TD FITZ > he was looking at ur mother
Marlenus > Perhaps next time he should look at his instrument panel, hmm?
TD FITZ > ask ur mon she knows
Aaeko > rofl
Marlenus > Yes, we are rolling on the floor at that cuttting bit of incisive wit.
TD FITZ > yea he fucks sheep 2
Aaeko > Bahhhhh

TD FITZ > u like 2 get fuck in the ass
Marlenus > He has *two*, count them TWO, insults in his repertoire!
TD FITZ > i got more
Marlenus > Don't strain yourself, I don't think you've worn these two out yet
TD FITZ > ur sihp looks like a cow u like 2 fuck cows
Marlenus > Whoo, I am humiliated now
TD FITZ > ur mom looks likes a cow
Aaeko > Hey got a container here for you Marlenus, Its full of your mothers shitty knickers.
TD FITZ > and ur sister
TD FITZ > its true then
Harris Hharav > bad form people
Marlenus > But Harris, they're having so much fun!
TD FITZ > he started
TD FITZ > we r we r
Marlenus > LOL, check the logs, the smack didn't start here
DadVer20 > marlenus i must say sorry for them i tryed to explain to the you suffer from a small penis
TD FITZ > it started when u stole our shit
TheJudge UK > OMG can you come and get you mum she has shit her self again
TheJudge UK > get the fuck off me bitch
Marlenus > Boys, the level of banter isn't really high enough to keep me interested, so I'm going AFK a bit. Don't let that stop you, though, I'm sure you have reserves of scatology you've not yet plumbed.


And that’s a typical few minute’s work for Ironfleet. (Although, to be fair, I usually get a better quality of smack, these guys were hindered by limited vocabulary and even more limited imagination.)