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Incoming Nerf to Eve Scamming

September 2, 2018

Little things, in small packages – A few days ago CCP Fozzie took to the Eve Forums to post about September’s release including Upwell Cargo Deposit. However, on the same day CCP karkur also posted about the same release, “little things”. Why is CCP Fozzie’s post such a big deal? “Unfortunately, the current implementation of player-owned structures allows players to construct scam contracts that are impossible for us to deliver in order to cost Red Frog pilots their collateral,” states the reasons behind larger Freight corp refusing to deliver to Upwells.

This Benefits Whom?

Aside from hauling corps does this benefit, one may ask while thinking more time should be placed on ship balance.

We also think that this ability will be very useful for pilots flying ships that are too large to dock in a particular structure, such as Rorqual pilots mining outside an Athanor-class refinery.
– CCP Fozzie

From personal experience, I see more mining or industry corps utilizing the system, as it reduces the time to off-load an Orca or Freighter. This would be especially true for Upwells with “poorly” faced exits.

The Future of Courier Scams

Scamming has been part of Eve since the beginning. In fact is has been the center point of a great number of articles, for example Eve Online Scams Aren’t Just Legal, They’re Encouraged.

A scam is what happens when someone takes advantage of a player’s misplaced trust, temporary confusion or ignorance of game rules, and robs players via legal in-game means.
– Support note on the EVE Online website

In the case of Courier Scams a player makes a contract for another player to haul material from an “open” station to an Upwell they don’t have docking rights to. How the scammer makes money is through the collateral placed on the contract. When the time runs out and the hauler can’t deliver the scammer is in the clear. With the speed that access right can be changed even smart haulers that check the clearance can find themselves with a denied request upon arrival.

How To Upwell Cargo Deposit System

The cargo deposit system is designed to be quite easy to use. Capsuleers can open up the cargo deposit window from any ship -meaning in space within 10km of an Upwell Structure- using the right click menu, radial menu, or selected item window. Players can drag items from their cargo (or other specialized ship bays such as the ore bay) into the cargo deposit window and hit the “Transfer” button. Items will be deposited into the player’s hanger as if they had dock with the structure.

Here are a few quick additional points about what to expect from Upwell Cargo Deposit System:

  • You do not need to have access to dock or tether on a structure in order to use Upwell Cargo Deposit. Beware that if you place items into a structure that you do not have permission to dock in, you may need to use asset safety to retrieve them.
  • You will not be able to use the cargo deposit system while you have an active weapons timer or criminal timer, or while cloaked.
  • The cargo deposit range on Upwell Structures is 10km, just like tethering (although remember that you can use cargo deposit even if you do not have permissions to tether)
  • Upwell Cargo Deposit may only be used to place items into a structure, not to take items out of your item hangar while undocked.
  • This service will automatically be available on all Upwell Structures in all areas of space.

Final Thoughts

Personally, I understand scams are a part of Eve, but this isn’t a targeted nerf just to scamming. It can be seen as a real quality of life improvement and I find it exciting that this was a community suggestion. 2018 is shaping up to be a year of CCP actioning on good player and community ideas. Let’s not abuse this power, and keep the bulk of our ideas within reason. I mean they have confirmed a 64-bit client for the Winter.

Update:

After receiving the following tweet from CCP karkur, we reviewed the piece’s content and found, while the first paragraph wasn’t to the highest standard, it was factually correct. The first two paragraphs have been altered to be more clear in the authorship of each post and links are now embedded.