Death by Guards

April 6, 2006 on 10:04 pm | In MMO (Live), Eve

I’m not the sharpest spoon on the floor, but I’m generally fairly aware of at least some of the rules set forth by the developers in these MMORPGs. There’s places one can go, places one cannot, places they may be able to someday and methods by which they can and cannot do things in all of those places.

But there’s always something new to be learned, as I found out last night.

I’ve just logged in to see that my buddy Addryc is also online. He’s recently back to Eve, but had been playing a lot a few short months ago. This was his second night. Unfortunately, his first night resulted in not only a ship loss, but a pod kill that bumped him back to newbie land, some crazy number of jumps away.

So, here we are, battle scarred from the prior night (I managed to escape, but not overjoyed to see him get podded), ready to roll. We’re running missions separately and decide to go hunting pirates. He heads in to Station re-equip his ship and gets jumped by a player in a Corporation at war with us (Addryc is the F13 Corporation, but I hadn’t applied yet). He does well against the enemy, forcing them to run.

A few minutes later though, the enemy comes back wanting to duel Addryc, so the latter obliges. Unfortunately, it appears to be a trap. Not long after Addryc begins the beat down, a Cruiser from the same enemy Corporation shows up and pulverzies him. Now, this apparently was a surprise to the first guy who challenged Addryc too, and at least the Cruiser pilot didn’t pod-kill Addryc. In fact, he didn’t nuke his ship equipment either.

But now we have a full-skirmish developing here.

Throughout the later part of this, I was in the station loading my Rifter for bear. Ok, small bears. I am still having problems managing my Power Grid. I need just a bit more power, but I’m not getting it from anywhere.

Meanwhile, Addryc had re-engaged but had been forced to run. Another F13 member (Peach) shows up, undocks his Cruiser, and together they head back to bring the fight to the enemy, taunting us mere kilometers from our station. Unfortunately, while the enemy’s frigate was a pushover, their Cruiser was not and both Peach and Addryc had to evac to safe points in the system.

Finally I get a configuration I want. If it sounds like I’m flightly indecisive wimp, keep in mind all of this happened over the course of 5 minutes. By then, Peach and Addryc had returned to station, Addryc needed a new Rifter which Peach was able to supply. They loaded up and we created a battle plan. Nothing spectacular: just launch, head to the Cruiser, pound it while we kept it warp scrambled. The enemy frigate could be ignored for a few seconds.

Peach in his Cruiser launches first and engages.
I’m right behind him.
Addryc was behind me.
I go to engage the Cruiser, which was very close now. I lock the target, fire up the weaponry, notice some dialog box I couldn’t be bothered to read, and start firing.

Not two seconds later I get absolutely pulverized. There was no response possible. I just watched as the whole world ended in a firey blaze. My first though is, Holy ****, just what the **** does this guy have on his Cruiser?! My Rifter may be made of glass in comparison, but I’ve seen some tough stuff. Even if death would be imminent, I’d expect to at least see it firing at me.

Shortly after, Addryc and Peach had to evac to safe points again. I’m glad they got away. I probably wouldn’t have tipped the balance anyway, but I let it be known I was a bit surprised by my hasty departure from my ship.

Now, remember two things mentioned above:

1. I wasn’t in the F13 Corp yet. Technically this means I wasn’t at war with the enemy who had declared such on F13.
2. I didn’t bother reading that dialog box.

Apparently, it wasn’t the Cruiser that got me. It was the Guard NPC ships orbiting our station who didn’t like the fact that I showed open aggression right in front of them. In a War situation, it’s all good. In this case? Not so much.

Yep. I was guard killed.

It goes without saying I was quite embarassed. I was caught up in the moment, eager to go to war with my buddies against a declared enemy.

So that’s how I had my first death in Eve. Ever. This wasn’t a surprise hit by Pirates in some deep space Asteroid field. I wasn’t a neophyte taking a shortcut through 0.1 space in an Industrial ship hauling millions of Tritanium. I hadn’t engaged a dishonorable enemy to defend the nobility of my side.

Per the game rules, I wantonly attacked a random ship right in front of the guards.

The last time I did that, I was a level 3 Bard in Everquest, hunting rats and bats just outside of Qeynos, feeling all big and bad with my point blank Area of Effect that turned out to have a slightly longer range than I would have thought.