I’ve been playing around with EVE Online for a while now and I have to admit I’m still enjoying it. That’s good since I’ve already paid for a month of gameplay. The OS X client had some serious stability issues when I started playing, but it was patched before Christmas and it’s working much better now. There’s still the odd crash, but getting back online only takes minute and I’ve still not experience any loss of ISK (the in-game currency), disappearing ore or any other annoyances caused by the client crashing.

What do annoy me, however, are pirates. Pirates are players who move into high security systems with well-armed ships and steal other player’s cans while they are jetcan mining. If someone steals, or “flips” your can, you’re allowed to attack the pirate for 15 minutes without the police force, CONCORD, in the system interfering. Neither will it affect your security status, which is important to keep on the positive side to be get access to high security systems later.

What the pirate really wants is not the ore in your jetcan, what he wants is that you either try to steal back the content of your can or that you open fire on him. If you do either, he is allowed to blow you to pieces without CONCORD caring about and he will get a kill. This usually only works on new players who do not know the rules of the game. I walked into that trap once, but never again.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

If you’re playing EVE Online yourself, log in and have a look for Jacob Goods. MacWorld has an article about EVE you might find interesting.