No EVE For You!

EVE Online have permanently banned three members for defacing their newly revealed commemorative monument, reports Polygon.

As reported, the vandals came from the in-game player alliance of griefer’s called Goonswarm. At some point following the end of this year’s Fanfest, members of Goonswarm stuck the group’s insignia – a bee in a helmet smoking a cigar- on to the monument.

EVE Online Community Manager, CCP Falcon, called the monument’s defacing an insult to the entire EVE Online community and said CCP Games will “continue to operate a zero tolerance approach to dealing with harassment and victimisation in the EVE Universe.”

As a result, three players — with seven EVE Online accounts between them — have been permanently banned from the game. Another player who was indirectly involved with the incident is facing a six-month ban. These four individuals, whom Falcon refused to name, are also blacklisted for life from future EVE Fanfests.

“While the community has been justifiably outraged and a number of people have requested that we release the in-game identities of those who carried out the act, we feel that this would be contrary to our privacy policies,” Falcon said. “As such we will deal with this incident in line with our current policies, and the identities of those responsible will remain confidential.

“With this in mind, we now consider this issue resolved within the EVE Universe, and any further action taken outside the virtual world relating to criminal damage or recovery of costs for repairs to the EVE Universe Monument will remain confidential between CCP Games, the authorities and those involved,” Falcon added.