Virtual Drama in the MMORPG

An interesting thing happened in our Star Wars Galaxies (SWG) player community recently. A few weeks ago, I became a member of a prestigious player association (guild). Our leader is a female who played almost non-stop. She quickly attained Master Architect..and was probably one of the first on our server to do so. Her PA was among the first to have a PA Hall, which is a remarkable achievement. The amount of time that goes into developing a character like this astonishes most non-MMORPG players, and rightly so...she had hundreds of hours invested in her character and trade. Additionally, many of her fellow PA mates contributed time and resources to the construction and furnishing of the PA Hall and other facilities.

You can imagine how difficult it must be to maintain real life relationships when most of your waking moments are dedicated to in-game pursuits. Unfortunately, this chick was having relationship difficulties with her boyfriend, who was extremely jealous of the time she spent online. I understand his jealousy, but this is where it gets interesting....

The boyfriend is apparently on the bottom rung of computer literacy. He wanted to delete her account or in some other way disrupt her ability to play, but he lacked the knowledge to do so. So he asked for the help of his geekish buddy. They devised a sinister plan to take over her SWG account and destroy girl's character and the player association along with it.

Little did they know, or perhaps care that over 50 people who had contributed to the PA would be effected.

Many of us in the PA logged in to find that our PA hall and all that was inside was missing. Poof...gone. Thousands of units of resources, vendors, weapons, items, furniture...all gone.

I'm sure this isn't the first time something like this has happened in an online game, but it's interesting nonetheless. My exposure to the resource loss was minimal, but some people lost the shirts off their virtual backs. It has basically destroyed one of the strongest PA's on our server.

We got our PA hall back and some of the items, but the vendors are gone. Customer Support is investigating the crime but we have no clue what has happened to our guild leader. Hopefully, she ditched the lamer.

To some, this may seem silly. But to others, this is serious business. Hours of investment can be lost due to maliciousness. I wonder if he can be sued. Hmm..

Oh well, life goes on. Off to manufacture more Power Turbine Generators.