We can probably all agree that cheating in an MMO is just not OK, but it can often be difficult for developers to positively identify cheaters and rule-breakers. It certainly helps when the player accidentally exposes his or her cheating ways in an irrefutable manner, which is exactly what happened to one EVE Online player yesterday. At exactly 12:05 in star systems all across the game, multiple characters all said the exact same thing in chat: “YEah they use asic miners these days.”
The player seemed to be automatically controlling dozens of characters from one keyboard and had forgotten to switch his input broadcasting off before chatting. EVE Online players are allowed to have multiple accounts and play on them at the same time, but the rules forbid using any software that broadcasts input from one keyboard or mouse to multiple clients as it would give someone an incredible unfair advantage.
After the incident happened, players began collecting screenshots of characters in various chat channels uttering that same phrase at 12:05, identifying loads of the cheater’s characters. CCP’s rules on this are very strict, with a 30 day ban on all accounts for the first offence and a permanent ban if caught doing it again. It should now be trivial for CCP to look through the game’s chat logs at 12:05 for that phrase and take action against the player. Big thanks to the cheater for our regular dose of EVE Online schadenfreude.
