**VALE** — The most consequential forum thread of the week has reached 96 comments.
User HuntBuzzR successfully killed the Rorqual of a player widely understood within the EVE Online community to be one of the most prolific input broadcasting botting operations in existence, netting a comfortable 2.3 billion ISK in hull, modules, and what appears to be the digital equivalent of a sourdough starter that has been running continuously since 2019. The killmail was celebrated briefly in local, then screenshotted, then posted to r/EVE with the headline “Maybe This Will Finally Be The One That Gets Attention.”
It was not the one that got attention.
Instead, the thread devolved within minutes into a 96-comment argument about CCP’s enforcement record on input broadcasting, with opinions roughly splitting into three camps: those who believe CCP is actively investigating and will act “soon,” those who believe CCP does not care about botting because bots pay subscription fees like everyone else, and those who have simply posted screenshots of their own Rorqual losses as a kind of cathartic screaming into the void. A betting pool has since opened on the EVE subreddit with odds on whether the broadcaster in question will receive a ban before the heat death of the universe, with the current favorite being “never, actually.”
CCP’s official statement on the matter, copied from the previous 46 statements, reads in part: “EVE Online has a zero-tolerance policy for any activity that violates our Terms of Service, including but not limited to the use of third-party software to automate gameplay. Players found to be in violation may face disciplinary action up to and including account closure.” The statement was posted to the forums at 3 AM on a Tuesday, received 14 views, and has been reacted to with 23 laughing emoji by people who have been watching this particular Rorqual pilot conduct industrial operations across three different time zones simultaneously for the better part of five years.
The Rorqual has been replaced. HuntBuzzR has been thanked by approximately 200 people in local. The bot continues.
