EVE Online - Player Graveyard Becomes an Official Part of the Game
CCP Games added a new location to EVE Online. It is a monumental structure serving as a graveyard, which replaced the mausoleum run by players for several years.
EVE Online is most often mentioned in the context of breathtaking numbers: battles involving thousands of people, ships and loot worth small fortunes, etc. Of course, both in life and in the game, no history would be made without victims who have died in wars, clashes with pirates or aliens. These fallen were immortalized on a dedicated cemetery of players, which recently became an official part of EVE Online. You can see the monument on a video posted on YouTube by user Bryanward2.
A graveyard with a rich history
We write "official" because the project has a much longer history. The graveyard was established in 2007 as the work of Azia Burgi in the Molea system. The pilot decided to collect the bodies of characters killed in battles, floatingin space after every skirmish. Containers with relevant, or at least sensible, epitaphs were used as coffins. It was not an easy job. First of all, Azia had to deal with the disappearance of objects in space after a few days, as introduced in the 2008 update. The solution was to create her own base.
The biggest problem turned out to be the raids of other players. Molea Cemetery (as Azia's base is often called) gained a lot of publicity and quickly became one of the most popular places in the EVE Online universe. Unfortunately, it also attracted various aggressors. For example, in 2008 the JihadSwarm offensive was launched under the auspices of the GoonSwarm alliance, which began to attack miners, trading places, etc. The Molea Cemetery was also their target. Unfortunately, Azia Burgi couldn't log on to the game at that time (she still didn't have an internet connection at her university). As a result, her base was destroyed in the name of "religious freedom and freeing sullied corpses" (as JihadSwarm members explained), many "coffins" were stolen, and the place itself was "decorated" with various frivolous inscriptions (via official CCP report).
After this event, about a hundred graves remained from the first 700. Azia's friends worked in turns to recover the "coffins" before they disappeared. They did the same after the second GoonSwarm invasion - the base was destroyed again, but Azia's group managed to save most of the bodies.
The threat of updates...
Fortunately for Azia, the following years have been much more peaceful. Although she had less and less time to play, Linara Faerin, a long-time supporter of the Molea Cemetery guards, took over her duties. With time, the location was no longer just a burial place for the fallen pilots. Players from all over space began to leave canisters for people who died in the real world.
However, a few years ago the cemetery was again threatened with demolishon, this time by a new update. Beginning with 2016, the creators began to introduce new types of space bases, which in time were to replace the existing POS (Player Owned Bases). In practice, this would mean the end of the Mole Cemetery and many players were wondering how to prevent it.
...and rescue by CCP Games
That's when the creators of EVE Online from CCP Games entered the fray. Already in 2017 the developers' statements gave hope to save this mausoleum (via PC Gamer). The result of CCP Games actions is a solid, monumental structure made of rock. From time to time, a ball of light appears above it, symbolically rising towards - for lack of a better term - the heavens.
This is not the end of the problems of the Molea Cemetery. Although the graves are no longer threatened by "despawn" (items do not disappear within 200 kilometers of the monument), they are still vulnerable to player attacks. However, there will probably be no shortage of pilots who want to defend this place - either out of respect for others or - as it often happens in life - for fun.
