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Um.

This has been, and is being, addressed in front of the subscribers.

Background: I've been playing eve since august of 2003 with two accounts

Currently: I've cancelled both accounts due to CCP's flaccid response to the dev/gm cheating scandal

Question: Why wasn't the scandal - discovered by CCP back in the middle of 2006 - publicized and the dev (t20) properly punished (fired, per CCP policy) at that time? Why, after the scandal was publicized 6 months later haven't you taken appropriate action per your own policies and yet stretched your policies to ban the person that publicized the events? Why haven't CCP publicized the full extent of the cheating and the damage caused to the rest of the eve public?

Most of the allegations were publicized via http://www.kugutsumen.com/forumdisplay.php?f=2 but suspicions have been rampant for ages.

The allegations were confirmed by one of the dev's involved, t20, in this post: http://myeve.eve-online.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid =424.

CCP's limp-wristed response is here: http://myeve.eve-online.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid =423

Background: I've been playing eve since august of 2003 with two accounts

Currently: I've cancelled both accounts due to CCP's flaccid response to the dev/gm cheating scandal

Question: Why wasn't the scandal - discovered by CCP back in the middle of 2006 - publicized and the dev (t20) properly punished (fired, per CCP policy) at that time? Why, after the scandal was publicized 6 months later haven't you taken appropriate action per your own policies and yet stretched your policies to ban the person that publicized the events? Why haven't CCP publicized the full extent of the cheating and the damage caused to the rest of the eve public?

Most of the allegations were publicized via http://www.kugutsumen.com/forumdisplay.php?f=2 but suspicions have been rampant for ages.

The allegations were confirmed by one of the dev's involved, t20, in this post: http://myeve.eve-online.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid =424.

CCP's limp-wristed response is here: http://myeve.eve-online.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid =423

Your questions has been answered in the latest dev blog, short answer is yes they have some serious plans for PvE.

http://myeve.eve-online.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid =432

I'm as unhappy about the whole thing as you seem to be, but you obviously haven't taken a great interest in the case.

A recent dev blog* from the offender, t20, detailed the nature of the offense (abusing his position to give tech 2 blueprints to his alliance), how it was corrected (all blueprints returned to CCP and put back into the lottery), and implied the truth, that he is still an employee. Elsewhere, although I'm afraid I can't remember where, it was stated that all his characters were terminated.

It'd be nice if you actually did some research before asking a question.

*Registration required, AFAIK. Sorry, non-capsuleers!

Most of this information has already been disseminated on their website;

1) The character seeded items into the game that wouldn't have been obtained by the employee's in-game corporation otherwise. These items allowed the corporation access to other hard-to-obtain items and cashflow.
2) The items were removed from the game and the employee's in-game account was banned.
3 & 4) Because of the timing of the infraction, the employee was not fired. Read here [eve-online.com] for more information.

You might want to try something like EVE online (http://www.eve-online.com/) might be something for you then. You gain skills by learning them, and learning continues whether you're playing or not. The amount of cash you earn in game depends on how much you play though...

There may be other games out there with such a skill training system, but I don't know of any (feel free to point them out).

Because the famous GHSC guy, Istvaan Shogaatsu, says he is quitting because of this.

http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topi c&threadID=473335&page=7#187

Why bother with classy backstabbing when the Dev's can cheat at will?

Read what the EVE players have to say about the cheating dev remaining an employee of CCP:
t20 and Hellmar speak on recent events

Sadly enough, the allegation regarding unlawfully obtained blueprints are, in my case, true.

The blueprints in question will be returned to CCP and reintroduced through a new raffle in the future.

As much as this is a confession it is also a request for your forgiveness for events of which I'm truly sorry.

Maybe... they could've also had the pilots submit daily / weekly / monthly XML dumps of their character information from the "My Character" XML export:

http://myeve.eve-online.com/character/skilltree.as p?characterID=XXXXXXXXXX

What I'm not sure of is whether one player can look at another player's skilltree on the website, or whether it's locked down. (Pretty sure it's locked down.)

The XML file wouldn't be as trustworthy as getting it from the source (myeve.eve-online.com server), but if a pilot was slacking it would quickly be apparent in-game.

Alternately, the person in charge could require screenshots from the in-game character window that shows the skills.

Have you tried EVE Online (http://www.eve-online.com/) yet?

It is the most sandbox-y MMO I have played yet, with multiple of ways to play it. From trader in high security areas to pirate in the interstellar outback, everything is possible (note that the latter is quite dangerous thanks to open PvP).

Disclaimer: I have never played Star Wars: Galaxies, so I cannot offer a direct comparison.

I read the EVE forum thread about the matter. It was very interesting, and what was said takes on dramatically different meanings if you have a particular bias one way or the other on the matter. I'm a once and future EVE player. That is to say, I played EVE, I enjoyed it, and I'll probably play again in the not-too-distant future, but I'm not currently playing, and haven't for several months.

I'm not a member of BoB or Goonfleet, and have never been. I've never been part of any corporation larger than 10 people, for that matter. I do have a vague bias against Goonfleet, because I hate what SomethingAwful stands for, and have been attacked and harrassed on other game sites (for things that had nothing to do with the game) over matters that are popular SA targets.

So, that's my disclosure on my lack of bias on this matter.

-----

A known hacker (Kugutsumen, aka AnthonyZ, among other aliases) hacked BoB's off-game forums, and made off with documents, including forum posts and private messages from said forum. He then posted what he claims is complete and unedited information, claiming that it's proof that a Dev (developer) has been directly aiding BoB with knowledge and/or abilities that the average EVE player does not have access to. One of Goonfleet's higher-ups, The Mittani, corroborated the claims that Kugutsumen does indeed hack sites in order to gain information and advantages (http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=top ic&threadID=468189&page=3 -> Page 3 of the thread in question), and has done so to Goonfleet in the past. He didn't confirm whether Kugutsumen posted the information whole and complete, or altered it in any way.

Now, that said, it's clear from Kugutsumen's blog that he profits from strife - he directly hires himself out for hacking, and asks for donations for the public posting of the information gathering that he does. His methods are generally considered illegal (although they aren't where he is supposedly from).

Kugutsumen posted several private mails that supposedly prove that Lord Stone is a CCP employee, and that he revealed to at least one other player that he is a CCP employee. He posted more private mails that implied that Ishos Rerajan was a CCP employee who donated several T2 Blueprints to RKK before being suspended. Lastly, he has inferred that Al Haquis is also a CCP employee. There are also other claims of wrongdoing - feel free to browse his forum for details.

The question that everyone should be asking is, "Is any of this credible?" Is this genuine information, or is it a carefully-crafted web of half-truths? I doubt that anyone outside of the involved parties could ever say for sure.

CCP's Community Manager, Kieron, explained in brief the previous incident where a CCP employee (a GM) was caught spawning items for himself. He was fired, and the entire incident was publicized by CCP, not hidden or swept under the rug. I think this fact alone shows where CCP stands on the matter. Kieron has stated that this matter will be investigated, and that the results of the investigation will be announced. Enough said about that.

-----

All of this hoo-ha on the public forums has had a number of people proclaiming loudly that CCP employees should either not ever play the game, or should have their play characters exposed to the public. Both of these are absurdly bad ideas.

In the first matter, I'd like to post a rhetorical question. Have any of you ever had to call customer service for anything and ended up talking to a representative who was clearly reading from a checklist, and didn't actually have the first idea of what they were doing? Think about that for a moment...

In order for CCP staff to be able to experience the play environment properly (and for ISD:STAR volunteers to

What I don't get about WoW is the fact that people complain that they can't level up any more and that the game is restrictive. In fact I had one friend tell me thats why they wanted TBC, so they can progress from Lvl60. I don't really see the fun in playing the game until you get to a point and can then progress no further, it reminds me of the single player worlds - once you're at the end all you can do is play with friends to help them get to the top. But in any case I'd be more interested in the fact that it appears that the 'patch' was given out for free (presumably to make everything nice and compatible) whilst the 'content update' was charged. I find this strange not only coming from EVE as my primary MMO but after seeing this on the WoW website:

Why isn't World of Warcraft free?
World of Warcraft will require a fee to play. This fee will be used to support the costs associated with the high-quality levels of service, support, and ongoing content creation that we are planning for World of Warcraft.

For those interested, I sourced it from the General FAQ: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/faq/general.ht ml

I've asked people what the ongoing content creation has been so far and I've been told a reconfiguration of the Merit system (multiple times), Talents a few times and around about 10 new dungeons. I can see TBC as a major content update but I wonder why everyone is so happily accepting that is being charged for?

As an example of the contrary, EVE has no real upper skill limit (estimates on training _every_ skill in EVE amount to the years) and also has free content updates for a lower monthly fee. In fact Revelations, the last content update, did similar to TBC in a way: they added a whole new set of items, new skills (I'm told these are akin to talents), new abilities within the game (you can now salvage things and do invention as well (an extension of manufacturing)). If you're more interested in what free content updates there have been (and theres been 5 of them since the games release in May 2003) you can check out the EVE Website: http://www.eve-online.com/features/

I guess a space MMO isn't what people want, thats great, but when they go to WoW I wonder. You're paying more consistently to get what seems like lower service (no idling when you have large numbers of servers plus wait times to join) and you get charged for major content updates. Did I miss something?

Try EVE-ONLINE for great pvp.

http://www.eve-online.com/ They have a wealth of knowledge with warp cores, power requirements and railguns. I forsee great things for all... just don't use Minnie BPOs.

The next thing that I'd like to see is another Elite game. Elite IV - MMO :)

I was thinking the exact thing myself, then I remembered EVE

World of Warcraft is simply a pretty world where all players are pampered all along the way...
If you're looking for a real challange, try out EVE Online at http://www.eve-online.com/ [eve-online.com] .
You can also visit my eve-related blog at http://www.eve-pirate.com/ [eve-pirate.com] :)


I would, but I'm reading this thread while waiting for today's extended downtime to be over...thanks so much for actually pointing that out to me :P

World of Warcraft is simply a pretty world where all players are pampered all along the way...
If you're looking for a real challange, try out EVE Online at http://www.eve-online.com/ .
You can also visit my eve-related blog at http://www.eve-pirate.com/ :)

It's CCP, and the concurrent user record is a shade over 33,000. And there are technically two, since there a separate server in China. Now, 33,000 concurrent users converts to some ungodly number of transactions per second. For the load they're handling the game runs phenomenally well under load. From a player's perspective lag can be an issue with some regularity, but we seem to be past the worst of it. EVE is growing and so the server infrastructure is lagging behind capacity. They're buying servers, upgrading the network and tweaking things to reduce the load, but they're still behind. The recent network upgrade seems to have helped a lot.

CCP has done two interesting things to avoid lag. A couple dozen solar systems run on a single blade. High traffic systems have been moved to their own hardware, but the problem comes when a fleet action breaks out on the same node you're on. Their plan is to try and dynamically predict load and move systems off of nodes that are about to suffer some severe lag. In the latest expansion they overhauled the gang system to make it a hierarchical fleet structure instead of just a flat group. I'm predicting that in the next round fleet commanders will be able to designate systems as objectives and rally points. That will let the load balancer start moving other systems off of that node.

Fleet actions really lag the system right now. The biggest I've been in was a 40 v 50, but I've heard of 200+ ships per side. I'm a Battlecruiser pilot. I launch 4 drones and put out 3 missiles every 12 seconds. That's a lot of objects in space when you figure that battleships launch more stuff and there can be hundreds in a fleet action.

The other interesting thing is they recently removed the need for bookmarks to move quickly and safely. Many pilots in alliances would have had thousands of bookmarks. CCP deleted just the so-called instas, and left your other bookmarks intact. That took a relatively small but still significant number of objects out of the database. At the point they did it, even a percentage point or two would have helped.

Let's hope Linden Labs is paying as much attention to their performance issues.

The ONLY people who think Java is in decline in favor of Ruby or Python are the ivory tower academics who aren't actually developing large scale enterprise applications.

Hmm... heard of a game called 'EVE Online'? Their server -- which serves provides an entire 3D universe to over 33000 users simultaneously (without instancing as in WoW or Guild Wars) -- has the game logic implemented almost entirely in Stackless Python, with shared state across tens of thousands of CPUs. Or what about that small and insignificant search engine, Google? They seem to rely quite heavily on Python too.

Oh, I'm sorry. Perhaps those aren't "large scale" enough for you. What sort of "large scale enterprise applications" did you have in mind?

Funny that you don't mention Eve Online. I think some posters may disagree with me, but many more will agree that it is a worthwhile MMORPG.

It's called EVE Online, and it rocks. Take that.

EVE doesn't have any aliens and it's doing just fine. We broke 33,000 users on the Western server on the 4th (no numbers yet from the Chinese server). Last I heard there were about 150,000 subscribers, a lot of SWG refugees and a lot of browncoats.

Go check out the new video (link is to a .wmv file) and get ready for some serious PVP. The video is one part beauty shots of the new ships and one part a fleet attacking a player-owned space station. And maybe one more part of CCP showing off their explosion effect. In EVE, if you lose your ship you pocket the insurance money (if you had it) and can try and pick up some of your fittings and cargo. If your escape pod gets popped you wake up in a cloning facility. If your clone isn't up to date, you lose weeks or months worth of skills (you wake up in a cloning facility, so there's no excuse not to have a current clone).

Actually, they're planning on letting you walk around stations at some time in the foreseeable future. Not for essential services, but more for player interaction. And we have a promise of "no dancing" in there.

Landing on planets has to be a loooong way in the future.

http://eve-online.com/ is what your lookin for. I just got done with the free trial today, and I found it to be quite a bit of fun. Its different than any mmog I've played (evercrack and ffxi) in that pvp is available and encouraged.

If I had a box at home that could run it, i'd ditch ffxi for it right now.

To be honest there isn't a market left...Any one who is really after a good space game is already playing EVE Online and I know from people I come across there is already a huge Firefly fanbase in the game. Hell every member of my squad is an out right addict of Firefly.

So the question is how do these people think they can get the depth and sophistication of EVE to draw people away from characters they've already put at least a year into developing. My answer is that I doubt they can for a very long time; EVE is very complex and very well thought out plus by the time this mob have a game out EVE will probably have the FPS areas added. I really can't see myself moving away from it for a simple name branding of Firefly on another game.

Sorry, can't stand WOW, Mr A/C :). I'm more of an EVE Online fellow myself. In either case, my coworkers wouldn't appreciate it if I was 'unwashed'.

"For an MMO to be successful it must play to the lower common denominator. If a game requires any significant amount of player skill in order to succeed then it will crash and burn, as the average player simply isn't that good when you are talking about games with tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, and especially millions of players."

I keep all my ISK In the Eve Intergalactic Bank - as safe as 1.0 space!

You may find EVE online a little more fun. There is no skill cap which does in some ways mean that "everyone who started playing before I did is automatically better than me", but it also means that the game doesn't just end after your character reaches a certain point. The skill tree and market and the vast multitude of ways someone can fit their ships adds an extreme amount of flexibility to the situation so fighting someone who has been playing for longer than you is not an automatic loss. EVE also has the "dynamics" that you crave. The players have a large degree of control over the markets. Territory in "alliance space" can be won and lost as Alliances go to war - these are entirely player controlled events. Finally, if I understand it correctly, there are a number of "event actors" working for CCP which help to move the main storyline of EVE along, again, with player input of course. You'll see these events and their outcomes in the news item that you see every time you pick your character when logging in.

I feel it is fair to mention some of the downsides as well: skill training takes a really long time. It runs 23/7 (one hour of downtime every day), whether you're logged in or not. Simple skills take 20 minutes. Complex skills take 15 days to a month. Insane skills... I don't even want to know.

While the storyline of Eve is somewhat dynamic, the missions are completely static, at least as far as I can tell. A few variables may change but as far as I can tell the missions are completely based off templates: "kill 10 grue", "deliver this stuff there", etc. Of course, I counter my own negative point: at a certain point the player interaction can help with this a lot, there is a fully open player controlled courier and escrow section of the game, where the missions are obviously unique (CCP is also supposedly planning some sort of contract support in the near future). Mercenaries and pirates are extremely common and while they don't have something built directly into the UI for managing relationships they are very much a part of the game. Need your expensive cargo hauled through space infested by other people playing as pirates? Better hire a good hauler, who will in turn hire a good merc corp.

Finally, yes, the grind still exists. I don't think this will ever be done away with in MMOs. The simple fact of the matter is that the more time you throw at any MMO the better your character is going to get, be it money, skill, rep, connections, whatever.

CCP is offering free 14 day trials. If you ever do give the game a shot, fire me off an email and we can perhaps converse in-game.
Trial link: https://secure.eve-online.com/ft/?aid=100972&nogre et=1

"Blizzard has written new storylines before. Last winter, it challenged players to team up and fuel a worldwide war effort. As a payoff, it unlocked new territory. This was a good example of letting the users drive a story, but Warcraft needs more of them. New wars should break out, cities should rise and fall, and all hell should break loose at least once a month--and the players should be the ones to make it happen. After all, in a world that never changes, you can never make your mark."

There ARE mmorpgs that have non-static worlds that the players feel like they can change. (Because they can)

Might I reccomend some, such as a tale in the desert or possibly eve...

I want to be snarky and point out that Zonk obviously has no idea how other games are designed, but I think he pretty much nails why games publishers make bad decisions about what they publish. Those looking to play something other than a massively single-player game such as WoW might want to look at games such as Eve Online.

I was at the EVE fanfest in "Reychavik" when the announcement was made and a silence came over the crowd when we saw the CCP logo next to WW's logo on the big screen. Much of the backstory and ongoing events in EVE are created by the fanbase (in game roleplayers and volunteer event managers) so the fact that WW will now be in charge of EVE's story makes some players sceptical. But the fact that we will see more EVE novellas and stuff is a big plus (I'm already saving up for a miniature Tempest). When asked how soon we would see a World of Darkness game, Hilmar Péturson said at the fanfest that EVE was in pre-production for about 3 years and he expected the same thing about WoD (although EVE had some financial problems). He also said that CCP and WW had been working together for over a year already and had kept this a tight secret, claiming later on EVETV (http://www.eve-online.com/evetv/), a little drunk, that it must be some kind of world record to keep this relationship a secret for a year with over 500 employees. Although I doubt that Guinness will show that fact any interest it is true that no EVE player (nor some of the staff) had any idea about this merge.

We'll get an EVE tabletop RPG, and CCG.

Honestly, I don't expect either company to be around much longer no matter WHAT happens. EVE Online is getting long-in-the-tooth, and really doesn't have mass-market appeal.

We'll get an EVE tabletop RPG, and CCG.

Honestly, I don't expect either company to be around much longer no matter WHAT happens. EVE Online is getting long-in-the-tooth, and really doesn't have mass-market appeal.

OK, I'll admit ... I had NO CLUE what this article was talking about until I visited the websites. The limit of my recent gaming is Minesweeper and a little Dance Dance Revolution in the arcades (my wife loves it), and the last MMORPG I played was Ultima Online years ago.

So when I looked at some of the screenshots of EVE Online, I was blown away. Are these in-game shots? If so, wow wow wow.

Hopefully this merger helps them create better Online RPGs with those type of graphics, rather than detract from each of their focus's since White Wolf appears to be less focused on video games.

Try EVE-Online :-) No carebearism there, especially out in low security space. I picked up a 14-day free trial and couldn't even bring myself to log back onto WoW afterwards. Been playing almost 9 months now; time flies when you're having fun ;-)

Try EVE-Online :-) No carebearism there, especially out in low security space. I picked up a 14-day free trial and couldn't even bring myself to log back onto WoW afterwards. Been playing almost 9 months now; time flies when you're having fun ;-)

How many shards is Warhammer Online going to have?

One, like EVE Online, or eleventy bajillion, like World of Warcraft?

Side rant for /.ers:

I don't like the fact that WoW is called a Massively Multiplayer ORPG when it's got tons servers. Not one massive one. So it's very difficult to play with your friends if they started on server Y and you started on server X and you're not allowed to transfer your character to their server, and they're unwillling to play on yours - or some other scenario. Whereas EVE has one server. Tranquility. If you play EVE, you play with everybody else playing eve. One economy, one server with all your friends and enemeies.

And for the record, I'm currently subscribed to - and playing - both EVE and WoW.

Aharrgh! These scrolls do be precious learnin' lore for all scurvy pirates in the oarless oceans of Eve Online. It takes more than just saying "yarrr" once a week lads!

It will almost certainly draw attention from players of http://www.eve-online.com/. From the reading I've done, PVP is going to be holodeck-only (thinkg Battlegrounds), and players will not be able to play as any faction other than the Federation. WoW (and EVE to a lesser extent) has done well in major part because of the tensions between alliance and horde players, and their ability to fight when they run into each other, without the need to queue up or to flag.

build a small desktop app... should probably use VB (He won't be able to build a gui faster with any other tool).

distributed client/server app involving tens of thousands of classes coded by dozens of people, reliable object transfer/messaging, reliable easy access to various forms of communications (Sockets, etc), the ability to run on Unix... your only rational choice is Java.

EVE Online may be what you are looking for - though they are going through a rough patch right now.

What's most interesting about it is, EVE is typically cut up by some people for not having a lot of the "traditional" style of content (ongoing plot type of things). They fail to see the overarching idea behind what the game is.

Provide the setting, the worlds, the tools, and the toys to the players, and let the content manifest itself. In essence, the players make the plot.

You're right in your statements, this kind of thing is the perfect justification of that concept.

For tons of EVE-related ongoing drama, their Corporation, Alliance and Organization Discussions forum is all about the movers and shakers in the game, from the large ones to the small ones.

Link to the article, not the blog.

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For a non EVE player, the What Would You Do With 700 Billion ISK? thread makes absolutely no sense. What is a GTC or a BPO? I guess the same goes with WoW lingo.

I personally like the part where he describes himself as being a clinical sociopath (the "about me" portion). Lots of dead giveaways in there. The fact that people like that exist is one of the scarier things about human nature.

I've managed to identify a few people like that from my acquaintances through the years. Every once in a while I get the willies wondering if there have been other sociopaths that I didn't spot.

Regards,
Ross

Details can be found here and here Scammer used basic Ponzi scheme - set up a bank that gave interest on investments. Used new investments to pay off interest. Eventually, like all pyrmid schemes, it run out of investors so scammer cashed out and made "I won Eve" video. This worked since there are quite a few legitimate buisness in EVE, mostly pawnshops for T2 BPO's, that give good returns.

Details can be found here and here Scammer used basic Ponzi scheme - set up a bank that gave interest on investments. Used new investments to pay off interest. Eventually, like all pyrmid schemes, it run out of investors so scammer cashed out and made "I won Eve" video. This worked since there are quite a few legitimate buisness in EVE, mostly pawnshops for T2 BPO's, that give good returns.