CCP Speaks on Allegations of Misconduct in Eve

Arti writes "Last week the hacker spoke, raising questions for many about how game companies should deal with 'out of game' tactics. What about the game companies themselves? The man behind Kugutsumen.com alleged that CCP employees had been involved too intimately with the game's top alliance, Band of Brothers (who, ironically, have publicly described themselves as 'omnipotence itself'). These claims were made based on posts apparently hacked from the alliance's private forums. CCP promised to look into the allegations. Now they report in a post that many players say is inadequate and does nothing to address a crisis of confidence in CCP's oversight of its employees. Developers need to understand the games they make, and deserve to enjoy them, but how far? And what should a company do when an issue like this pits it against some of its own customers?" Blues News has an excellent summary of the thread's contents, distressing though they be.

Comments

Re:Ultimately,

[Jaeph]

"Prettiest space game ever - and also the worst and most boring space game ever...Everyone could do whatever they wanted, but all the big established guys had the power, and crushed the little folks."

Obviously your opinion, but very highly skewed, I was a casual player, darting in and out of the game (allowing my account to lapse in between), and never even joined corp. Obviously I could not fight a megacorp in their area, but there were huge areas of space to explore, goods to buy and sell (I did both), and so on.

Sure, if you wanted to mine the best minerals, or hunt the best areas of space, you needed a corp. But if you played in your means (you are just one person), it's not like anybody could really stop you.

Now, more specifically:

"crap like major newbie areas linked by unpatrolled space, that was near constantly gate-camped by people playing "pirate" in HUGE ships"

Of course, you could use the map to determine areas where there had been kills the last 24 hours and 1 hour (with the star glowing based on how many kills there had been) to get around the worst of it. Also, you could chart these areas in newbie frigates, bookmark map-points, and then jump around to those points so fast that it was practically impossible for someone to stop you. Yes, you had to plan and think, you couldn't just bull your way through it. But it could be done, and by a single player.

For the record, when I wanted to try trading, I jumped around in my big trader (Amarr bestower, I think), and never once saw a pirate in all the lawless areas I went through.

"Let's not even start talking about the economy. Man was that thing hosed."

Sorry, but that is nonsense. I as a few-month old player dabbled in production of newbie ammunition and made money because I found a few systems where new players were hunting and nobody else was selling.

There is plenty of opportunity for buying and selling and market play in the game. If you are determined to compete with the big boys, then yes you will lose. But there are so many niches you have to willfully try to fail. Just pick something small, look around, plan.

"advancement was near hopeless"

This is bald-faced lie. To advance a skill you simply pick it as your current skill to train, and you advance in that skill. No force in the game can stop that. It takes very little money to buy a huge number of skills, so for most intents and purposes any single player can advance as far as they want.

Again, you don't need to go into dangerous areas to advance. You do not gain XP for bopping rats (pirates). You simply train a skill, and it happens whether or not you are online. Nothing on earth beyond a server failure can stop you.

-Jeff