EVE Online Scandal Deliberate Frame-Job?

Last Friday, we discussed serious allegations leveled against CCP by players of the game. The comments on the discussion were lively, and pointed. Perhaps a bit too pointed, as CCP's internal affairs investigation claims that a plot to smear the company with false accusations over the long holiday weekend was behind the flurry of online activity. "The objective of this scheme was to permanently paint CCP as a biased and corrupt company that favors a select group of players over the rest of our community. In this particular case, instead of receiving notification of a possible problem and sufficient time to examine and address it, we faced a coordinated and hostile attack executed on our forums, Digg, Wikipedia, Slashdot, and other outlets at the beginning of a three-day weekend. We believe this speaks volumes of the intention of the person(s) responsible for orchestrating this scheme. Verification of this can be readily found on the forums of the people responsible--or at least could, the last time we looked." Scott Jennings over at Broken Toys points the finger at the Goon Fleet corporation, an organization based out of the Something Awful forums. As I noted in the original post, the evidence presented on both sides is challenging to verify independently. Take everything you read about these events with a grain of salt.

Comments

Once again... WHO CARES?

[Anonymous Coward]

Blah blah game, blah blah scandal, blah blah blah. That's all I see, Zonk.

hoo boy

[MonorailCat]

I see your scandal, and raise you a CONSPIRACY! One of my friends tried to get me into this game, so glad I didn't end up playing...

Re:hoo boy

[cloricus]

I wonder who is going to go all in first?

Re:hoo boy

[thegrassyknowl]

Yadda Yadda. It's a damned game already. People care too much. If you don't like it then stop playing. Oh wait, people feel like they have "invested" in the game and it "owes" them. Too bad if they ever decide to discontinue it. I'd hate to hear the outcry then.

My brother plays Eve religiously. He's addicted. He cares. He's a sad little person. The only saving grace of Eve addiction is that it's marginally cheaper than cocaine and at least it doesn't physically rot your insides.

Re:hoo boy

[Anonymous Coward]

My brother plays Eve religiously. He's addicted. He cares. He's a sad little person. The only saving grace of Eve addiction is that it's marginally cheaper than cocaine and at least it doesn't physically rot your insides.

Obviously you have never seen an MMORPG player in person.

Re:hoo boy

[Ohreally_factor]

Yeah, this stinks of a Conspiracy. Stinks on ice. Did you know that Karl Rove and Harriet Myers are both on the Eve board of directors? Did you know that over 75% of the employees are recent grads of Regent University's new Christian Gaming department? The only way to get to the bottom of this is if Bush will answer the following questions: What did he know? And when did he know it?

Re:hoo boy

[Ash-Fox]

Yeah, this stinks of a Conspiracy. Stinks on ice. Did you know that Karl Rove and Harriet Myers are both on the Eve board of directors? Did you know that over 75% of the employees are recent grads of Regent University's new Christian Gaming department? The only way to get to the bottom of this is if Bush will answer the following questions: What did he know? And when did he know it?

You remind me of penny-arcade comics.

Re:hoo boy

[dpninerSLASH]

A text excerpt from one of the posted articles: "Would like to petition you guys for sendin in a isd reporter that did bump my dreadnaught when we were at align to hostile pros..."

Holy shit! Someone needs a little dose of reality...

Re:hoo boy

[Anonymous Coward]

And you obviously haven't tried to drag a game addict away from their computer - try it some time. You'll know what a real waste of time is!

Re:hoo boy

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

I'm addicted to WoW, but if you get to me before I sit down and log in, I love going out and doing things. It's just that WoW is right there, and I get the rewarding feedback without ever having to leave the house.

Re:hoo boy

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

If your hobby was building little boats in bottles, and someone knocked your bottles off of the shelf, destroying or damaging them, you would be pissed.

His hobby is EVE, and they bumped his bottle, causing damage to his tiny ship.

Just because it's not real events doesn't mean it's not a real hobby.

Re:hoo boy

[Anonymous Coward]

You aren't addicted. Chances are, you are just a victim of conformity and with a lust for social acceptance, have found somewhere where you're accepted. There's a huge difference between addiction and a simple lack of self-control. If I can't handle a bag of candy sitting next to me without my devouring it, am I a candy addict? In today's society, just about everyone would instantly jump to "YES!!! He's ADDICTED!!"

Addiction is way too broadly defined in our society. It's also a convenient excuse to take the personal responsibility and accountability off of those who probably SHOULD be held responsible.

--beckerist

Re:hoo boy

[Miseph]

Good job mods, parent is a joke... it's funny, laugh.

Mod parent up, or at least something other than "troll".

Re:hoo boy

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

I had the game pre-ordered for a year, and have played constantly since it was released. I had the expansion pack pre-ordered for a year, and play constantly. I'm not trying to be "conformist" in that I tend to solo quest and don't join guilds. But the rewards from WoWing are such that it makes me need to play. I also think about it CONSTANTLY when I'm not playing.

You posted as AC, though, so you're probably just trolling or something.

Re:hoo boy

[billcopc]

WoW is a nice cheap drug. You click a few things, do some easy quests and you get a reward every few minutes. You don't have to worry about conspiracies, the worst you may need to contend with is your guildmates whining that locks and BE are OP, but that's what /gkick is for :)

Re:hoo boy

[Benaiah]

I agree... WoW is just corperate crack... I have seen a few families break up, lives ruined and people hurt because of this addiction. Sure for people with addictive personalities, its probably better for society then crack since they dont need to steal to pay for wow. But it affects the personality in exactly the same way, until they get to the point where all they think about is wow.

Some facts. In the time it takes to get a 70 char decently geared (say 40 days) , you could learn to speak a forein language.
2 70s and you could read/write and speak fluently in that language. Replace this with learn guitar, bongo drums or your mum and the time taken its quite sad really what people are missing out on. Someone like me with 3 70s... Well lets not go there... But since I stopped raiding so often I actually have a social life again... Horay!

Re:hoo boy

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Actually, if you do it right, you can be at level 60 in under 5 days of /played. There's a guide out there of someone who does speed runs from 1-60 (and now 70). I'm not sure about their time from 1-70, but their fastest 1-60 is like 4 days 20 hours of played time.

But you are right. If instead of WoW, I had done something else with that time I'd be able to speak a second language or play the guitar. But I played WoW and I enjoyed playing it. I've made some friends and had some lulz, and isn't that the goal of life?

Re:hoo boy

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I posted as AC (and am now) simply because and knock on WoW and people interpret that as trolling. I'm laughing here when you say "you need to play." If I took you off to summer camp for a week, sure you'd be thinking about it, but you'd live. You wouldn't even go through withdrawal, except for maybe a bit of psychological trauma caused by the fact you'd be in the sun!
Ok, ok, that was a little condescending and I apologize, to each their own I suppose. I just feel that the word "addiction" is way too quickly applied, when really there isn't an addiction, rather a desire and lack of self-control. By the way, if I REALLY wanted to troll, do you think I'd have put my name? (Welcome to Slashdot!)

--beckerist

Re:hoo boy

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

The tone of your message along with the message itself lead me to believe you're just a common troll.

Re:hoo boy

[Endo13]

No no, you missed it.

In the time it takes to get a 70 char decently geared (say 40 days) He didn't say the time to level to 70, he said the time to gear up a 70.

Re:hoo boy

[vertinox]

His hobby is EVE, and they bumped his bottle, causing damage to his tiny ship.

I forget... Does EVE actually have a clause that says players own in game property or is it just like WoW? I remember there was one, but I can't remember which company. So in that regard it could be said the ship he rented was damaged.

Re:hoo boy

[Phoex]

Well the reason for the petition was that prior to an attack against a Player Owned Station (POS) fleets have to align so they're all pointing at the station. This allows for the entire fleet to show up at once, not spaced out over a minute.
The bump didn't damage the ship but knocked it out of alignment, and it takes a long time to get back into alignment, especially if the first ship had knocked into other ships. It sounded like this took enough time for the station to get back into a stronger mode.

Re:hoo boy

[Andy Dodd]

I'm not sure how to submit something to be added as an "update" but here goes:

http://goonfleet.com/reply_to_CCP.html - SA/Goon's response to the latest CCP devblog. It is extremely well written, and I agree with it completely despite the fact that I think the SA crew (and GoonFleet) are assholes.

Re:hoo boy

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

So, it "damaged his little ship" as per my bottle example. I didn't mean it literally.

Re:hoo boy

[billcopc]

That's all fine and dandy, but for an anti-social fellow like myself, I much prefer the carefully controlled (and distant) companionship of a few guildmates I've never actually met, than being stuck in a bar having to hear some pompous asses' self-righteous success stories over cheap watered-down martinis and gold-digging bar sluts who probably can't tell the difference between good cocaine and comet bathroom cleaner. Until they're writhing on the floor, green and blue, suffocating on all the solvents now clogged up their nose while I gank a bunch of Alliance lowbie scum, oblivious to the dying bimbo in my kitchen.

As much as I like watching stupid superficial people suffer in agony, their blood-curdling screams tend to drown out my Vent chat.

Re:hoo boy

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

It's not like that, he rented no ship. What he does is pay for access to a server to use a series of ones and zeros. There are no 'ships' or 'bases' and you're not renting anything physical.

He could access the server and the game. And the people who own the server can delete everything in his account and he has no legal actions.

Re:hoo boy

[Benaiah]

No no, you missed it.

In the time it takes to get a 70 char decently geared (say 40 days) He didn't say the time to level to 70, he said the time to gear up a 70. Yeah that's what I meant. Getting a 60 in the old days meant nothing until you had some gear to go with it. Runs after runs of high level raid/normal instances.

But yes. Wow is extremely fun... And I dont even like the guitar. I wouldn't mind trading a crap character (say my Pally) to learn Japanese. But yeah I had an awesome time and still having fun meeting new people and playing with new work mates. I dont think we will ever have a time like this where almost all MMO gamers are on one MMO. In 5 years time we will all be split up playing a myriad of different MMO's trying to coerce your friends into playing the same one as you.

Re:hoo boy

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

In 5 years we'll all be playing WoW2 or Worlds of Starcraft.

Re:hoo boy

[serenemind]

I've been playing eve for 3 years. Long before there was any (or many) goons in the game. Eve is corrupt and there's nothing anyone can do about it, one faction (BOB) which makes up less than 10% of the playerbase, controls about 90% of the most profitable areas of the game. The amount of money being made online, on sites such as e-bay, must be controlled by some of their leaders and imo, ccp or part of ccp, is involved in this profiteering. Anyway, I have been in several factions that have attempted to take on BOB and it always fails, no matter what is done, they always manage to find a way to infiltrate and abuse the game, or even outside the game, to come out on top. Nothing they ever do is wrong, until someone else does it, then it's an exploit (i.e. the recent pos bowling by capital ships, which they have been doing for several weeks, if not months. Anyway, I have cancelled my 3 eve accounts as I have no faith in eve anymore.

Re:hoo boy

[jkcity]

Ihave been at the losing end of bob alot of times in allainces and I can say quite clearly it was nothing todo with them cheating they were just better than us, its a painto admit but the current conflict which I am part of is the same we were so unorganized and still are that boband allies were able to turn around fromwhat looked lieka major defeat for them to basically wiping us all out.

Zonk plays EVE Online

[Anonymous Coward]

Send him your exotic dancers! He demands it

Re:Zonk plays EVE Online

[Barny]

Hehe, lemme guess this is an AC post by Zonk who just happened to have a storyline to hand in a shiteload of exotic dancers? /me hoards their dancers

"dance my pretties! dance!"

As for an on-topic comment, I think its not a good sign for a game company that most of their player base seems willing to listen and pay heed to such mud when its slung (as was shown by them having to shut down their forums).

Great

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Who gives a shit? Zonk = Plonk

I come here for news not for gossip.

Re:Great

[Anonymous Coward]

I come here for news not for gossip.

You must be new here.

Bad PR move: Never whine

[popo]

A little lesson in PR for a company obviously challenged in this department:

Don't go on the defensive by playing the "victim" card. (Newsflash: No one cares.)

Here's what skilled PR departments do:
Make strong statements of integrity. Fire someone. Institute a new policy or two.
Devise a system of compensating those wronged. Spend money on public relations,
advertising and technological improvements. Claim (regardless of truth) that the
problem has been solved and that (wait for it...) the reason people hate you is
because your products are so damn good.

I didn't make up the rules. They've been etched in stone for a while now.

misleading, as always

[hobbesmaster]

First of all, its Goonswarm is the alliance and Goonfleet is the corp.

CCP, while whining about the posting of all this stuff to slashdot and digg, and then claiming that they've shown all the accusations to be false, is being rather misleading. They've completely ignored one of the very serious accusations (the one that said that players have the msn contact details of devs - sure they had a petition, but 5 minutes turn around on a petition resulting in the dismissal of a volunteer has to be a speed record in the world of MMORPGs), and actually more or less acknowledged the one about rigging story lines. Their defense to the rigging accusation that they didn't know how they were going to rig the ending yet. Uh, yeah, that certainly clears you of the accusations... (to their credit, they have thoroughly dismissed the accusation involving a dev infiltrating a player corp).

The funny thing is that they make a veiled threat of legal action against the somethingawful.com - that'll be quite a sight to see! I can't see CCP coming out on top of that battle. (regardless of whether their lawsuit has any legal merit)

Re:misleading, as always

[rsmith-mac]

With all due respect, who gives a fuck about all this and why is it on the /. front page?

The relevance is related to the subject:

1) Intersetallar Kredits(ISK) are worth a lot of real-world money, the 100 billion stolen was worth at least $20,000 at the time when the perpetrator attempted to sell them. If they had made off and actually sold 700bil, that would have been a couple years' salary for most people around here.

2) As for the Goons, EVE is known as a game where it's best to try to cheat as much as you can in hopes of getting away with it, and that its developers are not above this. The fact that people are paying money to lose is both saddening and remarkable, and such is why it's on the front page.

Re:misleading, as always

[The Bungi]

The fact that people are paying money to lose is both saddening and remarkable, and such is why it's on the front page.

OK, this changes things a bit. So the game is a scam? Surely someone would have wised up to that earlier?

Re:misleading, as always

[rsmith-mac]

It's not so bad that it's a scam per-say, but it's rigged. The lawless areas of the world that are effectively the PvP and PvE end-game are dominated by a single group of people called the Band of Brothers; they have and likely continue to receive help from the developers. In the lawful areas where role-playing events occur, the outcomes of the events are rigged - not so much that it benefits any one person as much as the RPers don't influence anything and hence are wasting their time because it's not real RP.

There's still plenty of things you can do that aren't touched by corruption, but as a game structured around PvP and then run by biased developers, you don't have a fair chance of winning at the end-game. It goes as the developer wants it to and if you're not part of the plan or winning side too bad for you.

Re:misleading, as always

[NateE]

Isn't this type of meta-game predictable? Since devs participate in the game and there are other people who volunteer time to help the gameplay. Your going to end up with groups of players in the game being favored over your faceless subscriber. Human behavior isn't going to change.

Re:misleading, as always

[rsmith-mac]

In theory, this has been a problem since D&D first came out, where biased GMs could get the new guy killed, etc. In practice such people quickly found themselves without players and games to run, and the same extends to the MMO-sphere where most MMOs don't have this problem. While meta-gaming is predictable, it's none the less a solvable problem that doesn't need to occur. You don't see this problem in most other games, it boils down to the EVE developers being unwilling to overcome their natural tendencies.

Re:misleading, as always

[mabhatter654]

If the supply of money is severely restricted thru fixed number of things to score on times players then it could be interesting to allow all sorts of cheating and stealing... isn't that the point of a MMORPG to really have NO RULES? I could agree that players with too close connection to devs could be a conflict of interest, but like other posters said, if it gets to bad "vote with your feet" and play another game. I've proposed the same kind of thing for other games with big gold farming problems. That's the natural world.. if you have a lot of resources you have to fight to keep them. Silly ideas like nobody taking "my" points in a game show people aren't thinking outside the box to make games that push the boundaries of HOW you think and what you value in game and not just monster grind. Coups, backstabbing and stealing IN THE GAME CONTEXT should be encouraged!!!

the goal then is to build a MMORPG system that forces you to play in character to get ahead, and punishes you for doing things based on outside influence (friends, guilds, etc) that wouldn't be in-line for your game character. You have to make players assume duties of the stock NPCs and find a reward system to put in place. example: IF you have much gold, you should have to hire (and manage) newbies as a quest to protect you. Frankly, I thought the Sims or Uru could have been that game but then they turned around and allowed outside advertising, money exchange, and messaging between real people and ruined that.

Re:misleading, as always

[Mentorix]

While this "scandal" is getting headlines it is quite unremarkable tbh. It's just more baseless accusations from the same group of people as last time. There's nothing misleading to the evidence presented either. Of course, this time most of the players already knew the score before CCP finished their investigation.

It turns out there's nothing remotely true of the accusations made this time which is downhill from the last round where they got everything wrong as well but got browny points for being close and shaking CCP up a bit.

It's a shame people are succeeding in showcasing EVE and CCP in a rather bad way when almost all of the rumours are flat-out wrong.

Re:misleading, as always

[Anonymous Coward]

Complete lie. You cannot sell in-game money for out of game cash. You can only acquire it from other players by paying for their accounts.

The Goons however, had a pyramid scheme where all members would buy their account cards from one vendor, and because they were referral sales, they recieved a discount. The discount was used to purchase in-game cash with the RL money saved, thus creating their ingame income.

This went to hell when the IRS taxed it. Additionally, there is no real developer involvement in the actual fighting, just one valuable blueprint from a developer account was dropped in a community bin for their corporation when the dev gave up his character.

Re:misleading, as always

[rts008]

"...Intersetallar Kredits(ISK) are worth a lot of real-world money..."

Only if you want them to be...it's a choice you make to enable this.

"...As for the Goons, EVE is known as a game where it's best to try to cheat as much as you can in hopes of getting away with it..."

How is this any different than Korporate, USA?

Real-life you arte kind of stuck with, EOL is a choice you make to jump into- you can always not play.

That's why I cnnot garner any sympathy for this.

Hey you kids!!! Get off of my lawn!!!!

Re:misleading, as always

[El-Wrongo]

They've completely ignored one of the very serious accusations (the one that said that players have the msn contact details of devs - sure they had a petition, but 5 minutes turn around on a petition resulting in the dismissal of a volunteer has to be a speed record in the world of MMORPGs), and actually more or less acknowledged the one about rigging story lines. Please tell me why it matters that someone had contact with the devs? Should the devs be locked up in towers and forced to code without contact with the outside world? If you get so upset about this that you actually bother to make it look bad, you should be rioting against 90 percent of politicians. And they didn't acknowledge rigging the story lines, mister Fox-News, they admitted discussing rigging.

Re:misleading, as always

[pilot1]

They've completely ignored one of the very serious accusations (the one that said that players have the msn contact details of devs - sure they had a petition, but 5 minutes turn around on a petition resulting in the dismissal of a volunteer has to be a speed record in the world of MMORPGs), and actually more or less acknowledged the one about rigging story lines.

Isn't it more likely that one of the devs was in BoB and heard about the petition ingame? It's no secret that the devs are encouraged to play the game, and that explanation is a bit more reasonable and less sensationalist.
Disclaimer: I have yet to rtfa.

Re:misleading, as always

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this on /.? Well, if you RTFA, you'd notice this towards the end:

The allegations investigated above by this internal affairs department will also be examined by our legal resources, as we do not intend to sit idly by while our servers, community and reputation are under attack.

What do you read in to that? It sounds a tad like CCP may be the first games company to threaten its own playerbase with legal action. That, to me, is newsworthy.

Re:misleading, as always

[l3mr]

Only if you want them to be...it's a choice you make to enable this. Enough people obviously did make that choice, same as in every other mmorpg...

Re:misleading, as always

[Anonymous Coward]

The funny thing is that they make a veiled threat of legal action against the somethingawful.com - that'll be quite a sight to see! I can't see CCP coming out on top of that battle. (regardless of whether their lawsuit has any legal merit) They haven't got a chance against Leonard Crabs http://www.somethingawful.com/hosted/crabs/, i mean, the man "has been practicing law ever since he was 15 years old and saw a friend wreck his bicycle into a tree."

Re:misleading, as always

[Lehk228]

CCP let's you guys post on /. during your lunch hour?

Re:misleading, as always

[Strangelite]

Having flown with elements of bob before they where bob , and against them since, they are good because they play the game - and play it well. and have spent lots of time practicing what they do, In general the organisation they show in fleet ops is 2nd to none. weather or not they have dev sock puppets is another thing entirely. This is also shown in the videos of them winning the chapionships.

Re:misleading, as always

[Strangelite]

100Bil was the figure he put on it - I have a sneeky suspission that it was waaaay less than that
and there was no way he was going to get that converted into RL cash.

Re:misleading, as always

[fitten]

When you have access to developer knowledge when there are no manuals explaining the mechanics of the game, you'd better be pretty good. The equations governing capacitor recharge, shield recharge, to-hit by turrets, etc. have all been derived/approximated by logging and analysis by players, for example. Of course, for developers, they can just look at the code and tell their alliance. The same thing goes for how/when player owned stations go into and out of reinforcement and such.

Similarly, it's already been proven (t20) that developers use their status to create items (and effectively in-game money) for their alliances, which allow them to wage war. PvP in Eve is fairly brutal. You can easily lose a ship that you spent 40 hours gathering the in-game money to buy, only to lose the ship in about 30 seconds of a fight. All that time/money is gone and you have to do it again. Wars are typically won by attrition... one side just cannot afford to continue the war (run out of money) and many major alliances in the past have surrendered after only a month or two of all-out war. In a game where the developers can just give (or effectively give) their alliance all the money it needs, they will never break from lack of money.

BoB will end up owning all of 0.0 eventually anyway as they will have so many super capital ships that it will be pointless to try to fight them. At that point, I'm pretty sure the game will die off as those who don't like living in Empire will just quit.

Re:misleading, as always

[Anonymous Coward]

Complete lie. You cannot sell in-game money for out of game cash. You can only acquire it from other players by paying for their accounts.

The Goons however, had a pyramid scheme where all members would buy their account cards from one vendor, and because they were referral sales, they recieved a discount. The discount was used to purchase in-game cash with the RL money saved, thus creating their ingame income.

This went to hell when the IRS taxed it. Additionally, there is no real developer involvement in the actual fighting, just one valuable blueprint from a developer account was dropped in a community bin for their corporation when the dev gave up his character. Hi Bob Alt. How ya doin Bob Alt?

Re:misleading, as always

[Andy Dodd]

"More baseless accusations"?

Um, t20? Those accusations turned out not to be baseless by any means.

If CCP had handled the t20 incident properly, no one would be believing Goons due to their heritage, but CCP pretty much said "bad t20, you shouldn't have done that but we're not going to punish you."

Re:misleading, as always

[filekutter]

rsmith you have a very valid point, and one that as a DM for NWN social servers for years I've dealt with inumerable times. It takes a GM/DM who will not tolerate cheating/meta-gaming and can actually put immense amounts of time into talking to players and even more into mediating disputes to make it work, and to gain player respect (the first one they will hate IS the GM/DM). The statement CCP made concerning their implementation is welcome although at the same time an overdue necessity and so the posting's a surprise for this 4 year old game. I know for a fact that DMs, GMs, and their "helpers" are only human and as such capable of incredible feats of selfishness, favoritism, and self indulging mischief. I've seen it in NWN, and have no reason to think that a different game would make a player altruistic in anyway. My character in Eve is designed for RP and has an ... umm. "interesting" bio, to say the least and one that prompted a "rep" in help to declare he'd grief me too if he ever saw me ingame too. So... no one's perfect.

Re:misleading, as always

[Anonymous Coward]

Developers participating in actual game events creates a conflict of interest. If they go about joining up or becoming really chummy with certain groups, it's only a part of human nature that those groups are going to receive certain benefits of that relationship one way or another. Whether its subtle hints dropped in passing conversation or outright abuse of powers not available to regular players, it leads to the same result - an edge unachievable to anyone that hasn't/can't foster those same relationships.

As it has been stated several times before, most other MMO companies have guidelines in place that prevent developers and other staff from playing on the live servers. Those companies have less at stake since EVE is a mostly one-of-a-kind game in regards to the players' impact on the gaming world. Yet CCP doesn't seem to get the clue. It might be "their game", but it will soon just be them playing it if they don't learn to tighten up their rules.

Re:misleading, as always

[brkello]

You are either a liar or delusional. CCP does nothing unless they are exposed. Once they are exposed they try to play it off. Once that doesn't work, they say they are sorry...make a couple of small steps to try to appease people but end up doing essentially nothing and not addressing the issue. I quit over this last time.

A company that has nothing to hide doesn't have to agressively moderate and ban its users. The fact is that there is a large amount of favortism in the game that CCP shows certain individuals and groups. So unless you are in that group, there is no point playing the game. Eve is a fine game to play for a few months. But after you have "beat" the PvE portion and get involved in the end game PvP...the cards are stacked against you. I don't mind being new and having to fight my way to the top...that kind of stacking is expected. But to force me to fight people who have instant access to the devs and have benefited from dev abuse in the past is stupid. And this isn't rumor, these are facts from the last scandal which they have admitted to. They disclose as little as possible so I can't even imagine how much other crap they are doing/hiding.

Re:misleading, as always

[C0rinthian]

When you have access to developer knowledge when there are no manuals explaining the mechanics of the game, you'd better be pretty good. The equations governing capacitor recharge, shield recharge, to-hit by turrets, etc. have all been derived/approximated by logging and analysis by players, for example. Of course, for developers, they can just look at the code and tell their alliance. The same thing goes for how/when player owned stations go into and out of reinforcement and such.
The things you gave as examples are either common knowlege to anyone with a little education and a calculator (Mechanics and calculations) or documented. (POS timers) Any serious PvPer knows these things without developer assistance. The bigger issue of Dev involvement is free stuff like blueprints, intel on game events before they are public, and intel on adversaries not available to normal players.

Re:misleading, as always

[Tinman_au]

IRS has access to transactions in Iceland? Interesting (feigned)...what was that you were saying about misleading Mr AC?

Re:misleading, as always

[pregister]

Having your developers actively play in a game where cheatng, lying, and spying are part of the game play is a first grade game developer mistake. Even in the old text based MUDs, this was known to be a Bad Idea.

I used to be a developer and admin on Nightmare LPMud. In the year or so before it finally died, it was a hugely bad atmosphere to play in. We had a new coder who dreamed up and implemented many cool features. She was, by far, the most active developer. She also had a couple of kids who played the game. Turned out they were pretty good and quickly got a reputation. She also played. Cue the inevitable accusations from players about her cheating, giving information and/or items to her kids, using admin information to help them out, etc.

I investigated. Didn't find anything...but it _is_ so easy for developers to cheat, who really knows. Anyway, I believed her.

Cue the endless complaints about the administration ignoring the situation, blah blah blah. And this for a free-to-play text based MUD. Add real money to the situation and you're gonna have the same type of complaints, except people are going to have real reasons to be angry: they are paying to play.

Its just a bad idea to let developers play the games they build if player versus player conflict, physical (playerkilling) or economic control, is part of the game. People are ALWAYS going to expect cheating. At least in the MUDs i've seen, cheating happens quite a bit. Its easy to do, its pretty easy to cover your tracks (hell, you designed and coded the system), and it really doesn't seem like you're hurting anyone. You can show off a bit to your friends, help them out a bit, etc. Its wrong, its a bad idea, and it leads to a lot of ugliness...but if the other players, the ones who aren't getting helped, are actually paying to play...then obviously you can make the argument that people ARE getting hurt.

Just a hugely bad idea.

Re:misleading, as always

[Anonymous Coward]

Removing the in game DRM from blueprints would go a LONG way towards fixing this problem and leveling the fields. Why dont all the slashdot anti-drm people wonder why a game has in game DRM as a main part of the game? They advertise it as a big libertarian/anarchy; you can pirate and attack ships, but you can't pirate(copy) a blueprint?

Re:misleading, as always

[capnchicken]

Internal Affairs? Give me a break. News flash you're not a public department, you're a private company.

I wholeheartedly doubt that they would be the first, maybe in the gaming category, but off the top of my head: EMI, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group.

Re:misleading, as always

[cowscows]

Higher ups in BoB have acknowledged on the Eve-o forum that they have direct access to various Devs/GMs and such via out-of-game channels. But even if what you're suggesting is the explanation, is that any more fair? Why should one group of players get to skip the petition queue? Why should their issues, valid or not, get addressed any faster than everyone else's?

Re:misleading, as always

[pilot1]

If a dev hears about a petition saying that an ISD is abusing his position, I see no problem with the dev resolving the petition immediately instead of going through the petition queue and reviewing every petition before it first. Petitions of that importance probably are already prioritized more highly internally, but CCP obviously can't do anything about the petition until they get to it and read it. It makes sense for the devs to take care of a petition like that as soon as they become aware of it. Now, if the petition were over something minor and it was handled that quickly, I agree that would be abuse.
It's true that BoB may gain an advantage because devs in its ranks hear of the petitions that way, but CCP claims that there are devs in other major alliances as well, so it's not an exclusive advantage. It's more a side effect of how the game works, and the alternatives (not allowing the devs to play the game or forcing them to ignore petitions that should have priority if they learn about them through their alliance) aren't any better.

This said, I'm giving CCP the benefit of the doubt and assuming that this petition was handled so quickly only because of its potentially serious nature. Again, if the petition was over something minor handling it so quickly would be irresponsible.

Re:misleading, as always

[icebones]

BoB will end up owning all of 0.0 eventually anyway as they will have so many super capital ships that it will be pointless to try to fight them. At that point, I'm pretty sure the game will die off as those who don't like living in Empire will just quit.

No, they'll just start a Rebellion and blow up their Death star.

Re:misleading, as always

[Breakfast Pants]

Listen up people: how can you get mad at the EVE Online folks when BLIZZARD DID THE EXACT SAME THING.

Re:misleading, as always

[ClamIAm]

It sounds a tad like CCP may be the first games company to threaten its own playerbase with legal action.

Blizzard beat CCP by a long shot when they sued the developers of bnetd. There are probably other examples as well.

Re:misleading, as always

[Shardis]

*snickers* No, this is just common knowledge among the players there. :P

Re:misleading, as always

[Anonymous Coward]

The things you gave as examples are either common knowlege to anyone with a little education and a calculator [...]

Huh? I do have an education(and a calculator!) but I never learned anything about Eve. If you're talking about "mechanics" in the sense of physics, it'd have to be documented somewhere that the Eve world obeys the same laws of physics as ours(which it probably doesn't, for computational reasons).

Re:misleading, as always

[C0rinthian]

Some rules do and some don't. The match behind most combat calculations has been published by devs. (They have fancy flash tutorials explaining it now)

way too serious

[wizardforce]

it doesnt surprise me that this sort of thing happened- first players accuse each other of cheating then they accuse one of the biggest organizations in EVE of helping players cheat- then the accused declare a conspiracy.. neigher seems to have much evidence- but that isnt the point. the point is that a lot of players are taking the game to be something greater than what it is- way too seriously in fact. they need to remember that there is a world out there- everything doesnt revolve around EVE any more than it does any other game. if they really feel compelled to take action on it- fine get some evidence but what they should do is just move on... this sort of thing happened at least once before with EVE [in game scams etc.] but everyone moved on.

Re:way too serious

[misleb]

I thought the in-game scams were kinda funny. And i think that a lot of it adds depth and character to the game. EVE is one game where "griefers" become "outlaws" or "pirates." Maybe games shouldn't be like real life, but it sure is interesting when they are. ;-)

-matthew

Re:way too serious

[wizardforce]

EVE is one game where "griefers" become "outlaws" or "pirates." Maybe games shouldn't be like real life, but it sure is interesting when they are. ;-)

heh this all reminds me of how starcraft became so "gang" [clan] oriented- some of them had a reputation not unlike the real gangs- people wouldnt fight them unless they were very skilled- then it became quite amusing to slaghter entire swaths of clans that way :) hackers same thing- alot more fun than fighting in a "fair" fight. so in a sense the cheating and unfair advantages they had made the game fun- *grin*

Re:way too serious

[WuphonsReach]

I thought the in-game scams were kinda funny. And i think that a lot of it adds depth and character to the game. EVE is one game where "griefers" become "outlaws" or "pirates." Maybe games shouldn't be like real life, but it sure is interesting when they are. ;-)

Hell, I signed up for EVE after reading about the types of in-game scams that were possible. But when the developers are interfering in the process or giving artificial advantage to a small set of players, that's not enjoyable.

I can guard against normal scams, and I don't mind losing a ship or lots of ships due to a bad tactical / strategic decision (or not paying attention). But when your enemy has a "deux ex machina" at their beck and call, it loses the "fun" aspect.

but..

[JustNiz]

Regardless of wheter they have been wrongly accused this time or not, this isn't the first time by a long way that CCP have been in the headlines following accusals of corruption of the game.

The butler did it

[Anonymous Coward]

An anonyous cowboy told me the butler troll did it, his info is here.

http://ineve.net/skills/character.php?charID=MTg5M TM0NDA#

Not really

[Rix]

Goons have shat over quite a few small MMOish games. I have no reason to doubt they'd pull something like this.

Re:Not really

[iMacGuy]

Goonfleet is dedicated to Space Libertarianism and not, in fact, to ruining the game and CCP employees' personal lives.

Re:Not really

[Crizp]

Goonfleet just gets grief because they're gutsy enough to play the extreme end of the game's rules -- things that are looked upon as "cheating" in other games, e.g. spying, doublecrossing etc is THE POINT OF THE FUCKING GAME!

Re:Not really

[flyingsquid]

Goonfleet is dedicated to Space Libertarianism and not, in fact, to ruining the game and CCP employees' personal lives.

Space Libertarianism? That seems to imply the existence of Space Libertarians. Personally I find the terrestrial ones annoying enough, but Space Libertarians sound a bit scary. I can practically hear the ominous voice of the movie trailer guy:

"They believed in a free market, unfettered by government regulation, and they came... FROM SPACE!"

I suppose they would look like the creature from Alien, but along with bursting out of people's stomachs, they would not pay their taxes and read a lot of Ayn Rand.

Re:Not really

[libkarl2]

I suppose they would look like the creature from Alien, but along with bursting out of people's stomachs, they would not pay their taxes and read a lot of Ayn Rand.

By her late 40s, Ayn Rand herself looked like something that had burst out of some person's stomach.

Re:Not really

[Chaos Motor]

Goons don't "shit over" MMOs. We discover them, swarm in en masse, enjoy the hell of it, get ADD, wander out, and then find a new MMO.

Also, goons aren't shameless assholes as another said, some of us are, but for the most part, Goons are /perceived/ as assholes because

1) We have a strong technical understanding
2) We have high standards and expectations
3) We tend to gang up together
4) We scream bloody murder when our expectations aren't met
5) We tell everyone in the universe when we are treated unfairly

So take some (mostly) smart people with strong technical skills, high standards and expectations, and a sense of fairness. Then, screw them over, and don't act surprised when your ass gets swarmed and everyone finds out. That's just us. If you don't like it, stop trying to screw people over. Goons don't put up with that.

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[Anonymous Coward]

They already failed utterly in that regard back when the t20 scandal arose. They set up an Internal Affairs department (which apparently has not done anything of any significance), and reshuffled the developer who was found to have provided aid to a select few in-game, rather than firing him outright. Then they declared the case closed and currently have a policy of editing/deleting any posts on the official forums asking otherwise. From the linked interview:

That case, from our end, is closed. I mean, we've done all the investigation, we know it was only one person and not the whole company like some like to believe, and ahh there's nothing more that we feel can be done, um it was just an unfortunate case, and in the overall scheme of things it didn't affect the game in that like some people like to thing. And, in the end, we're just damn sorry and it hurts our feelings to see some of the players say some of the things about us; we love this game and we'd never do anything to hurt it, and to have people think that this is a widespread thing within CCP: that's as far from the truth as it possibly can.

Who cares?

[1u3hr]

Why should anyone care what happens in an RPG?

Next up: pinball tilt scandal!

It's news to those who play it. They have game forums. Let them talk about it there. Two stories in a week on this pastime is too many.

Re:Who cares?

[I Like Pudding]

Why should anyone care what happens in an RPG?
Next up: pinball tilt scandal!

It getsa lot more interesting when 100,000 people are playing the same game of pinball

Re:Who cares?

[SharpFang]

Pinball tilt scandal: millions of machines across the US rigged to trigger "Tilt" blockade after five minutes of continuous play without losing a ball. The dishonest profit from stopping the game is estimated to $14mln.

That would definitely make it to the press.

Re:Who cares?

[skrolle2]

In the previous article about this, I posted the following:

The difference between EVE and other MMORPGS is that almost all content is player-generated. It's a hardcore PvP game with heavy penalties for dying, unlike a certain other slightly more popular MMORPG, which is a casual-friendly PvE game with almost no penalties for dying. That it's PvP means that all end-game content is player-generated. The official forums are really important, because it's where the leaders and members of various alliances slag each other, and it has repercussions in the game. Basically, the game is an ongoing forum-war with battleships in space.

So, with their forums being important for the game, it attracts the kind of player that actually thinks that what's written on the internets at large is important. That's why the game constantly get top ranks at all general MMORPG forums, not because it's actually awesome or very popular, it's because its players are playing the forum war all over the internet.

And that's why you get posts like the grandparent, someone who thinks that what he writes here, on Slashdot, somehow carries over into EVE the game, and that's why you have the original article, because the players are also doing the forum war AGAINST CCP. This article is just one more way of doing that, one more way of influencing the game makers into changing the game in a way that whatever satisifes the agenda of the poster.

However, since most of the internet population does NOT play EVE, noone cares about shit like this.

It is with some satisfaction that I notice I was right. :-)

Re:Who cares?

[Joe The Dragon]

there are easier ways for video game / pinball operators to rip you off like turning off extra balls, replays, ball savers, setting the outline posts to hard, setting the game rules to very hard, setting the tilt setting to make it very ease to tilt, turning off post save on uk games, and more.

But most of them just don't fix the games and let brake down and that can cost you as a player.

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up!

CCP shot themselves in the foot with the way they handled this. Had the extensive dev blog left out the four or five paragraphs concealing lightly veiled allegations of conspiracy, it would have come across much better to the community.

Companies should never respond to customer dissatisfaction with hostility toward customers. Look at what happened to Zio Systems on the gideontech.com forums (http://forums.gideontech.com/index.php/topic,3447 6.0.html)

No such thing

[iminplaya]

as bad press. Somebody's looking for attention?

How 'bout the weather?

[Sase]

You know, it's really nice outside here in the north east, who is up for some touch football? But be forwarned, I'm going to pick my players based on skill, 'cause I'm all bias like that.

Re:How 'bout the weather?

[CxSkinner]

Does this include making sure that your friends are refereeing the game?

Re:How 'bout the weather?

[Opportunist]

No problem at all, but if you also provide the refree I get a bit uneasy.

If skill is why your team wins, more power to you. If it's because you also call the shots, why bother playing? It's a given that you win, no matter what I do or whether I come with the superbowl winning team.

I'm inclined to agree, but...

[Xelios]

Having seen both sides of these latest allegations I'm inclined to agree with CCP, it really doesn't look like they did anything wrong in these cases. Whether their actions were deliberatly taken out of context in these allegations or not I don't know, but many people felt this is exactly what would happen after the monumental mishandling of the first incident involving t20.

The damage done in that first scandal is going to take CCP a long time to fix and anything fishy between now and then is going to be portrayed in the wrong light by default.

However I have no doubt certain groups in the game have benefitted from having developers in their ranks. Not just BoB, though I'd suspect they've gained more than the average advantage over the years. I personally know a few people who are either good friends with developers or have access to certain databases internal to CCP's development and testing team. Although they're hesitant to share "inside information" I've learned a lot about the game from them that can't be found anywhere else. Put one of them in charge of an entire alliance and you can be sure they'd put that information to good use, gaining an unfair advantage for an entire group of players in the process.

These latest accusations may have been baseless, but there are still problems that need to be addressed. A major one is transparency. If CCP employees are going to be playing the game there can only be two policies; complete secrecy or complete transparency. They tried the former and failed, time for another approach.

Again?

[Bongo Bill]

In the controversies I've seen over EVE, just as a bystander I've felt considerable pressure to pick a side in the argument, despite not knowing anything about it. One thing keeping me from signing up is the thought that I'll have to deal with this kind of bullshit in-game as well - I don't mean "CCP allegedly doing something unfair" bullshit, I mean "intergalactic flame war" bullshit. I don't care if the developers are giving any faction an unfair advantage. I don't want to care whether the developers are giving any faction an unfair advantage. In fact, if I find myself starting to care about that, that's how I'll know it's time for me to quit the game. The fact that such controversies spring up every time CCP sneezes suggests to me that I won't enjoy the game's atmosphere.

Re:Again?

[dpninerSLASH]

...I've felt considerable pressure to pick a side in the argument, despite not knowing anything about it...

That's the kinda arguin' I likes!

Re:Again?

[Anonymous Coward]

To be honest, having played Eve for over a year now, nearly all of this drama is played out on the forum. The ingame atmosphere is unlike any other, mostly due to the fact that you are putting your efforts on the line nearly every time you logon. This fosters a spirit ive yet to encounter anywhere else. Just ignore the forums.

Re:Again?

[Yggdrasil42]

Well spoken, AC. I've played the game several times a week for the last 6 months, and didn't even notice this 'scandal' until I read about it on Slashdot.

In a very open game, such as EvE, of course there will be politics and trashtalk, but in my experience it all fits in the role play. If you ignore the lamers on the forums, you'll find a very enjoyable and dedicated playerbase.

Re:Again?

[AdamWeeden]

That's the kinda arguin' I likes!

No it ain't!

CCP is doing bad PR

[A beautiful mind]

They spent pages debunking the part that every reasonable player knew to be false and then basically said what amounted to 'oh yea that wasn't true either' to the real allegations that actually concern people. Then they played the high horse victim card.

It is sad. Eve Online is a good game, with crap management.

Re:CCP is doing bad PR

[DUdsen]

This is the funny part they did not debunk anything, CCP dont state that any of the chatlogs provided in the letter is actually a forgery, the final verdict contradicts the first statements made by the IA department, and stil theres not so much as a peep from CCP regarding the charges of soft collusion.
And all in all CCP claims that while everything mentioned in the letter happened the reasoning behinds was legit and just misinterprented.

And that was the way too with the t20 incident where a Dev was confirmed to manipulate the database, back then CCP at first tried to call the messenger a disgruntled lier, and made moves to sugest they might sue him. Later when then had to admit something was actually wrong, they still denied that any information was shared between that dev and the players he flew with and cheated on behaf of, and it did not take more then a few weaks before a forum post mentioning the incident would trigger the forum moderators into action deleting and locking treads.

This time we have on the Actual eve-online forums a member of the alliances acused of cheating admitting/bragging about having unofficial channels of comunications into the GM/dev team running eve, and thats also more or less ignored by CCP, who pretends that all that actually happened was that a GM responed corectly to a bug report.

It's werry easy the do a charecter assasination of the goonswarm alliance, since they really does seams a bit off key to most, being 100% dedicated to using large numbers for their advantage and in genral talks a lot of smack(quite similar to BoB in many ways).

EvE as a game have another issue the servers are relly close to crashing under the current load and losts of decisive battles is decided by the completly bugged game mechanics, in one instance 250 players vs around 1000 turned into a turkey shot where BoB and friends had all 250 playes on grid most of the time where goonswarm and friends whit around 1000 trying to enter the areane never had more then 200 in the areana at once.

EvE's famous single server is really only peseudo single whith only a few sub systems shared between all 30000+ online players on any given sunday afternoon, actually only pars of the marked and the chat/charenter info system are shared, the rest divided into different nodes, where a node really dont perform well when more then 200-300 are in sight of eachother, even with numbers as low as 100 trouble stats manifesting themself and numbers in the scale of 2-500+ are quite common when Goonswarm and bob clashes head on. 1300 is just imposible but unfortunately nesserery when that large groups fights eachother. eve is wery much about outnumbering your opoenent and it's not just Goonswarm, bob rutinely engage with more then twice the numbers then their oponents.

A lot of player however arent really involved here not all stations can be controlled by Playes, not even in the so called free areanas of 0.0 and varius degrees of NPC enforcements against violent acts are in place, ie in some places PvP have to be more or less consensual, for the players staying aways from the whole alliance(megaclan)warfare it's less of a issue, and eve is visually and UI wise a great game the marked acts like a real market and theres are exiting fights to be had on the smaller side of things.

Re:CCP is doing bad PR

[Jaguwar]

It is sad. Eve Online is a good game, with crap management Should read It is sad. Eve Online is a good game, with crap players. Isn't it a bit suspicious that as soon as the War takes a decisve turn against Goon they start claiming they are victims of cheating?

Re:CCP is doing bad PR

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod this up

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[Anonymous Coward]

the reason people hate you is because your products are so damn good.

Whenever people say something like this all I can think of is on Maury Povich when the fourteen year old girl who is skipping school, having promiscuous sex and doing drugs comes out on stage and people boo so she starts yelling "Yeah, whatever, you don't know me! Ya'll are just jealous! Ya'll are just jealous!".

Why continue to pay?

[Anonymous Coward]

What continues to confound me as this drama unfolds is why do people who disgruntled with Eve continuing to play Eve? If you so strongly believe CCP is rigging their sandbox, why continue to pay to play in it? Do you think that if you continue to saber rattle while cutting them a monthly check is going to fix anything? The real power is in the subscriptions. Lessen their cash intake and they will be forced to respond or at least figure out a more subtle way slink around and deal with bad press.

Otherwise stfu about threating to cancel your multiple subscriptions. The more you continue to pay, the more you continue to ask be fucked. They are more than willing to oblige so long as your checks clear.

Re:Why continue to pay?

[drgnvale]

That is a very good point, but you see, eve actually is a really fun game and we'd kinda like for it to be successful which would be helped if the company running it cared more about the success of the game than about playing the game themselves and looking guilty every couple of weeks. But you know, a lot of people have been voting with their feet; eve's number of user's online has been dropping for weeks.

Re:Why continue to pay?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you continue to live?

You have time invested.

Re:Why continue to pay?

[VC]

>>eve's number of user's online has been dropping for weeks.

Not really, Its coming up to summer in the northern hemisphere so people are spending more time outside.

All it means is the average player is playing for 2 hours a night instead of 3. I'd wager that the "number of unique people who log on" each day is still the same.

Re:Why continue to pay?

[ZorbaTHut]

Because, in some ways, we're now at war with CCP.

Personally, my goal is to defeat BoB or destroy CCP trying. If CCP has to cheat blatantly and repeatedly in order to defeat us, people are going to notice - and we'll end up with story after story on Slashdot, each one exposing CCP as The Company Running The Rigged MMORPG. And each time, people are going to unsubscribe, and people who were going to subscribe are going to change their minds.

Here's a screenshot of a thread where one of the developers involved with the scandal asked why their login numbers were going down. The responses are, to say the least, amusing. I'm told the thread was locked and deleted soon afterwards.

Re:Why continue to pay?

[GospelHead821]

Canceling one's subscription will result in one losing all of the work that one has invested into one's character. If one cancels now and then comes back later, one will be at a greater disadvantage than if one had continued to pay while demanding change. It is my understanding that this is especially relevant in EVE, where a character's position may represent hundreds or thousands of hours of work. I suspect that many of the complaints are coming from people who neither want to forfeit their investment of time nor for that investment to be meaningless.

Re:Why continue to pay?

[Anonymous Coward]

As other posters have mentioned, Eve is a haven for griefers. There's no reason, really, to pod an innocent player, but plenty do anyway. There's nothing in it for the attacker. I think this carries over into forums and feedback. The same personalities are going to grief CCP, it is what they do. They get something out of constant complaining and threatening to close their accounts, regardless of merit or lack thereof.

However, Eve is a pretty good game otherwise. And, there's not much competition in the space MMORPG, so if that's what you want to play, you play Eve.

Re:Why continue to pay?

[despisethesun]

In another thread, someone pointed out that with EVE, you can unsubscribe and your character's assets, skills, etc. will be frozen for 6 months, so it's easy to come back to the game after quitting for a while. I don't know if that's true, I don't play the game, but if it is, you could cancel your account to "send a message" and then come back to it if they've cleaned up their act.

Re:Why continue to pay?

[cowscows]

We are trying to improve the game. Although it's certainly not perfect, EvE is an amazing game. No other MMO that I've come across is like it in terms of the cut-throat nature, the complexity of the environment, the teamwork that it inspires, etc. There is plenty in EvE for CCP to be proud of, much that we players enjoy, much that we're willing to pay for. There's also lots of potential for the game to continue to improve and grow and get even more awesome. In one sense, CCP sort of has us by the balls. We're invested in our characters, in this game, in this type of game; and there's no real alternative for players looking for a similar experience.

A number of people in my alliance have quit this game over this issue. Many others are on the fence, and are going to give it a few days to play out before walking away. We've all put a lot of time and energy into the game, we've had some great times playing, we're not happy to see it go through this drama. But most of us feel that it's important that we are vocal about what we see happening, why we as players don't think it's ok, and that CCP isn't allowed to just pretend like nothing has happened. The fact that CCP's inital response is almost always censorship just gets us even more riled up.

Re:Why continue to pay?

[asink]

http://izlin.free.fr/eve/ships/sabre.jpg Sabre rattling you say :0) That's my favorite ship since it has the most firepower of a small ship, and can still launch powerful interdiction spheres, which can keep people in a small area from running away.

On topic -- "Eve War 1" has reached a pitched fever, and it seems that both sides of this metagame way too much. It's a great game, and there is a huge amount that you can do to increase your influence, one of wich seems to be to discourage others from playing through a smear campagin. I'm just glad I'm with the scrappy group that is in it for the spaceship pew-pew, and not in evewar politics :-)

I've played games with other companies, and was suprimely unsatisified with their philosophies and practices. Claims that they would do unscrupulous things to change the outcome of the game just seem silly to me given their approach t othe game. CCP is a solid company, who does interact with the playerbase to make the eve experience rich, and to add new features. There have been multiple examples like corporation shares, where the idea came from the players first, it was implmented with a trust-based system and then the developers later added a game mechanic to make new aspects of the game grow.

I'll be glad to see the end of eve war 1 and the end of silly metagaming from player groups like this.

thanks.

[Anonymous Coward]

god damn it, i just got goatsed. my day is ruined.

Goatse Resurrected?

[ScottKin]

Looks like the innocent-looking wiki.goonfleet.com brings you the love from Goatse.

Now I know why some mammals kill their young.

--ScottKin

Re:Goatse Resurrected?

[ArsenneLupin]

Looks like the innocent-looking wiki.goonfleet.com brings you the love from Goatse. Well d'oh. Let me spell it out for you:

• It's a wiki
  
• It's been linked from Slashdot
  
• Ergo, sooner or later it will (has been) goatsed
  

Lesson learned:

Never click on a link from Slashdot that has .asp, wiki or .cfm in it if you value your eyesight!

Re:Goatse Resurrected?

[Anonymous Coward]

Never click on a link from Slashdot that has .asp, wiki or .cfm in it if you value your eyesight! So for that matter should I never click on a .php .jsp .py .pl .jpg .gif .png?

Because for fucks sake, there might be a page someone can EDIT! Fuck me you are stupid.

Re:Goatse Resurrected?

[Ant P.]

I think he's implying everyone using ASP or Coldfusion is a shitty designer.

Based on my own empirical evidence I'd have to agree.

Beware of the GoonFleet link

[hedgemage]

In true Goon style it is now a link to Goatse.cx My poor eyes.

It's a good thing this...

[Anonymous Coward]

...is one absolutely unimportant issue to be get concerned about. A scandal about a useless luxury entertainment pursuit? WHO THE FUCK CARES!

Re:It's a good thing this...

[timmarhy]

you computer is a useless luxury, i'm going to come and take it. what's that, why do you even care?

warning, major goatse

[YesIAmAScript]

Link to "the GoonFleet Corporation" is a goatse now.

Re:warning, major goatse

[Anonymous Coward]

Ooops.

Re:warning, major goatse

[Anonymous Coward]

Much like your posting

Of course it was a frame-job

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would CCP cheat, you know, again? After the other incident why would they risk losing another 2 players? The thing that I hate about all this crap is that the Eve players will not leave. Ever. If you don't like what CCP is doing then quit paying them to do it. They don't want your appreciation; they want your money. Complain all you want. As long as you pay your 10 bucks (or whatever it is) a month they don't care. Until then they will do whatever they want and you still won't quit. So shut the fuck up. They shit in your bowl and you eat it with a smile then complain till the next serving. Get a damn backbone.

Re:Of course it was a frame-job

[Opportunist]

As if it was different in other MMORPGs?

You'd be hard pressed to find me any MMORPG where people don't complain, lament, groan and moan about unfairness, nerfs and allegations of devs playing a certain class, group or alliance because they always get more and more goodies while the complainers and their class, group or alliance don't, and still they keep playing.

That's no quality of EvE. It's one of MMORPGs in general.

Re:Of course it was a frame-job

[svendsen]

Solution: Stop playing and do something else. Do some physical activity, start a garden, ride a bike whatever. To complain about a game you willingly pay for ever month speaks volumes about a person.

Re:Of course it was a frame-job

[slothbait]

Actually people are quiting
I did back in Feb http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=221344&c id=17937856
and daily average online users continues to drop

I do miss it, eve was the best MMO I ever played because it was so different and _hard_

Such a pity.

Re:Of course it was a frame-job

[Opportunist]

*shrug*

Don't tell me. I stopped playing WoW, EvE and DAoC because of problems I had with them. Gave them 3 months to get them sorted out (gotta be fair, it takes a while to resolve issues), saw no progress, quitted.

Currently I'm playing EQ2 and Vanguard. More EQ2 than Van, but since they're paid for by the same money (station access), why bother quit Van? EQ2 is enjoyable for me. YMMV. I like it. Bit too easy for my taste, but you can always play a Troubadour or Cabalist. Van has JUST the right level of toughness, but still needs some wrinkles ironed out. And, like I said, since it doesn't cost extra...

Should they start to become boring, they're down the drain and the next game is due. I don't "cling" to characters. Yes, I had a lv 60 Priest in WoW with all the goodies to have, and a few lv 50 chars in DAoC. They were fun while it lasted, they weren't fun anymore in the end, so why continue? Just because "I spent so much time to level them"? If leveling is no fun, quit the game before you start it! Sooner or later you WILL have to quit. Either you loathe logging in or the game folds.

Yes, I'm one of the odd people who enjoy leveling a char. Maybe I should start making money that way.

Getting a char to the top is more fun than being there simply because, well, what should you do after you've "beaten" the game? Grinding that very last piece of equipment you don't have yet because it adds a +201 instead of the +200 to a stat you barely need? Bah. Or to show to the general population (that doesn't care, btw) that you have it?

IMO, if you're dependent on the opinion of people you don't know who admire you for having a virtual item you don't really have (because it's virtual and because it's on a server you have no control over), you have other problems than just a computer game...

In Soviet CCCP

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheats player you!

Re:In Soviet CCCP

[Achromatic1978]

That's not Soviet Russia that's Yoda-land. (At the risk of having no idea from where Yoda hails.)

Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

They fail to mention how their volunteer moderators deleted every single civil thread on the issue, and that CCP themselves deleted the petition that was filed.

It sucks, majorly, EVE can be an awesome game, easily the best MMO I've ever played. I started in EVE because I was told there was very few developer-created boundaries like most MMOs have. A year later, I find myself victim of flat out discrimination by the developers, as they cater to their own 'old boys club'. Not a specific generation of players, even, like many MMOs develop content for, but a specific group of players in the game.

CCP's problem is that they want to play their own game, and they want to win. In a sharded environment the damage is contained, but in a game like EVE, it has a major effect on gameplay for thousands of people. When we all pay the same subscription fee, that's simply not fair.

Re:Unfortunately

[Ash-Fox]

They fail to mention how their volunteer moderators deleted every single civil thread on the issue, and that CCP themselves deleted the petition that was filed.

I don't see the problem with that.

A year later, I find myself victim of flat out discrimination by the developers, as they cater to their own 'old boys club'. Not a specific generation of players, even, like many MMOs develop content for, but a specific group of players in the game.

Hard to believe people who post as AC.

CCP's problem is that they want to play their own game, and they want to win.

CCP's problem is that they've got people now making up stories after one event that seems to of tainted their image.

Re:Unfortunately

[Burnhard]

One event? I played Crime Online since beta for about 3 years on and off. Meta-gaming is rife. Dev "misconduct" is rife. The player-base has long since moved to the lowest common denominator. I can't think of a place I would least like to spend my evenings hanging out in.

Re:Unfortunately

[Goaway]

Hard to believe people who post as AC.

And it's easier to believe people who post as "Ash-Fox"?

Re:Unfortunately

[Ash-Fox]

And it's easier to believe people who post as "Ash-Fox"?

Sure, you can check my posting history to determine if I'm even worth considering listening to, you can't do that with ACs. It's also especially difficult to determine if they're lying or not without being able to look at their posting history.

That said, what's wrong with my nickname?

Re:Unfortunately

[nanowired]

Thats right, take everything the corporation says hook line and sinker like a gullible little sheep :p thats how they make the big bucks.

Re:Unfortunately

[Ash-Fox]

Thats right, take everything the corporation says hook line and sinker like a gullible little sheep :p thats how they make the big bucks.

They haven't made a game I want to play yet actually.

So they're not making any big bucks off me.

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

Completely offtopic, but about your "homepage" link(sourceforge for a project I presume you're a developer on).

I find it utterly hilarious that you give an epilepsy warning in blink tag.

I'm not epileptic, but that is painful anyway.

No, its a crap game too

[Anonymous Coward]

A friend of mine tried to turn me on to this game & failed miserably. Even though it was free, its still too much to pay for that game.

Id say call me back when they start paying players but im not sure id play it even then, its -that- dull of a game.
It should be right up my alley too, i love scifi rpg's.

soviet russia

[Anonymous Coward]

no no you have it all wrong, it's "in soviet CCCP game cheats you!"

In other news...

[Anonymous Coward]

Roger, the guy down the hall in room 415, just pulled off the craziest move in Tetris history, clearing 12 rows in three moves, on level 14. Onlookers in the Stupid Tetris Fans United (STFU) guild were quick to point out that this is unpossible, and must be the result of some kind of scandal.

Rival guild Zoo Ostrich Masichist's Guild!!1! (ZOMG!!1!) allege that Roger's game is totally illigetimate, oweing to the fact that he once made a tetris game for his calculator while fucking around in high school math class. One member was over heard saying "It's a conspiracy. We all know Roger's in the tetris industry."

Representitives from ZOMG!!1! and STFU were not available for comment, but one thing is certain: news of this scandal is spreading like wildfire, and the tetris world may never be the same.

You're making it worse

[Anonymous Coward]

hobbesmaster, you've missed a bit.

I'm guessing you're a player. I'll assume that you've seen and can verify that the most recent developer blog is written to cover exactly three accusations -- it says so within the title. There are four acknowledged accusations overall:

1. A developer joined a player corporation for an unknown reason.
2. Roleplaying events were rigged.
3. An ISD volunteer was inappropriately fired.
4. Certain players are using private communication links to talk directly with developers.

Aren't these the issues? Don't you think that the fourth one will be covered in time?

Re:You're making it worse

[Mentorix]

Good question, are those the issues?

It's not that easy to distill those from the unhinged open letter you know.

Your 4th point is moot for at least three reasons:

1. Anyone can log in to the right IRC server and open a private chat with the developers there.
2. Disallowing private chats between devs and players is unenforceable and possibly illegal.
3. Even if private chats lead to actions, those actions are registered and logged.

So let's stop the stupid witchhunting and play the game ok?

It Shouldn't Suprise Anyone

[RollinDutchMasters]

EVE is one of the few MMOGs where other players can legitimately destroy huge amounts of your hard work, if you've dared to step into the alliance warfare arena. People don't like to be beaten, it's far easier to accept that you've lost if you have something to pin it on. Traditional targets have been incompetent allies, the vague 'internal problems', people leaving EVE for other games (Lineage II was popular with the old Forsaken Empire - too popular), essentially anything which can deflect blame. The odd 'CCP is helping my enemies cheat' accusation cropped up, but that was relatively uncommon - up until about a year ago, that is. Since then, everything is a result of someone, anyone, with authority tilting the scales in favor of the other guy. If you're winning, its because someone is cheating for you. It's both incredibly sad and completely unsurprising that the human response to losing at even trivial games is to bitch and moan - a problem which is compounded on the internet, because you can make up whatever you want and noone will ever have the ability to tell you to stop being an ass. At least in organized sports, the "Fucking Refs" phenomenon only works for a limited time, until someone slaps the hell out of you and tells you to stop being an idiot.

Re:It Shouldn't Suprise Anyone

[mabhatter654]

I think there in lies the problem with "fair and balanced" game play. Realize that 99% of the real world lives on 1% of the scraps. Unfortunately, telling players that they'll create 9 characters that never reach past level 10 and have to kill boars all day won't gain very many people looking for a fun time if you only allow 1% of the characters to reach level 60 for example. The traditional real space model of "I have and you don't" doesn't work. Nor does the "let everybody have everything" because there's no reward for hard work. The solution is to attract players to positions that would "lose" but make the situation a "win" for them. That's for game designers to get the big bucks for... or they'll lose their real money as another notch on a millionaire's belt!!!

Re:It Shouldn't Suprise Anyone

[brkello]

Except for the fact that they have admitted in the past that a dev helped them cheat...and is still with the company. Your ref analogy fails. It is like Chelsea vs Liverpool. In a game between these two teams, the ref makes many questionable calls that give Chelsea the advantage allowing them to win the game. People cry foul. Then they find out that Chelsea was paying the ref to give them calls. The ref admits this but for some reason is still able to ref. Now, even if the ref doesn't take bribes ever again, they will still be seen as tainted. But, quite frankly, the ref will probably still take bribes and CCP is most likely still showing favortism. CCP made this problem for themselves. They have done a piss poor job of addressing the issue and the game isn't worth paying for because of it.

EVE: Serious business!

[krizzi]

I used to play this game some moons ago and I got a taste of EVE politics, and boy do people take it seriously! I spent many night playing a so-called diplomat in between internal alliance matters that were trivial. My point: people take this game (too) seriously! Now, I've heard about the flame spewing dragon that is goonfleet and many men have lost their dignity in mighty flamewars against that group in the past, but it still strikes me as odd that goonfleet should attack the company and as such the game itself as well. But I guess that is the nature of flamers. One could argue that the EVE community has developed anti-establishment movement against the game and CCP. But the CCP team is a great bunch that are doing quiet a good job of keeping in touch with the community. They allow them self to play the game to get a feeling how it is to be a player, they take a part of the community discussion and try to be "one of them". I guess that their greatest and weakest point. As for their PR move to claim a grand conspiracy of "carefully constructed and well-timed social engineering effort", it must go down in the history books as the worst PR move of them all! Just remember, its just a friggin game...

Re:EVE: Serious business!

[beheaderaswp]

Excellent commentary...

There is something divisive about this game. I played for about a year. Within the environment of the game long standing friendships were destroyed over in-game politics.

My response to the experience was to stop playing Eve. Most of the reason I am even interested in playing MMO's is to do something with my buds. If the environment of the game screws up my friendships- I generally bail.

It's a shame. I really like Eve. I'm a sucker for space type games.

As an aside, the borgifying of player communities by game publishers also *causes* these kinds of issues. In the old days MUDs and online games (like Unreal/Quake series) didn't tie the game into a larger community controlled by the publisher. These days it's next to impossible to maintain a clan/guild/corp and an associated website since the games themselves promote a divisive community through their own portals.

Here's hoping some MMO publisher gets a clue and releases both the client and server software packages allowing independent communities to build their own worlds. This would eliminate a lot of crap.

But... there's too much margin built into that $14.00 a month.

The tone of the response is totally unacceptable

[HarryCaul]

Combative and derisive towards the accusations made. Yeah, that's what an "internal affairs" investigation should be. The tone is 100% supportive of CCP and 100% belligerant to the accusers, and because of that fact ALONE, I simply cannot believe anything the "investigator" says.

I mentioned in a previous thread I'd been undecided on joining EVE, this one blog post locks it down for me- this company will not see a dime of my money, ever.

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[zippthorne]

What're you talking about? Their whining has literally doubled their free advertising over the past week.

A more cynical person than me would conclude that they manufactured the entire scandal specifically for the press.

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[Anonymous Coward]

I dunno who made up the rules either, but they sure as hell weren't supported by myself - or any other player who's been around.
Companies that follow that 'recipe' get a "ok, so it WAS true." from me.

That's one of the things I always liked about CCP (and I don't currently play EVE, while on that - but I plan to again); they *didn't* follow those recipes.
They were usually honest. Just like that statement was probably honest.

Maybe someone did just figure CCP had been getting too much good PR? It sure seems that way, to me.
The accusations even if true are/were, well, LAUGHABLE in the mmorpg world.
A 4chan EVE raid? Who knows.

Eeek!

[phungus]

Someone take down the Goon Fleet corporation link, they changed it to Goatse. I had thought I would never see that horrible, horrible photo ever again.

I was wrong.

I care a bit

[aztektum]

Cause I was curious about this game and thought I might play it since I'm sick of the fantasy MMO's. Now, well yeah. Not feeling it.

Re:I care a bit

[Yggdrasil42]

Don't let this turn you away! I've been playing for half a year and have never felt wronged or set up. I didn't even know about this so-called scandal until Slashdot posted it. In-game life has gone on without a hitch.

If you're going to let your choices be influenced by internet rumours, you'll miss out on many great things in life. I fully believe CCP's explanation and am going to continue to have fun playing EVE. Let idiots spend their time bickering. I've got an empire to build.

EVE is a truly great game, with such depth and such adrenaline rushes I've never experienced in any other game. It's truly sci-fi though, so if you've grown tired of fantasy you need to make sure you like sci-fi. It's less about pretty pictures than about hard-core gameplay and continues to get better with age. The game is so complex and vast however, that it takes months to understand what is possible. The learning curve may seem steep in the beginning, but it's a necessity to prepare you for the first months.

Get the 14-day free trial, make sure to finish the tutorial, and see if you like the style.

Re:I care a bit

[Anonymous Coward]

If your empire and later incarnations of it were destroyed by BoB you might have posted differently.

I played for about a year and half full time. It is a very addictive and immersive game if you can find what you are looking for in a corp.

I lost so much to a war between the alliance i was in and BoB.

We held out pretty good for a short time and then they pwned us bubba style. Not saying BoB didn't fight well, they were some very skilled pilots and they vastly out gunned us. But after the dust had settled and the BPO scandal hit - I stopped thinking I had a chance.

I've logged on twice since.

Unbiased events eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Next is the allegation of the Aurora event team rigging an event arc.
This has also been proven FALSE."
i don't see how Arkanon's supporting evidence proves the allegation false. the following link might also want to be looked at.

http://www.eve-chatsubo.com/viewtopic.php?p=87205# 87205

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[PoderOmega]

I am not a big fan of a big PR business speak, but this company is straight up not professional. See my post here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=226635&cid=183 65491/

A website built on years of trolling?

[NeuroManson]

I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked! Next eBaum's world will be under suspicion for not having original content! The scandal!

Another suit against SA?

[Bieeanda]

That grumbling noise I hear, echoing out from the depths of the Earth, must be Leonard J. Crabs waking up from his millennial sleep.

And yeah, right. Like Lowtax and the admins are really going to be aiding and abetting something as stupid as this, or like the Swarm would discuss something of this maliciousness and magnitude on a publicly accessible forum.

Re:Another suit against SA?

[dpninerSLASH]

And yeah, right. Like Lowtax and the admins are really going to be aiding and abetting something as stupid as this, or like the Swarm would discuss something of this maliciousness and magnitude on a publicly accessible forum.

Lowtax and the admins -- were they new wave or punk?

Re:Another suit against SA?

[Anonymous Coward]

haha, I think I have a LP of them somewhere..

Deliberate Frame-Job

[jimmux]

Because you might have thought it was an accidental frame-job.

The way I see it, it's cheating

[Moraelin]

The way I see it, even if you don't give a fuck about virtual money and such, it's still a rigged game. You don't have to take a game seriously to, nevertheless, expect it to be _fair_. Especially a game based on competition and PvP. The idea of a competition is basically, "may the best player win", not "may the drink buddies of the referee win."

I mean, I never took chess too seriously either, but if the games at a club were rigged so the same player always wins (e.g., he gets to ask for another queen any time he wishes), then, you know, why bother playing? Or let me use, say, World Of Warcraft as an example. I don't even do PvP myself, much less take it seriously, but imagine that one guild were pals of the devs and got to win the battle grounds every time via outright cheating and having some dev on call to bend the rules as needed. (Which Blizzard doesn't do, but just as a hypothetical example.) Wouldn't it, at the very least, leave a bad taste?

Fixing the outcome of RP events isn't any different either, or not fundamentally. It's still, in effect, a competition, even if an acting competition. It doesn't have to be taken too seriously or give much of a fuck to nevertheless leave a bad taste if it's rigged.

I mean, imagine I'm your DM at a D&D game and said something like "ok, guys, you get to plead your case before the genie, and I want you to RP it. Whoever makes the most compelling case of why he should get it, gets a wish." If all such events blatantly ended up won by the guy who bought me pizza, wouldn't you, at the very least, say, "yada, yada, just give Jack his wish and let's move on"? Why bother competing if you already know it's rigged and that anything you could say or do isn't going to make any difference at all?

Except in this case people have paid some money too, and are paying a monthly fee too. I can see how they'd be a bit more pissed off if all there is in the game is rigged so the devs' buddies win. If PvP is rigged _and_ RP events are rigged, and that pretty much covers all there is except mindless grind, then, you know, why bother playing that game at all?

On the lighter side, though, it does remind me of a Woody Allen quote: "I was watching a ballet at City Center, and I'm not a ballet fan at all, but they were doing the dying swan, and there was a rumour, that some bookmakers had drifted into town from upstate New York, and that they had fixed the ballet. Apparently there was a lot of money bet on the swan to live."

Stairs and Protection

[myowntrueself]

The funny thing is that they make a veiled threat of legal action against the somethingawful.com - that'll be quite a sight to see!

Well I for one hope that the somethingawful people have protection.

Because if they have stairs in their house they are likely to get pushed down them...

I certainly feel like doing that every time someone asks me if I have stairs in my house.

Re:Stairs and Protection

[imsabbel]

I for one thing hope they dont.
They are the one of the most arrogant piles of shit in the web, and could really need a downer.
(got i hate the " I payed money to post, and money for my avatar, and money to use the search, so we are all better than the rest of the internet" thing they have going)

Re:Stairs and Protection

[Zutroi_Zatatakowsky]

Well, we are not "better" than the rest of the internet, it's just the rest of the internet that is worse than us. Thus allowing us to make fun of it.

Wow

[zantolak]

PvP games are serious business.

Hahahahahaha.

When in doubt, blindly obey us

[MMaestro]

Seriously, thats what CCP is more or less telling the public at this point. After the PR nightmare involving t20, CCP is basically trying to blow off this entire incident. After the t20 incident, we KNOW that some of the staff have had some level of interaction with guilds/clans that resulted in said guilds/clans getting a leg up on the competition (however great or small it is).

Suddenly, another EVE scandal is revealed and CCP tells people they're being framed? After months/years of various accusations? Its completely and utterly unbelievable.

Because they're so hooked it hurts.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is akin to, when a crackhead whines about the extortionary practices of his local dealer, advising him to stop paying said dealer.

We're talking about people that have invested much money and time into building up their characters into something that doesn't totally suck.
Every level passed was a reinforcement that their investment was worth it.
Every newbie they flew by reminded them of how far they had gone.

It's much easier to complain loudly about it than to actually stop cold turkey.
Plus, if they stop, they're letting BoB win, and that's not okay.

The first MMORPG game that manages to shape the leveling grind into something that generates money will have a business model so powerful they'll actually be able to pay the player back.
Wait, I think it exists, and it has a killer polygon count too.

(aka: Git a job, you little creeps!@!! )

MOD Parent up

[forgotten_my_nick]

I'm inclined to agree with you. I've been watching the latest scandal and CCP for the most part handled it well. Especially after the last SNAFU.

Personally I see it as the game maturing. Anyway remember Ultima Online from years ago? Various tales of GMs helping friends, looking after castles for famous baseball players and manufacturing gold faster then Rumpelstiltskin. They put in a lot of processes/systems to stop this.

CCP is just doing the same.

Btw, I believe any game where the players have interaction with GMs/dev team at any level will eventually call claims of favoritism/cheating. I recall stories like this from Asherons Call or City of Heroes. In those games the Dev/GMs vary become visible in the game.

Re:MOD Parent up

[genner]

Lol who needs a GM to cheat in UO.
The game is still riddled with hackable bugs

Actually, it's not that hard a concept

[Moraelin]

Actually, it's not that hard a concept. Most games essentially let everyone have everything (suitable for their class), if they just put enough work into it. That's what "fair" means. If you do X units of work (not even do it _well_ or better than everyone else), you're guaranteed a promotion. That's what XP is for example.

It actually works pretty damn well, because you don't have to have a working pyramid. Unlike RL you don't need 1000 peons or more to have a millionaire. You can have half the MMO's population stuck at level 70 for example. (And take a census on WoW sometime if you don't believe me. The bar graph looks like lots of tiny little bars for all levels and a huge spike at level 70.)

It doesn't even have to be all about levels, you can give people lots of other rewards too.

Games are an easy case to make "fair", because you there isn't an actual need to make it "unfair". You don't actially need a privileged 1% minority of rich guys (for bonus points, whose only merit there was being the always drunk son of the guy who actually earned that money) creating employment for everyone else. The game can create any amount of employment or virtual money needed by itself. E.g., a single finite instance, can keep an infinite number of players "employed" hacking those monsters for xp and loot.

For that reason, you don't have to give anyone privileges over anyone else, much less tolerate (or worse: create) blatant nepotism, like the accusation here went. There is no, "see, Jack wins every time only because he's Richie McMoney's nephew, but, you see, we need rich robber-barons like McMoney to keep the economy going, so quit yer pinko commie whining and get back to work. You wouldn't even have a job if it weren't for people like McMoney." Again, here it's the game's responsibility to create the "jobs" and the rewards, you don't need to put some pricks in privileged positions for that.

And it can get as lopsided as it wants to. You can basically have everyone be a CEO (don't laugh, there are games where everyone owns a company), without worrying that noone is a worker. Who cares? You can have millions of workers as NPCs or abstracted as "your company has 2500 workers, 500 clerks, and 100 researchers" numbers. Or you can have everyone be a king, and noone be a peasant, if you want to. Or whatever.

So "fair" is actually very easy. Most games are "fair" by default unless you actively screw that up. (Which is what CCP is accused of doing.)

And, frankly, it can be prevented. I've been on free MUDs which policed themselves against just this kind of thing. Everything a wizard/creator/builder/whatever gave a player or did to a player was logged and reviewed, and it was cause for immediate termination if you went and made the game unfair to reward your buddies. Can't a company do the same? How hard _can_ it be?

Now "balanced" is a more tricky proposition, and that one takes real skill and work. That much I'll admit. That's what separates good designers from wannabes. Kudos to those who can get that right. But "fair"? "Fair" is the default.

Re:Actually, it's not that hard a concept

[RollinDutchMasters]

If you define "fair" as being the ability to achieve anything in a game regardless of your interaction with other players, then EVE isn't fair and wasn't meant to be. Fair as you've defined it is simply not exciting. That's not the problem though - it's a game where the work of hundreds of people can be invalidated and destroyed by hundreds of other people working harder. That's what both attracts the kind of people who like to win, and makes them go completely batshit insane.

Genuinely losing at a videogame is not something that many people are capable of handling. The losing party in EVE almost always puts the blame squarely on something which was not their fault - that's been the case for years. Its only in the last year and a half that CCP has been drawn into that kind of petty mudslinging.

Honestly, I think that the people responsible for oversight at CCP have just become so aggravated by all the bile hurled at them whenever someone in the game feels wronged in some way by someone else that they've lost the ability to play deft PR. I can't say I blame them.

Re:Actually, it's not that hard a concept

[Chatsubo]

I play EVE. And the reason I play EVE, is exactly what you just spelled out. All those other games, anyone can get to the top. I want a game where I have to apply myself to get there, and where I have something to lose. And just like in real life, there are people who understand how to play the situation. Do I agree with the favouratism? No. But I can't stop it. RL is corrupt too. You can't police EVE perfectly just like you can't police RL perfectly.

EVE still is, and will be for a while, the only game that can get my pulse racing. Die in WOW, big deal, you're still lvl 70 and you lose nothing. Die in EVE, and you could be out of a ship for months. And yes, it does matter to us. It's like comparing chess to skydiving.

Re:Actually, it's not that hard a concept

[Moraelin]

1. First of all, I was talking about "fair" in a general case, and in regard to the game, not to your interactions with other players. Even if other players can do better, or you can lose, the idea is that the game itself isn't rigged against you. You can still lose a duel or a battleground in, say, WoW, but that's because you played worse, not because someone rigged the competition.

The idea of "fair" is, basically, that the game itself is agnostic as to who the players are. A "fair" game doesn't even know whether you're Jack who's a drinking buddy of dev X, or Jill who only gives nookie to dev Y if she wins. You're just character Z, with the same chances as any other character of the same class and level. If you have the skill or work hard enough, you win, if you don't you don't, but anyway: it's the same skill or effort anyone else would need in that same situation.

And, as I was saying, that's the default state for a computer game, unless someone actually goes and messes with it. Any way you'd go about genuinely implementing a set of RPG rules, the rules themselves are agnostic. If paper wins against stone and loses against scissors, it doesn't matter if it's dev's friend or the unpopular whiner who's playing paper, it still applies the same rules. The computer only knows it's paper, not who's playing that paper.

To make it unfair, you'd have to actually spend some extra effort there to skew it. Whether by active dev intervention (e.g., dev X steps in to give the +5 Sword Of Ganking to his buddy), or some way in the code and database (e.g., having some hidden flags for who's supposed to win more than normal.) It doesn't just happen by itself. That's all I'm saying.

Getting the rules to be "balanced", now that's a problem. But "fair" just means applying the exact same rules and giving the same chances to everyone. That's the _normal_ state.

2. But if you want to get it back on topic to this particular affair: Maybe because, as far as I understand, there was already a case where a dev was acknowledged to have played favourites, and CCP tried to play it down as, basically, "uh, it was just one guy, not the whole company, and we, erm, made him promise he'll stay away from the game in the future"? Just a thought.

Yes, it's harder to get out of MUD slinging contests than to end them in the first place, but that's why most people try to distance themselves as hard and fast as they can from that kind of stuff. I'm betting that if someone at, say, Blizzard, was proved to have rigged battlegrounds, the announcement would have been "we've fired him and taken steps to make sure we'll know if anyone even tries that crap again" not "we've, uh, had a stern talk to him and moved him around to another team". The message the former gives is "we don't allow that kind of crap", while the later says, basically, "heh, we don't give much of a fuck if that happens."

And once you've given the "we don't give much of a fuck" message, yeah, I can see how it would be hard to dig yourself out of that hole.

Wargames reference

[edwardpickman]

A strange game, the only winning move is not to play.

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[Jugalator]

Bah, I prefer to hear their impression of the story rather than a softened, skewed PR-speak version crafted for the "public". If they lied to the public in the way you propose, we would instead have had "they cover it up" comments here on Slashdot. Now we have stupid "they act like a victim and even if they are they shouldn't" stuff. :-p

well this does show something corrupt

[Foo2rama]

How come a Gm gets his complaint answered in 1 day as shown via the CCP thread they posted. I had this same issue and it took me over 1 month to get a response from CCP at this same time. Every ticket me or my corp enters takes over 20 days for a reply. This account which they acknowledge as a gm account got serviced in 1 day.


so no favoritism there. Sure this Gm may not have been able to take actions on his own account and had to place the petition to get the issue resolved, he still received favorable treatment, which is a violation of CCP's rules. A customers issue should be resolved in order not by who knows who or who is in what corp....

Re:well this does show something corrupt

[rgaginol]

I've only ever logged a single request in Eve, to get back an quest item after my first pod kill when I was ganked by pirate gate campers (three battle cruisers jumping on my little destroyer)... WTFPWND. Petitions are not something to be used often. I figure it's more like asking a DM in a game of D&D to occasionally use their omnipotent ability to make the game more enjoyable - not level scores. I had my petition answered within 24 hours and found the system to be pretty good. So now including me in your vast statistical study, was their response time average or am I too many standard deviations from the mean to be considered a valid entry? I usually follow the rule that being nice to people gets the best results - maybe CCP do give unfavorable treatment to some people, but that's life. Chefs spit in the food of annoying customers and customs officials will do their best to give assholes a lovely time coming through immigration. Or maybe I'm one of the devs ... and I'm also flying a black ops chopper spying on you right now. Get the aluminum foil off your head and relax, CCP aren't corrupt, just people - so whilst they're not imps waiting to give you the worst possible playing experience, they're also not knights in shining armor who'll come to your aid every time you stub your toe.

Re:well this does show something corrupt

[mcvos]

Isn't a GM a volunteer who is doing work for CCP? Makes sense they want to keep him happy.

To show favouritism, you have to show that a corp gets its complaints answered much
faster than other people.

Re:well this does show something corrupt

[supremespleen]

Whenever I sent support tickets they were acknowledged within minutes.

Re:well this does show something corrupt

[Araxen]

No, a GM in a MMO is basically a paid Customer Service Rep.

Re:well this does show something corrupt

[Foo2rama]

This is not a tinfoil conspiracy issue. I actually run support for a large MMO. You need to have policies in place to prevent admin abuse of tools/authority. A play account is a personal account and should never receive any service different then a paying account from a non employee. There are many reasons for this, mostly it is a cultural choice to prevent slipping down that slippery slope.

Oh I will just resolve this issue on my account really quick it hurts no one.

Well my corp lost a few ships from a bug issue that was kinda unfair so I will reimburse my corp the cash.

This guy totally bent the rules over and over again and kept podding my corpmates I will ban him.


I call this all a separation of church and state, and CCP is having issues with this right now there is no way to deny it. The fact that the largest corp in the game has a large percentage of CCP devs and support people, and this is known is baffling to me. Look at WOW it has way more people on the project and way more players, has anyone heard of Dev or Gm clans or any players getting special treatment from the support department?

Game Over, CCP

[festers]

That has got to be one of the most defensive and petty "responses" I've ever seen come from a company. At a time when people are calling for CCP to act professionally, they pull this stunt and come off looking like bitter nerds, not a mulit-million dollar company.

My advice to anyone even *thinking* about playing this game...don't. It's painfully obvious that CCP will go to any length to protect their perks, privileges, and collusions with certain alliances. They don't want a fair game because they want to have fun themselves, customers be damned. The clock is ticking for CCP, how much longer until the final explosion?

The MMORPG metagame expanding?

[Per Abrahamsen]

I have always thought that all the constant high pitched noise on MMORPG fora were just spoiled kids and other immature people whining because the virtual world didn't revolve around them.

It probably still is, but at least this article suggest that there can be more to it than that. Groups of people trying to create "events" by coordinated manipulation of the fora means that the in-game groups are trying to extend their actions to the real world, or at least a level of virtuality close to the real world (fora like /.). This is so much more interesting.

Standard SA Trolling... Now illegal!

[Anonymous Coward]

GASP! Those fine upstanding gentlemen at Something Awful? I can't imagine that those fine, upstanding gentlemen, the people who have defined the very word "Internet Troll", would ever, EVER do something as illegal as libel and fraud.

I mean, not to someone who would actually be big enough to fight back, that is.

Granted, these are the same fine upstanding gentlemen who constantly find things online that they don't like then encourage their horde of twits and retards at their forums to harrass people for shits and giggles.

But hey, it's funny when they're finding some kid's Guile fansite or bringing bomb threats to a furry con (and then bitching when the police have something to say about bomb threats right next to an airport), right? So it has to be fun when they're trying the same form of character assassination and harassment on as large a scale as to attack a multi-million dollar international company... right?

Right? Ha ha? So funny? Right?

So obviously, if EVE gets upset enough to actually sue them for this, they're just being bad sports. Ha. Haha. Right? Uh, guys?

I have many things to sell you.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should they lose their supposed investment and spend their money for the privilege?

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[Ash-Fox]

I am not a big fan of a big PR business speak, but this company is straight up not professional.

Definitions of professional on the Web:

• engaged in a profession or engaging in as a profession or means of livelihood; "the professional man or woman possesses distinctive qualifications"; "began her professional career after the Olympics"; "professional theater"; "professional football"; "a professional cook"; "professional actors and athletes"
• a person engaged in one of the learned professions
• an athlete who plays for pay
• engaged in by members of a profession; "professional occupations include medicine and the law and teaching"
• master: an authority qualified to teach apprentices

They seem professional to me? I don't see how your linked post changes that?

I wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

How many naysayers of CCP here are from somethingawful?

Let's not forget that the goonfleet internal forums show standing orders to tarnish CCP's image.

http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topi c&threadID=527762

From dev blog:

Since last Friday, an unnamed corporation posted over 4000 times on EVE's message boards concerning these allegations. In addition, 1046 posts were made on Digg.com; 235 comments were added on Slashdot; and made multiple EVE-related edits on Wikipedia. Each of these sites was hit within a few hours of each other, at the start of the three-day Memorial Day weekend in the US and a three-day weekend in Iceland, all referencing unfounded allegations -- now proven to be false -- that occurred three weeks ago or longer.

Goon fleet members spammed the forums so much that CCP was forced to shut them down (I saw it happen; an entire front page worth of spam). And some people still thing its a CCP conspiracy?

Re:I wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

why you posted anonymously? Gasp. Is it because you're trolling.

Re:I wonder...

[velco]

Goon fleet members spammed the forums so much that CCP was forced to shut them down (I saw it happen; an entire front page worth of spam). And some people still thing its a CCP conspiracy?

Goonfleet members spammed forums after a single thread, asking for investigation of allegations was deleted by censors. The web site worked prefectly fine until CCP shut down the forums, because the censors couldn't delete fast enough the posts.

Re:I wonder...

[ShortSpecialBus]

One thing that should have been made more clear in the open letter and all the posts was the fact that every reasonable method of trying to find answers was ignored/removed by CCP and the mods. The reasonable forum post was instantly deleted, petitions questioning the DS1 thing (which would have answered teh whole thing right away!) were deleted with no responses, and since only BoB have MSN access, there really wasn't much left.

CCP went out of their way to ignore the questions until they needed to be made public enough to not be ignored.

Re:I wonder...

[Anonymous Coward]

That thread shows the problem which has existed before this incident. Posting content from alliance's private boards is disallowed by the rules of that forum. However when it is contant from Goonfleet's private boards then it is just fine. The mods even edited the original post but just so happened to forget that that rule is in place.

Re:I wonder...

[cowscows]

This also basically mirrors what happened with the last dev scandal, where CCP initially tried to delete/censor all the questions that players were asking about it. It took a lot of noise on the forums to get them to really acknowledge the issue, which they eventually did by saying that nothing had happened and infact nothing like that could ever happen. Even more forum noise ensued, until CCP took a real look at it and saw that the allegations were actually true.

So, from past experience, if you want CCP to actually acknowledge that they might have a problem, you have to crap all over their forums. Or else they'll ignore you. Their response this time has started out just like it did last time. Should they be surprised that we're following the same path that worked for us before?

Re:I wonder...

[zerocool^]

Perhaps in the same way that any other company ignores people who accuse them of wearing bacon necklaces?

I mean, it looks like there's no substance to these allegations. That's probably why they were being ignored. If I went up to people on the street and asked them "Do you wear necklaces made of bacon?", they'd ignore me. But, if I had the entire population of the SomethingAwful forums corner one person and ask them repeatedly "Do you wear a necklace of bacon?!? LOLERCAUST!! YOU MuStAnSwEr or yur HIDING stufz!" - after the 4000th time, the person would eventually get cross and scream at the top of their lungs "THE ANSWER IS NO, AND YOU'RE BUGGING THE SHIT OUT OF ME, LET ME GET ON WITH MY LIFE".

This is what CCP has done. Goons wanted to create drama, CCP knows there's no substance to it, so they ignore. Goons order an all out assault on CCP, and CCP has to waste their time answering. Congratulations, Goons have wasted all of our time, and in the process have tarnished CCP's image even further.

~Wx

CCP made dug their own hole

[Usagi_yo]

It's tought to make a ton of ISK consistently in EVE, and for those that do, its quite lucrative from a RL$ to in game currency. Some 1B isk goes for what? $90 U.S dollars?

CCP keeps a tight fist on the isk department -- except for the lucky lottery winners of T2 ships. Yet if they nerf the economy such that everybody can make the lucrative isk, then they will lose 50% of thier player base.

Re:The tone of the response is totally unacceptabl

[Opportunist]

Erh... that's what an "internal affairs" department is about. Trying to keep things under cover, and if impossible, whitewash the company. At least to the outsiders. To the inside, it maybe quite different, and they might even do something about it, but to the outside, the plain white facade has to be maintained.

CCP made it possible

[Opportunist]

Now, I wouldn't call it impossible with the Something Aweful crowd involved. They do have a record trying to destroy what others built. But, seriously, how could they if there wasn't already a reason to believe them?

If EvE was a fully credible game, with a CCP having a record of being straight, honest and upright towards its customers, with no favorism, remembered for being fair and unbiased, with no sensible allegations pending that there could remotely be some kind of intermingling between developers and player groups, the whole case would be laughed off.

The problem is, it's anything but that. There have been such allegations before, there have been shady deals, there have been cases where we've seen favorism.

Can this be a plot by some dissatisfied players to bring down the game? Sure. Could it succeed if there wasn't "prior art" of that kind? Certainly not.

Re:CCP made it possible

[cowscows]

Anyone who things that this was a big coordinated effort by the whole of GoonFleet to bring down CCP is just being dumb. The majority of goons playing EvE are invested in their characters and truly enjoy the game. Goons have worked hard to build itself an empire in the EvE universe, like so many other alliances have in the past. Throwing away all that time and energy would be silly, and to believe that 4000 players could all be convinced to do so is pretty unreasonable.

But why should anybody quietly stand by while a game that they're such a big fan of appears to be tainted by corruption and cheating? And when the devs try to ignore that anything has happened, why should anyone be ok with that? Sometimes protesting is the only way you can get someone to listen, and sometimes you have to protest very loudly before they'll pay attention to you. If CCP was a little more willing to acknowledge that they sometimes make mistakes, then the protests wouldn't have had to get that loud.

Seriously?

[Der Huhn Teufel]

Come on guys. Goon Fleet. That's all that needs to be said.

Re:Seriously?

[Lehk228]

i'll trust a Goon over CCP any day

Re:Seriously?

[Andy Dodd]

As others have commented:

Prior to the t20 scandal, many would have said the same thing.

After the t20 scandal and the way it was botched/non-handled (covered up, then finally admitted with no corrective action taken - t20 is still with the company), people actually are more likely to trust the Goons than CCP.

It doesn't help that two of the Goon's accusations in this round were true (albeit whitewashed so as not to look quite as bad as they seemed) with the most serious one as of yet unaddressed.

Re:Seriously?

[DS-1107]

I didn't, but they showed their true black with the T20 affair, and now they "debunk" like children hoping to win people over.

They didn't even answer the questions on why someone can go around the petition system, and then in true fashion twist their tale - ex. they refused the allegations to be put forth on their own forums, and then as the open letter was reposted 4000 times (the goons where 3000 strong last I played, and more then GF are displeased with CCP), they closed down the forums. Forcing it out to slashdot etc. Of course now it's a regular DOS according to CCP; by an evil group of people wanting them harm to boot, and they are all innocent little lambs, well T20 isn't, but the rest are just letting him be because carebears give love, not hate.

Anyway if they are actually innocent in this, and I don't believe that they are, they screwed up royally PR wise, again - and while I would think twice about anything from SA-Goons, I'd think it over again if it was from CCP.

3 ex-EVE player

Re:Seriously?

[zerocool^]

And that's sad. Aside from the fact that a sibling post has already noted that you probably are a goon yourself, Here's a comparison:

CCP:

1 year ago, had a developer use dev tools to gain a slight advantage. Was disciplined, perhaps not harshly enough.

Goons:

Created a story about a developer joining their corporation to spy on them.

Write an "open letter", and spam links to this open letter over 4,000 times in a weekend.

Claim to have filed a petition to find out why a developer joined their corporation, and that the petition was closed immediately.

They are confronted by CCP who say that the developer joined their corporation in order to fix an issue with an in-game structure which was not behaving, as per a petition filed by a Goon member. CCP also has no record of any additional petition ever being filed, and asks Goons to come up with a petition number, the account name of the person who filed it, or a date it was filed on, and the Goons cannot do so.

The Goons OUTRIGHT LIE* and say that no petition asking for help with their structure was ever filed, and that their structures have ALWAYS been working properly.

CCP shows the goons the screenshots of their internal database of petitions, including where the Goons filed the petition asking for help with the structure. CCP also notes that the purposeful fabrication of allegations of wrongdoing and the libel which the goons have used over the past weekend in a coordinated effort to smear CCP and waste their time amount to legally actionable infractions.

The Goons respond by bombing the eve-online forums with spam, trolling posts, flamebaiting, improper conduct, profanity, in line pictures, and other such garbage. ......

Yeah, I'd trust a goon, too. They've got everyone's best interest at heart, and they're a group of moral leaders in the online community. /sarcasm.

~Wx

Re:Seriously?

[zerocool^]

Sorry, the asterisk was this:

* If that link doesn't take you to #22, look at the 22nd post, quoted here:

Let's see...
A CCP employee joined DS1 and gives himself Director roles without warning
The CEO of DS1 files a petition asking why this occured when he sees it in the audit logs
The petition is instantly deleted

I dunno. Sounds pretty fishy to me.
Faith in ISD to give us a straight answer? laffo

edit, taken from the in game bio of the DS1 CEO

        Quote:Statement on dev misconduct:

        for the record, Darkstar1 has 3 pos in game only, both are and have always worked fine and have never been petitioned by anyone in the corp for not working, the statement given by CCP is incorrect and simply not true,

        LUCASWV, - CEO of Darkstar1

POS = Player Owned Structure, the thing that they petitioned to have fixed, and later claimed not to have done so.

~Wx

Re:Seriously?

[DS-1107]

The question goes deeper then that - can you trust the company that have lied more then once to cover up their wrong doings - to not do so again?

With T20 they claimed that they had punished him during the summer 2006, yet they denied that it had ever happened way into November, December - and to boot had not removed the BPO's in question until the public outcry, they kept deleting the threads about it then as well; until it was up on slashdot and digg.

Now a player can call up a GM to do his bidding by MSN, and it isn't even mentioned in their own rebuttal only that the reported banned over it had it coming due to several complaints.

Blatanly lies about a DoS attack - we are talking 4000 posts, that's close to one post per goon alone - oh my! Posts that carries data from the goons on website, a true DoS that, on the goons themselves!

So can you trust CCP, their in-house investigation that plays the victim card, skips bothersome accusations, and when said accusations are not made with fire, that is spamming the forums or going to /. and the like, just deletes them.

Re:Seriously?

[Lehk228]

so you trust a company with a massive financial self interest in covering this up more than you trust players who will likely suffer mass bannination regardless truth or lack thereof?

Re:Seriously?

[Lehk228]

CCP: has been caught with their hand in the cookie jar and trying to cover it up before

Goons have been playing EvE for a LONG time and would be unlikely to throw away goonswarm unless there really was some serious betrayal against them by a dev.

Re:Seriously?

[zerocool^]

I don't trust a Goon's words as truth. Period. SomethingAwful does not have the best reputation on the internet, my friend. It has always been a cesspool, and Goonswarm is no different.

I have reasons for not trusting the goons, but among them are: Goons have used client side tools to hack the eve-online executable to their advantage in violation of the EULA, Goons have lied on the forums as I said about the developer joining their corp for no reason and at no request, Goons have spammed the forums to the point that they're unusable at the moment, Goons in general exhibit immature and outright childish behavior every chance they get, Goons constantly whine on the forums about everything that's ever beaten them about being overpowered or cheating. There are other reasons but that'll do for starters.

As I've said countless times now, you people cannot come up with allegations (bogus or not), and ask CCP to resolve the issue, and then subsequently choose to disbelieve everything they respond with. Either you trust them to resolve the situation, or you're just screaming into the void so that others can hear you scream. The Goons aren't interested in a resolution, and nothing will ever satisfy them. All they want is to cause drama.

~Wx

Re:Seriously?

[Plekto]

Well, if you had a group of about 1000 legitimate players(not counting all of their alts/secondary characters, mind you) - and you got them all mad at you for summarily their request as to why you were poking around in their business...

Yes, they got mad - it's the only way to make CCP even budge a little bit - by doing exactly what they did. That's what the forums are about. And, no, the servers were fine - CCP decided to take them down not due to traffic/load but due to their wanting to squash the thread. Then it got into alternate sites and the lid blew open.

CCP's Devs cheated, or it looks awfully close to it. If you ever played EVE, you would know that nothing but nothing happens within minutes. It takes hours. Unless it's BOB. Then it takes minutes. Just having this level of access to the DEVS that the other players don't is appalling.

But CCP admits in their own response that they actively foster and promote the idea of their employees playing in-game, despite the fact that none of the other MMOGs need to do so to run their games. So everyone at CCP has players in the game as a normal thing - and the official line is "keep it clean - we'll trust you to not abuse your position".

That's a *terrible* policy to have. How can you possibly claim that you aren't biased and favoring one group over another given all those DEVs and human nature?

Fact:CCP employees have cheated in the past.
Fact:CCP routinely kills any dissent in their forums.
Fact:CCP favors BOB.
Fact:CCP covers up their employee tracks

It's a corrupt company. This is just the most current round of BS from them.

Re:Seriously?

[zerocool^]

Either you don't play eve, or you have been fed some false history.

The Goons are a relatively new feature in EvE. Most of the other big alliances - even the ones that are younger than Goonswarm, and there aren't many in the top 10 or 20 - can trace their origins back much further than their current incarnation. Goonswarm was formed in June of 2006 and will turn 1 year old next Sunday (hmmm, I wonder if all the drama llamas have something to do with this).

Now, I don't know what you're getting at, but this means that the people who have been in Goonswarm since day 1 still cannot have been there for more than a year. In eve, a year is a good warm-up period where you learn the ropes and train the necessary skills to play the game. They haven't been playing for a LONG [sic] time. Contrast that to IAC or the Red Alliance or BoB or Fix or ex-LV, or IRON, and you'll see that most of their players have 2 or 3 or even more years of experience at Eve.

I still consider myself a learning player, and yet my character is far older than Goonswarm's existence in the game.

Those of us that remember the game before Goonswarm was there remember it as a better place. I hope that this scandal and the Goon's lost credibility, combined with the hopefully non-idle threats to cancel their subscriptions, will mean that those of us who actually want to play the game, in-game, no metagaming, no drama llamas, no forum whoring, no spamming, can get back to playing the game we know and remember and could love again.

~Wx

Re:Seriously?

[zerocool^]

Fact:CCP employees have cheated in the past.
Fact:CCP routinely kills any dissent in their forums.
Fact:CCP favors BOB.
Fact:CCP covers up their employee tracks

It's a corrupt company. This is just the most current round of BS from them.

Then for the love of god, cancel your account, and convince as many fellow Goons to go with you as you can.

You don't have any personal experience with BoB cheating, you're towing the party line and repeating what has been told to you. Seriously, just quit.

~W

Re:Seriously?

[Lehk228]

are you sure you want thousands of goons quitting? it might be YOUR job they cut to make up for the loss in income.

Re:Seriously?

[zerocool^]

Hah, I don't work for CCP (nor am I in BoB). I simply play the game the way it's meant to be played - In game, no meta-gaming, no forum whoring, no whining.

And to be honest, I think the goons probably cost CCP more in tech support, wasted hours, ISD time wasted, and grief, than they bring in from their subscriptions.

~Wx

Re:The tone of the response is totally unacceptabl

[asninn]

I simply cannot believe anything the "investigator" says.

Yet you apparently have no problem believing everything the accusers say. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not convinced CCP is innocent here, but I'm not convinced they're guilty, either. But it seems rather ridiculous (and I'm not just talking about you but also about a bunch of other people who posted further up) to make up one's mind after hearing one side of a story already and then dismissing the other side of the story because it doesn't match the first side.

I mean... duh. What do you expect? If CCP hasn't done anything wrong, then a "combative and derisive" tone that's "100% supportive of CCP and 100% belligerant [sic] to the accusers" is, in fact, totally acceptable. We don't know whether they have or not, but to dismiss them for defending themselves now just proves two things: that you have already made up your mind, and that you do not have any actual evidence to support your conviction that they're "guilty", so you instead have to resort to attacking the messenger rather than the message.

Pretty sad.

its been about time

[Hatto]

Its been about time for all this to end. I do more than hope that the days of Goonswarm come to an end. I guess there is little chance for sa.com to vanish aswell. For me, personally, Goonswarm ruined EVE, as they brought Metagaming to a whole new level, and based on my personal ingame and forum experience with them I am quite sure the info about the smear campaign is the truth. Goons ever thrived to ruin things for others, by whatever means possible, in the name of 'fun'. They never even tried to get part of the EVE community, but stayed Goons. Its not surprising that they try to take EVE and CCP with them on their downfall. If they will be gone for good it might be time to subscribe EVE again.

Re:its been about time

[Anonymous Coward]

Aw, lost some characters because you connected to a compromised forum from a CCP IP address did we?

CCP Community Manager

[velco]

To clarify a bit what a company CCP is, let me quote the CCP Community Manager Kieron"

If a member of the EVE community finds he or she cannot accept our current level of transparency, we bid you good luck in finding a company that meets your needs.

Re:CCP Community Manager

[Durzel]

He's got a point though.

It's not as if we're talking about a government here, CCP is simply a corporation with commercial interests. It boggles the mind that people would "happily" continue to pay for a service they find displeasing (and in some cases downright mentally unhealthy).

If you bought a coffee from a local shop every day and out of the blue they decided to change the flavour, or throw it in your face when you paid for it, would you continue to go there every day, handing over your money, for the same experience? Would you try to reason with them (whilst still paying money and still having distasteful coffee thrown in your face) despite it being obvious that nothing was going to change? Most people I'd wager would simply stop going there and go somewhere else for their coffee.

I know it's a cliché but people who feel aggrieved by CCP's actions have every right to vote with their wallet and simply stop playing the game. That is the only power a player has over the development team, and if a problem is bad enough that it causes a significant portion of the playerbase to quit then that is how change comes about. If however you decide to quit and there isn't the mass exodus that you predicted in your farewell speech, then maybe - just maybe - the skys aren't falling.

Re:CCP Community Manager

[velco]

I know it's a cliché but people who feel aggrieved by CCP's actions have every right to vote with their wallet and simply stop playing the game.

Of course, that's right.

What is absurd us a high-positioned company employee to actually urge his customers to quit. This I consider at least unprofessional and in most serious business companies it'd cause the said employee to be fired on the spot (or at least we would never hear anything from him again).

Re:CCP Community Manager

[Durzel]

It's unprofessional I guess, but MMORPGs are a strange breed. At least with regular organisations if people don't like your product they simply don't buy it in the first place, whereas with MMOs people buy the product and then spend every waking moment moaning about why it doesn't fit their exact specifications. I guess that's just a factor of how MMOs change over time, unlike regular products.

I have some sympathy for what this CCP spokesperson is saying simply because as far as MMOs go you can't please everyone all of the time, and you're lucky if you can please anyone for more than a few moments. As such it's understandable that they'd feel some abject depression over the same tinfoil conspiracy theories and complaints being brought up over and over again.

Re:CCP Community Manager

[Hatto]

What is absurd us a high-positioned company employee to actually urge his customers to quit. He actually shows people their bounds. Players seem to think these days that they own a game company by paying them a monthly fee. Political correctness is what holds back community managers of many other games to state something similar. Its quite refreshing to see some people are not yet overpolite. CCP is just like their game, they have some edges and that's more a pro than a con.

Aside from that, did you ever try to argue with people that have the somethingawful mindset? :P

Re:CCP Community Manager

[velco]

Players seem to think these days that they own a game company by paying them a monthly

The company actually exists and operates because players are paying them monthly fees.

Or using CCP kieron talk style: "I bid you good luck in existing and operating without players paying you monthly fees".

Hmm, I just might well mail him the above ... :)

Aside from that, did you ever try to argue with people that have the somethingawful mindset?

Perhaps yes, I've argued with BoB members. I don't really know what is a SA mindset, but I guess what you mean.

Re:CCP Community Manager

[velco]

It's unprofessional I guess ...

I have some sympathy for what this CCP spokesperson is saying simply because as far as MMOs go you can't please everyone all of the time

Nobody insists on pleasing everyon all the time. All and I mean ALL that people want is a level playing field.

There has been the case of a CCP employee spawning valuable in-game objects for his player aliance.
There has been the case of a CCP employee (I think the same) leading his player alliance capital ship fleet.
There has been the case of somebody giving in-depth advice about capital ship warfare to an in-game corporation (incidently allied with the above alliance), information not available in the Player Guide. Apparently this somebody's IP address was tracked back to CCP corporate network.
There has been the case of a high-ranking player boasting with his direct MSN connection with CCP staff.
It's a company policy that CCP employees actively take place in the in-game politics.

All these in isolation do not sound like a big deal. But taken together they (IMO) reveal a model of operation, developed over the years, which clearly favors one particular player group.

Sure, you cannot please everyone everytime. But hardly pissing off most everyone most of the time is a viable business strategy.

Re:CCP Community Manager

[Hatto]

So hard to get told to put your money where your mouth is, isn't it. Companies don't exist because players pay them their monthly fee. They exist and offer a service, which players choose to buy or not. That's different.

While this whole drama will cost them some subs it will also bring them some, as not everyone enjoys the climate caused by goonswarm. EVE lives on drama, but bringing the drama to places like this went too far.

Re:CCP Community Manager

[Alcoholic Synonymous]

I've had it out with him before over his disingenuity during the time that I played Eve. This response is typical of him actually. I learned way back when that everything he says amounts to either an empty promise or an outright lie. If you actually dare to call shenanigans about it, he'll typically jump down your throat and tell you to fuck on off.

I took him up on his advice.

But, I still love reading the /. "CCP Caught with Hand in Cookie Jar" stories because the favoritism towards big organized "bad guy" alliances was really blatant even way back before it was directly evidenced. People have thrown tons of money and years of their lives down the drain towards something they never had a chance at. And all they were really after was a chance. It's taken a lot longer than I thought it would to come out, but now CCP can never really go back again.

Even if they are right about this being orchestrated slander, CCP is a victim to the very behavior they encourage. If you make a game where people "win" by being dicks, don't be surprised when dicks play your game. And especially don't be surprised when the dicks actually act like dicks.

Re:CCP Community Manager

[velco]

So hard to get told to put your money where your mouth is, isn't it. Companies don't exist because players pay them their monthly fee. They exist and offer a service, which players choose to buy or not. That's different.

While this whole drama will cost them some subs it will also bring them some, as not everyone enjoys the climate caused by goonswarm. EVE lives on drama, but bringing the drama to places like this went too far.

I bid you good luck finding a MMO gaming company, which does not exist because players pay for its services.

Good luck and have fun. Bye.

(And yes, I know about GuildWars :)

Damned if you do..

[Durzel]

EVE Online would appear to be the perfect example of what happens if Devs appear to be *too* involved in playing the game, yet as any MMO player will attest - forums are filled with people crying about Devs not having "real-World experience of the problems class x is having". Seems like they're damned if they do, damned if they don't.

From a player perspective I can see how damaging it would be to even be seen to show bias one way or the other towards a class, guild, corp. or whatever the game terminology happens to be. From a developer perspective it must be quite frustrating not being able to enjoy the game in all its splendor (guild raiding, etc included) whilst simultaneously having to deal with legions of forum whiners moaning about how the Devs "dont know how the game works at the ground level".

And of course let's not forget that MMO communities are, without exception, always incredulous, accusatory, fickle and obstinate on the game forums. Everyone has their tinfoil hat on 24/7, expects (demands) the Earth for their $15 a month and despite having very little visibility of the organisational goals, objectives and constraints everyone purports to be "in the know", a programming expert and a visionary. It must be soul-destroying to have to deal with people with this mindset day-in, day-out. Being a Dev on a MMO must be like living life as a major politician: every word spoken about the game (especially on the forums) has to be carefully crafted so as to be totally unambigious and unemotional, since you can guarantee that the World and his dog will deconstruct and scrutinise every syllable, all the while presupposing a hidden agenda (again, tinfoil). It's no wonder Devs usually don't speak much on the forums.

(A slightly amusing anecdote: I was reading the Star Wars Galaxies forums recently as I used to play and a Dev made the heinous mistake of getting involved in an off-topic discussion about American Football teams. Naturally before long someone piped up saying "it's great that you're talking on here but shouldn't you be looking at the pressing issue of Spy DoT damage not being mitigated whilst wearing the Eye of Sauron ring? If you don't fix this I'm quitting and so is my entire family, friends & pet.". Ok I'm being facetious to prove a point, but it was still disheartening to read).

Ultimately this huge controversy, whilst ultimately of little interest to me as an outsider, has given me a fresh outlook and sympathy towards MMORPG developers.

Re:Damned if you do..

[Burnhard]

EVE Online would appear to be the perfect example of what happens if Devs appear to be *too* involved in playing the game, yet as any MMO player will attest - forums are filled with people crying about Devs not having "real-World experience of the problems class x is having". Seems like they're damned if they do, damned if they don't.

Except it isn't. People cry about the problems their class have regardless of whether or not the Developers are playing the game. The difference is one of perception. The other guy always looks to have an advantage. The current fashion in Eve is "amarr is teh suck!".

Ultimately this huge controversy, whilst ultimately of little interest to me as an outsider, has given me a fresh outlook and sympathy towards MMORPG developers.

There are two ways developers can play their own game:

(1) With complete transparency, "I AM A DEVELOPER"
(2) With secrecy, "I AM wtfpwndn00b I press all teh sekret buttons"

It's a no-brainer that in the latter case you will get "corruption" because of interactions between guild/corp leaders and the developers (in this case, via MSN). Previous abuses include but are not limited to giving your corporation resources you have given yourself (by virtue of being a developer), tactical information about fleet operations from the enemy (from your l33t developer console), pre-warning about Eve-wide events so your corp/guild can just ride in and win it and of course lets not forget the banning of players who ask pesky questions and expose the above abuses.

But you know, Eve encourages Scamming and things like that. Criminal activity really is the most lauded form of interaction. For the player-base to complain about dev corruption seems to me to set the seal once and for all on this game's reputation as a complete and utter turd.

(Declaring my interest: I played it since beta for 3 years on and off)

Re:Damned if you do..

[ps236]

The "problem" with Devs playing the game isn't going to be that big an issue in one of the many games where PvE is the main reason for playing, as I doubt any sensible person would care that a Dev was an uber-wizard with with 300 pet dragons who could kill orcs by looking at them, as long as they played sensibly and didn't get in other players' ways. However, Eve is basically a 'kill anyone, and screw everyone you can' type game. This can actually be reasonably good fun if you're that sort of person, but quite often people can take it personally. Not only that, but people are encouraged to get into alliances, and fight other alliances. So, now, your uber-Dev has a problem. Does he stay out of alliances and the large PvP battles that ensue? This is probably safer for the 'integrity' of the game, however, now he's not experiencing a big part of the game. But, as soon as he joins an alliance, there is an obvious benefit to that alliance. I'd say that CCP should ban devs from playing in alliances for extended periods of time, and announce when they are playing in them for short periods for testing purposes. Possibly they could also 'share out' devs to the different big alliances. (They could even write this into the story 'notorious militarist xyz is lending aid to abc alliance for a week') An uber-dev playing outside an alliance in Eve would have quite a hard time doing anything seriously untoward (without using 'secret keys'), as he could get "pwned" by pretty much any other mid->large group who took offence.

Re:Damned if you do..

[Burnhard]

You forget that despite what CCP tell you, it's Policy. They have an obvious interest in controlling the course of events in the game (just look at what's happened to the China server). However, the fact the game doesn't naturally balance and needs frequent interventions is one of several fundamental flaws in design, not a problem of individual or group play.

Re:Damned if you do..

[Durzel]

I'm not sure they can play it at all. I've witnessed first hand the fallout (which is still perpetuated) when a Dev casually mentioned he enjoyed playing the Bounty Hunter class most of all in Star Wars Galaxies. Thereafter he is labelled a Jedi hater (BHs hunted Jedi for most of the game, now they can hunt everyone - but the accusation stuck) and any sort of perceived nerf to the Jedi class is attributed to him and his "anti Jedi" agenda.

Rarely does common sense or benefit of the doubt come into the mindset of avid MMO players.

Re:Damned if you do..

[Andy Dodd]

The problem here is that in EVE, direct dev involvement can do far more damage to game balance (while not being blatantly obvious) due to the game design. In other MMOs, a dev would have to do something blatantly obvious to the entire playerbase to have a lasting effect on game balance.

Re:Damned if you do..

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems like they're damned if they do, damned if they don't.

And if a dev decides to log in, "experience" class x, decide it sucks and then wishes themselves a Flaming Longsword of OMGWTFBBQ +MAXINT, decides thats pretty cool, and starts handing them out to their best friends?

Playing the game is one thing, but when it's been demonstrated that the devs actually create goodies in game for their guilds, that's another.

Re:Damned if you do..

[brkello]

The whole "real world experience" argument is crap. That is what they have test servers for. They can observe the events on the real server to see if what someone says is true/false. I don't think you need to give your friends free items in game to understand how certain things need to be balanced.

Re:Damned if you do..

[espressojim]

The best response to your post is a msg I saw in another forum. These are NOT my words.

Originally Posted by Malloc Memrel

This is the first and probably only post on eve-o I'll ever make, as I've never been much of a "Game X Forums" kind of guy, but I had to say this.

As an ex-Blizzard employee, I am flabbergasted at the extent to which developer presence contaminates the player pool. With WoW there wasn't a line between our player accounts and our personal accounts- there was a wall, a moat, a spike-filled trench, and electrified barbed wire. You so much as tried to enter a developer command into the console, you'd be kicked from the server, your account would be flagged, and unless you had a really damn good rason for attempting to bring developer capabilities into the game your ass was fired. You told no one anything about the game behind the curtain, you never told anyone in-game that you even worked for the company, or your ass was fired. The impetus for crossing that line in eve is entirely beyond me.

And don't start for a second with "We need to see how things work." Rubbish. You've got one of the most robust test servers known to MMOs, you've got ridiculously fluid interaction from your player base (At least from the bottom-up) and if nothing else you could have internal servers to try things on. Having anyone with even the possibility of developer powers in the public server is nothing short of madness. Having powers above and beyond normal players, or having access to information beyond the average player, is akin to putting water in chocolate- a single drop can cause a whole batch to sieze and it's ruined just like that.

"But what about GMs?" you ask. Fair enough, they need certain powers to set things right. But they should only ever exist in the game when no other option presents itself. They should be invisible, intangible, a last resort for a coding malfunction or dispute that requires GM omniscience to solve. They should not be people but a service, identifiable only to the point that they can be held accountable for their actions. If you tried to log in as a GM account anywhere but at Blizzard's GM center, hell, if you even hinted that you had a GM account, you'd be canned so fast your head would spin. That CCP would willingly and intentionally contaminate the public player base with what amounts to demi-gods with varying degrees of moral fortitude just boggles my mind.

The thing is, I know some CCPers here on the american side of things, people I've worked with in the past, and I just feel so sorry for them. I just want to say to them, "What the hell is going on over there? What kind of people are you working for?" but I know it isn't their fault.

Bottom line, CCP doesn't care. What exactly they don't care about, I'm not sure; it could be that they don't care about people being in a position to abuse powers beyond what normal paying customers can do, or it could be that they don't care about the effect establishing an Old Boy's Club with their closest pals has on the rest of the game, or it could be any number of things. But the inevitable conclusion is that there is some aspect of the past and current troubles that they are simply turning their noses up at.

The sad thing is, I left WoW for EvE because despite all the work I had put into it, EvE struck me as the superior product. Ironically, I was half wrong and half right. Eve has the potential to be a superior product, but this kind of customer relations seems to spit in the face of everyone who wants to play a game with a firm set of established rules applicable throughout the playerbase.

Re:Damned if you do..

[Alzheimers]

In a PvE game, a developer character cheating for themselves is bad, but doesn't affect many people. In EvE, especially dealing in Alliance politics and warfare, a single cheater can affect the politica landscape for months or years. Wars are lost that affect thousands of people, not just Joe Botgrinder and Lee Yun Goldfarmer.

In EvE, a developer involved in major alliance politics doesn't even need to give themselves uber loot to gain an advantage. All they need is detailed intelligence of enemy troop movements, deployment strategies, starbase configurations, and operations. Spies typically show up in Local chat, so even if a covert ops ship (a spy) were to enter enemy territory, at least they'd know he was watching. But who can tell when a dev is peeking into your shield fuel to know exactly when to strike?

And, to be honest, the documentation in EvE is so out of date that just by having in-depth knowledge of how the system works is a huge advantage. Most of what has been posted in the forums as "documentation" was discovered by players through trial and error. Managing a capital fleet is the most critical element to success in taking over enemy territory, and the developer who was accused of cheating last time was one of those responsible for managing the *largest capital fleet in the game*.

While I don't agree with the level of response, I can certainly understand the outrage at these accusations. This isn't just the Goonfleet being goons, this is winnowing of trust at the highest levels from all involved.

Re:Damned if you do..

[cowscows]

A lot of the problems come from the fact that CCP likes to recruit employees from the player base. This has obvious advantages for them, because they get people who already know a lot about the game. Their policy, as far as I've heard, is that when you become an employee, you can keep your pre-existing character, exactly as he/she is, you just can't tell anyone that that character is now connected to a dev/GM/whatever account. If you get outed as an employee, then your lose that character.

This doesn't work for a number of reasons. First off, there's the whole biased referees running the game discussion, which really isn't good. The earlier T20 incident showed that CCP was not doing a good job of monitoring their servers for improper use of special abilities. But even if they could figure that part out, EvE has such a huge amount of meta-game that goes on elsewhere than CCP's servers, that they could never hope to track it all. Along those same lines, every corp/alliance of any significant size has its own external forums/killboard/teamspeak server and such, and with the prevalence of spies and plants and such going on, most of them carefully monitor who moves through their forums. The point being, if I got hired by CCP and moved to iceland and kept logging into my alliance's forums, someone would notice my ip address moving to iceland, and they would likely ask me about it. You can't reasonably expect to keep that sort of stuff secret. Even if that employee was being fair and not abusing their powers, some of the players would figure it out.

At the end of the day, like you said, CCP employees should not be playing the game. They can't guarantee that nothing improper will occur, the design of the game is such that unfair actions by employees can have very significant negative effects on many of the players, and the meta-game all but insures that CCP employees will not be able to keep their identities completely hidden.

Re:Damned if you do..

[vux984]

The "problem" with Devs playing the game isn't going to be that big an issue in one of the many games where PvE is the main reason for playing, as I doubt any sensible person would care that a Dev was an uber-wizard with with 300 pet dragons who could kill orcs by looking at them, as long as they played sensibly and didn't get in other players' ways.

Actually it IS a big issue in PvE games. In some games the top end guilds contained devs. Not a big deal on its own if the dev is a passive player, but if they take an active leadership role, or even an active advisory role to player leadership the guild will start to have advantages over other guilds.

PvE games aren't 'competitive' the way EVE is, but they ARE still competitive. And nothing reeks as a bad as getting assistance from the devs -- faster responses to petitions, insider information, etc, even minor incidental perks lke this reek of corruption.

But yeah, in a game like EVE where the overall fortunes of the player alliances are being impacted by the devs participation... thats a whole new brand of stench.

Re:Damned if you do..

[Thaelon]

This is probably the best post I've read on the subject on slashdot, goonfleet, my corp's forums or CCPs.

Mod parent up please. (I don't have mod points, I keep running my mouth here)

Doubt it

[Opportunist]

Would this convince you to sign up for the game? Or, rather, would it make you continue playing if you started to lose interest?

MMORPGs are played to build your character so you can sometime reach the top levels. In "traditional" MMORPGs this means, you can go down dungeons and come up with the most prized items. Would it convince you to start one when you hear that the top level dungeons are allegedly reserved for the devs and their buddies?

Re:Doubt it

[Fizzl]

I actually just started downloadin the client.I played a bit maybe two years ago, and found it boring. I'll have a stab at it now. Perhaps I can make my cargo business work better now.

Re:Doubt it

[iminplaya]

Would this convince you to sign up for the game?

Personally, no. Solitaire is as fast as it gets for me. But a new name just caught my eye. Plus I get to read a soap opera.

Re:Doubt it

[Opportunist]

And none of those generate money for CCP. So yeah, that stunt really gave them something in return for the hassle...

Re:Doubt it

[iminplaya]

Well, this sums it up nicely. But even the whining helps to bring in fresh blood if they play it right. Whether it works or not, it did make the front page. Hitz is hitz. I didn't check, but I'll bet Google could add it up for you. And time will tell if it paid off. If it doesn't, the guy can fold, rename, and start over. And he might be able to write off the losses.

Re:Doubt it

[coolGuyZak]

MMORPGs are played to build your character so you can sometime reach the top levels. In "traditional" MMORPGs this means, you can go down dungeons and come up with the most prized items.

Your analysis hits the mark for most MMORPGs, but a select few exist where the primary goal is to cultivate an identity, rather than power-mongering. EVE Online has always fit the latter mold of MMO design, and as such, your final analysis lacks applicability.

The most pertinent example supporting my assertion is the advancement system. It is literally impossible to create a "do everything" character, and most advancement paths these days take 6 months to a year minimum to fully learn. This influences the way players interact with the game: eventually, they all realize that getting the best loot and coolest ships isn't the goal of the game.

Another example supporting my "designed to enhance identity" assertion is the sheer risk you assume by playing. Over the course of 1 24-hour timespan, I went from having over 100 million isk in assets to just over 10 million (a tricked out thorax got ganked in 0.1 podkill space, on a routine flight to pick up ammo). It hurts to lose that much isk; luckily my clone was up to date, or I'd have lost over 15 million SP as well. But this risk helps foster that online identity. Losing everything for the first time throws your existence into perspective, by asking the question "do I want to lose this again?

Compare this to WoW or City of Villains, where your losses amount to grinding for another hour or two. This brings us to your question:

Would this convince you to sign up for the game? Or, rather, would it make you continue playing if you started to lose interest?... Would it convince you to start one when you hear that the top level dungeons are allegedly reserved for the devs and their buddies?

This most recent news wouldn't effect my decision to keep playing a "traditional" massive. If the game is fun, and access to special content doesn't effect my gameplay heavily, then who cares? But EVE doesn't posess the same founding principles. The problem with these activities, as far as EVE development is concerned, isn't the imbalance of gameplay, as Slashdot and others contend. Why? EVE gameplay is intrinsically imbalanced towards corporate activities and alliances, and a bit of favoritism won't effect the system as a whole. (The value of anything except the most expensive BPOs is inconsequential in the long-run, see below).

However, favoritism breaks something more important: the risk associated with playing the game. If a dev grants special privileges to his friends in-game, he removes the risk of identity loss. And when this occurs, the game falls apart. To see why it falls apart we must examine the ones affected by favoritism: the community.

One of the paramount virtues of EVE is the community. EVE's community in particular cares greatly about the game, and want an even playing field, not so they can "win", but because of the personal investment required to play the game. Losses, though virtual, feel incredibly real to the community. These losses come in two forms, capital loss and power loss.

Capital loss includes loss of clones, implants, ships, player owned stations, and outposts. Capital loss is incredibly common, and its implementation supports the entire economy of EVE. Because capital loss occurs so frequently in EVE Online, the capital one corp gains through favoritism is quickly outpaced by the other losses inherent in the game.

Power loss, on the other hand, is far more drastic. A dev's-buddys/corp-only dungeon and special gifts would wreak havoc in EVE, as the gifts received couldn't be earned by other corps. The exclusive mechanic or modification projects power from the beneficiary, causing a net loss in other corps. This loss cannot be (easily) regained by the maligned corps, because they simply don't have access to the content.*

Re:Doubt it

[Opportunist]

Well said, and please apologize when I only reply to a single point, because this one sums it up pretty neatly: The "dev only dungeon".

Capital loss hurts, but it is no crushing blow. I had my own "Black Friday", going from almost a bil to less than 100 mil in less than a day (having a few fully T2 fitted Megas blown up under your ass in less than 12 hours does that...). It hurt (like HELL, dammit!), but it's nothing you can't recover with time.

What is a killer, though, is losing your power base. Btw, I don't see where you went into BPOs, but I want to bring them up. BPOs are, in fact, the power base. Everything else is easy to obtain. Everything else is available in abundance, the only deciding factor is money. You can't monopolize ore, not even Merco. You can't monopolize building facilities.

You can monopolize Blueprints, though.

At least the rare ones. And here's the "dev only dungeon". If they WANT to, there's nothing easier than monopolizing new technology. Yes, everyone can in theory research everything. But, with favorism allegations flying low, who tells you that the "research lottery" isn't fixed, too?

As someone who didn't believe the T2>>>>>>T1 claims 'til he tried it, the numbers on T2 look insignificantly better than the goodies you'd get from T1, but fitting your ship with T2 stuff actually at the very least doubles your usefulness. I went before the T2 Battleships came into play, dunno if they are already in. But, hell, if I still played, I'd want to fly one!

Should the side that wins that first BPO to keep it to themselves (which they IMO should, no money can probably buy a T2 Battleship's value, unless something changed dramatically in the, I think, 1-2 years since I left), they can steamroll over the rest of the stars.

That's what I meant with a "dev only dungeon". Not a literal dungeon, but content that is kept in the hands of the "powers that are".

In every MMORPG, and EvE is no exception to that, it's all about having certain gear. In PvP heavy environments (and EvE is), this is even more true than in PvE games. Having the bigger axe tells who wins. Having access to superior technology means you can dictate your opponents which stars they should better hand over without getting their ships blown to dust.

Goonies Cave into Legal Threat and Disband

[Anonymous Coward]

Goonies officially disband: http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topi c&threadID=528714


As per the link above, CCP has resoundingly reinforced what was alleged in the first place:


favoritism to Band of Brothers Alliance, in effect completely eviscerating the latter's greatest foe (Goonies) via the threat of real world legal action

Re:Goonies Cave into Legal Threat and Disband

[Twisted Willie]

That announcement is just as false as the allegations they recently made. Just because it's posted on a forum, doesn't mean it's true.

That still doesn't excuse corruption

[Moraelin]

If that's what keeps you entertained, you can even play russian roulette, as far as I'm concerned. But that still doesn't justify fixing it. If the gun is rigged so one of the players can't lose (it's actually possible nowadays), then wtf is the point of playing against them?

And comparisons to RL are emotional and all, but missing the point. Noone said they have to police against players who play better. I do, however, say that they should police their own fucking devs.

In most cases it doesn't even need active surveillance, but just making sure there are consequences and you fire the twits who can't stay honest. Same as casino employees, for example, if you want an example with real wins and losses and pulse racing. It doesn't mean you'll have three guys watching each other and the blackjack dealer, it means you make sure everyone knows they'll never work again in that town and possibly face prosecution too if they're caught cheating.

And, from what I understand, CCP already failed in that aspect once. "Uh, we moved the guy to another team" doesn't even start to give the right message to either party. It's like a casino saying "uh, it was only one crooked dealer, and we, erm, moved him to the roulette instead of the blackjack table" in a case like that. It doesn't give the right message to either the patrons or to the other employees.

And I don't think any casino there would go, "yeah, well, RL is corrupt too, we can't police it", by the way. It _is_ possible to build a whole business on the idea that it's fair and honest, and at least legal gambling went to great lengths to build and preserve that image. Especially _because_ everyone has seen movies about rigged roulette tables and money laundering via the blackjack table, and expects that kind of thing, they go to great lengths to distance themselves as far as possible from that kind of an image. They don't go and confirm it, since everyone was expecting it anyway.

So, well, I don't think a MMO company is absolutely unable to do the same thing.

Re:That still doesn't excuse corruption

[Chatsubo]

Uhm. Thanks for that. I adressed the point of dumbing down the game under the guise of fairness though. Which would make me like the game less. I did say that I do not agree with stacking the deck, I agree that these people must be dealt with. But it's not really what I wanted to address. And no, roulette is not a fair game. The house always wins in the long run.

Typo

[Greyfox]

We're all IT people here. You're either missing a 0 on how much 100 billion ISK is worth or you accidentally typed years instead of months. Or both. Which one is it?

Reminds me of the Bush Administration...

[Anonymous Coward]

"We cannot comment about an ongoing investigation. There will be a full investigation into this matter, but while it is ongoing, we cannot comment on the details." "Who gave the order to allow employees to give benefits to BoB?" "I don't recall." "When was the order given that allowed employees to give benefits to BoB?" "I don't recall."

Re:Reminds me of the Bush Administration...

[Anonymous Coward]

That wuz teh Raygun adminstration, n00b.

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[Anonymous Coward]

You're assuming they are guilty, and wrong about the plot to smear them. This is by no means certain. Sites like digg and reddit can be used to raise a storm, and why shouldn't they be used as such by unscrupulous people?
MMORPGs and other phenomena dependent on network effects for their success (did someone say facebook?) are fighting an increasingly hard fight for the attention and loyalty of users. Is it unlikely that some of them would stoop to coordinated efforts at message boards and news aggregation sites to lure people from their competitors? No.
The accusation, that a MMORPG favoured certain users, seems pretty silly to me. Why would they do that?

CCCP

[Obsi]

At CCCP, customers frame YOU! ... wait.

Re:CCCP

[Tinman_au]

I'd mod you funny, but I have no points :(

Re:CCCP

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my god. An on topic 'soviet russia' joke!

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[tukkayoot]

Don't go on the defensive by playing the "victim" card. (Newsflash: No one cares.)

They actually tried this in the last scandal, which actually ended up having some truth behind the allegations, to solicit sympathy from the player community and, I guess, to mitigate the any harsh feelings directed at the devs and CCP in general. In an announcement that the company's investigation was complete, the game's community manager mentioned how the whistleblower who was responsible in large part for bringing the whole controversy to light outed the player character identities of a few developers. He stated that, as per company policy, these developers had those characters removed from the game, and, boo-hoo, were forced to end their long-standing relationships with friends and corp-mates in game.

I was flabbergasted by the ineptitude of their PR.

It didn't help that some of the specific allegations of wrongdoing that were made by the whistleblower went unaddressed until a later post, some of which turned out to be on the mark. One of the developers admitted to supplying items to his corp-mates using by abusing his dev tools. For the record, he wasn't fired (I don't recall what disciplinary action they took, if any, beyond removing his player characters and possibly compelling him to make a public apology.)

Innocent

[Anonymous Coward]

Well they must not of done anything wrong then! I mean, if the same company that was suposed to have done wrong in the first place finds nothing wrong it must be true.

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[PopeRatzo]

As an interested Eve player, I've encountered both the Goonswarm and CCP, although neither in contentious circumstances.

CCP has created a great game, but they need some adult supervision to operate it as a viable business. They are in danger of squandering a very well-made game by taking it too seriously. There are ways to stay "involved" in gameplay without having a stake in the outcome of large-scale battles. And you cannot, under any circumstances, get too "friendly" with certain players, no matter how dedicated the player. When the game "starts", those relationships have to end.

Do you know what happens when a pit boss in a casino gets too friendly with someone who tends to win a lot of money, regularly? And trust me, there's a reason both MMORPGs and Casinos are said to be part of the "gaming" industry.

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[Rallion]

Make strong statements of integrity. Fire someone. Institute a new policy or two.
Devise a system of compensating those wronged.

If the complaint isn't true, though, the only one wronged would be the person you fired.

fascinating..

[jovius]

I think it's fascinating how the politics of an on-line game spill over the internet.. I wonder what is the percentage of real in the internet, and how much is fantasy and fiction ? It's challenging, because the actors could be dead serious, act like they are serious or have multiple identities to express their storytelling talent... it's reasonable to suspect everything, but on the other hand it's also fun to actively be part of the story and the fictional reality.. When do we reach the point when global news are being created to support something in-game ? (now ?) It's useful to be aware of the mechanisms.

Lumthemad....

[Himring]

Ah, Scott Jennings, AKA, Lumthemad. I so enjoyed his stuff during the heyday of eq1. He is, and forever will be, the gossip columnist of mmogs. But, I do feel my that my bean juice just spilled over into my applie pie when I see this crap on my fav tech/geek site, /. ....

Re:Lumthemad....

[Alzheimers]

*two men carrying jars collide*

"Excuse me, but you've gotten your Garlic in my Chocolate Sauce!"
"Pardon? It was you who got your Chocolate Sauce in my Garlic!"

*both men taste their jars*

together: "YYYYYUCK!"

(just goes to show that not everything good tastes better when combined)

Re:Lumthemad....

[Himring]

Lol.

Well said....

Can I just not care?

[mw13068]

"Take everything you read about these events with a grain of salt."

I'll do one better and just not care at all.

Re:Can I just not care?

[Tinman_au]

if you don't care, why bother reading/commenting on the story?

Re:Can I just not care?

[mw13068]

"if you don't care, why bother reading/commenting on the story?"

Your assumption that I've read the story is contrary to all that is slashdot.

Re:Can I just not care?

[Tinman_au]

np, commenting on stuff you haven't even read is even better, and so much more digg...er... ./ ;)

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't count on that. A lot of Eve players are pretty upset at this because it's the third accusation. The first accusation turned out to be true, and rather than see a strong position of integrity from CCP, we saw:

- T20 remain on the job
- BoB continuing to reap the benefits of the corruption of the game rules
- CCP banning and smearing players who complained about it
- CCP acting as if the whole thing was no big deal and nobody had any right to complain about it

The second accusation turned out to be a pretty obvious and meaningless misunderstanding and they handled it fairly well. Not great, but not bad.

Then this.

Again, what do we see? Do we see an honest, strong value position from CCP? No, we see them screeching about conspiracies to coordinate attacks on them. We see them not releasing facts, we see them pretending it's all a fake issue, making excuses, and blaming their own customers for the dustup.

Forget it. I cancelled last night. The game was brutal, often unfair, and wildly fun. But that's only if everyone is playing by the same rules. The draw of Eve was that their was no hand holding so lazy or stupid people would fail on their own merits and people who worked hard and were clever about their gameplay would succeed.

But it looks increasingly like Eve is just a mirror of the real world. We have these rules, but certain people don't have to play by them all the time. Certain people get special handouts from the powers that be because they're close to the powers that be.

Well, in the real world when the government gives a huge tax cut or bailout to someone who's already obscenely rich while I'm working an 80 hour week there's not much I can do about it except grin and bear it. In the gameworld, though, I can: I can leave. And I did, and I hope plenty of other people will too.

I intend to keep an eye on CCP's progress. If it seems like they turn things around and start acting more like adults I'll consider returning, but if this childish blamegame keeps up, forget it.

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[instanto]

And when those wronged are the company themselves?

my crack ftw

[vx922]

i think i will stick to smokeing the crack that is my lvl 67 BloodElf rouge thank u vetty much

Re:The tone of the response is totally unacceptabl

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem is that this is not the first time this has happened with CCP ( regarding allegations of foul play, etc). So the sense of people assuming that CCP is at fault is there because of what has already happened in the past.

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[Andy Dodd]

If these allegations had come out of nowhere from GoonSwarm, no one would have believed them.

Unfortunately for CCP, they have already been caught trying to cover up allegations that turned out in the end to be true, and a large portion of the playerbase does not believe that CCP handled the initial incident properly at all.

Most of us were willing to give them a second chance, but so far, they're blowing it.

An insightful poster in the EVE Online forums said, "You know you're in trouble when the majority of your playerbase is more inclined to believe an organization that was responsible for the term Photoshop Friday than they are inclined to believe you." Honestly, while the Something Awful/GoonSwarm crew may be assholes, they make NO effort to hide that fact. They're blatant about it, and a lot of people will prefer an open blatant asshole (you know what to expect from them) to a backstabbing sleazebag (They're acting nice, but what are they REALLY up to?)

After the t20 incident, CCP destroyed any trust the playerbase had in them. They tried to cover up the t20 scandal for as long as they could (including banning anyone who discussed or linked to the allegations), and in the end it turned out that the allegations were true. At that point, t20 got a small slap on the wrist and the BPOs were removed from the game, but not the ingame money they generated (and hence the damage they caused). By the time CCP addressed the issue, the ingame balance of power had already been permanently altered. t20 is still with the company, and no effort was made to repair the damage he did. In any other MMO, the damage a rogue developer could have done is far less, and despite that, it's known that other MMO companies (Blizzard, Mythic) are FAR stricter about dev/GM misconduct - at any other company, t20 would be LONG gone, but the fact is that as long as he is still with the company and the playerbase continues to fail to see heads roll, they will never trust CCP again.

The funniest thing is the fact that they say "trust us, we'll do what's right" when so far they have an established track record of not doing so.

Yes, I am now actively looking for another game to play. I was passively waiting for something better to be released, but now I think I can find something better from the list of what is already out there.

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[moderatorrater]

The faceless entity that is an mmorpg and the parent company wouldn't want to favor certain players. However, the individual developers and people working with the internals of the game could easily favor their friends and people who had become their friends through the game. This is the reason that people working on the game should never be allowed, ever, under any circumstances, to personally get invested in the game or its players.

As much fun as Eve is (and I've heard it's easily the best MMO for people who want seriously fun pvp and pve action), the parent company consistently handles issues in a non-professional way (ie immature, not thinking clearly, looking for a break and the benefit of the doubt). Their original scandle is what convinced me that I'd never play the game. When dealing with something as large and lucrative as an MMO, the devs shouldn't have been in the position to cheat in the first place, much less been able to pull it off and have the company cover for them.

CCP did one very wrong thing.

[raehl]

They have made the decision to allow their devs to play the game.

*ALL* of the negative publicity is a DIRECT result of this decision. CCP has no one to blame for this but themselves.

In Soviet Russia...

[Snarkhunter]

CCCP investigates you!

You wouldn't make a very good game developer.

[raehl]

Although it was before the age of graphical MMORPGs, I used to run a couple moderate-sized MUDs. The problems are the same, the screen just isn't as pretty.

The answer to this is simple, and two-fold:

From a player perspective I can see how damaging it would be to even be seen to show bias one way or the other towards a class, guild, corp. or whatever the game terminology happens to be.

Yes, anytime your devs are involved in the game, the perception that the game is not fair will become widespread. And in fact, the game CAN NOT be fair, as the devs will always have an inherent advantage, even if only due to an intimate knowledge of how the game works. This is why virtually all MMORPG type games do NOT let their devs play.

From a developer perspective it must be quite frustrating not being able to enjoy the game in all its splendor (guild raiding, etc included)

A good developer enjoys developing the game, not playing the game. For the developer, the development IS the game. You are trying to create an environment that other people can play. If this is not the case, and the developer gets more enjoyment from actually playing the game than they do developing it, then they need to quit being a developer (or be fired) and play instead.

whilst simultaneously having to deal with legions of forum whiners moaning about how the Devs "dont know how the game works at the ground level".

A good developer has a thick skin, and realizes that the players as a group are selfish, lazy, uninformed morons. Players just THINK they understand how the game works, but their perspective is really 'What I want is too hard to do.'

That's not to say all player feedback is useless, but any good developer will develop the ability to sift out useful feedback from the piles of whining. The developer's goal is not to give the players everything they want, their goal is to create an enjoyable, fair, experience.

CCP has just plain made the wrong decisions here. Devs need to be prohibited from playing. If Devs would rather play than develop, they can quit. One or the other. Doesn't work when you do both.

Ultimately this huge controversy, whilst ultimately of little interest to me as an outsider, has given me a fresh outlook and sympathy towards MMORPG developers.

The sympathy is undeserved. CCP has caused their own problems. If you still feel bad for them, do you feel bad for the guys who run the NFL/NBA/MLB? Must suck for them that they can't play the league they've developed and have to listen to players whine all the time about how the league just doesn't understand how the game really works....

On the topic of bad PR

[john g the 4th]

I see a good amount of comments about CCP's PR or lack thereof. I can't help but remember the good PR that games like EverQuest incorporated. Like when asked about why Bard animations were incorrect, the response was "they are meant to be fruity." Or when monsters would get suddenly teleported to their original spawn point for no reason, "its a feature, not a bug." In fact, before Verant's subsequent downfall (or buyout.. whatever) they went on an outright stance against players. The Conquest banning for waking the Sleeper was absurd, since the real reason they were banned was not for exploits, but because the devs introduced content they didn't finish. They claimed that Conquest exploited terrain to achieve victory.. much in the same way that NPCs would "exploit" similar terrain issues to train groups in dungeons.. however, this "feature" was listed as a bug, and subsequently many people got banned. After some time, some were allowed to play, but only after THEY apologized. I don't believe Sony or Verant ever acknowledged any misconduct or over reaction to that event. I could go on about numerous companies (generally tied into Sony now that I think of it) that have made such stances against players. To CCP's credit they admitted this wrong doing. They made it very public, and despite their lack of disciplinary action they have tightened their reigns a bit. The problem is that these are developers. Developers are not easy to replace.. its not like a few CSRs abusing mod/guide powers. In all actuality, working from the existing model of MMORPG PR, the appropriate action would have been to ban all the players who benefitted from dev misconduct, then nerf all the new high end items to distract people. At this point, CCP is a huge target as a company and accusations sorrounding BoB/CCP will be easy pickins. Its not too far fetched that a rival alliance will resort to politics like this, in a game BASED on politics. Why this even gets slashdotted/dug/red/whatever is a bit silly at this point.

Cheating goes way back

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been suggested that various alliances in EVE will accuse their enemies of cheating when the chips are down. I think this ignores the fact that the reason why a bunch of in game alliances agreed to work together to take on Band of Brothers was because they were disgusted by the cheating that propelled them to their advantaged position before any of those alliances were in conflict with BoB.

In Goonfleet, at least, the reason why we were against BoB was always that they had unfairly gained their position of prominence. Unfortunately, there are some elements of any organization that will develop a persecution complex, and in this case they probably jumped the gun with some of the allegations they made. I certainly don't agree with the delivery method of the allegations either. Even knowing that in the past, nothing short of overwhelming EVE's staff to the point where they could not delete all evidence of a scandal, Goonfleet looks like the villain because of the extreme measures they took to spread their message, and it blew up in their face.

I think a group of players with no obligation to anyone can be forgiven for getting a bit overzealous. I find it utterly incomprehensible that CCP, on the other hand, could see it as appropriate for a service business to talk trash about some of its clients, threaten legal action in a public blog, and ultimately throw a big public internet tantrum on account of its clientele not trusting it after they've acted in bad faith in the past.

I think a lot of people on both sides of the issue would have been satisfied if they had presented the evidence in their defense in a more even-handed manner that didn't fuel the bitter argument unfolding at present.

Time Invested

[Renraku]

Now imagine that you helped build the coffee shop. Your friends helped build it as well. You met acquaintances there that you like to run into when you're having your coffee. Then they start the throwing it in your face shit.

You've already invested in the shop. You donated to help keep it open through hard times. You've invested time and money around this shop.

And then they start that.

Is it so easy just to move on now? Just to erase it from your life? I'd hope you would try to salvage it first. To get them to come around and see the light from your angle. If you want to just give up on it that easily, good luck being successful in any relationships.

Of course if it doesn't help to talk to them/bitch/whatever, take your money elsewhere.

Re:Standard SA Trolling... Now illegal!

[Slashcrap]

But hey, it's funny when they're finding some kid's Guile fansite or bringing bomb threats to a furry con (and then bitching when the police have something to say about bomb threats right next to an airport), right? So it has to be fun when they're trying the same form of character assassination and harassment on as large a scale as to attack a multi-million dollar international company... right?

Right? Ha ha? So funny? Right?

Look, if you're going to put up websites about how you like to dress up in anthropomorphic animal suits or pretend to be characters out of Final Fantasy for sexual gratification, then you are eventually going to be humiliated by someone.

Either don't make it public or deal with the shit you're going to attract. This is a free society and nobody is going to protect your ridiculous fucking hobbies from public disapproval.

The favoritism needs to stop, that's all

[Thaelon]

The favoritism needs to stop. It's that simple. The alliance that CCP is accused of playing favorites has admitted in the official forums three times that they're friends with the developers and chat with them over MSN. Those posts have since been immortalized by the other big opposing alliance.

The very proof that CCP posted on their site makes it clear that when a Band of Brothers member complains to them over MSN the response is near-instantaneous (see the IRC log in the open letter).

This type of favoritism is unacceptable to most players and probably should be to all. I don't care if they chat about their personal lives, or their "real lives", or even about EVE on MSN. That's cool by me. But when they solicit in-game responses from the company over a channel that no other alliance, corporation, or player has access to - and get it immediately, then there is a problem. That's favoritism and is not acceptable. It's not even that difficult a policy to implement and it won't even ruffle anyone's feathers too badly. Developers: If you get a request for customer support over MSN, tell the requestor to file a petition just like everyone else. And obviously don't provide them in-game resources of any kind. That I shouldn't have to explain.

Yes, I am in Goonswarm.
No I did not participate in the Goonswarm's massive public campaign across the internet to stir up trouble. Thus far, this has been my first post on any forum regarding what's been going on.

It's very disappointing. I love the game, but the proven favoritism is sickening. Who wants to play a game where the house is playing favorites for one of the players?

Re:The favoritism needs to stop, that's all

[Hatto]

The worst of all is that you people have not even been affected by anything that came out of a batphone-call. You are fighting a fight for the sake of negativity. As it stands, you are the heroes of the envious, nothing more. Batphones did not make you loose EVE. Your own attitude did.

But what kinda attitude can be expected from people who used and distributed and icon set hack that replaced their leaders portrait with that of Adolf Hitler. Just go away.

Re:The favoritism needs to stop, that's all

[Tinman_au]

I agree, but I'm not in goonanything. In fact I quit after the last CCP debacle...

Re:The favoritism needs to stop, that's all

[Thaelon]

Don't take it personal.

I'm not "loosing" EVE and I don't care if BoB and only BoB members chat it up with developers, but when they have access to channels for in-game stuff that other players do not it's clearly unfair.

I neither participated nor condoned the particular method Goonswarm used to make their complaint, but I think doing something above and beyond proper channels was called for. It's the only course of action left to them because CCP holds all the keys to the game itself.

And I don't for a minute believe that the "attack" was planned for a three day weekend. I seriously doubt that ever even came to mind to those that kicked it off. One of the leaders probably said something like "THREADSPAMZORZ!@#". And the mob took action. If you think the Goonswarm is good at large coordinated.....anything...you're crazy. Think of it as a rabid mob with a few people that get sorta listened to.

If you know anything about the Goonswarm you'd know they plan little and poorly at that. It was probably a coincidence. I bet it was simply that most of the players had the weekend off too, and therefore had the time to do it. "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." Or in this case, mob mentality.

Think of the Goonswarm as a large, crazy, uncoordinated mob and you'll be surprised less often. The leadership can occasionally point a lot of them in one direction for a while, but that's about it. I say "them" even though I am one, because I mostly fly with my own corp who has it's own agenda and flies more or less on our own.

Re:The favoritism needs to stop, that's all

[Tinman_au]

O...M...F...G...

Is this Hatto from Vanguard SV forums??

And your taking other people to task about being negative?

The Hatto that says stuff like"
"The devs got silenced of course, every sane company cuts ties between the players and the devs and uses a special person to talk to players. Its nice to talk to the people of a garage company, but with todays communities the other way just works better and avoids getting your own words turned and spoon fed back."

Oh, the irony...

Re:The favoritism needs to stop, that's all

[Hatto]

Tasty to see own writing taken out of context. Your point?

Re:The favoritism needs to stop, that's all

[Hatto]

The only way left to 'act'? The arrogance of this speaks for itself. Having read your representatives for quite a while on the official EVE boards I'm not surprised that noone takes anything you folks say for truth without ALOT proof, including CCP.

And of course your leadership is the brain here, not the masses, but as the sa members follow their leaders they are fully responsible for this. Citing Hanlons Razor is no excuse for this, Goons are not stupid, most of you are very intelligent. And ruthless.

Re:The favoritism needs to stop, that's all

[CherniyVolk]

There is no favoritism. And what's wrong with chatting with developers over MSN? Seriously, get over the jealousy! If John Carmack was willing to chat with me, I'd be interested... hey, maybe he and he and I can be real friends.

EVE-ONLINE, is the ONLY 'real' mmorpg in my opinion. It's the only game that comes remotely close to real life. It's the only game, that places EVERY aspect in control of the players. There is no safe place in EVE-ONLINE, if I were so inclined, I can take my HAC to a 1.0 system like Duripant; first system that a brand new player is in. And start shooting them all as they cluelessly exit the station listening to the tutorial. Risk vs. Reward, very simple, and CCP smeared this game feature throughout the entire game from marketing, public relations, industrialism, empirialism, economics and warfare.

EVE-ONLINE is an excellent game. The only "nerdy game" I ever took an interest in, due to it's realism. Never even played one game of Dungeons and Dragons... Roleplaying, is inherently flawed in the sense that too many restrictions and rules are applied in disregard to environment.

Let people be people, the game mechanics, the game engine, the actual development and implementation of the most complex, indepth game ever is very simple. "A player can do whatever they wan't to do, just like in real life. Are the consequences worth it though? Just like in real life."

After a while, enough players will join. Human Nature will let the game implement the most complex game theory equations, stochastic calculus equations, the most difficult philosophies and social theories....

You can, take what you learn in real life and apply it in EVE, vice versa.

Re:The favoritism needs to stop, that's all

[Plekto]

There is no favoritism. And what's wrong with chatting with developers over MSN? Seriously, get over the jealousy! If John Carmack was willing to chat with me, I'd be interested... hey, maybe he and he and I can be real friends.
****
Surely you are joking, right? Oh - wait - you're not.

I don't know who the devs are, let alone their MSN/AIM, and I surely can't get a petition answered in UNDER TWO MINUTES. Try two days. That's the problem - they appear as if it's normal activity, but answering the right person's email withing seconds every time - that's just not right.

"Oh - hey - this guy is bumping our cap ship - messing up our fleet"(note bumping is a 110% legitimate tactic to nerf the fleet - deal with the corpmate/spy by blowing him up)

Player is nuked essentially instantly. Under two minutes. I've not heard of ANYONE in EVE ever getting a response ever in under 20 minutes, let alone that quickly. Considering the time it takes to log in, locate, and yank the player out, that's 60 seconds right there - which means LIVE out of game chatting with a dev/having the dev playing in the corp at the same time as he's logged into the SQL server/stack.

Not cool, not right. I've been playing for over two years now and this sort of PR spin would be believeable if it wasn't the literally dozenth time they did it. They are just getting better at appearing to be "impartial". "Hey - can you do this asap - oh - wait 90 seconds so it doesn't look too obvious(in AIM/MSN)".

Oh - and when DEVs are discovered, their accounts are terminated - but they just start over again with new ones. There's nothing more than a "bad form - don't get caught!" by CCP.

Blizzard - they'll fire you on the spot. As they should, because reputation is everything. CCP needs to learn this.

P.S. I remembered ONE company that's worse than CCP. WOTC. They don't cheat, but then again, they don't care either - machine could be bugged for a week and they ignore everyone.

Re:The favoritism needs to stop, that's all

[Thaelon]

Arrogance has nothing to do with it. With CCP holding all the keys, public outcry is the only alternative left. It just so happens that the Goonswarm is just really, really good at internet based public outcry. I would be willing to bet it was less than half of the goons that took part, so by blaming all of them - especially those like myself that just watched - you're severely over generalizing.

The leadership is not "the brain", they're just the crazies shouting "WITCH". You continue to think of the Goonswarm as one large coordinated entity. I already told you it's not. It's a big uncoordinated mob from my perspective (sorta on the inside - when I bother to pay attention). It's just that when somebody yells witch and 10% or more of it moves in one general direction it makes a big impact because it's 300 people. Yeah, 10% of the alliance is enough to get a a story on the front page of digg and slashdot. It's a pity we can't all pull in one direction all the time.

Re:The favoritism needs to stop, that's all

[Hatto]

It don't think of Goonswarm as one coordinated acting entity, I just hold em all responsible, that's different. Whatever you say about not beeing involved, you flag yourself as one of them, that makes you involved.

The only ability of any Goon was ever that they are able to reason quite good, as seen in your post. Still, eloquent words don't make it truth. Its not that CPP held all the keys and you had to go public, you did not like what they decided and went for them, knowing there will be little to no consequences for you, as this is the internet.

But there might be some for us all, as I am quite sure alot of MMO companies are watching this SA vs CCP powerstruggle and will by whatever means try to avoid to get in a position where a large external community gets in a position to blow up their games reputiton just because they like to.

Anyway, this gonna be my last on this, enjoy playing Goons in Space while they still let you.

Re:The favoritism needs to stop, that's all

[Thaelon]

It don't think of Goonswarm as one coordinated acting entity, I just hold em all responsible, that's different. Whatever you say about not beeing involved, you flag yourself as one of them, that makes you involved.

You're a human being. Human beings have killed other human beings. Murderer.

Re:The favoritism needs to stop, that's all

[Tinman_au]

I said what the point was Hatto, you can be overly negative ;) (Understandable in an environment like SV though, and I apologise if you took any offence from it.)

For example, in the context of what I quoted (from a thread that the VG devs have been quiet since the take over), you seem to assume that it's now company policy to keep the devs silenced and only operate/communicate through CR. The devs are still actually posting (though not as much recently, but the take over is only weeks old and it was during a long week end in a lot of places) and Smed is on record saying that he will encourage the devs to talk to players:

"We are also officially opening up forums. In the past, our deal with Sigil didn't allow for this, but as with our other games we feel this is an important part of communicating with the playerbase. You can expect a strong presence from our community team as well as the development team members. While we realize that Sigil had said they wouldn't open up general forums, at SOE we feel this hampers our efforts to communicate effectively with the players. We will continue to support the fansites in a big way, and will be contacting many of them directly to discuss what this change means. By no means do we want to lose the strong fansite support by making this change, but we do think it's important to have a forum for players to communicate directly with SOE."

At the end of the day, it's quite possible you may be right and Smed is just dishing us "spin" about dev communication, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of doubt until I see different.

MOD PARENT UP

[despisethesun]

Why the fuck was this modded as a troll? It's hilarious and obviously meant as a joke.

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[stun]

@popo

Here's what skilled PR departments do: Make strong statements of integrity. Fire someone. Institute a new policy or two. Devise a system of compensating those wronged. Spend money on public relations, advertising and technological improvements. George Bush, is that you?

Claim (regardless of truth) that the problem has been solved and that (wait for it...) the reason people hate you is because your products are so damn good. This has GOTTA be Bush.

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

People in my corporation in EVE had this kind of thing happen to them a year or so ago. The problem is systemic. And probably not going away.

My problem with EVE was that there isn't a whole lot of room among the "high end content" areas for individual players. Hopefully CCP will come up with better for the White Wolf universe.

Perspective?

[necdeus]

Hey, I got an idea... Why doesn't everybody take a break, watch the news in the real world, and then come back and examine the flame wars in the virtual world. I bet there are a bunch of folks overseas that would be glad to flame the issue for you while you go on patrol...

CCP should pull it's head in

[Tinman_au]

I quit EVE a while back (after the last "scandal") so I have no vested interest in this current round of crap thats going down.

EVE management (CCP) really need to get their shit together. They have a great game, but they are blowing it by running it in such an unprofessional manor. If they really want people to take them seriously, they need to look at how 90% of the rest of the MMO industry runs things (Devs not allowed to use GM clients on live and GM's only allowed to work from a supervised central company location). None of this "MSN a Dev for personal service" crap.

Their IA is a joke. Everything they "investigate" is "Not our problem, the people reporting this are a joke, everyone keep playing (paying)".

Look at the latest drama. WTF (Why The Fheck) would a _developer_ become involved _instantly_ (within 40 seconds) after being summoned by some BoB guy to sack a volunteer for bumping a dread (big fekking deal, you had to re-align). I mean, come on, who would be stupid enough to think there ISN'T some sort of nepotism going on. Oh, of course the BoB guy that said "He's just a friend, aren't devs allowed to have friends" would be that stupid, but who else really?

CCP has a great game, it's a shame they dont have management that realises how serious this kind of thing is. Blizzard do (even if they are the McDonald of gaming). Hell, even Vanguard devs aren't allowed Dev access on live servers (or AC, or, *insert most MMO's here*).

Welcome!

[TrashGUY]

As a long time member of the eve community I welcome you n00bs to the Empire of grief. The game has changed with an influx of wow type people. They expect something for the least minimal amount of effort. These people are called care bears. Some of the players who have been playing the game for the better part of half a decade are exceptional at what they do. Including griefing a large portion of the player base. It's good to see the game expanding but the influx of internet vaginas is alarming. If you wanna chat with some of us form the way back when eve community: irc.coldfront.net #eve-online I'm curious if we can /. the chan

Re:Welcome!

[Tinman_au]

"players who have been playing the game for the better part of half a decade"

Nice one. EVE's been "online" for 4 years (hardly the "better" part of half a decade, though if you'd said "almost" half a decade I'd have let it slide). Hell, I probably quit it before you even started...go back to the sims ya wannabe ;)

Re:Welcome!

[TrashGUY]

We played in beta and alpha. Look up endless corp genious ^^ First eve corp gearing for the game started in 01...

Re:Welcome!

[Anonymous Coward]

"genious"

Ha. Oh, cheapest of ironies. You still make me smile.

Re:Welcome!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, officially 4 years. "Better part of half a decade" isn't off the mark, but it's one way to say it's been online for that amount of time.

Re:Welcome!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice one. EVE's been "online" for 4 years (hardly the "better" part of half a decade

Ah, but most of any given decade sucks. Take the 80s for example. The "better" part of that decade was what... two years?

Facts

[Jaguwar]

1. The accusers Goons and their Allies have been involved in a huge 6 month fight to the death, with the people they are accusing, Band of Brothers and their allies. 2. After initial success early in 2007 the war has taken a very bad turn for the Goonies. It now seems very likely they will lose this war and be kicked out of their home systems. 3. If these accusations were actually true they had the option to complain to CCP management and try an work things out. They could have brought forth their arguements and evidence. If CCP Internal affairs did not respond they could have appealed to top management, if the refused to listen or take them seriously they could have issued an ultimatum. If CCP stubornly refused to respond or if their responce did not address the core of their complaints then they could have gone public. 4. The fact that Goonswarm choose, as virtually a first step, to go public in a way to maximise the damage to CCP's reputation is almost certain proof that this was a smear campaign. 5. The way the accusers acted is absolutely consistent with the behavior of sore losers, of people who are on the brink of defeat and instead of accepting the loss, seek a face saving way out. What you have seen is the cyber equivalent of somebody over turning the chessboard once they realize they lost. 6. It is clear from the way they went about this that their desire is not to improve the game, it is to damage the game on their way out. 7. One characteristic of smear campains is they try and generalize from one case of possible wrong doing and make it seem as if a whole enterprise is corrupt. If you examine crime statistics you will find that at least one postal worker every year is accused of sexual assault; does that mean you should grab your children and lock the doors the minute you see a mail delivery truck head down your street?

Re:Facts

[Anonymous Coward]

I stopped reading your "HERES THE FACTS" list when your first fact was wrong. The "fight to the death" between BoB and Goonswarm hasn't been going on nearly that long. Maybe the rest of your points were more accurate, but I doubt it. Especially if you can't fact-check something as simple as that.

Re:Facts

[Anonymous Coward]

"3. If these accusations were actually true they had the option to complain to CCP management and try an work things out. They could have brought forth their arguements and evidence."

I'm sure the goons would've, if only they had CCP on their MSN buddy list.

Re:Facts

[Jaguwar]

ECSUEEEEEEEEEE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. By fight to the death I meant the BOB vs Goon/RA/D2 war which has been going on about 6 months not the recent battles around 9-9.

Re:Facts

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that the post office uses contractors on newer routes you just might want to grab the kids and lock your doors. Oh, and don't forget to verify your mail. (Don't blame the employees for your missing and mixed up mail, the post office employees have no control over contractors' behavior or hiring practices.)

Re:Facts

[Jaguwar]

Why the snide comment? My post took some thought and effort, yours took neither.

Re:Facts

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct me if I'm wrong, which I'm not, but the whole gamewide war began as a result of suspected (and then confirmed outright) misconduct-- including the t20 scandal.

The war is effectively getting revenge in the realm of the game mechanics, simultaneously while attempting to get answers and effect change out-of-game.

Actually, Yeah

[Alzheimers]

It was the headlines about the GHSC corporate raid that initially drew my attention to Eve. The open-ended sandbox universe that Eve promised was what made the game so appealing, after so many contrived PvE grinds such as EQ and FFXI. Granted, there's still an initial grind, but once you're on your way you're not chasing the pack -- you're blazing your own trails.

That the Devs have given so much control of the universe over to the players is both a blessing and a curse. However, it creates a delicate balance between Role-Playing and Gaming for fun, that any hint of developer influence would shatter instantly. That's the problem we're seeing now -- faith in the "Openness" of the universe is in doubt, and any hint if impropriety will cause a huge backlash with the community. Several corporations have publicly stated that they want no part of any CCP player-character in their midst, as it might tarnish their accomplishments. Sadly, some corps have long-standing relationships with the development team, and by virtue of their prominence have drawn most of the attention in situations like this.

If the corporation in question were to publicly and definitively state that they do not want any Developers in their corporation, and for any currently active to step down immediately, I think that would satisfy the large majority of the discontent players now. But as long as they seemingly have an inside influence on the game mechanics and management, their reputation and that of CCP will always be that of cheaters, and the game will suffer accusations such as these accordingly.

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[DerekLyons]

If these allegations had come out of nowhere from GoonSwarm, no one would have believed them.

It's interesting that you got modded insightful, despite never once adressing your thesis statement - instead discussing a scandal from months ago.
 
So, did these allegations come from nowhere? Or is GoonSwarm merely the first to break big what has been discussed elsewhere among the playerbase?

Re:Standard SA Trolling... Now illegal!

[DeepHurtn!]

Likewise, if you're going to publicly act like a self-important righteous asshole, be prepared to to be called on it. If you ask me, going around harassing people on the Internet is a much, much more ridiculous fucking hobby than just about anything else I can think of

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[Andy Dodd]

Maybe I used the wording. Perhaps "without precedent" might have been a better choice of words. Thanks for nitpicking. :)

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[Tinman_au]

Shame you posted as an AC, seems to me your comments are not just fair, but very relevant.

The day CCP add the same systems other MMO companies use for their games (No Dev client access on live servers, GM access only from supervised company headquarters ) is the day I'll consider resubbing...

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[Andy Dodd]

the wrong wording... stupid typos... :)

Yes, I realize I'm nitpicking my own post here, but if I don't I know you will.

Interestingly enough, such nitpicking is one of the ways CCP is trying to delete itself, in terms of the Sharkbait/DarkStar 1 incident. CCP claims that DS1's petition asking what was going on was never deleted and petitions can't be deleted, but the honest truth is that from the player's viewpoint, "closed without a response" = "deleted". While it may still be in CCP's system somewhere, as far as the player is concerned it is gone. CCP never addressed why the petition was closed without a response.

Did I say I own a computer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did it ever occur to you I might be using one without authorization? On someone else's connection? And leeching electricity? So yeah, come down and take it.

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[neverutterwhen]

But then the game would have to be developed by people who don't really appreciate it. That's a recipe for mediocrity.

Nepotism in WoW

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't pretend WoW is candyland either. Blizzard has repeatedly stated there will never be a PVE->PVP server transfer, because it's an unfair advantage. Lo and behold, one time ever, about when the dev guild wants to go PVP after getting their raid epics (top tier gear), they open up free transfers from three servers (PVE, one of which has the dev guild in it, nice smokescreen) to a newly created PVP server.

Certainly not as bad as "We use dev tools in game," but c'mon.

The damage is done

[Opportunist]

Even if every Dev currently playing in BoB, the legacy will linger. It would still be the same. Every time BoB accomplishes something, it will be dismissed as them being the dev-pets. It could even be completely legit, CCP could now even form up a "Dev Corp", stock them with prime gear and pit them against BoB, and it would be considered a new way to cheat, because sooner or later BoB will kill one of those Dev ships and collect the goodies that drop out of it.

BoB will have a very tough time if they want to accomplish something that should excite a nod of recognition from their "enemies". As it stands now, they could be the first to claim some new technology, after throwing manyears of research, mining, refining and fighting into it, and it would still be considered dev favorism.

They can't win now.

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[PB_TPU_40]

However firing someone who did nothing wrong is a bigger PR nightmare than the gossip that got you there in the first place. You have now created a much larger PR nightmare, especially if the employee goes public, also depending on labor laws or possible unions you could have other issues as well. If you read TFA you would have seen that everything that was "questioned" was an actual support ticket, and that the people claiming against CCP had nothing to do with it. The company that the allegations were tied to were completely baffled by the allegations as they didn't feel they were spied on.

Its a case of he said she said, and many of my friends that play EVE were confused by the allegations as well.

Statements of integrity, that what they did. The showed the world exactly what HAPPENED and what they DID. There statements were so strong that the rest was pointless.

By your statement I could call you a murderer and you're automatically guilty and should be punished, or any of a hundred things. Yes this is a company, but you're still playing the guilty and cannot be proven innocent card. The people who originally leveled the claims, only had that claims. CCP fires back with proof of what happened and you say the handled it wrong. I don't think they could have handled it better.

There are those who believe its better to cower in the face of adversity, and there are those who feel its better to stand up and fight, no matter what. Personally I find fighting no matter what the best sign of integrity one could possibly show.

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[doughrama]

Dude, I'm totally with you. When the t20 scandal first hit, while I thought it to be pretty serious, I mostly ignored it. I figured "eh, this doesn't affect me much, I don't really care." Since that time there has been a serious propaganda war. I have no idea what's true and what isn't, all I can do is try to interpret the end results with what I hear.

Bottom line, I feel that CCP favors BoB both directly and indirectly. With BoB's success, even if it was by far and away legitimate, I dont feel that it is. Ultimately (even if it isn't true) I believe that BoB "cheats" and that CCP allows it by assisting or turning a blind eye.

With that said, I've simply lost all the enjoyment I used to get from playing Eve. I've lost trust and faith in CCP. I have 2 accounts, unfortunately I paid for a year (on both) in advance. So I've got about 4 more months or so before those accounts expire. Because of how CCP handled t20 and because BoB's success I'm leaving the game and I wont be renewing my subscription. Though it's a small victory for BoB, though truth of the matter is that me (not me, but anybody really) leaving Eve is the absolute worst outcome possible for everybody involved.

In the last month I've played a lot of Titan Quest. It's a good, mindless, hack n slash, Diablo 2 clone. I also picked up City of Heroes/Villians over the weekend, I had heard good things about it. I really gave CoH/V a best effort, but I just couldn't get into it. In fact I've already canceled my account, within my first free month of play, and within 5 days I buying the game. Maybe I quit to soon, nothing about the game particularly excited me or "hooked" me and I couldn't see anything about the game that would (though I wanted to.)

In a bout of perfect timing Blizzard mailed a dvd containing both WoW and WoW BC and a 10 day free trial yesterday. I quit playing WoW about a year ago, simply got burned out and tired of all the kiddies. Which is one refreshing thing about Eve, the player base in Eve (in general) plays at a much higher maturity level. So anyways I installed BC and started playing. I ended the night by signing up for 6 months and the promise to my wife that I'll play WoW casually and not join any large raiding guilds. :)

There's really no other mmo I'm interested in atm, but I really want there to be one.

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[Anonymous Coward]

Give http://www.vendetta-online.com/ a look. There's an 8 hour trial.

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[infodragon]

As far as I know, T20 is a Sr developer that was part of the beginning team. He may have stock in the company and it may have been legally impossible to fire him.

Just a thought and not a defense. I love eve and play it quite a bit. The acts of T20 were unconscionable and should have been handled differently. "Those that were responsible for sacking the producers have been sacked" type thing.

Anyway end of my rant.

-Infodragon

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[RollinDutchMasters]

Right now, CCP has three clients - normal, GM, and Dev. You can't use a Dev or GM client without being at CCP's offices, you cant use a Dev or GM client with a non-Dev or non-GM character. Even the developers play their normal characters with the normal client, which has no access to any of the devtools.

Not that this has stopped anyone from assuming otherwise for no reason at all.

Re:The tone of the response is totally unacceptabl

[cowscows]

CCP is not being given the benefit of the doubt because of a previous incident of developer corruption. It started out very similar, someone presented evidence of what was happening, people started asking questions, and CCP tried to pretend that it never came up. They deleted threads about it, banned people who kept bringing it up, and acted like nothing happened. Some of the players were not satisfied with this outcome, so they kept making noise about it. Eventually CCP acknowledged the allegations but insisted that they had done nothing wrong. They made some legal threats towards the person(s) who were responsible for the information first coming to light. Many players were still not happy with their response, and kept asking questions. CCP did some sort of investigation, and Hey! Look at that! The allegations were true! CCP apologized, handed down an almost meaningless punishment to the developer in question, gave out no punishment to the players who were complicit in the cheating, and promised that they'd take this stuff seriously from now on so it'll never happen again.

So what's happened with this latest scandal? More evidence of possible wrong-doing occurs. Someone posts the evidence, asking for CCP to look at it and explain what was going on. CCP responds by deleting the posts and trying to ignore it. Many of the players get upset at this and start to make a lot of noise on the forums. CCP eventually acknowledges the issue, and insists that nothing improper has occured. They again make some vague legal threats towards the players who are bringing the allegations forward.

This response by CCP is no more acceptable this time around as it was in the previous scandal. So here we are again, trying to force CCP to sort this crap out, because they're not going to do it unless we make enough noise. CCP has proven themselves untrustworthy in regards to dealing with these sorts of issues. Giving them the benefit of the doubt will only allow them to ignore this issue until it goes away. While that might make their job a little easier today, it's not the best thing for the future of EvE, and EvE is a game that many of us really enjoy and want to see improve and grow.

the nature of EVE

[icebones]

I could be wrong here, but from what I've seen in my short time playing EVE is that the point of the game is the unbridled quest for power. There are no rules on how you do this or even that you do this. If you want to be a pirate, go ahead. There are consequenses(sp), but you know that going in, just like real life. One group made a corp and sold stock. that's not in the rules but they did it and it worked. The only rules that matter in Eve are what someone can do and what someone can't do. While I don't like the idea of players being buddies with the guys that run the programs and possibly getting some help, that's the nature of the game and also the real world. What's the difference between this, and when corporations or special interest groups get laws changed/passed to benefit them by their favorite congressman. This happens all the time in the real world and usually people get away with it, and no one bats an eye. I don't like that but I accept it as part of the way the world works, if i want a powerfull and dominating business, then i better be prepared to deal with that. As there are no lawmakers to buy off in Eve (as far as i know), I just consider this to be a substitute for that. Knowing that Eve potentially has this aspect in it means it just part of the game and it might be to my benefit once i get really powerful to have found some of these guys to be friends with. If I don't, i can still be successful, but i might have a harder time at some point if i cross the wrong person. Once again, this is a lot like real life. Adapt to the realites you discover and go on. Life isn't fair, why should your games always be?

Hey, CCP--No more Mr. Nice Guy!

[DrVomact]

In many ways, CCP strikes me as a company that wants to be nice to everyone, but hasn't yet grasped that this doesn't work in the business world. First, they slap a developer on the wrist for cheating on behalf of an in-game guild (they're called "corporations" in EVE), then they get in trouble by being too nicey-nice.

In the most recent flap about a GM stealing a player corp's property, it sounds to me like CCP left themselves open to attack simply by being too helpful. They went out of their way to address a relatively minor player complaint by having a developer intervene in the game-world. This is not only expensive in terms of developer time, but it also leaves CCP open to false charges like these. Elementary common sense dictates that developers should never directly intervene in the game world. The role of developers is to develop code. Testing should be done on the test server (EVE has one), where it is publicly acknowledged that developers are participating in the game as players. All direct ingame interaction between CCP and players should be done by GMs who have strictly defined powers, and who operate under constant and direct supervision of CCP. GMs should never be allowed to do things like assume executive powers over a player corporation so that they can "fix" things, as was done in the latest case.

What should have been done in this case was this: after the GM determined that he could not help the petitioner, he should have apologetically informed the petitioner that there is nothing that can be done to help him, but that a bug report will be filed to fix the game mechanisms that were causing the trouble. That's it.

In response to the previous (genuine) incident of player misconduct, CCP should have done what any sensible business entity would have done: fire the jerk. Failure to do so might have been really warm and nice to the developer, but it was a disaster from a PR perspective. CCP's actions contradicted their words. They said they took the misconduct seriously, but if an employee engages in serious misconduct, then he ought to be fired, no?

As an EVE player who really likes the game, I'm saddened that following my suggestions would imply less responsiveness by CCP to player petitions, but I think that this is a case where better and more strictly defined roles and procedures would ultimately be best for everyone.

Re:Standard SA Trolling... Now illegal!

[DarkJC]

Parent insightful? Maybe. But as a previous poster said, it's sad when the majority of the EVE player base is inclined to believe what the parent described above over CCP. Shows how much the community trusts them.

This is a surprise?

[Gorlash]

How can anyone possibly be surprised that the audience of a game targeted at griefers, might not set too many limits on their behavior. I mean, really, I'd have thought they would all be great sportsmen. ::snicker::

Why?

[kiltroutgore]

WHY OH WHY couldn't we have come up with something like that when playing DAoC?!

Speaking as an MMORPG developer...

[Afecks]

Any player that thinks the owning company of an MMORPG would purposefully put themselves at risk simply to cheat at their own game has been playing way too long and has forgotten that real life money outweighs any amount of imaginary game pixels.

It's one thing to call the developers idiots because they changed something in the game you don't like but to accuse them of maliciously conspiring against their customers is just asinine. Maybe if you tried to claim they were doing it to suck more money our of their customers but accusing them of cheating just to win at their own game?! Get a grip on reality please! Whoever started this campaign must have realized the humor in this and is most likely just another troll giving people grief.

Re:Speaking as an MMORPG developer...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Any player that thinks the owning company of an MMORPG would purposefully put themselves at risk simply to cheat at their own game has been playing way too long and has forgotten that real life money outweighs any amount of imaginary game pixels"

What you're claiming never happens has already happened in the past, may have happened now, and will probably happen in the future if they don't change their policies.

Re:Speaking as an MMORPG developer...

[Afecks]

Don't confuse "owning company" with "rouge employee".

But you *ARE* a goon!

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a few too many matches to this query for me to believe that you yourself are not a SA goon. Unless that's your absolute favorite word or something, because my nick sure as hell doesn't have results like that, though I'm not stupid enough to let you know what it is because I know who SA is.

Why don't you go attack Scientology or something that deserves it?

Re:But you *ARE* a goon!

[Lehk228]

i'm not a forum goon, and in fact if you read the links ou would realize that you are in facr a tard.

those hits are both names and comments by other people in the same thread containing the word goon. i am a long time occasional reader at SA, but never felt the need to pay to enter the forums.

does CCP offer good health benifits for their PR guys?

Re:But you *ARE* a goon!

[DS-1107]

I think it's funny that you can't even google something right, the next time note that for example

"Re:How to Help Us - 3 Steps by goon america (Score:2) Tuesday October 21, ..... (since the site is so sl by Lehk228 (Score:2) Tuesday October 21, @11:52PM ..."

inclines that goon america is a separate user from Lehk228, and not of his writing, not that "goon america" and the poster "goon" are regular contributors in the google search you made- *ups*!

& sorry for the redundancy, but the idea that A (Lehk228)is a goon for defending goons; so would make me a goon, and I can't agree with that.

Re:But you *ARE* a goon!

[Anonymous Coward]

Never played Eve, don't want to. I hate PVP, thanks to PVPers at a MUD I once admined. Of course, I did manage once to leak item stats to a player and got fired, so maybe I just feel sorry for admins who have to take a lot of player flak. PVP types whine about 8000% more than anyone else ("oh noes! I got ganked by an enemy in a warzone! they cheat!!!!!") and I really wouldn't have minded them at all if I didn't have to listen to their constant complaints. So you're half right. You could complain that I was an admin who cheated once, but I sure as hell would never play Eve... if the game I played had restricted PVP, I'd hate to meet the hardcore types.

As for you, if you never went on the forum but merely read it, I still have to wonder why so many hits show up with you & the word goon, but I'm not going to bother researching it further, it's probably a waste of time. But maybe it's true and I'm only half right, you just read SA and aren't a goon. But you'll forgive me if I'm pretty damn suspicious, because I'm not totaly ignorant of SA's work, and I'm not totally unsympathetic to anyone who might want to give goons their just desserts. So it's probably for the best that I don't play any MUDs or MMORPGs any more and I honestly doubt that I ever will.

Re:But you *ARE* a goon!

[Lehk228]

if you wanted to competantly check if i was a goon you could have tried something along the lines of site:somethingawful.com lehk or some other search that wouldn't simply hit on every slashdot page i posted on that had the word goon included somewhere.

Typical CCP FUD and Spin

[Plekto]

CCP has a long history of in-game censorship, banning, cheating, helping "friends", deleting petitions and emails, covering their tracks, and so on - and the press releases they do are purely FUD and Spin. If you read their replies, you get things like "we will deactivate employee characters if they are discovered" - well, that's charming - it's not fixing the problem so much as taking a more KGB-esque "get rid of agents who have their covers blown" approach.

And it is pervasive. They even have employees posting on Ebay selling credits that then take your money and claim it's legal to do so since you are breaking the rules(and being in Iceland, Ebay's laws don't cover them in any case). How messed up is that? Their bylaws may say whatever they wish - but that's ingame/illegal to *use* - real cash was stolen.

It's a hopelessly corrupt company from the top to the bottom. Worse, in fact, than any gaming company that I can honestly remember in the last 30 years(been gaming that long, yes)

This /. piece is a bunch of PR to make them look like the victim and should be removed - don't put up corporate FUD and/or Spin on the main page. Don't buy into their lies.

And, yes, I play EVE. I know people in-game and the accusations are 100% true - and they have the logs and screencaptures to prove it. I'll believe the players and numerous in-game witnesses against the corporate response anyday.

Best Game, Worst Practices

[StCredZero]

I have been playing Eve for a year and a half. I operate mostly in 0.0. Flying PvP in small cruiser or interceptor gangs is a blast. (*)

The amount of effort put into game balance is impressive. The graphics aren't cutting edge, but the art direction is well done. But most of all, the consequences in Eve are harsh and quite real. (If your battleship is destroyed, you might have to go through a *lot* to get it back out to your base in 0.0 security space.) This is *Exactly* what makes it such a blast to play. The adrenaline you feel jumping into a hostile fleet is real because you know there are consequences. Defeat is more bitter, but success is oh so sweet.

And this is also why dev/GM cheating enrages the player base so much. CCP has an uphill battle to show the player community it means business with its internal affairs department. If they're not able to do this, then the gaming world has lost a truly great game.

(*) - Player Owned Station Sieging is way too drawn out, but nothing's perfect, eh?

meta-slashdot effect?

[Anonymous Coward]

[nt]

When you find one fly in the house, there are more

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole trust issue should not be swept under the rug when we are talking about EVE.

Any company starts with a clean slate, that is very obvious. But when something is exposed that a company did something wrong, then they no longer have a clean slate and will be critised in every HINT of corruption.

The company should be trying to get as much forgiveness ground rather then lambasting Goonswarm for libel. They should be standing firm and offering the other cheek when people are punching them in the face, not villifying players. Goonswarm are just players, CCP are developers and also players; "Players Plus" if you will. They should show they can handle their power but they have already shown way back in the past they can't.

Re:The tone of the response is totally unacceptabl

[zerocool^]

Yeah, except - let's assume that the accusations are false, as CCP state.

CCP employees have spent their entire long, holiday weekend researching and compiling data and screenshots to prove themselves. On top of that, the Goons have created a MASSIVE forum assault, to the point that the signal-to-noise ratio on the Eve-online forums is so bad as to make them difficult to read. There have been, just today, thousands of posts which have had to be moderated for being trolling, flaming, flamebait, against the forum rules, using dis-allowed methods (bypassing the profanity filters, making posts with alts, posting pictures inline, etc).

See for example:
http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=chan nel&channelID=3521&page=2 (this is just today, since the developer blog linked in the story was posted).

The Goons' posts are immature, off color, and they have been told repeatedly to stop. Yet they persist, spamming the forums with their garbage. They have wasted the time of the company and have honestly made the community a difficult place to be a member of - I am embarrassed to say that I play eve now, because people associate it with 1.) CCP favoritism (not true), and 2.) the attitude and intelligence level of the Goons (SomethingAwful is not a paragon of IQ points, that's for damn sure).

THIS is why CCP are frustrated, and if they're sounding a little cross, it's because essentially there are hundreds (probably thousands, I don't know how many accounts to take out because people have alts, but there are 4,000 people in Goonswarm) of people who are PAYING A GAME TO FUCK WITH CCP and to RUIN THE EXPERIENCE FOR THE REST OF US. I'd be pissed too, if I were CCP.

I still love playing eve, I just don't recruit people anymore. Not because I think CCP did anything wrong, but because I don't want to pull people into the Goon's drama-bomb bullshit. Honestly the game was more fun a year ago before the rise of the Goons.

~Wx

Re:When you find one fly in the house, there are m

[Plekto]

Exactly. What cinches Goonswarm's case is the fact that while it was technically legitimate action, it took place within SECONDS of it being brought up. With 30,000 players online(plus at least ten times that many accounts), It takes days or weeks on average to get a response,

Essentially BOB has devs playing at the same time they are logged into the server. If you have this mental image of the dev playing on one screen and having the sql interface screen/app open at the same time on another screen, you're getting the correct one.

Their PR can't get around the fact that a dev can't be playing or chatting with people who are playing, and on the server at the same time.

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[zerocool^]

The T20 incident happened more than six months before the "whistleblower" outed him. By the way, that person used illegal methods (he hacked an alliances' website) to gather damning evidence against T20. So, yeah, he's a paragon of morality, and the ends justify the means, but whatever.

AT THE TIME it was discovered that T20 had spawned items to help his in-game alliance, he was disciplined. The senior board members were out of town at the time that this happened, and the people in charge that were in town at the time of the incident took all the action they could. They knew they must act quickly, they knew he must be punished, and they knew that they did not have the authority to fire a senior developer who was a founding member of the company. They did what they could.

Six months later, when T20 was outed and everything came to light outside of the company, everyone made a stink about it. But, unfortunately, even if T20 should have been fired, he wasn't. And it's not fair to punish someone twice for one infraction - once at the time, and once six months later after everyone who was directly involved had already gotten over it and moved on.

So, yes, CCP saw this as an internal matter originally, and I'm not sure that they should have, but whatever. They acted in the best way they could at the time and given the circumstances. It just turns out that it wasn't good enough for the members of a community who have a forum named "Fuck You and Die" and a forum named "General Bull Shit". Kugutsman was 2nd in command of Sniggerdly corp, and a member of the SA forums, and allied with the Goons in game.

So CCP will now never get the trust of the gaming world back, and it really sucks for them. You're right, if the Goons had brought this crap up without the previous SNAFU, it would have been ignored. But, CCP is in an impossible situation right now, and it's not entirely of their own making. The Goons are ruining eve-online, and that's the sad part. They're paying money to ruin a company and a game and make it less fun for the rest of us that play.

~Wx

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[Plekto]

Let's say for a minute that CCP is actually right on the first count(the other two they mention in their official response are easy to disprove - a common tactic, actually - front loading the stuff they can't deny with stuff they can).

All of the other problems that plague the company and the outright hostile manner in which they treat problems and players adds up to a very disturbing picture.

This previous evidence as well as their general demeanor towards cheating and squashing players and so on over the last few YEARS... It all weighs into the decision as to whether they are actually victims or they are whitewashing.

"Oh we're the victim(please ignore all the other mountains of junk)" - I'm not going to tend to believe them on the two other points they contest.

Point 1: Dev twiddling with the station - appears legitimate, though astonishingly quick. 15 minutes.

Point 2: Aurora Event arc cheating. This has been blown into little bits. It really did happen and CCP can't get away with denying it.
quote:
"Nothing new has been presented that merits re-opening the investigation into the events following the actions taken against the player/volunteer who violated a Non-Disclosure Agreement in regards to the 'Cult of Tetrimon' event arc."
So they basically re-iterated their previous BS. Nothing new was added, so this fails a basic validity test, since the original point was already more than adequately made by the players.

Point 3: The player in question was removed almost instantly. What you read is basically typical boilerplate like the U.S. govt said about the attorneys it fired. "We had previous complaints... yada yada..." Funny how a decision of such importance was made almost instantly. This is easy to see as the Spin it is, though.

Point 4: CCP then goes on:
"Since last Friday, an unnamed corporation posted over 4000 times on EVE's message boards concerning these allegations. " It's their server - that it would be unknown isn't possible - and even then, having several hundred or more players in a revolt(considering that the forum is the ONLY place in EVE to address even the tiniest problem) isn't illegal - or immoral.

Claiming that they were victims of a DOS attack is absurd. They pissed off a group of several hundred players all at once and they got hammered by disgruntled customers as a result.

"More specifically, the objective of this scheme was to permanently paint CCP as a biased and corrupt company that favors a select group of players over the rest of our community"
No, this has been proven in the past. Whining doesn't change the fact that you DID favor BOB for three years or more.

"we faced a coordinated and hostile attack executed on our forums, Digg, Wikipedia, Slashdot,"
And this is extremely laughable as well. Almost all of the posts on their forums at the time were from active PAYING members. Not from people who frequent digg, wiki, or slashdot(though getting their entry on wiki altered surely was what prompted this response by them to do damage control I bet)

Point 5: Their response to the past incident? Well, the simple fact is that there have been HUNDREDS of cases in the past of devs manipulating the game or favoring their friends. That one was caught is all. If you look at CCP's original FUD and PR response to the incident, it's clear that this wasn't an isolated incident - as they are now trying to paint it.
(see the last point at the bottom of this post for the PROOF that they are lying - in their own words!)

Point 6:
"It is worth restating here that there is absolutely no categorical CCP preference towards anything that transpires in the EVE political landscape." Their actions in the past have proven this beyond any doubt that they ARE biased in the extreme. They just have to appear as if they aren't because it really hit the fan hard this time.

"That's why if you are not happy with how things are transpiring in game, the game is built so there are ample opportuni

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[zerocool^]

Ugh, I'm not going to waste time on you, you're towing the party line and there's no sense in convincing you otherwise. If you don't trust CCP, why on earth are you asking them to resolve the issue - furthermore why do you continue to pay people whom you think are scum and whom you don't trust. Just quit.

But, I do have to say: Eve's one unique feature is that it's not a sharded server world - there is one eve server. As you say, "EA, Blizzard, Sony" devs don't meddle in their character's games. Well, yeah, cause if you admin a blizzard server, I'm sure your character is on a different server. Same with all the other MMO's. Strawman argument.

Anyway, good luck in life. Quit your eve subscription, go out side and have fun at a playground, and leave the rest of us to play in peace.

~Wx

CCP caught red-handed.

[Plekto]

This was posted on the EVE forums today by Taliesyn :

I'm afraid I have to disagree with the idea that this covers everything, as they managed to ignore something that came up in the (currently) 170 page discussion thread. At one point, the "Official" BoB Diplomat, Dianabolic, flat-out stated that BoB has direct links to CCP and uses them to their benefit (post #335 in that thread). He attempted to justify that by saying that they also use these links to report bugs and whatnot, but the fact of the matter is that ALL player-to-CCP communications should use official channels.
***

The posting in question admitting their involvement has been deleted from the forum in question. But many people, including myself, saw that post and it's a good part of what blew the entire thing up - a DEV admitting in public that they do do all of that. That was on page 15 or so on Friday - and it snowballed from there. The ire of the players at the admission by the DEV was the last straw. In fact, ALL of the DEV's posting in the last few days have been deleted from the server. They whitewash it today after they have removed the evidence. I'm trying to contact him to get a copy of the post - there's a good chance he might save it. It would make an excellent /. item to counter this PR spin.

Re:CCP caught red-handed.

[zerocool^]

And here we are again. Ignore that the goons did anything wrong, keep pointing the finger at CCP. Two wrongs do not make a right. And I'd imagine if you dig deep enough, you'll find skeletons in anyone's closet. Throw up enough allegations and eventually something sticks. And it's the least offensive of all of the allegations.

Goons are in the wrong here. They're actively trying to ruin the eve community and it's offensive to the rest of us legitimate players. Please stop, and grow up a bit.

~Wx

Re:CCP caught red-handed.

[Anonymous Coward]

"And here we are again. Ignore that the goons did anything wrong, keep pointing the finger at CCP"

The goons didn't collude with the developers, so your cronying is in no way comparable.

Re:Bad PR move: Never whine

[FordPrfct]

All right! It's good to know that it's impossible to get away with cheating, since you can't possibly get special access with the developers' normal characters. I mean, can you imagine what would happen if, say, a dev's "normal character" were able to simply spawn blueprints to give to his corporation?

Goons response.

[Plekto]

http://goonfleet.com/reply_to_CCP.html

This pretty much explains it. I know some of these guys and they are very level-headed and I have no reason at all to disbelieve them.

The information you can gain as a CEO of a corp is almost infinite. Every player. Every alt. Every location of their bases, every location of their resources, their resources at any outpost/status, their blueprints, their ships... the list is astounding. Of course the real CEO of Goonswarm should be pissed off.

That's not my experience

[Rix]

From what I've seen, goons are childish, rather stupid, and expect to get their way without question. When they don't, they throw a destructive hissy fit and storm out. There are occasionally one or two mildly sapient individuals who direct a crap flood of mongoloid script kiddies.

If you don't like the way a game works, don't play it.

Re:That's not my experience

[Chaos Motor]

Are we even talking about the same Goons here... ? Have you ever even interacted with Goons, or just skimmed GBS (admittedly the whiny-bitch shallow end of the pool)? And how in the HELL did you get +1 in the 2 seconds your post has been up? COLLUSION! COLLUSION!!!! :)

I can only speak for my experience

[Rix]

I get a +1 on all my posts automatically due to a history of being modded up. There is no conspiracy.

I don't know what GBS is, and I have no interest in reading anything on somethingawful.com. I've seen people claiming to be goons from somethingawful make asses of themselves in many venues, which does not reflect well on the site.

Re:I can only speak for my experience

[Chaos Motor]

So you admit that you are stereotyping without any real knowledge or direct experience? And what makes you think this is a fair or accurate way to assess the situation? I presume, of course, you don't judge all black people by the ones who make the crime reports, or all white people by the actions of skinheads. Why would you judge all goons by the actions of a few self-proclaimed, out of their environment? In all likelihood, these are persons who were banned and forced to leave.

I am stereotyping with real and direct knowledge

[Rix]

Skin colour is not a choice. Associating with asshats is a choice, and implies that you are also an asshat.

Which is why I would never claim to be Rix from slashdot...

Re:I am stereotyping with real and direct knowledg

[Chaos Motor]

Wow, stereotyping, absolutely no knowledge of what you are stereotyping, /and/ calling me an asshat because I pointed out how foolish you are. You really earned that +1, didn't you?

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that a goonfleet CEO was PROVEN to have lied to the public through screenshots, (He said no petition was ever filed, which sparked this whole debacle)

http://myeve.eve-online.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid =472

I honestly don't know how you can take anything else they say seriously when they have shown that they will blatantly lie to tarnish CCP's image..

Yep, I did

[Rix]

You've claimed to associate with a group of people I have directly observed as being asshats. That isn't stereotyping any more than assuming participants in a white power rally are racist. Like it or not, the people you associate with reflect upon you.

You'll note that I did not call you an asshat, I simply pointed out the implications of your actions. The fact that you drop to ad hominems at the slightest provocation ads further weight to the implication.

Re:Yep, I did

[Chaos Motor]

You know what Rix? You aren't even worth talking to. You say Goons are asshats but YOU are the one who has stereotyped them with no basis or evidence, and YOU are the one throwing out ad hominem attacks. I really don't care what you say, you are obviously braindead. I just with someone would read your comments here and realize that you in no way deserve a Karma bonus. Let's see if I can follow the Rix method for blameless non-ad hominem attacks. Rix, the implication of your actions is that you are a complete and utter douchebag. Notice I did not say that you are a douchebag, but that is obvious from your actions. Actually, us Goons have coined a term for obese wastes of opinous gasbags like yourself - you perfectly fit the description of a neckbeard. Thanks for playing!

Re:Yep, I did

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, that really was the worst thing you possibly have said if your point was to prove that "goons" are known for maturity and/or intelligence.

Your comment succinctly sums up the negative stereotype of a "goon".

Yes, Rjx committed some fallacies, most importantly by assuming that "associating with asshats [...] implies that you are an asshat"(many people would disagree with that). People from Slashdot aren't known for maturity or intelligence either. But I've never ever seen anyone claim that the fact that they post on Slashdot says anything (positive) about themselves, or consciously let Slashdot affect their identity by i.e. calling themselves "Slashdotters" except in the context of Slashdot itself.

You see the equivalent all the time with the people that call themselves "goons". Note, however, that when the rest of the world talk of "goons", we're generally talking about the ones we have actually encountered—people by that name in public—not the ones who merely post to your closed forum. People may post only elegant textual pearls of hidden wit and wisdom to that forum for all I know, I obviously don't read it, since I'm not a "goon".

Exactly

[Rix]

You've just proven my point for me.