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

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]

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

[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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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

[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.

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.

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: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:Seriously?

[Lehk228]

i'll trust a Goon over CCP any day

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: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.