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Eve Online to Elect Player Oversight Group
StCredZero writes "The New York Times is reporting on plans by EVE Online developer CCP to open itself up to independent oversight. In response to the recent allegations of misconduct, they are proposing a system of 'nine player-overseers who will act as ombudsmen for the game's subscribers. The company says it will hold the elections in the fall.' Systems will be put into the game to support this ombudsmen status, making this (effectively) a player-run world governance system."
Never knew an MMO would try to represent real-life politics so faithfully.
I'm pretty intrigued by this. Of course there's tons of details to be worked out. How long is each player's term? What kind of powers will this committee have over the developers? How will the elections be handled to avoid one large entity from swinging elections the way they want them to go? Will be watching this one to see how it unfolds, especially as a player of EVE.
One thing's for sure, I haven't heard of this happening anywhere before (in terms of gaming). I wonder how much of a precedent this sets for MMOs?
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
Who will watch the ombudsmen?
Lord knows if you can't trust your own paid employees to not cheat then you can certainly trust anonymous player volunteers.
Basically what, they are supposed to fly over for a few days every xth month and 'audit' the game/company?
What would be the point in that? They can't discover anything serious anyway. You'd need good insider and developer knowledge and months. Apart from that they might act as conduits for reporting on gameplay issues and bugs, but it'd be better accomplished by CCP reading their own forums...
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
"I envision this council being made up of nine members selected by the players themselves, where you announce your candidacy, and if you win the election, they come here to Iceland, and they can look at every nook and cranny and get to see that we are here to run this company on a professional basis," said Mr. Petursson, CCP's chief executive. "They can see that we did not make this game to win it."
Wait...are they going to be checking for roaches in the cafeteria or something? Looking in "every nook and cranny" means looking at source code, checking logs on home computers, and reading in-game chat logs. i.e. it's not possible. The problem is a social one, not necessarily a technical one. Even if in-game exploits and "god commands" were removed, the extra information from being an employee is still enough to tip the game in your corp's favor.
So "The 9" are going to go for what amounts to a P.R. visit so that CCP can wash its hands of the mess and say "See? I told you we were a fine, upstanding company! Just look at how clean our cubicles are!"
Or else these player representatives would cry foul and get a nod and a "yeah, yeah, whatever" from the "government".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I know some might herald this as proof of progress, but I believe this is proof of CCP's utter failure to manage this problem. This should be completely unnecessary, but they've dug themselves such a hole by continually lying about their internal responses.
Their inability to control their own employees is pathetic. I've played alot of online games, (AO, EQ, SWG, CoH, LotrO, DDO) and have never seen a need for something like this.
Seriously how screwed up can you be if you take a game this seriously. This isn't life or death, this is luxury entertainment. You pay X per month and if you aren't happy you go elsewhere. It is no different then if you play a sort, take dance lessons, martial arts whatever.
So these 9 people will have oversight? So they can see all source code, all chat logs, all everything anytime? Will the company pay for them to go there? Unless they are rich the avg. person will not be able to do this.
May I suggest a good game of chess?
Ok, so players should "elect" their representatives. How is this done? Most likely on a "one vote per account" system.
... weren't they the ones accused of cheating?
Who will run for it? Probably many, but who has a chance? Well, to have a chance, you'd have to be known. Who'd cast his vote on someone he doesn't know? Who do you know? The people from your corp, or alliance.
So who has a chance to get the most votes? People from the largest alliances, of course. And
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Eve's parent company, merged with White Wolf, are confirmed to be working on a World of Darkness MMO game. Could this be a testbed for a system where players represent "Princes" with actual power over the governance of the new game?
...who gets to be the Jack Abramoff of EVE? :P
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
Won't this just turn into a popularity contest?
Normally an ombudsman is appointed by the government/company to represent the interests of the citizens/customers. Never heard of anyone getting elected as ombudsman before.
They're normally supposed to be professionals so they can pursue issues that the normal citizen don't have the knowledge/resources to do.
Also aren't ombudsmen normally meant to represent the interests of the persons they represent and not some kind of watch force?
Could a similar situation arise from these positions or will the company treat them like paid support employees once they're elected? And if they're employees they'd hardly be independent oversight, would they?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
It's a game. CCP is putting even more burden on their customers. Paying customers. CCP should be taking care of this not their paying customers. CCP provides a services to their customers and is paid to do so. The customers should not be responsible for making sure CCP doesn't cheat. I quit. I cancelled my two accounts. This won't bring me back.
When in the Course of virtual non-events, it becomes necessary for one whiners to dissolve the factional bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the computer program, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Internet and of EULA entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of whiners requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
// If you believe people are cheating, then quit /// Personally, the player's sense of entitlement to run the game is the biggest problem with MMOs today
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Toons are enforced as equals, that they are endowed, by their User, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Money, and the pursuit of Headshots.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Toons, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the Whiners to whine to technical support, and to institute new Social Clique, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their MMO addiction.
NO SUBSCRIPTION WITHOUT WHINER INTERFERENCE!
/ If you don't like the game you're playing, then quit
This is just a PR move. Anyone with any MMO experience will tell you this "oversight group" will simply end up being dominated by a clique of the most powerful players in the game. The most popular players, the leaders of the most powerful guilds/clans/corps and the richest players will all take the top seats and nothing will ever get done. Corruption will run rampant and eventually the users are going to get fed up and ANOTHER scandal will eventually be revealed.
Back in the real worl a while ago, a group of people coloinized a newly discovered land, they lived in it for a while, just trying to survive and paying little attention to the taxes they were paying the king. Then when things get comfortable they decide that the taxes are unfair and they want to rule themselves. And with some persuasion they got a goverment elected by the people for the people. They without to much in the way of investiveness or whimsy called it the united states of america. wow, history really does like to come and bite people in the rump.
-Ours is the wisdom of Solomon, the magic of Merlyn, the fall of Icaris.
As the gameplay of EVE online was never a point of contention at any time in the article itself OR the discussion so far. We are talking about their administrators, and EVE's are corrupt beyond belief compared to pretty much any previous MMO game, with the possible exception of Ultima Online.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
When I heard of this, I immediately thought of this old horrible movie.
Essentially you have a group of people who provide oversight that act as a small cabal. And they violate the #1 rule - they play at the same time.
How about this CCP? Clean up the way you run things and stop trying to put a band-aid on it.
After the first incident, the company should have forbidden the developers from playing on the main server (have fun on test).
I think the cost of having the developers playing the main game well outweigh the benefit.
-Jeff
Please learn the difference between a dissenting opinion and a troll before you moderate.
The fact alone that they are considering this says enough already about the confidence in their own management system.
I gave EVE a go with a trial account, was toying with the idea to ditch WoW and go full on with EVE, but now....... Only when hell freezes over I'm gonna send my cash to a company that asks the public to keep an eye out for corrupt staffmembers.
Life starts at the end of your comfort zone.
Well, CCP has selected the only reasonable way out of this mess - whether the latest allegations had a foundation of truth or not, their clumsy handeling of the last incident had already sufficiently tarnished their reputation so that those new allegations further damaged it - some doubt would always remain.
By installing a player oversight they take important steps to restore player faith in them - as the article said, especially in online games, the perception of reality is the reality.
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
http://www.atitd.com/
The only thing new here is that they are doing this to try to convince players they aren't crooked because they are too incompetant to run their own game. Where as atitd had player governments as part of the game from the start.
So the "9" will be voted in via Elections...
There will be no "voter" intimidation?
"Vote for Pedro or we will nuke your planet from orbit."
Would not the group of players who have been accused of being in on the cheating be the ones most likely the ones who will be voted in? From what I read they are very large in numbers and hold vast resources.
How about outright fraud will tallying the votes?
I do not play this game. But from all that I have read there is an inherent issue of reduced credibility.
What gets me is how CCP can have this much of an issue with cheating? I have never played an online game where this was such a problem.
-- What's this '-r *' file doing here? -- Oh well, a simple 'rm' should do the trick.
Did they even unban that guy who discovered this in the first place? Let him be the ombudsman!
But I guess its better than nothing. I love how the bob slime claims that they will take over the entire galaxy. Over my frozen corpse they will.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
Winterblink for president! http://www.winterblink.com/wda/
This is the stupidest idea I have ever seen. The elected officials are just going to be the ones that are already buddy buddy with CCP as they belong to the larest orginization. They are just giving more people power to abuse the system. I agree with others on here...this is all come about because their complete incompetance to managing their staff and dealing with the people who abuse powers in the game.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
It's still a fun game.
Come to think of it, I don't know of a single time in almost 2 years where anyone else's insider gaming or cheating has effected my looting and mining and trading directly.
Have you really been that put out by this?
Band of Brothers (BoB) doesn't outnumber everyone else. BoB plus their allies are just about at parity with the resistance. But all of these folks won't vote monolithically for BoB's candidates.
No one lives on planets in Eve (yet). If you are really determined, even the most powerful alliance in 0.0 space can't keep you from conducting operations and having fun. At most, they can lock you out of a given region of 0.0 space.
As long as the staff is involved with the corporations the hanky panky will never end. I understand that playing the game is necessary to test things out and see that everything is working but how are people supposed to trust the developers when the devs have 3-4 year old characters in the corporations. PS. Can I get the Hulk now or I'll cry harder than the goons.
I vote that I remain at the mercy of CCP rather than a committee elected by large factions within the game. As a solitary player of Eve, I feel that CCP will better represent my interests than a faction-elected group.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
So.. the problem is that Band of Brothers has gotten stuff unfairly(blueprints, access to staff, etc)
so the solution is to democratically elect an oversight committee? If you think this is fair, consider that Band of Brothers is one of the largest alliances(if not the largest) in the game. So... I wonder who would get elected?
makes me sick.
You know what, I don't care if this falls into a heap; at least their trying something. They aren't as big a company as someone like Blizzard so they have to think a bit harder about solving problems with less.
What I find bitterly ironic is the same people on Slashdot who will give Open Source Software movement a chance will also love paying out on CCP. When compared to a company like Blizzard, they must have to work damn hard to stay afloat. Personally I'll stick with them purely because I want to see where CCP are going: and I want to see more variation in the MMORPG arena from smaller companies. If I have to put up with a bit of this, fine.
It wasn't that long ago that the only good games used dice, books and imagination. If Eve requires a bit of that, again fine, personally I like where they are going and would like to see what the game is like in another few years.
The only thing I really do want to see addressed in Eve are the increasing amount of farmers. The other night I was in a system with about 60 accounts, only 10 of them being real players.
And maybe they need new universes - similar to WoW realms, since new players really don't get the same experience as those who started a few years back.