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EVE Devs Dissect, Explain Massive Economic Exploit
In December we discussed news that a major exploit in EVE Online had just been widely discovered after being abused by a few players for up to four years, creating thousands of real-life dollars worth of unearned in-game currency. Representatives from CCP Games assured players that the matter would be investigated and dealt with; a familiar line in such situations for other multiplayer games, and often the final official word on the matter. Yesterday, CCP completed their investigation and posted an incredibly detailed account of how the exploit worked, what they did to fix it, how it affected the game's economy, and what happened to the players who abused it. Their report ranges from descriptions of the involved algorithms to graphs of the related economic markets to theatrically swooping through the game universe nuking the malfunctioning structures. It's quite comprehensible to non-EVE-players, and Massively has summarized the report nicely. It's an excellent example of transparency and openness in dealing with a situation most companies would be anxious to sweep under the rug.
Makes me actually want to go and play the game. I mean, when you have a company that obviously does care, to a certain degree, you should go and help them out a bit. Only problem is, the game has a complexity level that has me reeling.
They should find and fix exploits in the real economy.
Earth-online.
Really? You'd say allowing people to willfully exploit until a bug can be fixed is a good thing for a game? To incentivise your playerbase to keep 'decent' exploits hidden for as long as possible, to maximise their gains?
No, I don't think so. EVE GMs don't ban you for 'finding' an exploit. They're banning people for blatantly abusing said exploit. Sure, exploits 'shouldn't exist' but they do, and they always will.
Internet Spaceships are SERIOUS BUSINESS for a lot of the people in EVE, who tend to be much more in to the game than players of other MMOs. If the Devs didn't come down hard on this, the forums would be in open revolt.
Note how, at the end of the article, they are careful to inform us that no Devs were involved in carrying out the exploit. The last time a big story like this broke, it was to do with a Dev cheating, and the players were in uproar.
Eve is all about breaking the 4th wall. Hell, CCP employ a real, Phd-equipped economist to analyse their game, and provide market analysis every few months. The spy scene in Eve is quite famous too - most of that is carried out through mechanics outside of the game. Eve is not WoW, the userbase demand a completely different treatment of bugs such as this, that could potentially effect the balance of in-game politics.
EVE has a single universe, and a notable penalty for failure. Those two things mean that 'something like this' can have far reaching consequences across the universe and gamedynamics. It's not really like someone item duping on a PvE server, where ... well, actually that guy over there cheating doesn't have much impact on your game. The magnitude of this exploit is such that alliances can rise and fall with the amount of cash in question - and when an alliance falls, there's another player on the receiving end of the sackbeating.
... well, takes a lot of fun out of the game.
... year or more ... internal affairs is scrupulous about it, because the vast majority of CCP employees are as much EVE addicts as the player base.
To use an analogy, no one really cares if you've got god mode on in single player Doom. Maybe you find that more amusing, but no one really cares. Face off on someone in a deathmatch though, the fact that they're invulnerable and you're not
And yes, they're quite careful about the devs thing, because of that scandal. If they _hadn't_ mentioned it, then the question would have been asked. From what I've seen over the last
How is the player to know whether it's a feature or a bug?
Upon discovering an "exploit", there's no reason for players to assume it is a bug. They've just found a new way to make in-game money more easily, by using the game code (effectively its set of rules) in a new way. Why should it be up to the players to somehow figure out whether their actions are compliant with the game's design document?
Looks to me like there are a fair few more than 134 people who are decidedly pissed off that the exploit occured. I suspect that if they'd let it go on then they would have, like in RL, skewed the market and caused a crash. Then they would have lost a lot of dedicated players, I would think.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Let's say you rent a safety-deposit box, and use it normally for a few months. Then you cancel it and... through some weird oversight they forget to take back the key and access.
So the day after, you take a look in the safety-deposit box, and find it stacked full of money. You go to report that the situation.
However, the guy you're talking to is one of the spanish janitors they got working there, and he doesn't really understand what you're talking about. He's not a banker, he's just there to clean the floor.
So what do you do? You take the money, and return the next day. Oh my, there's even MORE money in there. And you kinda realize the bank is using that box for storage, so you're not really stealing it from other people using the bank. And as long as you don't go strolling out of the bank with bundles of money sticking out of your pockets, they'll have a hard time catching you.
I guess you could be stupid enough to think the magic money is clean. And the close friends you told about the safety-deposit boxes, they're also all that stupid.
The exploit was pretty much the equivalent of the above.
- These characters were randomly selected.
To use an analogy, no one really cares if you've got god mode on in single player Doom.
What does Doom have to do with cars?
GP here. Fair enough.
Still, two remarks:
* You're right, in this situation it's fairly clear-cut and obvious that this was a bug. I was talking in a more general sense. The policy in MMOs seems to be ban first, ask questions later, which seems silly. (I'm not sure about Eve specifically.)
* In situations like your example, banks tend to give the customer the benefit of the doubt. They'd rather spend time and money to prevent similar fraud from happening in the future, than to sue people for damages and to blacklist them as a customer (i.e. to ban them). (In some cases they will go after fraudeurs though, so please don't take this as advice of any kind.) (And yes, I realise that the EVE guys are effectively doing both.)
Smart developers do not have an adversarial attitude towards the people that pay their salaries.
Who pays their salary more? The odd 150 cheaters or the 150k non cheaters expecting the cheats to be banned? They'd lose more customers if people got the idea than cheating wasn't kept in check than they lost with that round of bans.
Profits based on this exploit were taken back and the people responsible will never be a problem again. Why is this not being applied to the people on Wall Street who gave fraudulently high ratings to securities?
What fucking bank do you do business at? Contrary to what you learned playing Monopoly there is no such thing as a "bank error in your favor".
Virginia is for lovers. EVE is for griefers.
I actually used to work at a bank, that's why I know this.
No I won't tell you which one.
There was a bug in the way items were produced, making free items.
The economy reacted accordingly by decreasing the market cost for these items.
Items that need these free items were also accordingly cheaper.
When discovered, the costs of the free items and the items requiring them shot up due to market speculation and decreased supply.
The economy in general will have some bumps, but will eventually recover.
The perpetrators have been shot.
EVE provides a realistic, persistent world that is NOT totally controlled by the people that programmed it.
Game events depend on the players in many more ways than a simple MMO like WoW. (Not that WoW is simple but in comparison to EVE it plays like a kid's game in the simplistic play.)
It's more like the difference between driving an R/C car and an airplane. The Car (WoW) is more 2D in the gameplay. You're restricted to forward, back, left, right. All the characters pretty much play the same. With EVE, the sheer complexity of the skills and economic systems makes the gameplay extremely rich and absorbing.
In fact, that's the downside to EVE. It, like all MMO's becomes a timesink of immense proportions.
One of the best features is the fact that dying can bring with it immense setbacks, wiping out months/years of work and finances. That's an ever present edge that most all other MMO's lack. Keeps you glued to your seat during firefights. :)
As for the complexity? The game has one of the best tutorials and new-game experience of any game I've ever played. They know it's complicated (but then so is life) so CCP has gone to great lengths to make it EASY to learn how to play. It takes time and talent to play well. :)
If anyone is wondering what POS is short for, it's "Player Owned Station".
Personally I think the article reads a lot better if you instead use "Piece Of Shit":
CCP Games explains the scenario from the ground up, detailing the POS game mechanics for those unfamiliar with the industrial side of the game, and pointing out how the POS exploit worked.
The proper order in which to evaluate a POS is essentially breadth-first traversal....
POS Reactors are complex beasts, but not quite so bad as POS Control Towers.
and so on.
posted an incredibly detailed account of how the exploit worked
I followed links all over the place and found lots of summaries on the response and fallout, but only very vague descriptions of HOW the exploit worked. It looks like they found a way to make reactors or run them without their fuel source (one of two kinds of moons?) Sorry I'm not an eve player so I can't just guess at these things. Can anyone summarize HOW the exploit worked? Something like having a requirement to make a reactor (have a resource), then make it, then remove/reuse the resource without the reactor being shut down / removed, then rinse n repeat?
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
I can think of two examples of exactly that. But then maybe banks where you live are perfect...
His point was exactly that the 'bank' would catch you and get its money back anyway.
I like the part where they took away someone's Titan. That's got to be a great feeling when you find out you have been banned.
This was 3-4 years ago now. I recall when jet can mining was the cats meow and finding a niche in the regional market and making a few million ISK off of it was the Big Deal.
I'd build Medium and Large Energy Shield II's and III's and sell them in Amarr space to Caldari drivers for a fine killing.
I used to do Cattle Runs, running NPC livestock between systems and stations, buying low and selling high, turning a few million in the process, until they flipped the market upside down and turned Jita system into a Major Trade hub.
First rule of holes; When in one, stop digging.
When your mother gets into the drivers side.
So what we have here is a situation where few individuals manage to manipulate the system and avoid the rules designed to limit this kind of activity and create enormous amount of unearned wealth right out of thin air.
Sounds just like Wall Street.
"Bank error in your favor" seems awfully far-fetched. The few widely publicised cases of "bank error in your favor" I recall here in the U.S. involve banks accidentally depositing largish sums of money (several 100 K) in the wrong accounts. The people whose accounts the funds ended up in chose to shut up about it and spend the money even though it wasn't rightly theirs. When the banks worked out the mistakes the people who'd taken advantage of the errors didn't end up benefiting too much. Especially in the cases where criminal charges were filed. Saying that you thought the money was a "gift from God" doesn't really cut the mustard when you're brought up on charges.
It's an excellent example of transparency and openness in dealing with a situation most companies would be anxious to sweep under the rug.
Yeah, like CCP has never been guilty of sweeping things under the rug.
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
I have read the source article on what the bug was and read several "summary" attempts and all the summaries are lacking.
I know this does not have a shot at getting read, but whatever.
What Happened
--------------
Some people figured out how to make their space stations produce free resources.
How they did it
----------------
Space stations take some raw inputs, spend "time" processing, and produce valuable outputs. Since no real work needs to be done in the "processing" stage, there were code optimizations to make processing 1000s of space stations more efficient.
Some people figured out that if they get a station running and then cut off the inputs and outputs from the "processor" at a certain time, then the outputs kept coming even though there were no inputs. The optimized code was running on cached data from the "processor" that it was creating output. You got the "processor" stuck in this mode by removing the inputs at the right time.
It should be noted that playing EVE is like playing Axis and Allies on a galactic scale, more rules and complications than you may ever care to learn. Now this does not make it a bad game, Axis and Allies was good too. But it is a lifestyle more than a hobby. People will say but there are huge battles of epic proportions that look so good on the graphics engine; you could just as easily rent Battle Star Galactica, because you will have the same amount of control of the outcome of that battle.
There is also the fact that EVE has been going on so long that for you to advance in the game you must play time-wise, not skill-wise. For this reason you will never catch those who started even 1 year before you. It could be easily compared to climbing a ladder, you cannot pass someone on this ladder provide you both play the same amount of time.
To summarize, not a 'bad' game. But more of a lifestyle and less of a game.
To qoute ZP- "I already have a life, I don't need to pay you to have another..."
You must be from the Remedial Comprehension class. That's exactly what I'm saying. It. Is. A. Game.
Unlike what happened here?
Is "adversarial" too long a word for you?
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
The tutorials are the best part about this extremely complex game. :)
CCP has done an excellent job and I enjoyed every minute I _USED_ to spend playing the game.
Moving forward in life and accomplishing RL goals is infinitely more challenging, when you achieve enlightenment.
If I couldn't get out of bed, this is a game I would definitely be playing until I died. :)
To say that CCP was compliant to BoB's rise in power is simply a lie if you actually stick to the facts.
FACT: A single dev illegally spawned BPOs (NON-EVE PLAYERS: Blueprints that can be used to manufacture a ship) for his personal use when he was in Band of Brothers. These Blueprints were all for ammunition (NON-EVE PLAYERS: Blueprints of this type for ammunition are the least valuable and least used) and a single Ship, the Sabre class Interdictor. No one else at CCP was involved with this.
FACT: These BPOs were then eventually donated to Band of Brothers, without anyone other than the dev in question knowing that they were created illegally
FACT: This event came to light in February of 2007
NON-EVE PLAYERS: the Sabre-class Interdictor is a destroyer-sized (small) ship designed to prevent ships within a certain radius from warping away, and while a useful ship overall, a single copy of its Blueprint is not nearly enough to have any significant impact economically or militarily. You cannot conquer systems with swarms of interdictors.
To claim that the dev in question had any real impact in BoB's conquests is unrealistic unless you subscribe to conspiracy theories with about as much evidence as the US government's orchestration of 9-11. Furthermore, if they depended on handouts to conquer and maintain space, how is it that they've been continuing to do so for the two years after these BPOs were removed from BoB's possession? Or do you simply fill that gaping plot hole with further conspiracy theories, claiming that they still somehow receive handouts from other developers?
Ohyeah, I almost forgot: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/208-Eve-Online =)
I use Windows... like a two dollar wh.. why don't I just go ahead and not finish that sentence.
What fucking bank do you do business at? Contrary to what you learned playing Monopoly there is no such thing as a "bank error in your favor".
Year ago or so there was a fradulent paypal charge put through on my account which resulted in $4,500 being removed from my account. My bank floated me $45,000 (instead of the correct $4,500 amount) while the fraud was being investigated.
While the error was corrected, it was still a "bank error in my favor".
"If the Devs didn't come down hard on this, the forums would be in open revolt."
LOL at players revolting in forums. Hopefully they don't wet their panties as they type furiously into the keyboard at you.
the guy you're talking to is one of the spanish janitors they got working there
"I know noooothing. I am from Barhelona"
Yeah, I'd give up after that too.
If they could only find someone with a PhD in making games fun...
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Could somebody please paste the artical in here for the benefit of us poor sods working behind work proxy filters? :)
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, watch it -- I'm huge!
Exploit like this have been found in about every MMO out there. And if the game was popular enough, finding such exploit yielded you a nice payday. I know of a group of players in UO who made 50k a piece in a course of a year exploiting one bug. It's like having the game you love to play be your day job, but not having to compete with Chinese farmers, because you have a golden egg-laying goose.