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.

Comments

Cool!

[Kokuyo]

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.

Re:Cool!

[khallow]

How is it BS? You run boring missions over and over until you can run higher level boring missions that give more ISK and require a more powerful ship with more skills. Until you finally get to the top and decided to PvP.

[...]

I am exaggerating a bit, but that is essentially Eve. They make you log in to change your skills rather than actually letting you queue them...which is dumb. Massive PvP happens rarely. The community on the forums is harsh and rude. And the only time it makes the news is when someone gets massively screwed over, horrible long-term bugs, and dev cheating (and not getting fired over it).

Nah, you're just clueless. While there is some overlap between the PvP and missioning skills, PvP is not killing AI ships with laughable tactics. One does not train for killing players in this way. Massive PvP happens often (one just needs to look for high numbers of kills in systems).

As for the "harsh and rude" forum community, it comforts me greatly to know that these fine individuals are also common on sites like Slashdot. No doubt you will some day be driven to gentler forums like "Hello Kitty" and will cease to blight my internet.

Finally, Eve gets some of the hottest press around. A game so hardcore that alliances will infiltrate the developing company in order to get an edge? Best economy in any game? Tens of thousands of active players at any given time? Sign me up.

Compliance, eh?

[ThePsion5]

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?