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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.
Blaming your paying customers for using a feature that you provided (through choice or ineptitude) is hubris, plain and simple. Smart developers do not have an adversarial attitude towards the people that pay their salaries.
Why not just quietly fix it, smile, and move on? Ego. They're pouring massive resources into breaking the 4th wall and retconning their entire game universe for no better reason than to prove that their dicks are bigger.
Idiot savants, at best. Silly brittle man-children at worst.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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..."
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.
"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.
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.