Joe Blancato, formerly of Waterthread and now all respectable and stuff for The Escapist, posts a detailed writeup connecting the dots with the Eve Online/Band of Brothers hoofrah…
…including the confession of the developer responsible.
Regrettably, my actions inevitably led to a shadow of suspicion being cast on a number of my co-workers, as well as Reikoku and Band of Brothers. I wish to make it clear that I acted alone and my co-workers and corp/alliance mates have been cleared of any alleged wrongdoing.
As much as this is a confession it is also a request for your forgiveness for events of which I’m truly sorry.
*OUCH*
More comments from the president of CCP, Hilmar Pettursson here.
The developers of this company will always play the games that they build here. Without being fully immersed in the player experience, perspective, and community, it is impossible to build, maintain, and expand online worlds with any degree of competency. And while that does expose us to some degree of risk, the rewards are incalculably higher. EVE has grown stronger every year since its inception; these bumps in the road are an inevitable part of the journey we must endure as a growing company; and we would not be here today if we opted to isolate ourselves from the player experience of EVE Online.
It is thus that we look forward to putting this matter firmly behind us, and move forward with our continued mission to improve and expand a world that we hold close to our hearts.
A brief perusal of the Eve boards gives us a probably unrepresentative sampling of the mood:
I ask CCP this now – is t20 still employed? If yes, why?
I honestly dont think its good enoug T20.
You knew you were breaking the rules.As pointed out. CCP is hitting the bottom.
While t20 did something he shouldn’t have done, I really hope he doesn’t get fired. He’s been with the community for a long time.
It’s not like the BPO’s made some huge difference in terms of isk or advantage or anything. It’s wrong of course, but nothing staggering.
Is t20 going to be terminated and/or recieving any kind of punishment? Are all the players that are *not* devs that have been banned etc. going to recieve reparations since they have been proved correct?
It’s fine for him to sit there and beg forgiveness, but I’ll bet he’d be a lot sorrier if he had to go on the dole.
I’ve lost faith in the game now. I think you are lying through your teeth ccp, it’s obvious from the logs that CCP developers have shared information with RKK directors and yet you refute it.
No matter which way this all turns out, this has been a nightmare for CCP and Eve, and hopefully they will work through this and keep going. Eve’s innovations are too important to the genre and the industry as a whole to be entangled in this crap.
#1 by Apache on February 9th, 2007
I think its great they play the game they made (it keeps them in touch) but cheating like that is pretty bush league.
#2 by perianwyr on February 10th, 2007
let’s not forget that t20 was not a mere GM like good old GM Darwin. If I recall correctly he is at least tangentially responsible for the system that gives out said BPOs.
#3 by Andrew Crystall on February 10th, 2007
There’s a fairly stunning level of hypocrisy going round, calls for the unbanning of the hacker who blatently breached the EULA, of banning people (but not, of course, Goonfleet – the insigators of this – for their client-side hacks, and so on).
All par for the course.
#4 by Freakazoid on February 10th, 2007
“(but not, of course, Goonfleet – the insigators of this – for their client-side hacks, and so on).”
The dev admitted he did this alone, and you still insist it’s goonfleet’s fault?
What do client-side hacks have anything to do with this?
Dude, seriously. You need to let this grudge go. It’s not healthy.
#5 by Evangolis on February 10th, 2007
How very unfortunate for all involved.
#6 by Itzena on February 10th, 2007
Of course, the amusing thing about ‘Goonfleet’s client-side hacks’ was that CCP added them into the client in the next patch.
But yeah, I’m not seeing how “CCP devs cheated to help the resident poopsock uberguild” is the Goons’ fault.
#7 by Evangolis on February 10th, 2007
“No matter which way this all turns out, this has been a nightmare for CCP and Eve, and hopefully they will work through this and keep going. Eve’s innovations are too important to the genre and the industry as a whole to be entangled in this crap.”
Upon reading Joe’s article and further reflection, I fear I cannot agree. I refer you back to the scandal surrounding the 1950s hit game show, The $64,000 Question, which collapsed after a cheating scandal arose. The situation seems very analogous to me. The game show industry survived pretty well, but there were literally acts of Congress involved, as I recall, something we very much do not want in the online world.
I am always inclined to give developers a great benefit of doubt in these cases, in part because innocence is generally impossible to prove, and because, in my experience, the truth has a way of coming out in the end.
But, barring new information, it seems clear that a member of the CCP staff has cheated at his own game. This is a serious matter for a player, but for a member of the body that guarantees the integrity of the game, it is utterly unacceptable. This is beyond the misrepresentations we regularly pillory folks like Project Entropia and, lately, Second Life, for. This is a pretty fundamental violation of trust between customer and vendor, and is not in the least innovative, alas.
Worse, CCP appears to have covered up for this at all levels, and has failed to take the only course that assures customers of the integrity and fairness of the game, severing relations with the responsible parties. I wonder if White Wolf was aware of this when they agreed to the CCP buyout? I don’t know the details, but this might go beyond a question of morality, and into matters of legality, although I suspect not.
Fairness is not a disposable commodity in games, particularly in competitive games. This sort of behavior is bad enough in a free shard UO game. In a game where people all over the world pay money over the course of years, it is utterly unacceptable.
I do not generally advocate walking away from a game if you enjoy it, but in this case, barring further information radically altering my current understanding, or some major changes in CCP’s actions, I will so advocate, and so do.
Innovation is vital, but there are some things that cannot be sacrificed. One of those is the integrity of the game, without which, there is no point to playing.
#8 by tide on February 10th, 2007
this is as bad for MMO’s as the NGE. It’s open corruption. And the problem with CCP is that the “laissez-faire” policy they have to the game world has been used to justify their internal corporate culture and their own internal policy making towards the community. Saying “anything goes” in the game and “anything goes” outside the game, on their own forums and now with employee accounts, and not admitting any responsibility I think is really sleazy. And FWIW, it breaks their TOS. Yes, Eve is the most innovative MMO out there right now, unquestionably. But there’s no reason why the provider has to allow the kinds of bad behaviors we as players know from within the game to happen on their official forums and elsewhere. I think Eve started to become really over-aggressive as a game and community in the last 2 Quarters, as we saw more and more sleazy player actions being condoned by CCP through a policy of non-interference. And an unwillingness to enfore their TOS. Clearly, that corporate decision is being instilled in employees as well. Maybe this is CCP’s actual corporate culture? Regardless, you have a game and an RL playing community ratcheting up the h8 with each outrage. The end result being that CCP sees it has no responsibility to even act on TOS breaking actions for its own employees. And the crucial thing is that as time goes on and more and more examples of poor behavior and TOS violations happen, they *can’t* change. They realistically won’t be able to overhaul what’s going on their forums and what happening in game. Players know they’ve crossed a line with certain behaviors the provider won’t curb. And likewise they know how unlikely it is there’s similarly any new curbing or corrective action going on internally at CCP. So, it’s open season.
#9 by Rasputin on February 10th, 2007
“The blueprints in question will be returned to CCP and reintroduced through a new raffle in the future.”
Thus doing…what, really? You don’t need blueprints after you’ve already created the things, unless you run out. Given the amount of money these corps have, I’m sure they’re not going to run out for some time.
Fuck that noise.
#10 by Comstar on February 10th, 2007
Well the Blue prints were kepy by BoB for 6 months *after* CCP found out the dev gave them to them. The cheating was bad enough, but the coverup has made it worse.
#11 by TPRJones on February 10th, 2007
The game show industry survived pretty well, but there were literally acts of Congress involved, as I recall, something we very much do not want in the online world.
Somehow, I don’t think that discussion about t20 giving BoB a BPO is going to be showing up on CSPAN anytime. It’s going to take a heck of a lot more than this to be anything more than a slow news day story to anyone outside EVE, and not even that much to anyone else not obsessively watching the MMO blogsphere.
Perspective. It’s what’s for dinner.
#12 by Abalieno on February 10th, 2007
The developers of this company will always play the games that they build here. Without being fully immersed in the player experience, perspective, and community, it is impossible to build, maintain, and expand online worlds with any degree of competency.
Well, it’s false.
In the interviews on their E-On paper magazine some devs admitted that to not play much the game.
#13 by Evangolis on February 10th, 2007
TPRJones, probably not, Jack Thompson and company aren’t that bright. But consider some of the stupid crap that does make the evening news, with a little help from not so disinterested parties. Stealing BPOs? No. Defrauding customers and engaging in a corporate coverup? That is a much more newsworthy line.
#14 by Evangolis on February 10th, 2007
The more I look into the 1950 Quiz Show Scandal, the more I think it is history that may be of value to this industry. Hopefully, [url=http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/quizshow/peopleevents/index.html]this is a link[/url] to the PBS documentary about it.
#15 by Evangolis on February 10th, 2007
Rats, didn’t work. Oh well, I’m sure anyone who cares can figure it out. You youngsters with your fancy markup languages…
#16 by Alex Engel on February 10th, 2007
Well, to be honest, CCP *did* punish t20 at the time. Sayign things like “The end result being that CCP sees it has no responsibility to even act on TOS breaking actions for its own employees” is false. In the forum thread where Kieron, CCP’s community manager, answers community questions about the incident, he explains:
“Internally, this incident was discovered over the summer when the majority of the senior company staff was on vacation. This lead [sic] to the caution against taking more harsh measures such as termination of employment. T20 was punished at the time for his misconduct. To terminate t20’s employment now would appease some of the more emotional members of the community, but it would also be unfair to punish someone twice for the same misconduct.”
Kieron makes a good point, but I personally believe that t20 should be fired for his actions. Regardless, CCP is a company interested in making money, and they will take the appropriate actions to mantain their game. While it almost certainly will not appease the witch hunters, I do believe they will do what is necessary – not encessarily what the players want (or at least a vocal minority of them).
Comparing it to the $64,000 question seems premature; what we have here is not an intent to defraud their public, but rather a case of misconduct with an employee. There is no institutional policy within the company (at least, no evidence of it) to fraud their players. This is similar to any employee in any company using his or her position to gain favor. Perhaps the most analagous job is that of a policeman, where a policeman has access to all the laws, and the tools to best commit crime. They generally do not, however, since they are committed to their job and ideals. Those who abuse their position are fired and/or jailed. This is why I believe t20 shoudl be fired, but why I retain faith in the company.
#17 by Mist on February 11th, 2007
Remember what they say about publicity? While negative, this is all generating quite a lot of it for CCP. And ingame, things seem to be plodding along and continuing to develop. The parties involved in this whole affair are now embroiled in what everyone is calling Eve War I, which will easily be called the largest PvP battle in MMO history, with over 24,000 players actively participating in the war currently.
#18 by Dundee on February 11th, 2007
Evangolis, that’s not a link.
Quiz Show PBS documentary
That’s a link.
Sweet! Crocodile Dundee quote opportunity. I’ve been saving that for 15 years.
Alex Engel:
Kieron makes a good point, but I personally believe that t20 should be fired for his actions.
Personally, my tolerance for zero-tolerance is flagging.
Alex Engel:
This is similar to any employee in any company using his or her position to gain favor. Perhaps the most analagous job is that of a policeman, where a policeman has access to all the laws, and the tools to best commit crime.
Not so much to gain favor, but to gain a competitive advantage over the company’s customers. Those customers believe they’re competing with each other – not the company itself – and trusting the company isn’t playing favorites.
Police are punished extra harshly when abusing their authority, as compared to a civilian committing the same crime. Police are not fired for every single infraction.
There are disciplinary actions like suspensions and so on.
But… this is a game. This is more like discovering that the little league umpire at the last big game was little Billy’s uncle and so shouldn’t have been the umpire for that game.
Little league parents wouldn’t think this a trivial infraction, but it hardly calls for jail time.
The damage done here is to CCP. The betrayal of trust hurts them. If players cannot trust CCP unless this guy is fired, that’s one thing. But if they want him fired “just because”, well… I think that’s just hateful.
Only reason to do that is if players won’t trust CCP unless they do fire him. And I don’t believe that is the case.
But then, I’m just freshly irritated by Cartoon Network’s GM resigning over the Boston Mooninite Marketing thing, so a little biased against the “someone must be fired”-approach.
#19 by Lacero on February 11th, 2007
Alex Engel:
“Well, to be honest, CCP *did* punish t20 at the time. Sayign things like “The end result being that CCP sees it has no responsibility to even act on TOS breaking actions for its own employees” is false.”
The problem is the BPOs weren’t taken away at the time, so CCP have been caught in a lie. Did they knew the about the BPOs and left them in BPO’s hands? Or did they have only just find out about the BPOs and the original punishment for t20 was for him revealing that he was a Dev on the BoB forums?
The story just doesn’t add up, and when that happens you can’t blame people for thinking it’s the worst outcome possible. ie. Theres more juicy gossip that hasn’t come out yet.
#20 by Evangolis on February 11th, 2007
Just to be clear, I think the dev in question should be fired because, as a technical person myself, I think that personal integrity is my most valuable quality; the company puts their information in my hands, and they must be able to trust me implicitly, although they should routinely verify that I am trustworthy. I agree, the Cartoon Network executive is taking the fall for Boston’s incompetent response, and that is wrong, however, that is not zero-tolerance, IMO, it is scapegoating.
But for this matter, fire him, don’t fire him, that is a business decision, for the company to make.
What is so troubling here is that CCP appears to have attempted to conceal this matter from players. It looks like a cover-up worthy of any politician. Now governments generally have some concept of checks and balances these days, but between the customer and the company, there is a great imbalance of power. The company has all the information, and they can release it to the customer much as they choose; witness the extraordinary measure involved in exposing this matter.
The game operator is the referee, I must trust their impartiality. If I cannot do that, the game loses it’s point. For me, this point transcends all other matters about any game.
#21 by Amaranthar on February 11th, 2007
“The game operator is the referee, I must trust their impartiality. If I cannot do that, the game loses it’s point. For me, this point transcends all other matters about any game.”
Beyond that, the company’s reputation is at stake. Eve is a competative game, and this completely damages any sense of fair play. Why would other players want to compete in Eve if they know, as they now do, that GM cheating happens? Worse, that the company seems to not take it as seriously as they should?
I hate the idea of someone losing their job, but damn. What else can or should be expected?
From an industry standpoint, everyone in the industry who makes competative games should be hammering on this. This is beyond appearances, it’s proven. And it needs to be addressed with a heavy hand or no one is going to believe that
A) Eve tries to be honest and fair
B) MMOs try to be honest and fair
#22 by Heartless_ on February 11th, 2007
I hate the “EVE Attitude”.
#23 by Jeff Freeman on February 11th, 2007
If that had not been the case, then maybe this would be enough, “We have disciplined those responsible, implemented new controls to prevent it ever happening again, and you can trust us on that.” Because you would believe them.
But since they seem to have covered it up, you trust them less, and only a firing will do.
However, isn’t that just firing him for what they did?
People do stupid and even unethical things. They can be corrected. I believe experience is an excellent teacher, especially experience with failure and bad choices.
He’s the least likely guy to cheat that they’ve got now. Less likely than whomever his replacement would be, so most secure to keep him.
For the appearance of security, you’d go with the less-secure option of firing him?
Or, for the appearance of taking this matter extremely serious and demonstrating it will not be tolerated, go with the less-secure option of firing him?
Or, fire him because you really believe he can’t be trusted and is in fact not the most trustworthy employee they have now?
#24 by Abalieno on February 11th, 2007
People love sacrificial lambs
#25 by Andrew Crystall on February 11th, 2007
Okay..
They probably CAN’T (although he should of been) fire T20 for this. Because he’s allready been pubished once. You know what second punishment for the same offence means? Yep, wrongful dismissal lawsuit.
But they COULD move him back into the web cell.
I don’t think there’s a coverup doing on for one reason – timescale. I think the investigation is ongoing. Of course, this plays into certain peoples hands.
#26 by Apache on February 11th, 2007
when you’re snowed in 8 months of the year in Iceland, reality starts to blur away.
#27 by Evangolis on February 11th, 2007
No, I don’t think firing T2O would restore my trust in CCP. The matters are separate, although obviously related. I would have questioned keeping him on staff if CCP had been open about this; despite being a bleeding heart liberal, I don’t think the burned hand teaches much, in most cases. Alas. But if I were CCP ownership I would have fired him because I would see this as a violation of the company’s trust. But that is between the developer and the company, I am an interested bystander, and while I may disagree with the company’s choice, it is theirs.
The issue that really outrages me is that CCP has, in some capacity, known about this for months, and only came out with it because the cover-up failed. It is not the developer that I am angry with, it is the company, because the company has violated my trust. And, alas, there is only one choice for a consumer who does not trust a vendor.
#28 by Merkwurdigliebe on February 11th, 2007
Ouch. During my 11 months in Eve, I learned that you would make a lot of real world money two ways: Scamming and manufacturing. The only way to make money manufacturing was to have blue print originals. I never really understood their “BPO lotto” system, but now I do, hehe.
I also learned that a lesbian background story can get your character loads of free stuff.
#29 by Amaranthar on February 11th, 2007
It’s not about teaching this guy a lesson anyways. It’s about teaching future would-be-cheating employees that it will cost them to do it.
I don’t see how any of you guys (and especially Dundee because I know enough from you to have a high respect for) can overlook this. How are players supposed to feel playing a game that they know the fix was in, and the company didn’t do much about it untill they were called on it by the players? How many are going to quit because of this, and how much money is the company going to lose? How much will investors lose? How many other jobs will be ended due to cost cutting measures? Or is Eve filled with such rabid fans that this won’t happen?
You guys are being *more* than fair to this guy, what about everybody else that gets affected as a result of his actions?
And it’s not just this guy, but anyone else involved. They should mass ban the guild. They should fire any other employees who knew about this stuff or was otherwise involved.
#30 by Andrew Crystall on February 11th, 2007
Amaranthar,
CCP dosn’t have “investors”. It is owned by the founders. They don’t need to deal with stock issues. So far, about 200 people have said they’ll quit, and of course only a minority actually will.
“They should mass ban the guild”
Collective punbishment even when you’re not involved or aware? Okay, about 95% of the corperations in alliances in Eve need banning then, because RMT and account sharing are rampent.
#31 by Amaranthar on February 11th, 2007
Andrew, it doesn’t matter if there’s stocks or not, really. The folks who have a stake in the company will lose money one way or another. Any numbers appearant from message boards are pretty weak, you know that. How many of those account owners post? Pretty small percentage.
The affects of something like this can take time to show up, and then no one will know really how much of an effect this incident had on them. People who hear one way or another about GM cheating might actually quit over some other issue, but this one playing a leading role in their decision anyways. But who knows.
“Collective punbishment even when you’re not involved or aware? Okay, about 95% of the corperations in alliances in Eve need banning then, because RMT and account sharing are rampent.”
Really? That bad, huh? If this is even close to true, and you probably would know better than I because I don’t pay any attention to Eve at all, then maybe you’re right. Maybe very few will quit over this.
But that’s beside the point. There’s a huge difference between players doing these activities and cheating.
Are you saying that a guild that’s duping shouldn’t be mass banned? From the guilds standpoint, that would be a very similar situation, as they received valuables they shouldn’t have gotten “legally” playing the game.
#32 by Jeff Freeman on February 11th, 2007
Oh, I wouldn’t overlook it if I were his boss, employer, king of iceland or whatever they do there.
I just don’t know that I would immediately and necessarily fire the guy. I’m positive I wouldn’t destroy the company in order to not fire him, but ah…
‘Dunno anywhere near enough about this to have a clue what’s what.
#33 by Angry Bob on February 12th, 2007
Here’s what the drama so far shows. CCP employees will cheat and lie to win their own game, and do it at their pleasure, whenever, however, and as often as they want. Your sole role as a subscriber to their games is to provide a backdrop for their own personal egos, and nothing you do – no matter how well you do it – will affect the outcome. No matter how bad they might not be dominating, they will cheat in basically unlimited capacity to do whatever they feel like doing. And that’s going to go for the WoD game as well. Cheating, spying via support tools, spawning expensive gear, etc should make it a real treat.
And if you think this was the extent, or the end of this from CCP staff, you’re stupid as shit. Seriously. It’s the basic behavior for their personnel from all past indications. It’s a shame because I liked their skill system, but anyone defending any aspect of their handling of their in house cheating, let alone still giving them money, is a stupid tool.
#34 by Lacero on February 12th, 2007
One interesting thing is that before this the standard reply to any accusations of this sort was: “Why would anyone risk their job over a game?”
Now that’s been turned around: “If someone would risk their job over this, how much more have they done that’s too hard to prove?” and also “If they didn’t lose their job why would anybody else not do it?”
Trust based on punishment lasts until it’s broken I guess, maybe if it was based on open processes it would last longer. Or at least, not cause more distrust when broken.
Sorry for the grammar in my post above, I was tired when I wrote it.
#35 by Amaranthar on February 12th, 2007
Angry Bob, most employees aren’t going to do this sort of thing. The real problem comes when employees get to know eachother and become friends. It’s very easy to turn a blind eye to what your “friend” does. A person doesn’t want to think too badly of their friends and co-workers, and they certainly don’t want to cost them their job or future (despite what that person does to themselves).
Between this friendship thing and the companies desire to hide the fact for image reasons, they really got themselves painted in a corner. I don’t believe at all that they are all cheating, nor that the company supports it. I think it’s a combination of the above.
Jeff, yeah, you’re right, we don’t know enough hard facts. Alot of this is based on “hearsay”. But it does seem quite strong and CCP’s reactions certainly seem to bare this out. On the other hand, if it proves out that someone(s) are lying to get GMs in trouble, then I hope it does come out.
#36 by xaldin on February 12th, 2007
From way I look at it this is probably the norm for the industry. They just got caught this time. It happens. Even the KGB and CIA get caught in their shadowy actions sometimes (some more than others). Since its public now they’ll clean up the spill, maybe make an public scapegoat firing, but I strongly doubt they’ll reorganize the shelves to prevent future spills.
I tend to take the stance that any and all MMO’s I play there will be cheaters and/or manipulators from the company altering the gamescape. Adjust one’s choice of games and environments to minimize that as one can. Most all of them have had public oops if one looks for the data. Some just whitewash better than others.
#37 by Mist on February 12th, 2007
People are really blowing this way out of proportion. Sure, a dev cheated. But really, this only effects only some of the population, the particularly hardcore of an already hardcore game by industry standards. And I think the majority of those hardcore players are just glad the devs actually care enough to cheat.
#38 by Yunk on February 12th, 2007
I think ethical violations at work should be punished far more than stupidity or foolish mistakes, or even low performance. Those others can be worked through, maybe the person eventually must leave, but ethics is not something an adult just learns on the job. By the time you’re 20 you have it or you don’t.
If I were the employer this guy would be terminated. I usually don’t advocate “making an example” but in gaming strict rules are all important to the spectators/players or it breaks down.
I read a book on the Russian mob once, and an FBI agent being interviewed remarked how every major sports organization falls all over themselves to cooperate with them in investigations, since they are deadly serious about removing any doubt that the games are fair and according to the rules- except the NHL. They are the only major sports organization that doesn’t like cooperating with the FBI. And that’s a big part why in the 90s people assumed games were fixed by the mob. I think CCP is in the same boat.
#39 by Mauler on February 12th, 2007
How does the guy who has been proven that he is willing to do something become the guy least likey to repeat that action when he essentially got away with it the first time? The act of getting caught or even getting punished doesn’t make that person the least likely to do that action again. In fact they are still more likely to repeat the same mistakes than the person who has never done it. People don’t study recidivism rates because they are bored. Of all the things that it is, keeping him isn’t the most secure option.
#40 by Axecleaver on February 12th, 2007
This is a business problem. CCP’s mistake was in not having a clear corporate policy for this.
Developers with games in production, what is the company’s policy for your own games? If you don’t know what it is,
1. Your management is not doing their job, and
2. Your game is just as susceptible to this type of problem as CCP.
#41 by Jeff Freeman on February 12th, 2007
Knowledge that if he gets caught doing it again he’ll be fired for sure, coupled with the knowledge they’re going to be watching him especially, since he’s done it before.
‘Could be a bit of a stretch.
But no worries, folks!
When the recent allegations came to light, our Internal Affairs department immediately went to work
They have an internal affairs department. What more could you hope for?
#42 by Evangolis on February 12th, 2007
Well, if we are talking hope here, then let me put on the brown pants and sit down in the Armchair Designer’s lazyboy.
At it’s heart, the problem here if not morality, but power, as in, knowledge is power. Since the game company has all the knowledge, they have all the power, and thus the customer must expect transparency from the company, and if they do not get it, then they must assume the worst. See Angry Bob above, and others, for a clear summary of the worst.
Now there is a theoretical solution, namely sharing the information with the customer, but this has some obvious pitfalls.
What I’m saying here is make the game logs available to the player. I’ve long suggested making the player able to access some of his own logs so that the player could see for themselves that something that disappeared off his toon did so the last time he let his little brother play his account, and not because of some hinky software. You could expand that access to allow players to monitor the play in general.
The obvious problem is that players would use this information for espionage, reverse engineering, and just plain old cheating. So it is far from a magic wand. But it is one way of allowing players to have something more than the company’s word to depend on, which also has some painfully obvious problems.
#43 by Amaranthar on February 12th, 2007
“When the recent allegations came to light, our Internal Affairs department immediately went to work”
“They have an internal affairs department. What more could you hope for?”
Uhh, that they didn’t just form this Internal Affairs Dept. when this all came up…. with volunteers? hehehe
Axecleaver said:
“This is a business problem. CCP’s mistake was in not having a clear corporate policy for this.”
Yeah, this is something I’ve been posting for years. I’ve maintained that MMO companies need to stay as far away from players as possible. They should play their game, but they should do it anonimously. They should have very strict rules about this. Getting chummy with the players is the surest way to have problems, ligitimate or not.
#44 by Sweetmeat on February 12th, 2007
I have to agree with Angry Bob. I’d only been playing EVE for a couple weeks when it bacame pretty clear that the player population was full of sociopaths. CCP seem to think that it’s a great thing to have a player base who’s only ethical consideration is whether their friends have a big enough stick to beat down the friends of the guy they just shit on. I don’t see how the players could have any sort of illusions as to the trustworthyness or decency of CCP employees given the game they’re playing. Honestly I hope they can patch things up with the players though – I’d rather they didn’t feel the need to come screw up any of the games I’ll be playing.
P.S. They did do a good job with the economy. I think it may just be that there were enough people engaged in the market to actually have a true econmy work. Other games with fewer players per server tend to favor insane inflation since there are a very limited number of people offering things, they can charge a lot for them and buy out the competition if they get undercut. With EVE, there were just too many people offering things at a lower price to have the buy out all lower priced copies tactic work. Perhaps it would be good for other games to make their markets based on escrow across all servers to have economies work more smoothly.
#45 by Maylee on February 12th, 2007
“With EVE, there were just too many people offering things at a lower price to have the buy out all lower priced copies tactic work.”
Unfortunately, that’s the heart of the issue here. Tier 2 blueprints are required for the rarer items in game. There are only a handful of them given out in random lotteries. Some blueprints only have single-digit numbers of original copies of them.
Some new copies of Tier 2 bp’s have been seeded in the market recently, but some of the most valuable prints have yet to be touched, such as a valuable cloaking device for ships–a device which is almost essential for any alliance to do any sort of warfare or scouting.
Essentially, there is an economic power block based upon who owns those original blueprints.
When a dev admits to spawning these valuable prints (although only one of the blueprints he gave himself were incredibly valuable-the Sabre), then it throws the economic balance of the game into question.
#46 by Itzena on February 12th, 2007
CCP is now attempting to sweep this under the carpet. They’ve locked the comments thread, and are threatening to ban people for starting new threads on the topic.
#47 by Andrew Crystall on February 12th, 2007
Amaranthar, sure it does. That’s going to dictate the reaction at least to some degree. I said RMT and character sharing, not duping. And the IA department isn’t volunteers, although it wasn’t formed until January (which is off)
Angry Bob, well, yes. It simply dosn’t bother me.
Axecleaver..well apparently, they do. Just nobody outside CCP knows what it is. This isn’t unusual either.
Sweetmeat, interesting market idea.
Maylee, new cloak BPO’s were seeded some weeks back. It takes a good chunk of time for them to get into production because of ME research.
And yes, now they’re standing by their wholly inadequate remarks so far. Which is silly.
#48 by Jeff Freeman on February 12th, 2007
So one crazy thought is that this will ever be a problem when super-powered devs must play the game, and the only role there is for them to play is that of a mere mortal (with secret super powers).
Achaea’s approach appeals to that crazy thought.
But I’ve been on a lot of meds for the past four days or so and I might just be high.
#49 by B. Rockafeller on February 12th, 2007
Dudes are going back to WoW for this. CCP really let the players down on this one.
#50 by Andrew Crystall on February 12th, 2007
Jeff, to play devil’s advocate on that one…how valuable is the experience if they DON’T play as normal players?
A question…is it worth taking on interns who don’t get any special game abilities, but DO get to sit down with the developers responsible for systems on a regular basis and explain what issues they have with them? Do any MMO companies allready do this?