Eve: CCP Strikes Back « Broken Toys

29May/07Off

Eve: CCP Strikes Back

In an astoundingly detailed (with many screenshots of internal tools and emails), vehement and visceral news posting, CCP's internal affairs posts a detailed journal of their investigation, which concluded: Goonfleet deliberately attacked Eve Online.

Since last Friday, an unnamed corporation posted over 4000 times on EVE's message boards concerning these allegations. In addition, 1046 posts were made on Digg.com; 235 comments were added on Slashdot; and made multiple EVE-related edits on Wikipedia. Each of these sites was hit within a few hours of each other, at the start of the three-day Memorial Day weekend in the US and a three-day weekend in Iceland, all referencing unfounded allegations — now proven to be false — that occurred three weeks ago or longer.

The volume and timing of these near-simultaneous references is no coincidence: we were the target of a carefully constructed and well-timed social engineering effort by one of the largest player groups in our community. The intention? To undermine EVE Online and the credibility of CCP Games.

More specifically, the objective of this scheme was to permanently paint CCP as a biased and corrupt company that favors a select group of players over the rest of our community. In this particular case, instead of receiving notification of a possible problem and sufficient time to examine and address it, we faced a coordinated and hostile attack executed on our forums, Digg, Wikipedia, Slashdot, and other outlets at the beginning of a three-day weekend. We believe this speaks volumes of the intention of the person(s) responsible for orchestrating this scheme. Verification of this can be readily found on the forums of the people responsible—or at least could, the last time we looked.

Claims that the goal of this effort was to expose corruption within the company cannot be taken seriously. They are simply a smokescreen intended to mobilize and use the EVE community against CCP. There is no evidence to support the claim of information sent to CCP concerning internal corruption and wrongdoings on the part of our employees is being systematically suppressed.

The fact that this attack took place over a holiday weekend was especially revealing of motive, which we believe was specifically by design to ensure that CCP would not be able to react as fast and efficiently as we would under normal circumstances. The allegations investigated above by this internal affairs department will also be examined by our legal resources, as we do not intend to sit idly by while our servers, community and reputation are under attack.

It's not every day an MMO declares war on a huge segment of their own community. Then again, Eve is pretty damn hardcore.

Note that prior to this, public sentiment was pretty strongly against CCP's handling of the matter. It'll be interesting to see what the fallout from this is.

So. My opinions (and they are just that: opinions):

* The snapshots of dev tools looked genuine. (Although why they'd use web-based CS front ends makes me cry.) It either proves that the Goon guild in question did in fact request CS help weeks ago (the main element of their complaint was that they didn't), or that CCP has sunk to fabricating evidence (and if you believe that, there's nothing that will convince you otherwise). That debunks the most damning of the allegations, that a CCP dev was spying on Goonfleet for BoB.

* The volunteer canned for locking horns with BoB was briefly addressed, but not as conclusively as the above. It also wasn't as damning. When you have volunteers, you have drama. It comes with the territory. It's why most games that have volunteer programs have them very limited, and on a very tight leash.

* The BoB member bragging about having CCP devs on his IM list wasn't addressed at all. Let me look at my IM list real quick... I still have about 20 DAOC players on mine from when I worked there. It's not unusual at all, and certainly not evidence of wrongdoing. It's a very quick way to gain feedback, from the hardcore players who know more about the game than you do. Just because I would talk to DAOC TLs and the like doesn't mean I'd flip relics for them. Presumably CCP has online metrics to measure that sort of foolishness anyway... especially after being burned once already.

* Goons have a long and storied history of stirring things up. As a poster on somethingawful.com said,

To be quite honest I don't really put it past the Mittani (Goonfleet leader), moral scruples are not in his job description.

(Disclaimer: I played with a Goonguild on DAOC earlier this year for a few weeks. No one seemed to have horns or flaming hooves.)

* CCP to date has done a spectacularly bad job of community management. I haven't addressed this much publically, because it goes against my wish to never speak ill of competitors. But this could have been handled better. Much better. In particular, CCP has a habit of making posts they dislike not locked, but disappear. That makes it appear as though they have something to hide... even if they don't. And it gives credence to those who allege that they do.

PvP games are serious business. You have the hardest of the hardest core, looking for every advantage possible. And Eve is the hardest of the hardcore PvP game out there. If you're working on a game with a PvP component, there's a lot to learn from all this in how to run your own game - and how not to.

And as players, about the best advice you can get came from the normally tongue-tied CM Kieron:

If you think CCP is in the wrong, we welcome constructive dialogue and criticism. If you feel we as an entity are corrupt and abhorrent, we bid you good luck in finding a game and company that suits your interests. If you agree with our assessment, we thank you for sharing our opinion and ask that you continue playing EVE in your normal manner.

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w00t Radio - Jester
May 30th, 2007 - 09:29

Wow, the Drama goes on and on.

CCP has found its “Kobayashi_Maru,” its in a no win situation. Now can they pull a James T Kirk and beat it?

As far as the whole dismissal of this one volunteer reporter, this is no different than any in-game petition about a player’s mis-conduct, no company should ever release the full details of what happened to anyone but the person the action is being taken against. Volunteer or not the community has no right to knowledge about actions taken against anyone person. Everyone seems to forget this. There is a huge assumption being made here as to how and why this person was dismissed, the MSN part of it is probably something that was blown way out of proportion.

As to someone’s comments about there needing to be a policy for Devs / Staff to not have people from one guild on their MSN list.. that’s absurd. The Devs have players they know to be worth while for feedback or that are friends on their lists. It doesn’t matter what’s happened in the past with one dev and one group and who’s in that group or isn’t. Banning communication against one group is an unfair act that would be just as damaging as banning communication with the community as a whole in any method outside of forum posts.

As Lum’s said over and over, its not uncommon, hell I’ve got developers and community staffers from 6 different games (including EvE) on my various IM lists, it doesn’t mean I’m getting anything special in game out of it.

(btw I don’t play EvE, tried the 14 day trial and didn’t have the time to devote to it)

The worst part about all this is the player speculations.. most of the people posting are going off wild assumptions. This more than anything will simply cause the whole situation to deteriorate faster and faster.
Brask Mumei
May 30th, 2007 - 09:38

In cases like this, I always side with those with the best spelling ability. Sure, it’s unfair. But, all else being equal, it applies Darwinian pressures in the correct direction.
calenth
May 30th, 2007 - 09:39

“As Lum’s said over and over, its not uncommon, hell I’ve got developers and community staffers from 6 different games (including EvE) on my various IM lists, it doesn’t mean I’m getting anything special in game out of it. ”

Yeah, but in this case they admitted to getting something special — they got a petition handled extra-quickly, if nothing else. And CCP should really know better than to do ANY favors for BoB at this point.
Simond
May 30th, 2007 - 09:43

Devs playing their own game = A Good Thing.
Devs cheating at their own game = A Bad Thing.

It’s pretty simple, really.
Ken Sykora
May 30th, 2007 - 09:45

SA Goons get all the good drama…

Anxiously awaiting Tweety’s comments on all of this
Althalus
May 30th, 2007 - 10:08

Who admitted they were getting something special?
You say so because the BOB guy bragged about getting on the msn to have the ISD banned? And some other members then bragged about having DEVs on their MSN?

Fair enough, but as you can see in the evidence CCP provided, there was a PETITION raised in between. It was not “hey, my favorite DEV, this ISD guy is annoying me, ban him please” on the msn.

And what if the petition was quickly attended to? I have had petitions answered within minutes in times when everybody complained the petition queue was inmense! NO, i do not have DEVs friends at all!

What I see here, is the poor judgement on part of that particular BOB member who bragged about his friendship with some CCP employees, specially using it as a pressure point in a conflicting situation which led to the dismissal of the ISD guy. This is what sprung this abysmal situation, this, and the opportunism of the GOONs to take advantage and manipulate the situation as they saw fit.
Including lying about the POS petition (manipulating facts again) and also firing accussations of RP being rigged (which is as hilarious as someone acussing the WWF of being rigged and everyone tagging along in the “SCANDAL”).

The DEVs do not cheat, except for that T20 guy. And he WAS caught, wasn’t he?
JuJutsu
May 30th, 2007 - 10:15

“THe only way that makes sense is if BoB and CCP are essentially the same entity.”

That seems to be one of the points of contention for a while now…
DMX
May 30th, 2007 - 10:19

“The DEVs do not cheat, except for that T20 guy. And he WAS caught, wasn’t he?”

Uh. You really havent been following the drama have you?
Wolfe
May 30th, 2007 - 10:22

You dont spend thousands of hours building a giant gaming organisation without wanting to test its power. Once the devs of a game with such dedicated hardcore guild leaders will happily go along with the devs for a few various mishaps and other problems, but there is a fine line which easily can be crossed when the organisation turns hostile for real.

When you feel like you have built your organisation enough other goals will direct the development of the guild. Often these are related to taking on powers above and fight the real battle. The leader can snap from hearing a wierd rumor, or having a friend getting banned for exploiting. If the game then supports the development of guilds with far more than thousands of active members even the devs can get in some real trouble.
Althalus
May 30th, 2007 - 10:26

I think it was proved that

1- The POS stuff was a Goon lie. There was indeed a petition.

2- That having the RP events scripted or not, is not cheating. CCP has the right to decide the backstory of their game and how it will evolve. If it is predefined who will win a RP encounter, then so be it.

3- The banning of the ISD guy was over an ingame PETITION and not an MSN chat. Regardless some people at BOB know the DEVs and talk to them and blah blah blah which has nothing to do with what the goons claimed.
only a Player
May 30th, 2007 - 11:32

I’am a eve – Player, I’am no Goon, no BOB no friend of both.

But that what CCP is talking is total Bullshit. Their Devs,GMs and ISD’ler are corrupting the game, they play in the giant Alliance and gave them internal tips so they can faster use special tactics and much more. This realy sucks.

I dont will probite CCP Employees to play the game but they dont should play on corps or alliances where they have such a BIG influence on the game.
kalain
May 30th, 2007 - 11:54

People seem to be following this in a very halfarsed manner.

1) POS stuff: some contention about what the petition was over. Wouldn’t the Easy method of this be for CCP to send an evemail to the petitioning player saying “hey, goofball, it was this petition you put in”. Now it’s trusting the player to come forward to his corpmates, but as is it’s all wordplay. “you had a POS petition” “no we didn’t” “err, a bp petition” “yeah, a month ago..” Easy way to clean house is to simply tell the petitioning player what it was about, and talk to your people about talking with the CEO about it too.

2) Nobody’s said anything about the RP events being cheating in this case, it’s about them being declared open ended, but secretly being rigged to only have one ending. It may leave people Feeling cheated, but it’s entirely an issue about CCP’s event staff lying to the playerbase. Confirmed or Disproven, whatever. I can’t really figure out who is right in that one.

3) The ingame petition vs MSN chat thing is entirely subjective at this point. The banned ISD rep’s logs are damning, if true. It’s entirely simple (and I’ve done it in prior games!) to MSN your friend on the dev staff, he says put in a ticket, you do, and the dev you IMed immediately picks up that ticket and does it. It’s the same as calling a friend on the helpdesk, they want a ticket, but they can easily search your name in the queue and pick it up instantly. It IS cheating the system and using an out of game channel to get shit done quickly. I’ve never done anything like that to escalate a ticket in an MMO, but I have definately bitched to a DAOC contact to have a certain ToA ring brought to the item goddesses attention for having a really useless charge (mana 3 on a minstrel only quest reward, woo?). Out of game contact with players? Good. Using said contact to actively have shit go your way? Bad.

4) The entire reason this is a dramatic episode is a lack of closure on the t20 incident (Nothing Happened…. *t20 confesses* … Okay so that happened, but we knew at the time.. no, we didn’t just lie 15 minutes ago, trust us from now on.), followed by instantly deleting any thread simply asking about the sharkbait thing (not accusing, simply going “whyfor did sharkbait do this?”, deleted and banned.) The easy defusing of all this would have been a mod IMing sharkbait and saying “hay, why?” then posting “in response to a petition, sorry for the lack of communication”.

All of this comes down to PR, and CCP’s PR having knowingly lied in a prior incident to keep CCP from looking bad. At this point you have a HUGE barrier to cross to get people to instantly trust you. Instead they’re just brushing it aside like their reputation is completely clean and nobody would ever doubt their word.
Pentagony
May 30th, 2007 - 11:58

I really don’t understand how people just *assume* BoB and the devs are cheating together. To respond to post 61, I mean…how exactly do you know that they are given internal tips?

CCP might not be the best at PR, but they’d have to be total morons to actively cheat at their own game. What sort of good business sense is that? It’s so outlandish, I just can’t believe it unless I see some hard evidence.

I’m willing to assume that CCP is at no fault. These *heard-it-through-the-grape-vine* accusations just aren’t enough for me.
Lacero
May 30th, 2007 - 12:01

“CCP might not be the best at PR, but they’d have to be total morons to actively cheat at their own game.”

That argument became reversed the moment t20 confessed. It’s not “how mad would they have to be to do this?” any more, it’s “how much other stuff are they mad enough to do now they’ve done this?”
Purina
May 30th, 2007 - 12:02

The sad side effect of this situation is that BoB is the ONLY winner at the end of the day; either they gain credibility when their greatest detractor leaves, or they gain credibility because CCP ’saved’ them from the ‘real’ bad guys. If even a hair of the allegations that BoB has *ever* recieved *any* favors from *any* dev at *any* time are true, then this assault on a single demographic is clearly the wrong message to send to the playerbase as a living entity, and as paying customers.

What happens next time, when it’s YOUR corp who is singled out for no response, then threatened with legal action IRL? BTW – legal action IRL? ROFL @ubvman’s illustration of asshattery (post #31)… the demonstrable hubris of a company who can’t keep its own devs from doling out freebies to pet players, and then threatens the RL material safety and well-being of a paying customer who challenges this obvious violation of trust and inequitable treatment, is absurd.

Regading the allegation that GF is ‘not a part of the community’… the mere posting of such an assertion puts the lie to itself. Just as surely as you pay your dues to play, they do too, and that makes them part of the community, including all of the attendant benefits of company support for reported issues. If not, then all of the claims GF has made are lent both legitimacy and consequence – and for any who contest such a neutral assessment, I suggest you step down from your soapbox and rejoin the community as an equal.
Merusk
May 30th, 2007 - 12:02

“Metagaming is for punks. Growing up in Chicago’s Little Italy neighborhood, I remember a guy trying to “metagame” while shooting craps. He got all the fingers on his shooting hand broken and an eye put out. Now that’s “hard core gaming”.”

You really don’t understand MMOs and large-pvp do ya. The Metagame is everything in Eve. It controls popular opinion, politics and who sides with who and for how long.

Lum, as mentioned, you missed the part where the complaint wasn’t about the petition actually answered, but about one that nobody recalls filing.

Ah well, the game’s over now, time to sell off the account to someone who’ll stick around for the bitter end.
Taerkar
May 30th, 2007 - 12:08

Kalain has it right. Goonfleet was ready to accept a rational response from CCP if one was given. The whole ‘Threadnaught’ was a backup approach if no answer was recieved before. CCP has shown in the past that they’ll happily censor, edit, or outright ignore anything based upon their ’sometimes applied, sometimes not’ EULA.

An EULA which is suspiciously flexible for certain individuals, such as the forbidden account sharing method, unless you really believe one person is playing the game constantly 23/7 and has a Multiple Disassociative Personality syndrome at the same time.

The enforcement and lawyering of the game is a laugh and most people know it.

As for the RP events, when they’re rigged and the players don’t know what side is rigged or which one will win in the end (Which can cost them significant amounts of ISK if they lose their ship), then there is something unfair about it.
Althalus
May 30th, 2007 - 12:20

Purina, legal action threat is probably because of forum spamming (thousands of threads in pages that only display 30 threads each). Those threads were nothing less than coordinated attacks. They had to take the forums down to eventually delete them all. Even if it is not, it reminds me of DoS attacks. It can cost a company money, *any* company, and as such they have the right to sue the perpretarors.

Hundreds of diffamayory threads on other sites, also coordinated (at the same time as the previous ones) can also be tagged as libel.

Of course, I am not into laws, i admit it, but i doubt CCP will just go forward with this. They might just be warning them that if they continue with the same stuff, then they could really be targets of legal action.

But legal action is definitely not for attacking BOB or stating a point of view on the forums, in a NORMAL WAY (NORMAL WAY != THOUSANDS OF SPAM POSTS).
How childish do you think they are?
Simond
May 30th, 2007 - 13:13

“How childish do you think they are?”
At this precise moment?
Noel
May 30th, 2007 - 14:15

My favorite part about this whole thing is that the SA folks somehow think that the game is over because they don’t want to play anymore. EVE was around long before they got there, and will be around long after they leave. A belief in the importance in oneself does not necessarily equate to that belief being true.
Ironwood
May 30th, 2007 - 14:18

See, when you come out saying ‘The Devs don’t cheat except for that one time’ you’ve lost all your fucking credibility.

I’m amazed you don’t get that.
lightpole
May 30th, 2007 - 14:21

Goonfleet once had a GM join their forums on a lark. Within a day he was threatened with being fired if he stayed. This is the extent of the Goonfleet interaction with CCP. Seems pretty fair that BoB gets IM access to the same people.
mikem
May 30th, 2007 - 14:34

The Mittani is the Henry Kissinger of the EVE community. Not only is is EVE a better place without him, but the smell of information doesn’t reek of lies and deception.

If he really wants ruin EVE all he needs to do is keep up his account and actually play the game. That would do it.
Wanderer
May 30th, 2007 - 14:35

Threatened by whom?
Simond
May 30th, 2007 - 14:43

CCP, of course.
Pentagony
May 30th, 2007 - 14:51

“See, when you come out saying ‘The Devs don’t cheat except for that one time’ you’ve lost all your fucking credibility.”

Who’s “the devs”? All of them? That one guy t20? One guy named t20 is an idiot and all the sudden “OMG all of CCP is CHEATING!” It’s pretty sad when one guy stands for the entire development team. You are right about one thing…because of this one guy, t20, people perceive the devs the same way you do.
kalain
May 30th, 2007 - 14:55

As the sotry goes, Goons met a GM at a fanfest, make friends (I’m sure like everyone else on the series of tubes, they’re nice folks in person).

GM registers forum account, laughs it up (someone posted all said GM’s posts on goonfleet’s forums, they seemed harmless if that was all of it), GM is informed by his boss that he’ll be canned unless he leaves those forums immediately. GM requests his forum account be deleted.

It simply makes the “associate with whoever you like outside the game” thing hollow, like not all of CCP is playing on the same ethics rulebook. Either you can chat with friends all you like outside the game world, or you can’t chat with friends as a known CCP employee. Pick, and enforce equally. The logical one is “post anywhere you like, just no altering the game world for friends, duh.” But as is, it looks as if at the very least the GM’s boss had some hatred for either posting on message boards, or Goons, and cracked down on that GM.
kalain
May 30th, 2007 - 14:59

@77:

No, at CCP’s PR. They clearly stated “Nobody cheats nothing bad happened” about the t20 incident.

HOURS later, t20 confesses. CCP’s PR changes it’s story to “yeah, we knew about THAT when it happened, and just didn’t do anything”

THAT kills your credability. And a PR rep with no credability is completely worthless to a company, because you’ve now got a huge “prove you’re not lying to me AGAIN” wall to climb.

The t20 thing didn’t destroy CCP’s reputation because t20 cheated. It destroyed it because CCP knew about it and kept it quiet, then when faced with evidence lied about it, then when t20 finally confessed they played the poor innocent victim, when all of it would have been spun in their favor if they just burned him at the stake when they first caught him, or at least copped to it. Lying and getting caught is just PR suicide.
Shar
May 30th, 2007 - 15:42

Meh, it’s impossible to discuss on any level. Goonz are the ultimate Troll, chuckling, net-savy, eric cartmans, rotten to the core and proud of it. As a long time EVE player it’s delicious to see them feel so done-wrong by, and the faster they actually carry through with their threats and leave EVE, the sooner we can go back to pewpewing with our pixalated spaceships, having fun.

Just like we did before the Goonz came.
Calenth
May 30th, 2007 - 16:32

“JuJutsu | 30-May-07 at 10:15 am | Permalink

“THe only way that makes sense is if BoB and CCP are essentially the same entity.”

That seems to be one of the points of contention for a while now…

”

Yeah. My point is that since that argument makes sense to CCP, clearly that’s how CCP sees things, at least on some level.

IN other hilarious news, “Pos bowling” with titans — repeatedly declared a non-exploit as long as BoB titans were doing it — just got declared an exploit. Why? Because Evil Thug did it to BoB. . . .it’s biases like that that are why the whole MSN list thing is so important. They aren’t just contacts — they’re friends, and the developers see the game through the lens of BoB and allies first, everyone else second.
Simond
May 30th, 2007 - 16:35

“The t20 thing didn’t destroy CCP’s reputation because t20 cheated. It destroyed it because CCP knew about it and kept it quiet, then when faced with evidence lied about it, then when t20 finally confessed they played the poor innocent victim, when all of it would have been spun in their favor if they just burned him at the stake when they first caught him, or at least copped to it. Lying and getting caught is just PR suicide.”
Plus, you know, T20 still has his job at CCP (*whisper* and only had his play-character moved to Corelli Corp. – who are BoB pets. */whisper*)
=j
May 30th, 2007 - 16:56

This is the natural progression of this sort of large scale PvP game. One alliance WILL achieve domination. They start winning, most players want to be winners, so the join the winning alliance. Things snowball. If one of the loosing alliances is organized enough (duh, this IS large scale PvP), they will claim that $EMPIRE_ALLIANCE is only winning because they have help from the devs. CCP already having a PR black eye does not help matters. Will a PAX BoB endure forever when all of 0.0 is under their control? Large primate social dynamics dictate that it will not.
Calistas
May 30th, 2007 - 18:15

Yeah, CCP are failing to learn what the rest of us learned years ago:
- You NEVER delete threads unless you absolutely have to. You merge, lock, edit, etc, but you NEVER delete. Deleting, as Lum says, makes you look like you’re hiding something. It’s better to flame and abuse your customers than to delete their comments (it’s also more fun).

- You reply QUICKLY to problems. Even if it’s just a “we’re going to look into it”.

- In a team based game MAKE SURE if you’re talking to one side you are talking to the other as well. If the devs have BOBs on MSN, they should ensure they have a couple of goons on there as well. This could have prevented a lot of the agro we see now.

Silly CCP. They’re losing customers because of this.

Calistas
Simond
May 30th, 2007 - 18:49

That’s the worst part – the overwhelming majority of CCP isn’t corrupt, just inept.

Firing their community manager and replacing him with someone even vaguely suited to the role would be nice, though…I haven’t seen overt hatred towards the playerbase like this since days of yore when Abashi bestrode Whineplay like an angry colossus.
Servitor
May 30th, 2007 - 19:10

This all just so…ugly. From every angle, even assuming no intentional wrongdoing on either side. While I don’t like to go judging when all I have is information from two biased sources, it seems like better communication and better organization could have made this into a non-issue. I will say that there’s a lot of conjecture going on in that Goonfleet statement. The ire over who has which CCP employee on MSN in particular–do you know how many people LIE and say they have X dev or CM or GM on instant message? There’s no way anyone can know for sure who’s talking to whom on private channels.
kalain
May 30th, 2007 - 19:40

The difference is, I lie and say “zomg, I’ll call my dev friend on you”, and nothing happens.

When someone goes “zomg, I’ll call my dev friend on you”, and a DEV SHOWS UP, there’s a problem. A major, firing offense level problem.
Ibn
May 30th, 2007 - 20:25

Kalain: What if you lie and say, “zomg, I’ll call my dev friend on you” and then a dev just happens to show up? Maybe because someone else filed a complaint through the correct channels?

I’m not saying that’s what happened here, but I’m saying that it DOES happen. I’ve seen it happen first-hand, from the dev point of view.

Player A files an abuse report, “Player B is cheating.” In-game support begins investigating. Meanwhile player C says to player B, “Dude dont mess with me I know someone at the company!”, total bluff. But then player B gets banned for cheating. What happens? Player B posts on every forum imaginable about the horrible terrible unfair cheating gits who work for the developer.

Again, I’m not saying that’s what happened re: CCP. I’m just saying that it DOES happen, I’ve seen it happen, and it sucks. People just LOVE to believe in conspiracies.
Big Gulp
May 30th, 2007 - 21:03

Ibn,

The problem with EVE is that petitions normally take WEEKS to resolve, and here’s BoB saying, “We’ll sic a dev on you”, and lo & behold, one shows up in minutes.

I’m willing to believe in coincidences, but only so far.
Fmaricus
May 30th, 2007 - 21:11

GMs are demanding to know the ingame persons name who wrote the follow up reply for goonswarm.

Looking to ban someone for writing on a website like they did kugutsumen?
OR
To tell him what a great article he wrote?
Shar
May 30th, 2007 - 21:35

Meh. Goonz are on a web campaign. No real debate can be had. They don’t want debate.

I’m content to let the company that makes their living off of EVE, the company that created it…. to manage it. Goonz are a web phenom, and a poisonous one at that. To suggest that Goonz are the arbiters of law and fairness in this situation…

Gah.

o/ Goonz. Keep up the post’n.
Drogo
May 30th, 2007 - 22:10

I will be curious to see what kind of fallout all of this negative PR has on the next game released from CCP. I have always thought that EVE’s drama on forums far exceeds its player base. How many of these people will seriously consider avoiding future CCP games because of the perception of developer cheating in the company?

Bad word of mouth about a game can kill it in its infancy, but what about bad word of mouth about the company creating it?
Viz
May 30th, 2007 - 22:39

What amazes me most about this thread are the people responding to reports of dev misfeasance (if not malfeasance) by saying “GoonFleet are assholes, so they deserve it.”

It’s this kind of puerile ends-justify-the-means argument that leads to REALLY big trouble.
Hkedi
May 30th, 2007 - 22:47

Love the taste of game breaking drama popcorn. Played the game a bit, but it never quite caught. Still, with all of the stuff going on in all of the forums, it gives the best empirical proof to the question:

“If God exists, why dosn’t he answer prayers anymore?”

(Too much drama).
Montague Zooma
May 30th, 2007 - 23:26

One point I haven’t seen anyone make about CCP’s implied threat that they might sue Goons over the threadnaut: anyone who posts on the Eve forum has *paid* for the privilege to do so.

Suing your customer for using the product he paid for isn’t a good idea.

And as for all the bad publicity killing off Eve…I expect thousands of gamers will check out the free trial to see what all the fuss is about. Eve will grow, not die, because of this scandal.
Drogo
May 31st, 2007 - 00:00

I think EVE is the true test of “Any publicity is good publicity.” I think in this instance the old maxim will prove incorrect. I would expect their number of new subscriptions will drop, but time will tell who is correct.

The often misquoted, “Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me” will go into effect in my opinion. People who would have forgiven CCP for the single T20 incident are not likely to forgive again.

Anyone following EVE from the outside will not likely see an isolated developer cheating incident, but a continuing problem within the company itself.

I would place a fair man’s bet that in six months EVE has less subscribers than it did before this incident. I believe that EVE has entered its decline, but only time will tell. What is certain is CCP has definitely not helped its cause.
Matthew
May 31st, 2007 - 00:58

you lost me completely when you said “PvP games are serious business”.
Ross Smith
May 31st, 2007 - 02:16

If it achieves nothing else (like that’s a daring prediction), this whole mess has at least given the world final conclusive proof of the First Corollary to Hanlon’s Law: Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.
Nicademus
May 31st, 2007 - 08:51

Damn, when you use 18 point type against a white background you KNOW they’re serious.
lightpole
May 31st, 2007 - 10:14

Viz if you take a look at the Eve forums you will find that most people are polarized into two seperate camps on this issue and in game. Due to the nature of the game there is very little respect for the other side and trolling is rampant. Add in the fact that you can post as anon as you want and you come up with a whole bunch of fingerpointing and very little intelligent discussion. The chances of either group seeing eye-to-eye is small enough but CCP’s constant mishandling of their playerbase makes it even worse.

For all the labels goonfleet has, name one group of people who would introduce thousands of people to a game just because they thought it was a terrible product and wanted to destroy it (goonsLOL). Because of the way character progression works it would be more effective to create trial accounts to destroy the server and enjoyment of others then it is to lose a paid account.
xaldin
May 31st, 2007 - 10:21

“It’s this kind of puerile ends-justify-the-means argument that leads to REALLY big trouble.”

Well it is used constantly in the government and seems to work out. Least for some.

Pvp games are like this. Its a given really. Story of dev cheating at their own game strikes me as a ‘well duh’. With so many ‘hidden’ mechanics to the overall system its a forgone conclusion despite protests to contrary. Individuals may or may not but there’s a lot of individuals involved, and that means a lot of different moralities.