Jumpgate: EVE's Devs and the Friends They Keep

[hippoking [deprecated]]

OK, I just read the second article (Remedial's interview), and it's far better.

The only real inaccuracy there is saying T20 was responsible for the design of the T2 lottery: he was Web Cell (handling eve-online.com, rather than the game) until about 10 months ago, when he moved onto UI development (still nothing to do with balance, content othe T2 lottery). The T2 lottery was introduced more than 3 years ago.

Obviously this a problem with Rem's info rather than the Escapist's journlism in the case.

All in all though, a far better article.

 

[Andrew Crystall [deprecated]]

Virgil, WHAT? Kugutsumen *is* a real criminal. That means I have to ask a question, which won't make me very popular arround here, but I feel I have to ask, at this point: Did you pay Kugutsumen for his participation in the article?

Goonfleet used client-side hacks, and I am appalled that you are giving them airtime as well.

As for the power-absuing GM, he was fired very quickly. The mess over the loot was because the GM refused to tell the character (who had killed and looted a number of ships) exactly what he SHOULD hand back. Which frankly stinks in itself.

For that matter, one fine day about two years ago I was with a gang which jumped and killed two very nicely fitted battleships in the middle of nowhere. As it turned out, they were journalists doing an article on Eve, and has been GIVEN the ships to help write it.

There is smoke, but the fire is all comming from people who have vested interests in what they are doing. The real-life money equivalents given by Remedial..well..that's no coincidence either.

For example, Cap Recharger II's are a complete anomily and his mentioning them is scaremongering. No other T2 BPO has anything LIKE their profit margin. This is because all but two of the BPO's were bought up by one person, and price fixing ensued. Of the rest of the BPO's, even the best of the "ludicrously profitable" Heavy Assualt BPO's produce less than 15% of the profit of the Cap II BPO's.

The "changes" CCP make need to involve, as a START, the banning of Remedial and ALL the member of Hackfleet (and, note, the members of the ISS navy, BoB allies who also did it..) at the time they hacked the client. Anything else is plain and simple discrimination by CCP. HackFleet claiming moral the high ground is sickening.

 

[Twisted Perspective [deprecated]]

The "changes" CCP make need to involve, as a START, the banning of Remedial and ALL the member of Hackfleet (and, note, the members of the ISS navy, BoB allies who also did it..) at the time they hacked the client. Anything else is plain and simple discrimination by CCP. HackFleet claiming moral the high ground is sickening.

CCP are hardly likely to do that when they gave us written permission to use it.

 

[Shannon Drake]

You can't be serious. No, we didn't pay him. I mean, there's reasonable debate, and then there's hysterical charges, and you're rapidly moving into arm-flailing hysteria.

 

[Serenity Steele [deprecated]]

Granted that this article is an editorial, however there are some points that need clearly to be set straight.

- K* hacked access to the forums, which is simply criminally illegal.
- The CCP Dev's error of judgment helped a corporation Reikoku
- Reikoku is 1/6 corporations in the 1900 player BoB alliance.
- The Reikoku corporation of 470 players, less than 5 were aware of the 10 BPOs (items)
- The 10 BPOs (items) given were all the least valuable items in the game - ammunition
- The combined value of all 10 BPOs (items), could be earned by a single player in 30 days of game-play.
- There are 150,000 player accounts in EvE, any of 148,100 could have been the single player joining Reikoku to have the same effect as the Dev's transgression.

To put it in perspective: The action cannot be condoned, however the net effect on the game balance, play, characters receiving the goods is less than 1 extra player joining the BOB alliance.

This does not condone the actions of the CCP Developer, however it could explain why it slipped under their radar in the first place.

Does this make K* a whistle-blower genius?
Only if you think a lazy cashier who watches a dime drop into the cuff of his jeans and can't be bothered to pick it up is tantamount to being Ken Lay.

 

[Shannon Drake]

Small note, SS. The Sabre blueprint listed in Vincent's confession post is a Tier 2 ship [http://www.eve-online.com/itemdatabase/ships/interdictors/minmatar/22456.asp]. An Interdictor is not quite enough to win a battle on its own, but it's still a pretty useful print to have.

 

[Joshua Foiritain]

CCP are hardly likely to do that when they gave us written permission to use it.

Was that before or after they announced it was an exploit? Oh wait i remember, that never happened

 

[Andrew Crystall [deprecated]]

Twisted Perspective, I'm afraid I'll need evidence of that.

Shannon Drake, why not? The entire thing is being driven on hysteria, and more ridiculous things are being said. Like Twisted Perspective's statement.

 

[LxDarko]

This thread is starting to smell like something from a MMO forum not something from an Escapist message board.

This story isn't about the source of the information you can debate that for days, is he a criminal, or just a formerly concerned player and so on.

But, the main point of the article is about devs cheating at their own game. Which is something that many people had been suspecting for a very long time.

 

[Carrie Byron [deprecated]]

This thread is starting to smell like something from a MMO forum not something from an Escapist message board.

This story isn't about the source of the information you can debate that for days, is he a criminal, or just a formerly concerned player and so on.

But, the main point of the article is about devs cheating at their own game. Which is something that many people had been suspecting for a very long time.

I'm agreeing with this.

I'm not an EVE player, but the issue of non-players (GMs and higher ups) cheating in MMO's is interesting to me. It doesn't matter to me how the information brought to light, or whether or not rival alliances are supposedly doing some in-game cheating. All that pales in comparison to the real issue at hand: DEV INTERVENTION.

That goes beyond any other sort of in-game cheating or how the issue came to light. The EVE players who are muddying the debate here with petty arguments about what alliance exploited what and attacking the integrity of the source should really gain some perspective.

This is all I see as an outsider: devs cheating comes to light, devs confirm it, punishment of devs insufficient. Period. Anything else should be debated on EVE-centric forums because I honestly don't care.

(As an aside, the comments ARE a testament to how passionate EVE players are about their own game, which is a big positive for the game in my book).

 

[Andrew Crystall [deprecated]]

Carrie Byron, sure - as soon as Kugutsumen is serving 5-10 inside we can forget about him.
The precident being set here is that any method is acceptable for exposing dev misconduct, legal or illegal. I'm afraid I consider this reprehensible. That a second interview can possibly discuss "why" he was banned, UGH!

I have no love for CCP or BoB. But this goes far beyond them, and beyond Eve.

 

[goonygoon [deprecated]]

Carrie Byron, sure - as soon as Kugutsumen is serving 5-10 inside we can forget about him.

Don't hold your breath, he lives in Indonesia. If you haven't noticed, their hacking laws are lax. He isn't going to be sent off to prison, no matter how much the BoB muppets cry for it.

The precident being set here is that any method is acceptable for exposing dev misconduct, legal or illegal. I'm afraid I consider this reprehensible. That a second interview can possibly discuss "why" he was banned, UGH!

If somebody exposes dev corruption through hacking, does that somehow lessen the validity of the accusation? Absolutely not. T20's admission has actually given him more credibility than he had before. The man is a security expert, and at this point I trust him more than CCP.

Also, since when is it CCP's job to enforce laws on somebody, even if they don't apply to that person?

I have no love for CCP or BoB. But this goes far beyond them, and beyond Eve.

That's what all the BoB muppets are saying right now, after they try to use ad homenim attacks on the source of the information. I think that your side in this needs to learn how to separate the game and reality here. I mean come on, you can't even separate your in-game adoration of BoB (not to mention your irrational hatred of the SomethingAwful Goons) from the out-out-game reality that there was a dev in BoB that did hand them ill-gotten T2 BPOs, while ignoring all the exploiting that was going on around him. Yelling "they exploit too!" doesn't somehow lessen the validity of the facts we have here.

If you want to cry about your hatred of goons and how they barged into your house and shit in your pillowcase, and then had sex with your cat, just go back to Eve-O already, because they aren't the issue here.

 

[Echolocating]

Though I'm sure an emotional EVE player would like Vincent "t20" P fired... I don't think it would solve anything. The investigation committee that CCP has planned is a logical and expected step, but if CCP was to truly amend for their indiscretion, they'd would simply not allow any CCP employee to play EVE Online.

Sounds even harsher, if you ask me, but I can confidently say that Vincent's poor decisions were not the first of its kind... just the sloppiest of its kind.

CCP developed a game in which people pay money to compete against one another in a supposedly fair arena. Though some people want to focus on Kugutsumen and real world illegal activities. I have to wonder if CCP is "criminally negligent" for allowing their employees to disrupt a real world pay service.

Regardless, it'll be interesting to see what this investigation committee offers the player community. I mean, will they operate behind closed doors... or will they offer their findings to the public? Will they just serve as another layer of bureaucracy, a cushion between CCP and the player-base?

This is better than TV. ;-)

 

[Carrie Byron [deprecated]]

Carrie Byron, sure - as soon as Kugutsumen is serving 5-10 inside we can forget about him.
The precident being set here is that any method is acceptable for exposing dev misconduct, legal or illegal. I'm afraid I consider this reprehensible. That a second interview can possibly discuss "why" he was banned, UGH!

I have no love for CCP or BoB. But this goes far beyond them, and beyond Eve.

If a BoB leader or T20 or someone decided to do the right thing and confess (or never cheat in the first place), would that suddenly change the veracity of T20's late confession or the fact that CCP sat on this for months? That doesn't make any sense. The information is out there, and THAT information we're debating. How that information came about is a seperate debate.

Keep the debate about the potential for developers and GMs to swing the game they work for to one way or another.

 

[Andrew Crystall [deprecated]]

Why? Unethical behavior by CCP is no excuse for unethical behaviour by others.

goonygoon, I suggest you read up about evidence admissable in court. How information is gathered DOES matter. A lot. I am not BoB. You're flailing blindly in the dark looking for a target to draw away the repeated attention given to the Goon's client side hacking.

My hatred of the goons is entirely rational, based on their behavior every single time I have encountered them both online and IRL. If you don't want the lable, then change how you behave. That a community which specalises in muckraking crys foul when it gets raked itself...

 

[Joe]

Andrew, I think the mistake you're making is trying to hold the rules of evidence of the American legal system up to situations where it doesn't apply. Discovery doesn't apply here because Kugutsumen isn't suing or prosecuting CCP. There's no onus on him (or on CCP - I'm sure they monitor in-game chat and emails without "warrants," too) to conduct himself within the framework of a legal entity.

To parallel Watergate, you're basically saying Deepthroat shouldn't have been trusted because the information he was leaking was classified, and telling civilians about it was illegal and therefore invalid. It just doesn't work that way outside of philosophy textbooks and the courtroom.

 

[Bongo Bill]

I've been playing EVE for over 2 years so I'm qualified to comment on this on-going-shit. There is no way CCP or it's fanboys can spin this crap it's cheating and dishonesty plain and simple!

Help me understand what's going on here. I'm sure there's still details I'm missing.

The cheater was punished appropriately, right? If this is the case, what's the big deal?

 

[Carrie Byron [deprecated]]

Why? Unethical behavior by CCP is no excuse for unethical behaviour by others.

Players don't pay a monthly fee and expect products and/or services from Kugutsumen. They do so from CCP.

 

[Serenity Steele [deprecated]]

Small note, SS. The Sabre blueprint listed in Vincent's confession post is a Tier 2 ship [http://www.eve-online.com/itemdatabase/ships/interdictors/minmatar/22456.asp]. An Interdictor is not quite enough to win a battle on its own, but it's still a pretty useful print to have.

Thanks for the correction on Ammo only.
An Interdictor BPO raises the total effect to 2 players joining Reikoku for 30 days.

 

[Carrie Byron [deprecated]]

Thanks for the correction on Ammo only.
An Interdictor BPO raises the total effect to 2 players joining Reikoku for 30 days.

Why would you be arguing in terms of in-game value? The central issue here is that a dev intentionally cheated the system. It doesn't matter what in-game worth of what he did.