Originally by: Count Bolton

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CCP has a long history of corruption and favoritism since day 1, even before BoB existed. It started with the 'Old Boys Club' of m0o, Evolution and RKK back during Castor years

Internal QA knowledge of PvP exploits. Knowledge of market shifting patch changes before public release. Massive insider knowledge of the T2 BPO lottery and Aurora events flowed freely between these corporations.

BoB crashing the nodes to win fleet battles wasn't just from their UK location. They exploited a flaw in how clients logged into the Tranquility server. It involved having a second game client open and filled, waiting on standby to forcibly disconnect your current client from the server. There were other methods involved, but it's an example how BoB had a *deep* understanding of eve's server mechanics and node balancing, as with other parts of the game.

I used to work in ISD as a Bug Hunter, so I witnessed some of this corruption first-hand. The chaos server(original test server, before singularity existed) was a breeding ground for exploitation and insider knowledge. While I worked on squashing bugs, I would see other ISD members scouting out moons and enemy stations from the latest game backup. Some people also had '/spawn' privileges, and used it to gather insider knowledge on new equipment, game mechanics, and even exploits. I tried to report these problems myself, but they got swept under the rug by certain GMs and QA members. I remember Nebulai, the old Aurora lead calling me a liar, even after I caught some of his event staff cheating during an event(with slash commands), unfairly destroying other player's ships and property.

I think the public opening of singularity server has been a large help in making EVE a level playing field. Everyone has equal rights to limitless equipment on the test server, and can tinker around with new patches and game changes. I also think transparency with the new ISD and event teams has gone a long way to remove favoritism and free giveaways of officer loot.

Even though the impact of ISD, GM and developer corruption has been greatly reduced, I feel that CCP still doesn't take this kind of cheating seriously. Eve Online iron-clad naming policy has screwed over countless other people in the past due to its *bitter* fairness, and yet everything is waved for just *one* alliance. Not just any alliance; It's the same alliance that gets their hand caught in the cookie jar, every time. Aurora event scandals. 10/10 complexes with farmable overseers, exploiting aggro timers, bugged trade routes using titan portals, shooting players though starbase shields, crashing nodes down to a science, etc. The list is very, very long.

For those that do not understand, this isn't about a simple name change. BoB used an already-existing 'alternate' alliance to fall back into after being disbanded, to immediately reclaim their sovereignty. The downside is they're stuck with using the alt-alliance, and must disband to create a more 'official' one. Using GM intervention, however, they are having their cake and eating it too. This is after the GM's told everyone else the cake was a lie.

The widespread corruption is hard to quantify, as many players who went through it have already quit the game in disgust. I think the current player base will mainly cite the t20 scandal as their oldest memory, even though the free BPO's were trash and insignificant compared to t20's knowledge on how to control the lottery itself.

I have also quit the game in disgust and no longer play EVE. I use this free account(gifted to me by kieron) to poke around and check out the new expansions every now and then. I thought the t20 scandal and creation of internal affairs would be the last time BoB was given any kind of favoritism by the higher powers. It saddens me that I was wrong.

The tl;dr version: The cake is a lie, unless you're BoB. Then you get plenty of cake.

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