The game mechanics involved were clearly twisted in ways CCP don't approve of, and their developer on the spot has already stated they would be in their rights to punish on breach of the rules.

For my part, I think its creative abuse for sure. The market manipulation/exploit was cunning. I don't really like the lp-duping/double-counting thing though (that was obviously broken as all hell) - and the admission of keyboard macro abuse during the cash out is distasteful. But yeah, CCP is in a bind here.

If they punish the goons appropriately the goonswarm is going to go mental. Threadnaughts and summer of tears etc. Threats of negative PR -mass unsubs - and all that, hell goons might even show up and shoot the jita monument (once the wardec 1.1 change strips them of all unwanted opposition in hisec).

If they don't punish appropriately (returning the loots, letting off the perpetrators with the lightest of slaps) then everyone else will be thinking that goons are treated with kid gloves and let off for things that other players would be ban-hammered mercilessly for.

Goons are already the CCP poster children for emergent gameplay (ie griefing hisec) and lauded in the gaming press and development conferences by CCP officials - and if they don't get an appropriate punishment for an exploit on this truly staggering scale then :shrug: I guess a lot of players may be considering their subscriptions anyway, Eve as a sandbox economic simulation becomes a lot less attracive for many when its clear that the largest alliance in the space has already rigged the game beyond any significant chance they will ever lose their position of absolute dominance.

So this is probably the "great war" we've all been missing the last few years, and its not a clash of spaceships in 0.0, its not propaganda and plots laid at BBQ's in 2006, its not about the CSM and stacking the player council and its not about G19 macro's hammering out LP offer accepts for 28 hours straight,

Its pretty much a war for the soul of Eve Online and at the end of it we'll know whether its truly CCP the developer or Goons the the something awful forums mega-alliance, that calls the shots in this game universe. I think its probably the first time in the history of massively multiplayer online gaming that there has been a war of this scale and significance - and once again Eve Online is the forerunner of some truly emergent gameplay on levels of metagaming that would make other games crawl up in a corner and cry themselves to sleep.

Still lets all keep watching. After all, this time next year the goon economic cabal might be dictating terms to the president of Iceland!

CCP were told during testing that something like this could happen & they blatantly ignored everyone. In doing this, they condoned the action wether they intended to or not.

In other news, how's business?

Before I forget.... What hair bleach do you use?

So what you're saying is that it's not the size of the operation, nor the effect it has on the economy, but how embarassed CCP got?

Not real good for CCP's public face. They get accused of supporting a large alliance over the War dec thing and now a week later members of the same alliance are rubbing there face in it.

They really didn't need this one now.

Last I checked, G15/G19 were on the allowed list, as long as the user was still at the keyboard.

Almost everything Goons do is - self-avowedly, no less - an attempt to show people that all actions they take have consequences, and not neccessarily ones they'll like, either.

I'm amused that Goons are reacting so negatively to the undesirable consequences that actions they took precipitated.

I imagine CCP will be able to reach their own conclusions (by analyzing how the macro's functioned over time) as to whether users were at the keyboard or not. As I said in the substantive post this is a partisan argument and there isn't likely to be much valid argumentation coming from people in the perpetrator's alliance.

I imagine CCP will be able to reach their own conclusions (by analyzing how the macro's functioned over time) as to whether users were at the keyboard or not. As I said in the substantive post this is a partisan argument and there isn't likely to be much valid argumentation coming from people in the perpetrator's alliance.

I say this whole thing is unfair and the Goons need to show CCP who they are dealing with. On the count of 3 all Goons need to unsubscribe to show CCP how unfair this is. We all know CCP only cares about money, so ---

1

2

3 - all goons hit ctr-Q and unsubscribe!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This argument is not partisan.

The way CCP is handling this, it seems the scale of the operation had precedence over the legality of the operation.

A true sandbox can only be concerned about legality, not scale.

This argument is not partisan.

The way CCP is handling this, it seems the scale of the operation had precedence over the legality of the operation.

A true sandbox can only be concerned about legality, not scale.

I'm not sure if this is relevant but maybe CCP should have read some of the comments when they first announced the changes to FW a few months ago.

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&m=1273664#post1273664

Mainly because your guy has admitted he used a keyboard macro to automate the collection of loyalty store payouts.

Protip : when I collected my loyalty store items I needed to click the button manually for 15mins straight - it was hellishly boring - somebody automating this process gains an advantage over me!

The eula is pretty explicit on this case and you've already lost this argument in the other thread.

Maybe they did and decided other things needed fixing first.

Please explain to me how using a poorly but intentionally designed game mechanic to it's breaking point is an Exploit.

Go ahead, I'll wait. If your answer is logically equivalent to "because Goons" we reserve the right to laugh at you.

Last I checked, misc ccp devs were saying that the days of "it's time to launch, nevermind its state just launch it and we'll fix it later" were over. Which would mean that they should've delayed the launch until they reworked the mechanic until it was no longer gameable.

I mean precisely what I said. I don't need a goonswarm forum spin-doctor to reinterpret my posts. (and nor frankly does anyone else actually wanting an open discussion).

G19 macro you hold down. You have to pay attention due to FW fluctuations and such. This was also over WEEKS, not days. We were in motion within 8 hours of patch.

They didnt exploit anything, they used the game that CCP gave us to the fullest extent. CCP just ignored the feedback threads about what would happen. CCP was caught with their pants around their ankles and bent over the desk. They are doing the only thing CCP knows how to do, which is remove legally gained assets and silence the players via moderation or forum bans.


CCP really ****** this expansion up with the "revamp" to faction warfare and the new Inventory. Its sorta funny since they had 6 months to work on it. Considering Crucible was done in 4-6 weeks.

Maybe its time for CCP to start only doing one expansion a year and make sure its 100 percent ready for TQ. Hire some people to actually QA the patch, instead of using SiSi and not reading the feedback threads.

This summers expansion, not the worse by far but close, is just another notch in CCPs belt for delivering expansions with more problems than actual fixes.

They didnt exploit anything, they used the game that CCP gave us to the fullest extent. CCP just ignored the feedback threads about what would happen. CCP was caught with their pants around their ankles and bent over the desk. They are doing the only thing CCP knows how to do, which is remove legally gained assets and silence the players via moderation or forum bans.


CCP really ****** this expansion up with the "revamp" to faction warfare and the new Inventory. Its sorta funny since they had 6 months to work on it. Considering Crucible was done in 4-6 weeks.

Maybe its time for CCP to start only doing one expansion a year and make sure its 100 percent ready for TQ. Hire some people to actually QA the patch, instead of using SiSi and not reading the feedback threads.

This summers expansion, not the worse by far but close, is just another notch in CCPs belt for delivering expansions with more problems than actual fixes.

Sometimes you need to sit back and have a dispassonate look at the absurdity of some of these statements. CCP is a games company that run an MMO for profit. They are not some kind of Stanford Prison Experiment style academic study on the psychology of sandbox behaviour. This is a game first and foremost. If some of the players are cheating at the game they need to be stopped so the rest of the players can enjoy the game on the assumption that the game rules are preserved by the organizer.

If you guys really want to do the academic experimentation thing you should probably write up an abstract and pitch for funding.

Nice strawman you have going there.


When somebody is punished for an otherwise legal action only because of its scale, it wasn't cheating. It wasn't breaking the rules. It was punishing success.


I have no beef with either Goons or anti-Goons. Perhaps that is why I can see something you failed to. It's not just players who cheat. Devs can cheat too. It has happened at least once before.


CCP vowed it won't happen again. That's why rules should be the same for everyone. Clear rules keep check on both players and devs.


Judging legality is a very good way to have clear rules.

Judging scale not so much. If CCP is indeed choosing scale over legality in the FW fiasco, it's a backward step to the times CCP vowed to never happen again.

it's perfectly legal as CCP themselves have stated, as it requires the user be at the keyboard.
So uh, yes, I definitely "lost" that argument.

I mean precisely what I said. I don't need a goonswarm forum spin-doctor to reinterpret my posts. (and nor frankly does anyone else actually wanting an open discussion).

Lord Zim wrote:
Frying Doom wrote:
Maybe they did and decided other things needed fixing first.

Last I checked, misc ccp devs were saying that the days of "it's time to launch, nevermind its state just launch it and we'll fix it later" were over. Which would mean that they should've delayed the launch until they reworked the mechanic until it was no longer gameable.

They didnt exploit anything, they used the game that CCP gave us to the fullest extent. CCP just ignored the feedback threads about what would happen.

CCP have stated NOTHING yet in relation to this macro lp store collection issue. So please stop lying and making things up.

I doesn't matter if Aryth was afk for 28 hours or 2 mins. If that macro was running to automate the collection of lp store offers that cost a normal player 2 clicks each then he was gaining an unfair advantage by macro. Its pretty astonishing you cannot see the problem with your argument - but then again - :goons: