You know CCP, when you have Chribba, pirates, hisec bears, Goons, former BoB members, PL members, newbies, veterans, bittervets, collectors, and basically everyone in this game that isn't a complete troll or Blink fanboy telling you that you're doing something completely wrong to the point where you're repeating the same mistakes that caused the media storm that led to your creation of the very player council you failed to consult on this issue, you are seriously screwing up.

These new cruisers will be unique assets that will be owned only by these players. We will not give these out again.

Second

http://xkcd.com/1258/

How will you address the concern that you are effectively giving a for-profit player entity a major windfall due to increased revenue from players hoping to get these prizes?

Also, as someone who does not use somer blink, how do I get a chance at these giveaways?

Q3, How do we know we can trust Fansites and third parties to operate fairly and independently?

A3, We have worked with a lot of third party sites in the past such as EVE Radio, BIG Lottery and SOMER Blink. These entities (and others of course) have demonstrated a solid history of trust and reliability. As a result, we can verify that they have been straight and true in their dealings and this should be encouraged.

These entities (and others of course) have demonstrated a solid history of trust and reliability.

Also, as someone who does not use somer blink, how do I get a chance at these giveaways?

Please make sure this is on post-it notes EVERYWHERE IN THE OFFICE!!!!!!!

So did EvE Bank.

How will you address the concern that you are effectively giving a for-profit player entity a major windfall due to increased revenue from players hoping to get these prizes?

You can register and play a free promo blink which happen often and get an entry.

Here's how it works: Any time you play any Blink, you receive 1 ticket to the drawing (even if you buy more than one ticket). Plus, if you win the Blink, you receive bonus tickets based on the size of the Blink.

(For example, if you win a Big Blink, you'll receive three ticketsGÇö one for playing and two for winning.)

This may not always be unique ships or Fanfest trips but could be some signed artwork to give away or PLEX to hand out.

You can register and play a free promo blink which happen often and get an entry.

You can register and play a free promo blink which happen often and get an entry.

You can register and play a free promo blink which happen often and get an entry.

You can register and play a free promo blink which happen often and get an entry.

Please make sure this is on post-it notes EVERYWHERE IN THE OFFICE!!!!!!!

You can register and play a free promo blink which happen often and get an entry.

Golly gee. It appears the players still don't like CCP handing a player group 100's of billions of ISK. I am shocked by this development.

Golly gee. It appears the players still don't like CCP handing a player group 100's of billions of ISK. I am shocked by this development.

What does someone, in good standing with CCP but banned by SOMER Blink do?

[...]
We would also like to address the role of SOMER Blink in this change. They have had three years of constantly delivering on every blink, blast and bonk they have organized.
[...]

[...]
SOMER Blink have a history of being trustworthy and honoring every blink played without exception.
[...]
Q4, So you said earlier that SOMER Blink are trusted. Does that mean CCP is promising they will always deliver?

A4, Not at all. What I am saying is that to date they have been 100% trustful and we expect that will continue.
[...]

You know CCP, when you have Chribba, pirates, hisec bears, Goons, former BoB members, PL members, newbies, veterans, bittervets, collectors, and basically everyone in this game that isn't a complete troll or Blink fanboy telling you that you're doing something completely wrong to the point where you're repeating the same mistakes that caused the media storm that led to your creation of the very player council you failed to consult on this issue, you are seriously screwing up.

Do you feel any hypocrisy posting that 32 minutes after you claimed your free gift on our site?

Just curious if you'd prefer to withdraw your use of our gifts in protest :)

Please. Someone enlighten me on the following topic:

Secretly spawning t2 bpos for BoB vs. Officially giving Somer blink items

What 100's of billions of ISK would those be? The ones they will donate for prizes at EVE Vega perhaps?

So I have to hand over my information to Somer? And I reward him and his website with more hits for his advertisers? Everyone is focusing on in game rewards for him, but few have considered the RL rewards he'll be reaping.

Where's my Black Frog Special Edition Rhea

Telling people you're doing it doesn't make it any different.

What 100's of billions of ISK would those be? The ones they will donate for prizes at EVE Vega perhaps?

Specifying the proceeds are to be given away as tournament prizes does.

Specifying the proceeds are to be given away as tournament prizes does.

No way to know if they are giving away all the profits. No way to know if the lottery if fair. And so on. Like has been said a few dozen times.

i really hope that the CSM rips you a new one for showing this kind of blatant favorism

0.00000001% of the eve population care that you changed what ships you're giving away.

90% of the eve population care that CCP is funneling isk to a player corporation.

Why not just shuffle moon minerals around to favor TEST while you're at it?

Why not skip the unreliable for-profit middleman and give them away as tournament prizes?

What 100's of billions of ISK would those be? The ones they will donate for prizes at EVE Vega perhaps?

Apparently CCP feels they are reliable.

Other than CCP believes they are trustworthy, and since all of the items in question (ISK and ship prizes) ultimately only belong to CCP it's their opinion of honesty that matters.

First :)

http://i.imgur.com/n72XLyb.png

Does this clear up doubt about this deal being hilariously beneficial for Somer?

You may see that exact same graph on their website under "Statistics." I'm sure Somer will enjoy raking at least twice the ISK he would otherwise make during the same time period, plus his kickbacks from Markee Dragon, in exchange for acting as a middleman for CCP and giving some dudes in Vegas some petty prizes.

Other than CCP believes they are trustworthy, and since all of the items in question (ISK and ship prizes) ultimately only belong to CCP it's their opinion of honesty that matters.

I would still like a satisfactory explanation for the following:

1. Why was the CSM left completely out of the loop on this?

2. Why exactly has SOMER been handed a huge fortune?

3. Exactly how trust worthy is an organisation that feels it has the right to use its customers private details against them in a public thread?



Original post.

I'm no fan of Poe but that is just wrong.

CCP believes they have been trustworthy in the past. You'll notice there is nothing in the words to suggest any sort of agreement that somer needs to be fair, or needs to donate all of the proceeds to the tournament. Merely a suggestion that because they've been apparently fair in the past they might continue to be in the future.

From what we know, somer can do anything they want with the prizes and lottery proceeds that they want. This is EVE Online. We all know what happens next.

Donating means giving your own money to something. If they take other players money and give to some cause, its not donating.
And if you look at how much they plan to "donate" and apply simple math and count how much they earned from this spike because of this development, you will see that profit is much larger than donation.

Dissapointed by that decision. This is just half-assed measures in order to calm the **** storm they caused by their own poor judgement.

PS. and dont compare Eve Radio to this casino thing. They are actually providing fan service and their primary goal is not making profit but to have fun.

CCP believes they have been trustworthy in the past. You'll notice there is nothing in the words to suggest any sort of agreement that somer needs to be fair, or needs to donate all of the proceeds to the tournament. Merely a suggestion that because they've been apparently fair in the past they might continue to be in the future.

From what we know, somer can do anything they want with the prizes and lottery proceeds that they want. This is EVE Online. We all know what happens next.

also navigator didn't actually bother to check if they'd been honest in the past

You can register and play a free promo blink which happen often and get an entry.

You're reaching friend.

I find it incredibly hard to believe that CCP have addressed the minor issue of what the prizes were

but have stuck to their decision to, as a developer, give a gigantic boost to the popularity, success, and profits to a specific player organisation.

Even if SOMER are completely trust worthy, and do indeed give away all the ships fairly, the fact that they are getting special limited edition items from CCP will unfairly give them an advantage when competing with other organisations who run similar competitions.

It means that SOMER are the only entity in which a player can go to for an attempt to get these things. And of course, all of the profits from the entries? SOMER keeps those to fund their activities and further their own goals.

It is simply unacceptable.

also navigator didn't actually bother to check if they'd been honest in the past

... and you know this to be fact because?

Sponsoring 3rd party sites and organizations is completely acceptable, and is to be applauded.

Sponsoring 3rd party sites and organizations is completely acceptable, and is to be applauded.

Does this mean that CCP do not consider the CSM as a body of players worth consulting in any meaningful way?

Sponsoring 3rd party sites and organizations is completely acceptable, and is to be applauded.

Sponsoring 3rd party sites and organizations is completely acceptable, and is to be applauded.

People run events and lotteries all the time and donate the proceeds to other organizations (usually charities)... so I don't know why you think that taking outside currency and donating the proceeds is somehow unusual or unsavory. It is an EXTREMELY common practice. If your church runs a bake sale to fund their summer camp for needy children, and a bakery sponsors the event and provides a lot of the goods to be sold, you don't find that legitimate?

CCP wants to start sponsoring more 3rd party sites and organizations, partially through providing unique prizes. I find that to be a good thing.

... and you know this to be fact because?

Sponsoring 3rd party sites and organizations is completely acceptable, and is to be applauded.

What do you think somer blink is?

because as an intelligent human being and someone familiar with ccp I know they didn't, and I also know if they did navigator would be mentioning it every other sentence

i really hope that the CSM rips you a new one for showing this kind of blatant favorism

People run events and lotteries all the time and donate the proceeds to other organizations (usually charities)... so I don't know why you think that taking outside currency and donating the proceeds is somehow unusual or unsavory. It is an EXTREMELY common practice. If your church runs a bake sale to fund their summer camp for needy children, and a bakery sponsors the event and provides a lot of the goods to be sold, you don't find that legitimate?

CCP wants to start sponsoring more 3rd party sites and organizations, partially through providing unique prizes. I find that to be a good thing.

Not when that third party is competing within the game against other third parties, and not unless CCP audit everything and guarantee that not a single isk in profit is made as a result of their little give away

Whom, exactly, are they competing with in game?

I think Ranger 1 somehow confuses Somer Blink for a charity.

To carve a successful niche for yourself in EVE you need to be able to out sell, out produce, out fight, out run, or out wit your competitors, or butter up a dev and get spawned some great stuff.

BIG, to name just one.

I think Ranger 1 somehow confuses Somer Blink for a charity.

Whom, exactly, are they competing with in game?

I think Ranger 1 somehow confuses Somer Blink for a charity.

http://i.imgur.com/n72XLyb.png

Does this clear up doubt about this deal being hilariously beneficial for Somer?

You may see that exact same graph on their website under "Statistics." I'm sure Somer will enjoy raking at least twice the ISK he would otherwise make during the same time period, plus his kickbacks from Markee Dragon, in exchange for acting as a middleman for CCP and giving some dudes in Vegas some petty prizes.

Or are we now to the point that we are going to say they don't provide a popular service for EVE players, and are not worthy of sponsorship to run a special event?

No my friend, I don't. They are an organization made up of EVE players making their ISK in a creative way. Good for them.

Or are we now to the point that we are going to say they don't provide a popular service for EVE players, and are not worthy of sponsorship to run a special event?

No my friend, I don't. They are an organization made up of EVE players making their ISK in a creative way. Good for them.

Or are we now to the point that we are going to say they don't provide a popular service for EVE players, and are not worthy of sponsorship to run a special event?

No my friend, I don't. They are an organization made up of EVE players making their ISK in a creative way. Good for them.

Or are we now to the point that we are going to say they don't provide a popular service for EVE players, and are not worthy of sponsorship to run a special event?

EOH Poker and The BIG Lottery just to name two fairly prominent examples that you should know better than to disregard.

It is fantastic that players can make their isk in such creative ways

The developer of the game should not step in and hand them hundreds of billions more on top of it though, because that is incredibly unfair. It destroys the concepts of fair, balanced gameplay if a dev simply picks the group he likes the most, or who he thinks is the best, and hands them T2 B--... err I mean limited edition prizes

So either one of them is more worthy of sponsorship? Or should none of them be considered for something like this because of the nature of the service they offer?

How about Chribba? Is he the only person or organization in EVE worthy of CCP sponsorship for an event?

Or is what you are really saying is that CCP should never sponsor any 3rd party group of players or organizations? If so, that is a valid point for debate and is far more worthy of discussion that casting frankly imaginary stones.

So either one of them is more worthy of sponsorship? Or should none of them be considered for something like this because of the nature of the service they offer?

How about Chribba? Is he the only person or organization in EVE worthy of CCP sponsorship for an event?

Or is what you are really saying is that CCP should never sponsor any 3rd party group of players or organizations? If so, that is a valid point for debate and is far more worthy of discussion that casting frankly imaginary stones.

Thank you for saving history at least.

I still wonder how these new ships will be entered lore wise into the game.

WTF I just spent 16 billion on Blinks to get a once-in-a-lifetime shot at a Gold Magnate, literally The Stuff Of Legends - and you change the prices? Can I get my 16 billion back?

Thank you for saving history at least.

I still wonder how these new ships will be entered lore wise into the game.

What if CCP decides to give away a free all-expenses paid trip to a random person who signs up to rent space from the CFC? It's a service we're providing and renting is a popular service! It's not favoritism guys they're just supporting players providing valuable services to the community out of the goodness of their hearts. Of course Goonswarm will get a gigantic windfall in a very short amount of time that they'll use to their advantage in the cutthroat PvP environment that is EVE but that doesn't matter because they're helping the community!

If the CFC sponsored an event like EVE Vega and sold tickets for ISK and/or cash with CCP's permission, or hosted a competitive tournament (accepting entry fee's of course) I could certainly see CCP sponsoring some of the prizes for you to hand out.

All the other unique ships have a story around them like tournament prizes or really special events. These new ships will always be just some crap you could win on an out of game lottery.

Why on earth should CCP be giving out piles of ISK to any player for any reason? If third party sites are deserving of rewards, are the free accounts CCP gives out not enough? The bottom line is that this methodology isn't transparent and doesn't serve any clear purpose. If CCP doesn't give out piles of free isk, are these sites going to close their doors? No. If they're rewarding them for community involvement, why pick and choose between all the people doing so? Why not give them all piles of free isk? What makes one site more deserving than another? Why aren't they handing out positively GIANT piles of isk to the EVEmon, Pyfa, EFT, and Dotlan. I'm willing to bet that those guys have done more for the game and more for players than anyone in EVE. I'm willing to bet more people have used those tools than have even heard of Somer.

Badly?

All the other unique ships have a story around them like tournament prizes or really special events. These new ships will always be just some crap you could win on an out of game lottery.

EVE Vegas is an event that actually develops the community. A gambling event is not.

That's somewhat debatable as gambling services are in rather high demand in EVE.

All of those organization are potential recipients of sponsorship, remember this is a new initiative from CCP to encourage 3rd party community organizations. If they sponsor events where CCP sponsorship would be possible they will no doubt be considered. Reality has to kick in here though, they can't do everything at once.

All of those organization are potential recipients of sponsorship, remember this is a new initiative from CCP to encourage 3rd party community organizations. If they sponsor events where CCP sponsorship would be possible they will no doubt be considered. Reality has to kick in here though, they can't do everything at once.

Ranger, the fact that you don't see the problem with CCP backing and providing assets/isk for a particular player organisation who operate for their own profits and goals is just astonishing

Truthfully, I view this as an honest attempt to provide CCP backing to prominent organizations in the community... handled in perhaps the clumsiest way imaginable, but their intentions are fairly clear and honest I believe.

So are supercapital builders. What if CCP encouraged players to buy supers from a specific builder for a chance at winning CCP sponsored prizes? There is absolutely no difference between what CCP is doing right now and spawning T2 BPOs for an alliance, absolutely none.

Truthfully, I view this as an honest attempt to provide CCP backing to prominent organizations in the community... handled in perhaps the clumsiest way imaginable, but their intentions are fairly clear and honest I believe.

Truthfully, I view this as an honest attempt to provide CCP backing to prominent organizations in the community... handled in perhaps the clumsiest way imaginable, but their intentions are fairly clear and honest I believe.

That depends, are the super capital builders sponsoring Titan give away contests to their customers?

Way to miss the point.

The giving away of unique ships IS an issue, but it's not even the main issue.

YOU ARE GIVING A FOR-PROFIT GROUP HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS(now possibly TRILLIONS) OF ISK WITH NO STRINGS ATTACHED.

Edit:
I would like to run a promotion, you can send me one (1) coupon good for an all expenses paid trip to fanfest, I promise my winning of my own lottery will be entirely fair and well accounted for.

And how will they decide which Level of sponsorship they get? Is it about how "Buddy" you are with the Devs?

That depends, are the super capital builders sponsoring Titan give away contests to their customers?

All of those organization are potential recipients of sponsorship, remember this is a new initiative from CCP to encourage 3rd party community organizations. If they sponsor events where CCP sponsorship would be possible they will no doubt be considered. Reality has to kick in here though, they can't do everything at once.

That's up to somer blink, this is a 3rd party event after all.

That would obviously be up to them and their Internal Affairs department. I can speculate that a lot would depend on how popular the "services" the organization provides are, and how much of the EVE community is affected by them.

WTF I just spent 16 billion on Blinks to get a once-in-a-lifetime shot at a Gold Magnate, literally The Stuff Of Legends - and you change the prices? Can I get my 16 billion back?

CCP, with this one announcement you have validated the fears of every player who has believed the CSM to be pointless and powerless. The CSM was established in order to create transparency and restore player trust in CCP after previous scandals involving CCP employees showing favoritism to players and in-game entities.

By proceeding with a decision with such obvious potential for a similar scandal and accusations of blatant favoritism without even consulting the CSM, you have essentially created t20 ver 2.0. Frankly, the only chance you have to restore credibility at this point is to immediately reverse this decision and claim it as a lapse in judgement.

However, I fear that even doing this would be insufficient, as the damage is likely already done. CCP has again shown clear favoritism to a single third pary site and in-game entity, and the one regulation on CCP's integrity, the CSM, has been bypassed entirely, destroying player trust in the effectiveness of this organization and the transparency of CCP-player interactions.

The only difference between this event and previous scandals is that this time, instead of resulting from the actions of rogue CCP employees, this favoritism is officially and publicly endorsed by the company. This makes the situation even worse than any before it, as the favoritism now has a stamp of approval, indicating that it is now standard procedure and official policy for CCP to favor some players/organizations over others.

Good luck restoring trust after this one!

So are they going to drop hundreds of billions of isk on Red Frog?

Would it be fair to drop hundreds of billions of isk on Red Frog, considering there are other couriers out there trying to make a living and compete with Red Frog?

The last time CCP backed a "prominent organization" they ended up in a media disaster that destroyed their reputation with the playerbase. People have regularly accused CCP of favoritism towards in-game organizations since.

This is blatant favoritism.

As I was effectively ninja'd by this new thread, I'll repeat my statement from the previous discussion:




The fact is that changing which ships are being given away does nothing to remove the appearance of favoritism. CCP is still:

- Giving a means to make ISK to a single player organization (unique lottery prizes)
- Generating awareness of and traffic to that organization's website, ensuring their making even more ISK as players use their services, and making real life money through website ad revenue
- Publicly endorsing this organization over its competitors, ensuring that more players will use this organization's services over others, giving more ISK to this organization which may have gone to others who were not similarly favored by CCP

All of this amounts to giving a significant in- and out-of-game advantage to one group of players. How is this not favoritism?

Totally valid point. BTW, I dragged the Frog in because it's a reasonably good example of a group that provides very popular in game services and also has a third party website. I'm not actually arguing for them to receive piles of ISK. Though I do want my Black Frog Special Edition Rhea!

I think Ranger 1 somehow confuses Somer Blink for a charity.

I would totally love Red Frog to organize an event that CCP could sponsor. I think they are one of the best services available in EVE and would completely support/participate in any event they put together.

"All you scammers and legitimate businessmen out there, take heed. If you want to succeed beyond your wildest dreams, make sure you get audited by CCP and have their official seal of approval planted on your business and/or scam. It's a brand new day in the world of EVE."

You can register and play a free promo blink which happen often and get an entry.

These new cruisers will be unique assets that will be owned only by these players. We will not give these out again.

Fellow Eve players!

Allow me to share the above quote with you, taken from an article, which can be found here:

http://www.minerbumping.com/2013/09/ccp-audits-somer-blink-gives-them-free.html

I urge you to read it in its entirety, it is well worth it.

Pointing them to the article can also serve as an easy way of making your friends and anyone else you deem interested aware of the situation.

Yours faithfully,

Janine Frost
NEW ORDER DEATH DEALERS/CODE.

Hang on a second. If all I need to do to win EVE is to make a website that earns me money and get even more money from CCP I need to dig into HTML a bit.

Or remove my credit card information from account services.

Guess what's faster.

I find it telling that the body of player representatives that was formed as a result of a dev spawning items for a particular player organisation was not consulted on the decision to have devs spawn items for a particular player organisation

Confirming my Somer Blink account got banned when i never bothered to read the rules of a 3rd party website not affiliated with CCP and tried to promo blink with 2 accounts not knowing this was not permitted

I pay my subscription to CCP just like everybody else - Why am I therefore being marginalised and excluded from being able to participate in this "community event" facilitated by CCP ?

The underlying principles here are exactly the same as why CCP devs decided to withdraw from several player run channels recently to create their own, given that player moderation / actions were potentially preventing all players from having free and unilateral access to CCP related content.

My Somer Account is blocked - I pay my eve subscription, yet I cannot take part in this event despite me abiding by and adhering to the terms and conditions as layed out by the EULA..

Unless everybody has access to participate in this lottery, then by its own actions, choices and decisions CCP are marginalising and excluding members of their own community since clearly there will be players who cannot take part in this even if they wanted to.

Utterly dreadful decision making, clear favouritism, and by default, not fair to the "whole" community.

10/10.

the website because I believe it's literally impossible to remove your cc info from ccp's services

the website because I believe it's literally impossible to remove your cc info from ccp's services

But to GSF, TEST, RFF, Push, Angel Project, Eve University, Brave Newbies, RvB, etc.--you know, the REAL creators of content and services in the game--I'm sorry but you guys are all missing the point. The point simply is that SOMER Blink drives so many GTC sales, which in turn equals $$ for CCP. Of course CCP is going to do whatever they have to do drive more traffic to SOMER Blink's website, get more people blinking and then "oh hey let me buy a GTC while I'm here. I get free Blink credit!!"

This guy gets it. To CCP it's all about the money.
The only way to make your voices heard is to vote with your wallet. Paste a link to this thread as the reason for your account cancellation.

This guy gets it. To CCP it's all about the money.
The only way to make your voices heard is to vote with your wallet. Paste a link to this thread as the reason for your account cancellation.

I guess this is "one of the moments where we [CCP] look at what our players do and less of what they say."

First :)

Q4, So you said earlier that SOMER Blink are trusted. Does that mean CCP is promising they will always deliver?

A4, Not at all. What I am saying is that to date they have been 100% trustful and we expect that will continue.

CCP Navigator, this is an incredibly important question:

Have you audited literally every single transaction by SOMER? Have you audited literally every single account involved in those transactions?

To claim they have a 100% clean history, you must have. Please confirm that you have done such an exhaustive audit. Claiming they have completely honoured everything to date implies that such an exhaustive audit must have been performed. I am asking you to directly confirm that you, or another member of CCP, have done such an audit.

I am also asking if these audits which you must have done in order to make such statements reach out to SOMERs own site and services, as it would be quite possible for the eve "end" of these transactions to appear legitimate, but then for some sketchy stuff to happen "outside" the EVE environment.

Can you confirm that you have worked directly with the developers SOMER have and audited their services as well as EVE's own services?

If you have not, please immediately remove all the references to how trustworthy and perfectly legit SOMER are

How about actually making a statement?

How about actually making a statement?

oh, you're even going to do their marketing for them?

I was under the impression that CCP does not vouch for the trustworthiness of any player. Yet, here you are, implicitly vouching for their trustworthiness.

I was under the impression that CCP does not vouch for the trustworthiness of any player. Yet, here you are, implicitly vouching for their trustworthiness.