You realise they aren't handing you isk? Its somer credit, there is no way to directly turn that somer isk into in game isk.

You have to gamble it on the lotteries, you could easily come out with nothing.

People rage so much about nothing.

So if CCP decided to ban everyone that buys PLEX using isk cause they decide that everyone must spend real money, they you would be cool with that?

Nothing like banning people for stuff they have been told is allowed.

Lets say you own a company and sell Mr Pibb.

You've done that for a few years. You then get notified by the government that you cannot sell Mr Pibb because its illegal. You have 10 day to stop selling Mr Pibb, this is your only warning.

Would you..

1) Throw out your stockpile of Mr Pibb?

2) Have a Mr Pibb Party where you give it away to whoever wants it?

3) Have a Mr Pibb Mass Sale, offloading and cashing in on all the Mr Pibb you have within the 10 day timespan so that you can comply?

I guarantee it'll be #2 or #3.

They were given 10 days, of COURSE they will cash in. They want to bring people TO Somer Blink, so have a mass sale, get as much people to commit isk to Somer, get a bunch of GTC, then watch as the people lose all there isk playing Somer Blink.


It ain't idiotic, its what we all would do in that same situation.

Is it dumb.. Yup.. but there making bank.

Odd how none of that **** seems to have fallen on me. Or any of the people I fly with. Or anyone I know in the Eve community. Maybe it's because I don't spend my time looking for ways to be offended, to be put-upon, to be treated "unfairly". Maybe it's because I see Somer the same way I see Vegas: If your dumb enough to drop your coin in the slot, I have no sympathy for you.




Thank you for proving my point. As I said, it s not enough that the problem has been addressed and a fix put in place. Now, you must complain that the offending site isn't doing it fast enough. They were given 10 days, and because they are using the 10 days they were given, you once again have to complain and whine and point fingers and say how unfair life is . . .






Just as you see SomerBLINK and this whole RMT mess as a pox on the game, so I see you as such. My constructive addition is no different than yours. It is directed at what I see as a serious problem with the Eve gaming community: a loud, obnoxious, and short-sighted legion of forum warriors that think they speak for the playerbase; a community that has raised butthurt to nobel prize-winning levels.



I don't like RMT, but the fact is that RMT is and has been a part of the MMORPG world for as long as MMORPGs have existed. I propose that it is not RMT you hate, it's CCP. It's the notion that they gave someone some advantage that they didn't give you, and you just can't get over it.

This^^^

You can already RMT by buying directly from CCP. This is the reason I find it impossible to give any less of a crap what somer does.

Yes.. lets compare Genocide to a website a few bucks from people playing internet spaceships..

Hmm.. don't over dramatise to much please

And? I dont play Eve to make money...I play to have a good time. Why exactly should I care how much someone else in Eve makes outside the game? Besides it would hardly be worth it for the amount of $ they got/get anyways.

That's between 2.8 trillion and 4.5 trillion ISK per month at current PLEX, if you're keeping track. Or, you know, a brand new car every 3-4 months.

$250k.. that's weird as a few days ago it was a $135k over 2 1/2 year period..

Wow that has gone up..

So you just made up the figure then of $250k?

No it was a number you blindly picked out of thin air as you have absolutely no idea how many plex's were sold via his affiliate link.

It could be half of that, it could x2, x5 hell it could even be x10 times that amount but nobody knows expect those who run Somerblink.

I am not defending Somer and their actions however I will also not just watch people going rampant on the forums spewing utter garbage without challenging them either as it my eyes it is just as bad.

CCP already seemed to be scared of people like yourself going on rampant nerd rages on the forums which is part of the reason why we have issue with today as it is Eve.

No issue with people like Lucas Kell who for the most part posts very good and solid arguments without having to resort to posting figures and facts that just randomly pop into his head like you.

Gee, I wonder why?

135K over 2-4 years and then spread over 2-5 employees, a website, bandwidth etc? Yep its hardly worth it for the work and time put in. I made a lot more than that at my job in the same amount of time and I didn't have to put up with all the BS they did. I digress though...how does them making money stop me from blowing people up in Eve? What do I care if the -insert super special elite scorp here- was bought with real money or if the toon I just podded was bought with some dudes cash instead of him grinding for a year for it? It still goes squish just the same. I buy plex off CCP all the time, prolly 2-4 thousand dollars worth a year. Why should I care where or with whom others do the same and who gets their money? This just sound like envious butthurt by people who aren getting paid to me.

IRT the EULA...drugs are illegal where I am from but I still dont get all butthurt when my neighbor across the street sparks a J on his porch. I can't do it (work drug tests) but I don't care...It doesnt affect me.

I see no reference on the linked page to said popcorn. I think this might be a scam.

And I am not arguing otherwise. They did F' this thing up. They took a look at the issue, and changed their policy to fix the F-up. They ended bonuses for GTC. But nope, that isn't good enough. The 10-day implementation period, nope, that ain't right, gotta rage, gotta cry. The Whine and Whine and Whine continues.

Frankly, I would have been surprised if Somer did anything different than what they are doing. So many posts about they are taking advantage, they are spitting in the face of the Eve playerbase, "It's just wrong, what they are doing . . . ", etc. THIS IS EVE. WTF GAME ARE YOU PLAYING?

Right, and so when it became apparent to CCP that this whole GTC bonus thing was an issue, they could have banned every character involved in Somer. And every character who used RMT to prove Somer was RMTing. And every bonehead that bought PLEX from Poetic Douchebag. And on and on and on.

Instead, they just nipped the issue at it's root, ending GTC bonus selling. And what was the response?



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You are surprised by this turn of events. I am not. Was it the endorsement alone that lead you to thinking of Somer as some kind of altruistic humanist organization? Was it the Scorpion giveaway?

I remember CCP doing a SomerBLINK Community Spotlight a while back, and thinking then "Man, I guess they'll endorse just about anybody . . . "

CCP's Public Relations leaves something to be desired. It always has. They have always been a bit ham-fisted in their approach to problems. They've always managed to stumble over their collective dicks to get something right. It was your mistake in thinking that CCP''s "endorsement" had anything at all to do with what kind of people ran SomerBLINK, or that it in anyway reflected where Somer's priorities were.

I'm podding any and all people who post that paragraph from the EULA again like they've somehow received their law degree and have Perry Mason'ed everyone. We get it. Move along.

Yeah? Guess what? CCP made the rules. CCP gets to decide to whom they apply. Not you, not the CSM and certainly not the army of forum trolls who somehow think they got a seat on the CCP board of directors.

CCP could be pulling a T20 scandal times 1000 and you'd still just have to sit here and take it because at the end of the day it's their game and they decide how to manage it. Don't like it? Biomass.

Not forgetting that you cannot prove that any of Somer's activities have affected PLEX prices?

Not forgetting that Amazon's PLEX screw up had more measurable, and albeit temporary, influence on PLEX in 15 minutes than Somer had in it's entire existence?

Not forgetting that you don't actually play the game because you much prefer the forum warrior environment of the forums?

Not forgetting that you're still irrelevant. What am I not forgetting, exactly? Begone, troll.

If you actually formed a bead of sweat on your forehead when someone says they're going to blow up your pixels, then you need professional help. If podding is a "threat" to you, then please take your carebear with you as you exit eve.

Name calling isn't name calling if it's pertinent. The term "troll" is justified in this case. Calling a spade, a spade.

Got a problem with that? Tough.

stuff'n'rulez

People in here keep quoting that CCP hasn't changed the EULA but instead changed the rules with their resellers. While that may be the case at the present time how do you know they won't change the EULA after November 7th once their resellers have time to adjust etc. Seems silly to update a EULA when you still have activity going on that is legal until the 7th. Secondly to my knowledge this letter sent to resellers hasn't been made public so everyone is operating under the words of something said at the very least via second hand.

My point is you can't use that as an argument until the dust settles and we see if the rules truly don't change.

Pretty sure.... Yup, pretty sure that EVE Online would still happily exist if everyone who ever whined about this entire SOMER thing quit all their accounts right now. So please go ahead and quit, with this amount of whining I'm sure the community will be better for it.

About as many times as people have posted the EULA section that Somer's supposedly violating.

GǪwell, aside from them not having contributed anything to the community. Advertising your business does not count.

Still haven't answered my question.. no surprise there.

Also, if they were sponsoring player events for the sole purpose to promote their business as you say, then surely wouldn't they advertise the fact on their website every time they donated isk?

Maybe even post on the forum?

I mean its pretty crappy promotion if you keep donating isk to player events and not actually telling people that your doing it.

So does that they have or haven't contributed to the community?

I understand being against the kind of RMT Somer Blink engages in. I understand being against CCP's arbitrary enforcement of their EULA.

I don't really understand the reaction to the increased bonus. We don't know exactly what the communication was between CCP and Somer Blink. It may have gone something like this:



If Somer can actually sell 300,000 GTC's in a week (which they would have to do to make that estimated $800,000), just imagine the millions CCP will rake in. Do you really think CCP did not approve of the plan?

That makes no sense... at all. Please elaborate on the point you're trying to make?

I would say that for the cost of a 30day GTC vs paying sub as normal there should be something for that extra $5/mo.
Using GTCs for 3 months I could have paid sub for 4 months. So I may be part of a small group that blatantly express that for my extra $5/mo I expect some sort of bonus or incentive.

And even for those times I want to pay for longer periods of subs at once, paying it directly is still cheaper than any bulk pack of GTCs could offer.

You are certainly correct about one portion of SOMER's sales... those that would have done the $>PLEX>ISK transactions with or without any gambling motivation.

Of the people who fit in that category that I know who ALSO play Blink.. I'd guess that the gambling motive had that small subset buy at least 50% more. That is a very small slice of the player base but not nearly as tiny a slice of the regular $>PLEX>ISK player-purchasers. My guess would be that the number would be 12% more plex>isk purchases.. maybe making up 1 or 2% more net income for CCP due to Blink gambling. That guess was built on guess's of ranges that might be seen from market sales etc...just a narrowing of errors but .... everyone would do that a bit differently. Only internal number crunching would give a truer number. It isn't a 0% increase. that I'm sure of.

I agree. but.. guess I'm weird but I figure it's a good idea to recognize stuff that seems true to me even if it weakens my over all desire or position.

I do think that it risks more to game play than I first thought. there is a well written post above that I "liked" that makes a good case why the influence is bad.

Seems to me I should recognize a gambling short-term increase In GTC sales even if it could decrease sales long term by a far bigger number if it hurt the game.


(it could be my RL profession as a commercial real estate broker that try's to look for the real divide between two parties (ccp and players.. not somer and ccp ) and find adjustments to the terms that don't cost either side -- a landlord will pay for a different sort of Tenant Improvement if it had more general purpose use than the one the corporate planner proposed ...or a different date taking occupancy could let that last 10 cents per square foot divide be bridged...

... it's just an instinct that what is good for me (getting paid) means getting into the minutia dividing parties and finding what less obvious parts can give without either side compromising on what means most to them.. perhaps even giving an ability to sweeten what means most for both parties !)

My motivation as a broker type problem solver would be to find a way of keeping the gambling based sales without hurting the game at large. (ironically, after considering the dangers of "ship inflation" related to the gambling makes the much maligned vanity ship give away make more sense..... I don't advocate it but it's funny to notice)

Action that gave SOMER 10 days to reap as much as they like before stopping so as not to get banned? Its like the Police sending drug dealers a mail telling them that in 10 days they are getting raided, its absolutely ludicrous.

As far as I am concerned, CCP have gone too far over this and in 3 days, this will be the first of my 3 accounts that expires and wont be resubbed. Some will say good riddance to yet another whiner, fine, you are entitled to your opinion, the same way I am and my opinion is that this stinks to high heaven and i want nothing to do with a game that is seriously unbalanced after this episode.

So no one has thought of the fact that PLEX are soaring up in price right now, maybe CCP and Blink are working together to introduce more PLEX into the economy to get the price down? Maybe Blink isn't actually getting the cut on sales and everything goes straight to CCP?

Of course, such a logical explanation must be heresy and the conspiracy theorists are obviously right.

So seeing as Somer have a nice way of converting ISK to RMT throught GTC what precludes them to sell Assets for RMT, and just using Somer to distribute said assets.

And what is wrong with that? CCP is clearly allowing this. As they are allowing other "community" sites to pay in ISK for services which bring them ad revenue xD

Take down all the Killboards and Newssites

Yeah but I spent it all on blinks cuz it's fun.

I don't remember using any bad words...

I love how butthurt everyone is about them. I've never seen anyone in this game extract as many tears as they have. As far as I'm concerned, if they wanna RMT, like I mean REAL RMT, not this interpretation of RMT that everyone is concocting for their vendetta against SOMER, they've earned it.

And while I'm being honest, this whole kerfuffle over SOMER just seems like a bunch of butthurts who lost too much money playing it and are now on a vendetta to destroy them in any way they can.

The lottery they did have for the other things was probably ill advised, agree on that one also. But that has already been answered.
So.... Yes. I don't see them getting special treatment above & beyond everyone else.

That it should...... But I'd be careful correcting Forum warriors on a self righteous rant.

I play Eve to play Eve, not forum Warrior.



CCP can run their business how they choose, and allow their resellers and affiliates to operate how they choose.


Peeps don't like it?

Well, they have a tool for protesting that too.


Unsub.

Otherwise, it'll end in a few days when the deadline drops, so peeps need to just relax.

Editting in:



Quoting straight off the blink front page.


That's 2 days. Peeps have been waiting how long for SMA's to be fixed? T3's to refit in space?


Really, read quote.

/thread. Nothing else need said.

One might imagine that perhaps somer's objective was not to provide a valuable community service... instead it might be something only possible before the 10 day cutoff...

Ok, I know this might Sound a Little bit odd...

But actually Somer did a good deep for the comunity.

They ammassed TRILLIONS in assets.

And one of the important things about MMO's is the ability to have a stable economy. That means CCP has to make sure that no more isk enter the market and cause an Inflation.

Somer was nothing more that a "Moneysink" and they have been playing by the book. If you like the rules or not, they allowed you to use affiliate links to make some ISK.

One thing you have to remember though:

- No ISK was created due to this
- Everything was legal while it was done, but i can agree it was borderline ;)
- CCP introduced "RMT" once they decided to sell PLEX/GTC

Now shutting down the Service with a 10 days notice, allows somer to cash out. Yes, 10 days is now also a RULE, since CCP gave somer 10 days to do so...

So what happend now? A new ISK stream is released and will hit the servers (ppl cashing out of somer) and also TONS of PLEX are prodused while doing so.

Didnt CCP introduce the ability to gain credit for GTC (re-)sales? That was a choice that CCP made...

Well

- CCP introduced PLEX - And with that put a Price on ISK
- CCP introduced a reseller market for plex
- CCP allowed the reseller to give a portion of the profit to their "Subcontractor"

The only one who was able to do this, was CCP... And by "shutting this hole", they reintroduce trillions of isk back into the sandbox, which will lead to a noticable Inflation (check the plex Prices) since the supply is now increased by a LOT

What somer did, was utilize the GIVEN TIME to the fullest extend... CCP had no need to allow anyone N days to shut their opperations down..

Did you also think the world was going to end on December 21st, 2012?

Stop making a mountain out of a molehill which has already been stepped on.



You're crying about 'Somer is so bad' but they only set up a way to cover their server costs. Players are the ones who bought way in excess and may or may not have created more 'off the top' cashflow than the servers cost.

CCP isn't your business. You don't get to decide how they run it. And your 'protest' is pointless, since it has already been addressed.

Nah mate, Just trying to help you out. Reduce your stress level, help you live a long, full life. Crying over space pixels isn't the way bro.



All in all, you're the party here who has to make yourself listened to, Acknowledged. CCP has taken action. Somer has given every indication of complying.



There is nothing else to it. Action is being taken, and will be complied with. What are you trying to achieve?


Have fun Bro, Good luck with reducing that stress level!