Markee Dragon is the official GTC seller, presumably with a contract with CCP. Somer is an affiliate of MD (and was formerly an affiliate of Shattered Crystal), and therefore has no contract with CCP except the EULA. Check the pic.

Except your own examples show they do have integrity.
They made mistakes, owned up to the give away of Guardian Vexors being a mistake, and took it back.
That is exactly what Integrity is. Integrity is not never making a mistake. snip the non related BS

& being an affiliate holds legal status. Otherwise they would be committing some kind of fraud or something whenever they sold a GTC. So, again, more than the EULA is at play.

& being an affiliate holds legal status. Otherwise they would be committing some kind of fraud or something whenever they sold a GTC. So, again, more than the EULA is at play.

You seem to be a bit confused about how this works. Somer Blink does not sell GTCs. They merely have a link on their site through which players can purchase GTCs from Markee Dragon. Markee Dragon gives Somer a kickback for every GTC purchase made through their (Somer's) site. As a GTC reseller, Markee Dragon has an agreement with CCP to sell GTCs. As a Markee Dragon affiliate, Somer's only agreement is with Markee Dragon, not CCP.

CCP instructed the resellers (Markee Dragon in this case) to cease business relations with affiliates who offer ISK incentives for GTC purchases, and gave them 10 days to comply. In general, CCP does not deal directly with the affiliates (Somer is the exception as they seem to be able to skype with CCP devs, but I would assume that is a result of their past dealings with CCP, not because they are an affiliate of a reseller), as they have no direct business relation with such sites.

SOMER Blink is an in-game corporation of players who run a website. Like many player run sites, they are an affiliate of a GTC reseller. For most of these sites, this is done as a way to cover server expenses, etc. Somer (and I presume a few others) just found a way to turn being an affiliate into a profitable business. That still does not mean that they have any business relation with CCP beyond being players of the game, and as such, they are bound by the EULA and TOS just like any other player.

Somer has NEVER given an isk incentive, merely tokens on the Somer blink site. Yes, I concede this is an isk equivilent, but it is NOT isk. Somer's site runs totally seperate to Eve and and isk donations to somer are for CREDIT on the site.

Somer is kind enough for you to cash out these credits as a tranfer to real isk but one has to play and win on the site to be in a position to cash out credits for isk.

I really don't see why people are getting this simple transaction sooooo wrong.

Yes, I concede this is an isk equivilent

Everything I've ever gotten from Somer was through the same system everyone else has access to, which CCP has allowed to date.

Somer has always used part of the GTC cost to fund its servers. So they're offering more site credit(which comes out of their pocket as all their buy outs and bonks/minibonks and promos THEY pay for) to get in a bit more cash to keep the server up AND thank their community for their support so far.

Community gets mad when Somer gifts community with more site credit/tokens(read NOT ISK or real monies. Pixels.)

My english isn't that good but shouldn't the thread title be "but have gotten worse" , if no please explain why!

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

My english isn't that good but shouldn't the thread title be "but have gotten worse" , if no please explain why!

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

Still is better than some of the misinformed rants by some forum users. Especially ones that don't seem to post very often.

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.

Somer blink have reacted to being told to cease their RMT activity by offering even more credit per purchase. This is beyond taking the ****.
The 10 days was to give them time to take down their operation, not to have 10 days to push a bigger marketing campaign.
This is clearly Somer acting in defiance against the ruling that has been made and a clear indicator that they should be shut down immediately.

Remember when CCP employees officially endorsed somer and sang their praises over all the other similar groups, and that they were basically the best "community service" out there

Remember when CCP asked resellers to stop this form of RMT and somers response was to increase their RMTing five fold in order to cash out as much as possible before they got shut down?

Remember when this game wasn't so hopelessly terrible

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.

...Is it even remotely plausible that Somer's server costs run to over 50k dollars a year?

While them making a ton of ISK is OK, rl money is not. And CCP did never introduce a mechanic to turn ISK into rl money (thats what SOMER was doing), hence the controversy.
SOMER is not being shut down by the way, theyre just not going to be able to make $$ through the GTC sales kickback system.

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

No they didnt, SOMER did. There are GTC resellers out there but they dont offer any in game advantage for buying them.

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..

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.