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Thread Statistics | Show CCP posts - 17 post(s) |
Rroff
Questionable Ethics. Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
727
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Posted - 2014.08.20 20:10:00 -
[1] - Quote
CCP Falcon wrote: At this point, the facts become muddy. Some claim SOMER Blink received cash from the affiliate as part of the transaction. Some believe SOMER Blink paid inflated ISK prices as a means to undercut other authorized PLEX resellers. Some assert this was simply a value-added service, allowing players to redeem their PLEX without having to go through the steps of personally selling it on the in-game market. In response to the appearance of impropriety in the promotion, the EVE Community team helped lead an immediate investigation.
Anyone who purchased GTC via a* somer blink referral link during the period that the previous GTC promotion was suspended and the resumption of the new offer onwards would be credited 1 credit per GTC referral.
This credit could then be redeemed for 1x PLEX to ISK transaction which Somer would pay an above market value for as a "loyalty bonus" for supporting Somer via the GTC purchase.
That is pretty much the long and short of it, I can't speak as to any intentions of under cutting other services, etc. but the intention wasn't as a value added service.
* As far as I'm aware during this time period the only option was MD |
Rroff
Questionable Ethics. Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
727
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Posted - 2014.08.20 20:20:00 -
[2] - Quote
TheMercenaryKing wrote:
There is also the fact that these private emails were shared without permission or falsified, we as players will probably never know if it was a real or fake emails setup as a way to pass blame and cover tracks.
Somer has nothing to gain by faking those details - it would only completely seal their fate with CCP. |
Rroff
Questionable Ethics. Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
729
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Posted - 2014.08.20 20:25:00 -
[3] - Quote
X ATM092 wrote:AkJon Ferguson wrote:I never liked Somer, his site (which I never played at,) or the degenerate gamblers who made him filthy spacerich, but this was handled exceedingly poorly and pettily by CCP.
If Somer was given approval for what he did by CCP, then he shouldn't have been banned at all and CCP has acted in a despicable manner.
If Somer wasn't given approval for what he did (or if that approval was given and then later explicitly revoked,) then he deserved the same anonymous quiet ban that everybody else gets. The Somer RMTing openly clusterfuck has gone on for far too long to be resolved quietly, especially after how CCP acted last time. Justice needed to be seen to be done. CCP acted appropriately.
To be frank CCP has had long enough to see what Somer is doing and deal with it quietly - given the level of integration with ads and promotions, etc. there is no way they didn't know what was going on and have pretty much given both tacit and actual approval, I'm not entirely comfortable with them then turning around and banning Somer now it smacks of appeasement of the baying mob. |
Rroff
Questionable Ethics. Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
729
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Posted - 2014.08.20 23:02:00 -
[4] - Quote
CCP Falcon wrote: If they are still to be paid out, and are on any of the affected accounts, this is an issue you'll have to take up with SOMER Blink.
Who through your actions can't really do anything about it. So you might as well say "your stuffed" rather than dance around the point. |
Rroff
Questionable Ethics. Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
729
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Posted - 2014.08.20 23:50:00 -
[5] - Quote
Jonah Gravenstein wrote:Niko Lorenzio wrote:I'm confused. If all his accounts are banned immediately, how are you going to "allow" him to return the ISK to anyone? It's called delegation, you pass all the work off to your minions while taking all of the credit and raking in the cash. It's a fairly common business practice.
Which if Somer was involved in RMTing "by the book" should ostensibly mean confiscating or locking of all those assets (obviously actually tracking them, etc. is another matter), otherwise if its just for the publishing of internal memos and other sideline EULA breaches, which have mostly come about due to marginalisation even if Somer was in the wrong, this has taken a step in a very dubious direction.
EDIT: This is assuming that the correspondence Somer published isn't faked and the proposal is word for word as submitted to CCP. |
Rroff
Questionable Ethics. Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
730
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Posted - 2014.08.21 00:48:00 -
[6] - Quote
Lady Naween wrote:Cameron Freerunner wrote:I'm curious how Somer is able to return items and ISK if all of his accounts have been banned. ffs.. it has been answered so many times. Somer personally didnt do all the transfer of winnings and isk, she had people who did it for her. and they can still do so! by the hate of Michael why can't people read a little before asking the same frakking question over and over. *facedesks so hard* CCP: well done. Two thumbs up in how you handled this. Now go have a beer and some sleep, perhaps some hot man on man on woman **** or something to unwind.. I.. know I will ^^
Problem is this boils down - if Somer was punished for RMTing then surely the whole organisation should have its assets locked down? if Somer wasn't punished for RMTing then either Somer or CCP has lied about the information as published by Somer or had a serious breakdown of internal organisation/communication which if its on the CCP side would have put Somer in an untenable position - which leads to far more worrying ramifications in either direction.
CCP needs to be very clear that the information in the proposal as posted by Somer was never appraised by them word for word as published on their site or otherwise they have pretty much incidentally orchestrated the downfall of Somer by their own disorganisation and then punished Somer for it.
If Somer has been disingenuous with the information and essentially mislead CCP for his own ends then that absolutely must be clearly explained also. |
Rroff
Questionable Ethics. Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
730
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Posted - 2014.08.21 13:34:00 -
[7] - Quote
Garai Nolen wrote:Hakaari Inkuran wrote:I'm more wondering why it took players to bring the issue up in the first place. CCP was perfectly capable of visiting the site and looking at the new promotion (literally all they had to do was look at it), do they not keep close tabs on their affiliates? ... Somer is not and never has been an affiliate of CCP. They are a player in EVE, like any other. Period. Markee Dragon, on the other hand, is an official 3rd party time-code reseller for CCP with an actual business relationship with CCP (except they don't call it a time-code now but, whatever, haven't had coffee yet and I'm not looking up the new name :) Somer was an affiliate of Markee Dragon under whatever affiliate program Markee has, completely independent from CCP. THERE IS NO BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOMER AND CCP, other than as a generic player governed by the EULA. That's kind of the point. When the community reported a player they believed to be violating the EULA, CCP investigated and took action as they would in any other case with any other regular player.
Hmm no business contract existed as far as I know but CCP promoted them (i.e. on the login screen), helped them with promotions and events, etc. the relationship between them certainly wasn't the same as a generic player.
Jonah Gravenstein wrote:carbomb wrote:I might be wrong, quite often am but this seems to me that someone at ccp signed off on this without reading it properly. Someone higher caught it after the scheme had started and called a stop. Somer in protest posted copies of the conversations showing the given consent and rather than admit that they f**ked up, ccp digs a breach of service out of their pocket and bans somer.
just saying Someone in sales, who should have passed it to legal but didn't, signed off on a proposal that was worded in such a way that it appeared to say one thing, and meant another, thus obscuring the true intent. TL;DR SomerBlink attempted to pull the wool over CCP's eyes, and failed due to those pesky Eve players.
Did you actually read the proposal? because if what CCP got was word for word as posted by Somer its pretty clear as to its intentions - if Somer intentionally side stepped CCP procedure to get someone to OK it under another pretext, et. then tht is another matter and one I have no info on. |
Rroff
Questionable Ethics. Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
730
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Posted - 2014.08.21 13:53:00 -
[8] - Quote
Tippia wrote:[quote=ExplorerAlTNewb]The intent was clear after the fact when it became apparent how you were meant to parse the sentences (which was different from the intuitive sense). Even so, the way it was actually enacted was now how it was described GÇö the proposal was written to suggest that no extra ISK would be paid out, and the actual scheme hinged entirely on extra ISK being paid out.
The bit about extra ISK was context sensitive albeit in the description of a relatively complex system I can see why people might lose sight of the context but it was pretty plain to me on first read (as you can see in the Somer thread where I explained how it worked before all this kicked off). |
Rroff
Questionable Ethics. Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
730
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Posted - 2014.08.21 14:26:00 -
[9] - Quote
To be honest I don't remember it being termed as "best" price when I read it, I seem to remember it being less ambiguously termed than that (as can be seen in my explanation in the other thread) but between lack of sleep and the possibility it may have been edited since not sure if it was me misreading it or not. |
Rroff
Questionable Ethics. Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
730
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Posted - 2014.08.21 20:17:00 -
[10] - Quote
Is it me or has the original issue behind all this been lost sight of?
From what I remember this basically all kicked off over a small number of people trying to raffle off high ISK value items using a similar technique to somer's original GTC bonus whereby everyone who bought GTC via a referral link was given a raffle ticket for a random drawing of the item once the seller had realised a high enough real life money amount via the referral bonus. Which CCP decided to put a stop to causing complaints that it wasn't fair if Somer could operate via the same mechanisms.
As an aside there is no escaping that on some levels TMC operates a slightly more convoluted version of the same mechanism though I don't think there is any profit in going after TMC over it - it does no good for anyone or the health of the game and its 3rd party support services.
The real issue being drawing a line in the sand between support services and even potentially casual use of that mechanism and opening the door to unregulated use of it to farm the game for real money gains. |
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Rroff
Questionable Ethics. Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
730
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Posted - 2014.08.21 20:42:00 -
[11] - Quote
Tippia wrote:Rroff wrote:As an aside there is no escaping that on some levels TMC operates a slightly more convoluted version of the same mechanism GǪaside from not offering ISK for cash or vice versa, you mean, and keeping a strict separation between in-game and out-of-game transactions, which neatly removes any kind of semblance of RMT and trivially escapes that particular EULA violation? Quote:The real issue being drawing a line in the sand between support services and even potentially casual use of that mechanism and opening the door to unregulated use of it to farm the game for real money gains. What's the issue? The lines are very clearly drawn as it is: you are allowed to offer ISK in exchange for EVE-related community services. You are not allowed to offer ISK in exchange for cash or non-EVE-related services.
Actually break it down and its merely an artificial separation to convolute what is essentially an analogue of the same mechanic if looked at in its most basic form (I don't personally give a **** I'm really could careless even if TMC is breaking any rules in that regard or not - none the least I read TMC as much as any one).
TBH I don't really care about Somer or TMC and what they might have done wrong or right as such just find it depressing that as much as anything it is also the culmination of the vendettas of a small number of people motivated by far less altruistic concerns for the game and far more motived by either losing ISK to Somer, jealousy or even competition. Its never nice to see such low, mean spirited people effectively win. |
Rroff
Questionable Ethics. Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
730
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Posted - 2014.08.21 21:20:00 -
[12] - Quote
Tippia wrote:No. If you break it down, you notice that there is a hard separation between two unlreated transactions and that there is nothing analogous to the Somer case other than that ISK and cash are involved in both cases. By that logic, having lunch is an analogue: you pay cash to the restaurant/shop for food, and later the same day, not being passed out from hunger, you acquire some ISK.
Again, the fundamental difference with ad-supported community sites is this: those who get ISK aren't providing any cash in exchange. Those who provide cash aren't getting any ISK in exchange. At no point is in-game and out-of-game assets exchanged for each other. Even if the same part hands out ISK and receives cash, it's not RMT unless the two transactions are related in a quid-pro-quo arrangement. Otherwise, living should be considered RMT since everyone playing EVE receives cash and hands out ISK.
Maybe I'm seeing this all wrong (been going on 3 hours sleep a night for about a week) but then if I made a site with little more than just a GTC referral link (and maybe some incidental content) and paid people an amount of ISK to spread the link (indirectly) around to get other people to buy GTC through it its perfectly OK for me to make money from ISK in the game via this system? |
Rroff
Questionable Ethics. Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
730
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Posted - 2014.08.21 21:26:00 -
[13] - Quote
Tippia wrote:Then you'd be paying them for a non-EVE-related service, which would be a no-no.
Probably wasn't clear but I meant adding in some token incidental eve stuff just to fluff out the link maybe get them to jump through a couple of minor "eve related" content loops. |
Rroff
Questionable Ethics. Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
730
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Posted - 2014.08.21 21:28:00 -
[14] - Quote
Baneken wrote: If you'd pay people with isk to click on your ads you're basically committing a fraud but not against CCP but against the company whose ads you're selling assuming those people wouldn't touch your ads with a ten feet pole without you giving them isk first or the ad company might not give a rats ass and is just happy raking in the cash from those clicks you just made for them.
On a related note just noticed (atleast for me) noticed on TMC using the PLEX link also activates a click through on the ad beside it, sneaky. |
Rroff
Questionable Ethics. Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
730
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Posted - 2014.08.21 21:42:00 -
[15] - Quote
Tippia wrote:Doesn't look like it, no. You might have gotten lucky with the ad and seen one that is sold through the same network.
Its doing it for me on 2 different PCs - clicking the PLEX link automatically activates a click through response on the right hand page ad at the same time which is kind of sneaky.
Garai Nolen wrote: But why would anyone click your referral link then? If you pay me ISK to spam your website in chat, sure, I'll take your ISK. And then I still won't click on your referral link. And neither will anyone who sees the spam, because they get literally nothing out of doing so. It's a lot easier just to go buy a PLEX from CCP or a time code from a site I actually want to support.
So yeah, sure, you could probably do it and it probably would not count as RMT. Essentially you would be the world's first "ISK for EVE chat spam" service. You'd basically just be paying people ISK to spam chat with a link to your site but not actually providing anyone any reason to go to your website or click on your referral link (because you can't, and the moment you do with in-game ISK/items, yes, it becomes RMT).
Soon enough people will work out though that they can buy their game time that way and get free ISK without me actually invoking the afore mentioned quid-pro-quo arrangement myself and when your talking real money like that the ISK outlay to make it work can be made to work via various farming mechanisms. |
Rroff
Questionable Ethics. Ministry of Inappropriate Footwork
730
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Posted - 2014.08.22 02:05:00 -
[16] - Quote
Derrick Miles wrote: I'm not quite sure you could consider paying people isk to spam advertisements for your website as not RMT. You would essentially be paying in-game currency for something that is an out-of-game benefit. Besides which, I'm pretty sure there's a clause about spamming ads in-game in the ToS or EULA somewhere.
Don't get to hung up in the practical specifics, there are a few practical flaws, but nothing that couldn't be worked around, in what I described but the theoretical model itself makes the point I was aiming for.
Anyhow my aim here isn't to bring any entity down, just to voice distaste as to certain elements of what has been going on. (Unrelated to TMC). |
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