GM Lelouch
Game Masters C C P Alliance
102
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Posted - 2014.10.02 10:16:00 -
[1] - Quote
Hello. I apologize for the long wait. I've read every post in this thread and I'm going to comment on some of the major concerns raised.
I can not make any comment on the outcome of individual reimbursement tickets or specific account suspensions, this is a matter of policy and I'm sorry that some of your questions might go unanswered.
POS bowling First off, here is the clarification you've all requested:
If a ship can be locked and fired upon, it can be legitimately bumped. If a ship cannot be locked due to it's position within a forcefield, it should be protected by said forcefield. Such a ship can only be legitimately bumped out of the forcefield with proper access rights to enter the forcefield.
Cyno bumping was also considered an exploit until it was fixed with the Oceanus release.
Public exploit notifications I acknowledge that there's been a lack of clarity concerning the exploit status of this particular nuance of POS bowling. This was our failure, we haven't done a good job communicating about this exploit and I humbly apologize for this mistake on our part. We will make an effort to react more quickly to requests for clarification of this sort in the future.
We will also take steps to improve visibility of public exploit announcements that are still in effect, it is a very reasonable complaint that exploit announcements are currently only found buried under months or even years of news items. Moving forward, we will per suggestions in this thread and from the CSM maintain an archive of some sort of publicly announced exploits still in effect.
Do keep in mind however that this will not be a comprehensive list of prohibited activity within the game. Such a list is not realistic as exploits are often not known to us until they're abused.
The drone damage exploit from this summer is a good example of this. The bug enabling this exploit had potentially existed for a long time before it became known to us. It should however have been very clear to anyone abusing that exploit that they were utilizing a game bug to increase the damage output of their drones beyond what was intended by the game.
Some exploits are also discovered and fixed before they see widespread abuse. In such cases we deem it best not to publicly announce the existence of the exploit since it could very well backfire and result in widespread abuse before the bug is addressed.
In short: Lack of an official CCP announcement regarding is not a free license to abuse game bugs without repercussions. Abuse of an bug/exploit is not okay just because we haven't yet publicly stated that abuse of this particular exploit won't be tolerated.
If in doubt, file a support ticket and ask if what you're doing/intending to do is prohibited or not, we do not punish players who stumble on an exploit and report it to us in good faith.
I want to clearly state that the variant of POS bowling this thread covers is a special case. Clarification was absolutely necessary and we fully admit our mistake in this regard. It wasn't clear to you, our players, that this was an exploit and it is therefore a different case than, to make a hypothetical example, an item duping exploit which hasn't been publicly announced.
Exploits and account suspensions We take exploit abuse extremely seriously, especially when the exploit in question has been publicly designated as such. Action is taken when a player is verified to have exploited a game bug to his/her advantage. The severity of the exploit and the player's warning/ban history are both factors in determining which action is taken.
Account suspensions are not a luck of the draw as some have suggested. All GMs operate under the same processes and procedures and we do not make any distinction based on a player's corporation/alliance affiliation. The same ruleset applies to all EVE players.
We will not suspend a player's account based on player testimony, Youtube videos or player-submitted screenshots alone. A decision to suspend a player's account must always be backed up by information in our server-side logs, we do not arbitrarily ban players. That is not to say that we never make mistakes, we are after all human. There are however strict internal guidelines regarding account suspension and we don't ban players for exploit abuse without evidence. Best regards, Lead GM Lelouch CCP Customer Support | EVE Online | DUST 514 |