EVE Online Politics: A spy just screwed a few thousand players, years of work.

[runtheplacered]

This is the sort of thing that made Meridian 59 (first 3d graphics MMO) so great, too. This very thing actually happened in that game, and the person who did it? Me. I was one of the guild leaders and I turned coat. Why? Because it was exciting. It didn't even have anything to do with loot. I wonder if it was the same for this person, too. I was pretty young at the time.

At the time it was such a big deal. It's funny looking back on it now with insignificance. Not to mention that game was damn fun, for its time.

 

[geldonyetich]

geldonyetich, you constantly refer to 'Eve players', not to the person you are replying to. Small wonder there's going to be misconceptions about who you are talking about. The entire point of my post was not to attack you, but to bring to your attention the full extent of the problem with how you are presenting yourself. If this doesn't convince you of the intent of my post, then I cannot see why you posted yours: ISTJ

Well, if that is the case, I appreciate the effort. However, I'm not sure there's anything I can do about it.

The problem, as I see it, is that how a person will interpret a message will widely vary from person to person. I can include more words to try to clarify, but the actual gap in communication is pretty substantial even with my best length. I've written an article about it [http://dsob.wordpress.com/2007/11/10/illiterate-literacy-what-i-learnt-about-message-boards/]. I'm not saying that article is the ultimate truth, but it makes some interesting points.

Lastly, you've built your logic on the base that political intrigue and espionage are not part of the game. I gave you examples backing up CCPs publicly released statement advertising it as a core part of Eve. You have given no examples to back your statement that it isn't, and now assert that it's laziness instead of good policy. Please provide something to back up this beyond your continued assertion that your opinion is truth.

This is not entirely what I said. What I'm actually saying (and this is going to sound silly) is that I don't want to participate in a game in which out-of-game political intrigue and espionage has more influence than the individual players.

The whole BoB endeavor proved that thousands of players are no match for one bored traitor for instilling change. I find that unacceptable in a game. However, that's just me. People should not be getting their panties in a bunch that I have a differing opinion. Some people here even agree.

I did go so far as to say I'm not sure if EVE Online ended up allowing political intrigue for the good of the game or if they simply were unable to regulate it properly so they decided to cut their losses on the EULA. It is, I think, a fair assertion to make, and it calls into question many delicious considerations as to how EVE Online doesn't quite work.

[edit: since it's nearly 4am and I'm spending longer and longer correcting the increasing number of spelling mistakes I'm making due to fatigue, and less time on continuing to argue the point, I'm off for the night/morning.]

It's quite alright. I appreciate that you are keeping a cool head despite interpreting a lot of my messages as attacks.

 

[runtheplacered]

I guess its a good time to get into EVE. I've never even thought of joining it, but now it sounds like a time of absolute chaos and opportunity. Who knows? Dragon Age: Origins and Empire: Total War don't come out for a month...

Dragon Age has been delayed to Q4 2009, to coincide with the console release. Sucks, I know.

 

[Social Pariah]

This presents an unrealistically awesome portrayal of what is, for the most part, a rather dull game... I played for a year or so, what kept me going was not having to pay the subscription fee and some interesting people to socialise with.

 

[geldonyetich]

Spoiler

Lately, I've realized us gaming purists are a weird bunch. It's like going to a wine and cheese festival and meeting people who find disgustingly moldy cheese and rancid wine to be worth the whole trip of being there because, after decades of consumption, they've found there's a certain aspect about these unlikely sources that embodies what being a true wine and cheese enthusiast is. Yet, the average philistine would be content with a bottle of supermarket red. So it is with a purist and WoW, and EVE Online feels like something else entirely - a block of fruitcake at the wine and cheese festival.

You see, if you happened to be the kind of gamer who enjoys fruitcake, you think the game is great, and I'd be fine with that. Who says wine connoisseurs are better than cheesecake connoisseurs? Not me.

Well, actually, you do--when you call someone an "average philistine" and say that you've found what is to be a "true enthusiast" you're not just attacking issues, you're attacking people.

Actually, what I was saying is that I'm a wierdo with strange tastes because I've played so many games.

I went a little off tangent in that WoW is a product developed for a casual market. Yeah, I was insulting the WoW players a bit by suggesting their love of a streamlined EverQuest doesn't make them wierdos like me. The reason I did so was because WoW was really popular: why don't I like it? I must be a wierdo, I eschew the supermarket red for rancid wine and moldy cheese.

However, you'll notice I didn't say EVE Online players were philistines. I said it was an entirely different love entirely from what I had.

 

[DoomyMcDoom]

kinda funny how this thread turned from discussion of the topic of BoB getting hosed by a spy which i find amusing since they were looked at as unbeatable juggernauts be allot of people.

and turned into an argument about someone's viewpoint on the fairness of the issue... and it's getting to the point where some of you are becoming quite overly reactive/judgemental of eachother and so forth... please just let it go, the betrayal was just another part of an ongoing war, I've been part of smaller versions of this same thing many times and seen alotta theft and the revenge taken for said theft... and all i can say is if you're too weak to get back up and give em hell for messin with ya you're too weak for EVE... and from what i can tell BoB aint gonna just lay down to die quietly so I say I'm happy to be able to watch the fireworks. and hopefully for the sake of the oppertunistically enriched that this whole fiasco turns some decent proffit

 

[geldonyetich]

I don't say one thing and mean another. When I say "it is only my subjective opinion" it is to make it clear it is a subjective opinion.

But you use the kind of words that are a better fit with objective judgments, not subjective opinions.

How could I write about something as broad as an EVE Online scandal from a subjective stance? What I ended up doing is writing objectively about something while clarifying where I'm being subjective whenever possible.

The whole thing was a premise, no conclusion was made.

If no conclusion is made, then no argument is made, which makes no sense.

It makes sense when it take it into proper context: I was replying to a bit logic and disagreed with it by inserting the premise that broke it.

"EVE is like Sheepshead/ect"
"No, EVE is EVE. Sheepshead/ect do not resemble it enough."

I was saying if EVE Online is EVE Online and not Sheedshead/Bullshit/Poker (if it is a game where you grind minerals to build up ships and establish dominance on various sections of space) then what?

Right--you just leave out "and a game of corporate espionage and intrigue" without any justification for doing so. That's what I'm talking about when I say you stuffed the conclusion in the premise.

I have very good justification for doing so: because what's corporate espionage and intrigue is entirely different from how it is done and how it impacts everyone in other games. They're entirely different systems - while there were principles in common, the ramifications were completely different. Consequently, what exists in Sheepshead does not justify its existence within EVE Online.

Offhand, the specific difference between overturning the chessboard and destroying a corporation from the inside is that somebody has to be negligent. If that is the case, does negligence qualify an underhanded means to secure success? In EVE Online, it does, but I'm not entirely sure if this is because the developers realized they could not properly enforce this, or if it's because grief play makes for a better game, or what.

One, what do you mean you're not entirely sure? You seemed pretty sure about the answer to that question until now.

The only thing I was sure about is that EVE Online is not a game I want to play.

Two, you're doing it right there, making bad use of language. When you say "grief play" you're making a judgment about that kind of play. When you call it negligence, you are as well.

I noticed that it wasn't fair to force the "grief play" definition - that's why I added "or what." Give me an alternative.

As for negligence, that's fair. Somebody left the wrong guy with the keys, they were negligent, therefore BoB is now destroyed. Take any word out of the thesaurus [http://thesaurus.reference.com/browse/negligent] it's the same. You're basically saying that, because somebody was negligent, it's justified for a guild to get torn down from within, right?

I think people are getting pissed at you because you seem incapable of having this discussion in neutral terms. In a game of corporate espionage and intrigue, a guild being collapsed by a traitor is not "grief play". Trusting a traitor is not "negligent." You use words that imply what the right answer is in framing the question.

You need to learn how to present your arguments in more neutral language. That's why you're getting the flak you are--you're using spin words instead of more neutral ones.

In most MMORPGs that I've played, somebody sneaking into your guild, social engineering the connections to get access to control your guild, and bringing it down from the inside would fall under the umbrella of "grief play." Right? That's been my experience. Therefore, it's fair to objectively call it such. You may want to take a figurative interpretation on that because it's not against EVE Online policy, but it's the same act, and I'm pretty sure you'll find a quite few alienated BoB players who feel pretty heavily griefed right now.

Why is EVE Online different from most MMORPGs in their stance on scamming? Because apparently CCP says they'll not get involved unless it's against the EULA. However, who defined the EULA? CPP. Why did CCP define the EULA this way?

My theory is that there's more to it than a desire to forward player-driven content. My theory, backed up from some subjective experience of running games, is that it's simply too hard to enforce something like that on the scale EVE Online operates on. It's easy enough to deal with a hacked password (if I recall correctly, your in-game name has to differ from your login name, so hacking a password is very hard to do) but when social engineering on a massive scale gets involved, who are you going to believe?

It's a good theory because it makes sense. Regulating scams in a game of EVE Online's scale is neigh impossible, so why not let it slide? An EVE Online administrator themselves could say otherwise [http://support.eve-online.com/Pages/KB/Article.aspx?id=34], and I'm not sure I'd believe them at this point, because it's within their best interests to make people think they did it for creating "player politics." The fascinating thing is, even though they're unable to preserve the game integrity along these lines, it actually garners more interest because players enjoy the drama.

It's a flaw in the game, but an interesting flaw. It's not a game I would play because I don't play a game with such a big social engineering gash in it - I'm far too anal - but my opinion is not the ultimate truth upon the universe or anything. Also, I find grinding asteroids and the combat fairly uninvolved for my tastes, so no joy there either.

You can take offense to that if you want, but really, one can take offense to anything. So I don't want to play your game: get over it. I'm trying to be polite, but how much more polite can I be and still be completely honest?

 

[geldonyetich]

That's just restating your premise over again in different words--this is why people are getting annoyed with you. You can't just say "the ramifications were completely different"--nothing follows from that "consequently." You need to actually list the ramifications and then argue why they may be justified in Sheepshead, but not in Eve.

Well, sheepshead is a card game played by a small pool of friends for no or very small stakes. Eve Online is a massively multiplayer online game played between a massive pool of strangers (perhaps a few friends), on computers, in no way like a card game, with much higher stakes, and completely different rules... do I really need to go on at this point?

There's a certain point in which listing the differences is harder than listing the similarities. Sheapshead has under-the-table dealings, EVE Online has under-the-table dealings. They're both played by human beings. That's the only real similarity between the two. You can probably figure out why the logic doesn't work by now on your own, right?

I'm not stupid - the analogy works on one tangent: social engineering games exist. Yes, I know. However, this doesn't prove it's a good move for a high-stakes MMORPG. Read the headline of this thread again, tell me how "screwed a few thousand players, years of work" is a good thing for the game quality.

Answer: Okay, maybe the game quality took a hit... but the spectacle value is just wonderful. I think at this point I'm completely within my rights to suggest that maybe the game quality wasn't the primarily priority to begin with, then. Maybe this isn't a game to be played, but rather experienced. Is that really so terrible?

In most MMORPGs that I've played, somebody sneaking into your guild, social engineering the connections to get access to control your guild, and bringing it down from the inside would fall under the umbrella of "grief play." Right? That's been my experience.

Why is EVE Online different? Because apparently CCP says they'll not get involved unless it's against the EULA. Who defined the EULA? CPP. Why did CCP define the EULA this way?

[...]
See what I think everyone is trying to get across to you? That you're criticizing EVE on the basis of what you know of other MMORPGs, when the whole point of EVE was to be different from all of those MMORPGs?

First you try to tell me that Sheepshead has enough in common with EVE Online that the aspects of social engineering applies, now you're trying to tell me that EVE Online is different enough from other MMORPGs that grief play isn't grief play.

So this MMORPG can adequately resemble a card game enough for a point to apply, but is so very different from another MMORPG that one shouldn't? Ugh! Get back to me when you get your story straight.

I'm going to try to get some sleep.

Also, try out the 14-day free trial. You're been doing a fairly good job of arguing how EVE Online works considering you admitted you've never played the game [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.86745.1301557] so far, hot shot, but some of these questions are just embarrassingly off-target. That's not a personal attack so much as this argument has just hit a brick wall because of that. You would be floored at what passes for "leveling" or "raids" in EVE Online, yet you might be surprised how much it has in common with Ultima Online.

 

[Oswald D Grant]

I see you enjoy a message medium that makes it difficult to slap you.

When you can't attack the issue, apparently you attack the person.

ಠ_ಠ

 

[Siris]

I read somewhere the director also ran off with a few trillion game dollars. If that's true, this just gets better and better

 

[Oswald D Grant]

You need to actually list the ramifications and then argue why they may be justified in Sheepshead, but not in Eve.

He seems to think that the quantitative scale of the losses incurred actually makes a difference to whether the gameplay is legitimate or not.

If you have one game like say Defcon where you have a set of pieces at the start of the game and you form and betray alliances to cause other players to lose pieces while protecting your own, that's good and valid gameplay. If you had to take time to gain those pieces in the first place, then that's bad and invalid gameplay.

Not sure whether he considers only political moves resulting in loss of invested time to be invalid, or whether the same applies to military moves resulting in the loss of invested time.

 

[Theo Samaritan]

geldon I politely asked you to drop it earlier, why the fuck don't you shut up already?

This topic may be locked because of your insufferable behaviour. I expected more from you considering your posts from outside this topic.

At everyone else, I am updating the original post with current events.

 

[Undead Dragon King]

I guess its a good time to get into EVE. I've never even thought of joining it, but now it sounds like a time of absolute chaos and opportunity. Who knows? Dragon Age: Origins and Empire: Total War don't come out for a month...

Dragon Age has been delayed to Q4 2009, to coincide with the console release. Sucks, I know.

Well this is not what you want to hear first thing on a Saturday just as you're about to go work out. It sucks, yea, but thanks for letting me know. It would have been worse if I hadn't found out about it.

 

[Canebrake]

You need to actually list the ramifications and then argue why they may be justified in Sheepshead, but not in Eve.

He seems to think that the quantitative scale of the losses incurred actually makes a difference to whether the gameplay is legitimate or not.

If you have one game like say Defcon where you have a set of pieces at the start of the game and you form and betray alliances to cause other players to lose pieces while protecting your own, that's good and valid gameplay. If you had to take time to gain those pieces in the first place, then that's bad and invalid gameplay.

Not sure whether he considers only political moves resulting in loss of invested time to be invalid, or whether the same applies to military moves resulting in the loss of invested time.

I don't see why that's bad game play.
It also enhances the value... you toss away men/lives/resources freely if you don't have to work for them.
Working for stuffis only bad if you buy things too big for your income!
You don't buy swiss watches then walk through bad parts of town!

The same is true with Dreads,you can't take something incredibly hard to make then just toss it around.
Long term implications.


You get exactly what you set yourself up for.

I guess some people don't like the idea of having to take risks,but all of life is a risk.

Get a job? You may get fired,or generally or sexually harassed.
Get a house? It may be broken into,it may get burnt down,or tornado'd or any number of events.
Get a car? same deal!


If you and other people have to think before you act,and you consider that a bad thing,then shame on you. Go back to some deathmatch game where consequences last no longer than ten minutes.

Secondly,your opponent who may have more pieces,EARNED them!
Scamming ships and isk off people is earning them!
Alot of people disagree,but face it. Scamming is harder than it looks.
You may have hurt people,but they will make more money,or more ships.

They made a decision to trust you,that trust may have been misplaced.
Do you think they won't learn their lesson? Sometimes you do them a favor if it's for a small amount of money. Sometimes lessons learned early are lessons learned easy.

The time invested is not necessarily lost either. although POSes are being killed,Not one player trusted more isk to that corp than they could handle,they trusted him and he earned that trust. When they treated him badly,they made a very poor decision!

He said. "They are a bunch of faggots" And i believe if they had treated him right he wouldn't have done that.

He taught them a lesson,a very big lesson.
But really all in all,players still have their isk except the stuff they put into those
[bank accounts],if they trusted more than they could have lost it's their fault.
Most of the assets were in the CEO's personal accounts anyway,he did "Very little damage."


It's a very very small price to pay loot wise for nobody noticing his unhappiness and fixing that. For goodness sake,if he ripped them off because he was sick of the way he was being treated,even as he was top brass that's...

That's just like a WoW guild master running off with gold and weapons. Only people actually worked for that stuff..... Just like WoW!

You have to be careful who you trust,and I'm sure they could have been set much,much farther back if they had more unsafe guild policies.


The real moral is you get what you dish out.
If you are[singularly or collectively] a jerk,people take your stuff when you give them access.
This is also why IRL companies protect their accounts as well,this happens there too.

EDIT:You also don't invest that time assuming you get to keep it for nothing. You have to work to keep it.

 

[geldonyetich]

Also, try out the 14-day free trial. You're been doing a fairly good job of arguing how EVE Online works considering you admitted you've never played the game [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.86745.1301557] so far, hot shot, but some of these questions are just embarrassingly off-target. That's not a personal attack so much as this argument has just hit a brick wall because of that. You would be floored at what passes for "leveling" or "raids" in EVE Online, yet you might be surprised how much it has in common with Ultima Online.

Why don't you lay all that out for us then, hotshot?

And let us know about your Dippy experiences, hotshot?

See how easy it is to type the word 'hotshot'?

It seems we're both at the end of our patience (especially if you're being induced into a boiling rage at the use of "hot shot" which I actually spun as a half-hearted compliment: you did pretty good considering how little you knew about the game).

I have to draw the line somewhere, and it's here:

If you want me to sit down and explain to you every little difference between EVE Online and Ultima Online so you don't have to play EVE Online, then I'd like you to start paying me.

If you can't accept a thing can be both objective and common [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.86745.1302862], then I expect it to be a full time job.

Your argument in recent posts has sort of broken down to the ones I used to have with Eliza [http://www.masswerk.at/elizabot/].
A wonderful stalling mechanism, a good attempt to simulate life, but it hardly makes for stimulating conversation.