EVE General Discussion

You are assuming here that the GMs will just up and ban your enemy even if they have no evidence of who the scammer was. That makes no sense.

Nope, I'm well aware that it was against the rules to name my character "Sid Hugdens" and use it to scam with, what wasn't against the rules, or didn't appear to be, was to say "I'm an alt of Sid Hudgens", "I represent Sid Hudgens", "I'm a recruiter for *insert nullsec entity of choice*, I can get you in but I require a 500,000,000 isk security deposit", all of which are now against the rules.

Given the precedent provided by the many corporate heists for which Eve is famous, infiltration by deception, and deceptive practices in general were allowed, now they're not. Those events attracted new customers, myself included, via mainstream media, and their own PR department.

Is it just me, or has CCP made this completely unenforceable?

On the one hand, they don't want to give away information about player accounts (a totally reasonable consideration), which means they can't handle situations differently depending on whether or not two characters belong to the same player, which leads to things like this:
is false, because they do differ - one is false representation, the other is truthful statement of identity.

Don't get me wrong, I'll be treading carefully until we get a satisfactory explanation, but right now as far as I can see, if the precise wording of the ToS can be taken as the absolute letter of the law, you should be ok to identify yourself as affiliated with a character, corp etc. if that statement is true. I think.

Ok one more ....

If you can show me where CCP has said that they will ban someone with NO EVIDENCE that they have done anything against the TOS because someone on an anonymous account claimed to be them I will spend all day tomorrow shooting the jita statue.

"We made a change to the policy 3 months ago and nobody noticed it, so it's always been the policy." Super convincing argument.


If, in fact, that policy has always been in place, why does Chribba's page have an exhaustive list of his alts and an exhortation not to trust anyone not on that list (along with a specific list of people who have impersonated him in the past*) instead of a line "if someone scams you by pretending to be my alt, file a petition and you'll get everything back and they'll get banned"?
Real answer: Because that policy is brand new. Whether it was put in place when it was announced 3 months ago, or whether it was arbitrarily and secretly put into place before then doesn't matter, it's a new policy change and it's a terrible one.


*a number of characters on this list appear to still be active.

In this quote when he says "you" he is referring to "you" as being the scammer. There are three parties mentioned. There is "you", the scammer. There is "someone you claim to be" ... the enemy in your scenario. And then there is the "victim of malicious action" ... who is a random scam victim. He says that "you'll" (the scammer) fall under the policy. Not the character you were pretending to be.

Dammit man. I need sleep.

This is beyond stupid. Asinine is a good word.

Ok ... so let's work that out.

There are still three characters involved:

1. Enemy - the character being impersonated (this is they guy you want to get banned ... and he doesn't know what's going on.)
2. "you" are the scammer on an anonymous alt account
3. victim is random player (this must also be you ... because you said that in your scenario two accounts are from the same player.)

Random player files petition ... anonymous alt account ("you") get banned. Don't see why the GMs would do anything to "Enemy" as he is oblivious to all of this and there are no account details to link him to either of the other two accounts.

In any other scenario "Enemy" has to be one of your accounts ... so even if somehow your plan succeeds you've just gotten yourself banned.

Am I missing something here? It's late...

Alright GMs I'm going to put on my serious face for a change.



Consider the following. Alex has a spotless reputation so far. Mark tries to hire trusty Alex as a third party in a supercap sale.

1) Alex can't resist the temptation and steals the ship. This is fine.

2) Alex lacks the right prereq skills so sends his so far equally reputable friend Bob in his place. A separate deal between Bob and Mark goes through, but the temptation proves too much and Bob steals the ship. This too is fine.

3) Alex is preoccupied in a logoff trap. Mark reaches out to Alex's friend Bob to work out a deal. Bob truthfully represents himself as an associate of Alex, and portrays Alex's character to the best of his and the public's knowledge. They work out a deal. Alex logs on, but the temptation proves too much and he steals the ship. Either the ToS implementation has massively changed to the point that someone can be banned for representing the truth to the best of their ability, or this is fine as well.

4) Alex is preoccupied in a logoff trap but he sees he has mail from the forums. Alex logs on with Altlex, truthfully represents himself as an alt of Alex, and works out a deal. Altlex lacks the right prereq skills, so Alex abandons his logoff trap and goes to complete the handover once negotiations are complete, but the temptation proves too much and Alex steals the ship.

Against all logic, this is now a bannable offense despite the fact that the only difference to the previous example from Mark's perspective is Altlex having truthfully represented himself as an alt of Alex, instead of Bob having truthfully represented himself as an associate of Alex.

Your changes to the ToS has made it so that in certain situations where all other facts are equal, the mere, honest self identification of an alt can now be a bannable offense. If this isn't a major, ground shifting change to how the game is meant to be played, then I don't know what is.

I have to add a voice of support to this position.

Abusing the name of a CCP employee is banking on the bedrock authority of the publisher of the game. That's not on, that has to be the limit.

Every other interaction that's just typing words into a chat channel to make the other guy fall for the shiny light should be considered part of the character of the game. We do ourselves a disservice by shielding the unwary.

Being mindful of scams is part of the situational awareness that permeates EVE. You always look at local, or your overview, you always make sure you know who you're talking to, what contract you're buying, what buy/sell order you're clicking on and how many zeroes there are.

The scammer should be rewarded by CCP for showing the victim that it pays to stay alert. It is incumbent on each and every one of us to be aware of our surroundings and the meaning of interactions.

Social engineering should be considered every bit as much of a viable and vital attack vector as locking on to someone in space is. Situational awareness is our evolutionary tool to overcome these difficulties.

I have no idea why CCP would want to spare the people who can't be bothered to ask themselves what's going on.