EVE General Discussion

The precise criteria isn't that scientific at the moment which is why we're planning to design a more transparent criteria for contributors and others as well.

We selected to reward SOMER and his staff because the time was right to do stuff with them, Vegas sponsorship being an example. Same story with the SCL which was having an active period and doing really exciting things.

The problem is this reeks of 'Greed is Good' at the moment and the secret nature in which SOMER wanted it handled only makes it seem that much worse.

I haven't heard of SOMER helping anyone in game. I don't gamble with them so maybe I'm in the dark here but the only service I see that they provide is taking peoples ISK through gambling and the only reason they got a reward from CCP is that they help sell plexes.

thanks for the dev blog, so far I'm liking what I read. the recent events had me quite alarmed and i did not renew the first round of my accounts that expired, awaiting CCP response first.

so, with the rewards program currently suspended and being looked at again in light of current happenings, i take it that the number of scorpion ishukone watch present in game now will remain stable and any new giveaways will be using new prizes, which are hopefully out of game or non-transferable? as some others mentioned prior, even some plex wouldn't be bad, as those can also be used for stuff like subscription or re-sculpts. just please, no more rare items!

free RL-Swag would be much more appreciated

I would point out that the PAX east event covered a broad cross-section of the player base and had a uniform distribution of "swag". The Eve Vegas event favored a particular group of players. Moreover, the event significantly increased traffic to their for-profit site, increasing their revenue both in terms of isk and RL $$$. By using Blink (and thereby contributing Profits to Somer), players perceived that their chance to acquire "swag" increased.

By giving out the eve Vegas prizes through Blink participation, CCP effectively drove a significant amount of traffic to Blink, which seemed to be a case of favoritism.

Secretly...nothing. And what we've given out as rewards or prizes doesn't generally come in big bundles which is one of the key reasons eyebrows were raised over this incident.

It's worth keeping in mind that Internal Affairs has complete oversight over every single item spawned or transferred on our server and monitors all staff account activity closely as is their purpose.

No, you mentioned one site that the community already knew about - SCL.

How many did they get? Who else got them? How many did these entities get?

What I'm driving at, is 30 a lot, or a little, a whole lot, or average to give out to an organization.

A well written and reasonable response.

Just a few things:

1. Both in this response and in the original threads and articles related to the incident, there is an assumption that because this has happened before, nothing is different. But what seems to have been overlooked is that most players were never aware those things happened either. I, for one, was surprised to learn only a few months ago that certain fansites receive free subscriptions. Today I was surprised to read just how much stuff has been given out in general (I'm not including Fanfest. Those were well publicized and distributed in an egalitarian manner). In both the previous cases and this one, the rank and file playerbase (by which I mean, those not totally obsessed with following every site, event, and thread) were completely unaware that such things were happening or could happen.

2. It seems only fair that all of the rules and conditions for "gifting" be laid out publicly. Not just for the sorts of things involved in the latest incident, but also for free fansite subscriptions, player-run PvP events, etc. If there are free accounts on the table, I want one and I need to know what it takes to get it. I'm reasonably certain that someone at CCP probably said "if we make a rule set, the min/maxers will descend on us like a plague of locusts." You're right of course, and if you read some of my comments during the recent hubbub, that's one of my chief concerns with all of this. Still, if there are goodies to be had, everyone deserves a shot at them.

3. Will someone please take the step of writing some canned language to post in "we recognize there is a problem of some sort but we can't deal with it at the moment while we investigate/return from trip/run from the volcano/sober up" situations? Having random GMs and Devs post poorly thought out responses only fuels the fire. It doesn't take much for tone of voice, word choice, or unclear writing to turn a genuinely benign post into an insult, troll, or snarky reply. This is especially true for employees who speak English as a second language (or, for that matter, many who speak it as their first). Hire a pro. If you do a post mortem on many of these [Insert Event]-gates and threadnaughts, most of the problems have arisen as a direct result of either a failure to communicate or a failure to communicate clearly. In a few cases, it almost appears that Devs are intentionally posting snarky responses. It might be funny around the office (and to me or others), but it's unprofessional to engage the playerbase on that level. All of this is almost certainly a result of gaps in your internal processes that would be filled by some sort of communications specialist at other companies. Not someone who just has two titles, but an actual specialist.

4. A Dev endorsed a player run lottery and specified that it was totally legitimate. CCP endorsements of player run businesses must never be allowed to happen. Ever. By endorsing one group over another, he has potentially crippled all of the competitors. Who would risk their ISK with anyone else? "Those guys might be scammers! CCP endorsed this one, so why go anywhere else?" That's not good for anyone but the group that was endorsed. This latest incident would pale in comparison to what will happen if the business that was endorsed actually did turn out to be a scam after CCP endorsed it. You'll never be able to hire enough staff to handle the flood of reimbursement requests. In this particular case, it also raises some potentially problematic questions: HOW could the dev know they're legitimate? If he doesn't know or can't know (and unless he has complete access to the backend, he can't), then what exactly is the basis of the endorsement?

Hope you guys had a good retreat and it leads to future awesomeness!

Hard to abuse a system which isn't automatic.