These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

EVE General Discussion

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
 

Goons 4x4ing through the Sandbox - Market Manipulation on a Grand Scale

First post First post First post
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
Graic Gabtar
The Lemon Party
#961 - 2012-06-22 11:48:33 UTC
This thread just keeps delivering.
Signal11th
#962 - 2012-06-22 11:49:04 UTC
I wonder how many of these "forums hero's" would have informed CCP if they themselves had found the fault???

Just comes across as "I'm pissed because I didn't get in the action"

God Said "Come Forth and receive eternal life!" I came fifth and won a toaster!
Lord Zim
Gallente Federation
#963 - 2012-06-22 11:49:12 UTC
Talon SilverHawk wrote:
So the answer is yes distancing yourselves now Twisted

Nope. The distance hasn't changed one iota.

Cyno's lit, bridge is up, but one pilot won't be jumping home.

RIP Vile Rat
Bridgette d'Iberville
Better Killing Through Chemistry
#964 - 2012-06-22 11:49:15 UTC
A) I love the fact you can do something like this in this game.

B) I'd be really impressed if CCP handled any consequences for these actions in game. Since the Goons clearly had a hand in keeping Minmatar FW on top, maybe have the Amarr Empire do an incursion-like Invasion of Goonspace.

"I considered a career in griefing, but then realized that I would never achieve the level of tear generation that CCP manages to do each and every expansion."
Vokanic
Imperial Shipment
Amarr Empire
#965 - 2012-06-22 11:49:23 UTC
Jade Constantine wrote:
Vile rat wrote:
Also let me be perfectly blunt here. There was no bug abuse. They made the economy for faction war and they set the parameters. Everything that was done occured within the realm of legal game mechanics even if that wasn't the intention of the dev that coded this. As has been explained blapping frigates with titans wasn't intended either but was considered a legal, if abusive method of using game mechanics.


You could argure that having the value of the loot that dropped from the freighters available to process again whilst nonetheless counting in the isk value "destroyed" for LP was an abuse of a bug Vile Vat.



You could argue that if Goons get Sreeg'd, you're next in line.
Tallian Saotome
Nuclear Arms Exchange Inc.
#966 - 2012-06-22 11:49:45 UTC
Xhaiden Ora wrote:
Tallian Saotome wrote:
Sandbox means if its possible, without exploiting a bug, its legit. Very simple. Think GTA, if you are having trouble. EVE is basically multiplayer GTA in space.


I am by far not the one here having trouble with the definition of sandbox. "Sandbox" gets thrown out as the defence or excuse for absolutely everything in EVE. Even if the thing in question is actively deterimental to EVE itself. Between "Sandbox" and "HTFU" its a miracle the game accomplishes any forward progress in its development at all.

Sandbox merely means non-linear, open ended gameplay. Typically in a world that operates on its own persistent rules with or without the players intervention. With the fun, such as GTA, coming from the player actively changing the parameters of those rules in action. But the rules must still remain in place in order for the world to function.

And what rules are being broken?

The rules in EVE change. Its needed to try and prevent/reduce stagnation. As long as those rules are adhered to, it works. One of those rules is that CCP does not directly intervene unless another rule is broken, they just change the rules to prevent it from occurring again.

Only in EVE, we call those rules 'mechanics', and we are expected to obey the letter, not the spirit, of them. The spirit of the game is to lie, cheat, steal, and do whatever it takes to get ahead. For some people, thats large scale market manipulation, like here. Others of us find that taking care of our friends gets us ahead.

Thing is, both approaches are legit, which means both of them(as well as the MANY other legit approaches) inevitably collide, and then, in the spirit of the game, the people who feel hurt should start doing some hurting back.

Whining to CCP violates the spirit of the game.

Inappropriate signature removed, CCP Phantom.
Karadion Kohlar
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#967 - 2012-06-22 11:49:53 UTC
Solstice Project wrote:
Hey Goons, got some spare change for me ?


Nice work !

No.
Richard Desturned
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#968 - 2012-06-22 11:50:31 UTC
Talon SilverHawk wrote:
So the answer is yes distancing yourselves now Twisted


again, why would we need to?

npc alts have no opinions worth consideration
Jade Constantine
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
#969 - 2012-06-22 11:52:30 UTC
Vile rat wrote:
Lexmana wrote:
I am baffled by the fact CCP didn't see this coming and coded a safety break in the system. It was such an obvious exploit and was called out several times by players long before release :facepalm:.

Congrats to goons for pulling this off on such a massive scale. I guess the level of damage done to the system and the estimated time for the economy to recover will guide CCP on how to proceed. I wouldn't be surprised if they called Force Majeure and reverted all/most LP earned to protect the integrity of the game. To bad FW looks more broken than ever.


Well a lot of non goons profited from this as well, including noted folk hero Jade Constantine.



Well non-goons in the Minmatar Militia profited from the heroic work of our fighters and plexers who produced the beneficial battlefield situation. I know that goons have taken credit for the tier 5 warzone control status that allowed many Matari fighters to cash out their entirely legally-won LP's for beneficial rates but how much that is actually true remains to be seen. It costs about 6m lps to raise the upgrade status of 60 or systems from 1 to 5 and its possible for a single minmatar fighter to make 100,000 lps an hour plexing (or missioning) so thats 60 man hours of legit gameplay across the militia to assemble the LPs needed to do this again. Its certainly not beyond the realms of possibility for 60 people to cooperate an hours effort to do this.

The True Knowledge is that nothing matters that does not matter to you, might does make right and power makes freedom
Karadion Kohlar
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#970 - 2012-06-22 11:52:38 UTC
Talon SilverHawk wrote:

So the answer is yes distancing yourselves now Twisted

Blubbering baby

Because?
Jade Constantine
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
#971 - 2012-06-22 11:56:04 UTC
Mabego Tetrimon wrote:
Skippermonkey wrote:
looks like abuse of the game to me
http://i.imgur.com/dtMk4.png



so quick estimate yaou guys did ~200.000 clicks to get all these items. lets do a quick math:

if you can do 4 clicks a second (well pretty fast, but we talking goons here) you get 50.000 seconds. Thats 833 minutes or about 14 hours of mindless clicking.....

Well i gratulate you on 14 Hours of mindless clicking in the FW-LP-Store.....if nothinmg else, thats an abuse of your mouse-finger for sure!




I think its claimed they used a G15 keyboard macro to achieve this amazing feat of patience.
(but its okay because unlike macro-mining thats not actually against the game rules)

The True Knowledge is that nothing matters that does not matter to you, might does make right and power makes freedom
Talon SilverHawk
Patria o Muerte
#972 - 2012-06-22 11:57:17 UTC
Karadion Kohlar wrote:
Talon SilverHawk wrote:

So the answer is yes distancing yourselves now Twisted

Hulk of a Man

Because?


Upset Goons are the best Goons Lol

Tal


Richard Desturned
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#973 - 2012-06-22 11:58:29 UTC
Talon SilverHawk wrote:
Upset Goons are the best Goons


catch up, you were asked why we'd need to distance ourselves in the first place

npc alts have no opinions worth consideration
Karadion Kohlar
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#974 - 2012-06-22 11:58:41 UTC
Talon SilverHawk wrote:
Karadion Kohlar wrote:
Talon SilverHawk wrote:

So the answer is yes distancing yourselves now Twisted

Blubbering baby

Because?


Upset Goons are the best Goons Lol

Blubbering baby

The only one I see upset is you. So what was your point again in the first place? Why should we have to distance ourself from those 5 guys? In fact, we're glad that they discovered this huge flaw since CCP can't design for crap anyways.
Lapine Davion
Outer Ring Applied Logistics
#975 - 2012-06-22 11:58:42 UTC
Ghost Xray wrote:
Vile rat wrote:
Graic Gabtar wrote:
Vile rat wrote:
As soon as they discovered the flaw in the economy and did a proof of concept they contacted stoffer immediately. If you guys think they ran some sort of month long abuse ring you are simply devoid of the facts.

Also let me be perfectly blunt here. There was no bug abuse. They made the economy for faction war and they set the parameters. Everything that was done occured within the realm of legal game mechanics even if that wasn't the intention of the dev that coded this. As has been explained blapping frigates with titans wasn't intended either but was considered a legal, if abusive method of using game mechanics.
In the spirit of providing facts is GS preparing any type of response if CCP having their backsides handed to them whimper their way over to their EULA and wield ban hammers or similar?


This is a video game. The people who run the video game are well within their rights to run their video game however they please. If they end up overreacting and become vindictive as a result of us informing them about the laughably broken game they provided for us, well I just don't know what our motivation would be in the future to tell them when we find things.


I can't help but remember how the Goons policy regarding botting by fellow Gooines was not to be reported because "It's not our job to police botters". But now you take it upon yourself to do QA on all new things added? If you're so interested in QA'ing, do it on the test server. But, I digress.

I believe the only motivation for reporting this to CCP is to ensure nobody else has a chance to "cash in". What good is 5 trillion isk when everyone has 5 trillion isk? So, you cash out on this, then before anyone else discovers it, you make sure to get CCP to fix it.

It's not that different from saying "Yes, tech. should be nerfed". Getting it nerfed now means nobody else can profit as much in the future.

The goon have earned and are proud the rep of being general scums of the universe. Not to be trusted in any aspect. But you can keep feeling good about yourselves and how "good" you are for EvE, but I can only imagine this was goons same view of themselves before they were summarily banned from whatever other MMO they plagued.


Oh, how I missed the "You want tech nerfed so no one else can have any." argument, despite the fact that we are pushing to that everyone in nullsec can get tech through ring mining.

[b]Don't worry about posting with your main!  Post with your brain! "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."[/b]
Lord Zim
Gallente Federation
#976 - 2012-06-22 11:59:08 UTC
Talon SilverHawk wrote:
Upset Goons are the best Goons Lol

Ah, I see. The "u mad!" troll.

Truly scraping the bottom of the troll barrel.

Cyno's lit, bridge is up, but one pilot won't be jumping home.

RIP Vile Rat
Crellion
Nano Rhinos
PURPLE HELMETED WARRIORS
#977 - 2012-06-22 11:59:24 UTC
Vokanic wrote:
Jade Constantine wrote:
Vile rat wrote:
Also let me be perfectly blunt here. There was no bug abuse. They made the economy for faction war and they set the parameters. Everything that was done occured within the realm of legal game mechanics even if that wasn't the intention of the dev that coded this. As has been explained blapping frigates with titans wasn't intended either but was considered a legal, if abusive method of using game mechanics.


You could argure that having the value of the loot that dropped from the freighters available to process again whilst nonetheless counting in the isk value "destroyed" for LP was an abuse of a bug Vile Vat.



You could argue that if Goons get Sreeg'd, you're next in line.


Ummm just for the sake of bolstering an epic thread I ll consider the accuracy of this statement. Done. Its false.

IF he really did what he said and IF he made that isk then the "profit" he made was exchanging his LPs at the 1/4 LP cost rate of a fully upgraded system. This is the intended game mechanic (a ridiculous one IMPO but still ...). The fact that the goons had (IF they had) used an exploit to upgrade the system fully is nothing to him. There is no evidence or indication he knew of this and no obligation on him to know anyway. Moreover it is clearly not just him but ALL the happy punters in winmaturd militia exchanging LPs at 1/4 prices legally.

CCP perhaps owes an appology to all of us the rest of EVE who did not get an opportunity to benefit from a 1 - 4 conversion rate and being forced to use the good old 1 - 1 rate but getting items whose value was plummeting due to the exploit lost a lot of potential iskies that would be coming our way if it was not for the haxsploitz (IF there was such an exploit and methinks there was not technically)...

In any event I d rather they did nothing for us rather than "indemnifying us" through an isk faucet...
Lapine Davion
Outer Ring Applied Logistics
#978 - 2012-06-22 11:59:25 UTC
Talon SilverHawk wrote:
Karadion Kohlar wrote:
Talon SilverHawk wrote:

So the answer is yes distancing yourselves now Twisted

Hulk of a Man

Because?


Upset Goons are the best Goons Lol

Tal




What upset Goons? What are you talking about? You sound like a crazy person.

[b]Don't worry about posting with your main!  Post with your brain! "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."[/b]
Richard Desturned
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#979 - 2012-06-22 12:01:03 UTC
Ghost Xray wrote:
interested in QA'ing, do it on the test server.


this wasn't done on the test server because one huge aspect of the scheme wasn't possible on the test server

npc alts have no opinions worth consideration
Jade Constantine
Jericho Fraction
The Star Fraction
#980 - 2012-06-22 12:01:51 UTC
Rudgier Thorrin wrote:
Gun Gal wrote:
No matter how you cut it, finding a bug, not reporting it, and exploiting it is wrong.

It would be a bug if they could create ISK from thin air.


Initially that is exactly what was happening though ...

To repeat. When you kill a ship in faction warfare (belonging to the enemy faction) you get loyalty points awarded equal to the value of the ship + cargo. These freighters that were being killed on alts were awarding loyalty point payouts (for the kill) that also counted in the cargo that had dropped in space (and thus could be added to a future kill and payout). That really is double counting and is creating (if not isk) then loyalty points that can be turned into isk (from thin air.)

That (as I understand it) was the bug that got fixed early, but I didn't see any note in the op post suggesting that LP has been removed from the game - its even referred to as "seed" (or foundation) LP for the continuing scheme.

The True Knowledge is that nothing matters that does not matter to you, might does make right and power makes freedom