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

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Marconus Orion
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#1201 - 2012-06-22 16:16:39 UTC
Xutech wrote:
Destination SkillQueue wrote:
Dramaticus wrote:
Better Than You wrote:
Aryth wrote:
This is always the case of bank robbers. Others are claiming they knew, yet they did not break the law. We did. We had a goal, we met the goal, we turned ourselves in before were caught. Bank robbers. Of course it's self serving. But I don't see anyone else lining up with detailed explanations to the police on how to rob a bank either, or proof it works. We robbed, notified the police. Done.

The bank robbery we did entailed a great deal of preparation, thought, spreadsheets, and capital. No one else moved as fast, or had the resources.


Just because you turn yourself in before you are caught, does not mean you are innocent.


The only thing I am guilty of is playing a poorly coded game.


Good. Then you have nothing to worry about from the CCP investigation to these abusive activities.


Because the result will be fair and even handed.


Yeeeeeeeahhhhh, I'm going to have to say you are wrong on that. Just from very recent experience. You guys know better than to be 100% sure CCP won't punish any of those who did this. Just when you think you have CCP figured out, they pull a 180 on you.
Khergit Deserters
Crom's Angels
#1202 - 2012-06-22 16:16:49 UTC
Not an exploit?
23.You may not exploit any bug in EVE Online to gain an unfair advantage over other players. You may not communicate the existence of any exploitable bug to others directly or through a public forum. Bugs should be reported through the bug reporting tool on our website.

What do you think, CCP?
Ghost Xray
Hedion University
Amarr Empire
#1203 - 2012-06-22 16:16:58 UTC
Tallon Sylph wrote:
All you pubbies must be sick of Goons winning at Eve Online like every other damn day.

Goons win at Tech Wars. The pubbie cry; Quick, nerf Tech!

Goons win at market manipulation; Quick, ban these guys for being smarter thanus (and CCP)!

Maybe you should all just get better at Eve and quit complaining huh.


Now wait a second... I thought it was the Goons crying "Quick, nerf Tech!"

And I don't know why you folks can't seem to get this through your heads. This wasn't a manipulation of the MARKET, it was a manipulation of the LOYALTY POINT reward system.

Nothing in this says they were "smarter" then devs. All it says is the dev's didn't foresee people joining factions with their alts and driving billions worth of freighter and lootz into their own alts. Faction Wars exists to give people a more casual PVP experience and they attempted to reward the effort with glorious prizes. It wasn't intended to make you space rich, but to keep you motivated and violencing each others boats.

And ironically, faction war may be a way for the "highsec carebears" to come out of the cave and get more involved in the deep end of the EvE pool, something that I've seen "cried" about by many of these same Goons. But that didn't stop them from joining up, screwing up the mechanics and basically dropping a giant deuce in the pool.

I'm not surprised though. It's how they roll.
Pisov viet
Perkone
Caldari State
#1204 - 2012-06-22 16:19:01 UTC
Khergit Deserters wrote:
Not an exploit?
23.You may not exploit any bug in EVE Online to gain an unfair advantage over other players. You may not communicate the existence of any exploitable bug to others directly or through a public forum. Bugs should be reported through the bug reporting tool on our website.

What do you think, CCP?

It wasnt a bug.
Gul'gotha Derv'ash
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#1205 - 2012-06-22 16:20:29 UTC
Epiphaniess wrote:
Sounds to me like this is a ban worth exploitation of a bug, dupping bug.

These guys saw an obviously unintentional error in the mechanics to the changes to FW that allowed them pretty much print LP. Similar to a dupping bug, they obviously set out to take full advantage of the exploit with out any intention of letting CCP know before it was way to late.

And now they want a pat on the back, for exploiting.

I remember a while back ago there was a similar bug, exploit that was in the game. It involved a POS and breaking the moon goo alchemy chain in such a way that you could create something from nothing. CCP nailed those guys hard accounts banned everything. I believe this is a similar situation and should probably have a similar result.



You are missing the key factor for the people who got the POS bug ban... they weren't goons. This kind of behavior seems to be applauded by CCP... as long as you are a goon of course.
Destination SkillQueue
Doomheim
#1206 - 2012-06-22 16:20:39 UTC
Xutech wrote:
Destination SkillQueue wrote:
Dramaticus wrote:
Better Than You wrote:
Aryth wrote:
This is always the case of bank robbers. Others are claiming they knew, yet they did not break the law. We did. We had a goal, we met the goal, we turned ourselves in before were caught. Bank robbers. Of course it's self serving. But I don't see anyone else lining up with detailed explanations to the police on how to rob a bank either, or proof it works. We robbed, notified the police. Done.

The bank robbery we did entailed a great deal of preparation, thought, spreadsheets, and capital. No one else moved as fast, or had the resources.


Just because you turn yourself in before you are caught, does not mean you are innocent.


The only thing I am guilty of is playing a poorly coded game.


Good. Then you have nothing to worry about from the CCP investigation to these abusive activities.


Because the result will be fair and even handed.


Doesn't matter to me. They can be as unfair and heavy handed as they want. It's only the guys directly involved who even have the risk of anything bad happening to them and even they will propably only get their extra toys removed if even that. Everyone else can just sit back and enjoy the drama.
Lapine Davion
Outer Ring Applied Logistics
#1207 - 2012-06-22 16:21:07 UTC
Better Than You wrote:
Aryth wrote:
This is always the case of bank robbers. Others are claiming they knew, yet they did not break the law. We did. We had a goal, we met the goal, we turned ourselves in before were caught. Bank robbers. Of course it's self serving. But I don't see anyone else lining up with detailed explanations to the police on how to rob a bank either, or proof it works. We robbed, notified the police. Done.

The bank robbery we did entailed a great deal of preparation, thought, spreadsheets, and capital. No one else moved as fast, or had the resources.


Just because you turn yourself in before you are caught, does not mean you are innocent.


I liked the part where you changed the words "first mover" to "bank robber".

[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]
Vile rat
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#1208 - 2012-06-22 16:21:29 UTC
Pr1ncess Alia wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Ituhata Saken wrote:
Dearest Market-Interested Space Tycoons,


At downtime today we made an adjustment to the average price of some items in order to curb a situation whereby the average price of an item could be manipulated in order to create a disparity between the value of an item in Isk and its value in Loyalty Point payouts. There will be additional changes in how this system works in the future. We will be monitoring for attempted manipulation of the LP market and will reverse any proceeds deemed to have been obtained through manipulative means. We are watching you. Don’t be That Guy.



By way of explanation we addressed the manipulation issue but haven't yet completed the investigation into the scope of the abuse. Once that happens I'm pretty sure some people are going to be a bit less smug about the money they made that one time when there was a bank error in their favor and then lost again when the bank fixed the glitch.


When you find the game broken in a way that allows you to exploit it for unintended personal gain, CCP probably won't see things the way you do.

Read the post above. It might be me, but I dont see anything along the lines of "we are so glad certain individuals pointed this out for us and we'll see they keep their just rewards"

You tried to screw CCP and a good it of their customers. I'm not sure they are going to be as grateful as some ppl are hoping. In fact, if and when CCP reverses the damage done all Goonswarm would have done is destroy massive amounts of THEIR OWN assets for... no reason.


One could even say some people are going to be a bit less smug about the money they made? I can't be sure, it's not like a CCP Dev came out and said that for me.

Yeah, wow, gg. You blew all your own stuff up when you could have just filed a bug report.


It wasn't a bug. It was intentionally coded market mechanics that are ******* stupid, they were told it was stupid when it first launched, then they felt comfortable with it entering the game anyways.
Dramaticus
State War Academy
Caldari State
#1209 - 2012-06-22 16:22:37 UTC
EVEN THOUGH YOU DIDN'T DUPE THIS IS VERY SIMILAR TO DUPING DON'T YOU SEE

The 'do-nothing' member of the GoonSwarm Economic Warfare Cabal

The edge is REALLY hard to see at times but it DOES exist and in this case we were looking at a situation where a new feature created for all of our customers was being virtually curbstomped by five of them
Hesperus Vanderbeets
The Greater Goon
#1210 - 2012-06-22 16:22:57 UTC
I am unsubbing all 24 of my accounts until CCP remedies this situation in the way that I deem appropriate. Ban all the goons.
qDoctor Strangelove
Doomheim
#1211 - 2012-06-22 16:23:40 UTC
No more unintentional than a blob of 50 titans/100 SC being able to control half the map.

The posibilty of manipulation was mentioned long ago and ccp did not fix it.


What we see here is just what Evil Thug would call: superior use of game mechanics.
Nirnaeth Ornoediad
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#1212 - 2012-06-22 16:25:23 UTC
Jade Constantine wrote:
The Slayer wrote:
Jade Constantine wrote:

Posting in a thread where goons helped me make 8.7b isk last saturday for 4 hours play.

(they really ruined my sandbox)



Oh thats precious, a whole 8 billion? Aren't you sweet. *rolls around in 300trillion isk money bin*



Well hey, I'm just an average eve gamer rather than some kind of superfreak uber numbers guy. 8.7b is quite a lot for me, its about the most I ever made with PVE to be honest.

Will keep me in fleet stabbers for a while Cool



Read: "Didn't want that 8 Trillion ISK anyways."

Fix POSes.  Every player should want one (even if all players can't have one).
jason hill
Red vs Blue Flight Academy
#1213 - 2012-06-22 16:26:19 UTC
well the only comment I can really say about what has happend is the that CCP must be bloody FACEPALMING ... AGAIN ! Big smile


CCP ....cocking it up since 2003 Roll
Pr1ncess Alia
Doomheim
#1214 - 2012-06-22 16:26:36 UTC
Vile rat wrote:
Pr1ncess Alia wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Ituhata Saken wrote:
Dearest Market-Interested Space Tycoons,


At downtime today we made an adjustment to the average price of some items in order to curb a situation whereby the average price of an item could be manipulated in order to create a disparity between the value of an item in Isk and its value in Loyalty Point payouts. There will be additional changes in how this system works in the future. We will be monitoring for attempted manipulation of the LP market and will reverse any proceeds deemed to have been obtained through manipulative means. We are watching you. Don’t be That Guy.



By way of explanation we addressed the manipulation issue but haven't yet completed the investigation into the scope of the abuse. Once that happens I'm pretty sure some people are going to be a bit less smug about the money they made that one time when there was a bank error in their favor and then lost again when the bank fixed the glitch.


When you find the game broken in a way that allows you to exploit it for unintended personal gain, CCP probably won't see things the way you do.

Read the post above. It might be me, but I dont see anything along the lines of "we are so glad certain individuals pointed this out for us and we'll see they keep their just rewards"

You tried to screw CCP and a good it of their customers. I'm not sure they are going to be as grateful as some ppl are hoping. In fact, if and when CCP reverses the damage done all Goonswarm would have done is destroy massive amounts of THEIR OWN assets for... no reason.


One could even say some people are going to be a bit less smug about the money they made? I can't be sure, it's not like a CCP Dev came out and said that for me.

Yeah, wow, gg. You blew all your own stuff up when you could have just filed a bug report.


It wasn't a bug. It was intentionally coded market mechanics that are ******* stupid, they were told it was stupid when it first launched, then they felt comfortable with it entering the game anyways.


And that negates taking advantage of it to an unintended degree how?

Unintended is the important word here. No matter how crap their mechanics are in their own game, if they don't work the way they want they reserve the right to fix it with dev magic. Have you ever looked at the EULA?

You're arguing semantics. Next step is back peddling. I hope you have a t2 suitcase fitted because you're going to need it.
Ghost Xray
Hedion University
Amarr Empire
#1215 - 2012-06-22 16:26:50 UTC
Pisov viet wrote:
Khergit Deserters wrote:
Not an exploit?
23.You may not exploit any bug in EVE Online to gain an unfair advantage over other players. You may not communicate the existence of any exploitable bug to others directly or through a public forum. Bugs should be reported through the bug reporting tool on our website.

What do you think, CCP?

It wasnt a bug.


Then there would be nothing to tell CCP Punkturis about, yet:

Aryth wrote:


No. I purposely told CCP, frantically you could say. Where I screwed up is, well I am bad at twitter as I only have twitter to ask Diagoras for stats. I didn't realize it's public if I sent something to Punkturis. Whoops.


And, can anyone in the CFC think objectively about this? These 5 who did this didn't just get one over on all non-CFC people. They gained an advantage over everyone else in EvE. Unless you are getting a cut. I'm not space rich enough to think 5trillion isk is just a drop in the bucket.
Vaerah Vahrokha
Vahrokh Consulting
#1216 - 2012-06-22 16:27:28 UTC
Pr1ncess Alia wrote:

You tried to screw CCP and a good it of their customers. I'm not sure they are going to be as grateful as some ppl are hoping. In fact, if and when CCP reverses the damage done all Goonswarm would have done is destroy massive amounts of THEIR OWN assets for... no reason.


One could even say some people are going to be a bit less smug about the money they made? I can't be sure, it's not like a CCP Dev came out and said that for me.



I think CCP are annoyed because:

1) It puts CCP Sreegs in 2 bad lights.

2) CCP invested sensible time / coding / money into FW, a feature long left to rot part of low sec systems left long time to rot. These 5 guys basically p!ssed on *CCP's* sand this time.

EvE Online portal | EvE markets tutorials
Xutech
Brutor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#1217 - 2012-06-22 16:28:57 UTC
Dollars, pounds, francs and yen. All currency and all exchangeable for goods and services.

There are plenty of currency conversion services in the world, many of which can be found in airports.

Do you believe they provide that service for free out of the kindness of their hearts?

Converting currency to gain a profit is hardly an exploit. Nor is trading currency to buy foreign goods at good prices an exploit, and selling those items at a profit and then converting that back to a favorable currency is hardly an exploit either.
Muscaat
EVE Markets
#1218 - 2012-06-22 16:29:03 UTC
Not a fan of the Goons by and large but this is good stuff Smile

For all those looking for recent precedent on this sort of thing - kind of reminds me of the debacle when they introduced PI. Talk of bans is, I think, just a bit over the top. CCP created an unfortunate situation and some clever people used that to their advantage... that's EVE Smile
Lapine Davion
Outer Ring Applied Logistics
#1219 - 2012-06-22 16:29:28 UTC
Ghost Xray wrote:


And, can anyone in the CFC think objectively about this? These 5 who did this didn't just get one over on all non-CFC people. They gained an advantage over everyone else in EvE. Unless you are getting a cut. I'm not space rich enough to think 5trillion isk is just a drop in the bucket.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQlIhraqL7o

[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]
Nirnaeth Ornoediad
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#1220 - 2012-06-22 16:30:23 UTC
Vile rat wrote:
Pr1ncess Alia wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Ituhata Saken wrote:
Dearest Market-Interested Space Tycoons,


At downtime today we made an adjustment to the average price of some items in order to curb a situation whereby the average price of an item could be manipulated in order to create a disparity between the value of an item in Isk and its value in Loyalty Point payouts. There will be additional changes in how this system works in the future. We will be monitoring for attempted manipulation of the LP market and will reverse any proceeds deemed to have been obtained through manipulative means. We are watching you. Don’t be That Guy.



By way of explanation we addressed the manipulation issue but haven't yet completed the investigation into the scope of the abuse. Once that happens I'm pretty sure some people are going to be a bit less smug about the money they made that one time when there was a bank error in their favor and then lost again when the bank fixed the glitch.


When you find the game broken in a way that allows you to exploit it for unintended personal gain, CCP probably won't see things the way you do.

Read the post above. It might be me, but I dont see anything along the lines of "we are so glad certain individuals pointed this out for us and we'll see they keep their just rewards"

You tried to screw CCP and a good it of their customers. I'm not sure they are going to be as grateful as some ppl are hoping. In fact, if and when CCP reverses the damage done all Goonswarm would have done is destroy massive amounts of THEIR OWN assets for... no reason.


One could even say some people are going to be a bit less smug about the money they made? I can't be sure, it's not like a CCP Dev came out and said that for me.

Yeah, wow, gg. You blew all your own stuff up when you could have just filed a bug report.


It wasn't a bug. It was intentionally coded market mechanics that are ******* stupid, they were told it was stupid when it first launched, then they felt comfortable with it entering the game anyways.


I totally agree here. Saying "this is an exploit" would be the same as CFC crying a year ago that "PL is exploiting Titan tracking." The mechanic sucked, and we complained about it, but it wasn't an exploit.

CCP: if you create a sandbox where you know players manipulate markets all the time, don't have a faucet tied to in-game market prices. You have some really, really smart people at this company. Your players are smarter. Look at the contract manipulation Hatchery pulled off last year. If you want to play with markets, be prepared to play with the big boys.

Look at the bright side, though: if left alone, there's just a huge glut of LP sitting out there. Fortunately, LP is just one form of currency in EVE, isn't terribly liquid (it can't be transferred between toons without cashing out into real-world goods), and having Faction items cheaper for the foreseeable future will offset some of the inflation we've seen recently, and which CCP econ guys are worried about.

Fix POSes.  Every player should want one (even if all players can't have one).