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

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CCP Sreegs
CCP Retirement Home
#2341 - 2012-06-23 14:36:11 UTC
Maggie Maggie wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
We haven't punished anyone to date.


Aryth had unrelated datacores pulled from his inventory, c/d?


CCP Sreegs wrote:
We haven't even decided if we will but boy howdy are we well within our rights to do so and I'm just astounded that I even have to explain that.


Well of course you are within your rights, it's your game. SOE was entirely within their rights when they deployed NGE, too.


That is between us and Aryth. We've also stated that it was a temporary measure thus far. The hyperbole in this thread is pretty damn hilarious though. Comparing removing the manipulated assets of a small number of people to a complete redesign of the game may just win the prize.

"Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012
Holander Switzerland
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#2342 - 2012-06-23 14:36:36 UTC
Since I haven't got a list yet, maybe you can c/d mine?

So far it has things you can't do:
- Embarrass CCP
- Play the market TOO well
- Read the Dev Blog and use that info.
Nephilim Xeno
Order of Garrulor
#2343 - 2012-06-23 14:36:57 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Benedic wrote:
I find it quite disturbing that you can be punished by finding clever ways to profit from the rules of Eve. This was no exploit, it was using the code and systems the way they were designed. Who knows what the **** you can get punished for next considering if it benefits you in any way they may randomly yank back all your profits.


I find it disturbing that you think you could exploit a system to print money and crash markets and we'd just be like "Oh haha those cards".

We haven't punished anyone to date. We haven't even decided if we will but boy howdy are we well within our rights to do so and I'm just astounded that I even have to explain that.


Minmatar Milita is STILL printing isk non stop as we speak.

So unless you acknowledge the current FW mechanics are a bug/loophole/exploit (which they pretty much are for a certain milita) then there is really no justification to ban anyone else that has used this mechanics to earn isk.

Many players tried to tell CCP not to go live with this FW changed because it is completly flawed but CCP did not listen at all !

Once the new FW changes were announced it was OBVIOUS that the minnie milita would become the biggest isk printing machine in eve and now you want to ban ppl for using it to print too much isk ?

If you do so then you better ban/punish everyone in the minnie milita altogether that actually profited from this.

Also are there any plans to undo the damage done to the amarr milita by all this crap ?
Enaris Kerle
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#2344 - 2012-06-23 14:37:16 UTC  |  Edited by: Enaris Kerle
CCP Sreegs wrote:
By that standard the ferrogel exploit was also within the parameters. I don't know why this seems to not be sinking in. All exploits were programmed.

The difference is that all of the components of this alleged exploit were working exactly as designed. You've always been able to manipulate the market. Shooting ships to get LP for the value of their cargo was what was stated on the devblog regarding the FW changes. So was upgrading the FW systems with LP to get lower prices from the LP store. The only thing that wasn't intended was a combination of all of these factors.
This is entirely different from duping ferrogel, where it was never designed you could react stuff without using the inputs.
It's closer to the insurance fraud scheme, where a working design (shoot ship, get insurance payout) was "abused" because you got more than the ship was worth.

Gallente born and raised, and tutored as a pleasure slave and courtesan to the exotic tastes of the Amarri court. Jade's career veered violently off course when a diplomatic envoy's transport was blown to pieces in mysterious circumstances and she was rescued from the escape pods by the enigmatic genetic mastermind Athule Snanm.
David Carel
SWAT Team Sales Consultants
#2345 - 2012-06-23 14:38:04 UTC
MeBiatch wrote:
Haquer wrote:
Jackie Fisher wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Abusing a programming issue is still abuse and you know this.

So what does a programming issue mean? Bugs? Game mechanics having unexpected results?


Programming issue in this case was a formula that they published publically and then were told that it would be abused and ignored everyone.

Then once it was abused, they punished those who did it.

darius JOHNSON at his finest, ladies and gentlemen.



i dunno but something tells me goons are upset...

Are you telling me you wouldn't be upset in the same situation?
Dave Stark
#2346 - 2012-06-23 14:38:55 UTC
Nephilim Xeno wrote:
Once the new FW changes were announced it was OBVIOUS that the minnie milita would become the biggest isk printing machine in eve and now you want to ban ppl for using it to print too much isk ?



don't get so bent out of shape, they just took steps to stop a market crash not steps to alienate players.
Tomytronic
Perkone
Caldari State
#2347 - 2012-06-23 14:40:04 UTC
Are you going to take Jade Constantine's much vaunted 8.7b isk away too? That money was - apparently - gained using the same methods as The Goonswarm Five.
Lapine Davion
Outer Ring Applied Logistics
#2348 - 2012-06-23 14:40:42 UTC
Blawrf McTaggart wrote:
Why is Sreegs involved? This is not a security issue, no accounts were hacked, nothing was botted, nothing was exploited using "hacking" methods. It was down and dirty market manipulation caused by the lack of foresight on the side of one of EVE's devs - not Sreegs.

I don't see why CCP/Sreegs felt the need to prevent a crash of the factional warfare market, especially when a) the cabal specifically said that they weren't going to do that and b) SANDBOX


Why are the police outside?!?

[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]
Dave Stark
#2349 - 2012-06-23 14:41:11 UTC
Tomytronic wrote:
The Goonswarm Five.

haha, are they releasing an album and is one of them going to change their skin colour?
CCP Sreegs
CCP Retirement Home
#2350 - 2012-06-23 14:41:23 UTC
Enaris Kerle wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
By that standard the ferrogel exploit was also within the parameters. I don't know why this seems to not be sinking in. All exploits were programmed.

The difference is that all of the components of this alleged exploit were working exactly as designed. You've always been able to manipulate the market. Shooting ships to get LP for the value of their cargo was what was stated on the devblog regarding the FW changes. So was upgrading the FW systems with LP to get lower prices from the LP store. The only thing that wasn't intended was a combination of all of these factors.
This is entirely different from duping ferrogel, where it was never designed you could react stuff without using the inputs.
It's closer to the insurance fraud scheme, where a working design (shoot ship, get insurance payout) was "abused" because you got more than the ship was worth.


If we make a correction it clearly wasn't what we intended. You're not manipulating the price so much as taking advantage of time lapses in the calculation of value which pins a different currency to a seldom-changing somewhat arbitrary number that you can set.

"Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012
Lexmana
#2351 - 2012-06-23 14:41:51 UTC
Nephilim Xeno wrote:
Also are there any plans to undo the damage done to the amarr milita by all this crap ?

My guess is HTFU! But a temporary discount in the 24th LP store to balance things would be a nice gesture from the emperor to the loyal militia fighters during these hard times.
Sun Win
#2352 - 2012-06-23 14:43:26 UTC
Tomytronic wrote:
Are you going to take Jade Constantine's much vaunted 8.7b isk away too? That money was - apparently - gained using the same methods as The Goonswarm Five.


A million times this. We poor Amarrian faction warriors have suffered for too long under the boot of Jade Constantine's ill-gotten Stabbers Fleet Issue.
Haquer
Vorkuta Inc
#2353 - 2012-06-23 14:44:17 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Enaris Kerle wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
By that standard the ferrogel exploit was also within the parameters. I don't know why this seems to not be sinking in. All exploits were programmed.

The difference is that all of the components of this alleged exploit were working exactly as designed. You've always been able to manipulate the market. Shooting ships to get LP for the value of their cargo was what was stated on the devblog regarding the FW changes. So was upgrading the FW systems with LP to get lower prices from the LP store. The only thing that wasn't intended was a combination of all of these factors.
This is entirely different from duping ferrogel, where it was never designed you could react stuff without using the inputs.
It's closer to the insurance fraud scheme, where a working design (shoot ship, get insurance payout) was "abused" because you got more than the ship was worth.


If we make a correction it clearly wasn't what we intended. You're not manipulating the price so much as taking advantage of time lapses in the calculation of value which pins a different currency to a seldom-changing somewhat arbitrary number that you can set.


They manipulated the market to change a number that you intentionally seldomly changed. This is somehow the player's faults and their assets should be seized. I get it!

I finally see the light. Thanks.
Holander Switzerland
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#2354 - 2012-06-23 14:44:44 UTC
Man you guys messed up by telling them, they had no idea. You can tell because they just took everything FW away from the parties involved, regardless if it was earned beforehand. Either they don't have logs for this stuff, or they are just too incompetent to use them, or they don't care.
Richard Desturned
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#2355 - 2012-06-23 14:45:33 UTC  |  Edited by: Richard Desturned
remember when the contract UI sorted by date of creation rather than price by default

and how a few dudes basically gamed the hell out of that with CN BCS

is there really a difference?

npc alts have no opinions worth consideration
CCP Sreegs
CCP Retirement Home
#2356 - 2012-06-23 14:47:09 UTC
Holander Switzerland wrote:
Man you guys messed up by telling them, they had no idea. You can tell because they just took everything FW away from the parties involved, regardless if it was earned beforehand. Either they don't have logs for this stuff, or they are just too incompetent to use them, or they don't care.


We knew what was going on but it takes time to see scale. I'm going to warn you once not to misrepresent us in this thread and then I'm going to have your posting privileges revoked forever. Please do not interfere with our communication to our customers by inventing falsehoods.

"Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012
Yonis Kador
KADORCORP
#2357 - 2012-06-23 14:48:16 UTC
Aryth wrote:
The party came to an immediate end after the T5 cashout occured.


Isn't the answer in plain sight? T5 cashout? 5 trillion? or 5 trillionaires?

I've seen people throwing out all kinds of numbers. Hundreds of billions. Hundreds of trillions. And a few goons saying pssht.... 20 billion.

Peanuts.

I don't have to know the total of the haul to be pretty confident that it was more than 20 billion.

It wouldn't have been described as something being:

Aryth wrote:
released with a literal currency fountain, very nearly without limit.


or an op having

Aryth wrote:
succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.


without hauling in more than a few billion isk.

The wildest dreams of the megalomaniacal overlords of EvE only consist of 20 billion isk? What's wrong with you people? Trillions minimum. Or it wouldn't be worth this level of gloating nor the mantle:

Aryth wrote:
The revamp to Faction Warfare in Inferno was the single biggest mistake CCP has ever made.


And who cares whether it's an exploit. You guys crack me up. 115 pages of debating whether it's an exploit? We're in a sandbox and these geniuses just robbed you all. And worse, told you he robbed you all, and some of you are cheering that fact. Are you happy that you got robbed? Or are you celebrating Goon intellectual dominance?

I think it's great that there are people testing these boundaries and I hope they continue to do so. It's a compliment to the intelligence level of this game's playerbase that these types of incidents occur at all.

But we're playing a game here and we're all in a sandbox, interconnected. So as I'm not an idiot, I'm less enthralled by the act than the genuis behind it.

As I was just robbed, I'm admittedly biased.

So I'm gonna roll with supporting confiscation of the loot.

Sorry dudes.

Players can currently buy two PLEX for 35 dollars from CCP and sell them in game for ~ a billion isk. If the haul was anywhere near 5 trillion isk (which may even be lowballing it) it would be the isk equivalent of 175,000 US dollars.

People shouldn't be able to buy two-story homes because CCP erred. It's the level of abuse that warrants the CCP response.

Gameplay isn't meant to be fair but the rules governing it are. It may have been possible to do this, but as it was never CCP's intent to break their game this way, it was never legal. Your lotto machine went off by accident. It happens. People sue. They usually end up with a settlement.

And I'm sure you will. If you're really all that, you've dispersed those funds so completely, through so many transactions, buying and selling items at a frenzied pace, jus' swarmin' that swarm, that it'll never totally be accounted for anyway.

How could you not also have predicted CCP's response in advance?

Yonis Kador
Benedic
EVE University
Ivy League
#2358 - 2012-06-23 14:48:35 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Benedic wrote:
I find it quite disturbing that you can be punished by finding clever ways to profit from the rules of Eve. This was no exploit, it was using the code and systems the way they were designed. Who knows what the **** you can get punished for next considering if it benefits you in any way they may randomly yank back all your profits.


I find it disturbing that you think you could exploit a system to print money and crash markets and we'd just be like "Oh haha those cards".

We haven't punished anyone to date. We haven't even decided if we will but boy howdy are we well within our rights to do so and I'm just astounded that I even have to explain that.


Like the other posters in goonfleet I take exception to this idea that it's 'exploiting' a system when CCP designed these systems to do -exactly- what was done. When you build a system to allow you to lower LP costs and so forth it's not really an exploitation to use those systems to profit.

An exploitation is when you use a system in a way that it was not intended to be used or find a way to outright break the system and use it wrongly. None of that was done, all the systems were used in the way they were intended and combined in a way that generated profit.

I will say that I'll await the results of your investigation eagerly. Maybe the people responsible have lied to us and they really 'exploited' a system but so far all they've done as best I can see is use the systems you built in ways you didn't see when designing them and that means the fault lies with CCP, not the players. THAT is the nature of a sandbox. If you can't stand by your own bad design but instead seek to punish the players for finding the flaws in your designs then you deserve to lose the playerbase. Stand by your own shoddy work, not fling blame at the players.
Enaris Kerle
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#2359 - 2012-06-23 14:48:44 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:
If we make a correction it clearly wasn't what we intended.

I'm well aware that this manipulation wasn't what you intended. I'm just arguing that this is qualitatively different from the ferrogel exploit, and thus retroactive punishment isn't warranted at all.
I'm also aware that you haven't yet decided whether or not to punish Aryth et al., I'm just expressing my views on the matter so you can (or not) take them into account when you make your decision.

Gallente born and raised, and tutored as a pleasure slave and courtesan to the exotic tastes of the Amarri court. Jade's career veered violently off course when a diplomatic envoy's transport was blown to pieces in mysterious circumstances and she was rescued from the escape pods by the enigmatic genetic mastermind Athule Snanm.
MeBiatch
GRR GOONS
#2360 - 2012-06-23 14:49:02 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Holander Switzerland wrote:
Man you guys messed up by telling them, they had no idea. You can tell because they just took everything FW away from the parties involved, regardless if it was earned beforehand. Either they don't have logs for this stuff, or they are just too incompetent to use them, or they don't care.


We knew what was going on but it takes time to see scale. I'm going to warn you once not to misrepresent us in this thread and then I'm going to have your posting privileges revoked forever. Please do not interfere with our communication to our customers by inventing falsehoods.


omg darius can i haz your internet babies!

you just made my day...

sitting here at work reading this is just epic... better then any sat morning cartoon!

There are no stupid Questions... just stupid people... CCP Goliath wrote:

Ugh ti-di pooping makes me sad.