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

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Mechaet
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#2381 - 2012-06-23 15:01:34 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.

Some of us are watching with bated breath to see how this turns out. Are we going to have to wait until Monday for an outcome?

Personally speaking, I get what you're saying. Any other game developer would have come in and swung the banhammer far and wide a long time ago citing the repeated abuse of other players, the scamming, and the general bad nature of the people who make up Goonswarm (when operating in concert). Any other game developer would look at the money and item trail as it exists now a week plus after this all went down, and throw up their hands and say reversal was impossible, and ban the accounts that profited most from this. Any other game developer wouldn't have a bunch of players wondering WHY they would even consider punishing for this.

I'd consider (and I can't be alone in this) that punishment of the guys who went and pulled this off would be sandbox-breaking. There simply wasn't any exploitation done. A developer decided to introduce a reward calculation into the game that was reliant on a number that the players determined. It cannot be unforeseeable by the development team how this would turn out, so I have to assume they thought the playerbase too stupid to use that to their advantage. And by and large, they are right. Look at this thread. Why on earth anyone would ever use a number the players determined for the sizing of a reward handed out by "the game", in this game, is beyond me. The playerbase of this game is entirely focused on the numbers. They've filled in the math for a great number of mechanics that have never been explained in detail by experimenting with the mechanics and using the outcome to determine the math behind it. Hell, a lot of players refer to Eve as "Speadsheets Online". The simple fact that a developer chose to use a number that could be manipulated by the playerbase in a calculation for handing out rewards was a bad decision, and instead of punishment I'd much rather the developers use this as a horror story to prevent other developers from making a bad decision like this one in the future.

Nothing was duplicated, nothing was buffer-overrun, nothing was endlessly repeated via an automated macro bot. People simply figured out the math behind (as this playerbase is known to do), decided they could manipulate the outcome to their advantage via in-game, built-in, previously-approved mechanics, and did so (as this playerbase is known to do). Is the scale a bit daunting? Well, yes. And I understand the sensitivity to that. But don't punish the players for something that is rightly a fault of a developer who has hopefully learned an important lesson here and will code for the game a bit better from here on in and avoid a recurrence of this in the future. There simply isn't a cause to act against the playerbase for this and doing so would herald the end of the sandbox we all love. The sandbox where ill-gotten gains from actual developer manipulation was allowed to stand. The sandbox where people duped ferrogel into existence out of thin air for months and the gains were allowed to stand. The sandbox where Jita Burns happened and the developers gushed about how emergent the gameplay was. That's the sandbox I log in for, the sandbox I have been playing in for 8 years, the sandbox that contains the only MMO I've ever played consistently for any period of time and I'd think that a large portion of the playerbase would also feel the same way as I do. Although I've been playing for 8 years now, I've only been in Goonswarm for the last 16 months. Not all of us have been Goons since day one, some of us got there a bit late.

So while the players in here and their forum alts are screaming for you to break the sandbox, while some goons are in here taunting you to break the sandbox, and while some people are in here gloating about how the sandbox was exploited, I'm pleading with you to see this from a long-term-player's perspective (one you used to share when you were a player) and declare Business As Usual In The Sandbox, Sorry About That Math - It's Fixed.
Prop Wash
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#2382 - 2012-06-23 15:02:45 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:


and you're not qualified to discuss the matter because anything you type is hearsay


Ok cool so why don't you just close this thread then
Blawrf McTaggart
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#2383 - 2012-06-23 15:03:02 UTC
that's certainly a post
Maggie Maggie
Perkone
Caldari State
#2384 - 2012-06-23 15:04:04 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Comparing removing the manipulated assets of a small number of people to a complete redesign of the game may just win the prize.


Hear me out. While I am a goon and of course I do feel that a member of my tribe is under attack, I'm speaking as a player.

EVE has always been an open sandbox where players are allowed and encouraged to do things that materially affect the game. That is the one thing that sets EVE apart from every other MMO. There are other spaceship games. There are other games with a functioning market. There are other games where clever players do better than dumb people.

EVE has always been an open sandbox. If a player is afraid to experiment and push the game in new directions for fear that, should they win too big, they will lose everything, then that is not an open sandbox.

EVE has always been an open sandbox. If that is no longer the case, that constitues a complete redesign. Please don't take that first step. I like the game how it is.
Dreiden Kisada
State War Academy
Caldari State
#2385 - 2012-06-23 15:04:11 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:

Not once has anyone blamed any players. We're well aware of what a sandbox is. We made it.

If you print isk and I take away what you printed then you're in the same state you were prior to printing. That is not punishment it is fixing the problem.


CCP Sreegs wrote:

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.



Using terms like Abuse and Glitch when you're talking about a game mechanic designed into the game by you guys sounds like you're blaming the players. Sounds a lot like it actually.
Prop Wash
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#2386 - 2012-06-23 15:04:19 UTC
like what is even going to be the purpose of this thread if when anyone actually tries to discuss the topic of the thread we have someone with an official CCP title saying "you don't know what you're talking about get out," what could the purpose of this thread be besides inciting conflict between CCP employees and EVE players
CCP Sreegs
CCP Retirement Home
#2387 - 2012-06-23 15:04:39 UTC
Prop Wash wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:


and you're not qualified to discuss the matter because anything you type is hearsay


Ok cool so why don't you just close this thread then


ugh you've called my bluff I can't close the thread :(

"Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012
Weaselior
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#2388 - 2012-06-23 15:05:06 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:

You know as well as I do that I can't conceive of every potential future scenario to clearly lay out the lines and requesting that is really bad forum lawyering.

I'm not asking you to lay down rules you'll be held to, and I'm fully aware that if you made a general "this is allowed" statement for something and then I found a way to generate absurd amounts of LP from it that you'd look poorly on it and trying to rules-lawyer my way out of it wouldn't work. I'm not trying to trick you or anything or ask you do it here since I'm sure this requires a lot of thought, I'm just genuinely interested in what will generally be allowed/not allowed going forward.

Head of the Goonswarm Economic Warfare Cabal Pubbie Management and Exploitation Division.
Sister Evian
PSK Industries
#2389 - 2012-06-23 15:05:12 UTC
Ban Goons and let the other 350,000 people enjoy the game ....

Maybe losing to BoB so many times has finally got to them.
CCP Sreegs
CCP Retirement Home
#2390 - 2012-06-23 15:06:07 UTC
Maggie Maggie wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Comparing removing the manipulated assets of a small number of people to a complete redesign of the game may just win the prize.


Hear me out. While I am a goon and of course I do feel that a member of my tribe is under attack, I'm speaking as a player.

EVE has always been an open sandbox where players are allowed and encouraged to do things that materially affect the game. That is the one thing that sets EVE apart from every other MMO. There are other spaceship games. There are other games with a functioning market. There are other games where clever players do better than dumb people.

EVE has always been an open sandbox. If a player is afraid to experiment and push the game in new directions for fear that, should they win too big, they will lose everything, then that is not an open sandbox.

EVE has always been an open sandbox. If that is no longer the case, that constitues a complete redesign. Please don't take that first step. I like the game how it is.


When do we get to the part where we stop pretending that a gap in the timing of value calculation (programming) wasn't what was being taken advantage of here? This wasn't just market manipulation it was taking advantage of a flaw in the code.

"Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012
Prop Wash
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#2391 - 2012-06-23 15:06:43 UTC
and let me just emphasize that "official title" part because this is pretty aggressive, confrontational behavior from someone whose every post comes with the authority of CCP itself, like we're in pretty dire straits if everyone at CCP is currently as wound up about this as you are
CCP Sreegs
CCP Retirement Home
#2392 - 2012-06-23 15:07:00 UTC
Weaselior wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:

You know as well as I do that I can't conceive of every potential future scenario to clearly lay out the lines and requesting that is really bad forum lawyering.

I'm not asking you to lay down rules you'll be held to, and I'm fully aware that if you made a general "this is allowed" statement for something and then I found a way to generate absurd amounts of LP from it that you'd look poorly on it and trying to rules-lawyer my way out of it wouldn't work. I'm not trying to trick you or anything or ask you do it here since I'm sure this requires a lot of thought, I'm just genuinely interested in what will generally be allowed/not allowed going forward.


I'll try to give some guidance in the blog once the investigation's done but what you're asking for can be a bit difficult.

"Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012
Richard Desturned
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#2393 - 2012-06-23 15:07:32 UTC
Sister Evian wrote:
Ban Goons and let the other 350,000 people enjoy the game ....

Maybe losing to BoB so many times has finally got to them.


is this a really weak attempt at a troll or do you really think we lost to BoB so many times by disbanding their alliance and defeating every respawn since?

also lol @ "ban all the goons"

npc alts have no opinions worth consideration
CCP Sreegs
CCP Retirement Home
#2394 - 2012-06-23 15:08:29 UTC
Prop Wash wrote:
like what is even going to be the purpose of this thread if when anyone actually tries to discuss the topic of the thread we have someone with an official CCP title saying "you don't know what you're talking about get out," what could the purpose of this thread be besides inciting conflict between CCP employees and EVE players


I saw one guy trying to say what happened to individuals which is something we never discuss in any thread and that's what I responded to. Let's relax on being overdramatic.

"Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012
Leonard J Crabs
The Greater Goon
#2395 - 2012-06-23 15:08:52 UTC
Just curious if we keep disagreeing with you. Will you reset us to -10 too ie: Goonswarm?
Phoenixx
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#2396 - 2012-06-23 15:09:21 UTC  |  Edited by: Phoenixx
I just find it hilarious that Goonswarm is so mad about this.

1) You guys find an exploit, unintended manipulation, game design flaw (whatever you want to call it) and exploit the hell out if it.

2) You come on the forums and brag about how you outwitted CCP and make 300T ISK.

3) It is CLEAR that you all start to brag about the exploitation of a newly created faction war system to impress all the EVE online players and extend your E-PEEN.

4) It is CLEAR you know that it is a game design flaw you and continue to do it regardless.

5) CCP does the right thing and makes adjustments to avoid those profiting unfairly - in a GAME

6) You all start to cry, pretending you didn't think or know it was exploiting.

Classic.

Anyway, it's entertaining, and never affected me. But' it is very obvious that CCP needs to penalize those who exploited a game design flaw. You can't exploit the flaw and then brag about it - knowing very well that it would probably not fly - and then claim good faith after CCP fixes it.
Ghost Xray
Hedion University
Amarr Empire
#2397 - 2012-06-23 15:10:10 UTC
Haquer wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
and you're not qualified to discuss the matter because anything you type is hearsay


Oh damn son, you got me there.

Pack it in boys, the things that we heard straight from the people this happened to is hearsay.

We're finished. End of Goonswarm.


Don't forget, you heard it from a Goonie (self proclamined scammers, exploiters, metagamers, etc etc ad nauseum), so you'll have to take whatever you heard from them with a grain of salt.



Richard Desturned
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#2398 - 2012-06-23 15:10:29 UTC
Phoenixx wrote:
2) You come on the forums and brag about how you outwitted CCP and make 300T ISK.


this figure changes with every post!

npc alts have no opinions worth consideration
Enaris Kerle
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#2399 - 2012-06-23 15:10:41 UTC
Phoenixx wrote:
Anyway, it's entertaining, and never affected me. But' it is very obvious that CCP needs to penalize those who exploited a game design flaw. You can't exploit the flaw and then brag about it - knowing very well that it would probably not fly - and then claim good faith after CCP fixes it.

counterpoint: insurance fraud

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.
Blawrf McTaggart
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#2400 - 2012-06-23 15:10:44 UTC
Phoenixx wrote:
I just find it hilarious that Goonswarm is so mad about this.

1) You guys find an exploit, unintended manipulation, game design flaw (whatever you want to call it) and exploit the hell out if it.

2) You come on the forums and brag about how you outwitted CCP and make 300T ISK.

3) It is CLEAR that you all start to brag about the exploitation of a newly created faction war system to impress all the EVE online players and extend your E-PEEN.

4) It is CLEAR you know that it is a game design flaw you and continue to do it regardless.

5) CCP does the right thing and makes adjustments to avoid those profiting unfairly - in a GAME

6) You all start to cry, pretending you didn't think or know it was exploiting.

Classic.

Anyway, it's entertaining, and never affected me. But' it is very obvious that CCP needs to penalize those who exploited a game design flaw. You can't exploit the flaw and then brag about it - knowing very well that it would probably not fly - and then claim good faith after CCP fixes it.


thanks for your point of view pubbie we'll keep it in mind going forward