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

First post First post First post
Author
Lubomir Penev
Prey Drive
#2421 - 2012-06-23 15:22:22 UTC
Enaris Kerle wrote:
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.


In a shocking turn of events, agreeing 100% with a goon.
Pr1ncess Alia
Doomheim
#2422 - 2012-06-23 15:22:39 UTC
whoa are we all that times should fare so troubling

thou doest distress! Why doth no one but goons understand how legitimate this was?

CCP why hast thou forsaken goons?

All they wanted was to make a few trillion and destroy LP markets for the forseeable future possibly destroying an entire aspect of the game they just got done trying to invest in to bring new players.

hither to and further more,
Enaris Kerle
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#2423 - 2012-06-23 15:22:47 UTC
Phoenixx wrote:
There's a difference between game design flaw manipulation to gain a fair profit of ISK and this manipulation to accumulate a far greater value. Someone earlier from Goonswarm said the value of the amount of items gained exceeded the value of the entirety of titans in the game.

That is a huge difference.

okay so the difference between exploit and non exploit is the amount of money a single person made of it, gotcha

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
#2424 - 2012-06-23 15:23:00 UTC
I'm not sure you can design a flawed system and expect people not to game it.
Maggie Maggie
Perkone
Caldari State
#2425 - 2012-06-23 15:23:01 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:
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.


It is not always apparent what is a flaw in the code and what is a flaw in the design. Sometimes it is blatantly obvious, as in the ferogel dupe. A variety of now-defunct GARPA projects relied on flaws in the code, yes, we knew it, you fixed it, it's done.

This, however, does not look like a flaw in the code. This does not look like code being pushed into an edge case where it goes for a variable that has not been initialized and instead picks up old junk that just so happens to not be junk. We've been there, this doesn't smell like that. The code didn't default into a case where it unexpectedly decides to calculate an EVE-wide 90 day moving average. That was a design error, not an implementation error. And design errors are fair game.
Weaselior
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#2426 - 2012-06-23 15:23:05 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Dancing Tree wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
This wasn't just market manipulation it was taking advantage of a flaw in the code.


It was a flaw in the design, not the code. Seeing that flaw when others do not is arbitrage. Leveraging arbitrage is what happened here, entirely within the bounds of the sandbox market.

If leveraging arbitrage in the market becomes forbidden, what becomes of the game?


You weren't just leveraging arbitrage because the value you were manipulating was fairly abritrary. This would not be acceptable in any financial system at all. I know ya'll are having fun pretending this is just A OK but I'm telling you it's not.

to be fair most of the fun of EVE's finances is doing things to the markets that would get you locked up in a heartbeat

don't mind me, i'm just dynamiting every oil well after buying up all the oil :v:

Head of the Goonswarm Economic Warfare Cabal Pubbie Management and Exploitation Division.

Dancing Tree
School of Applied Knowledge
Caldari State
#2427 - 2012-06-23 15:23:28 UTC
Phoenixx wrote:

There's a difference between ... fair profit of ISK and ... a far greater value.


So you think the game shouldn't be a sandbox wherein profit is only limited by the ingenuity of the players?
Dinsdale Pirannha
Pirannha Corp
#2428 - 2012-06-23 15:24:18 UTC
Man, this is such fun to read.

Screegs, I have to feel for you, just a little bit. Now YOU get to feel the power and wrath of the goon propaganda team.
How does it feel to try to keep up with dozens of posters all working together?

2 separate things jump out at me:

1. If you remove the assets from these asshats (and no, I don't think you should, but I would just ban them for being goons), you are not removing THEIR assets, you are removing the assets from all the FW people they scammed/manipulated/smart gameplayed ( I truly hate to say they played the game well, but it is true).

Essentially, you would be introducing a one-time 5 trillion ISK tax into the game, that affects anyone who ran FW missions, or any mission involved with a Minmatar agent.

2. Maybe, just maybe, you guys at CCP will start listening to your player base before rolling out changes.

UI: Sisi screamed murder, yet you rolled it out.
Incursions: The player community screamed the OTA's would pile up, you ignored them, now you are "looking at changes".
War dec mechanics: You were warned, yet you rolled it out, then had to hot fix it.
Now this. I have yet to see a post, but several people have stated that CCP was warned about this prior to release.

How about improving or creating a QA team, or at least listening carefully to the people on Sisi and in-game?
Andrea Roche
State War Academy
Caldari State
#2429 - 2012-06-23 15:24:28 UTC  |  Edited by: Andrea Roche
I think this is far worst than the word "exploit". The word "exploit" is far too weak or linient of a word to use. I say goons "raped" the market and now are claiming no fault. This to me is helarious.
Take all their isk and assets away CCP and send a message out that the gloves are off for anyone trying to do the same!!
Haquer
Vorkuta Inc
#2430 - 2012-06-23 15:25:03 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Dancing Tree wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
This wasn't just market manipulation it was taking advantage of a flaw in the code.


It was a flaw in the design, not the code. Seeing that flaw when others do not is arbitrage. Leveraging arbitrage is what happened here, entirely within the bounds of the sandbox market.

If leveraging arbitrage in the market becomes forbidden, what becomes of the game?


You weren't just leveraging arbitrage because the value you were manipulating was fairly abritrary. This would not be acceptable in any financial system at all. I know ya'll are having fun pretending this is just A OK but I'm telling you it's not.


Oh look, an "Eve Is Real" post.

Thanks.
Salpun
Global Telstar Federation Offices
Masters of Flying Objects
#2431 - 2012-06-23 15:25:23 UTC  |  Edited by: Salpun
CCP Screegs,
Maybe you need to role play it. What would Concord do if they found out what people are doing. They would shift the blame to the accountentsWhat? and fixe the issue with massive fleet combat Twisted Right.P

If i dont know something about EVE. I check https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/ISK_The_Guide

See you around the universe.

Pr1ncess Alia
Doomheim
#2432 - 2012-06-23 15:26:12 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Dancing Tree wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
This wasn't just market manipulation it was taking advantage of a flaw in the code.


It was a flaw in the design, not the code. Seeing that flaw when others do not is arbitrage. Leveraging arbitrage is what happened here, entirely within the bounds of the sandbox market.

If leveraging arbitrage in the market becomes forbidden, what becomes of the game?


You weren't just leveraging arbitrage because the value you were manipulating was fairly abritrary. This would not be acceptable in any financial system at all. I know ya'll are having fun pretending this is just A OK but I'm telling you it's not.


No you don't understand.

Give it another 50 pages. A few hundred more goon posts and you'll come around and realize how right they are here.

And it has nothing to do with keeping 5000 fleet stabber bpc's and mad mad mad assets and bank. Goons are much more noble than that. They are doing this for the good of the game and the sand in our sandbox.
Cygnet Lythanea
World Welfare Works Association
#2433 - 2012-06-23 15:26:42 UTC
Maggie Maggie wrote:
And design errors are fair game.



My dear maggie: this is CCP's game. They tell us what's fair game, not the other way around.
Tomytronic
Perkone
Caldari State
#2434 - 2012-06-23 15:26:52 UTC
Andrea Roche wrote:
I think this is far worst than the word "exploit". The word "exploit" is far too weak or linient of a word to use. I say goons "raped" the market and now are claiming no fault. This to me is helarious.
Take all their isk and assets away CCP and send a message out that the gloves are off for anyone trying to do the same!!

I say your hyperbole is offensive to actual victims of ****. This isn't 'helarious'.
CCP Sreegs
CCP Retirement Home
#2435 - 2012-06-23 15:27:15 UTC
Maggie Maggie wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
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.


It is not always apparent what is a flaw in the code and what is a flaw in the design. Sometimes it is blatantly obvious, as in the ferogel dupe. A variety of now-defunct GARPA projects relied on flaws in the code, yes, we knew it, you fixed it, it's done.

This, however, does not look like a flaw in the code. This does not look like code being pushed into an edge case where it goes for a variable that has not been initialized and instead picks up old junk that just so happens to not be junk. We've been there, this doesn't smell like that. The code didn't default into a case where it unexpectedly decides to calculate an EVE-wide 90 day moving average. That was a design error, not an implementation error. And design errors are fair game.


Flaw in code was a bad way of saying things v0v You're correct that the code was doing what it was written to do. However when the new mechanic was introduced a system was being leveraged to determine the value of a currency that was not built for that purpose and that's what caused this.

"Sreegs has juuust edged out Soundwave as my favourite dev." - Meita Way 2012

Kazanir
GoonWaffe
Goonswarm Federation
#2436 - 2012-06-23 15:29:10 UTC
Kazanir wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
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.


That is absolutely not true, and to people who DO understand the mechanic it kind of calls into question whether you understand what you are talking about. The mechanic involved has nothing to do with timing or a "flaw" in the code. The system worked precisely as it was designed to. I'll make a larger post explaining it, but I wanted to put this out there first.


To expand on this:

The problem here had nothing to do with timing. It had to do with items that have no market volume, because they are useless, and yet are available from the Faction Warfare store. For example:

Let's say there is an item, which I'll call 'Faction Warfare Boondoggle 44-z0r' for the sake of simplicity. This item has literally no use in the game except allowing the pilot who has it fitted to always efficiently complete every z0r chain he sees. Because few people care about this ability, the market price of this item languishes around 5 million ISK, with about 100 of them actually being traded per month.

The Faction Warfare Boondoggle 44-z0r, meanwhile, is available from LP stores for 5 million ISK and 5000 LP. This makes it extremely unprofitable to buy with LP.

But, now let's say that I take advantage of the item's low market volume to increase its average price. I do this by buying 5,000 of the 44-z0r Boondoggle (from the LP store, naturally), putting them on the market for 500M ISK apiece, and then buying out my own sell order. This costs me a tiny amount of ISK in the form of broker fees, as well as 25B ISK to get the material initially. But now the average price of that item is just under 500M ISK, since my own sales (to myself) utterly dominate the normal market volume of the Boondoggle in question.

Now all of a sudden the worth of this item is 500M ISK. That means that for each Boondoggle I blow up, I get 50,000 LP. Basically I can now buy 50,000 LP for the cost of 5M ISK and 5,000 LP invested. (This is 111.11 ISK per LP, right around the actual value cited in Aryth's article.)

Now then, what is the takeaway from my explanation? The takeaway is that there is no timing issue like Sreegs is saying. The market value of that item isn't affected by me repeatedly blowing it up for profit. It still has no use and it still isn't being sold on the market. I couldn't do this to a normal item, because the sales volume on the normal market would make my attempt at manipulation invisible.

This is the key point. This doesn't depend on timing -- it doesn't matter when CCP updates their internal price index, because the average market price of this item is going to remain around 500M ISK. The market won't bring it back down because the market has no use for it. What we are looking at here is not a bug or a programming issue or an abuse of a timing problem.

It is a design flaw.

Using an average market index is a design flaw because it can be manipulated by players in the case of items that have no market volume. And I'm pretty sure that all of the players of EVE see a large difference between taking advantage of a design flaw and exploiting a programming bug (like the Ferrogel dupe.)
Mechaet
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#2437 - 2012-06-23 15:29:26 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Maggie Maggie wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:
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.


It is not always apparent what is a flaw in the code and what is a flaw in the design. Sometimes it is blatantly obvious, as in the ferogel dupe. A variety of now-defunct GARPA projects relied on flaws in the code, yes, we knew it, you fixed it, it's done.

This, however, does not look like a flaw in the code. This does not look like code being pushed into an edge case where it goes for a variable that has not been initialized and instead picks up old junk that just so happens to not be junk. We've been there, this doesn't smell like that. The code didn't default into a case where it unexpectedly decides to calculate an EVE-wide 90 day moving average. That was a design error, not an implementation error. And design errors are fair game.


Flaw in code was a bad way of saying things v0v You're correct that the code was doing what it was written to do. However when the new mechanic was introduced a system was being leveraged to determine the value of a currency that was not built for that purpose and that's what caused this.

Only because a developer decided to include a value that the players can move, which in retrospect was a terribly bad idea. The math worked exactly as designed.
Lin-Young Borovskova
Doomheim
#2438 - 2012-06-23 15:29:31 UTC
There are people coding what their design leader tells them to.

There's this guy on top checking everything goes accordingly to stated plan

There's a test server

There are bug hunters

There is players feedback (hohoho)

Then you decide to implement "stuff"

Players play the content you give them under the form you've decided to release despite all steps above.

Then it's players fault because they play the game and should be penalised because steps above failed?

What the heck? Shocked

brb

Andrea Roche
State War Academy
Caldari State
#2439 - 2012-06-23 15:29:38 UTC
Tomytronic wrote:
Andrea Roche wrote:
I think this is far worst than the word "exploit". The word "exploit" is far too weak or linient of a word to use. I say goons "raped" the market and now are claiming no fault. This to me is helarious.
Take all their isk and assets away CCP and send a message out that the gloves are off for anyone trying to do the same!!

I say your hyperbole is offensive to actual victims of ****. This isn't 'helarious'.

it does not imply the meaning you intend to put. I specifically said "the market"! Dont try to make this into something else....
Antisocial Malkavian
Antisocial Malkavians
#2440 - 2012-06-23 15:29:50 UTC
Istyn wrote:
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".


Dude, bro...

have you read market discussion?


or hell most of what goons do/type?

And, isn't sanity really just a one-trick pony anyway? I mean all you get is one trick, rational thinking, but when you're good and crazy, oooh, oooh, oooh, the sky is the limit.