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Dev Blog: Client modification, the EULA and you

First post First post
Author
Andy Landen
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#741 - 2013-04-24 16:02:29 UTC
seth Hendar wrote:
Andy Landen wrote:

How is the warp to zero mechanic different from a strip miner module auto cycle? Both allow the player to gain something without actually actively interacting with the client. Why, CCP, do you think that warp to zero is all that bad?


because the "warp to 0" bot used python injection mechanics, wich is a "client modification".
...


You know what I meant. Not the bot but the mechanic itself. If CCP allowed auto pilot warp to zero, nothing bad would happen. It would be the same as mining. There is nothing special about warp to zero. It saves a little time from the current fly x kms to the gate mechanic and that is it. If the issue is ganking, and you are having difficulty ganking a high priority autopilot ship, then there are bigger problems here than the warp to zero mechanic; two brain cells are the minimum requirement for Eve. Besides, no one ever said that the pvper was entitled to easy to catch and kill, afk, auto-pilot targets.

"We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." Albert Einstein 

DarkCleave
Barbary Bilge Rats
#742 - 2013-04-24 16:12:03 UTC
They won't enforce anything that infringes on your legal rights.

Many a EULA and TOS have verbiage that valid for everyone.


If you want to get technical about it for the giggles I believe playing Amarr would violate the TOS would it not?



You may not organize nor be a member of any corporation or group within EVE Online that is based on or advocates any anti-ethnic, anti-gay, anti-religious, racist, sexist or other hate-mongering philosophies



Just saying use common sense.
72inches
Pixar INC
Pandemic Horde
#743 - 2013-04-25 03:22:10 UTC
CCP Peligro wrote:
Thank you for all your comments and concerns regarding cache scraping, we are listening and we truly appreciate your feedback.

After consulting with CCP Legal and Team Security, we are not prepared to amend the EULA at this time to address your concerns. However, your comments are good ones, and we will consider incorporating them with the next scheduled update to the EULA (expected this fall, 2013).

In the meantime, CCP confirms that we will only impose penalties on cache scraping if used in connection with other illegal activities in the game (i.e., botting). We will not take action against cache scraping for other uses.




i call bs on that. i have a toon currently banned, not in connection with other illegal activities

let the forum whine ensue i suppose eh ccp
gabriel7a7
Zen and Tao
#744 - 2013-04-25 15:51:16 UTC  |  Edited by: gabriel7a7
Quote:
CCP Peligro wrote:
Thank you for all your comments and concerns regarding cache scraping, we are listening and we truly appreciate your feedback.

After consulting with CCP Legal and Team Security, we are not prepared to amend the EULA at this time to address your concerns. However, your comments are good ones, and we will consider incorporating them with the next scheduled update to the EULA (expected this fall, 2013).

In the meantime, CCP confirms that we will only impose penalties on cache scraping if used in connection with other illegal activities in the game (i.e., botting). We will not take action against cache scraping for other uses.


Dear Sirs CCP

I want to tell you that I have been watching this post very helpful because of the uproar caused by his authoritarian stance in blocking accounts due to the use of external programs to modify their clients, causing changes in the game you guys manage.

Punishing the user with a ban for 30 days is an exemplary sanction is within the powers your company clearly explains in his post on the rules of the EULA, but those that have been banned pilot indefinitely just because they so determined your logic or someone within the company without a warning 30 days, I believe it is set to this law because their EULA rules are not in view from the first moment you create an account and pay your allowance.

As a consumer I must say you guys as a company had knowledge of these practices for a long time and not just talking about warp to "0", also from mining bot, NPC ships BOT, BOT Market and other things that happen even within the EVE. What was not done before taking this stance banning a general warning to all people from eve so as has been done with the illegal sale of ISK, white of march time to eliminate these defects.

UDS Directors or representatives of CCP must have thought well this desicion either freeze accounts for 30 days or indefinitely, this we are talking about not only the game but also the money that people have put at your disposal for a long time, making this company grow beyond the first goals of becoming an elitist game and say no racist, because the resources won many people's speaking even waiting for a vesion in Spanish, this being an important part of eve.

Finally dire, as a lawyer entitled to exercise for 10 years and the UK. I say that its rules, actions and policies of a game show wrong posture which is paid entertainment and transforms this betting game room where one has more power and money can drive the future of this at will, which this business asu directly opposite opening a discussion in which CCP is dedicated to creating entretencion directly to the players or to the contrary is a mask hidden in order to scam the players making them believe that this is fair and honest game in which the rules if applied to some and not others.

At CPC closest friends or those who buy 50 plex continuous review matters not to have divine help. All consumers have rights to do so even more when investing real money for a service that is not paying their bills to ban without notice, those who provide the service and violate their part without prior noticiacion in between is the subject of complaint to the courts competent and new consumer laws are far better than times before, so I invite you to correct your mistakes as serious and responsible company shown.

Atte.

Gabriel
ubercouger
Kamino Clone Research Co
#745 - 2013-04-25 17:40:17 UTC
Well it's nice too see that I am not the only one who CCP has messed up with. I attempted to log in on Tuesday too find two of my accounts banned. I never had any information about this other than the password changed on the account. So I thought I'd put it in wrong, so tried it again and the same thing. This started alarm bells ringing, so inthought I'd been hacked to I logged some of my other accounts in using the same password and they worked fine!!!!!!!

So now I'm really confused I decided that the best thing too do isnreset the password, so I try and do this. Then it tells me the account is banned so I'm rather confused so I petition only to be told that they are all active..... Which it's clear they are not because I cant fecking log in. So I petition again only to have it recatogrised to bans and as yet to datbinhave not heard anything....

Now for all I know I've been hacked had everything taken and the account stolen so what the hell am I ment to do.. So guys any help here would be amazing.

Cheers
Uber
AirRep
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#746 - 2013-04-25 21:12:01 UTC
So, re-texturing( if possible) is okay?
Entity
X-Factor Industries
Synthetic Existence
#747 - 2013-04-25 22:11:52 UTC
AirRep wrote:
So, re-texturing( if possible) is okay?


9. C 4th paragraph

You may not copy, distribute, rent, lease, loan, modify or create derivative works of, adapt, translate, perform, display, sublicense or transfer any information accessible through the System, including without limitation, any part of the Game Content or User Content, or any item, object or character in your Account, except that, solely to the extent permitted by the System, you may modify certain Game Content and User Content only for your own purposes in playing the Game.

╦......║...╔╗.║.║.╔╗.╦║.╔╗╔╦╗╔╗

║.╔╗╔╗╔╣.╔╗╠..╠ ╠╗╠╝.║╠ ╠╝║║║╚╗

╩═╚╝║.╚╝.╚╝║..╚╝║║╚╝.╩╚╝╚╝║.║╚╝

Got Item?

daddi0
Brooklyn Tax Dodgers
#748 - 2013-04-26 01:54:28 UTC
While this thread is longer than most, the same basic issue seems to be repetitive. Fundamentally, CCP makes a decision about bannable behavior and implements it, resulting in new banned accounts and a whole lot of fear about what actually triggers the bans. Since all the ban resolution is secreted behind a gag order, no one ever knows just how the appeals turn out. CCP's use of automation to enforce the bans ( I doubt 2300+ bans were individually validated by a real person) is the crux of the problem. Many common practices are similar in nature to bannable offenses, and until CCP publicizes te appeals, no one will have any faith in CCP's ability to consistently enforce bans against proscribed actions. A VERY simple example, raised by one person, is the use of a gaming mouse or keyboard, capable of generating clicks faster than normally possible. TECHNICALLY, this is a bannable offense, and could be detected as such by a lapse time monitor or such built into the client; on the other hand, it is the ONLY way some disabled people can effectively play the game. Since CCP has demonstrated over may years the tendency to ban first and think later, there is little trust the they can and will do the right thing. In fact, banning someone without due process FIRST for such usage may well violate the laws protecting the disabled in a number of countries. While I admit that this is NOT currently the specific topic under discussion, it does represent the fuzzy area in determining the actual nature of a behavior, and the action taken upon it. Until everyone is certain that bans are reviewed before enforcement and that the appeal process does in fact work, the community will respond to any change. Even now, there are posts in this thread indicating that banned users are neither notified or given adequate remedy.
0Lona 0ltor
Adeptio Gloriae
#749 - 2013-04-26 15:56:53 UTC
Boom headshots to 95% of Eve lottery runner. No more automatic wallet pay ins from your customers for you. Each wallet transaction is going to have to be manual or you'll be getting a ban. Enjoy manualing accounting over all them pay ins.

In other news 95% of Eve's lottery are now closed.... after stealing a few billion isk from customers.
daddi0
Brooklyn Tax Dodgers
#750 - 2013-04-26 15:57:57 UTC
As for cache scraping, all the common tools will look in the expected place and be potentially detectable, but in the case of a truely malicious user, they can simply copy it somewhere else, and then access it as much as they want, as often as they like, without ever being detected. One could even do that with the common tools, by simply having them on a separate computer, that has EVE installed, but NEVER runs. As was pointed out, an occassonal file access on the EVE-active system is indistiguishable from an anti-virus scan. You don't even need another real computer, you can fake it with a free product like Virtualbox from Oracle.
Brusanan
Free State Project
#751 - 2013-04-26 20:02:55 UTC  |  Edited by: Brusanan
0Lona 0ltor wrote:
Boom headshots to 95% of Eve lottery runner. No more automatic wallet pay ins from your customers for you. Each wallet transaction is going to have to be manual or you'll be getting a ban. Enjoy manualing accounting over all them pay ins.

In other news 95% of Eve's lottery are now closed.... after stealing a few billion isk from customers.

API. Derp.

Yuki Kasumi wrote:
I have read a lot of these posts and I'm still concerned.

Say hypothetically that I would be doing the following:

1. Fire up an eve client
2. Load a web page that uses CCP provided javascript api to go through market pages for items
3. Use a scraper to move said data gathered to a database / market data collecting service of choice

This is how most people would use a cache scraper. From what I gather this is now and has always been illegal? But from previous posts most likely not a ban reason on its own?

[...]

For me there would be two clarifications which could give me personally some peace of mind:

1. Does the combination of javascript webpage + scraper classify as worse than just a scraper on your "naughty list"?

2. Will you warn people, in advance, to stop their actions should you ever consider cache scraping (+ javascript page if no to question above) something you would want to prosecute?

I must say I much enjoy this game and would like to continue playing this (excellent) game, but even the suggestion of a 30 day ban gives me the creeps.

Can I get an answer to post? Scraping market prices specifically in the way that Eve Mentat does, without using the pricing data with a bot of any kind, still won't get me banned now, or banned without warning in the future?

EDIT: I'm more worried about looping through the list of items in Javascript and opening them in the market automatically. Can someone in CCP confirm that they don't consider this to be a bot?

EDIT #2: And to any of the CCP guys and trolls/naive idiots with too much faith in the system downplaying the importance of this blog post, it is a huge deal. Most of us have been doing things which we thought was fine, only to realize you guys consider it to be a violation of the rules and permaban-worthy in certain extremely vague and arbitrary circumstances which, instead of actually explaining these circumstances in detail, you will ban us for "at your discretion". Oh, but don't worry, the way I am breaking the rules probably won't get me permabanned, or it might. It's safe to say that even a 30-day ban for something I thought was fine because you refused to clarify would be enough for me to ragequit Eve.
Jack Lagoon
Noble Sentiments
Second Empire.
#752 - 2013-04-26 20:16:41 UTC
Brusanan wrote:
0Lona 0ltor wrote:
Boom headshots to 95% of Eve lottery runner. No more automatic wallet pay ins from your customers for you. Each wallet transaction is going to have to be manual or you'll be getting a ban. Enjoy manualing accounting over all them pay ins.

In other news 95% of Eve's lottery are now closed.... after stealing a few billion isk from customers.

API. Derp.

Yuki Kasumi wrote:
I have read a lot of these posts and I'm still concerned.

Say hypothetically that I would be doing the following:

1. Fire up an eve client
2. Load a web page that uses CCP provided javascript api to go through market pages for items
3. Use a scraper to move said data gathered to a database / market data collecting service of choice

This is how most people would use a cache scraper. From what I gather this is now and has always been illegal? But from previous posts most likely not a ban reason on its own?

[...]

For me there would be two clarifications which could give me personally some peace of mind:

1. Does the combination of javascript webpage + scraper classify as worse than just a scraper on your "naughty list"?

2. Will you warn people, in advance, to stop their actions should you ever consider cache scraping (+ javascript page if no to question above) something you would want to prosecute?

I must say I much enjoy this game and would like to continue playing this (excellent) game, but even the suggestion of a 30 day ban gives me the creeps.

Can I get an answer to post? Scraping market prices specifically in the way that Eve Mentat does, without using the pricing data with a bot of any kind, still won't get me banned now, or banned without warning in the future?


I wouldn't mind some clarification on this as well, I personally use a cache scraper to build character alliance histories for recruitment purposes since the API does not provide a corporations alliance history yet...
Sarah Stallman
Pen2 Logistics
#753 - 2013-04-27 10:37:07 UTC
Where would a third-party application that creates overview profiles fall in this? I am in the planning stages of an Java app that will create an XML file can be read in to the client. I've been operating on the assumption that it is OK for the same reason as exporting ship fits in Pyfa or EFT but figured I should ask.
Cygnet Lythanea
World Welfare Works Association
#754 - 2013-04-27 13:22:41 UTC
Sarah Stallman wrote:
Where would a third-party application that creates overview profiles fall in this? I am in the planning stages of an Java app that will create an XML file can be read in to the client. I've been operating on the assumption that it is OK for the same reason as exporting ship fits in Pyfa or EFT but figured I should ask.



Good question. And for a company that prides itself for players behaving in unexpected ways, CCP sure is quick with the banhammer when they don't LIKE the unexpected way that players behave.
Krypter Tasian
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#755 - 2013-04-27 13:29:46 UTC
This whole thing seems to keep going in circles... I think what CCP is trying to get across here is that if you utilize any software, scripts, macros etc that give you ANY kind of unfair advantage over the rest of the players out there you are looking at a ban.

As they have pointed out Cache Scraping has always been against the EULA, however they are not oblivious to programs like EvEMon and others that use it simply for market information (which by the way can be found on a wide selection of websites anyway). These programs have been around a long time, and I doubt you have any worry if you are using them.

From a purely financial/business standpoint if they banned everyone who used Scrap Caching for market reasons they would probably lose a majority of their player base. If it were you, would you do that?

Sarah Stallman
Pen2 Logistics
#756 - 2013-04-27 22:28:38 UTC  |  Edited by: Sarah Stallman
Krypter Tasian wrote:
This whole thing seems to keep going in circles... I think what CCP is trying to get across here is that if you utilize any software, scripts, macros etc that give you ANY kind of unfair advantage over the rest of the players out there you are looking at a ban.


Cool. Does the ability to quickly make ridiculously detailed custom overview profiles using the full range of every typeID in the game count as "unfair"? While any player could technically do the same with in-game tools, this would allow for very complex overview profiles in a matter of seconds, and I've heard rumors of at least one similar service being given a cease-and-desist, but I've never found the source nor the actual reason why it was shut down. For all I know, the service was fine but they were charging for it.

Bottom line is, I don't know so I'm asking for clarification in the appropriate thread.
Brusanan
Free State Project
#757 - 2013-04-28 06:26:10 UTC  |  Edited by: Brusanan
Krypter Tasian wrote:
This whole thing seems to keep going in circles... I think what CCP is trying to get across here is that if you utilize any software, scripts, macros etc that give you ANY kind of unfair advantage over the rest of the players out there you are looking at a ban.

Define "unfair advantage".

I am a software developer. Simply being a software developer in Eve gives me a pretty big advantage over others who are not software developers. When does it start being unfair? Where is the line?

Quote:
As they have pointed out Cache Scraping has always been against the EULA, however they are not oblivious to programs like EvEMon and others that use it simply for market information (which by the way can be found on a wide selection of websites anyway). These programs have been around a long time, and I doubt you have any worry if you are using them.

Great, we won't get banned for using EveMon. We already knew that. But does that amnesty specifically apply to EveMon and other commonly used applications, or does it apply to all cases of cache scraping when not combined with other things that are against the EULA? This has been asked dozens of times in this thread, and CCP keeps refusing to answer it.

Also, most of those websites that have market information: A) are not updated frequently enough to be used for any applications that rely on cache scraping, and B) use cache scraping, because that is currently the only way to get market data that can be automated, which is why everyone uses it.
gabriel7a7
Zen and Tao
#758 - 2013-04-28 17:42:04 UTC
we are in the background of a character discucion dictatorship that has the money that each player brings to the payment of salaries and maintenance of this structure really only looking cheat, cheat, cheat and continue ripping off unsuspecting players who hold this game every month with the aim of taking from his pocket the dollars that they cost so much win.

has long game here and during the time invested in this game have looked like things are changing and it is becoming more difficult for a player to keep doing ISK to pay for your license, but if you have no time due to work and real life, you should solve it by paying out of pocket.

We talked about that this is not just a game it is to make money off of the players and when you find a way to put prohibitions and punishments, such as I said if the resources of the players really do not it's destined to prevent the causes of ban, but actually doing on those doors that they left open for those more advanced riders and try to circumvent them far in advance, then it means that this conspired is beyond any credibility as a company and also casts doubt on the reputation of its employees to be dictators and authoritarian.

Well exposed Responses always are appreciated, especially when questions by closing your request.

recently i was reading forum somewhere else where you can not say anything regarding talks and petitions to ccp or GM, friends remember this is not free it's game you pay real money and earn ISK cost also believe that if 3,000 players started talking about this outside of the forums and external press these things happen, as they say image is everything!

good day CCP
Sarah Stallman
Pen2 Logistics
#759 - 2013-04-29 19:28:25 UTC
What I would like to see is a list of actions that are allowed, and those forbidden. Something like:

Cache-scraping: Good
Using scraped data for nefarious purposes: Bad

Then define each nefarious purpose, throw in a caveat that it is a representative list rather than a definitive one and may be changed without notice. Then just compile a list of every action that's ever gotten a ban, and throw them on the "Naughty" list, and put things on the "Nice" list as they come up.

Such a listing would end up rather large, I think, but if each entry was properly described it would make it abundantly clear what CCP considered acceptable, and what they do not. It would eliminate most of this headache, and give third-party developers more confidence that what they are doing won't get them into trouble, encouraging development. CCP has declared more third-party development a "good" thing, so it seems the onus is on them to make it as clear as possible what we are and are not allowed to do.

What we have now is not clear, and this needs to be addressed.


And no, I'm not worried about EVE Mon, it is just a perfect example of a legitimate program that can be considered technically against the EULA, and makes it clear that additional clarification is needed for things to go the way CCP wants.
gabriel7a7
Zen and Tao
#760 - 2013-05-02 15:52:28 UTC  |  Edited by: gabriel7a7
I also remember that this history I present below also was the subject of analysis at the time and never did anything about it from your company.

Now they want to be neat and clean saying there are privileged few or no advantage over other, less even than several have been perma banned for use according to CCP programs take isk easy.

Any remember!!!

Quote:
The cheating scandal in EVE Online begins to clear.
. .

One of the developers of EVE Online, called "t20", has admitted fraudulently obtained items in this massively multiplayer online title. The developer won eight planes in June 2006, that have reported earnings billionaires in game virtual currency. An internal investigation initiated by CCP, the studio that developed the game, uncovered irregularities, but despite complaints from other players, the studio closed the subject with a verbal reprimand, and that similar behaviors previous occasions resulted in the dismissal.

The case officially closed as CCP continues to rivers of ink in the forums of the game by outraged users.

never never never ccp take account banned.


Happy day CCP