EVE General Discussion

So how are we doing on having this not needed change rolled back? between this and the other thread, I haven't heard or seen any high level responses/movement on the part of CCP.

I just read James315's article on TMC:

It includes this:

"In disbelief, Abdiel Kavash asked the same question with different names:

I decide that I want to make some extra money off my past customers, without necessarily having to provide any extra services. I create a new character, Phill McScammer, on my account. I then go talk to a past customer of AbdielCorp and I claim that Phill McScammer is an alt of Abdiel Kavash. Customer falls for it, sends me their money and never sees it again... Can I be banned for telling the truth?

GM Karidor confirmed that yes, scammers can be banned for telling the truth:

Your character Phill McScammer impersonated Abdiel Kavash, the same way as Joe McScammer did, thus gets it from us the same way if reported. From our point of view, as well as from a victim's, there is no technical difference between those two cases of a character impersonating another.

Still in disbelief, as I suspect many readers are, Abdiel asked for confirmation:

Except that Phill never claimed to be anything he wasn't. Phill didn't claim to be the character Abdiel Kavash. He claimed to be an alt of Abdiel Kavash—which he was. At no point Phill told a lie. Does 'impersonation' cover 'truthfully stating the nature of a character'?

GM Karidor confirmed the insanity was official CCP policy:

Both characters Phil and Joe used the name Abdiel Kavash to give of the impression they were somehow related to him. The cases are effectively identical. Yes, with Phil the actual statement of him being an alt is true, but the actual act of the character using the name of Abdiel Kavash does not differ in any capacity at all."

---

Which leads me to ask the following question of Abdiel, James, and that side of the discussion:

If the hypothetical Phill McScammer performed that scam, would the hypothetical Abdiel own up to it if he was asked by the person he scammed whether or not Phill McScammer was his alt?

If your answer was "yes," then your point is valid and no ban should occur because no one told any lies. Abdiel's rep would suffer as a result, but then the issue becomes in-game consequences.

But, if your answer was "no," then the GM's response makes much more sense. In the "no" scenario, the lie would occur at the moment Abdiel says Phill isn't his alt. If Abdiel said that, then Phill would be on the hook for impersonation. So, Phill gets banned along with anyone else on the account. Then CCP follows up by banning all related accounts (using payment info, email addresses, IP addresses, clientside ID, or whatever). That would get Abdiel banned as a secondary consequence. The issue, as the GM clumsily explains, isn't whether or not he's an alt, it's whether or not it can be verified by the person who got scammed. To avoid a ban, all Abdiel has to do is admit that Phill is an alt. Take it a step further: if he didn't get banned under the rules (because CCP secretly verified that Phill was, in fact, an alt of Abdiel), then everyone would know that Phill was an alt of Abdiel anyway and Abdiel's rep would still be ruined.

So, GMs, is that the essence of the issue for this particular scenario? If Abdiel owns up to the scam, does he get banned in that scenario?

i love how this little sentence actually kills any roleplaying conversations by including NPC enities

not that roleplayers matter much ^^

makes no sense to me to forbid conversations where one or both parts are obviously acting

wich happens in a game

with this tos we get a sick mixup, i find a that there is a distinct difference if i speak as a playerctor/pilot/ character to someone or as a real person.

must i fear any punishment when i post following in local: "good evening pilots of jita, ready yourself for a death by laz0rs as sansha kuvakei himself has send me to pew you all into nothingness"?


ccp your digging your own grave with this BS

The problem is: The ToS don't state that.

It would be against the rules to claim to be an alt of any other character or to claim/confirm that a character is indeed an alt of this character.


A simple addition to that rule would make it so much clearer that this is intended to counter scamming and not to get people banned who, for example, offer to bring a second character to your fleet for assistance.

Also fine by me as believing someone to be an alt of $famous_player without confirming it is stupid enough to warrant getting scammed, but I don't think CCP will simply revert the changes.

I believe if this scam was not perpetrated using Chribba and harming what is an "in game" or shall we call, pretend, virtual, fake, etc... reputation that this ToS issue would not be an issue,

This is exactly what I'm talking about here. The ToS was re-worded, but the policy didn't change. That's an important distinction to observe. Even now the ToS is still too vague imho. CCP can't get the job done on EvE governance because the rules of the game simply haven't been explicitly outlined. If we had an EvE legal wiki, it would clear all of this up. CCP could make a vague statement like "Impersonation is bad" and GMs, ISD, and knowledgeable players could come in and detail how the policy would apply to a variety of scenarios.

The problem the capsuleer community is having right now in this thread and elsewhere isn't simply about a ToS change. At our problem's foundation is constant and inept communication between CCP and the playerbase, and that's it. It's been a perpetual problem since I started playing, and while it improves incrementally all the time, the fundamentals of what causes these miscommunications has not. I don't think CCP is trying to remove scamming or carebear up the game. They are simply trying to explain the rules (not change them), and per the usual, are poorly phrasing their responses. Just put the rules out there explicitly and the whole problem goes away. We can haggle with the CSM and CCP about the details, but unless we fix the fundamental problem (people not being able to divine what the rules are from the ToS and EULA) we're just going to keep having these rage threads that end up with some totally unrelated change that doesn't address the problem but will be iterated on "Soon™".

I know I may be a bit late on the bandwagon here but what the hell.

I know why you did this, its because you cant exact revenge on the scammer other than trying to defile his 'already bad' reputation. I don't know about you but it seems that the only counter to a scammer is not falling for the scam in the first place (kinda like real life), and that fits the sandbox perfectly.

Also I have a question: I have a list of all my alts on my bio because I don't read mails on my alts, so I just say "If you need to get a hold of alt 1, alt 2, or alt 3, be sure to mail me and not them because any mails/pms on their side will be igorned". I don't scam unless I am in a dire need of ISK and when I do they will usually just be quick 30 min scams that only requires one toon, which I always do on my main (this character). So will just casually saying in corp chat (as an example) "Oh hey just to let you know these guys are my alts" get me banned? Or is this "Impersonating myself" only applicable when scamming is involved. Also do I need to get rid of the listing of my alts in my bio, or is that ok to keep?

Cold harsh universe my ass,

This is supposed to be a sandbox, where scamming is encouraged and developer's interference is at a minimum.

What the scammed (read stupid) people could have done is actually ask the persons to log in their mains (or alts) they are claiming to be to prove they are actually them. They chose the lazy way and now you are changing a major appeal of this game based on this one scam.

I could say a lot of things about how absurd your responses and rationalizations are, but they have been said before and I don't want to be repeating it. Just another voice saying the responses of the GMs were stupid at best (stronger words apply but I don't want to be more impolite than that).

A major appeal of this game is lying, spying, cheating, awoxing and causing the most amount of tears possible. You are simply curtailing that. This is a player driven sandbox and you are butting in where you aren't supposed to. As long as the players aren't lying about being developers or using faulty game mechanics to scam other players you shouldn't get involved.

I hope by now the makers of this game realized that this is not like other mmos, and catering to the stupid and lazy (catering to newbies is ok) is not in the long term interest of this game.

It is ok to be wrong, and sometimes it is better to backtrack and admit you did your mistake than to throw more money at bad money.

Disclaimer: I have never scammed anyone in EVE.

I'm Spartacus!