EVE General Discussion

This. It makes no difference if its a gold magnate or a pink rifter or 100 PLEX, CCP should not be giving out such enormous in-game value to a for-profit lottery company.

Didn't read the thread, but does someone actually believe all these ships won't be just won by SOMER alts?

This. I like this guy.

I also support CCP trying to support player-driven initiatives.

I just think they did it in perhaps the most terrible way possible, given their history and obvious knowledge of the player-base's perception and reaction toward past examples of favoritism on the part of CCP employees.

That argument would legitimise CCP giving, say, T2 BPOs to the site owners without any fanfare - "guys, here's a little something for making a site that involves the community and promotes our game".

Are you seriously saying that would be ok?

Except CCP is not a beer company.

You don't stick an F1 sticker on one particular F1 team, give the team a 1 2 start in the race, then call it promoting cars.

While catching up with this thread, the name Markee Dragon was mentioned a few times. That particular name was temporarily foggy for a moment; so one quick Google search later, I found this little article.

So a person that had a shady past dealing with RMT (but allegedly has gone straight now) has a loose linked connection with Somer Blink who is the same party CCP wants to give rare items as a gambling prize. CCP has had their own shady past with the T20 ordeal. Birds of a feather that flock together perhaps...?

Just to speculate, since Dust has not been the huge money making project in terms of micro transactions and thus (potentially) left CCP in a deep debt to someone, could this be a twisted way to entice players to pay off that bill? Have people dump real money into game cards, convert them into ISK, and have a prayer's chance of salvation in Hell to win something that might just be rigged for nobody - save a few hand selected alts - to achieve. CCP banks on the purchase of legit gaming cards, this Markee Dragon person uses some old contacts and converts chunks of gambled ISK into a RMT route, this route offers incentives to players who buy these illegal chunks of ISK, and then CCP swoops in and removes these illegal gained ISK while subtly getting a cut of the illegally sold ISK's real money costs. Meanwhile, the winning alts could sell their rare ships to extremely high priced legitimate buyers and use that ISK for various illegal and legal slush funds here and there.

Thus CCP gets a double dip of payment from one ISK.

Nahhh, too far fetched.

*cues X-Files theme music...

When do we start "shooting the monument", so to speak?

How is SOMER making profit? I thought all proceeds from this go to sponsor the vegas event? If they didn't get these profits, they wouldn't sponsor the event right? So...the money is just going back into the player base?

Well if you goonies think you can come up with some business deal with CCP then I welcome you to go ahead and take it to them. I think you should be prepared to be laughed out of the room though because you're a bunch of horrible trolls. And also because while you do create a great deal of content you also create a massive cyber-bullying controversy at CCPs first fanfest with sony.

My main thought on all of this is that the people in this thread a bunch of hysterical rabble-rousers and that CCP was just trying to do something fun for eve vegas.

This is why we can't have nice things.

Incorrect. They integrated the community event with Somer's game system. In order to have a chance at winning one of these prizes which are supposedly open to anyone in the community to win, you MUST participate in blinks. This means that in order to possibly win these prizes, you MUST give money to Somer Blink in order to play in Blinks which give you tickets in the Blast.

That is how Somer is making a profit. They did not have to pay anything for the prizes they are giving out, which means that it is pure profit that they're taking in through the sale of tickets to have a shot at winning the items. These proceeds are not going to the Vegas event, and because the system for awarding these prizes is integrated into the standard system for Somer Blasts, there is no possible way to know what money came in specifically for these prize (thus, there is no way to funnel that money toward the Vegas event).

The money is not going back into the player base at all. It is going into the Somer corporation wallet.