EVE General Discussion

Thank you for the article, themittani.com

If anyone should be given free items from CCP it should be the FC's and alliance leaders who create content, Not some rubbish gamblng website, which makes more than enough isk as it is im sure.

Oh calm the hell down. You really should do some fact checking before sperging out things like 'SOMER doesn't create content for EVE'. They are constantly donating to events such and RvB Ganked nights, all my events as well as countless others. Those sponsorship help those player events actually become a reality. Somer is not the only site that sponsors player events either. Many do.

Now I'm going to wait for more information on this Scorpion hull deal, but holy crap some of you need hit the brakes and really sit down, gather all the facts and then make an educated opinion on this.

I spent quite a bit of time among friends and on the forums backing CCP on what I thought was the spirit of promoting community events. Spawning items for corps which would be distributed equitably among the player base and with the purpose of generating donations that would drive turnout for live (or even in-game) events seemed a positive goal in my eyes. I thought it could be justified, and I assumed their intentions to be genuine but their methods flawed. If this leak is legitimate, though... yeah, they can count me out of the support group. Blink workers get paid for their services, and directly handing them valuable CCP-spawned ships for doing those jobs does nothing to promote anything but imbalance. I cannot glean any reasonable justification for this handout, which is likely why CCP can't find the time to comment on the issue. The implied cover-up in the email shocked me.

Why am I always left feeling like an idiot supporting CCP publicly? I should probably have learned my lesson by now.

Back to spending 4 months training Battlecruiser and Dessy cross-race skills to V on my new character, at least the in-game changes they spend time think-tanking and instituting nowadays make sense and benefit players, and aren't just some grossly obvious cash-cow implementa...

wait...

Has there been an official CCP response on any of this?

There is literally no defense for this sort of favoritism. The fact is that the only way to truly be sure there are no conflicts of interest is to avoid absolutely everything and anything that even smells of one. Engaging in the slightest of questionable activities opens the door to tremendous abuse and EVEN IF NOT ABUSED, creates questions that seed distrustt between the company and its customer base. And that is exactly what we are seeing here.

And nothing can really be said to ever make that customer base feel comfortable with the situation. The fact is that the appearance creates the sentiment, no matter what the truth. This is why you simply NEVER engage in this sort of favoritism. And CCP Pokethulu makes the age old mistake of trying to defend by saying that CCP will be able to make sure it is not abused and remains balanced. These are the sorts of claims made by the foolish and corrupt. No one can be sure this is not abused - therefore it should not occur. Simple as that.

No player run organization should be gifted items of such significant value within the game. Give them plaques, letters, tours of CCP offices, or their name engraved on the walls of Hilmar's private bathroom - but to grant them items of in game value is to give them isk. And herein lies the problem. For CCP to be in the business of handing out isk to players is highly disturbing and threatens the integrity of the game itself. Even when those items are given to be given out via lottery - they will profit the entity in question, therefore providing them with isk! Why is CCP basically handing a ton of isk over to SomerBLINK?

I sat with Hilmar at Fan Fest and had dinner with him. I basically said something along the lines that I felt he got a bit of a rough shake when it came to the whole monocle debacle. I mean, why can't a CEO be glad his company is making money? Despite my support, he took ownership and apologized and made it clear he felt he had made a mistake, and had failed to understand what the players wanted.

Hilmar, if you have any sense of what the players care about you will realize what a tremendous mistake this favoritism toward SomerBLINK is. It reeks of impropriety and corruption and secret deals with Somer. And for your own people to sit there and say they think Somer is 100% trustworthy - first it makes them look like complete fools and shows a complete failure on their part to understand the problem. Does CCP know who every alt of every Somer employee is? Why you might think so, I highly doubt it given that I've seen more than one player receive a permaban on their main while their alts did not. Once again: the ONLY way to insure no impropriety is to not engage in any activity that could come close to it.

So now, on the heels of this we find that Somer 'employees' are being gifted hundreds of billions of isk in special release ships. Once again, this is giving players isk. And for what? Because they are such a great fansite? They have already been rewarded for this. If they've paid out more than a quadrillion in isk, then just think how much they've made in profit! That profit is their reward. CCP is going to hand them rare, in game prizes for being good at getting you to pay them isk? That's ludicrous. Clearly there is some level of bias here, or plain stupidity... one or the other.

And please realize, Somer is just as much to blame. It is the responsibility of a business to turn down gifts that could either result in or give an image of impropriety.

So for the players, the answer is simple: stop patronizing SomerBlink. Respectable business do not accept 'gifts' when those gifts create even a perception of impropriety. Boycott SomerBlink and if they truly value your business they will return any and all gifts and prize ships. Otherwise, kiss them goodbye and stop handing over your hard earned isk so that they can bask in the glory of CCP's adoration. They are being gifted ships from CCP for one reason: YOU GAVE THEM ISK. So, stop giving them your isk. They clearly don't deserve it.

Than I cancelled my last account, I accidentally give no reason for it. CCP, would you please add "Somergate"?

No, it can´t be for real what they are doing here. CCP prefers Somer in a way, which is not acceptable. I thought, they had a Internal Affairs Department since T20. Was this only a joke?

Could you please reveal, if there are any relationships between CCP Navigator and Somer, ingame or in real life?

Highsec gankers just got wet in their pants. :D

seriously? the first thing wasn't enough. you gave them a bunch of scorps too? wow, thats like 15-20bil of free isk per employee... and here I am having worked for my isk to be able to buy one thinking it was a unique ship...lol, you're just spawning them out like candy it seems.

I am only posting in here to see if I get a ban for posting in here.

seriously, right. CCP, you're really making me question why i play this game. i thought this game was about competition, about player skill. it feels pretty good when you snag a good deal, when you see that contract with a couple of missing zeroes before anyone else does, when you private message a dude and end up buying out his whole hangar for a fraction of the value. being a businessman in this game can be fun, but you undermine that when you start doing this **** and giving free stuff out to people. it isn't fair for some people to have to acquire items the regular way, through grinding, diligence, patience, and sometimes just plain luck... while you spawn supposedly limited items on a whim. i was only aware of around 90 scorps when i purchased mine, and you decided to spawn out another 30 to give to one corp.... wow.... that invalidates all the work i put into getting isk to aquire mines. it cheaps the value of the ones that were initially won through player participation... you just gave out 15-20bil of free isk to a bunch of dudes...