EVE General Discussion

I hate to break it for you, but if you check the last years scandals, every single time the CSM was not asked for an opinion and got just completely bypassed.

An istitution that is bypassed at every relevant / game changing decision is a smokescreen, not an institution.

Anya, you are incorrect (no offense). It IS on par. In fact it is worse.

By giving items to a RMT'ing entity, in particular one that uses GTC's sales as the RMT vehicle, CCP is selling their golden ammo.

They have created a microtransaction market, but this time they are using an RMT'ing player corp to do it. That, combined with the very fact that they would do this in spite of the prior anti-microtransaction outrage makes it even more egregious in my mind.

It's basically the same thing, only sneakier and unethical to boot.

Well, at least next year you know on who you have to vote for CSM to make your votes count and not let these FUBAR situations happen.

I told you... vote PB for CSM... she will defend our interests... but no one ever listens to big chief raven666wings

You guys are totally useless.

So you had a 2 hour discussion and all you have to show us is NOTHING.

All you had to do was read all these posts with a pad and pen to jot down the essential arguments and state each to Ccp and ask for action points. We don't need a survey as all the points have now been made about one hundred times in here. Albeit with little Ccp response.

Hell on the topic of not caring about this thread, the csm is taking the same approach as Ccp - little by way of commentary and absolutely no progress.

Is SOMER still RMTing? For not pulling the offer in light of this debate shows either a total lack of prudence, that Ccp have skyped and given assurances or that I'm mad.

I'm not resubbing screw this survey. I just wish I was at the meeting. The csm needs to not fear a hard encounter because that is what is being asked for by the players.

Here's a question:

Why is the CSM, once again, the go-to group for cleaning up the mess? Why hasn't the CSM been involved to begin with?

Oh, right...because CCP doesn't care about them unless it's to shut us the hell up! Go ahead CCP, respond to me (we know you won't).

A number of people have posted explanations but you can refer to mine on this page (post #510):

https://forums.eveonline.com/default.aspx?g=posts&t=285492&p=26

But in short:

Basically, every time you buy GTC you get 200M in "SOMER isk". This has created some confusion for some - as they think that this intermediate currency prevents this from being RMT, but it actually makes no difference since that intermediate currency (which was obtained with cash) is redeemable for isk and in game items through raffles. \

Because SOMER gets cash for every GTC sold, you are basically buying somer isk from them by purchasing a GTC. This also means that whenever you purchase somer isk, CCP and MarkeeDragon also profit.

Now, to simplify things, suppose an item is completely bid on using SOMER isk. Basically, SOMER has converted that item entirely into cash, since they get no real isk for it. You bought it with your SOMER isk, which is basically an intermediate currency you purchased with cash.

In fact the item need not exist since you could potentially take the isk buy out. In which case SOMER just turned isk into cash. This is especially important when it comes to high end items like SOE ships, IW Scorps, etc., since these items draw bids, yet in the end if SOMER is able to convince you to take the isk instead, they get to use the ship over again as a promotional (although I am not sure if this actually happened or not).

Now, because CCP is giving them items to sell and because those items are unique and only available through SOMER, SOMER is basically a proxy aurum market, a micro transaction market. And if one of those items "sells" for somer isk then some amount of cash is made by SOMER, CCP, and MarkeeDragon. All three profit from the raffling of the item.

And because you may choose to take the buy out, they can continue to raffle the same item again.

Many of the arguments against this view of the situation revolve around the fact that there is an element of "chance" involved in the raffle. But this is not really relevant from the SOMER/CCP/MarkeeDragon side of things. They assume ZERO risk. The item is "sold" as far as SOMER is concerned, as they get exactly what they want for it. They've effectively sold it to the group of people who have bid on the item. The only people taking any risk are those poor folks. Hell, even in Vegas the house assumes some risk, but not SOMER, and by association, not MarkeeDragon or CCP.

Yeh so players have made at least two thousands posts on this now. Frankly, most of them are well reasoned logical posts, definitely good material for the CSM to work with.

CCP has done nothing.

CSM has had a 2 hour meeting and agreed with CCP 'not enough feedback has been received we need a survey'.

Guess who is deciding what questions make it into the survey?

Every time I log on to check if my game is ok again, I end up having to get up off the floor after falling of my chair laughing.

CCP please please please employ some competent staff. At least staff that doesn't have an addiction to spawning items and gifting them to in game entities...

when the facts are laid out like that, in a logical progression, i have no choice but to agree with the people saying that this is an RMT activity. you buy the GTC from Somer (obviously you're doing it for the bonus blink credit), take the 200mil, you buy a ticket (or all of them) on some item(s), and then cash them out... you've basically received free stuff for your GTC purchase. adding rare items to the mix only makes the offense more egregious. it pains me to say all of that, because i have played Somer Blink myself, have won items through them, etc. and found some of the staff to be pretty friendly people overall. regardless of that though, i do not think CCP should be vouching for them or giving them any preferential treatment, and i definitely do not agree with devs spawning rare items for them, either to be used a lotto item, or as a token of appreciation. Somer has enough isk to purchase rare ships to auction off and to compensate their employees generously.

There is part of me, that is willing to concede that MAYBE not even SOMERblink meant this to be an RMT scam. They have overheard for hardware and bandwith I am sure, and may have been interest in simply recouping some of the costs. Who knows?

I find it somewhat hard to believe however, partly because of their involvement with MarkeeDragon, who is known to have violated or skirted EULA's before. Indeed he admits that he even talks to game companies about ways to make money off of the secondary market without violating the EULA. Did he discuss this with CCP? It just seem odd that SOMER picked that time code seller of all people.

I mean, why not use evetimecodes? They are perhaps the single most trusted GTC seller after all and wholly committed to the ECE community. Instead however, they basically undercut evetimecodes, and that to me raises a great number of questions about their 'altruism'.

Funny that CCP do a devblog on Diana Dial when all this time they've been funding and endorsing unfair competition in the GTC market by allowing SOMER to hand out isk with its GTC's.

As I said - this stuff goes deep. Surveys are lip service. This is the sort of thing that requires an investigation into SOMER, CCP, the devs that have been giving items to SOMER, connections to MarkeeDragon, etc..

David Reid and Hilmar are about the only opinions I trust on this at all from within the walls of CCP. Everything else is just damage control - bad damage control at that.

https://eve-games.net/

I guess the trend is growing.