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Community Concerns Regarding SOMERblink

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Remiel Pollard
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#801 - 2014-08-20 08:22:51 UTC
Klyith wrote:
Remiel Pollard wrote:

I don't care about Somer one way or the other, but if you were a victim of an unsubstantiated witchhunt, it'd probably be easier for you to just disappear, don't you agree?

Nah. If I was the victim of a witchhunt, I'd probably stand firm to my convictions in the belief that all the evidence would vindicate me.


That would be fine, provided the crowd didn't kill you first based on circumstantial assumption, bias, and the fact that they just never liked you to begin with.

“Some capsuleers claim that ECM is 'dishonorable' and 'unfair'. Jam those ones first, and kill them last.” - Jirai 'Fatal' Laitanen, Pithum Nullifier Training Manual c. YC104
Victor Andall
#802 - 2014-08-20 08:27:06 UTC
Remiel Pollard wrote:
Klyith wrote:
Remiel Pollard wrote:

I don't care about Somer one way or the other, but if you were a victim of an unsubstantiated witchhunt, it'd probably be easier for you to just disappear, don't you agree?

Nah. If I was the victim of a witchhunt, I'd probably stand firm to my convictions in the belief that all the evidence would vindicate me.


That would be fine, provided the crowd didn't kill you first based on circumstantial assumption, bias, and the fact that they just never liked you to begin with.


Oh come on, Remiel. When has something like that EVER happened?

I just undocked for the first time and someone challenged me to a duel. Wat do?

19.08.2014 - Dinsdale gets slammed by CCP Falcon. Never forget.
Andski
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#803 - 2014-08-20 08:27:08 UTC
Remiel Pollard wrote:
That would be fine, provided the crowd didn't kill you first based on circumstantial assumption, bias, and the fact that they just never liked you to begin with.


these underlying motives simply don't exist

Twitter: @EVEAndski

"It's easy to speak for the silent majority. They rarely object to what you put into their mouths."    - Abrazzar
Fallon Talwyn
Doomheim
#804 - 2014-08-20 08:28:03 UTC
Derrick Miles wrote:
Mike Azariah wrote:
Ohkewl wrote:

You say you represent the players but that is a lie. You might represent the 50 or so loudmouths here, but there are far more players that use the blink website, and you sure arent representing them.
You just showed how valuable the CSM is.



I wonder if neighbourhood junkies complain when the local dealer is arrested.

m

Not really helping your case.


Red herring ftw!
Derrick Miles
Death Rabbit Ky Oneida
#805 - 2014-08-20 08:28:31 UTC
Remiel Pollard wrote:
Klyith wrote:
Remiel Pollard wrote:

I don't care about Somer one way or the other, but if you were a victim of an unsubstantiated witchhunt, it'd probably be easier for you to just disappear, don't you agree?

Nah. If I was the victim of a witchhunt, I'd probably stand firm to my convictions in the belief that all the evidence would vindicate me.


That would be fine, provided the crowd didn't kill you first based on circumstantial assumption, bias, and the fact that they just never liked you to begin with.

Hyperbole aside, do you really think the investigation CCP started is unsubstantiated?
James Amril-Kesh
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#806 - 2014-08-20 08:30:45 UTC
Remiel Pollard wrote:
Klyith wrote:
Remiel Pollard wrote:

I don't care about Somer one way or the other, but if you were a victim of an unsubstantiated witchhunt, it'd probably be easier for you to just disappear, don't you agree?

Nah. If I was the victim of a witchhunt, I'd probably stand firm to my convictions in the belief that all the evidence would vindicate me.


That would be fine, provided the crowd didn't kill you first based on circumstantial assumption, bias, and the fact that they just never liked you to begin with.

Yes. All of it is circumstantial assumption, bias, and dislike. Don't pay any attention to the fact that Somer lied about the details of the program to get approval, a point which CCP agrees with after having consulted with that very same VP of sales in the emails.

Enjoying the rain today? ;)
James Amril-Kesh
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#807 - 2014-08-20 08:34:55 UTC
James Amril-Kesh wrote:
This is like putting together a puzzle which was put into the wrong box, and Remiel here is arguing that until we put every piece of the puzzle together we can't conclude that the puzzle isn't the same as the picture on the box.

Remiel Pollard still here to remind us that until we've put the final piece in the right spot, we can't tell what the picture shows at all.

Enjoying the rain today? ;)
Brahan Seer
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#808 - 2014-08-20 08:35:30 UTC
@CCP Falcon / CSM's / The EvE community as a whole.

Hello all,

I would like to start what will be a long post by saying its about 2am my time and I honestly couldn't sleep until I posted this. The idea of this post going through my mind over and over again until I said screw it and decided to start typing.

My name is Joe, I went to school for video game design and than pursued a carrier in IT, where I currently a Director of IT. I state this because I want you know know I am someone of educated statnding and wish to have people think really long and hard about what I am going to say.

How I currently understand this situation is simple. CCP legal didn't approve this matter and/or Somerset didn't agree to the terms outlined in being able to sell PLEX or whatever. Now I don't know all the particulars in this situation and I doubt anyone outside the realm of CCP will ever know, I want to pose this to everyone, especially CCP.

I appreciate that you guys want to be transparent and let us as a community understand this situation so we can trust a proper and fair out come will previel, but lets not kid our selves CCP as a whole has allowed far more cancerous and inconsistant things happen in this game than SomerBlink or RMT. Being this is EvE a game where mistrust and politics are the name of the game to often has truely toxic behavior been allowed to flourish. To many corps have scared people off with their scams or the abusive way the sov system works that has run off countless players. And by scams I don't refer to the obvious contract folks in jita. I mean the players who are offered a home move with all their belongings and than are held ransom.

So let me ask. Whats worse for our game and our community? SomerBlinks supposed RMT, or such toxic behavior that cripples a player so severly that they leave?

Than ask, who has quit over SomerBlink?

I personally spend my days sitting in a station spinning my ship or playing SomerBlink while I wait for a CTA to come up and go to work flying for my corp doing what is required. I am a player who has played off and on since closed beta.

Now I can only speak for myself and hopefully (what I think) is a silent majority who love Somer. That would be devastated if such a fun and creative service is closed for good. In so many dev blogs and posts, the staff at CCP have been amazed with the creativity of its players using features never thought of in the development process and have always hailed this communities spirit. Is this not one of its crown jewels? Adding a fun social idea to allow plaers another avenue to enjoy this game and its community? A place where I see reds and blues and nuets all coming together to enjoy a fun (and sometimes isk crippling) game?

I ask as a player, as a developer as someone who just loves the concept of EvE, regardless of the outcome of whatever happens to Somerset that SomerBlink be allowed to stay and floruish and remain a mainstay of creativity of what this community can do. I personally don't want to see that creative flame die. We all know EvE is up against a wall with Star Citizen coming. So I ask lets not tear down a thing that helps make this game enjoyable and focus on real community issues that offer true harm to its players and community. Taking down SomerBlink isn't just bad the community its bad for Business.

Sorry for any typoes as I wrote this in the IGB.

Thank you for your time reading this long post.

Brahan Seer
Klyith
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#809 - 2014-08-20 08:35:31 UTC
Remiel Pollard wrote:

That would be fine, provided the crowd didn't kill you first based on circumstantial assumption, bias, and the fact that they just never liked you to begin with.

So who's been killed? There may be an angry mob, but I don't see a Cotton Mather in charge. Just the good folks at CCP who said "hold on, we're going to do our own investigation and we'll get back to you when we've considered the evidence. Thanks to the CSM who brought this to our attention."

Also it said on Somer Blink's website the price he was paying for referral plexes and the steps to getting your referral code validated (so that Somer knew you'd indirectly given him money). That's hardly circumstantial. That's a sacrificed goat and a pentagram drawn in human blood.



Now if you want to see a real witchhunt, we could talk about the Erotica1 thing. In that case the defendant was pretty much Satan himself, but it was still a stampede of outrage and cynical publicity ploys.
Dyscordia
Super Elite Friendship Club
#810 - 2014-08-20 08:36:45 UTC
Derrick Miles wrote:
Cherry Yeyo wrote:
Derrick Miles wrote:
Ralk Orin wrote:
Well I took a year break from EVE and the only reason I kept one account up was to play blink and set some skills. I am sad to see Blink go the way of the Dodo.
I did get the remainder of my isk I had deposited with them back.

I understand his reasoning for shutting down the site, the witch hunt that is this investigation and community uproar and calling for Somer's head.

I think now that GTC's have been removed and plex can only be sold at CCP's price they need to remove all third party suppliers. and just have CCP as the only source of plex. that would pretty much prevent this from happening again.

It is my understanding that this issue has very little to do with third party suppliers and everything to do with one individual offering an in-game incentive to use a referral link. Just because the referral link was for the purchase of PLEX does not mean that all PLEX sales by every third party has anything to do with the issue.

The guy was out of line, everybody recognized it last year and then they basically deceived a VP at CCP into signing off on the same thing this year.

Incentives to use his button rather than anyone elses

It's an important distinction to make though that incentives by themselves are not a bad thing, only when they involve in-game items or services (in this case trading PLEX for higher than market price).


When it comes down to it the only incentives that actually matter and are doable for third party referrals are: PLEX , in-game items or services such as the one you cited. All of which is all out RMT at its worst, or an extreme gray area of EULA Legalese that is taking CCP months to sort out at its best. This becomes even harder to swallow when the average EVE player is grinding 30-60 million isk per hour running high sec missions while Somer's community spotlight highlights the fact that his isk gambling site has trillions to quadrillions of isk circulating through it and millions of Blinks completing every 6 minutes. It's a glorified isk farm used to fuel problematic-EULA incentives for referrals. It's a very circular and self sustaining system that is undeniable. It's also a complicated system or everyone would be dancing around the EULA for referrals. It's hard to make a distinction when the whole system basically requires fake digital in-game items to function.

Now if you look at incentives by your definition: 'non in-game items or services which are not bad', you are left with material incentives, such as a free tee shirt or a bag of skittles. This route no longer becomes profitable as you have to purchase tens of thousands of dollars of give-away swag, store it, and then ship it. Players may not want your junk anyways. Isk is a tried and true commodity to EVE players. This is why Somer's doors are closing and he is not pursuing other types of incentives to fuel his income. It's simply not worth the effort. The system is no longer easy street or a cash cow.

While incentives by themselves in the strictest definition are not a bad thing, this entire scenario can't be cut up into individual components because it literally requires in-game items or services to be sustainable.


CCP Falcon wrote:

We’re also well aware that a lot of members of the community have enjoyed playing SOMER Blink over the course of the last four years, and it’s very unfortunate and saddening to see a source of enjoyment for our players closing its doors.


I can understand CCP's sentiment here. Yes, everyone enjoyed Blinks I guess and it kept players interested in EVE in a very roundabout way. But I never really agreed with the heavy handed approach that CCP took in promoting Blinks all these years. EVE is what should keep players interested in EVE and not the meta gaming sites. Let's promote some of the vision that the new Executive Producer has for this fantastic game.
Myriad Blaze
Common Sense Ltd
Nulli Secunda
#811 - 2014-08-20 08:37:52 UTC
Andski wrote:
So who acted in bad faith? CCP, by approving an ambiguously worded proposal and then deciding that what was implemented was not what they approved, or Somer, by writing an ambiguously worded proposal, deceiving CCP and essentially implementing a similar referral incentive to what CCP previously made him discontinue?


I read the proposal and despite leaving out a key piece of information it's not ambiguous. Somer did not include the information about setting the price for trading PLEX, but that doesn't make the proposal ambiguous in any way. Actually it's so glaringly obvious that this key piece of information is missing that I am surprised A) that Somer did not include it and B) that the CCP rep didn't ask about it - it should have been the very first question.

From the communication Somer made public it seems that the CCP rep in question did not act very professional. At the very least it indicates that internal communication at CCP is far from where it should be. And that's why CCP deserves a good share of the blame.

All this doesn't mean Somer is innocent, of course. How anyone could believe that this PLEX buy back program were ok - no matter what a single CCP rep said - is completely beyond me. The very idea of this scheme is preposterous. And it's all the more disappointing since there are enough possibilities to use Somer's ISK to set a strong incentive to buy PLEX through the Markee referral link, that shouldn't get you in trouble with anyone (actually one of these ways is quite simple and should be obvious).
Arkady Romanov
Whole Squid
#812 - 2014-08-20 08:40:26 UTC
Brahan Seer wrote:
a long post


It's a pity you didn't bother to read the first dozen or so pages of this thread, because if you had, you could have saved yourself the effort of writing this horribly ignorant post.

Somer hung himself by trying to engage in RMT for the second time. End of story.

Whole Squid: Get Inked.
Brahan Seer
Native Freshfood
Minmatar Republic
#813 - 2014-08-20 08:43:52 UTC
Arkady Romanov wrote:
Brahan Seer wrote:
a long post


It's a pity you didn't bother to read the first dozen or so pages of this thread, because if you had, you could have saved yourself the effort of writing this horribly ignorant post.

Somer hung himself by trying to engage in RMT for the second time. End of story.



Coming from the most toxic corp in the game, your corp has run off more players than a thousand RMT's would ever have done
Andski
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#814 - 2014-08-20 08:46:24 UTC
Brahan Seer wrote:
Coming from the most toxic corp in the game, your corp has run off more players than a thousand RMT's would ever have done


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

Twitter: @EVEAndski

"It's easy to speak for the silent majority. They rarely object to what you put into their mouths."    - Abrazzar
Arkady Romanov
Whole Squid
#815 - 2014-08-20 08:47:54 UTC  |  Edited by: Arkady Romanov
Brahan Seer wrote:
Coming from the most toxic corp in the game, your corp has run off more players than a thousand RMT's would ever have done


Say for the sake of argument you are right (and you aren't). We didn't break any rules to do it, which is the difference. You also completely ignore the fact that have also ushered in a heck of a lot of players from day 1 newbee-dom to hardened bittervet. We're also content creators. Every player who took a chance on EVE because of the battles that made mainstream media, you can attribute to us (and the people we fought against).

But sure, Grr Goons all you like. Doesn't make a lick of difference to what Somer did, and what will happen to him.

Whole Squid: Get Inked.
RubyPorto
RubysRhymes
#816 - 2014-08-20 08:48:34 UTC
Remiel Pollard wrote:
That would be fine, provided the crowd didn't kill you first based on circumstantial assumption, bias, and the fact that they just never liked you to begin with.


Good thing the crowd can't actually do anything to you in this case. Unless you're suggesting that CCP intentionally set Somer up for this?

"It's easy to speak for the silent majority. They rarely object to what you put into their mouths." -Abrazzar "the risk of having your day ruined by other people is the cornerstone with which EVE was built" -CCP Solomon
KaRa DaVuT
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#817 - 2014-08-20 08:48:50 UTC
So, all of a sudden somer closes its doors, and Its ok?

I mean He acted against EULA and what willh appen? He will walk out of the door?

Really?

WHat would happened if he could be a normal person but not somer?

If this is against EULA as it states below, then I demand that Rules should apply everyone equally and, I demand justice.

Quote:
EULA
Section "Your Account"
Subsection "A. Establishing a New Account"
Paragraph 4:

"Accounts may not be used for business purposes. Access to the System and playing EVE is intended for your personal entertainment, enjoyment and recreation, and not for corporate, business, commercial or income-seeking activities. Business entities and anyone who is acting for or on behalf of a business or for business purposes may not establish an Account, access the System or play EVE. Accessing the System or using the Game for commercial, business or income-seeking purposes is strictly prohibited."


Yes maybe he stopped RMT or closed his doors but yet again he seems he broke some rules, so CCP has to satisfy the publicity that whether If this is against EULA or not, with reasons and If ıt is against EULA they have to show that they will apply the rule to everyone equally.

I for one demand justice.

Holiness is in right action and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves, and goodness. What God desires is in your heart and on your mind... And what you decide to do every day, makes you - not your race - a good man - or not.
James Amril-Kesh
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#818 - 2014-08-20 08:49:54 UTC
Brahan Seer wrote:
Coming from the most toxic corp in the game, your corp has run off more players than a thousand RMT's would ever have done

Hi Joe.

Your post is still ignorant, Joe.

Enjoying the rain today? ;)
James Amril-Kesh
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#819 - 2014-08-20 08:51:30 UTC
KaRa DaVuT wrote:
So, all of a sudden somer closes its doors, and Its ok?

I mean He acted against EULA and what willh appen? He will walk out of the door?

Really?

I don't think anyone is saying that. At least, not anyone that wanted this to happen in the first place.

It does rather bother me that Somer's accounts aren't locked pending investigation, though.

Enjoying the rain today? ;)
KaRa DaVuT
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#820 - 2014-08-20 08:55:24 UTC  |  Edited by: KaRa DaVuT
James Amril-Kesh wrote:
KaRa DaVuT wrote:
So, all of a sudden somer closes its doors, and Its ok?

I mean He acted against EULA and what willh appen? He will walk out of the door?

Really?

I don't think anyone is saying that. At least, not anyone that wanted this to happen in the first place.

It does rather bother me that Somer's accounts aren't locked pending investigation, though.


Thats the thing bothers me too.

I mean think that what will happen If ever someone claimed that someone is RMT'ing..

THey will immediately frozen the account and start investigate..

In this case guy walks out of the door. I mean I dont what them to hang the guy but seriously.. Do something to show that you are not dropping the ball on this and show us that he will get the penalty of his actions...

I really demand justice. I ( and every other capsuleer in New Eden) wants to see that CCP is treating everyone equally on these kind of incidents. nothing else.. I demand an act of trust...

Holiness is in right action and courage on behalf of those who cannot defend themselves, and goodness. What God desires is in your heart and on your mind... And what you decide to do every day, makes you - not your race - a good man - or not.