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New dev blog: The FW Exploit 2012 (or: How I learned about FOREX)

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Pipa Porto
#241 - 2012-06-29 00:49:03 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Weaselior wrote:
CCP Sreegs wrote:

I'm pretty sure that's not how this works and is specifically spoken against in the blog. While a great deal of LP was generated here the vast majority wasn't cashed out making it just a number in people's wallets. The proceeds were seized. No advantage is had. The market could have been crashed but the issue was reported instead. I know that will never be enough for some and that we're not going to please everyone but at the very least if you're going to post in this thread please at least make a modicum of effort to read the blog in question.

sreegs it's 12:40 am over there go to sleep


going now :(


INB4 Tinfoil Pillows. Night night, Sreegs.

EvE: Everyone vs Everyone

-RubyPorto
Dealth Striker
Perkone
Caldari State
#242 - 2012-06-29 00:55:33 UTC  |  Edited by: Dealth Striker
CCP Sreegs wrote:


I'm pretty sure that's not how this works and is specifically spoken against in the blog. While a great deal of LP was generated here the vast majority wasn't cashed out making it just a number in people's wallets. The proceeds were seized. No advantage is had. The market could have been crashed but the issue was reported instead. I know that will never be enough for some and that we're not going to please everyone but at the very least if you're going to post in this thread please at least make a modicum of effort to read the blog in question.



I read the blog - and have posted that my only concern is the way CCP is handling the exploiters.
I have no ill-feelings to the exploiters - having worked for a major gaming comany in QA, I have always been thrilled to see how people can figure ways around normal game play, break things, etc. The fact they can manipulate CCP is enlightening.
My beef is with CCP's handling of the exploiters. To say on the one hand we are following this to the letter (as an excuse) and then saying on the other hand we discussed this, and this is how we are handling it, is pretty funny.
So if you look at it, there will always be an excuse given - so just man up and say the old saying "Our game, our rules, so either put up with it or there is the door". Do not insult peoples' intelligence with trying to come up with a believable excuse for justifying your actions.

Also, maybe should have kept the handling of the exploiters to in-house - you got to know it looks like favoritism. I would love to know the reasoning behind releasing the punishment to the forums.
Striker Out!!
corestwo
Goonfleet Investment Banking
#243 - 2012-06-29 01:01:03 UTC  |  Edited by: corestwo
Dealth Striker wrote:
My beef is with CCP's handling of the exploiters. To say on the one hand we are following this to the letter (as an excuse) and then saying on the other hand we discussed this, and this is how we are handling it, is pretty funny.

EULA wrote:
CCP may establish Rules of Conduct (discussed below) for players accessing the System and may, but is not obligated to, monitor and take action regarding inappropriate conduct

Sounds like they followed this to the letter to me.

Dealth Striker wrote:
So if you look at it, there will always be an excuse given - so just man up and say the old saying "Our game, our rules, so either put up with it or there is the door". Do not insult peoples' intelligence with trying to come up with a believable excuse for justifying your actions.

Also, maybe should have kept the handling of the exploiters to in-house - you got to know it looks like favoritism. I would love to know the reasoning behind releasing the punishment to the forums.

Sreegs' job is dealing with this sort of thing. Granted that normally entails botters and RMTers, but hey.

As to releasing it to the forums - this is really no different than when he went all viking raider on RMT rings - he posted about punishment there, too. Only difference is that we posted about it first, so you know our names. Had we not posted, you probably wouldn't be complaining.

This post was crafted by a member of the GoonSwarm Federation Economic Cabal, the foremost authority on Eve: Online economics and gameplay.

fofofo
Linda Shadowborn
Dark Steel Industries
#244 - 2012-06-29 01:21:46 UTC
Liam Mirren wrote:
Goon tears best tears.


what tears? i dont see any goon tears at all
corestwo
Goonfleet Investment Banking
#245 - 2012-06-29 01:25:20 UTC
Linda Shadowborn wrote:
Liam Mirren wrote:
Goon tears best tears.


what tears? i dont see any goon tears at all


Dealth Striker, Cipher Jones (who hasn't turned up in this thread, actually) and Pr1ncess Aria or whatever his/her name was are clearly goon alts.

This post was crafted by a member of the GoonSwarm Federation Economic Cabal, the foremost authority on Eve: Online economics and gameplay.

fofofo
Spurty
#246 - 2012-06-29 01:27:07 UTC
Good work!

Loading ships up with uncommon items and blowing them up, then looking for anomalies is not where any sane qa manager should be spending their time. You need to recruit more insane workers

There are good ships,

And wood ships,

And ships that sail the sea

But the best ships are Spaceships

Built by CCP
Nicolo da'Vicenza
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#247 - 2012-06-29 01:27:08 UTC
Mighty nice of CCP to go to the trouble of sifting through all the transactions made and carefully reversing them instead of just confiscating all the ill-gotten LP or banning them. Good job though.
corestwo
Goonfleet Investment Banking
#248 - 2012-06-29 01:34:45 UTC  |  Edited by: corestwo
Nicolo da'Vicenza wrote:
Mighty nice of CCP to go to the trouble of sifting through all the transactions made and carefully reversing them instead of just confiscating all the ill-gotten LP or banning them. Good job though.


They did this, you know. Almost right off the bat, in fact.

This post was crafted by a member of the GoonSwarm Federation Economic Cabal, the foremost authority on Eve: Online economics and gameplay.

fofofo
Damion Rayne
Panoptic
#249 - 2012-06-29 01:39:41 UTC
So, CCP Sreegs, if I exploit...and tell you about it, I'll get banned right? It's just because it was Goons that they get off with pretty much nothing?

ROA
Mara Tessidar
Perkone
Caldari State
#250 - 2012-06-29 01:50:51 UTC
corestwo wrote:
Nicolo da'Vicenza wrote:
Mighty nice of CCP to go to the trouble of sifting through all the transactions made and carefully reversing them instead of just confiscating all the ill-gotten LP or banning them. Good job though.


They did this, you know. Almost right off the bat, in fact.


He doesn't know. That is why he posted something dumb.
Mara Tessidar
Perkone
Caldari State
#251 - 2012-06-29 01:51:15 UTC
Damion Rayne wrote:
So, CCP Sreegs, if I exploit...and tell you about it, I'll get banned right? It's just because it was Goons that they get off with pretty much nothing?


we're only out 5 trillion ISK, nbd
corestwo
Goonfleet Investment Banking
#252 - 2012-06-29 01:51:38 UTC
Damion Rayne wrote:
So, CCP Sreegs, if I exploit...and tell you about it, I'll get banned right? It's just because it was Goons that they get off with pretty much nothing?

This person. He's also a goon alt, and is another reason why it's possible for there to be goon tears in this thread.

This post was crafted by a member of the GoonSwarm Federation Economic Cabal, the foremost authority on Eve: Online economics and gameplay.

fofofo
Munch Munch
Science and Trade Institute
Caldari State
#253 - 2012-06-29 02:02:04 UTC
CCP Sreegs wrote:
Dealth Striker wrote:
There you go - CCP can release a summer event entitled - "Exploit for PLEX"

find an exploit, use it to your advantage for awhile, and then turn yourself in -- woola - plex abound.


I'm pretty sure that's not how this works and is specifically spoken against in the blog.


Yet the lack of punishment, combined with your inability to notice exploiting, does nothing but encourage exploiting.

CCP Sreegs wrote:
While a great deal of LP was generated here the vast majority wasn't cashed out making it just a number in people's wallets.


Seriously, are you kidding, or are you really so biased that you are unwilling to see or to admit how far this whole thing went?

Maybe the vast majority of LP wasn't cashed out, but still way more items were created through the LP store than any mission runner would ever be able to generate in his entire life.
Just look at the numbers of the screens that they provide themselves
http://imgur.com/1fSsT
http://i.imgur.com/dtMk4.png
I don't know if you know, but one implant needs one click in the LP store for example... If not all was cashed out, it only means that their macros/bots were not able to cash out more than that despite literally running 24/7. Using third party tools is another point you SHOULD punish them for.
But wait, CCP Sreegs is so biased... He probably thinks goons really spent dozens of hours just clicking buttons in the LP store to generate those amounts of items themselves.

CCP Sreegs wrote:
The market could have been crashed but the issue was reported instead.


They stated themselves that they had to sell some of the generated goods several times during the two weeks while the exploiting was still in progress, so they could cover the ISK part of the LP store prices, just to generate even more items.
You say no markets were crashed? If you bothered to check actually, you would see that the prices of many items went down considerably because of that. They obviously filled out all buy orders for some items and probably put up many sell orders with dumping prices too.
The impacts are still visible even today since it takes time for the markets to recover.
Because of this, much damage was caused to all traders and people that use LP stores in legal ways to profit from the affected items.

CCP Sreegs wrote:
The proceeds were seized. No advantage is had.

On their main accounts maybe. But you can't possibly delete all items that already got onto the market because of this.
If the goons weren't stupid (they already proved they aren't), they "washed" huge amounts of items by indirectly trading them to each others alt accounts through hugely underpriced buy orders. Even if you tried to trace this, you most likely wouldn't be able to if they used proxies and did this in between their usual cash-ins on the public market.
Seeing how incompetent you acted in this case, I really doubt you got all their goods, so now they will be able to resell the washed items and go out of this not only unpunished, but also with more ISK than they had before (also because of the free PLEXes you give them as a reward for "reporting the issue", while their thread was actually more like a "public mocking of CCP", LOL).
Zalifer Esepula
State War Academy
Caldari State
#254 - 2012-06-29 02:11:03 UTC
Posting my displeasure that this was deemed an exploit. The correct soloution was to call it a problem, and fix it. If you have to decide afterwards if it's an exploit, it wasn't. They only used game mechanics to do what game mechanics allowed.

Quote:


1. EXPLOITS

An immediate permanent ban of an account may result if:

a. Investigation shows that a player has employed the use of an exploit tactic despite a public announcement being made to alert players they will be banned for using it.
b. A player who has been previously warned for exploiting and continues to exploit, whether using the same exploit or another.
c. An account holder guilty of employing “duping” exploits. Players found to have received the benefits of this exploit may also face reprimand, from removal of the items in question up to, and including, banning of their accounts.
d. A player has engaged in activity that intentionally causes others to lose connection, suffer latency issues (lag) or to crash to desktop (CTD).
e. A player renders himself invulnerable through the use of a bug.
f. A player has created, distributed or advertised an illegal 3rd party program (i.e. macro or cheat program) that disrupts game mechanics, is considered unfriendly or gives an unfair advantage by misusing game features in a way for which they were not intended.

Severe offences may result in an immediate ban without warning; however, warnings may be given for first time offenses, followed by account suspensions of varying degree and ultimately a permanent ban if a player:

a. Creates a character using a name that is misleading and causes others to believe he is a fair target, such as a non-player pirate or other NPC entity.
b. Is discovered to be employing the use of a third party program to macro illegally. Funds or goods received from the benefits of macroing are subject to removal from the player’s inventory.
c. Is aware of an exploitable bug and fails to report it to Game Masters and/or distributes the information to other players.



Which one of these categorizes their actions as an exploit. This is clearly not a bug. All systems functioned as intended. They manipulated the moving average. They blew up ships. They collected LP rewards. They cashed in LP for LP rewards.

Which of those is broken? Which part of that is a bug?

None. They exploited nothing other than the system given to them, the same as 0.01ISK traders, and people who manipulate the market for other reasons. They meta gamed like hell, and that was all they did.

I won't pretend im going to leave or unsubscribe, but this a worrying step for CCP, far worse than some In station Avatar, or expensive monocle.

The only thing i hope is that this is 100% damage control because of the way the 5 involved managed to get so much of a stir from the EVE-GD visitors.
Nicolo da'Vicenza
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#255 - 2012-06-29 02:20:06 UTC  |  Edited by: Nicolo da'Vicenza
corestwo wrote:
Nicolo da'Vicenza wrote:
Mighty nice of CCP to go to the trouble of sifting through all the transactions made and carefully reversing them instead of just confiscating all the ill-gotten LP or banning them. Good job though.


They did this, you know. Almost right off the bat, in fact.

Yeah, and they could have left it at that if they chose - but didn't. That's why I preceded it with the word 'just'.
Hakaru Ishiwara
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#256 - 2012-06-29 03:19:50 UTC  |  Edited by: Hakaru Ishiwara
Abulurd Boniface wrote:
Hakaru Ishiwara wrote:
Dalilus wrote:
i am beginning to understand why expansions in eve are free.......maybe ccp will learn from this......Roll
Nothing in EVE is free.

We pay for our expansions in installments, whether they are monthly or one of the other payment frequencies chosen.

Furthermore, some of CCP's customers opt to provide stress / load, design and functionality testing services via the Mass testing sessions and feedback periods on Sisi. That is an enormous cost savings to CCP and could also be looked at yet another way in which CCP's clients pay into their services and enable these "free" expansions.

TBH, EVE is a fairly expensive MMO, so don't kid yourself about all of the stuff that CCP is just throwing away for "free."


I suspect someone is suffering from an ailment at the extreme end of the digestive tract here.

EVE is extremely affordable. The environment you get is a piece of engineering that boggles the mind and that is at the bleeding edge of technology. -And- you get to do crazy stuff like this which, when it is not deemed an exploit, a position that I can support in this case, stands if it doesn't break the ephemeral balance between 'sure, we'll accept this' and 'sorry guys, we can't let you do that.'

If the 5 guys who did this tried that in any other MMOG, their account would have been permabanned without any ifs, buts or maybes. CCP has acknowledged the genius of finding this weakness and provided a measured response. This is elite leadership. Show me any other place where it would have been handled like that.

We get to play in a superb environment, we are spoiled rotten by continuous, detailed and measured communication from the designers and the tapestry of third-party applications built and maintained by players is a refined quilt of beauty and enthusiasm.

It kills me to see people whining incessantly over the pittance they are charged for the privilege of joining this magnificent universe, when they know full well that you can't even get a decent buzz at the bar going for that price on a single evening.
My dear space friend, we are talking apples and oranges here.

No where was the cost of playing EVE compared to the cost of having a night out with the mates. EVE is very cheap relative to a long night of drinking, but, speaking only for myself, I can find a quality 750ML bottle of beer and obtain a fine buzz for half the cost of a month's sub, thanks. Maybe two glasses of a double or triple fermented beverage at the local watering hole for a month's sub. Pirate

The cost of EVE was made against the growing number of F2P titles where you can get a fairly robust amount of entertainment for the cost of space on your HD and bandwidth used. Even buying gold in those services to gain advantage doesn't even come close to the amount of cash spent on an EVE subscription let alone the 2, 3, 4 or more subs for which most hard core players pay or buy PLEX.

I think that it is important that people understand that they are indeed paying for the twice yearly "expansions" with their subscription fees and purchased PLEX. It is simply a business lesson. No more.

And there is no denying that EVE is a neat and unique entertainment service.

+++++++ I have never shed a tear for a fellow EVE player until now. Mark “Seleene” Heard's Blog Honoring Sean "Vile Rat" Smith.
Molic Blackbird
Orion Faction Industries
Orion Consortium
#257 - 2012-06-29 03:22:29 UTC
Were the minerals that got blown up also returned?
Damion Rayne
Panoptic
#258 - 2012-06-29 03:25:58 UTC
corestwo wrote:
Damion Rayne wrote:
So, CCP Sreegs, if I exploit...and tell you about it, I'll get banned right? It's just because it was Goons that they get off with pretty much nothing?

This person. He's also a goon alt, and is another reason why it's possible for there to be goon tears in this thread.


I'm not a goon alt you tool. I am very very upset with this just as a lot of people are, it's now proven Goons have full reign to do what ever they want.

ROA
Pipa Porto
#259 - 2012-06-29 03:30:20 UTC
Damion Rayne wrote:
corestwo wrote:
Damion Rayne wrote:
So, CCP Sreegs, if I exploit...and tell you about it, I'll get banned right? It's just because it was Goons that they get off with pretty much nothing?

This person. He's also a goon alt, and is another reason why it's possible for there to be goon tears in this thread.


I'm not a goon alt you tool. I am very very upset with this just as a lot of people are, it's now proven Goons have full reign to do what ever they want.


Careful there. We mustn't let our attacks get personal.

'gainst the rules there dont'cha know.

EvE: Everyone vs Everyone

-RubyPorto
Haifisch Zahne
Hraka Manufacture GmbH
#260 - 2012-06-29 05:05:38 UTC  |  Edited by: Haifisch Zahne
I don't see this situation as one of Foreign Exchange markets. The situation is not that the Amarr have one currency, the Minmatar another, and that the Minmatar were destroying Amarrian shipping while hedging against Amarrian currency... etc.

"Not that there is anything wrong with that."

The situation is one of a "complex" derivative product-- albeit not very "complex" as it was based on a simple formula tied to the moving average of market prices. FW LP points became a derivative product, tied to the market with hokum pokum.

Everyone today knows that derivative products are a terrible RISK. That CCP sold this risky derivative product in its thoroughly unbaked Inferno release, and as a result there was a spectacular financial crisis, should come as no surprise. To ANYONE.

An exploit? No. It should have been a no-brainer: CCP tried to cash in on a catchy, new feature for Inferno, but failed to do its research-- in spite of having an in-house Ph.D. economist. And now, YET AGAIN, CCP hides its mistake without admitting it, a reminder of how the Bankers themselves all got rich and none went to jail in the financial crisis.