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You know Sreegs, you might want to take a page out of the 2003 Devs forum replies... Just tell'em "this is the way it is, it's not changing and there's the door if you don't like it..."

There is a HUGE difference between "18 months", "watch what they do, not what they say..." and "I'm not telling you how we catch botters..."

And just to be clear here,

THANK YOU!

I am thinking outside of the crowd, like I always did, do and will do. Sorry if I don't groupthink, I don't take my pitchfork and don't hold a torch and don't wear the Inquisition hat nor show a frothing mouth.




No, they are not doing the best they can.
CCP used to show a bland-at-best politic against botting, hand mild penalties and a pat on the shoulder to the repenting wrongdoers.

Now they hired a real Security Expert, got an official team to deal with the phenomenon, set up an organized bot smashing machine. At the same time they will make penalties harsher, permanent and so on. Which is AWESOME!

This requires a similar step up in the prevention and defense tools to be made available to the players.
In the same way they added a big warning on all the forum links outside CCP's domain, in the same way they posted and updated multiple threads about how to defend from phishing and hacking etc, there should also be an effort into providing information and / or tools for the honest players to be SURE they are 100% running allowed stuff.

Otherwise you are providing a Ferrari engine to a Ford Fiesta. Sooner or later you'll notice how having crappy tires and city car brakes does not work so good with 500 HP.

As for the "sht happens, deal with it", I supposed in some countries it's a custom to have people sentenced to death and executed and then eventually find out if they were innocent.
In the others, the defendant is given tools for self defense, there is a proofing system. If CCP goes the hard fist way then they should also implement a resilient proofing and possible defense system for those they suspect of cheating.

Said that, I hand the pitchfork back, use it at leisure, I envy your blind trust in technology, behavioral patterns and so on.

Titanic crew trusted in technology and self imagined total safeness after all.

Adding to my post above with a practical example.

There's a 3rd party tool that has been announced weeks ago (has 20 or so forum pages!) that completely automates in game market prices gathering. It really opens the right window for you, fills in the right item for you, then switches to the next and so on.

With such cumbersome default UI, a player seeing such software would rejoyce!

But wait, is this software - residing on the official EvE forums but never "checked" legit? Or is it a bot? What to the dozens who use it? Until what point an end user is meant to be so much geek to know if a certain python thing is good, another is bad, a DLL is ok and another is not? This is the lack of "tools" I am talking about.

Seriously? What has that to do with anything? If I were their security guy - that's all you'd be getting now - Sreegs is doing good...

Glad we can agree on one thing anyway....


Lets see - where to start.

WHY does it require a "similar step up"? So some people get inconvenienced? So what? Seriously, so what? And even if it did "require" something, what would it be (and please, do not suggest something client side - that could be hacked/modded too easily, we all know that).

Ferrari engine in a ford fiesta? What the hell are you on about? And death sentences? Last I checked, it was a game service, but nice little dig there - don't know dig at what, but points for it nonetheless...

If you go back and *read* what I wrote - there is no "blind trust in technology", nor is there a Titanic in sight... I said "imperfect system, imperfect people". And the one and only sure way not to get someone "innocent" - is to never ban anyone. That is the only absolute sure way.

But you threw out a couple good straw-men there.

You make it so easy, eh? Lack of empathy much?

"Oh, sht happened, that guy got banned, guess bad Karma hit him where the sun does not shine".


Example of secondary effects:

1) Guy was a CEO that did not gave every rights away, so now stuff is locked.

2) The corp was a group of RL friends / a community (there are many) where everyone know each other. The guy gets defaced in RL before his friends. "Did not even imagine you were a cheater and a liar!"

I believe that "innocent unless proven guilty" may indeed be too much guarantism.
But then, even going with the harsh: "guilty unless proven innocent", the guy has to have a way to prove he is innocent.

Edit:

I am actually baffled about how little of a fck nobody gives and how all are SO SURE someone else will get the stick.

1) - Corp petitions it - I cannot imagine CCP locking down all of a corps stuff forever. Unless there was isk/items moved around by his corp mates. Again, CCP has a system in place to deal with it.

2) That would suck for sure - he would have to petition it.

Again and again and again - there is *no* way to be 100% sure that everyone banned / warned / looked crosseyed at is guilty/innocent. It is impossible.

So, what are you suggestions as to "tools" that ccp could provide the players that *can't be hacked / gamed* to prove innocence?

I think you are turning things upside down.

In Real Life, there are local laws, national laws, a constitution, international treaties, courts with judges, advocates and so on to protect your individual rights. They are very complex, very costly, sometimes burdening society quite significantly, but very important.

What we are talking about here however, is a game. Of course, individuals have rights, and especially in an MMO that attempts to simulate a society, there should be a good framework of rules between provider and customer to govern that relationship. As a matter of facts, there are those rules: http://community.eveonline.com/pnp/eula.asp

Is that flawless? Does it cover every eventuality? **** no! However, do you want CCP to create virtual world constitutions, and courts, and appeal procedures and more of that just so they have completely cover all their bases in case rule lawyers get all uppity about not having very explicitly in full detail explained to them what they can and cannot do? Really, no amount of work in would ever satisfy some people. Even in real life in some of the most sophisticated justice systems, many people are rightly and wrongly disappointed by rulings and unclear about their rights. What makes you thing CCP can improve on that? Personally I would rather have CCP take a "common sense" approach and deal with legitimate complains on a case by case basis instead of spending vast amount of resources in fruitless efforts to appease rule lawyers in a game about internet space pixels.

And really, if you don't trust CCP in trying to actually keep paying customers instead of unfairly taking their stuff, then you should probably unsubscribe now and go do something else with your time.

Hope this doesn't count for people who sit with:

2) 20"+ monitors
1) Keyboard
1) Mouse
1) ALT TAB

...but mining with 5 accounts is sorta fun...


...feels like mast[etc] (relevant word!)....

...till I realize I'm still just playing with myself




LFG: Bot Slaying

wtb glitterbomb

I'll admit I don't know your schedule or what your team is doing behind the scenes, I'm not working at CCP, I'm just one of those lolcustomers you collectively tune out on the road to :AWSOME:. I just have what you get to say/write as for what is going on.

As I recall of last year's events, bots were banned, dev blogs were written and you were sent out to the forums. You then hosted your talks at fanfest about security, talked more about the process, what's going on and what's in the future. Then, all communication pretty much stopped. Now in the weeks leading up to this fanfest, the process/machine gets turned on and you get thrust back into public view. Bot banning, dev blogs, your forum posts start happening. All of this will probably dovetail into your talks and presentations at fanfest (I'd imagine)

Unless I'm seriously missing something, the timing has everything do with fanfest. If history repeats itself, we'll get more information now, at and shortly after fanfest then a whole lot of nothing in the way of communication.