Doubt Thou The Stars Are Fire

I like how everyone is saying “oh man this shouldn’t be allowed to happen” or “it’s ccp’s fault” etc etc. Anyone ever stop to think it was working as intended?

@EpicSquirt

Don’t get me wrong, I think EVE is a great accomplishment for CCP, it’s another level of gaming altogether and to be honest, I always WANTED to have a part in it. I also love the idea of players running the game while the dev just tweak things here and there, it reminds me of UO before the split in a way.
But there has to be limits and I agree with you that multiple account/characters is a huge part in what is wrong, at least to me. When you are trying to simulate a realistic economical and political system, you have to maintain what makes such systems as they are in real world and that limit, at the end of the day, is simple: We are all unique and we are all mortals.
I wonder how many subscribers EVE would have if they imposed a 1 character/account and 1 account per IP limit.

They will not roll this back.

CCP actually promoted both this BoB disband / sov loss and the “assasination” during recent EVE tournament to the press in a mailing yesterday. Offered even to sort out interviews with the parties involved…

The only way I could see it rolling back is if there is actual solid proof that someone’s EVE account got hacked related to this, but as far as I know, that ain’t the case here.

@Vetarnias

That’s not really true from a new player’s perspective though. Once you join a corporation, this kind of thing becomes important, but not unless you’re one of the top level people in your corp. Mind you, its been several years since I played, but for new players and low to midlevel corp members (and I mean “level” as in level of importance to the corp, obviously) Your days are mostly filled with mining and travel. I’m not sure you’re “missing out” on the meta content, because in the beginning you really don’t want anything to do with it until you’re more firmly established. I would equate it to the high-level dungeon raids on other games maybe- you don’t get to take part in those until you are of an appropriate experience level. This is a similar thing. You have to just assume that the higher-ups in your corp are not going to let something like what happened to BoB happen to you.

The metagaming hasn’t been allowed to run amok, it STARTED that way. From the beginning, the Eve developers made it very clear that they weren’t going to sides in anything unless there was actual code hacking or exploiting. Anything that doesn’t artificially break the client is A-Ok with them.

As for multi-accounts, that is an issue that every mmo has, and very few of them are going to stop it, because its an additional source of revenue for them. Remember Team Wizzy? http://www.teamwizzy.com/

Eve attracts new players because of the meta game. (for other reasons too, notably the fact that its one of the only spaced-based mmos right now… RIP Earth & Beyond ) The meta game (covert forum spying, traitors joining other factions, etc) is sort of like enforced roleplaying, except that it is a natural result of the Eve Dev’s stance on rule enforcement rather than an artificial system put in place. There is an extra level of “story” that takes place in and outside the game, with covert operatives, and corp security. Nobody is roleplaying their eve character, but EVERYONE is roleplaying an Eve PLAYER, if that makes sense. In that way, the game is more dynamic than a typical mmo – the things you do can have very real impact on the eve universe.

And of course all of this is awesome, but their skill system is still the worst system in any mmo i’ve ever played – so its not all beer flavored nipples. Additionally the interface is a mess (at least it was, I hear there has been some changes?) and travel time can be ridiculously long. Also, you’ll get hunted, stuffed, and mounted by other players if you venture outside of patrolled space without a corp, or at the very least escorts, which can get annoying if – like me – you’re not a team player. I was essentially forced to join a corp for safety, just like every other new player.

I think the people here talking about the design implications of these events are overlook the fact that all of this is incredibly awesome.

GTB :
And of course all of this is awesome, but their skill system is still the worst system in any mmo i’ve ever played – so its not all beer flavored nipples.

Wait, what don’t you like about the skill system? I think that’s one of the best parts of the game to be honest. Limitless development, can be effective in specific roles within weeks of signing up, no skill/xp grinding.

I’ve personally always thought Eve’s biggest flaw was that the game itself is remarkably tedious. The metagame is great, but the game itself? Meh.

Once upon a time, it was funny to PvP in EVE. But then the carebears invented the capital ship blob and kill boards.

I just got done ranting in my old-school anal retentive manner on a Escapist thread about this (not my best work) and it so the core of the matter is pretty fresh upon my ravaged brain.

The destruction of years of man hours of players’ work is permitted because CCP has simply adapted the policy to leave this sort of thing out of their EULA. That much we know, but beyond that lay dragons.

Some players find what happened to BoB repulsive because, insofar as having a level playing field and fair play is involved, EVE Online does not.

Other players find this awesome because they absolutely love the drama and figure that destroying a level playing field through treachery is a vitally needed part of the game.

Who’s right? Nobody knows, and CCP is being remarkably closed lipped about it. As long as that subscription money keeps flowing, that’s staying the course. It’d probably take a massive old school Ultima Online style subscription hemorrhage to get them to change their policies, and that’s probably not going to happen this time.

What a great, great ending. Goonswarm and Haargoth, you really took that ball and fucking ran with it. So awesome.

Geldon, I just finished reading that escapist thread. My God. Can you even participate in a forum discussion without being such a gigantic troll?

You know what, it doesn’t matter. I already know you can’t and I’m still elated from seeing bob go down to bother.

Vetarnias yada yada yada.

The overall tone of your posts just scream to me that you need to stay away from eve cause you couldnt handle it.

There will be no roll back. BoB trusted someone they shouldnt have.

You have ethical concerns? I for one have never ripped anyone off in EvE and there are more that havn’t. (Granted we might be a minority). In this game you can do whatever you want to do.

Whining about Metagaming? Dude, you might as well just play single player games then.

Since it now seems to have become a travesty of a sandbox game, how does EVE keep on attracting new members under such circumstances?

Are you kidding? People love this shit. You cant do this on any other game. Otherwise would it have not made it on the first page of so many websites?

This is kind of a weird article, running through it is a kind of implication that the goons are spoiling the game, that what happened to BoB is somehow broken, and that goons are griefers who do everything for the lulz.

Which isn’t really fair. Goons in Eve try to create a community for other goons. They try to make money and conquer space same as everyone else.

Scott uses a propaganda poster made by the goons’ enemies and the example of recruitment scams to demonstrate that they are ‘griefing the game’.

But if you bear in mind that the only way to get into goonfleet is to be a goon or be sponsored by a goon, that puts the scams in a different light. You have people who are trying to circumvent the normal signup process and saying ‘I’ll pay you to pretend to be my friend and sponsor me’ or who are too stupid to type ‘how to join goonswarm’ into google. People who get taken in by GS recruitment scams, then, are not innocent victims but rather people who really should have known better.

From a design perspective, a long-term game of this sort faces the twin challenges of chaos and stagnation. In WAR, for example, keeps change hands constantly during the day; capturing a keep is not a meaningful act within the gameworld, it’s just a way of getting renown and the chance at phat lewt.

In Eve, alliances such as BoB have held their space for years. If once you get big and powerful enough you become immovable, well, that’s bad game design. The fact that they could be harmed from an unexpected quarter, and that now they’ve lost their name and have contested (not lost) sovereignty over their systems is hardly evidence that the game is broken, in fact it’s reassuring.

If CCP’s World of Darkness MMO has 1/10th the drama of Eve, it will fit the source material perfectly.

If it’s got 1/2 the drama of Eve… well, I don’t think there is enough mascara in the world for that.

Just to round up a few misconceptions. There are ways to prevent this sort of thing from happening. To those of you saying ‘a single person shouldn’t have that power’ it is possible to have a shareholder system where all decisions require a quorum of shareholders. Most corps don’t bother with that however because if shareholders quit or go dormant, you have problems getting things done.

Secondly to Kemor and the others wondering about the multiple account angle, it’s the player and not the accounts he owns that is the problem. If the player had only one account he’d still have wanted to defect, all that would have happened is that things would have gone directly to the ‘eviscerate BoB’ stage bypassing all the stuff at the start.

Also Epicsquirt, you are wrong when you say that EvE legitimises goldselling. It really doesn’t work that way. Cash in EvE is not the resource that it is in other games. You can ‘buy Isk’ but you can’t buy progress, also you can’t (legitimately) make real money from selling Isk which is where the bone of contention usually lies.

@IainC
ISK is everything in EVE. ISK in EVE is the ultimate progress. When you run out of ISK and can’t afford to go on, it’s over for you.

With ISK you can buy a new character that would take years to train normally. With ISK you can buy implants and replacements that speed up training. You can buy and replace ships and modules that make PvP and PvE easier, increasing ISK gain. With ISK you can buy custom contracts (finance war, peace, space rental…). With ISK you can play market games.

Someone spending $1000 on ETCs, selling them in game should make ~17-20b ISK. Now if this isn’t progress through buying ISK then I don’t know! CCP and retailers selling the ETCs are getting the money, the buyers are getting playtime (potential progress) but they can chose to put the play time on the in game market or the web site and sell the play time for ISK.

This part is legalized as CCP holds the authority and control over it. It has severe impact on the game.

And then there are black markets for people who don’t want to share the profit with CCP, what’s not available on eBay US is available on eBay Germany, it has been like that since 2003.

Flawed system. Back then it hurt when you have lost a Battleships, now through all the ETC trading and moon mining exploits you have people undocking in their officer fitted capital ships, just to lose em, undocking 5 minutes later in an identically fitted ship.

Progress.

EpicSquirt – I think the effect of isk buying on the game is pretty minimal really. Whether it costs you a billion isk or 25$, most people can’t afford to just throw away faction battleships. An officer fit capital ship can grow upwards of 20bil easily; which is around 500$ worth of GTCs.. while there’s crazy people who actually spend that kind of cash on the game, I’m sure, its not common place.
I’m a lowsec pirate who’s never bought any isk, and I love isk buyers. Really, there’s nothing better to find than a nice faction fit BS with a pilot who’s got no idea how to fly it. It’s money in MY pocket. Experience and teamwork count for much, much more in EVE than raw ISK.

Well it’s fairly obvious that so far this hasn’t run players out of EVE… in fact quite the opposite.

There are record number of players playing EVE record tonight, 51.005 and going up.

Epiphany: it was ultimately boredom of EVE Online that killed BoB.

Take a look at the supposed chat log of the scam being originated, and the player who facilitated the whole thing basically said he hates everybody on BoB and doesn’t even care if he loses his progress.

It’s that later bit which sets it apart as not being petty revenge but boredom that pushed this act to completion. What we interpreted as BoB being undermined as a spy was actually just a BoB director deciding to commit EVE Online suicide.

The parts I thought were interesting were:

[01:40:58] Tamir Lenk > well, first of all, you know I cannot give you roles or hangar access at all now, right
[01:41:11] Harkani > yeah thats fine
[01:41:31] Harkani > take away my roles its no big deal
[01:41:46] Harkani > well and kick me if you want, but that will be your loss

If it fell through, he was willing to risk it all.

Well, maybe it was less of a suicide and more of a kamikaze run.

[02:26:01] Harkani > the only real issue I see, is if I get busted,I would want to join igne with all my chars
[02:26:17] Tamir Lenk > downside is that it puts added time and degrees of separation between the intel and those who use it
[02:26:33] Harkani > hmm that is true

Apparently he did plan to get some out of his characters.

If I hold on to anything of my original premise here, it’s that boredom did motivate this. He says he’s really ticked off at the leadership, but I think the reason why is because he’d been bored for awhile and they were just getting in his way. Well okay, this is self-evident, but here’s a ground in which you can attack EVE Online’s viability: maybe it wasn’t so boring, BoB would still be around.

It’s not exactly that the pundit hates EVE Online and wants to destroy it.

What Scott had to say really was not necessarily disparaging EVE Online — as he says on the bottom of what he wrote, it opens up certain questions, but that EVE Online isn’t circling the drain indicates that something works about it.

What I’m doing, what I’ve been doing since noticing fiascos like this, is considering those questions: does it make for a better game?

So far as I can tell, the answer goes something like: As a game, EVE Online isn’t that great, as having your progress ripped off behind your back by a defector is pretty much a massive nail in it. However, as an epic drama EVE Online is an unprecedented success.

I’m out of popcorn, can you guys spare some?

Well, we are talking about a MMORPG here. The drama/bandwagon factor has always part of what makes the genre interesting.

If it were lost progress due to risk and reward, I’d say all is going according to plan. However, outside of being able to read minds and know this guy was about to turn, there’s nothing BoB could have done to prevent this. At best, they were able to minimalist their losses. However, it’s not risk versus reward.

That’s what bothers me the most about it in terms of considering game viability.

At the risk of derailing this thread into an RMT debate, I feel the need to point out that the whole “Buy timecodes sell for ISK” thing is more about real money manipulating the virtual economy than it is about inflation. If ETC trade didn’t exist, the economy would still have the same amount of ISK, it’d just be less dispersed.

@IainC
‘Course remember you, hope the new job is cool.
And no, it’s not realistic at all, just one of the hardcore solutions to a problem that will need to be dealt with should any other MMO follow in the tracks of EVE or you’ll get the exact same issue over and over.
If you don’t, then your games’ most important features lose meaning, and players’ actions become dependent on out of the game things totally out of their control.
Bit like cross-realming in DAoC or WAR (or any other PVP-oriented MMO) in a way where you can have huge plans for an attack completely ruined just because some kid in a friendly guild is an alt (or a friend) in an enemy territory and spill the beans.
So now you have no immersion, no purpose and since it’s a MMO, well you sure don’t have any story…So what’s left? Social networks? Heck, gimme real life then

Note: and that’s why games like WOW don’t have to deal with all that because everything happens within very small boundaries with pretty much no liberties offered to players (hence why new content is so important, there is nothing else). When you look at WOW and how it’s played, a BOT with proper scripting could play the game while it sure isn’t possible in a PVP game like EVE or DAoC.

There are several core design elements that made this possible and/or interesting.

1. A single-server with no accommodations for time-zones, PvP/PvE, etc. encourage and requires players to form much larger organizations than sharded games.

2. CCP’s commitment to an amoral and mercantile setting, even when the uglier sides of that setting emerge (e.g., scamming, espionage, alliance assassination).

3. The organizational cultures that emerge in EVE corps/alliances. After all, the basic motive for Haargoth was a rejection of BoB culture in favor of Goon’s approach.

4. Dumb luck. The facts differ slightly from many of the reports, including the initial story told by The Mitanni. Although Haargoth’s alt was facing expulsion, that had not been presented to him when he offered to turn on BoB. He may have seen the writing on the wall, and that may have motivated him to offer intel, but it was not as direct as people have stated (e.g., don’t kick me, I can help you, etc.).

At bottom, the fall of BoB has far more to do with BoB’s cultural failures and poor organizational security than any gimmicky game mechanics. EVE gives each alliance the tools to form and to disband. BoB was careless in granting those powers to its directors and failed to limit those roles properly. It then aggravated the problem when it ignored and otherwise slighted one of the players that it had entrusted with those powers. Put another way, don’t take the red stapler from a guy who could set the building on fire.

Tamir Lenk (yes, that one)