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EVE Online The Commitment
WARCRYtm
Member Posts: 875
in EVE Online
Most recent events have given me an opportunity to clarify CCP’s official position on the subject of unethical behavior by persons in the service of CCP.
Throughout our history, there have been a handful of cases where our employees or members of our various volunteer and partner programs have taken advantage of the proprietary powers they are granted through access and knowledge. These cases have been investigated, prosecuted and judgment rendered. Usually the punishment has been quite simple: termination of employment.
A pivotal case was uncovered last summer during a routine investigation of developer accounts. Unfortunately CCP did not act with the same decisive consistency we have used on previous occasions. Those left at the helm chose to react cautiously, as sometimes is appropriate under these circumstances, leading to more leniency and understanding than we are used to in these matters. Upon review I personally would have chosen to act differently, but what's done is done. Difficult decisions always have to be made, and we cannot always second guess how these would appear if, in part, they are revealed to outside parties who do not have the same information to base their choices on.
This particular case, involving a single developer, underlined where improvements needed to be made and we have since focused our efforts on reinforcing rules and processes so that consistent ruling is assured. As of the beginning of January this year, we have been building up a special institution within our company similar to the Internal Affairs divisions of law enforcement agencies. For this team, we have assembled the most ardent hardliners in our ranks. They all fully understand the enormity of what they have accepted to do and we are certain that they will be able to shoulder this responsibility.
It is no trivial thing when corruption takes place. In our case it's no different than the injustice of public servants in the real world feathering their own nests rather than ensuring the prosperity of the many. Living in a country of a comparable population as the world of EVE (Iceland only has 300,000 inhabitants), I sure know how it can feel when governance is not balanced and feeling powerless to stop it. I am certain that members of the EVE community are now going through similar emotions.
I am sure that we all appreciate that it is no coincidence that Dante reserved the lowest level of Hell for "the worst of those who betrayed their benefactors." In our case, I would regard the EVE community as our benefactors. We are not the "gods" or "the masters" of EVE Online or the EVE community. We serve the community. You have entrusted us to safeguard your hard work.
When the recent allegations came to light, our Internal Affairs department immediately went to work, reexamining logs for all the developers involved in great detail over the course of several days. They have concluded that none of the other developers abused their positions to gain any advantage for themselves or others. In accordance with our rules however, those characters must be removed from the game. Developers have had, and continue to have, characters in many alliances in the game, and it is wrong to assume that the presence of several characters in any one particular alliance is either uncommon, or automatically indicative of cheating.
This incident has raised the question of whether developers should be allowed to play the game they work on. There is simply no way to develop a world like this without experiencing it first hand. You cannot develop it by proxy, evaluate fun through statistics, or make judgments without fully understanding how it is growing and evolving, when nearly every tool can be used by players in ways that were never anticipated. In order to do justice to the game, we must share your frustrations, joys, successes and failures. You cannot fully appreciate the investment of time and effort that players make without doing it yourself, and every employee at CCP is aware of what it is like to work yourself to exhaustion for something you believe in and love.
In Closing
As we look to the future, we will endeavor to improve our handling of these matters by acting in a manner that is both swift and consistent with company policy. It is regrettable that such instances reveal flaws in our governance, but by the same token, addressing them decisively is what makes our company stronger. We now have resources dedicated to performing audits of dev activity on Tranquility with much more frequency than before. This, combined with additional layers of security, and the non-negotiable penalty of employment termination upon conviction of such acts, represents the full extent that we will go to deter dev misconduct.
The developers of this company will always play the games that they build here. Without being fully immersed in the player experience, perspective, and community, it is impossible to build, maintain, and expand online worlds with any degree of competency. And while that does expose us to some degree of risk, the rewards are incalculably higher. EVE has grown stronger every year since its inception; these bumps in the road are an inevitable part of the journey we must endure as a growing company; and we would not be here today if we opted to isolate ourselves from the player experience of EVE Online.
It is thus that we look forward to putting this matter firmly behind us, and move forward with our continued mission to improve and expand a world that we hold close to our hearts.
Sincerely,
Hilmar Veigar Petursson, CEO
CCP
Throughout our history, there have been a handful of cases where our employees or members of our various volunteer and partner programs have taken advantage of the proprietary powers they are granted through access and knowledge. These cases have been investigated, prosecuted and judgment rendered. Usually the punishment has been quite simple: termination of employment.
A pivotal case was uncovered last summer during a routine investigation of developer accounts. Unfortunately CCP did not act with the same decisive consistency we have used on previous occasions. Those left at the helm chose to react cautiously, as sometimes is appropriate under these circumstances, leading to more leniency and understanding than we are used to in these matters. Upon review I personally would have chosen to act differently, but what's done is done. Difficult decisions always have to be made, and we cannot always second guess how these would appear if, in part, they are revealed to outside parties who do not have the same information to base their choices on.
This particular case, involving a single developer, underlined where improvements needed to be made and we have since focused our efforts on reinforcing rules and processes so that consistent ruling is assured. As of the beginning of January this year, we have been building up a special institution within our company similar to the Internal Affairs divisions of law enforcement agencies. For this team, we have assembled the most ardent hardliners in our ranks. They all fully understand the enormity of what they have accepted to do and we are certain that they will be able to shoulder this responsibility.
---
It is no trivial thing when corruption takes place. In our case it's no different than the injustice of public servants in the real world feathering their own nests rather than ensuring the prosperity of the many. Living in a country of a comparable population as the world of EVE (Iceland only has 300,000 inhabitants), I sure know how it can feel when governance is not balanced and feeling powerless to stop it. I am certain that members of the EVE community are now going through similar emotions.
I am sure that we all appreciate that it is no coincidence that Dante reserved the lowest level of Hell for "the worst of those who betrayed their benefactors." In our case, I would regard the EVE community as our benefactors. We are not the "gods" or "the masters" of EVE Online or the EVE community. We serve the community. You have entrusted us to safeguard your hard work.
---
When the recent allegations came to light, our Internal Affairs department immediately went to work, reexamining logs for all the developers involved in great detail over the course of several days. They have concluded that none of the other developers abused their positions to gain any advantage for themselves or others. In accordance with our rules however, those characters must be removed from the game. Developers have had, and continue to have, characters in many alliances in the game, and it is wrong to assume that the presence of several characters in any one particular alliance is either uncommon, or automatically indicative of cheating.
This incident has raised the question of whether developers should be allowed to play the game they work on. There is simply no way to develop a world like this without experiencing it first hand. You cannot develop it by proxy, evaluate fun through statistics, or make judgments without fully understanding how it is growing and evolving, when nearly every tool can be used by players in ways that were never anticipated. In order to do justice to the game, we must share your frustrations, joys, successes and failures. You cannot fully appreciate the investment of time and effort that players make without doing it yourself, and every employee at CCP is aware of what it is like to work yourself to exhaustion for something you believe in and love.
In Closing
As we look to the future, we will endeavor to improve our handling of these matters by acting in a manner that is both swift and consistent with company policy. It is regrettable that such instances reveal flaws in our governance, but by the same token, addressing them decisively is what makes our company stronger. We now have resources dedicated to performing audits of dev activity on Tranquility with much more frequency than before. This, combined with additional layers of security, and the non-negotiable penalty of employment termination upon conviction of such acts, represents the full extent that we will go to deter dev misconduct.
The developers of this company will always play the games that they build here. Without being fully immersed in the player experience, perspective, and community, it is impossible to build, maintain, and expand online worlds with any degree of competency. And while that does expose us to some degree of risk, the rewards are incalculably higher. EVE has grown stronger every year since its inception; these bumps in the road are an inevitable part of the journey we must endure as a growing company; and we would not be here today if we opted to isolate ourselves from the player experience of EVE Online.
It is thus that we look forward to putting this matter firmly behind us, and move forward with our continued mission to improve and expand a world that we hold close to our hearts.
Sincerely,
Hilmar Veigar Petursson, CEO
CCP
Comments
All allegations mentioned above are untrue, except one. Sadly enough, the allegation regarding unlawfully obtained blueprints are, in my case, true. I’m here, laying out the facts of what happened in June 2006 so this whole issue -- which jeopardized my colleagues, my company and our community -- can be put behind us, I hope for the better.
The blueprints in question will be returned to CCP and reintroduced through a new raffle in the future. Specifically, these are:
Regrettably, my actions inevitably led to a shadow of suspicion being cast on a number of my co-workers, as well as Reikoku and Band of Brothers. I wish to make it clear that I acted alone and my co-workers and corp/alliance mates have been cleared of any alleged wrongdoing.
As much as this is a confession it is also a request for your forgiveness for events of which I’m truly sorry.
In my last statement to the community, I promised that more would be forthcoming before the start of the weekend. Based on community response, we've addressed lingering questions and concerns in two different Dev Blogs.
Please read t20's Dev Blog, "On Recent Allegations" and Hellmar's Dev Blog, "The Commitment".
It is our hopes these Blogs will address the remainder of the EVE community's concerns over these allegations.
kieron
Community Manager,
EVE Online
Or to put it another way, cheating is OK if you are in a big alliance.
But everyone else, we will banzor you.
Total and utter BS.
I just see there ungry people, they dont care that CCP have a new way to stop this things, and many Devs lost their 3 years old chars, or that BoB lost many important players.
They just want T20 blood.Is so selfish and childish
Fixed (typo)
Course, whotf knows if they just got renamed or something -- that would be sh*tty for real if they lost years worth of work because one asshat fawked some sh*t up...
"Regrettably, my actions inevitably led to a shadow of suspicion being cast on a number of my co-workers, as well as Reikoku and Band of Brothers. I wish to make it clear that I acted alone and my co-workers and corp/alliance mates have been cleared of any alleged wrongdoing"
Not them, it was a Dev just one person
Now would BoB be where they are today even if this never occurred? Yeah, probably. But maybe for another corp, fairly getting one of those blueprints could have helped change their status (cash, weapons, territory, etc) in the long run.
So you see even though this has been "dealt" with, the damage can't be undone. CCP now has a mark against them, and everyone feels a little ripped off.
It took 6 months for that to be uncovered. It took someone to hack to put the info out and he got banned. Am I angry YES. I firmly feel that if the info had not been made public no action would have been taken. I dont understand how T20 could keep his job. His rep is gone and he not only hurt the players but he has put a stain on CCP that will never go away. I have worked at jobs where in my employment agreement it was stated if I caused any mention of the company to be in the press I would be terminated.
I could give a heck about BOB. That is not the point. If they wanted the Devs to play the game it should have been on the test server.
It took 6 months for that to be uncovered. It took someone to hack to put the info out and he got banned. Am I angry YES. I firmly feel that if the info had not been made public no action would have been taken. I dont understand how T20 could keep his job. His rep is gone and he not only hurt the players but he has put a stain on CCP that will never go away. I have worked at jobs where in my employment agreement it was stated if I caused any mention of the company to be in the press I would be terminated.
I could give a heck about BOB. That is not the point. If they wanted the Devs to play the game it should have been on the test server.
Action was taken - it was taken 6 months ago when CCP first found out about what went on. T20 was disciplined internally but not fired because the guys in charge of the shop over the summer felt bad / were scared / something else. Probably because he's been a long term member of the Dev team.
It took some guy engineering his way into possession of Band of Brothers corp's internal information to bring it to the playerbase's attention - otherwise yes it would have been handled "within the family". That guy was then banned for violations of the TOS.
T20's name is mud, his actions caused other co-workers to lose their in-game personnas, and I'm sure many in CCP look down on him for what he's caused. He won't be fired (as that wouldn't be terribly fair 6 months after punishment was levied) but he just might quit.
You're insane to say that Devs should play on Test alone. If Devs aren't playing the Live game they won't be exposed to the real issues of the playerbase. They'll exist in their own little insulated world where there is no lag because there are only 12 people on the node with them on Test. That's the approach SOE takes with SWG - I'll take a dozen Devs cheating, getting caught and getting punished over dealing with something like SOE again.
Have no sympathy for someone who stole T2 BPO's and used DEV powers to get those and used them in game......
At least he was man enough to admit it and own up to it.......I think there is some value in being honest.......even if your being honest about stealing,cheating, & lying.......
I generally don't have alot of goodwill towards EVE because of how I was cheated ingame and think they developed a poor game, and honestly hope they lose alot of their player base and suffer because of CCP's mistakes....
Where do I sign up to be a DEV, that would help my player get T2 BPO's?
==========================
The game is dead not, this game is good we make it and Romania Tv give it 5 goat heads, this is good rating for game.
kieron
Community Manager,
EVE Online
We did not take action against anyone for 'exposing dev corruption' or bringing this to light. Due to our policy of not disclosing actions taken against a player with a third party, I cannot go into specifics. However, I can say that there were EULA and Terms of Service violations sufficient to justify our response.
kieron
Community Manager,
EVE Online
Internally, this incident was discovered over the summer when the majority of the senior company staff was on vacation. This lead to the caution against taking more harsh measures such as termination of employment. T20 was punished at the time for his misconduct. To terminate t20's employment now would appease some of the more emotional members of the community, but it would also be unfair to punish someone twice for the same misconduct.
kieron
Community Manager,
EVE Online
We apologize for not resolving this when originally discovered, yes it is our fault. However, short of rolling back Tranquility to the time the first illegal BP was used for production, there is no way for us to estimate, let alone reverse the impact the BPs have had in the time that has passed.
kieron
Community Manager,
EVE Online
We do not have any proof showing the members of Reikoku (other than t20) had any knowledge that these BPs were illegally gained. We cannot punish players for innocently using items they thought were legal.
kieron
Community Manager,
EVE Online
http://myeve.eve-online.com/ingameboard.asp?a=topic&threadID=473490
It's gonna take a few years for eve to recover, BS. EVE will not recover from this!
If you are reading this Kieron, listen to the community man, the only guys/gals that agree with your decision is BOB alts, hence, why only a couple of BOB posts in the information portal, they see the rage in the community and dont want to enrage it further, their asses are on the line.
I have nothing against the "meat shields" in BOB, but their CEO's and Directors have conspired in this, CCP chose to ban the whistleblower, even though, he was telling the truth, the rest of the proof you need is sitting on his forums.
DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
about bans sirmolle have to be banned he posted info about kugutsumen real life on eve-o forums and he break the EULA
that is one of the steps that CCP have to make
BestSigEver :P
================================================================
"Police wont be interested at all by this, however, since this person is a real-life security consultant, and just got busted by a bunch of gamers. We will enjoy immensely dropping the story on how a security consultant got busted by a bunch of l33t kidz playing a space game. You never answered me AnthonyZ, does the snow fall in Indonesia?"
As far as the devs playing the game this post from the EVE forums seems to me to sum up the problem.
Okay, so here's an idea.
Instead of most of the devs diligently and rigorously testing the workings of T2 blueprints, and leading capital fleets into battle, how about they actually spend time playing at the level of most players, and doing the things that most players do?
If the devs want to play so that they are aware of how the game works, then most or all of them should be mining in Ospreys, ratting, doing missions, perhaps participating in small-scale engagements.
Because THAT'S WHAT MOST OF THE PLAYERS DO.
I'm very glad that the heroic devs are willing to test the game experience of the top 0.1% of players, but perhaps they should set their sights a bit lower. And then I would stop doubting that they are actually playing for the good of the game, and not for the good of their own ego.
And maybe if a dev then cheats by spawning 1000 units of illegal Veldspar in his hangar, there won't be such an outcry.
EVE is one big learning experience since there has never been a game like it before. CCP in my opinion has always acted, at least in their thoughts, fairly. I havent' always agreed with what they thought was fair BUT they have always been consistant in this since beta. This whole incident though unfortunate, seems to have uncovered a perspective in playing the game they hadnt' thought of before and they, CCP, appear to have followed though appropriately. Thanks CCP.
You honestly can not understand why people are angry and disappointed, can you?
Let me say in the language of the american natives: "Your view is clouded, young one."
The DEV should be fired. CCP are using him as a sacrificial lamb to cover up all the other cheating DEVs and members of BoB who were partners in crime. I'm 31 with a 9 year old son and wouldn't put my job on the line for some alliance mates in a virtual game, he did and should pay the price.
What makes my blood really boil is that CCP gave him a slap on the wrist and told him not to be a naughty boy again. The T2 BPOs were left with BoB and all the other BoB members that were his partners in crime were just told to keep quiet about it (which they couldn't). After this CCP pretends it never happened because "many top staff were on vacation", WTF do you think I'm some rabid NGE fanbois? What if the server crashed or the hardware broke in London whilst they were "on vacation"? Would we have to wait 6 months before we could even find out why we can't play EVE anymore? What if a DEV had been caught stealing money from the company pension fund? Would he have been given a reprimand but allowed to keep the money? In my opinion it seems that CCP is more out to lunch than on vacation!
If I'd have asked this DEV and CCP 2 months ago if he'd ever cheated they'd have lied to me or refused to answer. Thanks to this hacker they're owning up, but to how much? How far does the rot really spread? They covered up this guys disgusting abuse of his position and let him and his alliance keep the proceeds of their ill gotten gains once, what more are they covering up? All these posts by CCP is just damage control, we know that some members of BoB knew what was happening but CCP deny it. CCP are covering up the bigger picture and would have been quite happy to let this DEV carry on screwing us all over and helping BoB.
In the end I think CCP need to make a quick decision between covering up corrupt DEVs and BoBs use of that or keeping the 170k subscribers happy. At the moment BoB and that scumbag DEV are happy and the other 170k that play EVE are outraged, and to top it all off that corrupt DEV has the bare faced cheek to come here and play the victim and start justifying abusing the trust of his workmates and 170k customers!
I've played for nearly 2 years continuosly, I say CCP should fire the DEV and penalize those members in BoB that benefited wether they were aware or not of the whole truth. To the DEV playing the victim you cheated and lied to your workmates and the players, in all my time playing I've never cheated or lied to CCP and they don't pay me to play I pay them for the privelige! I think the scumbag dev should be goiven some T2 violins and tissue paper before a public hanging live on EVE tv!
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis