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The other view of the Dev misconduct issue.
GrmRpr3000
Member Posts: 11
I know that there are a lot of posts on this subject, but there aren't many supplying a different, and perhaps more balanced view to the non-EVE players about it.
At the moment, pretty much everyone is screaming something along the lines of this:
“6 MONTHS AGO A SINGLE CCP DEVELOPER CHEATED BY RAISING HIS OWN CHANCES OF AQUIRING T2 BPOS. THEN HE WAS FOUND OUT ABOUT AND MADE A MISTAKE BY GIVING THE BPOS TO BOB. CLEARLY ALL OF CCP AND BOB ARE CHEATERS BECAUSE OF THIS.”
In reality CCP had already sorted this out internally. Ok so they didn't manage to do anything about the BPOs, but perhaps they didn't think it was worthwhile or correct to do so at the time. After all, BoB weren't aware of the “illegality” of the BPOs, the higher ups only knew that a member of theres was a Dev, and had been outed as such and therefore had to be removed from the corp, following CCP's own rules on these matters.
Then a hacker decided to go about and dig up this stuff for some reason. Perhaps he was paid to, or perhaps he had a personal dislike of BoB. In any case he did. The Dev, who had already been punished, was forced to be re-punished by the community, and lets face it, we are all pretty much ignorant the the actual facts. CCP then investigated, set up a special devision within themselves to more closely monitor Dev and GM activities and removed the ill-gotten BPOs from the game.
People claim that CCP are covering everything up, and that they are ignoring the other allegations against BoB. But I personally am far more likely to believe CCP, than someone who is apparently, a wanted criminal. Especially as there is no way to prove his allegations of account sharing, and buying of accounts via real life money by the leaders of BoB corps: a breach of the EULA. Also put yourselves in CCP's shoes If you found out one of your staff had cheated a bit, and then punished them, would you then tell the community knowing full well that this is the reaction that you would get. People simply screaming in hate for BoB, some without even fully knowing why. I don't claim to love BoB in any way. I am allied with them at this time, but should I leave my current corp I would know longer be allied with BoB, and no longer care. However I think this whole thing has gotten out of hand, and people need to calm down. CCP as a whole aren't cheating, only a single person did, and they were punished.
People are also complaining that the hacker and all his accounts were banned from the game. CCP have made a statement on this saying that the reason was because he had made severe, and therefore ban-warranting,breaches of the EULA. This I believe, after all he hacked BoB's websites and communications, also revealing the names and addresses of CCP employees, and possibly BoB leaders as well. That is definitely in need of a ban.
I'm sure I'll get flamed for this. Called a BoB pet and in need of enlightening to the truth of the matter. But in reality, EVERYONE IS! No one knows what has really happened. Half the allegations the hacker makes could have been fabricated in an attempt to force everyone to hate BoB, and kill them, perhaps furthering his own plans. In which case everyone is now his puppet and you have all gone along nicely with his plan. There, that was my own tin-foiling.
Right. Well I'm going to go now, have fun screaming about things.
Comments
Bpos never sorted? So for 6 months bob use them with CCPs knowledge that they were gained illegily. Thast another part of the problem.
Ok the 3rd part in simple terms. People claim they are covering up? Why? One Dev in bob got caught but according to your very own post there were details of other Devs etc on the bob site. Why? Does this mean there may be more than one Dev in bob and as CCP state this isn't true doesn't this go against the evidence you yourself just posted? Could this be a cover up by any chance?
A ban for the hacker? Yes I agree. Why not a ban for sirmolle? who also posted the vague location of one guy called Andrew (use google to check the old ccp posts they blocked if you want to read it all)
Well you won't get flamed by me, but I will attempt to show you, using your own information why some of us are not happy.
However I am not quitting the game over this, at least not yet. And I have tried to defend the extreme topics that occur on this subject. CCP don't help though.
Now that I think of it, its also a reason for not removing the BPOs. BoB suddenly lose the BPOs, because a Dev cheated. BoB complain on the forums about losing some of the BPOs, and this all starts again.
Or: CCP announce themselves that a Dev cheated, was in BoB and gave BoB some BPOs. OMG CRY WHINE etc.
It seems that it was an extremely difficult situation for CCP to handle. They aren't covering anything up, they didn't tell the community initially because it would damage their reputations too much. Yes so now its been revealed, their reputations are damaged anyway, but they aren't covering it up, they told the community what has happened.
As for SirMolle posting the location of someone named Andrew, I wasn't aware of this. However you yourself claim it was simply a vague location, which for all I know could mean simply the country the guy lived in. I am happy enough to see cheaters banned, even if they are SirMolle, however I believe there needs to be real proof or a good reason to do it, especially for leaders of large powerful alliances. The way EVE works means that the sudden removal of such people could have disastrous effects on the balance of power, rather than the change of power gained via normal gameplay.
Thanks for not flaming me, and instead trying to give evidence and a reason for your side in this matter
Good post man. Althought I disagree with your conclusions I respect the critical thinking behind them.
Instead of making a point by point discussion of what I thought as I was reading your post I was hoping to look at this at a broader level -- what would it take for you to disbelieve CCP? What kind of evidence/proof/allegatoin would not to be publically smeared across the internet before you began questioning your loyalty? What smoking gun are you waiting for.
Keep this in mind. CCP are the police. CCP are the courts. CCP are the media. Nothing will be investigate except by them. Nothing will be decided as legal/illegal except by them. Nothing will be known except by them. We have no ability to investigate things on our own or even know what needs investigation. We have no ability to make sure the evidences are considered carefully and the verdicts are fair and reasonable. We have no voice, and there is no one telling us how much of this is going on. We will never have a "smoking gun" to which we can point and say "omg - cheaters!"
So with that in mind what do we have? We have people like Kug who have taken a personal hit (lost all his accounts) to provide us with what they were forced to acknowledge as the truth. We have anecdotal evidences. We have one-off stories. We have suspicious interactions and happenings. In a dictorial environment all we have are the individuals and no individual is perfect, and individuals will have their negative qualities brought to the forefront when they stand up and speak out against what they believe is unfair. History shows us that time and time again at all levels.
So maybe Kug is a criminal - I don't know for sure. I have met criminals. Just because someone is a criminal doesn't mean that they are necessarily a liar.
CCP on the other hand is a corporation that has proven to be dishonest. They are a corporation bound to the same desire as all corporations - the almighty dollar. CCP will always always take the course of action that steers them to making the most money. Corporations don't care about integrity - they care about share prices - and if integrity can be mixed in great... I don't necessarily blame them for this, but as the public it is our job to make sure that the path of integrity is less expensive to them. No one individual can do this.
So at some point we need to make a decision based on the limited infotmation that we havee. All of us have a "breaking point" where we say "enough is enough CCP!" It seems mine has come earlier then yours. Fair enough, no harm in that. But how many of these "stories" of CCP corruption are going to need to surface before *you* say "screw this!" I doubt another one as black and white as the T20 one will come up again -- CCP won't admit anything going forward. But at some point it is better to break off and find another fun game (there are lots of them out there) then wait for the swinging stick of Dev corruption to smack you in the face.
I am looking forward to what else Kug has to unearth for us. This is one thing on one message board that he came across randomly. What else is out there?
Cheers.
I think the main reason why people are so mad is not the cheating itself.
It's the fact that it is completly forbidden to discuss this matter in any of the forums. While I usually would agree that a game company can be trusted more than a hacker, I'd say that the way CCP handles everything gives you the feeling that they are not telling the whole truth.
Unfortunatly there's not much you can do. The only real option is to quit, which unfortunatly is hard to do, because Eve still is one of the top notch games around.
Kugutsumen is spraying a lot of hot air, but is it necessary? And whats so cool about saying someone cheats if you are yourself an illegal person? Hacking other peoples Stuff and spreading personal informations about other people is welll, that simply sucks badly.
Just think of this scenario, someone said sometime somewhere in that hacked forum something about exactly you, even if you have not really something to do with them, that hacker now gatheres information about you, grabs your personal info like name adress and stuff and post it now as new proven evidence for something that may or may not happened there. What do you think will happen to you? Do you think the mob gathered around Kugutsumen would believe you right now that you are innocent?
Let it sink, take a deep breath and say to yourself "Hello, EVE, GAME, get reasonable?"
Some of those guys making the big wave lost their feeling for reality i think.
Just my two cents.
Unfortunatley one of the main problems has already been stated. We can't say what we want, we can't get this cleared up in our heads or let it run our course. This is because regardless of the back issue, CCP are now whitewashing this whole affair.
I agree that other Devs being in BoB does not make all those Devs cheaters but it does allow the possibilty that the people who now all about the game mechanics and anyway to "push" these mechanics are possibly playing in BoB, couple that with t20 and you have enough room to cause CCPs watergate, which is essentialy whats happenning now.
And no, I know its not comparable but it is in the same manner
I just wish we had more like you that knew how to counter argue etc on ISD and within CCP, this way all of this would be in a controlled enviroment within the game forums and not forceably making people take it elsewhere.
I will make one last point(until my next one anyway
Thats the problem. Nothing fits well, its all "we want to be open" but they weren't open and still do not allow continued open discussion of the events.
I understand that CCP are basically dictators, but they still seem honest enough in most cases. I can't imagine that the company as a whole would want to risk the thing that pays for them and their families meals and homes, to gain ingame advantages. Integrity within their ranks gains them money, therefore I should imagine that they would want to try and be as honest as possible in order to keep the trust and loyalty of their memberbase. Already, prominent figures within the community like Istvaan Shogaatsu have left, and he was a fiction writer published in their official magazine! He was responsible through his actions for many new players finding out about EVE. His leaving is very damaging to the games public image. And this is why I believe CCP are trying to keep as much integrity as possible, because they do care about money.
I will also be watching out for Kug's next big thing about CCP. I may be on the side of CCP at the moment, but I am close to breaking point should it occur that they are cheating a great deal. A single Dev is one thing, but the whole company being corrupt, as many are trying to claim at this time, is a completely different thing. At the point when it starts to become hard to think that CCP aren't corrupt, I will look for a different game. Though I really don't know which one I'd choose
If you "don't care" about this, you either A) Don't play Eve,
Read the dev blogs. Devs/GMs are STILL in big alliances. Why should we even believe that they've removed the BPOs in question when they were telling us, last week, that they didn't even exist??
Sp yes, what he did was wrong. I'm still glad he did it, otherwise it would still be either going on (if it still is) or we would be none the wiser and BoB might indeed still have 10 BPOs that were gained through cheating.
Does one crime balance another crime out? No, of course not. But isn't it better to know about the crime rather then risk continued criminal acts?
Perhaps they should allow more discussion about the topic, but I am not denying that they aren't handling it in the best way possible. I simply don't believe that the company is corrupt.
This is all fine and dandy, it's their game and all. People have the right to know that they are buying into a rigged game, however.
That's my point Grm - you will never get that. You will never have indisputable proof in your hand that CCP is an environment of cheaters. The reason is because the only people that can give us the proof is CCP, and they aren't accountable to do that. So you have just confirmed that nothing that comes out will be enough for you. Dude - Hellmar isn't going to write a Dev Blog detailing how they cheat.
And on that note, I don't think that CCP is sit around at night over beer and scream, "LOL - They will never catch us cheatzors!!1!!" -- rather I believe that CCP the company is an environment where these things are looked upon to lightly. Where there is an overall atmosphere of letting stuff slip through - because the cost of monitoring it all is immense.
I'm not just talking about T20 creating BPOs... I am talking for example about how the bug hunting team, who are players, most of them very old players, are told about game breaking problems that are live so that they can fix them... and then all of a sudden these are used in game. For example, no one has denied how BOB used Passive Targeters to lock ships through POS shields.. Bob initially denied they were using any hack, but then when you look at their losses, and how a good number of their ships have passive targetters for no apparent reason... humm... that's odd?
What about Devs who mention to players changes in, oh I don't know, the T1/T2 Cargo expander BPOS - before that change came in how many people who were friends of the Devs sold their copies?
These are just 2 examples off the top of my head man... how many aren't known? These are things that no log file will ever capture, but are devestating. And these aren't isolated.
Thats why I am saying that the cheating isnt necessarily some haxor Dev/GM spawning faction mods (although that has happened as well and is well documented - and their again the "reporter" was banned)... I am talking about a company-wide attitude towards giving these advantages that needs to change (as well as the bigger stuff of course).
The other thing with your post - - these things will never effect everyone all the time. Most of this stuff is "end game" stuff. The guy mining Veld in empire will never care about allegations that a Titan timer just got exploited so the thing blew up.
I'm suggesting that your "What it would take" is impossible.
CCP ffffed the game, it's playerbase, and is censoring the hell out of anything they can to spin the facts into "it isn't that bad, we are making plans to improve things, please stay..."
They lied, and now want us to trust them, after they covered up the lie, then cover up the coverup about the lie...china at its peek of censorship would be proud of ccp censorship
sorry, dollar short, 6 months late...
3 accounts canceled over this.
ccp the "we cheat for our buddies and are proud of it" company...
Not all of us object to the developers playing the game. I don't - I'd be unlikely to play a game that the designers themsevles were not passionately interested in.
What a lot of us DO care about, however, is doing business with a company that we can respect and trust. CCP has clearly shown that they are not such a company. They had proof of malfeasance by at least one of their employees in-game, and did nothing about it. He wasn't fired, the actions he took on behalf of his alliance were not un-done, and in fact the entire affair was quietly swept under the rug until it was all exposed by a 3rd party. Only then, and reluctantly at that, did they admit to any problem or take any corrective action.
Band of Brothers enjoyed the fruits of t20's cheating ways for a full 6 months after CCP was aware of them. What does that tell you? Why would you trust them not to let this sort of thing happen again, when they clearly didn't consider it a problem until they got caught covering it up?
I guess I have run out of arguments about why I still believe in CCP. It's just my nature I guess, I don't want to just give up on them and EVE because of this. I enjoy playing EVE, and see no reason to go at this time. I want to give them another, final chance, to get things right.
If there is one thing I do agree with on the other side though, is that T20 should be fired. Not because of what he did as such, but because it is needed for CCP to help regain some of the credibility in the eyes of everyone else. He made a mistake and has been punished, and I hate to see a generally nice person lose their job, but he screwed up big time with this, and is perhaps a needed sacrifice.
Here is the problem as I see it. The damage to CCP's credibility is the real issue here.
No, the other dev's in BoB may not be cheaters. But then again, they might be. How do we know? Obviously, CCP has put themselves ahead of the good of the game here. Why not other places?
And, everytime something anomalous happens, that benefits BoB and/or hurts other alliances the first cry is going to be "rigged game!". People are already saying it. The fact they didn't remove the BPO's and refuse to give reasons for that doesn't help.
This whole, "we're putting the incident behind us and moving on" thing, smacks of 14 year olds who got caught and now are trying to get out of their punishment.
Personally I think of gaming company's like dogs. You like them and love them. You treat them right and are best of friends. Then one day the dog up and bites you. No matter what happens after that, you can never quite trust that dog again.
I've said it before, that CCP is so willing to just dump their reputation like this, is just a sign of the continuing immaturity in the gaming industry at large.
I was on the bad end of the stick with ascn/bob but had great fun in the war...but now, even though I knew about devs in bob before the war, have to wonder if more covered up cheating is the only reason I am no longer in feyth (area of space that was my home).
Not going to worry about it though...all 3 accounts canceled now.
Not the fault of the BoB pilots i fought in the war, but the fault of ccp and those in bob that knew they were cheating.
shame really, now those in bob that drove ascn out, have to wonder if they won only due to ccp assistance and cheats....pity they couldn't have had a clean win...now it is a tarnished event with an outcome achieved by cheats.
ccp the "we cheat for our buddies and are proud of it" company...
The dev appened to be BoB but then again has the Almighty and honorable Kug hacked every single alliance forum yet? Come on Obviously IRON and D2 have a dev in them bet they are cheating too. quick Kug hack them NOW..., Lets ban everyone who has ever had someone log onto thier account to switch skill training since that's account sharing!!!
That is exactly the kind of crap that is going on or will go on if people don't settledown. Indcutive reasoning requires more than one incident to work, it needs a pattern. currently I know of 2 times where a person involved with CCP was commiting some sort of cheating. The first was the ISD member who was released from ISD and Banned. the second with t20 which CCP dealt with. What information they can give out on the situation is not nessicarily thier choice, Believe it or not there are privacy laws that prevent companies from revealing information on discplinary actions on employees.
If you do believe that this case of a Dev c heating is enough to make you quit. then do so, i won't stop you. But think not just from a player perspective as you makr the reasons that you want to quit, look at the legal issues that may possible pertain, as well as what the work enviroment at CCP could be, and the precidents that could be set. Do we want it so that people can go around hacking everyone else forums since they are safe from possible reprecussion as long as they do it under the guise of "routing out cheaters." If Kug gets his accounts unbanned you will see me leaving the game, because i do not want it to be involved in rampant hacking wars.
The dev appened to be BoB but then again has the Almighty and honorable Kug hacked every single alliance forum yet? Come on Obviously IRON and D2 have a dev in them bet they are cheating too. quick Kug hack them NOW..., Lets ban everyone who has ever had someone log onto thier account to switch skill training since that's account sharing!!!
That is exactly the kind of crap that is going on or will go on if people don't settledown. Indcutive reasoning requires more than one incident to work, it needs a pattern. currently I know of 2 times where a person involved with CCP was commiting some sort of cheating. The first was the ISD member who was released from ISD and Banned. the second with t20 which CCP dealt with. What information they can give out on the situation is not nessicarily thier choice, Believe it or not there are privacy laws that prevent companies from revealing information on discplinary actions on employees.
If you do believe that this case of a Dev c heating is enough to make you quit. then do so, i won't stop you. But think not just from a player perspective as you makr the reasons that you want to quit, look at the legal issues that may possible pertain, as well as what the work enviroment at CCP could be, and the precidents that could be set. Do we want it so that people can go around hacking everyone else forums since they are safe from possible reprecussion as long as they do it under the guise of "routing out cheaters." If Kug gets his accounts unbanned you will see me leaving the game, because i do not want it to be involved in rampant hacking wars.
The issue is selective enforcement of the rules. Kug gets banned, fine. He did the crime, he should pay the time. However, BoB members do the same stuff (hacking, posting personal info), and it's all "part of the game". The double-standard is sickening, because those contradictory EULA rules *are* enforced on everyone else.
Actually Nicoli - for those of us that are really genuinely ticked off about this -- ("this" being not mainly the T20 situation, but the handling of it, and of the culture at CCP that supports it)...
If tomorrow Kug posted something about D2, RA, GOON, LV, or whoever --- it would still be devesating.
I joke about Bob - I have friends in Bob - I have flown against BOB. I believe that the average BOB member has no clue. It doesn't matter that its BOB that this happened to... it matters that it happened.
Only problem I have with BOB is all those BOB members that posted/said in local - or other wise established "if I ever find out BOB cheats I quit!" -- Heh - yeah, wonder where they are?
Cheers.
The way Ouever talks I imagine he's in an alliance, we all knew about T20 from a BoB christmas video where someone recognized his face from fanfest, and supposedly there is/was a dev in DNA.
so back to the not giving a shit thing, obviously T20 is the type that creams his drawers whenever he looks at his corp logo or alliance tag since he was stupid enough to risk having his RL face in video post-fanfest. That screams attention whore. He probably made lots of people well aware that he was a dev since he's such an attention whore, and he probably did lots of questionable things in the same way a co-dependant person would try and keep his status high with his associates.
Also bob's tactics do not involve risk, they involve bringing in 600 people to shoot at pos's all day so they arn't in any danger, they do whatever they can to win something without losing a single ship, do you think that stops when they alt tab out? I mean really, how skillful is it to have 600 people attacking stations, or camping an npc station in venal for a week straight, or having people in the enemies TS saying crap like "ther's a battleship at planet 3" to get the noobs to warp off and split up the fleet. They do whatever it takes, in game or out, do you think T20 is above that tactic? I imagine he did what everyone else in BoB did and that's whatever it takes using whatever he has at his disposal. screw the BPO's that's an non issue really.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
if I were to kill a titan tomorrow and no CCP employees showed up to say grats I would petition it.
Waiting for: the next MMO that lets me make this macro
if hp < 30 then CastSpell("heal") SpellTargetUnit("player") else CastSpell("smite") end