EVE Devs Dissect, Explain Massive Economic Exploit 139
In December we discussed news that a major exploit in EVE Online had just been widely discovered after being abused by a few players for up to four years, creating thousands of real-life dollars worth of unearned in-game currency. Representatives from CCP Games assured players that the matter would be investigated and dealt with; a familiar line in such situations for other multiplayer games, and often the final official word on the matter. Yesterday, CCP completed their investigation and posted an incredibly detailed account of how the exploit worked, what they did to fix it, how it affected the game's economy, and what happened to the players who abused it. Their report ranges from descriptions of the involved algorithms to graphs of the related economic markets to theatrically swooping through the game universe nuking the malfunctioning structures. It's quite comprehensible to non-EVE-players, and Massively has summarized the report nicely. It's an excellent example of transparency and openness in dealing with a situation most companies would be anxious to sweep under the rug.
Re:Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)
Now... (Score:5, Insightful)
They should find and fix exploits in the real economy.
Earth-online.
Re:They still don't get it though (Score:3, Insightful)
No, I don't think so. EVE GMs don't ban you for 'finding' an exploit. They're banning people for blatantly abusing said exploit. Sure, exploits 'shouldn't exist' but they do, and they always will.
Re:They still don't get it though (Score:5, Insightful)
Internet Spaceships are SERIOUS BUSINESS for a lot of the people in EVE, who tend to be much more in to the game than players of other MMOs. If the Devs didn't come down hard on this, the forums would be in open revolt.
Note how, at the end of the article, they are careful to inform us that no Devs were involved in carrying out the exploit. The last time a big story like this broke, it was to do with a Dev cheating, and the players were in uproar.
Eve is all about breaking the 4th wall. Hell, CCP employ a real, Phd-equipped economist to analyse their game, and provide market analysis every few months. The spy scene in Eve is quite famous too - most of that is carried out through mechanics outside of the game. Eve is not WoW, the userbase demand a completely different treatment of bugs such as this, that could potentially effect the balance of in-game politics.
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
If only you would apply an alternative branch of this advice to your attempts at online communication. Congratulations you managed to flame someone. For the record, you could of gotten the same satisfaction thinking the thought and then you wouldn't have announce that you're a social pariah.
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, this just makes me want to play it more.
If I learned to play Dwarf Fortress I can learn to play EVE.
Re:They still don't get it though (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's say you rent a safety-deposit box, and use it normally for a few months. Then you cancel it and... through some weird oversight they forget to take back the key and access.
So the day after, you take a look in the safety-deposit box, and find it stacked full of money. You go to report that the situation.
However, the guy you're talking to is one of the spanish janitors they got working there, and he doesn't really understand what you're talking about. He's not a banker, he's just there to clean the floor.
So what do you do? You take the money, and return the next day. Oh my, there's even MORE money in there. And you kinda realize the bank is using that box for storage, so you're not really stealing it from other people using the bank. And as long as you don't go strolling out of the bank with bundles of money sticking out of your pockets, they'll have a hard time catching you.
I guess you could be stupid enough to think the magic money is clean. And the close friends you told about the safety-deposit boxes, they're also all that stupid.
The exploit was pretty much the equivalent of the above.
Re:Cool! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:EVE Economy fixed, how about the real world? (Score:1, Insightful)
Well, not since GoonFleet dissolved BoB.
Re:Now... (Score:4, Insightful)
What exploits in the real economy? This exploit was only possible because in a computer game the wealth generated was pretending to correspond to something real, but in actuality was just numbers in a centrally-controled system that can be incremented and decremented out of thin air.
</irony>
Give me a break... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's an excellent example of transparency and openness in dealing with a situation most companies would be anxious to sweep under the rug.
Yeah, like CCP has never been guilty of sweeping things under the rug.
EVE has WICKED Tutorials! very easy to learn (Score:1, Insightful)
The tutorials are the best part about this extremely complex game. :)
CCP has done an excellent job and I enjoyed every minute I _USED_ to spend playing the game.
Moving forward in life and accomplishing RL goals is infinitely more challenging, when you achieve enlightenment.
If I couldn't get out of bed, this is a game I would definitely be playing until I died. :)
Re:Cool! (Score:3, Insightful)
I pretty much agree with everything you said. The problem is that Eve is that, since "dying" is punished severely (at least, compared to other games), PVP battles are rarely fair matches. If you have a decked out frigate and you run into the interceptor pilot who is in similarly fit rifter, he will run away and come back with an interceptor. Isn't one of the main rules of PVP in Eve "Never get into a fight that you aren't guaranteed to win?" Since many players follow this rule pretty well, the majority of your PVP in Eve is lopsided. This is what I mostly experienced when I did group PVP in RMR. I resubscribed to Eve last year to see if the faction warfare changed this. At that point of time, I found that it did not. If you like Eve, good for you. I just found the gameplay to extremely repetitive (even for an MMO), and slow.
Re:Cool! (Score:2, Insightful)
There's only one trail to ride, and it's in a large circular hallway with pretty wallpaper. Every hundred laps they change the wallpaper to something else pretty.
Eventually they run out of wallpaper to show you, so instead they let you improve your tricycle! Every couple of dozen laps they give you a new streamer, or a thimble of paint, or a sparkly sticker for you to put on your tricycle.
Not challenging enough? Well if you want the best stickers, paint, and streamers, you can join a group of twenty other people and ride together! Each of you has to ride a specific way and if someone isn't good enough no one gets anything. After a couple hours of riding like this, there's a small chance that one of you will get another sticker. Now, get ready to do the same thing your years and years and then you'll have all the best stickers you can have!
Then you realize that you've been riding a tricycle over the same course a hundred thousand times.
Re:Cool! (Score:3, Insightful)
I am exaggerating a bit, but that is essentially Eve. They make you log in to change your skills rather than actually letting you queue them...which is dumb. Massive PvP happens rarely. The community on the forums is harsh and rude. And the only time it makes the news is when someone gets massively screwed over, horrible long-term bugs, and dev cheating (and not getting fired over it).
It is a game that we all really want to love...a lot of potential. But watch the zero punctuation review...its like that. They somehow made a space MMO where you blow shit up as exciting as an excel spread sheet.