Eve Online to Elect Player Oversight Group 104
StCredZero writes "The New York Times is reporting on plans by EVE Online developer CCP to open itself up to independent oversight. In response to the recent allegations of misconduct, they are proposing a system of 'nine player-overseers who will act as ombudsmen for the game's subscribers. The company says it will hold the elections in the fall.' Systems will be put into the game to support this ombudsmen status, making this (effectively) a player-run world governance system."
Hmmmm.... (Score:1)
I hope not (Score:2)
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In EVE-Online, players control YOU !
Whoa. (Score:5, Interesting)
One thing's for sure, I haven't heard of this happening anywhere before (in terms of gaming). I wonder how much of a precedent this sets for MMOs?
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CCP is screwing themselves by even giving legitimacy to the entire thing. In the end, it will just be one more group which can be complained about - with only 9 winners, the 90% of the population which
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Score:3, Insightful)
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A year later, we'll get "comtrollers" who'll check those supervisors.
And in three or four years, every player will have some kinda fancy surveillance title and complain that there's not enough control...
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Great idea (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Great idea (Score:4, Insightful)
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You obviously haven't spend enough time in MMO games. Getting the fame and popularity necessary to achieve such a goal (being elected by other players) requires a VERY significant investment in time and effort. Simply put, the person in question obviously cares and is attached to his online avatar so much that losing his status would be an i
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Now, I haven't played Eve and I don't know how the playerbase is distributed. But with the scale of BoB's influence and memberbase, can the players of Eve hope for a fair election? Or will we end up with a government controlled by the major corporations?
Hm... that l
Good PR, but pretty much useless (Score:3, Interesting)
What would be the point in that? They can't discover anything serious anyway. You'd need good insider and developer knowledge and months. Apart from that they might act as conduits for reporting on gameplay issues and bugs, but it'd be better accomplished by CCP reading their own forums...
Glorified P.R. visit (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait...are they going to be checking for roaches in the cafeteria or something? Looking in "every nook and cranny" means looking at source code, checking logs on home computers, and reading in-game chat logs. i.e. it's not possible. The problem is a social one, not necessarily a technical one. Even if in-game exploits and "god commands" were removed, the extra information from being an employee is still enough to tip the game in your corp's favor.
So "The 9" are going to go for what amounts to a P.R. visit so that CCP can wash its hands of the mess and say "See? I told you we were a fine, upstanding company! Just look at how clean our cubicles are!"
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Assuming they were in the right (and to be honest it seems perfectly logical given their explanations of what went on), then why fire anyone?
Re:Glorified P.R. visit (Score:4, Interesting)
It is easy to debunk the patently false accusations and then try to use that as proof by association to make it appear as the rest of the allegations are bunk too.
For some reason the developer in question no longer has a character. Shiny clean eh? I don't suppose it is tinfoil to be just a bit skeptical of a company's PR claims. The internal affairs division completely, utterly failed because their statement read like a corporate press release instead of the report from a supposedly independent review board.
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There was that whole previous cheating issue, in which case CCP initially told us how it was all a big misunderstanding and it could never happen. Then a few days later, oops looks like it did really happen. The consequences for the guilty parties in that case were insignificant.
Pardon us if we don't take CCP at their word after that. They lost any benefit of the doubt with that performance, and their explanation this time around all but ignored some of the more serious accusations and focused on an issue t
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The company should be able to do this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Their inability to control their own employees is pathetic. I've played alot of online games, (AO, EQ, SWG, CoH, LotrO, DDO) and have never seen a need for something like this.
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I should probably let you know now that there is a saying among fellow EVE players... All MMOs before and after EVE are just the training grounds for the real MMO, Eve Online.
EVE is way beyond the grindfest of the hardcore EQ days. We are talking about a game that has PVP wars where if the victors were to sell their spoils on ebay, we would be talking about 100,000 dollars... We are talking about ships that if blown up are worth 5-10,000 dollars to replac
Thank you for this utterly useless insight (Score:3, Interesting)
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Yeah, that was productive. Lets take the people who play 20 hours a day and ask them about the direction the game should take. Big surprise their laundry list of wants were about as out of touch with the majority of players as you could possibly get.
Its the accounts that log in 1-3 times a week that are your bread and
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One of the issues is likely the uniqueness of it all.
it would be simply silly for a developer to seed some in-game item so that one guild on ONE shard could have some advantage.
The simple fact that the game is full of truely "unique" items, concepts, areas, etc.... that's what makes it prone to this. It has nothing to do with the developers or whatever.
If some dev on WoW sees the "Magical Uuber Magic Sword" for his buddy, who notices? After all, didn't you hear about that guy on server #422 who had
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The post you were replying to didn't have anything to do with EVE as a game.
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Wow talk about needing a life (Score:3, Insightful)
So these 9 people will have oversight? So they can see all source code, all chat logs, all everything anytime? Will the company pay for them to go there? Unless they are rich the avg. person will not be able to do this.
May I suggest a good game of chess?
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If you don't like this MMO, go to another one or look for anew hobby. The amount of time people waste on this is beyond me.
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Seriously how screwed up can you be if you take a game this seriously. This isn't life or death, this is luxury entertainment. You pay X per month and if you aren't happy you go elsewhere. It is no different then if you play a sort, take dance lessons, martial arts whatever.
So these 9 people will have oversight? So they can see all source code, all chat logs, all everything anytime? Will the company pay for them to go there? Unless they are rich the avg. person will not be able to do this.
May I suggest a good game of chess?
How about soccer? We know the fans are able to take their footie with a degree of restraint and civility. And golf, we know people are very moderate in that regard. They certainly don't spend thousands of dollars on instructionals, equipment, club memberships, golf vacations, or spent crazy stupid money to live in golf communities. These people keep it real, not like those fucking no-life gamers. *sarcasm off*
Honestly, I consider all of the examples to be a bit off, it's just that those are socially accept
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CCP should be taking this stuff very seriously because this game is the base of their existence as a company. Players can be concerned and want to help without considering it a life or death situation. The universe of EvE, in many ways, has been built in
Let's see how this will run (Score:5, Interesting)
Who will run for it? Probably many, but who has a chance? Well, to have a chance, you'd have to be known. Who'd cast his vote on someone he doesn't know? Who do you know? The people from your corp, or alliance.
So who has a chance to get the most votes? People from the largest alliances, of course. And
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The smaller alliances, not to be insulting or anything, most of them don't interact at the level where the cheating would make much of a differen
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So when A of alliance B is under suspect of cheating, and C of alliance D (which happens to be in bitter war with B) comes to see whether the allegations are true, what outcome do you expect? Worse, is the "judgement" in any way going to settle the issue?
I'd rather predict that C will try to see any kind of hint as a proof of guilt and try to dig up as much dirt as he can. He'll make it pu
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If nothing else, having a few people from the opposing sides being able to see each other and losing some of the anonymity that the game and the forums provide might allow a little bit of reasonab
Testing functionality for WoD MMO? (Score:1)
My question is... (Score:2)
Spontantious thought (Score:5, Interesting)
Normally an ombudsman is appointed by the government/company to represent the interests of the citizens/customers. Never heard of anyone getting elected as ombudsman before.
They're normally supposed to be professionals so they can pursue issues that the normal citizen don't have the knowledge/resources to do.
Also aren't ombudsmen normally meant to represent the interests of the persons they represent and not some kind of watch force?
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Socrates realized this failing of democracy 2500 years ago. We elect the people best at talking about the issues, not those who are best at dealing with them.
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Are They "Employed"? (Score:5, Interesting)
Could a similar situation arise from these positions or will the company treat them like paid support employees once they're elected? And if they're employees they'd hardly be independent oversight, would they?
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Maybe I'm wrong here, but why was this given the time of day in court? If I "volunteer" to do something, say help build a house for a charity, what is the justification that I should be compensated for my time? The whole point of volunteering is knowing that you will be a part of something and you are investing your time for free.
Unless the
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It would seem that a for-profit company can not technically have volunteers. If people are doing work for a for-profit company the company is obliged to pay them. Maybe that's why Slashdot never accepts my story submissions...
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Asheron's Call dismantled their in-game assistance after the ruling on UO
Seems like they would be defined as auditors, how many auditors work for free? Then we are back to employees which was the problem in the first place....
Of course the whole elected thing was brought up. The only way to get elected would be to be well-known which has zero relationship to good auditing skills or honesty
Naturally i have no solution that is better than the current lip-service
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Of course, selecting from the player base, whether you pay them or not, doesn't reall
A Game (Score:2, Insightful)
GIVE ME LIBERTY or GIVE ME SOCIAL CLIQUE (Score:3, Insightful)
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Toons are enforced as equals, that they are endowed, by their User, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Money, and the pursuit of Headshots.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Toons, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the Whiners to whine to technical support, and to institute new Social Clique, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their MMO addiction.
NO SUBSCRIPTION WITHOUT WHINER INTERFERENCE!
/ If you don't like the game you're playing, then quit
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A lot of people enjoy EvE for what it has been, and what it could be. As players, we're not only doing ourselves a favor, but we're also doing CCP a favor by making suggestions that we feel would increase our enjoyment of the game and convince us to keep sending them money for our subscriptions. It's CCP's job to digest those suggestions, separate the good from the bad, the practica
Wolf in wolf's clothing (Score:2, Insightful)
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Man, its amazing how realistic games are the
Star Chamber V2.0? (Score:2)
Essentially you have a group of people who provide oversight that act as a small cabal. And they violate the #1 rule - they play at the same time.
How about this CCP? Clean up the way you run things and stop trying to put a band-aid on it.
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The real bad thing, though, is that it gives these players a level of access to the inner workings that normal players can't have.
EVE has a long history of implementing a new feature and giving no tutorial or information on how to actually use it, let alone things like the specific formulas and so on. So a lot of the game is word of mouth or trial and error. The chances that pla
This is silly (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the cost of having the developers playing the main game well outweigh the benefit.
-Jeff
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great move... (Score:1)
I gave EVE a go with a trial account, was toying with the idea to ditch WoW and go full on with EVE, but now....... Only when hell freezes over I'm gonna send my cash to a company that asks the public to keep an eye out for corrupt staffmembers.
The only way out of this mess... (Score:3, Interesting)
By installing a player oversight they take important steps to restore player faith in them - as the article said, especially in online games, the perception of reality is the reality.
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Voter fraud? (Score:1)
There will be no "voter" intimidation?
"Vote for Pedro or we will nuke your planet from orbit."
Would not the group of players who have been accused of being in on the cheating be the ones most likely the ones who will be voted in? From what I read they are very large in numbers and hold vast resources.
How about outright fraud will tallying the votes?
I do not play this game. But from all that I have read there is an inherent issue of reduced credibility.
What gets me
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My article [curse-gaming.com] at curse-gaming.com for a more indepth analysis of full loot, as well as twitch based combat.
BoB not larger in numbers (Score:2)
No one lives on planets in Eve (yet). If you are really determined, even the most powerful alliance in 0.0 space can't keep you from conducting operations and having fun. At most, they can lock you out of a given region of 0.0 space.
the whitsleblower (Score:3, Insightful)
But I guess its better than nothing. I love how the bob slime claims that they will take over the entire galaxy. Over my frozen corpse they will.
Candidate (Score:1)
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CCP amazes me (Score:3, Insightful)
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BoB certainly will get more people in that any other alliance, yet you still end up with a significant number of people with other alliances.
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IMHO the main problem still remains (Score:1)
at least their trying... (Score:1)
You know what, I don't care if this falls into a heap; at least their trying something. They aren't as big a company as someone like Blizzard so they have to think a bit harder about solving problems with less.
What I find bitterly ironic is the same people on Slashdot who will give Open Source Software movement a chance will also love paying out on CCP. When compared to a company like Blizzard, they must have to work damn hard to stay afloat. Personally I'll stick with them purely because I want to see wh
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