EVE Bans Exploiters; Dropping 2% of Users Cuts Average CPU Usage 30% 261
Earthquake Retrofit writes "Ars has a story about EVE Online banning thousands of accounts for real-world trading of in-game money for profit. From the article: 'Those who buy and sell ISK, the game's currency, are not only exploiting the game, but unbalancing play. That's why the company decided to go drastic: a program they called "Unholy Rage." For weeks they studied the behavior and effects these real-money traders had on the game, and then they struck. During scheduled maintenance, over 6,000 accounts were banned. [Einar Hreiðarsson, EVE's lead GM,] assures us that the methods were sound, and the bannings went off with surgical precision. ... While the number of accounts banned in the opening phase of the operation constituted around 2 percent of the total active registered accounts, the CPU per user usage was cut by a good 30 percent.' Looks like they got the right 6,000.' Further information and more graphs are available from the EVE dev blog."
Re:About time (Score:5, Informative)
Re:About time (Score:1, Informative)
I realize that Slashdot is full of idiots and you probably can't help yourself, but do you think you could at least try to take into account the distinction between "profits" and "revenues" when you continue this discussion? You continually refer to the former, but in fact this 2% applies to the latter.
Re:About time (Score:5, Informative)
In EVE you can buy In-Game cards to extend your subscription, if you have enough ISK, which the farmers most definitely have.
EVE could actually immediately profit here (Score:0, Informative)
EVE themselves allow players to buy gold with real money. You can buy 60-day GTCs (game time codes) which allow you to purchase 2 months of game time. EVEs own website allows you to exchange these GTCs for in-game currency. So if you want, you can buy as many GTCs as you like, sell them via EVE, and buy yourself the ship of your dreams.
With a large percentage of the gold farmers killed off, anybody wanting to buy gold will have to do it through EVE. The net result is that many more GTCs are sold, generating lots of extra revenue for EVE. EVE wins.
Re:About time (Score:1, Informative)
Either you've discovered a new kind if math, or you're a blathering idiot.
I'll give you the benefit if the doubt and ask you to explain your new rules of mathematics in more detail, as I still don't see how y = x (r - c) and y = x r yeild the same result if c is not zero.
On second thought, I revoke the benefit of the doubt.
Re:loss of money? (Score:1, Informative)
You do realize CCP is based on Iceland, don't you?
Re:About time (Score:1, Informative)
Kindly explain how you maintain precisely the same profit margin after changing your revenues and nothing else. Ever hear of a little thing called "overhead"?
I know you probably can't help your mental disability, but you should at least refrain from showing it off.
Re:About time (Score:5, Informative)
There is a legitimate in-game system for buying and selling ISK, it is a part of the market and doesn't break it. Farming is not a part of that system.
Eve players don't own any congressmen... (Score:3, Informative)
...so no, they don't get protected and bailed out.
Re:About time (Score:1, Informative)
Either you've discovered a new kind if math, or you're a blathering idiot.
I'll give you the benefit if the doubt and ask you to explain your new rules of mathematics in more detail, as I still don't see how y = x (r - c) and y = x r yeild the same result if c is not zero.
On second thought, I revoke the benefit of the doubt.
They would also yield the same result if r==0. ;)
Err, no. If r == 0 and c != 0, then y = x(r-c) is non-zero for any non-zero x. y = xr would always be zero, and thus the results would only be the same when r == c == 0.
/highschool_math_lesson
Re:PLEX (Score:1, Informative)
That's what stolen credit cards are used for... An MMO company I recently worked for was almost blacklisted by Visa for the number of chargebacks they were getting -- most goldfarmers will happily let you pay for the gold via credit card... then they have your credit card number... and they have this burning desire to open new accounts, and they're already breaking terms of service, and frequently actual laws, so why wouldn't they use your credit card to open a new farming account?
Anyone who says "the MMO companies like goldfarming, because the farmers are paying $15 a month too" is just confused, because most of them aren't actually ever paying for the game. I expect in EVE, they'd take a CCard payment for the ISK, use the CCard to buy some PLEXes, sell those for ISK... This isn't adding money to the company, because you'll notice and cancel the extra charges. And it isn't driving the in-game economy, because they're scamming someone when they sell the PLEXes too...
Re:This may net them a near-immediate profit (Score:2, Informative)
EVE themselves allow players to buy gold with real money. You can buy 60-day GTCs (game time codes) which allow you to purchase 2 months of game time. EVEs own website allows you to exchange these GTCs for in-game currency. So if you want, you can buy as many GTCs as you like, sell them via EVE, and buy yourself the ship of your dreams.
With a large percentage of the gold farmers killed off, anybody wanting to buy gold will have to do it through EVE. The net result is that many more GTCs are sold, generating lots of extra revenue for EVE
Who knows, maybe if I explain this a couple hundred times more, people will finally figure it out...
CCP does not make a penny more when people get their isk through Gametimecards. The only thing that happens is that instead of 2 players each paying for their own subscriptions, one of them pays for both of them in exchange for ingame currency. The end result for CCP is exactly the same, in that they receive money for 2 player subscriptions.
Re:About time (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, just about any server now days has power management turned on by default, (and in the case of HP's c class blades almost impossible to turn off). If they reduce the load by 30%, assuming that they were running near peak capacity I could easily see them cutting their power bill by 25%, if not more due to cooling expenses.
Re:Eve players don't own any congressmen... (Score:3, Informative)
Fact: Goldman were forced to take $10bn in TARP aid, against their wishes. Not a bailout, they didn't need or want the money.
Fact: Goldman paid back said money at the earliest possible opportunity, plus interest.
Fact: The taxpayer made a 23% profit on the money invested in Goldman. That's $2.3bn for those keeping count at home.
Rolling Stone didn't mention that, huh? Maybe you should stop getting your financial news from a washed up "culture" mag.
Re:About time (Score:1, Informative)
No, those 2% did not use 30% more CPU resources, they used 30% of the CPU resources. 98% of users used 70% of the CPU resources, 2% used 30%. That means that on average, each of those 2% used 21 times the amount of CPU that each of the other users -- that's 2,100%!
If 0 users were using the system, there'd likely be some base level of CPU usage, the so called "fixed costs". And in the above calculations we're attributing all those fixed CPU costs to the 98% of normal users. So in fact, the factor is more than 21.