[EVE] CCPs next step against "cheating devs"

[Inconsiderable]

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CCP's Director of Internal Affairs: An introduction
reported by: CCP Arkanon | 2007.02.13 18:43:26

Hello everyone.

Permit me to introduce myself: I was an EVE GM and I have been working as such since shortly before EVE was launched. I have always been proud of the integrity we established in the GM department (which was masterminded by Hellmar, then CCP's Chief Technology Officer and now our CEO). EVE GMs are and have always been subject to a very strict code of ingame conduct and that somehow has resulted in the most dedicated and hardcore GM team I have ever heard about. Most of the original EVE GMs are still here, enjoying their jobs and playing by the rules.


Having been allowed to take part in birth of EVE and its eventual success against all odds is truly the high point of my working life, a rare privilege. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I will leave CCP when they drag me screaming out the front door. And even then, they’d better change the locks.


It's fair to say that the original discovery of the misconduct that has rocked the EVE universe recently prompted my official transfer from the GM department to my current position of Director of Internal Affairs. The purpose of this blog is to allow you some insight into my duties and capabilities, as well as give you some background on me and how I came to fill this position.


I was involved in the original investigation of this unfortunate incident, along with the other seniors. Our lack of procedures in cases of this type was painfully
evident at the time. The problem wasn't in the investigative process, it was in the process following the discovery, as has already been detailed by Hellmar
in his blog. We have now addressed this, as part of the groundwork for my new post.


My job entails monitoring staff accounts, both CCP player accounts and developer accounts, compiling reports on any findings that need to be addressed and asking the questions that need to be answered. I can enlist selected personnel from all departments to help me with my investigations. I have the authority to run database queries, conduct interviews, hire witch doctors and, in general, do what it takes to get to the truth about any ingame conduct I find questionable. On top of that, I have access to all available TQ logs and work with a programmer to provide more detailed logs and reports, as needed.


I am furthermore within my rights to shut down any accounts I find in possible breach of our rules, pending investigation or permanently. I am responsible for setting and enforcing CCP in-house policies. I answer directly to CCP’s Chief Operating Officer and my actions are reviewed by an internal committee to ensure that my decisions are based on verifiable facts.


First and foremost, I still consider myself a GM, here to serve the game, the players and CCP, in no particular order. As before, my job is to understand and enforce our rules, to take action when needed and raise the alarm when something is wrong. Only my jurisdiction has changed. Perhaps my new position will not always be the most pleasant of jobs, but I accept it and I'm glad that my personal intolerance for cheating can be utilized in this manner and potentially benefit so many.


I believed, and still believe that we owe our player community the right to be the focus of EVE, without paid employees using dirty tricks to swing our universe in their favor. Even playing by the rules, I frown on employees being power players to the extent that their gameplay results in any sort of domination over others. I don't believe CCP employees should run the EVE universe; that spot is reserved for the paying customer. EVE is a sandbox, but it's not our sandbox. We're here to keep it clean and provide the sand.


All the best,


Arkanon





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I think thats an uncommon and good way to deal with the problem. And it will stop any possible new "devs helped XXX" whining, right?

[Bottle]

Nice political speech. He said all the right things, and I want to believe him.

[The Hiram Key]

I wonder if his suspend / ban power is actually the sticky kind, or if after further review he can be reversed.

[Sancti]

That's such a bullshit damage control thing for PR purposes it's not even funny.

[Yirr]

That's such a bullshit damage control thing for PR purposes it's not even funny.

What would you suggest should be done?

[Tirinal]

Has there been comment yet on why the artificially distributed BPOs t20 seeded weren't removed last summer when he was initially found out? I've been trying to stay clear of Eve-O for all the usual reasons so I may be in the dark on this.

Either he withheld the extent of his transgressions or keeping them in the market was part of the "policy irregularity." Until this point is addressed in some manner I really don't care how born-again honest their internal affairs department is.

[Yirr]

Has there been comment yet on why the artificially distributed BPOs t20 seeded weren't removed last summer when he was initially found out?

The only thing I have read on it was that a lot of the higher ups at CCP were on vacation at the time, so the people that uncovered it basically kept quiet about it. I'm not sure Hellmer or Kieron knew of it back than. All I have heard.

[Sancti]

Originally Posted by Tirinal

Has there been comment yet on why the artificially distributed BPOs t20 seeded weren't removed last summer when he was initially found out? I've been trying to stay clear of Eve-O for all the usual reasons so I may be in the dark on this.

Either he withheld the extent of his transgressions or keeping them in the market was part of the "policy irregularity." Until this point is addressed in some manner I really don't care how born-again honest their internal affairs department is.

I don't want to give away anything in terms of internal affairs but let's just say it involves GMs physically being places where they needn't be and doing things with smartbombs that should otherwise garner instabans. Furthermore, I want to know the answer to the questions Tirinal just brought up.

Most of all I want to see a ban on CCP employees being put into positions of command in playerrun Eve corps. That is just begging to be abused, and shock - it already has to a great extent.

I don't see why the playerbase should trust anything CCP really says in terms of "security" considering that they tried to keep this entire affair and some others quiet. Thank goodness for Kugut, honestly. Have they even made an affair of publicly firing t20?

[Rotanee]

I get the sense there are a lot of Eve employees playing, not just 5 or 10.


Rules I would consider:

-- Set a limit on the number of employees playing in large corporation alliances, say one or two per each alliance. This will help to break up the network of friends within CCP that might cover up each other's unfair play.

-- Employees must not be allowed to be able to fly ships in Tournaments, or give suggestions on flying those ships.

-- Employees should not be allowed in their official capacity to respond to any matter in game, any petition, in the region of 0.0 space that their alliance owns, or the space of any alliance at war with their alliance (either way). Separating the employees up between alliances internally at CCP would foster the ability to make sure this is able to be done practically, as petitions do need to be addressed.

-- Each employee's personal communications on private message boards must be able to be monitored, without the employee knowing what is read or isn't read. This must include in game communications. Since I doubt player corporations would want anyone inside of CCP seeing what they post on their private message boards, it should be set up so only the employee's posts are monitored. This can be done with a little creativity.

[Fog]

Originally Posted by Rotanee

Each employee's personal communications on private message boards must be able to be monitored, without the employee knowing what is read or isn't read. This must include in game communications. Since I doubt player corporations would want anyone inside of CCP seeing what they post on their private message boards, it should be set up so only the employee's posts are monitored. This can be done with a little creativity.

How's that supposed to work? I can't imagine any way that CCP can monitor an employee at home, on his own computer, posting on an unaffiliated website, without the other users on that website knowing that they are an employee.

[Hal2005]

Originally Posted by Yirr

What would you suggest should be done?

Not much actually.

It's a video game world, with funny money and fabricated political battles / wars.

The developer in question who cheated takes a demotion, if the company's public: ask him to take a non paid leave of absence from the development team while the project does a audit of all other accounts to confirm the game is clean of tampering.

Put out a message saying the system has been redesigned such that Auctions and seeding is now done via a computer algo, that no player can tamper with.

Give everyone back the time value of investment necessary to have competed in the first auction.

Lastly, should public outrage continue; put CPP up for sale so a LBO group can buy then out and get a free IP :P ( Because the current guys are not cheating smart enuff. :P ).

[Araxen]

Originally Posted by Yirr

What would you suggest should be done?

There's nothing they can do. They broke the players trust and all they can do is keep kissing ass and spewing out PR like this. There still may very well be cheating going on on still and no one will ever know it unless some "hacks the gibson" again.

[Gamblor]

Originally Posted by Hal2005

The developer in question who cheated takes a demotion, if the company's public: ask him to take a non paid leave of absence from the development team while the project does a audit of all other accounts to confirm the game is clean of tampering.

Fun fact, t20 was actually promoted early this summer from web dev to junior programmer. Whether it was before or after the blueprint incident is another matter. Lord knows CCP will never release that sort of info.

It isn't going to go away, and it's far from resolved. M Corp still has a mothership that was a reward for an event that required 4 freighters worth of shit. M corp just HAPPENED to have 3 freighters worth of that crap in a no-name NPC station in the middle of nowhere, requiring only one freighter to win.

The mothership BoB killed in a gay ass Aurora event dropped officer loot. The one in syndicate dropped tech 1 garbage. How many times did the Aurora loot pinata make a stop in fountain or delve?

ISD, GM's and devs have played favorites for so long people can't even remember what impartiality was, if it ever occured.

[Maique]

Originally Posted by Yirr

What would you suggest should be done?

they shouldn't have lied as much as they did, they knew about T20 and the BPOs for 6 months and not only did they do nothing, their first reaction was "nothing happened!!" only when people started spamming the forums did they do anything , and after that the only thing they do is say they delete T20 char.

so fuck them and their PR talk

Originally Posted by Gamblor

Fun fact, t20 was actually promoted early this summer from web dev to junior programmer. Whether it was before or after the blueprint incident is another matter. Lord knows CCP will never release that sort of info.

It isn't going to go away, and it's far from resolved. M Corp still has a mothership that was a reward for an event that required 4 freighters worth of shit. M corp just HAPPENED to have 3 freighters worth of that crap in a no-name NPC station in the middle of nowhere, requiring only one freighter to win.

The mothership BoB killed in a gay ass Aurora event dropped officer loot. The one in syndicate dropped tech 1 garbage. How many times did the Aurora loot pinata make a stop in fountain or delve?

ISD, GM's and devs have played favorites for so long people can't even remember what impartiality was, if it ever occured.

the problem is that in a game as competitive as EVE, impartiality is very important because it does make a difference on other peoples gameplay, and CCP obviously isn't aware of that

in WoW i couldn't care less if the devs give people epics, it doesn't really matter aside from e-peen envy

[Rotanee]

Originally Posted by Fog

How's that supposed to work? I can't imagine any way that CCP can monitor an employee at home, on his own computer, posting on an unaffiliated website, without the other users on that website knowing that they are an employee.

The employee in order to continue to both work at CCP and play Eve will have to agree to certain rules. In my opinion it is as necessary for CCP to monitor alliance message board communications of its employees, or at least make them available for review, as it is to monitor item creation in game.

It will unfortunately require voluntary cooperation from the employee, of course.

One way to monitor which is very problematic is to require the employee to copy what they post and submit it that way. I just don’t see any practical purpose from this. It can easily be avoided, and takes up a lot of time for the employee.

Another method would be to require the employee to log in at CCP and use their net access, even from home, before they post on any private message board, so what they post can be monitored. Or perhaps log into some program that emails once monthly or weekly employee logs from home.

Is it a fool proof? No, not even close. Even still, this is all the lesser of two evils since CCP insists on letting their employees play.

Even though monitoring can be avoided with almost any method, for the most part it requires the employee taking more deliberate steps to cheat by going outside the agreed monitoring system. Making it harder for the employee to deny their actions if caught. There is something to be said about the employee knowing they are being watched, combined with the employee not wanting to risk getting caught.

The easiest way to monitor these communications, and the only other option I can think of off hand, would be by requiring the employees to submit their personal user access information to their alliance message boards. It’s the easiest way, but I don't see this flying at all and I am not even sure it is technically legal all over. I just sense many players would have some very, very serious issues with that. Including myself.