Camera Drones And Nanocoatings

I meant to return to the subject of Super Kerr-Induced Nanocoatings last week but sometimes things happen.  SKINs are the way that CCP plans to introduce custom paint jobs to ships in EVE.  Some players are terribly upset already because they won't have to opportunity to destroy the paint jobs.  The current method of paint job, which is actually a different model of a ship, is destructible.  If any upgrade in painting technology is not destructable, to paraphrase these players, then CCP is turning EVE into WoW.

However, I don't hear these same players complaining that they don't have to pay for camera drones.  At this point, I can hear some EVE players asking, "What's a camera drone?"  I'm not saying that some players really get into the game and take on the persona of a demi-godlike immortal capsuleer, but would you believe that some pilots don't even recognize their ships have a human crew?

I shouldn't judge, as a lot of these players are new and probably started hanging around the wrong crowd.  This condition is curable with many visits to EVE Travel and Intersetallar Privateer along with listening to the Hydrostatic Podcast.  But for today's topic, let's review the lore behind how capsuleers view the universe from their ships.

"After the Jovians introduced capsule technology to the empires several methods have been tried out regarding the visual presentation of the surroundings to the captain enclosed in his capsule. The first method tried, and the one the Jovians first used (and sometimes still do), was to use the data from wide range of scanners to paint a realistic view of the ship’s surroundings in the mind of the captain. But after intensive experimentations it was discovered that this caused severe nausea and disorientation for most captains not of Jove origin. Other high-tech methods also had to be discarded for the same or similar reasons. In the end, the empires discovered that simple cameras directly connected to small screens inside the captain’s helmet were the best solution. At first these cameras were mounted on the hull of the ship, but with the advent of electrical energy weapons these cameras became too vulnerable to damage from electrical charges.

"The Gallenteans were the first to experiment with cameras mounted on drones hovering around the ship. They first developed this method when researching more efficient point-defense weapons. This hovering method later caught on with the other races and is now common practice, with all the empires manufacturing their own types of camera drones, all based on the same principle. At first only one camera drone was used, but today they are two, for stereoscopic vision. The camera drones are suspended some distance from the ship. They attach to the ship by using a combination of an attractive magnetic force and repulsive electromechanical force, this also allows them to orbit the ship at any desired position. This means that the drones never need replenishing or refueling.

"The camera drone can be commanded through the captain’s neural link. This gives the captain tremendous ability to get a clear view of his environment in a quick and comprehensive manner. By stationing the camera drone some distance from the ship the drone is not as susceptible to weapon outbursts hitting the ship’s hull. The drone can still be destroyed, either by accident, such as passing debris or stray shot, or on purpose. All ships have abundant supplies of spare camera drones stored away for such occasions and the captain has to be fairly clueless to run out of camera drones. The fact that the drones are stationed outside the ship’s shield makes it impractical to try to protect them. Simply storing lots and lots of them is much easier, as they’re very cheap." 

So capsuleers use an extremely cheap technology.  Camera drones are so cheap players don't even need to purchase any, their corporation just hands them out like candy.  I imagine that is how the lore will introduce Super Kerr-Induced Nanocoatings.  They are attached to the ship when constructed, and will replicate themselves to cover the ship in case of damage.  Currently, the chip (or whatever tech CCP decides on) that determines the pattern a ship's SKIN shows is stored somewhere in the ship itself.  But why shouldn't capsuleers have the ability to store that chip in their pod?  Then, when the pod is loaded into a ship, the same connections that allow a capsuleer to pilot the ship can transmit the proper patter to display to the ship's SKIN.

I would imagine that the pattern for a SKIN pattern is pretty small and the entities running New Eden's faster than light communications systems would allow the transmission of those patterns on their networks.  I mean, it's just a SKIN.  It's not like a pilot wants to transmit something huge like a Cynosural Field Theory skill book.  Those things are huge!

Once the chips go into production, I imagine they will have the same cost as a camera drone and become a standard feature on all pods.  In other words, so negligible that capsuleers don't even notice them.  Sort of like human crews.

So am I concerned that CCP is introducing a non-destructible item sold in the cash shop?  Not anymore.  That ship sailed 4 years ago when CCP made clothing indestructible.  And to tell the truth, at least making SKINs indestructible makes a lot more sense if CCP makes the lore approach what I wrote in this post.

Internet Spaceship Rules Is Serious Business

Last night while reading the tears of someone who had violated the EVE Online EULA, a question popped into my head.  Has anyone warned the new players that CCP is a little more serious about enforcing its rules, especially those that touch on the subject of RMT, than other companies?  What came to mind was a post I wrote about a ban wave Blizzard implemented last January.  Besides the opportunity to post the tears of a lot of botters and hackers, I was struck by the lax rules that Blizzard apparently has for World of Warcraft compared to CCP.

Blizzard has something they call the "penalty volcano" to explain their ban policies.

The Blizzard Penalty Volcano

One point that struck me as I read through the tears of the WoW cheaters was the belief that even though someone receives a permanent ban, the ban is on the account, not player, level.  Indeed, when I take off my EVE Online goggles, Blizzard's policy on "License Closures" definitely looks like that is the case.  The WoW hackers even talked about creating new WoW accounts on the Battle.net accounts.

To all the newbros out there who just started playing EVE, CCP is not Blizzard.  When someone at CCP thinks about a volcano, they worry about whether the volcano will delay flights out of the airports.

Eyjafjallajokull Eruption, 2010, photographer Ragnar Th Sigurdsson, Arctic Image

For CCP, hacking, botting, and RMT is serious business.  Back in the beginning of EVE, the game was pretty vulnerable to hacks, as Greg Hoglund, the founder of HBGary and author of a bunch of security books, describes in the video below is from when he was promoting his book, Exploiting Online Games: Cheating Massively Distributed Systems, back in 2007.


To combat the problem, not only did CCP implement things like PLEX and improve the security of the EVE client, but they cracked down hard on those engaged in client modification.  If CCP detects any type of client modification, like python injection, CCP will issue a permanent ban for all of the player's accounts.

Let me emphasize that last point.  ALL. OF. A. PLAYER'S. ACCOUNTS.  Unlike Blizzard, CCP believes in banning the player, not the account.  If a player doesn't receive a ban on all accounts, that means that CCP was unable to find all of the player's accounts.  CCP also has implemented a digital fingerprinting system, so when a player is banned and tries to create a new account, oftentimes that account is immediately banned also.  The professional RMTers have ways around this and are willing to pay the additional costs involved, but CCP makes the process as difficult as they can.

So when I read the tears of someone who is banned crying about CCP banning all of his accounts even though he only did bad things on 1 or 2 accounts, I shake my head.  Folks, I know most of you are EULA-abiding players.  But if you do think about doing something stupid like bot or purchase ISK from shady RMT sides, ask yourself: do you really want to risk getting ALL of your accounts banned?

ISBoxer Isn't That Important

I wrote a little throw-a-way post Monday that probably will wind up one of my most popular posts in 2015.  Considering how much I write about botting and illicit RMT, I almost have to write about developments surrounding ISBoxer.  Which is a shame, really, because the campaign for seats on the 10th Council of Stellar Management will officially kick off on Friday and that, in my opinion, is much more important than ISBoxer.  Then again, people don't like reading about the CSM, as traffic to the blog drops 20-30% whenever I write about the organization.  Perhaps that's just a product of not writing an EVE-specific blog.

ISBoxer, on the other hand, is used in a multitude of games, including World of Warcraft.  I think hatred for ISBoxer extends throughout the MMORPG space, much like hatred for Goons extends into Elite: Dangerous and Star Citizen.  Which is probably a contributing factor for why someone posted Monday's article on bans associated with ISBoxer on Reddit.

For me, ISBoxer is only important for two reasons.  The first is whether CCP is serious about enforcing the EVE Online EULA.  Enforcing the section that, in my opinion, always banned input broadcasting and input multiplexing is a good first step.  But even then, ISBoxer is just a vehicle to discuss a more important issue. I wish that CCP would post the clarifications of CCP's rulings on multiboxing, input broadcasting, and input multiplexing someplace other than the forums.  One of my pet peeves is when companies rely on forum posts for rules clarifications.  Honestly, why should players have to search the forums for rules clarifications, especially since some of what is still out on the forums is outdated.  All the rules clarifications should reside on an FAQ page in the same location as the rest of the EVE Online policies.

The second issue is the use of Inner Space in EVE Online.  Inner Space is a powerful platform designed for use with games that, according to Lavish Software:

"Inner Space can run .NET programs and other custom scripts inside of the game for you, with a wide range of functionality available. Inner Space is 'unlocked' and does not limit the types of programs you can use with it!"

I've always read Section 6A2 of the EULA to disallow any mod, including those possible using Inner Space.  The only reason that ISBoxer doesn't violate that section is that ISBoxer is not an EVE-specific product.

A request for an Inner Space powered bot developer

CCP has demonstrated in the past the ability to detect the use of Inner Space in the EVE client space.  If ISBoxer is banned, I imagine that Team Security could write a detection system to automatically ban users of the software.  However, with ISBoxer allowed, such routines are much too dangerous to use, as I don't like innocent users getting banned.  And yes, as long as ISBoxer users obey the rules, including on input broadcasting and input multiplexing, they are innocent users.

EDIT: The thing about too dangerous is relying on just detecting Inner Space.  I'm sure that Team Security has come up with something.  However, the solution probably isn't as effective.

Sometimes I write a post just to get something out of my system.  This is one of them.  People, despite the efforts of some ISBoxer users to make the input broadcasting ban the most momentous event in EVE Online history, ISBoxer is just not that important!

The Rabbit Hole: Why The Primary Market Is (Usually) Not So Bad

In the first article of this series, I broke down real money trading in MMOGs between that sponsored by game companies (aka the primary market) and RMT conducted by outside parties (the secondary market).  In the next two articles, I expanded on the theory that real money trading is bad for MMOGs due to the potential to encourage activity that causes (or at least worsens) monetary inflation and the denial of content to the average player.

So far in the series, I don't think I have argued that either primary market RMT is either better or worse than secondary market RMT.  While in the area of gold farmers monopolizing content I concentrated on the illicit gold farmers, that was because the botting in the example game of Elder Scrolls Online was so egregious. One can make the argument that a sizable percentage of the botting in Wildstar was conducted by regular players motivated to play the game for free by purchasing C.R.E.D.D., Carbine's PLEX-like item good for one month's game time, for the game's virtual currency.  And in the article on monetary inflation, the two games that experienced hyper-inflation, Diablo 3 and Gaia Online, both had company-run markets which the developers let run out of control.

Input Broadcasting Bans Have Begun

I hate doing the breaking news thing, but I woke up to a message that CCP has begun banning multi-boxers.  Here is a copy/paste from the EVE Online section of the ISBoxer forums:

Dear CCP,

When you published the new "regulation" regarding ISBoxer clarifying an old rule, we all were happy:

Finally, a word from CCP what is banable and what no. The ISBoxer community honored the new rules, and we looked into our hard- and software to change our ways of playing the game to be EULA-conforming if it wasn't already. We looked for ways how we can play with ISBoxer without broadcasting and without violating the EULA. 

To achieve this we tried to get answers via petitions if our new setups are okay with the EULA or not. But the answers we received were only:

- Pre-made text blocks, which were not even related to our questions at all! Did the person answering the ticket really read it? Obviously not.

- EULA quotes - which are useless if there were issues interpreting the EULA and if the ticket is asking whether a certain setup would conform to the EULA by CCP. This is a huge issue, as we have designed setups to play without broadcasting, but some people got banned even if they were not broadcasting at all. Some even did not have ISBoxer installed, and were banned. 

- The majority of tickets were either closed or did not receive any answer (apart from your message closing the ticket because it was inactive for a while)

In your dev thread on the forums regarding the ISboxer rule changes and broadcasting bans, you mentioned that you want us to get in contact with you if there are problems.
Yes, there are problems. For two month we are trying to get in contact with you and get a clear answer if our new methods playing without broadcasting are within the terms of the EULA. Were are getting nothing. You are ignoring tickets completely, and those tickets which are being answered contain only unrelated text macros or EULA quotes which are not helpful at all.

Now CCP started banning innocent pilots who are using more than one account on the same IP address who are just fast. Even some without ISBoxer software. If you are commanding more than one account in a time-frame of three seconds from the same IP CCP considers this broadcasting and you will likely receive a ban, even if you are not broadcasting. This is because CCP's immature and flawed detection software can not differentiate between manual fast actions and broadcasting. If you can't clearly prove that someone is broadcasting and you are still banning because it MIGHT BE POSSIBLE that someone is broadcasting you are doing something wrong and you will probably hit many innocent pilots.

I am not kidding. This happened to 4 guys I know. Two of them aren't even using ISBoxer and are only commanding two clients at once without any software aid. CCP's reaction on petitions filed by those:

Our systems says so, deal with it.

We are touching legal terms right now, if you are banning a paying customer without clear evidence, from a game he paid actual money for. This will sooner or later cause a lot of trouble.

We want a clear statement if our new ways to multiboxing is allowed or not. And we request that you stop using an inaccurate and flawed detection software if it can't differentiate between broadcasting and pushing buttons fast. Assume that people are acting in good faith, if you are unsure and can't prove the opposite.

regards
charadrass

To which, Nolak Ataru (aka bugme143) added:

TL;DR: CCP's not following their own EULA, banning people for 2+ commands in three seconds even without ISBoxer installed.

I listened to the GRN Show yesterday in which DJ Big Country asked CCP Falcon about a possible meeting between CCP and the ISBoxer community.  CCP Falcon basically replied that if anyone has a question to submit a ticket, but that sharing the contents of communications between CCP and a player is against the EULA.  CCP Falcon made a clear point that nothing had changed in the EULA, which is true.

The problem is that CCP did not enforce the EULA on this matter for years and only openly declared the use of ISBoxer a EULA violation in April 2013.  Worse, users like Nolak refused to believe that the practice ever violated the EULA.  But CCP Falcon's post was directed not only at ISBoxer users, but code-assisted multi-boxers in general.  A follow-up dev blog from Team Security in December emphasized the point:

Refresher Course - Macro Use

During discussions about the input multiplexing and broadcasting issue on forums and in tickets, we have noticed a frequent misunderstanding we would like to take this opportunity to address.  Any use of macros to interact with the game world is prohibited by EULA now, and has always been. The EULA clearly stipulates:

Conduct

A. Specifically Restricted Conduct

3. You may not use your own or any third-party software, macros or other stored rapid keystrokes or other patterns of play that facilitate acquisition of items, currency, objects, character attributes, rank or status at an accelerated rate when compared with ordinary Game play. You may not rewrite or modify the user interface or otherwise manipulate data in any way to acquire items, currency, objects, character attributes or beneficial actions not actually acquired or achieved in the Game.

The above from the dev blog is the famous Section 6A3 that people are tired of me talking about.  The problem that some ISBoxers have is that they ignore the speed issue mentioned in Section 6A3.  If CCP is going to rule that input broadcasting is bad due to this rule, why would anyone think that another software solution that allows the same speed is allowed under this provision?  Also, I think that because the ISBoxers made such a ruckus and made everyone believe that the issue was solely about ISBoxer, that other multi-boxers ignored the warnings from CCP, believing they did not need to change anything in the way they do things.

We are now at the he said/she said point where users proclaim their innocence and the game company states they have proof.  Unfortunetly for charadrass, CCP can't assume everyone is acting in good faith while videos like the one below are floating around, with users demonstrating how to possibly violate the EULA.


Given some of the rhetoric coming from one portion of the ISBoxer community, I was surprised that the bans took this long in coming.  What I think happened is that Team Security took a step back and reevaluated their detection methods and what is allowed and waited almost 4 weeks before pulling the trigger on the bans.  We'll have to wait and see exactly what happened.  For all we know, CCP may walk back the bans later this week, if not later today.  But for those who thought the great input broadcasting ban kerfuffle was over, think again.

UPDATE: Joe Thaler, the creator of ISBoxer, posted the following on the ISBoxer forums:

"A random rumor post on the official EVE forums from a random person claiming there's this new detection where you can't touch more than one window within 3 seconds from the same IP? I seriously doubt this claim, considering the number of active EVE multiboxers around here... that we know are still using Video FX to touch many windows in less than 3 seconds...

"More likely they are banned for a different reason."

CSM 9 Winter Summit: Improving AI

Everywhere around me, I see people demanding improved artificial intelligence.  Earlier this week Microsoft announced that Halo's Cortana is coming to a desktop near you.  Game companies are also seeking better AI to run the NPCs in games under development, from the Kythera engine in Star Citizen to Storybricks in EverQuest Next.  So hopefully, the fact that CCP is seeking to make the artificial intelligence in EVE Online a little smarter comes as little to no surprise.

We got a taste of things to come with the release of the minutes for day 2 of the CSM Winter Summit yesterday.  Team Space Glitter is in charge of the development of the AI for NPCs and went into some detail about the newest NPC, the Circadian Seeker.  I know that some don't like the level of detail coming out of the summit minutes, so I'll post the details as written from the minutes so people can decide for themselves:

"CCP Frellicus started off the session by going over the new behaviour trees being used by the new Sleeper Scouts (Circadian Seekers) to give them some new ways of interacting with players. These behaviour trees are what makes them explore systems and work in groups.

"The Seeker priorities are (in order) Survive, Roam, Scan. If there's nothing to scan, they'll just idle. (though generally they'll just start scanning you).

"Ali asked if these behaviour trees are only going to be used for the new NPCs or if they're planning to backport it to other NPCs. CCP Frellicus replied that it's primarily for the new NPCs, but it may be backported to specific NPCs.

"Corbexx asked how much can it let them do. CCP Frellicus said it depends upon development time available but the system has very few limitations.

"He went on to elaborate that it allows them to do more advanced actions including calling in reinforcements, warping around the systems.

"CCP Affinity asked the CSM how they thought about NPCs podding players. The CSM were open to the idea. Ali added the caveat that it should be clear that these NPCs can possibly pod. The implications regarding implants and the change to pod death costs and loss were discussed.

"CCP Affinity indicated that they would likely introduce it, but with a twist. Mike asked if they plan to announce they're making a change to NPCs to allow them to do so. CCP Affinity answered that no, they do not. (If you're reading this, consider yourself lucky!)

"CCP Frellicus then showed some Circadian Seekers and the Behaviour tree in action. The CSM noticed that when spawned, they all warped to the same location. CCP Affinity pointed out that this was their blackboard in action, they behave like a fleet. (A blackboard is a way for them to share their intentions with each other. They have a shared blackboard where if one of the NPCs posts a location or primary target, they will behave like a well organised fleet following their FCs commands.)"

Hopefully everyone noticed that CCP doesn't plan on telling players when the cute little Sleeper scouts will start podding people.  Looking on Singularity won't help, because they are already podding people on the test server.  But this kind of notice will get players more interested when new content enters the game.  Players are already reporting that Sleepers are attacking POS and Reddit threads are springing up reporting new Sleeper battleships and structures.

Don't expect CCP to go back and retrofit the existing rats soon, however.  The plans disclosed in the minutes are for those rats to remain fat, dumb, and easy to kill for some time to come.  But CCP doesn't plan on relying on 2003 technology to power EVE's PvE content, even though New Eden is famously a PvP universe.

The CSM 9 Winter Summit: The Great Team Security Chili Cookoff

To the amazement of all, CCP and CSM are the minutes of the CSM 9 Winter Summit during the summit.  The minutes for day 1 included sessions titled "Roadmap & Release Cadence", "New Player Experience", "Web Team", "Team Size Matters", "Corporations & Alliances", "Team Homegrown", and "Team Security".  Needless to say, I was interested in the Team Security session.

I'll have to admit, I was a little disappointed by the minutes for that session.  The chili recipe was kind of weak.  Huh?  That's right, the session was almost entirely NDA'd, so one of Steve Ronuken's recipes was inserted instead.  However, the topics discussed were revealed, which is a plus.  Those were: multiboxing, account authentication, DDoS attacks and mitigation, and a status on the effort against illicit RMT.  All topics I'd like to know about.

I'm pretty sure that a lot of people are disappointed in the news blackout, but I'm not.  Considering the speed with which the minutes were released, the security guys probably decided to NDA everything to make sure no information leaks to the bad guys.  Personally, I can wait for the sanitized version Team Security will present at Fanfest in less than two months.

Don't I want to hear about all the people banned?  Yes, I do.  I'd like to hear that the numbers are low because players are obeying the rules.  However, I know human nature. Even though the ISBoxer developer changed the defaults to turn the input broadcasting features off on 1 January, I expect some ISBoxer users to get banned simply for thinking they can't get caught.  I also expect that a lot of people didn't get the word about the new ban policy for those buying ISK from shady people and so those numbers are higher than CCP would like.  I already know that over 300 players were banned for purchasing ISK in the first week of 2015.

But, do I really want to hear interim figures?  The policies only went into effect three weeks ago.  I can wait a couple more months, when hopefully Team Security will release figures for the first 2 months of 2015.  I'll admit my attitude is probably shaped by the fact I have to scrounge around and dig up a lot of my own facts about illicit RMT, which includes things like botting and hacking accounts.  I'm used to CCP not just handing out facts.

Also, what's more important, satisfying my curiosity or keeping sensitive security methods under wraps?  While the ban numbers probably aren't sensitive, details about account authentication methods (dual factor authentication coming soon?) and how successful CCP is at fighting off DDoS attacks and how they have achieved any successes probably need to stay secret, at least for now.  If the whole session is overclassified, well, as I mentioned before, we'll get a sanitized, more comprehensive version at Fanfest.  I'm patient.  I can wait.

Still, for the next sessions that are heavily NDA'd like this, could we get some shopping and restaurant recommendations for Fanfest goers.  Would you believe some people attending probably haven't heard of Nonni's?

I'm A Talking Head

On Sunday the Cap Stable podcast recorded the first of a series of panels that will discuss the candidates running for the 10th Council of Stellar Management.  In addition to the usual cast, the guests joined the panel discussion: Lockefox of the Hydrostatic Podcast and EVE Prosper Market Show, Random McNally of the High Drag podcast, and me.

One of these things is not like the others.  That's right, I'm a blogger in the middle of a bunch of podcasters.  Now, Sunday was not my first podcast.  I've appeared on the Declarations of War podcast as well as an earlier edition of Cap Stable with Lanctharus.  However, this podcast was my first as an "expert".  I guess I know a fair bit about this CSM election, having read all of the candidates' announcement posts on the EVE Online forums, listened to all of the Cap Stable interviews at least once, and read all of the interviews over on Just For Crits.  But could I actually get the words out in the midst of all these experienced podcasters?

Instead of going into details about what we discussed, I'll just provide the link to listen to the podcast.  What I'd like to do in this post is go a little behind the scenes, because what the Cap Stable guys are trying to do is amazing.

First, I should point out that the Cap Stable podcast has a link to one of the biggest gaming podcasts, The Instance.  I used to listen to The Instance every week and when I heard that a corp named Alea Iacta Est Universal had formed in EVE, I knew exactly what was happening.  AIEU, the corp that is the home for the Cap Stable gang, is an off-shoot of the AIE mega-guild that formed around The Instance.  I heard that before Blizzard decided to kill the mega-guilds in WoW that AIE boasted a membership of over 9000 members.  That's right, WoW had a guild that rivaled the size of Goonswarm.

When I look at the Cap Stable podcast, I can see some of the lineage from The Instance, including some of the little things like the presence of the Creative Commons license and the humor in the segways between segments.  Of course, if you have access to a successful podcaster like Scott Johnson, might as well ask him how to do things right.  Over the years, I've watched the Cap Stable podcast grow up into a pretty good listen.

The Cap Stable crew is pretty organized, which is a good thing since their goal is to interview everyone running for CSM.  For Sunday's panel, I received an invite via Google mail early in the week along with a Google doc with an outline of the subjects we'd discuss on the panel.  The Google document was nice because I could track the changes as more interviews were published.  Of course, the more interviews published, the more work I needed to do in show preparation.  While the hosts were doing all the work, I didn't want to make a fool of myself by not knowing the subject!

A brief note about the interviews with the candidates.  I think Lanc discussed the format on the podcast, but I think the point needs some repeating.  The interviewers are trying to get information out of the candidates, which means their approach possibly isn't as confrontational as some would like.  But as only a couple of outlets are doing projects of this nature (currently Just For Crits is the other), getting the information out is more important than playing gotcha journalism.  Besides, I don't think that Cap Stable is just lobbing softballs to the candidates.

About a half-hour before the recording time, the Google reminder went off and logged onto Skype.  Lockefox was already on and Lanctharus was making the final changes to the show notes.  I know that show notes are a pretty standard thing for podcasts, but I still think watching the process as the Google doc updated as the conversation occurred on Skype.

I should add that the Cap Stable crew is pretty disciplined where the length of their podcasts are concerned.  The interview length of 30 minutes that Xander set for his CSM 8 interviews worked and the Cap Stable interviews continue the tradition.  A 30 minute interview is long enough to give a lot of provide a lot of information but short enough not to drive people away.  That principle also applies to the panel shows.  A 60 minute podcast is a reasonable length of time not only to listen to, but to record.  Also, I imagine the length also makes editing the recording a lot easier as well.  I feel sorry for the poor souls that have to edit two and even three hour long podcasts.

In the discussion before the podcast, we knew that Lanc was going to moderate and that we needed to take care not to talk over each other.  I think we did an okay job of that.  I haven't listened to the podcast let, but hopefully a  couple of the longer pauses were taken out during the editing process.

Like I mentioned before, I won't discuss what we talked about, but I think the session went well.  Random was a little late (hey, real life > EVE), and I think the session picked up steam once he joined.  The only awkward moment came when the last candidate's interview, Psianh Auvyander's came up, and I was the only one of the guests who had listened.  Remember when I mentioned doing show prep?  I had my notes in my own Google doc and was able to talk about him.  Thankfully, Psianh is one of the better candidates so I had enough material to talk intelligently about him for a bit.  I can't imagine trying to do that for some of the others.

Looking at the title of the podcast, you'll notice it reads CSM X Analysis Show #1.  That's right, I think we will record these shows every week right up to the beginning of the voting.  We'll continue to talk about the candidates whose interviews were published during the week.  Next week's show already has corbexx and Mike Azariah on the list, so I think that will prove interesting listening.

So now I'm a talking head pontificating on the important subject of internet spaceship politics.  EVE definitely has led me to a strange place, hasn't it?

The Rabbit Hole: Monopolizing Resouces

This week, I'd like to continue discussing the five reasons why real money trading (RMT)  has negative effects on massively multi-player online games as spelled out in the initial post of the series. In his 2006 paper, "A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Real-Money Trade in the Products of Synthetic Economies", Dr Edward Castronova stated that, "RMT induces gold farmers to occupy territory and system resources."  However, I'd like to modernize the statement a little, to state that real money trading results in gold farming activity that monopolizes content and uses disproportionate amount of game server resources.

CSM X Election: Bobmon And The Rules

Last night I was on a podcast panel discussing the CSM X election.  That's right, I've graduated to the coveted position of talking head discussing the important area of internet spaceship politics.  I'll discuss the experience more once the podcast is released, but I'd like to discuss a subject that came up: Bobmon and CSM's age requirement.

I don't think I said anything about the subject.  At least, I hope I didn't say anything, because after a good night's sleep, I finally came up with an intelligent answer.  That's the problem as a blogger on a podcast; blogging doesn't require the ability to think quickly.  So while the other panelists went back and forth about CCP changing the rules, I remained quiet.

For those who don't follow the subject closely, Bobmon, according to the current rules, is not old enough to run for election to the CSM.  However, CCP Leeloo stated that Bobmon would have no problem meeting the age requirement:

"We are indeed looking into changing the age requirements for the CSM. More information about this and other changes will be included in the candidacy opening blog, which will be published on January 30th as I mentioned here.

"At this point I can assure you that Bobmon will not have any age related issues with his CSMX campaign."

Without giving anything away, one point was alluded to, but not brought up plainly.  CCP Leeloo has not posted the rules for the election yet.  That's right, the election campaign has basically run since the beginning of December and the rules everyone is running under are still unknown.  CCP Leeloo made a good decision in disclosing the one rules change so that Bobmon isn't penalized by making him start his campaign late.

Should CCP post the election rules earlier?  I don't think so, even though doing so would make my life as a talking head easier.  I don't think CCP should begin the official election season until the last major piece of CSM activity for the term, the winter summit, has concluded.  At that point CCP can begin the transition from supporting the current CSM to creating the next one.  Posting the rules one week after the end of the winter summit seems appropriate.

However, I'm glad that candidates do not wait until the election rules are posted to begin campaigning.  Working on the election page for CSM Wire, I know I wouldn't have a life if I had to try to do all the work beginning on 30 January.  Or, more likely, I just wouldn't try.  I don't know for sure, but I don't think the Cap Stable guys would try to interview all the candidates either.  I also don't know how Marc Scaurus would get his interviews done over on Just For Crits either.

Of course, I didn't think of any of this during the recording.  Like I mentioned at the beginning of the post, thinking quickly isn't a requirement for blogging.

Thoughts On The o7 Show

Yesterday's o7 Show probably has lots of people upset.  Not the majority, but lots.  Or, the usual suspects will begin sounding the "EVE is dying/becoming WoW" chant.

The first item on the show, the new Minmatar tech 3 destroyer was interesting in that we now know the ship will appear in the February release.  No stats are known, but the artwork shows the ship is not vertical.  For some reason that matters to some people.

Next up was the replacement for the existing ship skins, Super Kerr Induced Nanocoating.  Instead of applying a ship skin on a ship (which then created a whole lot of extra ship types), the Super Kerr Induced Nanocoating is a license that follows the pilot.  I'm assuming CCP figures that players don't purchase ship skins because they are lost when the ship explodes.  I know I don't.  With the Super Kerr Induced Nanocoating, CCP can make a lot of color schemes and probably sell them to a significant portion of the player base.  I think CCP is thinking of the League of Legends champion skins model.  CCP has certainly infiltrated enough spais into Riot recently to have all of their secrets.

Following a lot of community news, including a teaser for the Fanfest pre-event, CCP Punkturis and CCP Sharq made an appearance to talk about UI improvements.  CCP Punkturis is working on the corporation interface, a sore spot for a lot a players (i.e., everyone who runs a corporation).  What they discovered is that the UI is a lot more complicated than necessary.  CCP Over-complicating things?  I'm shocked, but I'll believe them.  So the goal is to perform a lot of "little things" fixes until the corporations receive a complete revamp.  Roles are also on the table and CCP Sharq seems in charge of that.

Perhaps the most controversial, in terms of potential noise/crying/taunting on the forums, is giving corp leaders the option to turn friendly fire off between corp members.  Everyone looks at the move as one targeted against those who like to go on "safari" (join a corp and then start shooting players until kicked), although the new mechanic will still not prevent corp theft or awoxing.¹  

For me, those were the highlights.  But they were just a taste of things to come, which is what the o7 Show truly is, a tease.  But a good tease.

UPDATE: CCP Masterplan has posted a clarification on the corp friendly fire mechanic on Reddit.

NOTES:

1. Awoxing is the practice of infiltrating a corp, then providing a warp in point to hostile fleets.  As awoxing does not involve shooting at other players, the practice is unaffected by the new mechanic. Remember, every time someone misuses the term awoxing, CCP Fozzie cries.  Or he thinks about nerfing a ship, I'm not sure which.

CSM X Election: Not Quite According To Plan

After last year's horrendous turnout of under 31 thousand voters, CCP needed to do something about increasing turnout.  Okay, needed is too strong a word.  But CCP's efforts to publicize the CSM elections the past two years were pretty bad.  Last year, the emphasis was left entirely to the players.  I wondered if that was a result of a deliberate policy to keep turnout low or just CCP Dolan being CCP Dolan.

If I can say one thing about CSM 9, the differences with CSM 8 are pretty big as CCP Leeloo works to clean up the mess CCP Dolan left before he left to work for Riot.  Not only was CSM 9 involved in PR situations like the final SOMERblink scandal, but we didn't have to wait months for the summer summit minutes.  And CCP Leeloo has shown she wants to publicize the CSM X election as well.

Yesterday, CCP Leeloo published a dev blog mostly written by seven members of CSM 9.  Finally, before the election season starts, CCP publicizes what the CSM does, from the players own words.  Something in writing so that players who don't follow the CSM can see that the player body is not just a toothless PR tool.  Well, Sion Kumitomo decided to dump a steaming pile of cow dung on the effort with his contribution.  Here is the first few paragraphs:

"This review comes at an interesting point in the term. By this time, particularly given that I’m running again, I should have a string of accomplishments that I could hang my name off of, but I don’t. I should have the dedicated enthusiasm required to stay active for the entire term, but I don’t. I should have platitudes to offer and abounding praises. I certainly don’t have those. Instead, I find that I’m deeply frustrated and increasingly having to defend an institution in which I struggle to believe.

"There will no doubt be council members who sing CCP’s praise and proclaim the efficacy of the CSM. Broadly speaking, I don’t know how any of them could get to that conclusion via any evidenced based rationale. The new release pace frequently means that the CSM is cut out of the development feedback process, sometimes nearly entirely. There’s a growing list of items, some major, that we saw at the same time the rest of the player base did.

"When the CSM attempted to get looped into the new development model better, we sometimes started seeing items one day, perhaps two, before they were released. Even something as major as the 0.0 revamp has been a dead topic since the last summit. This is all the more frustrating because after the scuffle erupted from the CSM's name being used to promote changes we didn't endorse, we had a meeting where we were assured that we would be kept in the loop.

"Actions speak louder than words. The shared Skype channel is frequently home to all manner of defensive, passive aggressive, or antagonistic exchanges.

"All of this makes it very difficult to work as the institution should. Some EVE pundits will say that the CSM is a toothless institution that CCP uses when convenient or as a marketing tool, and nothing more. There's some truth to that. The CSM was designed around a titled system with a Chair and two releases per year. The institution hasn't adapted, and its relevance, such as it was, has suffered because of it."

Sion's section is the main part of the story.  Forget what the rest of the CSM members stated, especially corbexx, who seems to have done yeoman work representing wormholes and providing CCP with valuable data on POS use and PvE content.  When someone establishes a Skype channel that connects CCP devs with wormhole leaders and diplomats to make sure wormhole concerns are at least heard, something positive is happening.

Now, corbexx didn't say no problems exist with the CSM/CCP relationship.  He concluded with the following:

"Some CCP teams/groups make great use of the CSM, but I feel some groups don’t, be it they don’t think we would be interested, They maybe don’t see how we could of helped. I’m not suggesting we can help in every team/department, but if we don’t know about stuff we sure as hell can’t help."

Sugar Kyle also gave some thoughts on interacting with CCP:

"When it comes to interacting with CCP a lot of time is spent advocating player concerns and worries. Even if it does not want to be heard or it is an old topic it comes back up. There is not always resolution. Not all of these make it into a large review. Some are not yet finalized and some are more quiet events. Yet advocating does simple things like create more clarity to players who do not understand what things like SSO are. It will, hopefully, do other things such as a better way to search through channels so that players with unsupported languages can more easily find each other. It is not easy and it is not always successful, but the effort is made."

Mike Azariah, who was first elected in CSM 8, had these comments:

"As a group the CSM has spent a lot of time adapting to the new faster (MUCH faster) pace of the release schedule. Things change so quickly that some does not get seen by us much sooner than it is is seen on the test server. Other broader strokes we try to get input as early as is possible. Do we know everything and see everything? No, and I am not sure that that is even possible. A summit often covers projects coming up but then that project is done and two more run before another summit happens. This goes back to CSM 8's attempt to build more bridges to other teams and get more lines of communication open to the devs.

"Progress and change have been made. The decision to eliminate officers showed that we could function without them. Personal projects and one on one contact with devs started to replace the idea that we need to talk to entire teams taking them all away from the job at hand. Helping bridge the gap between players and the dev teams have lead to a more open and direct exchange of ideas with CSM acting as enablers, not the conduit itself. Hell, if we do this well enough we might manage to organize ourselves right out of a job. Or, better yet, change the job as this one will be done and we can take on a different aspect."

I think what we are seeing with the CSM is an institution in transition, partly due to CSM 8's decision to make CSM 9 operate without officers for the first half of the term.  CSM 9 then decided that if no officers is good for half a term, then why does the body need officers at all?  After all, on paper, the officers had absolutely no power.  What were they good for?

I also think that corbexx judged the matter correctly.  CCP is not some faceless monolith.  Some people love the CSM (think CCP Fozzie) while others think of them as an inconvenience.  I always thought CCP Greyscale fell into the latter camp, but that is just from looking at the situation from the outside.  Then again, who wants a bunch of players telling you that you're wrong?  I can see that perhaps on something as large as the null sec revamp that you want everything as solid as possible before presenting the plans to the CSM.  The plan is going to have holes anyway; why not try to keep the period spent patching the holes as short as possible?

Regardless, CCP Leeloo has now done as much to promote the upcoming CSM election as CCP Dolan did for the CSM 9 election.  I do think, though, with Sion's commentary (which she allowed to remain), that the dev blog didn't go entirely as planned.

CORRECTION:  I was contacted by Ripard Teg about the decision not to have officers for the beginning of CSM 9's term.  Apparently, the suggestion to do so was made to the members of CSM 8 running for re-election by CCP Leeloo as a result of Kesper North's election to an officer position and then going AFK most of the term.  She thought that having a couple of months to evaluate who was really participating before voting on the positions.  So the decision was not made by the entirety of the CSM.

UPDATE:  Apparently my correction was unclear.  Ripard Teg was not trying to take credit for CSM 9 deciding not to have officers.  He wanted to clarify that CSM 8 as a body did not decide that CSM 9 should not have officers at the beginning of the term, just those running for re-election.  As Ripard did not run for re-election, he and the others who chose not to stand for re-election had no voice in the decision.

I apologize for any misunderstandings.

Circadian Seekers In The News

YULAI – The Directive Enforcement Department has recently completed initial investigations into the Sleeper drones designated as "Circadian Seekers" and concluded that they are in the process of adapting to perceived threats. We believe this process is well advanced and are issuing an emergency advisory under the provisions of the Yulai Convention.

We especially urge capsuleers not to become alarmed by changes in the behavior of these drones. We recommend that all pilots exercise caution when approaching Circadian Seekers and are sufficiently prepared for retaliation.

Please report any unusual activity to the lawful authorities or your local DED liaison office.

Are you one of THOSE people?  You know, someone who doesn't follow CCP's channel for EVE Online's game world news?  Someone who believes that the game world news is for dirty role players and all someone needs to do is read the patch notes, and perhaps the CSM summit minutes, to keep up with the important stuff?

Well, I have some news for you.  CCP has stated (I believe at EVE Vegas, but I don't have a link) that they do not plan to put all changes in the patch notes in the future.  Players will need to pay attention to how objects and mobs react in-game as well as read other sources of news like the game world news.  If I read the words with my tin foil hat on, the message is, "We're not going to spoon feed you everything.  What do you think this is, WoW?"

The second example (the first was Caroline's Star) is the Circadian Seeker, a Sleeper cruiser that began appearing outside wormholes in the Rhea release.  Insensitive players began to target and destroy the peaceful little drones.  That wasn't a nice thing to do.  Circadian Seekers have feeling too, you know!

Now, looking in the patch notes for Proteus, the only mention of the Sleepers is in reference to the new Superior Sleeper Cache exploration site that the patch notes call "challenging".  Are the Circadian Seekers part of the reason CCP calls the site challenging?

Reports from the Singularity test server describe how the Circadian Sleepers are "adapting to perceived threats."

@noizygamer @RixxJavix ...to your safespots... even if you cloak... WTB Seekers Cloak Scanner Probes
— Samsara Toldya (@SamsaraToldya) January 13, 2015

@noizygamer @RixxJavix Yes. With ~5 DPS per Seeker it takes some time to lose your pod. No point applied. Dmg might be higher in low/null
— Samsara Toldya (@SamsaraToldya) January 13, 2015

They chase ships off-grid?  EVE now has an NPC that actually pods players?  And the DED advisory tells players "not to become alarmed by changes in the behavior of these drones." I think Angry CONCORD Guy slipped that sentence in as a joke.  He hates capsuleers.

I don't think we've discovered the full ramifications of the new behavior of the Circadian Seeker.  Do they follow players through jump gates?  How long will they camp a player?  If a player logs out, how long before the Circadian Seekers become bored and leave?  Can a player go back to the past ala EverQuest and train the Sleeper cruisers around a system, causing them to attack other players?  Can a player create a Sleeper gate camp by training a group of Seekers to a jump gate?  I think the Circadian Seeker may prove to provide a lot of entertainment in the weeks ahead.

UPDATE:  Seems that players still are not podded on Tranquility.  Remember, not everything on the test server gets updated to the live server, even when a change is apparently in the final test build.

The Rabbit Hole: Monetary Inflation

In last week's post, I wrote about the five reasons that real money trading is bad for massively multi-player online games (MMOGs) according to a paper published by Dr. Edward Castronova of Indiana University.  In today's post, I'd like to tackle a subject that even subject matter experts disagree on: does RMT cause monetary inflation in the virtual worlds in online games?

Who Wants Loading Screens?

Sometimes, playing other games helps me realize some of the things EVE Online just does right.  Currently, I'm playing Star Wars: The Old Republic and fighting through the annoying lag that 40-45 players creates on Alderaan.  Quite frankly, if I had a death star like Darth Vader, I'd vaporize the planet also.  But I'm not here to praise EVE's time dilation (TiDi) system for handling lag.  Instead, I have a more mundane concern to discuss: loading screens.

I've played a lot of MMORPGs throughout the years and EVE is probably the most instanced of those games.  With each of the game's 7,000+ systems plus individual instances for when a player is docked, one might expect a lot of loading screens.  Well, players do see a lot of loading screens, but they are probably the least annoying I've ever come across.

Hurry up, I want to play!

Above is an example of the loading screen I see in SWTOR after I select the character I want to play.  The screen is nice, letting me know generally where in the story I am.  But I have a long time to read the synopsis, as the game initially takes a lot longer to load than EVE.  Okay, but I only have to put up with the long wait once, right?

Wrong.  If traveling off-planet, even if a player only wants to hold a conversation on the ship with one of the player's companions, results in another long loading screen.

At least I learn something ... maybe.

I think just hopping into and out of the ship is the most annoying thing about the instancing.  I don't want to leave the planet, I just want to drop something off or talk to someone!  Sometimes, a quest takes requires a visit to use the hologram receiver on the ship and a short conversation.  Yet, I have to watch my ship take off from the spaceport and endure a loading screen.  Then, once I'm done with my business, I have to watch my ship travel back to the planet, then endure another, longer loading screen.

Admittedly, except during large fleet fights, EVE doesn't have as many objects displayed on the screen as SWTOR.  That said, EVE's loading screens when traveling between instances (i.e. systems) look a lot better than SWTOR's.

Skip to 1:28 if the video starts at the beginning

In the Odyssey expansion, CCP replaced the old loading bar with a warp tunnel effect to link two systems.  While I had a period of adjustment due to the effect making my stomach queasy, the warp tunnel definitely does not break my immersion in the game.  Unlike in SWTOR, the game does not take me out of the universe with a loading screen.  That's really good, because sometimes I'll travel 25 jumps to visit a particular agent when I want to grind out Sisters of EVE loyalty points.  If I had to endure 25 loading screens like I see in SWTOR, I'd probably rage quit. 

I realize that loading screens seem like a small thing to criticize a game about.  However, the little things do matter.  Let enough annoyances build up and some people will stop having fun and unsubscribe.  That's one of the reasons I'm okay with CCP trying to fix things like the New Player Experience, PvE content, and the UI before really marketing the game to new players again.  EVE is hard enough to learn already without having annoying features.  Fixing some of the major systems that either enhance or detract from the game will help the retention rate.  And for a subscription MMO, a company needs to hang onto the players it attracts in order to pay the bills.

Time To Make The Decision

With Proteus launching on Tuesday, I have to make a decision over the weekend.  What ship do I use to replace my Hound when I'm mining.  The Hound is a nice ship that's served me well as a scout in low sec, but with combat recons getting the d-scan immunity, I think I may need a tougher ship.  My first line of defense when mining is mining while aligned, but with the d-scan immunity, low sec will get a little bit more dangerous.  Not that much, really, but enough to worry about.  I finish training the last of my Tengu skills to V today, so here are my options:

Tengu.  Not really my first choice, but the Tengu does offer PvE possibilities.  Also, I'm pretty sure ships would peel off to have a chance at a tech 3 cruiser.  On the plus side, the ship shield tanks, which is what I'm most comfortable doing.  Add in heavy missiles and I should have the ability to kite.  Or at least run away once the mining barge has escaped.  The major drawback is cost.  Do I really want to use a ship worth close to a billion ISK to protect a 25 million ISK barge?

Stratios.  The Sisters of EVE cruiser also offers PvE possibilities.  With a built-in probing bonus, sizable cargo hold, lasers as primary armament and drone bonuses, I could use the ship to run off on long exploration trips when I'm not mining.  The negative is that I'm not experienced with drone boats and I haven't armor tanked in years.  I'd need a shakedown cruise or two before actually using the ship in low sec.

Falcon.  I suspect to see a lot of Rooks flying around low sec once Proteus launches.  What's the best way to counter ECM?  More ECM.  While training a Griffin alt is a possibility, the Falcon looks like the better option.  The only problem is the firepower.  Can a Falcon drive off NPC battleships?  I don't like warping off due to NPCs and I'm afraid the Falcon can't do the job on the PvE front.

Rapier.  I already own a Rapier, I'm just waiting for the revamp to fit the missile launchers.  I have used Bellicose to run complexes in low sec in the past, so I think the Rapier can provide the DPS needed to battle the belt rats.  I think with its web bonuses that the Rapier can hold an enemy at a distance, but I'm not sure.  All I need is to drive off an interloper.  If the enemy warps off, mission accomplished.  The Rapier is possibly a good choice for mining escort duty.

Arazu.  If I want to kill rather than scare, then the Arazu is possibly a better choice.  Web and scram bonuses (did I mention I have Recon Ships trained to V?) plus sensor dampening?  The only downside I can see is DPS against battleships, but the ship definitely looks viable against smaller rats.

Pilgrim.  A ship that may prove the flavor of the month with the changes the Amarr force recon ship will see on Tuesday.  The ship has energy vampire and neutralizer bonuses as well as a drone bonus.  The ship probably doesn't have the ability to stand up to NPC battlships, but I think a player may face a surprise if I decloak in one of these.

Those are the six ships I'm looking at.  I'm sure someone will suggest buying them all.  I probably should, because unpredictablility is a good thing.  But I still need to figure out which one will work best.

CSM X: Where To Find Election Information On The Candidates

Even though the official campaign season for electing CSM 10 (or CSM X) begins in about 3 weeks when CCP Leeloo posts the official dev blog, the candidates are hard at work already.  As of today, 30 candidates have announced their intentions to run for the 14 seats up for grabs by making a post in the CSM Campaigns section of the official EVE Online forums.

Over the past several years, podcasters have served the EVE community by conducting interviews with the candidates.  For the second year running, the Cap Stable podcast is attempting to interview as many candidates as possible.  So far they have published three interviews, with Borat Guereen, Sugar Kyle, and June Ting.  These thirty minute interviews are pretty well done and informative, so those who want a little more information about a candidate can hear exactly what the candidate things about some of the issues.

In addition, candidates usually make live appearances on both EVE Radio and Podside as well as other podcasts.  CSM member Mike Azariah is known to frequently hotdrop both sites, so at least one candidate will appear live.  Declarations of War, run by former CSM member Alekseyev Karrde, usually has one or two shows with candidate panels.  Jade from the Lost In EVE podcast historically has hosted candidate forums, although I don't know if he will do so on the latest incarnation of the podcast.

On the blogging/forum front, Foo has posted the responses he has received from a list of questions he asked the candidates.  Also, the Eve News 24-affiliated Warp To Zero forums has a section where CSM candidates are answering questions.

One effort I will keep my eye on, however, is on the newly created Just For Crits blog.  Created by the executive editor of TheMittani.com, candidates are answering questions about their views on low sec and other questions tailored to each candidate.  So far, seven candidates are listed as having agreed to participate.

One other resource that usually is available after the candidates are approved is Dierdra Vaal's Vote Match website.  I don't know if he is planning on running the site this year.  If he does, candidates will fill out a form about issues and then players can go to the Vote Match website, answer questions, and find out which candidates they are most in agreement with.

I plan on listening to all of the interviews and write a brief news post that will appear on the much neglected CSM Wire.  In addition to the news posts, I have created a page for each candidate that contains the RSS feed for the candidate's EVE Online forum posts as well as copied their campaign posts to the page.  I'm hoping to add such things as contact information and links to social media and campaign appearances by the time the official campaign season begins.

Last year was a pretty dismal year for turnout.  Hopefully, EVE players will turn out a little stronger to choose which players will have direct contact with the CCP developers working on EVE.

CCP's War On Illicit RMT: Buyers Beware

Since the beginning of 2015, CCP has implemented some new security policies.  The one I'm most interested in concerns the new policy concerning those who purchase ISK or PLEX from illicit ISK sellers.  I haven't found any tears to post so far, but CCP Peligro from Team Security did give out a figure on Monday via Twitter.

Reminder: ISK Buying is now a 7 day ban on 1st offense, as of 1/1/2015. 300+ accounts missed the memo! http://t.co/ncaF5GEIBC #tweetfleet
— CCP Peligro (@CCP_Peligro) January 5, 2015

That's right, in the first five days of 2015, CCP has already banned more players for buying from shady RMT dealers than they did in all of 2014.  From the graphs and charts in the December security dev blog, I estimated that CCP banned appoximately 250 players for that offense.  Of course, before 1 January, players only received a warning plus had their purchase confiscated for a first offense.  Now?  They receive a seven day ban.

While I haven't seen any tears in the reviews of ISK buyers for the site I watch, the number of sellers is down.  If CCP is banning buyers, that means they are also catching the sellers.  I am hopeful that the reduction in the number of sellers is due to Team Security convincing people that selling ISK just isn't worth the hassle.

Update: I got home from work and dissatisfied customers are starting to complain.

First blood documented

The Rabbit Hole: Why Is RMT Bad?

Over the past 2-3 years, I wrote thousands of words concerning the subject of real money trading in MMORPGs, mainly in EVE Online.  I attempted to write a comprehensive post on the subject of RMT on a few occasions in the past, but much like Lewis Carroll's Alice, I always find myself distracted as I venture down the rabbit hole into the world inhabited by botters, hackers, and gold sellers.  So, instead of a comprehensive work, I decided to write about the subject on Tuesdays.

This initial post in the series will address a topic I have never addressed directly before: why RMT is bad.  But first, I must define the term real money trading.  At the end of 2013, I defined RMT as, at its most basic level, the exchange of virtual goods, including in-game currency, and services for real world currency.  I then, relying on the work of two researchers from the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology, divided real money trading into a primary and secondary market.

Looking Back At An Old CSM 9 Controversy

Sometimes waiting for all of the facts to emerge means not writing about an event or controversy.  I'm not referring to the kerfuffle this weekend over Nashh Kadavr's Titan Smash event.  The facts were pretty much revealed in the course of 24 hours.  No, I'm referring to the force projection changes and the extent that the CSM was consulted on the changes prior to CCP Greyscale's 1 October dev blog, "Long Distance Travel Changes Inbound."  I wanted to explore the CSM/CCP relationship angle, but by the time the CSM Summer Summit minutes were released on 29 October, the force projection changes story had pretty much played itself out.  However, with the beginning of the CSM election season, the story once again becomes relevant.

CCP's War On Illicit RMT - End Of Year Rush

While many people are waiting on the results of CCP's enforcement of input broadcasting, input multiplexing, and the general enforcement of Section 6A3 of the EVE Online EULA, I'm more interested in the price of illicit ISK.  Following CCP Falcon's post about input broadcasting, I started monitoring the Player Auctions website again to see if anything unusual would occur.

The first was a sharp rise in the purchase of ISK following the publication of the security dev blog on 19 December.  In the dev blog, CCP Grimmi announced a change in the punishment for those who purchase ISK outside of the PLEX system.  The penalties increased to a 7-day suspension of all accounts for a first offense and a permanent ban of all accounts for a second offense.  I'm not sure that the following day's sales volume of 109 billion ISK sold the next day was a direct result of the dev blog, but the possibility exists.  I don't have figures from December 2013 to do a proper comparison, but 58% of the ISK sales I was able to track occurred in the final 13 days of the month.

Of course, another reason so much illicit ISK was sold in the final two weeks of the year was due to someone holding a fire sale.  A new seller created an account Christmas night and started selling ISK at 40-45% of the going market price.  From 26-28 December, the individual managed to sell 185 billion ISK.  The dip in the graph on those three days shows the effect the one seller had on the market.  The same seller then delisted until 31 December, when the account sold another 21 billion ISK.

A funny thing happened.  The seller appeared on the site by noon EVE time but by 8pm when I looked again, the seller had disappeared.  Either the seller ran out of ISK, or CCP tracked down the seller's assets in-game.  Currently, I don't have enough information to say one way or the other.  But distributing that much ISK that quickly may have made the seller very noticeable.

What does January have in store?  I'm not sure, although with the new policies hopefully players will turn to purchasing PLEX from a reputable source instead of going to shady ISK sellers.  But only time will tell.  Then again, perhaps if a lot of players start receiving bans, that will get the message out about not patronizing the ISK sellers.