The Ghost Of Somer

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

- George Santayana

I saw something on Twitter yesterday I couldn't believe. I went to the news channel on the EVE community and confirmed the information. CCP, to use a technical term, fucked up.

The announcement involved the handout of the Pacifier and Enforcer to attendees of Fanfest 2017. CCP Falcon confirmed that the error was intentional.

We’re happy to announce that the Pacifier and Enforcer class CONCORD hulls have now been distributed as part of the Fanfest 2017 ticket purchase rewards.

Those pilots who bought their Fanfest 2017 tickets before 2017/01/01 have been gifted:

• 1x Enforcer class Recon Cruiser

• 1x Pacifier class Covert Ops Frigate

Those pilots who bought their Fanfest tickets after 2016/12/31 have been gifted:

• 1x Pacifier class Covert Ops Frigate

These ships should now be in your redeeming system, one package of ships for each account registered to your email address. [emphasis mine]

Seriously, one set for each account? In the past, CCP gave out one set of gifts to attendees of Fanfest and EVE Vegas to the account used to sign up for the event. I think I qualify as a valid source as I have attended 6 Fanfests and 2 EVE Vegas events. In the interests of full disclosure, I attended Fanfest 2017 and have 3 paid accounts that share the same email address. That's right, I received 3 Pacifiers and 3 Enforcers. Honestly, that's fucked up.

I didn't feel too guilty, because I know my three accounts were on the low end for Fanfest attendees. People who attend Fanfest are a bit passionate about EVE and have a lot of accounts. Think of all the cyno alts, scouts, market, industry, and PI alts out there along with freighter alts and I probably fell within the bottom quartile. And if a player let a number of subscriptions expire, that's okay, as those counted as alpha accounts and received ships too.

The fact I cannot understand is how CCP can have such a short institutional memory. In October 2013, a giveaway of a special ship, the Ishukone Watch Scorpion, by CCP to the EVE gambling site SOMER Blink created a controversy.

"SOMER Blink is a player-run gambling site, featuring micro lotteries where players buy tickets for a chance to win valuable ships and other in-game assets. The tickets are bought with ISK that players have deposited in the system either directly, or as a result of bonuses that SOMER Blink offers to players who purchase EVE Game Time Codes through SOMER Blink’s affiliate program. By all accounts, a massive amount of ISK has passed through the system, with the site recently celebrating 1 quadrillion in ISK prizes won by players.

"In an email exchange with TMC staff, SOMER Blink second in command Andrev Nox seems to confirm that the leaked mail is real. “CCP has been using the Ishukone Scorpions for community site rewards and ingame event giveaways for a while now, with Blink being neither the first nor the last in that program,“ he writes.

"The special edition battleships are not available to manufacture and are rarely given out by CCP. Eighty-one were given away at FanFest as part of the Charity Poker Tournament and PvP Tournament and added to the game as part of the Odyssey expansion. Another was given out as part of a role-playing event and SOMER Blink was given ten to use as rewards. To date, there have been no other public giveaways of the ship, meaning that SOMER Blink employees' private rewards may account for a quarter of the Scorpions Ishukone Watch in the game. The ships tend to sell for 10-20 billion ISK meaning that the gift was worth 300-600 billion ISK.

"The revelations come on the heels of another controversy surrounding SOMER Blink’s close relationship with CCP. In September, CCP announced and then walked back plans to reintroduce the Golden Magnate ship to the game via a giveaway on SOMER Blink’s site. Previously, only one Golden Magnate had ever been created (it was subsequently destroyed). They similarly had to cancel plans to offer new Guardian Vexors, another limited edition ship rarely seen in game."

In the above case, CCP Manifest explained the Ishukone Watch Scorpion was designed as a promotional ship, much like the pirate rookie ships that CCP occasionally gives out. Likewise, the Pacifier and Enforcer are also promotional ships that players can obtain through some means yet to be announced.

I can justify in my mind CCP giving out one set of ships to Fanfest attendees. If the other 99+% of EVE players who did not travel to Iceland have a chance to earn a ship or three, then Fanfest attendees don't really gain an advantage except for receiving the ships early. But if some people received over 150 of each ship, that's an entirely different situation. Will other players have the opportunity to earn 150 of their own? For some reason I don't think so.