SOMERblink 2014: Closing The Doors

Last night just before midnight EVE time, the following statement was posted on SOMERblink:

Hey friends,

Thanks for all the years of Blink that we've spent together. It's been a long four years-- some of it longer than others!

Unfortunately, as of today, Blink is going to go on extended-- perhaps indefinite-- hiatus. CCP has gone back on everything they said several months ago, and the resulting environment is so hostile that it's not one we want to try to operate in, if CCP throws us under the bus after asking repeatedly for confirmation.

If you have prizes waiting, they will be fulfilled. You can claim prizes as normal. Bonk tickets have been refunded to your account balance. We will begin refunding all account balances of people that have played in the last 6 months, starting with balances over 5 million ISK. As always, we're not in the business of stealing your money.

It's been an absolute pleasure to meet many of you, through Blink, Eve, and our lotteries channel. Thank you for the experience.

Two hours later, CCP Falcon, EVE's Community Manager, posted the following on the EVE Online forums:

Hey guys,

We’re aware that SOMER Blink has posted a message to state that their services are shutting down.

We’re also well aware that a lot of members of the community have enjoyed playing SOMER Blink over the course of the last four years, and it’s very unfortunate and saddening to see a source of enjoyment for our players closing its doors.

In the same respect however, we believe that the promotion that caused this issue was not representative of the original proposal that was brought to CCP.

Given that we’re unable to provide reimbursements as per section 1.3 of our reimbursement policy, it’s good to see that SOMER Blink is shutting down in a controlled and stable manner, and that players will be able to withdraw their ISK and / or assets.

While we will be monitoring this closely, we have no intention of interfering with this process, as we feel that allowing players to be able to have their assets and / or ISK returned by SOMER Blink of their own free will is an important part of bringing this situation to a solid resolution.

We’ll have more information for you guys tomorrow, once myself and CCP Leeloo get back into the office and speak to the relevant people, including the CSM.

This remains a top priority for the community team, those involved in other parts of CCP, and the CSM.

Thanks for your patience while we work on bringing this to a close.

I'll just post a graphic of the proposal one more time.

I'm not going to lie.  Any respect I may have had for SOMERblink and Somerset Mahm disappeared last November when he held a liquidation sale to squeeze as much RMT money from his ISK as possible.  At that point, he revealed himself as just another RMTer.  So when CCP halted the latest SOMERblink RMT scheme that was unveiled this weekend, I was glad.  Somerset's leaking of correspondence between CCP and himself revealed someone taking advantage of someone who didn't suspect deception.  In effect, we witnessed the Vice President of Global Sales reduced to the level of a rookie GM getting petitioned for a ship loss.  I suspect she is not familiar with the culture within EVE and fell prey to a scam.  At least, judging from CCP Falcon's forum post, what CCP considers a scam.

Unlike some people, I'm not going to celebrate the passing of SOMERblink.  In my eyes, CCP has just convinced another illicit RMT operator that he cannot make a big enough profit in New Eden to justify the time investment.  What I hope happens is that CCP takes a careful look at what happened so these events don't happen in the future.  So on that front, I don't consider the SOMERblink scandal of 2014 closed quite yet.

SOMERblink 2014: Not So Fast

Matters are moving quickly in the case of SOMERblink's latest promotion.  The CSM contacted CCP about the matter at 2am Reykjavik time and received an immediate response from CCP Falcon, EVE Online's community manager, and CCP Leeloo, CCP's liaison with the CSM.  After putting in a 22-hour day, CCP Falcon gave an update on the forums that included this paragraph:

"Given the sheer size of the investigation that we’ll be undertaking, this is going to take some time, as a lot of ISK and assets have changed hands. While some temporary action has been taken in order to keep a handle on the situation, any outcome of an investigation is still to be determined, and I can’t give any further information regarding the process while it’s ongoing."

One of those actions apparently was to tell SOMERblink to stop their promotion.  SOMERblink's site was updated with the following:

As seen on SOMERblink on 18 August 2014

The first of the two hyperlinks contains an email exchange between Somerset Mahm and Lisa Bell-Cabrera, Vice-President in charge of Global Sales for CCP.  Posting that exchange violates point 18 of the EVE Online Terms of Service:

18.  You may not publish private communications from CCP, their agents or representatives or EVE Online volunteers without authorization.

I'm pretty sure CCP did not give permission to post that, so Somerset Mahm is subject to some sort of punishment from CCP.  While the contents of the email exchange are flying around the forums, I'll take the prudent course and not quote from the emails directly.  I'll just characterize the exchange as Somerset was anxious to get his authorization to proceed.  He became impatient with the speed with which the legal department was working and she gave her approval via email.  Interestingly, that was back in April.  The promotion was originally supposed to debut 1 May.

The second hyperlink is for the actual proposal for the promotion.  Apparently affiliate promotions are sent to CCP's legal department for approval.  Here is how CSM delegate DJ FunkyBacon described the document:

@dirkmacgirk @noizygamer proposal is a poorly worded hack job intended to confuse someone not entirely familiar with how Eve works.
— FunkyBacon (@FunkyBacon) August 19, 2014

The justification for the promotion was very interesting:

"Justification: Blink provides no extra ISK or bonus Blink credit for buying through the link. Instead, we make it easy to sell your PLEX and get your ISK quickly, no matter where you are-- no Jita alt required. This is a service, in keeping with CCP's new guidelines that ETC affiliate link rewards should be service-oriented."

The description of the proposal given to CCP

Selling PLEX in Jita as a service?  Okay, I can understand that.  A very useful service for those deep in w-space.  But the paragraph begins, "Blink provides no extra ISK buying though the link."  That is true.  The extra ISK in the promotion would come from the sale.  Indeed, in point 1 of the workflow, the proposal flat out states that, "... we guarantee we'll give you the best price."

PLEX sales in Jita, 9-17 August 2014

In the proposal, Somerset stated he would give the people who purchased PLEX through his referral link the best price.  But I don't think people really understood what "best price" was.  To add to the confusion, he did not define how he would calculate that best price.  To some, the offer of 830 million ISK for a PLEX on Sunday was the best offer.  But considering that the most expensive PLEX sold for 794 million ISK in Jita on Sunday, some might consider the additional 35 million ISK "extra".


These are some of the basic facts I found yesterday.  I actually intended to wait until Wednesday to write another post on the subject, but the changes on the SOMERblink website were too significant to pass up.  Besides, with the new information available, I couldn't sleep until this post was finished.  Hopefully, other bloggers and news sites will fill in the blanks with some more detailed analysis throughout the day as more information becomes available out of CCP headquarters in Reykjavik.

The Digital Dozen: 19 August 2014

The rankings of the top twelve MMORPGs as determined by the players of the Xfire community from play on Sunday, 10 August 2014.  For more details about the methodology, click here.  Historical data can be found here.

Rank	Prev Week	Game	Score	Hours Played	+/- %
1	1	World of Warcraft	45.8	6,909	+2.8
2	2	Guild Wars 2	14.3	2,162	-2.6
3	3	Star Wars: The Old Republic	8.5	1,278	-14.9
4	4	Final Fantasy XIV	5.7	853	-7.1
5	5	EVE Online	4.7	704	+1.9
6	6	Tera	4.5	672	+3.2
7	T7	Aion	3.9	589	+2.1
8	T7	Runescape	3.4	516	-10.6
9	--	Neverwinter	2.6	394	+85.0
10	9	Wildstar	2.4	360	-35.2
11	11	Lord of the Rings Online	2.2	334	-7.2
12	10	Elder Scrolls Online	2.0	302	-36.0

 

Total Digital Dozen Hours: 15,073

For the fifth time of the last six Sundays, the amount of time Xfire players collectively spent playing MMORPGs fell between 15,000 and 16,000 hours.   Sunday's 2.8% decline in time played was led by Star Wars: The Old Republic (-223 hours) while games seeing the biggest gains was World of Warcraft (+189 hours) and Neverwinter (+181 hours).

Three More Months - Last Thursday, Blizzard announced the release date for World of Warcraft's next expansion, Warlords of Draenor.  Apparently, the news of new content, even three month's away, has members of the Xfire community excited, as the amount of time spent playing WoW increased by 2.8%.

Tyranny of Dragons - Neverwinter vaulted back onto the list after a one week absence on the strength of the release of Tyranny of Dragons on Thursday.  The game's fourth module introduced a new class, the Scourge Warlock, as well as the new Dragonborn race.

New Kids Off The Block?  Both Elder Scrolls Online (-170 hours) and Wildstar (-196 hours) continued their fall in popularity amongst Xfire members on Sunday.  The two newest AAA subscription games are in danger of falling off the list within the next month, although a lack of competitors may wind up allowing the two to stay.  Perhaps more worryingly for the two games is I could not find a ready event that would explain the big drops in interest this week.

SOMERBlink: Party Like It's 2013

I have to hand it to the folks who run SOMERBlink. They are an imaginative crew over there.  Up until last November, SOMERBlink ran a promotion that used the GTC authorized resellers agreement to exchange ISK for real world cash.  That was shut down on 7 November last year.  However, given the way SOMERBlink cashed out before the deadline, I'm only slightly surprised that news of another scheme has emerged on Reddit.

The new promotion is a bit different than the old one which was eventually declared a violation of the EULA and no longer covered by the GTC authorized resellers agreement.  Here are the steps:

1. Purchase PLEX at Markee Dragon using SOMERblink's referral link.
2. Enter the receipt from Markee Dragon and receive a "PLEX Credit" for each PLEX purchased.
3. Redeem the PLEX Credit to sell to SOMERblink PLEX at a very favorable rate.  Yesterday, the price posted on SOMERblink was 830 million ISK/PLEX.  The average price of a PLEX sold in Jita on 16 August was 785 million ISK.

At first glance, the major difference is that a player is not given 200 million ISK worth of "Blink Credits" for purchasing using the referral link.  Instead, the player is given, at yesterday's rates, 45 million ISK per PLEX purchased.  According to what I found on the website, the player is not required to turn this ISK into Blink credits to use to play.

Whether the PLEX is sold to SOMERblink for Blink credits or hard, cold ISK, was unclear.  One person who was in the in-game channel indicated the ISK goes right back into a person's Blink account.  The sentence that leads me to believe that Blink credits are not involved is, "No waiting for your PLEX to sell-- get ISK fast so you can play Eve."  Not play blinks.  Play EVE.

However, let's assume I'm wrong and this is purchased for Blink credit.  As we learned last year, SOMERblink's payout is approximately 80%.  That means that the 830 million payout for a PLEX actually costs SOMERblink 644 million ISK, a profit of about 140 million ISK/PLEX.

The truth is probably someplace in the middle.  A person could just take the cash and run, but a lot, if not most, of the people will turn around and put the ISK back into their Blink accounts.  But either way, people are buying through SOMERblink instead of another site because of the incentive of in-game cash.

I am going to assume that what SOMERblink posted about CCP approving the promotion is accurate.  What I am not going to assume at this point is why CCP approved of the promotion.  Maybe in a couple of days when more facts come out I'll post an update.  Or provide some more background information if things start getting really out of control.  Or do some math.  I'd really love for this whole situation to come to a conclusion before Wednesday.  I'm tired of writing about SOMERblink.  But CCP better come up with a good explanation of what's going on.

A Bucket Of Ice

A lot of players like to think that EVE Online is all about collecting buckets of tears.  But the bucket I've carried around lately is filled with ice, and I need to start thinking about where I empty the contents.

The latest example concerns the new level 4 missions.  On Monday, CCP Seagull published a dev blog about the upcoming Hyperion release.  In the blog, she mentioned a new type of level 4 mission:

"Take on a single, powerful enemy using fitting skills and combat tactics in new optional level 4 missions for frigate size ships that will be available from all security agents in Empire space. An upcoming dev blog will present the new missions."

Immediately after the dev blog was published, CSM member Xander Phoena was on Twitter touting how great these missions were and how many ships players would lose because of the level of difficulty.  Now, I realize that getting new PvE content is a big deal, but sometimes I get a little selfish and think about how I play.  For me, I don't do security missions, which is what CCP Seagull's description made the new content sound like.  Also, I thought the missions were designed for more than one player, which is not a problem since I usually dual-box security missions on the rare occasions I do them.  Although, looking back, I probably have not done a combat mission of any type since I finished my big Minmatar faction grind back in December.  If I exclude COSMOS, storyline, and epic arc combat missions, I probably have not done a combat mission (i.e. a regular security mission) in over a year.  So I Tweeted out that I probably wouldn't do them.

Afterwards, I kind of felt bad about that.  I can understand Xander's excitement.  CSM members get a lot of grief about the state of the game and helping push out (I'm assuming the CSM was involved in internal testing) new PvE content shows that CCP is listening to the player base and, by extension, the CSM.  I probably should have waited for the more detailed dev blog was published, even if Xander couldn't contain himself.

I do have to say that the new burner missions don't sound bad.  Players will need to at least fit tackle and prop mods like they would in a PvP environment.  I suspect that sensor dampeners will come into play as well for the kiting NPCs.  Perhaps more importantly, the missions are part of the regular security mission pool.  The descriptions of the NPCs make the missions sound more like storyline missions, but adding the missions to the regular mix shows that CCP is updating existing content and not just making a new class of mission.

So even though the new content doesn't fit my play style, I'm glad to see CCP add the new missions.  And in the future, I'll try to think before I tweet.

A Game Of Organizations

In yesterday's post, I posited that EVE Online is not a player versus player (PvP) game, but a game that contains PvP.  I presented some statistics and concluded that I could not call a game in which an average player in a 3 hour play session doesn't die or kill another player a PvP game.  A lot of people who play EVE disagree with me, arguing that I ignored other areas of player conflict.  Fair enough.  But I was thinking of how a non-EVE gamer would perceive the game.  Given the statistics, I doubt the outsider would think that EVE is a PvP game, just one that has PvP in it.

But with all the criticism I've read, the one thing no one asked is: how would I describe the game?  Dark Age of Camelot's Realm vs. Realm model is a good place to begin, but EVE's players are a lot more fractured than the three realms in DAoC.  If EVE were a fantasy game, I would describe the game as a Guild vs. Guild game.  Since EVE players hate the term guild, however, my preferred description is the Game of Organizations.  If I have to use the world "versus" (I think it's some sort of law), then I would describe EVE as an OvO (organization vs. organization) game.

Is EVE A PvP Game?

A couple of weeks ago, Mike Azariah asked an interesting question on Twitter...

#tweetfleet I want your opinion. Is Eve a PvP game or a game that has PvP as a part of it? #eveonline
— Mike Dawe (@Mikeazariah) July 28, 2014

He followed that up with a blog post last week with his opinion and asking for others to try to sum up what type of game EVE is in one or two sentences.  I think answering the first question, whether EVE Online is a PvP game, or a game that has PvP as a part of it, goes a long way in determining how people look at EVE.

Perhaps not surprisingly, as someone who has appeared on four killmails over the past three years (two kills, two deaths), I believe that EVE is a science-fiction world simulator that uses PvP as the driving force for its economic model, and not a PvP game.  But is that opinion just formed from my unusual playstyle?  I don't think so. 

The Digital Dozen: 12 August 2014

The rankings of the top twelve MMORPGs as determined by the players of the Xfire community from play on Sunday, 10 August 2014.  For more details about the methodology, click here.  Historical data can be found here.

Rank	Prev Week	Game	Score	Hours Played	+/- %
1	1	World of Warcraft	43.3	6,720	+9.1
2	2	Guild Wars 2	14.3	2,220	-7.6
3	3	Star Wars: The Old Republic	9.7	1,501	+10.4
4	5	Final Fantasy XIV	5.9	918	+15.2
5	4	EVE Online	4.5	691	-19.0
6	6	Tera	4.2	651	-12.2
T7	7	Aion	3.7	577	-5.9
T7	9	Runescape	3.7	577	+13.1
9	8	Wildstar	3.6	556	-6.9
10	12	Elder Scrolls Online	3.0	472	+72.9
11	10	Lord of the Rings Online	2.3	360	-23.4
12	--	APB: Reloaded	1.7	262	+26.6

 

Total Digital Dozen Hours: 15,505

Sunday witnessed a small uptick in the time Xfire members spent playing their favorite MMORPGs.  The 2.9% increase in the hours spent playing these games were led by World of Warcraft (+563 hours) while Guild Wars 2 saw the biggest decline (-183 hours).

A Valorous Weekend - World of Warcraft saw an increase of 9.1% in the time spent by Xfire members in Azeroth.  Over the weekend, Blizzard handed out a buff to players that granted them an increase in the rate of acquiring Valor Points by 100%.  Apparently the offer was popular, at least with the Xfire community.

TOR Is Infectious - Star Wars: The Old Republic saw a spike in activity as Bioware held another Rakghoul Resurgence event.  The event which started on 5 August and ran until today, first ran in 2013.

Is The Third Time The Charm? - Elder Scrolls Online saw Update 3 launch last Tuesday.  The update introduced the dye system as well as improvements in the guild system.  While the percentage increase is inflated due to the decline in the size of the Xfire community, the game did manage to not fall out of the list this week.  I haven't heard any major complaints about this update like I had the other two, so perhaps ESO has hit bottom and will stablize at this point.

Catching A Break

We now know that wormhole space will receive the major focus of CCP's attention in the Hyperion release.  Good.  That will give me time to catch my breath for a bit.  Two more months will help me adapt to the current rule set.

For a long time, an expansion would come out and the way I played EVE Online wasn't really impacted.  Sure, a change in one area of the game affects the whole game, but I didn't really notice.  But Odyssey came along and I stopped running exploration sites.  I also pretty much gave up on the new ore sites as well.  I know that CCP Fozzie stated at Fanfest 2013 that the risk of mining in the ore sites was balanced against the rewards as long as the miner stayed aligned, but I decided to mainly stick to the belts.  Which was probably a good thing in the long run, because in Kronos CCP nerfed mining while aligned in a Procurer in order to satisfy high sec miners.  After trying mining in my newly nerfed Procurer for two weeks, I docked up and haven't mined in low sec since mid- to late June.

By the time Crius and the industry revamp launched two weeks ago I'd become pretty one dimensional, with all of my game play centered around travel and hauling things around.  I loved the warp speed changes in Rubicon and the blockade runner changes in Kronos.  I pretty much took what CCP gave me and ran with it.  If the devs were nerfing mining and exploration and buffing those who run distribution missions, then I was going to run distribution missions.  So I did.

Of course, now that I've written that CCP has buffed distribution missions, I expect a dev to nerf those into oblivion also.  Then I'll have the choice of returning to high sec or leaving the game.  Or ...

Or I can try to use this break until the Oceanus release at the end of September to expand what I do in EVE Online.  I posted my goals for the upcoming year on Friday and hopefully the lull in the changes for what I do will give me the change to institute some of them.  I need to act on what I want to do and stop reacting to CCP.

Five Years In EVE

Today is the fifth anniversary of the day I started my first EVE Online account.  As I do every year, it's time to take a look back at the last twelve months, what I did and didn't accomplish, and make plans for the next year.

In game, I didn't do much.  For the first time, I didn't get in on a kill in a year.  I did manage to lose a another Procurer, but otherwise I had a pretty uneventful year in game.  I did explore a bit in NPC null sec and bookmarked a few constellations in The Great Wildlands.  I basically stopped mining over the past two months following the changes to the Procurer combined with someone trying his best to turn my Procurer into disassociated pixels.  Trying to stay alive got harder, so I switched to doing something less dangerous.  Luckily, I still have a lot of minerals.

I did a deployment to Domain to grind Sisters of EVE loyalty points around the time of Rubicon's launch.  I did a grind to get enough LP for 2 Astero and 2 Stratios.  That was a mistake.  Not only did I wind up not getting either of the ships, but I missed out on the events in my Metropolis low sec home.  Drama must have happened because all of my blues moved away.  I may wind up using some of the LP on implants instead.

How did I do on the goals I set for myself?  Not too bad.

9.9 or Bust! - I finally accomplished a goal I originally set back in 2011.  That's right, I got faction on one character up to 9.9 with the Minmatar and got the 2-run Tempest Fleet Issue BPC.  Along the way I also picked up a 2-run Stabber Fleet Issue BPC and a 2-run Republic Fleet Firetail BPC.  I have a second character than is eligible for another Firetail BPC now, which I should probably pick up before I forget.

Ships - For last year I set a reasonably easy goal for myself.  I wanted to get both of the Minmatar command ships, but if I could only get one, I'd get a Claymore.  That's what I did.  The warp speed changes made battlecruisers too slow and I really don't want to fly anything larger than a cruiser anymore.  But I got the Claymore before that happened.

Also, I am no longer limited to flying Minmatar and ORE ships anymore.  The changes to the Destroyer and Battlecruiser skills guaranteed I would anyway, but I also have the weapons skills for all tech 1 and tech 2 frigates plus the missile skills for Caldari ships up to battlecruiser.  Did I mention I can fly a Falcon now?

I should add I did fail on learning to fly Caldari battleships.  But then again, they are too slow after the warp speed changes, so no big loss.

Industry - I pretty much failed on this one.  All I manufactured last year was ammunition and nanite repair paste.  No modules like I planned.  I have plenty of blueprint copies for both the BPCs found in exploration and tech 2 modules, but I never made anything.  I did make some tech 2 ammunition which I am selling now, but that doesn't really count.

I should add that I did do quite a bit of planetary interaction in low sec over the past twelve months.  I actually shut down my colonies because my production of nanite repair paste was outpacing my sales.  A couple of years ago I thought that customs offices in low sec were death traps.  Now, they are something to approach with care, but nothing really dangerous if done correctly.  I've come a long ways in my attitudes.

Low Sec Missions - I stated I wanted to run a level 4 security mission in low sec.  I failed.  Maybe one of these days, but I got distracted.

That covers the past.  But what about the future?  What do I want to do for the next twelve months?

Industry - Yes, this is at the top of the list.  I definitely want to start selling modules.  With the changes to the industry interface manufacturing is a lot easier.  And if I'm making things, that will get me mining again.  Mining in low sec is interesting.  Currently, I keep between 300-350 million ISK in sell orders on the market.  I wonder if I could get that up around 750 million ISK, not including ships.  Something to shoot for.

As part of the effort, I want to establish a good datacore farm.  I want the ability to use level 4 R&D agents for all major factions.  I'm almost there, but then I also need to get my third character trained to work with the agents.  Currently she has a very limited number of science skills trained to level 4.  That I want to change.  A farm with 15 level 4 agents is the goal by the end of the year. 

I also want to get my PI colonies back online.  I think I can work part-time on making nanite control paste, but I should have enough capacity to support a tech 2 building plan as well.  I just have to figure out the best way to do that.

I also might start selling in a high sec system.  I've had that idea for a couple of years.  Perhaps this is the time.  But that's a really optional goal that I probably won't do.  But I'll list it here for extra credit.

Exploration - I'm making this a separate category from industry, although I think exploration is related.  I basically stopped doing exploration following the changes in Odyssey.  I'd like to get back to doing it an hour or two a week.  Now that the loot spew mechanic is gone, perhaps I won't get shot at as much.  No one got me, but I did escape in half structure once.

Expand Into Molden Heath (a tiny bit) - My main characters are both Vherokior, which means their tribal home is in Molden Heath.  I already sell in the low sec market in Bosena.  Perhaps this is the year I improve my standings with my home tribe.  The climb from 4.08 to 6.67 isn't that high.  Any new activity apart from the standings grind in the region is a bonus.

Ships - I always have to have a section on ships.  This year on Wandering Rose I want her to learn the skills to fly a Prospect so I can take her out and do some mercoxit mining in NPC null sec.  For Rosewalker, I not only want him to finish learning to fly all the battleships for the non-Minmatar factions (including learning the weapons), but I'd like to see him gain the highest level of mastery in all logistics ships.

What ships do I actually want to acquire?  I want the Astero and Stratios from the Sisters of EVE, and all of the recon ships.  Oh, and a Scimitar.  That is not going to happen, but I can dream, right?

After last year's modest targets, I've put together a rather longer list for the upcoming year.  I know I'm not going to achieve all of my goals, but if I ever feel a little bored, I have this list to fall back on.