MorbidCuriousity

I still think it's hilarious that THQ got in financial trouble because they pumped so much money in to CASUAL games. Company that's been around for a long time brought down by casual games....now THAT'S hilarious.

I think Vigil could have done something interesting with the game, but they just took too long.

I don't get why someone isn't just making a sandbox. You do four player factions and the rest of the factions are NPC.

Empire, Eldar, Chaos (undivided) and Ork.

There are you player factions. Those are the most popular armies..though I would love to play a Tau I don't think it's as popular as Eldar is. Not really sure on that one way or the other though, so don't quote me on that.

Don't create any artificial faction barriers. Let players play with whoever they want. For story reasons Ork might not work as a player faction, but far too many people would bitch. Annnnyway....

Have things be sandboxy, do a few open pvp servers, create some territory control zones.

@kahnbloodbane

Yeah, CCP has some really weird rules governing players, but then again they've always show favoritism to public figures in the game.

And don't even try to dispute it. Back when BoB was the major player in the south and a major power in general they got away with all kinds of shit that would have gotten a normal player banned.

If you buy ISK they won't ban you, though; not permanently. They WILL temporarily ban you and delete your isk.

Punishment fits the crime.

If you continue to buy isk then they'll perma ban you and delete your characters to prevent you from trying to transfer them to another account.

How is making a public mockery of a community event and publicly breaking the TOS only punishable by a 30 day ban?

Punishment has to fit the crime.

Ban him for a year. If he gets someone else to buy him an account or otherwise accesses the game within that year then just delete his accounts. Clearly the guy needs to take a break from Eve. A year should be plenty of a break, but 30 days is nothing.

On a somewhat related note:

I have to wonder how Sony is going to view this.

Do they want the PS3 associated with a game that has players that act like this?

Yes, I know Eve players have been doing crap like this for....forever.

They haven't been THIS public about it before though.

Scams and theft of isk aren't really negative news. They're just warnings about what could happen to you IN GAME.

This is different. This is a very high-standing community leader acting completely unprofessional in a fairly official capacity.

Are people going to 'metagame' Dust? CCP has to be very careful here because they are, more and more, attaching real monetary value to ISK. If someone loses their job because someone in Eve stole information based around their Dust character Sony is going to get sued.

And the chances are the person is going to win. As I said before - a good lawyer could make the argument that CCP has created an environment that breeds and encourages this kind of behavior. It's no secret that these kinds of things goes on, hell, people even post about this stuff on the official forums.

Yet, despite plenty of evidence that CCP is aware of this they don't do anything to discourage it. They can't actually do anything to stop it since it takes place outside of their game, but they could help authorities make arrests since people are actually breaking laws. CCP isn't meeting a minimum burden of responsibility. And that's going to be VERY easy to argue and find evidence to support.

@BluegrassGeek

You don't even need a perma ban. I do think Mittens and his whole metagame griefing thing has been going on long enough, though.

Honestly, CCP should put a stop to it because it creates an atmosphere that just stops being any fun. When you have to be afraid that people will try to illegally obtain personal information in order to negatively affect your life...well....it stops being a game and it starts being a criminal enterprise. Nothing about the [i]game[/i] itself bothers me. Camping, griefing, scamming, thieves...all of that can be dealt with IN GAME.

But if someone steals your personal information and gets you fired....what do you do? CCP refuses to take responsibility and handling identity theft of any kind can take a looooooooong time. Granted the chances are small that you'll have to deal with this, but the fact that you're playing in an environment where people actually /do/ that really skeeves me out.

What is CCP going to say to Sony the day a Duster gets their personal information stolen because of the game? 'Oops, yeah, see there's this "metagame" thing that people do in Eve. We kinda support it because it's all hardcore and stuff. Sorry someone attacked your servers and stole information'

@Tanesis

I have had great experiences with Eve. Like I said. I'm looking forward to DUST.

CCP didn't do SHIT in this instance. A 30 day ban on a game that doesn't even require you to log in if you're managing a corp? That's nothing.

Ooooh, so his character can't actually be there to do things. So what? He has officers that can handle any coded requirements such as moving things around in hangars or handling corp funds.

He is the leader of a major community within the game AND, at the time, he was the leader of of PLAYER ELECTED COUNCIL. That's the face of the community and a face of CCP itself. That makes him a public figure in a small way. It means the things he does influences things beyond just the small sphere of his corpmates and friends.

CCP dropped the ball in not properly overseeing these speeches, but I'm guessing they assumed that the speakers were fucking adults and not a bunch of overgrown children. CCP probably also expected that a MAJOR community leader would be a fucking adult when making a VERY public speech.

Now, imagine that this were almost any other situation. Let's say this were a gaming convention and Mittani was a rep for a publisher or some such. If he had gotten drunk and went up and gave a speech that was even remotely similar to this he would have been fired and black listed. When you make a public speech in a capacity that is representative of a company you are the FACE of that company in that moment.

What you say and do is a REPRESENTATION of that company.

Mittani was making a speech not only as a representative of CCP, but also (and more importantly) as a major representative of the Eve community. That's a major responsibility to make sure you're presenting a good image for yourself and your community. When you make the community look bad, people aren't going to really care what the circumstances are.

Mittani has made EVERYBODY who plays Eve look bad. Every single person there that didn't come up and take the mic away from him makes the Eve community look bad. That pisses me off. I like Eve even if I don't have the time for it anymore.

I don't really care what these people do IN GAME. They've done a lot of hilarious stuff. They've done some dickish stuff, but it's mostly IN GAME. That's where this type of shit belongs: IN GAME. Wanna be a dick? KEEP IT IN THE GAME.

Someone piss you off because they stole all your isk? KEEP IT IN THE GAME

Someone scam a titan BPO off of you (lulz if they did)? KEEP IT IN THE DAMN GAME

Go blow their ship up and call them a noob or hatch a scheme to steal THEIR stuff. Hacking their PC or otherwise interfering with their life outside of the game is going too far.

That's the point I've been trying to get through your skulls and I've been really clear about it, so I don't really get where any confusion is coming from. When I say, "I like Eve and CCP", I mean it. I DO NOT like it when people take shit this far because of how bad it makes both Eve and CCP look.

All the scams and thefts you read about make me laugh. Every Hulkathon that takes place is freaking hilarious. It's funny because it all happens IN GAME.

In case you didn't get it:

KEEP IT IN THE DAMN GAME. Cross that line and you deserve a perma ban because you've lost your grip on reality.

@KaiserZeppelin

There isn't any undeserved bashing of the Eve community going on here.
It's a community that has an ever growing number of people that take things way too far. It gets worse every year and CCP isn't doing anything about it.

You can't create an environment that stimulates this kind of behavior, then do nothing when people take it too far. CCP is, as I've said, playing with fire and eventually someone is going to get set on fire.

I'm NOT saying they need to change the game or any systems in it. I'd be disappointed if they did.

I AM saying that if there is evidence of a player taking an in-game altercation into real life (aka TOO FAR) then CCP needs to drop the hammer. This is CLEAR evidence of not only a player, but a community LEADER taking things WAY too far. Telling a community of hundreds of thousands of people to harass someone into killing themselves is going WAY too far.

And, no, he wasn't joking. How do I know? Because nobody was laughing and he didn't say, 'Haha, just kidding. Don't do it.'

@dlambert2

That's really what I'm waiting for. I'm surprised it hasn't happened already to be honest. CCP is playing with fire and every single year it gets worse. They have created an environment that promotes this kind of behavior and the have washed their hands of any responsibility. I don't know how CCP expects anybody to want to play their World of Darkness title if this is how they handle these kinds of events.

You're right, though. Eventually something is going to happen. There's going to be a huge trail that leads right back to CCP and their refusal to do anything. A clever lawyer is going to see this, see huge dollar signs, and clean the company out.

I like CCP. I used to play Eve and I only stopped because I didn't have the time. Seeing how much worse the player base gets every year, though, I'm glad I went out on a high note. CCP listens to their player base.

Those of you who REALLY like Eve and CCP need to make them drop the hammer here. Eve is the environment where all of these interacts is first initiated. As the company that maintains that environment it is CCPs duty to ensure the safety of players. By creating an atmosphere that does nothing to discourage people from taking these altercations in to the real world CCP is liable.

Sounds like a pretty good first paragraph to an opening argument, hmm?

@fnc2012

Free speech doesn't extend to provoking people to violence and harassment. Never has and it never will. You can speak about just about anything you want, but you CAN'T direct the people you're speaking to to violence. And, yes, trying to get people to harass someone into killing themselves is a form of violence.

On a similar note - This is a video game. It's a video game that supports being a dick, but CCP NEEDS to draw a line. That line HAS to be when it extends to such a point that people are directed to harass one person that didn't do anything wrong in terms of the game. If Mittani had said, 'There's this player that blew up my ship. Get him.' THAT'S fine.

But saying, 'This guy is a little bitch, harass him until he kills himself.' is TOO far. It crosses the line between the game and real life. That's the line every single other developer has drawn and I don't get why CCP refuses to draw that same line. It's a line that is designed to keep things IN THE GAME.

It's like if you go to a gaming center. The people running it will usually discourage people from trying to pick a fight with other people in the center because of what is happening in a game. Good-natured ribbing is fine, but there is a line that has to be drawn. When it's crossed proper punishment has to be assigned.

Mittani stepped WAY, WAY, WAAAAAY over the line. A 30 day ban is NOT just punishment for what he did. Life-time ban with character deletion just to make sure the character can't ever resurface.

@Wild Colors

What the hell are you talking about?

The company has outright said they support this behavior in game. The entire game is DESIGNED to encourage this type of behavior. CCPs response to detractors is usually something like:

It's a sandbox. If you don't like all the gankers then build an alliance to fight the pirates.

Except what CCP doesn't mention is that a gate-camp can and will just run the second something they can't fight shows up. Then they'll just wait and come back because you won't be able to find or catch them.

Game systems support camping and ganking in small scale engagements. The only way to get a real fight going is larger scale engagements. You need more ships to stop a gate camp than you do to camp a gate, so most people find the entire exercise futile.

Shocking. CCP didn't actually do anything. None of these people are going to learn a thing or fear reprisal from CCP.

Mittani can still direct his corp without logging in to the game. As long as he has a skill in queue (which I doubt since he's probably learned everything) then his character is still going to get skill points. Worst thing that happens to him is he loses a month's subscription...oooooooo, SCARY!

CCP did exactly what most of us thought they would do - which is nothing. I can guarantee that Mittani is going to make a thread about this that makes fun of CCP.

The entire Goon alliance needs to have a little fear of devs put in to them. They need to realize that there are consequences for their actions. But then again CCP probably supports the alliance.

Well, looks like CCP is going to go under in a few years. People are going to see straight through this and they aren't going to want to play any of the other projects they're working on. If the players of Eve really like the game then they will make CCP do what is right, because history has shown CCP doesn't know wtf they're doing. More often than not they do something, it pisses people off, then they make players do their design work and just implement whatever the players propose.