Major exploit

[Zenith.UK]

It sounds like the credit crunch has finally hit in-game in Eve.
It's even more ironic when you consider that CCP is an Icelandic company, and Iceland has been hit by the financial downturn HARD.

When times get hard, those who have been profiteering are suddenly left very visible.

 

[Ctuchik]

and Iceland has been hit by the financial downturn HARD.

especially since a certain "country" listed them as terrorists.... >.<

 

[rynnor]

especially since a certain "country" listed them as terrorists.... >.<

Thats not actually true but Iceland did get upset that we stopped them draining all their assets out of the UK after they threatened to break their international agreements.

In the end the UK and Iceland negotiated the release of those assets in exchange for Iceland paying compensation for all the money it grabbed from UK accounts in Icelandic banks.

Edit: TBH Eve must be a godsend for them - it earns loads of foreign currency and must now be more profitable since its only paying wages in ISK.

 

[Ctuchik]

Thats not actually true but Iceland did get upset that we stopped them draining all their assets out of the UK after they threatened to break their international agreements.

In the end the UK and Iceland negotiated the release of those assets in exchange for Iceland paying compensation for all the money it grabbed from UK accounts in Icelandic banks.

Edit: TBH Eve must be a godsend for them - it earns loads of foreign currency and must now be more profitable since its only paying wages in ISK.

sorry about that, bit out of line i guess, just couldn't help it

and yeah they probably are making a decent ammount of cash on that game, but i very much doubt its enough for an entire country, even one as small as them

 

[taB]

sorry about that, bit out of line i guess, just couldn't help it

and yeah they probably are making a decent ammount of cash on that game, but i very much doubt its enough for an entire country, even one as small as them

More people play Eve than the inhabitants of Iceland

40% of the subscriber base is in the US & they now have White Wolf's HQ there. Servers are based in the UK & All players pay in their local currency (well 95%+ Euro, £ or US$).

Not a bad business model really. I think they've recently passed 46k people concurrently online too which is pretty awesome. 18months ago it was 30k record afaik.

Whether the player base likes it or not both the retail box in March and Ambulation soon(tm) will bring more people in too.

P.S. Get orf my fishing lanes!

 

[Ctuchik]

More people play Eve than the inhabitants of Iceland

40% of the subscriber base is in the US & they now have White Wolf's HQ there. Servers are based in the UK & All players pay in their local currency (well 95%+ Euro, £ or US$).

Not a bad business model really. I think they've recently passed 46k people concurrently online too which is pretty awesome. 18months ago it was 30k record afaik.

Whether the player base likes it or not both the retail box in March and Ambulation soon(tm) will bring more people in too.

P.S. Get orf my fishing lanes!

46k accounts online, not 46k people online. theres probably alot more thats multoboxing then ppl playing just 1 account. seems to be more of a rule then a rarity nowadays.

the desition to not allow more then 1 character to train per account were genious tho. CCP would have gone bankrups a long time ago if ppl could do that rather then have to pay for multiple accounts.

besides, they still can't run a country on 50 - 70k subscriptions

 

[LordjOX]

46k people online, 46k accounts online. The server cluster won't know the difference. It is the technical achievement that is boasted.

Yeah, CCP would probably struggle like alot of the Icelandic companies if they didn't deal with the major currencies as main source of income.

 

[Ctuchik]

46k people online, 46k accounts online. The server cluster won't know the difference.

no and aparently CCP doesent either

 

[LordjOX]

no and aparently CCP doesent either

Again: it's the technical achievement that they boast about.

 

[Ctuchik]

gonna be stubborn here

taken from EvE onlines frontpage. and its a headline

Over 45,000 players in New Eden

yes yes i know i've lost but just because i can!

 

[LordjOX]

gonna be stubborn here

taken from EvE onlines frontpage. and its a headline




yes yes i know i've lost but just because i can!

The servers doesn't see the difference, CCP doesn't see the difference, the players doesn't see the difference.

Again: it's the technical achievement that they boast about.

 

[Sharkith]

46k accounts online, not 46k people online. theres probably alot more thats multoboxing then ppl playing just 1 account. seems to be more of a rule then a rarity nowadays.

the desition to not allow more then 1 character to train per account were genious tho. CCP would have gone bankrups a long time ago if ppl could do that rather then have to pay for multiple accounts.

besides, they still can't run a country on 50 - 70k subscriptions

Last year they topped 46k accounts online on a Sunday night. I was playing at the time. No matter what people say Eve remains the game with one of the most loyal player bases. Not only that but they consistently meet their targets. The playerbase is continuing to expand.

 

[Ctuchik]

Last year they topped 46k accounts online on a Sunday night. I was playing at the time. No matter what people say Eve remains the game with one of the most loyal player bases. Not only that but they consistently meet their targets. The playerbase is continuing to expand.

yes, they topped with 46k accounts being online, but thats not what CCP wrote, they claim there was 46k PLAYERS online, wich is an utter lie.

 

[Sharkith]

Funny you should say that. I just received their current newsletter by email. This is what it states:

Peak Concurrent User Record Broken... Again!
And again... and again! For several weeks now, EVE players have been breaking Peak Concurrent User (PCU) records on a regular basis. We kicked off 2009 with a record PCU of just over 45,000 and have steadily climbed each week to this past Sunday's massive 48,065 pilots across New Eden.

I think 'player' does not equal 'pilots'.

 

[Ctuchik]

it could mean both i guess. but most ppl will think unique players when they read that. not lots of multiloggers

 

[Sharkith]

I dunno but for me it means pilots as in characters/accounts. It doesn't matter if they have the same simultaneous brain in real life and are dual controlled.

I will be honest I very seldom ever dual log in eve. It can be fatal espcially if you are PvPing.

You have to hand it to them though - 48,000 simultaneous connections is enourmous. What is the population cap in GOA's WAR servers?

 

[Ctuchik]

You have to hand it to them though - 48,000 simultaneous connections is enourmous.

it is yes, and dare say the WAR server cap is around 3000 - 3500. but its hard to compare the two games.

 

[Reno]

3K per side for War, so total around 6 K.

A better comparison would be the capacity of 1 system vs 1 zone. Which Eve would probably win.

Danita

 

[LordjOX]

Has WAR servers ever reached server cap in a night?

 

[Ctuchik]

yeah, the first month before WOTLK released most servers were overpopulated. it wasent rare with a queue of 600+ primetime on some of them.

and yes, eve would probably win in a comparison between capacity of 1 system vs 1 zone, atleast in the sense that eve servers dont crash, but u'd be extremely lucky if u could even dock, let alone go anywhere.


used a 5 day come back code not to long ago, logged in my jita alt figured i'd fart around abit outside the station but the second i undocked my client stopped responding. i could write in the chat and see what was written but other then that i couldn't do anything.

so just because the servers wont crash doesent mean it can actually handle all the ppl

 

[Sharkith]

If you log into Jita before downtime it is bloody awful. If you log in at leak time the response is excellent - much better than anything in WAR with comparable numbers.

 

[taB]

To get this back on track

134 people banned with Titans and Motherships removed.

Biggest fukken dev-blog ever

 

[Sharkith]

bloody hell - must read that one.

 

[rynnor]

I hear they grabbed a bunch of T2 BPO's too as part of the investigation - wonder how they'll re-seed em?

 

[taB]

wonder how they'll re-seed em?

They won't.

 

[Sharkith]

lol you have to love this:

The opening action on our part regarding the exploit included the total destruction of all the POS complexes involved. This entailed flying to each one and basically nuking everything in sight - a fireworks show of epic proportions but with no witnesses except the GMs in the demolition team.

The assets removed from the game by our actions because of this exploit consist of large numbers of capital ships including some motherships and titans, over 30 Tech II BPOs and other valuable items as well as large amounts of ISK.

How did we not see this?

To date, we have found three petitions regarding the reactor bug in our systems. Two of those are since late October 2005 and one since late October 2007. In all cases, the issue was handled as an isolated bug for the players reporting it and the work done was geared towards fixing that particular issue.

In one of the older cases, the user petitioning was asked to file a bug report but the resulting report was closed after the bug hunters were not able to reproduce the issue. At the time, no procedures were in place on our end to ensure that reproduction steps were included. Nowadays, our bug hunters will contact the player submitting the report and request that the steps be added if they are missing.

Quite frankly, it must be said that at the time, the documentation and logs available for POS-related things left much to be desired and anyone involved in handling such issues would have been facing a very difficult task indeed. Very little information was available to staff and players alike about how things were supposed to work and what little logs existed were in no way sufficient to provide information needed to successfully tackle problems with POS mechanics. The usual stopgap fix was to simply repackage the structures and hope that it would take care of the issue at hand.

The last petition was correctly filed into the exploit category but it was simply handled as an individual problem for the player reporting it. Thus it fell through the cracks and did not raise the flags it should have and no exploit investigation was launched.

All the staff members involved in handling the cases have been thoroughly investigated and cleared of any involvement in the exploit by our Internal Affairs department.

Internal Affairs have also investigated other staff members for involvement in the exploit and have found no links to the exploiting corporations or characters involved in the exploit. CSM members were checked and cleared as well.

All the rest is there. They admit they failed and tell you what they have done now to change things.

Impressed as always by CCP's openness.

 

[taB]

From one of the banned Evoke pilots (obv could be a lie)

I know of 5 MS that got banned, 4 Nyx and one Hel.

BPos (only those which i remember out of my head)
Crow
Manticore
2 Claymore
Eos
Sabre
Muninn
Helios
Ares
Large Shield Extender
Large Shield Booster
Med Armor Repper
Miner 2
Damage Control
2 EANM
100mn AB
1mn AB
220mm AC

 

[LordjOX]

Good fucking riddance.

 

[Ctuchik]

well, hope more of those titans get removed when they are done.. wouldn't mind having ALOT less of those badboys around.