Jump to content


Photo

Breathtaking scale of POS exploit


  • Please log in to reply
24 replies to this topic

#1 Sanfrey

Sanfrey

Posted 10 December 2008 - 11:26 PM

How the heck does this go un-noticed? I'd have expected the volume of raw material vs. product would have been substantially unbalanced, and thus, noticable to someone analysing the markets at the back-end. I mean, X number of moons, Y type of towers, should produce roughly Z results. If someone is obtaining Z times 100, this ought to be detected! I expect this issue severely demoralises many honest players. I would like to see CCP take out the big stick on this one. Where exploitation was institutionalised, the entire institution should suffer. Yes, by this I mean, if BoB and/or others have used this as a resource at an Alliance level then the Alliance needs to be forcibly disbanded as soon as possible.

Wow my classes were so long ago the link stopped working. Look I took a bunch of them ok? It was a long time ago. Just trust me on it.
Radioactive cats have 18 half lives. (Unless in a box, in which case they have half a chance of having no half lives.) 


#2 Caldak

Caldak

Posted 11 December 2008 - 12:39 AM

Question would be do they know? I reckon they wouldn't be shy with the stick, doesn't take long to go thru records for player X or Coperation X and see how long they been doing it for. First Ban ? http://img265.images...365/bildvn7.jpg Now if it true will also needed to be asked. http://www.mmorpg.co...&bhcp=1#2503889 If this thread is too be believed then its a huge Exploit. And I can understand why there would be a very few people that would know of it.

Anne Bonney, a notorious pirate in her own right, told her husband, Calico Jack Bonney, as he was captured by pirate hunters,
“if you'd have fought like a man you needn't hang like a dog”.

Done some class's


#3 Azual

Azual

Posted 11 December 2008 - 01:11 AM

Sanfrey - He reads the Eve-O forums so you don't have to!

If (and it's a big if) the scale of the exploit is as the guy on scrapheap claims, it's going to cause some serious problems for CCP. I'm glad I'm not one of the guys having to handle this one. There will be a lot of bans (and an inversely proportional load of rage quits) before this is through, and the consequences both short and long term will be 'interesting' at best.

Then again, I'm reluctant to believe it's anything like the scale suggested until some evidence is brought forward. It just seems a bit too ridiculous that it could be so widespread without leaking out.
Ex-Director of PVP-Uni, Eve Blogger and author of The Altruist
Posted Image

#4 Bergon Darek

Bergon Darek

Posted 11 December 2008 - 03:54 PM

Scale: the guy over on scrapheap claims 2.5-3 trillion isk over 4 years. That's a couple billion a day. I'm a relative noob; how big is the EVE economy really? How much is traded/bought/blown up on a daily basis? 2B isk a day seems like it would be a drop in the bucket.
Bergon Darek

[link=http://www.agony-unleashed.com/index.php?/topic/3454-closed-pvp-basic-6th-december-2100-eve-time/]BASIC - 0612082100[/link]

#5 Sever Aldaria

Sever Aldaria

Posted 11 December 2008 - 05:09 PM

Scale: the guy over on scrapheap claims 2.5-3 trillion isk over 4 years. That's a couple billion a day. I'm a relative noob; how big is the EVE economy really? How much is traded/bought/blown up on a daily basis? 2B isk a day seems like it would be a drop in the bucket.


I agree, but I don't think they've just been selling the material on the market. You'd make much more profit by turning them into T2 components and then turning those into T2 ships and mods. So potentially we're looking at much less supply of T2 ships and T2 mods which will jack up the prices since the demand is the same. Well, who can say really. Only thing we know right now is everyone is scrambling to buy T2 ships/mods which is causing prices to skyrocket. Only time will tell what kind of impact it will have on the individual buyer.
Posted Image

Local dropped by one

#6 Aldus Lightwing

Aldus Lightwing

Posted 11 December 2008 - 06:02 PM

From the eve dev blog: The corporations were producing high end materials for T2 production. Working with the Research & Statistics team we have established that the effects on the markets have been considerable and far reaching. The effects of our actions against the exploiters will also be felt on the market as the production of the materials has been cut substantially. However, supply should increase again once players have mastered the alchemy process. My interpretation: CCP is expecting alchemy to eventually take up the slack and should supply the same amount of complex reaction material as before. But it will probably take awhile to get this in gear and we will probably see an overall increase in prices since alchemy is more expensive than having the raw material from a dyspro moon. So I predict that t2 prices will rise significantly in the short term due to the shortage of material but should settle down to slightly more expensive prices than what we have now. Another interesting observation: Ferrogel//Ferrofluid prices dropped significantly over the last month or two due to the flooding of the market by these exploiters. This is what generated the big red flag to CCP. BUT, ship prices stayed relatively the same over the same period of time. Considering that about 1/3 of a t2 ships material cost is Ferrogel//Ferrofluid, the ship builders were actually padding their profits during this time. It is probable that the ship builders will have to reduce their margins to previous levels due to the increased priced of these materials and the need to keep ship prices affordable. This should buffer the ship price increases due to this event.

#7 Sever Aldaria

Sever Aldaria

Posted 11 December 2008 - 07:27 PM

Now is a profitable time to get into Alchemy me thinks
Posted Image

Local dropped by one

#8 Tiberius Doohan

Tiberius Doohan

Posted 11 December 2008 - 07:52 PM

This whole thing is just sickening. If only half of what I have read is true then the full extent of the blame belongs right in CCP's lap. I am just really sorry my 2nd account is paid to April and my main to October. It is very annoying that I have played the game to get ISK, ships and Mods while these other guys have been playing on easy mode. I don't blame the players all that much even though they knew better, I blame CCP for letting it go on. I doubt this will happen but I would like to see a full disclosure after an investigation by CCP. If it happens maybe they can restore some credibility but I will not be holding my breath. Oh, and why do these money making opportunities only happen when I don't have time to sign the F&^K on????
Courses Attended :
[Link=http://www.agony-unleashed.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?68000]BASIC-2103081800[/Link],
[Link=http://www.agony-unleashed.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?92692.last]Wolfpacks-1110081600[/Link]

You kids have it easy, in my day trolls had to use bridges.

#9 Kerzack

Kerzack

Posted 11 December 2008 - 08:02 PM

maybe crazy but I bought about a years worth of kill board fodder - 40 stilletos - claws - jaguars - wolfs etc.... hope to make some ISK if not I got lots of fancy ships to fly...
Men of war have long known that warriors must often abandon those verities they defend. Peace, human kindness, love... for they hold no meaning to the enemy. And so, to win, do we become what we despise... and despise what we become?

#10 Anubies Hazas

Anubies Hazas

Posted 11 December 2008 - 08:22 PM

Also explains how the big alliances can just churn out T2 ships so easily.
[link=http://www.agony-unleashed.com/wiki/index.php?title=PVP_Basic_Graduates]BASIC - 1909081900[/link]
[link=http://www.agony-unleashed.com/wiki/index.php?title=PVP_Wolfpack_Graduates]WOLFPACKS-1110081600[/link]

#11 Sanfrey

Sanfrey

Posted 11 December 2008 - 08:38 PM

Keep in mind this: All that cheap ferrogel depressed market prices. You and I benefited. What's happening now is a correction, we'll end up paying a price that reflects the effort that should go into the ship. Well, that's true if there was enough cheap ferrogel around to apply downwards pressure to the T2 market generally.

Wow my classes were so long ago the link stopped working. Look I took a bunch of them ok? It was a long time ago. Just trust me on it.
Radioactive cats have 18 half lives. (Unless in a box, in which case they have half a chance of having no half lives.) 


#12 Simon Weston

Simon Weston

Posted 12 December 2008 - 02:59 AM

I can understand the negative reactions, CCP do have an infuriating habit of screwing up and then sticking their fingers in their ears and going 'la la la we can't hear you' to their customers... Though at least they've put a statement up with some basic information now. The thing I don't quite get is the reaction I've seen on various forums that 'this has devalued everything I've done in EVE for the last [insert number here] years. Did you have fun? Was your pew-pew, or heaven help you your mining [spit!] enjoyable? Did you enjoy running your industrial megacorp as you were doing it? If the answer to any of these is 'yes' - then what have you got to complain about? If the answer is 'no', then what the hell were you doing paying to play the game in the first place? CCP certainly seem to be better at communications than 9 months ago anyway. Though they could do a bit better still. Remembering that this isn't just a game, but that the players are paying customers, and have a right to expect customer service, and apologies for screw-ups. They still made a pretty disastrous first statement though. With just a bit more effort to write something like 'exploit found, we're still looking into it so can't give any information yet, though we won't tell you everything we will make more statements as we find things out. We'll also run an internal inquiry to make sure we didn't screw up, or if we did what went wrong and try to fix it. Sorry for the inconvenience.' Rather than the bald 'exploit found end-of' that's pretty much bound to piss everybody off. TII price fluctuation should be really interesting. Obviously up at first. But then there could be a temporary crash as lots of people try to take profits on their stocks (either from before or bought when the news came out). Followed by stabilisation at slightly higher than before I guess.
Posted Image

Calling it Primary, so you don't have to.

[link=http://www.agony-unleashed.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?99084]BASIC-0612082100[/link], [link=http://www.agony-unleashed.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?102488]WOLFPACKS & ADVANCED-0271220081700[/link]

#13 Kaiman

Kaiman

Posted 12 December 2008 - 08:03 AM

And most of the guys yelling shouldn't forget that they also benefited from the cheap T2 prices. Don't get me wrong I don't accept that it took so long for CCP to react especially when there had been several complaints and petitions about it and for sure I don't appreciate that some exploiters made so much isk by virtually doing nothin. But as Simon said: Do they pay for the fun playing that game or for crying out on the forums on any given ocassion? Idk At the end of the day I love the fact that I have several friends in Eve who like to whore the forums so I don't have to dig through all the whines, smack and what not :D

#14 Aldus Lightwing

Aldus Lightwing

Posted 12 December 2008 - 09:26 AM

I agree with Kaiman that most eve players probably benefited from this exploit by having access to cheaper t2 prices. The players that should be angry are the ones that belonged to failed alliances that were destroyed by alliances that used the exploit. You can buy a lot of nice shiny ships if you are able to print money(isk).

#15 Simon Weston

Simon Weston

Posted 12 December 2008 - 09:50 AM

The players that should be angry are the ones that belonged to failed alliances that were destroyed by alliances that used the exploit. You can buy a lot of nice shiny ships if you are able to print money(isk).

That's true of course, but then the older alliances in the game got the TII blueprint licenses to print money before this particular exploit was started, or had any large scale effects. Even though the invention of invention made this a lot less of a disadvantage for newer alliances, it's been a long time coming for a fix to what was clearly a game major game-unbalancing mistake from CCP.

And while that's annoying if you're forming a new alliance, still it doesn't make the fun you get from the game less.

I don't think infrastructure costs is what makes alliance collapse. It's all down to morale, leadership and cohesion.
Posted Image

Calling it Primary, so you don't have to.

[link=http://www.agony-unleashed.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?99084]BASIC-0612082100[/link], [link=http://www.agony-unleashed.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?102488]WOLFPACKS & ADVANCED-0271220081700[/link]

#16 Nareg Maxence

Nareg Maxence

Posted 12 December 2008 - 10:44 AM

Well this exploit allowed some people to play the game for free (ISK for ETC) on easy mode with better ships than I can afford with casual mission running. That is not fair.
[link=http://www.agony-unleashed.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?30756]BASIC-0707071707 [/link]
[link=http://www.agony-unleashed.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?33250]WOLFPACKS-1908071800[/link]
[link=http://www.agony-unleashed.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?70929]ADVANCED-050320081900[/link]

#17 Kaiman

Kaiman

Posted 12 December 2008 - 10:46 AM


And while that's annoying if you're forming a new alliance, still it doesn't make the fun you get from the game less.

I don't think infrastructure costs is what makes alliance collapse. It's all down to morale, leadership and cohesion.


Exactly

#18 Simon Weston

Simon Weston

Posted 12 December 2008 - 11:28 AM

Well this exploit allowed some people to play the game for free (ISK for ETC) on easy mode with better ships than I can afford with casual mission running. That is not fair.

A good point well made. And CCP need to acknowledge that they screwed up and try to do something about it. And give us enough information on punishment to feel that justice has been done. To be honest I'm not sure what justice is, given it's hard to track where the money went. So just banning the accounts that are left holding the baby now doesn't make up for alliances that were cheating on a large scale, if there were any that were doing this knowingly.

On the other hand, some people have been playing the game for free, and been able to afford to solo in Titans, while I struggle to pay for a T2 fit BS - clearly a bad thing. But I still had lots of fun flying my ships. And actually part of the fun of EVE is flying what you can only just afford. The risk of serious in-game consequences is what makes PVP fun. I've never got stressed flying a T1 fit Blackbird in a clone with no implants because the cost was around a million isk if I got podded, and that was one Serpentis BS rat.

Getting my first Scorpion (also my first ever T2 fit ship) trapped in a bubble as my fleet warped off and left me, was a touch more exciting. And surviving the experience made it all the better...

So it comes down to quite an interesting question. Are they having more fun because they can PVP in anything they like, with whatever implants they fancy, risk free. Or are you having more fun because you get the adrenaline pumping because you know that you shouldn't really be flying this ship yet, but it was so damned shiny sitting in your hangar that you just had to take it out for a spin...
Posted Image

Calling it Primary, so you don't have to.

[link=http://www.agony-unleashed.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?99084]BASIC-0612082100[/link], [link=http://www.agony-unleashed.com/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?102488]WOLFPACKS & ADVANCED-0271220081700[/link]

#19 Kaiman

Kaiman

Posted 12 December 2008 - 12:41 PM


So it comes down to quite an interesting question. Are they having more fun because they can PVP in anything they like, with whatever implants they fancy, risk free. Or are you having more fun because you get the adrenaline pumping because you know that you shouldn't really be flying this ship yet, but it was so damned shiny sitting in your hangar that you just had to take it out for a spin...


Depends on the personal preference, I guess.
Do you like challenge or do you play Hello Kitty in Godmode !lol

#20 Aldus Lightwing

Aldus Lightwing

Posted 12 December 2008 - 02:08 PM


The players that should be angry are the ones that belonged to failed alliances that were destroyed by alliances that used the exploit. You can buy a lot of nice shiny ships if you are able to print money(isk).

That's true of course, but then the older alliances in the game got the TII blueprint licenses to print money before this particular exploit was started, or had any large scale effects. Even though the invention of invention made this a lot less of a disadvantage for newer alliances, it's been a long time coming for a fix to what was clearly a game major game-unbalancing mistake from CCP.

And while that's annoying if you're forming a new alliance, still it doesn't make the fun you get from the game less.

I don't think infrastructure costs is what makes alliance collapse. It's all down to morale, leadership and cohesion.


I think it is a morale crusher when your alliance possibly lost its 0.0 space because it was just steamrolled by another alliance who used an exploit funded capital fleet.

And yes, I would put this exploit in the same category as the CCP employee who gave illegally obtained BPO's to a large alliance.. A license to print isk.

#21 Kaiman

Kaiman

Posted 12 December 2008 - 03:19 PM

And yes, I would put this exploit in the same category as the CCP employee who gave illegally obtained BPO's to a large alliance.. A license to print isk.

But just on the "isk printing" side, cause the POS exploit is game mechanic and could have been changed, the BPO thingy was manmade which is harder to counter since that guy was probably atrusted employee.

Anyways we survived the BPO scandal and we'll survive the POS scandal aswell. Sure its hard and disencouraging for many who suffered from the steamrolling and whatnot but in a few months we will laugh about it and look forward to the next exploit/bug/scandal/whatever 8)

I've been playing this game a while now and I still like it and overall I think CCP is better than many other companies aswell as worse as others.
Like always it's take it or leave it, which doesn't mean that I don't expect CCP do develop better crisis management and communication strategies.

#22 Pinzgauer

Pinzgauer
  • Pip

Posted 14 December 2008 - 07:59 PM

Ya know, I'm just paranoid enough to think that this is just a scam by some of CCPs Econo Devs to inflate prices through speculation. I don't believe this could have gone on for so long even if it was ignored. There have been far too many changes to the game in the past 4 years. Something sould have halted this exploit a long time ago. But even if it was there all this time. You'd think that more people would have figured it out on their own by now. You can't keep anything that good quiet that long.

#23 Captain Vampire

Captain Vampire
  • PipPip

Posted 14 December 2008 - 09:01 PM

T2 prices are rising, and imo, that is a great thing. I expected prices to be higher when I returned to EvE after my break, only to find faction and T2 even cheaper than in the old days. I think that the average price of T2 items will be higher in the future, compared to the last year or so. The initial panic buying seems to slow down, but the supply chain has yet to adapt. We'll see.. ISK sinks are great anyway, lets go make some

#24 Ash

Ash

Posted 14 December 2008 - 09:08 PM

T2 prices are rising, and imo, that is a great thing. I expected prices to be higher when I returned to EvE after my break, only to find faction and T2 even cheaper than in the old days. I think that the average price of T2 items will be higher in the future, compared to the last year or so. The initial panic buying seems to slow down, but the supply chain has yet to adapt. We'll see..

ISK sinks are great anyway, lets go make some


Fraile! Great to see you man! :amazed:
Posted Image

BASIC-0113071900

WOLFPACKS-2701071800

COVOPS-280720071200


Tactical noob Assassins! (TnA)

#25 Captain Vampire

Captain Vampire
  • PipPip

Posted 14 December 2008 - 09:14 PM


T2 prices are rising, and imo, that is a great thing. I expected prices to be higher when I returned to EvE after my break, only to find faction and T2 even cheaper than in the old days. I think that the average price of T2 items will be higher in the future, compared to the last year or so. The initial panic buying seems to slow down, but the supply chain has yet to adapt. We'll see..

ISK sinks are great anyway, lets go make some


Fraile! Great to see you man! :amazed:


Returned from the dead, or rather, returned from the banned..Captain Vampire is back from a 9 month banage. I'm not very active atm though, just flipping markets, I want to buy my brother a new character so we can start over again. I'll probably start pew pewing around Christmas or so, AFs in lowsec will be my first mountain to climb.

And yeah, I have a plan to survive without the nanos 8)