178 starbases involved in EVE Online’s multi-trillion ISK exploit
Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Bugs, Events, in-game, Exploits, Game mechanics, News items
The last several days have brought us some news of a rather significant exploit in the sci-fi MMO EVE Online. The game boasts a dynamic virtual economy which is in many ways integral to the game itself. (Inter Stellar Kredits, or ISK, is the currency upon which EVE Online’s economy is based.) When rumor broke of a multi-trillion ISK exploit in the game, it raised a few eyebrows. However, when CCP Games themselves confirmed it and announced they would launch an investigation into the matter, it became more serious, as reflected by the economic impact on the market in the game. (Remember kids,…
178 starbases involved in EVE Online’s multi-trillion ISK exploit originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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178 starbases involved in EVE Online’s multi-trillion ISK exploit
Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Bugs, Events, in-game, Exploits, Game mechanics, News items
The last several days have brought us some news of a rather significant exploit in the sci-fi MMO EVE Online. The game boasts a dynamic virtual economy which is in many ways integral to the game itself. (Inter Stellar Kredits, or ISK, is the currency upon which EVE Online’s economy is based.) When rumor broke of a multi-trillion ISK exploit in the game, it raised a few eyebrows. However, when CCP Games themselves confirmed it and announced they would launch an investigation into the matter, it became more serious, as reflected by the economic impact on the market in the game. (Remember kids, internet spaceships are serious business… EVE tends to have more drama than the average massively multiplayer online game.)
CCP Games provided an update on the investigation today, stating that 178 starbases were discovered exploiting the issue and have been destroyed. This is the first time they’ve been willing or able to put a solid number on how extensive the exploit was, in terms of the scope of the operation. CCP stated: “We have also banned all those we have found directly involved and all accounts we have found to be connected to those players. The investigation is still under way and will take a while to conclude.” Also part of the investigation is the Internal Affairs aspect, which some players have been following. CCP Games reports that they haven’t found links between any of their own staff (or the Council of Stellar Management, for that matter) and the starbase exploit. See the official announcement from the EVE developers for more details on how the investigation is progressing.
178 starbases involved in EVE Online’s multi-trillion ISK exploit originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Second Life 1.22 (RC4) now available
Filed under: Bugs, Patches, News items, Second Life
Linden Lab have made a new Second Life viewer release-candidate available. RC4 is the fifth release in the 1.22 series (Linden Lab starts counting from RC0). Mostly this version seems to be about final polish.
This edition has two more crash fixes, assorted tune-ups to defective UI elements, a small bundle of localization fixes and some almost completely impenetrable alterations to the thread watchdog (however it does now default to being off). We’re not expecting an RC6 before this goes live - unless something outstandingly broken crops up. Full release notes for this version are after the…
Continue reading Second Life 1.22 (RC4) now available
Second Life 1.22 (RC4) now available originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 18 Dec 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Exploits for Sony’s Home?
Filed under: Betas, Bugs, Exploits, New titles, News items, Consoles, Rumors, Home
The Telegraph (UK) is reporting that a number of exploits have surfaces for Sony’s virtual-environment multiplayer matchmaker and social space, Home, presently in open beta. Not all of them are technically exploits, but they’d certainly qualify as hacks — using Apache and DNS trickery to fool the Home client into loading different content for local display than what was originally intended, for example.
The Telegraph says there are far more severe hacks, however, such as downloading, uploading or deleting any file to or from the Home server itself. That stopped us cold right there, and is a…
Exploits for Sony’s Home? originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 16 Dec 2008 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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CCP Games on the extent and impact of EVE’s starbase exploit
Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Bugs, Exploits, Forums, Game mechanics, News items
Massively has been watching the issue of a significant starbase exploit in EVE Online, through which some players reaped vast financial rewards, as it went from rumor to confirmation from the developers themselves. Unlike your average run-of-the-mill exploit in most massively multiplayer online games, the exploit in question has had a significant impact on EVE’s virtual economy — the backbone of the game itself. All players in EVE interact in one vast galaxy, and their actions in the sandbox can create ripples felt by their fellow players, which has certainly been the case in this past week.
EVE Online’s developer CCP Games has opted to hold off on responding to most press inquiries for comment on the issue, having issued a statement on the matter and then focusing on the investigation and a weekend meeting with EVE’s player-elected community representatives, the Council of Stellar Management (CSM). The minutes from that meeting are now available, and several of EVE’s developers took part in the discussion: namely CCP’s Lead Economist Dr. EyjoG (Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson) and CCP Arkanon — who heads up the company’s Internal Affairs division, which investigates the CCP Games staff themselves, hopefully ensuring that no CCP employee can abuse their influence over the game.
Read on for Massively’s highlights of the state of affairs in EVE Online, in the wake of the starbase exploit.
Continue reading CCP Games on the extent and impact of EVE’s starbase exploit
CCP Games on the extent and impact of EVE’s starbase exploit originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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CCP Games on the extent and impact of EVE’s starbase exploit
Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Bugs, Exploits, Forums, Game mechanics, News items
Massively has been watching the issue of a significant starbase exploit in EVE Online, through which some players reaped vast financial rewards, as it went from rumor to confirmation from the developers themselves. Unlike your average run-of-the-mill exploit in most massively multiplayer online games, the exploit in question has had a significant impact on EVE’s virtual economy — the backbone of the game itself. All players in EVE interact in one vast galaxy, and their actions in the sandbox can create ripples felt by their fellow players, which has certainly been the case in this past week….
Continue reading CCP Games on the extent and impact of EVE’s starbase exploit
CCP Games on the extent and impact of EVE’s starbase exploit originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Did EVE Online Have $150,000 Exploit?
Massively has one hell of a massive story today. According to the confession of an anonymous forumite (via Winterblink), an exploit in persistent spacefaring MMO EVE Online has allowed an undisclosed number of players to harvest the real-world equivalent of approximately $150,000 over a four-year period — and official statements by developer CCP today indicate he or she spoke truth.
On November 24, 2004, EVE Online introduced the player-owned-Starbase (POS) to its vast collection of virtual timesinks. Placed in the orbit of a moon, a Starbase confers any number of benefits upon its owners — but perhaps most importantly, the ability to mine that moon for particularly valuable resources, and convert those resources through chemical reactions into rare materials used in the construction of advanced starships and weaponry.
Today, going by the handle “anotherone” on the Scrapheap Challenge forums, one EVE player confessed that shortly after they were introduced, they and unnamed others discovered that the reaction process to produce those materials could be exploited in such a way that the input resources were not expended, but could rather be used again and again to create an infinite supply. From the post:
Two weeks after Patch day we built our first POS.
We wanted a piece of the moon mining pie and also wanted to figure out how it word as none of us knew exactly.
After our first try we were aggravated that we could get it working and decided to try again the next day to finish our project.
The next day to our amazment we found that the silos in our unfinished POS chain were full. After a short time we found out the reason for this phenomenon.
The POS system was BUGGED.
Of course a petition was sent to CCP to make them aware of this situation and the answer was sobering.“Your petition has been received” CLOSE
Sobering enough, apparently. that they decided to milk the phenomenon for all it was worth — which, by anotherone’s estimate as of December 10th, was over 2.5 trillion ISK. The forumite claims that he used his share to buy more game time via the ability to trade in-game time cards — and hasn’t paid a cent for EVE since 2004. At the old rate of $14.99 for a month of play, this would mean he managed to avoid paying around $720.
But if you think $720 is the extent of this exploit, you’re underestimating the value of EVE Online’s in-game currency. Currently, a 60 day time card costs $34.99 — but the going rate in-game for the very same 60 days is today around 600 million ISK. Therefore, if those involved in the exploit truly managed to create 2.5 trillion ISK, they generated the equivalent of over $145,000 in real money.
While it’s difficult to say if any of that money made it into the exploiters’ pockets — there is certainly a black market for direct dollar-to-ISK currency sales — one EVE veteran told me that this goes a long way to explaining why so many have been able to procure the devastating Titan warships, when CCP “envisioned only the biggest alliances having one or two.”
Anotherone’s statements are rumor, not fact; but today, CCP confirmed that such an exploit was discovered on December 7th, and since then over 70 accounts across seven corporations and two alliances have been banned. The full CCP statement reads:
On December 7th 2008, a date which will live in infamy, a petition from a concerned player alerted us to a serious problem with Starbase reactors. The petition had been filed five days earlier, a far longer waiting time than we can accept with our current queue status and we have now taken measures to fix that. We immediately started investigating the issue and found that there was indeed a problem and that it was being exploited to gain unfair advantages.
We discovered seven corporations with multiple Starbases set up for the express purpose of exploiting the issue. Three of those corporations were members of two alliances. We took immediate action against the offenders and banned over 70 accounts and destroyed all the Starbases run by the corporations in question. All the offending corporations are now effectively inactive as a result of our actions.
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.
We are still conducting operations to deal with this matter and we will keep you posted on the progress and results as things develop.
Effects on the in-game economy have been swift: Today, the two materials anotherone admitted to exploiting, Ferrogel and Fermionic Condensates, have traded at over 8,000 ISK per unit higher than the day before.
As noted at Massively, player concern for the in-game economy is joined by concern that CCP devs allegedly did not address the issue for four years despite petition. CCP employees have been accused in prior years of gaming their own system for personal (in-game) benefit.
CCP did not respond to requests for comment by time of publication. However, an addendum to CCP’s official forum post mentions that “the matter will be brought up at a CSM and CCP meeting this upcoming weekend.”
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Second Life 1.22 (RC3) now available
Filed under: Bugs, Patches, News items, Second Life
Linden Lab have made a new Second Life viewer release-candidate available. RC3 is the fourth release in the 1.22 series (Linden Lab starts counting from RC0). As usual, we have a bunch of assorted fixes and crash fixes in this edition.
This edition has five more crash fixes, some tweaks to the watchdog code (because it wasn’t crashing when it should) and assorted tweaks. The Planning tab has been removed from Group Information, because it basically just never worked properly.
This looks like it might be the last release before 1.22 becomes the official viewer, unless something is reported…
Continue reading Second Life 1.22 (RC3) now available
Second Life 1.22 (RC3) now available originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 11 Dec 2008 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Rumored four-year, multi-trillion ISK exploit in EVE Online
Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Bugs, Exploits, Forums, Game mechanics, Guilds, Rumors
An exploit in EVE Online has come to light that may have some major repercussions for the game. Although Massively does not have solid confirmation on the details (and allegations as the case may be) as this has just come to light. The exploit was publicized on a third party EVE forum called Scrapheap Challenge, on Wednesday, December 10th. If this isn’t a hoax or an exaggerated account of events, how serious an exploit might this be? Very serious, if the details listed prove to be accurate… The exploit was really a bug related to a network of player owned stations (POS) paired with a moon…
Continue reading Rumored four-year, multi-trillion ISK exploit in EVE Online
Rumored four-year, multi-trillion ISK exploit in EVE Online originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 11 Dec 2008 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Rumored four-year, multi-trillion ISK exploit in EVE Online
Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Bugs, Exploits, Forums, Game mechanics, Guilds, Rumors
An exploit in EVE Online has come to light that may have some major repercussions for the game. Although Massively does not have solid confirmation on the details (and allegations as the case may be) as this has just come to light. The exploit was publicized on a third party EVE forum called Scrapheap Challenge, on Wednesday, December 10th. If this isn’t a hoax or an exaggerated account of events, how serious an exploit might this be? Very serious, if the details listed prove to be accurate… The exploit was really a bug related to a network of player owned stations (POS) paired with a moon mining operation, which yielded far too much valuable material far too quickly. Four years and an estimated 2.5 to 3 trillion ISK later, the exploit was found and patched, and the offender(s) banned. Given the claimed amount of ISK involved, it’s serious enough to potentially have an impact on the game’s economy.
The individual who posted the details of this exploit remains anonymous, and has only identified him or herself as “anotherone”, but tells a story of how the exploit came to be: “I would like to tell you a short EVE story. Today all of my EVE Online accounts were banned. I was sure this day would come. What surprises me is that it took CCP this long to catch up with me. Even though they knew about it.” It’s that last sentence that is sparking so much response from the playerbase — anotherone asserts that this issue was actually petitioned to CCP Games back in 2004, and subsequently ignored.
Read on for more details on this economic drama.
Continue reading Rumored four-year, multi-trillion ISK exploit in EVE Online
Rumored four-year, multi-trillion ISK exploit in EVE Online originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 11 Dec 2008 06:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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