A number of you have pinged me this morning to ask if I personally or the CSM generally have heard about the change to the TOS this morning, detailed in this news post. Short answer: yes.
Long answer: we’ve seen it and we’ve expressed to CCP our concern that the change in policy is far too broadly written. This has a number of players concerned as well as expressed in this (locked) thread as well as in this post by Goon member Weaselior. That thread is also likely to be locked and it’s possible that the post itself will be deleted. But it gives GM Grimmi‘s response to a question stating that impersonation of CCP employees and in-game personalities has been prohibited for a long time. He further states his belief that the TOS update is nothing new and simply a clarification of what has been long-standing CCP policy.
The only trouble is that isn’t quite true.
This is a change to the TOS, whereas the previous statements existed in the Naming Policy. The punishments specified in the latter involve having a character, corp, or alliance renamed.(1) The only context for disciplinary action against players in the Naming Policy applies to blatantly offensive names. The TOS, on the other hand, is awash in various forms of disciplinary action.
Put more simply: before this TOS change, creating a character named darknessss could get your character renamed. After this TOS change, it could theoretically get you banned. But that’s only where things start.
You see, if I characterize myself as a Goonswarm recruiter, say, or a recruiting representative of an operational in-game incursion community, and I charge 100 million ISK for these services, these things are now also technically a violation of this TOS change. After all, after this change I can no longer “falsely present [myself] to be a representative of [a] group of players.” Given that “Goon recruitment scams” have been a thing pretty much since Goonswarm came to EVE, this is not a small matter for the Goons involved.
It also raises the intriguing notion: if I fall for a Goon recruitment scam, can I petition the loss of ISK and get it recovered since the scammer violated the TOS to get my ISK? That would be a fairly major change to the nature of EVE, if so.
Needless to say, both the players involved and the CSM are asking all of these questions. I don’t think it would be out of the question for there to be a clarification of this TOS change in pretty short order. For now, I believe the wording of it is overly broad and creates the opportunity for some unfortunate precedents. Even if the wording changes, though, it’ll be interesting to see how broadly these new precedents are applied.
If you would like to read more we invite you to visit his blog here.
EDIT (9/Sep/2013): CCP Guard has issued a first class statement in this matter. Go read it.
EDIT (9/Sep/2013): Caught in the net of this policy change was a Goon rental advertisement thread. A valid Goon rental advertisement thread. I assume the CCP employee in question couldn’t believe there was such a thing. Hee!
(1) You may remember that I was in the midst of telling a story about this very thing and it’s a story I’ll be wrapping up soon.
Is it just me or do we all sometimes wonder if the GMs actually play Eve?
The GMs don’t write the TOS updates, lawyers do.
Based on what CCP Guard and others have said, I doubt that, also reading that update, if my lawyer wrote something that vague within the context of Eve, particularly the massively opened ended term: “group of players”, I would be reconsidering using their services.
Looks like Goons are butthurt that there game is getting ruined.
CCP Soundwave is gone, no more Goonswarm Online.
Deal with it!
It’s only a matter of time before more things change.
Then what? Goons will burn Jita again? Just like they did the first time when Mittens got punished for advocating and encouraging harassment of a suicidal player?
The potential tears of new changes forthcoming will be amazing!
Goons lost infinitely more ISK during Burn Jita than they destroyed.
A – FUCKING – MEN!
Omg you fucking whiny bastards grow the fuck up
What the ever living fuck CCP? Seriously this is Eve. I’ve never scammed anyone in my life but damn it that’s what makes eve, eve. It’s interesting, you have to be careful, there are no kid gloves.
Goons tears, best tears.
Hey Goons!
Your tears are hurting my ears!
EVEWOW!
I know you’re all going to laugh, but roleplayers got hit by this pretty hard as well by the “NPC entity” part of the update.
‘shuttle door opens’
: That was a long journey Kwatat, next time I am doing the flying.
: How did you feel about the convrsation we had with the Caldari Represen… BANNED FOR LYF
Also I want to complain about the Cerberus price rise.. Like by 100mil.. You asshats and your goldpile stole my mojo
You know the game is failing when all the bloggers have to write about is TOS changes, that are rather irrelevant.
Eve IS dying !
/I m actually happy that CCP are thinking about the FUTURE, and helping the new players more. Because they are the future for eve. All the vets will be gone, and with current mechanics eve is not bringing in neither keeping new player subscriptions. Its about time things started to change.
get the fuck out of here and go back to wow kid
what a pathetic retort, go back to be a sad racist
excatly the kind thats is ruining eve , can you bitters just please leave eve?
also your name is from 1786.
Eve has always a nice poistions as sc-fi mmo , things are changing ccp better adapt and by the looks if it tey will
WoW would be too difficult for most Goons. You can’t buy protection and mobs have the ability to fight back.
“Caught in the net of this policy change was a Goon rental advertisement thread. A validGoon rental advertisement thread. I assume the CCP employee in question couldn’t believe there was such a thing. Hee!” HAHA… thats too much, Its like a comedy skit.
CCP:ok goon stop the scam.
Goon: No its not a scam
CCP: you lie
Goon: no really we are renting now
CCP: ya, tell us another one Goon.
Goon: no honest, we decided to rent.
Haha… its too much really, you know you been doing the same scam for too long when, even CCP doesn’t believe you when you say its not a scam.
Keep on Scamming Goon’s you are beautiful
Just for clarification, CFC is actually renting now, and the rental scams have stopped; ordered by The Mittani himself. I just find it funny that CCP doesn’t believe it.
I was there. I heard it my self. Right after the 6DVT fight.
Well, I’m not posting in GD after reading the updated thread in case I inadvertently violate the TOS, this is a joke, right?
Take an already ambiguous set of rules and increase the ambiguity exponentially? I was finally starting to come out of my carebear shell and interact with other players, now I don’t know, back to the barge I guess and the relative safety of ignoring convo’s
I keep looking to resub to EVE. But whenever I start thinking about it, CCP remind me why I shoudn’t.
Cause 10 quid a month is so unreachable. Also if you arnt playing, stop posting you ill informed pikey!
Google opportunity cost. I can read at work.
yet you troll evenews24.com. u sub and you know it
It is common knowledge that there are a lot of ex players that continue to read about EVE but do not sub.
I am one of them.
****You may not impersonate or present yourself to be a representative of CCP or an EVE Online volunteer. You may not impersonate or falsely present yourself to be a representative of another player, group of players, character or NPC entity****
.
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The above give CCP the right to say you did not represent yourself in an honest manner in our eyes, hence you are BANNED cause we can. Everyone forgets that CCP has taken SONY ONLINE ENTERAINMENTS real life money with the new game DUST 514. So all the kids and Grown up Kids that still live at home with there parents that are playing that game are fresh targets for GOONies and all the other deviants we have had to put up with in eve. Even though I don’t approve of the scams, spying, meta gaming and stealing it is part of the game and one must learn to deal with it for go play WOW.
.
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This gives CCP the leeway to make Jonny Spoil Brat MOMMY happy when she complains to SONY/CCP that her 12 year son stuff was stolen from his make believe corporation that he is the CEO of.
Welcome to the Entitlement of Society of I’m a Derp Derp. EVE Online Reloaded Sony Style.
This is just for the Somerblink shit to many Cry babies are getting scammed and Someer Mahm or what ever her whore ass name is gets but hurt everytime someone scams them lol teehee
When it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck.. its a duck. impersonation = scamming. CCP ToS are f*k up. I am impersonating 3 girls alt avatars. Should I be banned because I’m a fat old man? LAWL! /s off.
huh? i tought girls in eve where girls
Nah it is the internet, where Men are men, Girls are men, and young girls are FBI agents or Chirs Mathews.
…and just the other day I took the player survey and said the three words that describe EVE players were untrustworthy, opportunistic and scammer…haha
Goons start a “legit” rental business and suddenly scamming is banned to protect them.
Welcome to WoW Pandaria: Spaceship edition
Can we stop calling EvE sandbox now ?
People have been banned for shenanigans like this for ages. First time it hit someone I knew was in 2006. Seriously, posts with claims like this simply show that there is a ton of people out there who manage way too well to close their eyes and ears when it comes to stuff that doesn’t fit the image they project on this game, on CCP or on other entities within this sphere.
If the CSM manages to make this clarification of rules into a change, then they are the opposite of what the CSM was meant for. They are not supposed to be the enforcer for some negative groups of players.
Not impersonating CCP or Volunteers I understand… that should be bannanable. But impersonating a player or group of players or NPC is part of the meta game. I used to name myself “Johan the Beggar” on UO and people would drop gold on me thinking I was an NPC. It was fun. And here, impersonating a cap pilot’s cyno alt to his buddies is just… juicy good lulz.
And that’s the problem with eve. Your so obsessed with scammin that’s it’s become so prevalent in eve it’s taking over the game and killing enjoyment of the game. New players leave in droves because of it. Why should you be allowed to scam a complete new player pretending you are say a npc person where they have no real way of knowing that true. They have no come back. They spent a few months gaining a few million isk and you come along a take it in 1 second, it can destroy their game immediately knowing they have go through that whole grind again! Most will quit.. No wonder players unsubscribe, new players are the future not you.
I would say it’s part of the game. A fool and his isk are easily parted.
Als implying repeat customers for years are of no value is very arogant and rude.
Eve is supposedly the sandbox. Messing with sandbox bcs some cry too loud is turning this game into HelloKitty on-line. Eve will not gain hellokitty online subscribers, but it will lose the sandbox fans, who subscribed bcs this is how this game was advertised in the first place.
I could be wrong but, I have the feeling CCP wants to change the “culture” in Eve. CCP is probably not making as much money they though they would with Dust, they see the hype of upcoming games like Star-Citizen (similar to Eve). They probably fear for the “survivability” of Eve (their main milk money)and if “hellokitty” online is the solution to bring back subscriber growth in the game, if it is what they feel should be done, then it might explain what is currently happening. Sacrificing the scammers to attract and keep more WoW type players is probably CCP`s bet right now. Who knows, they probably want to sell the game to a bigger company and need to show potential investors/buyers, that Eve has a growing member base. Not stagnant like it currently is.
CCP kept the game going for 10 years by having something different from everyone else. Even WOW losses subscribers. If CCP follows external advises and policies EVE will be milked in record time and tossed to garbage.
CCP looking out for paying customers, who would have thought.
Goon tears.. sweetest tears. T_T
So CCCP finally found a way to stop Goons from scamming. Who gives a shit doesn’t affect my game play at all
It doesn’t my eve either. But I’m afraid it’s just the first change to change eve from sandbox to cosy rainbow WoW spaceshis, where saing fuck you gets you banned. I hate scammers but they are part of OPEN world of eve. I see it as attack on freedom of play.
So far, I’ve heard a lot of very blind comments about how this will affect Eve. Most of them basically saying that it’s just a whine. Here is the exact text of the problematic sentence:
“You may not impersonate or falsely present yourself to be a representative of another player, group of players, character or NPC entity.”
Have you guys caught on yet? All the metagame in Eve, one way or the other, revolves around being able to do the above.. not just scamming. You wanna act as an alt, but are really spying out territory for your fleet. Now ban-able because you are falsely representing an NPC entity. You put in a character into another corp to spy on them and find out what they are doing? Now ban-able because you are falsely presenting/impersonating yourself as a member of that corporation. You get upset at your douchebag CEO for slighting you on payments, so you steal back what is yours? Now Ban-able because you are falsely representing yourself to another player. And the list goes on and on. As mentioned in Ripard’s article, the GMs have ALREADY wrongly applied the TOS to a legitimate operation.
Eve Online’s success is 100% based off of the metagame. And this change to the TOS makes it impossible for the meta game to function. So, yeah.. it is a big, friggin’ deal.
if its a clarification of what has been long-standing CCP policy. then surely ppl scamed in the past by goons rental scams came claim back the isk. they lost.
No, it is a change to the Terms of Service and a clarification of that change not a clarification of a prior policy.