May 29
I Have the Vapours!
It’s not every weekend that I’m apparently involved in a scandal. It’s a tempest in a teapot, but I guess it’s more scandalous than my average day. Mental note: must take up more offers of buyoffs and hookers.
Last Friday I saw Scott Jennings’ note about the latest EVE Online Kurfuffle. I know we have a lot of EVE players on Slashdot, so I pulled a good submission out of the bin and put it up on the site. I was very explicit about the nature of the post:
It should be pointed out at the moment all of the evidence put forward is circumstantial; take with a grain of salt.
Despite my attempt at making the post neutral ground, there was a lot of spitting on both sides of the issue. The editors (ie: me) were specifically singled out in a few posts:
Seems like if BoB has an ‘in’ with CCP, Goons have an ‘in’ with Slashdot. Do you realize how fast this made it onto the Slashdot front page (before CCP even had a chance to respond that they would respond)? I personally think that game owners and site editors have whatever editorial discretion (which includes modifying game balance) they want over their game/site – it’s the player/reader’s discretion to play/read, so I’m not getting upset about it, but methinks there is a greater “meta game” going on here then most people are aware.
Today, once again, Lum comes to the rescue with a link to the official CCP IA investigation report. I’m guessing maybe I won’t be invited for more interviews in the near future:
The objective of this scheme was to permanently paint CCP as a biased and corrupt company that favors a select group of players over the rest of our community. In this particular case, instead of receiving notification of a possible problem and sufficient time to examine and address it, we faced a coordinated and hostile attack executed on our forums, Digg, Wikipedia, Slashdot, and other outlets at the beginning of a three-day weekend. We believe this speaks volumes of the intention of the person(s) responsible for orchestrating this scheme. Verification of this can be readily found on the forums of the people responsible—or at least could, the last time we looked.
Soo … excitement. If you want actual commentary on this, go read Scott’s comments on his post. Thought-provoking as always.
Me, I’m just posting about this because I want to be absolutely clear: I hate everyone equally. The idea stated in the Slashdot comments and intimated by CCP’s writeup, that folks putting stories on Slashdot are somehow involved, is beyond ludicrous. The only bias I have in putting stories on the site is that they should involve complete sentences.
2 comments2 Comments so far
CCP apparently needs to be beaten around the head with a public relations stick. That report reads less like a proper report to the community and more like a whiny person defending themselves in a forum. “This proves conclusively that there was nothing malicious about Pete’s actions.” You can tell it’s proven and conclusive, because we’ve got screenshots of web pages and email, which are totally impossible to forge. “Verification of this can be readily found on the forums of the people responsible—or at least could, the last time we looked.” Go look at those forums for proof! Of course, we’re not going to tell you where those forums are, who “the people responsible” are, and we’re going to cover our asses with a “well, it was there once.”
I’m prepared to believe CCP, but this is a really shoddy effort at damage control.
Agreed, CCP’s PR dept. looks like it is run by monkeys. I have no interest in playing a game where the company acts in such an unprofessional manner. Legal threats? Are they trying to become the SCO of the MMOG-world?