SOE caught red-handed: EQ2 Player / Dev relationship breached ethical boundaries
Filed under: EverQuest II, Exploits, Guilds, News items, Opinion, Politics

Several days ago Massively reported that EQ2 Flames administrator broke the story on a scandal that regards numerous members from Unhallowed Triad, a guild on EQ2's Test server that was transferred to Unrest, a Live server through an inside connection at SOE. Character transfers from the Test server to a Live one is not allowed and against current SOE transfer policy; albeit, the EULA has a clause that SOE may change this policy at any time. However, the case is made that a Player / Dev affiliation has led to corruption, leaving many infuriated players with lots of unanswered questions as seen in these two threadnaughts. To recap for those not following this closely or wanting to sift through 100+ pages on the forums:
- SOE employee(s) abused their power breaking various codes of ethics (confirmed & guilty)
- Numerous Test players accuse Unhallowed Triad with a history of exploitation and getting away with it in due part to their SOE connection (rumors)
- Someone at SOE made the call to transfer Test characters to a Live server breaking policy (confirmed & guilty)
- Not only were characters transferred to Unrest, but items as well. Unhallowed Triad's Guild level was also inflated to 60. (confirmed & guilty)
- Many Unhallowed Triad guild members admitted to transferring off test in Assassin's chat (confirmed)
- Several Unhallowed Triad guild members were transferred unknowingly (more than likely)
- Legitimately leveled characters belonging to several Unhallowed Triad members were transferred over from other servers or already leveled on the Unrest server (confirmed)
- Unhallowed Triad guild tag no longer exists but there other guild tag Unholy Trinity exists and their Guild level stands at 30 (confirmed)
- All players on the Test server have not been given the same opportunity to transfer to a Live server
The extent of this server transfer is not something that was done on a whim. This was obviously planned by lead members of Unhallowed Triad and their SOE connection. It's a safe assumption that a SOE employee or several are members of Unhallowed Triad / Unholy Trinity. Perhaps SOE needs to establish an Internal Affairs Team to help safeguard, and retain transparency and openness with their playerbase. This not the first *known* case where a SOE developer or high ranking SOE official broke ethical boundaries. Innocent mistake or not, new measures need to be put in place, and or character transfer policy officially changed.
















Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ghen said on 8:08AM 12-17-2007
Unfortunately stuff like this is bound to happen in a lax gaming environment which these companies try to foster. So all in all I don't blame the corporation but the individuals involved for being easily corrupted.
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Celestian said on 2:14PM 12-17-2007
Hardly a ethical violation.
They simply rewarded players on the test server which is their choice. Violation? It's their game and it doesn't hurt anyone else. Those guys on the test server did hard time.
This isn't a PVP game, it doesn't effect anyone.
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LFG said on 9:45PM 12-17-2007
Nice article, good summary. :)
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Proofreader said on 9:26AM 12-18-2007
Your facts are incorrect on guild names. Unholy Trinity was the level 60 guild that transfered from test. Unhallowed Triad is the level 30 or so guild that was made and leveled on Unrest before any transfers took place. I believe LFG can confirm that since he has 70 plus pages of people repeating that over and over.
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