EVE exploit warning affects corp infiltration practices

by James Egan Aug 27th 2008 at 12:00PM

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Exploits, Game mechanics, Guilds, PvP, News items

War declarations are an essential part of EVE Online. They allow corporations and alliances to fight for control over resources, territory, or simply to get revenge on their rivals. Then again, others declare war for the opportunity to grief in Empire space. Perhaps it's this latter tendency that prompted the latest announcement from CCP Games. They're branding the monkeywrenching of rival corporations during wartime as an exploit.

GM Grimmi states: "The practice of insta-joining/leaving warring corporations for the purpose of surprising war targets, or getting them in trouble with CONCORD, is considered an exploit from here on. Reports of this will be investigated on a case by case basis and warnings will be issued at the discretion of the GM. Repeated incidents may result in bans on accounts involved." This doesn't seem to apply to 'normal' corp infiltrations, though it does beg the question of why a corporation at war would even be accepting new recruits at all. What's the protocol in your corp, do you continue to accept applicants into the fold during a wardec, or is the risk of alt spying and sabotage too great?

Tags: announcement, ccp, ccp-games, concord, corp, corp-theft, corp-thief, corporation, dev-blog, empire, eve, eve-online, exploit, gm, gm-grimmi, hangar-theft, monkeywrenching, sabotage, spies, spy, war-dec, war-declaration, war-target, wardec

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Anon said on 12:42PM 8-27-2008

http://begthequestion.info/

Please update the article. Sorry, I know you mean well, but that does not mean what you think it means =)

James Egan said on 3:04PM 8-27-2008

I see... "begs the question" vs. "raises the question"...

Brendan Drain said on 2:32PM 8-27-2008

This is a good move, and it only covers a very specific case. Currently, you can apply to join a corp and as soon as the CEO accepts your application, you instantly join.

Let's say you have a one-man corp wardec you and you have the fellow on your friends list. He's not online and there's only one of him, he's less than a week old and your location agent says he's on the opposite side of the game. You figure it's safe to move your freighter around.

A battleship pilot sitting on a gate has previously applied to the one-man corp and the ceo is sitting in a conversation with him waiting for the go-ahead. As soon as the battleship pilot sees the freighter, he tells the CEO to accept him into the corp and he instantly "joins" the war effort. Surprise war targets appearing right in front of you is the exploit.

A similar thing with being kicked out of the corp can cause someone that's about to fire on you to get concorded. By the time they've fired at you, you're not in the warring corp any more. So this really has nothing to do with using the wardec system to grief or people joining/leaving corps during a war, it's about that specific exploit.

Brendan Drain said on 2:34PM 8-27-2008

Scratch the "He's not online and" bit, left that in by accident. Obviously he has to be online to accept the application.

James Egan said on 3:10PM 8-27-2008

Thanks Brendan, this clarifies the exploit warning. Very devious.

Leshrac said on 3:41PM 8-27-2008

The only time this game makes the news is when a CCP employee exploits their system and awards a corp some unfair, incredibly imbalanced, game breaking advantage - or the game is hacked in some way, or some group of Goons griefs some other players.

Its obvious that the lunatics run the asylum.

Black Claw said on 7:12PM 8-27-2008

When my corp was wardec'd I didn't accept new applications until after the war was over, and anyone that had joined in the week before the wardec were removed from the corp with the explanation that it was to prevent the risk of spies infiltrating us, and that they would be reinstated after the war was over. Those that didn't take advantage of reinstatement were considered potential war spies/traitors.