DRF cheats

It’s a controversial title, on purpose. Actually I don’t think they cheat on an individual basis. I am certain that there is a number of very good and genuine players in DRF. It’s just those that do cheat, do it very well and there seems to be a prevalence of questionable behaviour associated with the DRF. And if you are looking for EULA breakers check DRF first it seems. I pick DRF rather than ‘Russians’, as I feel there is a lot of excellent Russian players and very nice people and in no way think that just because the DRF may be behaving improperly that I think ‘the Russians’ do. We also talk about Chinese ISK farmers, it’s just DRF makes a good case in point at the moment to avoid stereotyping.

OK, that’s some very serious allegations, state your case and then back it up with evidence. Breaking it down into three steps:

1.       RMT (real Money Trading)

2.       Attack opponents, the so called meta-game

3.       In game exploits

So let’s look at each one in turn....

A GTC, 30 day plex, can be purchased from CCP for $34.99 for 2 ($17.50ea) and sells in game for 360 million on average (http://eve-central.com/home/quicklook.html?typeid=29668 ).

Personally I think one of the smartest things CCP has done is to sell Plexes. To be involved in the market means you can see trends and patterns, as well as influence outcomes. Don’t believe it? What if CCP halved the price of plexes (for arguments’ sake) in real life, its 99% likely to have an in game impact and will certainly effect RMT transactions. I do however realise that CCP has operational cost, and a number of subscribers and no doubt some careful number crunching has been done (I hope) to ensure that the CCP machine keeps running with its current revenue stream, thus setting the price for in game time. So tooling around with the price of plexes is not so simple, but just a point to debate, to illustrate a point.

So because we have a real life monetary value for plexes which translate to ISK we can price items on the market in real dollar terms. Sites like the 2 below do exactly this I suspect.

http://www.mmovp.com/buy-eve-online-eve-ships-c-25_1002.html

where you can buy ISK:

....and there best ISK sellers are:

http://evegiga.com/

notably they don’t break the ISK RMT rules, so does this mean selling ships is OK?

Here’s the top BS sales out of curiosity (how many over what time period I dont know):

OK, so what, what does all this really mean? It means ISK farming, selling ISK and ships and everything that goes with it is a job, it’s a business, and its big business.

So, as an example, if you live in China you make on average $6K USD a year (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_average_yearly_income_for_families_in_China )and can farm a billion ISK a day (http://www.evenews24.com/2011/02/12/the-rise-of-the-isk-printing-machines-a-case-study-on-bots/ ) which is 2.77 (avg) Plexes at $17.50ea is $48.48 USD a day, or $17,693.38/yr, or simply put THREE TIMES the average yearly income in China. So in China you could be comparatively very well off ISK farming.

When you threaten this income you threaten livelihoods, and people go feral. This is business and it is well known that the DRF is into farming and running null sec as a business.

Really? Prove it, how about the second part, meta-gaming. The DOS (Denial Of Service) attacks on EVE news are from Russia and based around the suspicion of them reporting on ISK farming (as noted in the article above). Furthermore given the current war on NC DOS attacks on NC alliance forums, sites and TS (Team Speak) servers are going on right now. From Russia, with love.

Here’s two snippets from EVE News:

Feed: Eve News24
Posted on: Wednesday, 11 May, 2011 4:50 AM
Author: Eve News24
Subject: GoonSwarm Federation and Other Northern Coalition sites/services under heavy DDoS attacks

If there was any doubts of who was behind or which were the motivations driving the latest round of Distributed Denial of Service attacks a good heads up would be their targeted sites, this time the GoonSwarm Federation main website was hit along other Deklein Coalition and Northern Coalition sites or services. As the battle [...]

Feed: Eve News24
Posted on: Thursday, 28 April, 2011 12:53 PM
Author: Eve News24
Subject: Game. Blouses.

Well, We’re Back. For Good. We were gone. And then back. And then gone again. No, this isn’t a tale by a hobbit, this is what has been happening to EN24 for the past week. While the real culprit behind these latest round of attack could probably never be outed, we have several suspects, I [...]

The third cheat? In game ones. Apparently you can filter your TCP/IP traffic (wireshark or some other tool may show you what packets I guess). Exactly what traffic I am not sure, but it means you can insta-jump to wherever you like (can be seen in kill board stats between two system say 10 jumps apart and kills within 30 seconds of each other) and not appear in local.

I have seen this third cheat, it got me, think I’ve seen the first as well up in Branch. I logged a petition, CCP needed no evidence from me (my screen shot, see below) and they checked their logs. There actions prompt and thorough and they took action. Think Shadowjumper got banned, well for a bit anyway, he was online last night. I was very disappointed to see you can cheat, get caught and still play.

Seems the DRF cheats, it ISK farms, makes a living out of it, launches DOS on those that oppose or even mention it and when people are caught cheating they get away with it.

As they say life isn’t fair and nor is EVE. Still, if CCP doesn’t do something this will kill EVE.

My plan? Using notes from the EVE news site on how to use Dotlan to find ISK farmers think I might go and camp some sites in a cloaky, drop a few bombs and hit them where it hurts the most, in the pocket.

For those that think DOS and cheating in game is the way to win they should GTFO. Oddly I don’t mind people making a living off EVE, couldn’t think of anything worse than turning your hobby into a job and taking all the fun out of it. For those who it is a job it is a grind no doubt, and good luck to them. However ISk farming is business, and its bad business and its bad for EVE.

Just don’t ruin the game for me and everyone else in the mean time who just want to play EVE, my mistress, my beautiful dark mistress.....