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SOE’s Latest PR Blunder: Shady Dealings or Quiet Kindness?
By Cameron Sorden | December 17, 2007
I’m really surprised that more people haven’t been discussing SOE’s latest scandal: Massively reported the other day that there were some allegations that the EverQuest 2 guild Unhallowed Triad, formerly of Test, had been moved to a live server and had also had some GM “help” in the repeated killing of raid bosses. Although the guild was scrubbed of its best gear before the move, stuff like this isn’t really supposed to happen. First, because there’s double XP on Test– the guild only needed half as much experience points as everyone else on that live server to be where they were (which isn’t really fair), and second, because SOE doesn’t extend the same privilege to everyone. What makes these guys so special?
It got to be a big enough issue that SOE looked into it and confirmed that there had been some shady transferring going on in the official forum threads. Massively continued with a follow-up story that examined exactly what had been done. Here’s their list of allegations:
- 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 [their] 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
Now, after the community got a little up in arms about this (understandably), they decided to reverse the transfer, delete the characters on Unrest, and keep the playing field level. However, as Krones pointed out, the tone of the message that Bruce Ferguson delivered this information in is decidedly… well, defensive and irritated. Read it for yourself:
“There has been quite a bit of discussion recently about something we were doing to show kindness to some valued members of our testing community who have been working diligently to improve EverQuest II for the last three years.
What we did was take a group of characters from the test server, scrub them by hand of all test gear, and any ‘privileged’ equipment, titles, etc, and grant their wish to continue to play as a group of friends, on a live server.
Had we been aware that being a little extra kind to these folks would cause such an uproar, there is no doubt we would not have taken this step. However, due to the current situation, I find myself apologizing to you for allowing this situation to occur.
We are in the process now of removing the characters that we copied to the live servers. Obviously, we overstepped the bounds of kindness in attempting to thank these people for their efforts in testing, and we are working to rectify this situation before the end of the day today.â€
Thank you,
Bruce “Froech†Ferguson
Senior Producer, EverQuest II
That, to me, sounds like he’s basically saying, “Yeah, we decided to move some people over to live, but since you guys are going to make such a big deal out of it, fine, we’re moving them back, even though it’s an irritating hassle for us, and I can’t believe that you’re all so pissed about it, but whatever.” Maybe I’m reading into his meaning too much, but that’s just what it sounds like to me.
So that’s the long and short of what happened. Personally, I don’t buy the “we were showing some kindness to valued members of the testing community.” This seems to be a pretty clear-cut case of inside assistance from GMs who were friends with members of Unhallowed Triad. If they were really rewarding long-time testers, they shouldn’t have been so hush-hush about the move and they should make a similar offer to anyone who has been a long-time tester. But that’s beside the point.
Was SOE stepping outside of their ethical boundaries here? Clearly, there was an outcry, but does that mean that they shouldn’t be allowed to do that? I mean, the traditional EverQuest slogan is “You’re in our world now,” and you are, literally. I can see why Bruce would be annoyed, honestly. One of the perks of dedicating years of your life to making a videogame is the ability to have some “flexibility” with the rules when you want it. They wanted to use that power to help out a few friends, and got nailed in the PR crossfire when it was exposed. But it’s their game. Why can’t they do that?
Feel free to chime in, everyone. I’m curious to hear some community perspective on this.
Topics: community, eq2, scandal, soe |
December 18th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
This is tricky…I can see both sides…Unfortunately, games get competitive, and any ‘unfair’ advantage unbalances things.
“But it’s their game. Why can’t they do that?”
Is it? Once you sell a product, is it still yours? Or do you transition into the awareness that the customer is who allowed you to have the opportunity to create a game- for them - and that you have a certain commitment to them and ‘fair play’?
“SOE employee(s) abused their power breaking various codes of ethics (confirmed & guilty)”
If you have your customer sign a Terms of Agreement outlining ethical behavior, but don’t follow your own…*throws hands in air*
December 19th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
I followed it on the official boards for a few days. It actually got to 81 pages before it was locked. Those most upset were other Test server players. Many of them have been testing from the beginning and received no similar “acts of kindness”.
Also, the guild leader is supposedly friends with an SOE exec and his wife’s account was granted GM privileges. So it’s likely more knowing the right people than just being nice.
I agree with LadyPao on this one. Telling one customer “Sorry, our policy states you can’t transfer” and some hand-picked others “Sure, we’ll even do it for free!” is just wrong. They can do what they want to sure, but if it becomes a habit how many customers would stick around?
December 20th, 2007 at 7:03 pm
[…] again… This topic won’t go away; it’ll be oft-discussed, glazed over, resuscitated again and again to be only horribly killed off in some fashionable way until the next press wire strikes a chord. […]
December 21st, 2007 at 10:37 am
I normally would jump all over this, trash SOE to hell and back, but it just isn’t worth it.
It was a dumb move, followed by a dumb response, and ending SOE in the same place they have been forever, the basement.
Really, the only thing I want to say, and is the same thing I said in the CCP incident: developers will do it until caught. Sad, but true.
December 25th, 2007 at 9:51 am
One question: Why do you care? (not directed at you Cam) It doesn’t affect me so what do I care?
Was it really any sort of significant advantage? So they have some level 70s when RoK came out. From the sounds of it, these folks have been playing for THREE years on Test. Don’t you think they’d have been level 70 by the time RoK released - whether they had an XP bonus or not?
It’s actually sort of sad that the playerbase is so petty as to bitch about this when these folks have been TESTING the game for three years… THREE years on the Test server! People should be praising SOE for rewarding their loyalty.
Petty.