Protests shut Naboo server down in SWG

Based on the developer quotes, what I can imagine happened was that the 200 people who actually went around duping money all got banned, the 30 or so people that some of them decided to grief with giant tips got off the hook, and the vendors that most of them spent the money at were left entirely alone, other than losing the counterfeit money.

In retrospect, it doesn’t seem that SOE handled it that badly from a technical standpoint, but really, from a PR standpoint it was atrociously bad. They could have cleared it up from the start by announcing that the suspended accounts were intended as a quarantine to prevent the spread of bad money, and that those people weren’t being specifically presumed guilty.

Funny how seeing both sides of the story changes things, eh?

I was just putting myself into the role of said exploiter/griefer. I have never played SWG and never will. However, I understand the mindset. Here is how it probably went down:

First, a small group of powergamer catasses discover (probably through dedicated research) a dupe bug. These few keep the secret to themselves in order to reap the rewards. They are smart enough to fly under the radar and use the dupe discreetly. Eventually one of these powergamers gets a bug up his ass, probably because one of their overpowered skills got nerfed. They decide that they are done with the game, and want to go out in a blaze of glory. The fact that others like the game and would rather not have their game experience ruined is the farthest thing from the mind of a exploiter.

In retrospect, it doesn’t seem that SOE handled it that badly from a technical standpoint, but really, from a PR standpoint it was atrociously bad. They could have cleared it up from the start by announcing that the suspended accounts were intended as a quarantine to prevent the spread of bad money, and that those people weren’t being specifically presumed guilty.

Well that’s been the problem with most MMO companies, and yes, SOE in particular, for a long time. Communication. For a variety of reasons, some legal, some institutional, some inexplicable, companies running MMOs have historically been very uncommunicative about dealing with problems like this. There are some good reasons for their reticence to speak publicly, certainly, but it’s also true that every incident like this one has a cost in good will, and public relations, to some extent.

It may have something to do with the fact that many of their customers react with hysterics and vicious accusations. If I got that kind of vociferous reaction every time I communicated with someone I’d be tempted to keep it to a minimum, as well.

(Not that that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t suck it up and do it anyway.)

This reminds me an awful lot of those situations in school where one kid does something, implicates others, everyone gets punished and then there are all sorts of repercussions from that. My question? I seem to see this thing all the time in MMOs. Its precisely the type of conflict I don’t want mirrored in a game and I’m very happy to keep exclusive in real life. (At least not yet.)

Having read the griefer thread and all the other MMO threads around here, why do I get the impression that MMOs are all the fun of getting invited to a control freak’s house on an secluded island where the culture is alien, strange and utterly hostile? It seems the only value massively multiplayer adds to the typical RPG is this element, when I see things like this.

One thing like this and I’d probably wouldn’t put up with it ever again, from any other MMO for a very long time. I find I have very low tolerance for this kind of stuff, regardless of whose fault it was. And dear god doesn’t that last line sound an awful lot like resolving, “He said, she said” back and forths. Why do we want to take that into games again?

I think there must be a way of designing these things were this can’t happen. Or is impossible to have a decent level of complexity without it?

-Kitsune

I don’t think I play quite enough or stay current to qualify as a guru anymore. I sure don’t know any inside dirt. My server wasn’t effected by this shutdown (and there isn’t a Naboo server for the record) nor was anyone I know touched in any way by the credit duping scandal. My casual, non-guruish, take on this is that it’s mostly a tempest in a teapot. Most of the folks here discussing it or even complaining about it elsewhere don’t even seem to be SWG players. Just folks piling onto an easy target. Anybody that accepts huge amounts of credits for nothing is probably in contention for a Darwin Award as it is.[/quote]

Interesting, I didn’t realize that there wasn’t a Naboo server.