Shadow of Cerberus EVE Community Forum

An End To Scamming And Roleplaying?

So, CCP changed their Terms of Service today. Specifically Article 8.

Before the change the text read: "You may not impersonate or present yourself to be a representative of CCP or an EVE Online volunteer."

That's fine and cool. Nobody has a problem with that. You don't want players going around pretending to be CCP representatives, scamming people out of ISK or passwords.

This is the text of Article 8 today, after the change: "You may not impersonate or present yourself to be a representative of CCP or an EVE Online volunteer. You may not impersonate or falsely present yourself to be a representative of another player, group of players, character or NPC entity."

The first sentence is unchanged from the original text. Fine and cool. It's the second sentence that is disturbing.

You may not impersonate or falsely present yourself to be a representative of another player, group of players, character or NPC entity.

This affects both scamming and roleplaying.

Let's consider roleplayers first. I know a couple of them. One in particular from my faction warfare days. Shalee Lianne. She roleplays an Amarr. Let's say she discovers one day some Minmatar mining in her system. She speaks to them, forbidding their industry in an Amarrian system: "I, Shalee Lianne, speak to you as a representative of Empress Jamyl I of the Amarr Empire. I forbid your industry in sovereign Amarr space." Yada yada yada. Basically, that would not be allowed, pretending to be a representative of an NPC entity. I'm not saying Shalee would ever do that, but if she did, it strikes me as nothing more than normal roleplay. And yet, according to the new Terms of Service, CCP Games would be well within their right to discipline her account.

Let's consider scamming. I'm sure many scams have been perpetrated in the name of Goonswarm by people not at all affiliated with Goonswarm. That, of course, now has to come to an end. According to the new Terms of Service. You cannot falsely present yourself as a representative of another group of players. So if Goonswarm were to catch wind of some Black Legion dude running rental scams in the name of Goonswarm, then Goonswarm could report that dude and he'd be punished by CCP Games. Or at least the Terms of Service suggest that would be the case.

CCP Guard has commented on the small furor this has created:

I can assure you that this is intended in the best way, as clarification of policy that's been in effect for a long time so I hope we have your patience until office hours tomorrow. Nothing bad will happen in the meantime.

If it turns out that this change to the wording is actually too far reaching, goes against its intended purpose, or is somehow confusing things rather than clarifying them, that will be taken care of...trust me. If it turns out to make sense despite the worries you guys have, proper explanations will be provided.

Why make a sudden change in the first place? Why not have run the proposed text by the playerbase first, find out what the complaints were, how players interpreted it to affect gameplay (and especially the metagame), and then made (or not made) changes to the final text? I don't know. This just seems to be how CCP does things.

CCP could come out and say "We will not punish scams or roleplaying, even if the new text suggests otherwise." They could say that. But the text in the new Terms of Service is still worrisome, because they can do an about face at any time. They could even start picking and choosing what issues to discipline and what to ignore.

I wonder if CCP is trying to soften EVE's image. "Hey, we have lots of war and combat. Do we needs lots of scamming, too?"
Source: An End To Scamming And Roleplaying?