Massive Exploit Ahoy?

CCP just announced that all new paid accounts are going to receive a Cerebral Accelerator implant through the redeeming system.  This implant can be traded on the contract market and is currently valued at around 100 mil isk. This price will most likely not be lasting very long, but it still might be profitable for those who want to hold on to the implant!

It is unclear if CCP realizes this, but currently the buddy program lets players get a free plex or 30 days game time added to their accounts when the invited account upgrades to a paid account. This trick is used by many to create a free 51 day head start on their alt account since they would have to pay for the main one anyways.  The interesting thing is that the announcement specifically says that it includes accounts that update from the buddy program.

Where is all this going?  Well, it is possible to sorta mass create items worth 350 mil isk.  All players need to do is send themselves a buddy invite and create an account. They then plex that account, and receive a free plex or 30 days to their main account.  They can use that new account to claim a Cerebral Accelerator Implant and a Apotheosis.

Players can just forget that account or use it as an alt account once the Cerebral Accelerator Implant and Apotheosis is transferred over.  Once this is all completed you can rinse and repeat, and make as many implants and shuttles as you can send out buddy invites.

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WARNING
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This is untested! I haven't had any sleep yet so this could all be wrong!

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Edit: Received reports that buddy invite accounts no longer receive the implant.
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War on Bots - Update

It is time to review the ongoing war against botting in Eve-Online.  It now has been months since CCP announced their ongoing war, and it would be interesting to see if it was just propaganda to silence the masses. Hopefully, CCP is keeping their word and making it extremely difficult to bot, but we shall see.

Bot 1 Status: Unknown

This bot claims to be working, and they just released a new update.  They claim that it works perfectly with Incarna 1.1, but the site itself looks like terrible.  It does have a forum, but they only have three posts in the public forums since September.  This site cannot be confirmed to be working, and it appears to be a scam.

Bot 2 Status: Working

This bot looks pretty professional, and it has active forums. The site itself looks slick with a lot of information, and there are a few tips on avoiding bans.  This makes it seem like it is possible to get banned for using the bot, but it is not a sure thing.  There are a few posts of people claiming to receive two week bans for using this bot, and others who claim they have no problems yet.  This bot also includes a trading bot...

Bot 3 Status: Working

This bot is a Russian mission running bot, and it appears to be fully functional.  There are a few discussions bugs and settings to make the bot run more efficiently and nothing about avoiding bans. Again, this looks fully functional with little risk of being banned.

Bot 4 Status: Unknown

There is no way to tell if this bot is legit or a scam.  It claims that it is 100% undetectable and working for the Incarna patch.  There is no forums to tell how active this bot is, but it claims to use optical reading and supports up to 3 clients at a time.There is no way to be sure how well it works and if it is actually getting detected.

In Conclusion

It appears that the war on bots is not going any more effective then any other game.  They released one or two small different patches to detect some of the free common bots, and it probably cut down a lot on the casual botting.  It did little to nothing to stop any of the professional botting, but that is sorta to be expected.

CCP managed to kill off the free public bots that were getting out of hand, but the ones that people pay for continued to work.  Maybe, this is because there is a market out for them, and it is just a very lucrative business.  Bot makers simply could have found out what anti-botting measures CCP put in place and circumvented them.  These circumvention measures do not seem to be 100% effect, though, and it is still possible to receive a 2 week ban. The ball is now in CCP's court.  It all depends on CCP releasing an update to their detection measures.

There is a disturbing thing about the war on bots, and that is bot number  3.  The Russian bot is still active.  It is the same Russian bot that was still working in the first War on Bots post, and it seems to be just as active.  This bot is really active with a lot of posts on the forums daily, and it would be nice if they did something to detect this bot.

Site Redesign In Progress

We're back, better, stronger, faster, more endowed, smarter, and better at math then ever before. We are going to be in the process of a major site redesign over the next few weeks.  The idea is to have some guides, permanent pages, and a few other surprises in stored! The redesign will happen in the following stages:

1.) General Layout - Complete
2.) Information - 80% Complete*
3.) Graphic Redesign - 90% Complete*
4.) Final layout Redesign - Not Started
5.) New Host - Canceled
6.) Relaunch - 75% Ready*
*Best Guess

This list may or may not be updated...
Stay tunned...