SOMER.blink

[Gentle Glide]

I also think blink is a massive con as well.. I'm kicking myself that I didn't think of it first TBH.. Although I don't have the patience to make an alt and then get a 'good reputation' as a 3rd party and code a website.. But I mean its SO EASY to just fake 50% of the wins (make up like 200-400 fake users and have them bid on every single auction and win 50% of them, with enough fake users no one would even notice). Obviously you want to let people win things so they can go off and tell people its all real, but as you coded the page you can tweak the percentage of player wins to whatever you want..

I know a guy utterly fucking convinced that you win more on a new account than an old one, basically your first 10 blinks or so your chances are higher so you get more bold and invest bucketloads more isk to be taken from you.

I did win a vindicator in a promo blink so fuck the haters, bid on taranis and promo blinks 4 lyfe

[Lana Torrin]

I know a guy utterly fucking convinced that you win more on a new account than an old one, basically your first 10 blinks or so your chances are higher so you get more bold and invest bucketloads more isk to be taken from you.

I did win a vindicator in a promo blink so fuck the haters, bid on taranis and promo blinks 4 lyfe

It makes sense in psychological point of view.. Let someone win once early on and they will forever think they can win again.. Hell even that is easy to code.. For the longest time (about a month) I was considering writing a droid/iphone app to access blink on your phone, and code it to skim off the top.. Not obviously of course, but enough so it would be worth me doing.. (I didn't because of effort)

[Xiang Jiao]

I also think blink is a massive con as well.. I'm kicking myself that I didn't think of it first TBH.. Although I don't have the patience to make an alt and then get a 'good reputation' as a 3rd party and code a website.. But I mean its SO EASY to just fake 50% of the wins (make up like 200-400 fake users and have them bid on every single auction and win 50% of them, with enough fake users no one would even notice). Obviously you want to let people win things so they can go off and tell people its all real, but as you coded the page you can tweak the percentage of player wins to whatever you want..

Always suspected a Blink scam crew check in!

[Lana Torrin]

Always suspected a Blink scam crew check in!

Honestly I will give props on it being a good one when its finally revealed (which I don't think it ever will be because there is so much more you can do with a good reputation)

[cheeba]

while blink could easily be a massive scam, even as a legitimate business, it makes somer so much money that there is almost no reason for it to be a scam. If it makes you 10 trillion or a 100 trillion - does it really matter?

Also, the fact that somer does 3rd party stuff (supercap sales, lotto insurance etc) which must earn alot less than blinks, implies to me he might just be another chribba type guy who enjoys doing stuff for the community.

But yeah, its morning here, I feel positive about the world and a bit naive. Blinks prob a massive scam at the end of it all...


(also, +1 for having never played a blink in my life).

[Andrev Nox]

Heyo folks

Every now and again, someone sees us pop up on a news site, or someone loses a few too many Blinks (or, hell, wins a few too many), and this type of conversation pops up.

But with over 480,291 prizes given away (not counting the 5,138 free promo giveaways), we'd need a LOOOOTTT of alts to perpetuate a scam on the scale you're suggesting Even if we followed the half-and-half model you're suggesting - which would be painfully obvious painfully quickly.

And, as many others have pointed out over the months, every legitimately closed blink nets us a bit of profit. We'd be terminally stupid to rig the system in any way, as it would be the one sure-fire way to kill our business forever.

If you like, you're free to evaluate our method for choosing winners. The code we use to get the number is here. As you can see, we draw it from random.org. You can find their real-time statistics here and several peer-reviewed papers on the quality of their random-generator here.

Since the winning number is chosen off site, and at the moment a Blink closes - how many blinks you've played in the past has no effect on your win odds. That said, in the past there has been an understandable perception of "I made more when I was new to Blink," and this was largely true. Not due to any type of number rigging, but due to an inbalance in the Achievement system. Early players had lots of achievements to hit, and hit frequently, whereas someone who had been around for a while already had all the "easy ones." We've tried to remedy this with the new Achievement system rolled out today, though.

PS - Always blink on 4. We rigged 4 to win.

[Gentle Glide]

Heyo folks

Every now and again, someone sees us pop up on a news site, or someone loses a few too many Blinks (or, hell, wins a few too many), and this type of conversation pops up.

But with over 171,703 prizes given away (not counting the 1,054 free promo giveaways), we'd need a LOOOOTTT of alts to perpetuate a scam on the scale you're suggesting Even if we followed the half-and-half model you're suggesting - which would be painfully obvious painfully quickly.

And, as many others have pointed out over the months, every legitimately closed blink nets us a bit of profit. We'd be terminally stupid to rig the system in any way, as it would be the one sure-fire way to kill our business forever.

If you like, you're free to evaluate our method for choosing winners. The code we use to get the number is here. As you can see, we draw it from random.org. You can find their real-time statistics here and several peer-reviewed papers on the quality of their random-generator here.

Since the winning number is chosen off site, and at the moment a Blink closes - how many blinks you've played in the past has no effect on your win odds. That said, in the past there has been an understandable perception of "I made more when I was new to Blink," and this was largely true. Not due to any type of number rigging, but due to an inbalance in the Achievement system. Early players had lots of achievements to hit, and hit frequently, whereas someone who had been around for a while already had all the "easy ones." We've tried to remedy this with the new Achievement system rolled out today, though.

PS - Always blink on 4. We rigged 4 to win.

Oh this thread just got interesting.

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Viewing Thread SOMER.blink

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April 16 2011

All of his poasts are in this thread. SOMER coverup ITT

[Andrev Nox]

Alternatively, I just don't read FHC much and come here to post when someone pokes me from our in-game channel that it's needed.

But massive conspiracy theories could be a valid explanation, and make for better soap opera scripts.

[Lana Torrin]

Words

That's the thing though. You don't need alts, you just need names and faces.. I could easily troll though the eve API and fund a few hundred names and faces that haven't logged in for years and no one knows or cares about. Its all about the code and we aren't likely to get access to that any time soon.

I mean you SAY you use random.org for random numbers and that is the code you use, but we cant actually verify that. I have told people a huge amount of lies in game to get at their money and on the scale of things that have been lied about, this is about a 2/10.. Now obviously yo do give away stuff or no one would play at all, but that's up there with me running a POS chain for a corp for 3 months so I can take 20Bil in cash and items.. The best way to get things is to give a little first.

I actually don't care if its a scam (I even hope it is), and I put money in to it (and probably still have some on my account) and it was fun for some time. All I'm really saying is that it would be very easy to scam.

[Andrev Nox]

Fair, it would be highly easy - but also highly stupid. Running it straight keeps the income safe for as long as we want to run it. Running it as a scam would be a lot more work, and a lot more risk.

[Gentle Glide]

Fair, it would be highly easy - but also highly stupid. Running it straight keeps the income safe for as long as we want to run it. Running it as a scam would be a lot more work, and a lot more risk.

the reward would be well worth it, especially because all it takes is :effort: since nobody can ever verify the wins for real.

[Andrev Nox]

We currently have about 30 employees. There's another 15 or so who worked for us in the past and don't any more. I'd rather run it straight and not have to worry about paying people to keep their mouths shut forever in the future

Plus, brass tax - If we really wanted to, we could have just put legitimate "House Blinks" in each one, publicly and honestly. House bets are an accepted gambling practice. We didn't want to do that - it's more fun when there's actually a real person winning each one, for them and us.

[Lana Torrin]

Fair, it would be highly easy - but also highly stupid. Running it straight keeps the income safe for as long as we want to run it. Running it as a scam would be a lot more work, and a lot more risk.

I duno.. Eve Bank ran for quite a while.. Its also only stupid if you get caught, which you can avoid by being nice to everyone and giving away things.. I also doubt that running it as a scam would be any more work as well.. A bit more work to setup in the first place, and possibly a bit more work if you want to cycle names and faces out so its not as obvious, but less work delivering actual prizes and such.. I would say it would be about the same amount, just allocated to a different activity..

Also its never going to last forever and never was. It will become unpopular eventually and die its own little death. This will be a sad day as its actually a very well thought out an innovative idea (be it scam or not, the idea is still the same).

[Gentle Glide]

We currently have about 30 employees. There's another 15 or so who worked for us in the past and don't any more. I'd rather run it straight and not have to worry about paying people to keep their mouths shut forever in the future

Plus, brass tax - If we really wanted to, we could have just put legitimate "House Blinks" in each one, publicly and honestly. House bets are an accepted gambling practice. We didn't want to do that - it's more fun when there's actually a real person winning each one, for them and us.

All 30 employees have access to the source code of the site?

[Andrev Nox]

stuff

Eve Bank was roleplaying from the start, though. Never trust anyone who has an illogical motivation for doing what they're doing

And yeah, it'll probably die on it's own eventually - and that's fine. It's still fun to do in the meanwhile. And, if it ever became not-fun, we could sell it (openly and honestly, closing all debts behind us) for a fair whack of ISK too.

All 30 employees have access to the source code of the site?

That's a fair caveat. There's about 12 currently (and another 5 who aren't with us anymore) who do claims, however, who would certainly notice if they weren't contracting out half the stuff won

[Gentle Glide]

we need a Council for Somer Management, CSM for short, that will investigate the inner workings of some blink. If you feel like this is not a reasonable request this is obviously a scam.

[Andrev Nox]

we need a Council for Somer Management, CSM for short, that will investigate the inner workings of some blink. If you feel like this is not a reasonable request this is obviously a scam.

Because CCP's CSM has proven so effective, right?

[Gentle Glide]

Because CCP's CSM has proven so effective, right?

Deflect away somer alt, deflect away.

[cillisia]

Deflect away somer alt, deflect away.

Pretty damned sure andrev isn't a somer alt

[Boltorano]

Pretty damned sure andrev isn't a somer alt