Thought this could be handy to some people heading out there, especially at this time of year. I'm a BE micro stakes donk who plays online for fun with some casino experience in London, UK, decided to head out to Vegas to see the sights and blow some money on live poker for the experience. Spent some time googling before going because there are so many rooms that it can be tricky choosing one to play at, here's my take on it. I went for 10 days and got back yesterday, only playing 1/2 and a few donkaments.
Some tips before going - most of the rooms are pretty similar in terms of quality, mostly tourists/old men with one or two decent young players. Each room will run different promos of some kind or another, I would recommend downloading the 'Bravo Poker Live' app and spending 15 minutes or so having a flick through the poker rooms - you can star the ones you are interested in plus keep an eye out for other games you might want to play (few rooms ran 1/1 PLO for example). It also shows live wait list and how many tables are running that I found to be pretty accurate. The app also details all of the promotions that the poker rooms run, for example how much you get paid for a royal etc. Also make sure you sign up for the reward cards, it's free to do, takes a few minutes and pretty much everywhere will give you $2 an hour towards food. Also - all drinks are free everywhere, including alcohol! You just need to tip the cocktail waitresses.
Ballys
I really liked it here and turned up one morning before going Grand Canyon and it had the most insane game I've ever seen - they run a (n optional) $20 straddle from any position and some guy and his friend were doing it for like an hour straight. Good cocktail service and friendly dealers, normally was at least two tables going during the day, definitely the softest games around without a notable absence of pros/crushers, I think this is because they don't do promos. They do, however, give you a free buffet when you play for fours hours or more which was awesome and I took advantage of a lot of times before eating and going elsewhere.
MGM
I liked this place because of the promo it ran - if you hit a full house you get a ticket into a raffle (they just put all the tickets into a box) and draw a ticket once an hour, if your ticket gets pulled you win $200 in cash. I was lucky enough to win it once. They also have a good full house promo thing where they put particular full houses up on the wall (for example 555TT and JJJ99) and you win a certain amount if you hit them (it was $1500 the last day I played). Pretty active room with a lot of tourists (especially crazy on Saturday night after some MMA fight or something happened in the hotel) but I did notice a lot of the same guys sipping water playing through the early hours feeding on the fish. Overall though a decent room plus you get $2 an hour in comps for food that you can use at Starbucks as well as other places in the casino. Side note - I've never seen so many insanely hot women in one place. The poker room is just off from a nightclub and you get a steady stream of some of the world's most beautiful women stumbling out wearing next to nothing on weekend evenings. Someone at our table actually paid a guy $20 at the table next to us to move so he had a better view!
Planet Hollywood
The atmosphere in here is unlike anywhere else, tunes are pumping with 10/10 birds dancing next to naked on the Blackjack tables opposite, was like playing in the middle of a nightclub. There isn't really a room as such, it's just a load of tables in the centre of the casino. Was one of the busier places, often 10+ tables running in evenings. This is the kind of place that attracts guys buying in for the maximum wearing jewel encrusted watches on both wrists and showing their buddies sitting behind them their cards before shoving on a bluff. The music brings a very noticeable tempo to the game, people play and bet insanely quickly and nearly everyone was drinking booze in the evenings, not really the place for old man nits. A guy hit a royal when I was there and got $500. Alas, the atmosphere got to me and I ended up getting pissed as a fart and dropping a lot so be careful if you get caught up in atmospheres, great action room though, probably my favourite 'unique' experience.
Excalibur
Cool room that did cheap tourneys ($45) a few times a day that turn into 5BB shove fest after an hour or so. Easy room with a lot of drunk tourists, I actually regret not coming back here and checking it out more. They do a thing where if your aces get cracked you get a free spin on a 'wheel of fortune' type thing - most of the prizes are $25 but you have the chance to win a few hundred. Seemed easy level of play with little or no pros/regs
Mandalay Bay
Only played here for a few hours, nice room next to a huge sportsbook but the tournament structure was horrible - I stupidly registered 30 minutes late and got like 10BB if that. Cash was full of people playing at the hotel and limping every hand but I only played a few hours on like a Wednesday morning so not sure what it's like in the evenings.
Flamingo
Action! Didn't play much but seemingly everyone drinks and the games are fast and loose, definitely worth checking this place out. They run 1/1 PLO too but I couldn't get a game going when I was there
Caesars Palace
I turned up here at like 5am one morning and gave it a go, left after 30 minutes. Table was full of absolute beasts with $1k + stacks, extremely noticeable step up in quality compared to other rooms and not just marginal either, I was well out of my depth. It was a really nice room to play in and the casino was cool, I was going to give it another go but didn't get around to it, I assumed there must be a lot of fish if this many reg pros were playing.
Bellagio
Really nice room and probably the most elegant casino in Vegas, twice tried getting in a game here but the waitlist was like an hour long both times (38 people!) so gave it a miss. Twice I showed up and gawped at Doyle Brunson like a tourist, also saw Negreanu as well. Looked like a lot of big pros really do play here, they have a large selection of games including mixed and high stakes. Kinda regret not sticking around and playing here just in the hopes of getting a table change somewhere near Bobby's room so I could lean over and watch those guys for an hour or so, I suspect I'm not the only one thinking like that. FYI 1/3 is the minimum game here.
Golden Nugget
This is downtown so about a 30 minutes bus ride from the strip depending on traffic. Quite a lot of tables in a tight room and it's the only poker room on Downtown (I think? Binions only had tourneys running IIRC) so you get a lot of drunk tourists wandering in off of the Freemont street show. I actually had my best session here after shoving the turn with a J on a 9TQK board and getting called by two people without a straight, this should tell you everything you need to know about the calibre of play.
Well hopefully this gives people an idea of what they're heading into, happy to answer other Vegas specific questions if anyone has any, I hardly slept and smashed the shit out of the city for a week so feel I picked up quite a bit about how it works now. Overall the games are very easy compared to your average 1/2 in London for example. Best week of my life, fuck coming home :(
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“I can't believe this is my eighth studio album and I know I keep telling you that it is my most personal record yet, but its true and I'm really proud of that”
This
quote from
The Legendary Miss Britney Spears would most likely haunt her for the rest of the career, especially because it came in the eve of the release of her infamous 2013 album
Britney Jean, whose title anticipated a rare introspective look into a star with over a decade on the spotlight (most of the times for the wrong reasons)… also, it came right after her previous album, 2011’s
Femme Fatale, became her first full-length effort without any songwriting input from the Princess of Pop, although a Japanese bonus track features a co-writing credit from her.
Of course
Britney Jean deserves most of the criticism it receives and yet, it also deserves way more than just being outright ignored even by most of Britney’s diehard fans:
Britney Jean is more than just
Work Bitch and 13 b-sides, is more than Brit’s most dated-on-arrival release… Britney Jean is a case study of what was pop in its time, what changed and why it stopped being as popular as it once was….
POP BEFORE BRITNEY JEAN
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Early 00s pop music was being left aside by the general public during the heydays of gangsta rap, Timbaland/Pharrell-infused R&B and rock/nu-metal… at least until around the period between 2007 and 2009, the start of the Golden Era for
popheads: The anthemic choruses, the prominent synths, the light and care-free nature of the lyrics, everything was there to pump you up and make you dance… however everything would change in 2013, when streaming was finally introduced to the Billboard formula. After the satirical K-pop track
Gangnam Style by Psy took the world by storm, it was noticed how in the United States the song was blocked from the top spot by the inconsequential
One More Night by Maroon 5, even if
Style had the lead in sales for most of the 12 weeks it stayed at the Top 10 (as you might have guessed, radio had something to do with that), pushing Billboard to update their methodology and
add streaming to the mix.
The first song that benefited from the change in the tracking methodology would prophetize what would come next for the charts in general:
Harlem Shake, a nearly-instrumental meme song debuted at the top spot and stayed there for 6 weeks total. Another novelty song, Ylvis’
The Fox (What Does The Fox Say?) would visit the Top 10 later in the year based on virality alone.
Although rap, indie music and more traditional pop music found their way during this year, the presence of outliers like Lorde’s
Royals, genre-defying tracks like Avicii’s
Wake Me Up! (a country/folk tinted EDM anthem) and Florida Georgia Lane’s
Cruise (considered the grandfather of the bro-country genre, made popular on pop radio thanks to a tackled-on rap feature by Nelly), and the aforementioned viral hits not only showed that general audiences were craving something new, but their success would pave the way for a big change in pop music.
BRITNEY BEFORE BRITNEY JEAN
"Sometimes you don't need to use words to go through what you need to go through, sometimes it's an emotion you need to feel when you dance, that you need to touch. And the only thing that can touch it is when you move a certain way."
Britney Spears on the For The Record documentary, one of the rare glimpses she gave us on her life before Britney Jean
Britney, of course, was partially a pioneer and a tail-rider of the maximalistic electro sound of the era,
as proven by the influence and cult following of what most people consider her magnum opus, or at least her more direct and honest album, 2007’s
Blackout, which is ironic considering that Britney only has two writing credits in the whole project and how even The Unstoppable Danja
called it ‘impersonal’.
After
Blackout, Britney would continue to ride the same sonic palette with her follow-up, 2008’s
Circus and then move onto
Femme Fatale, which, in spite of its “forward-thinking” nature (
as described by the label-appointed producer and current persona non grata Dr. Luke) and slick production, it was heavily criticized for its anonymity and lack of input of the singer in the record, which led to Britney to defend herself stating, rightfully, that she had
nothing to prove.
THE MAKING OF A PERSONAL ALBUM
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The mastermind behind
Britney Jean was none other than hitmaker will.i.am, whose involvement on the record came as a surprise to no one given how they have collaborated twice at that point and get along really well (you can read more about it
in this post I made a couple of months ago), however, the Black Eyed Peas frontman doesn’t deserves all of the credit for the record as Britney herself decided that she would be more involved and had a pivotal role into the making of this record.
Although
the early stages of the album
pointed towards a more hip-hop release, will.i.am’s involvement and her chemistry with Britney put her forward into the recording and making of the album.
Realizing that she wanted a more straightforward release that wasn’t as bouncy and genre-hopping as her predecessors, Britney
searched with will.i.am a series of collaborators that could help her bring her ideas to life, as she didn’t wanted to sing impersonal songs that her team just happened to receive; this, unfortunately, ruled out the involvement of the Saint Patron of pop production Max Martin, although it relegated Dr. Luke to a sole bonus track so that’s a win in my book.
Britney Jean is her only release in which she’s credited as a co-writer in each track, including bonus tracks… her closest before that was
In The Zone in which 9 of the 14 (including bonus) tracks sported a Britney co-write.
THE PERKS OF BEING A PERSONAL ALBUM
I have been through a lot in the past few years and it has really inspired me to dig deeper and write songs that I think everyone can relate to […] I want to show you the different sides of Britney Spears.
I am a performer.
I am a Mom.
I am funny.
I am your friend!
I am Britney Jean.
Britney Jean Spears
Britney has never been the kind of performer that would pour her soul into her lyrics, and even have occasionally distanced her private life from her lyrics (she famously rejected the Timberlake-bashing
Sweet Dreams My LA Ex, later given to ex-S Club 7 member Rachel Stevens as her debut single), although in the few glimpses we have gotten from her real persona (the stunning
Everytime and the dubious
My Baby for example) have always leaved her fans with the idea of her getting more involved with the subject matter of the tracks… I mean, the exploration of fame in tracks like
Circus and
Piece of Me are great, but what about explorations of who is Britney?
Britney Jean is her first album released in her 30s, and after finally deciding to get this involved in the songwriting department 15 years into her singing career was no fluke: chalk it up to coincidence, to the fact that it was long due given her background (Britney had lived A LOT of unwanted stuff during her career, married twice, had two kids, survived the most public mental breakdown unimaginable and more while being one of the most successful female performers currently working… also, that year she had ended her engagement with her manager Jason Trawick) or to misogyny (if you wanna go there) but female singers seems to go personal and/or mature in their 30s, with some popular examples including Madonna’s
Like A Prayer (described by her as being "
about my mother, my father, and bonds with my family"), Mariah Carey’s post-divorce genre-bender
Butterfly (if her birth year is believed to be 1969), Beyoncé’s whole post-Matthew Knowles era (
4 was released three months before she turned 30), Nicki Minaj’s back-to-my-roots release
The Pinkprint and Katy Perry’s purposeful woke pop release
Witness (Katy, I love you but 💀) among others.
Another thing to consider is that doing “personal” songs have always being interpreted as tracks with stripped-away or piano-driven arrangement, something that Britney, who had sung about being on the club or having sex (or even both on the same track) so many times it kinda become her trademark, is not something she’s might get allowed to do, especially when the current-at-the-time pop scene and Britney’s then-current sound were a far cry from the kind of sound these “confessional” tell-all songs normally have.
#BritneyPleaseSavePopMusic
(this was a real hashtag that was worldwide trending topic on Twitter in September 2013) With the anticipation of what a Britney-fied personal record would sound like, anticipation was in an all-time high among fans… so it was natural that her most introspective record would be anchored with an EDM song called
Work Bitch. In Britney’s defense, will.i.am pointed out
almost immediately how the braggadocio track didn’t represented the album but it was rather about Britney Spears herself.
Promoted with what was heavily
rumored to be a 6.5-million-dollars budgeted video which was
supposedly heavily sanitized from its originally sexed-up original version (more on that later), the video itself represented most of the promotion the whole album received, as the album’s second and final single (
Perfume) was left to rot in negligence after the album’s release.
Outside of a couple of TV appearances (not performances, just interviews), including one to promote her then-upcoming “2-year” Las Vegas residency Britney Spears: Piece of Me, and an E! documentary about the making-of the album and said residency, no actual promotion took place for Britney Jean, which led to the inevitable.
BRITNEY UNLEASHES HER MOST “PERSONAL” ALBUM
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Britney Jean was unleashed to the world on December 3rd of 2013, one day after the Princess’ birthday, and was a big commercial disappointment,
debuting at number 4 on Billboard with sales of 107,000 copies (a little bit more than a third of the sales of
Femme Fatale), even lower than those of her debut album
…Baby One More Time; 3 years after its release,
BJ had sold less in the United States than
FF in its opening week, although it was
eventually certified Gold by the RIAA… this February. Internationally, the release didn’t fare any better and debuted at record-low positions for her releases in most international markets, including missing the Top 30 in the UK.
As most of you already know, reviews we’re nasty all around, the worst of Britney’s career. Because of the
somewhat mean content of some of those reviews, I would instead resume what are the biggest perks critics had with the release:
- The album’s production (carried mostly by will.i.am protégé Anthony Preston, who hasn’t done anything ever since) was considered monotone, repetitive, dated, backward-thinking, overproduced and by-the-numbers. The album, full, on EDM beats and synthesizers, doesn’t really have that much of a breathing spot as there’s not that much of musical variety.
- Lyrically, the album was considered a disappointment considered its nature as a “personal album”, with the lyricism being considered somewhat superficial given the self-titled naming and Britney’s hype surrounding the content itself.
- Vocally, Britney Jean was ripped apart by critics and even some listeners. When the opening track’s autotune-less “warm up” vocal sessions leaked in 2014, critics complained about Britney’s (lack of) vocal talent and added fuel to the debate about wherever she’s actually talented at all, accusations that the song producer William Orbit dismissed.
SING A SONG OF SIXPENCE, MISS BRITNEY SPEARS
After one of the songs leaked ahead of the album’s release,
there were accusations that backing vocalist Myah Marie (who had appeared on Brit’s previous two albums) was the lead singer not only on said leaked track but also in a large portion of the album (
this is what she sounds like), accusations that Marie
herself denied as well as Britney’s reps.
Her representatives claimed that Marie wasn’t involved in neither
Perfume nor
Passenger, the tracks that were
the source of most of the controversy, and ultimately she wasn’t credited in none of those songs, although she’s credited as a (not background) vocalist in several of the other tracks of the album (mostly the Preston-produced songs as
Work Bitch,
Tik Tik Boom,
Til It's Gone,
Chillin' With You and
Now That I Found You), including
Alien (in which she’s not credited), who
had a vocal steam leak in 2014 which showcases how uncanny is Myah’s
impression of Britney is. A credited background singer is Sia in her co-composed single
Perfume, which was the source of a weird misstep when Britney was caught lip-syncing to a version of the song with
Sia’s vocals forefront in the mix.
A lot has been said about how
Britney’s signature singing ‘baby’ voice is not her real one, how do
they compare and
how much damage has done to Brit’s current vocal chops, and even though she
can still sing wherever she wants to, it’s quite obvious that she’s not that comfortable with it and, as such, she prefers to enhance her voice with the use of technology and some studio trickery… also, she might have gotten used to it considering how effortless and vivid were her earlier performances…
here’s I’m A Slave 4 U at the 2001 VMAs just because how iconic it is.
BRITNEY JEAN… BY BRITNEY JEAN SPEARS
"People can take everything away from you, but they can never take away your truth.
The question is: Can you handle mine?"
Britney Spears in a song that’s not from this album and not originally from her
Described by critics as “
a concept album about the loneliness of pop life”,
Britney Jean actually open with quite a promise with
Alien, a mid-tempo, melancholic, airy, ethereal dance pop opener that works as a more teenage-sounding version of
Ray of Light, which is not surprising considering the involvement of said album’s mastermind (the aforementioned William Orbit) and that sonically picks-up where
FF closer
Criminal left off, but lyrically is quite different, as it portrays Britney having an intimate and personal realization that she, after years of tumultuous and erratic events, has lost grip of who she was and how she felt like an extraterrestrial in her own world; however she realizes that she’s not longer alone as she looks at the glow in the stars as a light to guide her home away from her insecurities of the past, and to feel safe and finally finding comfort in her true skin, as the chorus repeats the catchphrase ‘
not alone’ “
until it is pitchshifted up like a departing space ship”
Originally intended to include Gaga in the song (and also
supposed to be released as a single, which unfortunately didn’t happened),
Alien was considered the conceptual and musical highlight of the project by critics, and is easily the most personal, vulnerable and my personal highlight of the project… which made everything that came afterward a hard pill to swallow. Before that, I can’t help to mention THE GLITCH (
2:14 in the song), which was
apparently, as everything wrong with music of the period, will.i.am’s fault.
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Work Bitch (alternatively known in censored form as
Work Work, or in the explicit version as
Bitch Bitch) is a hard hitting EDM smasher and heavy mood-whiplash, which was definitely
not co-written by Sebastian Ingrosso, in which Britney gently asks us (over a basic club beat which grows more overloaded as the song moves forward) is we want a hot body, an European luxury car (either a
Bugatti, a
Maserati or a
Lambo skirrt skirrt skirrt) or to sip martinis while partying in a big mansion in France, only to disappoint us by calling us bitches and telling us to better work as if we were supermodels and
she was RuPaul.
WB is, if
you wanna practice some mental gymnastics, more ‘personal’ than its given credit for, as Britney details how much benefits she gets from hustling all these years, and inviting us to dance with that smashing wall-of-sound-laden beat that drowns most of the track. Way more forward-thinking and exciting that everything that comes after it,
WB has become somewhat of a new classic for the Princess of Pop, and is pretty much deserved of said designation.
Perfume, co-written by Sia, is another album highlight (
actually Britney’s favorite from the album) and one of the finest ballads of Brit’s late-catalogue. Written about her ex-fiancé Jason Trawick, the song deals with Britney’s insecurity about a current relationship, with Britney singing with some of her strongest vocals in years about how she believes that her partner is cheating on her and how she puts on her perfume in order to mark her territory. Released with a tie-in with her perfume Fantasy, the song kinda flopped worldwide and halted all of the promotion of the album, however it still remains (alongside the rawer
Dreaming Mix, included as a bonus track) as one of the most interesting songs in 2010s Britney catalogue.
The music video, directed by known troll and middling talented videomaker Joseph Khan, has an unreleased director’s cut in which the straightforward concept of a cheating partner
is changed to that of Britney playing the Angelina Jolie role in a gone-wrong version of
Mr. and Mrs. Smith sans the boyfriend who is also an assassin.
It Should Be Easy finds Britney’s voice drown in both the auto-tune setting used by Kanye for the
Runaway coda and the vocals of guest-star will.i.am in the chorus, all while produceco-writer David Guetta rehashes Swedish House Mafia (which originally broke up the same year in which
BJ was released). The song, about Britney imagining a bright-normal-future with a man who had stolen her heart, stating that love “
shouldn't be complicated”. Although I like this song, and her team obviously likes it to as it commissioned remixes to be serviced to clubs, it signals when things start to go somewhat downhill.
Tik Tik Boom, the T.I.-assisted fifth track, was always dubbed as a potential third single (remixes were commissioned but nothing official ever came up), and it’s not hard to see why: as one of her rare collaborations with a rapper, the static-y, dance-floor ready production presents Britney teasing a male partner with a night of… well… tik tik boom… that means sex, doing so while serving some circa-2001 sexy vocals as T.I. raps about treating her like an animal up to the point that PETA (
which hates Britney) should be called in response. It’s fast, it’s straightforward and yet, it’s kinda forgettable and also very disappointing coming from or Princess Urbanney.
Guetta comes back with
Body Ache, another outdated EDM bop in which Brit (accompanied by vocoder and several dozens of vocal distortion treatments) sings about the kind of ‘I wanna dance so hard it gonna turn you on’ anthem which Miss Spears can do on her sleep, with a backtrack that sounds straight out of the EDM will.i.am was doing with the Peas during the Beginning/E.N.D. era. Also it ends in a somewhat anticlimactic way.
Personal Britney makes a return with this track that wouldn’t be too out of place in
FF: The Guetta co-written
Til It’s Gone, in which Brit realizes that, after losing the love of her life (Trawick), her life would never be the same, or how “
you never know what you got 'til it's gone”. Coming some two years to late sonically, in terms of lyrics the track it’s another story, as some interesting imagery pops here and there and it’s nice to leave the dance floor behind, especially when talking about a woman who (at least in the previous albums) rarely shut up about them.
Katy Perry arrives on the record but not as a feature, but as a writer, in the Diplo-produced, Sia-co-written and
Prism outtake
Passenger, in which some interesting EDM beats moves out of the way after the opening (they come back, don’t worry) to reveal a refreshing and very welcome electropop rock song with some great Britney vocals about letting someone to guide her after she’s willing to let herself be his ‘passenger’. Great lyrics, daring production, good vocal performance… it’s not hard to see why critics loved this track so much, and it’s a shame it gets buried among so much underwhelming stuff.
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Chillin’ with You, the album’s most infamous moment, finds Britney dueting with her sister, ex-Nickelodeon star and attempted country singer Zoey Meredith Brooks, about hanging out together and drinking wine (Brit likes red, Chase Matthews' ex likes white wine) while, as the southern white suburban moms they are, they feel they have nothing else to worry about. Although the lyrics are… well… cute, and the subject matter is decidedly novel by Britney’s standards, the mixture of country and EDM doesn’t mash as well as the producers might had expected… also, the fact that their vocals were so obviously recorded in different sessions (as showed by the kind of chemistry you only see
in cheesy 70s movies starring John Travolta and Lily Tomlin) makes the whole ordeal so surreal.
The album closer in the standard edition is
Don’t Cry, a FUCK YOU MR. TRAWICK song in which Britney reassures his man that it’s not worthy to cry as their relationship was always directed to end no matter what they do, and how she’s gonna go to not see him all tear eyed. The bouncy but subdued dubstep back track by pop goblin and producer will.i.am enhances what is arguably Britney’s best vocals in the whole album and some really nice lyrics which still doesn’t work as an album closer.
Sia comes back in the first bonus track of the deluxe edition,
Brightest Morning Star, and she brings with her current pop Pariah (that would be Dr. Luke, but he’s only in this track) to the mix, on a
track about God (or
maybe about her kids, according to Dr. Puke), or at least one that implies to be one; in Sia’s words: ‘
Britney was extremely sweet. She came in with the title ‘Brightest Morning Star’ and told me that’s how Jesus found his way. She wanted to write a kind of gospel song that wasn’t ramming it down your throat’. Despite the good intentions,
BGS is no
Jesus Walks and it gets short in the musical department, with a surprisingly weak instrumental which doesn’t do any good service to the song.
Britney continues her religious quest with
Hold on Tight, a mid-tempo ballad that in which Miss Spears details how God comes into her dreams (or it might be an
Incubus?) showing her the path to righteousness, even when the road is not as friendly with her, and… to be honest, this is my least favorite song on the album, it’s just so forgettable even if it’s quite refreshing in the context of
BJ.
To end the evening, Britney continues her unintentional audition to become a gospel singer with
Now That I Found You, a shameless EDM track (with early-10s euphoric drop and everything) about how incomplete she was until she found Him (to be honest, this could also be another love song, but after two bonus tracks about God it’s easy to see where she was pointing towards with the vague lyrics) and how everything is better now. Unlike the forgettable predecessors,
NTIFY is fun (dated? Sure… but also fun), it’s bright, it’s colorful, it’s happy, and one of my favorite songs on the record… even if co-writer Guetta basically ripped off his own hit
Without You from 3 years before.
u/radiofan15’s UNWANTED OPINION ABOUT BRITNEY JEAN
Britney Jean is not an autobiography, it’s not a tell-all gossip-venting machine, it’s a clean, overproduced product of misdirection and lack of focus… and yet it’s actually fascinating in several ways: it’s arguably the greatest resume you would find of how pop music sounded in between 2008 and 2013, it’s a great bridge between the impersonal heavily-polished
Femme Fatale and the serviceable and engaging
Glory, which saw Britney leading the way on how everything would sound from the start.
It’s quite ironic how the album’s naming (taking a cue from Janet Jackson’s
Damita Jo, her actual middle name) plays against it, as self-titled releases (unless they are debut albums) are associated with being in control of your output or reinventions (pop examples includes
Paramore as their first release as a trio,
Beyoncé to fit the minimalistic sounds and Janet Jackson’s
janet. to showcase independence from the Jackson family) and unless you’re Led Zeppelin, Peter Gabriel or Weezer, the idea of having a second eponymous release usually means that audiences should expect to experience the performer in a never-seen before way. 2001’s
Britney was the album that give a meaning to the phrase “
I’m not that innocent” spurred in her previous effort, with lyrics talking about womanhood and sexuality being complemented with R&B vibes and rock/hip-hop elements.
Britney Jean, when compared to
Femme Fatale, is way behind the difference between
Britney and
Oops!... I Did It Again, which in retrospective is even worse as the relative freshness and reinvention of
Glory leaves the ‘openness’ and ‘variety’ of
BJ in shambles.
One of the album’s biggest mistakes is in its sequencing: the first three tracks are the obvious highlights, the next three are basically DOA EDM songs, the next four are the most “adventurous” musically speaking and the bonus tracks are all about God. Taking out some of the ‘pure club’ anthems could theoretically create an album more deserving of its ‘personal’ label, going full Spinal Tap and amp up the production values to do something crazier might have given us something that was at least digestible in a single listening.
The album, as it is, is not perfect, but it’s far from the dumpster fire more people called it, including some of the most interesting Britney songwriting in years (or even her career) and some tracks that are already started to show signs of cult classic. The only positive thing most people seems to agree with is how short it is: with the alternative mix of
Perfume included,
BJ is ‘only’ 50 minutes long (the standard edition is just 36 minutes long), which is something most performers (even today) seems to struggle with.
Also, she didn’t came to play games with the art cover and aesthetics this era, the album cover and the booklet is her most gorgeous to date, with the former having her most flattering front picture of any of her albums and the neon typography creating a very pleasing contrast with her elegant black-and-white imagery (in the deluxe edition) or the elegantly, milky pastel coloring of the standard edition.
THERE CAN BE 100 LISTENERS IN THE ROOM AND 99 LEAVE BUT ONE... - BRITNEY JEAN THE DAY IT DEBUTED
https://preview.redd.it/hpjl86hfce221.jpg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a01c8129a31203474b2bafbc17ea994d5f83e132
Britney and her team gave up quite easily on
Britney Jean and, honestly, they shouldn’t be blamed: the offer to have a Vegas Residency with
a salary of $15 million dollars per year seems like the kind of offer a pop star and mother of two with enough money already for several timelines would accept, with the album itself being more of an afterthought.
Britney was originally slated to remain on the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino for two years but ultimately extended her run for another two years, before finally touring overseas (without an album attached to the performances) during 2017 and 2018.
Because of the lack of promotion,
Britney Jean underperformed when compared to Miss Spears’ previous releases, with estimated worldwide sales (as of April 2018) being close to 1.3 million copies, less than a third of
Femme Fatale’s sales.
Truth be told,
BJ flopped hard… HOWEVER, not everything would have turned out that terrible (not even in a million years it would have sold as much a
FF but at least the downfall could have been smaller) with some actual promotion and interest from Brit herself.
SOME REACHING… I MEAN… THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BRITNEY JEAN
BJ is, in my opinion, a compilation of the era, the resume of “in the previous episode of” that you get on serialized TV shows, a farewell to the bombastic era of synth-heavy EDM club anthems with gratuitous drops and interchangeable lyrics. During the genre’s opus, some performers tried to bend this sound (and their equivalents) to their benefit, either mixing it with their style or playing with the boundaries of the sound: it could be a Taylor Swift doing a
We Are Never Getting Back Together to get a broad crossover hit, a Lady Gaga mixing multiple genres to create a sonically complex pastiche called
Born This Way, or even straight-up jumping almost seamlessly from rap/R&B to club bangers like Nicki Minaj did in
Roman Reloaded. Britney in
Britney Jean did almost the opposite of that.
Britney Jean is, in some ways, a time capsule of the era in its rawest and purest form (some might differ and replace those buzzwords with generic and bland), with the average user being able to trace mostly any track to a style, influence, sub-genre or even performer. Listening to
BJ is like watching a 70s movie in VHS in an old, square TV, basically an
unintentional period piece that reflects the volatile, bombastic and extravagant style of those golden years of 2008-2013, which, within the mindset of
Britney Jean sounds kinda tired and bland, surprising no one when that branch of pop went back into obscurity and irrelevance almost as fast as grunge music did when Kurt Cobain died.
Britney Jean came up in a time of transition of popular music, with streaming showing the kind of power it had on the charts and more subdued, minimalistic music taking the world by storm. Popular music, as you might already noticed, evolved into a slower, more melodic, calculated, numb, almost anticlimatic entity which was more fitting with our current social and political climate. To
paraphrase Todd in the Shadows: 2013 had a hit literally called
Happy and 2018 had both a hit called
SAD! and another called
Happier with a video about a dog that dies.
In terms of Britneyology (both the study of Britney Spears and the religion dedicated to her persona),
BJ is also a glimpse into Britney the full-fledged artist. Britney has never been the kind of performer that gets heavily involved into her music, with Britney’s role being generally limited to the choice of songs, sequencing, development of sounds and themes with her assigned team of writers and producers, and performing of course; sometimes Britney gets involved into the heavier portions of her music (the classic
Everytime is a great example of it) but most of the time she remains quite anonymous, with her voice and choice being overwritten by the men on charge, something that became quite apparent during and after the Dark Ages (2004-2008) with the cancelling of the legendary
Original Doll, her lack of songwriting credits in both Blackout and Circus, and her much-criticized anonymity in
Femme Fatale.
BJ was Britney deciding who does want to work with, what does she wants to sing and even how to equilibrate her musical and visual persona. Britney has always being in control of how is she portrayed on official media, most famously rejecting an animated concept for the video of …Baby One More Time in favor of a Lolita-inspired take on catholic school girls, and then the slow process from jailbait to grownup woman. During the post-production of the Work Bitch video,
she clashed with director Ben Mor over the kind of content the video should show, as she was a mother in her 30s now instead of an unreachable male gaze fantasy.
With
BJ, the Legendary Miss Britney Spears showed us how much she has changed since that controversial 2003/2004 period (the last time she was that involved with an album) in which she received the Kiss of Death from Madonna, suffered her infamous accident and, of course, married twice in a calendar year. This new Britney was a much-different person, and her voice deserved to be heard, and even if the results weren’t the greatest, it was a step into the right director for Britney to get what she always wanted: being a full-fledged artist capable of taking her own decisions and learning from her mistakes.
POP AFTER BRITNEY JEAN
https://preview.redd.it/382f3hucce221.png?width=1500&format=png&auto=webp&s=b270179e2de3c085b7dd38ea838588f2f45d9e4b Coincidentally in 2014 most of the ambassadors of the dominant pop sound of the early 10s were either taking a musical break, flopping or changing lanes, so that year paved the way for the transition of what do we define as popular music, with the winners of the evolution race being trap (Fetty Wap’s
Trap Queen), meme music from awful people (Bobby Shmurda’s
Hot Nathans) or untalented losers (T-Wayne’s
Nasty Freestyle, Silentó’s
Watch Me), trop pop (OMI’s
Cheerleader, Justin Bieber’s entire
Purpose era) or whatever outlier track dared to pass through those filters.
What happened afterwards is a horror story most of
popheads tells in fire camps a la Are You Afraid of the Dark?
BRITNEY AFTER BRITNEY JEAN
Glory , the follow-up
Britney Jean, received very positives reviews and was considered a strong return-to-form for Britney, and even if it wasn’t as successful as her label might have wanted, the truth is that, at the end of the day, whatever Britney decides to do next (and considering the direction she seems to be taking) it can be as underwhelming as
Britney Jean.
https://preview.redd.it/t7rph8g4ce221.png?width=500&format=png&auto=webp&s=0b8d0a459f5caed0d41c087c7658cce2e79f2210 TL;DR :–
· Me and why I was banned
· IWISK
· EVE CASINO
· CCP Security
· Tinfoil
· Shit Spelling
Dear Fellow Space Nerds,
For months I have been debating if I should write this piece and I warn you now it is long, I have written this and discarded it several times on the basis that it will just come across as a bitch or a whine. But as you may now tell I have left it long enough for many to not care, so this story will just be that, a story of bad spelling, bad punctuation and the worst grammar you have ever seen. But it is my story and I have decided to just tell it as the question “I thought you was banned” needed a point of reference I could send people to. Now I get you will be suspicious but I am telling it as I see it, and if you read all of this then bravo indeed! :)
Before we begin let me just say that the whole banning of gambling mechanisms from a video game I do support and that is my stance on it. It may just be for fun but does it hold a place in a sandbox from an external point of view, the answer is no and should be every time. However it can be incredibly innocent for the 99% that participate, it is however the 1% who may have been personally affected by the ability to gamble using IRL money via the forms of plex codes. My issue which you will read here, is how it was handled and how I was treated rather than the morals of gambling.
This story begins at the start of 2016. Between the dates of the 6th and 9th of January, approx 14 Bankers in IWISK was banned for suspected RMT. This was only several days after CCP Peligro (who will be referenced allot in this piece) had announced on Twitter that he was back to work. CCP Peligro has been a subject much recently on reddit and other channels (discord / IRC etc) and I figured I would give my experience with him and CCP as a whole. Now some devs from CCP are reading this and those who I have linked this too will agree with much that is written here.
Now the claims that the banning of IWISK bankers was due to SMA etc informing CCP Security of the 1 Dollar to 1 Billion isk that IWISK was selling, these were called Batts or batteries.. I know what you are thinking, why would CCP believe such an incredible story that 1 Billion equated to 1 USD... Now CCP Peligro was off on Christmas break when these emails were sent to
[email protected] mailbox.
Well the simple truth is that they actually did! Team Security took this as an opportunity to jump on the IWISK RMT train which they failed to execute back in mid 2015 with the whole iwisk URL blacklisting from the in game browser. Now why would Team security hate IWISK? The answer is really simple and can be summed in a few bullet points :
- Several complaints over IWISK RMT which on reddit we saw around 20 threads claiming to have damning evidence but was never shared with anyone...
- Bankers actually had been caught prior to the ban wave (I think 2 but we shal say 3 for the sake of argument)
- IWISK is a blind spot for Security
So the complaints speak for themselves however the bankers who had actually been caught prior to this are simply the reaction of an individual acting alone. Some CCP Security caught and some we had emailed CCP Security of suspicious activity who had later been perma banned.
And lastly the blind spot... This for any organisation regardless of being a gaming company, this is just an almost impossible scenario to police and should never have been allowed to operate. But the fact is that it was and as such this was their own creation of a black zone. This black zone had existed for almost 7 years+ with 3rd partying websites. The actual Blackzone has technically always existed since the API was allowed for public use.
Now keep in mind this is not just IWISK related as ANY other gambling or website that allowed transactions to take place "legitimately" through a 3rd party site is a risk. The reason IWISK was such a risk was because literally hundreds of trillions flowed through it. IWISK could easily transact up to or approx 50 to an incredible 100 Trillion a month just by the master wallet alone! (may have been less but at its peak it really hit these numbers)
So IWISK was a massive risk to Security from an RMT perspective, and anyone could claim RMT, and to be fair to those who did, we could not prove that it was not happening. And I will explain why this is the case…
IWISK had a quick deposit method that allowed bankers to process isk by copying the transaction from the wallet into a field on the bankers backend. This allowed said banker to give the customer their virtual isk on the site within 8 seconds of sending the isk to IWISK Corp. This made us very popular as there was very limited wait times to gamble with your iskies.
However this system could be abused right? I simply could just copy a transaction from the wallet and wallah, I have given myself 1 bajjilion isk right... Yes this indeed is the scenario... IWISK or EEP mitigated this risk by adding a collateral to the bankers account. So if a bankers collateral was 10 billion, he could only quick deposit for players up to 10 billion isk. When the API ran after 30 minutes, these would be matched against the players transaction from the master wallet and the banker would be given his collateral back on the site.
So what the hell does that all mean.. well it means that a banker could amass profits as a banker and they could use those profits to RMT with. So If the banker had 20 Billion in his collateral wallet, the banker could sell 10 Billion to a player by just tweaking the transaction to their name, thus creating a fake wallet deposit in the database. The API runs and it will not match the in game wallet, and thus the banker is now down 10 Billion but you have "gifted" a player 10 billion isk to do what they want with.
So yes there was a loop hole in IWISK that allowed people to do this, but it was policed when discovered and this was one of the ways we caught people who thought they were smarter than the admins running IWISK or CCP security. I genuinely believed these bankers thought we could not catch them and that we would not shop them to CCP --- They were wrong.. --- I would often receive emails from players stating they just bought isk from xyz site and they got a iwisk email saying they had funds. So my response which can be verified by Security was always to inform CCP and if I catch who it was I would do the same.
So this is where it got a bit hard to navigate, I would often look at the person delivering the isk and be like "really this fucking guy is RMT'ing....". So when probed the banker denied it and I could not help but believe him. However I now had the issue of trying to work out who and how.. So this is really how the above loophole was discovered and the watching began to see who and how.. I never said or told people that we were watching them, simply just mailed everyone saying, if you are RMT’ing and using IWISK as a front we can identify you and you will be caught. Again this can be verified by CCP or a banker who kept these mails… We caught several bankers and details were sent to CCP and policing of that was now a task.
So back on track to the banning of the Bankers Jan 2016. After a month or so CCP un-banned all those involved. Except for one person “R00gle” who was in MC at the time. Now R00gle to this day denies any involvement in RMT and even went to FanFest to hang out with his buddies from MC. CCP Spoke to him and said they would look back into it, but they never did get in touch with him. Having now known R00gle for many years, If asked the question did he? I would say no every time and he was a scape goat for CCP Security to claim they got "their" guy from the ban wave in Jan.
Remember that CCP Security only answers to very few people in CCP and that would be Hilmar, and maybe Andie or Ned? IDK exactly who but this would be a reasonable assumption and really just speculation from other posts and channels I have poked around in. So on that basis, any communication directed at CCP Security is never going to give you a response, because CCP Security do not discuss with end client or in very rare cases they may, but not to the value add of the end user, and simply close your ticket with a no response. This you can find on Reddit hundreds of times and this is how they operate. This should come to many of you as no surprise regardless how shit the service is.
The so what to all that is, CCP Security hated IWISK from day one. Not just for the reasons above but also because they got told to let it go the first time around (mid 2015) and the second time around (Jan 2016). Most reading this will know about where CCP Burgtarist was open at FanFest and said he was over ruled and if he had his way everyone would have remained banned.
Now some numbers, because we all love numbers and spreadsheets! But sadly I do not have graphs... I could make one but then I would be just trying to buy the super nerds approval using graph pron!
This is the contribution of IWISK over 12 months to the RMT issue. So you can speculate that CCP Security spent hundreds of hours of no doubt, evidence gathering and data analysis which I know CCP Quant had to do. I am sure trying to map all that isk was a nightmare and the promo codes must have made it impossible to determine isk in vs isk out..
CCP released a figure stating that on average every day they ban 50 accounts for RMT or other activities etc... Now this same figure I have seen across reddit on a few occasions and I have used this number on occasion to make a point, and I believe it has comes from the 2014 FF video archive. If the figure is wrong let me know and I will recount my abbicus and update appropriately. But I think when you see the result the amount they ban per day will not change the outcome too much.
EDIT: Some facts for you... 2012 to 2013 30,202 Account banned total.
So 50 Accounts banned daily over 1 year
- 50*365= 18,250 accounts.
- IWISK accounts perma banned within 12 months = 4 people Jan 2016 to Jan 2017
- IWISK Contribution to the RMT problem
0.022%
Not suggesting that RMT is justified and belittling the issue at all, but numbers speak for themselves and the issue was tiny by comparison to what actually takes place in Eve if at all IWISK was RMT'ing. Now if you check these websites that are selling ISK and have feedback sections, you will see that they are still selling and moving the same amounts of isk. Soooo no sudden dip in ISK being RMT'd to the "black market"??? Think about that just for a minute and ponder if IWISK was such a massive RMT operation why has banning it had no effect on the 3rd party ISK Black Market? Smells like bullshit right...
So before I even get to what happened in Octoer 2016.. Several more points on RMT in Eve. It happens all the time and it is happening in alliances or inter corp constantly. Supers & Titans are being sold for RL $$'s all the time and accounts. CCP Tickets to FF / Vegas are being sold for isk along with Plane tickets / hotels and beer money.. Yes those going to Fanfest this year, there will be a few who have paid corp mates isk to fund their trip and hotel stays because they have soo much isk and some people have swag amounts of RL $$’s. I know many that have done this and even many CCP dev's know who these people are. This was discussed at a player meet on several occasions late last year. However this is not challenged or tackled because literally who gives a F, certainly the Devs attending did not give a F.
Hell I tried to buy a nice duder at FF but he refused to take my money and insisted he bought me the beer. So instead I said jokingly how about a plex as I will end up owing you? He said that is one cheap plex, but no you do not have to do that... Now some would have said hey, I buy beer and you gib plex K?... Little did he know that because he refused me spending my own money and just wanted to buy me a beer out of principle and in his own words "you have done a lot for many", when I got back to the UK @ home I sent him 20 plex's! Made me warm and fuzzy just for his reaction as he was gobsmacked. ♥ So If I am guilty here it is accepting a beer and paying 20 plex’s for the pleasure \0/ then yesh I deserve the banning. kek
So now we spin on to September 2016. Me and Eep had a few disagreements over several years and now looking back it was over trivial stuff and I decided that If I had stayed in IWISK our relationship would have devolved further. This being our friendship of 3 years was coming to an end and it genuinely made me sad and disappointed with myself. Regardless of what you may think of Eep or the way he reacts from time to time, he is a good guy and he takes way more flak than is deserved. He is down on his luck most of the time. He struggled with money and lived on very little, despite what you all thought, he was not rolling around in RL money living the dream, but sadly living month to month on most occasions and having to borrow money (which he repaid back to people). And I hope Gonz does not mind me saying that, but I just wanted to put it into context and disperse any ideas that he was rivalling yacht sizes with Mittens… If you really knew Gonz, you would know he had no money and if he had been RMT'ing then he would have been rich by comparison.
So I decided one day that enough was enough and if I stayed in IWISK one more day I would flip my sheet and my relationship with Gonz would be perma damaged. So I left to join Eve Casino who welcomed me along for their launch of a new casino that worked completely different to any of the others currently open. Now I did act badly here and I do regret my abuse of the in game mailing list IWISK had, I advertised me leaving IWISK and promoting a new Casino. As the Face of IWISK (streaming and Media) I tried to justify it as a bit of tongue and cheek on my way out, but it was a douche move. I figured Eep would take it two ways, badly or a challenge to step up IWISK 2.0 asap. Not one that I am proud of... But even after all that me and Eep have remained friends and we still talk from time to time. Some things are more important than space pixels, and I am happy to report he is doing ok and better off now than he was prior to IWISK being banned from EVE. The site is still thriving and makes more $$$$’s than it ever has.
So I am now with this new group ECAS / Eve Casino. The doors are closed for internal testing only and the website was pretty damn good I must say. I will not go too deep on ECAS as there really is not much to say, but the website was functioning but only to a point as it was only half finished, not ready for release. The planned release date was the week of Eve Vegas and much work was needed to get it finished.
So with that in mind that Eve Casino was not open to the public and not a single isk was moved through ECAS, the owner was banned along with myself Lenny and Eep. Here is the list of why's :
- Lenny – RMT.
- IronBank - Section 2.1 EULA Offence.
- Eep - EULA Offence / not sure as never saw it and cannot find reference.
- Adarics ECAS - EULA Breach of Development License.
Now Eve Casino was banned because they had used the Crest API for the login to the site as part of the "Evil Network" SSO. This included EOC TV and a few other tools that was being developed. The Crest API was not used for anything else other than the player to login and this was approved by CCP for use. Adarics had spoken with several developers who had given him the greenlight to use it as it was not being used to handle wallet information or any other part of the player. But CCP security banned him for said use. So now we have a classic situation of Part A of the org not talking to Part B. When this was produced to CCP Security they just closed the ticket and ignored him.
And yes you got it, CCP Peligro. So again even with Adarics doing everything by the book, asking for permission and clearing everything prior to deploying it or using it, CCP still screwed him over, or should I say CCP Security. Now it is my understanding that he took this information to Falcon who basically dismissed him and said it did not matter as the case was closed. Now Falcon was A) not interested or B) Cant do anything...
Now you might be thinking wait there must be more to this than what Iron is telling us... Nope that is it, and the so what to that.. Around 12 bankers who were helping test the website which had not transacted a single isk and was closed to the public had all their wallets reset to zero, and Adarics was banned for a first time infraction of a rule that had no effect on the game as the casino was closed even though he had a green light from the Developers.
To this day Adaric is still banned and all those bankers who joined ECAS never got their isk back. They had done nothing wrong, not a single isk moved around, not involved in any of the coding, and CCP just took trillions of isk from these players. Soo, abuse of Power you might say? Guess who did this >>> CCP Peligro Mr Team Security.
Next we move back to IWISK.. Lenny and EEP banned for the reasons above and the rest of the bankers had their isk stripped. So again bankers in IWISK who may have been or may not have been involved in RMT was stripped of their isk and that was that. CCP took between 25 and 30 Trillion isk from both of these orgs and claimed a victory over RMT.
Now it is not hard to fathom that a lot of isk was purchased with plex. I often was intrigued if people had been playing with Plex to fund their activities on IWISK, as to me this was fascinating. Take away the human part that people may have been spiralling out of control, this can be said not just for IWISK but for EOH EVE Bet and the "others" who probably had small amounts of traffic but nothing worth boasting :P (still getting those jabs in). I do not like to reference competition as it seems like a cheap shot, but as these are now all dead, it no longer matters to a degree… But yeah the point here is that all that isk taken which no doubt the players had purchased via EVE or Markee etc has disappeared.. Not even some sent to Plex 4 Good or used to reimburse players who had their stuff stolen in game etc.. CCP talk about an isk imbalance when they restore Items from stolen looted accounts, well they have a huge sink to use. But I guess this was taken and written off as profit rather than use what they took.
Whenever people think of RMT or gambling in Eve they will always pick the most known target. One because the most popular and two because law of averages state that yes it probably exists at some point. However this can exist across all of the casino's, but given the most popular will always be the focal point, you are always going to be under suspicion.
An example of RMT existing outside of IWISK I want to share with you is a guy we caught from Germany, who was trying to use IWISK to funnel money to another player. He was using the raffle system buying 50% tickets with player 1 and using a 2nd account on another machine connected via a VPN to mask himself from us and CCP. His 2nd account would purchase the other 50% of tickets. So he was washing his isk. Yes IWISK was taking a cut as the house would normally regardless, but unknowingly being abused by some tard or tards. I asked this guy if he used any other ways of doing this...
With a bit of poking he finally opened up and said he had access to alliance funds and also a corp accounts in B0T. Not B0T holding itself ofc but some renter corps within B0t... This allowed him to funnel isk into these corp accounts and the use of these funds to build supers etc which he then 3rd partied to make RL money. This seemed like an obvious way to funnel isk and I asked him how he never got caught. His response was CCP are not clever enough or lack the resources to catch him... I was a little surprised by this but I wanted more info on this guy. I was trying to catch him out by getting any info I could, but all avenues lead me to around 50 iP's which bounced all over the world across 7 or 8 VPN services which are easily obtained online & his hardware ID's were changing all the time. This guy was the master or RMT and seemingly from what he was claiming (because that is what it is just a claim) and I wanted to know more, hell who would not be curious.
So I asked him if he had ever used any other websites to facilitate washing isk or doing RMT trades. He said the best one was using EOH Poker (Sorry guys). He said that all he had to do was set up a Head to Head and just lose to the person he was selling to... Or use 2 accounts of his and wash the money across 20 accounts over a 3 month or 6 month period of which none could be connected to Physical hardware or software ID tagging. He told me he would biomass on mass accounts, and some accounts he has had for years without being banned by Team Security. So he in private could wash isk very easily via playing poker in sealed rooms. Thus utilizing EOH's system to wash isk very easily with little to no risk of another player sniping raffles from him. I could see his point and he said that he would only use IWISK for certain methods of washing or selling isk, but he would not tell me anymore, he felt spooked by a few people dropping in and out of the channel. Once really confident talking to us then suddenly not so much. So this encounter certainly opened my eyes on how these guys were abusing sites to do these trades and he was boasting of hundreds of thousands of Euros in profit from this.
This ultimately changed how I looked for patterns in the database. For example looking for players who go head to head on raffles of a value higher than x and then expanding this to a large date range to see how long this was going on for. To be honest it was hard to figure out who was who and if it was chance or just normal activity.. So I thought I knew or had the silver bullet in identifying anyone abusing the system, but reality was, I am now more confused over the data set than ever.
So that aside, that was September done and dusted and I have now moved over to EVE Casino. Hopefully I have given a decent overview of the before the final banning and demonstrated that RMT was happening everywhere, but because IWISK was the most prominent focal point of the gambling scene in EVE, it had become the centre of all RMT claims, even though every system could be manipulated regardless of reputation.
So October the 12th and the ban wave and EULA changes announced by CCP.
https://community.eveonline.com/news/dev-blogs/end-user-license-agreement-changes-coming-with-eve-online-ascension/ I am working night shifts and had been for a few days at this point. I woke up to hundreds of messages and tweets, skype, irc everything… I laid in bed and was like sigh this again!!! So I get out of bed, put on my slippas and go to the kitchen whilst reading all of the messages and a cluster barrage of confusion. I make a cup of tea (Earl Grey to be precise + 2 sugars dash of milk) and make my way to my PC. I was not worried as this had happened several times before and I have never been banned in 12 or 13 years. To be honest at that point I assumed it was just a IWISK the website had been blacklisted and all gambling was to cease, but to my genuine surprise, my account had been banned also.
When attempting to login I got the classic “Banned pending investigation, CCP Peligro”… I laughed out loud at first and then tried every account I owned. All 30 of them but alas to no avail. So I started checking my emails and literally as I opened my client, the email popped in.. It was from guess who, you got it – CCP Peligro
CCP Peligro (EVE Online) Oct 12, 15:22 UTC
Hi,
This mail is sent to inform you that your EVE Online accounts have permanently banned, in light of EULA violations. Specifically, you were found to be using your accounts "XYZ" and "XYZ1" for business purposes, in violation of the EULA, Section 2.A.
Your continued access to the System and license to play the Game is subject to proper conduct. Without limiting CCP's rights to control the Game environment, and the conduct of the players within that environment, CCP prohibits the following practices that CCP has determined detract from the overall user experience of the users playing the Game.
2.A "Accounts may not be used for business purposes. Access to the System and playing EVE is intended for your personal entertainment, enjoyment and recreation, and not for corporate, business, commercial or income-seeking activities. Business entities and anyone who is acting for or on behalf of a business or for business purposes may not establish an Account, access the System or play EVE. Accessing the System or using the Game for commercial, business or income-seeking purposes is strictly prohibited."
So I opened TS3 and those from IWISK was now back on my TS3 server and I started to understand what the damage was, and it was everyone, it was a swift attack from young Mr CCP Peligro.
So I noticed that a Petition had already been opened on my behalf by CCP, no doubt just for their tracking. So I responded saying “I have never RMT’d so I do not understand my ban”. Then as I sit there I read the email again, it was not for RMT as I had assumed... Because it came from CCP Peligro my assumption was that it must be ISK related as that is what he does right. But to my surprise it was no mention of RMT in my petition like Lenny’s. Now I had not spoken to Lenny at this point due to the TZ difference, but the guys on TS3 said his specifically stated RMT, yet mine was for a Section 2.A… So I jumped on IRC and started asking questions with some Devs at CCP, they said if it was not RMT then it should not have come from CCP Peligro, it should have come from another person at CCP. I cannot remember who the Dev is who handles violating of Section 2 of the EULA but we know that it is not CCP Peligro. So now I am confused as this info is coming from Devs and then a few days later I noticed that Nosy Gamer was talking about the same thing. (If anyone finds out who the Dev at CCP should have been let me know and I will update this to keep this accurate.)
So I respond to my petition basically saying, sorry I misread the petition, but I do not understand how I broke this section of the EULA. Can you explain to me what I did wrong…
But the classic silence now dawned upon this petition and not a single response. Few weeks later the petition is closed and not a single response nor explanation or even guidance on why and how to avoid going forward, just simply nothing.
I spoke with Falcon and we had traded a few emails. Not to go into them too much but the bottom line was that Security had concluded their investigation and as such the matter was closed. Nobody can do anything at CCP as the decision is theirs.
So no point except to maybe appeal to Internal Affairs at CCP. I did wait a while before doing this, & Not a single response.
The one good thing about going to Player events is you can meet Devs that you know or have never met. Meet people you have never met and share experiences. Even though I was super angry about what happened, I pulled up my big boy pants and put a smile on my face. I think because of my demeanour about the whole thing being happy go lucky and care free, nearly all the devs would speak openly with me about what had happened over a few shots and a giggle. Not giving too much away, but it did give away a few things that I was trying to understand. Why had I been banned as the reason given made no sense.
So take the email from CCP stating that my accounts had been banned for the reason “income seeking or for business” – Now given I know this is not RMT related as it would just say RMT and you are perma banned from EVE. Yet I am still allowed to play subject to proper conduct right? So it is not RMT as that is clear cut and nor should it be.
The only road I can go down is “Twitch” and the “Game Show” I was pixel space famous for. So I would ask these Devs when intoxicated, was I banned for the reason because of what I was doing on Twitch? The same response, sorry I cannot tell you but a smile & a wink was enough for me to know that I was on the right path.
Why all this effort and having to read between the lines, simple really, nobody at CCP would discuss any of this with me. Because they were kept out of the loop or those involved were told specifically not to discuss this with anyone at CCP or external. Drunk CCP best CCP :)
However not all employees will toe the line, so yes some expressed their disgust to me and apologised for their company & colleagues behaviours and some of the CSM contacted me saying they were appalled by this, and no I am not referring to Bobmon but “others”. It was comforting to know that despite the public flogging CCP gave me, people were still ready to call out CCP’s BS.
So now Its November and I kinda have a better understanding of the reason I was banned for. So I stream on Twitch like many others and the assumption from CCP or more specifically is that my channel is a cash grab based on massive amounts of ISK I have amassed from IWISK. (This was a comment made to me by a member of CCP GM's)
Now if you spent like 5 minutes in my channel like most critiques have in the past. You assume that I am trying to get subs and donations for the isk being given away. This could not have been further from the truth and if you have read this far congratulations…
The channel operated like this… If you are a subscriber you got “Iron” or points for every month that you were subscribed. So if you had been subbed for 1 month you got 500 Iron, and on month 2 you got 500 + 2000 for being 2 months, 3 months 500 + 3000 etc etc…
So the longer you are subbed the more points or “Iron” you got and this is known on Twitch as a loyalty system. You also got points for being idle in channel or being in channel when I was streaming.
Now if you are not subscribed you got no points at all, simply none as points are used to play in game channel games “roulette or Bank robbing” or entering Subscriber only giveaways / requesting songs etc. These giveaways were for Plex’s or other things which you could redeem via your EVE account management page.
I purchased these codes from Markee Dragons store or Greenman Gaming (Approved ETC or PLEX code retailers) and the money to buy these codes came from the sub’s money that I got from Twitch every month.
So I have been accused of Income seeking by CCP, and the reason I find this so ludicrous is that it was no secret of how this model operated. Hell every stream I would announce these code giveaways are only for subs because the subs effectively paid for them. And at this point I think nobody at CCP involved in my banning knew this, because they simply did not do their homework. I would love to be proven wrong, but that would require someone from CCP actually talking to me.
The other giveaways that was done on the channel follow’s CCP rules that everyone must have the same chance regardless of subscription type. This I followed to the letter and back story, I even asked for this to be made as a policy for streamers. The rules also state that this is for “in game items only” and Fozzie even reinforced that on Mittani’s Twitch channel days after this policy was released. He said if it is for anything out of game then do what you want with it, which reinforced the CCP policy on Streaming.
So I followed the rules to the letter and others on Twitch were still not following these rules… But hey I did not care as everyone has their own path to follow and if CCP really gave a hoot they would step in. I am no internet police vigilantly and I do not stoop to the same levels like DBRB for example. Yes DBRB I know what you tried to do and it failed.
Anyway back on track.. A little bit into the world of me and why income seeking is just utter nonsense.. I work as an IT Contractor and earn good money. Or at least I think it is good money. Approx 300 GBP a day or 380 USD a day not inc bonus etc. Not going to be a billionaire in RL, but enough to not worry financially about a mortgage or nice cars holidays etc.
So here is a rough example of what I got from Twitch every month and how those funds were spent. Sometimes it was less around 500 but it varied and at one point was as high as 720… This is puny compared to the likes of Zarvox etc but he does it full time and deserves every penny!
Twitch Income:
- 250 Subs @ 2.5 USD = 625 USD
Monthly Expenditure:
· Server VPS - 105 USD · Deepbot 10 – USD · 1ronbot 5 – USD · Plex Codes and Aurumn Codes Monthly Avg - 200 - 250 USD · X-Split – 15
Total Monthly Expenditure - 380 USD
So I make give or take a massive:
245 USD a month
depending on how many subs I have, and this does not even include the cost of Electricity / Hardware failures or equipment purchases to improve the stream. If I was to break it down further into that. But as these additional's I have not included are for personal enjoyment as well and I cannot or won’t include them. as it would be wrong to do so.
Also any paypal money left over in paypal get's spent at the end of the Year on a Christmas and New Years special Stream. I buy as many codes as I can to give away (2015 Christmas I spent over 1100 USD on codes alone). So I run my channel almost non profit or at least as best I could. And yes I take money for Beer and Nachos cuz Beer and Nachoz amright?
So I was banned for making around 200 USD a month and some change because… NOPE NOPE NOPE I do not get it also. Other streamers make more $$$’s than me easy in the Eve Category, but yep you got it, it was all they could use to ban me. Literally they used a BS excuse to ban me from the game and publicly flog me.
So yes I got F’d over royally because some fuck wit child in CCP Security had a grudge to settle. That is truly how I feelz about this and it is disgusting. If any of my staff members behaved like this, they would be out immediately without warning. And I know I am not alone when it comes to complaints about Peligro and his conduct…
To add insult to injury he even followed me on Twitter about 2 weeks prior to nuking my account, I guess he wanted my tears…
http://i.imgur.com/MtAxI0Y.png But the funny part is, as soon as I mentioned and saw this connection I emailed CCP about his behaviour and that day he un-followed me on Twitter. Bad taste indeed sir.
Now I had tried to reach out and extend my hand with Peligro, as he followed me on Twitter prior to the first ban wave in Jan 2016. I used to feed him info on suspected people or anything else that I thought may have been an issue. See image and you will notice the dates..
http://i.imgur.com/bxATAfX.png << But as you can see I was trying every avenue to get these sec people to engage.
Around June he stopped following me, so I took that as a sign that CCP Security wanted nothing to do with me or to aid in catching RMT'ers. I have also emailed and raised petitions of bankers & players who I thought were dodgy. And I also captured one of the bankers via Reddit who I know got banned. That was a good day for Reddit on the anti RMT front!
Now there is the whole unassailable wealth thing.. This made my literally laugh out loud. For a start I know more people in Eve who are station traders and combined have more isk than IWISK bankers / IWISK in general. They could have funded the war against Mittens all by themselves as a small group. Station traders in major hubs selling and buying firesales or hunting forums for cheap BPO deals and reselling them etc also have unassailable wealth. The hypocrisy that it is unfair because you cannot target these people and casino’s are generally untouchable… Well if you know station trading or have half a fucking clue about this game and enough capital, you can literally steer the market in your favour. And I do believe a trader recently and a few other have been banned and they are still banned. Guess who is investigating them… CCP Peligro
@ CCP – I am disappointed with you that you even listened to the dear complaints of the overlord Mittani, But I do expect you to Nerf Market trading so you can be killed and have your stuff taken from you, or would it be better Mittens to write a letter of complaint to Ned?
Sigh…
Lastly
I was debating and have been for the last 15 minutes whether to put this in or not but I will add these last few bits as conjecture and you make up your own mind. But all of the above is my story and I have no reason to BS. You can see it is open and honest. I have tried not to misty any part of the above except the bit with my email trades with Falcon as it contained some personal parts of my life when I was in the forces / Hospital. But I hope at the very least you can see that not everything is as it seems.
If you control the evidence that is received and you want a group or x people out of the game, you can make any evidence tell the story you want. Forget what you think about me or IWISK etc, just think about it for a while.
[Tinfoil-zone]
· Mittani is RL friends with Peligro and he is / was a Goonswarm Member… · Head of internal affairs left after this all happened. · Head of CCP Security left after this all happened.
[/Tinfoil-zone-end]
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