The next time you enter a big fleet battle in Eve Online, there's a good chance you'll run into a developer. And this time you'll know it, too. While the people who work on Eve have traditionally been mandated to keep their identities a secret. If they were revealed somehow, they even had to stop using a character, before going through a process known as "Witness Relocation," following the company's internal affairs procedure. But no more.
The reason for that this rule was originally in place was due to a scandal in the game's early life. As Kotaku explains, in 2007, a developer by the name of T20 was a member of one of the game's largest corporations and was found to be using their admin skills to spawn in rare items and blueprints to help his corporation. When they were discovered, they were fired, banned, and moving forward, all CCP employees had to keep themselves entirely anonymous when playing Eve.
This leads to its own problems though. It effectively makes it very difficult for them to play as part of larger groups, where their identity could be easily discovered. That can end up with developers not being familiar with big portions of the game and can make them seem out of touch.
But with the new rule changes, they can get back into the action again. With some caveats. CPP employees are barred from taking part in major market trades. Griefing in any fashion is off limits.
Other than that though, they can do what they like. The change takes place in December, so expect to encounter a few CCP developers in the months to come.
