Reminds me of the DiscoveryGC forums. Discovery was a mod for the old spaceship game, freelancer. The place is a nightmare of favoritism and bullshit. As in, modding resources were being used to give certain player factions custom shiplines which only they could use, as well as custom ships for rather long standing characters.
The economy is also hoplelessly broken. It works a bit like this:
Traders. Traders have no defense whatsoever. Escorts are worthless and completely ineffectual, but the pirate-bias'd developers, moderators, and faction leaders always retort that "Use escorts!". Funnily enough, most developers, moderators, and administrators either run pirate factions, or hold a high standing in them, and possess such vast reserves of cash that they have no need to trade.
Pirates. Pirates have the best weaponry, the most lenient ship restrictions, the widest operating zone, and can demand money from traders. Obviously the majority of the playerbase are pirates. No one trades anymore if they can help it, because you lose credits by trading, as the demands pirates make have increased exponentially. In addition, server rules designed to protect traders were repealled at some point, allowing pirates to interdict shipping with capital ships.
Lawfulls. Lawfulls are underfunded, ill-equipped, and limited in their area of operation. Some people play lawfuls, but never enough, nor are lawful craft equal to pirate vessels.
The community as a whole is so blind to the issue that the server hemmoraged players pretty aggresively. Certain parts of space are VERY deserted, due to the actions of the resident terorrist groups shooting everyone, who also have a story mandated alliance with the police and military forces which allows them to get away with their actions a majority of the time. So yeah. It's a good example of utter WTFitutde.