Arena Net maxes "Intestinal Fortitude" in fight against Exploiters

aandrethegiant · August 2012

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-08-31-guild-wars-2-bans-for-first-widespread-exploit-game-sales-suspended-status-update

Let's hope Cryptic comes out as strong. Kudos to ArenaNet, for putting their foot down this early after release.

sirsitsalot · August 2012

aandrethegiant wrote: »

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-08-31-guild-wars-2-bans-for-first-widespread-exploit-game-sales-suspended-status-update

Let's hope Cryptic comes out as strong. Kudos to ArenaNet, for putting their foot down this early after release.

I disagree.

Once ANet identified the exploit, they should have set it up so that when the player logged in, a pop-up warning about the consequences, requiring a captcha verrification after scrolling to the bottom in order to continue. In this way the warning would have been physically presented and acknowledged by the player, thus rendering the "I didn't know!" response invalid as an excuse for participating.

If a penalty such as permabanning a player is to be imposed for a specific action, then that action needs to be brought to the players' attention with an understanding of what the consequences are.

As a player, I trust the developer to make sure that the in-game systems work as intended and that if through normal use of the interface, as in clicking on a vendor and buying an item for the price defined by the developers or established based on whatever math is set up by the developers to be processed out of my control, then I am not exploiting anything. I am using a system that, by the developers' deployment to a live environment, is understood to be working as intended.

Rather than banning these people, ANet should have accepted sole responsibility for the issue, gone in and corrected the problem by jacking the prices way up to compensate for the projected imbalance from using it as it originally was, and then reverting to the correct baseline price when the numbers balance out.

Oh but that's too much like work. Better to blame the customer than to own up to the problem.

I DO respect that digital sales have been suspended pending the correction of problems in order to minimize their effect. After all, by doing so it is costing ANet a sale at that moment. So they are paying for it there.

So again... if there was no prior warning from ANet about rhe vendor "exploit", then they were wrong to perma-ban anyone. The "exploit" exists due to an oversight on ANet's part.

I define an exploit as a series of steps you have to take in order to trick the system out so that it does something it would not ordinarily do without performing those specific steps. But simply buying vendor items as priced in spite of the fact that the price is lower than what ANet feels it should be is not an exploit. It's just taking advantage of a good deal. ANet needs to just fix the problem, admith that they goofed and then move on.

freekimdotcom · August 2012

Even if exploiting the game is explicitly prohibited in the ToS, I still believe it's the coders and designers fault. There should never be room for exploits in any multiplayer game, especially MMO's.

aandrethegiant · August 2012

sirsitsalot wrote: »

I disagree.

Once ANet identified the exploit, they should have set it up so that when the player logged in, a pop-up warning about the consequences, requiring a captcha verrification after scrolling to the bottom in order to continue. In this way the warning would have been physically presented and acknowledged by the player, thus rendering the "I didn't know!" response invalid as an excuse for participating.

Ridiculous. Bugs are to be expected. Humans are not perfect. No such thing as an MMO without bugs. As soon as a player searches for or profits from a game bug/exploit they are clearly in opposition of the EULA/TOS. They don't need to list every possible method of cheating, and the punishments for each.

sirsitsalot wrote: »

If a penalty such as permabanning a player is to be imposed for a specific action, then that action needs to be brought to the players' attention with an understanding of what the consequences are.

I believe ArenaNet has just "brought to the players' attention" what will happen if they catch you cheating!

Freaking awesome job, ArenaNet. Still not interested in the game any longer (I saw this rampant cheating coming, its why we decided as a guild to discontinue our pursuit to pitch a tent in that game.) But I give them major props for laying down the law.

ArenaNet will have to keep up the pressure on exploiters early and often, until they get the kinks worked out.

razorrxgdb · August 2012

IMO Developers should be open about what is and is not an exploit, what will result in a permaban and the players (IE everyone who logs in, not just the forum readers) should be notified if there is a known exploit in the game that results in a ban (and what it is).

I have seen forums explode and thread after thread be shut down by devs over what is and is not an exploit. I have seen people turn others in for not playing the way they think you should, reporting them as exploiters, etc. and then complaining when nothing happens because the players were NOT exploiting.

Arena Net should have notified everyone that "X is an exploit, if you get caught doing X you will be perma banned." Then a sign here captcha. (IE I fully agree with SirSitsAlot on that).

Also the quest/vendor, etc. should be shut down until it is fixed. This prevents anyone exploiting it either on purpose or accidentally.

stormdrag0n · August 2012

aandrethegiant wrote: »

Ridiculous. Bugs are to be expected. Humans are not perfect. No such thing as an MMO without bugs. As soon as a player searches for or profits from a game bug/exploit they are clearly in opposition of the EULA/TOS. They don't need to list every possible method of cheating, and the punishments for each.

I believe ArenaNet has just "brought to the players' attention" what will happen if they catch you cheating!

Freaking awesome job, ArenaNet. Still not interested in the game any longer (I saw this rampant cheating coming, its why we decided as a guild to discontinue our pursuit to pitch a tent in that game.) But I give them major props for laying down the law.

ArenaNet will have to keep up the pressure on exploiters early and often, until they get the kinks worked out.

Yeah have to agree with Andre here and honestly sirsitsalot as a consultant you should know what the environment is among developers concerning player exploitation and violations of the TOS.

When SOE had this issue their legal team actually went after select individuals, you don't warn a party after they intentionally and maliciously exploited your product; you set an example at that is the way it has been with four developers I have consulted for...can you please tell us which development house that you have worked with differs from that philosophy?

gillrmn · August 2012

yes, it is definitely a first on this large a scale. The ToS means something, and exploits should not be tolerated.

I remember in DDO carnival there was a jump exploit to bypass all the mobs. It was a a standard practice to use it. Many people hated it and even spoke out against it. But nothing was done against the people who used the exploit. That campaign was one useless and numb grind.

I do hope any exploit in NW should also be dealt with severely. That way those who exploit should be scared to exploit the game. Games should be played properly and honestly. If one person is allowed to exploit the game, the one who had done it the proper way becomes a fool.

I would be actively looking for possible exploits during beta period. I hope those who us them after game goes live are dealt with IP bans.

EDIT: But perma-banning people from f2p is not a very 'wise' decisiion imo. It should be mild like 1-week ban or 2-week ban.

sirsitsalot · August 2012

stormdrag0n wrote: »

Yeah have to agree with Andre here and honestly sirsitsalot as a consultant you should know what the environment is concerning player exploitation and violations of the TOS.

Indeed I do. Like I said, if you have to trick the system out in order to get something, it is an exploit. But if you walk up to a vendor, see something sold for a low price, and buy it, it is not an exploit.

A bug, maybe. But not an exploit. It becomes an exploit when the developer puts a warning message on the screen at login stating that a bug in price calculation is causing items to be sold for less than they should be. We are attempting to fix the problem. In the meantime we consider the purchase of these items for personal gain to be an exploit and if our records show that you have done so, your account will be permanantly banned.

Had a warning like that been put up by ANet before the banhammer fell, I would not have said a thing about it. If they want to define the results of the bug as an exploit, then fine. But you warn your users about it before you penalize them. It's just good business.

When SOE had this issue their legal team actually went after select individuals, you don't warn a party after they intentionally and maliciously exploited your product; you set an example at that is the way it has been with four developers I have consulted for...can you please tell us which development house that you have worked with differs from that philosophy?

But did SOE not issue warnings in advance about the exploits and then went after those who continued in spite of the warnings? That was not done here. The offenders were arbitrarily banned and the declaration of exploitation was handed down after the fact. Yes, ANet reserves the right to define what is and is not an exploit. But it is on them to communicate that definition to their customers.

Where the people buying the incorrectly priced goods behaving with malice, or were they just playing the game? Good luck proving one way or the other.

I hate exploiters. I want to see them reigned in. And I want to see them banned. But before reigning them in and banning them, I would rather the developer give them a chance to stop doing whatever exploit they are doing. How hard is it to put up a warning message at login?

Some may say that if they did that, then it would encourage more people to try the exploit. If that happens, they deserve what they get.

If I was doing something that seemed like just a regular gameplay practice by using the mechanics as they are intended, and it was declared an exploit, I would like the developers to do me the courtesey of putting it in writing and letting me read it before they just ban my account...

And as I understand it, being banned doesn't mean just creating a new account. As I understand it, the game has a product key that becomes invalid on banning, requiring them to buy it again if they want to come back and play. I promise that if I get banned for doing something I did not know was wrong and didn't even seem wrong, and I would have to buy the game again to resume play, then I would not be buying it again, and would probably attempt to sue the developer for denying access to the service.

If i see a warning in advance and I do it anyway, then it's on me.

Bottom line is that ANet screwed up, and are making players pay the price.

Now if it can be pointed out that ANet did in fact give specific prior warning about this exploit that included what the consequences would be, I will retract everything I have said. Until then, my position stands.

aandrethegiant · August 2012

I will go so far to say if exploiters get a free pass early in Neverwinter, this game will fail.

Now you can put that up your corn cob pipe Mr. Independent Consultant, Online Game Development sir.

The reality to remain profitable over time for a game like Neverwinter will be coming from honest PAYING customers, not those who are playing to exploit and get what they can for nothing.

aandrethegiant · August 2012

sirsitsalot wrote: »

Bottom line is that ANet realized an in game bug, are fixing it and punised the cheaters who took advantage of it for their own self profit, and made a better player experience for those who wish to play with honest folks.

Fixed that for ya, sir.

aandrethegiant · August 2012

sirsitsalot wrote: »

blah

Is the reason you consider yourself an independent consultant because no one would hire you to an in-house position? Just wondering because you really don't come off as a fellow who knows the industry all that well.

As someone who's been all over the computer world over a 25 year period (aka I've worn many hats), I find many of your comments just detrimental to the industry you say you represent.

stormdrag0n · August 2012

sirsitsalot wrote: »

Indeed I do. Like I said, if you have to trick the system out in order to get something, it is an exploit. But if you walk up to a vendor, see something sold for a low price, and buy it, it is not an exploit.

A bug, maybe. But not an exploit. It becomes an exploit when the developer puts a warning message on the screen at login stating that a bug in price calculation is causing items to be sold for less than they should be. We are attempting to fix the problem. In the meantime we consider the purchase of these items for personal gain to be an exploit and if our records show that you have done so, your account will be permanantly banned.

Had a warning like that been put up by ANet before the banhammer fell, I would not have said a thing about it. If they want to define the results of the bug as an exploit, then fine. But you warn your users about it before you penalize them. It's just good business.

They didn't universally ban people in a dragnet otherwise they would have banned half the population....they did ban those that they felt were maliciously exploiting the system....that's the difference.

sirsitsalot wrote: »

But did SOE not issue warnings in advance about the exploits and then went after those who continued in spite of the warnings?

Nope SOE banned those who they felt were using a known exploit to their advantage in a purposeful manner no warnings until after the fact, just like Anet is doing now, I know I was there and honestly most developers would have behaved the same way...look I am far from an Arenanet fanboy; I think Mike O'Brian is one of the most passive aggressive people in the business and has thrown more than one colleague under the bus, but in this case Arenanet did what most developers would do and those crying the loudest are the ones that was knowingly exploiting.

sirsitsalot · August 2012

aandrethegiant wrote: »

Originally Posted by sirsitsalot
Bottom line is that ANet realized an in game bug, are fixing it and punised the cheaters who took advantage of it for their own self profit, and made a better player experience for those who wish to play with honest folks.

Fixed that for ya, sir.

The problem is that either ANet set the prices wrong by accident, or a bug is causing the prices to be set as they are. Regardless of which, the only thing anyone is really guilty of is buying the items for the set price. The price is wrong because of a mistake ANet made.

And like I said if they issued a warning about the price being a bug and declares permabanning as a punishment, then there would be grounds to permaban the exploiters and I would be praising them for it.

But as it is, players don't have to do any fancy tricks to make the game do something unintended. You just buy stuff. That's it. The billion dollar question is, "How come ANet did not catch this bug before going live? Why haven't the issued a hotfix to correct it, or manipulate the math so the correct price is charged.

ANet screwed up and players have paid a price in real money for it...

aandrethegiant · August 2012

stormdrag0n wrote: »

SOE banned those who they felt were using a known exploit to their advantage in a purposeful manner just like Anet is doing now

Storm is 100% correct here. There's just nothing else to add.

aandrethegiant · August 2012

sirsitsalot wrote: »

ANet found a bug and CHEATERS have paid a price in real money for it...

You dont give up, do you Mr Consultant?

EARTH TO MR CONSULTANT: They banned those that repetitively and knowingly cheated.

In a general Guild Wars 2 status update post, ArenaNet confirmed that there were 3,000 accounts permanently banned for "substantially" exploiting, while another 1,000 accounts received 72-hour bans who "mildly exploited".

In a follow-up post, ArenaNet has showed some forgiveness by giving members of the community who exploited the game a second chance. Those who received a permanent ban will be given the chance to convert it to a 72-hour suspension. Those involved who want to accept this offer should contact ArenaNet via the support page and submit a ticket using the subject heading "Karma Weapons Exploit Appeal".

The deal is that players who exploited must confirm that theywill delete any items/currency that they gained from the exploit. Following re-activation it will be checked to see that these players honored their commitment to delete those items and if it is not, the account will be terminated.

"This is a first and final warning. Moving forward, please make sure that when you see an exploitable part of the game, you report it and do not attempt to benefit from it."

I stand by ArenaNet. They punched the cheaters right in the nads, and now have them by the curlies. I'm more impressed today than I was last week, thats for sure. And I'll be looking for future games of theirs.

sirsitsalot · August 2012

aandrethegiant wrote: »

Is the reason you consider yourself an independent consultant because no one would hire you to an in-house position? Just wondering because you really don't come off as a fellow who knows the industry all that well.

As someone who's been all over the computer world over a 25 year period (aka I've worn many hats), I find many of your comments just detrimental to the industry you say you represent.

I do know the industry. And I have seen far to many developers that make customers pay for their screw-ups. My issue with what was done was that there was no prior warning. As soon as ANet knew about the issue, they should have made an announcement that from that moment on, anyone caught doing it would be banned.

I'd be 100% supportive. But I cannot support banning without warning. Not when the exploit is the normal operation of game mechanics.

sirsitsalot · August 2012

aandrethegiant wrote: »

You dont give up, do you Mr Consultant?

Actually, in this case, I do.

I've read more deeply into the matter and realize that initially I did not have all the facts. I realize my error now and I retract my statements. ANet did the correct thing.

stormdrag0n · August 2012

sirsitsalot wrote: »

I do know the industry. And I have seen far to many developers that make customers pay for their screw-ups. My issue with what was done was that there was no prior warning. As soon as ANet knew about the issue, they should have made an announcement that from that moment on, anyone caught doing it would be banned.

I'd be 100% supportive. But I cannot support banning without warning. Not when the exploit is the normal operation of game mechanics.

No developer is going to give warnings to those people who knowingly and repeatedly use an exploit guy....the business just doesn't work that way.

stormdrag0n · August 2012

sirsitsalot wrote: »

Actually, in this case, I do.

I've read more deeply into the matter and realize that initially I did not have all the facts. I realize my error now and I retract my statements. ANet did the correct thing.

Hey we all make mistakes it's big of you to admit it.

aandrethegiant · August 2012

sirsitsalot wrote: »

Actually, in this case, I do.

I've read more deeply into the matter and realize that initially I did not have all the facts. I realize my error now and I retract my statements. ANet did the correct thing.

Fair enough. I'm glad to see ya come around!

iamtruthseeker · August 2012

Look, speaking of passive aggressive and baiting, could we please use civil language?

I listed some quoted posts near to what I could support before we have character limits (and in the end of this thread, an opinion was changed, but see above; was it changed using the right persuasive methods,) but to summarize:

No matter what the cause, a private company has any right it chooses how to enforce its rules, including a "wrong" way.

This written, it is for the sake of communication and the appearance of competence that a company post a warning before taking action to not only give "fair warning to cease and desist," but to acknowledge it's aware about what's happening and not just apppear that people are doing some "banhammer knee jerk reaction to the first threat they see without making sure the community properly adjusts."

This also written, once a warning is posted (be it a website, social media, game launch splash screen, whatever most/all game player will see to get said warning,) the game company should proceed in whatever way they feel fit to discipline said exploiters/rule-breakers, including permanent ban invalidating a purchased product code.

While very very very unlikely, it's possible a few people thought this was a beginning of the MMO's life game thing rewarding the first players and/or helping the new players that would end very soon (but most knew this wasn't true I suspect if anybody ever thought this.) At least an option of converting the permanent to temporary was done and I absolutely support the concept of you get one and only one more chance. It shows a forgiveness to your actions (ignorant or not) but you're gone if you ever do this [bleep] again. That strong message sent early is important to deter those who ever think they can get this again, should it be purposefully tried or something like this accidentally pops up again.

Now the hard but necessary part is anybody ever flagged doing this who was reinstated and is ever flagged doing this kind of thing again (based on the previous warning of something being called an exploit and they did it anyway after the posted warning,) is permanently banned, period. Laws are only as supported as they are enforced. And this kind of exploit is clearly necessary to have a tough stand against it.

So that's my open communication yet strict enforcement policy opinion. Let people know what they can't do, and let the hammer fall for those who do anyway. As for how much a time between posting and enforcement, that has to be judged by each place personally, but once something is "trending" on a gaming community, it's likely a large amount is being informed (trending meaning all social forms of communication not just twitter for example.)

Hope I was fair in my assessments, (and for those who read all my posts, I do come at this with empathy for those who have been removed from communication with their gaming community and restored, even if mine was a technical glitch which took a while to fix, on that I can empathize;) but I just cannot support exploiting the game like this when you know you can't do this.

But knowing is the key, and that's why I show or ask for compassion on a fair warning.

And you're the cause of your own ban after that.

stormdrag0n wrote: »

They didn't universally ban people in a dragnet otherwise they would have banned half the population....they did ban those that they felt were maliciously exploiting the system....that's the difference.

Nope SOE banned those who they felt were using a known exploit to their advantage in a purposeful manner no warnings until after the fact, just like Anet is doing now, I know I was there and honestly most developers would have behaved the same way...look I am far from an Arenanet fanboy; I think Mike O'Brian is one of the most passive aggressive people in the business and has thrown more than one colleague under the bus, but in this case Arenanet did what most developers would do and those crying the loudest are the ones that was knowingly exploiting.

sirsitsalot wrote: »

The problem is that either ANet set the prices wrong by accident, or a bug is causing the prices to be set as they are. Regardless of which, the only thing anyone is really guilty of is buying the items for the set price. The price is wrong because of a mistake ANet made.

And like I said if they issued a warning about the price being a bug and declares permabanning as a punishment, then there would be grounds to permaban the exploiters and I would be praising them for it.

But as it is, players don't have to do any fancy tricks to make the game do something unintended. You just buy stuff. That's it. The billion dollar question is, "How come ANet did not catch this bug before going live? Why haven't the issued a hotfix to correct it, or manipulate the math so the correct price is charged.

ANet screwed up and players have paid a price in real money for it...

aandrethegiant wrote: »

You dont give up, do you Mr Consultant?

EARTH TO MR CONSULTANT: They banned those that repetitively and knowingly cheated.

In a general Guild Wars 2 status update post, ArenaNet confirmed that there were 3,000 accounts permanently banned for "substantially" exploiting, while another 1,000 accounts received 72-hour bans who "mildly exploited".

In a follow-up post, ArenaNet has showed some forgiveness by giving members of the community who exploited the game a second chance. Those who received a permanent ban will be given the chance to convert it to a 72-hour suspension. Those involved who want to accept this offer should contact ArenaNet via the support page and submit a ticket using the subject heading "Karma Weapons Exploit Appeal".

The deal is that players who exploited must confirm that theywill delete any items/currency that they gained from the exploit. Following re-activation it will be checked to see that these players honored their commitment to delete those items and if it is not, the account will be terminated.

"This is a first and final warning. Moving forward, please make sure that when you see an exploitable part of the game, you report it and do not attempt to benefit from it."

I stand by ArenaNet. They punched the cheaters right in the nads, and now have them by the curlies. I'm more impressed today than I was last week, thats for sure. And I'll be looking for future games of theirs.

aandrethegiant · August 2012

ArenaNet has been warning exploiters long before game launch that exploitation wouldnt be tolerated. They have vowed that a pleasant gaming experience for it players was paramount over game sales. It appears the company was just making good on its word.

Here's some links on ArenaNet's opinion:

http://techland.time.com/2012/08/29/guild-wars-2-producer-wed-turn-off-sales-to-preserve-the-game-experience/#ixzz252igmBQd

http://www.shacknews.com/article/75532/guild-wars-2-devs-addressing-account-hacks-bots

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/yxx3m/suspensions_for_offensive_names_and_inappropriate/?limit=500

As for exactly what rules were broken, many were using bots to exploit the game. To assume the ANYONE was not given fair warning is debunked right in their Rules of Conduct:

20. You may not use any third-party program (such as a "bot") in order to automate gameplay functions, including playing, chatting, interacting, or gathering gold or items within Guild Wars 2. You may not assist, relay, or store gold or items for other players who are using these processes.

17. You will not exploit any bug in Guild Wars 2 and you will not communicate the existence of any such exploitable bug (bugs that grant the user unnatural or unintended benefits) either directly or through public posting, to any other user of Guild Wars 2.

Even when not specified, NC Interactive, Inc. ("NCsoft") and ArenaNet, Inc. ("ArenaNet") have the sole right and final judgment of how to interpret and apply these rules and guidelines to any specific circumstance and situation, including proper punishment or exception. We reserve the right, in our sole and absolute discretion, to change, modify, add or remove portions of these Rules of Conduct at any time.

Honest players have nothing to worry about. There is nothing to fear, unless you are one of the folks that are trying to get away with exploiting or various other violations. A bunch of players on the GW2 forums sound heartily thankful that ANet is cleaning up the environment so they can have a better gaming experience. These are the customers that matter.

This is why I feel Cryptic must come out with clear, strict policies, and follow up by enforcing them, as soon as this game launches. The control must remain in the hands of the developer, not the exploiters.

ryvvik · August 2012

Guess they didnt beta test properly 8)

Simple fact is there always in in every game, to take advantage off, remember reaver when it first came out guildies were sitting in the pockets of the colums, and running it over and over, till they fixed it. Rift when they bought out the 2 mans, you could take advantage of a glitch where if u summoned your pet near the mother drake, you could cash up and buy your tier 2 gear, and bypass having to get your tier 1 gear.

Should you be banned, i thinks its a harsh penalty, but in both those instances above, its cheating, did i partake?, no its cheating to me, basically you are cheating yourself really. They should have stripped if they could identify and not remibursed them there money/currency on items back, and that if they were ever caught again C u Bye, dont let the door hit you on the <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>$ on the way out.

iamtruthseeker · August 2012

aandrethegiant wrote: »

ArenaNet has been warning exploiters long before game launch that exploitation wouldnt be tolerated. They have vowed that a pleasant gaming experience for it players was paramount over game sales. It appears the company was just making good on its word.

Here's some links on ArenaNet's opinion:

http://techland.time.com/2012/08/29/guild-wars-2-producer-wed-turn-off-sales-to-preserve-the-game-experience/#ixzz252igmBQd

http://www.shacknews.com/article/75532/guild-wars-2-devs-addressing-account-hacks-bots

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/yxx3m/suspensions_for_offensive_names_and_inappropriate/?limit=500

As for exactly what rules were broken, many were using bots to exploit the game. To assume the ANYONE was not given fair warning is debunked right in their Rules of Conduct:

20. You may not use any third-party program (such as a "bot") in order to automate gameplay functions, including playing, chatting, interacting, or gathering gold or items within Guild Wars 2. You may not assist, relay, or store gold or items for other players who are using these processes.

17. You will not exploit any bug in Guild Wars 2 and you will not communicate the existence of any such exploitable bug (bugs that grant the user unnatural or unintended benefits) either directly or through public posting, to any other user of Guild Wars 2.

Even when not specified, NC Interactive, Inc. ("NCsoft") and ArenaNet, Inc. ("ArenaNet") have the sole right and final judgment of how to interpret and apply these rules and guidelines to any specific circumstance and situation, including proper punishment or exception. We reserve the right, in our sole and absolute discretion, to change, modify, add or remove portions of these Rules of Conduct at any time.

Honest players have nothing to worry about. There is nothing to fear, unless you are one of the folks that are trying to get away with exploiting or various other violations. A bunch of players on the GW2 forums sound heartily thankful that ANet is cleaning up the environment so they can have a better gaming experience. These are the customers that matter.

This is why I feel Cryptic must come out with clear, strict policies, and follow up by enforcing them, as soon as this game launches. The control must remain in the hands of the developer, not the exploiters.

If something's clearly stated, I have no problem with it. Just not some stealth change that is yet another major update in Terms and Conditions (like how humorously illustrated in South Park's exaggeration of the Human Centepede and "Ipad" via their "Terms and Conditions update."

And for the love of all that's decent...or at least noting it's NSFW content wise if allowed legally by the FCC, I'm not linking any video from that episode here! You can search for clips on your own folks...I still shudder in visual revulsion thinking of that episode.)

giggliato · August 2012

It's not a bug, it's a feature.

aandrethegiant · August 2012

iamtruthseeker wrote: »

If something's clearly stated, I have no problem with it. Just not some stealth change that is yet another major update in Terms and Conditions (like how humorously illustrated in South Park's exaggeration of the Human Centepede and "Ipad" via their "Terms and Conditions update."

And for the love of all that's decent...or at least noting it's NSFW content wise if allowed legally by the FCC, I'm not linking any video from that episode here! You can search for clips on your own folks...I still shudder in visual revulsion thinking of that episode.)

Haha! Gotta love South Park!

PS: By the way, I agree with your points... even the "forgiving them" part, "once". As I've shown, ArenaNet gave fair warning, and have certainly gotten their point across, so as long as they follow up and remain vigilant, they will continue to earn the respect of the large majority of their gamers.

vindicon · August 2012

Although I liked how ArenaNet decided to handle the situation (though they soon after went back from perma bans to 3-day bans) I do believe that they were a fair bit on the extreme side.

Now, please correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I heard, the bug that was "exploited" was simply a certain item placed unnaturally cheaply at a certain NPC vendor. Now, while I do agree that botting the whole thing is definitely a flat-out perma-ban worthy exploit, simply buying and reselling tons of items is in no way punishable. We've all played RPGs before, and that's a legitimate strategy in almost all of them: find a vendor who sells low, find another that buys for higher and set up a trade caravan until it's not worth the time anymore. Yeah, it's different when you have a persistant world and PVP to think about, but it in no way should result in actual punishments just for that. At the most, they should close down the servers, sort the issue out, delete all the illegitimate gold and issue a warning along the lines of "if you see something like that again, don't exploit it".

PWE's Forsaken World had a similar problem last year, where through various means people were able to get an unlimited amount of rare pets for free via their achievement website store. The bug was that the transaction would always fail, but the pets would be sent to the account nontheless. I personally noticed that when 8 cats suddenly popped in my mailbox.
It was much more serious than the GW2 issue, but PWE recognised it was their fault and only punished those who intentionally tried to get dozens of free pets and scam other people into buying them (just for reference, each of the pets was worth about a hundred gold coins, which was the equivalent of a full set of top-tier rare armor, and there were dozens of those critters passed around). For the rest, they just temporarily blocked accounts that still had some of the cats left in them, deleted the cats and then gave the access back again to the players. Which is how it should happen if the fault is clearly the company's and the exploit does not immediately "scream" exploit.

aandrethegiant · August 2012

vindicon wrote: »

Although I liked how ArenaNet decided to handle the situation (though they soon after went back from perma bans to 3-day bans) I do believe that they were a fair bit on the extreme side.

Now, please correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I heard, the bug that was "exploited" was simply a certain item placed unnaturally cheaply at a certain NPC vendor. Now, while I do agree that botting the whole thing is definitely a flat-out perma-ban worthy exploit, simply buying and reselling tons of items is in no way punishable.

Sure, I'll agree with your premise, but that's not what happened here. The ones that got perma-bans knew exactly what they were doing, and did it with malice, for profit, regardless the harm it would do to the game's economy or those gamers affected. We are talking about clicking a button thousands of times, if you WEREN'T botting. There's just no possibility here that they did it for any reason other than to exploit the game for personal benefit.

Actually I thought they were lenient by turning the perma bans into 3 day bans. Id have banned the 3,000 permanently, due to the efforts they went through to cheat, the evidence ArenaNet plainly has, and the warnings which plainly existed in the Rules of Conduct. They were as "nice" as they could possibly be, and I think they earned a lot of respect in standing up. I agree it was stern, but with "today's exploiter" there's not really much choice.

iamtruthseeker · September 2012

aandrethegiant wrote: »

Sure, I'll agree with your premise, but that's not what happened here. The ones that got perma-bans knew exactly what they were doing, and did it with malice, for profit, regardless the harm it would do to the game's economy or those gamers affected. We are talking about clicking a button thousands of times, if you WEREN'T botting. There's just no possibility here that they did it for any reason other than to exploit the game for personal benefit.

Actually I thought they were lenient by turning the perma bans into 3 day bans. Id have banned the 3,000 permanently, due to the efforts they went through to cheat, the evidence ArenaNet plainly has, and the warnings which plainly existed in the Rules of Conduct. They were as "nice" as they could possibly be, and I think they earned a lot of respect in standing up. I agree it was stern, but with "today's exploiter" there's not really much choice.

Yeah, when those in the know start industrial-level trading my sympathies vanish. It's the others that these first gen exploiters told that if they did this they would be rich, some of which were so newbie, they literally might not have had a clue with what they were doing and just monkeyed what they were told.

And for the possibility of those few among the thousand that were caught up in this, I accept the confess, turn over the treasures, and promise never to do it again as a one-time deal.

But now everybody knows and if they get caught, they're gone for good.

championshewolf · September 2012

sirsitsalot wrote: »

I disagree.

Once ANet identified the exploit, they should have set it up so that when the player logged in, a pop-up warning about the consequences, requiring a captcha verrification after scrolling to the bottom in order to continue. In this way the warning would have been physically presented and acknowledged by the player, thus rendering the "I didn't know!" response invalid as an excuse for participating.

If a penalty such as permabanning a player is to be imposed for a specific action, then that action needs to be brought to the players' attention with an understanding of what the consequences are.

As a player, I trust the developer to make sure that the in-game systems work as intended and that if through normal use of the interface, as in clicking on a vendor and buying an item for the price defined by the developers or established based on whatever math is set up by the developers to be processed out of my control, then I am not exploiting anything. I am using a system that, by the developers' deployment to a live environment, is understood to be working as intended.

Rather than banning these people, ANet should have accepted sole responsibility for the issue, gone in and corrected the problem by jacking the prices way up to compensate for the projected imbalance from using it as it originally was, and then reverting to the correct baseline price when the numbers balance out.

Oh but that's too much like work. Better to blame the customer than to own up to the problem.

I DO respect that digital sales have been suspended pending the correction of problems in order to minimize their effect. After all, by doing so it is costing ANet a sale at that moment. So they are paying for it there.

So again... if there was no prior warning from ANet about rhe vendor "exploit", then they were wrong to perma-ban anyone. The "exploit" exists due to an oversight on ANet's part.

I define an exploit as a series of steps you have to take in order to trick the system out so that it does something it would not ordinarily do without performing those specific steps. But simply buying vendor items as priced in spite of the fact that the price is lower than what ANet feels it should be is not an exploit. It's just taking advantage of a good deal. ANet needs to just fix the problem, admith that they goofed and then move on.

This is false on so many levels. First and foremost, I will refer to the TOS and EULA. Both those have lines that state that a company can close your service at any time if they so wish it. These people were exploiting, they knew they were exploiting. The I didn't know line doesn't work. The fact I can actually applaud ANet for doing something that even WoW is too namby pamby and scared to do is something.

They aren't required in any form, shape, or fashion to tell you why. They do it to be courteous though, and quite frankly, it's about time. Too bad it took a game that only was pay for once to do such a thing instead of past games just letting thier economy and game integrity be ruined by exploiters.

sirsitsalot · September 2012

championshewolf wrote: »

This is false on so many levels. First and foremost, I will refer to the TOS and EULA. Both those have lines that state that a company can close your service at any time if they so wish it. These people were exploiting, they knew they were exploiting. The I didn't know line doesn't work. The fact I can actually applaud ANet for doing something that even WoW is too namby pamby and scared to do is something.

They aren't required in any form, shape, or fashion to tell you why. They do it to be courteous though, and quite frankly, it's about time. Too bad it took a game that only was pay for once to do such a thing instead of past games just letting thier economy and game integrity be ruined by exploiters.

This is a moot point as I have already reversed my position after researching the matter further and I am 100% in support of the actions ANet took...

Move along.. Nothing to see here..

Arena Net maxes "Intestinal Fortitude" in fight against Exploiters

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