I have to disagree with the OP - the argument being made is akin to saying "Sociopaths and psychopathic killers are looking for fame, looking to get caught, so let's let them continue to rampage."
Since it has been stated that there is no wipe (and it's what we've been told, not necessarily what is going to be the case tomorrow morning) and since there has been an abundant cry for it, I say wipe - people who had leveled up to a certain point legitimately can do so again - they may not be as lucky this go around in terms of getting particular drops or whatever, but look at is as a free stat reset - without having to spend any Astrals. Granted, I'm not level 60 like some people - but I got to level 14 before I realized there were a couple of things I had done incorrectly, and deleted my character and started over Thursday - in a total of 12 or so hours I was back at level 14, this time with a much better understanding of the game mechanics. A clean slate, however, would be more fair to the vast majority that were affected indirectly by the exploiters - which leaves me out of the equation - and (hopefully) would terminate all of the exploiter accounts (And accounts that they mass transferred items to).
My personal opinion, and I'm most certainly not looking at it in a na
First, your numbers are fiction, made up...period. Here's a couple facts. Fact1 - FREE TO PLAY, meaning you can have any number of accounts if you want. Fact2 - Real money is involved in this game. Fact3 - when currency is exploited through cheating, the cheater is directly affecting anyone who has spent any real cash in the game as well as anyone playing legitimately through adversely affecting the auction house market and zen to AD exchange rate. Without a wipe there is absolutely no way PWE can guarantee that the gear/AD that was gotten through cheating is removed. If they miss even a handful of storage accounts that were used to "launder" gear and AD it will have an adverse affect on the in-game economy. I'm referring to full inventories of epic gear. Do I want a character-wipe? Hell no! I just hit 60 today and got my first companion to rank 30. Do I think it necessary at this point? YES. Sadly it's the only way to guarantee the removal of all the ill-gotten gains and a stable economy for all the legit players later on.
Also, your PWE account keeps track of any cash purchases you've made for zen. So there'd be no reason to lose your investment of money at least.
Fact 4: Putting some spacing in your posts make them easier to read.
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startuxMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 49
A server wipe is NOT what they want... I don't get where you guys think that cryptic and PWI are going to wave a magic wand and wala the exploiters are going to show up in gold shiny spotlights. However, you are right about one thing, the exploiters are criminal in nature. They do this for a living, they have made off with 1000's of USD because of this. (snipped
How exactly would they turn the in-game currency into USD directly?
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khandar21Member, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 24Arc User
edited May 2013
How dare you use logic and reason on the internet!
If the server population is around 300K or so -- and that is conservative, it might be much higher than that and it likely is -- then 10% of that group would be 3,000 individuals.
I don't know anything about the AH...but the AD exchange had all of the earmarks of a small group of individuals manipulating the entire market. I doubt that it was a coordinated group of thousands.
But once again, just a guess based on numbers and logic.
Frankly...if the number of exploiters was more than 5% of the player base, I would be shocked.
Sorry that 300k player base is about to drop probly alot in the next few days to a week if these exploits are not fixed. This will just happen over and over again.
For someone not 100% up to date, what was exactly the exploit that dragged all this episode?
Cant say other wise you could end up doing it. Its such a stupid exploit you would rip out your hair. So easy to do also.
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kjempffMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 4Arc User
edited May 2013
The people who used the exploit does not want a wipe, that is the worst nonsense I heard. They want to make money from it, and a wipe will ensure their "work" will be wasted.
They WILL NOT be able to chase down every AD gotten from exploits, only some of it. Exploiters are not stupid, they have laundered their AD in many ways, and complicated the transactions so much that unravelling the chain, is too much work in some cases. Also since the exploits have been numerous and existed since launch, rolling back and investigating at this point will only catch uhm "casual" exploiters.
One might even think in a moment of delusion that the hardcore exploiters let the secret slip out to cover their tracks, but that is purely a wild thought.
Not sure what I was expecting but I guess this passes for mature on these forums. Not even going address what 90% investing time into the game means (it's been out like a week) but as far as exploiters being a small number that's pretty much horse dookie (keeping it mature).
Zone chat was flooded with foundry farm groups, zone chat was flooded with pirate king exploit groups, zone chat was flooded with GF buying valiant pieces and groups paying AD for GFs to run with. This was all 2-3 days before any of those exploits were fixed. There were streamers with thousands of viewers showing how to do the exploits live days before they were fixed.
Just because you didn't know about them doesn't change that a <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> ton of other people did. Frankly whenever someone tells me they didn't know of any of the exploits I just assume they are kinda slow or oblivious which might explain why it's so hard for you guys to re-level to 60.
Or maybe we have Zone chat turned off. After all, your example of what it's full of is reason enough to stay in Guild chat, and let them run whatever. I know that's the first thing I do when I join a new mmo, create a guild channel, if one doesn't already exist, and then stay in it. Why? Even w/out all the exploits, it prevents gold spam. I know, no rational gamer would want to ignore gold spam, right? Oh the shock of it all. So if I'm not physically standing next to an exploiter, and didn't read the forums, I'd never know. It's amazing how that works, isn't it. You see, I don't have to have my name showing up in Zone every 2 minutes. In fact, people would be hard pressed to know what shard/shards I even play on.
Another point that you seem to be oblivious to is that it doesn't have anything to do with being hard. It has everything to do with expecting a business to keep it's promise. I spent money in good faith that they would honor their word, and I expect them to do so. From what I have read at the time of this posting, that is their intent. Goody.
Reading comprehension is essential in a medium that requires reading for communication.
I think that the main point I wanted to make -- and which I did not make well evidently -- is that if there is a server wipe (and we have already been told that is not the case, so it is a moot point), that kind of action would be what the exploiters want, because it would add to their reputation.
Why do people keep insisting "a wipe is what the exploiters want?" That's completely, utterly wrong. What they WANT is to KEEP all the stuff that they exploited for. Saying "they want a wipe" is ridiculous. It's essentially a manufactured accusation leveled at the people who cheated in an effort to dissuade people from suggesting a server wipe before "official launch", to try and scare them into thinking "you're playing into their hands!"
Exploiters and cheaters don't do what they do because they want to drag the entire system down. They do it because they want to use the gains that they made. No anti-exploit/cheat code is 100%. There ARE going to be a number of mules, alts, and other characters that reaped the benefits of the exploits even after the "purge" and bans.
Each time there's a new exploit that explodes into light, more people are going to get overlooked when the banhammer starts swinging. And every time those extra people are missed, it means more and more stolen/cheated/exploited gear and money that's out there on the server, waiting for the next exploit.
While I doubt they'll actually do a server wipe, their stubborn refusal to do so just makes it more clear to me that Cryptic really does NOT see this as a "beta test". They see it as a launch of the game, and they want to keep people playing and paying.
Cant say other wise you could end up doing it. Its such a stupid exploit you would rip out your hair. So easy to do also.
But they're fixing the exploit now aren't they? so using it isn't an issue?....
And besides, I don't care enough to use it lol, I really don't have time to exploit MMOs :P
The argument that this is what they want is a valid one, and neither POV can be proven / disproven unless one / a few / all the exploiters are captured, and physically arrested in real life and made to confess their crimes - and even then we may never know *why* they did it.
Those that have already made real cash from their exploit may love nothing more to see the server get wiped - and thus their name finally left in the clear so they could escape prosecution. However, the same elements could, in fact, be more interested in getting back in the game so they can find a new exploit to make more money.
To say one or the other and put a seal of approval from the records department as pure, unadulterated fact is folly - no matter what your POV is.
Or, are you confessing to being one of the exploiters and saying this is your desire? :P
But they're fixing the exploit now aren't they? so using it isn't an issue?....
And besides, I don't care enough to use it lol, I really don't have time to exploit MMOs :P
If you learn one thing from a software developer, learn this - no software is ever 100% secure.
*THIS* exploit might be gone, but that does not mean there are no others out there....
If you learn one thing from a software developer, learn this - no software is ever 100% secure.
*THIS* exploit might be gone, but that does not mean there are no others out there....
A few days ago I made that same claim when the one shot kill exploit was happening, and white knights trolled me right out of the thread saying that was the worst wed ever see....and now here we are only a few days later, a large number of people want to sell me a cat.
They have a serious problem that's why this is taking so long. The amount of astral diamonds generated from this exploit cannot be fully understood. The problem is really good hackers or exploiters whatever, can disguise their IP's and use programs that mask hardware addresses etc etc; i'm not going to discuss the OSI model here, but applications can confuse logs all day long and they can never trace things to their full extent.
Sadly they have to re-compensate every player through some wacky gimmick or do a full server wipe.
Don't forget the major finger pointing going on internally within this company; that alone takes considerable time.
Trust me they are reading the forums trying to figure out the correct approach and several employees wondering what weird excuses they can create to keep their jobs
The argument that this is what they want is a valid one, and neither POV can be proven / disproven unless one / a few / all the exploiters are captured, and physically arrested in real life and made to confess their crimes - and even then we may never know *why* they did it.
Those that have already made real cash from their exploit may love nothing more to see the server get wiped - and thus their name finally left in the clear so they could escape prosecution. However, the same elements could, in fact, be more interested in getting back in the game so they can find a new exploit to make more money.
To say one or the other and put a seal of approval from the records department as pure, unadulterated fact is folly - no matter what your POV is.
Or, are you confessing to being one of the exploiters and saying this is your desire? :P
It's a simple matter of occam's razor, honestly. Sure, there might be SOME that just "want to see the world burn", as it were, but the majority of thieves, con-artists, exploiters, etc, don't do it hoping to get caught or to destroy a market/society. They do it because they want the stuff they're stealing/exploiting for.
Trying to insist that "wanting a wipe is just playing into their hands" IS fear-mongering. If you can't prove it to be a fact, or even highly likely, you shouldn't throw it around. Stealing for profit is an easy assumption, and is likely the reason the vast majority of exploiters do what they do. Exploiting to see the game crash and burn might be the motivation of a tiny fraction, but to claim "they" (ie, all the exploiters) want it is ridiculous.
While trying to insist that they do not want a wipe is just as much fear mongering. You, yourself are throwing it around that these people do what they do b/c they want what they steal.
So, once they've got it, then what? They want something else. And something else....
You really think they want to stop at a few Zen???
Because you know all the exploiters or people accused of exploiting or wanting to exploit are a monolithic entity rather than a diverse group with their own individual goals and aspirations. Surely, it is impossible to even fathom that they simply did it because they could and because it was profitable while others were simply using that as a method to have fun or enact revenge for what they might have felt as an uneven relationship between the service providers and subscribers (in a very broad sense of the term).
When 'we' frame things in terms of 'they' we forget that they are humans too. But enough about this, why are the people here so bent on 'denying' the 'exploiters' rather than figure out, in their own minds, what is best for the game and for the future. A server wipe may be the best for the future and the game but would you deny this option simply to spite the 'exploiters'? Destructive reasoning.
The best solution is to fix the bugs, increase QA budget and size, and find a way to re-establish trust by any means including offering discounts or in game incentives or whatever else. Furthermore, offer more transparency and give a human face to the company. Justice is one thing, moving forward is another.
Yet the actions of a few are affecting the entire playerbase, most of which are players who genuinely enjoy the game – whose purchases of Zen represent an investment in the game, and who genuinely play the game the way it is supposed to be played.
The problem is that the actions of "A FEW" have insured the majority will never get full value from their purchases or be able to play the game "the way it is supposed to be played"
I think the most fair thing they could do to their paying customers, are giving them a refund. I don't think its OK to punish the people who spend a lot of time on their characters just to lose them again. I know that it's a serious problem since there are real money involved, but the fact that people want a complete wipe seems a bit selfish to me. There has to be a way around this that are better for everyone.
Agree about the point is, fix the bugs so that the exploit doesn't work any longer. As people have discussed "they want what they steal" and others have said "they'll just want more" or "they'll find another exploit", this is also true. The best way to stop a theif is to make sure you lock your doors. If you use a cheap lock, like cheap software security, expect it to get broken into. If they want in bad enough they'll try again. The best form of security is someone watching it the prize. So who was watching these exploiters? That's what you should ask. They didn't catch it when they released the beta. They weren't watching when the exploiters were exploiting.
Now on to possible solutions. 1. Fix it so that the exploit doesn't work. 2. If there's a concern that the exploiters have gained an advantage, then even the playing field by giving all the non-exploiters a free gift. The exploiters got theirs free, let the non-exploiters have it free. Fair?
As Captain Jack Sparrow says "There's what a man CAN do, and what he CAN'T do." The exploiters just did what they COULD do. So again I say: Who enabled them to do it? Answer: the software programmers. Place the blame where it is due.
First, your numbers are fiction, made up...period. Here's a couple facts. Fact1 - FREE TO PLAY, meaning you can have any number of accounts if you want. Fact2 - Real money is involved in this game. Fact3 - when currency is exploited through cheating, the cheater is directly affecting anyone who has spent any real cash in the game as well as anyone playing legitimately through adversely affecting the auction house market and zen to AD exchange rate. Without a wipe there is absolutely no way PWE can guarantee that the gear/AD that was gotten through cheating is removed. If they miss even a handful of storage accounts that were used to "launder" gear and AD it will have an adverse affect on the in-game economy. I'm referring to full inventories of epic gear. Do I want a character-wipe? Hell no! I just hit 60 today and got my first companion to rank 30. Do I think it necessary at this point? YES. Sadly it's the only way to guarantee the removal of all the ill-gotten gains and a stable economy for all the legit players later on.
Also, your PWE account keeps track of any cash purchases you've made for zen. So there'd be no reason to lose your investment of money at least.
This unfortunately is the problem they are faced with. The quickest solution would be a server wipe to remove all those inventories and hidden stashes. While I don't know for sure but I would bet that the ones involved have stashes set aside hidden in different accounts. By wiping the servers and starting from scratch they lose everything.
The flipside is that people like me who have worked and made 60 with a second toon up to 30 and a 3rd at 15, it bites. But honestly how can they be sure to get all those hidden accounts otherwise?
People talking who have nothing less than a bachelors degree in (Comp sci, network administration, etc) have virtually NO idea what you are talking about.
Yes it is possible to track all of that exploited AD, EVEN when converted to zen.
You think theres no trail of ad zen zen ad? That is essentially the companies lifeblood kids.
There will be no server wipe, as theres no need. Those of us who are fully geared will do so within a week again, all the tryhards QQing for a wipe will still be weeks behind in terms of gear.
Efficient farming is efficient farming, and if you PUG you will never be onpar with any voice comm group.
Your so called mature look is actually pretty immature.
Only thing hackers did want to do is to make real money, that's all. There is no fame nor kiddy meaning to earn for them to get servers be wiped in there, except from stupid kids who think that's cool. Those hackers are gold sellers, they just wanted to control the zen market by putting their dirty hands on all the zen flow, maxing out the exchange rate (1/500), with bying all zen available thanks to terrific amount of AD earned with exploits, to finally illegally sell zen to players at maximum prices possible.
This is why a server shutdown has occured.
This whole thing is only for money, not fame or mayhem with the game since it's their way of getting money.
Thing is now PWE has to really think about it before wiping out servers, since it's all about community relationship, better than please or displease the hackers. If they don't wipe out, they will probably ban the most visible cheaters, but certainly not all the small ones who took advantages of the situation, without going too far thus being barely noticeable.
I'm good if they do it or not, but they better have fixed the exploits before reopenning, that's for sure.
After finally wading through all these messages the one thing that strikes me is that the ones doing the most whining one way or the other are those who are apparently free players. Those of us who paid like myself don't seem to care one way or the other. Honestly most of us were expecting a wipe anyway.
The game is fun. Was fun getting to 60, 30, and 15 the first time, will be fun doing it again. I'm an altaholic and I play a game to have fun. If it wasn't fun I would never have spent money on it in the first place. Of course now I wold do a few things differently but I still had the majority of my starting AD from my Guardian and HOTN pack. Although probably never get the one cool TR dagger for the praying coins since 150 days waiting for a dagger seems a bit much.
Comments
Since it has been stated that there is no wipe (and it's what we've been told, not necessarily what is going to be the case tomorrow morning) and since there has been an abundant cry for it, I say wipe - people who had leveled up to a certain point legitimately can do so again - they may not be as lucky this go around in terms of getting particular drops or whatever, but look at is as a free stat reset - without having to spend any Astrals. Granted, I'm not level 60 like some people - but I got to level 14 before I realized there were a couple of things I had done incorrectly, and deleted my character and started over Thursday - in a total of 12 or so hours I was back at level 14, this time with a much better understanding of the game mechanics. A clean slate, however, would be more fair to the vast majority that were affected indirectly by the exploiters - which leaves me out of the equation - and (hopefully) would terminate all of the exploiter accounts (And accounts that they mass transferred items to).
My personal opinion, and I'm most certainly not looking at it in a na
^^^^^ +5000000
Fact 4: Putting some spacing in your posts make them easier to read.
How exactly would they turn the in-game currency into USD directly?
Sorry that 300k player base is about to drop probly alot in the next few days to a week if these exploits are not fixed. This will just happen over and over again.
Cant say other wise you could end up doing it. Its such a stupid exploit you would rip out your hair. So easy to do also.
They WILL NOT be able to chase down every AD gotten from exploits, only some of it. Exploiters are not stupid, they have laundered their AD in many ways, and complicated the transactions so much that unravelling the chain, is too much work in some cases. Also since the exploits have been numerous and existed since launch, rolling back and investigating at this point will only catch uhm "casual" exploiters.
One might even think in a moment of delusion that the hardcore exploiters let the secret slip out to cover their tracks, but that is purely a wild thought.
Or maybe we have Zone chat turned off. After all, your example of what it's full of is reason enough to stay in Guild chat, and let them run whatever. I know that's the first thing I do when I join a new mmo, create a guild channel, if one doesn't already exist, and then stay in it. Why? Even w/out all the exploits, it prevents gold spam. I know, no rational gamer would want to ignore gold spam, right? Oh the shock of it all. So if I'm not physically standing next to an exploiter, and didn't read the forums, I'd never know. It's amazing how that works, isn't it. You see, I don't have to have my name showing up in Zone every 2 minutes. In fact, people would be hard pressed to know what shard/shards I even play on.
Another point that you seem to be oblivious to is that it doesn't have anything to do with being hard. It has everything to do with expecting a business to keep it's promise. I spent money in good faith that they would honor their word, and I expect them to do so. From what I have read at the time of this posting, that is their intent. Goody.
Why do people keep insisting "a wipe is what the exploiters want?" That's completely, utterly wrong. What they WANT is to KEEP all the stuff that they exploited for. Saying "they want a wipe" is ridiculous. It's essentially a manufactured accusation leveled at the people who cheated in an effort to dissuade people from suggesting a server wipe before "official launch", to try and scare them into thinking "you're playing into their hands!"
Exploiters and cheaters don't do what they do because they want to drag the entire system down. They do it because they want to use the gains that they made. No anti-exploit/cheat code is 100%. There ARE going to be a number of mules, alts, and other characters that reaped the benefits of the exploits even after the "purge" and bans.
Each time there's a new exploit that explodes into light, more people are going to get overlooked when the banhammer starts swinging. And every time those extra people are missed, it means more and more stolen/cheated/exploited gear and money that's out there on the server, waiting for the next exploit.
While I doubt they'll actually do a server wipe, their stubborn refusal to do so just makes it more clear to me that Cryptic really does NOT see this as a "beta test". They see it as a launch of the game, and they want to keep people playing and paying.
But they're fixing the exploit now aren't they? so using it isn't an issue?....
And besides, I don't care enough to use it lol, I really don't have time to exploit MMOs :P
Those that have already made real cash from their exploit may love nothing more to see the server get wiped - and thus their name finally left in the clear so they could escape prosecution. However, the same elements could, in fact, be more interested in getting back in the game so they can find a new exploit to make more money.
To say one or the other and put a seal of approval from the records department as pure, unadulterated fact is folly - no matter what your POV is.
Or, are you confessing to being one of the exploiters and saying this is your desire? :P
If you learn one thing from a software developer, learn this - no software is ever 100% secure.
*THIS* exploit might be gone, but that does not mean there are no others out there....
A few days ago I made that same claim when the one shot kill exploit was happening, and white knights trolled me right out of the thread saying that was the worst wed ever see....and now here we are only a few days later, a large number of people want to sell me a cat.
Sadly they have to re-compensate every player through some wacky gimmick or do a full server wipe.
Don't forget the major finger pointing going on internally within this company; that alone takes considerable time.
Trust me they are reading the forums trying to figure out the correct approach and several employees wondering what weird excuses they can create to keep their jobs
It's a simple matter of occam's razor, honestly. Sure, there might be SOME that just "want to see the world burn", as it were, but the majority of thieves, con-artists, exploiters, etc, don't do it hoping to get caught or to destroy a market/society. They do it because they want the stuff they're stealing/exploiting for.
Trying to insist that "wanting a wipe is just playing into their hands" IS fear-mongering. If you can't prove it to be a fact, or even highly likely, you shouldn't throw it around. Stealing for profit is an easy assumption, and is likely the reason the vast majority of exploiters do what they do. Exploiting to see the game crash and burn might be the motivation of a tiny fraction, but to claim "they" (ie, all the exploiters) want it is ridiculous.
So, once they've got it, then what? They want something else. And something else....
You really think they want to stop at a few Zen???
When 'we' frame things in terms of 'they' we forget that they are humans too. But enough about this, why are the people here so bent on 'denying' the 'exploiters' rather than figure out, in their own minds, what is best for the game and for the future. A server wipe may be the best for the future and the game but would you deny this option simply to spite the 'exploiters'? Destructive reasoning.
The best solution is to fix the bugs, increase QA budget and size, and find a way to re-establish trust by any means including offering discounts or in game incentives or whatever else. Furthermore, offer more transparency and give a human face to the company. Justice is one thing, moving forward is another.
The problem is that the actions of "A FEW" have insured the majority will never get full value from their purchases or be able to play the game "the way it is supposed to be played"
Now on to possible solutions. 1. Fix it so that the exploit doesn't work. 2. If there's a concern that the exploiters have gained an advantage, then even the playing field by giving all the non-exploiters a free gift. The exploiters got theirs free, let the non-exploiters have it free. Fair?
As Captain Jack Sparrow says "There's what a man CAN do, and what he CAN'T do." The exploiters just did what they COULD do. So again I say: Who enabled them to do it? Answer: the software programmers. Place the blame where it is due.
Out.
The flipside is that people like me who have worked and made 60 with a second toon up to 30 and a 3rd at 15, it bites. But honestly how can they be sure to get all those hidden accounts otherwise?
Yes it is possible to track all of that exploited AD, EVEN when converted to zen.
You think theres no trail of ad zen zen ad? That is essentially the companies lifeblood kids.
There will be no server wipe, as theres no need. Those of us who are fully geared will do so within a week again, all the tryhards QQing for a wipe will still be weeks behind in terms of gear.
Efficient farming is efficient farming, and if you PUG you will never be onpar with any voice comm group.
Only thing hackers did want to do is to make real money, that's all. There is no fame nor kiddy meaning to earn for them to get servers be wiped in there, except from stupid kids who think that's cool. Those hackers are gold sellers, they just wanted to control the zen market by putting their dirty hands on all the zen flow, maxing out the exchange rate (1/500), with bying all zen available thanks to terrific amount of AD earned with exploits, to finally illegally sell zen to players at maximum prices possible.
This is why a server shutdown has occured.
This whole thing is only for money, not fame or mayhem with the game since it's their way of getting money.
Thing is now PWE has to really think about it before wiping out servers, since it's all about community relationship, better than please or displease the hackers. If they don't wipe out, they will probably ban the most visible cheaters, but certainly not all the small ones who took advantages of the situation, without going too far thus being barely noticeable.
I'm good if they do it or not, but they better have fixed the exploits before reopenning, that's for sure.
The game is fun. Was fun getting to 60, 30, and 15 the first time, will be fun doing it again. I'm an altaholic and I play a game to have fun. If it wasn't fun I would never have spent money on it in the first place. Of course now I wold do a few things differently but I still had the majority of my starting AD from my Guardian and HOTN pack. Although probably never get the one cool TR dagger for the praying coins since 150 days waiting for a dagger seems a bit much.