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Further steps to a better Neverwinter
akromatik
Member Posts: 1
Greetings adventurers!
Last week, an exploit was brought to our attention by our ever-vigilant community. Due to the nature of the exploit, immediate action was required. We are following through with our investigation and have taken action against those who abused this exploit. We wanted to update you and let you know that we’ve banned many of the accounts that were involved with the exploit. We hold our player’s safety and the integrity of Neverwinter above all else.
Thank you very much for your support.
Edit: I'd also like to add that due to our policy surrounding our players' privacy, we cannot discuss specific actions taken on a given account. If you feel you have been banned in error, please contact our support team via support.arcgames.com
Last week, an exploit was brought to our attention by our ever-vigilant community. Due to the nature of the exploit, immediate action was required. We are following through with our investigation and have taken action against those who abused this exploit. We wanted to update you and let you know that we’ve banned many of the accounts that were involved with the exploit. We hold our player’s safety and the integrity of Neverwinter above all else.
Thank you very much for your support.
Edit: I'd also like to add that due to our policy surrounding our players' privacy, we cannot discuss specific actions taken on a given account. If you feel you have been banned in error, please contact our support team via support.arcgames.com
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Alas, I had hoped much of the ill-gotten AD could have been removed from the ZAX . . .
Prepare for a massive response to this.
myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!"
pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all."
looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
"Gotta catch 'em all!"
myles08807 said, "Back in my day, we didn't have any of this fancy Mulhorand gear while we were leveling . . . we walked uphill both ways while dying once every five seconds while leveling, and we liked it fine!" . . . Now, get off my lawn, you kids!"
pointsman said, "I don't rue the game. In fact I don't feel any regret for the game at all."
looomis said, "I don't like people changing to alts and then bragging about their mains like schizophrenic role players."
Akro while banning was needed, and absolutely had to be done, I think the real question most of us have is tied in with the next quote.
While I didn't think most of the AD could go poof as it's probably gotten too far into the economy now, to the point where everyone that uses the ah to sell things probably has some counterfeit AD in their wallet from exploiters buying things, I do think that something needs to be done to limit the time it takes to heal this damage. To that end I think many of us would like to see some kind of AD sinks be worked on and ran for a while. Many ideas for these have been suggested, so the question most of us have is are you going to do anything like this to help the aftermath.
This.
I think in a F2P game this is the only way to really curb stuff like that. Unfortunately it would mean perma ban for players - not just accounts.
Im not 100% sure isnt there a way to change your IP?
Btw, thanks for the good work, we really appreciate it.
IP bans do nothing to the guilty and may hurt the innocent. IP's are not static in most cases. Everytime I lose power or restart my cable modem I get a new one and someone else gets my old one. If someone else had been ip banned and I got their address with this I wouldn't be able to play which makes this a bad idea. This doesn't even get into VPN's where in a matter of seconds I can make it look like I have an IP and a location half a world away from my true location.
Not really practical. If you're unlucky to have one of those ISPs who dynamically reassign IP addresses from time to time and wind up with the address of an exploiter...well then you're screwed.
PWE/Cryptic's own privacy policy forbids this, as does our Rules of Conduct.
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I was wondering the same thing , if the listings aren't taken down on banned accounts they need to be , especially considering the state the exchange is in at the moment .
I'm curious as to what privacy laws restrict you from talking about bans for an online videogame. Drizzt@drows4lyfe isn't PII, and I really can't think of anything else even in the ballpark.
I don't know the law specifics but I do know that every single mmo I've ever seen has said the same thing, so I'd assume it to be true.
Akromatik edited his OP. It is still disallowed by Cryptic privacy policy to disclose actions taken against a specific account with anyone but the account holder.
Great Weapon Fighter: Because when is today not a good day to die?
PC and PS4 player. Proud Guildmaster for PS4 Team Fencebane. Rank 5 Officer for PC Team Fencebane. Visit us at http://fencebane.shivtr.com
While MAC bans don't have the possibility of harming the innocent, but they can be bypassed in seconds. MAC Spoofing is very easy.
I think many players were frustrated because of what was seen as inaction to previous exploits, so this post helped improve things...thank you.
You don't even need to change it. 10 secs with the right software and you have a new MAC for that card/adapter.
Ever heard of VPN, Proxies, dynamic IPs ? A blocked IP range might sooner or later come back to bite the host in the ***, cause fixed IPs can change over time and are mostly used in the business sector, here in Europe the majority of providers assigns a dynamic IP to their customers. And a Mac address is so easy to spoof that it's laughable. Seriously anyone suggesting such methods is just completely clueless.
Thanks for the update. Good to see action and finally some repercussions for fraudulent activity.
I have one question that I know alot of people have as well. Alot of times accounts are banned for 3/7 days instead of perma. I can understand doing this for small things however some people did blatant exploits and still only received 7 day bans.
It would be great if we had some feedback on what criteria needs to be met for a perma vs 7 day ban. Just to help people understand Cryptic's point of view.
If the question is out of line feel free to delete.
Just one thing: Please make your auto-SQL-bans more specific or recheck by hand, too many innocents get hit every time that have to crawl through your awful support to state their case.
Even MAC addresses can be (easily) spoofed.....
They'd give an update such as 1,000+ illicit accounts were banned last week in the latest rounds of sweeps. We removed over 11,000,000 in illicit gil from the system.
It would be nice if you could do the same, letting the players know approximately what actions were taken and the results.
Otherwise, we just have a very nice, but otherwise empty, post from you about non-specific action being taken in a very non-specific manner.
Look at is this way. Imagine if you had a string of car break ins in your neighborhood. Then one day the police put out a message that they've dealt with the situation, but can't share ANY details of what happened, or what was done. Would you feel satisfied with that resolution?
what is dynamic ip address?
Dynamic IP Addresses are ip addresses that change. Your cable/dsl modem requests a ip address from the isp and gets assigned a random one from a block of addresses the isp uses. If you lose power or restart your modem, you will likely get a different one, and someone else will eventually get your old one.
In your case, i would put in a new support ticket every 12 hours asking them about your rollback. Be sure to be nice when you do so, and explain that you've been waiting to play each time longer and longer (and still - nicely).
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Zen Exchange backlog slowed down a bit, but it's resumed its climb - which tells me few to no AD's were removed.
Shame, shame, shame...
Take it from someone that holds three patents in the field of internet device identification - IP bans do not work.
Permanently banning accounts would require exploiters to start over, if they choose to continue with the game. That should be sufficient.
Temporary bans can only be effective if combined with account-impacting penalties (e.g. removal of all AD, removal of anything that an audit shows may have been purchased with illicit AD). Temporary bans without additional teeth are a green flag to go ahead and cheat next time.
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Nearly everyone uses DHCP as it's necessary in a world with IPv4 and so many devices needing to connect. As such, there is really no way to uniquely identify a user with just an IP. And, as others posted, MAC addresses are easy to change.
Nothing short of an internal CPU ID would be effective, but be very careful what you wish for: such a thing would mean that not only Cryptic but everyone else could track you -- not only what you do online, but which device you're using. Over time, gather enough disparate information and you could piece together kinds of information about someone that one might not expect. It's a real potential Pandora's Box.
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I mean, I'd support a computer ban. That would throw bots and exploiters way off. Especially bots, can you imagine?