Twelve of my WoW friends moved over there and took advantage of the money exploit while it lasted, they had their guild bank emptied... which only half was from exploit, their personal bank emptied, all of their buddy list investigated, their accounts down for investigation, and emails from funcom that they may be banned. Talk about harsh.
Ahahahahaha, pwned.
Are you seriously questioning WHY they had their things taken away? SERIOUSLY? In WoW they would have just been banned alltogether, and you're wondering why they had their bank emptied? You should be happy that's all that happened.
If you cheat (and don't say they didn't... You used the word " exploit " yourself ) there will be consequences. Don't be an idiot and do it in the first place. It's not difficult to do....
How is it cheating? It was release version gameplay mechanics that they took advantage of... seriously it's a game. They didn't clear out Bank of America. I agree the gold they made should be taken but they should not be banned and they should not be bankrupt. The bug is fixed, it's not like they are gold farmers continuing to sell gold on ebay or anything.
That's kind of the definition of exploiting right there and that is against the ToS. Exploiting IS using in game mechanics for purposes other than their intended use for gain.
How is it cheating? It was release version gameplay mechanics that they took advantage of... seriously it's a game. They didn't clear out Bank of America. I agree the gold they made should be taken but they should not be banned and they should not be bankrupt. The bug is fixed, it's not like they are gold farmers continuing to sell gold on ebay or anything.
That's kind of the definition of exploiting right there and that is against the ToS. Exploiting IS using in game mechanics for purposes other than their intended use for gain.
I realize it's a business, I'm actually in a similar industry. However it's not very customer friendly to ban people for taking advantage of your mistakes... better to thank them for finding the bug and take the items that were a part of the bug. However if the were playing just to make RL money off ebay with the exploits that's a different story.
Your friends WOULD be thanked if they had REPORTED the exploit instead of taking advantage of it. If exploiters got away with just a slap on the wrist, they would not hesitate going back to exploiting.
Really Funcom don't really have any other option than to ban your friends since they WILLINGLY took advantage of an exploit. The "it's just a game" line don't flywith me, a rule is a rule, is a rule.
People PAY for this game every month, exploiters are BAD for in game economics.
The exploiters got what the deserved. It's cheating plain and simply. I just wish they'd take a look at the players who exploited the bugged quest(s) to level up fast, ban or revert their toon to lvl20.
This is a time where I wished MMO companies had a list that could be shared and easily accessible amongst them. Exploiters could be possibly stopped from ruining other games with their destructive ways. *mumbles at the exploiters for being the cause of delaying his bank usage* Anyhow. Congratulations to Funcom for getting rid of some exploiters at least.
Great idea. The games industry could set up an organisation that handled all this. Every time someone gets banned from a game they send all available information to that organisation so that other developers just need to ask for a copy so that the banned person can't even start a subscription in the first place.
Regardless what your views are on exploiting the fact is this game should never have been shipped with these major types of bugs. It's poor programming on Funcom's part. Fanboys would never point the finger at funcom for this mess!
MMOs will keep on adding features in the game (the healthy MMOs do anyway). With every line of code they add, they add potential problems and bugs. It's not only about the bugs at release. It's not only about this game. Ban the exploiters. Case closed.
Like it or not, AoC is game just like baseball, football/soccer, hockey, basketball, cricket, etc. All games have rules and expectations of the participants. AoC is no exception. In any game where you obviously exploited the game mechanics to your advantage they punish you. There is this thing in all games called SPORTSMANSHIP LIKE CONDUCT. If you can't follow it, you don't deserve to play the game. Just because AoC is a video game, doesn't mean that there is no such thing as sportsmanship.
These guilds that were amassing large amounts of gold are the exact same people that were going to be controlling the economy and selling gold to the IGEs of the world and thus destroying the game economy. At least Funcom is doing something about it. I know I bash on Funcom sometimes, but I give them huge props for there stand on exploiters/cheaters.
I remember DDO letting people exploit for a month before they shut down entire zones so they could fix the game. It was too late. The gold selling companies had already gotten all the told they'd need for years.
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
Launching a game like Age of Conan is always a very interesting experience. Seeing how the players endorsing the game and giving it life in a new way is thrilling and exciting. Unfortunately, there is one thing which is always a big challenge when shipping an MMO, and that's what we want to address today. You know it as exploits, we know it as “destroying the game balance”. Today I therefore wanted to update the community on what Funcom is doing in regards to addressing and removing exploit as fast as possible.
As you know MMO games are huge, and catching exploits before they reach our live servers is always a challenge. Sometimes they slip through our systems. We deem it extremely important to address these issues immediately, but sometimes players are able to take advantage of exploits before we are able to publish fixes. This is especially true if the fix is considered a high risk, for instance where the fix introduces new bugs, and thereby risking “breaking” the game. If we rush out new versions to fix something, it can potentially make the situation a lot worse, and we naturally want to avoid that by all means.
Seeing we are not able to instantly fix, or even know about, all exploits, it is imperative to let you know that exploiting in Age of Conan is a violation to the EULA, and something we take seriously. If the offense is grave we will not hesitate to ban players, and even entire guilds. We have a dedicated team analyzing all the data from the game, and when anomalies occur we will react. We have and will continue to have a ZERO tolerance to exploiters. This may sound harsh, but it is essential to maintain the balance in the game.
We believe our community does not want cheaters in the game, but there are of course exceptions. We need your aid on finding those exceptions!
Seeing we have just launched we are now prone to find issues we did not discover during Beta. Over the last few days we have therefore found guilds and players who systematically use exploits to get benefits or to reach higher levels in the game. This is unacceptable, and whenever we get reports, information or discover such behavior we will do our uttermost to address this.
As a part of discovering players who have exploited the game on purpose we often hear the exploiters excuse their behavior by saying they thought it was “working as intended”. We are normally able to see through this, and we would like players to think twice and rather ask should they discover things which are “too good to be true”.
As a result of the focus on catching exploiters, and finding the bugs which trigger them, we are working on improving our test server. This is where we test all versions prior to sending them out on the live servers.
We are now working on establishing a test community on this essential server, which will be open for everyone who wants to test new versions before they go out to the public. We will release more information on this shortly.
Still, even though we apply the best testing routines we can, there may be issues we did not discover. Therefore please be vigilant, and aid us in making Conan as exploit free as it can by asking or reporting. If you think you found an exploit or have any questions regarding this topic, report it by using /petition or send us an e-mail at exploit@ageofconan.com. We appreciate any feedback we can get on this.
Remember, it's not against our EULA to report exploits or to ask questions!
All doom and gloom aside, for almost everyone playing Age of Conan this is not an issue, and most seem to just want to play the game as we intended it. I therefore hope everyone will have a great experience playing, but, don’t cheat, and respect the need to have a balanced game.
Regards,
Mathis
Customer Service & QA Manager
Funcom
This was posted on the Official EU Forums last night.
You will not exploit any bug in Age of Conan and you will not communicate the existence of any such exploitable bug (the definition of bugs like this is: a bug that grants the user unnatural or unintended benefits in game), either directly or through public posting, to any other user of Age of Conan. You will promptly report any such exploit via exploits@ageofconan.com address and never use it again.
An exploit in the game is a bug or design error that makes it possible for characters to fight monsters, solve quests, or earn money that normally should be out of that character’s reach. Funcom is actively working to remove exploits from the game.
An exploit is regarded as a bug that we have to fix. We expect players to inform us about exploits, not tell other players about their discovery and to not use the exploit after they have found it. Exploits could lead to suspension of your account or banning. This has happened to some accounts already.
The investigating of exploits in Age of Conan is based on two sources of information: Reports from players and reading through logs. All reports received through mail and petition is used to get exploits out of the game.
In addition, we are able to find detailed information about characters. This is used to find characters that have disproportionate amounts of credits or are augmenting in level faster than we would expect.
It is important not to spread information about exploits after they have been discovered, as the team needs time to solve the problem. It is dangerous to tell you that we are working on a fix, because this information could lead to more people learning about the exploit and using it. While the team is working on it, please don’t tell anybody about the exploit.
It's actions like this one by Funcom that made our guild decide we're not going to play AOC.
Signed:
Barry Bonds, Mark Macguire,Jose Canseco, Roger Clemmens, Ben Johnson, Joe Nikro, Diego Maradona, Tonya Harding
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Exploit means working AROUND game mechanics. Meaning, you can magically duplicate items by performing a sequence of events that leads to that end. Finding broken game mechanics and using them is not using an exploit or cheating. Meaning, you find a quest that can be repeated that is not normally repeatable and you do it a couple times or as many as you want. If AoC is banning people because of their broken mechanics this will be THE FIRST MMO to do so. Not one single MMO before this has banned people for doing such things. They just hotfix the situation and move on, cause they know its their fault.
Not true, SOE has banned players for abusing the broker system in everquest 2. You are supposed to report things like that not take advantage of it. I dare say quite the opposite of you, AoC like ALL MMO'S do so...
the bottom line is that they released the game too early, with too many bugs. it's still a beta quality game that we are expected to pay for while they fix it. it's wrong.
All mmo's are released to early, every single one. As things go, AoC happens to be amongst the most stable launches EVER.
Looking at the information given about the situation on this thread, it feels to me that Funcom is more interested in catching and punishing people rather than fixing the bug. A whole team of investigators to go through all your guildies and buddies? Threatening players with bans? Why not have a whole team of bug fixers monitoring the influx of cash, levels, player actions so that any suspicious activity can be flagged as exploiting bugs and be fixed ASAP. Did Funcom openly state to everyone that such an action of generating gold is an exploit, and using it could result in a ban? Without giving fair warning, I don't think its the right to punish the players with bans. Trying to drive your players out of the game less than a month after launch isn't really good practice either. Some exploits aren't as clear as others, for example lets say an easily killed mob drops a really disproportionate amount of gold for its level, making it ideal for farming. Is it a bug? Could be a couple of extra zeroes. Are you exploiting for killing the mob and taking its gold for hours on end? Questionable isn't it?
Funcom took the traders down as soon as they found out. You absolutely NEED to ALSO go after the one that willingly took advantage of the exploit or you will ruin the in game economy forever. NOT going after the players is bad for business.
Announcing to all about an exploit before it is fixed is the single most STUPID thing you can do as some idiots will flood to take advantage of it, no matter how much you say you aren't allowed to do it.
Originally posted by Luxthor Just imagine what kind of enjoyment would be when soccer player can take the ball with hands and get the score, so we all should laugh because as you said it's just a game?! RULES are what makes every game unique and playable, enjoyment comes later.
Thumbs Up Funcom for banning those cheaters!
To extend the analogy further, I would like to point out that a game like soccer has referees to enforce said rules, and players are given second chances (yellow and red cards for their offenses).
Also, soccer has defined rules as to what is or is not allowed. Hand balls are clearly stated as breaking the rules, and even describes whether its the ball flying to your hand, or your hand reaching out to touch the ball. Such is the exactness of rulings.
The EULA is probably more generic something along the lines of "If you're cheating, we have the right to punish you." Without documenting the whole list of what is or is not cheating, and constantly updating it, I don't think its right to catch and punish players.
If the foul is bad enough a player can be handed the red card immediately, no second chance givenm out he goes. Like if a player knocked someone down on purpose with the ball nowhere near, he will get send off the pitch.
Regardless what your views are on exploiting the fact is this game should never have been shipped with these major types of bugs. It's poor programming on Funcom's part. Fanboys would never point the finger at funcom for this mess!
Could of, would of, should of. I know these are fantasy games but we live in the real world. In the real world, this game has shipped in the condition it is in like it or not. Exploiting bugs is cheating and exploiters should be banned. And if you want to play the game of maybe that bug an intended feature so why not use it? Well, then ban them for stupidity.
the bottom line is that they released the game too early, with too many bugs. it's still a beta quality game that we are expected to pay for while they fix it. it's wrong.
Well, if you are going to move it away from exploiting to the game release, then take it one more step. People who think like you do and purchased the game are tools for using that as an excuse. Players have the ability to wait to purchase a game until they get more information of it's real world condition.
Its not harsh at all. If they got insta banned without any investigation that would be harsh. With no chance of appeal or explanation.
Having all they're money taken is fair, seeing as funcom doesn't know how much they took. Also if the biggest punishment for exploiting was being made to give back only what you stole....then everyone would give it a shot.
I think it was a smart move what funcom did. Also what kind of person would exploit a bug and believe that funcom put it there intentionally because they love your clan and its your little secret gift for being uber cool.
Did Funcom openly state to everyone that such an action of generating gold is an exploit, and using it could result in a ban? Without giving fair warning, I don't think its the right to punish the players with bans. Trying to drive your players out of the game less than a month after launch isn't really good practice either.
Saying that right there makes no sense to me. Why would any developer inform players of the details of the exploit or what it can do? That would be like ringing a dinner bell saying, "COME AND GET IT!"
As far the time frame, the quicker they identify problems the less a potential issue has to creep up. That's good for all legitimate players.
Comments
Are you seriously questioning WHY they had their things taken away? SERIOUSLY? In WoW they would have just been banned alltogether, and you're wondering why they had their bank emptied? You should be happy that's all that happened.
If you cheat (and don't say they didn't... You used the word " exploit " yourself ) there will be consequences. Don't be an idiot and do it in the first place. It's not difficult to do....
Lol @ them though, hahahahahaha. Good for funcom.
That's kind of the definition of exploiting right there and that is against the ToS. Exploiting IS using in game mechanics for purposes other than their intended use for gain.
That's kind of the definition of exploiting right there and that is against the ToS. Exploiting IS using in game mechanics for purposes other than their intended use for gain.
Agreed.
Really Funcom don't really have any other option than to ban your friends since they WILLINGLY took advantage of an exploit. The "it's just a game" line don't flywith me, a rule is a rule, is a rule.
People PAY for this game every month, exploiters are BAD for in game economics.
The exploiters got what the deserved. It's cheating plain and simply. I just wish they'd take a look at the players who exploited the bugged quest(s) to level up fast, ban or revert their toon to lvl20.
i have a feeling they're mostly wiping out banks because if they ban all the exploiters, it'll probably cut the entire conan population by half
Great idea. The games industry could set up an organisation that handled all this. Every time someone gets banned from a game they send all available information to that organisation so that other developers just need to ask for a copy so that the banned person can't even start a subscription in the first place.
Regardless what your views are on exploiting the fact is this game should never have been shipped with these major types of bugs. It's poor programming on Funcom's part. Fanboys would never point the finger at funcom for this mess!
MMOs will keep on adding features in the game (the healthy MMOs do anyway). With every line of code they add, they add potential problems and bugs. It's not only about the bugs at release. It's not only about this game. Ban the exploiters. Case closed.
Like it or not, AoC is game just like baseball, football/soccer, hockey, basketball, cricket, etc. All games have rules and expectations of the participants. AoC is no exception. In any game where you obviously exploited the game mechanics to your advantage they punish you. There is this thing in all games called SPORTSMANSHIP LIKE CONDUCT. If you can't follow it, you don't deserve to play the game. Just because AoC is a video game, doesn't mean that there is no such thing as sportsmanship.
These guilds that were amassing large amounts of gold are the exact same people that were going to be controlling the economy and selling gold to the IGEs of the world and thus destroying the game economy. At least Funcom is doing something about it. I know I bash on Funcom sometimes, but I give them huge props for there stand on exploiters/cheaters.
I remember DDO letting people exploit for a month before they shut down entire zones so they could fix the game. It was too late. The gold selling companies had already gotten all the told they'd need for years.
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
This was posted on the Official EU Forums last night.
--
Leemeg.
What is the exploit policy for Age of Conan?
Exploitation
You will not exploit any bug in Age of Conan and you will not communicate the existence of any such exploitable bug (the definition of bugs like this is: a bug that grants the user unnatural or unintended benefits in game), either directly or through public posting, to any other user of Age of Conan. You will promptly report any such exploit via exploits@ageofconan.com address and never use it again.
An exploit in the game is a bug or design error that makes it possible for characters to fight monsters, solve quests, or earn money that normally should be out of that character’s reach. Funcom is actively working to remove exploits from the game.
An exploit is regarded as a bug that we have to fix. We expect players to inform us about exploits, not tell other players about their discovery and to not use the exploit after they have found it. Exploits could lead to suspension of your account or banning. This has happened to some accounts already.
The investigating of exploits in Age of Conan is based on two sources of information: Reports from players and reading through logs. All reports received through mail and petition is used to get exploits out of the game.
In addition, we are able to find detailed information about characters. This is used to find characters that have disproportionate amounts of credits or are augmenting in level faster than we would expect.
It is important not to spread information about exploits after they have been discovered, as the team needs time to solve the problem. It is dangerous to tell you that we are working on a fix, because this information could lead to more people learning about the exploit and using it. While the team is working on it, please don’t tell anybody about the exploit.
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Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
It's actions like this one by Funcom that made our guild decide we're not going to play AOC.
Signed:
Barry Bonds, Mark Macguire,Jose Canseco, Roger Clemmens, Ben Johnson, Joe Nikro, Diego Maradona, Tonya Harding
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
lol?
Not true, SOE has banned players for abusing the broker system in everquest 2. You are supposed to report things like that not take advantage of it. I dare say quite the opposite of you, AoC like ALL MMO'S do so...
Thats exactly why FunCom takes such harsh measures, to keep the exploiters far away has possible!
All mmo's are released to early, every single one. As things go, AoC happens to be amongst the most stable launches EVER.
Announcing to all about an exploit before it is fixed is the single most STUPID thing you can do as some idiots will flood to take advantage of it, no matter how much you say you aren't allowed to do it.
So in the virtual world, you're a looter...
Someone forgot to turn on the alarm at the Quickie Mart, so it's ok to walk in and get all the groceries you need, it's their fault...
To extend the analogy further, I would like to point out that a game like soccer has referees to enforce said rules, and players are given second chances (yellow and red cards for their offenses).
Also, soccer has defined rules as to what is or is not allowed. Hand balls are clearly stated as breaking the rules, and even describes whether its the ball flying to your hand, or your hand reaching out to touch the ball. Such is the exactness of rulings.
The EULA is probably more generic something along the lines of "If you're cheating, we have the right to punish you." Without documenting the whole list of what is or is not cheating, and constantly updating it, I don't think its right to catch and punish players.
If the foul is bad enough a player can be handed the red card immediately, no second chance givenm out he goes. Like if a player knocked someone down on purpose with the ball nowhere near, he will get send off the pitch.
Could of, would of, should of. I know these are fantasy games but we live in the real world. In the real world, this game has shipped in the condition it is in like it or not. Exploiting bugs is cheating and exploiters should be banned. And if you want to play the game of maybe that bug an intended feature so why not use it? Well, then ban them for stupidity.
Well, if you are going to move it away from exploiting to the game release, then take it one more step. People who think like you do and purchased the game are tools for using that as an excuse. Players have the ability to wait to purchase a game until they get more information of it's real world condition.
Its not harsh at all. If they got insta banned without any investigation that would be harsh. With no chance of appeal or explanation.
Having all they're money taken is fair, seeing as funcom doesn't know how much they took. Also if the biggest punishment for exploiting was being made to give back only what you stole....then everyone would give it a shot.
I think it was a smart move what funcom did. Also what kind of person would exploit a bug and believe that funcom put it there intentionally because they love your clan and its your little secret gift for being uber cool.
Watch Led Zeppelin, Darkfall Tribute
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As far the time frame, the quicker they identify problems the less a potential issue has to creep up. That's good for all legitimate players.
AC2 Player RIP Final Death Jan 31st 2017
Refugee of Auberean
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