I have come across individuals macroing chests. I consider that not only an exploit but a manner of "griefing" players. In the case of one person that I found macroing, they were standing there repeatedly looting the chest. Yes, some of those chests are randomly placed in a area but they all respawn in the same spot eventually. The person in question was repeatly attempting to loot even when the chest was not there. I went back 24 hours later and that person was still there still repeatedly looting the same chest (when there). I reported him/her.
Now, it was up to Bioware to investigate my "report". My "opinion" of what the player was actually doing is only what caused me to report. It is Bioware's game to make sure that the player in question was in fact exploiting. Based upon this issue as detailed in this thread, I would say that Bioware did the right thing. Exploiting the enviroment is still exploiting IF Bioware does the proper due process investigation. In this case, it appears that Bioware did just that:
The OP suggests that the forums were in some form of uproar about this issue. No, actually, the SWTOR community forums where this thread was found are not. This thread in particular is not even on the front several pages. Also, Bioware responded to the issue (did not close the thread) with the response as posted in my provided link.
Bioware, in the response, did say that players CAN go to the higher level areas. However, Bioware says that they took action based upon player actions once they got there.
Here's what the OP actually said, if you prefer not to follow the link:
Our Terms of Service team recently took action against some accounts playing Star Wars: The Old Republic, and we wanted to give you some insight into what happened and why.
First, action was taken against a number of accounts for what's commonly known as 'gold farming' - or in our case, credit farming. These accounts were found to be exploiting the game in a variety of ways to maximize their credits in order to sell them to other players. Our Terms of Service team took action against these accounts and removed them permanently from the game.
Second, a smaller number of accounts were warned or temporarily suspended for exploiting loot containers on Ilum. To be completely clear, while players may choose to travel to Ilum earlier than the recommended level (40+) and may loot containers if they can get to them, in the cases of those customers that were warned or temporarily suspended, they were systematically and repeatedly looting containers in very high numbers resulting in the game economy becoming unbalanced.
None of these accounts were banned for their actions and no accounts have been banned for travelling to Ilum while still relatively low level. By comparison, the number of accounts that were warned or temporarily suspended was considerably lower than the number of accounts banned for 'credit farming'.
It's important to remember that our Terms of Service team is extremely careful and thorough in their investigation of any potential exploit or unusual activity in-game. Working closely with the development team and using extensive metrics based on player activity, they are able to determine what is normal player activity, what is unusual and what is exploiting. Our goal is always to ensure a fair game experience for all players while also protecting the rights of individuals, and if people are disrupting the play experience for others action will be taken.
While we will not discuss the details of any individual action, whenever we take action against an account we believe they have clearly broken our Terms of Service. Any action taken against an account can be appealed and in some cases actions have been rescinded.
While we understand people's concern about actions taken against accounts, please remember the Terms of Service team exists to help ensure a balanced and fair game experience for all. When you see reports of actions taken against someone's account, remember they are choosing to tell their version of the story - and there are two sides to every story.
In summary, our Terms of Service team took action against a number of accounts that were 'credit farming' to remove them permanently from the game. They also warned and temporarily suspended - but did not ban - a smaller number of accounts for activities on Ilum that were decided to be game exploits.
Some adjustments will be made to Ilum in the near future to discourage future exploits. However, the planet is still open to anyone who wishes to travel there.
The goal of the Star Wars: The Old Republic team is to maintain a service for our customers that is fun to play and equitable for everyone. Critical to this goal is making sure that gameplay is fair and reasonable and we are constantly on the lookout for anything that would prove to be a detriment to your gameplay experiences.
Thanks for reading, and we hope this gave you some insights
If there's any veracity to this it's a likely exploit being paraded as unconventional playstyle.
Likely the player was clearing mobs with his level-appropriate character, or friends with theirs & then looting up on the lowbie, why....when the mail system is cheap I can only wonder, unless there is some exploit involving low level characters having more sale value from an item at the vendors, or an exploit involving gear that has no level requirement, commendation items with no level requirement, in order to ridiculously overtwink a character for low level PvP silly ownage type behaviour.
I have come across individuals macroing chests. I consider that not only an exploit but a manner of "griefing" players. In the case of one person that I found macroing, they were standing there repeatedly looting the chest. Yes, some of those chests are randomly placed in a area but they all respawn in the same spot eventually. The person in question was repeatly attempting to loot even when the chest was not there. I went back 24 hours later and that person was still there still repeatedly looting the same chest (when there). I reported him/her.
Now, it was up to Bioware to investigate my "report". My "opinion" of what the player was actually doing is only what caused me to report. It is Bioware's game to make sure that the player in question was in fact exploiting. Based upon this issue as detailed in this thread, I would say that Bioware did the right thing. Exploiting the enviroment is still exploiting IF Bioware does the proper due process investigation. In this case, it appears that Bioware did just that:
The OP suggests that the forums were in some form of uproar about this issue. No, actually, the SWTOR community forums where this thread was found are not. This thread in particular is not even on the front several pages. Also, Bioware responded to the issue (did not close the thread) with the response as posted in my provided link.
Bioware, in the response, did say that players CAN go to the higher level areas. However, Bioware says that they took action based upon player actions once they got there.
What you describe is "botting" and I thnk that should be bannable, so I'm with you there. But if the player was at their keyboard doing this...then I don't think it should be bannable at all, and I also don't think it's an exploit.
To me, a bannable "exploit" means specifically exploiting a BUG. It doesn't mean exploting the game, because well, you exploit the game whenever you play. You exploit quests to get exp, you exploit the auction house to make a profit, you exploit MOBs to farm gold. None of these are "bad" exploits, yet they ARE a way of exploiting the game. I think folks forget that a REAL bannable exploit means exploiting a bug.
And well, I don't see this as exploiting a bug. These chests spawn whenever a fort is captured from what I understand. Forts are being captured at an incredibly high rate, because people are basically skipping PvP in Illum. So the chests are spawning a lot and some folks are camping them. How is this exploiting a bug? It looks like they are just exploiting the poor design of Illum, just like the "PvP" players are exploiting its poor design to repeatedly capture forts.
An actual bug exploit would be something like if a player found that looting a chest and pressing ESC or something resulted in the money being deposited in their inventory but still remaining in the chest so they can loot again THAT is a real bug exploit. Looting containers that are SPAWNING AS INTENDED is not.
So IMO, BW just needs to fix Illum to stop these merry-go-round shenanigans, and problem solved. Blaming the players just makes it look like they are ignoring the real problem.
If there's any veracity to this it's a likely exploit being paraded as unconventional playstyle.
You have hit nail right on the head, my friend. This thread itself is clearly titled to make the issue seem like an ideological conflict instead of a simple case of greed-inspired spawn camping.
If there's any veracity to this it's a likely exploit being paraded as unconventional playstyle.
You have hit nail right on the head, my friend. This thread itself is clearly titled to make the issue seem like an ideological conflict instead of a simple case of greed-inspired spawn camping.
But how is greed-inspired spawn camping NOT a legitimate if unconventional playstyle? As I've said before, if the player is botting, that's different. If they are exploiting a BUG, like duping, that's different. But if they are just repeatedly looting chests, while at their keyboard, then well, I see no player fault here.
The problem is with BW's design of Illum. Players should not be punished for it.
"As you have violated our Terms of Service we will be applying a ban on your account. We are banning your Account, effective immediately. Continuing to violate our Terms of Service may result in further action against your account up to and including permanent account closure."
The above statement from the 'Bioware' email reads more like one of those badly written phishing emails rather than a Lawyar-Approved canned response from a billion dollar company.
The first two sentences basically say the same thing, your account is banned. Lawyers are nothing if not effective with words. Then the next sentence states continued violations will earn you a account closure?! One, if I was banned, how could I violated the TOS further. Two, what's the difference between a ban and closure?
Was it a temp ban and they are threatening a permanent ban? If so, they would have clearly specified the terms of the ban in the email. If they mean you are banned from SWTOR and the second threat is for your origin account, it would have clarified this as well.
This email is complete BS and. Strongly suspect the OP was the originator of this junk from the SWTOR forums. Just trying to stir up crap with crap. /shrug
Anyway, that is my analysis.
Frank 'Spankybus' Mignone www.spankybus.com -3d Artist & Compositor -Writer -Professional Amature
I have come across individuals macroing chests. I consider that not only an exploit but a manner of "griefing" players. In the case of one person that I found macroing, they were standing there repeatedly looting the chest. Yes, some of those chests are randomly placed in a area but they all respawn in the same spot eventually. The person in question was repeatly attempting to loot even when the chest was not there. I went back 24 hours later and that person was still there still repeatedly looting the same chest (when there). I reported him/her.
Now, it was up to Bioware to investigate my "report". My "opinion" of what the player was actually doing is only what caused me to report. It is Bioware's game to make sure that the player in question was in fact exploiting. Based upon this issue as detailed in this thread, I would say that Bioware did the right thing. Exploiting the enviroment is still exploiting IF Bioware does the proper due process investigation. In this case, it appears that Bioware did just that:
The OP suggests that the forums were in some form of uproar about this issue. No, actually, the SWTOR community forums where this thread was found are not. This thread in particular is not even on the front several pages. Also, Bioware responded to the issue (did not close the thread) with the response as posted in my provided link.
Bioware, in the response, did say that players CAN go to the higher level areas. However, Bioware says that they took action based upon player actions once they got there.
What you describe is "botting" and I thnk that should be bannable, so I'm with you there. But if the player was at their keyboard doing this...then I don't think it should be bannable at all, and I also don't think it's an exploit.
To me, a bannable "exploit" means specifically exploiting a BUG. It doesn't mean exploting the game, because well, you exploit the game whenever you play. You exploit quests to get exp, you exploit the auction house to make a profit, you exploit MOBs to farm gold. None of these are "bad" exploits, yet they ARE a way of exploiting the game. I think folks forget that a REAL bannable exploit means exploiting a bug.
And well, I don't see this as exploiting a bug. These chests spawn whenever a fort is captured from what I understand. Forts are being captured at an incredibly high rate, because people are basically skipping PvP in Illum. So the chests are spawning a lot and some folks are camping them. How is this exploiting a bug? It looks like they are just exploiting the poor design of Illum, just like the "PvP" players are exploiting its poor design to repeatedly capture forts.
An actual bug exploit would be something like if a player found that looting a chest and pressing ESC or something resulted in the money being deposited in their inventory but still remaining in the chest so they can loot again THAT is a real bug exploit. Looting containers that are SPAWNING AS INTENDED is not.
So IMO, BW just needs to fix Illum to stop these merry-go-round shenanigans, and problem solved. Blaming the players just makes it look like they are ignoring the real problem.
I understand this point of view, but I would counter that BioWare has every right to define what is an exploit in their own game.
I understand this point of view, but I would counter that BioWare has every right to define what is an exploit in their own game.
They definitely do, it's their game, and I'm sure their ToS basically lets them do whatever they want. But players have every right to take their business elsewhere if they feel that BW is being unfair .
I mean personally, I would never quit a game only because of something like this. But it does tell me something about BW's philosophy that I find annoying. And it will contribute to my decision to resub or not.
Originally posted by Wraithone The code base is WAY too extensive and complex to catch all of these in beta (but proper practices will catch most)....If some design flaw is discovered, analyze the problem, inactivate the reward (which is driving the behavior) until a hot fix or patch can be applied. ´...
But keep in mind that those who find "exploits" are actually doing the Dev's job for them
1) So you say it is "WAY" too expensive to catch them all but yet I will accomplish the objective with some "proper" practice?
Oxymoron a bit?
Can you elaborate how you determine a ration of unknown bugs to unknown bugs?
2) Vast majority of players do not use exploits, why their game play should be affected?
You shut down flawed feature for everyone just because single person was exploiting the flaw?
3) Exploiters are doing the job for devs? Are you serious?
Do you recognize a difference between bug hunter or someone reporting a bug and the one that exploits it?
I think you need to think out your posts way more....
From what I've heard, the exploit had to do with characters from both factions repeatedly flipping bases back and forth to spawn loot containers.
I am not too familiar with Illum's mechanics, but if that's the case then yeah that is clearly exploiting.
That is 100% exploiting game mechanics over and over for personal gain.
Okay so...I don't know every detail about the situation. But from what I've read, I'm siding against BW on this issue.
From their letter, it basically sounds like they sent folks a warning for going to Illum and looting containers "excessively." But well, if I went to Illum and I saw tons of containers there with good money in them, I would loot them too. How is this exploiting? BW is basically saying that "yeah you can go to Illum, and you can loot stuff, but if you do it too much, you will be warned/banned!"
I'll be honest, from the player's perspective, I don't see how this is any different than farming MOBs over and over again. They just found a resource that is spawning repeatedly in the game world, and they are taking advantage of it. Yeah that's really cheating. How would people react if Blizzard starting banning mages for AoE farming?
Another thing that annoys me is that the line between "exploit" and "normal play" seems to be entirely determined by the developer's intent...which is completely unknown to the player. This same crap happened in Everquest. In EQ, you could get banned for shooting a monster across a river to "exploit" its pathing...I guess they thought you could get exp too fast. But then, they add Paludal Caverns which is a zone that let players level at a CRAZY rate, and yet it wasn't an exploit because it was intentional. There is absolutely no way for the players to know that shooting a monster across a river is "exploiting," but the insane exp gain from Paludal is not.
All that said, I'm sure there is a real problem here that needs to be fixed, but the problem is with SWTOR, NOT with the players. The problem is that folks from either faction are just playing merry-go-round on Illum and just taking forts without ever fighting because Illum was POORLY DESIGNED. This is what is causing the containers to spawn too much, this is the real problem. Instead of blaming players who are just looting containers (i.e. playing the game), BW needs to freaking fix Illum. It's absolutely ridiculous that both factions can just run around and take empty forts without ever fighting each other.
Developers need to stop blaming players for their mistakes. If you F up a game mechanic that is allowing players to get more resources than you want, then fix the game mechanic. Don't act as if players are doing something from for playing the game.
So you don't understand what was going on (clearly) and blame the company instead of the exploitive players? It is kind of mind boggling.
Based on the person you quoted... You take X number of players from each faction. This is easy to do because you can play both factions on any server type. So you have some number of friends or guild mates roll opposite faction. You then flip a control point back and forth... Taking it without opposition because you aren't killing each other.
Each time this happens spawns a loot container (or loot containers). This is obviously not how the game is intended to be played and has absolutely nothing to do with going to a planet that was higher level than you. It has to do with exploiting a game mechanic in a manner it was not intended to work.
See if your guild finds a control point they can capture... at a much lower level than the planet suggests that isn't an exploit. The issue is once capture that control point wasn't doing anything for them. So they had friends roll opposite faction so they could keep capturing the point for loot...
This shouldn't be that hard to comprehend. As intended if both factions were there... they would be killing each other or trying to defend said control point.
The fault here would be on BioWare because it should have been obvious that cheaters would abuse this. The second fault on BioWare is that they did not permanently remove the accounts that were exploiting this... as they should have.
In their own words the amount of loot generated by this exploit was affecting server economy. Yet only players found to be part of RMT were permanently banned. Why? They were all creating excessive credits... and no where in the terms of service or eula does it state that permanent bans only apply to RMT sellers.
So I fault BioWare for not removing these accounts permanently. See we all have our opinions and points of view.
So you don't understand what was going on (clearly) and blame the company instead of the exploitive players? It is kind of mind boggling.
Based on the person you quoted... You take X number of players from each faction. This is easy to do because you can play both factions on any server type. So you have some number of friends or guild mates roll opposite faction. You then flip a control point back and forth... Taking it without opposition because you aren't killing each other.
Each time this happens spawns a loot container (or loot containers). This is obviously not how the game is intended to be played and has absolutely nothing to do with going to a planet that was higher level than you. It has to do with exploiting a game mechanic in a manner it was not intended to work.
See if your guild finds a control point they can capture... at a much lower level than the planet suggests that isn't an exploit. The issue is once capture that control point wasn't doing anything for them. So they had friends roll opposite faction so they could keep capturing the point for loot...
This shouldn't be that hard to comprehend. As intended if both factions were there... they would be killing each other or trying to defend said control point.
The fault here would be on BioWare because it should have been obvious that cheaters would abuse this. The second fault on BioWare is that they did not permanently remove the accounts that were exploiting this... as they should have.
In their own words the amount of loot generated by this exploit was affecting server economy. Yet only players found to be part of RMT were permanently banned. Why? They were all creating excessive credits... and no where in the terms of service or eula does it state that permanent bans only apply to RMT sellers.
So I fault BioWare for not removing these accounts permanently. See we all have our opinions and points of view.
Okay smarty, so as I understand only the players looting the containers were warned/banned. But well...isn't the REAL exploit, the fact that players are just merry-go-rounding the keeps? The containers are just spawning as a result of this. Why aren't those players merry-go-rounding banned?
Personally, I think they are not being banned because it would be very difficult to tell if they were actually exploiting. It is quite possible for two factions to just merry-go-round the keeps without even trying to exploit.
This EXACT (yes EXACT) same thing happened in WAR, and yet BW implemented it the same way despite being part of the same parent company. THAT is mind-boggling. If they implemented in a way where you couldn't take a fort without taking the preceding one so that players were ALWAYS fighting over a fort and you only got points for controlling a fort (so that there is no advantage to merry-go-rounding) that would have made a lot more sense. But well, they didn't implement it this way. And that's on them.
The code base is WAY too extensive and complex to catch all of these in beta (but proper practices will catch most).
...
If some design flaw is discovered, analyze the problem, inactivate the reward (which is driving the behavior) until a hot fix or patch can be applied.
´...
But keep in mind that those who find "exploits" are actually doing the Dev's job for them
1) So you say it is "WAY" too expensive to catch them all but yet I will accomplish the objective with some "proper" practice?
Oxymoron a bit?
Can you elaborate how you determine a ration of unknown bugs to unknown bugs?
2) Vast majority of players do not use exploits, why their game play should be affected?
You shut down flawed feature for everyone just because single person was exploiting the flaw?
3) Exploiters are doing the job for devs? Are you serious?
Do you recognize a difference between bug hunter or someone reporting a bug and the one that exploits it?
I think you need to think out your posts way more....
No. I said the typical code base of a modern MMO is way too EXTENSIVE and complex to catch all of the possible design flaws in beta. But proper practice (internal review, QA, pattern cycle, back to internal review, coupled with a clear and detailed design document, and team leads who understand said document) make it more effective in finding them.
"Vast majority" How did you arrive at that vague generalization? ^^ Yes, for the day or two that it takes for a patch or hot fix to be coded, and tested the chest or such would be inactive. Thats hardly a "feature", its a single reward point out of hundreds (if not thousands). Its one of the virtues of a real time reporting system. Given that any MMO is a long term imvestment of time and effort, one or two days of something being inactive is trivial, unless of course one is inflicted with a bad case of entitlement, and or lack of patience... ^^
Yes, I'm very serious about what I said. The mentality/perspective/obsession to find "exploits" consistently is NOT a wide spread set of traits. Such people are *very* useful. The fact that they are PAYING to discover those is one of the ironic aspects of this. ^^ As long as the game is designed with proper reporting systems, that make it easy to track these types of activities, why not benefit from such talent?
You might apply your own advise. Given the reality of complex systems, those with the ability to find their flaws are very, very useful. Just flag the accounts involved for observation, and follow along behind them and patch up any design flaws they uncover. I've always been fascinated by how much time and effort such people will invest in finding these exploits. Why not make use of such abilities to make the game better?
Comments
Here's what the OP actually said, if you prefer not to follow the link:
Our Terms of Service team recently took action against some accounts playing Star Wars: The Old Republic, and we wanted to give you some insight into what happened and why.
First, action was taken against a number of accounts for what's commonly known as 'gold farming' - or in our case, credit farming. These accounts were found to be exploiting the game in a variety of ways to maximize their credits in order to sell them to other players. Our Terms of Service team took action against these accounts and removed them permanently from the game.
Second, a smaller number of accounts were warned or temporarily suspended for exploiting loot containers on Ilum. To be completely clear, while players may choose to travel to Ilum earlier than the recommended level (40+) and may loot containers if they can get to them, in the cases of those customers that were warned or temporarily suspended, they were systematically and repeatedly looting containers in very high numbers resulting in the game economy becoming unbalanced.
None of these accounts were banned for their actions and no accounts have been banned for travelling to Ilum while still relatively low level. By comparison, the number of accounts that were warned or temporarily suspended was considerably lower than the number of accounts banned for 'credit farming'.
It's important to remember that our Terms of Service team is extremely careful and thorough in their investigation of any potential exploit or unusual activity in-game. Working closely with the development team and using extensive metrics based on player activity, they are able to determine what is normal player activity, what is unusual and what is exploiting. Our goal is always to ensure a fair game experience for all players while also protecting the rights of individuals, and if people are disrupting the play experience for others action will be taken.
While we will not discuss the details of any individual action, whenever we take action against an account we believe they have clearly broken our Terms of Service. Any action taken against an account can be appealed and in some cases actions have been rescinded.
While we understand people's concern about actions taken against accounts, please remember the Terms of Service team exists to help ensure a balanced and fair game experience for all. When you see reports of actions taken against someone's account, remember they are choosing to tell their version of the story - and there are two sides to every story.
In summary, our Terms of Service team took action against a number of accounts that were 'credit farming' to remove them permanently from the game. They also warned and temporarily suspended - but did not ban - a smaller number of accounts for activities on Ilum that were decided to be game exploits.
Some adjustments will be made to Ilum in the near future to discourage future exploits. However, the planet is still open to anyone who wishes to travel there.
The goal of the Star Wars: The Old Republic team is to maintain a service for our customers that is fun to play and equitable for everyone. Critical to this goal is making sure that gameplay is fair and reasonable and we are constantly on the lookout for anything that would prove to be a detriment to your gameplay experiences.
Thanks for reading, and we hope this gave you some insights
If there's any veracity to this it's a likely exploit being paraded as unconventional playstyle.
Likely the player was clearing mobs with his level-appropriate character, or friends with theirs & then looting up on the lowbie, why....when the mail system is cheap I can only wonder, unless there is some exploit involving low level characters having more sale value from an item at the vendors, or an exploit involving gear that has no level requirement, commendation items with no level requirement, in order to ridiculously overtwink a character for low level PvP silly ownage type behaviour.
On the level? no freaking way.
I call BS. But if it IS true, then they should either allow you to do it(it's not like they can USE the gear), or level limit the chests.
Kinda reminds me of Comcast allowing and charging for higher bandwidth, then threatening to deny you service for using it too much.
I'd like alot more evidence before passing judgment.
Edit: Looks like WhysoShort did the detective work. Yep. Context works wonders.
What you describe is "botting" and I thnk that should be bannable, so I'm with you there. But if the player was at their keyboard doing this...then I don't think it should be bannable at all, and I also don't think it's an exploit.
To me, a bannable "exploit" means specifically exploiting a BUG. It doesn't mean exploting the game, because well, you exploit the game whenever you play. You exploit quests to get exp, you exploit the auction house to make a profit, you exploit MOBs to farm gold. None of these are "bad" exploits, yet they ARE a way of exploiting the game. I think folks forget that a REAL bannable exploit means exploiting a bug.
And well, I don't see this as exploiting a bug. These chests spawn whenever a fort is captured from what I understand. Forts are being captured at an incredibly high rate, because people are basically skipping PvP in Illum. So the chests are spawning a lot and some folks are camping them. How is this exploiting a bug? It looks like they are just exploiting the poor design of Illum, just like the "PvP" players are exploiting its poor design to repeatedly capture forts.
An actual bug exploit would be something like if a player found that looting a chest and pressing ESC or something resulted in the money being deposited in their inventory but still remaining in the chest so they can loot again THAT is a real bug exploit. Looting containers that are SPAWNING AS INTENDED is not.
So IMO, BW just needs to fix Illum to stop these merry-go-round shenanigans, and problem solved. Blaming the players just makes it look like they are ignoring the real problem.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
You have hit nail right on the head, my friend. This thread itself is clearly titled to make the issue seem like an ideological conflict instead of a simple case of greed-inspired spawn camping.
But how is greed-inspired spawn camping NOT a legitimate if unconventional playstyle? As I've said before, if the player is botting, that's different. If they are exploiting a BUG, like duping, that's different. But if they are just repeatedly looting chests, while at their keyboard, then well, I see no player fault here.
The problem is with BW's design of Illum. Players should not be punished for it.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
"As you have violated our Terms of Service we will be applying a ban on your account. We are banning your Account, effective immediately. Continuing to violate our Terms of Service may result in further action against your account up to and including permanent account closure."
The above statement from the 'Bioware' email reads more like one of those badly written phishing emails rather than a Lawyar-Approved canned response from a billion dollar company.
The first two sentences basically say the same thing, your account is banned. Lawyers are nothing if not effective with words. Then the next sentence states continued violations will earn you a account closure?! One, if I was banned, how could I violated the TOS further. Two, what's the difference between a ban and closure?
Was it a temp ban and they are threatening a permanent ban? If so, they would have clearly specified the terms of the ban in the email. If they mean you are banned from SWTOR and the second threat is for your origin account, it would have clarified this as well.
This email is complete BS and. Strongly suspect the OP was the originator of this junk from the SWTOR forums. Just trying to stir up crap with crap. /shrug
Anyway, that is my analysis.
Frank 'Spankybus' Mignone
www.spankybus.com
-3d Artist & Compositor
-Writer
-Professional Amature
I understand this point of view, but I would counter that BioWare has every right to define what is an exploit in their own game.
They definitely do, it's their game, and I'm sure their ToS basically lets them do whatever they want. But players have every right to take their business elsewhere if they feel that BW is being unfair
.
I mean personally, I would never quit a game only because of something like this. But it does tell me something about BW's philosophy that I find annoying. And it will contribute to my decision to resub or not.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
1) So you say it is "WAY" too expensive to catch them all but yet I will accomplish the objective with some "proper" practice?
Oxymoron a bit?
Can you elaborate how you determine a ration of unknown bugs to unknown bugs?
2) Vast majority of players do not use exploits, why their game play should be affected?
You shut down flawed feature for everyone just because single person was exploiting the flaw?
3) Exploiters are doing the job for devs? Are you serious?
Do you recognize a difference between bug hunter or someone reporting a bug and the one that exploits it?
I think you need to think out your posts way more....
So you don't understand what was going on (clearly) and blame the company instead of the exploitive players? It is kind of mind boggling.
Based on the person you quoted... You take X number of players from each faction. This is easy to do because you can play both factions on any server type. So you have some number of friends or guild mates roll opposite faction. You then flip a control point back and forth... Taking it without opposition because you aren't killing each other.
Each time this happens spawns a loot container (or loot containers). This is obviously not how the game is intended to be played and has absolutely nothing to do with going to a planet that was higher level than you. It has to do with exploiting a game mechanic in a manner it was not intended to work.
See if your guild finds a control point they can capture... at a much lower level than the planet suggests that isn't an exploit. The issue is once capture that control point wasn't doing anything for them. So they had friends roll opposite faction so they could keep capturing the point for loot...
This shouldn't be that hard to comprehend. As intended if both factions were there... they would be killing each other or trying to defend said control point.
The fault here would be on BioWare because it should have been obvious that cheaters would abuse this. The second fault on BioWare is that they did not permanently remove the accounts that were exploiting this... as they should have.
In their own words the amount of loot generated by this exploit was affecting server economy. Yet only players found to be part of RMT were permanently banned. Why? They were all creating excessive credits... and no where in the terms of service or eula does it state that permanent bans only apply to RMT sellers.
So I fault BioWare for not removing these accounts permanently. See we all have our opinions and points of view.
Okay smarty, so as I understand only the players looting the containers were warned/banned. But well...isn't the REAL exploit, the fact that players are just merry-go-rounding the keeps? The containers are just spawning as a result of this. Why aren't those players merry-go-rounding banned?
Personally, I think they are not being banned because it would be very difficult to tell if they were actually exploiting. It is quite possible for two factions to just merry-go-round the keeps without even trying to exploit.
This EXACT (yes EXACT) same thing happened in WAR, and yet BW implemented it the same way despite being part of the same parent company. THAT is mind-boggling. If they implemented in a way where you couldn't take a fort without taking the preceding one so that players were ALWAYS fighting over a fort and you only got points for controlling a fort (so that there is no advantage to merry-go-rounding) that would have made a lot more sense. But well, they didn't implement it this way. And that's on them.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
No. I said the typical code base of a modern MMO is way too EXTENSIVE and complex to catch all of the possible design flaws in beta. But proper practice (internal review, QA, pattern cycle, back to internal review, coupled with a clear and detailed design document, and team leads who understand said document) make it more effective in finding them.
"Vast majority" How did you arrive at that vague generalization? ^^ Yes, for the day or two that it takes for a patch or hot fix to be coded, and tested the chest or such would be inactive. Thats hardly a "feature", its a single reward point out of hundreds (if not thousands). Its one of the virtues of a real time reporting system. Given that any MMO is a long term imvestment of time and effort, one or two days of something being inactive is trivial, unless of course one is inflicted with a bad case of entitlement, and or lack of patience... ^^
Yes, I'm very serious about what I said. The mentality/perspective/obsession to find "exploits" consistently is NOT a wide spread set of traits. Such people are *very* useful. The fact that they are PAYING to discover those is one of the ironic aspects of this. ^^ As long as the game is designed with proper reporting systems, that make it easy to track these types of activities, why not benefit from such talent?
You might apply your own advise. Given the reality of complex systems, those with the ability to find their flaws are very, very useful. Just flag the accounts involved for observation, and follow along behind them and patch up any design flaws they uncover. I've always been fascinated by how much time and effort such people will invest in finding these exploits. Why not make use of such abilities to make the game better?
Good, saved me a reply... :-P
soon you will get banned for wiping your butt with a left hand instead of right one
seriously I hope they didnt ban the people for farming credits and proofed that they were selling it. Otherewise its complete BS