Official post from the NWO forums about the AD/AH exploit:
Got questions about how we are handling the Astral Diamonds/Auction House exploit? We will be updating this thread with the answers to the most common questions about todays downtime, and what it means for the adventurers of Neverwinter.
Q: What happened?
A: Early Sunday morning a very small group of players discovered and abused a game exploit within the Neverwinter Open Beta that affected the Auction House and Astral Diamonds.
Q: What exactly has changed?
A: We took the Neverwinter OBT down for emergency maintenance, found the bug, corrected it and tested it. In order to fix the damage this exploit caused to the in-game economy, we implemented a necessary rollback of our servers to 5:20 AM PDT the morning of May 19, 2013. This means that characters have been reverted to the state they were in at that time, pre-exploit damage. That includes items, level, experience, etc.
We know that character progress matters in Neverwinter, so as an apology for the lost time and as profound thanks for your continued support throughout this Beta, we are putting together a package of items to give everyone. We plan to distribute this towards the middle or end of this coming week, possibly on Friday 5/24.
Q: What about ZEN I spent/transferred after 5:20 AM PDT?
A: You'll have any and all ZEN that you transferred to Neverwinter -- we tracked all transfers during that time and made sure players have the ZEN they should have. If you spent ZEN on items during that time, you'll need to re-buy the items, but you'll have all of that ZEN. No one will lose any money they spent on Neverwinter because of this fix. If you have any issue, please see the customer and billing support contacts below.
Q: I leveled up after 5:20 AM PDT -- what happens to that progress?
A: Unfortunately, in order to properly fix this exploit, that progress has, by necessity, been lost. We know how much that progress means to all Neverwinter players, though, so we're putting together a package to thank everyone for their support. We plan to distribute this towards the middle or end of this coming week, possibly on Friday 5/24.
Q: What about the ZEN I bought/sold after 5:20 AM PDT in the Astral Diamond Exchange?
A: All ZEN exchanged during this period will be returned to the original owners.
Q: What about my astral diamonds?
A: Any astral diamonds claimed from your bonus balance will be returned to your bonus balance, and will be available to be claimed again.
Q: What about respec tokens, or other consumables?
A: You'll have everything you had at 5:20 AM PDT. If you had the consumables before 5:20 AM PDT, you'll still have them; if you bought them with ZEN or gold that you had before 5:20 AM PDT, you'll still have that gold or ZEN.
Q: I have another question, where can I get answers?
A: Post it in this thread! We'll dig through to find common questions, and we'll edit this post to include them.
Q: But... I won the Armored Nightmare from a lockbox! I'll never get that lucky again!
A: We know how much that would sting. We are looking into ways we can make it better, but we don’t have an exact plan yet. Stay tuned and keep checking here for updates.
Q: I was working on a Foundry missing during that time – what happened to my design work?
A: We did not revert any changes in the Foundry, so your work is still there.
The post can be found here. So it seems like PWE/Cryptic did their due diligence in weeding out the ferrets without laying a server wipe on all the legit players who only wanted to play the game and keep their progress. Plus they're throwing in compensation.
I respect your posts on these forums so I would expect you to know more about a situation before commenting the economy is broken and has been for a week minimum the exploits have been abused since open beta started and were reported during closed beta... it only recently became public; exploiters and exploit guilds have mentioned 72 bans and half their members not even getting banned ... the game is ruined and they didn't care enough to fix the problem.
Originally posted by jesteralways I am more than 100% sure this decision comes from the product manager who is assigned by PWE. of course cryptic has to comply, PWE owns them.
At least they took down the game and achieved a rollback, it is worth something... (compared to RaiderZ and Maiet)
The rollback will clean up the trainwreck of yesterday, but it won't help the game's economy a bit. Everything the exploiters gathered during the weeks since launch is still at them, they can fidgeting with the prices anytime they want... Based on the timing (just like in RaiderZ the exploit went open in the middle of a weekend) I'm pretty sure they already covered the tracks and prepared for the havok.
In short, I'm glad that Cryptic could trample out of PWE a rollback, that's a good thing. Sadly it's only supportive therapy, the problem is still there. As Jules said in Pulp Fiction, "We should've wipe for this kind of deal". Or a shotgun.
Originally posted by SupportPlayerMM yes n the official forums there's tons of voting going on and all polls are WIPE and yet they refuse. I'm completely confused atm...
I'm curious how many of those 29% spent money in game already...
In the end, money talks.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Originally posted by hercules Majority feel that the game will do better long term with a wipe but clearly PWE does not agree.
PWE will agree this time or they will have a game with not much players.
Cheers Sourajit Nandi
" Don't listen to anyone who tells you that you can't play this or that. That's nonsense. Make up your mind,and you'll never whine or repent about gaming hours anymore, then have a go at every Game. Open up the Internet, join in all the Mmorpgs you can. Go make the Guild. But never, never let them persuade you that things are too difficult or impossible. "
Official post from the NWO forums about the AD/AH exploit:
The post can be found here. So it seems like PWE/Cryptic did their due diligence in weeding out the ferrets without laying a server wipe on all the legit players who only wanted to play the game and keep their progress. Plus they're throwing in compensation.
Cryptic / PWE doesn't do Jack! Wake up man! This is all PR spin!
The fact that this exploit went Public at least 24 hours before downtime and has been mass abused for at least 24 hours, and been exploited by a good many players before that since OBT started!
A 7 hour rollback is just a farce! It doesn't solve anything. Just a token action for PR purposes!
Again playing the OBT card for PR purposes!
Handing out useless item packages as compensation! For what? The entire ingame economy is destroyed!
The most severe punishment so far is a 72 hour token ban! Nothing but a soft wrist slap! Exploiters win the day yet again!
As the smart ones have been Laundering all their AD away to countless mule accounts the past weeks and keep sitting on their billions of illegit acquired AD!
Long live Free 2 Play, where People can just create numerous accounts with no effort nor concequence.
PWE doesn't give a crap! All they do is running the PR machine in High Gear and do damage Control at it's finest!
They gain finiancially from this anyway! As Exchange ratio is back to 500 to 1! And all Zen is gone! So People need to start filling up the Exchange again with "REAL" Money!
That's why they really don't take any serious action.... as it doesn't affect their bottom line! Scamming and profitting from the ignorant players who have no idea what's happening.... as the majority doesn't check forums and only read PWE's PR nonsense! Feel really sorry for them.
I respect your posts on these forums so I would expect you to know more about a situation before commenting the economy is broken and has been for a week minimum the exploits have been abused since open beta started and were reported during closed beta... it only recently became public; exploiters and exploit guilds have mentioned 72 bans and half their members not even getting banned ... the game is ruined and they didn't care enough to fix the problem.
A few things jump out at me when people state this was wide-spread and happening for weeks.
If it were a large number of people the zen to ad conversion wouldn't have been steadily improving like it was. At release the exchange rate was 500 ad to 1 zen. A day before the mass exploiting it had fallen to 360 ad to 1 zen and had steadily been trending downward. Which was a good sign.
What we as players need to keep an eye on is the ad to zen rate in the coming days, once everything is back online. Does it stay stable, does it trend upward or does it go back to trending downward.
Everyone doing this was a huge deal.
A handful doing it can be dealt with on a case by case basis.
Ultimately I am still up in the air about what I will do (stay or go).
Originally posted by SupportPlayerMM yes n the official forums there's tons of voting going on and all polls are WIPE and yet they refuse. I'm completely confused atm...
Do some beter research and produce ALL those numbers in a orderly fashion (graphics) please....all this "there are tons of polls and basicly everyone says the same" sounds a lot like you are just coming up with imaginary figures and wild guesses led by emotion.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Originally posted by SupportPlayerMM yes n the official forums there's tons of voting going on and all polls are WIPE and yet they refuse. I'm completely confused atm...
Do some beter research and produce ALL those numbers in a orderly fashion (graphics) please....all this "there are tons of polls and basicly everyone says the same" sounds a lot like you are just coming up with imaginary figures and wild guesses led by emotion.
The forum polls started by users are irrelevant. There could be 200 of them and it still won't make a shred of difference.
PWE don't want to wipe.
So there'll NEVER be an official poll to ask what the "testers" want most. PWE don't care what the testers want.
You think the game is doomed becouse 1000's voted yes for wipe can compare to the shitstorm Cryptic would be in if they did a full wipe. Think of 100's of thousand angry people that would swarm Cryptic and bad mouth the game for a very long time. Talk about longterm damage.
I would go as far and say most people didt even know there was a exploit and they don't care. If your ingame you will see alot "why am i lower level then yesterday"
This is bad for Cryptic one way or another but their solution is the best for the game. The few they loose now can not compare to the how many they would have lost on a wipe, and hench why we will not see a wipe.
I must say Cryptic is slow to respond on exploits etc and it is a crap company, but you can not fail em for this. Its what any respectable company would have done.
A wipe was never on the table not even for second. Anyone who thinks it was obviously doesn't understand PWI at all. They don't give back people money once you have spent it in game. It goes completely counter to what there whole purpose as a business is which is to create virtual platforms intended to encourage people to buy virtual goods from them with real money.
The funny part is that people did exactly what you expect them to do during a "beta". They found bugs and yea once it became public knowledge there was mass exploiting but in every other beta the developers would have wiped the servers and had a good laugh about it. PWI/Cryptic really backed themselves into a corner here with the whole we are going to accept your money and let your progress but call it beta thing. One would hope that they and other developers will learn from this mistake and stop doing stupid shit like this "open beta" thing but I know they won't.
Originally posted by SupportPlayerMM yes n the official forums there's tons of voting going on and all polls are WIPE and yet they refuse. I'm completely confused atm...
Do some beter research and produce ALL those numbers in a orderly fashion (graphics) please....all this "there are tons of polls and basicly everyone says the same" sounds a lot like you are just coming up with imaginary figures and wild guesses led by emotion.
The forum polls started by users are irrelevant. There could be 200 of them and it still won't make a shred of difference.
PWE don't want to wipe.
So there'll NEVER be an official poll to ask what the "testers" want most. PWE don't care what the testers want.
Could be, but the OP is shielding himself with 'facts' based on wild guesses I take it, don't know how many players are in that beta right now, if for example 10% bother to post on those votes, it is hardly representative for the whole community, plus usually only the disgruntled players are using such votes to express their frustration.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
Originally posted by SupportPlayerMM yes n the official forums there's tons of voting going on and all polls are WIPE and yet they refuse. I'm completely confused atm...
Do some beter research and produce ALL those numbers in a orderly fashion (graphics) please....all this "there are tons of polls and basicly everyone says the same" sounds a lot like you are just coming up with imaginary figures and wild guesses led by emotion.
or you... go to the forums and do your own research. imagine that.
A wipe was never on the table not even for second. Anyone who thinks it was obviously doesn't understand PWI at all. They don't give back people money once you have spent it in game. It goes completely counter to what there whole purpose as a business is which is to create virtual platforms intended to encourage people to buy virtual goods from them with real money.
The funny part is that people did exactly what you expect them to do during a "beta". They found bugs and yea once it became public knowledge there was mass exploiting but in every other beta the developers would have wiped the servers and had a good laugh about it. PWI/Cryptic really backed themselves into a corner here with the whole we are going to accept your money and let your progress but call it beta thing. One would hope that they and other developers will learn from this mistake and stop doing stupid shit like this "open beta" thing but I know they won't.
A wipe wouldn't cost Cryptic any money in returned sales. Zen and AD counts would be reset. There would be no monetary refunds for a full wipe. A wipe was never on the table because many people like myself didn't exploit and don't want to lose their progress.
It's tagged with "open beta" so if there was a wipe I could deal with it, but I prefer a more fine grained approach.
There is a huge difference between ZEN people have on their account and ZEN people have already spent. One is something you have taken payment for but have not delivered the service yet and other you have completed the transaction for. So yea it would be a big deal to PWI to refund everyone's Zen.
Originally posted by SupportPlayerMM not sure how they decided to go against the MASS #... what a sad day...
So if there are tons of polls/votes to give all the players everything for free, and people vote for that.. yet the company doesn't go with that.. would you then be confused as well?
Forums are good for feedback and a great tool for Devs, but don't expect them to always go with the crowd, they have to put their big boy pants on and make a decision for themselves at the end of the day. Keep in mind, those voting on the forums are just a fraction of the player base to be effected by a wipe, as the average player doesn't even visit them, just the Vocal Few.
Originally posted by SupportPlayerMM not sure how they decided to go against the MASS #... what a sad day...
Show me a link to this poll.... If it has at least 5000 unique votes I will take the poll seriously.
You actually have no poster credibility what so ever as most information is available to you on this subject on this site and you still deny it's occurrence it is not nor will it ever be my job to heard sheep on MMORPG.com. Do your own research.
I went legit to 60- no exploits or anything and im just now starting to get in some nice purple gear. I would be pissed if they did a wipe. I would not want to lose everything and have to start over, it would probably be the nail in the coffin for me if they did a wipe. They can ban on an individual basis, it may take a while but it could be done ,so us legit players dont have to suffer.
Originally posted by SupportPlayerMM not sure how they decided to go against the MASS #... what a sad day...
Show me a link to this poll.... If it has at least 5000 unique votes I will take the poll seriously.
You actually have no poster credibility what so ever as most information is available to you on this subject on this site and you still deny it's occurrence it is not nor will it ever be my job to heard sheep on MMORPG.com. Do your own research.
Awesome poem bro
"The King and the Pawn return to the same box at the end of the game"
Comments
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
I respect your posts on these forums so I would expect you to know more about a situation before commenting the economy is broken and has been for a week minimum the exploits have been abused since open beta started and were reported during closed beta... it only recently became public; exploiters and exploit guilds have mentioned 72 bans and half their members not even getting banned ... the game is ruined and they didn't care enough to fix the problem.
Here's just the most popular and open reference.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSHO1vjv6UY
At least they took down the game and achieved a rollback, it is worth something... (compared to RaiderZ and Maiet)
The rollback will clean up the trainwreck of yesterday, but it won't help the game's economy a bit. Everything the exploiters gathered during the weeks since launch is still at them, they can fidgeting with the prices anytime they want... Based on the timing (just like in RaiderZ the exploit went open in the middle of a weekend) I'm pretty sure they already covered the tracks and prepared for the havok.
In short, I'm glad that Cryptic could trample out of PWE a rollback, that's a good thing. Sadly it's only supportive therapy, the problem is still there. As Jules said in Pulp Fiction, "We should've wipe for this kind of deal". Or a shotgun.
In the end, money talks.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
PWE will agree this time or they will have a game with not much players.
Cheers
Sourajit Nandi
" Don't listen to anyone who tells you that you can't play this or that. That's nonsense. Make up your mind,and you'll never whine or repent about gaming hours anymore, then have a go at every Game. Open up the Internet, join in all the Mmorpgs you can. Go make the Guild. But never, never let them persuade you that things are too difficult or impossible. "
Once An Addict Always An Addict .
Cryptic / PWE doesn't do Jack! Wake up man! This is all PR spin!
The fact that this exploit went Public at least 24 hours before downtime and has been mass abused for at least 24 hours, and been exploited by a good many players before that since OBT started!
A 7 hour rollback is just a farce! It doesn't solve anything. Just a token action for PR purposes!
Again playing the OBT card for PR purposes!
Handing out useless item packages as compensation! For what? The entire ingame economy is destroyed!
The most severe punishment so far is a 72 hour token ban! Nothing but a soft wrist slap! Exploiters win the day yet again!
As the smart ones have been Laundering all their AD away to countless mule accounts the past weeks and keep sitting on their billions of illegit acquired AD!
Long live Free 2 Play, where People can just create numerous accounts with no effort nor concequence.
PWE doesn't give a crap! All they do is running the PR machine in High Gear and do damage Control at it's finest!
They gain finiancially from this anyway! As Exchange ratio is back to 500 to 1! And all Zen is gone! So People need to start filling up the Exchange again with "REAL" Money!
That's why they really don't take any serious action.... as it doesn't affect their bottom line! Scamming and profitting from the ignorant players who have no idea what's happening.... as the majority doesn't check forums and only read PWE's PR nonsense! Feel really sorry for them.
If they let people spend hundreds of dollars on the game, that's a pretty clear sign that there will not be any wipes anymore.
Forum polls mean very little in that regard, their representation value isn't very great.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
that's cool my and many others charge backs have been applied.
This is not my ticket but does go to show how long ago this issue was reported to PWI
Guess them derps will finally understand it's not BETA.
It's a launch called BETA.
A few things jump out at me when people state this was wide-spread and happening for weeks.
If it were a large number of people the zen to ad conversion wouldn't have been steadily improving like it was. At release the exchange rate was 500 ad to 1 zen. A day before the mass exploiting it had fallen to 360 ad to 1 zen and had steadily been trending downward. Which was a good sign.
What we as players need to keep an eye on is the ad to zen rate in the coming days, once everything is back online. Does it stay stable, does it trend upward or does it go back to trending downward.
Everyone doing this was a huge deal.
A handful doing it can be dealt with on a case by case basis.
Ultimately I am still up in the air about what I will do (stay or go).
Do some beter research and produce ALL those numbers in a orderly fashion (graphics) please....all this "there are tons of polls and basicly everyone says the same" sounds a lot like you are just coming up with imaginary figures and wild guesses led by emotion.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
The forum polls started by users are irrelevant. There could be 200 of them and it still won't make a shred of difference.
PWE don't want to wipe.
So there'll NEVER be an official poll to ask what the "testers" want most. PWE don't care what the testers want.
You think the game is doomed becouse 1000's voted yes for wipe can compare to the shitstorm Cryptic would be in if they did a full wipe. Think of 100's of thousand angry people that would swarm Cryptic and bad mouth the game for a very long time. Talk about longterm damage.
I would go as far and say most people didt even know there was a exploit and they don't care. If your ingame you will see alot "why am i lower level then yesterday"
This is bad for Cryptic one way or another but their solution is the best for the game. The few they loose now can not compare to the how many they would have lost on a wipe, and hench why we will not see a wipe.
I must say Cryptic is slow to respond on exploits etc and it is a crap company, but you can not fail em for this. Its what any respectable company would have done.
A wipe was never on the table not even for second. Anyone who thinks it was obviously doesn't understand PWI at all. They don't give back people money once you have spent it in game. It goes completely counter to what there whole purpose as a business is which is to create virtual platforms intended to encourage people to buy virtual goods from them with real money.
The funny part is that people did exactly what you expect them to do during a "beta". They found bugs and yea once it became public knowledge there was mass exploiting but in every other beta the developers would have wiped the servers and had a good laugh about it. PWI/Cryptic really backed themselves into a corner here with the whole we are going to accept your money and let your progress but call it beta thing. One would hope that they and other developers will learn from this mistake and stop doing stupid shit like this "open beta" thing but I know they won't.
Could be, but the OP is shielding himself with 'facts' based on wild guesses I take it, don't know how many players are in that beta right now, if for example 10% bother to post on those votes, it is hardly representative for the whole community, plus usually only the disgruntled players are using such votes to express their frustration.
"going into arguments with idiots is a lost cause, it requires you to stoop down to their level and you can't win"
or you... go to the forums and do your own research. imagine that.
You should not belive everything you see in our day and age.
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?270271-quot-Evidence-quot-of-earlier-existence-of-ah-exploit
There is a huge difference between ZEN people have on their account and ZEN people have already spent. One is something you have taken payment for but have not delivered the service yet and other you have completed the transaction for. So yea it would be a big deal to PWI to refund everyone's Zen.
Show me a link to this poll.... If it has at least 5000 unique votes I will take the poll seriously.
So if there are tons of polls/votes to give all the players everything for free, and people vote for that.. yet the company doesn't go with that.. would you then be confused as well?
Forums are good for feedback and a great tool for Devs, but don't expect them to always go with the crowd, they have to put their big boy pants on and make a decision for themselves at the end of the day. Keep in mind, those voting on the forums are just a fraction of the player base to be effected by a wipe, as the average player doesn't even visit them, just the Vocal Few.
You actually have no poster credibility what so ever as most information is available to you on this subject on this site and you still deny it's occurrence it is not nor will it ever be my job to heard sheep on MMORPG.com. Do your own research.
I went legit to 60- no exploits or anything and im just now starting to get in some nice purple gear. I would be pissed if they did a wipe. I would not want to lose everything and have to start over, it would probably be the nail in the coffin for me if they did a wipe. They can ban on an individual basis, it may take a while but it could be done ,so us legit players dont have to suffer.
The 71% are idiots.
Awesome poem bro