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[Column] Star Wars: The Old Republic: But Everyone Else Was Doing It Too!
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
This week, Star Wars: the Old Republic put in a patch that had a fairly large number of tweaks to the game, mostly a lot of bugfixes and updates to various group activities such as changing which comms drop and rebalancing certain encounters. Sadly, however, much of these things were not the topic of many conversations about the game the past few weeks. A singular sentence early on in the patch notes addressed that topic in an unassuming manner, quietly announcing a bugfix that closed a rather large exploit that had been discovered in the game in Game Update 3.0.
Read more of Jean Prior's Star Wars: The Old Republic - But Everyone Else Was Doing It Too!
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Comments
They don't ban the blatant win-traders in ranked PVP, probably because nobody would participate otherwise. They'll hand out small suspensions at most because they won't want to chase away subscribers.
Letting the exploit last over a month because of December holidays was BioWare dropping the ball. If it was so important to preserve the integrity of the game's vertical loot progression then they'd address issues like these in a timely fashion.
I agree that people who bought something from the GTN shouldn't be banned or punished, but I have no problem with them taking the item away from either. All credits made from this exploit and the items that resulted should be removed from the community.
How long the exploit lasted and whether or not they fixed it quick enough is irrelevant, there were rules, they got broken and something should be done about it if for no other reason than to discourage people from doing it again.
Terms of service are of very little legal value, at least in most countries in Europe.
That said, action should be taken to punish those who knowingly exploited this thing. It's of course difficult to draw the line on where the permabans begin.
Personally, I'd just remove the ill - gotten items from those who did it a few times, "because everyone was doing it", followed by perhaps a temporary ban. But no mercy for those who tried to supply all their alts with hoards of stuff or those who wanted to cash in quick.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Just an example ... How ESO would handle a bug of this nature:
1. Discover the bug exists.
2. Nerf the exploit by any means as temporary fix promising to fix it later even if it "breaks" current game play. Fix asap (minus class kills lol).
Swtor handles it:
1. Ignore the countless cries from the players that the bug is ruining economy and game. Post nothing.
2. Let the bug go on for weeks allowing all the powergamers to benefit, ignore this or give out token, short term punishment (largely to those complaining on forums first) and then finally figure out a fix "in the near future".
Players notice this sort of thing and judge harshly. Developers need to learn this.
You stay sassy!
This exploit is something everyone knows is wrong from the beginning, it is clearly cheating. So the players who used it should be punished, you don't get summon to the end of an instanced and allowed to claim loot by accident.
But Bioware have handled this very badly, most companies would have closed down the instanced temporary and then fixed it up as soon as possible instead of ignoring it for a month. If items gotten through it gets sold it will affect people who havn't cheated and mess up the economy.
TOR is doing very well now, Bioware needs to fix stuff like this fast if they want to cintinue like that. There will always be some things not working as intended in MMOs, the important thing is what the devs do about them and the time it takes to fix them.
I just don't see Wow, GW2 or LOTRO handling something similar this way, no matter if it is holidays or not.
As long as there are dumb asses who open wallet just because of the names "star wars" or "revan" or "tor", they don't need to do anything but release crappy content and see the money rolling in. for 1 person complaining about a bug there is at least 20 who is bashing the person and calling him "whiner" or telling the person to quit. so why should eaware care?
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.
Or you could give something much better to those who didn't cheat!
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
I was wondering how long it would take for the haters to jump in from the moment a thread with the words SW TOR showed up.
Still hurts seeing the game prosper ? Get over it.
Calling people dumb asses for spending their money on a game they enjoy speaks much about your person.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Has a sig bemoaning folks for wanting F2P games, goes on to bash people who pay for the game they enjoy..
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Should exploiters be punished ? I guess they should, but tbh I don't care much either way. I just don't understand why anyone would find it fun to exploit. Is new armor the only reason they play ?
IMO bioware dropped the ball. The exploit was discovered already on testservers and still the bugged operation launched with the rest of 3.0.
I know the policy is not to name and shame, but I cant remember any earlier exploit beeing punished. Ofc knowing or to think you know, that you can exploit without ever beeing punished doesn't make it ok, but throwing bans left and right seems a bit harsh considering past mesurements toward exploiters.
If past exploiters were punished and I just don't know, then I guess it makes more sense. I do however think that after fixing an exploit and dealing with exploiters, a message should be made on the forums. No naming ofc, just that the accounts that have ben using this exploit has been punished, so and so for the lesser "sinners" and so and so for the bigger sinners.
For all I know exploits have never been punished in SWTOR before, and I'm sure that also was part reason why the exploit became so widespread.
Punish the exploiters by taking away all their items they have. Ban them for 2 or 3 months, take away all their items, no matter how commen or rare the items are, even the celebration items. That will hurt them the most. A ban for a few months make them shrug and just play again when the game is aviable to them again. But remove everything they have, now that hurts. Now they have to start all over again with collecting stuff..but this time naked and without weapons. They will walk around in shame and its hard to get any stuff for a while. Maybe also give them a title that they can't change for a entire year named "Cheater". Punish them by shaming them and hurting them where it really hurts. Not by some "go stand in the corner after that you are welcome again" weak bs.
Its like Blizzard. We had a guy on our server many years ago who whispered a girl the most horrible things. She was 14 years old and he kept whispering sexual related comments. Even though she clearly said she didn't like that he kept going. Now this guy was 18. It falls under the sexual harresment rule...all he got was a 3 month suspension. This after he been banned 3 or 4 times already before that incident. They kept wanting his money appearantly even thou these where the good days with over 12 million subscribers. I just don't get it why that money is so important for them versus moral standards and there for favoring some guy who can't handle playing online, who has made several people quit the game.
And give all that didn't exploit the title "Saint"
Given past history of punishing exploiters imo they cant slam the banhammer too hard, exept in the most severe cases where ex. someone sold hardmode lockouts.
Ofc ill-gotten items should be removed if at all possible. No idea how easy the mods and armourings are to track when mods are extracted and moved to alts via legacygear, but if possible ofc that should happen.
The crying out for lengthy bans to everyone that exploited even once just sounds to me like a childs screaming out for a cookie when he saw some kid on the other side of the street being given one.
Personly I have no problem with the mild offenders getting off with ill-gotten gear removed and a slap on the wrist. Imo SWTOR has bigger problems than some OP-exploit.
My view on this is pretty similar to some of those above. I think it is incumbent on the Game Developer to either 1) define exploit clearly or 2) brand a particular practice an exploit. One the Game Developers do that then the burden falls on the players to either 1) stop exploiting or 2) run the risk of being punished in some way.
A simple post from Bioware saying, "If you do this you will be considered an exploiter and face punishment" would be enough to fulfill their duty. They could also add that we are actively working on a fix for this exploit and will implement it as soon as possible and without warning. Now the burden shifts to the players. They are warned that a certain behavior is an exploit and they can choose their path accordingly.
This kind of reminds me of the steroids flap in baseball. What every one of the sanctimonious seems to forget is that it wasn't even against the rules of baseball to use steroids until 2004. It was incumbent on baseball to make a rule banning the use of steroids and it didn't. How can it be fair to now say, "Those who used steroids before it was against the rules are cheaters"? You can't break a rule that doesn't exist.
By the same token if the Devs don't make it plain that a certain activity is an exploit, then it isn't fair for them to run around hitting people with the ban stick or whatever.
A simple three line post in blue makes all the argument irrelevant. Instead of making veiled references and allowing each gamer to follow their own conscience, Bioware could have very easily taken all of the guess work out of the equation by simply stating, "Porting to the end of the instance to loot the dead boss is an exploit. We know people are doing it. If you do it from now on you risk discipline." Simple. Easy. Skid proof. Now the chickens are coming home to roost as those who did it claim one thing and those who didn't claim another.
Bioware has only itself to blame for the muddled mess it created.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
But can they really punish in private anymore?
That's the thing, so many people on reddit twitch and youtube these days that companies can't really punish people who are exploiters and exploiters can do what many have done which is rally their troops if they happen to have a large enough following their plee video could go viral and force the companies hand which would affect their ratings wit hthe public.
I find it rather unprofessional and irresponsible for MMORPG to put a post like this out a day after Swtor addresed the issue on their forums. As for the rest of you before you run your mouth about something you don't have a clue on try and at least do some research on it. Yes I know Swtor forums are rather toxic but you can at least get a little info from them. Since mmorpg wants to run their mouths without knowledge here is a thread from Eric posted a day before this thread.
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=789578
Typical subscription game VS F2P game QA behaviour; + that TESO is still relativly new & companys tend to react faster in general with their new games.
Oh give it up dude...how many threads did you find on the ESO forums and websites like this with comments like "this patch broke more things and fixed nothing". "They didn't fix anything this patch" go back and re read their forums buddy that is not how Eso handles stuff lolWhile i do not care per see in this case as the exploit did not hurt much of anything... The economy is to the best of my knowledge pretty farked to begin with.
I have not even pity for the people who exploited and get a ban (should that happen)... Why... Because i can sit on my high horse of moral superiority being untainted. Or well that is not entierly true... I did once partake in a exploit...
Back in my SWG days my Image Designer used the macro exploit to level up the last of his his ID skills. (what it did was let you run a in-game macro that went through the steps of image design without having to click and at about twice the speed.. henche the exploit part,,)
But i still sit on my high horse. Because i am a arse that way.
This have been a good conversation
Hmm.
A game studio creates content whose point was to actually play through it before being rewarded. The play style is not unique to SWTOR. It's pretty much the same methodology for dungeons and raids since the days of EverQuest. You don't get the big rewards until you clear the dungeon/raid and defeat the final boss. This is how it's worked since 1999.
Why in the world should BioWare have to actually assume we're all stupid and need to be explicitly told that porting directly to a downed final boss and looting him is an exploit?
Seriously, at some point, common sense should be invoked. We as players KNOW that's not intended behavior. We don't need a game studio to actually tell us that's an exploit. We know it is, and at that point, a player's personal conscience is up to them. Nitpicking over BioWare telling us or not is foolish. Something like this is cut and dry whether it was or wasn't an exploit. If it was questionable, yeah, I can see your point, but this one? Nope.
They should let clever people do this. The devs could also add in some code that the level of rewards dropped by the boss is set by what has been cleared before it. Clear everything? Great max bonus. Kill just this boss? Minimal drop.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
While I agree with you that it should be common sense by now that Developers mean for content to be fully played before the raid boss is killed, I'm afraid that we're forced, even in the real world, to operate on the biggest idiot theory. (Sad to say we live in a society where they have to put "Caution : Contents are hot and may cause burns" on coffee cups these days). Until you make things crystal clear the extremely clever and the extremely stupid are going to keep right on rolling. Its unfortunate but you literally have to club people over the head before they get it. You have to make it so even the biggest idiot can get the message.
I saw a great slogan the other day: "Common sense has become so uncommon that it now qualifies as a superpower."
With that I'm going to stop typing as I'm depressing myself.
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
I participated in the thread in the SWTOR forums over this issue. I lobbied for strict enforcement and tough repercussions for the exploiters, and was personally attacked for my stance. After getting extemely upset over the personal attacks, I suffered a minor heart attack a couple of days ago, spending two days in the hospital recovering. My best friend (real life) with whom I live posted about my situation, only to be mocked for her post. Hours later, after being mocked and called a liar, a moderator removed her post and issed us both infractions, me for my inflammatory comments ("white knighting" their defense) and her for posting false information.
As a long term player I'm absolutely pissed that Bioware would allow people to cheat like this, then slap down and sanction those that showed actual moral fortitude through willful non-participation. Further, I'm furious that Bioware would infract someone for posting TRUE information, without even trying to verify the statements made.
My friend has approached Eric Musco and "community support" demanding they recant their assertion of wrong doing and apologiize for their false accusations, but I have little faith that anyone at Bioware cares about the players who actually follow the rules. It's all about pandering to the rule breakers.
A player since beta and an avid SWTOR fan, this whole exploit issue has simply proven that Bioware customer "support" is a disgusting, expoliter ass kissing failure.
I'm done with this sorry game.
I'll give you a 6 for writing an almost believable scenario.
1 for real life drama, notably the "minor heart attack incident"
1 for "beta player" drop
Final score: 8/10. Good, but with minor flaws.