I too would like to see more variety in lightsabers and shotos especially on the CM. The problem is that BW would be unlikely to do it the way you described, for reasons that have mostly been put forth already. 2 markets vs 1 market oversimplifies the problem. The 2nd market (direct sales) would be so much of a more efficient gain for the players (in terms of money spent to get what they really want) that BW would lose almost everything from market 1, for a significant net loss.

If these questions have already been asked I apologize. It was mentioned in the livestream that companion gear would not be taken from us, but would be returned somehow. If we have a max inventory space of 80, and all 8 companions, that is 112 pieces of gear. Would the extra just be mailed to us? Also, is there a plan to devalue current ultimate comms to basic comms on the day of the expansion? And finally, I expect details on crafting are still being refined, but is there an expectation that crafting will fill a gear tier similar to SoR, in that crafted mods were better than basic comm gear but not as good (in most cases) as gear from HM FPs and Ops?

Although the game did in fact intrigue me, part of the reason I didn't play is due to the stories about the online community. Same for League of Legends, but that is a different topic. I believe the GM was planning to call CS on Monday. Thank you for bringing this up though, it occured to me after reading this that I may have jumped the gun a little bit if they indeed are more receptive to taking action for those who call. Wouldn't surprise me. Sounds like the sort of efficiency initiative that gets people promoted and departments axed.

Lack of knowledge, usually. I'm not an IT person. The idea behind that poorly executed bit of information is that the actual person sitting at an actual desk should have actual difficulty in trying this against other people in the future. It sucks enough for me to want to leave, I don't want other people to feel the same.

I appreciate the help and insight from a CS veteran. The irony is that I don't even have Facebook or Twitter. I suppose I could make one, but that's a can of worms I would rather not open, personally.

This person is costing them money, so it sounds very reasonable to me. This is my first MMO (as I'm sure some have derisively guessed before) and I get that this has been a problem for multiple games. Some people will always take whatever they can lay their hands on. That being said, locks are not what deter thieves, police are. Locks deter casual thievery, but the risk of being caught and punished is what limits professionals. The lack of effort will directly impact the amount of people participating in this tactic. As for reasonable alternatives, I detailed them in my previous response. Talk to us like normal human beings, explain what can and cannot be done, and leave it up to the individual to make their choice. I've made mine, and many others disagree. I won't apologize for that, and I don't expect them to weep for me either.

I don't see why it would have to be that complex. The ledger shows what was taken and by whom. Find that guy, or when he was deleted, and see who he sent stuff to before burning the toon. Do those people still have it? Probably not. Are those first recipients his other toons or other people in his guild? Check to see if those toons were created from his IP. Do his guildmates know? Is he even in a guild? if not, he's probably just doing this to be a turd, and that's what the internet is for. The possibilities are endless, but the lack of discernible effort to find and stop this guy is what gets me. It has been too long at this point to return each of those unique items, I get that. If there really and truly is the risk of a game breaking duplication bug from copying those items back into the GB, fine. But why not put that little bit of non-technical info into the response. Also, there doesn't need to be a detailed list of actions taken against the thief, but a blurb that says actions are being taken is better than nothing.

Again, it goes back to how much they actually know. The quickly and easily part is exactly what I am referring to. I have said all along it would take more work than doing nothing. But then if they want to do nothing to keep me around, then I will do nothing to stay.

It appears you have even less faith in Bioware than I do. It seems the biggest question then is how much they actually track for all of this. I am not an employee therefore I cannot say with any specific degree of certainty exactly what they can and cannot track BUT... The Ravagers exploit opened up a can of worms beyond the immediate repercussions of the exploit itself, with Bioware stating that they were going through the data to catch anyone who had ever used the exploit to gain an advantage. This to me means that they had enough data to know the who, when, and how (where and what and why is a bit of a given, but also part of it). If they have access to enough data to determine that, why wouldn't they be able to do the same for these types of actions, both real and "false flag"? If they truly do not have the capability to do that, then saying so would be better than nothing. An explanation would take all of five minutes to write out. Wouldn't even have to delve into the technical reasons behind the limitations. And I'm sure someone will have an issue with "giving out too much information to enable bad guys". But here's the thing: I'm not the bad guy. I couldn't code my way out of anything. I just want justice to be done, or at the very least an explanation of why it can't. I know, how quaint.

Why would the items have to have been destroyed? I am legitimately confused by this.

You are absolutely right, and I hope it is apparent that my disappointment is not with an individual CS worker. I fully expect that Bioware keeps a skeleton crew in their CS department to save money (because those execs need their bonuses!). That being said, I would think the cleaning out of a guild's bank would be a higher priority ticket (due to the effect on multiple people/accounts) than the standard bug report. Also, the initial response was to a different problem than the one we were actually having, which contributed to the feeling of dismissal.

This is indeed an interesting concept, but I personally would find $500 to be a bit rich for my taste. I would pay 50 bucks, but only if proof of a lasting resolution was delivered afterwards. That's what I think the action is worth, considering I would then re-sub and go back to buying hypercrates whenever I felt like it. Edit: This would open a whole other can of worms though, in regards to who would feel like paying real money and who would not. Just because I would pay a small fee doesn't mean the majority of people would if it were a standard practice.

I answered this question earlier in the thread. The people who bought any stolen items have no way to know. Shut down the account of the scammer, no refund if he (unlikely) bought a subscription (for violating the ToS). When I say restore the stolen items I don't mean to go through every GTN transaction, I mean look at our ledger, and put exactly the same number of items back in the bank. Don't take from anyone else, because that would defeat the purpose and make no sense anyway. It's not like we would be selling the returned stuff anyway, we would be using them so any "market imbalance" would have already been caused by the scammer, not added to by us. I don't think fixing it is "virtually impossible". I think CS has allowed us to think it is virtually impossible because that's not where the money is at. It's at the Cartel Market. This would take away from time the regular employees are using to do other things, and that's the issue to me. In the zero-sum game of time and effort and money, the money that has been made is ignored in favor of the money yet to be made. Is this business? Yes it is. But only to a point. Therefore, I will impact the money yet to be made (my meager sub and potential hypercrate purchases) in order to attempt some sort or balance.

I would like to clear up a few things. One, I did not expect my OP to crate a legion of random internet people clamoring for the stuff taken to be returned. The intent of the initial post was to inform, not persuade. I had (and still have) a sliver of hope that Bioware will see it and take actual action, but the odds of that seem similar to navigating an asteroid field. Two, I was not the officer that mistakenly gave the rights to the scammer. The guild has a grand total of three people not counting the GM that can raise someone to the rank this person was given. All three people have been in the guild since launch, and have thus far proven themselves to be stable, relatively normal individuals. Three, there are a range of issues with this situation, and the ones I take offense to are different than the GM and Elycia do. My biggest issue is that Bioware has demonstrated that they can track this activity, and they have the power to fix it, yet nothing will likely be done because it would take away time from reskinning CM armors and speeders. Why even bother having a Customer Service department if you're only going to take care of the minor issues? Fourth, it is BioWare's policy to not discuss actions being taken against another account. I get that. It was also Bioware's policy not to make balance changes outside of major patches, until they did. It was part of their policy not to discuss exploits, until they did. I don't even particularly care WHO the scammer is, as long as they know who it is and that actions are being taken against them. Justice must be seen to be done effectively. Fifth, I have mentioned several times that the officer who gave the person access to the GB made a mistake, a huge mistake to some of you. But my point with the mistake is that it is different than simply over-promoting a blatantly new person. The scammer is the one with the majority of fault here, for impersonating the GM. I would like to say thank you to those who have expressed sympathy, whether or not you agreed with my reasoning.

You're right, my metaphor was imperfect. I should say there is no reason to abide by the Terms of Service if there is no discernible reason to do so. Regardless, you seem hostile... any reason? Edit: This isn't because I'm not giving you my stuff, is it? Because this is not how you go about getting free stuff. Reference the first post of this thread for the how-to.