Edit: Na

It has never been "rule breaking" in any other MMO in history.

I've said it once and I'll say it again: As it stands Stephen Reids directly explains what he means by exploit. He directly states they had been exploiting the game by "systematically and repeatedly looting containers in very high numbers resulting in the game economy becoming unbalanced." AKA Excessive farming - not botting, not duping items, not selling gold, just excessive farming. To clarify "exploit" even further, Stephen Reid explains that : "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." Emphasis on "decide to be game exploits." They decided that "systematically and repeatedly looting containers in very high numbers..." was an exploit. They decided excessive looting and farming was an exploit. There is nothing more to say this is exactly from the mouth of Stephen Reid. With only those paragraphs to go off of there is really nothing more to discuss. It's clear what Stephen Reid said in the OP and it's flat out ridiculous. Can people really not get over the fact that maybe Bioware screwed up here? Edit: Also, once again, this in no way hurts me as a player as I don't really farm excessively. I can surely sympathize with the players who do however.

This is not the case. Some people had been temporarily banned and warned for "systematically and repeatedly looting containers in very high numbers resulting in the game economy becoming unbalanced." That is why people are upset. The gold sellers are a completely separate issue and of course should be banned.

Then as it stands Stephen Reids directly explains what he means by exploit. He directly states they had been exploiting the game by "systematically and repeatedly looting containers in very high numbers resulting in the game economy becoming unbalanced." With only that paragraph to go off of there is really nothing more to discuss. Bringing up what other people had said in this forum is pretty pointless unless they provided some shred of proof.

In no way does he talk about colluding with the opposite faction either. He says exploit and explains exactly what the player was doing "systematically and repeatedly looting containers in very high numbers..." Stephen Reid even says "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." Emphasis on "decide to be game exploits." They decided that "systematically and repeatedly looting containers in very high numbers..." was an exploit. That's exactly what he said and there is no reason to believe otherwise until some other proof or announcement is made. EDIT: Did you just make up the colluding with the opposite faction bit entirely or what? If you have proof we could end this silly thread now.

Can you post some proof that it was from colluding with the opposite faction in order to do this? Stephen Reid doesn't touch on it at all and definitely makes it sound as if it was only from excessive farming.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who found the post a bit silly. Unfortunately, many of the posts on this forum post follow along those lines exactly.

This is what I'm having trouble with and others have said the same. You might as well be saying that a person who legimitatly spends hours and hours of their real time farming is just as bad as a botter. I can't agree with this at all.

All MMO's in the past generally do just come out and say it. This is exactly why people are concerned and your completely spot on. Why wouldn't they say it was a third party exploit or botting tool if that's what the issue was regarding?

This was the exact same issue me and radiata had. Your assuming that Bioware has all the facts and I'm assuming that had it been botting or duping they would have said: "Players had been using third party apps to farm and duplicate gold" (or something to that extent). Technically you might be right, technically I might be right. I'm just going by how previous MMO's have handled similar situations.

There shouldn't be anything wrong with farming gold. Selling it, botting for it, duping it, all are very bannable things. Farming gold shouldn't be bannable or temporarily bannable.

Your right - "systematically and repeatedly" basically means players farming loot a lot. They might be farming more than me (thus changing the economy) but at the end of the day they took the time to farm "systematically and repeatedly." They didn't cheat and use a bot/exploit, etc.

It says in the quote that a small number had been warned or temporarily suspended/banned (or basically punished). Am I really missing something obvious?

Don't even temporarily ban them. This is exactly what I've been trying to say from the start. Yes, I've defended myself along the way, like most others here as well.

Ya that seems to be the case. Either way you're exactly right questioning what " systematically and repeatedly" means. Clearly it doesn't mean botting or they would have said third party app/botting. So the question still remains...

It specifically says in the OP Post: "By comparison, the number of accounts that were warned or temporarily suspended was considerably lower than the number of accounts banned for 'credit farming'." So yes, players had been at least temporarily banned for credit farming. People just want to know the details because generally credit farming is a legitimate thing for most MMO's.

If they aren't botting / bug exploiting then they shouldn't be suspended either. We've been over this jeramie

This was my exact concern as well. As soon as people started saying it was for botting/ bug exploiting I was only asking for proof and continue to do so. If they are botting or exploiting "bugs" then yes they need to be banned, obviously.

I believe most of the concern was that its unclear what exactly determines if your a "credit farmer?"

I honestly don't understand how I ignored your post. Literally the posts just above us are exactly what I was discussing five pages ago and tried to continue to discuss with Jeramie and others . People are still discussing it, as well as myself. Why are you targeting me here exactly?

My apologies and I agree. I thought we had already agreed long back that we just disagree but obviously not : / ....

I see. So because we don't agree with each other, and continue to disagree I should be banned from the forums? All I can say is I'm considering the same thing myself after the "knock it off" remark. However, I won't because the only reason I'm posting here to begin with is because I care about paying customers (like you) who could potentially be hurt by this.

It's so simple they could even just code it in to the game and there would be no confusion at all! Other MMO's have done it - even 7-10 years ago. Hard to understand I know.

Is that some sort of threat? I'm sorry that I'm voicing my opinion on these forums (without using profanity, etc) but the fact is if you don't like what I have to say just leave it be. Telling me to "knock it off" is laughable at best.