"obvious intention of the game" That's exactly hitting the nail on the head. If they had "obvious intention", the areas would have been level locked, and trade skills capped. No locks = no intentions = free to explore = nothing to "exploit".

A bug in this system would have ment that either the planet said "REQUIREMENT X", and the requirement code didn't work properly, you discovered this and still did it. Or if the boxes required 350 skill, and it's bugged so you can do it with 200. No skill lock, and no trade caps aren't bugs, but oversights. Something that isn't there can't be bugged. and edit: I'm not allowed to blame the person who made something if it's not working properly? So if I buy a three legged chair, it's my fault for not sitting on it right and not the creators fault for not putting a 4th one on? Especially if the feature list on the box of the chair said "4 legs!". At the end of the day this all comes down to the gaming industry being the ONLY industry on the planet allowed to deliver broken goods while being protected from returning money ect, bah I'll skip this because it'll only piss me off more.

Stop looking at computer games as real life situations you can squeeze yourself through. As if an exploiter is someone who's driving on the closed off side lane because he looked at the "nono" signs, but still kept going. "Nono" sign in a computer game means NO. Just like typing in the wrong password won't log you in. Code is definitive, any failings of the code are failure in it's creation, not in it's application. Sure if a certain specific set of failures -has- to be repeated in a certain way in order to get profit results from it, sure the INTENT TO EXPLOIT is there. But clicking on a planet that doesn't keep you from going there, and then clicking on the boxes that don't keep you from opening them because you also are allowed to have that skill level, are two non intentional behavioral actions that resulted in unfair profit and should have been changed. But should not have caused the players who did it to get banned, as if they jumped through coding hoops to get there.

It sure is, because again.. are you to blame your players for your shortcomings in developing the game? If I design a road so stupidly that the drivers on the road are bound to make mistakes, are the tickets and jail sentences justified or are those people the victims of a broken system to begin with. Don't get me wrong, I'm hugely against exploiting in any form, but missing level locks cause them to ban players instead of add a level lock? come on. It's not like they rode on the ship of a level 50 and "actually" exploited their way into the area by bugging through an invisible wall or whatever. They got banned for breaking a "verbal law" in a computer game. A "do what we tell you to do, not how we show you to do it" ban.

Right, again to put this into perspective, Imagine this really basic driving game where you have to drive over a straight road and dodge other cars. It's the whole point of the game to get as far as possible. Now, instead of driving on the road and dodging cars, you can also just drive on the sand right next to the road, and drive at the same speed as if you were on the road, but don't have -any- objects to dodge. Now you get banned, for exploiting the game by "not playing it as intended by the developers". Sure they -could- have restricted you from even going on the sand all together because it's a computer game, or at least made the sand drive differently from the tarmac, but no, they left the sand wide and open for you to ride on, and instead are banning you by some verbal/bi-rule in some EULA.

Being a former GM for 2 previous games I can say banning is as easy as logging into a character. And the whole disucssion isn't whether BW was in their right to ban someone or not, as they -always are-, but whether the conditions they did it under are something "I as a paying customer" feel good or wrong about. Like I stated last night, imagine going to a club that asks an 80 dollar entry fee only to have the bouncers kick you out "because -they- said they saw you doing something wrong, even though you got NO idea what is going on and why".. Sure they are in their complete right to do so, it's their club, but I'm sure as hell not going to "ask the manager nicely to reevaluate his bouncers actions and please let me back in again". Screw them, there's a another club right next to them, and another one being build across the road.

Not level lock on area, no level cap on skills.. by that logic pretty much anything you ever get banned over is a "design flaw" no? If they designed their game better chat was completely controlled, player behavior deadlocked by predesigned moves and it cannot be hacked or affected by third party software in any way.

HAHA! Much like you'll go back to the club that asks a 80 dollar fee then has it's bouncers throw you out on false accusations? Ahh sure.. wait a week, send a nice letter to beg them to take your money again.. suureee. Edit: not saying the OP's story in question is true, just letting you know what my reaction will be if it is.

Ahh 2 whole pages? you mean 3 minutes? edit: see nitpicking.

I'm a total exploit nitpicker, and I don't see going to higher level content <that you can apparently go to freely without a level cap lock out> and slicing the chests/harvesting the nodes, <because the game apparently allows unlocked trade skill levels> as an exploit at all. Getting banned for it <because apparently they rather lose customers than fix something>, is something I will stand behind and quit over.

Did you even see his "at this moment debatable authentic" email?

I really want some official response on this because I will end my sub if this is true. *edit: and by official I mean either better proof or company response.

Killing level 1 mobs at the starting area is profitable too.. there's all sorts of other things to think about too, such as it really being nice you got 71K credits in profit, but you spend so many hours playing it doesn't nearly cover your expenses for one.

Ultima Online.

No, slicers put money into the economy by printing money. Opposed to the "real" internet credits you mean that come from "real" mobs? The other gathering skills destroy money. The rest is just money moving about. So that's like.. I dunno.. a working economy? Slicing as it was would create rampant inflation, where you'd eventually have to be a slicer, or a crafter selling to slicers, to be able to afford anything worthwhile that could be traded. Again, so a proper working (INTERNET) economy with certain areas generating and other area's costing money. "Huge inflation?" What inflated hugely and with which numbers did it previously work well? It didn't, so there's nothing to inflate. "You have to be a slicer, or somehow sell something to get the money from slicers" Opposed to, "you have to grind, or somehow sell something to get money from grinders"? Except that when the people with money actually got it by "working hard".. they won't need your crap as they found something better while doing so. Personally I'd like slicing credit missions to be replaced by some other sort of mission, so that skills are on a level playing field, and then the economy balanced around that.

I skipped most of the thread, but if I for example say I'm selling a car, you picture a 2011 type car, not a 1940's smoke in your face death trap. Same goes for games, if you anno 2011 release a game, there's a certain standard you should live up to or you will justifiably be considered as crappy and bad.

The real answer to your money probably lays with this: How much time have you spend each day grinding the content, running around looking for nodes, killing spawn just for the credits/loot of it, not actually doing any real content such as quests and instances?

Perfect post of the ignorance of the "nerf is needed" people. "Beside, if u are saying that u are not buying anything because u are going to be broke you are admitting slicing was uber OP because now u are making the same money as other people did and now it is not enough to buy stuff?" "Other people" at the end of their production chain are left with items to sell/equip. Slicers are left with money, how do you sell money, and how to you use it to equip yourself if it's too little? Even if I made 10 times the money you did, I still -need- your items and you don't -need- my money since you can get it from other computer generated sources too. Now you'll say I -could- get items from other computer generated sources too such as commendations, but -that- means -you- are actually saying crafting/trading is useless so that would mean your word in the slicing discussion is worth nothing to begin with.

And where do you think the money came from people used to make you "rich" from buying stuff from you?

My brother and I logged in after the patch with 60K between the both of us at level 25, with me being our slicer. After leveling three times, and "having" to spend money on new skills, several K's on repairs, my brother doing basic missions to get some resources to keep our trade skills up to date, but of course getting income from missions/loot/slicing while playing, we today logged out pretty much broke. I still got 20K left, my brother is broke, but he still needs 10K for a skill, 1.3K for repairs, and I need 2.2 for repairs. None of our companions are out on missions at the moment and our equipment is now for the first time several levels behind. Sure, we could forget about upgrading our equipment by buying from other players and wait for coming quest rewards, just do the repairs, and "go farm" on mobs/packs we visited during our questing over the last couple of days so we don't level too quick and to afford sending out our companions again and the 10-12-15K costing skills in another level or two, but meh. We honestly thought SWTOR was more about you as a player going through the story on different characters or even different choices, but alas, another theme-park that instead of adds rides, screws around with the pathing/queues/tollbooths so people have to grind from ride to ride.

I just hope they aren't pulling a "let's ignore the issue till it dies off" because for me and my brother this is something pretty game breaking.

Games are supposed to be fun, and "no free money" are real life nonsense slurs you need to take away from these forums. "you need to save money and skip as much crafting/buying till 50, you'll learn if you play more MMO's" Matter of the fact is, you either picked slicing or you didn't. If you didn't, the only way to get through the game is indeed do the normal skip content routine or you'd be be out of luck by level 25 and you wanted your first mount if at level 18 you spend your 15K at that time on running enough missions and crafting to get some blue/purple gear. If you did have slicing, and were also following the regular skip content/save up routine, you'd indeed end up with a load of leftover money by level 25. If you didn't pick slicing, you should have at around level 15-20 started dabbling in your crafting deeper with the refreshing RE system in game, and list some of that blue/purple gear at 5-10-20K prices so by level 25 you'd have sold a couple to leave you with enough to buy your skills. If you did pick slicing, you should have maybe at around level 15-20 started spending some of your money on the AH on either resources or equipment at proper prices. Reason slicing got nerfed? Player mindset, nothing to do with a broken game system, if anything, they should have made the game itself harder* so people were forced to not "skip content till level 50". *by harder I mean, for example have a flashpoint with a level cap of 22 that gives a special title/achievement/whatever, but pretty much requires all 4 to be in second tier RE gear at level 20 to complete.

I don't want to sound like a slicing nerf whiner, but I honestly really enjoyed the slicing skill benefits off being able to afford lots of game content level appropriate, as I've played so many MMO's I've grown very accustomed to skipping everything till max level/skills maxed. It was working perfectly as my brother didn't have the slicing skill and I was helping him with money to run missions/mount/skills/repair bills. In return, he gave me the resources I was missing and I suppose was my companion so my actual one could run slicing missions. I'm sure this is how it was supposed to work big picture too, but because the actual market takes a lot longer to settle than our micro economy, it appeared overflooded with money. So anyway, yeah having enough funds to actually buy that purple level 18 item someone else was crafted for 5K because I figured I'd have enough again for my mount by 25 -was- the best experience of the game.

Because we all know those numbers are based on true opinions, not which publisher sends in the most free stuff.

I'm a level 27 SI and just got my third companion, although he's still on guest status. Did all the content in the game so far, except for space combat, as I'm cooping with my brother and you can't coop that.