Recent actions against some customer accounts

[Gun_Slinger]

This is yet another fine example of why sandbox mmorpgs are better than themeparks.

 

Themepark developers are like liberals - they feel the need to control every aspect of the player's enjoyment and control the way the game is played. They want to have control of the players from birth to death.

 

Sandbox developers are like conservatives - they simply create an enviorment and allow the players, and the game, to evolve naturally.

 

I'm paying a monthly fee - if I want to stand in one place for 24 hours a day and loot containers that are lootable - then that's what I want to do. I personally wouldn't want to do this - it seems boring as hell. But you see, this is a themepark on rails where the players have no control.

 

Good point. Except "conservative" doesn't mean that anymore...they want to control who you can have sex with...but that's another story and another forum. Yeah I wish they would take an EVE approach. Abusing what is obviously a bug? Exploit. Working within working as intended game mechanics? Go hog wild (or if the devs think that it is negatively affecting players too much, they change the game mechanics, as when CCCP made concord more powerful and more numerous in high and mid sec space, and did something else wonky to insurance to make suicide ganking in hi-sec not profitable).

[MasterKayote]

NOBODY HAS BEEN BANNED FOR LOOTING A CHEST.

 

Temp bans are a ban. So yes, they were banned for looting a chest. This is stupid. Its their **** up for not putting guards near it. The chest were being used exactly as they were meant to be used. You open them and loot them ... no mobs were being distracted, no tricks were being used what so ever. It is NOT against the rules to camp a treasure chest unless they were harassing other players that needed it for some quest, which they were not. 4k credits is NOT game or economy breaking anyway ... I can do that now with a high level toon and no one would give a ****. The economy wouldnt budge one bit. I could send that cash to my level 1 resulting in the same exact benefit all the players hit with this temp ban would have gotten, and no one would care.

 

This is just a knee-jerk reaction from the overzealous horrible CSR personnel they have at Bioware. You get warned and even temp-banned for the stupidest horse **** in the forums and apparently they have the same idiots on a power trip policing the game.

 

What they SHOULD have done (and this is worst case scenario) is FIX the "problem" and remove the credits. Have they even fixed that yet? Or are they just banning any other player that happens to find it?

[joriandrake]

Temp bans are a ban. So yes, they were banned for looting a chest. This is stupid. Its their **** up for not putting guards near it. The chest were being used exactly as they were meant to be used. You open them and loot them ... no mobs were being distracted, no tricks were being used what so ever. It is NOT against the rules to camp a treasure chest unless they were harassing other players that needed it for some quest, which they were not. 4k credits is NOT game or economy breaking anyway ... I can do that now with a high level toon and no one would give a ****. The economy wouldnt budge one bit. I could send that cash to my level 1 resulting in the same exact benefit all the players hit with this temp ban would have gotten, and no one would care.

 

This is just a knee-jerk reaction from the overzealous horrible CSR personnel they have at Bioware. You get warned and even temp-banned for the stupidest horse **** in the forums and apparently they have the same idiots on a power trip policing the game.

 

What they SHOULD have done (and this is worst case scenario) is FIX the "problem" and remove the credits. Have they even fixed that yet? Or are they just banning any other player that happens to find it?

 

 

How could they? it is near-impossible to track all that cash, and what it got used for and the part of it that got in a form placed on the market to make even more cash, not to mention the amount that got used to level up skills and buy speeder and such

[Poeju]

Temp bans are a ban. So yes, they were banned for looting a chest. This is stupid. Its their **** up for not putting guards near it. The chest were being used exactly as they were meant to be used. You open them and loot them ... no mobs were being distracted, no tricks were being used what so ever. It is NOT against the rules to camp a treasure chest unless they were harassing other players that needed it for some quest, which they were not. 4k credits is NOT game or economy breaking anyway ... I can do that now with a high level toon and no one would give a ****. The economy wouldnt budge one bit. I could send that cash to my level 1 resulting in the same exact benefit all the players hit with this temp ban would have gotten, and no one would care.

 

This is just a knee-jerk reaction from the overzealous horrible CSR personnel they have at Bioware. You get warned and even temp-banned for the stupidest horse **** in the forums and apparently they have the same idiots on a power trip policing the game.

 

What they SHOULD have done (and this is worst case scenario) is FIX the "problem" and remove the credits. Have they even fixed that yet? Or are they just banning any other player that happens to find it?

 

 

Call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure the devs comments in this thread specifically stated that you can open a chest at any level... have fun enjoy.

 

What the suspensions were about were people systematically opening high numbers of chests (more details exist, but were said to not be given for various reasons) and that it was clearly not normal game play.

 

Yeah, you can go farm boxes, nodes or whatever on any planet you can land on as long as you aren't systematically hurting the economy using. So what you mention above, isn't applicable to the ban...

 

Unless I'm completely wrong, but that's what I got from the devs posts. Most of the other posts are just knee-jerk reactions from people who seemingly didn't read the posts.

[Gawlron]

As a community, we should be vigilant for these credit farmers... they will ruin the game for us. I say report them.

[Qeuzolt]

thank you for the clear stance. Keep on keeping on

[jayderyu]

I must have missed it. I heard the exploit was that if someone of low level looted the "loot" container. The error was that the container would immidiatly respawn and can be looted again. If this the case then it's an exploit. If however based on the information given. Then I dont' see anything wrong with looting the "loot' containers as much as possible. If they want to take the rick of being mauled. then fine by me.

[BlutigKoch]

We all realize that the original post is from 01/02 in a 106pg thread and isn't addressing today's hotfix? Edited January 6, 2012 by BlutigKoch

[Shockazilla]

So if players what to spend all day farming credits for their own use they can be warned or banned? That doesn't seem right and runs contrary to maintaining an open economy.

 

Agreed. If someone is entrepreneurial, and manages to get to the containers for resale, then kudos to them. To punish people for things you can naturally acquire in the game is over the top. Next you'll punish those for using GTN.

[Woopya]

So if players what to spend all day farming credits for their own use they can be warned or banned? That doesn't seem right and runs contrary to maintaining an open economy.

 

That not what was happening tho.

 

 

You wouldnt post this if you saw the players doing it. They were clearly bots.

[Woopya]

That not what was happening tho.

 

 

You wouldnt post this if you saw the players doing it. They were clearly bots.

 

Again, not at all what was happening. The players in question were BOTS. If you saw them you knew this to be true.

[Suriken_]

i only agree with one comment.

 

Add a level restriction.

 

Quesh has one i think, i tried going there at lvl 30ish i forget, but because my quest wasnt there yet i couldnt get that "medicine shot" or w/e it is u need to go onto the planet. I think its the same for Hoth aswell.

 

Being the right level of the planet and camping a chest should not be punished, and yes its cheap and childish to hog it all to yourself and even tho it does seem like cheating because you gain a unfair advantage its still there and still open to the public for anyone to grab.

 

If you really want to remove this kind of unfair advantage there was one idea(besides adding a level restriction to the planet) I saw a few people mention.

 

Make it random. If there going out of there way to have a second account to stand there 24/7 for it, id raise a red flag cause i dont think anyone in there right mind would stand there ALL DAY everyday waiting for a random spawn.

 

Another idea would be make it like a Datacron, once looted you cant loot it again. (this does not apply to gathering nodes.)

 

Now i know this was all MAINLY against the gold farmers and such, but people are just arguing the fact of how it was handled and how can you distinguish a gold farmer from a person just making extra credits for themselves and not selling them for real cash.

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

Bioware keep up the good work atleast trying to get rid of all the gold farmers. But throw these poor lads a bone here to ensure them that the non-gold farmers are not being targeted or punished. Atleast thats what i believe is going on here.

[BlutigKoch]

Cross-posting a mod post on the Mercher thread

 

Hello all,

 

Community Coordinator, Allison Berryman, commented on this just today:

 

Quote:

Originally Posted by AllisonBerryman

We're aware of your concerns regarding this issue, and are conducting a full investigation of the impact. Please rest assured that anyone found to be in violation of our Terms of Service will have appropriate action taken against them. We will provide more information as it becomes available. Thank you!

 

We are going to go ahead and close the thread because we do ask that threads on the General Discussion forum promote and encourage constructive discussion. If you wish to further discuss the impact the exploit had on the economy, please do so in the following thread: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=1263904

[monegames]

Again, not at all what was happening. The players in question were BOTS. If you saw them you knew this to be true.

 

and if they were bots they should have been banned not suspended. they have ways to find out if someone was botting or not. but being suspended for over farming an area is insane. especially when we do not know where the line is.

[NeoDio]

Level restriction on planets or even containers would solve Ilum's problem.

 

Also, setting up a limit for what players can earn everyday could help balancing the game's economy.

 

A person that I met ingame actually got warned and banned for 'credit farming' on the Galactic Trade Network, I agreed with that, he exploited, he was warned and consequently banned.

 

So far so good.

 

But why did BioWare didn't allow him to cancel his subscription while he was banned, or while he is banned? This person told me he just called his bank and all the payments to Origin and BioWare were refunded.

 

Can this happen just like this? A person gets banned and then has no possibility of cancelling their subscription?

 

And doesn't BioWare/LucasArts/EA/Origin take action against people who reverse their payments just like that...?

[dynamostia]

During my WoW experience I became really upset with the endless amounts of bots and gold farmers in the game and so I appreciate Biowares efforts to create a fair and balanced game and economy.

 

With game success will come the credit farmers and sellers but I urge Bioware to remain vigilant in their efforts

[MaliceX]

All this talk about slicing and overlooking the vendor exploit that was the real issue....

 

The slicing didn't do all this damage the vendor did.

[rickyrockfish]

I disagree 10 thousand percent hehehee. If you make the means to travel to a high level zone legit, you should be able to explore and pilfer within the limits. Last I checked looting chests that are not locked is not an exploit. I would consider this quite pioneering. Instead of clubbing baby seals for using the tools you provided.... Club those lazy devs if the chests are not working as deseigned.

 

My two credits

[Solomier]

I will say that i played eq2 for so many years that it kinda is a blur now......and we had to camp places all the time fer mobs and specific drops and yadda yadda yadda......and it sucked.

But what sucked even worse were the gold farmers. And I Understand trying to get them out......thats's normal and that screws up the economy even more than we ourselves screw up the market......but there are litteraly a million ways that you can prevent exploits in the game like you had listed other than saying dont do it. Thats like showing a child the cookie jar or better yet because this will be more relevant, letting the child know that there is a cookie jar somewhere in the house but not telling them where it is.....but even if they find it they can't touch it.......well what is the child going to do?.......DUH!!!!! the child is going to tear the house down looking for that cookie jar!!!!

I forgot where i was going with this......

But I like CHEESE!!!!!!!!

[Skerry]

And these 100+ posts illustrate exactly why most MMO companies have a policy of NOT discussing actions taken against players with regards to bans and suspensions.

 

KUDOS to BioWare for stepping out of the comfort zone and attempting this, and thank you to bioware for illustrating why it isn't done.

[Woopya]

and if they were bots they should have been banned not suspended. they have ways to find out if someone was botting or not. but being suspended for over farming an area is insane. especially when we do not know where the line is.

 

Well, thats all nice and swell. But some of us who have been on the planet in question have seen the players and reported them.

 

They are not just people hanging around the chest. THEY ARE BOTS. Only a macro can time it so perfectly that they loot a chest prior to it even appearing on the screen. I witnessed a lvl 12 chest looting bot on Ilum just yesterday. He sat in 1 spot for hours. The chest never was even able to appear without being fully looted by the time the graphic for the cheat appeared.

 

Now you cant talk about Bioware's "Ways of telling" but imho thats conjecture on your part, you have no idea of the policing mechanics. After all, this bot could be as simple as a clicker. On our server the bots were there for HOURS until we reported them, I believe that would indicate that the "way bioware tells if someone is botting or not" is by letting the players police the community. Now, maybe they would have been caught eventually through server mechanics identifying them. But, by that time the dmg is done, the economy is a little more messed up, and the community is that much more discouraged.

 

I am glad Bioware is taking a hard line on ANYONE who is even CLOSE to exploiting. Anyone who has been in a major mmo and seen the destruction to an economy caused by bots would be in the boat with me on this. Anyone who is not in the same boat is up to no good themselves imho.

[Dranno]

Well, thats all nice and swell. But some of us who have been on the planet in question have seen the players and reported them.

 

They are not just people hanging around the chest. THEY ARE BOTS. Only a macro can time it so perfectly that they loot a chest prior to it even appearing on the screen. I witnessed a lvl 12 chest looting bot on Ilum just yesterday. He sat in 1 spot for hours. The chest never was even able to appear without being fully looted by the time the graphic for the cheat appeared.

 

Now you cant talk about Bioware's "Ways of telling" but imho thats conjecture on your part, you have no idea of the policing mechanics. After all, this bot could be as simple as a clicker. On our server the bots were there for HOURS until we reported them, I believe that would indicate that the "way bioware tells if someone is botting or not" is by letting the players police the community. Now, maybe they would have been caught eventually through server mechanics identifying them. But, by that time the dmg is done, the economy is a little more messed up, and the community is that much more discouraged.

 

I am glad Bioware is taking a hard line on ANYONE who is even CLOSE to exploiting. Anyone who has been in a major mmo and seen the destruction to an economy caused by bots would be in the boat with me on this. Anyone who is not in the same boat is up to no good themselves imho.

 

There should be no warnings, they should be banned. The guy I reported was doing it for 72 hours straight ...the chest looting. At 6 chests per hour, that is 420 chests opened and I saw him log ingame today, not even banned. Seems he got a 1-3 day temp ban only, that is not good enough. Just make the chests spawns every 2 hours. There is no need for them to spawn every 6-10 minutes.

[jndca]

You will not ever be able to control the economy in an MMO. It is a living thing and banning people for making too much money is only going to alienate some of your player base. Planned economies don't work in real life and they don't work in MMOs.

 

In simple words, this isn't the world, and the soft core gamers will leave if the economy sucks. Every good MMO knows this.

[Padarik]

Here's an idea bioware don't make everything so damn expensive that people have to resort to farming creds. 48k for the lower level mount? I am having trouble atm getting the 210k for the 40 one. Not to mention the price of skills to be learned. I get people hating gold farmers, I do too, but fix the economy first

[Roijun]

Some one write a TOS you do not need a Law Degree to understand.