Recent actions against some customer accounts

[Excedrin]

I love it.

 

Dev says "Players have been warned for exploiting chests on Ilum with low level toons."

 

Angry nerds hear/read "Players have been banned for going to Ilum at low level and looting chests."

 

See what I did there? I even made the important bits bold, so the point would maybe come across a bit clearer. I also love how the majority of the people up in arms about this somehow know exactly what said exploit is, even though it hasn't been mentioned once and in fact has been repeatedly said that they won't go into details. Seriously, unless you were one of the people who got your wrists slapped and actually have some light to shed on what the exploit at hand may or may not be, then you're just spreading baseless gossip that doesn't help anyone.

 

I'm not even going to try and understand how people possibly took away from the original statement that they somehow couldn't mail credits to their own toons or repeatedly gather resource nodes in an area, etc... lol

 

I get that there are probably some people new to the MMO scene playing this game and I specifically exlude them from my following comment, but c'mon... just about everyone knows the difference between amassing credits for personal wealth and actual gold farming - there's no need to be a d-bag and play around with semantics because your butt-hurt over what is very likely a long list of things you're very certain BioWare has done wrong so far.

 

I'm not an angry nerd at the moment, not about this. The way it's framed, people went to Ilum (not an exploit) looted chests (not an exploit) and then did so frequently. Apparently doing it frequently leads to it being an exploit. In reality, it seems like they set the game up so that doing this was rewarded. The solution is obvious - create a minimum level for visitation or the looting of chests.

 

It probably wasn't a good thing from the way they described it, but just out and out banning people who were, according to all information available, following the mechanics of the game but doing it far too often for Bioware's tastes is bad. Hotfixing it would have been a much more elegant solution, but as it stands it seems like Bioware is foisting undeserved blame on some people.

 

I don't claim to know everything, but if there's some other side of the story that hasn't been discussed please let it come to light. I'm trying to be as fair as possible, but as it stands even the post that was conceived purely to justify these actions doesn't do a very good job of doing so. I mean, they banned credit sellers - excellent. No one can complain about that. But this seems iffy. I mean, if I run warzones non-stop and do a piss poor job am I exploiting the PvP system because I'm doing it so often that the reward becomes great? What if I post a lot of auctions over and over and flood the market (with goods I intend to sell)?

 

I'm really looking for a justification here but I don't see it, only the bold statement that this constitutes exploitation and we should just accept that.

 

The post specifically says:

 

"These accounts were found to be exploiting the game in a variety of ways to maximize their credits in order to sell them to other players."

 

So not only were these players obtaining a large amount of credits, they were apparently sending them to other players and not just hoarding them.

 

They're guilty of selling credits then. The chests on Ilum ought to have nothing to do with it, yet it is the prime focus of the discussion for much of the post.

Edited January 2, 2012 by Excedrin

[Jordan_Hoffman]

I'm not an angry nerd at the moment, not about this. The way it's framed, people went to Ilum (not an exploit) looted chests (not an exploit) and then did so frequently. Apparently doing it frequently leads to it being an exploit. In reality, it seems like they set the game up so that doing this was rewarded. The solution is obvious - create a minimum level for visitation or the looting of chests.

 

It probably wasn't a good thing from the way they described it, but just out and out banning people who were, according to all information available, following the mechanics of the game but doing it far too often for Bioware's tastes. Hotfixing it would have been a much more elegant solution, but as it stands it seems like Bioware is foisting undeserved blame on some people.

 

I don't claim to know everything, but if there's some other side of the story that hasn't been discussed please let it come to light. I'm trying to be as fair as possible, but as it stands even the post that was conceived purely to justify these actions doesn't do a very good job of doing so. I mean, they banned credit sellers - excellent. No one can complain about that. But this seems iffy. I mean, if I run warzones non-stop and do a piss poor job am I exploiting the PvP system because I'm doing it so often that the reward becomes great? What if I post a lot of auctions over and over and flood the market (with goods I intend to sell)?

 

I'm really looking for a justification here but I don't see it, only the bold statement that this constitutes exploitation and we should just accept that.

 

 

 

They're guilty of selling credits then. The chests on Ilum ought to have nothing to do with it, yet it is the prime focus of the discussion for much of the post.

 

First of all, it is not your place to investigate this. If it was not you doing it then just keep your mouth shut and go back to playing. Thinking you have a say in this matter is presumptious and ridiculous. Stop it. Good thing I am almost done with work and will soon be leaving the forums. Hurray!

[Excedrin]

First of all, it is not your place to investigate this. If it was not you doing it then just keep your mouth shut and go back to playing. Thinking you have a say in this matter is presumptious and ridiculous. Stop it. Good thing I am almost done with work and will soon be leaving the forums. Hurray!

 

I never said any of those things, and telling me to "keep my mouth shut and go back to playing" is pretty much the definition of rude and uninviting. Whatever it takes to keep that oversized ego in check my man.

 

I was asking for an explanation and your post pretty much proves there isn't one that's readily apparent. Thank you for proving my point. I'll part by letting you know what I don't think I have "a say." I just want to understand, and your nastiness proves even you don't understand. You're just blindly mimicking whatever is stated by Bioware.

Edited January 2, 2012 by Excedrin

[GraunKrynn]

Honestly if you're going to come to Ilum at say level 12 (like the afk bots I've seen and reported) and just sit by a chest to loot it every time it spawns you deserve whatever punishment you get. Don't try to make comparisons or say "Well if I want to play the game this way then I can" You're not playing the game. You're clearly exploiting a loot container for the sake of personal gain and you're only hurting the other players in this game by doing so.

 

Could there be a hot fix or other solution (zone lock) by the development team? Sure. But wouldn't you all rather the development team be working on actual bug fixes right now instead of making a change to stop said exploit from happening?

 

TL;DR - If you're camping chests for hours on end you deserve whatever suspension/ban/warning that you got.

[Jordan_Hoffman]

I never said any of those things, and telling me to "keep my mouth shut and go back to playing" is pretty much the definition of rude and uninviting. Whatever it takes to keep that oversized ego in check my man.

 

I was asking for an explanation and your post pretty much proves there isn't one that's readily apparent. Thank you for proving my point. I'll part by letting you know what I don't think I have "a say." I just want to understand, and your nastiness proves even you don't understand. You're just blindly mimicking whatever is stated by Bioware.

 

Hahaha, validation is what you seek? Ok, hopefully Bioware takes the time to get it to you, as you justly deserve.

[gabravan]

out of curiosity does this mean i cannot "Farm" for crafting materials

[Excedrin]

Hahaha, validation is what you seek? Ok, hopefully Bioware takes the time to get it to you, as you justly deserve.

 

You're misreading the word "understand" as "validate." I'm not sure how you'd do that - they're pretty different words. I'll just assume you have extreme dyslexia or something else that would impair your ability to understand not one, but two of my posts.

 

out of curiosity does this mean i cannot "Farm" for crafting materials

 

 

 

Who knows? Even more specific, what constitutes exploitation and what constitutes playing the game? Where does that line get drawn, wherever is pleased in any given circumstance?

Edited January 2, 2012 by Excedrin

[GraunKrynn]

out of curiosity does this mean i cannot "Farm" for crafting materials

 

Active farming, going from node to node, is not the same thing as camping 1 single node (in this case mostly chests) for hours on end.

[McAvinue]

First of all, it is not your place to investigate this. If it was not you doing it then just keep your mouth shut and go back to playing. Thinking you have a say in this matter is presumptious and ridiculous. Stop it. Good thing I am almost done with work and will soon be leaving the forums. Hurray!

 

This has to be the rudest, spiteful, and derogatory thing I've read on these post yet. I'm just warning you, because I've reported you about your behavior towards another forum member. Think about that in the future.

[fluke_nuke_em]

First of all, it is not your place to investigate this. If it was not you doing it then just keep your mouth shut and go back to playing. Thinking you have a say in this matter is presumptious and ridiculous. Stop it. Good thing I am almost done with work and will soon be leaving the forums. Hurray!

 

Thinking you have a say in what others say is even more presumptious. If you don't like what is said in the forum that was created for logical, mature discussions such as this, I suggest you keep your mouth shut, and go back to work.

[Jordan_Hoffman]

Oh dear, the angry answer seeking defenders of exploitation's freedom are out in force. Dont worry, Bioware will stop what they are doing and give you all the validation you seek for your time spent in this thread. Its coming soon.

[DaxRendar]

Been reading most of this forum and a couple of quick things

 

GJ on the Credit Farming. Credit Farming, btw, is considered to be farming up credits to sell for RL monitary value. This is against the TOS, and yes, I agree they should, and did, get the axe.

 

On the Iilum Exploit.

We have NO IDEA what actually happened, so saying that the Devs were right or wrong should not be a question at this point.

From the OP we can differ that the player(s) in question WERE WARNED TO STOP WHAT THEY WERE DOING. They did not stop, so they got banned. Personally I do not see anything wrong with this.

If one of my kids misbehaves, I.E. throwing the ball in the house. I will tell my child to stop. If they do not stop, there will be a punishment. Same principle here.

You pay a subscription to play a game BY BIOWARES RULES not yours. Its not your RIGHT to be able to do whatever the hell you want in BIOWARES game that THEY created. You are paying for the PRIVILEDGE to play what they created.

 

If you do not like it you do have the RIGHT to go create your own game. GL on that...

 

 

Just wanted to point out that most of these guild knew they were in the wrong. And none of them made a stink about the ban.

 

My final thought is that Bioware did allot of good here. Discouraging people from exploiting is wonderful. I hate doing a bunch of grinding and pushing just to find out that some jerk payed for credits, or exploited something to get the same result in a few minutes.

This +1

 

Reading Comprehension For the Win!

[Excedrin]

Oh dear, the angry answer seeking defenders of exploitation's freedom are out in force. Dont worry, Bioware will stop what they are doing and give you all the validation you seek for your time spent in this thread. Its coming soon.

 

I don't think I'm the one coming across as angry in this discussion.

[CanWolfShadow]

Been reading most of this forum and a couple of quick things

 

GJ on the Credit Farming. Credit Farming, btw, is considered to be farming up credits to sell for RL monitary value. This is against the TOS, and yes, I agree they should, and did, get the axe.

 

On the Iilum Exploit.

We have NO IDEA what actually happened, so saying that the Devs were right or wrong should not be a question at this point.

From the OP we can differ that the player(s) in question WERE WARNED TO STOP WHAT THEY WERE DOING. They did not stop, so they got banned. Personally I do not see anything wrong with this.

If one of my kids misbehaves, I.E. throwing the ball in the house. I will tell my child to stop. If they do not stop, there will be a punishment. Same principle here.

You pay a subscription to play a game BY BIOWARES RULES not yours. Its not your RIGHT to be able to do whatever the hell you want in BIOWARES game that THEY created. You are paying for the PRIVILEDGE to play what they created.

 

If you do not like it you do have the RIGHT to go create your own game. GL on that...

 

 

Just wanted to point out that most of these guild knew they were in the wrong. And none of them made a stink about the ban.

 

My final thought is that Bioware did allot of good here. Discouraging people from exploiting is wonderful. I hate doing a bunch of grinding and pushing just to find out that some jerk payed for credits, or exploited something to get the same result in a few minutes.

 

 

Quoted for winning and truth.

 

Lots of #Tigerblood in this post.

[GraunKrynn]

Who knows? Even more specific, what constitutes exploitation and what constitutes playing the game? Where does that line get drawn, wherever is pleased in any given circumstance?

 

Pretty simple. The violations that I have seen and reported are players sitting in 1 spot and looting a chest when it respawns over and over again. That's not playing the game. That's not farming. I'm sure the game developers never intended for people to do this. They could have designed it better sure, but that doesn't change the fact that someone was exploiting it.

[Jordan_Hoffman]

I don't think I'm the one coming across as angry in this discussion.

 

I am a little angry. Stephen gave you guys an answer you should be comfortable with. Yet, you drag this "going no-where" conversation out. It happens time and time again on these forums and is irritating. Has nothing to do with having a mature conversation. That would be simply accepting the fact that this has nothing to do with you and moving on. Yet, still here.

[CanWolfShadow]

out of curiosity does this mean i cannot "Farm" for crafting materials

 

You can farm crafting materieals just fine.

 

Reading comprehension is your friend. Farming mats is normal gameplay activity.

Using an exploint to 'rapidly and systematically' loot high level areas, not so cool.

 

Read between the lines people. They arent going to post what the exploit is/was untill they fix it. They dont want more people doing it.

[Excedrin]

Pretty simple. The violations that I have seen and reported are players sitting in 1 spot and looting a chest when it respawns over and over again. That's not playing the game. That's not farming. I'm sure the game developers never intended for people to do this. They could have designed it better sure, but that doesn't change the fact that someone was exploiting it.

 

Let me say first, thanks for a post that doesn't spew vitriol in my face.

 

That said, there's nothing in the terms of service that I can see that says you can't do that. Indeed, if someone could quote me a line that tells me I'm wrong I'll VERY gladly eat humble pie. As it stands, it seems like everything was just handled under the pretext of credit selling. He even says that this is the reason these individuals were banned.

 

Am I to understand that if I left my game on next to a node and got rich off this, even if I intended to keep it to myself and NEVER traffick in real world currency, it's an exploit? Can you explain this to me? My understanding of an exploit is something that is leveraged by players to accomplish what they normally would not be able to accomplish. One may bug a boss out making it impossible for them to fight back, duplicate credits through some game system that's not working, something of this nature.

 

If you set the rules of the game and all of a sudden don't like the way things are going, you can't say that people broke the rules. That's what it seems like to me, and it's worrying. If he had said nothing more than "we banned some credit sellers" I probably wouldn't be in this thread.

 

I am a little angry. Stephen gave you guys an answer you should be comfortable with. Yet, you drag this "going no-where" conversation out. It happens time and time again on these forums and is irritating. Has nothing to do with having a mature conversation. That would be simply accepting the fact that this has nothing to do with you and moving on. Yet, still here.

 

See, I have been presented with something that does not make sense and I am now trying to piece it together because there was not sufficient data to understand. I admit my first post was relatively dismissive, but the meaning of everything I've been saying thus far was tied up in that statement.

Edited January 2, 2012 by Excedrin

[DaxRendar]

Even more specific, what constitutes exploitation and what constitutes playing the game? Where does that line get drawn, wherever is pleased in any given circumstance?

 

It's pretty simple, and no further explanation is necessary from BW. If you are caught selling Credits, expect to be perma-banned.

 

If you are engaging in "questionable" activities like camping a Chest on a character, expect a warning from Bioware followed by a temporary ban if you choose to ignore said warning.

 

That's what happened here. There is no conflict or controversy, no "drama" for "fear of a Police State" - violate the TOS and you risk being banned, engage in questionable activities and you will be warned first and banned if you persist.

 

Very reasonable, very fair, very acceptable...

 

...unless the only way you can enjoy the game is see just how much you can get away with.

[Jordan_Hoffman]

It's pretty simple, and no further explanation is necessary from BW. If you are caught selling Credits, expect to be perma-banned.

 

If you are engaging in "questionable" activities like camping a Chest on a character, expect a warning from Bioware followed by a temporary ban if you choose to ignore said warning.

 

That's what happened here. There is no conflict or controversy, no "drama" for "fear of a Police State" - violate the TOS and you risk being banned, engage in questionable activities and you will be warned first and banned if you persist.

 

Very reasonable, very fair, very acceptable...

 

...unless the only way you can enjoy the game is see just how much you can get away with.

 

Thank you!

[engrey]

Active farming, going from node to node, is not the same thing as camping 1 single node (in this case mostly chests) for hours on end.

 

Neither is against the rules. You should be able to farm all you want, once you start to sell that money or items for real-life currency, is when the problem starts.

[Excedrin]

It's pretty simple, and no further explanation is necessary from BW. If you are caught selling Credits, expect to be perma-banned.

 

If you are engaging in "questionable" activities like camping a Chest on a character, expect a warning from Bioware followed by a temporary ban if you choose to ignore said warning.

 

That's what happened here. There is no conflict or controversy, no "drama" for "fear of a Police State" - violate the TOS and you risk being banned, engage in questionable activities and you will be warned first and banned if you persist.

 

Very reasonable, very fair, very acceptable...

 

...unless the only way you can enjoy the game is see just how much you can get away with.

 

We don't know if they were warned, though that certainly puts Bioware in a more positive light if that were to be the case.

 

The reason they cited for the bans was credit selling. The action they described can occur independent of credit selling. If they left it at "we banned some credit sellers" I wouldn't be in this thread. Yet they didn't - they boldly declared that it's an exploit to do so, independent of any other activity, falling under credit selling. I'm sorry and I may me missing something here, but that seems insane on its face.

 

I didn't do this nor do I know anyone who did. I don't think it was a good thing. I think they're using an incredibly liberal interpretation of their TOS to fix a problem rather than... fixing the problem. Please, convince me I'm wrong.

 

EDIT: Clarification. I guess they just out and out called it an exploit. I am willing to see the line of text in the TOS that would suggests this is exploitation.

 

You can farm crafting materieals just fine.

 

Reading comprehension is your friend. Farming mats is normal gameplay activity.

Using an exploint to 'rapidly and systematically' loot high level areas, not so cool.

 

Read between the lines people. They arent going to post what the exploit is/was untill they fix it. They dont want more people doing it.

 

How about read period. They didn't say there was an exploit that led to the ability to do this, they said that the very act itself is an exploit.

Edited January 2, 2012 by Excedrin

[CanWolfShadow]

For thoser of you who don't know how this works...

THey can tell if the account that you are sending gold to is logged in from a different IP, they can tell if it's a guildy of yours that you are sending credits to. It would be the people that you have never intereacted with before and you just sent 100 000 K credits to that would flag your account. Do that a few times and I'm sure that would bring up more red flags and the sellers would be banned.

 

For the Ilum thing, I'm sure it just wasnt camping a box. It's the 'rapidly and systmatically' that gives it away. There is/was an exploit that is enabling faster than normal spawns of nodes and its being abused. They are not going to say what it is untill it is fixed.

[DaxRendar]

We don't know if they were warned, though that certainly puts Bioware in a more positive light if that were to be the case...

 

I didn't do this nor do I know anyone who did. I don't think it was a good thing. I think they're using an incredibly liberal interpretation of their TOS to fix a problem rather than... fixing the problem. Please, convince me I'm wrong.

 

Please read what was said more closely - I've highlighted it for you:

Second, a smaller number of accounts were warned or temporarily suspended for exploiting loot containers on Ilum. To be completely clear, while players may choose to travel to Ilum earlier than the recommended level (40+) and may loot containers if they can get to them, in the cases of those customers that were warned or temporarily suspended, they were systematically and repeatedly looting containers in very high numbers resulting in the game economy becoming unbalanced.

 

None of these accounts were banned for their actions and no accounts have been banned for travelling to Ilum while still relatively low level. By comparison, the number of accounts that were warned or temporarily suspended was considerably lower than the number of accounts banned for 'credit farming'.

 

Does this clear it up? Will you relax now? This is not the drama you were looking for

[Excedrin]

For thoser of you who don't know how this works...

THey can tell if the account that you are sending gold to is logged in from a different IP, they can tell if it's a guildy of yours that you are sending credits to. It would be the people that you have never intereacted with before and you just sent 100 000 K credits to that would flag your account. Do that a few times and I'm sure that would bring up more red flags and the sellers would be banned.

 

For the Ilum thing, I'm sure it just wasnt camping a box. It's the 'rapidly and systmatically' that gives it away. There is/was an exploit that is enabling faster than normal spawns of nodes and its being abused. They are not going to say what it is untill it is fixed.

 

And that's why every statement up to this point has been qualified with "it seems" and "as far as I can tell."

 

I mean, if that's the case then great. But it doesn't seem like it or else they'd just out and out say that they were using exploits to farm these boxes at a greater rate. Don't have to reveal what the exploit is to say that.