Recent actions against some customer accounts

[wigo]

Hey guys, we are sorry that our development team has 0 foresight in the levels of greed and douchebaggery shown by some of you morons, and had no idea the levels you would stoop too to circumvent the intended gameplay and systems we tried to implement so that you could consider yourselves LEET, so we are going to have to take actions against your account.

 

BioWare

 

 

FIFY

 

....Play like you have common sense mixed in with a little common courtesy and you won't have to worry about being banned for being a DB.

Edited January 2, 2012 by wigo

[Jordan_Hoffman]

FIFY

 

....Play like you have common sense mixed in with a little common courtesy and you won't have to worry about being banned for being a DB.

 

Those were good ones, hahaha

[DaxRendar]

You wrote:

"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."

 

I then said you used the made up fact ("warning then temp bans") to support your argument and therefore it's not an attack against you if I call you out for it but a tool to show that your argument/statements are false.

 

Edit:

If you feel attacked - I am sorry. That wasnt my intention.

 

Change what I said to "expect a warning or temporary ban" and my statement becomes 100% accurate.

 

You claimed my statement was "false" - to me it was "partially incorrect" and the area it was incorrect still didn't invalidate my main argument.

 

BW acted within their right.

 

Their actions were explained and reasonable.

 

That hasn't changed.

 

(PS - when you pointed out my error, I was tempted to go back and edit my post so it was accurate, but I didn't want to cast your posts in an inaccurate light. Why don't we just let this drop unless you still have some major issue with what I said?)

[dingoperson]

Finally, something that makes sense. The real question is though, why wasn't the post framed this way? I mean, Reid is the guy paid to communicate these things to customers. This doesn't seem to communicate this very well. It doesn't communicate it at all, in fact. I was mostly taking issue with the absurd statement that looting a node and waiting for it to respawn was somehow an exploit.

 

I haven't seen you make much sense at all in this thread.

 

It is an exploit. It exploits a design flaw. Similarly to how a design flaw might be to design a mob to be non-teleporting melee-only and an area to be impassable to that mob, so that the combination of these might make the mob unable to fight back against a character. That would not be a "bug" either, and has been bannable for years.

 

"But", you ask, "how can I know if my super l33t fortune was made according to the _intended design_ or according to _a flaw_ in the design?"

 

The answer is: you can't. Or, you can, if you are reasonably minded. Or, you should recognise it when you see it, and when the matter is doubtful then permbans are less likely.

 

About the node trading: the exploting farmers weren't the ones doing the trading. They were benefitting from it indirectly.

[fluke_nuke_em]

Finally, something that makes sense. The real question is though, why wasn't the post framed this way? I mean, Reid is the guy paid to communicate these things to customers. This doesn't seem to communicate this very well. It doesn't communicate it at all, in fact.

 

Mr. Reid, is not going to post, in bright yellow on the first page of a sticky, how to perform an exploit. Reason being, they are going to ban people rather than apply a fix and nullify the exploit.

 

They have a long, long, loooooong list of fixes to perform already

Edited January 2, 2012 by fluke_nuke_em

[Jordan_Hoffman]

Hey Aspirin, did that answer all your questions?

[harenmacar]

i can't believe the criticism that bioware is getting for taking action against credit farmers. No you shouldn't be able to get boxes on ilum at lvl 12 and NO its NOT ok to farm mobs for out of game profits. Guys they had to be tracking transactions these guys were doing noticing character interactions and such. this wasn't an over night thing and was probably watched for at least a week.

 

 

Don't be stupid and support farming guys if you want easy credits just do slicing otherwise get off biowares back for helping with an issue before it happens.

[onanonehand]

It is Bioware's game, we just rent the pixels.

 

They are watching the playground. Unless we are the one being punished we have no idea what actual misconduct was. Might not be pleasing to many but again we just rent the pixels.

 

I am glad they banned suspected/know credit farmers. I am pleased that Bioware took a hard line against potential exploiters. Some may not like being reined in but one can always choose another game.

 

I don't camp spots, I don't try to find loopholes to gain an unfair advantage. So not much skin off my teeth. I don't care that cornering the market may be a bannable offense. I hope it is.

 

Kudos Bioware.

[DaxRendar]

Finally, something that makes sense. The real question is though, why wasn't the post framed this way? I mean, Reid is the guy paid to communicate these things to customers. This doesn't seem to communicate this very well. It doesn't communicate it at all, in fact.

 

I was mostly taking issue with the absurd statement that looting a node and waiting for it to respawn was somehow an exploit.

 

It is common policy amongst all major MMOs I know for them to never give details on exploits to prevent them spreading (especially before said exploit can be removed/fixed).

 

It's why the TOS contains the clauses about communicating exploits as well.

 

To think that BW would act so harshly against seemingly legitimate play didn't pass the "Reasonable" test for me - it is their goal for people to keep playing the game so if they were banning people they had to have pretty good reason.

 

I'd be willing to bet that the guy banned for excessive postings on the GTN (if it happened, and I'm not saying it didn't) if all details were known would likely end up the same way - key behaviors or actions by him that clearly showed he was doing something beyond the bounds of "reasonable" or "normal" use of the game. It's just not in their interest for BW to behave otherwise.

[Mollerina]

I'd like to draw your attention to this part of the statement again:

 

 

The actions taken by these accounts - and again, this is a relatively low number - were not 'normal gameplay'. Everything you have listed above is what we'd consider 'normal gameplay'.

 

While we will not being going into further details of the accounts that were actioned against, suffice to say they were not conducting any activities similar to what you described.

 

Stephen, I'm sorry but you are just wrong. You can't suspend or ban a person for breaking your game. Next time, make a better game. This just makes me sick. Keep this up and your game is going to fail. You and Rift can hang out together.

[Jarlathe]

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.

 

 

Maybe, just maybe, that's their way of playing the game? My GF like to play angry Birds? Personally I find it very repetitive and boring.

[Bdatik]

Stephen, I'm sorry but you are just wrong. You can't suspend or ban a person for breaking your game. Next time, make a better game. This just makes me sick. Keep this up and your game is going to fail. You and Rift can hang out together.

 

They can ban you for whatever they want, actually. And why should they not warn or temporary ban people for exploiting?

[Mollerina]

They can ban you for whatever they want, actually. And why should they not warn or temporary ban people for exploiting?

 

Because you should not punish the user for the maker's mistake.

[GhostNine]

Stephen, I'm sorry but you are just wrong. You can't suspend or ban a person for breaking your game. Next time, make a better game. This just makes me sick. Keep this up and your game is going to fail. You and Rift can hang out together.

 

They can if the player breaches the EULA we all agreed to.

[DaxRendar]

Stephen, I'm sorry but you are just wrong. You can't suspend or ban a person for breaking your game. Next time, make a better game. This just makes me sick. Keep this up and your game is going to fail. You and Rift can hang out together.

 

Heh, suspending and banning people for "breaking the game" has worked great for Blizzard for years

 

Do it once or twice, and you're confirming a bug or unintended game behavior. Do it over and over again, and you know exactly what you are doing and should expect consequences.

[Maxvla]

Think about what you are agree too. they are saying you cant stand in a area for long term and kill mobs, clearing it so you can loot a chest. I'm not sure how this breaks any rules. They have worked for it, they killed the mobs, the earned the chest. Its not a quest item or mob. they are not hurting anyone else.

 

If that is the case, when you get a quest to kill 50 mobs in a single area they by rights are allowing you to break the rules temporarily? SO if there are only 3 camps that spawn said mobs and you hang out there for pre-set period of time I should expect a suspension or ban?

 

If they don't want me on a planet at level 10, then level lock the planet. problem solved.

 

I don't see how a level 30 is going to clear a level 50 area. So if a level 50 agrees to help the 30 clear it and get loot, again, if that isn't allowed why have guilds or groups. You cant solo black talon at 10, so if you go in there with a group of people you still haven't earned that loot, you didn't solo it.

 

if you want people to solo content, maybe a MMO isn't such a good idea?

 

The problem is unlike you, when you saw the high levels and turned around, these people charged right in, died, resurrected, ran further, died, resurrected, ran further, died, resurrected until they got to where the unguarded chest was so they could camp it for thousands of credits and whatever else was inside every few minutes.

[onanonehand]

You can't suspend or ban a person for breaking your game.

 

 

Keep this up and your game is going to fail.

 

 

They can ban anytime. It is their game.

 

 

I wish I had a nickle for every time the word fail was used in these forums.

[Mollerina]

They can ban anytime. It is their game.

 

 

I wish I had a nickle for every time the word fail was used in these forums.

 

Trust me... SWTOR=RIFT

[Unaki]

This thread, after Stephen's post, makes my head hurt. You guys took misinformation from Reddit, twisted it around and then applied that same illogical thinking to this thread.

 

They did not ban players for legitimately farming the chests on Ilum and no they will never restrict the planet level because they just need to fix the exploit. The players banned were damned credit farmers who used an exploit with the PvP system on the planet to force the chests to respawn infinitely. Players who used the exploit knew they were doing it and if they weren't caught selling (Easy identifiers are large amounts of in-game currency being exchanged for nothing between multiple accounts in a short time frame, which is how credit sellers do it) they were given warnings and suspensions for EXPLOITING.

 

Quit overreacting, good lord.

 

P.S. Large letters because no one ever pays attention to my posts.

Edited January 2, 2012 by Unaki

[Excedrin]

Mr. Reid, is not going to post, in bright yellow on the first page of a sticky, how to perform an exploit. Reason being, they are going to ban people rather than apply a fix and nullify the exploit.

 

They have a long, long, loooooong list of fixes to perform already

 

You can frame things in such a way that you make that clear that the exploit isn't the use of the chests as described in the post, that there was a different exploit at play that involved the use of chests on Ilum, and that credit sellers were involved. It says NOTHING else. Indeed, saying "Oh, but they have a lot of bugs to fix!" in the face of bugs that apparently BREAK THE ECONOMY so direly that they needed to ban people is just the silliest thing I've seen in this thread.

 

It suggests that the looting of the chests in a frequent and repetitive manner is what the exploit was. There have been a bunch of people in here foolishly defending that concept. I have been taking issue with them.

 

But it's OK, I know that no post where you try to feel superior to another person isn't complete without a rolleyes emoticon. Seriously, these forums are worse than any other forum I've ever been one.

Edited January 2, 2012 by Excedrin

[Excedrin]

This thread, after Stephen's post, makes my head hurt. You guys took misinformation from Reddit, twisted it around and then applied that same illogical thinking to this thread.

 

They did not ban players for legitimately farming the chests on Ilum and no they will never restrict the planet level because they just need to fix the exploit. The players banned were damned credit farmers who used an exploit with the PvP system on the planet to force the chests to respawn infinitely. Players who used the exploit knew they were doing it and if they weren't caught selling (Easy identifiers are large amounts of in-game currency being exchanged for nothing between multiple accounts in a short time frame, which is how credit sellers do it) they were given warnings and suspensions for EXPLOITING.

 

Quit overreacting, good lord.

 

P.S. Large letters because no one ever pays attention to my posts.

 

Then say you banned people for selling credits, not for looting a chest in Ilum. He said people were looting chests at a low level too often and that led to a ban. He tied it in with credit sellers, sure, but the way the post is framed suggests that the act of camping a toon in the same place and looting the same node over and over again is an exploit.

 

Hell, people in this thread DEFENDED that, because they defend anything that Bioware does.

 

No, that so many people "misinterpreted" this suggests that the person conveying the information didn't do a very good job of it.

[Blackwater]

This thread, after Stephen's post, makes my head hurt. You guys took misinformation from Reddit, twisted it around and then applied that same illogical thinking to this thread.

 

They did not ban players for legitimately farming the chests on Ilum and no they will never restrict the planet level because they just need to fix the exploit. The players banned were damned credit farmers who used an exploit with the PvP system on the planet to force the chests to respawn infinitely. Players who used the exploit knew they were doing it and if they weren't caught selling (Easy identifiers are large amounts of in-game currency being exchanged for nothing between multiple accounts in a short time frame, which is how credit sellers do it) they were given warnings and suspensions for EXPLOITING.

 

Quit overreacting, good lord.

 

P.S. Large letters because no one ever pays attention to my posts.

"Herp, don't worry guys, they didn't get banned they just got warned"

 

Gee, that makes it SO much better. Thank you

[dingoperson]

You can frame things in such a way that you make that clear that the exploit isn't the use of the chests as described in the post, that there was a different exploit at play that involved the use of chests on Ilum, and that credit sellers were involved. It says NOTHING else. Indeed, saying "Oh, but they have a lot of bugs to fix!" in the face of bugs that apparently BREAK THE ECONOMY so direly that they needed to ban people is just the silliest thing I've seen in this thread.

 

It suggests that the looting of the chests in a frequent and repetitive manner is what the exploit was. There have been a bunch of people in here foolishly defending that concept. I have been taking issue with them.

 

But it's OK, I know that no post where you try to feel superior to another person isn't complete without a rolleyes emoticon. Seriously, these forums are worse than any other forum I've ever been one.

 

You can't have seen many forums then, and you have done nothing to raise the standard of this thread, instead bringing continuing sourness and mock-insulted behaviour.

 

The exploit was the looting of the chests, indirectly aided by other players trading the node which made the chests respawn faster.

 

It is plain idiocy to not see that this is exploting a flaw in the design of the game. The equivalent World of Warcraft TOS that blanket covers all exploitative behaviour is: "Using errors in design to gain a competitive advantage over other players". By definition this was an error in design as it will be fixed. I am pretty sure these is an equivalent TOS clause for SWTOR.

[Unaki]

What exactly is so hard to understand? Fail grade school or something?

 

 

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.

 

Is it really that hard to put it all together? He said it just fine.

[CanWolfShadow]

And congrats to Blakwater for being the first one added to my ignore list. I can no longer see his blathering drivel, along with the horrid hard to read grey text on a black background. Very nice.

 

Reading comprehension in this thread is very low. Makes me very sad....