regarding punishment for exploit

[KingFink]

And yet many large businesses seem to feel that keeping a certain level of respect within their customer base and the general public is critically important.... huh.

 

Oh I agree that if you want your business to last for any lengthy amount of time you have to command a certain amount of respect.

 

However, a business like this one is in a particularly tricky position. Bioware could want very seriously to punish with a heavy hand any involvement in this situation. EA on the other hand could look at their numbers of subscriptions being banned and then figure out the loss of revenue and say "No."

 

To be honest I'm obviously armchair boardrooming this here, if that's a thing. It seems to follow though, no?

[BrittneyNB]

I am guilty of avoiding certain mobs in EoT on Black Hole....there is one point where you are able to run by a set of mobs if you hug the wall. I suppose one could say that is not how the design was intended.

 

Funny thing is everyone does it, at least everyone that I have ever run the EoT with.

 

This outrage can not be allowed to happen! Strip the offending characters of all gear, take away all money, knock them all back to level 1, take away all mounts, pets, achievements, perks and codex entries, ban the account, the I.P. address, uninstall the game, throw away the authenticator, destroy the disks and blow up the computer.

 

Righteous forum justice has been served!

 

This kinda made my day, thank you!

[Max_Killjoy]

Oh I agree that if you want your business to last for any lengthy amount of time you have to command a certain amount of respect.

 

However, a business like this one is in a particularly tricky position. Bioware could want very seriously to punish with a heavy hand any involvement in this situation. EA on the other hand could look at their numbers of subscriptions being banned and then figure out the loss of revenue and say "No."

 

To be honest I'm obviously armchair boardrooming this here, if that's a thing. It seems to follow though, no?

 

 

Really, I'm not going to lose one bit of respect for Bioware if they just fix the bug that allows this "exploit", and move on with addressing other things.

 

I'd actually lose more respect for them if they doubled-down on this crapstorm by going with any of the draconian measures that certain posters keep demanding, punished the innocent in the rush to get the guilty, etc. (And if Bioware goes with draconian measures, I very much hope the net DOES catch some of the people who've been nerdraging on these threads, because I like ironic justice.)

 

The faults in DA2? The multilayer letdown of ME3? Making their games Origin-mandatory? The poor QC on 3.0 and SoR? Those things lowered my opinion of Bioware. Not listening to the nerdrage about this current issue? That would RAISE my respect for them.

[AMulls]

One of the great things in MMOs and what many people seem to want is a level playing field. For some reason, people do not like others having an unfair advantage over them. Even if it would not directly affect them, unless of course it's losing a raiding spot because of having worse gear, crafting market tanking, guilds losing a revenue source to cover progression costs due to heavy drop in material prices and so on. Again, there are things that have effect on the game/server economy directly and other effects even if you might not be able to see them.

 

In what way does any exploiter have an advantage over you or me in this game? Are we competing against them in PVE? Nope. I know, I know, "but my raid spot will be stolen by someone who didn't earn their gear" so I suffer. I and several others have provided suggestions for how to avoid that issue. It's a minimal concern, and would potentially happen whether the other person got their gear through the exploit or otherwise. So, that's not a specific advantage they gained over us. But again, if you're that concerned about that possibility, then join a guild or start your own group for the OP. Problem easily solved with almost no effort required on your part.

 

Guilds losing revenue? Please. Either the exploit has been limited to the "hardcore raiders," as has been argued, and the materials and mod prices are minimally affected, or it's very widespread, as has been also argued, and it will have the effect of lowering costs of those materials and mods for everyone. So, which is it? The hardcore raiders, who are the ones who'd be making money from the materials and such anyway, are the ones making money from it. Or everyone is making money from it and everyone is benefitting with the lower costs on crafting mats and crafted gear. Either way, it's an extremely small part of the GTN and the economy. Any good guilds will have many other avenues for making money and this will have little to no effect on them at all. Not to mention once the exploit is closed down, prices will normalize relatively quickly and we'll be back where we "should have been" in terms of GTN prices.

 

But please, explain to me again how I don't understand the situation. Do you do a lot of crafting of high end raid gear? If so, then you're likely already part of a progression raid group, so the only thing you've potentially lost is a bit of time. Waiting out the influx of mats and gear from the exploit will solve that little conundrum. And if you're not a high end raider then how are you affected by prices in that corner of the GTN being lower than they normally would be? Unless you're hoping to buy the gear from those who have taken the time to run the raids and RE it. Which means, you actually benefit from the lower prices. Oh, and also, if you're doing that it means you didn't "earn" the gear either. But that doesn't matter, right?

 

TLDR:

 

If you're already a high end raider, then you're really not affected by the GTN or other people having gear, and you likely already have a set raid spot, so you're not getting bumped.

 

And if you're not a high end raider, then you're actually benefitting from the lower prices on mats and crafted gear.

[Drockter]

There does need to be some repercussions, and personal accountability on the part of those who participated in this.

 

Personally, the loss of gear makes sense to me... the heavier the player used the exploit... the heavier the penalty.. including suspensions, and yes permabans.

 

If you have multiple sets of BiS Equipment... you deserve to lose that equipment, and be suspended for a period of time. If you sold access to the exploit, you deserve to be permabanned.

 

Wrong is wrong... end of story...

 

For those saying there should be no penalty because it was BW fault there was a hole in the code... seriously need to learn the term personal accountability... I have a car outside that will go well over the posted speed limit on any road in the US. If I were to get a speeding ticket for tear assing down the highway.. who is responsible?

 

By that logic... it would be the manufacturer... I mean really.. .they KNOW that its illegal to drive 120 down the highway... but their car would do it... obviously not my fault... send them the ticket... I get off scott free..

 

Please

[Warrgames]

Oh I agree that if you want your business to last for any lengthy amount of time you have to command a certain amount of respect.

 

However, a business like this one is in a particularly tricky position. Bioware could want very seriously to punish with a heavy hand any involvement in this situation. EA on the other hand could look at their numbers of subscriptions being banned and then figure out the loss of revenue and say "No."

 

To be honest I'm obviously armchair boardrooming this here, if that's a thing. It seems to follow though, no?

 

LOL

EA does not have their hand in day to day operation. BW doesn't run every single decision through EA. EA is not going to have a say in this issue.

[AMulls]

So it's a case of collectively failing to read the Terms of Service then as raiders?

 

 

 

So not only do the players who have abused this exploit gained BiS gear, within a time frame that really defeats the purpose of an MMO and progression. Those said raiders have also spread the exploit to others in the playerbase for credits / currency.

 

It's not just one part of the ToS that have been broken here, and yes, there is a much wider picture to look at. The raiders who have done this are meant to be some of our peers in this game, the ones we look up to for figuring out the mechanics of the fights in new raids.

 

You know what I see now? Nothing good.

 

I hope BioWare DO make an example of the players who have abused the exploit for ill-gotten gains. As for the threat of leaving the game? Good-bye and good luck. Why should anyone or any company be held in sway by players who have no respect for the community or the game developers?

 

11. Rules of Conduct

 

You may violate the Terms of Service if, as determined by EA in its sole discretion, you:

 

- Promote, encourage or take part in any activity involving hacking, cracking, phishing, taking advantage of exploits or cheats and/or distribution of counterfeit software and/or virtual currency/items

- Abuse or exploit bugs, undocumented features, design errors or problems in the game.

 

Key words there: "May violate"

 

Not "shall violate" or "did violate" or "have violated," but "MAY violate." You might see it as a very minor distinction, but in contract terms, that one little word can have a HUGE impact.

 

Based on that, EA/BW may decide that no one has violated the TOS, since the decision is in its sole discretion. This lends strong weight to the argument people are making about why EA/BW didn't take a minor step to cut off the exploit in a timely manner, rather than letting it continue.

[Jerba]

If you're already a high end raider, then you're really not affected by the GTN or other people having gear, and you likely already have a set raid spot, so you're not getting bumped.

 

And if you're not a high end raider, then you're actually benefitting from the lower prices on mats and crafted gear.

While we are of course benefitting from lower prices, we are benefitting less than the exploiters. The early exploiters could make 30+ million credits by selling the mats, while players who did not exploit get a hilt/barrel for 1 million instead of 5 million credits. These numbers may not be exact, but they show that exploiters benefitted from this more than non-exploiters if Bioware does not take any action.

 

Then there's the question about upcoming content. If a sizable percentage of the player base now has full 198 gear, the next raiding tier will require 198 gear. Players who did not exploit will have to hurry to gear up quickly and may not be able to get 198 gear in time. I'm hoping that the devs will ensure that players have an easier way to get 198 gear or tune the next content for 192 gear so that non-exploiters will have a fair chance to compete.

 

And finally, Bioware needs to lead by example. This is the most serious loot exploit in SWTOR so far, and because of their previous track record, many players believe they can get away with exploiting. If they don't take any action this time, the next time an exploit is found, even the players that now did not exploit due to morals/high standards will find it difficult to come up with a reason not to exploit.

Edited January 9, 2015 by Jerba

[Max_Killjoy]

Since the sum total of 198 item mods of all types on the GTN of my server is about TEN, and the prices range from 3 to 9 million...

 

Since I've seen zero mention of it in chat on any world...

 

I'm going to go way out on a limb and guess that this "game-destroying" issue is restricted to certain servers.

[AMulls]

There does need to be some repercussions, and personal accountability on the part of those who participated in this.

 

Personally, the loss of gear makes sense to me... the heavier the player used the exploit... the heavier the penalty.. including suspensions, and yes permabans.

 

If you have multiple sets of BiS Equipment... you deserve to lose that equipment, and be suspended for a period of time. If you sold access to the exploit, you deserve to be permabanned.

 

Wrong is wrong... end of story...

 

For those saying there should be no penalty because it was BW fault there was a hole in the code... seriously need to learn the term personal accountability... I have a car outside that will go well over the posted speed limit on any road in the US. If I were to get a speeding ticket for tear assing down the highway.. who is responsible?

 

By that logic... it would be the manufacturer... I mean really.. .they KNOW that its illegal to drive 120 down the highway... but their car would do it... obviously not my fault... send them the ticket... I get off scott free..

 

Please

 

Wrong is wrong. So, you have never made a dark side choice in this game whatsoever, right? Because wrong is wrong after all. It would be wrong to shock Vette with her collar, because slavery is wrong. It would be wrong to destroy a whole planet.

 

As for your hypothetical about speeding, it's a different situation. You have the potential, through your actions, of actually injuring someone, and quite seriously. The LAWS about speeding are there for the SAFETY of other people.

 

If you want a better analogy, try a rental agreement between a landlord and tenant. If the tenant is late on their rent, they are technically in breach of the lease. The landlord can choose to take action and evict the tenant, or they can overlook the lateness and allow the tenant to stay.

 

The TOS and the EULA are contracts made between the user and EA/BW.

[AMulls]

While we are of course benefitting from lower prices, we are benefitting less than the exploiters. The early exploiters could make 30+ million credits by selling the mats, while players who did not exploit get a hilt/barrel for 1 million instead of 5 million credits. These numbers may not be exact, but they show that exploiters benefitted from this more than non-exploiters if Bioware does not take any action.

 

Then there's the question about upcoming content. If a sizable percentage of the player base now has full 198 gear, the next raiding tier will require 198 gear. Players who did not exploit will have to hurry to gear up quickly and may not be able to get 198 gear in time. I'm hoping that the devs will ensure that players have an easier way to get 198 gear or tune the next content for 192 gear so that non-exploiters will have a fair chance to compete.

 

And finally, Bioware needs to lead by example. This is the most serious loot exploit in SWTOR so far, and because of their previous track record, many players believe they can get away with exploiting. If they don't take any action this time, the next time an exploit is found, even the players that now did not exploit due to morals/high standards will find it difficult to come up with a reason not to exploit.

 

You "benefitted less" than the exploiters? So, you are benefitting, not losing anything at all. Gotcha.

 

As for the gear problem, well, the exploiters, to my knowledge at least, have not caused the OPs to stop working. You want the gear that drops from the OPs? Go run the OPs. Not one single thing is stopping you from doing that. Go gear up. Knock yourself out!

[KingFink]

LOL

EA does not have their hand in day to day operation. BW doesn't run every single decision through EA. EA is not going to have a say in this issue.

 

Yeah, revenue streams are usually something mega corporations just ignore on a day to day basis.

[KingFink]

Really, I'm not going to lose one bit of respect for Bioware if they just fix the bug that allows this "exploit", and move on with addressing other things.

 

I'd actually lose more respect for them if they doubled-down on this crapstorm by going with any of the draconian measures that certain posters keep demanding, punished the innocent in the rush to get the guilty, etc. (And if Bioware goes with draconian measures, I very much hope the net DOES catch some of the people who've been nerdraging on these threads, because I like ironic justice.)

 

The faults in DA2? The multilayer letdown of ME3? Making their games Origin-mandatory? The poor QC on 3.0 and SoR? Those things lowered my opinion of Bioware. Not listening to the nerdrage about this current issue? That would RAISE my respect for them.

 

Well, they're certainly going to punish people.

 

I wouldn't put much stock in a silly thread like this though man! Bioware will not be combing through this looking for advice on what to do for the punishments

 

To be honest I sort of figured punishments would come, but I'm really not that worried about it. Everyone wants to make such a big fuss about it but in the end Bioware will do what they want to do and everything will be back to normal in a week or so.

[Jerba]

You "benefitted less" than the exploiters? So, you are benefitting, not losing anything at all. Gotcha.

 

As for the gear problem, well, the exploiters, to my knowledge at least, have not caused the OPs to stop working. You want the gear that drops from the OPs? Go run the OPs. Not one single thing is stopping you from doing that. Go gear up. Knock yourself out!

There's always a trickle-down effect in MMOs where you can get carried by players with better gear or benefit from early adopter's work. The difference is that this time, the exploiters did not put in more work, they broke the ToS.

It can't be Bioware's intention that exploiters will have a bigger benefit than legitimate players. If anything, they should punish exploiters or reward non-exploiters to ensure it is evened out.

 

And have you seen the HM ops? When DF/DP HM launched, my group was fully BiS geared after 4 months. With 3.0, the HM is significantly harder, like many guilds we are still stuck on the third boss and it will take much longer to even kill all bosses before we can start about thinking about gearing up. If they want to release nightmare mode in a similar timeframe as last time (and they have to, otherwise exploiters will complain about no content), then players will not have the gear for it yet.

[AERHAE]

I'm concerned that EA Bio War has a problem knowing the difference between player's and costumer's.

I do not like how Eric M.admitted that they (the Devs) knew about this exploit for almost three weeks before coming to the forums to make his post on the matter. Its Seems That Ea Bio Ware put Christmas before there product for what ever reason and called it good. Eric's thread try's to enforce the stance that they the Devs do nothing wrong and never have by describing their policy.They tried to turn this on the players/costumer's based of off actions.

What's clear is Eric's team did not test the progression stages in the new update which questions weather the people at EA Bio Ware play there own game,because Im of the opinion if they did play there own game these problems would not have gone live.

"Eric"........."You and EA Bio Ware need to hire Blixtiv and Adept Strain and learn a thing or two about updating/developing your game."

"I play your game based off of the Star Wars IP,in essence Im a Star Wars fan.My time in your game does not even come close to the time I spent in Star Wars Gallixies.Your game is not that good and you guys have yet to come close to SWG in many ways.So lets be clear,this game is below par for a Star Wars IP MMO.The only reason any of the SWG people are hear is because they had nowhere else to go in terms of a Star Wars MMO IP. Eric if what you say is true,your policy is killing this game. Please go through with your actions so we can have a real reason to stop playing/investing this game."

Forwarding to Kathleen Kennedy.

[Pagy]

No, of course not. Zorz did not spread the exploit, another guild stole the lockout from them. I won't name that guild since naming and shaming is forbidden, but I did put in tickets and hope Bioware will take necessary action against that guild.

hahaha right up there with "my twitter was hacked"

 

if you believe that someone had their account stolen and arent just trying to cover themselves from being kicked from zorz, i have some magic beans to sell you.

[Quraswren]

I am guilty of avoiding certain mobs in EoT on Black Hole....there is one point where you are able to run by a set of mobs if you hug the wall. I suppose one could say that is not how the design was intended.

 

Funny thing is everyone does it, at least everyone that I have ever run the EoT with.

 

Avoiding mobs Vs getting their loot without killing them and then willing spreading that option to others is vastly different.

 

but on a different note:

 

Cheating is cheating no matter how you spin it. Doesn't matter if BW didn't fix the bug quickly or not. No matter how gamers try to muddy up the water with crap thinking like, "The door was open so I went in." or "because it took them so long BW can't do anything to me." All that is, is someone trying to avoid punishment.

 

If you are a gamer at all and you use this exploit, you knew better and you knew what it was and that it was against the rules. Hell, it's against the TOS of all MMo games to use an exploit like this.

 

I can only hope punishment strikes the ones that used it as fast as how they looted a boss they didn't kill and ran, hoping they could get away with it..

[ItachiZaku]

Just remove all 192+ gear and items, and reset all elite/ult comms to 0.

[Aehgo]

It will be interesting to see what they will do,but I cant see a severe punishment at all because the amount of players that have done the exploit...

[Max_Killjoy]

Just remove all 192+ gear and items, and reset all elite/ult comms to 0.

 

All? From everyone?

[Toecuttr]

There are consequences for every action. Had I used the exploit I would accept the consequences of my actions.

That is the adult thing to do. Bioware must then accept the consequences of their actions also. One of them would be the immediate cancelation of my subscription, after all, it's just a GAME and there are many others.

[AMulls]

There's always a trickle-down effect in MMOs where you can get carried by players with better gear or benefit from early adopter's work. The difference is that this time, the exploiters did not put in more work, they broke the ToS.

It can't be Bioware's intention that exploiters will have a bigger benefit than legitimate players. If anything, they should punish exploiters or reward non-exploiters to ensure it is evened out.

 

And have you seen the HM ops? When DF/DP HM launched, my group was fully BiS geared after 4 months. With 3.0, the HM is significantly harder, like many guilds we are still stuck on the third boss and it will take much longer to even kill all bosses before we can start about thinking about gearing up. If they want to release nightmare mode in a similar timeframe as last time (and they have to, otherwise exploiters will complain about no content), then players will not have the gear for it yet.

 

MAY have broken the TOS. That is for EA/BW to determine. As I noted in my other post.

 

As for the trickle down, it just means that trickle down is more of an open faucet. Again, everyone benefits.

 

Legitimate players? Wow. I don't even know what to say to that.

 

Again, I'll ask. If the bosses are similar to the last OPs released, and the timeframe for planned release of NiM is similar, then what about your game experience has been affected by the exploiters? You're still running the OPs as you would have had the exploit not been identified. You're still learning the mechanics (and no level of gear will help that). And you'll still need 198 gear to tackle the NiM content (that hasn't even been released yet). High end progressive raiders always complain about lack of content. They breeze through the content quickly, exploit or not. So the exploit won't change that at all.

 

As I pointed out in a couple of my other posts, I'm mostly a PVPer and have been for quite some time. The last OP I actually finished was KP. I never set foot in DF or DP. But that doesn't mean I don't understand progression raiding.

Edited January 9, 2015 by AMulls

[Halinalle]

And yet many large businesses seem to feel that keeping a certain level of respect within their customer base and the general public is critically important.... huh.

 

For example CCP has very clear policies for exploiting and harassment:

http://community.eveonline.com/support/policies/eve-banning-policy/

 

Note that we are talking about small-ish company and they are most hated MMO dev team on this planet (because EVE is apparently too difficult for some). Playerbase isn't that huge but they don't hesitate to permaban paying customers.

Edited January 9, 2015 by Halinalle

[LadyVix]

There are consequences for every action. Had I used the exploit I would accept the consequences of my actions.

That is the adult thing to do. Bioware must then accept the consequences of their actions also. One of them would be the immediate cancelation of my subscription, after all, it's just a GAME and there are many others.

 

You make it sound like exploiters are a valuable asset to the game. They're not. Nobody is that important, and the $15 paid by a newbie player pays the bills as much as the $15 paid by the dishonest players they replace.

 

Those that did it need to "man up" and take responsibility for their misdeeds.

Edited January 9, 2015 by LadyVix

[ivanhedgehog]

GTN = Market

 

if you bought one of those 37 hilts or barrels you should be banned for supporting an exploiter. or maybe just have it deleted.