Frybert Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 It's free to play but they also ban people that spend thousands of dollars on gold and the premium it provides like Swtor. So in other words: apples and oranges. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pagy Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 Tell that to World of tanks that only had about 130k (Us servers) in peek hours and yet they still ban people for exploiting / cheating / not obeying the rules.why do any of us care what world of tanks does? its a f2p game and this is a swtor forum. what they do doesnt matter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theeko Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 why do any of us care what world of tanks does? its a f2p game and this is a swtor forum. what they do doesnt matter. Was just trying to make a point to earlier comment saying Swtor will miss all the revnue provided by all the exploiters and gave an example of a game that has fewer playing it on a mega server type game and they frankly don't care if they miss the money they provided just as long as they live up to the ToS, just like Swtor should. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Divona Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 Kinda funny but sad to see on my server i noticed 2 names are selling both 37 barrels and hilts in huge quantities i'm talking about around 10 each. Bioware can easily trace how crafters got materials (purple exotic mats) and remove all the credits they made. Buyers are happy i guess as they will keep their items. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pagy Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 Was just trying to make a point to earlier comment saying Swtor will miss all the revnue provided by all the exploiters and gave an example of a game that has fewer playing it on a mega server type game and they frankly don't care if they miss the money they provided just as long as they live up to the ToS, just like Swtor should.different games, different companies, different income structure, different operational costs, different financial forecasts...i mean my god drop the world of tanks thing they arent similar at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pagy Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 Kinda funny but sad to see on my server i noticed 2 names are selling both 37 barrels and hilts in huge quantities i'm talking about around 10 each. Bioware can easily trace how crafters got materials (purple exotic mats) and remove all the credits they made. Buyers are happy i guess as they will keep their items.in this case, these people likely bought out the hilts and relisted to set the price higher. but keep trying to burn those witches...lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frybert Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 was just trying to make a point to earlier comment saying swtor will miss all the revnue provided by all the exploiters and gave an example of a game that has fewer playing it on a mega server type game and they frankly don't care if they miss the money they provided just as long as they live up to the tos, just like swtor should. ............................................________ ....................................,.-'"...................``~., .............................,.-"..................................."-., .........................,/...............................................":, .....................,?......................................................, .................../...........................................................,} ................./......................................................,:`^`..} .............../...................................................,:"........./ ..............?.....__.........................................:`.........../ ............./__.(....."~-,_..............................,:`........../ .........../(_...."~,_........"~,_....................,:`........_/ ..........{.._$;_......"=,_......."-,_.......,.-~-,},.~";/....} ...........((.....*~_......."=-._......";,,./`..../"............../ ...,,,___.`~,......"~.,....................`.....}............../ ............(....`=-,,.......`........................(......;_,,-" ............/.`~,......`-...................................../ .............`~.*-,.....................................|,./.....,__ ,,_..........}.>-._...................................|..............`=~-, .....`=~-,__......`,................................. ...................`=~-,,.,............................... ................................`:,,...........................`..............__ .....................................`=-,...................,%`>--==`` ........................................_..........._,-%.......` ..................................., Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordArtemis Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 Was just trying to make a point to earlier comment saying Swtor will miss all the revnue provided by all the exploiters and gave an example of a game that has fewer playing it on a mega server type game and they frankly don't care if they miss the money they provided just as long as they live up to the ToS, just like Swtor should. Just as a side point, you have mentioned that WoT has few players than SWTOR a few times. If you mean fewer playing on the same shard, perhaps... But.... http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/pc-browser/17/world-tanks-sets-new-guinness-world-record/ http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-players-online-simultaneously-on-one-mog-server http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/03/12/world-of-tanks-sets-world-record-for-most-players-concurrently-o/ AND.... http://www.pcgamer.com/world-of-tanks-celebrates-60-million-registered-users-with-destructive-cgi-spectacle/ http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/19/world-tanks-hits-mark-60-million-registered-users/ SWTOR doesn't even come close to that....not even WoW comes close to that. Only League of Legends is larger to my knowledge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ivanhedgehog Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 Pretty much. Narrowing down the player base to a list of people who exploited with 100% certainty is utterly trivial, assuming they have the ability to search their player database based on player inventory, have records of every time loot was picked up in that instance, or 1-2 of tons of other parameters. There is a 0% chance that someone innocent would be caught, and only a very negligible chance that someone guilty would be left out. They could even distinguish one-time users from major users pretty easily. Granted, I'm thinking about this as someone who's worked with various databases for over a decade - in some cases doing exactly this - but I'm pretty confident even a novice could figure out how to write a script that parses through their logs and player inventories. Point being, if their logging ability is even remotely worth its salt, finding the exploiters is a non-issue. So don't think you're safe just because "it would be too much work to find us all". That said, there are tons of other reasons that you should feel safe, and plenty more that you shouldn't even care one way or the other, because the bottom line is this game needs you more than you need it. 1st...this is not a database we are talking about, it is individual logs. you are not searching 1 document for an occurence, you are searching thousands of individuals. not just a search for X. 2nd. there will be false positives if you have people coming into a legit group for the final boss or something similar..zero percent chance is absolutely false. someone has to search every individual characters logs. this is not a trivial exercise.. 3rd. if they have the manpower to do this, they can certainly go in and deal with all the failed achiev awards they have blown off and told to just do it again. any mistakes will blow up in their faces...and there will be some Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theeko Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 (edited) Just as a side point, you have mentioned that WoT has few players than SWTOR a few times. If you mean fewer playing on the same shard, perhaps... But.... http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/pc-browser/17/world-tanks-sets-new-guinness-world-record/ http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-players-online-simultaneously-on-one-mog-server http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/03/12/world-of-tanks-sets-world-record-for-most-players-concurrently-o/ AND.... http://www.pcgamer.com/world-of-tanks-celebrates-60-million-registered-users-with-destructive-cgi-spectacle/ http://worldoftanks.com/en/news/19/world-tanks-hits-mark-60-million-registered-users/ SWTOR doesn't even come close to that....not even WoW comes close to that. Only League of Legends is larger to my knowledge. Yeah i think its the majority of russian's that play since its a russian game, but when I played there were only 40-130k total all day every day on East/West US Mega Server Edited January 11, 2015 by Theeko Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordArtemis Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 Yeah i think its the majority of russian's that play since its a russian game, but when I played there were only 40-130k total all day every day on East/West US Mega Server Fair enough, I thought maybe you speaking of specifics... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ivanhedgehog Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 Considering how often they cite their metrics, it's rather obvious that they do in fact have advanced database logging. considering that they cant go back and award loot or achievements that fail, id say you are wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theeko Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 (edited) Fair enough, I thought maybe you speaking of specifics... Yeah sorry forgot to mention that previously that it has more than one mega server, but that is pretty bad odds for the US servers compared to the other ones. Just the main point I was trying to make was that MMO's still ban even if it loses them alot of revenue if they live up to there ToS, they do what has to be done. Edited January 11, 2015 by Theeko Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Theeko Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 in this case, these people likely bought out the hilts and relisted to set the price higher. but keep trying to burn those witches...lol I think he was referring to 10 hilts/barrels each not 10m each Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pagy Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 I think he was referring to 10 hilts/barrels each not 10m each...yes...exactly...and? youre jumping to assumptions, like all of the other witch-hunters. they could be resellers, or people that invested a lot in mats, or from guilds that earn the mats, or bought from guilds that did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sindariel Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 2nd. there will be false positives if you have people coming into a legit group for the final boss or something similar..zero percent chance is absolutely false. someone has to search every individual characters logs. this is not a trivial exercise.. It's freakin' easy to trigger this exploit by mistake. Happened to my raid group yesterday because raid lead had ID and some people entered the operation before he could relog to another char. It's impossible for Bioware to determine through an automated process who used this exploit intentionally and who did it by mistake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MissButtercup Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 you are right character bans is not the answer... complete account ban/deletion IS the answer! who cares if its big news?? it will show that you cant cheat and get away with it no matter how much you spend in game! again people broke the rules why is it a bad thing if they get punished?? what kind of image would it send to these gaming groups and social groups if they do nothing?? the exploiters knew they were breaking the rules and they knew if you break the rules and get caught there will be consequences. It is now time for them to pay those consequences. If you want to lose a large portion of the level 60 people who raid, have low level alts, and pay their subscription fees, keep pushing for punishment. Then all of you white knights and neckbeards can enjoy your 'cheater free' game that slowly dies over the course of this year. I don't think some of you realize that this affects more than just the players involved in the incident. What about parts of guilds who took place in it, that will fall apart because of the ban? They will probably quit playing too. There's a whole list of hypotheticals that have gone through my mind, none of them good for the non-exploiters. You all are hoping and wishing for the harshest of punishments, when some people may honestly not have been knowing what they were doing. I suppose most of the people who play this game think if you screw up once, you should lose years of stuff you worked for in the game and possibly paid real life money for. EA loves money. EA does not want to lose money. From what I understand and my dealings with them personally, they are very forgiving. I expect the exploiters to get a strongly worded letter to not do this again or else next time they will get permanently banned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nuffmeister Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 If you want to lose a large portion of the level 60 people who raid, have low level alts, and pay their subscription fees, keep pushing for punishment. Then all of you white knights and neckbeards can enjoy your 'cheater free' game that slowly dies over the course of this year. I'm pretty sure a healthy percentage of the raider community are also neckbeards so i'm not sure why that term is only being applied to the one's clamoring for bans. Either way this forum drama had been very entertaining to watch from the sidelines. Come tuesday I have my popcorn and drinks set aside for the big event. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bradypan Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 I can't speak for every server, but at least for Jedi Covenant, the exploit is extremely prevalent. I can safely say that the leadership of almost all raiding guilds, as well as any large guilds would be wiped out if there were any permanent bans. The raid teams of all the top guilds would be crippled and there would be very little progression (yes, even less than there is currently) for months. Over a hundred people who casually raid would also be banned, as they did it for the free gear that they would otherwise never get, as well as the credits they could get from selling the mats. I suspect that this would be the case on a multitude of servers, certainly on the Harbinger where it originated. I highly doubt that they would permanently ban everyone involved in the exploit. As someone stated before, banning people would cause them to leave the game, and many of their in game friends or guild members would leave with them to play another game. This would definitely cut into their revenue, both from in game purchases and monthly subscriptions. As for other punishments, such as the removal of gear, it could potentially be done with some code to find out who has a set bonus 198 chest armoring. That could probably be relatively simple. Enhancements and mods could have potentially come from random drops or kills of other bosses, so it would be difficult for them to track where they came from, unless there are unique IDs for each mod and enhancement that allow them to know its origin. Temp bans are certainly possible as well, with possibly different lengths of time depending on what each exploiter did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kryand Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 1st...this is not a database we are talking about, it is individual logs. you are not searching 1 document for an occurence, you are searching thousands of individuals. not just a search for X. Still just as easy to do both. I know, because I have done both, a lot. Searching files just takes longer (for the computer, not the scripter). 2nd. there will be false positives if you have people coming into a legit group for the final boss or something similar..zero percent chance is absolutely false. someone has to search every individual characters logs. this is not a trivial exercise.. So you check how many people were in the group at the time. Easy. 3rd. if they have the manpower to do this, they can certainly go in and deal with all the failed achiev awards they have blown off and told to just do it again. Manpower? I could do everything I said by myself in less than a day's work. considering that they cant go back and award loot or achievements that fail, id say you are wrong. It's just as likely that they can, but just won't in some cases. I know plenty of people (myself included) that have had loot issues successfully resolved with CS. Doing a log search for one person is probably not worth the effort in most cases. It's freakin' easy to trigger this exploit by mistake. Happened to my raid group yesterday because raid lead had ID and some people entered the operation before he could relog to another char. It's impossible for Bioware to determine through an automated process who used this exploit intentionally and who did it by mistake. If by impossible, you mean trivial. Check the number of people in group, the number of times a person "did it", etc. I mean I admit I am making a lot of assumptions about BW's capabilities here, but like I said, their system would have to be pretty horrible if they couldn't do all of this. It is really not as difficult as some of you like to imagine. This is REALLY basic stuff to anyone who actually has experience in this field. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edzew Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 10's of thousands of players might get in trouble for a "exploit" they didn't think was an exploit. Selling a lockout and instructions on how to cheat is one end of the spectrum. Exiting area because your group leader said it would bug out if you don't exit is another. Not everyone knew how this worked. what you posted had nothing to do with what you posted here at all. thats why i said what i said. also Brinks Tucks dont carry loose bills on their trucks. they are secured in bundles and placed in thick secure plastic bags so even if one did tip over there wouldn't be clouds of money blowing out the back end Loomis is the same way by the way It's your hyporcisy that pissed me off. As for the first part... they have exact logs of what people do and when, with who and how. It's not like you can accidentally reproduce the bug. The way to do it is quite specific. dont worry about him... he is just a troll that likes going around poking people with a stick trying to get them riled up And do people want a minimum wage employee who would be checking these logs in charge of the fate of your account? Do you really think he/she would not make some mistakes?. do you really think they would have a minimum wage employee doing this work?? i highly doubt they have any minimum wage employees doing anything other than getting coffee and answering the phones... maybe moderating these forums but nothing that has to do with code or the actual game! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mbfhl Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 And I will write the game off if they DON'T ban you. Simply because I don't play games where the rules are not enforced. So one of us will be gone no matter what they do, neither of us can say who will BW listen to, or should listen to. Yay. I hope nothing happens just so that we don't have to listen to Jandi's self-righteous attitude anymore just because he missed out on doing the exploit and is pretending he chose to sit out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HettonVir Posted January 11, 2015 Share Posted January 11, 2015 Funny how they can track this yet when Hard Modes weren't counting towards the weekly and my group sent tickets in, we were told that they cannot track these or the loot drops. Funny how when Ilum was being exploited and the Imperials SIGNIFICANTLY widened the PvP gear gap that ruined PvP for months (Battlemaster, RNG etc etc) not a thing was done. That was far more egregious IMHO because it affected EVERYONE on a PvP server. What were we told then? They had no way of tracking it and there would be no roll back. Even with screenshots with clearly visible names, they said they couldn't do anything because it couldn't be verified. SO NOW all of a sudden, they can use NSA spy techniques and track everything? I don't think that they're only now able to do it, I just think now they're WILLING to do it, and that's pathetic. I'm pretty sure a lot of people are watching how BW handles this and they may find a lot fewer subs on the books come Wednesday morning that left willingly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ivanhedgehog Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 Still just as easy to do both. I know, because I have done both, a lot. Searching files just takes longer (for the computer, not the scripter). So you check how many people were in the group at the time. Easy. Manpower? I could do everything I said by myself in less than a day's work. It's just as likely that they can, but just won't in some cases. I know plenty of people (myself included) that have had loot issues successfully resolved with CS. Doing a log search for one person is probably not worth the effort in most cases. If by impossible, you mean trivial. Check the number of people in group, the number of times a person "did it", etc. I mean I admit I am making a lot of assumptions about BW's capabilities here, but like I said, their system would have to be pretty horrible if they couldn't do all of this. It is really not as difficult as some of you like to imagine. This is REALLY basic stuff to anyone who actually has experience in this field. you make huge assumptions here. with your in depth knowledge of bw's logging system,can you tell us if bw even keeps the data you claim is easy to search? I love how non programmers will tell you how easy a project is without having squat for knowledge of the actual data being used. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ufarax Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 To the genius at Bioware, what the hell is the PTS for? Put all major updates on the PTS. The problem is laziness; the developers are too damn lazy. Ban all the exploiters, if you want free time, and then by all means ban them all. Imagine this conversation, “is this the police?” “Yes this is the police” “I would like to report my neighbor” “what did your neighbor do?’ “He/she exploited a situation” “what did he/she do?” “I was playing nude basketball with a couple of my friends, in front of his house, and he/she took pictures” “please come and arrest him/her at once”:cool::cool::cool::cool::cool: P.S I wish my neighbor would do that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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