eartharioch Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 Worst case it simply shortened the time that the few had a quasi-monopoly on the GTN.. and so they were unable to pursue competition free pricing. No sympathy for predators... pricing predators. Ok, you keep bringing this up, and it's getting really annoying hearing you prattle on about how you have no sympathy for the victims just because you don't like them. There are sayings about what happens to people with that attitude... Anyway, what exactly do you mean by "predatory pricing"? As much as you go on about how the business world works, what exactly is it about people with an extremely limited supply of something in great demand charging what that market will bear "predatory"? Especially given that the items being sold have no SWTOR patent protection, and that any buyer can reverse engineer these products and enter into direct competition with the seller? FYI, while I do make a lot of credits crafting, I only bothered to learn one Raid-level schematic (and that was only a few months before 3.0), so I have no vested interest, I'm just not sure why such a religiously pro-market person like you keeps bashing these people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max_Killjoy Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 Ok, you keep bringing this up, and it's getting really annoying hearing you prattle on about how you have no sympathy for the victims just because you don't like them. There are sayings about what happens to people with that attitude... Anyway, what exactly do you mean by "predatory pricing"? As much as you go on about how the business world works, what exactly is it about people with an extremely limited supply of something in great demand charging what that market will bear "predatory"? Especially given that the items being sold have no SWTOR patent protection, and that any buyer can reverse engineer these products and enter into direct competition with the seller? FYI, while I do make a lot of credits crafting, I only bothered to learn one Raid-level schematic (and that was only a few months before 3.0), so I have no vested interest, I'm just not sure why such a religiously pro-market person like you keeps bashing these people. Possibly because of the subset of those who are acting outraged, and are claiming it's because "cheating is wrong" and acting all righteous, but who are actually just cheesed off because their ability to set ridiculous prices got tanked by the early increase in supply. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eartharioch Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 (edited) Possibly because of the subset of those who are acting outraged, and are claiming it's because "cheating is wrong" and acting all righteous, but who are actually just cheesed off because their ability to set ridiculous prices got tanked by the early increase in supply. They have a right to be outraged, and people should not belittle them for it. Belittle them for some of the things for which they're asking -- sure. Some of it is pretty over the top. I don't want BW to take action against people if they aren't absolutely sure they did something wrong (which means most of the fantasy land cries for tracking down every potentially poisoned sale). But just like everybody who sold a 192 item isn't guilty of exploiting, not everybody who sells 192 items (or even, like me 186s, whose market is also impacted by a higher and cheaper availability of 192s) isn't clamoring for such draconian measures. And quite frankly, she's been quite clear that it is the nature of the victims, not the justice that some of them have requested, that makes her unsympathetic, and it is that apparent hatred of the victims that caused me to post. And just so we are clear, I *am* "cheesed off" that so many people apparently exploited the system and are ruining the "new expansion" experience for people, and I do want to see those people punished appropriately. But I don't want to see the truly innocent caught up in a witch hunt, and I don't want to the low level violators and high level violators treated the same. If they get treated the same, there will either be too much sympathy for the low level violators or too little punishment to deter future high level violators. I don't think it's appropriate to go into detailed specifics like some people do, but that's where I stand. Edited January 12, 2015 by eartharioch Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andryah Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 (edited) Ok, you keep bringing this up, and it's getting really annoying hearing you prattle on about how you have no sympathy for the victims just because you don't like them. There are sayings about what happens to people with that attitude... Anyway, what exactly do you mean by "predatory pricing"? As much as you go on about how the business world works, what exactly is it about people with an extremely limited supply of something in great demand charging what that market will bear "predatory"? Especially given that the items being sold have no SWTOR patent protection, and that any buyer can reverse engineer these products and enter into direct competition with the seller? FYI, while I do make a lot of credits crafting, I only bothered to learn one Raid-level schematic (and that was only a few months before 3.0), so I have no vested interest, I'm just not sure why such a religiously pro-market person like you keeps bashing these people. I stand by my comments. Stop pretending that you do not know that early after release of a new tier... some crafters will RE race to get the schematics ASAP so they can be first in the market. Why bother? Because until the schematics become common, they can charge 500-1000% premium prices (vs.. what those same items will be priced at when they are no longer top tier). Often they are supported and enhanced by a guild behind them helping feed them what they need to be able to craft then craft and premium price. The objective is to scalp the market and to control prices through scarcity. They are allowed to do so by the way.. I get that. But it does not mean that I need be sympathetic to them losing the market in this cycle so quickly. I see it as pricing karma for them. Edited January 12, 2015 by Andryah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max_Killjoy Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 (edited) This entire thing reminds me of why I asked, in another thread, what people would think of an MMO where every piece of gear, every mod, every mount, every housing deco, every everything, is available in multiple ways: 1) Loot, somewhere, either directly or via comms/tokens/whatever. 2) Crafting. 3) In-game credit vendors of some kind. 4) A micro-transaction market. Completely short-circuit the exclusivity issue, the "must grind let's find a shortcut" issue, the rarity issue, every issue. Make playing the game about the content people enjoy and the way they want their character to look and all sorts of other things. It would mean that there's less reason to exploit (can get the same stuff several other ways) AND there's less reason for others to care if someone does exploit (again, everyone can get the stuff several other ways). Edited January 12, 2015 by Max_Killjoy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kryand Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 The data is most likely routed to data warehouse(s) where it is broadly cataloged (server, planet, few other things). the analytics we hear so much about from Bioware are simply modern day analytics overlays to the data warehouse(s). And to apply those overlays.. you have to code up a report, debug it, and then deploy it. So, yeah.. they probably have a really good set of existing reports that mine/parse/graph specific data sets that they use to keep an eye on what is taking place on the servers. Making new reports though is not trivial at all. [This is basic data dash-boarding for watching and analyzing key metrics]. Trivial is a relative term. It also depends on what kind of access is allowed to the information. My comments assume that a person has full access to everything he needs without needing to go through any red tape, so to speak. I realize that's generally not how it works in a large company, but either way, such obstacles would only slow the process down, not make it impossible. As for tracking all the various parameters of human behavior associated with an exploit..... a whole different beast to deal with. Why? There can and will be dozens of different permutations to attack. Some easy, some hard. AND...you will be sifting through the data warehouse millions and millions of times and in effect creating a whole new db that will be humongous and still won't accurately cover all the human behavior variables. There are some things of course that make excellent "markers" to look for in the data.. and this is likely where they will focus. Even then.. they have to be quite careful, or they get piles of false positives. And the belief that BW keeps a log of "and then he pressed W to move forward for 3.079 seconds between these coordinates between these two time stamps" is a bit... optimistic. Given the number of players on at any one time, there's only so much data that can be saved over time. We aren't talking about every exploit ever. Only this one. All they would need to verify this exploit with certainty is a record of the boss kills and a record of the loot drops. There's no need for anything more specific than that. he did not make an ad hominem argument, perhaps you should acquaint yourself with the definition. calling someone a nonprogrammer is not an insult. its a fact. I deal with people all the time that dont know programming that will tell you just how easy it is..with absolutely zero knowledge of what they are talking about. that is NOT ad-hominem. It is when you are wrong and saying it in place of any sort of counter-argument. I don't exactly believe any of your claims about people you've dealt with either, but rather than mentioning it until now, I stuck to the point. All you've done is talk about how CS didn't help you and your friends, therefore they don't have the ability to do so ever - which I also addressed. And then all you could do is claim I don't know what I'm talking about. Actually I'll give you a little credit, you did ask "can you tell us if bw even keeps the data you claim is easy to search?". Which I answered with proof that they do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ivanhedgehog Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 I stand by my comments. Stop pretending that you do not know that early after release of a new tier... some crafters will RE race to get the schematics ASAP so they can be first in the market. Why bother? Because until the schematics become common, they can charge 500-1000% premium prices (vs.. what those same items will be priced at when they are no longer top tier). Often they are supported and enhanced by a guild behind them helping feed them what they need to be able to craft then craft and premium price. The objective is to scalp the market and to control prices through scarcity. They are allowed to do so by the way.. I get that. But it does not mean that I need be sympathetic to them losing the market in this cycle so quickly. I see it as pricing karma for them. Agreed. I do not see them as victims. any more than artificers were victims when bw released cartel crystals..we lost out on the crystal market, but oh well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ivanhedgehog Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 (edited) Trivial is a relative term. It also depends on what kind of access is allowed to the information. My comments assume that a person has full access to everything he needs without needing to go through any red tape, so to speak. I realize that's generally not how it works in a large company, but either way, such obstacles would only slow the process down, not make it impossible. We aren't talking about every exploit ever. Only this one. All they would need to verify this exploit with certainty is a record of the boss kills and a record of the loot drops. There's no need for anything more specific than that. It is when you are wrong and saying it in place of any sort of counter-argument. I don't exactly believe any of your claims about people you've dealt with either, but rather than mentioning it until now, I stuck to the point. All you've done is talk about how CS didn't help you and your friends, therefore they don't have the ability to do so ever - which I also addressed. And then all you could do is claim I don't know what I'm talking about. Actually I'll give you a little credit, you did ask "can you tell us if bw even keeps the data you claim is easy to search?". Which I answered with proof that they do. you have proven that you have no idea no collected data such as this is gathered or stored. you showed absolutely no proof that they can pull up that data. the cs tech could easily have just added the gear just to get rid of the ticket. he might have all sorts of data from your gaming session or he could have little or none. his action is not proof of either. data points to be gathered must be set up in advance. the metrics the devs use were most likely put in place during development, or added as they were needed. you cant go back and collect data that passed by uncollected. as a previous poster said, they dont record every mouse click that happens. data storage costs money. Edited January 12, 2015 by ivanhedgehog Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bradypan Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 I cleared SM ToS and Ravagers during the Early Access week, and with both final boss kills, there was no loot. Sent in two tickets to CS, the first one after I killed Coratanni, the second after I killed Revan. it took them a week or so, but they gave the missing Elite comms to every in the team, and they randomed out the rest of the drops, including the exonium, the unassembled resurrected chest piece/main hand, and the random gear drop. They knew exactly when I downed the boss, they knew exactly who was in the raid team at the time of the kill (as they were able to give out Elite Comms to the correct 8 players as well as the random loot rolls), and they knew that we received no gear, otherwise they would never have just given out gear because we told them no gear dropped. This happened to other teams within my guild, with the exact same result, exactly as Tait said would happen: CS would check the kill and that we got no gear, after which they would distribute the gear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kryand Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 (edited) you have proven that you have no idea no collected data such as this is gathered or stored. you showed absolutely no proof that they can pull up that data. the cs tech could easily have just added the gear just to get rid of the ticket. he might have all sorts of data from your gaming session or he could have little or none. his action is not proof of either. data points to be gathered must be set up in advance. the metrics the devs use were most likely put in place during development, or added as they were needed. you cant go back and collect data that passed by uncollected. as a previous poster said, they dont record every mouse click that happens. data storage costs money. As the poster above me just said... they do in fact log the information I said. The raid leader did not tell CS who was in our group, just the time and date that we killed the boss. Yet somehow, all 8 members of the group received their comms and some of them received Massassi/Resurrected loot pieces at random. The only way they could know which 8 people to give the rewards to is by looking it up in some sort of boss kill log. QED Edited January 12, 2015 by Kryand Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eartharioch Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 I stand by my comments. Stop pretending that you do not know that early after release of a new tier... some crafters will RE race to get the schematics ASAP so they can be first in the market. Why bother? Because until the schematics become common, they can charge 500-1000% premium prices (vs.. what those same items will be priced at when they are no longer top tier). Often they are supported and enhanced by a guild behind them helping feed them what they need to be able to craft then craft and premium price. The objective is to scalp the market and to control prices through scarcity. They are allowed to do so by the way.. I get that. But it does not mean that I need be sympathetic to them losing the market in this cycle so quickly. I see it as pricing karma for them. OK, so you meant predatory pricing exactly how I thought you meant it, and your attitude is exactly as sad as I said it was. You used a lot of negative words to describe them, but you didn't actually list a single reason what you are saying they do is wrong. You are the one who always talks about "the market" and how people don't understand business basics. Early adopters pay more. You don't want to pay more, don't adopt early. But don't cry about it and act like it's ok for people who are clearly not playing fair to disrupt the system because you didn't have to wait as long to get what you wanted. "First they took away the Predatory Pricers..." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KingFink Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 I would just like to come back and update this thread to say that only one of my Slovakian researchers was devoured by the great Jub-Jub beast, and were able to secure the Holy Grail. It was entrusted to the Archangel Gabriel, and he let me know that the clues to the next piece of lost Holy Treasure (My bet is on the Menorah of King Solomon!) will be contained within the depths of the Exploit Bioware is weaving into their next set of OPs! Hope new content comes soon, the fate of the world may depend on it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edzew Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 Possibly because of the subset of those who are acting outraged, and are claiming it's because "cheating is wrong" and acting all righteous, but who are actually just cheesed off because their ability to set ridiculous prices got tanked by the early increase in supply. oops there ya go again!!! lumping a group of people up and making accusations again!! wait wait let me guess im a witch hunter now right?? o o o im a white knight?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max_Killjoy Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 (edited) oops there ya go again!!! lumping a group of people up and making accusations again!! wait wait let me guess im a witch hunter now right?? o o o im a white knight?? Did you miss the word "subset"? I even italicized it in the post you're responding to, so that you couldn't miss it. How is it that you fail to comprehend that this means "not all, only some, this is not a blanket statement"? Is our education system failing our kids that badly, that words like "some", "many", "subset", "certain", "a few", and so on simply fail to register in their brains when reading? Are you so angry that you're only seeing the trigger words in my posts? Is English your second language? Or does the hyper-paced all-in no-middle-ground public "discourse" that we've sunken to condition people to ignore conditionals and limiters and so on? (Notice that all those statements end in question marks -- if none of them are true for you, then you need not take them as statements about you. They are QUESTIONS, not DECLARATIONS.) Edited January 12, 2015 by Max_Killjoy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielearley Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 you have proven that you have no idea no collected data such as this is gathered or stored. you showed absolutely no proof that they can pull up that data. the cs tech could easily have just added the gear just to get rid of the ticket. he might have all sorts of data from your gaming session or he could have little or none. his action is not proof of either. data points to be gathered must be set up in advance. the metrics the devs use were most likely put in place during development, or added as they were needed. you cant go back and collect data that passed by uncollected. as a previous poster said, they dont record every mouse click that happens. data storage costs money. There would be no reason to collect data if they had no way to report on it. As they have already published information on how many things killed since launch we can assume they are collecting the data. On the fact they have collected the Data and have reported on it, leads me to believe they have a reporting tool. As someone who writes business objects reports I understand how powerful they can be if you put the right query togeather. Simple Query Boss Achievement not isnull Group Size 16man less than 3 This will show anyone who exploited as you could never beat the boss with less than 3. If people went in with more than 2 they were stupid so deserve some pity. They should also be able to see what items they got, so there is no reason these Items can't be removed. I understand that there will be a few accounts where they did the reverse engineering to get Schematics, but there will be fewer of these. So these accounts can be checked with greater detail and be punished accordingly. However personally I don't expect anything to be done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CJUK Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 the hall of heroes will be filled tomorrow come Tuesday the 13, the day of retribution Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KingFink Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 the hall of heroes will be filled tomorrow come Tuesday the 13, the day of retribution Entirely willing to bet that Tuesdday the 13th will come and go with minimal fanfare. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leehambly Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 Entirely willing to bet that Tuesdday the 13th will come and go with minimal fanfare. I don't know, man, 4 hour maintenance for a very minor release? Seems to me they are doing something special. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wainot-keel Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 There would be no reason to collect data if they had no way to report on it. As they have already published information on how many things killed since launch we can assume they are collecting the data. On the fact they have collected the Data and have reported on it, leads me to believe they have a reporting tool. As someone who writes business objects reports I understand how powerful they can be if you put the right query togeather. Simple Query Boss Achievement not isnull Group Size 16man less than 3 This will show anyone who exploited as you could never beat the boss with less than 3. If people went in with more than 2 they were stupid so deserve some pity. They should also be able to see what items they got, so there is no reason these Items can't be removed. I understand that there will be a few accounts where they did the reverse engineering to get Schematics, but there will be fewer of these. So these accounts can be checked with greater detail and be punished accordingly. However personally I don't expect anything to be done. Perhaps it doesn't matter if the items were "destroyed" for RE purpuses. Everything in the database is persisted. The token from the "boss", the piece when you trade that token. Just because you don't see it anymore in your inventory means it's forever gone from the database, it just changed its internal state. Maybe all this temporary data is purged with maintenance, but there hasn't been one since this exploit started to being abused. I'm pretty confident they have the means to know exactly what people did and how many times, how many toons, etc.. Though like you, I think nothing will happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LadyVix Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 2 weeks ago? Yes. But not now, especially after Bioware's post. It's being discussed in general chats, guilds TS channels and everywhere possible, especially as the timeframe to "benefit" from the exploit is closing and people are deciding whether they're gonna do it or not. Last but not least, if u took a short trip to Rishi entrance today and saw the lag from all the people crammed in front, u would know it's a mass exploit party at this stage. Cheaters never cease to amaze me. If Bioware needs a group to crucify to get their point across, those that continued to do it after the Bioware warning should be the first to go. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pagy Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 Is our education system failing our kids that badly, that words like "some", "many", "subset", "certain", "a few", and so on simply fail to register in their brains when reading? it doesnt register. its always black/white, with me or against me...my team vs your team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthTHC Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 Who here remembers picking up stacks and stacks of Platinum Scarabs in the Mayoi mage tower? Good times there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JudasGray Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 Just running the Ravagers op normal is not the exploit. If you don't know what the exploit is, you aren't doing it, so you're safe. Fair enough - just keep seeing the camp of "ignorance of the law doesn't excuse breaking it" and all that - just trying to enjoy the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danielearley Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 Fair enough - just keep seeing the camp of "ignorance of the law doesn't excuse breaking it" and all that - just trying to enjoy the game. In this case you have to be totally aware that what you are doing is exploiting, this has no grey area's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TravelersWay Posted January 12, 2015 Share Posted January 12, 2015 In this case you have to be totally aware that what you are doing is exploiting, this has no grey area's. That's the problem I have with BW's approach to exploits, which in all fairness is not unique among developers. The theory is that if people aren't widely aware of an exploit it won't be abused by as many people who are playing the game. The problem is that what is and isn't an exploit isn't always as clear cut as it is in this instance (assuming it is clear cut, as I also don't know the exact nature of this exploit). Quite frankly, there should be no problem with a dev outlining the nature of any exploit once they are aware of one, so that the playerbase is informed of what the exploit is, with the clear understanding that if anyone exploits the exploit from that point forward, permanent banning will be a result. This way it avoids confusion and the punishment is clearly outlined and thusly justified. Quite frankly, this method should stop the amount of exploiting instead of increasing it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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