regarding punishment for exploit

[Grayseven]

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.

 

Actually, exploits are extremely cut and dried. Every MMO I've been involved with has defined exploit in the same manner: Taking advantage of a flaw, bug or system that is not intended by the game and doing so for personal gain.

 

Personal gain means a lot of things, but in MMO terms it mostly means gain to your character.

 

At no time should an exploit ever be broadcast, simply because it adds more work to clean it up for players that can't resist the temptation. No matter how widely spread an exploit is amongst the player base, keeping it quiet prevents further abuses...especially if it is easy to close the exploit but not easy to figure out who benefited from it.

 

If you discover any way to gain something from an MMO that is not an intended part of the system...and for most people playing MMO's the systems are pretty well known...you have probably found an exploit. But it is up to the Dev's to decide if it truly is and until you get feedback about it, you'd better not be doing it.

[DarthTHC]

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.

 

"Here's the exploit. Here's how to do it. If you do it after this point in time, you will be permanently banned from the game."

 

-- The Proper Dev Response

[leihn]

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.

 

You could in theory stumble upon the exploit unknowingly, but you would know right away if it happened and you gained the unfair advantages and then you're supposed to report it right away.

 

I don't necessarily agree with people saying you must intend to have been exploiting to stumble upon it, I think there's actually a lot of other reasons people could (and might have initially) stumbled upon it.

[jrwellworth]

the hall of heroes will be filled tomorrow come Tuesday the 13, the day of retribution

 

Maybe, but maybe not. From what is being said, those receiving punishment have already received emails from BW, at least some people on the Harbinger have stated they already got their email stating the what/when/why. Now of course, this is just people saying they got emails, it doesn't mean they really got them or that that is what will happen. I do find that something like that would be more appropriate. Some of you may want blood and to sit back on Tuesday and watch, i don't know what, whatever it is that was gonna get your lynch mob jollies, so I hope BW circumvented this by quietly handing out letters that go into effect this week. Now once again, this is not a confirmed thing, just something people had claimed to have gotten. To be really sure, we will of course have to wait till tomorrow, but even then I don't think there will be any show. Folks will just quietly not be here, and we will all move on.

[DawnAskham]

"Here's the exploit. Here's how to do it. If you do it after this point in time, you will be permanently banned from the game."

 

-- The Proper Dev Response

 

The proper dev response is to plug the exploit as soon as possible, and seeing EA is in the same peer group as Activision Blizzard, my expectation would be hotfixing exploits such as this in hours, days top.

 

We as players should not excuse the lack of action on the part of EA staff in correcting or plugging this exploit weeks ago.

[MorgenBlue]

In an off topic note this is this 35th (soon to be 34th) most replied to thread ever in General Discussion.

[DarthDymond]

In an off topic note this is this 35th (soon to be 34th) most replied to thread ever in General Discussion.

To be fair, a lot of the threads with higher reply counts were from back at the time when there were about four times as many subscribers.

[LordArtemis]

To be fair, a lot of the threads with higher reply counts were from back at the time when there were about four times as many subscribers.

 

....and a dev team that was more resistant to QoL changes. Back then a few of the most popular threads were the AC change, SSSP (GSF) and Appearance tab threads. You had quite a few players back then that campaigned against QoL changes as well, and that usually fed the threads pretty well over time.

[howieloader]

Maybe, but maybe not. From what is being said, those receiving punishment have already received emails from BW, at least some people on the Harbinger have stated they already got their email stating the what/when/why. Now of course, this is just people saying they got emails, it doesn't mean they really got them or that that is what will happen. I do find that something like that would be more appropriate. Some of you may want blood and to sit back on Tuesday and watch, i don't know what, whatever it is that was gonna get your lynch mob jollies, so I hope BW circumvented this by quietly handing out letters that go into effect this week. Now once again, this is not a confirmed thing, just something people had claimed to have gotten. To be really sure, we will of course have to wait till tomorrow, but even then I don't think there will be any show. Folks will just quietly not be here, and we will all move on.

 

That's interesting for sure...

[TUXs]

The proper dev response is to plug the exploit as soon as possible, and seeing EA is in the same peer group as Activision Blizzard, my expectation would be hotfixing exploits such as this in hours, days top.

 

We as players should not excuse the lack of action on the part of EA staff in correcting or plugging this exploit weeks ago.

Exactly. They pull the servers down, remove the "loot" and bring the servers back up with a note to contact CS if you legitimately don't receive the intended loot. The 16 players who deserved the loot would have been a breeze for CS to handle. Instead...they did nothing and are still doing nothing until tomorrow hopefully. It's a joke.

[Nadru]

Actually, exploits are extremely cut and dried. Every MMO I've been involved with has defined exploit in the same manner: Taking advantage of a flaw, bug or system that is not intended by the game and doing so for personal gain.

 

Personal gain means a lot of things, but in MMO terms it mostly means gain to your character.

 

The TOS says doing something the devs did not intend. This leaves a lot of confusion when the devs do not say what they intend. Certainly they do not intend for you to loot an operation boss for a boss you did not kill. However, I would also say the devs do not intend for 55 HM flashpoint bosses to drop elite comms while 60 HM flashpoint bosses drop basic comms. Either running 55 HMs are an exploit, or 60 HMs are not dropping the correct loot. We as players do not know.

[DarthDymond]

The proper dev response is to plug the exploit as soon as possible, and seeing EA is in the same peer group as Activision Blizzard, my expectation would be hotfixing exploits such as this in hours, days top.

 

We as players should not excuse the lack of action on the part of EA staff in correcting or plugging this exploit weeks ago.

Is the argument that SWTOR should be receiving the same amount of support from EA that WoW receives from Activision-Blizzard? Because as a SWTOR fan I would love that to be the case, but in reality it seems unlikely.

 

Even if Activision and EA are in the same peer group, WoW and SWTOR occupy radically different positions in their respective portfolios. WoW is one of Activision's flagship games, whereas SWTOR is decidedly not one of EA's, and with WoW bringing in about 600% of the revenue that SWTOR does, EA probably shouldn't be matching Activision's commitment.

 

Now if any individual player wants to say "I'm not willing to spend money on a game that is not being supported well-enough that it can promptly hotfix these sorts of issues", that's certainly their prerogative to do so. I just don't think WoW's an accurate measuring stick to use.

[TUXs]

Actually, exploits are extremely cut and dried. Every MMO I've been involved with has defined exploit in the same manner: Taking advantage of a flaw, bug or system that is not intended by the game and doing so for personal gain.

 

Personal gain means a lot of things, but in MMO terms it mostly means gain to your character.

 

At no time should an exploit ever be broadcast, simply because it adds more work to clean it up for players that can't resist the temptation. No matter how widely spread an exploit is amongst the player base, keeping it quiet prevents further abuses...especially if it is easy to close the exploit but not easy to figure out who benefited from it.

 

If you discover any way to gain something from an MMO that is not an intended part of the system...and for most people playing MMO's the systems are pretty well known...you have probably found an exploit. But it is up to the Dev's to decide if it truly is and until you get feedback about it, you'd better not be doing it.

 

When 3.0 hit, they changed all of our elite/ult comms into Basic comms, to make running the new Ops on higher difficulties more desirable. Because of the way they removed all of our old comms, I believe that getting Elite/Ultimate comms from extremely easy Ops that can be run in 16m with 12 players, is "unintended"...otherwise what the hell was the actual purpose of converting them? I had them both capped again in 2 weeks.

 

Do you believe that this is exploiting?! I truly do not believe Bioware meant for it to remain how it is. Is it bugged, working as intended or an exploit?! You claim it's cut and dry...so what is this situation exactly?

[tolaez]

In an off topic note this is this 35th (soon to be 34th) most replied to thread ever in General Discussion.

 

I thought this would have exactly zero responses when I made it. Just wanted to offer a potential positive option to reduce the amount of bans needed.

 

The amount of silliness in this thread is facepalm worthy. I hope BW is able to extract something useful from it somehow.

[dscount]

When 3.0 hit, they changed all of our elite/ult comms into Basic comms, to make running the new Ops on higher difficulties more desirable. Because of the way they removed all of our old comms, I believe that getting Elite/Ultimate comms from extremely easy Ops that can be run in 16m with 12 players, is "unintended"...otherwise what the hell was the actual purpose of converting them? I had them both capped again in 2 weeks.

 

Do you believe that this is exploiting?! I truly do not believe Bioware meant for it to remain how it is. Is it bugged, working as intended or an exploit?! You claim it's cut and dry...so what is this situation exactly?

 

Totally this... we get okay Ultimate Comm's in the new operations, but you can just go back and do the OLD operations for more/easy Ultimate Comm's and get your 150 max pretty easy. Why? I should not be able to have a 198 Comm's Offhand in the first week by running OLD content. That surely couldn't have been the intention with all the effort to gut how we get ultimate comms in game now.

Edited January 12, 2015 by dscount

[TUXs]

I hope BW is able to extract something useful from it somehow.

Hopefully exploiter names!!!!

 

If you aren't 100% in favor of EXTREME and HARSH punishments, including RL punishments like reporting them for probable credit card fraud (we can't take any chances...a cheat is a cheat) and calling local police departments to report possible domestic abuse (these people have already abused the system), then you must be one of them...and THAT is what Bioware needs to gain from this thread.

 

 

 

(I kid of course)

[Frybert]

I thought this would have exactly zero responses when I made it. Just wanted to offer a potential positive option to reduce the amount of bans needed.

 

The amount of silliness in this thread is facepalm worthy. I hope BW is able to extract something useful from it somehow.

 

Laughter is important, I'm sure.

[Sindariel]

Maybe, but maybe not. From what is being said, those receiving punishment have already received emails from BW, at least some people on the Harbinger have stated they already got their email stating the what/when/why.

 

Those who claim that they've gotten a mail are just plain trolls who want to spread fear in the community.

 

NO game company ever (Bioware included) will send you a mail with detailed information about what you have done, when and where, yet alone send you a warning in advance so you can move all your stuff to another account.

They just close your account and send you a standardized mail with the reason, afterwards.

Edited January 12, 2015 by Sindariel

[PatT]

^this

 

Considering how long this expoit exists probably many endgame players at least tried it once. If they ban everyone they will literally kill the game.

 

No. known about it for a while. didn't try it once. Loathe cheaters.

[Elracor]

When 3.0 hit, they changed all of our elite/ult comms into Basic comms, to make running the new Ops on higher difficulties more desirable. Because of the way they removed all of our old comms, I believe that getting Elite/Ultimate comms from extremely easy Ops that can be run in 16m with 12 players, is "unintended"...otherwise what the hell was the actual purpose of converting them? I had them both capped again in 2 weeks.

 

Do you believe that this is exploiting?! I truly do not believe Bioware meant for it to remain how it is. Is it bugged, working as intended or an exploit?! You claim it's cut and dry...so what is this situation exactly?

 

The missing factor here IMO is 'normal gameplay', if you are playing in a way players would be playing even without the exploit.

 

Even if getting ultimate comms from old operations is unintended, you're earning them from normal gameplay. Doing old operations is normal gameplay, and something that was done a lot with lvl50 ops when lvl55 was the cap.

 

Playing PvP with Starship parts equipped for extra bolster is a bug, but it's also normal gameplay. Since Starship parts are pretty much required for that minigame you're not doing something wrong by having Starship Parts equipped.

 

Of what I understood of the current exploit, it is not triggered by normal gameplay but by doing something you really wouldn't do if not for the exploit.

Edited January 12, 2015 by MFollin

[dscount]

Well at least it's being patched tonight. The witch hunt I'm sure will continue even after all the exploiters have been burned at the virtual stake.

 

I mean what will all the haters have to do after a majority of the servers are empty as requested? At least the LAG problem should go away. OH yea.. they will complain about nobody is online to run stuff with. LOL

[LordArtemis]

Banning every end game player that exists would likely kill end game. However, the game itself would likely not even flinch.

 

We are probably not talking about a huge portion of the gaming population here. Raiders and PVP players likely make up a small portion of the playerbase. So the claim that mass bannings for this exploit would "kill the game" is a ludicrous and unrealistic notion IMO.

 

The vast majority of casuals never see OPs, likely never would or have participated in this sort of exploit, and would not be affected by any "exploiter" purge.

 

However...that is not to say that a mass purge would be a wise choice. Certainly any lost revenue is bad for Bioware. And every player is important, even if they belong to a minority in the game.

 

I think, in the end, it is likely that Bioware will handle this properly, tactfully and with the game's well being in mind.

[BuriDogshin]

Those who claim that they've gotten a mail are just plain trolls who want to spread fear in the community.

 

NO game company ever (Bioware included) will send you a mail with detailed information about what you have done, when and where, yet alone send you a warning in advance ... They just close your account and send you a standardized mail afterwards.

 

Did anyone say these emails were sent in advance of an account being suspended or terminated?

There's no reason for BioWare to wait until tomorrow to impose sanctions, and good reasons for them to impose sanctions as soon as they have identified who to sanction and how.

 

For example, my wife saw someone spamming fleet chat trying to sell the exploit. If someone reported the spam, that player could and many think should have been sanctioned immediately after BioWare finished processing the spam report.

[eartharioch]

Well at least it's being patched tonight. The witch hunt I'm sure will continue even after all the exploiters have been burned at the virtual stake.

 

I mean what will all the haters have to do after a majority of the servers are empty as requested? At least the LAG problem should go away. OH yea.. they will complain about nobody is online to run stuff with. LOL

 

Just 'cause paranoid conspiracy theory is fun, what if banning exploiters (and thus reducing the server population) IS BW's solution to the lag problem -- it would explain why they let the exploit go on for so long.

[TUXs]

The missing factor here IMO is 'normal gameplay', whether you are playing in a way that would not be vastly different without the exploit.

 

Even if getting ultimate comms from old operations is unintended, you're earning them from normal gameplay. Doing old operations is normal gameplay, and something that was done a lot with lvl50 ops when lvl55 was the cap.

 

Playing PvP with Starship parts equipped for extra bolster is a bug, but it's also normal gameplay. Since Starship parts are pretty much required for that minigame you're not doing something wrong by having Starship Parts equipped.

 

Of what I understood of the current exploit, it is not triggered by normal gameplay but by doing something you really wouldn't do if not for the exploit.

No. You know it's wrong. It's black and white according to the other guy. This absolutely, 100%, seems "unintended". Doing it, via an intended method or not, doesn't make it 'not an exploit'. There's no less cheating just because it takes you longer...it's still seems like a clearly unintentional thing.