Ravagers Exploit Action Update

[Pagy]

It is pretty clear from simple observation of their public comments that they have deep and broad data gathering and the analytics to go with it.

link?

[Theeko]

No, the Ravagers exploit didn't provide unlimited amounts of anything -- except fuel for the forum fires.

 

Tell that to all the people that looted 198s constantly, and all the high end materials used to make the mods/relics to be able to sell on the Gtn to ruin the economy

[BuriDogshin]

were any of these large internet applications SWTOR or built on the same game engine?

because i've never heard anything so hilarious.

I agree with your general assessment, but if you've never heard anything so hilarious, you need to read more of the forum.

[Andryah]

were any of these large internet applications SWTOR or built on the same game engine?

 

because i've never heard anything so hilarious.

 

You are way out of your depth here. And the engine is not part of the discussion here.

 

Enterprise data warehouses and analytics reporting are standard fare these days for any major company that does internet transactions and requires audit of the details of those transactions. From an analytics perspective, there is no material difference between an MMO server farm and any other server farm doing transactions across the internet. Only the details change, and the specific method in which you choose to probe/gather/store/analyze the data.

[leihn]

I think people who think there is an objectively correct outcome here are being idealistic.

 

But I will say, if you go too lenient, not only do you risk people continuing to exploit, but you will have people who didn't exploit feel like they missed out on the chance to exploit. There are always people who genuinely believe in the ethical course of action but also those that are deterred from the unethical course of action through threat of punishment. Those are the ones that become bitter and more likely to exploit in the future when they see previous exploiters go unpunished.

 

Too stringent is also dangerous, people think it's not wide spread, but several of the leading guilds on our server, which is one that is low pop and did not even have an 8M HM clear of Coratanni (someone had to move the lockout here to spread it) have people that I've noticed have participated in the exploit, I don't know how many times or how much they each did it, but I do know that banning all of them is very likely to cause significant damage to the server's community and stability, and we're one of the less egregious offending servers to my knowledge.

[Pagy]

Hardly. It's pretty obvious the kind of tools they *need* to have to manage a game such as this. I guess some people just can't make the logical conclusions needed to understand... well anything.

wait are you making the assumption that CS agents have all the tools and information they need?

 

i take it you haven't actually called customer service for any company ever in the history of customer service?

 

what agents typically need and what they are typically given are diametrically opposed

[Jandi]

were any of these large internet applications SWTOR or built on the same game engine?

 

because i've never heard anything so hilarious.

 

You can't seriously be this clueless?

 

Tell me, explain to me, what does the ENGINE have to do with ANYTHING.

[Pagy]

You are way out of your depth here. And the engine is not part of the discussion here.

so you dont know then. i'm a little disappointed.

Enterprise data warehouses and analytics reporting are standard fare these days for any major company that does internet transactions and requires audit of the details of those transactions. From an analytics perspective, there is no material difference between an MMO server farm and any other server farm doing transactions across the internet. Only the details change, and the specific method in which you choose to probe/gather/store/analyze the data.

i just read this out loud to a coworker, had a great laugh. thanks for that.

 

i'd be interested to see your diagrams of how the swtor game works, it should be a hoot. i mean between the webservers, app servers, databases...then the swtor admin tool training manual would be good to share too.

 

i'll wait patiently.

[Jandi]

wait are you making the assumption that CS agents have all the tools and information they need?

 

No, you are making a hyperbolic assuption I am.

 

i take it you haven't actually called customer service for any company ever in the history of customer service?

 

Then making said assumption a statement of fact in order to discredit what I said.

 

what agents typically need and what they are typically given are diametrically opposed

 

Then use the same fact based on hyperbolic assuption to belittle me.

 

/golfclap

[Jadescythe]

I think people who think there is an objectively correct outcome here are being idealistic.

 

But I will say, if you go too lenient, not only do you risk people continuing to exploit, but you will have people who didn't exploit feel like they missed out on the chance to exploit. There are always people who genuinely believe in the ethical course of action but also those that are deterred from the unethical course of action through threat of punishment. Those are the ones that become bitter and more likely to exploit in the future when they see previous exploiters go unpunished.

 

Too stringent is also dangerous, people think it's not wide spread, but several of the leading guilds on our server, which is one that is low pop and did not even have an 8M HM clear of Coratanni (someone had to move the lockout here to spread it) have people that I've noticed have participated in the exploit, I don't know how many times or how much they each did it, but I do know that banning all of them is very likely to cause significant damage to the server's community and stability, and we're one of the less egregious offending servers to my knowledge.

 

Punishments won't have any effect on server populations unless players quit (which they will threaten to do, but won't follow up on). I could maybe see significant bans being given to players that started the fire and transferred to fan the flames. Everyone else who ran through a couple times to get a leg up will have what they gained removed if possible and based on previous account actions get anwhere between infraction points to a week ban.

 

Anyone expecting more than this is kidding themselves.

[BuriDogshin]

Tell that to all the people that looted 198s constantly,

You used the word "unlimited." "I do not think it means what you think it means." -- Inigo Montoya

 

The Ravagers Exploit could be done at most once in HM and once in SM for each L60 toon each week.

That's hardly unlimited, and it's not even very much stuff unless a very large number of people did the exploit.

Are you saying that the latter is indeed the case? If so, how you figured that out would be nice to hear.

 

Now the Collections Exploit of 2013, that was essentially unlimited, from what I understand of it.

[DawnAskham]

This would set a terrible precedent for the future. Both your and my examples are not really fitting of what actually happened, but exploits in online multiplayer games can have large repurcussions. The issue isn't so much that this particular situation is game breaking, but if you let it pass then why would anyone ever ignore a future exploit?

 

I agree that BW should have caught this much sooner and disabled the entire instance if need be until it was resolved, but that doesn't give a free pass to anyone using it. Not doing anything to these players will not only encourage them to continue to use exploits when they are found in the future, but to go out of their way to find the exploits that may actually lower the enjoyment of the entire player base.

 

If you think anyone will stop complaining about BW doing nothing in a month, you haven't been around long enough. Even now, people complain about things that happened at launch.

 

Sadly complaints fall on deaf ears, as 'we' continue to give them our money month after month, even when we disagree with their choices or actions.

 

Only when players are pushed to the point they chose to discontinue their support of the game over accepting actions, inaction, decisions and such by the SWTOR team, will complaints register with EA.

 

Even then, they may never end up doing those things we want them to do, as they may decide it is in their own best interest to choose a different path.

 

At such a point, our only choices are to accept the service as is, warts and all, or withdraw our support for the game.

 

My concern is with all the issues surrounding 3.0, from the small amount of content to their negligence in dealing with this exploit in a timely manner, to the lingering bugs, tuning and performance issues, along with the recent changes to commendations, they will alienate too many players from every end of the gamer spectrum and end up with a far smaller and fragmented community.

 

And that is not what I'd like to see.

 

I love Star Wars, like the game, and while I know it will never reach its full potential given its poor launch, would like to see it maintain a place as a successful game with ongoing development of quality content.

 

I'd hate to see it shrink even more such that the revenue it provides EA is not enough to justify spending the money required to continue developing the game beyond just a shell of its former self.

Edited January 14, 2015 by DawnAskham

[Pagy]

You can't seriously be this clueless?

 

Tell me, explain to me, what does the ENGINE have to do with ANYTHING.

regardless of how the architecture is designed, the engine determines the tools required to display data or manipulate data. they are at the mercy of what the tools can or can't do.

 

have you ever used a 3rd party game editor before? Everything has limits. Intended or not.

[Briggology]

I just don't understand what the big deal is. So somebody used an ingame exploit. So what? We ALL have to some degree or another. And it increases our game enjoyment. Why isn't that a good thing? Because it isn't fair to the rest of the community? They all have the same access to it as everyone else. And I'm sorry, but we're not all equal. Someone is always going to be better or have more resources or advantages than someone else. If BW thinks it's gone too far, then remove it.

 

I've seen this same argument for 12 years now. It still baffles me why these companies go to such lengths as bans to punish people for enjoying their game. And in many cases, people will pay more to take advantage of such exploits. To me, seems like these games should purposely create these "Konami Code" cheats on purpose.

[leihn]

Punishments won't have any effect on server populations unless players quit (which they will threaten to do, but won't follow up on). I could maybe see significant bans being given to players that started the fire and transferred to fan the flames. Everyone else who ran through a couple times to get a leg up will have what they gained removed if possible and based on previous account actions get anwhere between infraction points to a week ban.

 

Anyone expecting more than this is kidding themselves.

 

This would be an extremely lenient outcome that would probably just encourage people to exploit in the future.

[Andryah]

i'd be interested to see your diagrams of how the swtor game works, it should be a hoot. i mean between the webservers, app servers, databases...then the swtor admin tool training manual would be good to share too.

 

i'll wait patiently.

 

Wait all you like.

 

1) it's not like you are open minded and would listen.. you've proven that now.

 

2) I am not under contract with Bioware, so I have no specific information on their install (which in no way means I do not understand how modern data warehousing and analytics work across internet transaction systems, which an MMO is simply a more complicated one then some).

 

3) I would have to be under NDA for such information, and being under NDA.. I could not disclose it in any event.

Edited January 14, 2015 by CommunityDroidEU
Removed provocativ part

[Andryah]

regardless of how the architecture is designed, the engine determines the tools required to display data or manipulate data. they are at the mercy of what the tools can or can't do.

 

have you ever used a 3rd party game editor before? Everything has limits. Intended or not.

 

Absurd.

 

The game engine =/= the data. The game engine processes transactions, which in turn creates data. Data gathered.... in specialized systems wired in to the back end of the servers is data....not-engine.

 

And comparing enterprise data analytics with a 3rd party game editor..... LMAO!!!!

Edited January 14, 2015 by Andryah

[Pagy]

Shouldn't you be working then, rather then trolling the internet?

 

 

 

Wait all you like.

 

1) it's not like you are open minded and would listen.. you've proven that now.

 

2) I am not under contract with Bioware, so I have no specific information on their install (which in no way means I do not understand how modern data warehousing and analytics work across internet transaction systems, which an MMO is simply a more complicated one then some).

 

3) I would have to be under NDA for such information, and being under NDA.. I could not disclose it in any event.

awwwww that's too bad i mean i was very interested to see the admin tool manual it's too bad you have to keep it to yourself! roflmao

[Jandi]

regardless of how the architecture is designed, the engine determines the tools required to display data or manipulate data. they are at the mercy of what the tools can or can't do.

 

have you ever used a 3rd party game editor before? Everything has limits. Intended or not.

 

LOL

 

Yes, because EA would make a game based on an engine they don't have control over. Brilliant.

 

Your nonsense isn't worth even reading. Bye.

[Pagy]

Absurd.

 

The game engine =/= the data.

 

And comparing enterprise data analytics with a 3rd party game editor..... LMAO!!!!

demonstrating the limits of what an admin tool can do based on its design.

 

still waiting on that swtor admin tool manual btw

[leihn]

Shouldn't you be working then, rather then trolling the internet?

 

 

 

Wait all you like.

 

1) it's not like you are open minded and would listen.. you've proven that now.

 

2) I am not under contract with Bioware, so I have no specific information on their install (which in no way means I do not understand how modern data warehousing and analytics work across internet transaction systems, which an MMO is simply a more complicated one then some).

 

3) I would have to be under NDA for such information, and being under NDA.. I could not disclose it in any event.

 

I worked in Data Warehousing for 5 years for a major financial institution and attended many conferences on Data Warehousing in that time (in business intelligence now).

 

While I don't disagree that what you propose is possible, many companies are simply not at that level in terms of intelligent data usage. Lots of companies don't even have the capacity to collect all the relevant information from their legacy systems in a warehouse architecture.

 

But I think having the information is only the first step of what you're asking for, they've expressed they have various data points, we don't know how comprehensive those points are, and we don't know what kind of manpower they have to interpret that data, nor the accessibility of it to convert it into meaningful results.

[Pagy]

LOL

 

Yes, because EA would make a game based on an engine they don't have control over. Brilliant.

um...not sure what to say here. EA owns HeroEngine?

Your nonsense isn't worth even reading. Bye.

that's a shame

[Frybert]

Punishments won't have any effect on server populations unless players quit (which they will threaten to do, but won't follow up on). I could maybe see significant bans being given to players that started the fire and transferred to fan the flames. Everyone else who ran through a couple times to get a leg up will have what they gained removed if possible and based on previous account actions get anwhere between infraction points to a week ban.

 

Anyone expecting more than this is kidding themselves.

 

I've been saying pretty much the same thing. Of course we'll never really know what, if anything BW actually did to anyone.

[lightSaberAddiCt]

wait are you making the assumption that CS agents have all the tools and information they need?

 

i take it you haven't actually called customer service for any company ever in the history of customer service?

 

what agents typically need and what they are typically given are diametrically opposed

 

What you seem to be having an issue understanding, is that CS is the lowest form of support, they just pass on issues to the support tier above them. They basically are given a script of replies and that is it. Now, I am not sure if you are just not aware of this, or selectively not aware so you can continue to try and troll andry.

[Pagy]

I worked in Data Warehousing for 5 years for a major financial institution and attended many conferences on Data Warehousing in that time (in business intelligence now).

 

While I don't disagree that what you propose is possible, many companies are simply not at that level in terms of intelligent data usage. Lots of companies don't even have the capacity to collect all the relevant information from their legacy systems in a warehouse architecture.

 

But I think having the information is only the first step of what you're asking for, they've expressed they have various data points, we don't know how comprehensive those points are, and we don't know what kind of manpower they have to interpret that data, nor the accessibility of it to convert it into meaningful results.

trolling aside, i think its important to take into account that there is a difference between viewing transactional logs based on mapped attributes and fields, and manipulating the db.

 

the db is likely delicately fed in a designed fashion. monitoring a log isnt the same as manipulating the data.

 

food for thought: why does a CSR mail you a commendation instead of it appearing in your inventory.