So Bioware, about people bypassing the locked part on Ziost to fight the OP Boss etc.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Maybe I should have asked "At what point do we stop looking for ways and excuses to blame everyone BUT those guilty of exploiting or otherwise breaking the rules?"

 

I see far too many posts attempting to blame BW when ultimately it is up the player and their integrity to not put themselves into a position which would require BW to take punitive action. Apparently, though, it is far easier for the guilty to take the Han Solo and Lando Calrissian approach and claim "It's not my fault."

 

Did BW do everything a reasonable person would expect in this situation? IMO, they did. They were advised of an exploit and fixed it. Was there a second exploitable way to get into the area that they missed and that no one reported? Yes. I do not expect every possible scenario to be caught by the devs. I DO, however, expect a certain level of integrity from the player base, as naive as that may be.

 

It is my understanding that BW confirmed that it was not a bug and that the area in question was not meant to be accessible. It is also my understanding that chat on most servers was full of people stating that BW had given confirmation that it was not a bug. At that point, I would expect that any reasonable gamer with any sense of integrity would wait until the area was officially released and not to use any exploitative means to gain access to that area. Those that chose to exploit and enter the restricted area deserve every bit of whatever action BW decides to take against them, IMO.

 

I was onto this quite quick. Read somewhere about there being new main hand gear on offer ( and I assumed I could also farm the mod/enhances for other gear if need be ) by beating the boss but that was after I read my daily devlog scroll that this area was supposed to be locked until Monday.

 

A quick read on reddit ( which was still obscure of details ) had one prominent user of these forums who uses the same name there posting about it in an older post about it being a bug in the PTS so I then figured if it was a bug in PTS it's probably a bug promoted to exploit here.

 

Thus I made this topic and got this fast response from Eric, thanks for that Eric. Now I know not to run this exploit. If however this was like the slot machine and it was deemed not an exploit I would be all over it.

 

However as I maintain, if BW want to be completely blameless in this they need to put something on the login page - just a quick "important information on 3.2 patch, click here" with a link to the forums dev post. It's all it takes. They do it for patch notes so why not important info like this?

 

Question though ... if Bioware had not answered at all in this thread ... how many of you would have done this? Personally I still would have erred on the side of caution though I would be super tempted by a lack of reply and if no reply by say Sunday I'd probably go for it assuming it must be safe and "ok".

[Danery]

Maybe I should have asked "At what point do we stop looking for ways and excuses to blame everyone BUT those guilty of exploiting or otherwise breaking the rules?"

 

I see far too many posts attempting to blame BW when ultimately it is up the player and their integrity to not put themselves into a position which would require BW to take punitive action. Apparently, though, it is far easier for the guilty to take the Han Solo and Lando Calrissian approach and claim "It's not my fault."

 

Did BW do everything a reasonable person would expect in this situation? IMO, they did. They were advised of an exploit and fixed it. Was there a second exploitable way to get into the area that they missed and that no one reported? Yes. I do not expect every possible scenario to be caught by the devs. I DO, however, expect a certain level of integrity from the player base, as naive as that may be.

 

It is my understanding that BW confirmed that it was not a bug and that the area in question was not meant to be accessible. It is also my understanding that chat on most servers was full of people stating that BW had given confirmation that it was not a bug. At that point, I would expect that any reasonable gamer with any sense of integrity would wait until the area was officially released and not to use any exploitative means to gain access to that area. Those that chose to exploit and enter the restricted area deserve every bit of whatever action BW decides to take against them, IMO.

 

Don't ya know these people were in 16m groups looking for datacrons and practicing their epic leap skillz. Its not their fault they were doing it in an area that was clearly blocked off with a gate. They were just playing mountain men looking for that datacron that no one ever even hinted at being there. Then when they climbed to the top, they accidentally stumbled into an instance and pulled a champion boss, so at that point it became self defense. And of course, at that point the game started bugging out. forcing them to swap to alts, inviting people to group and summoning people, then auto-running them back into the instance and forcing them to defend themselves against the same champion on alts. It wasnt their fault Bioware made all of those bugs.

[FerkWork]

I was onto this quite quick. Read somewhere about there being new main hand gear on offer ( and I assumed I could also farm the mod/enhances for other gear if need be ) by beating the boss but that was after I read my daily devlog scroll that this area was supposed to be locked until Monday.

 

A quick read on reddit ( which was still obscure of details ) had one prominent user of these forums who uses the same name there posting about it in an older post about it being a bug in the PTS so I then figured if it was a bug in PTS it's probably a bug promoted to exploit here.

 

Thus I made this topic and got this fast response from Eric, thanks for that Eric. Now I know not to run this exploit. If however this was like the slot machine and it was deemed not an exploit I would be all over it.

 

However as I maintain, if BW want to be completely blameless in this they need to put something on the login page - just a quick "important information on 3.2 patch, click here" with a link to the forums dev post. It's all it takes. They do it for patch notes so why not important info like this?

 

Question though ... if Bioware had not answered at all in this thread ... how many of you would have done this? Personally I still would have erred on the side of caution though I would be super tempted by a lack of reply and if no reply by say Sunday I'd probably go for it assuming it must be safe and "ok".

 

No because common sense tells me that I shouldn't be there as I have no quest or whatever for it ergo it is not for me. I don't need someone to tell me what is common sense.

[midianlord]

[...]

 

Do you realize, that most of the people that attempted this exploit, may just quit the game on their own upon the realization that the work they put into killing Revan HM was for naught?

 

[...]

 

Just as an aside:

 

Why should people who would choose to cheat/exploit, regardless of rationalisations, quitting the game be a bad thing?

 

Good riddance.

 

(And the rest of your sanctimonious post blaming everyone but the cheaters. How pathetically typical. So, what's in your inventory today, hmmmm?)

Edited May 1, 2015 by midianlord

[midianlord]

Don't ya know these people were in 16m groups looking for datacrons and practicing their epic leap skillz. Its not their fault they were doing it in an area that was clearly blocked off with a gate. They were just playing mountain men looking for that datacron that no one ever even hinted at being there. Then when they climbed to the top, they accidentally stumbled into an instance and pulled a champion boss, so at that point it became self defense. And of course, at that point the game started bugging out. forcing them to swap to alts, inviting people to group and summoning people, then auto-running them back into the instance and forcing them to defend themselves against the same champion on alts. It wasnt their fault Bioware made all of those bugs.

 

Lols, best post I've read yet today!

 

So true, though

[Elracor]

In a game that encourages and rewards platforming and exploration, can you explain the design decision of poorly blocking of an area from access rather than inserting some mechanics that would prevent the bosses from being defeated? It seems like a no brainier.

 

If you truly didn't want this content defeated before a certain date, why did you pick this design? Why not an event trigger or a patch?

 

Or at least have made this post a few days earlier: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=8165263#edit8165263 , so it was clear that the World boss etc are not intended to be available right now.

Mind you, I didn't attempt to get there so I can't really comment how obvious this exploit was, but it seems like something that would have been natural to explain before 3.2 was released.

 

It would perhaps also have reduced the amount of "IS THIS 'END OF ALL' MISSION BUGGED?" spam on Ziost...

Edited May 1, 2015 by MFollin

[Never_Hesitate]

Hey folks,

 

I wanted to give you an update on the Ziost exploit that was discovered. As mentioned in my post yesterday, we took action against those players who had participated and we are continuing to monitor for additional players throughout May 4th. In doing so, we have discovered more players who were exploiting last night. Since we had previously expressed that participation was considered an exploit, we are going to be increasing the action taken against these players. Those players will all be receiving a minimum of a one week suspension, along with the other actions which we listed yesterday.

 

To reiterate, we will continue to monitor this issue throughout the morning of May 4th when the area goes live. Action will continue against players who participate in this exploit. Thank you all for helping us to keep The Old Republic a fun and fair place for everyone.

 

-eric

 

Can't you just shut the instance gate until the 4th?

The method was discovered back on the pts (or the "demo-server" as nothing that's on there ever seems to change until release)

[Halinalle]

In a game that encourages and rewards platforming and exploration, can you explain the design decision of poorly blocking of an area from access rather than inserting some mechanics that would prevent the bosses from being defeated? It seems like a no brainier.

 

If you truly didn't want this content defeated before a certain date, why did you pick this design? Why not an event trigger or a patch?

 

They blocked the path that was reported on PTS.

 

Some players just found another way in...

[Anaesha]

Can't you just shut the instance gate until the 4th?

The method was discovered back on the pts (or the "demo-server" as nothing that's on there ever seems to change until release)

 

Always assuming with not a shred of current info. They FIXED the issue reported on the PTS this exploit is a different method of getting in then what was reported on PTS.

Edited May 1, 2015 by Anaesha

[Methoxa]

People are offering port to boss + carry ppl who are willing to pay. How is that not similiar to the ravager loot exploit? Edited May 1, 2015 by Methoxa

[Nexdine]

Since we had previously expressed that participation was considered an exploit, we are going to be increasing the action taken against these players.

 

Previously expressed! Great! So you mailed all the players in the game? Sent a warning to the people who had already exploited (in game)? Or did you just post it here on the boards, where a minute fraction of the playerbase even reads the threads? I mean, I read them, and post in them, and even hang out on the Reddit subreddit, and I was not even aware the exploit existed until the servers started restarting... because I was busy playing the new content. Not reading boards.

 

I didn't exploit (though how you can call the developers failing to enforce limits they had set by setting them incompetently leading to people playing ahead an exploit is also questionable) but I do understand people who realized they got in and could get going on more new content.

 

I doubt one in a 100 of them realized you'd consider it an exploit. Because communication about the state of the game right now requires people to literally haunt the boards to try to find information, and if they're not that interested in minutiae most probably don't.

 

Obviously it's your game and you can punish people as you will, but this reflects poorly on you more than it does on the players who were just playing the new content and found a way to get at more of it before you deigned to let them...

Edited May 1, 2015 by Nexdine

[Methoxa]

Not to mention those german and french players who might not be able to speak english. No information in the german forum so far.

 

But those players who even sell mainhands deserve a perma ban.

[Halinalle]

Previously expressed! Great! So you mailed all the players in the game? Sent a warning to the people who had already exploited (in game)? Or did you just post it here on the boards, where a minute fraction of the playerbase even reads the threads? I mean, I read them, and post in them, and even hang out on the Reddit subreddit, and I was not even aware the exploit existed until the servers started restarting... because I was busy playing the new content. Not reading boards.

 

- Scroll up

- Click link "First BioWare Post"

- ????

- Profit

[taiiscool]

Always assuming with not a shred of current info. They FIXED the issue reported on the PTS this exploit is a different method of getting in then what was reported on PTS.

 

So essentially its Bioware admitting yet again that it doesn't understand what its doing in terms of creating content and instead of just making an enormous invisible wall to prevent people getting where they don't won't they, they make wild assumptions that its sealed put a rubber stamp on it and they sook when people find a gap and go "hey I wanna explore this."

[Danery]

Where exactly is the players responsibility? I mean come on. It was quite obvious that it was an area we werent supposed to be able to get to. The people doing it knew that. They werent "exploring". Thats hogwash. It was the same exact people who had looked for and found a way in on the PTS, attempting to find a new exploit since the one they found on PTS wasnt available any longer. What they were doing was not exploring. They already knew where they wanted to go, they knew it was an area we werent intended to go yet, and they persisted until they found a way in. The exploiters have no one to blame but themselves. Bioware didnt put a gun to their head and force them to look for this just so they could ban them. The idiots went looking for it themselves. I might have sympathy for those who might have accepted a summons into the area without realizing what it was, but only to a point. The people who were actively looking for a way in deserve no sympathy, and it is not anyone's fault but their own. And it is absolutely ridiculous that people continue to try to claim they were just exploring or looking for datacrons or some other *********

[arttie]

So Eric Musco ... you banned those Bad Guys. You will remove gear comms and achievemnts from them.

But will you also remove character lockout on this boss before Monday?

Or will they remain locked untill Tuesday reset ?

[TUXs]

So, last night Imps were spamming General chat, looking for more to go kill the "NEW OPS BOSS THAT DROPS 204 MH WEAPON" and a guy in my guild, who I'm in Mumble with, is like "Hey, you guys wanna join us?", I'm like "DUDE!!! DO NOT GO!!! You'll get banned", he's all like "Why?"...so I explain it all to him.

 

Bioware...DO A BETTER JOB ABOUT LETTING EVERYONE NOT ON THESE FORUMS KNOW THIS IS AN EXPLOIT!

[TUXs]

Where exactly is the players responsibility? I mean come on. It was quite obvious that it was an area we werent supposed to be able to get to. The people doing it knew that. They werent "exploring". Thats hogwash.

Only true for the first person there, and likely one other person forming the group, everyone else can be a victim of using guild travel. Not everyone is on these forums and I haven't seen anything in-game or on the launcher about this.

[Anaesha]

So essentially its Bioware admitting yet again that it doesn't understand what its doing in terms of creating content and instead of just making an enormous invisible wall to prevent people getting where they don't won't they, they make wild assumptions that its sealed put a rubber stamp on it and they sook when people find a gap and go "hey I wanna explore this."

 

It's easy to complain and imply they don't know how to do their jobs when you have no practical experience in the field isn't it?

 

Why don't you take a trip to BW Austin and show them how it's supposed to be done then Oh great and omnipotent god of the game devs.

[mikebevo]

Bioware...DO A BETTER JOB ABOUT LETTING EVERYONE NOT ON THESE FORUMS KNOW THIS IS AN EXPLOIT!

While I agree, there needs to be better communication. Even if Bioware came to everyone's house and tattooed the information to everyone's forehead, some people would still complain they are innocent because they never looked in the mirror.

 

We are a community, we have to take some responsibility for making our guilds and friend aware of important in game information. Our guild communicated to our members that both ravagers and now this was a exploit. We warned our members of the danger. We planned for backup for raids just in case, but our members seemed to have listened to the warnings as no one was banned.

 

Even when I have seen people in general chat LFG for this, I have seen others warning that it was a exploit.

[TUXs]

While I agree, there needs to be better communication. Even if Bioware came to everyone's house and tattooed the information to everyone's forehead, some people would still complain they are innocent because they never looked in the mirror.

 

We are a community, we have to take some responsibility for making our guilds and friend aware of important in game information. Our guild communicated to our members that both ravagers and now this was a exploit. We warned our members of the danger. We planned for backup for raids just in case, but our members seemed to have listened to the warnings as no one was banned.

 

Even when I have seen people in general chat LFG for this, I have seen others warning that it was a exploit.

I absolutely agree, WE need to self police this too...but once this kid was in their group, he was focused on the Ops chat, not general...I'm just thankful he was in Mumble so I could warn him.

[Anaesha]

I look at it as just another example of WHY one should look at the forums even if it's only once a day. It's better then finding out to late that something you did was against the rules. having said that, I also think it's up to Us as well to make sure the people in our circles know of issues such as this instead of relying solely on BW to inform them.

[Infernixx]

I guarantee that not a single person who goes to down that WB on Ziost did so without knowing what was what.

 

We all know that we can't access the new content until May 4th.

 

We all know that there's a great big wall locking us out of the content.

 

We all know that we're not supposed to be there yet.

 

Anyone claiming ignorance of the issue is lying. And so I have no sympathy for them. Hell, I hope the weekend exploiters get a month ban(following that pattern of 3 day ban, week ban, etc etc etc)

[ZETA_SCORPII]

I guarantee that not a single person who goes to down that WB on Ziost did so without knowing what was what.

 

We all know that we can't access the new content until May 4th.

 

We all know that there's a great big wall locking us out of the content.

 

We all know that we're not supposed to be there yet.

 

Anyone claiming ignorance of the issue is lying. And so I have no sympathy for them. Hell, I hope the weekend exploiters get a month ban(following that pattern of 3 day ban, week ban, etc etc etc)

 

I could care less if anyone is punished. Why? I'm not one of those self righteous hypocrites who enjoy public executions. Everyone should just let BW deal with the issue and not worry about what happens to your fellow gamers, guilty or not.

[The_Wulff]

I look at it as just another example of WHY one should look at the forums even if it's only once a day. It's better then finding out to late that something you did was against the rules. having said that, I also think it's up to Us as well to make sure the people in our circles know of issues such as this instead of relying solely on BW to inform them.

 

Let's get real for a second it isn't like all the important Dev Announcements are posted in one place. It can be hard keeping up with what is going on.