Temple Chair (Basic) Exploit

[Shelenko]

I did it once to see if it actually gave you the credits and then I submitted a bug report. Does this count as participating in the exploit?

 

I'd technically say yes as you were aware it should not happen and probably also aware of the message on the logon screen. However it depends upon how much of "zero tolerance" they place into the scripts that will trawl through the data.

 

I'd suggest submitting a CS Ticket for your concern though - just to be safe and have a full record which can be viewed if you are banned.

[Lyshar]

You sound so much like those of us who were suckered into the Ziost exploit by ppl shouting on fleet and then giving guild ship teleport. Even if we immediately exited to fleet, we still got suspensions.

 

According to my numerous conversations with customer service and the appeals department then, while it may seem unfair and while they admit that it was done in innocence and error, they have a zero tolerance policy currently regarding exploits. If you did it, no matter how minor, you will be punished.

 

If they change that now, after so many of us were unfairly suspended then, I will unsub and quit game over it, and so will many others. So please enjoy your three day suspension and being added to their internal exploiter list.

 

I still don't know the details of that one. I didn't see how that exploit worked. Didn't sound like a bug where someone would accidentally trip into the locked off area. And it apparently wasn't about moving past that gate where I was told was an invisible wall anyway.

 

I'm not saying they should ignore what happened, if they feel they need to punish me so be it. But I think in this case for an accidental sell and eventual buy back a ban no matter how short is overkill. If they feel they need to strip 10 times what I sold for or even 100 times, won't like it, but I'll accept it.

 

It should be obvious who are the on purpose exploiters, problem is that they have ways around being punished and even have the power to make others suffer if they are smart enough and BW wants to punish them too badly. They need to put up a hotfix ASAP to avoid that.

 

Make no mistake, I am no implying Bioware doesn't track and record data about various character actions. I assume that they do actually. My argument is that I don't believe Bioware is equipped to track, record, and analyze a mass quantity of information that the ease of this particular exploit permits. In the past most exploits have been gated by certain factors that would allow one to easily narrow down guilty parties and doll out punishment. However, this particular issue is much more accessible which could result in greater prevalence.

 

The engine is supposed to be able to track and maintain data was said during development. What we don't know if BW modified the engine in that area, and I doubt they really have the manpower to deal with this in real time. They need to throw in a hotfix, backup the data, then the team can dissect it. The longer they wait, the more may slip through. Actually more will slip through as it's not hard to imagine a way to exploit less detected, won't try that myself but won't say here either to avoid people trying to get away with it.

[Transcendent]

On another note, I'm surprised it didn't occur to you that it might be bugged and you might face some repercussions for exploiting things.

 

Well, it occurred to me that BioWare made the same mistake as the previous 1 Credit decorations / emotes they've put on the vendors, where they can be listed on the GTN etc in the past. Of which they didn't jump up and down at that point in time and start calling it an "exploit" with resulting "repercussions".

 

As I've said though, when they hand out punishments, I'll take it. There are no excuses, it's as simple as that.

 

So let me get this straight. People buy osmething, and sell it back and get too many credits for it. THIS will result in administrative actions. But certain individuals admit to speed hacking and there are oodles of videos of said individual doing said hack, and if WE report it or post about it WE get in trouble, and they do not.

 

Priorities. lol.

 

It's a different issue entirely, but I agree, it is annoying to see.

 

I think their priorities are exactly in the right place. While speedhackers should be caught and punished, this exploit is much more urgent because it has the potential to very quickly destroy the game's entire economy and damage the game far more severely than it could be hurt by a relatively small number of speedhackers.

 

One seriously affects other players who are playing the game, one seriously affects the game economy and price inflation if allowed to continue. Both are important and both affect everyone who plays the game.

Edited June 24, 2015 by Transcendent

[CmdrShpd]

So many armchair developers in this thread. Sigh...

[Cpectre]

Exploit ? That such players do ? They buy and sell the item , all honestly and legally . Nothing criminal there . Have you ever wondered what it's kind of symbolic reward players for such a long wait when will the server ??! 'm sure you'll excuse me but I think it's stupid . Just change the values and all sales.

[kronichabit]

wow just wow I really love you guys,I do,but this is the exploit? yur gonna go after this one ? what about the the bolster bugged bracers exploit? you know the one that really hurt the ranked warzone community...those guys walked into a ranked match well aware of there exploits and there gonna get rewarded. well I guess the cheaters do prosper as long as its pvp

[Kulyok]

Good morning, everyone. I went straight to work, so I never logged into the game since last night. Has it been fixed? If no, when will it be fixed? Seriously, if this keeps running, the economy's going to be royally screwed.

[UnicornSlave]

Hmm... what went wrong

[Sotmax]

So ....buy and sell of this is an exploit...gold seller spamming or playing with hackers in pvp is not....

I suppose this is a kind of fail but that's is non of my business....

Get an anti-hack engine plz

Thank you

Edited June 25, 2015 by Sotmax

[MistoVahn]

I'd technically say yes as you were aware it should not happen and probably also aware of the message on the logon screen. However it depends upon how much of "zero tolerance" they place into the scripts that will trawl through the data.

 

I'd suggest submitting a CS Ticket for your concern though - just to be safe and have a full record which can be viewed if you are banned.

 

This was before the message was on the logon screen, like right after servers went back up. Again, I did it because I wanted to report it with accurate numbers, and figured I was being thorough. I have a LOT of credits, so I assumed it would be obvious I didn't do it for that. I wasn't even concerned about it until I read this thread.

[Zantanuse]

As a gesture of comedy you could put in the item description, "sold at IKEA" indicating that it is cheap **** you shouldn't buy

 

For copyright purposes spell it something like

 

AIKAEA

[Halinalle]

Well, it occurred to me that BioWare made the same mistake as the previous 1 Credit decorations / emotes they've put on the vendors, where they can be listed on the GTN etc in the past. Of which they didn't jump up and down at that point in time and start calling it an "exploit" with resulting "repercussions".

 

Probably because by doing that you don't generate credits out of thin air.

 

GTN: credits move from player to player + seller loses some credits

Vendor: credits are generated and injected to game

[NiKaWo]

Well the same basic thing with those of us who were pulled into exploit area of Ziost by ship transport, immediately left(without fighting WB) , and filed a ticket. Things happen by accident but you still exploited. So long as you can prove it was an accident, like those of us who were tricked into the exploit area of ZIost, you will probably only get a three day suspension.

 

Wait, so you proved it was an accident and they STILL gave you a 3-day ban? What the heck? Did you get compensated for it, an apology, anything? Or did they admit like 'yeah, okay, we believe you but we don't want to look like chumps so we're going to ban you for three days anyways. Sucks to be you I guess?" Because that honestly pisses me off.

[Gronkdamage]

Will you be banning the gold sellers accounts that they transfer the money too?

[MeNaCe-NZ]

You must be really lacking in foresight and common sense. But I'm glad you get off on some sort of moral-high ground sense of justice.

 

The only, and I mean only, acceptable response to this issue would have been an emergency hotfix. Leaving the issue in game with some sort of notice that you'll be banned if you partake in it does absolutely nothing to stop the credits from entering the games economy; and once the credits are in the economy it's very hard to get them out.

 

In fact if they were going to leave it in game, their best course of action would simply have been not to let anyone know about it at all to minimize the number of people that are doing it.

 

Before you accuse me of partaking in this exploit - I haven't. I'm just a veteran gamer who has seen far to many MMO economies destroyed by currency exploits.

 

Where there are easy (illicit) methods of earning currency, there are automated scripts, dedicated tinkerers, and hardcore exploiters who get a kick out of seeing just how far they can go in their efforts to mess up the economy or make a quick buck - and you can bet that there are a plethora of ways to launder the currency that makes it a nightmare to track down and remove.

 

But sure. Let's wait until next patch, and ban everyone that took part in it. That'll sure teach those pesky exploiters!

 

You accuse me of moral high ground yet there you are on your high horse? Pot calling the kettle black much?

 

You're a veteran MMO player, that's great, that qualifies you of course to say what is and isn't the right course for BW to take does it? You work on a highly successful and profitable MMO such as this do you because of all your expertise and great advice you can offer devs right?

 

We have no idea what form of action or tracking BW will take/use here, everyone can use all the assumptions under the sun but that's all they are ... assumptions.

 

I find it laughable that some people think that Bioware announcing that anyone taking part in an exploit and showing what it is will face punishment is somehow Bioware doing wrong. This is BW for ONCE saying "we warned, we told you so, no excuses, you had this coming" - no defense this time.

 

It would have happened regardless and quickly got out ( proven by people quickly coming here apologizing AFTER they read what Eric had to say implying they did it before they read the warning in this thread ) so what they've done hasn't made it worse at all, it's stopped naive every day end user palyers from possibly taking part thinking it's all good and wearing a punishment for it thus BW hurting themselves by punishing them and not warning them if they decided to quit over the punishment etc ( which has happened many times before ).

 

The people you speak of would do what you speak of regardless, they're not some noobs who randomly read the launcher to discover exploits. Your point is thus moot - those sort of people will do it regardless.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

So many armchair developers in this thread. Sigh...

 

Lol, nice

[DuraiJedi]

All I want to know is where the vendor is, the Temple Chair is something I need badly for my Stronghold XD If I wanted to make a profit, I'd go to Ziost and start killing mobs randomly, no problem.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Lol this thread is hilarious ... everyone thought "yay free credits" and try defend your actions with what Bioware DOESN'T punish? Or that it's Bioware's fault for putting it there?

 

Are you people actually for f''ing real?

 

I really hope some perm bans/character deletions roll out on this one .. something with previous exploits I had only hoped happened to the originator/sharers but this time people are going too damn far in their "poor me" crap.

[Fraah]

Hey folks,

 

In today's patch, we placed Temple Chair (Basic) onto the Esstran Exports vendor for one credit. After bringing the servers live today we noticed that currently, you can sell the Chair back to the vendor for 100 credits. Obviously, this is not intended. As stated before, when these issues arise we want to make sure we get out in front of it as quickly as possible and are open with you about what is being done.

 

For the time being, please do not buy and sell the Temple Chair (Basic) in this manner. This behavior is considered an exploit. We will be addressing this issue as soon as possible. Once fixed, we will investigate and then take appropriate action for use of this exploit.

 

Thanks everyone. I will pass on update as I have them.

 

-eric

 

Hey Eric, if you could offer one classification, I would be very grateful.

 

Several people here have said, they vendored their bought chairs accidentally...some of them may be lying, others will be however undoubtedly be telling the truth.

 

Some (like myself), will have exploitet out of curiosity, to see if there really was an exploit (before I saw a warning or this thread).

 

Some will then have done what I did and bought back the decos from the vendor, thus not making any profit, some will have made between 98 and 9801 credits because they kept the money.

 

Others will have made millions because they kept exploiting.

 

So where will the line be drawn?

[MeNaCe-NZ]

All I want to know is where the vendor is, the Temple Chair is something I need badly for my Stronghold XD If I wanted to make a profit, I'd go to Ziost and start killing mobs randomly, no problem.

 

Presumably it would be in the cartel bazaar area with the esstran export reputation vendor is?

[Khiriath]

This was before the message was on the logon screen, like right after servers went back up. Again, I did it because I wanted to report it with accurate numbers, and figured I was being thorough. I have a LOT of credits, so I assumed it would be obvious I didn't do it for that. I wasn't even concerned about it until I read this thread.

 

Considering that the Devs have specifically said not to attempt an exploit in order to report it, you have violated Terms of Service.

 

When Milas attempted the Ravagers exploit, with a video showing him deleting everything that he got from it, they still gave him the normal suspension.

 

So in short, you exploited, now you will get your suspension. Welcome to BW nice new "Zero Tolerance" policy. Which honestly I think is the fairest and best system that they can put in place to stop exploitation. While some "innocents" will get caught up initially and have some unpleasant punishments it will make everyone more mindful gamers. Further, if they only punished "extreme" cases that becomes incredibly arbitrary, and encourages "small time" exploitation wherein cheaters will try to skate the line.

 

When Increase Mather awoke to the horrors of the Salem Witch Trials he wrote in his work Cases of Conscience Regarding Evil Spirits ""It were better that Ten Suspected Witches should escape, than that one Innocent Person should be Condemned." which would later be slightly altered by Sir William Blackstone to say, "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer", and became the basis of British and US criminal law. BW's current policy seems to be an inverse. Better that 10 innocents should be punished than allow one exploiter to escape. Like it or not that is their current "Zero Tolerance" policy. So if you have waved the ban them banner in the past, and got caught up in this exploit. Please enjoy your suspension and contemplate on your days away from the game that the Devs have given you exactly what you asked for.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Hey Eric, if you could offer one classification, I would be very grateful.

 

Several people here have said, they vendored their bought chairs accidentally...some of them may be lying, others will be however undoubtedly be telling the truth.

 

Some (like myself), will have exploitet out of curiosity, to see if there really was an exploit (before I saw a warning or this thread).

 

Some will then have done what I did and bought back the decos from the vendor, thus not making any profit, some will have made between 98 and 9801 credits because they kept the money.

 

Others will have made millions because they kept exploiting.

 

So where will the line be drawn?

 

I can almost guarantee he won't answer that question as they don't tend to talk too much about punishments take and only what has happened overall, you'll find out when you get banned or otherwise or nothing at all.

[Khiriath]

Hey Eric, if you could offer one classification, I would be very grateful.

 

Several people here have said, they vendored their bought chairs accidentally...some of them may be lying, others will be however undoubtedly be telling the truth.

 

Some (like myself), will have exploitet out of curiosity, to see if there really was an exploit (before I saw a warning or this thread).

 

Some will then have done what I did and bought back the decos from the vendor, thus not making any profit, some will have made between 98 and 9801 credits because they kept the money.

 

Others will have made millions because they kept exploiting.

 

So where will the line be drawn?

 

You'll get your answer when you are suddenly booted from server, unable to reconnect, and receive and email that states that you comitted a terms of service violation and your punishment is X.

 

When they said don't test exploits they meant don't test exploits. When they said Zero tolerance they meant ZERO tolerance.

[AdmiralBlue]

I find it laughable that some people think that Bioware announcing that anyone taking part in an exploit and showing what it is will face punishment is somehow Bioware doing wrong. This is BW for ONCE saying "we warned, we told you so, no excuses, you had this coming" - no defense this time.

 

You may find it laughable but it isn't hard to rationalize why Bioware can potentially be in the wrong. The reality of the matter is that not everyone reads the launcher and even fewer read the forums. To attempt to level punishment against players that accidentally purchased over 50 chairs, which is fairly easy to do, and than sold them back because they didn't need them would be ridiculous. Taking an absolutist stance on an issue like this is lazy, petty, and overly vindictive. This is Bioware's failure and is in no way a responsibility of the players. This all assumes no malicious intent on behalf of the players involved and that's obviously a different issue entirely.

[Kulyok]

I'm sure people who made way less than a million have nothing to worry about.

 

Heck, I doubt hard-time exploiters will really be punished with a permaban, anyway. Probably a week's suspension, credits going to full zero and all purchases deleted from inventory/collections/decorations menu.

Edited June 24, 2015 by Kulyok