Item Stack Resale Exploit

[Trobon]

LOL, from reddit"

 

See this is the kind of account that should absolutely be permabanned. An account that has been created in the last month or so that has been exploiting the whole time and buying/selling on the GTN should be banned with everything they have.

 

There should be no question about that.

[ryoutou]

It all really depends on whether BW is willing to spend time doing data analysis to catch these people, it is always possible to do so even with VPN and ip spoofing, It is just a time/money investment.

 

If they can't be bothered to nab the auctions from the obvious exploiters the day they close the exploit, which would take one single person less than an hour to do across all servers even if done manually....

 

Or worse, if they reckon thats the smart way to go about it...well.

 

Occam's razor...soup sandwich, worthy of mockery at this point

Edited December 8, 2015 by ryoutou

[Mubrak]

It all really depends on whether BW is willing to spend time doing data analysis to catch these people, it is always possible to do so even with VPN and ip spoofing, It is just a time/money investment.

 

And all that time/money (money WE paid them) would be better invested in properly testing future patches.

[Ruskaeth]

Stellar job hot-fixing the problem BW. Stellar job. Look BW-carebears, I didn't say fixing it was easy. However, do you think finding all exploiters is less of a job than emergency code'a'thon? I sure hope so. Again, horribly managed situation. Notthing else was expected.

[Makillda]

You assume that everyone was around for that and was reading the forums...

 

What about a newer player who doesn't visit the forums, was told about it in game by someone or found it on their own, and just did it for themselves and didn't sell anything.

 

Would you ban that person?

 

Yes, in a heartbeat.

 

Bare minimum punishment should be all companion and alliance influence reduced to zero, all comm vendor gear removed and all currencies, credits and crystals removed, account-wide. Add the suspensions on top of that, up to and including permabans for the worst offenders.

[TX_Angel]

The /facepalm is really high here. Couldn't spare one single dev to hit the handful of servers and nab the auctions for the stacks of 99 this morning.

 

So, those, also will vanish into the ether as people snap them up knowing the exploit has been shut down and can flip in a few weeks.

 

I really just don't know if it is that they are down to a couple of folks with snap, and that those have no power of any kind there or what?

 

I haven't been on today, but I did buy some gifts over the past week off the GTN, spent a lot of credits to buy them to rank up companions.

 

I didn't know about the exploit until it was posted yesterday on the forums, but I imagine some of those gifts were from it. I would be really annoyed if I lost items or credits over something I didn't know about and wasn't a part of.

[TX_Angel]

Yes, in a heartbeat.

 

Bare minimum punishment should be all companion and alliance influence reduced to zero, all comm vendor gear removed and all currencies, credits and crystals removed, account-wide. Add the suspensions on top of that, up to and including permabans for the worst offenders.

 

Then you might as well ban them... if you actually remove all that stuff from a player, what are the odds they'll ever come back?

[Icetori]

It's as simple as this. They call it an "exploit". It's not an "exploit". It's a computer programmer's coding error. Punishing someone because they are smart enough to discover it and use it is, in fact, punishing the wrong person. They are playing a game, and part of playing a game is finding the best ways to win or advance. If you caused a coding error that they can use as a "cheat", good for them. The only people who should be punished for using this exploit should be gold sellers, because they aren't playing a game, but are actually stealing from the company (by causing players to more easily reach the end game content, get bored, and unsub). But they should be punished anyway (but really aren't). As for legitimate paying players, what you should do is high five them for being intelligent enough to figure it out, do a quick coding fix and implement it (instead of hiding in wait like a spy and treating your paying players like criminals, potentially causing them to leave the game whether you permaban them or not), and then move on.

 

If something is obviously not working as intended, i.e. buying a stack of items and vendoring one of them back for the price of the stack, it's an exploit. Period. End of discussion.

[Makillda]

Then you might as well ban them... if you actually remove all that stuff from a player, what are the odds they'll ever come back?

 

Who cares? Good riddance to bad rubbish.

[SettGirkkurn]

Yes, in a heartbeat.

 

Bare minimum punishment should be all companion and alliance influence reduced to zero, all comm vendor gear removed and all currencies, credits and crystals removed, account-wide. Add the suspensions on top of that, up to and including permabans for the worst offenders.

 

This.

Also, make sure you take all of their blood, and those who have, firstborns as well. Heck, second-borns, house, car and crush from high-school.

Get real...

[Theeko]

Don't forget there teemo's

[cipidani]

He needed to make the caps bigger that flood the entire screen first

 

Yea and I will continue maybe something will happen.I am sick of unfair play or cheaters/hackers/exploiters,...etc. Don't want to mention the stupidity around of throwing with bad fixes,unsolved bugs,nerfs,unbalanced classes/PVP/PVE,....etc.:mad:

I pay just to play fair & have fun.

On short note, as a fair player that work hard for their stuff, I demand you,Bioware/ EA or who is still in charge there to bring proof of this major fix/your fix on showing it to the large community that you take the right choice.

 

P.S.: Stop using my words or try to be smart , because this is the one way trip I am going.Thank you!

[Quraswren]

Lets see if choices really do matter because as of right now, they sure haven't when it comes to SWTOR.

[Infernixx]

Unbelievable.

 

Well, now we know how/why the credit sellers were selling for $1 per million.

 

And it's been going on since 4.0 dropped. Wow.

[Alssaran]

Yes, in a heartbeat.

 

Bare minimum punishment should be all companion and alliance influence reduced to zero, all comm vendor gear removed and all currencies, credits and crystals removed, account-wide. Add the suspensions on top of that, up to and including permabans for the worst offenders.

 

Again: This will only cause the game to be more deserted than it has to be.

 

There is a difference between exploiting and stumbling into an exploit. The first one should be a bannable offense. The second one is a necessary step towards finding and fixing issues. It's necessary so that people can report what is actually happening.

 

I'm all for removing ill-gotten credits and loot, even removing the influence gained from companion gifts which were acquired by fraudulent activity. If you really participate in exploiting the bug, then of course you should lose everything you gained by using that exploit, including a 7-14 temporary suspension from the game. If your account is found in repeatable offense, perma ban it is. A slap on the wrist alone can help prevent someone from going into fraudulent areas.

 

But removing all gear/credits/influence from an account who is associated with the exploit isn't the answer. You found the bug and immediately reported it? Well, worst case scenario with the punishment above is that you lose the 10k credits and move on. But proposing to permanently suspend the account or removing all gear/credits/influence acquired in honesty? That'll only create paranoia and will result in everyone who discovers the exploit not actually reporting it. They'll be afraid to be permanently banned because they stumbled upon the exploit.

 

Every exploit that runs for more than a week is an entangled web of crazy. People like me didn't even know about an exploit happening. I only found out two days ago and was like Huh? Exploit? Then I found out that it involves companion gifts and had been going on for weeks.

 

Now, should my gear and credits be permanently removed for buying companion gifts during the past two weeks? No, it shouldn't. I earned every single credit fair and square. I earned every single crystal and piece of gear honestly. Punishing me for something another player did is ridiculous at best. It will only result in the community dwindling away. Nobody wants to play a game where overeager developers ban everyone who could passively and unknowingly participate in an exploit by using the GTN.

 

That's why this: "Just ban them all for eternity! Everyone who had anything to do with fraudulent items!" doesn't work. A seven day ban ist justifiable, removing ill gotten credits too. But removing stuff you earned in honest will only make people paranoid.

[TX_Angel]

Unbelievable.

 

Well, now we know how/why the credit sellers were selling for $1 per million.

 

And it's been going on since 4.0 dropped. Wow.

 

Yea, the sad thing is that the economy is already ruined, unless they can really claw back most of it. I suspect they'll get some of it, but not enough to change the economy.

 

It was, what, 6 weeks? That is nuts to leave it in that long.

 

It will be interesting to watch the credit sellers and see how long it takes for their prices to rise. I saw several over the weekend spaming general chat for 1 million for $1, which is nuts, why even bother?

[ryoutou]

However, do you think finding all exploiters is less of a job than emergency code'a'thon?

 

I'm starting to think 90%, or more of the coders are contractors rather than full time staff. Or else there is a gatekeeper project manager who is buddies with a VP and has the general manager/project lead made irrelevant. Some kind of similar mess that has that office needing a real shakeup in a serious way.

 

What else would explain a situation where a dupe bug, absolutely and obviously the most toxic sort of bug outside of an outright login bug to an MMO hang around for weeks and not hotfixed after a late, caffeinated night? Rather than wait for a weekly update?

[cioran]

I think there should be digital stocks on fleet and we should be able to throw blumfruit at exploiters.

[LordArtemis]

Glad I didnt sell back any of the companion gifts I purchased. Luckily the stacks I bought I burned up right away on my comps. Never even noticed the bug. Edited December 8, 2015 by LordArtemis

[DawnAskham]

Yes, in a heartbeat.

 

Bare minimum punishment should be all companion and alliance influence reduced to zero, all comm vendor gear removed and all currencies, credits and crystals removed, account-wide. Add the suspensions on top of that, up to and including permabans for the worst offenders.

 

Only if they fire whoever is responsible for managing the economy of the game and / or whoever made the decision not to bother plugging this exploit for going on two months.

 

And given the information that was shared which states the exploit was with buying and reselling certain items from vendors, they could have simply removed those items or NPCs weeks ago, that they did not demonstrates that Bioware is negligent and inept at managing the game.

 

Lastly, the stealth exploiters (those not stupid enough to post crap on the GTN and who sold the exploited items to vendors for credits) have already driven the value of credits into the ground using this exploit for weeks to generate untold amounts of credits, so much that the price for credits by the spammers has fallen hard.

 

These people for sure used methods to keep from being tied to their real accounts and / or used the exploit to sell credits for RL cash through RMT brokers, and could care less about having whatever throw away accounts they used suspended or banned.

 

But yes, lets go after the really stupid players who heard about the exploit last week and used it to gain a bunch of gifts to raise influence on their main account - that will really fix the problems this exploit has caused to the game's economy, and show Bioware is serious about exploits.

Edited December 8, 2015 by DawnAskham

[LagunaD]

We will begin taking action against accounts within the next few days. Action that will be taken includes:

• Suspension, up to and including permanent suspension
  
• Removal of credits
  
• Removal of Commendations and other currency
  
• Removal of Companion affection
  

 

(evil Sith voice on)

Show no mercy!

(evil Sith voice off)

 

Very happy to see this. I can't think of many things more pathetic than cheating at a video game. I hope you teach the scumbags who thought they could get away with this (and screw the rest of us) a lesson.

[TX_Angel]

Well, I am glad they decided to patch it quicker than one month this time. This looks like it was a pretty bad one.

 

Also glad I didnt sell back any of the companion gifts I purchased. Luckily the stacks I bought I burned up right away on my comps. Never even noticed the bug.

 

Umm, they didn't... This has been going on for 6 weeks, since 4.0 launched...

 

How in the world can a MMO developer allow an item dup exploit to exist for SIX WEEKS?

[Jerqa]

I'm happy to see exploiters getting what's coming to them. I don't care what game I am playing, the folks that cheat and exploit things just ruins things for all.

[chrisbbruce]

The reason the price of the Gold sellers has dropped is because people who have been participating in this exploit have been SELLING credits to the Gold sellers for real life cash.

Gold sellers have more credits than they know what to do with.

[Infernixx]

I haven't played in weeks and I'm starting to suspect that it was my rat instincts telling me to get the hell out of here while the getting was good.

 

Good lord, BW. The economy's in the toilet thanks to billions upon billions of extra credits dumped into the system, progression raiders are giving the game the finger and taking off thanks to the 'restructured' NiM loot system and then there's the existing lack of end-game content that isn't recycled.

 

What the 'hell' is going on over there?