Item Stack Resale Exploit

[DynamiCtagez]

Not sure why everyone seems to think the economy will "crash". It didn't with any of the last exploits and it won't this time. And from what was stated in Musco's last post, they're gonna investigate the currently banned accounts further and then take additional action accordingly. Ofc some people will slip through their net, but that's - surprise - gonna happen, when you let an exploit go on for 6 weeks.

The damage is already done, it is literally impossible to track down everything. Items have been sold, and then sold again, put on guild banks, invested in guilds, or CM items, that have then been unlocked in collections, invested in crafting mats that have been used to craft items that then have been sold again, etc. The damage is done, but it won't have a long lasting effect on the economy. Gift prices on TOFN have already returned to normal and everything else wasn't really noticeably affected. It's very FEW people that have stockpiled INSANE amounts of credits. As long as these people's credits get removed, the economy will remain unaffected.

Edited December 10, 2015 by DynamiCtagez

[Stoofa]

You know what.

Bioware's complete inability to quickly fix exploits and then completely fail to actually remove the exploited credits/items from the game is FAR more worrying that any content, or companion issues.

In fact....this kind of issue could be the straw on the camel for me. If we're seeing people on Reddit and the like telling us how they are getting banned for a week yet get to keep billions of credits passed on to other characters and accounts.

This may well be the cause of me leaving the game.

Pathetic work BW.

[IslanderRebel]

You know what.

Bioware's complete inability to quickly fix exploits and then completely fail to actually remove the exploited credits/items from the game is FAR more worrying that any content, or companion issues.

In fact....this kind of issue could be the straw on the camel for me. If we're seeing people on Reddit and the like telling us how they are getting banned for a week yet get to keep billions of credits passed on to other characters and accounts.

This may well be the cause of me leaving the game.

Pathetic work BW.

 

 

just like the punishment for "The Ravagers" exploit.

people got to keep their ill-gotten gear and got a slap on the wrist from a day to a week.

lesson learned from BW:

 

"Cheaters always prosper"

In the immortal words from the Beach Boys Christmas song:

 

"Merry Christmas Santy" and thanks for the hundreds of millions or billions.

 

 

Christmas came very, very, early!!!!!

Edited December 10, 2015 by IslanderRebel

[Transcendent]

The damage is done, but it won't have a long lasting effect on the economy.

 

So what about the effect on the game? The players that have duped all of the event tokens? Think they'll continue to bother running the events? Which means less players willing to run the event bosses, which increases other players grind etc.

 

What about the next exploit? Where players have seen how poorly that this has been handled along with previous exploits, and decides that they'll exploit the next bug that comes out? Think that'll help the game overall or the population? Lower population on servers creates an interesting scenario with supply / demand issues on the GTN, which is a long lasting effect on the economy.

 

I mean, I only have to look on my server GTN (which I did today) to see the obvious exploit players having bought x y z with ill-gained credits, to now list those items and regenerate credits purged. It's pretty obvious what has happened, and I dread to think how much they've stockpiled in the last 6 weeks of this exploit across various alts or in guild banks.

 

So much so that I'll refrain from buying anything from the GTN for a long time, I can craft anything I really need and run my own missions to be self sufficient enough. So all the innocent crafters / resellers get caught in loops like these, and even if it is short term? You know what? That isn't good that others have to suffer because of the way BioWare is handling this particular exploit, this is worse than all of the other exploits combined.

[Infernixx]

Not sure why everyone seems to think the economy will "crash". It didn't with any of the last exploits and it won't this time. And from what was stated in Musco's last post, they're gonna investigate the currently banned accounts further and then take additional action accordingly. Ofc some people will slip through their net, but that's - surprise - gonna happen, when you let an exploit go on for 6 weeks.

The damage is already done, it is literally impossible to track down everything. Items have been sold, and then sold again, put on guild banks, invested in guilds, or CM items, that have then been unlocked in collections, invested in crafting mats that have been used to craft items that then have been sold again, etc. The damage is done, but it won't have a long lasting effect on the economy. Gift prices on TOFN have already returned to normal and everything else wasn't really noticeably affected. It's very FEW people that have stockpiled INSANE amounts of credits. As long as these people's credits get removed, the economy will remain unaffected.

 

Before, the only major economic exploit in this vein was the vendor chair thing where you could buy a chair for 1 credit and sell it back for 100 credits. That was bad, but it was caught within a few hours and fixed pretty quick.

 

This exploit is immeasurably worse. I've seen indications that they were making millions of credits within 5-6 minutes. And this exploit has been known about and used by the credit sellers for the last SIX WEEKS.

 

That's billions of credits at the very least, if not getting into the trillions of new credits. This is a prime example of how hyper-inflation can happen. At the very least, they're going to have to remove all of those billions and billions and billions of credits 'and' all the items bought with those credits 'and' somehow not enrage innocent bystanders who sold things to those exploiters and suddenly their credits are gone and their items that they sold are gone as well.

 

Game-wise, this is one of the worst possible glitches that we can see happen. Six weeks. I can't even begin to imagine how many billions have been injected into the economy.

[idnewton]

If we're seeing people on Reddit and the like telling us how they are getting banned for a week yet get to keep billions of credits passed on to other characters and accounts.

This may well be the cause of me leaving the game.

Pathetic work BW.

I find myself agreeing. To know that my legitimately-obtained 160 million credits is now rendered worthless by some spineless **** who broke the rules I choose to follow does not make me happy.

 

I will not "learn the lesson" and participate in the next exploit knowing BW won't action it, but that doesn't mean I'll necessarily stick around and watch them reward players who break their rules.

 

It is a serious failure for any Dev team of any game to not be in control of their game. This does not mean there should never be any exploits ever, but the fact that they can't even successfully action people who exploited is a GIGANTIC RED FLAG.

 

NO DEV TEAM SHOULD EVER BE INCAPABLE OF ENFORCING THEIR OWN RULES.

Edited December 10, 2015 by idnewton

[Nomaad]

I find myself agreeing. To know that my legitimately-obtained 160 million credits is now rendered worthless by some spineless **** who broke the rules I choose to follow does not make me happy.

 

I will not "learn the lesson" and participate in the next exploit knowing BW won't action it, but that doesn't mean I'll necessarily stick around and watch them reward players who break their rules.

 

It is a serious failure for any Dev team of any game to not be in control of their game. This does not mean there should never be any exploits ever, but the fact that they can't even successfully action people who exploited is a GIGANTIC RED FLAG.

 

NO DEV TEAM SHOULD EVER BE INCAPABLE OF ENFORCING THEIR OWN RULES.

 

/signed.

[James_Mcturney]

I find myself agreeing. To know that my legitimately-obtained 160 million credits is now rendered worthless by some spineless **** who broke the rules I choose to follow does not make me happy.

 

I will not "learn the lesson" and participate in the next exploit knowing BW won't action it, but that doesn't mean I'll necessarily stick around and watch them reward players who break their rules.

 

It is a serious failure for any Dev team of any game to not be in control of their game. This does not mean there should never be any exploits ever, but the fact that they can't even successfully action people who exploited is a GIGANTIC RED FLAG.

 

NO DEV TEAM SHOULD EVER BE INCAPABLE OF ENFORCING THEIR OWN RULES.

 

Just to be sure, don't you guys think that those reddits may be fake somehow? =///// Imo they should just delete all accounts with more than 2 or 3 billion credits, unless those credits have been there for a long time and they know how to check it.'s source This game doesn't have too many players, it shouldn't be hard to somehow CONTROL +F and start analyzing... anyone gaining more than millions each minute, at a steady pace, must be a exploiter.

[idnewton]

Just to be sure, don't you guys think that those reddits may be fake somehow?

I certainly acknowledge the possibility that some of them are. But all of them? Unlikely.

[lukewarcriminal]

there is for sure small possibility for mistake at this but dude who said that has 7b in alt account is full of crap imo. i mean the 1st thing that BW will do is sorting accounts with highest amount of cash earned lately and ban ppl who actually used the glitch.

[Darkside]

All these people worried about credits...........

 

1. No real credits were really added to the game from the exploit. The credits were already in the game and simply shifted between players.

 

2. The devs have actually removed more credits from the game than was put into the game by deleting all credits on the offending accounts. This actually made your credits more valuable.

 

3. The temporary inflation you are seeing on the GTN's are the result of psychology and not actual inflation. Quickly the prices will start to normalize again, because there are actually no new credits (and now even less credits) in the game.

 

4. The few who managed to amass credits can indeed corner markets and drive prices, but until those credits are actually used in game, they simply don't exist. Large singular fortunes are essentially non-existent until they are actually inserted into the game economy. Meaning there is even less credits in the game economy from this aspect too.

Edited December 11, 2015 by Darkside

[MelodyofLegends]

@ Darkside

 

A sane person using a calm tone to make valid points... a rare creature indeed, What a delightful surprise!

 

But seriously, the yellow post even specifies that contrary to the gossip mill, there were very few actual exploiters. which of course means that all this arguing about x amount of players getting off punishment free is pure hyperbole.

 

so forgive me but I see no problems that won't resolve themselves in due time.

Edited December 11, 2015 by MelodyofLegends
clairification

[idnewton]

1. No real credits were really added to the game from the exploit. The credits were already in the game and simply shifted between players.

Uh, on the contrary, it sounds like this was an exploit of selling item stacks to the vendors, which would indeed generate credits. Only reason I feel safe saying this (even though I'm just going off of what I've read) is because it's already been fixed. Edited December 11, 2015 by idnewton

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Yeah don't get me wrong its pretty easy making creds I'm a reseller in game and iv'e prob poured nearly 2-3b into decors in my strongholds, not including the 1b I have total in credits right now so I just saw no reason why someone would need to exploit to gain credits.

 

Because reselling to make a billion credits isn't just an easy thing you do overnight or as you are trying to make it sound.

Most people don't have the general patience for it let alone the seeming "financial" sense to achieve it.

With having to buy to resell and waiting/hoping it seels it's be no means quicker either ( though much faster than any other measure to get a billion in this game, in fact I doubt any other measure could get a single toon to a billion unless you had the patience of a saint as they say ).

 

Ideally it speeds ( in terms of days/months ) up the more toons you use but again each toon adds extra time to the process in terms of ingame time and you reach a point that there just aren't enough unqiue items to sell to warrant using 10 toons doing it.

 

In light of recent events and how easy it is to launder credits I'm also super dubious now of any pure individual claiming "I made billions of credits legit honest!" and then trying to claim it's supier easy and quick to do that why would anyone bother to exploit heh ...

 

I just can't see how you could even make the comment you did unless .... heh nevermind.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Not sure why everyone seems to think the economy will "crash". It didn't with any of the last exploits and it won't this time. And from what was stated in Musco's last post, they're gonna investigate the currently banned accounts further and then take additional action accordingly. Ofc some people will slip through their net, but that's - surprise - gonna happen, when you let an exploit go on for 6 weeks.

The damage is already done, it is literally impossible to track down everything. Items have been sold, and then sold again, put on guild banks, invested in guilds, or CM items, that have then been unlocked in collections, invested in crafting mats that have been used to craft items that then have been sold again, etc. The damage is done, but it won't have a long lasting effect on the economy. Gift prices on TOFN have already returned to normal and everything else wasn't really noticeably affected. It's very FEW people that have stockpiled INSANE amounts of credits. As long as these people's credits get removed, the economy will remain unaffected.

 

Why? Because this was around 6 weeks for one and the only other serious exploit around this long ( ravagers ) had nowhere near the effect on the economy this will ... ravagers really didn't have much going for it that could effect the economy as a whole.

 

This is PURE credits though simply by botting the resell.

 

Already this morning I logged in for the first time in about a week to list some on my CM items and was shocked to see how much they were now worth.

In talking with others on chat noting the same thing the conclusion is people bought up large ( maybe after the patch? ) of everything CM worth any sort of value to hide the credits and have something of value that may not just be removed from them as easily as credits could be ( probably after sending the credits around a few accounts ). Not to mention of course buying something for 1 million, listing it for 10 million then buying the 10 million item on a cheated throw away account.

 

I've never seen the prices and lack of CM items on the GTN as I did this morning, it's just not normal.

 

Regular players are never going to be afford some of the prices being offered yet there is now more credits than ever in circulation for cheaters or previous rich players to spend. End result may be more CM sales to Bw ironically enough as people buy packs to cash in on the extra credits and those that don't have credits try use real cash to the items they want or also try cash in on the credit rush they missed out in with the exploit.

 

To think this will do no harm to the economy ( it already has so you're already wrong ) is short sighted.

[Quraswren]

SNIP...

 

But seriously, the yellow post even specifies that contrary to the gossip mill, there were very few actual exploiters. which of course means that all this arguing about x amount of players getting off punishment free is pure hyperbole.

SNIP...

 

Unless of course that yellow post did all it could to downplay the actual size and scope of the problem given how bad they handled the last exploit and now dealing with one thats easier to do, more widespread and easier to hide.

 

I think you are giving BW way to much credit on this.

Edited December 11, 2015 by Quraswren

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Just to be sure, don't you guys think that those reddits may be fake somehow? =///// Imo they should just delete all accounts with more than 2 or 3 billion credits, unless those credits have been there for a long time and they know how to check it.'s source This game doesn't have too many players, it shouldn't be hard to somehow CONTROL +F and start analyzing... anyone gaining more than millions each minute, at a steady pace, must be a exploiter.

 

I actually agree with this but the problem becomes this.

 

Some account lists 100 10 million items, someone buys them. The seller account IP doesn't match the buyer and has no clear relationship to them ... can you really ban the seller account just for selling items?

There is basically ZERO proof.

 

Now multiply this between 5-6 accounts etc. so that the trail from the proven cheater to the end result is soo muddy ... you just can't as a dev house go around banning people for selling things on a market during an exploit just because they got money from it.

 

In the end someone might have known the exploit was around and knew people were b uying up and thought "lol I might put this on for 1 billion and see what happens" and wow it sells ... they've not cheated in the slightest ( no more than the people who don't cheat who try trick people into buying highly priced unit mats ).

 

There is no way to definitively prove someone selling something and someone laundering credits unfortunately and that's why you won't see this situation resolved. Bioware are far too spineless to take action on non proved accounts.

 

Another aspect is people might go around trying to maliciously get people banned knowing full well they are getting banned themselves so again the purposely by out peoples stock or send them credits etc. etc.

 

An unresolvable situation solely caused by Bioware.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

All these people worried about credits...........

 

1. No real credits were really added to the game from the exploit. The credits were already in the game and simply shifted between players.

 

WAY wrong. If you know the exploit and how it worked and how you can GENERATE credits from it and understand the concept of botting and macros you'll know that 100 billion added to the economy wouldn't be a stretch for this exploit. Heck I wouldn't even be surprised to hear 1 trillion.

 

 

2. The devs have actually removed more credits from the game than was put into the game by deleting all credits on the offending accounts. This actually made your credits more valuable.

 

Says who? The devs? Yeah ok sure

 

 

3. The temporary inflation you are seeing on the GTN's are the result of psychology and not actual inflation. Quickly the prices will start to normalize again, because there are actually no new credits (and now even less credits) in the game.

 

Wrong per #1.

 

 

4. The few who managed to amass credits can indeed corner markets and drive prices, but until those credits are actually used in game, they simply don't exist. Large singular fortunes are essentially non-existent until they are actually inserted into the game economy. Meaning there is even less credits in the game economy from this aspect too.

 

They pretty much stripped the GTN of a HUge portion of CM items and Bioware has removed the ability to repopulate it by new purchases ( all packs gone ).

 

Does anyone believe, what I view as a lie, of them removing them for "the new pack" and not seeing it as linked to this exploit?

 

Not sure why they would do it though because exploits like this are likely to drive sales up as people try to cash in on the extra inflation.

[Darkside]

WAY wrong. If you know the exploit and how it worked and how you can GENERATE credits from it and understand the concept of botting and macros you'll know that 100 billion added to the economy wouldn't be a stretch for this exploit. Heck I wouldn't even be surprised to hear 1 trillion.

.

 

Yes I know exactly how it worked. It let you duplicate event tokens, and data crystals, that's it. All of the billions that people were talking about, were not from macro'ing minute credit sales to a vendor, but from selling bounty contracts and companion gifts etc. on the GTN for literally billions of credits. This also ties into the whole laundering the credits through the GTN to keep them on a different account. People generally are not referencing credits from vendors when they are talking about this exploit, but from items they could get from the vendors that were gaining them credits through the GTN.

Edited December 11, 2015 by Darkside

[Darkside]

@ Darkside

 

A sane person using a calm tone to make valid points... a rare creature indeed, What a delightful surprise!

 

But seriously, the yellow post even specifies that contrary to the gossip mill, there were very few actual exploiters. which of course means that all this arguing about x amount of players getting off punishment free is pure hyperbole.

 

so forgive me but I see no problems that won't resolve themselves in due time.

 

I agree, it shouldn't take too long for things to return to normal, if people can be rational again. Oh, and I love being delightful.

[Sathid]

All these people worried about credits...........

 

1. No real credits were really added to the game from the exploit. The credits were already in the game and simply shifted between players.

 

2. The devs have actually removed more credits from the game than was put into the game by deleting all credits on the offending accounts. This actually made your credits more valuable.

 

3. The temporary inflation you are seeing on the GTN's are the result of psychology and not actual inflation. Quickly the prices will start to normalize again, because there are actually no new credits (and now even less credits) in the game.

 

4. The few who managed to amass credits can indeed corner markets and drive prices, but until those credits are actually used in game, they simply don't exist. Large singular fortunes are essentially non-existent until they are actually inserted into the game economy. Meaning there is even less credits in the game economy from this aspect too.

 

\

What are you smoking?

 

How did these credits exist before? please explain i wish to hear this.

[MeNaCe-NZ]

Yes I know exactly how it worked. It let you duplicate event tokens, and data crystals, that's it. All of the billions that people were talking about, were not from macro'ing minute credit sales to a vendor, but from selling bounty contracts and companion gifts etc. on the GTN for literally billions of credits. This also ties into the whole laundering the credits through the GTN to keep them on a different account. People generally are not referencing credits from vendors when they are talking about this exploit, but from items they could get from the vendors that were gaining them credits through the GTN.

 

Clearly you seem to miss the part where you can split a stack and sell each piece back for the price of the stack then.

 

Ironically that part of the exploit ( or is it multiple exploits? ) is mentioned at the start of this thread by Eric:

 

"It is no longer possible to purchase a stack of items and resell individual items for the price of the entire stack. "

 

You seem to think people were splashing out billions to the cheaters on the GTN heh

 

Also if you read reddit people are talking exactly about reselling to vendors and generating credits. The GTN part comes mostly from how they then proceeded to launder credits.

[Darkside]

\

What are you smoking?

 

How did these credits exist before? please explain i wish to hear this.

 

The credits existed in the multitude player's bank accounts.

 

i.e. - The only thing that happened was wealth shifting, where money is shifted from the many, to the few. The GTN was the medium.

Edited December 11, 2015 by Darkside

[MeNaCe-NZ]

The credits existed in the multitude player's bank accounts.

 

i.e. - The only thing that happened was wealth shifting, where money is shifted from the many, to the few.

 

You really need to check your facts because you're really uneducated on the issue at hand.

[Sathid]

The credits existed in the multitude player's bank accounts.

 

i.e. - The only thing that happened was wealth shifting, where money is shifted from the many, to the few.

 

No Dark,read the above post,this exploit generated credits out of thin air.