New scam/vandalism for Perma Pre Characters

i dont have a pre char, but yeah, please fix

Uh, no. Not solved!!

I've said it before and I'll continue saying it until it starts to sink in. This scam is easy to avoid if you are aware of it and watching for it. Yes, you can go to Ashford Abbey, you can avoid partnering with anyone who is near Tydus or heading towards him, you can postpone taking a 2nd profession.

The problem is the people who are not aware of this scam. I'm sure that the vast majority of players do not visit the forums. These are the folks who will never read these warnings and the same ones who will naively partner with the scammers. This is a devious trick and for those of us without devious minds, we just never would have thought of someone doing something like this to our characters.

Those are the people who need to be protected and the only way to do that is for Arenanet to update the code to prevent the scam.

Personally, I think the "Ascalon Academy" mini-mission should be divided up into a pre-searing PvP arena and an actual co-operative mission location. This would actually make two changes: first you could do the arena pvp to level up fighting against other characters that are near your level (no more hours and hours of death leveling) and second, since the mission would be it's own zone you could have it so that you have to individually talk to Tydus to gain access to that area, ie you could not be pulled in by some malicious moron.

The timer can be anywhere between 2-40 seconds. You could always panic and hit the "x" in the upper right corner to log out, but that's obviously not as effective as actually "logging out:

the whole point ois they shouldnt have to

all of these would have to be installed for a good solution

1. allow both players to close the counter
2. set counter to a minium of 40 seconds
3. make it so that both players must agree before timer starts
4. allow players to leave during the pvp portion(optional)

Dumb Idea.

Unless you want to tell every player in pre and every new player about this scam personally?

I'm sure the majority of players would not of necessarily seen this topic.

While information is useful, this thing needs to be downright fixed. Scams for money are sad and despicable, but one can at least, albeit barely, see the scammer's motive.

This is just for sick kicks , and ppl like that are not right in the head. Doing this should be = insta ban..of ALL their accounts imo.

I swear , I just dont know how these ppl sleep at night . And I havent even made a perma pre char. So Imagine the feelings of someone who has.

Few things have made me as upset at this report, which shows a case of intentional cruelty and abuse by one player against another.

This has gone to Support, we know, and we're following up to assure that it's in the hands of QA. In the meantime, the report will be in the hands of every person on the GW Team through this week's Community Summary.

Coolio Gaile, maybe we will get a fix for this

I would have this fixed rather than get tomes in pre. but i still would like tomes in pre, just not as much as this lol.

Thanks for passing the word.

i don't know if anyone has suggested this....
make each member of the group click the confirmation (are you sure you want to leave, once you leave you can't go back....)

WooHooo!!!! Thank you Gaile!

Its very simple to avoid. Just close out of GW or log out. No that hard. See the big numbers counting down? thats a timer.

See the posts above yours? They've already explained why your post is completely useless.
Read the RED ENGINE thread before posting.

One other problem with this is that Ascalon City is also a major trading hub in pre and a lot of traders use the search/invite party feature to find someone who's pm-ing you. It's often more convenient then to try to explain where you are, especially if the english of your fellow trader isn't that good. Search party does that splendidly but knowing that theres a chance a 1 second timer will apear just gives me the creeps

This would definately be a great fix


I would rather have everyone having a tome in pre and/or having any non-pre skill have their characters deleted, disabled or send to post. Characters having no secondary could autoreceive a monk secondary or even a random other secondary.
Same goes for any of the gold weapons, superior runes etc but I'm afraid thats not gonna happen.
Seems Anets policy is that if you find an exploit before they do then you're home free..even if you use this same exploit to make real world cash from it...with such a policy people are encouraged to exploit to the fullest because they are guaranteed that using exploits in this game is legal and never gets punished.
Guess the same could be said about leaches...they are exploiting but aren't doing anything illegal...or are they?
It depends on the definition of glitching but thats another discussion

Thx for ruining my gaming experience. I'm sure I'm not the only one who somehow got involved with glitchers involuntarilly and I'm sure that most of them weren't happy about it. The only people who wouldn't mind a cheater is a cheater or someone who doesn't like the whole game to begin with.

The only thing I see that could repair this would have to be a complete purge. I don't know any other way, by now the damage done by these people is just too severe to be left alone.


Pre used to be a place of limitations. The challenge of maxing a character in pre was fundamentally different from maxing a character in post in that instead of worlds of choice where to go and what to do you'd have to actually look hard and work hard in order to level up a character but now some people in pre have max gold weapons and are selling them for hundreds of K's as we speak..check the presearing trade forums for yourself if you don't believe me.
People in pre have a Seeker of Wisdom title for IDing golds...have many elites and normal skills unlocked, possibly even have UAX in pre and are left alone as this is considered legal. These people chanced pre fundamentally...pre isn't about limitations anymore, it's all about the gold now.
If you were amongst the group that are responsible for this then you're a have...if not then you're a have not..game over. Thats what pre has turned into now.

Even though the fact that some people are dragging perma pre's to post this realy isn't the most important issue here. Try to avoid teaming with level 1 X/Me untill a solution is implemented.

pwnt.
.

What's going on with the tomes is not an exploit - it's a hack. I don't mind people making use of an exploit - that is, finding a weakness in gameplay that was ANet's fault like the guild hall exploit a year ago. That's just creative thinking and the burden is on ANet's shoulders for not having forseen the possibility. So, I don't think they should punish those who found and used an exploit in the architecture of the game.

However, the current problem is a hack - as I understand it people are altering the exe file to give themselves an advantage. Those who have done that should be dealt with severely. Send their char to post and delete their inventory and gold!

As for those who are pulling perm-pre characters to post, that is using an exploit purely to cause another player misery rather than to gain an advantage themselves - they should be dealt with even more severely. Delete their highest level character!

Perhaps a quest called Defender of Ascalon or some sort of a temporary title that is only active in pre that activates an effect much like lightbringer. But prevents you from leaving pre until your have the LDoA title while active.

Have you ever leveled a Survivor? Dude, I can F12/Enter in under 1 second. In all seriousness, I've never seen the timer any less than 30-60 seconds. It's a "pvp" wait for another team timer so I suppose it's possible for it to occassionally start at 2 seconds.

Just an FYI, if I remember correctly the Wisdom titles that are in pre are from the Easter Eggs (or some other event item), that gave the person picking up the item 1 point against that title. I know some people spent all event in pre doing this and I know come the next similar event, thats what I will be doing with my level 20 there.
So please just don't assume that because a person has something that you dont, that they are automatically a cheat.

As far as the countdown thing is concerned, I know I offer my services to open the gate, but as I am a lvl 20 and the people are usually lvl 13+, Ive always felt fairly safe..although maybe I'll do it with my ranger in there instead now.. .

EDIT: ty Neo.. getting old and forgetful here

Treasure hunter title points for picking up eggs

I do hope this gets fixed soon =D

You know... if someone is really good, they can have a fairly high level character keep track of the timer, accept an invite and leave right before the mission kicks off (paying careful attention of course) thus watching the would-be kidnapper leave pre forever.

This would be difficult to perfect, but I'd love to see someone turn the tables.

I wish that were the case, but the guys doing this trick are simply moving to Post, deleting the char immediately and quickly re-rolling a new pre character in order to drag the next victim across.

On the bright side, Gaile replied again to the Sardelac copy of this thread. She said they are still looking into the issue and do plan to fix as soon as possible. (I think they've had their hands full of armbraces for the moment)

Fix: Make it a solo 'mission' like Tihark Orchard.

This needs to be fixed before ASAP. Also, how about a weekend event of Hard Mode in pre? *begs*

One thing that is hard to avoid is getting a gate monkey. You cant really avoid teaming up with someone for that. How about extending the timer on the gate so we can open it ourselves?

Maybe this is a bad idea because it would deny many people their 50gp income, but there are so many other ways to make money in pre.

Yeah id like to open the gate myself.

But people also could be wanting to *partner up* for the rez quest=O

Here's a small update: Last evening James stopped by to ask if there were any critical issues I wanted to mention to him. I responded with this one, for I do think it's very important. James is/was aware of the issue, and while there's a ton on his plate right now, with the Sneak Peek Weekend and then release, I do have confidence that he'll prioritize this as much as he is able to do so.

My advice in the meantime is to use caution and to report anyone who engages in such an act. I will speak to Support about the matter. I know that we cannot "reset" a character to whom this happens, but I'd like to know if there is any actioning we can do on the accounts of the abusers.

Thank you Gaile, I really appreciate it that this is a high priority issue now.

Great news gaile!

Glad to hear that theyre working on this issue

I have set up a dedicated gate monkey.

You should look for one without a secondary because that will protect you the same way as if you had no secondary.

In fact you can safely group with anyone without a secondary even if you have. (They might not group with you though for the same reason)

I've been thinking about starting a lvl1 Gate monkey with no secondary, as well. Since GW:EN is coming out soon I've been getting ready so I've not had time to do this.

I have keep my permapre safe by not playing with that character until all of this is straightened out.