[Dev Update] Exploits and Bans – 10 January 2008

ter...

This hidden outpost existed strictly for testing purposes and was never accessible through normal play.

gayle gray said that in a post on wiki

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Gaile_News
if its not a test area, and is used how u said, why did she say this? You guys contradict yourselves time and time again. It makes me worried.

I was banned, it sucks. I didn't hack shyt, i just joined a grp to HB Monk after doing all 4 quests. They had lost their monk and needed a new one. they took me to the guild hall and then we ported there.

b4 going in i asked what the place was, and was told it was a training ground that devs used for mallyx. When i asked how we gained access to it the leader said he had pugged with a grp to do mallyx the night b4, and the leader told the grp that he was a GM and they were going to take a shortcut. When he ported them to Mallyx's crib and they run it a few times.

so we did the same.

I own a mule account as well and it was banned too, and it never did mallyx, hasn't even beaten NF.

over 26 months on my primary account.
im a lil perturbed

OK. I came in to DOA and was taught to do it this way, not know it was wrong, not knowing that this was the way of things.

Fact is its 1 quest, with 5 parts. They are not sub quests, they ar enot seperate quests, they are simply PARTS of 1 quest. I did those parts, and was doing the last part. I had NO idea that this wasnt how it was made ot be.

After reading wiki, and here, over 600 pages, I now know i was a complete noob to not see that this wasnt how it is normally done.

I was stupid.

However, its 1 quest regardless. and I did do the 4 previous parts.

I understand its 4 bosses, 4 areas, and they are done seperate, but theres many quests that the parts are done seperately, and alot of them have been glitched to let u do the last part on its own before, and no one was banned for that.

However, I understand now, and was a complete noob.

Look at post 352 http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...&postcount=352

I have 2 problems with this reply. A I did read that forum, and I understand why/that they cant take it out of the game without taking out doa. I also understand that they contradict themselves 12 times in that one post. They said even in this sentence, its not a test town, but we used it for testing, IE it is a test town. Try to make sense once in a while ppl!. ITS a test town ok, yes its fundamental for your programing or whatever, its still a test town.

plus, gayle gray herself said its a test town, said it isnt, then said it is. what sense does it make.

Maybe it serves two puposes. it's there for testing and it's also required for the DoA to work. It'd make sense to program it that way. Anyway we digress.

yes, true true, my point is everything they say is confusing and 3 sided. You cant get a straight answer from A net it seems. the answers you do get confuse you more than you were at first ! lol I like a net. I think they are fair and try their best. Its a fun game, or I wouldnt care. I just want my account back. I feel cheeted. A by some hacker, *B by anet C by my own stupidity for not realizing it was wrong and /reporting. But oh well Im off to sleep. I will dream for a better day tomorrow when I get unbanned and everyone pms me that im a stupid noob, *sigh*

TY for all the good input, I hope the hacker is caught and perm ban ip range.. er that might be a bit extremem but ya
Puritan

Interesting to see that all the exploiters are greedy whiners that just want their account back.

Very interesting arguments:
We were too dumb to realize that this was wrong.
Many were unsuspecting innocents.

This is really grabbing after the last straw, even if it is totally useless...^^

Only when you've entered more than a few times you'll get banned.

Well apparently that's not the case. And no it isn't a hoot, lots of people could've been "forced" to go if they weren't party leader. Also, think about how many younger players could've been pulled into this? They haven't really done anything wrong besides being a little ignorant. You can't defend ANet on this- as usual, they've fkd up.

If you are pulled in once you shouldnt be banned... If you got banned for doing this once and you state a normal friendly ticket to support im positive they look into that.

And i dont say Anet dont make mistakes. But if you used this exploit several times you are guilty and yes you earn a ban.

I'm sorry but I have to agree with Anet on this one. The people banned for the most part all should have known this was an exploit.

To the poster who got banned after reporting the exploit I am sure you will get your account back as anet has done in the past for people wrongly banned. For those who chose to keep abusing the exploit/hack you made your bed now lie in it.

Good - you caught em - banned em - makes me happy .

But ............

Perma ban for all is not making the punishment fit the crime. I would suggest a sliding scale type ban that at least leaves people a "back in" clause (well...... except the hackers - I would wish for some way to prosecute them through the legal system so that people get a sense of the serious effects that hacking has to gaming communities).

So apart from the hackers I would suggest a sliding scale something along the lines of :
1) for every 2 runs the people did they get a 1 week ban (ie 20 runs = 10 weeks etc).
2) All gemsets, armbraces and tormented weapons in client and linked accounts are forfieted.

That seems to me a better way to make the crime fit the punishment. If someone did 100 runs then kiss a year goodbye and go play WOW. If you were "unlucky enough" to do 6 runs (ie one more than what sounds to be the perma ban limit) then you would cop a 3 week sabbatical. I suggest simply because the punishment for that one extra run is not consistent.

You have a rather large amount of suddenly contrite and banned people who want a way to get back into the game (no - not me - never even done DOA).

ANET options seem to be to make the perma bans stick, or fold and let them back in with some form of formula. I say don't hide away that formula and let us see people slowly reappearing. Instead advertise the punishment formula and let people see what consequences this sort of behaviour attracts.

Just my 2 cents.

Oh and to the guy that raged about wanting to angrily look up (visit) the person that reported this all needs to be a bit mature. All schemes like this fail and die in the end because the lure of the phat lewt slowly involves more and more people. Someone would have leaked it sooner or later, and you would have been left with less and less guildies the longer it took. Think its about time you accepted they done wrong and got caught with the hands in the cookie jar.

The outpost was only able to be found by using a third party clinet hack. nothing else...tough shit. it is the people who hacked it or knowlingly used it with a party leader who had done so,it is a true and just reponse from Anet 100%.
What you fail to understand is that players could not jst happen upon this outpost, it had to be enabled with a hack of the DAT file.
Good riddance to bad rubbish...

Dear Ms Grey and all GW community members,

I am one of the Scarlet Letter Branded "117". I couldn’t tell you what a dat file is to save my life, let alone know how to write a program to hack one. Believe me or not. Many of us really didn’t think this was an exploit of this magnitude. I personally didn’t really think about it much. Like many of the other elite mishs in the game, Sorrows Furnace has 4 prequel quests but the last Final Assault is repeatable forever after. Duncan at one time was by-passable for days. And the ferry system used for me to this outpost worked EXACTLY like Urgoz and the Deep. I had never done DOA before I started doing this run. We did have to beat the 4 quests leading up to Mallyx and had to beat Mallyx the old fashioned way FIRST. Did we think the town a bit odd? Yup. Sure did. But once you enter and there is a start mission button and countdown timer to mission start, we didn’t really think much about it. Since all of the elite missions had aspects of this in one way or another one could easily look over the oddities when there were so many similarities.

With that said, we have witnessed many glitches exploited in the game by thousands of players. Duncan ferry anyone? I personally know people who made upwards of 500k in a day of doing this, not to mention those that actually did the runs over and over again to gain rare weapons, onyx, diamonds and armour of Deldrimore by scores. Did we see permanent bans for anyone ever? How about the Heart of the Shiverpeaks Dwarf-Bombing runs in under 5 minutes for days on end spammed in Party searches? How did that effect our economy with onyx, diamonds, rare skins and greens which dropped prices in a matter of hours? Who got permanently banned for that? Many of the 117 honestly didn’t think they were doing much different than that. Are we guilty of exploiting a glitch? Yup. Im the first one to admit that. How many thousands of you are guilty of it at one time or another? Did some of us seriously over-farm Mallyx? Yup. But should the ones who farmed it only for one Armbrace to buy a much wanted weapon or mini Mallyx deserve the same punishment as those who grossly over farmed it? Should it be different than those buying GW gold on eBay? I know for a fact that buying 1million gold from sites like those only warrants a 72 hour ban and you don’t even have to give it up afterward. What about dishonorable marks for the 20th time? Using racist and homophobic comments in Local Chat? Knowingly naming your toon some bad name? Has anyone ever heard of a permanent ban for any of this? We aren’t saying that we aren’t guilty of exploiting a glitch. But we are NOT guilty of Hacking. Someone might be. But all of us? Come show me that proof Ms Grey. (I live in Seattle and we can meet for coffee) Where is the sliding scale justice anywhere here for a punishment to fit the crime? Where is the equal justices ranked with the rest?

So for my part in all of this. I farmed Mallyx because I wanted enough gems for one armbrace so in turn I could buy a mini Mallyx. I, you see, am a mini pet collector. The temptation to get one easier was my weakness. Agreed. I got my 14 needed gemsets doing that run but honestly after that I just wanted a full set of his greens for my personal collection. I had no interest in profit on a grand scale. Until now I have made the hard grind for every item I’ve ever gained. I don’t like to trade, buy or sell. Takes up too much time from my playing. Look at the 23 mules on my account full of golds and greens and you will see how little I like trade chat. So please don’t accuse me of affecting the economy on a grand scale. With all the other glitches that have happened, my 14 gemsets traded for a mini pet were a pittance in comparison. I am guilty of exploiting a glitch, AGREED. But the same punishment as the ones who got 30 armbraces? I think its harsh, but then I don’t make the rules here. And, to me, it seems your company makes them up as they go. Id rather have been stripped of every item I had and all of my gold to have kept the 4k hours of title busting I have done. But too late now I guess. Not that I wouldn’t do anything to gain my account back, but really sit down with your crew and decide if the ban for ALL 117 was fair and equal. I did probably 20 runs which is more than a few, but others I know did much less and have been treated the same. I say really unfair. This is going to affect much more than the economy, you have taken the heart out of this game with your discrepancies in fair treatment.

Many of you are spouting off like you KNOW what you are talking about but in reality, only 117 of us REALLY know. Opinions are great, but before you open your mouth accusing us all of being hackers, you should know some of us. Half the time I cant even figure out how to run my Vent. As for the comments about finding "better friends" I think that an uncalled-for comment no matter my crime. I honestly believe that most of the "117" are very amazing people and I have been PROUD to call many of them friend. Most of them have always given time, effort, items and even gold to aid a fellow mate or total stranger. Seems to me more can be said for them than most of you posting at the moment. Don’t belittle the posts of friends coming to support our cause. As humans you know loyalty in the face of critisizm of this magnitude is hard to come by and not easily won. For these people to stand up for us, instead of turning their backs and joining the hoards of you throwing stones at us, is what true friendship is all about and you could all stand to learn a valuable lesson from them. We made a mistake, an err in judgment, some of us way more so than others, agreed. How totally human is that? So sit on your high and mighty horse and criticize, ridicule and hate and decide honestly if you think you are without flaws ever. And then live with the lies you tell yourself if it makes you able to sleep better at night.

To the other 115, you are what made this game great for me. Some of our friendships will be here for life. Don’t let what is said in this forum get you down. We are human, we made a mistake, and now we can never prove who we really are for the ban or make amends… but I know most of you are great. For the hacker… if there really was one…GG with as much sarcasm as can be typed. To Ms Grey and your staff... thanks for creating a game where I met such wonderful friends.

QFT. Please let me know how I can make money that fast. Anet already nerfed all my old farming spots (griffins, trolls, vermin, loot scaling...)

bolded for BS.
It's easy for people who do it all the time, it's not easy to people who barely have time to play 1 hour a day, let alone do lots of farming. You don't get that many shards, and they're 2k each, and the golds you get have crappy stats, or are non max dmg. I've had about 10 chaos axes in 2.5 years of playing from drops in FoW, NONE of them were good. All merchant food. Never ever gotten a fellblade or shadowbow, let alone one worth selling. And the gold from whites etc yields 2k max. You might make 10k an hour this way.
60k an hour I'd like to see.

Of course the guilty are going to claim they were taken there without knowing it. Don't you know all criminals lie out their teeth? I say birds of a feather flock together. If you got taken some place without wanting to go all you had to do was get out of the group and port yourself back out. Nobody forced you to fight Maylax and take his loot yah did that all on yer own. But, now yah got caught doin it and now you are QQing how you are innocent. lol I've seen too many criminals in my life time not to know that ole rue.

THis is the funny part from one of them Notice how he wants to justify the EXPLOIT and even admits he knew it was an exploit, but, that it was a MINOR infraction of an EXPLOIT and thus he shouldn't be one of the banned. hahahahah An exploit is an exploit as I said in the other thread pal and there is no such thing as a minor or major. You broke the rules you exploited a feature and you're going to pay for it as you should. Maybe in your next mmo or mmorpg you'll think twice about doing something you know or even think might be an exploit of any calibur.

Glitches are known to be there in every game. That doesnt give you the right to abuse glitches to your own benefit.

right..... oh you didnt want a profit?

I'm trying to feel sympathetic towards you because you don't seem to be greedy or exploitative but the bottom line is that a secret loophole was discovered and it was abused. No lore or quests lead me to this 'secret' shortcut because it was clearly not intended to be there.

The difference between the Duncan run and this Mallyx glitch is that the Duncan run was made public knowledge, posted on forums and there were runners ferrying people in Umbral Grotto. This makes the shortcut accessible to almost anybody. The 117 people banned for exploiting the Mallyx glitch were keeping their shortcut low-key in an attempt to take advantage of it and profit from the generous rewards for completing the 4 sub-quests and Mallyx. In comparison to ordinary quests, DoA is a monumental task and the rewards mirror that.

What a crock , you were happy to keep the exploit low key , but as soon as you find your ass in a sling you post a nauseous pile like this, lol, i suppose none of the 117 were farming this for profit, but to give less advantaged players weapons and gems and such, you made your bed now lie in it, i have no sympathy, at all.

All these comparisons to the duncan run are somewhat off. U still had to fight through the mobs to get to duncan. But here u went straight into Mallyx's room, right? U even skipped the 16 waves before it. So the total time went from about or less than 2h for the full run + ~20min for the 16 waves+mallyx to a minute or two. With duncan the time shaved off was a lot smaller, right?

i never said i wasnt guilty. if you read i admit to it. all i am saying is that some of the 117 did it 400 times, some 4 times is all. i never expected to get my account back. but some shouldnt be PERMANENTLY BANNED, some should. permanent bans like this have not been used in other forms of exploits is all i was saying. usually its been 72 hours as a warning to not do it again. you saying that if everyone knew about it we would be off the hook is rediculous.

no the glitch didnt take you straight to mallyx it took you to the final mission all 16 waves of it and then him and his cronies. you all act like it was a two minute run to open a chest. like i said, only 117 people really know what it was. stop assuming you think you know everything about this game and the people who play it and thier motives.

But the other account that got banned DID use the exploit. And because you've probably exchanged some goods between the accounts, your other got banned aswell.

See it like this way: You commited a murder, got arrested, and the gun you shot your neighbour with is confiscated. One other gun you posses is confiscated aswell.

I am a server admin in other online pvp games, and i have seen and had to clear up the shit and mess left by malicious third party hacks on more than one occasion, so for that reason alone i hate with a passion all forms of hacking. So you admit your guilt, so what?. Take your medicine.. its not me or this community you should be appealing to.

for serious exploits the bug is permanent. always been. u knew that the moment a.net found out what u 117 were doing the exploit was going to be closed in few hours, u knew it was bad and u tried to keep it secret for as long as u want.

permanent ban all the way

Wrong, there are a good few people know how the exploit worked, I even gave a step by step account on how it was done in an earlier post here, the reason I know was that I was invited to join one of the "new farming guilds" after someone explained the process I politely declined as I had no inclination to give any possibility to lose my account.

I was advised that there were actually only 3 people over the xmas period whom knew how to use the clientside exploit to emulate GM status and take a party into what should have been an unaccessible area and it was these people that were ferrying parties in and repeat farming Mallyx.

However...

The one thing I would like to say to put this into perspective is there have been a lot of stones thrown upto now and although I agree with bans for the people using this exploit I don't believe that perma-bans should be implemented for the none hackers.

Maybe accounts stripped of all gold, armbraces, gemsets, ecto's, items etc.. and a length of time in relation to the amount of runs they had completed (like a 1 week ban and a further 72 hours ban per run after 5 runs) as was suggested by another poster, but only if they are willing to admit that they knowingly exploited the situation, as a few have willingly done and those I applaud for their honesty after the matter (such as DragonRogue).

But, the instigators, the people that actually were the party leaders deserve the perma-ban, the reason for this is they were knowingly manipulating the game client to produce the ability to ferry these parties, there is no excuse on their behalf.

I hope that a-net do relent to some degree, stripping accounts and banning them for x weeks is punishment enough for those that knowingly entered the parties.

Lets be honest, get rich quick in GW = lose your account soon, as there is no shortcut to making money (aside from small party farming or ursanway elite areas legitimately)

trust me i am laying in the bed i made and i know it. i will say this once more for you who obviously CANT READ! NO 3RD PARTY HACKS WERE USED FOR THIS EXPLOIT! SOMEONE IN THE BEGINING OF THE CHAIN MIGHT HAVE USED ONE to get in initially BUT FOR THE MAJORITY OF THE 117 ALL THAT WAS REQUIRED WAS A FERRY TO THE OUTPOST! frankly i really dont care whether you believe any of us or not. i was just trying to clarify what REALLY happened and try to lessen the impact on a few of the ones who truly only did it a few times. I know im guilty and thats why i havent even sent a ticket to anet to try and reverse it.

This thread has provided an unfair amount of accidental humor.

And since doing it just once is a clear bannable offense, some of the 117 should be banned 400 times over, and others just 4

ANet showed considerable lenience in handing out bans. Anybody who entered the outpost just once and instead of freaking out proceeded to have a go at the good ole ape could have been fair game for the ban hammer.

To those who found themselves on the wrong side of the fence: that was a valuable lesson - learn from it. 'I didn't know it was illegal, I won't do it again' will not save your behind in the real life either and the sooner you get it the better for you.

Hey Vall, I know a secret way to get to good 'ol Mal...wanna come? "Secret way?" Yeagh, it's a base not on your map, so you wanna come? (Happened recently)

Sorry, my red-alert went up right there...

You guys really think anet would not keep logs of it all?

Bans are justified, people knew exactly what they were doing...

Good riddance.
Too bad many of them had more than one account.


@turin9: AAAGHHH! MY EYES! MY EYES!

It is against EULA to own/use another account if you got banned.

Since most of exploiters were smart enough to do their exploiting on throwaway account (and mule resulting loot on real one) they are quite tame.

I would love to see their *REAL* accounts permabanned.

Saying that its Anets fault for leaving the outpost open is like saying its my fault if I get robbed when I forget to lock the door of my flat and the criminals arent to blame. Its stupid of them, but its not their fault.

People have free-will, they chose to hack the system, and chose to exploit the bug. They get everything they deserve.

Those, however, who didnt choose to break the rules and were taken there without knowing what it entailed, should get a suspension imo. It shows them that what occurred was wrong and they should know better. But they dont lose everything they worked and paid for for something that wasnt their fault.

I'm so pleased that arenanet has done this, really good how they take action to preserve the economy and the legitimate players. Guild Wars will be a better place with out the scammers, exploiters, hackers and dupers.

I don't think there is much need to attack DragonRogue, he is one of the very few who actually had the guts to come on here and admit he was doing wrong and was aware of it, even though I do not agree with some of what he has said.

Out of the 117 bans, only 3 should definitely have perma-bans with no chance of it being lilfted and those are the ones that were the party leaders and actually triggering the exploit, the rest should be treated on a sliding scale, account stripped + 1 week ban + 72hours for each run (after 5 or not is open to debate)

ONLY for those that accept they knowingly done wrong, the ones QQ'ing and pleading complete innocence deserve no leniency as these are the ones that would do the same thing over and over and expect to get away with it by pretending there were simply to n00b to understand what they did was wrong.

I am not condoning anything they have done and applauded the immediate action of A-net, however I do think that the punishment should fit the crime.

to put it into context, these people would eventually be able to play again, however the red flag has already been raised on their accounts, one step out of line and they would lose all, they lost everything they had in their accounts so would have to start from scratch to a degree and grind some cash, they lose all their uber-goods.. TBH what are the chances of them continuing with their account unless they truly are GWplayers.

Win/Win for A-net, they apply leniency, show the playerbase they punish crimes fitfully and lose the players that simply played to exploit as much as possible and show off their illegally gained goods (ultra-rare pets etc...)

You all seem to miss the point, Anet has logs of EVERYTHING you do,if you are innocent, the logs will show, if not you get what you deserve.

Seems to me there is this idea that if something is possible, its your RIGHT to use it, bullshit, you exploited/hacked the game, banville,end of story.

It seems that there are more and more exploits cropping up recently ~ from the original "duping" fiasco ~ The GH teleport glitch ~ and now this ~ I am certain unfortunately that this will not be the last of it. The issue is that Areanet ~ although I agree with the bans ~ seem to be losing control of their game. The economy has never really recovered from the initial duping and will have been further damaged by this unfortunately. I would say this is serious negative publicity in the run up to GW 2.

Im not one of the banned, nor do i know any of the banned, so my 2 cents are just from reading through this post.

1. Ok, first off, all you people quoting the EULA ... just stop. You read the damn thing when you wanted to put your 2 cents in here on some exploit or ban post ... you never read the damn thing when you bought an account and neither has anyone else, so stop quoting it as if it was the bible.

2. They "hacked" the client. This means they hacked their own install of GW on their computer. They altered the content of files to make the game launch in a way different from the proscribed method.
This does not mean they "hacked" into anets servers or anything like that.
Is it against the rules? yup. But it if they had actually broken into anet's servers, thats a Federal Offense and could be jail time. They didnt do anything remotely close to that.
Keep the facts straight.

3. Where there players unwittingly dragged into this? Im sure.
What Anet should be focusing the Ban on are the actual players with modded clients. This data CAN be retrieved because the client log in is recorded by the server. I know of what i speak because i am a database developer and IT Admin/Consultant, and deal with large web servers/data centers daily.
As i said earlier, the client install had to be modded to effect the exploit. This means the client logged in with unusual properties, almost with Admin priveleges im sure.
This can be focused on and rooted out.
THOSE people should get perma bans.
The others should get 3 month suspensions.
Does anet really want to cut its own throat by removing palyers? is their client base that strong that they can just perma ban longtime players?
I think not.
The actual client hack offenders SHOULD be perma banned as they knowingly performed a mod to the installations of their game ... the others who went along for the ride may or may not have known right off what they were getting into. Its hard to tell, so in fairness, a temporary ban would be justified.

4. The argument that this is in any way anets fault has no real substance.
This argument is akin to a thief saying "the door to the house was unlocked, so i went in and took what i wanted".
Who told you to even check if the door was unlocked? What were you doin in someone elses house? This does not give you the right to take what you want.
Either way, its wrong and they knew it was wrong.

5. When you are reading through topics such as this, please refrain from the self righteous attitudes and the show of indignation.
Yeah yeah ..., we all know how honest and perfect you are, and you never make mistakes.
But there's no need for you to pat yourself on the back for all to see.
These types of posts are boring and make the topic that much harder to read.
No one really cares if YOU would NEVER do such a thing.

Get off the cross, we need the wood.

Nuff said
Out

I was thinking the same thing, actually. And all that wasn't too far behind the GH glitch that let people port greens and elite tomes and such into Pre-searing, IIRC. All with least a year to go until GW2's even released.

Also,

Maybe I'm too lenient, but I can agree with this. Smack their noses, strip the dirty goods from the account, and red-flag them. If they're truly repentant and just had a moment of weakness, fear of losing everything again would keep them in line. And if they're not... the next time they buy gold/use an exploit, it WILL be permanent.

Edit: But if this IS a second or third offense, then yeah okay. Banhammer time.

Hard to believe that people unwillingly end up in Mallyx room from an unknown outpost.

If even Ursanway isn't easy enough to take on Mallyx, people still seem to try and find even lower hurdles to get to their goal. Some players may not have hacked the client to get there but they damn well knew it wasn't legitimate.