[Dev Update] Exploits and Bans – 10 January 2008

ok and as I have said many times, if when the mallyx quest was completed and you went to your guild hall, then left your guild hall, it should have taken you back to the Gate of Anguish, like it does to everyone else at any other part of the Mallyx quest line. If it does not and takes you to somewhere that you have never seen before, is there not a warning flag that goes off saying "Hey, wait a second. I've never heard about this place before..."

banning people who abuse this game is great, i woulda learned my lesson even with a lesser band tho.. and this logic woulda came in handy too when everyone was goin haywire with heiropent greens, for a while there no one would even buy them.

And i'm guessing if you were banned you wouldn't be saying this how right am i?

would not make him right.

The consequence is remains the same, banned. The point I'm making however, is that they have been inconsistent with why they ban some people over others. I think it has a lot to do with how many people were involved. Is that fair? If a million people used the Mallyx trick what do you think their response would have been? They obviously wouldn't ban that many people.

While I sorta agree maybe a temporary ban of like say a week or something might have been better. And any ill gotten gains over the last little while be removed as well.

sure in a perfect world without bugs thats exactly what woulda happened. but it doesnt right? it was like that already right? just like duncan? i understand where your comin from and like i said. im doin my time no biggy but holy crap i just never expected to totally lose everything and im sure all of the dun runners thought the same thing.

so the exploiters made a good job keeping their exploit hidden for months knowing that a.net would close it the minute they found out about it?


cmon be serious. i'm sorry ppl have been banned but they DESERVED IT.
THEY CALLED FOR THIS BAN.

learn the lesson and play honestly next time

who are you to judge, dont start a war here.

"just like duncan"? Well you knew for sure that was a bug. And therefore if you got to this outpost in the same manner, it is also a bug! Gaile said that you were not banned for going there once (or a few times) so why didn't you just get the hell out when you knew the place wasn't right.

I know you'll turn round and say "well gaile is lieing". Frankly, i'll believe what she says over any of you silly kids anyday.

That story isn't plausible, sorry. Actually I was thinking about some buffer overflow overwriting the zoneid of the towns shown on the map, which could have cause you to travel to the Mallyx outpost if you clicked on such a town.

Exactly, that is why each situation is unique. The amount of people and the severity of the exploit. If all of the GW players had used the exploit there would of been maybe 1 or 2 bannings if that. And those banned would of been the ones who had started the problem. But since there was so few they banned all those who used the exploit explicitly. Just like with the exploit with ferrying people to places they haven't been before. They didn't ban too many people for it because so many people used it. That and it was near as severe as this one.

The posts here seem more like the Salem witch trials than common sense. Since my post was flooded away by the masses so eager to fan the flames I will repost it again.

I would LOVE to read a well balanced argument to it that is based on common sense and not post fluffing from the hip.


I am apparently one of the 117 found out today. I would like to clear a few things up that have been blatantly lied about.

Anet banned apparently ANYONE that had been there they even banned my nephew who went one time MONTHS ago. They banned those that did it enough to have an impact and those like myself that had no impact on the economy (had legitimate stacks of ecto in storage that had been there for years). I went not viewing it as an "exploit" which I will explain later. I went when bored and needed a break from my koabd grind .. friends were doing uw or doa so sometimes I was farming uw sometimes doa. LOL wasn't to make money .. already had plenty of it.

There was NEVER a hack and NOBODY EVER hacked the client. First time I was mapped there I logged onto another character to see what was up and to make sure I was not doing anything other than a ferry. My ele had already beaten all 4 areas and was sitting on the Mallyx quest for probably 6 months. I took her into Mallyx and mapped back to guild hall. She was then able to map right back to mallyx .. aka no different than ANY OTHER FERRY. She was not with ANYONE when this was done so OBVIOUSLY there was no hacking involved. No party leader that was an uber hacker was required to be able to ferry there. This was no different than a ferry to the deep or urgoz. Those screaming about economic gain .. sorry people farm EVERYTHING in this game so it wasn't any different than the ferry to Duncan. Matter of a fact it was the same thing when put in perspective. The Ferry had to have all 4 zones completed no more no less .. same as the Duncan Ferry. Sorry, no matter how much you try to act like this was different than Duncan .. it WASN'T. Only difference was Anet went ban happy this time.

As many have said open up the "glitch" again and follow the steps I listed .. you will see there was NEVER ANYONE that hacked the game client .. ANYONE could ferry there. Given the fact that Anet did NOT ban Duncan farmers why would ANY of the 117 think they would be banned for the same exact type of ferry to a main boss? We didn't.

Many of you judging were just as guilty of Duncan farming or getting a ferry to the deep or urgoz. This was no different no matter how much you try to act like it was. Same requirements to be able to ferry to the boss bypassing the other four areas for Duncan or Mallyx.

Will they unban us? I doubt it since they have either intentionally lied about it being a hack or were clueless as to it not being a hack. Would I like my account back? Sure 9000 hours logged almost finished with koabd. LOL. Only upside is I dont have to finish vanquishing

I ask the community to put the situation in perspective. There was no hacking involved so please consider the fact that it could have been you that was banned for doing something that has been done on every other boss in the game.

I see this as very positive viral markerting for Anet. They don't like cheaters. Sweet...I'll be buying GW2...and I'll tell all my friends that they should also

Your conclusions poster? You're doing it wrong!

Hey have u heard about that new game guild wars 2? the developers are said to deal seriously with game exploiters and they even ban hundreds of people when they find out about a bad issue.
this is amazing a game where GM actualy care about honest players.

the only viral marketing i can think of...

ok this was posted on page 2 of this very thread.
The bolded and underlined sentance should spark something as wrong, especially when seeing this:



Note the red underlined sentance.

I'm sorry but ignorance that you weren't abusing anything more than once is not going to work at all here, especially when i can access this knowledge from in-game in under a minute.

Players were allowed to access Mallyx without even talking to the Keeper that leads you to him. That should have been your other biggest warning sign besides the actual town itself that something was wrong. Yet it was knowingly used, over and over again. So no, there is justification in your punishment being lifted, shortened, etc. whatever youre asking Anet/NC Soft to try and reverse. You broke the rules, you abused an exploit, you got caught. End of story.

Anet failing to accurately state what makes A an exploit and B not an exploit is bad.

your judging aswell now?

this tread leads to hiding the truth , its easy to blaim ppl guilty cause its hard to prove there not guilty, bad behavior. dont manipulate the truth plz.

Those people breath guild wars. What other reason can you find to play so many hours? If they didn't entirely love the game, why devote so much time?

Again, Anet doesn't have a standard of what makes A an exploit, and B not. To ban these kinds of players, when Anet can't define the standard is absurd.

If I had manipulated the obvious truth, then there wouldn't be 117 people with banned accounts bitching about being banned, now would there?

I just got done posting very simple evidence that even points to the fact that the violators of this were knowingly abusing something that was never intended to be apart of the game and that line was the very last one in it. As well it should be. The info I posted took less than 30 seconds to look up from the in-game wiki (f10) and tell any player as to what they had to do in order to be able to reach Mallyx.

You keep refering to your own post. Let me ask you somethings. I'll leave the hack/exploit issue out.

Did you or did you not exploit this?
Did you or did you not keep this a secret from the community?
Did you or did you not send a ticket to ANet reporting this?
Is or is not the impact of this exploit economically greater than any of the others you mentioned?

Hack = ban
Exploit = banworthy
Assuming it's all originated from an exploit and there was never an hacking done:
You exploited it.
You kept it a secret.
You did not report it.
The personal gain is a lot more than beating the game faster than normal or getting max armor.
The way of accessing it is a lot less straightforward and obvious than the SE ferry.

The ban is deserved IMO.

I've read every post up to this point, yes, all 50 pages....

Lets get some facts straight:

1. This was not a hack of the .DAT file.

2. This was not a client-side hack of any sort.

3. This used the exact same mechanics as the "map-anywhere" exploit that was widely known a few weeks ago.

4. This used the exact same mechanics as ferrying someone from guildhall to Urgoz/Deep (meaning that you had to have progressed through to Mallyx naturally at least once in order to use this exploit - same thing with Urgoz/Deep, you must visit that town once using a scroll or by owning the town entrance, before a ferry will work).

5. This by-passed certain pre-requisite quests, the same way the Duncan exploit did.

So the real questions here are:
Why does ANet have a double standard in dealing with this issue?
Why did it take ANet 3 tries to actually patch this problem?
Is the issue really fixed?

There are 2 ethical choices to deal with this issue:
1. Ban everyone who ever exploited items 3,4, and 5 posted above.
2. Reverse the bans of these 117 players, and take steps to reduce these types of exploits in the future.

Obviously, if there is evidence that someone actually hacked, then they should remain banned. But everything I have read in these 50 pages seems to indicate that no actual hacking took place.

I would really love it if someone at ANet could pop in here, or PM me, and explain why they have this double standard.

yeh i think you are right, Anet seem to have no policy on banning, it seems to be random

You sir hit the nail on the head.

If any of us thought it was a bannable exploit we wouldn't have been doing it. Duncan showed that a ferry to end boss did not result in a ban. There was no reason for us to think this would either. If they had banned for Duncan ferry then only the mentally challenged would have used the Mallyx ferry. It isn't asking too much for a game company to take the same stance on all related issues.

easy line there. wich i respond with, if anet is claiming what they are saying wouldnt there be 1 person banned who hacked anet its made game cause all 117 ppl of the ppl who got caught ( prolly where more) would have a program on there computer and all at once would be hacking the game like an organized attempt.

get real.

Gratz people are getting it! no one hacked, A net screwed up and they're playing the blame game

No, as said I still know at least 2 ways to kill Mallyx without doing the quest.

\
I agree with you.....

evilseabass is making lotsa sense

Perhaps, but you cant honestly say the consequences fit the actions. Temporary ban yes, permanent banned no.

No judge in this country would rule that the penalty for trespassing to be death. Anet has been the judge, and that is their ruling.

Ive been trying to tell people exactly what evilseabass says for the last 50 pages 2. i even posted how its done and yet you people think its a hack ><

Isn't that the point though? They are willing to sacrifice a small amount of players to make a point. However, if its above a certain amount.. they are unwilling to ban anybody. Thats being impartial.

what game have you been playin for the last few years? are you pvp? cuz you sure dunno a heck of alot about pve. exploits run rampant and anet has let them slip by forever.. and so the hell what you decline woot. i didnt woot it was the shit.

Well, I see this episode having both up and downside.
Down - after 30 months, 6000 hours of game play and made lots of friends in game, it's sad to leave them.
Up - I now have extra several hours a day to work on things I should really be doing - better therapy than AA.

Yes Honey, I'll mow the lawn today, fix the gutter next week

Technically... no.

The description for "The Last Hierophant" reads (when obtained):

1. Defeat Justiciar Thommis
2. Defeat Rand Stormweaver
3. Defeat Selvetarm
4. Defeat Forgewight
5. Destroy Duncan the Black

All 5 objectives are given at the same time. However, when the game was released, only 1 person in the party needed to have beaten the first 4 areas to get the door to Duncan opened. The actual "bug" in this issue was that the 4 previous areas were also counted as "completed" once Duncan was beaten.

This was actually similar to "The Final Assault", where if one person had it, everyone could do it. The problem was that Duncan's chest was worth a lot more than the others.


Mallyx however does require you to beat the first 4 areas in it's description.

There seems to be diffrent speculations as why 117 people were banned. From my understanding of the posts thus far, it would appear that 117 people had zoned (through an exploit in the client side program) into an unauthorize hidden server (outposts) reserved for Development and Testing. Furthemore, there are most likely more hidden outposts throughout the program that are not meant to be accessed by users. These hidden outposts probably serve the purpose of performing quick updates by ANET Developers and Testers such as those seen on Wedesday/Thursday. So it seems to be clear that being in an unauthrorized server constitutes a ban.

learn2read plz.

I never said all 117 people hacked the client. I said that 117 people abused an exploit, which is true. Mind telling me what part of it is false?

I did and i'm not banned why should these people get banned? look at the numbers 117 * 90 = 10,530 if they spent $120 120*117=14,040 big numbers to me....

Blah blah blah.

You did wrong and you deserved the ban.

I've read your posts and you admit to doing this multiple times. But your justification is that you didnt hack anything. It doesnt matter though. Just because you werent the one to 'break in the door' doesnt make the fact that you went into that 'door' multiple times a non banneable offense.

You as a veteran player knew damn well that this was wrong. Or are you really that ignorant to think that this was going to be okay? You took a chance to get greedy and it bit you in the ass. At least be a man and accept the consequences.

i never knew i would get banned.
I thought Anet would Just nerf it Like every other exploit there was.
So that's why people kept it quiet.
not because they knew they would get banned..........
they didnt want it to get nerfed......