[Dev Update] Exploits and Bans – 10 January 2008

All this talk about how the ban is unfair because nobody hacked anything and it was just the same as a Urgoz's or Duncan ferry ... you know what? I don't buy it for a second.

This is like going to a movie theatre, it's private property and people are there at the owner's discretion. Some people were hopping over the rope that separated VIP seats from the common ones, and the owner either decided that there wasn't any actual need for VIP seats and removed the rope (Urgoz's) or erected a wall (Duncan) to keep people out of places they were not entitled to visit. However, this all happened in the main hall which was specifically built for visitors. Now some people were poking around and found out that the lock on the door of the projector room opens when you shake it the right way, and went in to mess with the equipment. Anybody with the tiniest shred of common sense should've known that the place was for personnel only. The difference is - if you still didn't get it - that taking the wrong seat might result to getting kicked out of the theatre for the remainder of the movie but intentionally going to off limits areas and taking stuff that doesn't belong to you will bring in the cops. They aren't known for extreme eagerness to entertain themselves with lame excuses, either.

OK so explain why this is different from mallyx compared too the duncan and guild hall exploit please..

because if you see a level 2 at Abbadons gate its not entitled too be there, there were characters who had nether set foot in slayers exile but got too duncan, again they shudnt have been there.

with wat Gaile said then i shouldnt have been banned i only done it 2 times that was it and i only done it on 1 account with only 1 toon. why dont they bann everyone that used the mapping glitch or any glitch in fact. There are glitches that had damaged the games econimy more then this one so why to we take the full front and the others dont.

yeah i only used it twice unban me

funny to see how a damn high % of the people banned are from house zu heltzer and cavalon holding alliance.
i would have never expected that

A level 2 at Abaddon's gate is not entitled to be where s/he is but s/he is still where players in general are entitled to be at some point of gameplay. A player who took a taxi to Duncan was not entitled to be there right then, but it was still a place people were entitled to visit at some point of the game.

The Mallyx sploiters went to a place that was for personnel only. A normal player didn't have any business in that place, ever. Still don't get the difference?

I see your sense now but why shouldnt the duncans or the ferriers get a ban too them players weren't entitled still even if higher level characters were?

I have no sympathy for those that got banned. Gamers today are too busy exploiting games instead of playing it in the spirit it was intended to be. You don't bring a bat & glove to a football game. You don't bring brass knuckles to a boxing match. Learn to play the game right or don't play at all. If you're not a good player, its not the game's fault, its all on yourself. Change yourself, not others or your surroundings.

Sorry if this sounds too harsh to some people, unfortunately its the truth.

The one person who really really deserved a ban from the cavalon alliance is still roaming about on his 2nd account. i hope anet get him. he deserves a ban not only because of this but for many other things too

Because there's a difference?

Because I am not redoing 9 zones of vanquishing and 5 hardmode missions because of some stupid fools messing up the game. SCREW THAT! My title > Their account. Enough said, I am a selfish pig, wtf ever, i don't care, no rollbacks, no way, not even if hell freezes over, burns again, refreezes and turns into a ball of cotton candy. Exploiters are not going to waste 40 hours of my time working on my titles. NO WAY. Take you blasphemy elsewhere!

yeh, so do all those ridiculously rich players in the high end forum bidding thousands of ectos + armbraces. CLEARLY they duped them, I mean WTF cmon.... Assuming they didn't dupe them, they have farm bots, because there is no way in bloody hell you have that many of those armbraces without spending 20,000 hours of time devoted entirely to farming.

Let's see... Assuming they were super lucky farming ectos in UW. They got 2 ectos per run (chances are almost nill they would get 2 EACH and every run, but let's just assume it), and they did it for 8 hours a day every day. runs take (if they are quicky and very efficient) 20 minutes each.

8 hours = 24 runs.

So 24x2= 48 ectos per day

1750 ectos divided by 48 ectos/day = 36.5 days rounded.

36.5x8= 292 hours of PURE UW farming.

Ok, so they use those ectos to buy say, 1000 armbraces.

so Armbraces are, what? 60 ectos each via current market? Let's just assume and lowball it, 50 ectos each.

Ok, so 50x1000 = 50,000 ectos needed to buy 1000 armbraces. Takes 37 days to make 1750 ectos. 50,000/1750 = 28.5. So round that down even (trying to give them benefit). 28x37= 1036 days.

1036 days x 8 hrs a day = 8,288 hours of pure UW farming assuming 2 ectos per run, no failed runs, etc. Oh, and that is assuming all the above prices etc. Um... YEH FRIGGIN RIGHT.

it seems that people don't understand that it was a fine blend of a hack that allowed access to a forbidden, unseen post. it was then made into an exploit(ferrying) via the original hack.

now these guilty 'runners/ferrymen' if you will, are claiming innocence, or stupidity. (some have nutted up -my hats off to you)

Nearly 20 pages since I went to sleep, guru never sleeps it seems.

First of all, I'm happy Gaile got around to clarify a few things. You won't see me saying 'Told u so twas a hack i wuz rihgt al along', the thing that matters is that it's clarified now.

I'm sorry for the mess I have created. The best thing probably would have been to sent an email to A-net directly, but I didn't think of it at the moment. I don't know why I brought this up here, maybe I thought it was the right thing to do- it clearly wasn't and I've learned my lesson. To all who I insulted, I was angry and frustrated, and I apologize.

Everything that can be said has been said in my opinion. And to whoever said this a few pages a go, no I don't feel like a hero. I feel like a complete idiot and if I could turn it back I would, believe me.

To the people who got banned: good riddance. You shouldn't have used the exploit, end of story.

To the people who didn't got banned: live your Guild Wars lives happily ever after as if nothing has happened. This all probably hasn't got any influence on you directly, and that's what it all seems to be about.

* Ban 117 Players for entering a place they should NEVER EVER do, likely originated from a hack.
* Ban several thousands of people for having a quicker path to the final boss because there was a bug that only checked if 1 person in the party had the 4 previous areas

In your second figure, trying banning oh.... 250,000+ people.... Yeh, that will go over REALLY well. 117 is a VERY SMALL number.

@Rahja the Thief
My titles > your titles

i roughyl looked over your calculation, but dont you think its wrong to assume they would ONLY farm to buy 1 über rare item?? Would these "exploiters" not do some trading to increase their income. Just a thought ^^

I am just assuming raw ectos/armbraces to prove the point. ^^ LOL, but my title is moar amaz'n then yurs! I has "Connisur of Confekshunarys!" DUR!

The DoA mission requires talent, skill, and dedication

The DoA mission is too long and Arenanet knows that. After 2 hours of playing we get the advice to take a break. How many people doing the DoA mission take a break? Personally I never did this mission. Why? Because I need to enter a party with real players so I can't go afk for a while.

Hacking an online game is a bad idea and its ok that hackers get banned. Yet Arenanet should consider the reason for this: the length of the mission. If they advice to take a break after 2 hours than isn't it logical to make sure all missions can be done within that amount of time?

Gaile,

Your inbox is full so I cannot reply to your pm at this time. I will respond tomorrow after you have cleared some room.

Rich players don't purely farm. Trading is vastly more profitable in the long run. This is the case in just about every online game.

Remember the Urgoz exploit? did any1 get banned for that?
dont think so but they called it an "exploit" tho

Real life is not the same as an online game made for entertainment. If you think it is, you're taking this game way too serious.

But if you wanne do this bad comparisson, Anet is the only judge here which seems like a dictatorship. They make the rules and will bend them to their likings. In real life there's a jury in severe cases. Also different consequences would be sentenced for different persons depending how deep they got involved.

Oh and by the way, if you wanne shoot someone, go play a fps. In games you can without facing the same consequences as in real life. That's what games are about.

Anet overreacted, point. There are other ways instead of the easy perma ban.

Games are indeed for entertainement. However, if a company places rules upon playing their game that you agreed to follow, you should follow those rules just like in real life.

<---- Belgian too.
So a jury of equal huh. Let's see. I'm guessing the equal of the banned players would be...other players. Who seem to mostly agree with banning them. Guilty until proven otherwise? They freaking hacked/exploited a game mechanic. They admitted they did after they got banned. They provided detailed explanations on how they did it after they got banned. That's like going to court, pleading "Not guilty", then when sentenced due to overwhelming evidence, saying "yeah, so I did do it. Now release me".
You don't need another judge than ANet. They're the ones that know everything already. They have several logs showing what the players did, how many times they did it, who they did it with. Smile, you're on camera.
Put that kind of evidence in front of any jury in the world and try to plea "not guilty". Like hell they're going to believe you.

Do a wallhack in a FPS. See how long you remain on the server.

Oh yeah...go ahead and exploit the game all you want, since all you get is a slap on the wrist. GREAT way of monitoring an MMO...

You're absolutely right, but that's because I'm the one. You should see me do my superman thing ingame, I can switch between towns in seconds.

i am one of those "117" and i admit that i farmed mallyx, i can be punish for that i don't care anymore now. The thing i really don't want to hear is that i'm an "hacker", i know i'm not, and my friends that went there are not hackers too, i'm sure of that.
You should really think about it, if you think that players like me(with 8000 hours, r11 hero and r6 kobd, loads of fow armor and tourmented weap, rich weapons (before mallyx, mallyx gave me nothing more then 400k sleeping in my storage) 600k+ in storage need to hack the game for get rich~ to say that we are hackers, it's just brainless. We only used the game like all, and used travel from guild hall for get there.
yea i'm more then stupid , i did that for have fun and play with my friends, it wasnt even in the need of extra money.
The only thing i want is that Anet admit that we arent hackers, and that they stop hide the truth.

(sorry for my english~you can blame me for being french too)

You're a hacker, you exploited, you cheated! So don't give us that rubbish hehe

basicly u're saying that after people cheated, got caught, banned and are now trying to blame a.net ridiculously pretending to be the victims in this situation... after all this crap honest players should't have the right the be angry and post against the exploiters?

u better log in the game ye, clearly u fail to see the point on this discussion

Wrong.

Online games are played with real people. Interactions with real people have real consequences.

Some of you guys got to realise this isn't an exploit. Exploits are bugs/unintentional game mechanics in the game being abused. Anet removed access to this outpost so there was no bug, they hacked the game to gain access to it.

Tifole you may not be the hacker but your party leader was and you exploited this.

read me plz, we didnt hack the game, i also somtimes was the ferry, that mean party leader somtimes, and i didnt use any hack nor 3rd program. once you got the town (for have the town you only need someone to ferry you there from guild hall, and have completed once the 4 areas, then you can be a ferry for others too, just like all the other towns), if you leave gw, or go back to guild hall and press leave guild hall, you go back to mallyx town. But i guess you will still trust more in Anet then us.

sorry again for being french~

In that case som1 originally used a hack to take you to the town unlocking it for you and you still exploited it :P

l3j. There was an other way this could have happened, I sent it to Gaile by PM but no response yet.

i don't know who got the town first , and i don't know how, i'm just talking about WHat i know, that i'm not an hacker, and that yea, i farmed the monkey for nothing exept the fun of it, but i did. i went to the town for the first time a week ago, and i heard that people knew about that town and got it since ages, so yea i don't know who got it first.

It is as i said, once you are at the outpost, if you close gw, and open again, your char will stay at the oupost, just like a normal town. Same i you go back to guild hall and leave guild hall. the only thing needed was to visit mallyx one time (that mean complete the 4 area once, and enter the mallyx mission) for be able to go to the town by ferry.

Since, at this point, I pretty much believe anybody more than I believe ANet - I am willing to believe you are not a hacker.

And since Pablo has repeatedly shown that he is far more intelligent and reliable than anyone who works at ANet - I believe him when he says it was most likely a bug that first took someone to the post rather than a hack

(especially when I see so many things mislabeled in the game because the program got confused about what it was doing - for instance, oakhearts labeled as "warthogs" and why do I keep getting random graphics with the notice that I need to press "stand up" in Fronis' lair - it's obvious the game doesn't know whether I have just picked up a dungeon key, captured something in pvp or been knocked out - if random things like that occur on a regular - several times a day basis - I don't see why the game couldn't have "thought" someone was supposed to be in that out post)

I have to re enerate. A net banned a ton of us, who didnt even know this was illegal/hack/ whatever. Many many of us, are honest, hard working, game loving gamers.

I dont know if any of you where ever in URGOZ or the DEEP when it first came out, but this town looked exactly the same. No i am not here flaming etc. I am stating, I thought it was a legit town. I was taken there in a normal way, with no hacking/cheating.

I dont understand why we got banned, when a vast majority of us quit farming it over a month ago, simply because it wasnt very profitable, nor was it very fun. MANY MANY of us used it to get 1 item we always wanted, got it and moved on.

You can call us bad names, exploiters, et et, but we arent. We play the game for fun, period. Most of us are going to wow, or COD4, or other games rather than re buying gw. GW community is loosing a lot of great players over this, and I regret it, and I hope A net regrets it.

You can say your banning cheaters all you want, but your fooling yourselves.
Your banning players, who love the game, who are helpful, and generous.

I sinscerely will miss helping everyone out in this game, running people etc.

Again, I did not hack, cheat, dupe, exploit, etc ever in 3 years of guild wars, I had this account since beta, and it has a spotless record. I got banned, a MONTH after I did this farm, approximately 25 times max, resulting in an earning of 1 armbrace. I didnt even know it was not a normal out post. Anyoone who says it is obvious either A wasnt at urgoz or deep early on in factions, or B was VERY fermiliar with DOA, or C never saw this town.

I know personally a LOT of people who duped, and have tons of ectos etc from it, and they were never banned. I know people who made upwards of 500k on the bug where you could ferry people to duncan in slavers.

I personally never ever broke the EULA.

yet still I am one of the 117.

A net states, that I had to have used a hack to do this. This is clearly a lie. I couldnt hack my way out of a card board box. I have a clean client, and so did everyone else I know who did this.

I REALLY hope the Guild wars community isnt buying into a bunch of lies spewed at them. There WERE people banned who had mapped the town only once, and never even entered the mission. there WERE accounts banned that were alts, that never even went to the town.

This whole thing is a scandle, and its wrong. Many of us maybe did exploit a bug, but I assure you as friends and GW comrades, 90% of us didnt know it was a locked area, or a bug that got us there.

I want ALL the people who are reading these forums to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that people were banned here, for this, that DID NOT BREAK THE EULA! people are banned here who have spent 400$, 2 to 9 thousand hours, playing clean, honest gaming.

NONE of US hacked any client, or did ANYTHING against the EULA.

I personally, and many of my friends/guildies, DIDNT KNOW it was a locked area we were farming..

I can go back into it all if you want
A, the QUEST says, you must kill all 4 bosses. It doesnt say EACH TIME.
THis was NOT obvious to me, me not being experianced in DOA.
B, the quest IS REPETABLE
C, the town, looked like urgoz/thedeep, and farming it DIDNT take u straight to an end boss. . YOU STILL HAD TO kill about 30 very hard groups to get ot mallyx. __ JUST LIKE DUNCAN!

There have been MANY MANY hacks, dupes, etc going on in this game for 3 years. I and my guildies/friends, have nOT TAKEN part in them, because we love this game.
WE Knew how to do many of those, and knew them to be wrong. YEt MANY MANY people who did them, are still happily playing this game.

We did something we didnt know is wrong, and we are banned. MANY of us either didnt make ANY MONEY or made very little on this.

I HONESTLY CAN MAKE more money in 1 hour doing FOW HM Farming, than I can doing a stupid mallyx run. Believe me or not, these things ARE fact.

IF YOU say, GAILE GRAY AND A NET are believable, and you guys arent, then this is all i have to say to you:
Geoge bush doesnt lie either right?

No but seriously, most of gaile grays posts contradict themselves over and over, to the point of utter confusion. Even official A NET posts are so confusing many times after reading them you dont know what happened or why.

Maybe they dont lie, but they sure dont come straight out with the truth either.

They have a great game. Guild wars is fun, competitive, etc etc. I love the game. I just wish justice could be served, and I wish this loving Guild wars community didnt just
THINK that we deserved to be ban, because many of us didnt.

Thanks for reading.
Puritans Aid

Didn't want to quote it all. Let me get this straight, you had a bug that let you straight to mallyx's level and you didnt think it was suspicious? Cmo'n you knew it wasn't suppoused to be like that and so did everyone else but then again you will probably go out and buy the game again and make anet more money, thats partly the reason they ban people MORE M0nn1es. Guild Wars is more screwed than most games right now, I mean come on, stop using the excuse 'gw2 is main' and make sure your first crappy game is fine.
Honestly the anet dev team is worse than playstations, they need to get a grip and relise how they screwed it up. If you got banned then go listen to eric clapton. I dont know why, just do it.

This is new information?

you know others who have been banned without breaching them???

Perhaps A NET doesnt REALIZE that by banning me from the game, they broke 2 laws, established in 1999? I have heard someone is sueing, notnaming names... I think they might win. IF they can prove they didnt break those Legal agreements.

*IE DIGITAL SIGNATURE ACT**

We pay for a game. We play it, to the best of our knowledge, and ability, fairly, and without knowingly breaking the agreements. But we get banned anyway.

you judge if its right or wrong, or let a judge do it, if anyone has the money/proof to take it to court.

Puritan

I know of 2 people who were banned for performing tests and then reported the results to Anet(this was on Tuesday, before it got leaked on Guru). They killed Mallyx 4 times to test certain aspects of the exploit. They then sent in a ticket to anet reporting their findings, and deleted all the gemsets and drops they got. They did not use the hack to gain access to the outpost but the guild hall trick.

Anet have said they used the expolit 10 times.I,e each zone in and zone out counted as 1 time each. Not every Mallyx Kill. so they were over the limit allowed and thus were banned. The dev update said people were banned who gained personal benefit from it. So I think Anet should be counting times Malyx was killed, not other stuff , such as zones as there was no benefit otherwise. Anyway..

I told them to continue to work with support, as I think it was morally wrong to ban these two. It's Anets call in the end, they have the figures and know where to set the line. But I thought it important for people to know about this instance as it clearly has an effect on the way the community will respond to future exploits.

As it understand it, two people were banned for testing and giving anet detailed information on the duping exploit, they were later cleared and unbanned. So how is this any different?

From this it seems it's much better(from an account point of view) if you find an exploit to just shut up about it, dont tell anyone, dont test it to see how it works and dont even tell support as you might have(unknown to you) stepped over the limit and be of a risk of a ban. Just leave and shut up

With more and more exploits being found is the message Anet want to be sending to the community?

If one finds an exploit, does one just report "we found an exploit, no idea how it works just we know one is there", or does one perform a minimum amount of testing and then report it. Who determines what minimum is?

How long can one wait before being terms as being classed as an exploiter instead of someone testing? How many tests are allowed before reporting something?

Now obviously waiting a month to report something and farming it 24X7 in that time is taking the mick. But what about waiting an hour, overnight, a day?

Is one allowed to perform comprehensive testing(in this case that would take even more than 10 zones in and outs) or should one just get the hell out of dodge.

See we don't know and in this case people have been perma banned because of a process that is just not clear. We are told to report exploits, and thats good. But in order for them to be fixed Anet needs information and if people are at risk of being banned for providing it, then I don't see many people coming forward to help the next time.

In the dupe case Anet would still be working on a fix now had those members of the community not tested thoroughly. If they had done the same here, they too would now be perma banned along with the people who DID deserve it.

The process and boundaries of testing and reporting exploits to help Anet really need to be clarified, otherwise everyone in the community will be afraid to assist Anet for fear of being banned..

And that is a situation worse than people farming DoA.

So please, can we have a definiative "I found a an exploit what can I do to help Anet" guide. Because until I know I personally wont be reported any, anymore