[Dev Update] Exploits and Bans – 10 January 2008

"Are people allowed to run full tests to give information to Anet"

apparently one person is. just one.

THIS IS SIMPLY A LIE..

Read all my posts, then come talk to me in game .. PM NUMBERONE SEVENTEEN in game.

No one hacked. NO ONE HACKED>> NO ONE HACKED!!!

ITS A BUG!!!!

its addmited to be a bug, a game that is locked/isnt locked, by GAILE GRAY.... EVEN THO she DID EARLIER SAY its a hack, they new that NOT TO BE TRUE at the time..

A NET knows its not a hack, and until they stop lying to the community, PABLO, and peopl elike me, are going to post to your forums, in our defense/ TO try to help you guys so that one day, you too, dont get banned for a hack, that isnt a hack.

MY PARTY leader wasnt a hacker. Neither was anyone in my guild.

I didnt exploit this, I didnt make crap on it, and I didnt NEED crap.

We had STOPPED DOING THIS A FULL MONTH before we got banned.

Puritan.

Pablo said people manipulated packets to get to the town - HACK and only a very rare occurence let you enter it via a glitch.

BS You already admitted to continually using the bug/exploit/hack to kill Mallyx! Quit whining already just because you stopped a month ago as you say doesn't make it right! Whichever of the above it truly is you still took part continually which is why you got BANNED!

Thats just like someone screaming I stopped duping a month ago I shouldn't be banned! Just because you already stopped doesn't mean your in the clear.

You exploited a bug/hacked/exploit whatever it was and you got caught. Now deal with your consequences. If like you say you are so into Guild Wars and have spent thousands of hours in game you would know using exploits in game for personal game results in BANS!

Shanaeri Rynale has good points. The thing is, some of us truley didn't know it wasn't part of the game. IF WE HAD? OH we wouldn't have done it. Or the ones who ARE SHADY, would have done it on an alt, and transfered all the goods to their main, and had an alt banned, and be laughing all the way to the bank... which I am hearing 1 person did do that, and is quite happy. 1 happy 116 upset. Which ones are shady?

oh and the guy who said only 25 runs..
25 runs, with only 15 completeds, = approximately at 20 to 30 minutes a run , *as I said, you still kill about 30 mobs* and 2 hrs to get your group together, as with any farm, I guess I only spent about 30 hrs getting a gymset, NOt any different than you would doing it normal way. And over a 2 month period.

And we quit doing it a month before bans. why? because its boring, and we play for fun. We dont exploit/scam/cheat/hack. We are honest Faction farmers, and game lovers.
Puritan

2 hours to get your group together, lol.

Lets face it: you had direct access to Mallyx and you knew it wasn't normal. Youd struck gold and you milked it to the max thinking youd get away with it :P

only a very rare occurence let you enter it via a glitch.

pablo said this.

OK, well the fact is someone glitched in, or however, i dont know how it first was aquired.

Your ALL right, I DID FARM IT about 25 times. this is against agreement. OR IS IT?

THE EULA says, KNOWINGLY EXPLOITING A BUG?GLITCH ETC is a bannable offense.

I am NOT KIDDING YOU GUYS, when I say that at LEAST 50 of us, DID NOT KNOW THIS WASN'T PART OF THE GAME! WE did NOT KNOWINGLY exploit, and its arguable weather we even exploited at all. But IF what we did is exploiting a glitch/bug/hack, WE DID NOT KNOW IT.

IF YOU had read all the stuff I wrote, you would see that.

OH, and I wasn't bringing the pres of the US as an example, I was bringing BIG MONEY as an example.
Puritan

PS, if you DIDNT know that you were killing someone by playing a video game, which was attached to a real gun, would you be guilty?
By what your saying, definately, you should have realizedthe game was fake.

Sorry to tell you, that isn't right. THe person, or persons who set up the fake game, that actually kills people would be at fault. Not the person doing the fake game.

I love all you non exploiters who keep telling us how we did this honestly you are gonna believe the communist government controling our game believe them if you want we know what we did can't argue with us and i lvl'd in WoW earlier is anyone cares

to me this is a flame.

I am not sorry that a bug/exploitable glitch/whatever was found and rooted out. I am sorry that I got banned, and was apparently doing something wrong.

I didnt know I was doing something wrong, and If i had i wouldnt have done it.
I am sorry guild wars/ A NET feels the right solution is to ban anyone who has ever set foot in some town, that people can glitch into, as has been admited.

I am NOT sorry I got caught playing and enjoying the game. I AM SORRY that the guild wars community, and you, think I cheated/ hacked.etc

I am sorry that A NET didnt find a solution to this, about 6 months ago , when it was first reported, according to logs now posted on guru.... it would have saved about 117 or more accounts from being banned.

Puritan

Ok even if you didn't blow the doors off the bank yourself, you're still the equivelent of an oppertunist theif .
And you got to pay, go buy another account to fund more patches

one more thing.. while i'm here. PLEASE ANYONE WHO REMEMBERS PURITANS AID< OR PALADIN PURITAN< OR WHY PURITAN WHY< HELPING THEM FOR FREE, OR Teaching them to farm UW/FOW/COF, FREE, Running people around towns etc free, Tell these people Im not some bad person, who scams/hacks/cheats, then cries on posts.

IF I had known this was hack/glitch etc, I would have reported it. as apparently several people did, who then got banned anyway.

Thank god, GW2 doesn't need exploit farmers.

How does one know if you are the only one, esp if we are not supposed to talk about it. What if a test requires more people?

I think keeping your own farm to yourself is the general mindset of most farmers...

I dunno, what do you think???

Quoting this because Pablo really knows his shit. He's helped with a couple of serious bugs including a storage bug in Pre, so I'm very inclined to side with this guy.

I can't rightfully answer that, you'd have to ask anet's new hack rep. but I don't think even he's allowed to tell. ;-X

in all seriousness, I haven't a clue. all I can do is tell you what I would do. and that is, turn my head and walk away. like always.

Run: Running to a destination that is openly accessable to save the runner/people attenending time.

Bug: Accessing something that needs other requirments to access which you bypass.

Work it out.

Ohhh!!! So ferrying to Consolate Docks is bannable as well?? Anet, your heard it from the man right here.
Or beating Prophesies by getting ran to Droks, then beating the campaign by doing THK and the 3 Fire Island missions

/wave all
I'm one of those 117 condemned ppl for the Ebony citadel bug.
A "friend" told me we can do mallyx by the easiest way with ursans team in something like 20min and the only requirement is to complete the 4 areas and to get into the mallyx mission, once
The only zone I full completed was foundry with 600 n heroes, so I did a fast rush in the 3 other after that he told me mallyx can be kill like Rago in sorrow furnace i meant he was like a farmable boss coz I was asking some noob question about DOA wich I didn’t know like FoW or UW
BUT after some few runs (something like 4) he finally told me it was a bug n he seemed to don’t know all about this like if it was legit or not so I prefer stop it right after this news
When on Tuesday I heard 117 account was banned with the last update I searched on wiki why n, in the same time, looked on the official site what was containing the last update I was frightened to learn that was for a bug with the ebony citadel n checked aka with the little new year present on by Anet…
I am still considering the only crime I did is I’m a good noob about the DoA n particularly about mallyx…but what I can't accept is that we r like hackers perhaps all started from one person who perhaps hacked the prog or a guy from Anet could give it one of his IG friends who give to another friend etc. We will never know I think BUT why all 117 banned r treated hackers whereas they were just ferried from GH to this outpost (ferrying ppl to an outpost from GH isn't prohibited right?)
Yes we exploit a bug but I think some banned r like me n were just deceived by another player who they were considering like a friend and they trusted him coz they dunno anything about mallyx
BUT no we rn't hackers...
So why all of the other ppl who r saying "booh u r hackers, shame on u, u just have all u deserve what u needed"
Personally, I just know about virus malware n other spyware in informatics prigs n all u r talking about .dat files is like Chinese or Martian (as u want but Chinese exist like we can see on TV not like Martians)
So plz don't treated us Hackers when we aren’t.

Thank you for readind this and I hope my english isn't so bad like I trust so sorry if I did mistakes in this post...

well, if what you said is truth and you did something like 4 run and stopped after they told you is a bug you can appeal.

Anet have the logs of all chat and zoning so they should figure out the truth

The general opinion (with a few exceptions) seems to be:
__

Permanent ban the ones who used the hack to gain access to this "non existent outpost", remove completly or change the ban to a 300 hours one for the accounts who got brought in there and used the exploit - but didnt use the hack themselves to gain entrance.
__

Two of my friends went there once, they didnt get banned.
One of my friends went there once, or he was dragged along, and got banned.
Two of my other friends also went there not once, but twice (and only killed the big boss once, mind you) and got a permanent ban.

I dont see a pattern. =)

never heard of this until just now. people who use 3pp/mods to cheat should be perma banned. newbs should get a temp ban and an email telling them why.

IMHO anet should close down areas that have exploits in them until its fixed. this would stop all the bans and keep the fanbase up. and i dont care if it bothers other players because being slightly/very annoyed does mean squat compared to mass bans.

right now it seems like anet doesnt know what they are doing and people are paying for it. if i do a run and get 100 ectos from a single monster i am going to keep doing it because the game allows it. it is anets job to fix problems, not the players. my job is to have fun and get the best stuff i can for my characters. if the game allows me a short cut, then i will use it. its not my job to walk around the game telling anet their faults. its their job.

when the players have problems, anet doesnt fix them. people spam vulgar profanity daily, account sellers spam and anet does nothing. it never goes away.

but if people KNOW something is bannable and keep doing it anyways. then o well for you. shoulda stopped. if you think something is fishy, then post on forums or send anet a msg asking about it. as far as i am concerned, bans are a good thing because 1. people have to buy new copies of their games. 2 less traders to compete with. 3 less people to deal with in forming groups which means players become more valueable.

PS: if you spent 1+ years on gw and had a perma ban, losing all your chars/items/elite skills/titles and all that, why the hell would you buy the game again? lol learn from their mistakes and just find something else.
more than likely you will just get banned again.

PS: no one pwns players like anet.

Mini britney spears is really cheap, you can buy her for 1 gold but the seller will want change.

Couldn't have said it better myself. /agreed

/agree. I think that you're the most intelligent wo/man on this thread.

I applaud you. Work for A-net. They could do with a person like yourself.

Exactly, 100% Yes

Agree, im one of the lucky 117 aswell

Let me just clarify a couple of thoughts.
1. Creating a support ticket is not a get out of Jail card. Just because you opened one does'nt give you carte blanche to go and run it as you see fit.

I really don't thinks saying "I was only testing" and then opening up a support ticket after you were banned is going to wash. Nor should it.

On the other hand opening up a "Hey I think there is an exploit but dont know how to do it or how it works" just clogs up Anets support desk.

Gaile has stated that Players who report exploits after testing should not get banned.

and in this instance.

But what are the limits of the testing for an exploit, the above quotes read like if it can be proven you were testing for an exploit you should not get banned.

But when does just testing turn into abuse? I dunno.

In this case I can think of at least 32 tests that could be performed.

1. Does it work with 1,2,3,4,5,67,or 8 people in the team(thats 8 Mallyx runs(16 if we use Anets formula).
2. Does it work with 1,2,3,4,5,67,or 8 people in the team who don't have the quest(now we're up to 16 runs, or 32 Anet numbers)
3. Can I get repeated rewards with 1,2,3,4,5,67,or 8 people (now we're up to 24 runs, or 48 with Anet numbers
4. Can I get repeated rewards with 1,2,3,4,5,67,or 8 people who don;t have the quest (now we're up to 32 runs, or 64 with Anet numbers

Others spring to mind, does it only work in a certain district? etc etc

So doing proper testing, even with this limited scope could mean up to 32/64 uses. More than enough to put one over the ban limit in this instance

The get to the UW via lornars trick would only work from the Int district and if 4 or more people were from the American region, so the above are valid test. Now I'm sure that these guys did'nt test that extensivley. But they could have!

Can anyone afford not to go over a line they don't know is there?

Should we open a potentially needless ticket/Waste Gailes time by saying

"I think I know a Mallyx exploit, i'm going to test it a few times and report back"

Is that the right way to do things.

I dunno.

Point is people have been banned for apperently trying to help, and doing this less times than would be needed to extensively test it, they also opened a ticket as far as I understand it in pretty short order and did'nt wait a week, or months to do so.

For future exploits, we *really* need to know how to help anet the best, otherwise many people will take the I don't want to risk anything approach and therefore prolong the damage the exploit will do.

A-net determines which exploits are bad. Not all of 'em. /agree 1000000% !!!1

I do have a question to ANet tho...

Will the records of those that have been banned in GW1 be maintained, therefore they are automatically banned from GW2? I hope so.

..then they better e-mail AND call all 117 people to inform them of such a thing. Or else they'll have a hell of a lot of false advertisement lawsuits on their hands come GW2. And I highly doubt that A-Net has a stout legal team to handle it, considering they don't even have a phone number to call to deal with issues.

Count Pointing-Out-The-Obvious

dumbest thing they did was keep it secret to be honest. They spent months farming this, and keep it between around 200 people. If after they found this exploit, they started ferry everyone there, then it isn't a matter of a few hundred people, it become thousands, and anet can't ban thousands of accounts, it would be a PR nightmare.
Also look at the farming forum, alot of farmers love show off their epeens. Only when it seem not legit people quiet up because they don't want it to get nerfed.

*sigh*

Why are people still making appeals here? The community doesn't have game logs neither doesn't it have the power to ban or unban anybody. Those who do have better things to do than read 80+ pages of QQ.

And there are still people who claim that what was done was not worse than other past/current 'exploits'.

You are invited to a formal dinner.

During the dinner you leave your place, go to a side table where dessert is waiting and start devouring it while others are still eating the main course. People roll their eyes at your lack of manners.

During the dinner you're found in the kitchen, rummaging drawers for anything valuable. People do not roll their eyes any more. Cops roll their eyes at your lame excuses.

Players didn't have any business in the dev outpost, ever, but you still went there. You got caught. Case closed.

sounds like anet keeps short cuts for their own personal gain. they probably never have to work as hard as normal players do.

If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

You exploited, you got banned. Know which exploits are bannable, and which are harmless. If you can't tell, don't use any shortcuts of any kind.

Being unable to determine what is bannable offense cost you $200 - the cost of game. Legal expenses will cost you $50,000 - that you will waste without even making it to court.

This is same as when /report was introduced. So many "innocent" people got banned. Nah... Only the 117 worst and most annoying people did. They either couldn't comprehend the most basic social rules that exist in game, or didn't want to respect them.

Same here. Everyone that posts here about their innocence knowingly and willingly exploited the area repeatedly and with intent. There's no innocence here.

That's the main problem - the dozen or so people who continue to proclaim how unfair it is really and honestly don't understand why this was so wrong and why such severe punishment was done. At some point you'll need to either understand it, and learn a valuable lesson about what is permissible and what isn't - or get burned much worse in real life for the same reasons.

One hundred and seventeen people. That is all. There's less people in a single instance of a city. Would you notice if one of Lion's arch district's vanished?

And it's a lesson - be careful what and how you exploit. Just like /report improved the pvp behavior, so will this serve as a severe reminder.

Not quite: Take all you can get away with, and make sure to give to those that matter. That's the proper way to exploit.

No they don't, because they spend all that time making the game.

I would think so. If I was in the position in which I had stumbled onto an apparent glitch and one that could be exploited I would take the following steps.

First, stop whatever I'm doing. Note the date, the time, and the IP in my ping window.

Second, Take as many screenshots as needed, with mission maps up, and interface up, to show my location from what I see. My screens can then be compared to their logs.

Third, Take my noted information and send it to Anet with a message that would probably go something like this.

Subject Line: Immediate Reply Needed: Possible Glitch/Exploit

"To whom it may concern: While doing ____________ on Friday, January 11th at 10:02 pm EST, I suddenly experienced something out of the ordinary. <insert explination> <Provide links to uploaded screenshots>

While I cannot confirm if this is an actual exploitable glitch, or a random occurance that I have just experienced, I am notifying you of the instance for your records because it appears significant enough in its first experience. With your permission, I would be willing to conduct further tests and recreation attempts for more data. If permission is granted, please note my Character Name signed to the attached letter for your records. Your granted permission will be kept for my records. If permission is denied, I will make no attempts to continue investigating this possible bug.

--Signed,
_______________ (should be the exact character name you were using at the time so it can be referred back to Anets logs)


Once you've written that letter, leave your game area that you found it in and wait for a response to your message. There's no point in proceeding if a possible reply is "Please Do Not attempt to recreate this bug. We are aware of this..........", or whatever reason they give.



Anyways, that's the way I've gone about it in another game I used to play that was ridden with bugs and exploits. Not just 4, or 5, but in the Hundreds.

They have a "criminal record" with NCsoft now. Arguably ANY registration of a 117 player should alert NCSoft an undesirable is on the network and they would (at least I would hope) they remove the offender from the system immediately.

As for the now disgruntled wannabe GW2 player...send the game back to NCSoft, they'll refund you as per the User Agreement.

Sounds like a great approach Sonata. We really need something like this either in the support forms, or maybe in the report command.

E.g /report Exploit. then all the above are auto filled in.

I too am among the 117 that outsiders have come to despise as a result of the outright lies that have been told to the general public. Believe us or not, let it be known that we are not hackers. I teach math for a living, I’m not some computer whiz that would even have the first idea on how to hack a game. If someone with as little computer knowledge as me has the ability to hack a sophisticated gaming system such as Guild Wars, I think they have far larger issues to look at. I personally would be weary of giving them any of your credit card information if this is the kind of security they have in place…“hacked” by 117 people and it took them months to do anything about it.

You want to know how little they actually know about what is going on? They have sent private messages to some of us 117 asking us about how we did this. This is, of course, after receiving emails from support saying logs have been rigorously reviewed and they know exactly what we did, and how many times we did it. Seems rather contradictory on their part. If you know what we did and how often we did it so well, why are you having to ask us how to use this glitch?

You want to know another lie that has continued to be upheld as truth? That we had to do this repeatedly and an excessive number of times for it to result in a ban. A close friend of mine who had a character on an alternate account saved to the town, that never even did the mission once, had their account banned. So what is this lie about you must have done the mission at least 4 times for it to result in a ban? Once again this shows how careless they have been in the information they throw out there to the rest of you.

It is absolutely despicable that a formal apology has not been issued for those who have had both their online and real life character defamed by the lies that have been posted about us. They know that we are not hackers, yet they continue to label us as so. If you want to hold us accountable for our actions, hold them accountable for their libel as well. Not a single one of us hacked this game at any point. Apparently many of you cannot grasp that concept because of the lies that have been told about us, but I swear to you it is the truth, and I cannot emphasize this point enough.

This town which we visited was left in the game from hen beta testers were using it. We in no way had to hack Guild Wars to visit it. It was a real location in the game. It showed up on our maps as the Domain of Anguish. There was a button that allowed us to start the mission. We had to fight through the entire mission, just as you would if you entered Citadel any other way. Does that honestly seem like anything was hacked? No. We traveled to this location via our guild hall much as people have ferried to Urgoz, The Deep and various other locations. Being a party leader did not mean you hacked anything, for I at times had been a party leader. The only requirement to enter this town was that you had beat all four areas of DoA, and Mallyx at least once the old fashion way.

Like many others who were banned, I had no need to exploit this glitch for money. I had nearly 30 maxed titles, stacks of legitimately earned ectos in the bank, money in storage, FoW armor, completely runed out and equipped heroes, etc, etc. For nearly two years, and over a span of more than 4500 hours, I never participated in anything remotely in breach of the User Agreement. I have never sought to undermine or endanger any aspect of this game, I have only ever sought so have fun with individuals I have become very close with since I started.

At this point it is not even about the termination of my account, but the fact that I, as well as friends that are very dear to me, have repeatedly been subjugated to defamation of their character. I am not asking for my account to be returned, but I am asking that they step up and admit they lied to you all when they said we hacked, and also that you had to do this mission at least 4 times to be banned. Please tell these people the truth, because clearly they do not listen when it comes from us.

This will be both my first, last, and only comment on this matter. I have seen from previous posts, it doesn’t seem to matter what the truth is, people have already made up their minds on what to believe in this matter. Everything I have said has been completely truthful, it is your choice to believe it or continue to listen to the lies.

...What? It says "developed by ANet" on the box. I think if they developed it then they are allowed to do whatever they'd like with their game.

I consider a "shortcut that goes straight to Mallyx" to be there for testing purposes. If you've play tested the areas prior to him a large amount of times and you just need to test Mallyx, why would you spend all the time going through all of the other areas again when you know they work?

Again, it's a game that THEY made for US. They can do whatever they want for testing.