[Dev Update] Exploits and Bans – 10 January 2008

Sure they can, and a temp ban isn't what i see as cracking down. Perma bans get peopls attention and make them think twice.

Okay, I've been following this for a bit. Though I'm still clearly in my noob colours I do have some thoughts - I'll try to keep them straightforward:

Personally I'm pleased with the bans. I've been a player for only about 6 months and seen the usual bots, scammers etc. Glad to see definitive action being taken there.

A couple of points -
Re: Defamation
There are some major flaws for the parties discussing taking Anet to court for defamation. Apart from the extreme cost of filing this sort of case there is also the following to consider:
* Anet did not actually name any of the 117 for them to claim they were defamed. The posters of the 117 chose voluntarily to name themselves in public. There seems to have also been attempts to prevent those 117 being named elsewhere. This will go completely against a defamation claim.
* The onus rests on the claimants to prove that they were being defamed thus they must:
- Prove they had a considerable reputation that could be aversely damaged and how that repuation was damaged, giving evidence. This also means proving people can identify your real life persona via your online/member ID. It is very very difficult to bring any defamation case against an online identity.
- Prove conclusively that the statements made which you have publically claimed to be reffering to yourself is untrue. 'I didn't know' is pretty unlikely to hold water.
To be blunt, theres doesnt seem to be much case there unless you can claim to be a prominent public figure with a widely known online identity who has lost reputation over this and was not anywhere in the vicinity of said exploit.

Re: Support responses
Getting an automated response doesnt mean your case wasnt reviewed individually before that response was sent.

Re: the 'reasons'
I must say I have experienced some amusement in reading some of the reasons given. If there are people banned who truly were just testing said exploit and promptly destroyed all gained items and reported the results, I can't support that. The sort of person who would not accept the rewards from an exploit like this and report it are important to help the community keep ahead of issues like this. If there are any banned under these actions I'd hope to see them return. If you sent a support ticket then farmed your butt off in the area to get gemsets, thats a different kettle of fish.
Otherwise some of the statements are curious.
* I didn't know - As DOA is clearly an elite area which requires a lot of planning and strategy I don't doubt most people will have looked up info or asked for tips before doing it.
* Everyone else was doing it or something similar (run/ferry)- This strikes me as a tad playground. Personally I don't really look kindly on those who use other people's actions to justify their own. Just because other people are doing something you may consider dodgy doesn't mean its okay for you to or for you to decide or demand the authority involved act in anyway towards those others.
* The punishment is too much - Not for you to decide really. It's Anets ball and they can take it away if you don't play nice.
* I didn't hack, just ferry/repeat quest/farm area etc - Though I agree hacking is more serious (too me at least) you did use an exploit (and many repeatedly) to gain rewards that would take the rest of the playerbase significantly more effort to attain as they had no option but to use the official manner of play opposed to the exploit. If Anet has decided that action is bannable, its bannable.
* I'm a nice person - I don't think giving free stuff to others or helping noobs etc really removes the fact that you did use this exploit.
* I have xxxx titles/hours/characters/cash put into this - I must say I'm very happy to see this wasn't taken into account. I would hope in any situation that a noob like me would be given the same level of support as another player with 5K hours, 20 titles and a storage full of cash. Spending a lot of time on a game shouldn't entitle you to better treatment than others.
* I paid for the game - doesn't mean you can ignore the terms of service. Should you disagree with the EULA you could have attempted to return the game to the place you bought it. You purchased the right to use the software under the terms of service provided and violating those terms means Anet are in their right to remove your access.

i see a big difference in your standpoint i think this speaks for itself

Doesn't matter. The point wasn't profitability, they were all exploits as well.. not hacks. They all went unpunished.. except mallyx. Thats impartial.. and there is no justice.

I'm sorry if I'm using BIG words here but there are those posting that just don't get it. The simple fact that ANet choose to not ban on previous occasions was an act of compassion and mercy. You can only tolerate bad behavior for only so long before the arbiter of rules has had enough. Since ANet has chosen to taken action on accounts there has been a message sent, so that others do not follow in their foot steps. Just because they choose to not be merciful this time does not mean they had to not be merciful before.

Here is something to consider:
Cuius regio, eius religio is a phrase in Latin that means "Whose the region, his the religion". In other words, the religion of the king or other ruler would be the religion of the people.

ANet's region ANets ethics. IF they choose to act it is ethical, if they choose not to act that is also ethical for them to do so.

Sovereignty
noun: is the exclusive right to complete control over an area of governance, people, or oneself. A sovereign is the supreme lawmaking authority, subject to no other.

What even makes people think ANet even needs to respond to these silly questions? What RIGHTS do you seriously think you have. Thats a joke you agreed to the EULA no one forced anyone into that agreement. If you don't like it tough.

In real life, if u enter an unlocked house, ull be guilty of stealing even if the opportunity presents itself. in guild wars, taking advantage of a glitch thats available is still guilty. the only difference between this and ferrying is that this 1) can or did affect the guild wars economy drastically 2) needed modifiying of the guild wars client first in order to do so.

Don't matter to you.

Clearly for anet it mattered. and from what i seen most of people agree with them.

Okay, my brain is about to explode. From the misinformation, the repeated questions that I can find on every 5 pages of this thread, and from those who just like to do +1 posts when they could bring a conversation to PM's. I'm not sure how much longer to persist with this thread. Despite having numerous people ask for it's closure, both mods and users, it's starting to go around in circles. Everything someone needs to know from Anet is on the first page of this thread.

Everything contained in this thread is being read, tested or explained by Anet as evidence from several posts from Gaile Gray. I understand the communities frustration and yes... from some of you, betrayal and outrage. But banging our heads to try to make the other side see our point is not doing anything but contributing to the over 500 deleted posts in this thread. Not to mention countless edits. That's 1 in every 4 posts being deleted. This is a massive amount of effort over the last several days to assure that the community has a voice. That you can express your displeasure, your acceptance or your support of what ArenaNet did.

I wish that there could be some resolution for everyone... both banned, those that think it unfair, friends of those who were banned, those who have been hurt or ridiculed for this, or those simply striving to make the other side hear and understand their point of view.

But there's no end to this in sight. I think all view points have been represented in this thread. I wish there were a better way to handle this, to let those who were banned get their stories and points to ArenaNet directly for consideration but that method has been provided whether you like the answer or not... go through support.

The question of this being a hack or a bug or an oversight by Anet is not going to be resolved nor will it change ArenaNet's mind. They have seen the steps some of you have posted to contribute toward your ban or that of a friend. I have seen the arguements, the flames and the frustration.

From this point forward this thread will become strictly monitored. Any one-liner... ANY ONE LINER... will be deleted. Anymore reference to this being a QQ thread will be deleted. Any reposting of what you said 30 pages ago, will be deleted. Any analogies will be deleted. Any insult/flame or flamebait will be deleted. Any post about lawsuits/libel/defamation will be deleted. These rules are subject to change.

Try to stay on topic. Try to express your views by really posting and thinking of your responses. Stop the back-and-forth bickering and conversation mode. If we can continue with this thread in a resonable manner with an honest debate with the information we have then I'll keep it open. Any new stories from those who were banned who would like to come forward to express their viewpoint are welcome. We'll see how this goes.

A few things puzzle me

Why would anet want to ban people and lie about how the town was initially unlocked? Is'nt it silly to ban loads of people(who would have spent real money on you and who now wont) and then make up a reason? It's not as tho the 117 sacrifcial lambs for some public spin.

Anet have never been the 'lets expel 20 russian diplomats to kill a news story' kind of company. Why start now?

Surely telling the world someone hacked your client is more damaging than 'players managed to find a hidden outpost' I must be super tired but I dont see the reason they would lie.

Hacking the client is more serious than finding an in game exploit, but the end result is the same. People gained advantages from the game by doing something it was obvious was not right. The effects on the economy and player base would have been the same if 117 had used the hack of the GH tricks.

If it were a legit outpost it would have NPC's in, Merchants, Xunlai, y'know the usual. It had none.

I really am sorry people got banned for it, and I hope those exceptions Gaile mentioned are resolved in the correct way.

Wow Arwen... I was in that run with you!!!



If you didn't farm this exploit more than 4 times, you will get your account back. Stay on top of support and give them time to look into it. Don't assume getting automated responses means they are done investigating.

If you did farm it more than 4 times...

All those exploits weren't made possible by a hack.

There is a huge difference between saying everyone who did this exploit hacked, and saying that this exploit was made possible by the use of a hack. It is clear from Gaile's post that they aren't calling everyone a hacker, merely saying that someONE did hack. Notice the one, thats all it took after that nobody else needed to.

-------------------------------------MUST READ (ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE ANET STAFF)---------------------------------------------

i will tell you the truth of it.
one guy started calling out in DOA "recruiting good doa farmers"
we formed guilds, these guilds had dubious ppl who reported the bug..the bug reporting went on for 2-3 weeks, no reply, these ppl thought ok they wont fix it lets go, they started skipping straight to mallyx and in turn exploited the game. i never participated in this as i much preferred to try and set new doa records. the ppl involved- most of them where oblivious that the site had been hacked, they where told it was a glitch. which is easily believed as doa is known for its terrible glitches which still havent been fixed after repeated reports.in my opinion the ppl who where involved for farming mallyx shouldnt be permanenlty banned but suffer a huge penalty. the guy who hacked the site should be charged by the law for this and i also know his ign. i was also banned although i never actually fought mallyx, i just went to the bugged outpost a few times. i never gained nothing from it and i was incurred with a ban, regardless i dont care. all my buddies where banned so i think its time to forget guild wars. the justice system is questionable. they make it sound like they where thorough in their investigation and i can assure you that they werent. GW-IMO=waste of cash. im sure if all you guys where offered the chance to repeatedly do mallyx you would be tempted, especially after reporting the bug yourself to find no avail after 2-3 weeks...
I know who started the whole "mallyx farm" and he told me it was by using the GH trick. ANETS mistake? whole situation spawned from ANET's incompetence?
PS- i got rich in the game by doing all areas in doa within 1h30m about 3 times a day. go to "post your super speedy or slow times" thread to see evidence. the exploit was up and running for roughly 4 weeks as far as i know and two of those weeks we where waiting for replies to our glitch reports.
i dunno what to say...

Puritan, you sound like an alright guy but you broke the rules and were caught. Your down to two options:

Accept the punishment and buy a new account.
Quit the game.

Similar thing happened to me on Diablo 2 my friend offered me an insanely powerfull bow for my Amazon for a cheap price. I knew it was duped but was greedy and bought it anyway, one day i logged in to find my entire account banned - all characters gone.

I created a new free account, but anyway you get the idea, just accept the punishment

I'm leaving the thread for now too. Despite genuinely feeling that I, and a large number of my friends were treated extremely harshly, I don't see how discussing it here is going to resolve anything and is only adding fuel for the people who want to troll and flame without the facts, instead of playing the game - god's sake some of you trollers lol - you still have guildwars, go play it it's great, I miss it already. Suffice to say that this isn't going to be the end of this debacle - I feel bad for Gaile, especially if she's been putting in extra hours. Let her rest for the weekend because she's probably in for a shocker of a week..

I'm leaning towards 'some' of the banned, they deserve a fair say but Gailes posts dont give the impression that he can, if they have records of everything then they'd have some idea too how much they actually know such as their chat logs ect.
I also agree that other exploits were available and anet did nothing because the numbers were too high e.g Duncan.
I hope the people who were innocent get their account back and the exploiters get what they deserve. I think being forced to listen to Green Day would be punishment.

Hiya, after that trip, I took a break from Mallyx - I had enough gold/ectos to last a long long time and haven't done any DoA for many months. Just for the record, I have not killed Mallyx using the current access in question, and I have not farmed it repeatedly - how do u "farm" it if you haven't killed it. Alas, the only reason why I was there was to make sure I don't miss any potential good farm spots, as well as to see how people can say they can ursan it in 20 minutes...

To Inde - Thx for moderating this thread. It's difficult. Please keep a good backup of all the posts. Thanks.

never ever been to DoA in my gw life time and i can say i have no need to go there to farm :P

my view would be just hammer the support if you wanna question something flamming other members or gaile isnt going to get you anywhere. people are trying to help but your just flamming them for it. if you want help just keep ticketing the support and explain excess times and im sure they will check after a while considering proberlly most of the people who got banned would like to be unbanned so they can either exploit again or give away there fancy items for however much money.

and jeebs i havent been here for a while guild is still zoo crew oh my jeebs lol

I FOR ONE AM VERY VERY GRATEFULL that you have let me attempt to explain the situation in a level of detail that goes beyond a few one liners. I have been asked many good questions about this, and have responded to the best of my knowledge. I appreciate your attempt to monitor such a huge thread, and I appreciate the fact that it wasnt just closed imidiately.

I am aware, that Gaile gray said exstensive reasearch blabla is now being conducted, then 2 posts later wrote that no research was being conducted. The amount of Contradictions in gaile grays posts are appalling, thru out all the forums.

I feel I can prove this. I feel that anyone who thinks, OH they cheated ban them, Doesnt have the full picture, nor do they have all the knowledge of the game, or they have far more knowledge of the game, than I do.

I would really appreciate it if the community and gaile gray would stop flaiming, Calling us names, Calling us hackers. Weather a game or real life, all these comparisons are made, if In my defense about my account they *A NET* would like to go ahead and pull my background report, my credit report, and my police reports, they can feel free, and I will pay for it if it were to help anything.

I have a lvl 3 government security clearance, for a job I did 3 years ago. I have had MULTIPLE times in this game, where I could have cheated/scammed etc, and NEVER have I done that.

ANYONE out of the 5 to 10 thousand who have known me in this game, ANYONE of them would call me an honest, decent person, in this game.

HAD I known it was an exploit, hack. bug, etc I would have not done it/stoped doing it and reported it imediately.

Does this help me now? ANY OF IT>
Porbably not. But if a net has all these logs etc, then please, go ahead, review them. Ask everyone I've ever opened trade with, or done ANYTHING with in this game about me, and see what kind of answers you will get. You will get nothing but good answers.

At any rate, Its been fun, I believe this is my last post. I will be watching. Once i get all my stuff together for my "defense" I will probably post it in a new area. not on page 90.. lol

untill then, Take care, and enjoy.

Puritans, Aid Paladin Puritan, WHY PURITAN WHY, Puritan PWNZ uz, etc etc etc

PS thanks agian for trying to keep a nice clean forum and letting us post.

well it was an interesting discussion...

Tho i hope that the ones who got banned and didnt abuse the exploit to come back to the game. Just keep posting your tickets in a civil matter and i think it will come out okay. Let this be a lesson cuz when i heard about this "glitch" it had bannable offence written all over it.

Keep in mind tho its still just a game

they dont have records. thats why i am banned and thats why they started this thread, to find out what happened. they have no chat logs as they would have seen me say im leaving as i fear the ban. they havent checked to see who has profitted from this as i never made a single GW gold coin from this lol. ANET has made the right choice in most cases. most of the banned did farm mallyx but im fairly sure that they dont have the evidence to back it up, or prove people innocent
where is my PM from ANET staff? i know more about this whole situation than you guys lol

If you really are telling the truth, you'll more than likely be unbanned. They definitely have chat logs, and they probably have logs saying whether or not you've been in the town.

and you got your reports.... about 10 of em.........about 5 weeks ago....

during the period of gh instability i am led to believe, by the guy who started this whole thing, that this is how the glitch was formed.you have since repaired the gh trick and now cannot explain why you cant do the same thing my guy claims to have done. whether he tells the truth i dont know, but i do know that he could give someone else power to do the same ferry by only having to speak to them. no hacking involved.if i knew how they did it i would tell you myself and im sure one of the others may tell you when they realise they have been busted.
you say you know what has happened...and you know how many times people exploited the glitch.... but yet i made one trip to mallyx from the glitched area and left half way through, fearing a ban... why i am banned?
i thought you did a thorough investigation...psch
if they had logs i wouldnt be banned. or if they do they havent reviewed them. i was banned within about 7 hours of me going to mallyx and leaving mid battle. i didnt make nothing from it and plus i had already done all the prerequisite quests so i was not unjustly fighting mallyx anyway. i dont know about the other 116 but im in the clear...just waiting for justice to be done before i abandon GW. all my friends couldnt resist the glitch, the fact that they all reported it and got no response sent them mixed messages. wouldnt a 6 month ban be severe enough for the farmers? if you can do that i will tell you who started it all. btw it didnt affect the in game economy that much.everyone waited 2 weeks for a reply to the reports before they started so... its how much damage they can do in 2 weeks...

summed up:
they where wrong to farm mallyx and they knew it was wrong
it could have had an impact on the in game economy (just like other ferriers or botting or even dupers)
reports where there...ppl did what anet asked them to do
no response from anet
no response to the less informed = go go go
ppl didnt think it was that severe at the time, now it is clear to see the repercussions
life time ban

make your own conclusions, to me thats the black and white of it

everyone seems to like metaphors:
its like walking past a bank in an empty town....what would you do?

Seriously, I am so sick and tired of this.

I sent Support:

A. A way to prove that I killed Mallyx 7 times.
B. Asked them to show me a chat log where I acknowledged this as an exploit or a hack.

2 Days Later...

Nothing, not from Gaile (who I have emailed 6 times btw, I know your busy, but come on). Oh, and Support told me to gtfo.

As I have stated, it was a script anet runs on their server that banned everybody. It looked at anybody that accessed the town. Banned everyone at Wednesday night at approx 12am pacific. No review was necessary. It was automatic. For those that sent in a response.. the response(s) back were all automatic and identical.

Finally, the truth comes out! Read this Gaile, read it.


The time it took for them to ban everyone was about the same as the time it took for me to make a cup of hot chocolate.

Anet is aware of how that works. They designed it obviously.

To say, however, they have done a thorough investigation is a blatant lie.

I think part of the problem here is that Anet doesn't have very many options for dealing with any percieved cheating in GW.

They can temp ban, perm ban or do nothing it seams.

If anything postive at all can come from this its the need to impliment in GW2 if not possible in GW a means to address infractions on more than just 2 levels.

If Anet had the means to "rollback" an individual's account to a point before the infractions, thereby removing any and all gain cause by the infraction, that could be another means of dealing with certain infractions.

Unfortunately one of the drawbacks to any MMO is that even a single player can have an effect upon the entire comunity. Imagine that they did rollback a single players account, would they not also have to track down and reverse every trade that player made? That would lead to reversing trades made by those that traded with the initial player and any trades those players made with others after that. It is a nasy chain reaction...

Perhaps Anet could lock an individuals storage chest and disable thier trade feature. This would hamper them, but they could still play the game. They would be unable, from that point on, to have any effect upon the gaming comunity as far as the ecconimy at least.

What other means of punishment/education/correction could Anet impliment to keep people from abusing the game without stripping them of the chance to learn from making, what very well could be, an innocent mistake?

Once you finally found a team to do Mallyx this way. you spend half the "profit" on consumables before you even start and then there is the fails..

The Duncan Taxi bug was alot more profitable than any other (as a mission)

The Guild hall map anywhere bug was the best for money making. people offering 50k a time to get a taxi to a mission or outpost.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------


the facts are.. they call us hackers when nobody hacked(main discussion I believe)


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:::::they banned permanently the guys who farmed this 100000 times like those that went 1-5 times.. so seems that support is automated.. and was a script who banned everyone.. so nobody checked the chat logs( if they checked the chat logs probably a lot of ppl will get unbann).. so.. there is no "advance research" like every support ticket says and stuff.. soooo almost everything.. well everything from wikis/gaile/ect is a BIG LIE? hhmmm interesting

Read carefully, please.

That is not difficult to understand. It is not confusing, nor is it misleading in any way.

''Protests regarding the termination of your Guild Wars game account will not be addressed or entertained. We will not accept appeals in cases such as this because of the depth of the analysis prior to the block. We regret the necessity of terminating any game account, but we will continue to take all necessary actions to protect the Guild Wars community and to assure that players are abiding by our User Agreement.

Regards,
The Guild Wars Support Team''


My account is already terminated before i ask them to send me the gamelogs that shows me i repeatedly did their Mallyx exploit. As said before all players in same guild or being once in that outpost are banned without any investigation.

I have read it carefully. There is only one way to interpret it. They banned everyone for hacking.. since that is the only way to access the Ebony Citadel. Then in a later post, she said "we're not accusing anybody of hacking."

Its either one or the other.

If it was an exploit.. then please call it that. The fact that you can not distinguish between an exploit and a hack is disturbing.

People got away with other similiar offenses (i.e Duncan) without even a slap on the wrist. Why has Anet decided to go all out on Mallyx and not on Duncan?.. an exploit that has the same mechanics.

What Gaile said on how to get to the city is wrong. she said you can only get there by partying with someone who hacked or hacking it yourself.

I did the 4 areas with a pug team and went into mallyx SOLO and i was able to get the town from mapping to the guild hall and i cant hack i wouldnt know where to start

Partying with someone who had done so does not equal being the hacker.

You guys have to stop twisting and putting your own spin on these statements, for you own good. They can't be any more clear and straight forward. If you're going to post that her, or Anets statements are lies, it doesn't help your side by lieing yourself about what they have actually said, which is that they have claimed everyone was a hacker. That was not true from the beginning and it's not true now. Please, if you're going to defend your side, and you have the right to do so, do it without twisting statements. It will not help you, or anyone else in your position, to purposely twist a specific statement to your own definition.

Partying with someone who had, again, does not equal being the hacker. This means that they have not accused everyone as being hackers. It will not do you any good at all to twist those words.

If you get stopped by a policeman for speeding, do you wonder "How did you miss the guy ahead of me, driving 10 MPH faster?" I think it's human nature, but the answer is clear: "Because I got caught, and he didn't."

In the larger sense, would we ever presume to tell the police department or the criminal justice system, "You didn't catch (or convict) that criminal, therefore you should not try to catch (or prosecute) any criminals?" No, because that's not the way things work. And yes, we're not talking "real life crimes" in this forum, but I'm hoping an analogy will be helpful. Game issues: Should we not block [this poor name] because [that other poor name] hasn't yet been caught? Should we leave every bots unbanned because we cannot ban them all?

I am not here to debate "that other thing" or "those other players." Other players have made it clear why some issues are larger than others, or why they are handled differently. I do understand the question, but I feel it's off the topic at hand. I came here to give you information about the Mallyx exploit, and to assure you that while we realize that we cannot catch everyone who behaves badly, nor every player whose actions can have a negative effect on other players or the game as a whole, we're not going to stop dealing with those whom we do catch, and we are going to continue trying to handle each issue to the best of our ability.

This is not the question Ms Grey... the real question all of the 117 are asking is why is the punishment different for the same crime?

I didnt party with ANYONE and i didnt HACK myself and i was able to map to the outpost. what Gaile said is just wrong

I made a full post on how to attain the town and i sent a full coppy to Anet and Pm gale on guru forums how to also.

yes sure I should go to jail too but for how much 2 days?.. but the guy who killed somebody will stay longer I believe.. we are asking for a fair bann.. a permanent bann is pretty extreme.. except for those who did it 1000000 of times.. now a 72hs or something like that seems fair depending the situation.. and probably 2nd bann permanent.. there u have a fair system

Nice try by avoiding the "or partying with someone who had done so" part Clait. Honestly, stop with this "they said we are all hackers when we are not" garbage. Gaile NEVER said that all the 117 were hackers. If you exploited this but did not use a hack, you still broke the EULA and were thusly banned.

The first post of this thread says that those who farmed it more than 4 times were banned, so I don't think you'll have much luck in your situation.

You don't have to openly say in chat that you acknowledge this as an exploit or a hack. Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? That would be like murderers getting out of their crime scott free by just not saying that what they did was wrong.

Actions speak louder than words. Sadly, your act of killing Mallyx this way 7 times says a lot against your favor.



I actually find it amusing and disgusting that there are those who exploited this and think they should be given leniency or a temp ban. Honestly...

Gee 1.776 Replies and 89 pages don't you think your all beating a dead horse by now?
I think this thread should be closed.
I do feel sorry in a way to some of the people affected by this BUT
you were party to this "exploit" somehow either knowingly or not
just deal with it.
I know this is harsh but It's there game there money there items not yours you own nothing on GW as has been said in other posts in this thread.
Same as If GW1 ever closes we ALL lose everything anyway.

So I paid 200 bucks a 4 CD keys to access their games, and I have had that stripped of me, and your telling me to stop fighting for it back? Your in a different situation than I am. This thread can't help unless Gaile posts, "anyone who posts below me will have their ban lifted kthxbai."