[Dev Update] Exploits and Bans – 10 January 2008

Who are these 1337 people?

IMO the 'sploiters got what they deserved. Seemed like they were dragging people down to Banland with them...

I don't think we should be pointing blame. People make mistakes. People are greedy. People want to see how far they can go without being caught. If we're going to blame something, blame huma nature.

Imagine you were in the situation of b and c. You had absolutely no idea that hacking/exploiting the game client was involved, you were thoroughly confused, but you were gaining money, and completely the quest line you had been working on a week to finish. Many of those people in C or B are in this same position.

Knowing that you're able to skip something that you should usually have to do should trigger a "Is this an exploit?" reaction from most sensible people imo. If you got banned for this, I don't feel sorry for you. I beat Mallyx the slow annoying way with my guild.

The way I see it, the "outpost" left in there would only be accessible with a hacked or GM/Dev account. Something that a player would normally not have access to. If I make a game, and set it up that standard players cannot access an outpost, I would personally see no reason to remove it (since they cannot normally access it), and if anybody who was not able to access it normally managed to access it, I would have them banned.

Use exploit, be banned.

Anyone that did the actual hacking deserves a ban.

However, just like with the duped items earlier, its easy to say people should have known, etc, when they actually didn't.

Mind reading is imperfect form of communication. People were ferried to the deep and urgoz routinely before the scrolls became available and there were no bannings from that. A casual player might not be aware that anything was wrong until it was too late.

So yes hackers should be banned.
Others should be assumed innocent until proven guilty.

Ok, I'm re-reading everything I said and found a few flaws in my statements:

(a) I now believe it is a 50/50 on fault. ANet's fault for leaving the outpost open. People using the 3rd-party program for using the outpost.
(b) I believe that they should put more time and investigation into all of this than just smack BAN BAN BAN on those 100 some people. It is unfair that possibly 2/3 of the banned people were not even knowing that they were involved in hacking
(c) ANet has been allowing the use of ferrying for some time. They don't do anything about it. The GW-Economy is rising because more idiot players are using the map-exploit and ferrying people. ANet should crack down on the ferriers more than care about a 100 some that are hacking into a hidden outpost. The hackers aren't advertising "TAKING YOU TO HIDDEN OUTPOST TO KILL THE 4 LORDS AND MALLYX!!! WOOT WOOT!" like ferriers are.

It is sad how people resort to hacking to get extra money and such, but seriously... ANet left the outpost open to be thrived upon by players that were using/not using a 3rd-party program.

it wasnt open. You needed a 3th party program to hack the game to do it.

IMO is like opening a door with a good pounce of explosive.

People that hack client side need to be banned.Testing areas should be removed completely before a "live build" goes online.

I can speak from experience (and I don't know if this totally applies in this situation)..but when coding for a Video Game,the code that's developed or even recycled is that of the programmer,it's almost like being robbed when someone does this stuff.

After watching coders trying to "terrain clamp" a model I had animated and made (for arguments sake),the bottles of Red Bull and time put into trying to code something that one can present and be proud of,only to have it "desecrated" for lack of a better term,must be exponentially aggrivating any time this happens.

People who hack like this have absolutely no clue how long and how much effort a team puts into coding a secure game environment...

I have ZERO compassion for anyone who got banned from this.Mallyx isn't an easy area to reach..it definitely takes time to get there..by then you should know exactly what to expect.."oh I didn't know"...bullsh*t.

You were mapped to an outpost that has never been around, and ANet haven't said anything about updates on the area. I think it's quite obvious that something is wrong about that situation.

Sorry, I just don't think anyone who went to the outpost and killed Mallyx were thinking that it was normal, and I do believe they were at fault.

They left it in game unreachable from the public. If players were able to see the outpost and map to it and ANet said "don't go to that outpost or you will get banned" I'd agree with you, but that's not the case. Someone had to hack the client to access it. The fact is it was found by a third party program, and nobody should have been there. Up until now nobody should have known about it. It's the communities fault for being blind and going to an outpost that nobody has ever been to before, and ANet have never mentioned before.

Mallyx takes 30 seconds to kill with ursans. The reward is 4 gems worth 19k a pop as a set. This is probably the first or second biggest money exploit in the game ever. If you think it's no big deal or Anet's fault that someone hacked, you're wrong on both counts.

Imo its good they got banned, and none of them should be unbanned unless they left when they got there because they knew the place had a foul stench of h4x.

Yeah, i'm mean!

They, honestly, could have taken the code out of the game and saved it onto some storage device. Then used the code for a later date when it was necessary.

Yes, searching for all the coding for the one outpost is highly intensive, but still, it's better to take an outpost, that could cause a quick death to Mallyx, out of a game than let idiot kids hack into it.

Just realize that people doesn't want getting 10000k and the next day they get banned. They want to commit "the crime" and way alway free........

As said before, Anet can do whatever they want its their server. If Anet made this outpost so anyone could map to it, but warned everyone not to do it, then it's Anet's fault, if people are hacking to reach it it's a different story. Ferrying doesn't break the EULA, and isn't a very serious problem. There's a difference between getting run to consulate docks so you can get your 1337 1.5k armor, and skipping all the work for the hardest area ever invented in GW. Anet should take none of the blame.

Hey!
we didn't hack or use 3rd party programs.
when u beat mallyx , somebody would go back to the guild hall and they could zone back into the town by pressing "LEAVE GUILD HALL".
They could take a party with them if they beat the 4 places in doa.

Why do I get the feeling none of this would've ever happened if not for the person posting in the Bug section. This is a sad, sad, world. And for those of you who got banned, it would help explaining exactly what you did (no lies please) that made you associated with the exploit. I'm pretty sure Anet would not have banned you for doing nothing at all.

I have to admit that I'm a bit itchy on the part about Gaile saying that people hacked the client. I'm pretty sure this is virtually impossible to do. If there was a bug, I think it would've been merely in-game.

if they beat the 4 places? I don't understand that please elaborate, wasn't the whole problem of this that you could skip the 4 places?

I was told by people that I have known, and played with, for 1.5 years that there was no hacking or exploiting involved, and that it was just regular old farming. I've tried to get into DoA areas before, but being a Ranger, before Ursan, I just missed out. I jumped at the idea of finally farming DoA, with long time friends, and making some real money. I didn't think it through, I've never been to the Ebony Citadel, I didn't even know if or if not an outpost existed, I had thought it did because it was considered an elite mission, ALL OTHER ELITE MISSIONS have a Enter Mission button, I thought it was just another way to kill Mallyx. I should have caught the scent of something fishy when I could enter the Citadel twice, but I did not, and just kept on farming, remembering that my long-time friends told me that this was not a EULA breach, as far as I know. Alot of people are in the same position, you can argue all you want against something like this, like I posted, but the difference is now, and then.

Just a side question.

How many of you guys completely read the EULA before playing Guild Wars?

The fact that you were in someplace strange that was outside of the normal line of progression for the quest should hint to you that something is not right.

You made your own bed, now lie in it. If you were taken there, then use "Leave Guild Hall" to take other people there, then you are still exploiting a hack. Only that you are not the one with the actual 3rd party program.

Whole Team Beats Mallyx One person goes straight to Gh others get the quests. one person ferries quest added team from gh. player gets quest team goes to pickup teams owns mallyx. Its how it went down with me.

Deep run.
Party wants to go to deep. Player ferries party to deep outpost. Ferry switchs chars party ferries original ferry. Welcome team to the deep.

Kurz FFF
4 points 4 players run each point Door takes quest reward didnt run the 4 points.
Exploit?

I Just want Anet to know that no one was "hacking" Or Using"3rd party programs".
It was a glitch that Anet never fixed.
Say what you want now, but i'd say 80% of people would have done this glitch if they knew about it.