[Dev Update] Exploits and Bans – 10 January 2008

With something like 3-4 million accounts on guild wars, even accounting for the fact that far fewer play every day, that means... idk 117/500,000 = .0234% of guild wars people got banned. For violating the EULA. that means the 99.9% of people who play guild wars legitimately are not banned. That's far from everyone getting banned sooner or later...
Honestly, the problem for you is that you picked crappy friends.

YOu can call me stupid, or whatever all you want, but the simple fact is, I did all 4 quests, got to mallyx, was brought to a town, did nt know it was wrong, did it about 25 times, got bored, moved on. It had been over amonth since I last did it, and I still got banned. I never even got a complete gymset and had to buy half the gyms I used to make the 2 armbraces I did get.

When Urgoz and THE DEEP came out, There was only 2 alliances who could access them. You Ferried in, and kept a char in guild hall to map people to them. I figured this was the same type of deal, I had no idea it was some sort of hack. I was simply mapped there thru a guild hall. i didnt have to hack anything, I couldnt if i did. its a boring farm, MY guild had moved on. 600 dungeons ftw anyway.

I do want my game back, but if you concider 25 farms an unreconcilable differnce, I guess I can go cold turkey and commit suicide, or I can play my alt with its lvl 2s and re learn the love for the game in pre.

GG gail. all my friends are ban, most of us hadnt done this "farm" for a month. We didnt know it was illegal, and we werent quite about it or keeping it secret.

I guess We are DUMB.

*wishing wow wasnt so gay*
V!

OK so anyway, sorry i must expand on this part.

I was mapped to URGOZ in month 2 of factoins thru a guild hall by a guildie. it was fairly empty. I REALLY did think this was the same. I had NO IDEA i was breaking a EULA agreement.
I kept a char in Urgoz for nearly a year. I mapped people to it ALL the time.. Was that illegal too? I shoulda been baned ages ago if it was. Im not being a smart ass, Im just upset I really didnt know.
I had 3k nearly 4k hrs, 400$ ruffly invested.

I hope I can get mine back. If not. GW FTL ALWAYS

Did you read the first page? In order to "warp" to the hidden map you had to HACK to access it (EDIT: your party leader had to hack). So no this is nothing like ferrying. And a droks run isn't even a bug it just people rushing through maps rather than fighting through them. I have fought from beacon's to droks with a low level char. Thats right I said FOUGHT. Few hours later I made it got max armor and voila didn't do a damn thing wrong and saved a couple k, totally not worth it.

I never knew about this till reading this thread but I was always under the
impression that GW was pretty much unhackable thats why they didn't care much about Textmod 3rd party program that only changes textures.
I know this is a Different 3rd party thingy but if anyone used the "exploit" either deliberately or just saying "unintentionally" they need to be banned.
Even if it was a Dev accident and left it open to abuse.
Sorry to those that got caught up in this but in reality you get what you deserve.

[QUOTE=Phaern Majes]Did you read the first page? In order to "warp" to the hidden map you had to HACK to access it (EDIT: your party leader had to hack). So no this is nothing like ferrying. And a droks run isn't even a bug it just people rushing through maps rather than fighting through them. I have fought from beacon's to droks with a low level char. Thats right I said FOUGHT. Few hours later I made it got max armor and voila didn't do a damn thing wrong and saved a couple k, totally not worth it.[/QUOTE

you didnt have to hack anything> MY game isnt/wasnt hacked. I got mapped htere just like you get mapped to the guild hall.

No, your wrong. im in the 1337 117 club and your all wrong, there was no hacking whatsoever, its a simple trick, it was a leak or a accident how the first people found it.

Something that I have wondered for a while now is how some people "seem" to have info that they shouldnt strictly be privvy to?

Again, certain Guilds and players rise to the fore, again and again......

And this isn't the first time Beta testers and ANet associated Guilds have been implicated in "dodgy dealings"....

what chance does the 'average player' have when the dice are so clearly loaded against them?

It has now reached the point where an "average player" need not bother to aspire to such things as a low Req Crystalline or High End minipet because the values have been regularly inflated to the point of unobtainable. Add to that that accts being banned reduces the actual amount of these items in the game, again inflating the value...whats the point? seriously? I've all but given up.

Theres a saying in Sales that if a customer goes away happy they may tell 2-3 people, but if they are unhappy they will tell 10 pwoplw and those 10 will tell another 10. Word is spreading about the "shadiness" that exisits in this game and that the field is eternally uneven. How long before an exodus?

And as an added note, and a depressing one to boot...how many of those people banned will be one of the first to buy GW2 to do this all over again? Inspired? I'm not.


When at least one poster admits to doing this over a MONTH ago it makes me wonder whats going on (and just how many Armbraces are now in the economy.....a conservative estimate....say 1 billion gp? - were that kind of economic upset to occur in say the UK what would actually happen to the markets? Please dont tell me they would "flourish"). So, I rest my case on the unobtainable....this has been going on so long as to fundamentally alienate people from the higher end goods in this game. Access by exploit only it seems.

One is not amused.

Play with fire, you get burned.

Do something that's a bannable offense, and you get banned.

Capisce?

Notice my edit... maybe it didn't have to be a party leader but at least the first time you access the special outpost SOMEONE IN YOUR PARTY WAS RUNNING A HACK.

Maybe you don't know who, maybe you didn't know anyone was. Thats life though.

So thats a complete lie then? I'm not saying that YOU YOURSELF actually ran a 3rd party program and hacked anything. But the first people who got there did. Once they were there, they could probably just ferry in others from their guild hall (who then in turn could do the same). Yes I understand thats different then what I was saying (I went back reread that first bit). But it was found through a client-hack.

WTF are you talking about dude? NO one in our guild even knows how to hack. NO we were simply mapped htere like you map to kamadan to guild hall. NO kidding you.

Ever been to urgoz? IT the same, well I thought it was. I have no idea how someone supposedly got this or wahtever, but most of us didnt know it was wrong.

YES its a complete lie. Complete. My shit isnt hacked. GAILE GRAY can come to my house and check. If my wife will let her in my house, but thats besides the point. My client isnt hacked. TYVM

There was one person that hacked the game if you are not banned and did not do it be happy and play the game to be posting on the forum if you dont know what you are talking about. You can simply go back the to guild hall and the last place you were at you can remap back there. no hacks involved. so not everyone in the party or not one person needs a hack to get there all the time

OMG! This thing has been going on for 5 months. No wonder why some people have stacks of armbraces. I can understand some gold buyers and powertraders, but to see such things as 5 stacks of armbraces without being dupes is horrible.

I am one of the few that play GW that enjoys rarity. I love the high and low market scheme. I can understand not being banned for going once or twice. But any more than that should be banned. And just to let you know, you cant be dragged into defeating Malyx over and over. Its called free will.

Totally
they made my life better in a way.
At least i farmed like 12 armbraces last month =)

yeh man that hair was ugly... GAILE GRAY knows its not a hack, all of Anet know, and they know if you was to do something accidently wrong you could get the secret town.

Once again in case you missed my edit.

That would be my explanation. Most people were probably just ferried in, but at least one person (the first person to find it for sure) hacked. I think thats what Gaile was saying when I reread that bit.

Are you honestly joking? The area in the post that I bolded is exactly what I am describing to Guild Wars Support. If the ban requirements are the way you say they are I would NOT be banned right now. But I lost 6000 hours of hard work because I tested the exploit, reported my findings directly to support (2 days before it got leaked onto Guru), deleted all of my items I received while testing, and removed my characters from the outpost.

If this is the case, please inform me why I was banned? I've only had 1 character able to ever enter the Mallyx outpost, so I never used multiple characters.

If you didn't ban people for doing the exploit 4 times, then I don't deserve to be banned. I think it's odd that someone who does this for an hour gets the same banning as the person who hacked the client, and has been exploiting this for 6 months.

If you didn't mean to ban people who only accessed the outpost 4 times, I think researching your bannings more indepth is the way to go. Also, if you can, check to see what I did with my quest rewards, because I obviously didn't use them for personal gain. Unless I benefit from moving them to the garbage can.

there is no way possible that anyone at all can make a stack of armbraces by this exploit 20 minutes a run will not get you a stack of armbraces. this game has alot of glitches and that copy exploit was the fall of alot of prices because there is no way at all people could get some 20 stacks of ecto by farming they transferred it to another account before they were banned and still ruined the economy

Hacking your own version of windows doesn't affect a virtual economy and cause inflation of prices, making it difficult for people who don't cheat, or don't know how, to compete. It also gives the hackers an unfair advantage in the game. And it's just against the EULA. Even if you somehow win it's a stupid bureaucratic rule, those rules are part of the game, and have to be followed.

A wise man once stated the simple fact that people lie.

That is why Anet is looking back at all the logs to see exactly who went to the outpost and used the exploit and how many times they did. You can scream till your blue in the face that it was only once, but if they have logs that say otherwise then you might as well just admit the truth.

This was an exploit, claiming that you "tested" it then never went back or profited from it so you should not be banned won't fly if your "tests" concisted of 100 runs.

You broke the rules and got caught, telling the cop that you were just keeping up with traffic won't make the speeding ticket go away!

yeah if was still posted in monkey's little house i'd show gaile or andrew partick gladly but i can't i'm banned but again just get an alt support the game still its fun we just f-ed up and btw anyone want a char full of reavers i got a lot of them

Im not playing this game becuase they will just have another glitch out that will get more and more rare items and people banned from the game and before long all that will be left is people that dont know nothing and just come on once a week to play guildwars screw that you can only temp a person so much before they get real desperate and actually want that super rare item from the game that goes for 100k 250ectos and give in and exploit the games vulnerabilities.

well lets just do a little 6th grade math.
Lets say all these ppl had 3 games and 1 expansion thats like 50$ each so 200$(more if you have CE's)

so 117x200$= 23400$ Anet just basiclly stole.

minus 200 from that final because there was ONLY 1 person who Hacked GW.

I'm pretty sure Anet has just lost that many characters for GW2....

Done Rant THANK YOU ANET I'm going to buy WoW now. seems better

I think you are missleading this. The past couple of updates that carry the same wording about being able to access areas without previously being there from guild hall was a bug. That was not the exploit they got banned for.

What happened is that someone noticed a bug 5 months ago, hacked the gw.exe file and entered into a seperate outpost where they could go anywhere in the game. That of course, chained to other people. Then the exploit grew to where anyone could do it. It required a hack for the initial phase. Thats why there was banning for this. There was no banning for the bug over the past wintersday.

PM me your user name. No, not your password, just your user name, or the name of the character with which you "tested." Because I have the list in front of me and I'm happy to check.

You can go ahead and PM me your char name, too, if you wish.

But have you both written Support? Only they can rescind a ban, and they have a lot of detailed information on each banned account.

umm... that doesn't even make sense. 117 people got banned out of hundreds of thousands... that's not even .1% of players... and it's not hard to not do something illegal you know, considering 99.9% of people do it. And everyone won't be banned, simply because it would be terrible rep for ANet outside of the community (which continually grows more and more hostile).

I rest my case.... Items are disappearing from the game!!!

I seriously hope ANet are true to their promise and ban by IP where poss to prevent multi acct holder reaping the rewards of this. However, its already clear that as these guys have active 2nd/3rd maybe more accts ... the damage is waaaay beyond done and its NOT going to stop in a hurry....

Yea I've accepted it now.
We messed up.
You Can all learn from our mistakes.
Good Luck to the rest of you.

<<<<<<Btw i changed my avatar

I just sent you a plethora of emails describing what I think may be a mathematical error on your part, a much more accurate test would be to see how many times a member or user has opened the Mallyx Chest, of the 117 banned.

I've written to Support, I get the same response, Account has been used to take advantage multiple times, which is true. I just contacted all the friends I gave items to via their forums. 7 items. 7 Mallyx Items. I don't know if Support can detect how many times the chest has been opened, but the only char ever used was my Ranger, and she did it 7 times. 7. Not 24.

Maybe you club 117ers don't know, but you are pulling a Chunky Monkey.

In case you don't know who he is. Chucky was one of the leading dupers in the armbrace incident. He swore up and down that he was innocent until Max Gladius came along and posted a screenie of Chunky offering him 7 stacks of armbraces.

So, just like Chunky, I know you guys that were banned are just lieing and not telling the truth.

I will share several bits of information, and then will read the other pages in the forum. But let me answer some of the many comments being offered here, all based on the position that was really pretty clearly detailed in today's Dev Update:
----And then let me respond with my two bits of info.

No one was banned for visiting the hidden outpost once. No one was banned even for going there a few times.
----Not even the whistleblower who said he was banned after only doing it once or a "few times"? I smell a liar.. too bad I can't tell who it is..

No one was banned for entering the mission, killing Mallyx, and taking the loot, even if they did that a few times.
----Ok, so what constitutes a "few times"? 5? 10? 3? 6? I mean, what is your baseline for this ban? If you are going to play judge, jury, and executioner.. you should at least inform the populace of the actual law being implemented. Just some food for thought.

In fact, the bar was set higher than a one-time or even few-time occurrence, as the Dev Update states, to avoid banning someone who was pulled there inadvertently or to avoid banning someone who might have thought he was helping by "testing" the exploit.
----Which goes back to banning the whistleblower. Who is telling the truth? After dealing with some people through the random support services I'm honeslty not sure who to trust. And why avoid banning people inadvertantly? Hasn't ever stopped y'all in the past. Humans you think are bots. Nine Squares victims. Any of those ring a bell?

We have had protests saying something like, "But I only did it 4 times!"And the answer is, "You're right: You used the exploit 4 times. And then you used the exploit 20 more times on your other character."
----And for those that actually told the truth? Those that did it 4 times? What did they get? A swift kick in the tail and a "Sorry, this is for the best of the gaming community! Thanks for the $200 commitment! Later!" A-Net

There is a massive difference between ferrying someone to a known map and hacking the client to go to an inaccessible map, to take on a hero without having had to fight through four difficult challenges prior to that meeting. For in normal circumstances, by the time a party gets to Mallyx, they've taken damage, acquired DP, and spent a significant amount of time. The DoA mission requires talent, skill, and dedication. What challenge is there in skipping to the end scene? And would anyone honestly think that such a short-cut was allowed or intended?
----Oh, absolute b.s! DoA requires no talent, skill, or dedication anymore. You know why? Ursan and consumables! You all at A-Net have continually made the game easier to farm, easier to beat, and easier to... exploit. People do the entire DoA in under 2 hours now thanks to the systems put in place on your end. It is the bed that A-Net has made. So don't try to get by with the difficulty rant. It is useless at best.

----And of course it wasn't allowed or intended. Nor was Duncan. Nor was countless other exploits you so graciously gave people a meager slap on the wrist for. So why the leap of insanity now?

----Oh, and also, I got an e-mail regarding my situation and I was told that the ban is perm mainly because you cannot figure out how much I benefited from the exploit or how many were affected. So.. if that is the case? Why aren't people who buy 1000k from bots permabanned instead of the 72 hour slap on the wrist? Isn't that a shocking blow on the economy on a quick and constant pace? Or the whole dupping fiasco? Seriously. Put this in perspective.. like I've said in my e-mails as well.. strip my characters buck naked, give away ALL MY STUFF, the stuff I earned fair and square and the 15 or so green Mallyx weapons I kept [kept them all btw], give it to the poor. I don't care. Just leave me broke and naked but with my account and HoM after 72 hours like most harsh bans.

For some, we see a pattern of movement to the outpost (sometimes after selling passage to others), entering the Mallyx room, killing him, then wash, rinse, and repeat. And boy oh boy, did some people repeat it!
----And I did. Not nearly as much as some, in the teens, I won't deny that at all. But the first 8 at least were actually under the pretense that this was how DoA worked since I had just finally beaten DoA and got my trophy. The last one? Exploited. But not under the belief that it was a hacked client. I figured it was much like early Duncan. Remember him? Hey! Can I get a show of hands for those banned for those early Duncan runs? Um.. no, no hands?! How about for ferrying people to the consulate docks? Where are my hands?! Get my point?

Yes, we have records, and chat logs, and more. Obviously, anyone who hacked his client needs to be banned, and anyone using this exploit more than a few of times also needs to be banned. Let's not fine-grain this to who did the actual hacking -- the question is, did you benefit from using the hack?
The existence of the outpost -- in hidden form -- is required to offer the Domain of Anguish. This was not a "test" and the outpost absolutely could not be "deleted when we were finished with 'testing" or "saved on some storage device." So as directly as I can say it to those offering unfounded opinions: Deleting the outpost disables the entire Domain of Anguish mission. Therefore, let's be fair and not blame ArenaNet because someone hacked his client!
----See, this is where I think you go overboard and can be rather slanderous. I'm not a hacker. I don't know a hacker. I don't associate with hackers. I'M NOT A HACKER. So don't throw the criminal terminology around so loosely as if 117 people hacked into it and we all are some modern-day Crash Override and Acid Burn. [Hackers unite!]

----Also, if you have chats, logs, and other means.. can't you see my account fluctuations over the past month? You'd see how little I affected the precious economy.

This exploit has nothing to do with texture changes or mods.
Now, to those who suggest that Support should give a warning before a block or ban, can you please tell me why that would be a good idea? Because I think I can tell you why it would be a poor idea: Giving a warning allows players time to shuffle their items to another account, to create a mule to carry the goods, or to sell them or give them away before they're caught. That means the economic impact remains, and it's the economic impact that we must prevent.
----Then where are the permabans for money purchasers? 72 hours for them, I know for a damn fact. And those, along with the farm bots, are your major economic destabilizers and you know that. So find another excuse for overreacting and ruining 117 people's days and hard-earned, now-not-so-well-spent dollars. The economic angle doesn't fly for people with common sense.

This exploit is not in any way a form of "farming." Whether someone used an exploit, or partied with someone who did, he were taken to a hidden outpost, which he could easily verify because (a) it was not on his map, (b) Mallyx, in normal gameplay, has no such outpost, and (c) he was almost certainly told it was an exploit, or told to keep it quiet, or sworn to secrecy. He was not farming, he was using or benefiting from the use of a serious exploit.
The length of the UA, or not reading it, is truly not a defense if one chooses to breach it.
----(a) Don't use the map in DoA. I'm in DoA, why bother?
(b) I didn't know that. Many didn't know that. But it is rather apparent A-Net doesn't care about the actual people involved in this one.
(c) I was told it was an exploit well after the breaking point for your vague rules, I assume. So, I guess I was SOL from the point of naivety onward.
(d) Then use the UA fairly and not use it whenever you feel the need to exercise it. Either you permaban Duncan runners etc etc.. or you don't. You didn't. You set the bar and you set it low. Not our fault. Raising it up a few notches? Justifiable. Raising it high enough to crush someone's windpipe out of the blue? More than a tad exaggerated.

Saying "They let such-and-such bug/glitch/exploit go, so they should just let everything go" has no foundation in logic. This was a significant exploit, higher in overall concern than someone ferrying another player to a legitimate high-level map. This is hacking the client; this is going to forbidden areas; this is gaining undeserved reward; this is profiting from selling the secret or selling a ferry; this is engaging in activities that can have long-ranging negative effect on the game economy.
----I wouldn't let it go. I think 72 hours is the set ban. Hell, like I said before.. this is far less an economic mess than the daily bots you all allow to run rampant on the servers at will. But for every bot banned, another needs to buy an account. Interesting, isn't it?

We are always very sorry when we have to enact a ban on any account. Although 117 accounts is a very small number when you consider the numbers of those playing every day, it still causes us great distress to be placed in the position of having to enact such bans. After all, the last thing we want to do is turn away people who enjoy our game. I am personally very, very sad to see some names that I recognize involved in this exploit.
----No it doesn't. If you were sorry, you wouldn't have reacted like a wolverine trapped in a burlap sack. Many of these people were diehard GW players who put a lot of time and effort into making GW a fun place. No offenses? Permaban? Yeah, that's the mindset of a group of very sorrow-filled people. And that, my friends, is sarcasm.

We do understand that some people will be angry about our actions, even if they were not personally involved in the exploit. I think we can all agree it's not a pleasant situation from any viewpoint. But we must put the game community as a whole above the interests of the individual player, when the actions of the individual player can have negative consequences upon all players. And that is what we have done.
----Company line that means very little to anyone with half-a-brain. You have to say that in an attempt to keep the other people agitated but still active, somewhat understanding of your harsh, Spartan-esque laws.

Players who were banned may submit an appeal. Each such appeal will be carefully and respectfully researched and I truly hope that your personal situation is such that your account might be reinstated. But in all honesty, for quite a number on the ban list, that simply will not be possible. And as distressing as it is for more than the individual players involved, some players will find their ban must be upheld, for the good of the game.
----Not a single one that I know of has gotten an appeal. Please, hands up if you did. I got a "Sorry, we can't figure out the impact you made." Which doesn't mean jack since my impact was just that: jack.

Thank you to those who support ArenaNet in making this painful decision. And our sincere thanks to those who knew of this exploit and did not use it, or who kindly reported it to us directly, so that we could prevent a major impact upon the game about which all of us care so deeply.
----And instaban you right afterwards. Ridiculous.
__________________
Gaile Gray
Community Relations Manager
ArenaNet
The Guild Wars Site
----We've spoken in-game before, and honestly, I find you to be a nice person. And perhaps you have been thrown in front of this bus. But since you are the only one that is giving anybody that is banned any sort of clarification, I had to respond to you. If I was harsh, I do apologize, as this was not wholly your decision. But it is still a decision that wreaks of unfairness and a lack of any sense of compassion to many plays who played very fair for many, many, many long hours enjoying this product.

Due to probably advertisements, and all for the game, I'm sure they'll recover from the itty bitty 200 people. Besides, I'd rather not have shit like that in GW2 playing.

I just wanna say a few stuff pretty interesting.. I found that glitch a few months ago just after finish mallyx like a normal guy and I didnt use any 3rd party programs.. either im a hacker lol.. so gg on leave a breach there.. and well some funny stuff.. I sent an email not asking why cuz I know what I did.. just asking my account situation.. after 5 mins said we have been researching and blablabla and u was involved.. ok im involved.. "but in 5 mins u researched all that stuff?" niceee! that support team rock the boat

cant agree more with you. Its 1 more down and 50+ to go. 3 more weeks till the next big one gets found out. Funny how magority ppl said this sort of stuff was impossible.

Do you personally have 100k 250ectos and have all 30 titles in game I doubt it the only people I know used some sort of exploit or ebayed some gold to get the titles and weapons that they wanted The GW economy is too bloated and nobody can buy anything that they want without taking another 6months of their time to make that kind of money what do you think the players that used this exploit spent their money on weapons and thats to the lucky guy that got a eternal blade or somthing or their buying creme brulees and buy their sweet tooth title their helping the economy not destroying it all these weapons are going to just go up in price and no one can sell them and no one is going to buy them. unless you litterly have no life and actually have time to farm doa over and over and over and over to get the money

1. Anet did not "steal" anything.. they simply enforced their UA..
2. GW2 will not suffer in sales because of 117 bans in GW.
3. "omg I'm gonna buy WoW now!" comments are laughable at best.. im certain anet is quite please to know that cheaters are going to go ruin some other game and not theirs.

Hah, all these high rollers banned... I bet a shitload of players with these stacks of armbraces are removed from the game
Imo, ban or remove the stacks from second accounts aswell. (based on ip's)

To all the whiners, you know you didnt deserve them armbraces, you deserved your ban instead.