[Dev Update] Exploits and Bans – 10 January 2008

I find it sad that people are angry at ANet rather than whoever initiated the exploit, since they started the whole mess. Obviously, it's not reflective of the entire community, since the 117 seem to have flocked here to spam up this thread with angry messages, but still...

There are people in my guild that were laughing at the bans tonight. They were all on alternate characters just sitting there trying to find ways to make some more gold fast. Its really pathetic if you ask me..

well the people that got banned in this game actually knew the insides and outs of it all of you are obviously not too great at the game if you didnt know about the exploit until it was told too you now. you just simply beat the game and do your underworld runs hoping to get something really rare to sell to a guy the exploited or ebayed his account or money

More items out of game......

so, to the 117 club.... wanna 'fess up some up the awesome gear you've lost to the community...here's your chance to shine...pls no lies...

tell us what we've lost..the mini's the weapons... you can tell us now...

You people are hilarious.

The only reason the number isn't higher than 117 is because not many people knew about it. I can guarantee that if half of you people who are smack talking knew about the exploit, you'd have done it.

Also, after exploiting 4 times (Which is an exact number, whether you like it or not), I deleted all the items from my account (DELETED, FOREVER) and partied up with people to send in a support ticket. That didn't save my account from being banned, even if I was being helpful.

As one of the 117...I really don't consider myself special, or privileged...I feel like I RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOed up, like I should, lol, and hopefully I can get back on and work this out, now that I informed Gaile of why it shows 24 entrances to the area, although I only did 7 runs.

This thread reminds me of all the innocent dupers. lolz...

I also notice that a lot of the same people that got unbanned for the armbrace duping are back complaining they got ban hammered. Well now... someone didn't learn their lesson... tsk tsk.

Enough cats. The more work you make me do, the less happy I'll be when administering judgment for violations here.

I would like to start a protest.

Those of you who did the exploit for personal gain, and show no remorse, get off guru and stop talking. The only thing you're doing is digging a deeper hole for those that do not deserve to be banned. Had I done it for 6 months straight, i'd willingly accept the banstick.

I did it one night, 4 times in 1.5 hours, and gained nothing but worthless experience. But that's grounds for a banning? I believe someone needs to reconsider.

" it's the economic impact that we must prevent.

I am personally very, very sad to see some names that I recognize involved in this exploit.

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."

The negative consequences of the descision to blanket ban anyone who set foot in the outpost is going to have more of a detrimental effect on the game community as a whole, as the majority of people who have gotten a ban are people who spend quite literally hours upon hours improving other people's experience of the game. In an MMORPG, when played properly, there is no such thing as "individual players" actions. This will have a knock-on effect that will ring through the whole game and personally I think it is a very sad situation. IMO, this whole thing is somewhat akin to placing a big bag of money on the ground, waiting for someone to take a note and then popping a bullet in their heads - ok it's wrong to take the money in the first place - but the reaction to it seems rather excessive to me, and shows an insight into the minds of the people who are running the game.

It is a sad fact of life, be it virtual or actual, that more often than not... numbers are far more important to most people than people are.

And to the people whole feel the need to rub salt in the wounds, sit on their high horses and flame, GG to you - we all know what sort of people you are, you're the happy bunnies who spend all day flaming forums and no time playing.

Look you dint do it you dont know how to get there or how it works, it is not a hack, i alrady said i would personaly show a GM how we found it, i also PM'd Gaile the same thing.

is my alt ganna get banned a month later, just becuase it has some items still? Cause, honestly, We hadnt farmed this for a month, partly because its not profitable. We used grails/clerity, etc, 3 or 4 consumables per run. I did about 25 runs max, never got an armbrace complete, bought some gyms to get an armbrace but, most runs failed epic anyway. IF you run 15 runs out of this dump town which we truely did think was like urgoz, and you use 60 give or take consumables, and you fail 2 or three times, so using 70 consumables, The money made wasnt worth it. I had nearly forgotten the town existed. We had moved on from farming this crap. Then a month later, BAM we get black listed. OK OK.. so I opened a ticket etc. I was like what did I do wrong, they said you haxor, you demon child of hte guild wars comunity, you evil doer, you whitch! theres a wort on ur nose!.. But its all lies. I got mapped in, did 25 runs over 2 months maybe, quit, didnt do any for a month, never planned to again, and .. wa la. banned.. Nice.

DO I deserve it for being a noob retard? When Factions first came out, and I got into urgoz, I guess I should have realized it was a hack and reported it. Cause its the same type of town, and I had no idea it wasnt accessable in the game, in a simular limited way as urgoz. Of course urgoz has been changed with scrolls, but back when it was new, there was like 1 npc, and me in the place. HAXOR right? right.

I didnt know, I didnt do it much, I basically lost money on it, and now Im banned blamed for epic failure of economy in guild wars, which has the shittiest up and down economy of any major mmorpg to date. Nice going guys. I make more money 2 manning FOW.

Have fun in guild wars, and anyone want an acount< if my main doesnt get un banned I wont be needing my alt.

Thanks.

To be honest I think should just IP ban all accounts that constantly logged on from and were registered from the same computers as the Flying 117. I mean if one gets banned from a Forum for trolling, one isn't permitted to just create a new Alt and go on with forumtude.

I am shocked and appalled by what I am reading in this forum. This issue has obviously started a controversy, and many people have been arguing about the justice behind the 117 bans. After absorbing what many peopel have been saying, I feel the need to comment on a few things.

First off, this little "hack" that keeps coming up in conversation. I do not understand why this word is being used, because it is an inappropriate exaggeration of what I believe the real issue is. No, I do not believe for a second that this was a hack. I believe this was a bug that was discovered by, apparently, the wrong people. I was a tester for a small computer software/hardware programming company, and I know how bugs can be discovered. Do NOT believe for a second that the testers are the only people who find errors in programs, because I will tell you right now that customers find bugs in software all the time. Does that mean we penalize the customers for finding bugs in the software they buy? What do you think? Of course not.

I understand that the circumstances are different in this case. However, I must ask the question "who would know that this was an 'exploit'?". Dispite what those who did not take part in the exploit may think, what normal person (who was not computer savvy at all) would stop and think "This MUST be a bug that was overlooked by ANet testers! I SHALL REPORT THIS AT ONCE!" Is there even a handful of people who play GW who know what a real programming error is? Not only that, who would stop to think "GW is not supposed to work like that! This is a bug!" To be completely honest, the ONLY people who would know how GW was supposed to work would be those with the specifications... Is there any relevance to that point I just threw out there? Well, why don't you think about that?

Anyway, with that being said, what makes you believe for a second that all 117 players were hackers? I am not saying that no one was a hacker, but ALL of them? Pretty please, spare us the allegations. Not only that, but how dare you insult people you've never met? I find that to be most disgusting and pigheaded. Not only that, but have you noticed how many people are not even listening to those who have taken the side (that is, even if you can call it taking sides) of those who were banned? That is the main thing that I find to be unjust. How dare you only listen to Ms. Grey, and talk as if you know everything about the situation. If you want to gain a stable and credible opinion about all this then keep an open ear and open mind and listen to both parties. Please, the world will be a better place if you do.

Since I fear that my post may not have an impact so I'll wrap this up. I do not understand at all why all 117 were banned for doing something that was not known to be wrong. It was not a hack, and it was not known by most of the 117 that it was even an exploit. Why would they think twice by doing what they did? It was just another way to farm afterall. Would you have thought anything of it? Be hostest. I find it uber harsh to ban loyal GW players for something that really does not have an extremely significant impact on the game at all. Anet, whether you believed that your actions were necessary for the good of the game, or if you were just covering your own tails by blaming the 117 "hackers" for your mistake (the mistake of not detecting a bug, which was then discovered by customers, which we both know happens all the time!)....either way you are wrong, and I think you know it.

What a shame... I don't know if ANet was trying to save face through thier decision... but they lost a lot of respect from many loyal players, including myself. To those loyal, unknowing, unfortuante people who were part of the 117, my condolences....

hmmm well i dont blame u for realizing it was an exploit after one time. if u got banned for doing it once, then it woudlnt be fair cuz u just realized it was an exploit.

oh wait....................

7 runs u say? well ud think after the first run, you would realize its an exploit.

remember, anet bans for glithces that affect the economy, but not those that doesnt affect others much (aka mapping glitch.)

I am going to delete any cats posted, and possibly ban the posters. Keep this thread in shape.

You used ha4x and spl0itz and consummables (and presumably ursan) and you still failed a PvE mission (regularly)?!?!

and you call yourselves '1337'?

funniest thing I heard all day. If GW PvE is too hard for you, how do you '1337' think you will cope in a 60man raid (or other high-end raid) in WoW?

I would also like to second what Malice Black stated about needing h4x in GW PvE (page 1).

lol dude thats not the point.. the point of that phrase is that wasnt a real exploit.. was a save of time of a few mins.. btw did the market blow up? nope it was going down since ursan was out.. that skill made the game brainless

Yep it shows very clearly that the creators and I have very different ideas what is good for the game.
Simply because I just don't feel that such an exploit is enough to justify a ban. Or even clearer - the only actions I feel should lead to a ban would be cheating (all forms) in PvP. Other then that - GW PvE is a superb single-player game and cheating in those had always been fun!

Elites? Elite players don't get banned from their games for breaching user agreements in severe manners such as this.

Elite gamers, the ones who travel the world and compete because of actual talent are the true "1337" in this world. Those who value their actual gaming tournament cash prizes, not in game gold, are the true elite.

World class players like Fata1ty are the real elites.

World class players, who make an actual living, who get paid in the thousands of dollars from corporate sponsers like ATI, AlienWare, and NVIDIA because they know how to play, not cheat, are the real elite gamers.



People have gone from bragging, to threats, to pointing fingers, suffering tourette attacks, playing the victim card, making conspiracy theories, and whatever else they can pull from a hat to divert attention. Even trying to pass yourselves off as "leet".

Nothing, and I do mean nothing about this is "leet" in any way, shape, or form. It's the opposite of elite. It's sad.

People have been trying to tell me that if I had known about it, I'd have done it too. Really?

Well, here's some info. I did know about it. You know what I did? I stayed out of DoA.

I knew about the last ferry glitch. Know what I did? I stayed far away from it.

I knew about the Armbraces. Know what I did? I stayed away from them and told people, flat out, I want nothing to do with any armbrace. Don't offer me one, don't try to sell me one, don't ask me to hold onto one (or 100). Leave me out of it. Ectos and gold are worth jack in a ban.

Don't try to pass off the blame like "everyone" would do it. Reality is no, not everyone would do it. Some of us value our accounts more than that. Some of us know that when something is truly out of the ordinary, it's best to notify the proper people and then stay as far away as possible from it until it's either fixed, or an official word is given that it's not an issue.

You got caught and that's all there is too it. If you're truly "Innocent" then you know what to do to fix it. Spamming this board with some of these excuses, well, that doesn't exactly show signs of being innocent, nor does it show you're above breaking rules for your own selfish reasons.

If I understand this correctly you get the gemset after each run meaning in theory with a group of 8 people that's an armbrace an under an hour. 100k + 35 ecto divided amongst 8 people isn't all that bad if you're getting one every hour, in addition to all of the other gems that drop during the ritual.

Essence are the most, about 2500 or so (1500+ for feathers, 500 for dust, 250 gold for Essence). Again if 8 people are dividing the costs this is a non-issue. You could probably make up that cost selling the junk that sells when you're opening the door.

have you ever even done mallyx? You dont fail till u get to him. Partys fail a lot at him. Its very very hard. we were doing it in hard mode, which didnt even help the drop rate btw it still sucked, we failed a lot in hard mode at mallyx. If you had DONE mallyx you would know how hard it is.... I only did about 25 runs, but I didnt even complete a gymset.. WE failed a lot. I bought the gyms for the armbrace I did get.

oh gee, i dont know about u, but id hope that someone realizes that, u know, skpping past parts of a quest to obtain the rewards would be considered an exploit and isnt wut the developers intended. maybe, im jsut one of those crazy people who woudl think something like that is true?

MAN< it took 8 hours to get an armbrace! 8 hours! the fastest hard mode run was fecking 20 minutes. and with failures .. 6 hrs possible, 8 hrs normal.. The 25 runs I did took place over nearly 2 months. U miss understand. it takes 15 gymsets to get an armbrace, and we would do 5 runs in a day max, with 2 failures, this means 2 months, 15 runs = 1 armbrace. Maybe this wasnt so with all the other s who did htis, but maybe htye knew they were cheating. I didnt know it was a cheat, I didnt make any money on it, and it was a waste of time. it took 20 runs basically to get an armbrace.

no you definately dont get an armbrace every run. HAHA then it truely woulda been insane.

Just because your team was absolutely terrible does not excuse the sheer insanity of the farming power of the exploit.

geez I take a nap and a thread of 25 pages pops up.

Having recently tried DoA for the first time, I would NOT find it funny that there is an outpost. (not everyone reads wiki, nor believes what you read there)
Having NOT finished eye I have yet to get to the central transfer chamber, but I am told many others who have also not finished eye have been there.

I was doing the beak of darkness quest and going to kill the moa---my guildee wanted to cap the moa so I brought him along (he had only just gotten the quest)...when the moa appeared and he capped it, the quest was now complete in his log...was this an exploit???? (should my guildee be banned??)

During wintersday there was the quest where you had to get all the items to make freezie, however, many people didnt have ascalon on their toons (being from out of town...eg elonian or canthan) so instead they hitched up with people who had done the first part and just went to kill the grentches at the end.....quest completed without get the coal, hat etc.....was this an exploit as well---shouldnt these people be banned too????


I think anet has been making some bad business decisions recently, and it will come back and haunt them when gw2 is released, every few months there is a huge BAN stick and more loyal people leave gw.....
with no new content being offered (that we know of), is usually NOT a good business practice to pisssss off your customer base (unless of course they believe that their customer base is the bots who have to continue to buy accounts). (and whats this about gold buyers only getting a 72 hour ban?! geez)

so another huge sigh.....being doing that a lot recently here.

lol always was a drama to get a team for do it so idk I got an armbrace every 2 weeks-1 month at least? xD waddaaaa exploit.. watch out!! hackers hackers!! xD watch now the market is a chaoooss! /hide rofl sureee sureee

IMO the exploit of /resign was worse and nobody got bann

Firstly I'm not sure why you would kill him on hardmode when the chest doesn't even drop double. Second, I said every hour; gemset from the reward (if that is how it works) and 8 people accepting it. Two runs in let's say 25 minutes would be 16 gemsets.

This hack/exploit is on a whole different level than the things you are talking about..... Let's look at the duping exploit, people got banned for that too. These people can solely destroy the complete economy of GuildWars.

I want to make one point clear. If there IS a team who can Farm Mallyx 15 times in HARD MODE, without FAILING ONCE, I will give you all my gw accounts, and all the props you would then deserve. calling my team noobs for failing maybe 2 out of 7 .. omg.. ITS very clear you guys have A never farmed malyx, B never farmed him in hard mode. GG

My point was, I didnt make CRAP on it. And I didnt ruin the economy, and I only got 1 gymset from this in 2 months of knowing about it, and I did NOT know it was a cheat of some sort, and I dont see how you guys can keep saying its obvious, when to me it very much wasnt.

This hack/exploit is on a whole different level than the things you are talking about..... Let's look at the duping exploit, people got banned for that too. These people can solely destroy the complete economy of GuildWars.-deluxe

ANET the one, selling gold for real cash bro.
thats how they have $100k tornament/upkeep servers

1, it's gemset.
2, Arena Net only has logs of you doing it a bajillion times. They don't know why you did it, or what your motive was. They don't care either, you did it way too much. Also, it's your responsibility to know what is an exploit and what isn't.

oh and another thing, you have apoint, you could make a gymset every hour between 8 ppl. and using a few heroes, ok maybe 60k an hour, ifyour a total greedy garbage bag, and you know its an exploit, and your trying ot make an ass load of money.

Heres the thing. My guild didnt KNOW it was an exploit, ARENT greedy garbage bags, and only did it around 1 gymset worth in 2 months!!!

IF I want to make 60k an hour, I simply 2 man FOW.. WHY would I do something that costs more money/is harder/takes an 8 man team/ etc etc etc.. What your saying, maybe someone somewhere did that. Not me, not my guild. Is there ways to make 60k an hour? yes. 3 that I know of and could do, even now on my alt. I didnt know It was an exploit, Didnt use it for making fast gold ..

I PLAY THIS GAME/played this game, FOR FUN! NOT for some huge amount of gold. go look at my titles, gaile gray. There all at 90%, but not done. like 28 of them. I dont care about KBD lvl 10, or my guild hall has golden walls, or Gaile gray is my GF.. I dont care about fow armor, I hav eit on 1 char. I give away more gold than most ppl make.

Im not a gw gold monger/economy ruiner. I play for fun. 600ing is fun. farming slavers 8 man is fun. deep 12 man is fun.. Malyx wasnt. It had been a month since I /we did it and we got banned. We didnt make money, we didnt ruin economy. why are we punished/ 25 runs, most failed? Grand.

** OH and we did hard mode because we all wanted a gold gloom sheild*** and they drop OH so rarely.

but even that has nothing to do with Exploit whatever. WE didnt know. We honeslty farmed, and we were honestly banned.

GG I guess we ar enoobs for not knowing it for what it apparently was. I am not saying i didnt do it, or I only did it 1once. no lies. Pure truth >> theres better farms that make the same money, that are acctually. fun

Did ursan ruine GW? maybe its 2 easy. but its kinda fun to do once in a while. However, mallyx HM stands up to that test.

GL in game.

so you mapped 5 times a day straight to the endboss... and didnt know done something against the EULA.. interesting...

anhoo not a hair on my body cares about the banned users.... Exploiters yuck good riddens imho

Peace out

If you would kindly read the Terms of Agreement, you cannot use exploits or bugs for personal benefit. You don't work for Arena Net, so you don't know the methods they have to use to go about clearing up a bug like this.

Like most people said, DELETE THE OUTPOST. Yeah, great idea, when that will remove ALL of DoA.

was a hidden outpost.. not entire doa for ur info.. and another thing the previous "exploit" was worse and for personal benefit I believe.. but nobody got bann.. cuz there u have a kick in the economy.. yeh economy of ANet.. bann more than 1million ppl is not a benefit at all

The quest Mallyx the unyielding says this....

Go to the City of Torc'qua and destroy Lord Jadoth
Go to the Ravenhart Gloom and destroy the Greater Nightmare
Go to the foundry of failed creations and destroy the Fury

etc etc

but wait you havent done any of them?????

and making a build to "solo" a mission is by far different then just skipping 95% of your quest to the last boss (and his 30 groups before you start whining about that)

and yes i am noob at least noob enough NOT to exploit a bug... kthxbai

OMG btw, re read gaile grays confusing really large post on the matter. She contradicts her self 12 times. ITs a hack, but u dont have to hack to get it. Its a test zone, but we didnt use it to test, Its not a test zone, but it was used for testing, We banned ppl who had used the town or mapped it, but we only banned people who used it at least 5 times, etc etc etc. ITs all contradictions.

Thanks for the confusion Gaile Gray. Next time please tell me why I'm banned? Cause The confusing contradictions dont even help at all.
Thanks.

Whee, I dunno if my post will "contribute" to the discussion, but here goes.

Guild Wars is a game, made and owned by a company. You do not own Guild Wars, what you own is a license. In essence, they are renting out to you the right to play the game with an access key, just as a landlord rents out the right for a person to live in an apartment.

In accordance with this license comes a lease, or the End User License Agreement(EULA) that, when you add the access key, YOU SIGN! For all intent and purposes, it is a legally binding document. If you don't read it, tough, you signed it. It states:

A programming routine that involves changing data in your .dat file is violating that passage. Violating it once is still violating it.

To those who say they only used it once. Why should we believe you? We only have your word that you only did it once. You're also admitting to it which is enough to sanction your account. Gaile said they didn't ban those who had visited the outpost once. That means that they have some sort of proof that you did it several times.

If this happened to me, and I felt I was unjustly banned, and Support said otherwise, yes, I'd be mad. And I probably would refuse to support the company in any further endeavors. But this is a game. It is supposed to be for FUN! If you gain pleasure from hurting other people's enjoyment, you don't deserve to play.

Edit: Also

They edited the client.

I'm not defending our exploitation, but by God.. I see post after post saying that you can do this without ever beating DoA.. all fours areas AND Mallyx.

Please understand, you did have to have completed all four DoA areas and Mallyx all the good ole "hard way" or "super-easy way Ursan". AFTER that and only after all the areas were done could you do the exploit. Thanks.