Red Resigns: What will Anet do about this?

Chico was perma'd because he was using a multiloader and playing both red and blue, thus manipulating the match results.

Using a multiloader is not a bannable offense, as long as you're not manipulating match outcomes ala rawr. Apparently that's where they draw the line.

1st line. Here ya go:

Sorry, but like I said, it's in there.

And, again, I agree with you. This whole situation is bullshit, but "technically" and legally they have the right to ban people for this.

^even better
pretty powerful words that we all agree to.
taken from
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/EULA/User_Agreement

/edit also this

Multiloader -> Yes.
Not once I landed on a map against myself.

I've been thinking about it and I think I know what they think is bot behavior. After a couple hours instead of waiting to be taken back to the HB map and then map to GTOB if I saw the "HB quest updated" message sometimes I could beat the timer that would take me back to the HB outpost and map before that to GTOB. I started doing that near to the time when they kicked my account. They actually kicked me out of the game with the message "Your logging credentials have expired" and something they can also see in the logs (but blindly ignore and won't acknowledge) is that I immediately tried to log in again and that's when I took the screenshot of the screen with the ban message.

How can they ignore that I tried to log in immediatley after?
How can they ignore the screenshot? (will probably post it here, I don't care)
How can they ignore I was chatting with guildies at the time it happened? (guildies could step in and testify but I won't ask them to as Anet has the logs and doesn't care)

Too many things to ignore that no bot would ever be able to do.
Their heuristics are flawed regardless of how many rubrics they use in detection they ignore the most obvious ones that identify a human behind the keyboard.

Can a bot become increasingly better? Change behavior? Get tired and become slow/slowdown reaction time? Chat? Respond to messages appropriately? Lol/Discuss RRDay in outposts? Impatiently move while waiting (left, right, north, south, etc, etc)?

Anet you should review and improve your bot detection mechanisms. They fail to detect bergen bots (just go there at any point in time) but missdetect real humans. Saying that your detection is flawless is impossible. It failed, it detected me. Whoever took the decision to kick me didn't bother to login, force a fight with me, ask me a question, even if it was "walk straight along this line then do xxx emote". Without human to human validation, or a simple pm to check "are you there?" "are you human?" your whole bot detection is a failure.

/rant

Here's an idea: Add a captcha. Ask a multiple choice question. Make a small challenge no bot can solve/do but that humans can't miss.
Good idea, yes?

Maybe I can't read but it says nothing about red resign.

This is why I'm actually afraid to farm at Bergen. Don't wanna be mistaken for a bot.


As for your situation, thats really disapointing. I'd get my guildies to complain, I'd do virtually anything I could to get my account back.

There's no reason to involve anyone else. How can they know if they are lying or telling the truth? Besides, they have logs and can see my actions on all accounts. They could even see, if they wanted to, that I'm active on one account at a time and that I warned my guildies about the ban immediatly after I saw what happened. They can read that already. It is impossible for me for example (or anyone) to be keyboard moving at the same time on multiple accounts and I never mouse-click to move. I could click one to do something (like enter battle) then move on to the next, then move on to the next, then start/continue chatting on my main account. Can keyboard walking/moving (QWEASD + CTRL + SHFT) be confused with bot behavior? I don't think bots would use the keyboard to walk around. But they ignored that too.

So in conclusion:

1) A.net screwed up BIG TIME and I mean like MONSTROUSLY big and retroactively calls everyone cheaters.

2) Fanboyism represents a HUGE ORGASM to a few folks in this this thread, since they apparently can't let it go.

3) A.net then goes to ban a select few lottery winners.

4) lol e-drama $$$$$$

Sad-funny but not unexpected in the least.

Again, stop looking at it like it's black and white and hiding behind the EULA. You claim we've had a fair warning. Tell me, in the last 3 years, when was the last time ANet told the community that manipulating hero battles in this way was a bannable offense? They didn't when /rolling went on, they didn't when they removed /roll, they didn't when red resign started, they didn't when it became popular, they didn't when there were dozens of districts, they waited for weeks until it became very popular. That my friend, is going from zero to ban.

Stop looking at this from a EULA nazi point of view and look at it from your average players point of view. Red resign was accepted by the community. When you're an average, casual player, you head over to hero battles on the day and see everyone doing it, you think it's an acceptable thing and not an exploit. Seeing as ANet did not say a word about it, there is absolutely nothing to let them know what they're doing is exploiting.

People shouldn't get banned because of ANet's lack of communication for 3 years. Yes, these players violated the EULA, but that doesn't mean they should be punished. ANet have bent the EULA many times before, might as well do it here as well.

Retroactively? Gaile posted on the wiki (and it was copied all over the forums) well before RR day that it constitutes match manipulation, and therefore cheating. No ambiguities, no nothing. What else do you want them to do, put an announcement on the front page? Yeah, that'd work great; it'd be like the cops putting a big sign up in a shady part of town: "DON'T BUY CRACK HERE. IT'S TRUE THAT YOU CAN INDEED BUY CRACK HERE, AND IT'S TRUE THAT WE CAN'T REALLY CATCH THAT MANY OF YOU, BUT SERIOUSLY, DON'T DO IT." And face it, pretty much anyone who cares enough about GW to spend a full day doing nothing but RR-ing is probably pretty darn active on the forums and/or wiki; that's probably where they got the idea from in the first place.

@ The above: BWAHAHAHA, a casual player RR-ing, yeah, that sounds real casual. "I only have a few hours of free time each week, so I'm going to do fritter away my only free time with repetitive, boring BS because I'm stuck to the forums enough to know that it's the best way to make money fast right now."

Well in defense of Anet what Rawr did didn't hurt the community as a whole as 1000's do exploiting this issue and reaping 100's of thousands of coins into their accounts. How much did Rawr get with what they did? How many got something? How did it overall effect the whole community? So stop being a fanboy of your own agenda and look at the overall picture as a whole. What is the saying in war? The lives of the many are worth the eventual victory of the war, one can lose the battle and still win the war, and they are expendable. It's like you coming into "my house" and then doing things you know full well by my house rules and even common rules of conduct and life you are not suppose to do. Now, you had been coming to my house and doing them for a very long time, but, I finally caught you doing it...what do you think I'm going to do? I told you not to leave the toilet seat up. )

A lot of your posts are trolling, but this post is spot on. If people did not know it was exploiting, they are retarded. The excuse that "everybody else is doing it" does not fly. That is like saying since everybody else is speeding so can I.

LoL...talk about bad logic. The game allowed you to dupe before as well...are you saying THAT wasn't a bug, cheat, or exploit?

This is correct. That doesn't mean just because they accidently created it means it is ok for everybody to do.

Because it is an example of:

A. Anet RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing up again (bad communication, unrestricted abuse in their game with little to no response or fix)

B. The sadness of the community (nothing more than farmers)

Just because Anet is going to obliterate this particular problem doesn't mean A and B don't exist. This is simply another example of A and B existing.

We all know Anet is very slow to work. Besides, they shouldn't NEED to put a big post on the main page and on the title screen and etc. Anet has already communicated it several times. Not just in the EULA, but in the form of "match manipulation is a bannable offense". This type of thing has happened before several times (in high profile ways). To think that people thought this was different because it was HB and everybody else was doing it is laughable. It was nothing more than a large exploiting mob.

Match manipulation.

Anet's RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO up is the reason they won't get banned. That doesn't mean they shouldn't have gotten banned if things were run better.

ANet can ban people whenever they want, for whatever reason, and hide behind the EULA. It'll stick for all practical purposes. They built the sandbox, we bought a license to rent space, and they're free to revoke that license at any time under the contract for almost any reason.

However, some of you seem incapable of accepting the following proposition:

Just because they can use the banstick does not imply that they should.

I see several cogent arguments on why the banstick is a stupid reaction to this problem. The common thread in these arguments is that ANet took a clear public stance for a long time, then suddenly reversed that stance without fair warning to anyone but the hardcore player that visits fansites and the wiki.

I see several discombobulated, rambling, incoherent arguments about why this issue merited a ban. I also see a lot of people trying to use the EULA to defend bans. If you want to argue that a ban was needed, you need a theory of bans. What makes this bannable where previous "exploits" such as HM Urgoz farming, the new Nightfall charater trick, and so forth were not worthy of bans?

If all you're going to do is hide behind the "match manipulation" clause in the EULA, may I again remind you that this clause enables ANet to ban but doesn't mean that they should. People manipulated HB tournaments with intentional draws all the time. This went unenforced for ages until it happened in a GvG. Even then it didn't result in permabans.

What makes RR (and other bannable offenses) actually worth banning? Nobody except the legalists will take the legalists seriously without an argument here.

Of course.

Exploiting the game is a bannable offense, period. But I agree with your assessment that not all exploits should be bannable. If the exploit has little to no affect on gameplay, or the game as a whole, or if the exploit is very minor, then Anet can simply fix the problem with no penalty.

But RR is something different. It was a mass exploit that had major impacts on the game. RR was more destructive to Guild Wars than 90% of the exploits in the history of the game.

All of these things should have been enforced, but Anet was too lazy (or unknowing?) to do so. Just because Anet hasn't enforced this rule that has been in place for ages in every case doesn't mean the rule SHOULDN'T be enforced.

The effects on the game.

Most destructive? What the f*** am I missing here? Major impacts on the game? Are we even talking about the same game?

Obviously it was an exploit. Since when was it illegal to profit from an exploit? Signet of ghostly might? Remember when they buffed a spell to steal monster skills and everyone was running around like a norn etc? Those were all exploits. Heck, even pve is one big exploit. People use a "tank" and abuse the stupid AI. Running blood spike in gvg is an exploit. Resigning in gvg to a blood spike guild because you don't want to lose is match manipulation and exploiting? Mapping out of RA because you face a sync team is match manipulation?

An exploit becomes a problem when your actions hurt someone else. The RR crap doesn't even have victims.

How did it have a major impact on the game? Unless you were botting RR, a single human player simply would be physically unable to remain at the keyboard for 24 hours straight RRing enough to amass an amount of coins/keys/faction/gold/whatever that would be construed to have a major impact. IMO, duping and mapping to the guild hall from pre-searing had bigger impacts. The majority of players who RRed left with a little extra gold, a few keys and a couple of hours of mindless "fun". Only a small percentage of players who RRed might have amassed a fortune large enough to have an impact on the overall economy of the game.

Glad someone took the bet, and particularly glad that you gave a capable response. Some things still need development.

OK, so we're establishing the economy (or threats to it, eg: Ebony Citadel of Mallyx) as a possible condition for using the banstick. I'm with you here. However, we need a threshold condition for what's bannable and what's not. See below.

The obvious second possible condition is directly altering client outputs. Obviously, duping qualifies. Ebony Citadel of Mallyx also qualifies (you weren't supposed to be able to get there).

I think you may be overstating the case for RR a bit. The reason it threatened the economy was because it was permitted to go on for so long. If the exploit had been closed quickly, no harm would have been done.

But it was still an unusually bad exploit.

This is where a little pragmatism is needed. ANet can't enforce everything. They don't have the manpower on the Support side.

Also, you still want to encourage innovation. The game needs legitimate money-making enterprises. Otherwise, the economy dies. Power traders can't do their thing, so item markets seize up. You need some (preferably low) level of inflation to keep items changing hands.

How do I tell the difference between a legitimate money-making enterprise and an exploit?

I don't think that we can judge this simply by effects. Duping did ugly things to the economy. But the second-ugliest run of inflation this game has ever seen has resulted from UWSC. I don't think we can make an argument that UWSC is a bannable offense. Needs to be removed? Sure. Bannable? There's a whole can of worms.

Does that mean I get banned for helping develop UWSC in April of '08? How many runs is too many? Do I get away with my involvement because I realized there were more profitable alternatives per unit of time invested (dungeon runs) and did few UWSCs? Or am I as culpable as the nutcases I know that have done literally thousands of runs? Should we ban Fooster for posting the build (at the time) to Guru and sparking the craze?

The other problem with banning by effects is that individual effects rarely matter nearly so much as group effects. For weeks before everyone found out about HM Urgoz I was farming up Zodiacs, Wild Blow testing them, and selling the unid'ds with lousy mods. I would ID the 15^50s, +5s, 20% enchants, 20/20s and +30s, and sold the nicest skins in High End (quickly, certain that this was too good to last). During this time, I definitely impacted supply. I did nothing to item prices. But I was clearly pushing the exploit envelope right to the limit.

There's more to this than effects. If you're messing with the client, you're gone. If you're messing with the economy, maybe you're gone and maybe you're not. What separates those two camps?

EDIT:

Progress! RR does have victims - those that had a lot of zkeys (or points to title track) before RR took place, and those that cannot/will not RR. It had HUGE distributional effects.

Actions creating externalities should be a component of the solution. Dungeon runs are fine; they're obviously Pareto-improving trades (makes both parties better off) that impact no one else. RR is bad because it's a Pareto-improving trade that has an externality.

I can't resist sarcasm here. There's this mathematical concept called a summation sequence that you ought to look into. Sort of important in economics, really.

The problem is that item prices are significantly altered when the underlying fundamentals that generate them are changed. Make Zkeys and gold practically free via exploit, and what happens? Ectos become more expensive. You may not personally care, but people with lots of ectos care (got wealthier) and players with lots of zkeys/points to title track care (got relatively poorer).

If you doubt that the economy was affected, the change in ecto prices at the trader and the change in zkey prices on the secondary market should disabuse you.

Not the most destructive (there have certainly been far more destructive), but RR is certainly one of the most.

Completely different topic/thread.

Of course it does. What about people who care about the economy? I'm more concerned with the game though. What about the integrity of the game as a whole?

Again, I didn't say RR was the most destructive (as you mentioned duping etc was more destructive). But when you have such a large amount of people doing it, it has an effect regardless of how big or small it is. And it isn't just an effect in that way...(see my response to Sankt). For example: why would people play the game normally when they can exploit and get twice as much in half the time? Game integrity my friend.

I believe the economy is one reason, but not the only reason. Basically if somebody discovers an exploit that has a negative effect on the game as a whole, Anet has to solve the problem somehow. If they don't have the power to fix it through changing the game, then they have to do it through dealing with those involved.

The only reason this thread still exists is because people realize that Anet doesn't really solve problems. Instead they take a long time to temporarily solve an issue, until another issue comes up with the exact same problem. Instead of attacking the core problem, they attack the issues around it to no effect because the problem comes back up in another form. Ok I may be a bit confusing and on a tangent now though.

True, but I also think the exploit was bad due to how widespread it was. Duping was VERY limited in comparison.

We can not compare UWSC with RR or duping. UWSC is a balance issue. Balance issues are supposed to be solved by the creators. Nobody gets banned for abusing balance problems. The company simply has to solve them for the good of their game.

RR is not a balance issue, it is an exploit. Going into a PvP area and resigning is not the way the game is meant to be played. If the company can not solve the problem, what other choice is there? Allow the exploiters to continue?

It depends on how you are messing with the economy.

Overall though I don't really care. I understand what you are saying. I honestly could care less if the exploiters get banned. The only reason I even entered this thread is to help point out the incompetence of Anet showing (once again). I'm not always critical of them...I have pointed out the good things about them. But there have been things over the years that are just ridiculous, and I think this incident is one of them.

Can I just ask in passing what you base these "(guess)estimations" on?

Yeah, you might have a point. Too bad you don't know the definition of "exploit".

Here are the possible definitions from dictionary:

1. to utilize, esp. for profit; turn to practical account: to exploit a business opportunity.
2. to use selfishly for one's own ends: employers who exploit their workers.
3. to advance or further through exploitation; promote: He exploited his new movie through a series of guest appearances.

Your above argument could be wholly applied to farmers as well. Should we ban farmers too?

Now "exploiting" taken by itself has no negative connotations. What matters is WHAT is being exploited? IS RR a bug? Nope. Match manipulation? Sure. Oops, but match manipulation wasn't a violation until the latest EULA update. With the previous EULA and CoC, you would not be able define RR as bannable without being entirely circular and wrong.

"But ... but ... RR is CHEATIN!!"

No it is not. Here are the (relevant) possible definitions for cheating:

4. to practice fraud or deceit: She cheats without regrets.
5. to violate rules or regulations: He cheats at cards.
6. to take an examination or test in a dishonest way, as by improper access to answers.

Using the previous EULA and CoC, notice how the most likely definition, #5, makes the argument against RR entirely circular? Of course, currently, by A.net dictum, RR IS cheating, but the issue of fair play comes in. Yes, A.net CAN ban you for RR, legally and all. But the fact is, retroactive changes to the EULA, especially without making people read it is plainly draconian. EULAs are pretty bad to begin with. Boing boing said so, which makes it truth. How many people actually pay attention to the EULA in the first place?

Lastly, I'm not a grammar nazi, but A.net fanboys say stuff that SOUND incriminating without bothering to look at actual FACTS. All in all, it's getting pretty bad and fanboying in here, which is honestly, pretty sad, considering how bad A.net screwed up. I mean, you'd think even A.net fanboys would have limits to their fanboyism.

Number of players using? Number of things acquired? Ease of doing it? Completely ignores the way the game is meant to be played? A lot of reasons. But again...I did not say it was worse than some other things in the past.

Your post is kind of a waste of time. You know as well as I what the definition of exploit is in terms of online games. You also know as well as I that Anet can do whatever the hell they want. The problem here is in what they chose to do (or not do).

The problem is you're either consciously or unconsciously not being strict in how you use words in essential arguments. In the former case, you are just being dishonest. In the latter... well....

If you actually think about it, you'd realize that the "online" definition does not actually support your argument. Ironically, it's covered by the "non-online" definition. RR is not a bug. I also think if you re-read previous posts you'd realize this is much the source of the disagreement. E.g., when people say that UWSC is "exploiting" and then you disagreeing by saying it's not the same. The fact is that you are using "exploit" to mean something it is not.

A dissection of your argument shows that you are using "exploit" and "cheating" synonymously and then going on to conclude that RR is cheating. You are attempting to define RR as cheating circuitously. It is not. RR is only cheating by retroactive dictum of A.net. I think even you could understand that, if you just stopped to think about it.

Of course, you could just go on fanboying. By all means. It is quite entertaining, albeit a "waste of time."

I don't really see how RR is an exploit or cheating. They are using the resign function that was put into the game by Anet. They aren't exploiting any bug or malfunction, just resigning as it was designed by the developers of the game. Anet should have never allowed that kind of a reward to be given for a match that could be resigned, if they think it's such a problem.

How is it any different from people using builds that take practically no damage or similar extreme use of allowed game mechanics?

Semantics much?

I don't think I have even used the word "cheating" in any of my posts, so I don't see where you are getting this. I have simply concluded that RR is an exploit that should have never been. It is the fault of both the players for abusing it and Anet who allowed it. I am saying nothing about cheating. Even if Anet decides what is or isn't cheating, they don't decide what is or isn't an exploit.

LoL?

To think, Anet put announcements about in-game gold traders, something a bit more well known for being dubious. But nothing about a grey area about RRday on the soon to be dead HB format.

I'd say common sense of just mere mathematics Fril. Something like time related to revenues vs a common denominator of normality. I don't think anyone disagrees that RR was an easy fast way to gain revenue in the shortest amount of time? It was manipulating that ability by not playing the arena battle as intended. It feels to me like a fighter who takes a dive in a boxing match and then gets paid for it. They ban those suckers also when they catch them.

Sorry I wasn't clear: where do you get these "numbers" from? I would even question the "ease of doing it" and "the way the game is meant to be played", but that's a tangent problematic not needed to dilute this thread's topic.

I should have added: I just came back from giving a 2hours lecture on this kind of "basic-intuitive" notion of Mathematics (which is more about statistics btw, and this is not basic Maths). I know it's not about that.

Well, the only number I used is that it is worse than 90% of the other exploits in GW history. I only used a common sense estimate for that one, considering there have been a lot of minor exploits and a few major ones.

Yes, this is Anet's fault, but only partly. A lot of this comes down selfish people who care more about titles and money than actually playing the game. You cannot plea for mercy just because you cannot restrain your greedy desires.

If two people were to play a game of chess and then declare one the winner at the start because they were using the black pieces, I would say they are pathetic. Sure, they're not breaking any rules, but what was the point of coming to the match if they were not going to play? Games exist to played, not farmed. This is not about enforcing rules or an EULA; it's about an attitude problem that seriously needs fixing.

Now, in my serious opinion, I do not think that people who have already done RR should be perma ban. However, Anet has to step up and say "Anyone who RRs from this point onwards will be punished". If Anet backs down, then that will send out a very bad message. This sort of exploitation should be discouraged, not left alone. Sportsmanship is an important part of our experience, whether it be a virtual game or not.

Oh come on now! Because other people get wealthier you get relatively poorer and is thus unjust? The zkeys are there waiting to be picked, by picking them you are not victimizing anyone else. That's like saying because Norway is pumping black gold out of the ocean the rest of the world will suffer because of our increased buying power.

Even in real life you can extract resources from the nature, the economy is not a fixed sum where distribution is the only factor. RR is even available to anyone, if you are worried about your fortune devaluing go ahead and RR.

It's really hard to communicate when someone refuses to listen to the other party's arguments. Fine, you may not have used the word "cheating" but it is certainly implied in your posts, like traversc points out.

Let's break it down into pieces so we can rule out what we agree on and find out where the differences lie. We all agree RR is an exploit that should not have been. By exploit we thus mean "utilize for profit". This has got nothing to do with cheating. Being humans and presumably rational entities people will exploit the most profitable options available to them. It is therefore meaningless to say that the players "are at fault for abusing it", any rational person would. It only became cheating with Anet's dictum.

When you say Anet is at fault for allowing it I think we are in agreement as well.

Exactly.

Running a build with only capping in mind is also exploiting the arena. Because you can avoid fights and still win people use this as a tactic. Winning is presumably the goal here. If you find a way to win more often but also losing more often that might be a good solution. You use those mechanics available to you in game, if /resign turns out profitable by all means use it.

As has been said repeatedly over 32 pages now Anet could have changed the premises a long time ago. They made the arena, they added the zquest as an incentive to win 2 matches as quickly as possible. They added the title making winning more important, the number of losses you have compared to wins do not matter.

...What? Silly hillbilly farmers belong in PvE.

So Anet is not allowed to try and fix their failings just because a bunch of nobodies deem it too late to do so?

Please, send that to NCSoft's CEO and CEOs of MMORPG companies, i want to hear their laughs from several thousands of miles away.

Also, remember when anet lowered the zcoin output for the zquest, because it was being farmed a lot (long before RR, I think /roll was even still around).Why couldn't Anet just lower the balth reward?

It's more Anet's fault then ours, because they've been letting this happen. It's human nature to get money, greed drives people.

Well, most MMORPGs are not games in my opinion.

So let's just throw our self restraint out of the window shall we?

Fun is what drives people. Some people find it in money, some find it somewhere else. Greed is not needed, or not even "common", in the slightest.

Anet wanted pve'ers to do more "pvp", now pve'ers play "pvp". Don't make the mistake, though, thinking farmers only do pve. All the pvp formats have been and are being farmed notoriously, if not for gold then for the titles.

Wha? They are removing HB. I'd say that is a proper fix.

Is there even any reason to feel self restraint from doing RR? I know I won't deal with drugs because it directly hurts people. I wouldn't feel guilty in the slightest for doing RR.

Lawl. Judging from your other posts you seem like a bright young man. You can not possibly think people do RR day in and day out because it's fun?

I have tried RR myself and let me tell you, it's mindnumbingly boring. How anyone can partake in that concept regardless of the apparent rewards is beyond me. Next step mental asylum.

On a side note I theorise(theoretisize? Idk, is either of those words right?) that all of this "title grinding" does not represent fun. I fear that a great many people do this with a "farming mentality", they are willing to do extremely repetetive and boring tasks for small in-game rewards. Last time I voiced this I was quickly made aware that I was alone in this view. The main argument was that for some boring grind is fun. That doesn't really compute for me, though.

Not what I meant, because I was replying to the "It's human nature to [want] money" bit, which is wrong.

As I said to a friend: "What amazes me is that someone would [...] invest this amount of resources (time) into something so ... virtual. If I was ironic, I'd say that this energy should be redirected to RL" But who are we to teach lessons to people?

And super ego PvP'rs shouldn't get z-keys or any gold related reward as true pvp players don't care about gold, but find satisfaction in skill, honour and ranking. Since the Koreans left 6-12 months after GW's release, the pvp community is as worse a grind and money fest as pve.