Guild Wars 2

Valandil Dragonhart.2371:

AcidicVision.5498:

Valandil Dragonhart.2371:

AcidicVision.5498:

Exploiters ’gonna Exploit.

Sounds to me like you’re actually condoning the lack of forethought, testing and inaction on the developer’s half. Yes people will try to exploit what they can to give them an edge over the others and the game mechanics, but by the developers actually ENABLING them to do it, who is actually in the wrong?

If you are checking out in a grocery store and the cashier looks away with the register open, who’s fault is it if you grab all the money and run? Who is going to jail, you for making a poor decision or the cashier for enabling you by not closing the drawer?

That rather depends on if the attendant is actually inviting you to take the cash from the drawer. That way not only would you be made to return it (if busted) but the attendant would also probably get reprimanded or lose their job.

Bottom line is don’t create this kind of scenario for people who want to exploit the game for all it’s worth. If there’s so many people working on it as you suggest, why can’t someone come along and test something for integrity? I think that word is really the thing that’s lacking with this game… integrity and basic function-testing, really the duck’s nuts of QA stuff.

I like the way you think. Totally agree.

Kanthor.2094:

wildcode.5403:

Crafters know the mechanics (and costs) of crafting, if a recipe does not follow the mechanics such as the snow flake one, then a crafter knows immediately that something isn’t right with it.

Most if not all of the snowflake recipies require less stuff when compared to existing recipies. For example, Giver’s insignias require 8 snowflakes, when the others require 15 of that tier’s materials. It was no accident making these recipies cheaper, but ANet later regretted that for the most profitable ones.

That’s what makes this ban absolutely hilarious. They lowered the mats because people complained and anet agreed that they felt the mats were too much and because the mats were so cheap due to an over saturation of them on the market, people were able to turn a profit and by the time it got circulated, the market already stabilized and the items rose in price and yet anet felt the need to hotfix the “problem”

hellokittyonline.7532:

No Perm ban is about right.

Please don’t change it. Exploiters should be all perm banned.

CoF speed runs were exploits that made money, should ban all those people too.

Oh wait they would have about 200 people left then lol.

I really dislike this move. It’s representing a poorly coordinated, powerless, incompetent company.

I’ve defended ArenaNet for a great number of things that players unreasonably criticize them for, but this seems to be beyond excusable behavior.

As a side note, none of my guild, or myself was impacted by this whatsoever. We all do keep up with the community, knew about the posted method, and all individually decided that the method was fishy. As none of us even wanted the earrings, we didn’t even run into any incidental contact with this.

So no, this isn’t on behalf of myself.

My concern is for the (mostly innocent/ignorant) players that did craft a few, and then salvage them for ectoplasms without really knowing better. This is why I don’t support bans for this, or for earlier debacles like the 64+ rare -> precursor. I wasn’t here for that one, but reading about it, ArenaNet did the right thing by fixing their own mistake, admitting it, and not doling out any punishment for fear of hitting those that just happened to perform the action, without any exploitative intent.

Largely innocent and not quite so greed-driven players should not be punished for a company’s incompetence. If the reports are accurate, there are certain players that got banned for only a handful of ectoplasms. That’s within the realm of randomly doing this without knowing better!

A more composed response would have involved roll-backs, but it’s likely that ArenaNet decided too much damage was already done and went for the nuclear option. That’s a very ugly precedent to set for something that was the company’s error.

Again, assuming the reports are accurate, this is an ugly, despicable move.

A large amount of my personal wealth has revolved around the concept of being first-to-market with many things. I’ve discovered many profitable crafts, and used them to make desirable items to sell until the public caught up and the margin depleted some time later.

To me, those are the fruits of research, experimentation, and diligent market tracking.
Those all take time, and you run plenty of investment risk, but I enjoy doing it. This individual situation sends the message that at any time, you should be wary of what you discover.

I do think exploiters should be handled without mercy. Perma-ban, instantly. However, the “common sense” law was very clear. You should not clip through walls, fly over gates, or warp to the lord’s room without ever going through a citadel. You are knowingly exploiting a mistake in the game.

Now, the line is not so clear. If you were just playing through the game on your own, without paying attention to wikis/forums (the kind of player that just wants to be left alone to enjoy the game), you may have just stumbled upon this recipe and thought it was implemented as intended. This is the most harmless, unobtrusive of all of your players – and by the looks of it, many of them may have been taken out in the ban wave.

EDIT: If it does come to light that Reddit has exaggerated this ban wave, then I willingly retract everything i’ve said. My concern is mostly for the innocent and the incidental. Those that discovered “hey! this is a cheap way to make an earring!”, and later salvaged a handful when they no longer needed them.

The fate of those that did pile on gold, repeatedly, with full knowledge that it was a flawed mechanic… well… that’s an executive decision for the company to make.

AcidicVision.5498:

ArcTheFallen.7682:

…No. You do not know what the words mean at all. And quit acting like you are superior, I’m talking on an even level here. But fyi,

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=define%3A+cheating
…
Please don’t talk to me about definitions and stay on topic.

“An exploit, in video games, is the use of a bug or glitches, rates, hit boxes, or speed, etc. by a player to their advantage in a manner not intended by the game’s designers.¹ It is often colloquially abbreviated sploit. Exploits have been classified as a form of cheating” – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploit_

Hard to stay on topic when the OP isn’t clear what the topic is even about. An exploit is cheating. Exploiting and cheating are bannable offences. And thats all there is to it.

Fortunately, after the second chance that Karma exploiters were given on the goodwill condition they toss everything they earned from it, which most didn’t adhere to…these guys will likely not be given a reprieve.

It’s not a bug or a glitch. They wrote down a recipe that they didn’t think much about. And it doesn’t give a player an advantage over anyone else. The only advantage they get is more money to what…buy nice stuff? It’s not like they stole money from players directly. Again, you say ban, and I’m not disagreeing with you, but perma banning is totally not cool. I feel like everyone one should get a second chance, not just the people who had the first round of exploiting.

Edit: Also, rereading your link, they have been classified as a form of cheating. That means it originally wasn’t. And it’s been a long struggle whether it was a bannable offense in some games—because they aren’t your regular definitions of cheating. That’s why they have a separate word. Otherwise cheating would be used and not exploiting.

Since this is such an unintended exploit, I think they should just fire the person responsible.

- On one hand, players have been warned not to not exploit the economy and report and suspicious activities that might break the game. Punishments must be enforced to prevent future abuses. Protect people who didn’t exploit.

- On the other, its a mistake of the developers. Bad planning. Not enough testing. Slow reaction.

I think the most important thing is that the developers learnt from their mistake and are more careful about releasing new content in the future.

Something I would really like to say is that through this whole incident Arena Net pretty much kept silent. They were asked numerous times whether or not this was an exploit and remained, for the most part, pled the fifth and what answers they did give were extremely vague, such as defining what they classify as an exploit.

Kain Francois.4328:

Since this is such an unintended exploit, I think they should just fire the person responsible.

I like this.

ArenaNet perma banning anyone for an error in their programming is theft, plain and simple. Anet is stealing from the people that paid to play their game. Fix the bug, take away whatever resulted from the bug and call it done. Ending their license is theft.

Players have been warned so many times that “i dint know” dont work anymore! Finding an exploit and using it leads to ban in GW2. There seems to be no way to go around and I really like this policy. All other games i have played the devs usually give up and these habbits are left alive. Anet has dealt with this issue. Either u take action or u dont.

Orion the Cursed.1206:

- On one hand, players have been warned not to not exploit the economy and report and suspicious activities that might break the game. Punishments must be enforced to prevent future abuses. Protect people who didn’t exploit.

Except this wasn’t some overlooked NPC in the middle of nowhere.

This was a highly tested crafting recipe which stood out. If it was not tested, then that implies large incompetence.

They might as well ban people for playing high level fractals and call it an “exploit” because people can resurrect with revive orbs.

ikiturso.4026:

Players have been warned so many times that “i dint know” dont work anymore! Finding an exploit and using it leads to ban in GW2. There seems to be no way to go around and I really like this policy. All other games i have played the devs usually give up and these habbits are left alive. Anet has dealt with this issue. Either u take action or u dont.

This wasn’t an exploit though. You can craft other items for less than the cost of an ecto and salvage them for ectos. Is this an exploit to?

ArcTheFallen.7682:

It’s not a bug or a glitch. They wrote down a recipe that they didn’t think much about. And it doesn’t give a player an advantage over anyone else. The only advantage they get is more money to what…buy nice stuff? It’s not like they stole money from players directly. Again, you say ban, and I’m not disagreeing with you, but perma banning is totally not cool. I feel like everyone one should get a second chance, not just the people who had the first round of exploiting.

“An exploit, in video games, is the use of a bug or glitches, rates, hit boxes, or speed, etc.”

I bolded the catch all for you because it looks like you missed it the first time you read it.

Yes, the advantage came from having more money and inflating the cost of mats for everyone else in the game. Check out the reddit links to gw spidy that demonstrate the effects this had on the mats used.

And those are only immediate effects of people discovering the recipe and buying the surplus to convert into more ecto or hope to resell at an inflated price. The effects of that extra gold then reach out further to buying rare items or materials to again manipulate the value or flip into precursors to ironfist that entire market like we seen after the godskull incident.

Botters and farmers cause market prices to crash. Exploiters cause market prices to inflate beyond the means of most players. And that is bad for everyone. Hence the extreme punishment. If you participate in an activity that affects players en masse and that can take weeks if not months to naturally recover from, then you don’t need to be playing with other people.

Orion the Cursed.1206:

- On one hand, players have been warned not to not exploit the economy and report and suspicious activities that might break the game. Punishments must be enforced to prevent future abuses. Protect people who didn’t exploit.

- On the other, its a mistake of the developers. Bad planning. Not enough testing. Slow reaction.

I think the most important thing is that the developers learnt from their mistake and are more careful about releasing new content in the future.

Sorry, I like how you break it down, but to expand on it in my current negative attitude (you are a good poster though! thanks for your input ><)

-On one hand, not all people are aware of their plans/issues—-even on the forums because they are not very communicative.

-One the other hand, they could have just given kids transformer toys for $60 bucks and then took it back when the kids forgot to read the small print that you couldn’t transform them when you could have—but instead you need to buy the pre-transformed version of the transformer toy.

Oxe.6142:

ArenaNet perma banning anyone for an error in their programming is theft, plain and simple. Anet is stealing from the people that paid to play their game. Fix the bug, take away whatever resulted from the bug and call it done. Ending their license is theft.

If you read my post above you can see that I’m not happy with the company for this action, but I do have to say that this is not true.

Technically, any perceived violation of their TOS is cause for a license termination, what you agreed to (though obviously no one reads it, but that’s not excuse in a court of law). Assuming ANet can defend that the player’s “abuse” of the company’s error was indeed definable as abuse, then the termination is valid and not theft.

My argument is primarily with the qualification of abuse. While many did deliberately exploit, and deserve the ban, the wave seems to (allegedly) have hit many players that discovered the recipe on their own, never set foot in the forums, and just used it on a small scale for themselves, unaware the recipe formula was unintentional.

That’s not a good look.

AcidicVision.5498:

ArcTheFallen.7682:

It’s not a bug or a glitch. They wrote down a recipe that they didn’t think much about. And it doesn’t give a player an advantage over anyone else. The only advantage they get is more money to what…buy nice stuff? It’s not like they stole money from players directly. Again, you say ban, and I’m not disagreeing with you, but perma banning is totally not cool. I feel like everyone one should get a second chance, not just the people who had the first round of exploiting.

“An exploit, in video games, is the use of a bug or glitches, rates, hit boxes, or speed, etc.”

I bolded the catch all for you because it looks like you missed it the first time you read it.

Yes, the advantage came from having more money and inflating the cost of mats for everyone else in the game. Check out the reddit links to gw spidy that demonstrate the effects this had on the mats used.

And those are only immediate effects of people discovering the recipe and buying the surplus to convert into more ecto or hope to resell at an inflated price. The effects of that extra gold then reach out further to buying rare items or materials to again manipulate the value or flip into precursors to ironfist that entire market like we seen after the godskull incident.

Botters and farmers cause market prices to crash. Exploiters cause market prices to inflate beyond the means of most players. And that is bad for everyone. Hence the extreme punishment. If you participate in an activity that affects players en masse and that can take weeks if not months to naturally recover from, then you don’t need to be playing with other people.

So according to your definition salvaging these pieces of jewelry was not an exploit? These people were not using any form of a bug or a glitch, but simply using a system that was already in place to make a profit off of a new item.

Edit: Also exploits don’t always cause the market to inflate. For example the karma exploit introduced large amounts of precursors into the market. Which would cause deflation not inflation.

AcidicVision.5498:

ArcTheFallen.7682:

It’s not a bug or a glitch. They wrote down a recipe that they didn’t think much about. And it doesn’t give a player an advantage over anyone else. The only advantage they get is more money to what…buy nice stuff? It’s not like they stole money from players directly. Again, you say ban, and I’m not disagreeing with you, but perma banning is totally not cool. I feel like everyone one should get a second chance, not just the people who had the first round of exploiting.

“An exploit, in video games, is the use of a bug or glitches, rates, hit boxes, or speed, etc.”

I bolded the catch all for you because it looks like you missed it the first time you read it.

Yes, the advantage came from having more money and inflating the cost of mats for everyone else in the game. Check out the reddit links to gw spidy that demonstrate the effects this had on the mats used.

And those are only immediate effects of people discovering the recipe and buying the surplus to convert into more ecto or hope to resell at an inflated price. The effects of that extra gold then reach out further to buying rare items or materials to again manipulate the value or flip into precursors to ironfist that entire market like we seen after the godskull incident.

Botters and farmers cause market prices to crash. Exploiters cause market prices to inflate beyond the means of most players. And that is bad for everyone. Hence the extreme punishment. If you participate in an activity that affects players en masse and that can take weeks if not months to naturally recover from, then you don’t need to be playing with other people.

Not sure how it affects everyone in game, when everyone could have done it. If you say that most people didn’t know about it and they were taken advantage of, I’d like to say the same thing for this recipe. Who was supposed to know that it wasn’t intended if they were someone new to rpgs and didn’t understand the concept of losing money when crafting

They only banned the worst offenders, those who were clearly exploiting it. The message they posted on Reddit got a bit lost in the sea of comments so I’ll quote it here:

Guys, this was an exploit — pure and simple. The terminated accounts were connected to the most egregious levels of abuse. The User Agreement and the Rules of Conduct are on our legal page. You can read them if you’re not sure how things work. More informative, maybe, is the Conducts Breaches and Outcomes document. (all off of this page: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/)
Add it all together — the rules and the fact this impacts the whole game — then consider the forgiveness shown in an earlier instance of exploitation and get on board with the fact that it was wrong, the worst offenders lost their accounts, and that’s all pretty straightforward and as it should be.

The permalink:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/15uwja/fyi_mass_bans_were_handed_out_today_for_those_who/c7q0zyb

The decision to permanently ban “exploiters” were made in good faith but the harm associated with the precedent set by ANet with this decision by far exceed any gain. In essence, ANet has sent the message that ANY profitable salvaged material is an exploit, (eg: salvaging a yellow for ecto). I do not think ANet fully comprehend the magnitude of the harm set by this precedent…

LFk.1408:

Technically, any perceived violation of their TOS is cause for a license termination, what you agreed to (though obviously no one reads it, but that’s not excuse in a court of law). Assuming ANet can defend that the player’s “abuse” of the company’s error was indeed definable as abuse, then the termination is valid and not theft.

Something being in the TOS doesn’t make it right. You’re forced to agree to the TOS, regardless of what it says to play the game. It could say in there that you declare NCSoft as your sole heir and beneficiary upon your death, you’ld still have to agree to it. It’s not about technicalities or the TOS, it’s about right and wrong. Anet screwed up by making the bad recipe. It’s their job to fix it without making ill gotten profits by banning players. They screwed up, fix it, move on.

Oxe.6142:

ArenaNet perma banning anyone for an error in their programming is theft, plain and simple. Anet is stealing from the people that paid to play their game. Fix the bug, take away whatever resulted from the bug and call it done. Ending their license is theft.

“17. You will not exploit any bug in Guild Wars 2 and you will not communicate the existence of any such exploitable bug (bugs that grant the user unnatural or unintended benefits) either directly or through public posting, to any other user of Guild Wars 2.”
- Rules of conduct
https://www.guildwars2.com/en-gb/legal/guild-wars-2-rules-of-conduct

“If You violate the Rules of Conduct, then NCsoft may, in its sole and absolute discretion, terminate Your Account under Section 3”
- User agreement
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-user-agreement/

No theft there. Just holding people accountable for what they agreed to when playing the game.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Not sure how it affects everyone in game, when everyone could have done it. If you say that most people didn’t know about it and they were taken advantage of, I’d like to say the same thing for this recipe. Who was supposed to know that it wasn’t intended if they were someone new to rpgs and didn’t understand the concept of losing money when crafting

So are you trying to say if someone breaks some rules that affect other people but they don’t know enough to realize why things suddenly changed, then it doesn’t matter someone broke the rules? Its ok for exploiters to just have their way with the population and economy until everyone catches on?

As far as crafting and losing money, you didn’t get to jewel level 400 without knowing how crafting works. And you pretty much understand that if you make something for 25s and then salvage it for over 75s in one of the rarer mats in the game, that there is some sort of bug. That is obviously not functioning as intended. Hence bug, which goes back to CoC and ToS.

Fay.2735:

They only banned the worst offenders, those who were clearly exploiting it. The message they posted on Reddit got a bit lost in the sea of comments so I’ll quote it here:

Guys, this was an exploit — pure and simple. The terminated accounts were connected to the most egregious levels of abuse. The User Agreement and the Rules of Conduct are on our legal page. You can read them if you’re not sure how things work. More informative, maybe, is the Conducts Breaches and Outcomes document. (all off of this page: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/)
Add it all together — the rules and the fact this impacts the whole game — then consider the forgiveness shown in an earlier instance of exploitation and get on board with the fact that it was wrong, the worst offenders lost their accounts, and that’s all pretty straightforward and as it should be.

The permalink:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/15uwja/fyi_mass_bans_were_handed_out_today_for_those_who/c7q0zyb

Thank you.

That really did get lost in a sea of rage.

If ArenaNet did indeed act carefully, and many online are lying about the extent to which they utilized this, then I have nothing much more to say about the topic, and retract most of what I said.

I’d defend those who found the recipe on their own without realizing the wider ramifications.

As for those those who full well knew what they were doing… I have no opinion either way. It’s still ANet’s error, another error in the sea of errors within this game. Both sides are at fault, but I guess one side wields the banhammer.

Sky.7610:

The decision to permanently ban “exploiters” were made in good faith but the harm associated with the precedent set by ANet with this decision by far exceed any gain. In essence, ANet has sent the message that ANY profitable salvaged material is an exploit, (eg: salvaging a yellow for ecto). I do not think ANet fully comprehend the magnitude of the harm set by this precedent…

Exactly, now EVERY method of gaining significant gold outside of item flipping on the TP can be considered an exploit in the future. But don’t worry, I have your solution.

Step 1: On release of new recipies, find out if any offer significant profits.
Step 2: Buy lots of whatever materials are used to make those recipies.
Step 3: Sell those materials when they peak.
Step 4: Watch the crafters profit and then get banned.
Step 5: Watch yourself profit and not get banned.

Problem solved…kinda.

Oxe.6142:

LFk.1408:

Technically, any perceived violation of their TOS is cause for a license termination, what you agreed to (though obviously no one reads it, but that’s not excuse in a court of law). Assuming ANet can defend that the player’s “abuse” of the company’s error was indeed definable as abuse, then the termination is valid and not theft.

Something being in the TOS doesn’t make it right. You’re forced to agree to the TOS, regardless of what it says to play the game. It could say in there that you declare NCSoft as your sole heir and beneficiary upon your death, you’ld still have to agree to it. It’s not about technicalities or the TOS, it’s about right and wrong. Anet screwed up by making the bad recipe. It’s their job to fix it without making ill gotten profits by banning players. They screwed up, fix it, move on.

If you agree to the TOS, it does make it right.

If the TOS indeed stated that you needed to bequeath your belongings to ANet upon death, I would suggest you decline, return the game, and do not even think about playing it.

Your example is, of course, an absurd exaggeration. This point is, the TOS is something you agree to in order to play the game. If a violation of it occurs, and the violation is upheld as true, then termination of your license follows.

There is no question to this.
Again, I am hesitant to defend ANet for their actions, but this matter of so called “theft” is pretty black and white.

GlisteningDragon.3975:

I think every needs to calm down. The community’s response here is out of line.

I don’t think the community’s response has been out of line at all. There was no warning for a ban on a recipe that ANet itself released and subsequently patched. And in so far as an official response goes, all we have is a post on a Reddit page that keeps getting downvoted-nothing here on the ANet’s own forums itself.

I was not affected by this ban but it upsets me to see ANet’s response and the it troubles me with the precedent it sets. I’d like to see a resolution to this as soon as possible as I’m now without some of my friends who play this game and the whatever incentive left to play (which has already waned after the release FoTM) continues to dwindle.

Sky.7610:

The decision to permanently ban “exploiters” were made in good faith but the harm associated with the precedent set by ANet with this decision by far exceed any gain. In essence, ANet has sent the message that ANY profitable salvaged material is an exploit, (eg: salvaging a yellow for ecto). I do not think ANet fully comprehend the magnitude of the harm set by this precedent…

The message Anet has sent is actually a good message and does no harm. You cheat the system you get banned. Its that simple. It seems like a lot a lot of common sense is missing in some of these post. The only ones to get banned were the ones that really abused it. Its so easy to make gold in this game if you put in a bit of time but some lazy kitten gamers are always looking for a way to cheat the system. I mean how clueless does a person have to be to not realize that that wasn’t intended?? Come on now be for real. Don’t make excuses for those lazy gamers.

Scourge.4317:

Sky.7610:

The decision to permanently ban “exploiters” were made in good faith but the harm associated with the precedent set by ANet with this decision by far exceed any gain. In essence, ANet has sent the message that ANY profitable salvaged material is an exploit, (eg: salvaging a yellow for ecto). I do not think ANet fully comprehend the magnitude of the harm set by this precedent…

The message Anet has sent is actually a good message and does no harm. You cheat the system you get banned. Its that simple. It seems like a lot a lot of common sense is missing in some of these post. The only ones to get banned were the ones that really abused it. Its so easy to make gold in this game if you put in a bit of time but some lazy kitten gamers are always looking for a way to cheat the system. I mean how clueless does a person have to be to not realize that that wasn’t intended?? Come on now be for real. Don’t make excuses for those lazy gamers.

What about the lazy developers who push things into production way too fast. Seriously, he should get fired and I’ll be done with this thread. He gave an opportunity to people that costed them their game.

Scourge.4317:

Sky.7610:

The decision to permanently ban “exploiters” were made in good faith but the harm associated with the precedent set by ANet with this decision by far exceed any gain. In essence, ANet has sent the message that ANY profitable salvaged material is an exploit, (eg: salvaging a yellow for ecto). I do not think ANet fully comprehend the magnitude of the harm set by this precedent…

The message Anet has sent is actually a good message and does no harm. You cheat the system you get banned. Its that simple. It seems like a lot a lot of common sense is missing in some of these post. The only ones to get banned were the ones that really abused it. Its so easy to make gold in this game if you put in a bit of time but some lazy kitten gamers are always looking for a way to cheat the system. I mean how clueless does a person have to be to not realize that that wasn’t intended?? Come on now be for real. Don’t make excuses for those lazy gamers.

It wasn’t actually cheating you know? They were after all using the same RNG as everyone else, and unless they were using a BLSK they weren’t guaranteed to get their gem back, nor get any ecto from it, and they were still working their way through their mithril reserves….

I really think Anet needs to stop handing out perm bans for something stupid.

I am honestly afraid that one day i will find some apparent “exploit” that i think is just a quick way to get cash and will be perm banned for it. All those hours of my life and 60$, gone.

Just that fact alone makes me not want to play this game.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Bans-for-Snowflake-Jewelry-are-unfair/first#post1132023

“I’ve seen the numbers, and the damage to the economy could have been substantial, if the exploit wasn’t closed down and if these people were allowed to use their ill-gotten gains. People whose accounts were terminated were the worst offenders. I’m talking a lot of ill gotten gains, and a significant risk to the economy.
Any time you take one thing and can make two, and then four, and then sixteen… ya gotta know that’s just wrong. (I won’t quibble on the odds, overall, doubling was not outside the rules of probability.) And to perform that action hundreds and hundreds of times? That’s call “exploitation,” my friend, and that’s against the User Agreement, the Rules of Conduct, and all that is holy.
I know the OP will disagree. But we’ve been more than kind, in the past, and everyone needs to own up to his/her errors and recognize: We all are part of the game economy, and those who exploit it are hurting the rest of us.
Exploit closed.
Worst offenders terminated.
That’s what has to happen to make things right for all of us.”

-Gaile Gray

This quote saddens me even more. Let’s exclude the people who reveal your bug to you? How could you have ever known how much impact someone could have done with it without someone reaching that significant number. And how hard is it to make their ingame gold into a 0 value?

And you need to chill out Gaile. Exiling people from your city for pitiful reasons when you are the king of the city makes sense. But don’t you have control over everything in this game. Too lazy to fix it though and drop the banhammer like a boss I guess.

To all the posters saying the exploiters knew what they were doing was an exploit, I disagree. ANet said nothing about the recipies before they were blocked, so under what criteria do YOU determine it was an exploit? And don’t mention “infinite loop” because that was already debunked when John Smith brought it up in another thread. It can’t just be about how much money was made because that would be absurd.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Scourge.4317:

Sky.7610:

The decision to permanently ban “exploiters” were made in good faith but the harm associated with the precedent set by ANet with this decision by far exceed any gain. In essence, ANet has sent the message that ANY profitable salvaged material is an exploit, (eg: salvaging a yellow for ecto). I do not think ANet fully comprehend the magnitude of the harm set by this precedent…

The message Anet has sent is actually a good message and does no harm. You cheat the system you get banned. Its that simple. It seems like a lot a lot of common sense is missing in some of these post. The only ones to get banned were the ones that really abused it. Its so easy to make gold in this game if you put in a bit of time but some lazy kitten gamers are always looking for a way to cheat the system. I mean how clueless does a person have to be to not realize that that wasn’t intended?? Come on now be for real. Don’t make excuses for those lazy gamers.

What about the lazy developers who push things into production way too fast. Seriously, he should get fired and I’ll be done with this thread. He gave an opportunity to people that costed them their game.

Making excuses for people who knowingly cheat the system. No he/she shouldn’t get fired because its on the player to have enough common sense to not exploit something that was obviously not intended. Whats done is done and what they did was right. Those that cheated for big gains got caught and paid the price.

Scourge.4317:

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Scourge.4317:

Sky.7610:

The decision to permanently ban “exploiters” were made in good faith but the harm associated with the precedent set by ANet with this decision by far exceed any gain. In essence, ANet has sent the message that ANY profitable salvaged material is an exploit, (eg: salvaging a yellow for ecto). I do not think ANet fully comprehend the magnitude of the harm set by this precedent…

The message Anet has sent is actually a good message and does no harm. You cheat the system you get banned. Its that simple. It seems like a lot a lot of common sense is missing in some of these post. The only ones to get banned were the ones that really abused it. Its so easy to make gold in this game if you put in a bit of time but some lazy kitten gamers are always looking for a way to cheat the system. I mean how clueless does a person have to be to not realize that that wasn’t intended?? Come on now be for real. Don’t make excuses for those lazy gamers.

What about the lazy developers who push things into production way too fast. Seriously, he should get fired and I’ll be done with this thread. He gave an opportunity to people that costed them their game.

Making excuses for people who knowingly cheat the system. No he/she shouldn’t get fired because its on the player to have enough common sense to not exploit something that was obviously not intended. Whats done is done and what they did was right. Those that cheated for big gains got caught and paid the price.

When did all of us become players who knew anything about an MMO. Why do you assume everyone in this game called GW2 would ever think that a recipe wasn’t working as intended, because it took effort to get the stuff for the recipe let alone get to 400 jewel crafting. Maybe someone thought that was the benefit of being a 400 jewel crafter and it was a source of profit that the market hadn’t catch up on yet?

How the kitten do we know. When all the posts about it was never answered.

MMORPGs are a dictatorship. We live under their rule, and we are at their mercy. They have unlimited power over your account and there is nothing binding them to anything.

If they decide to ban you, tough luck. Find another game. Maybe this will affect their PR and lessen their sales?

PowerCat.5738:

MMORPGs are a dictatorship. We live under their rule, and we are at their mercy. They have unlimited power over your account and there is nothing binding them to anything.

If they decide to ban you, tough luck. Find another game. Maybe this will affect their PR and lessen their sales?

Sad, it may be time to move on then. I don’t like the way this was handled at all. Thanks for all inputs guys.

Sorry Anet but this is YOUR fault not the players.

If a Item in a store is for 10bucks and the person at the pay desk tells me its 50bucks.
I show them the sign and they will sell it for 10bucks.

In short you guys messed up not the players.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

PowerCat.5738:

MMORPGs are a dictatorship. We live under their rule, and we are at their mercy. They have unlimited power over your account and there is nothing binding them to anything.

If they decide to ban you, tough luck. Find another game. Maybe this will affect their PR and lessen their sales?

Sad, it may be time to move on then. I don’t like the way this was handled at all. Thanks for all inputs guys.

I don’t either. And you know what’s gonna happen? Thread locked, deleted, moved, etc. Just broom the trash under the rug so nobody sees it.

Just like the “reduced loot” thread.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Scourge.4317:

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Scourge.4317:

Sky.7610:

The decision to permanently ban “exploiters” were made in good faith but the harm associated with the precedent set by ANet with this decision by far exceed any gain. In essence, ANet has sent the message that ANY profitable salvaged material is an exploit, (eg: salvaging a yellow for ecto). I do not think ANet fully comprehend the magnitude of the harm set by this precedent…

The message Anet has sent is actually a good message and does no harm. You cheat the system you get banned. Its that simple. It seems like a lot a lot of common sense is missing in some of these post. The only ones to get banned were the ones that really abused it. Its so easy to make gold in this game if you put in a bit of time but some lazy kitten gamers are always looking for a way to cheat the system. I mean how clueless does a person have to be to not realize that that wasn’t intended?? Come on now be for real. Don’t make excuses for those lazy gamers.

What about the lazy developers who push things into production way too fast. Seriously, he should get fired and I’ll be done with this thread. He gave an opportunity to people that costed them their game.

Making excuses for people who knowingly cheat the system. No he/she shouldn’t get fired because its on the player to have enough common sense to not exploit something that was obviously not intended. Whats done is done and what they did was right. Those that cheated for big gains got caught and paid the price.

When did all of us become players who knew anything about an MMO. Why do you assume everyone in this game called GW2 would ever think that a recipe wasn’t working as intended, because it took effort to get the stuff for the recipe let alone get to 400 jewel crafting. Maybe someone thought that was the benefit of being a 400 jewel crafter and it was a source of profit that the market hadn’t catch up on yet?

How the kitten do we know. When all the posts about it was never answered.

I have 400 JC and i knew enough to not even mess with it and I’m sure plenty others have also. Its hard for me to show any sympathy for people who got banned because I’ve heard this all before in previous mmo’s. Only difference is in this one the only ones to get banned were the ones who really REALLY took it to far and not the ones who maybe did it once or twice. So i don’t see why you and others are trying to defend them. I’m guessing you know someone who got banned?

I agree with you Arc TheFallen. That, and there is nothing in this game that makes me want to play anymore. Used to be when I would get bored I would log on…now, I watch crummy movies on netflix from the 80’s. Heck reading the wow forums is more entertaining than GW2 anymore…I hate to say it like that but its just my honest opinion.

I can’t believe that this game did not last me as long as SWTOR did and that game was pure punishment.

A few things…

1. I absolutely disagree with perma bans for exploiting. Players are as much to blame as devs/publishers. With that in mind…

2. It’s not like stealing from the store. It’s more like that time I saw a pack of cheese for 1 euro and took 5 even though I knew that pack was way too cheap. When I got the the register, they wanted to charge me 3 euro/pack. I refused and pointed at the label. What do you think happened?
a) they banned me from the store for trying to exploit
b) they apologised for their mistake and I got the 5 packs for 1 euro per
Hint: It wasn’t a.

3. I played 9Dragons for a long time under Acclaim(arguably the worst publisher in history). They used to give the occasional free item from the cash shop, 1 per account, not tradable. At some point they were giving weapon safety item*you attach it to a weapon and if upgrading fails, the weapon doesn’t break). People saw the loophole instantly. Make new account, get item, put on weapon -> bam, tradable. Some got over 1000 items like this. What did Acclaim do? They banned all accounts from the same IP that got more than 5. Then they announced they will unban the accounts for 48h and give players the chance to restore the exploited items. Those who delivered, got their stuff back. Those who didn’t got permabanned. Even Acclaim were pro enough to know that it was ultimately their mistake. And Acclaim sucked as a company.

4. So, all of you saying a lvl 400 jewel crafter should know the patterns and instantly realise smth’s off…how about the person who writes the recipes? Shouldn’t s/he know that even better?

5. Last night I was doing fotm 8 daily. One of them wanted to exploit the last boss in frozen fractal. When me and my friend refused, we got scolded and insulted. Should I expect that guy to be banned for exploiting? And why can’t we even report exploiters? Oh, right, because if they banned everybody who exploited the game, they’d have exactly 0 players left. It doesn’t matter how clean you wanna play. If you ever hit the last seal with a skill, you are an exploiter. If you ever took a shortcut in a JP, you are an exploiter. If you ever used los to fight a boss/mobs, you are an exploiter. If you ever took a mesmer portal in a JP, you are an exploiter. Next time you point your fingers and screams “exploiters should be banned”, remember that there are 3 fingers pointing back at you.

I didn’t get banned, but I know several people who did, many who have 1000+ hours on their account and have supported the game through gem purchases.

Some of these people got in late when the market already reached equilibrium and actually had a loss on the recipe before they stopped. The only people who made significant amounts of money, were before mithril and snowflake prices rose and ectos dropped, which really isn’t different then the other 100 things you could make money on through market changes, yet tons of people are getting banned for trying out things that were posted all over websites like reddit.

It’s pretty bs to ban tons of loyal players for a mistake that Anet created themselves and is blowing out of proportion. The recipe still costs mithril or orich with every craft, and a 25% chance to lose the ecto and snowflake. BL kits weren’t cost effective unless you had a few leftovers in your bank from dailies/chests, but not straight up buying with gems/keys. Before they fixed the recipe the market prices were already reaching equilibrium, it’s not like people were created pure gold out of thin air, they were actually helping take gold out of the economy and material/ecto prices were balancing to create a break even. At that point, ectos were still around 25s from high 30s I believe, not exactly dirt cheap, especially with ascended backpacks costing 250 ectos…

Again I didn’t get banned, I tried the recipe a few times after I found out about it at the end, and realized it wasn’t even worth the time because there were many other ways to make more money at that point.

Most people saw it as a supply/demand recipe just like many other things in the game, from the mystic forge butter/wood recipe, using candy corn jewelery to get black lion keys through commendations for cheaper then you could get them on the gem shop, many mystic forge recipes for t5->t6 mats or lodestones before they reached equilibrium, etc. So to ban normal, loyal players is terrible precidence, especially for something like a crafting recipe that Anet created that eventually stabilized due to market equilibrium and didn’t create gold or items out of thin air. There was still a cost, whether it was mithril and a chance at losing snowflake + ecto, or Black Lion Kits which weren’t profitable unless you had some saved.

Scourge.4317:

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Scourge.4317:

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Scourge.4317:

Sky.7610:

The decision to permanently ban “exploiters” were made in good faith but the harm associated with the precedent set by ANet with this decision by far exceed any gain. In essence, ANet has sent the message that ANY profitable salvaged material is an exploit, (eg: salvaging a yellow for ecto). I do not think ANet fully comprehend the magnitude of the harm set by this precedent…

The message Anet has sent is actually a good message and does no harm. You cheat the system you get banned. Its that simple. It seems like a lot a lot of common sense is missing in some of these post. The only ones to get banned were the ones that really abused it. Its so easy to make gold in this game if you put in a bit of time but some lazy kitten gamers are always looking for a way to cheat the system. I mean how clueless does a person have to be to not realize that that wasn’t intended?? Come on now be for real. Don’t make excuses for those lazy gamers.

What about the lazy developers who push things into production way too fast. Seriously, he should get fired and I’ll be done with this thread. He gave an opportunity to people that costed them their game.

Making excuses for people who knowingly cheat the system. No he/she shouldn’t get fired because its on the player to have enough common sense to not exploit something that was obviously not intended. Whats done is done and what they did was right. Those that cheated for big gains got caught and paid the price.

When did all of us become players who knew anything about an MMO. Why do you assume everyone in this game called GW2 would ever think that a recipe wasn’t working as intended, because it took effort to get the stuff for the recipe let alone get to 400 jewel crafting. Maybe someone thought that was the benefit of being a 400 jewel crafter and it was a source of profit that the market hadn’t catch up on yet?

How the kitten do we know. When all the posts about it was never answered.

I have 400 JC and i knew enough to not even mess with it and I’m sure plenty others have also. Its hard for me to show any sympathy for people who got banned because I’ve heard this all before in previous mmo’s. Only difference is in this one the only ones to get banned were the ones who really REALLY took it to far and not the ones who maybe did it once or twice. So i don’t see why you and others are trying to defend them. I’m guessing you know someone who got banned?

Correct. As I stated in the opening post. And taking it too far is different imo. If say a person made 500 ectos to get their ascended backpiece. I don’t see that as taking it too far, but some will. But it doesn’t harm anyone actually. But if they did it to make a million gold then yes, that is taking it too far. However, the friend I knew made about 250 for himself and 250 for his friend who did not have 400 JC to save time on fotm runs for themselves. To me, that doesn’t fit into the fine lines of why they banned the exploiters. But I guess they just don’t want to ever cater to individuals and want to base thing on quantity and not quality.

Raideen.5973:

I agree with you Arc TheFallen. That, and there is nothing in this game that makes me want to play anymore. Used to be when I would get bored I would log on…now, I watch crummy movies on netflix from the 80’s. Heck reading the wow forums is more entertaining than GW2 anymore…I hate to say it like that but its just my honest opinion.

I can’t believe that this game did not last me as long as SWTOR did and that game was pure punishment.

Yeah, time to put my money into netflix where it’s more worth it. But seriously, not even a “hey, if you were incorrectly banned come to us (as a nice gesture) to sort things”, it has to “i am the law, and this is what it is”. Sorry but, I don’t want that kind of virtual overseer.

I think its funny they want to balance the economy be perma banning people who find exploits, even if they don’t really know it’s an exploit, but refuse to balance pvp.

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Raideen.5973:

I agree with you Arc TheFallen. That, and there is nothing in this game that makes me want to play anymore. Used to be when I would get bored I would log on…now, I watch crummy movies on netflix from the 80’s. Heck reading the wow forums is more entertaining than GW2 anymore…I hate to say it like that but its just my honest opinion.

I can’t believe that this game did not last me as long as SWTOR did and that game was pure punishment.

Yeah, time to put my money into netflix where it’s more worth it. But seriously, not even a “hey, if you were incorrectly banned come to us (as a nice gesture) to sort things”, it has to “i am the law, and this is what it is”. Sorry but, I don’t want that kind of virtual overseer.

Their ban hammer is quite large. They didn’t opt for the ban needle.

Arsenic Touch.7960:

That’s what makes this ban absolutely hilarious. They lowered the mats because people complained and anet agreed that they felt the mats were too much and because the mats were so cheap due to an over saturation of them on the market, people were able to turn a profit and by the time it got circulated, the market already stabilized and the items rose in price and yet anet felt the need to hotfix the “problem”

Indeed they said that. And then they made it so that bags now have a chance to drop 2x powerful blood and other t6 items, which made the prices go from 20s~ ea to 12s~ ea.
However, I cannot remember them saying at any point that they would adjust crafting recipes to increase the amount of ectos. Maybe you could provide me with a link to where they made that claim?
And if they indeed said that (which i highly doubt) why make it so that only jewlcrafter benefit from it and no other profession?

TWMagimay.9057:

A few things…

1. I absolutely disagree with perma bans for exploiting. Players are as much to blame as devs/publishers. With that in mind…

2. It’s not like stealing from the store. It’s more like that time I saw a pack of cheese for 1 euro and took 5 even though I knew that pack was way too cheap. When I got the the register, they wanted to charge me 3 euro/pack. I refused and pointed at the label. What do you think happened?
a) they banned me from the store for trying to exploit
b) they apologised for their mistake and I got the 5 packs for 1 euro per
Hint: It wasn’t a.

3. I played 9Dragons for a long time under Acclaim(arguably the worst publisher in history). They used to give the occasional free item from the cash shop, 1 per account, not tradable. At some point they were giving weapon safety item*you attach it to a weapon and if upgrading fails, the weapon doesn’t break). People saw the loophole instantly. Make new account, get item, put on weapon -> bam, tradable. Some got over 1000 items like this. What did Acclaim do? They banned all accounts from the same IP that got more than 5. Then they announced they will unban the accounts for 48h and give players the chance to restore the exploited items. Those who delivered, got their stuff back. Those who didn’t got permabanned. Even Acclaim were pro enough to know that it was ultimately their mistake. And Acclaim sucked as a company.

4. So, all of you saying a lvl 400 jewel crafter should know the patterns and instantly realise smth’s off…how about the person who writes the recipes? Shouldn’t s/he know that even better?

5. Last night I was doing fotm 8 daily. One of them wanted to exploit the last boss in frozen fractal. When me and my friend refused, we got scolded and insulted. Should I expect that guy to be banned for exploiting? And why can’t we even report exploiters? Oh, right, because if they banned everybody who exploited the game, they’d have exactly 0 players left. It doesn’t matter how clean you wanna play. If you ever hit the last seal with a skill, you are an exploiter. If you ever took a shortcut in a JP, you are an exploiter. If you ever used los to fight a boss/mobs, you are an exploiter. If you ever took a mesmer portal in a JP, you are an exploiter. Next time you point your fingers and screams “exploiters should be banned”, remember that there are 3 fingers pointing back at you.

Spot on. Great examples. Are we your customers ArenaNet or are we your servants?

ArcTheFallen.7682:

Raideen.5973:

I agree with you Arc TheFallen. That, and there is nothing in this game that makes me want to play anymore. Used to be when I would get bored I would log on…now, I watch crummy movies on netflix from the 80’s. Heck reading the wow forums is more entertaining than GW2 anymore…I hate to say it like that but its just my honest opinion.

I can’t believe that this game did not last me as long as SWTOR did and that game was pure punishment.

Yeah, time to put my money into netflix where it’s more worth it. But seriously, not even a “hey, if you were incorrectly banned come to us (as a nice gesture) to sort things”, it has to “i am the law, and this is what it is”. Sorry but, I don’t want that kind of virtual overseer.

Yep. Ohh well looks like arenanet/ncsoft is gonna make it to my “do not spend money with” list.

Ohh well, this is my first game to play from them, and my last.

Scourge.4317:

Sky.7610:

The decision to permanently ban “exploiters” were made in good faith but the harm associated with the precedent set by ANet with this decision by far exceed any gain. In essence, ANet has sent the message that ANY profitable salvaged material is an exploit, (eg: salvaging a yellow for ecto). I do not think ANet fully comprehend the magnitude of the harm set by this precedent…

The message Anet has sent is actually a good message and does no harm. You cheat the system you get banned. Its that simple. It seems like a lot a lot of common sense is missing in some of these post. The only ones to get banned were the ones that really abused it. Its so easy to make gold in this game if you put in a bit of time but some lazy kitten gamers are always looking for a way to cheat the system. I mean how clueless does a person have to be to not realize that that wasn’t intended?? Come on now be for real. Don’t make excuses for those lazy gamers.

No, the message was far from “good”. The intention was good, but that intention was overshadow by the message. I, and probably most people, would agree that exploiters should be punished, that’s not being disputed here. What is, however, being disputed is what constitutes a “exploit”.

The definition of “exploit” set by ANet base on this action and precedent set from this action is so overly vague and destructive that is inconceivable how any logical person would support it, had they taken into account all perspective of this decision.

In fact, it would be in the best interest of YOU, the reader of this post, to condemn this decision made by ANet, because it most certainly have the power to get you ban right now on the ground of “exploit”. Why? Well, the message sent by ANet is “You made profit from salvaging a crafting item, therefore it is a exploit.” Do you not understand how much destructive power this interpretation of “exploit” is? While extreme, a person could be banned RIGHT NOW for salvaging a rare(yellow) peice of gear that dropped and selling the ecto because profit was generated, or using a valid mystic forge recipe programmed in by ANet. Does this sound like an exploit to you? It certainly isn’t to me. Even so, banning someone for that is within the scope of this precedent. Is this what you support? Probably not, but you support the intention, just as I do. It’s just that the means of achieving this intention is not that simple and this approach is certainly not the best.

There is good reason why bills are passed with caution. While its true that the intention of the bill is in most cases good, the method of achieving it can vary and often have unforeseen consequences. This is the reason why very little changes happen in the political world because good intended laws are axed due to the “side-effect” outweigh the benefit.