Guild Wars 2

As you know mining orichalcum is probably one of the best ways to make money in the game because you can make 12s a node and hit every node on your server within 30-40m depending on their locations and the mobs that spawn. So around the second day the game was released I had the idea to transfer to other servers and mine orichalcum nodes to help make money. Back then the TP wasn’t up though, and many people in my guild said a few common misconceptions about the practice. Stuff like “nodes wont respawn for you in other servers”, “you will be locked out of WvW for 24h”, “you won’t be able to transfer again for 24h”. Of course none of this is true.

So I waited a bit and then finally did it once as a ‘proof of concept’ and decided not to continue. I felt like it was a bit too easy, it could be considered an exploit. I was going to report it the next day (it was late and I was going to sleep), but when I woke up someone linked me to this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/server-transfers/first#post77112
ReginaBuenaobra, North American Community Team Lead
“It’s not an exploit as stated, but given some of the changes that the designers made, changing servers to get to resource node is actually going to be way less efficient and much more time-consuming than just running to the next one or going to a new map to gather resources there. Any efficiencies you may find are random chance.”

I instantly felt relieved that what I did wasn’t considered an exploit. So I went about taking advantage of this and spent the next couple days organizing my mining operations. Twice a day I would hop servers and mine the nodes. Now I wake up today to find this thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Transfer-mining-exploiters-beginning-to-run-rampant/first#post123653
CC Eva, Community Coordinator
“BLUcorp, thanks for notifying this and thanks for your concerns. Since you have already reported this there is not much to do right now. And you are not being ignored: it just may take a bit of time till the issue is looked into but we are aware of this.”

Now I find I could be considered an exploiter? I sincerely hope if you guys are now considering this an exploit that you put in a 2h limiter to world transfers instead of banning us all. 2 hours between transfers works nicely because it allows people to transfer to other servers to play with their friends in dungeons since sometimes dungeons aren’t working cross realm or aren’t working in our realm for whatever reason. I know I was one of the many people hopping to other servers when dungeons weren’t working on our server for 2 days. It also stops any kind of profit one would make by server hopping a lot to mine nodes since it takes a few hours for them to respawn anyway.

I would obviously not be doing this if it was considered an exploit. And until further notice I won’t be doing it. Before you act, please consider your previous statement. I’m not here to complain about anything, I just want our name clear of any wrong doing.

It really seems like there is no consistency of information between arenanet developers, one says one thing, the other says something completely opposite..

Just look at when Kripparian was banned for exploiting, first it was a 72 hour ban, then a permanent ban, then back to 72, then he had his ban lifted before those 72 hours were up..

There needs to be consistency.

I think it is time for the free transfers to end. We’ve had enough time already. WvW is 2-week long now, everyone is pretty much settled. I don’t see much of a reason for it to continue.

Switch.8520:

It really seems like there is no consistency of information between arenanet developers, one says one thing, the other says something completely opposite..

Just look at when Kripparian was banned for exploiting, first it was a 72 hour ban, then a permanent ban, then back to 72, then he had his ban lifted before those 72 hours were up..

There needs to be consistency.

Anet communication strategy.

It would be pretty hard for you, too, if you had to find and read all your co-worker’s reddit posts; and follow all of them on twitter just in order to be informed.

While I can only speak for myself here…

Despite what I interpreted from ANet employees, my first reaction on discovering how to make more money quicker than the average user would be to say ‘Okay, this is an exploit,’ and not do it.

I think jumping servers to mine massive amounts of ore is the very definition of an exploit, and I’m sure your first answer didn’t take into account how efficient and exploitive it would be.

If something seems like it’s an exploit, don’t do it.

ETA: Also keep in mind that you are bringing resources back from another server that were never meant to be on your home server, thus messing with an economy that is already not so great. If you continue exploiting, the value of the ore on your own server will go down (More supply) and up on other servers (less supply.) So in the long run, you’re really only hurting your own economy. Again, this is almost certainly an exploit, and not something that was intended in the game design.

I do hope you aren’t banned for it, since the first answer you got was unclear. But you should probably stop doing it immediately.

Hmm, I feel the first answer was very clear. Regina stated that it was not considered an exploit. And prior to that, I did consider it an exploit, and didn’t take advantage of it. If there was any doubt in my mind I never would have gone forward and continued mining.

ChaosKirin.1328:

ETA: Also keep in mind that you are bringing resources back from another server that were never meant to be on your home server, thus messing with an economy that is already not so great. If you continue exploiting, the value of the ore on your own server will go down (More supply) and up on other servers (less supply.) So in the long run, you’re really only hurting your own economy. Again, this is almost certainly an exploit, and not something that was intended in the game design.

Not to burst your bubble, but your wrong. The Broker is cross server, so it doesn’t matter what server he mines from, it will be on the same broker everyone else has access to. With the free server transfers currently it wasn’t fully intended this way, but once its a fikittenl of gems to transfer, Anet will want you to server hop for nodes.

Given that such ores are rare and vary in location, I do not see the issue.

@Dimas
Anyone will be able to server hop through guesting. It’s not a money-making conspiracy.

Hopping servers to farm nodes you wouldn’t otherwise have access to creates a surplus of materials on the market, driving up supply in relation to demand. There’s already enough problems with items selling for crap-all on the TP, without artificially deflating the prices by flooding the market.

I’m not going to say that the OP is at fault or not, because there is obviously conflicting statements from two different Anet employees.

However, this is a textbook expoit; using the system in a way that wasn’t intended in order to gain a financial advantage. It may not be as simple as the Karma bug was, but it’s still unintended.

Althought, it seems to me like this is something that should have been patched up before the game even went live. With WvWvW a prominent source of pvp, the potential for abuse is ridiculous without some sort of limitation or cooldown period. The inclusion of such a restriction would have taken care of this exploit as well.

Greyfeld.7104:

Hopping servers to farm nodes you wouldn’t otherwise have access to creates a surplus of materials on the market, driving up supply in relation to demand. There’s already enough problems with items selling for crap-all on the TP, without artificially deflating the prices by flooding the market.

Most materials don’t sell for crap, quite the opposite. Especially Orichalcum ores which are quite expensive.

Greyfeld.7104:

However, this is a textbook expoit; using the system in a way that wasn’t intended in order to gain a financial advantage. It may not be as simple as the Karma bug was, but it’s still unintended.

Its no different from going from overflow server to overflow server. Many people were and still are doing this in highly populated zones.

chuiu.4985:

Greyfeld.7104:

However, this is a textbook expoit; using the system in a way that wasn’t intended in order to gain a financial advantage. It may not be as simple as the Karma bug was, but it’s still unintended.

Its no different from going from overflow server to overflow server. Many people were and still are doing this in highly populated zones.

You realize overflow was changed some time ago, right? You also could not choose an overflow server like you can a homeworld – it was “luck of the draw,” I suppose.

This is without a doubt an exploit and the abuser’s need to be punished. OP, I realize that a CM (note, a forum moderator – not someone in charge of design/security/bugs/etc.) made it sound like the practice was tolerated- but are you really that stupid? How could you possibly think that abusing free transfers and flooding the market with ore was not an unintended use of the transfer system? This has made people 100’s of ill gotten gold and drove down the prices of orichalcum and anything that takes orichalcum to craft. The issue needs to be dealt with swiftly and with the proper punishment for those who have abused it.

Perma-bans or all the ill gotten ore/gold wiped.

You can still hop from overflow to overflow to mine tons of copper. Nothing has really been ‘changed’.

I wouldn’t say spending hours of my time mining orichalcum is overly abusing anything. I can only really make around 2g an hour doing it, which is only marginally better than dungeon runs which make around 1.5g an hour.

And as you can see from orichalcum ore prices staying roughly the same:

http://www.gw2spidy.com/item/19701

The market isn’t getting ‘flooded’ by it by any means.

i mean if a player is willing to do that all day, swap server.s, run for ores and lose every fun factor in game its a choice he/she is making. i have a friend on another server and we change homeworlds to play together when we are online together. we farm karma, ore and dungeon marks everytime. i make shure to check every part of map for orci ore.

putting price on world change wont change anything regarding farming ores, players still goona go as friends to other servers and mind ore. or you would suggest if i change homeworld i should stay away from ore nodes? from mobs? (i farm money and items from them) from events? (i run and farm karma from events that allready happend on my server).

I dont understand people, if they want to farm like that and game let them do it why just dont let them do it? I am happy to see that exotic prices drop down with orci ore price dropped.

If this is not an exploit I’m not sure what is.

Its clear the ore is supposed to be rare, as shown by the long respawn timers, using a window of free transfers (which will not be the norm) to take advantage of node respawns to up your money income is obviously not an intended activity, and an abuse of the free transfer system.

Now, if you did it once and then stopped, I’d not think you shoudl be banned, but anyone obtaining significant money from this should be perma banned.
The fact you even had to ask tells me you knew something was fishy with it. though I agree Anet could be clearer on this matter.

first, it’s not an exploit
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/server-transfers

second, have you ever heard of “guesting” feature of GW2?
it’s not implemented yet, but it’ll come some time in the future
what’s the difference between free transfer and guesting method to gain more ores?
feel free to do it if you want it

I tend to agree that free transfers need to come to a halt soon, but PLEASE announce it ahead of time so that people will settle back into their homes as intended… then lock that at a specified date. I know why many people are hopping. Mostly is because of bugged missions or skill points… and they want it completed. Honestly I find that a legitimate reason for a hop BUT I would rather it be a guest function as intended not a full server transfer… That being said I know of a lot fo bug reports in all the final lev 70-80 areas that have little problems, I’m sure once those are fixed and the few in the 60-70 areas as well most of the hopping will stop.

As others have mentioned it doesn’t matter if they remove free server transfers as we all know they are going to allow Guesting which is the same exact thing, minus WvWvW access. There are roughly 12 nodes of Ori Ore and they have 5-6 hour respawn times. Transfering servers/guesting/overflow server hopping are all the same thing. When the game first started I stayed in the Overflow server and mined all the copper nodes there were then would finally transfer to my home server and do the same thing. If the game forces you into an overflow server and then let’s you go back to the home server while mining nodes in both then guesting/transfering servers cannot be against the rules as it is the exact same idea.

Hey guys,
I’m the OP of that 2nd thread linked.
The way I see it, is that you are taking advantage of game-systems(free transfers) in order to obtain materials(Orichalcum) much quicker than you are supposed to. If they intended people to be able to farm these volumes of Orichalcum, then they wouldn’t have put a 5 hour respawn on nodes. This, to me is an exploit plain and simple. Of course, this is only my opinion.

I do agree that ArenaNet needs to step up and get some consistency with the issue though. Either they view it as an exploit, or they don’t. Either way they need to let us know. There are TONS of people taking advantage of this “method” currently, because they believe ArenaNet does not find it an exploit at all. If all those people suddenly get banned, there will be a largekittenstorm.

Obviously my personal view is that it’s an exploit, and everyone taking advantage should get a nice Ban. But my opinion really is irrelevant, it’s what ArenaNet thinks that is important. And they need to make that clear to the community.

The point here is this:

None of you get to decide what is or is not an exploit. No matter how certain you may be.

You can suspect something is and report people for it / avoid doing it. But you do not have the authority to make the decision as to whether it is or is not an exploit.

We have to assume that official posts on the matter are… official. If they aren’t, then how can we believe anything we hear from any devs, community team, etc.

They need to communicate and actually check before answering with their own opinions.

It is very close to an exploit, but as jestunhi said, its not for us to decide. It’s up to Arenanet and so far they have been very quiet about it.

For what it’s worth, I see free character transfers for mining an exploit (because it’s exploiting the character transfer for an unintended purpose – temporarily farming a server dry) but with guesting I see it as perfectly acceptable (as this is designed to let you access another server to play with friends – and that playing must also include gathering, crafting, and whatever else).

However, although I personally see one as an exploit and the other not, the results of both would be pretty much the same. Either way the actions of the player are accessing different servers to mine more ore.

I’m sorry, maybe I missed it, but aside from the second thread the OP linked having the word “Exploit” in it where does the Dev state that it’s being treated as one? Sounds more like they’re just placating the person who started that thread and that they’re looking into ways on how to limit it’s benefits, just like the first Dev said.

Not that I’ll be upset if a wave of people get banned for it, since I’m a firm believer in the idea that if I have to ask someone else “is this ok to be doing?” It’s safe to say it’s probably not.

They havent said they are treating it as one. They havent said anything on the matter yet. The only info we have so far is that everyone who is participating in afk farming in a certain area are slowly getting issues suspensions from the game.

To elaborate on my other post, the free transfers are temporary right now. One they close down and you have to pay to switch servers, this wont happen.

However, it is very very bad form for this to go unpunished. Especially since some players are making hundreds of gold per day from it.

Renegadeimp.8439:

They havent said they are treating it as one. They havent said anything on the matter yet. The only info we have so far is that everyone who is participating in afk farming in a certain area are slowly getting issues suspensions from the game.

The first Dev post in the top link says that they’re not treating it “as an exploit as such.”

Read my next post. I couldnt edit the post before, so i made a second one. It needs to be punished as it makes a mockery of the entire economy and their plans for it.

Renegadeimp.8439:

Read my next post. I couldnt edit the post before, so i made a second one. It needs to be punished as it makes a mockery of the entire economy and their plans for it.

Ok, sure. However you said that the Dev’s haven’t said what they’re treating it as, when in fact they have. So I’m not sure how your “feelings” on the matter are relevant, other than you have feelings.

wow, i should’ve gotten in on this one.. too bad i missed the first week of launch and i’ve been taking my time levelling so far. i’m only 67 by now.

i seriously doubt anyone will get punished for doing this, i guess what regina said is basically a “get out of jail free card” for everyone doing this.

some people pointed out that overflow servers and guesting basically enable you to do this legitimately. i would imagine, though, that ArenaNet will probably make your “node status/progress” carry over into overflows and guesting on other worlds in the future. so that when you mine something on your server, and change servers, it would still be gone.

i just wish they had (character/account/item) rollback functionality ready to get rid of all the illegitimately gained ores/items/resources/gold.

Re: Guesting.

You can only guest to servers where you have friends. So… No. It’s not quite the same. I don’t know if you’re aware of that little stipulation on guesting.

None of you get to decide what is or is not an exploit. No matter how certain you may be.

The official word is that if it seems like an exploit and you’re abusing something that wasn’t meant to be abused, it’s an exploit and you can be banned for doing it. Why are you taking the chance that you’re going to be banned?

If it’s because you don’t WANT it to be an exploit, that’s all find and dandy. But until you hear word that it’s not, why do it and risk losing your account?

Yeah it seems like it would be simple enough for node respawns to carry over into overflow or other servers considering how nodes are “instanced” for each player.