Reality check: Anet is so bad.

[Aurinax]

Lol have you played the game? Come on now your just really reaching with this comment. You know exactly what I mean especially if you played it. lets say for example you go throughout most of the game paying 200 karma and up, items increasing in cost as they do the higher lvl you get then suddenly Dun, dun, da!! you see a vendor selling these for 20 Karma.. yep totally normal not a bug at all lol.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but is your argument seriously in so many words: "Most if not all gamers who purchase these items know full well they are intentionally taking advantage of what would be considered by the developer an exploit."?

Get real.

[Herecius]

Actually, the bans are good publicity for some. I'm more interested now then I was before. Seems Anet isn't so addicted to sub fees that they will let people run rampant on their servers.

In the interest of not defending ANet here, they don't have sub fees to be addicted to in the first place.

The point of 'no sub fees means the company doesn't have to care about its players after they bought the box' is, in a way, twistedly a valid point. Technically speaking, you've paid the money, and they have it. They don't really have to worry about getting more out of the player because the sticker price is the big revenue stream.

However, the flame-fest statement basically falls apart when one realizes that ANet is in it for the long haul, with the intent to sell expansions to its players on a fairly regular basis. They can't afford to not care about the integrity of their game.

That and, well, call me a fanboy if you'd like, but the many, many developer interviews out their have left me very much convinced that they give a serious damn about their game.

[Azrok-]

Really? so the whole time lvling up spending 100's of Karma on crap items didn't give even the slightest clue to even the most slow witted gamer that something isn't right when they are offered such a item for 20 Karma? Please try again.

yeah, he actualy lost my sympathy when he QQed for 10 minutes about how that wasn't obviously a exploit. Really.

[Discomoose]

All of these exploits are VERY clearly exploits:

The Karma -> Gold exploit Kripp used was clearly an exploit. In his other video where he first talks about how he couldn't have known the worth of gold/karma a week into a game is B.S. He goes on to say that the gold return was way more than he's ever gotten from anything else showing he know what karma was worth in terms of gold. This should be the first red flag that it's not intended. The second note is that the worth of gold is pretty clear, the amount of gold you get is not very much so getting so much gold with little effort but queuing up crafting would be hard to miss.

The exotic weapon exploit. Just wow how did anyone think this would not be an exploit. The only other armor/weapons you can get for so little karma are at level 2 and are blue. Again this is about knowing the worth of the karma currency which is set very clearly, so clearly in fact that the weapons from the other 4 races were 1000x higher. There is no way anyone could think this wasn't intended. The people who got perma banned deserve it because they knowingly bought hundreds to thousands of these weapons. If you bought a handful you simply got 72 hours because it could have been a mistake at that point, but even then you should have questioned the price knowing the worth of karma from every other karma vendor in the game.

The argument that it was in the game so its fair to use it is silly in an MMO/online game where there are economies to think about. This is like printing money in both cases. A game as massive as an MMO will have some bugs in it, its inevitable. The devs know this, and more importantly the players know this. The issue here is that the players know it but like to feign ignorance when they get caught doing something obviously unintended. The bans in both cases were warranted, and even those currently perma banned have a chance to reduce it to a 72 hour ban. The only people who will lose accounts are those who still want to feign ignorance that both cases were exploits.

[Woobels]

It's not like Kripp cares, he bought a new game and started over.

If Anet is truly as just and fair as you guys said they shoulda done something to prevent that too, but they obviously are not gonna stop him from spending money for them, but damn if he possibly messes up the Cash Shop economy they will make sure to perm-ban him.

Anet is a bunch of money grubbers in disguise.

[Vexies]

Players don't decide the pricing of items. What developer would think 20 karma is okay for a weapon when "you go throughout most of the game paying 200 karma and up, items increasing in cost as they do the higher lvl you get then suddenly Dun, dun, da!! you see a vendor selling these for 20 Karma"?

Because.. bugs are bugs? who knows how that value ended up there. In thousands of strings of code, hell millions type o's happen. My point, which is a obvious one, is that there is virtually no way for anyone to not do that and not know they where exploiting. Ill bite though and say ok sure those that bought one set of weapons though sweet what a great deal!! but those who bought 100's or more of these items knew full well what they where doing and expected it to be handled is the same pathetic slap on the wrist fashion as other games.. unfortunately for them, not the case here!

[Fencers]

We have threads discussing the recent bans already. Also have a video thread. We don't need more flamebait/sensationalist topics.

-- Fencers