Permanently Banned For Transfer Farming Orichalicum (After ArenaNet Said It Was Okay)

[Laste]

Yesterday I created a thread on the official Guild Wars 2 forums concerning what many people would consider an exploit. To sum it up, somebody I know in-game had made a whopping 602g profit in one week of abusing the free transfer system to farm orichalicum in the Cursed Shore. However, the basis of my thread was that ArenaNet had given this system the okay. The thread gained a considerable amount of attention before it was removed about two hours after I had posted it. I then received a private message requesting that I send more information on the player (Who I had left anonymous) to the email used for reporting exploits. I did so, and in only a few hours the player was permanently banned.

While I personally do not believe that the way he acquired his gold was fair, ArenaNet had given players the green light to use the free transfers in this way exactly one week ago. So how exactly do they justify banning somebody for doing something they were told wasn’t an exploit? What does this mean for the rest of the players that have been abusing this system? What do my fellow champions think of all of this?

[Kelimbror]

Can you post what you consider to be the green light? Considering there was a post on these boards saying how everyone strongly recommends not doing it, because bans are probably inc. I doubt in such a tight economy they would say yes sir, please overburden our transfer system and abuse mechanics to obtain a filthy amount of money.

[endersblade]

In all honesty, Anet has gotten fucking insanely ban happy since GW2 was released. I think THAT by itself is going to cause a massive drop in their player base. I personally believe that an MMO company should not ban people for exploiting the game so soon after release. It's inevitable that there will be bugs and exploits to be found. Just fix them and move on. The game will be around for years to come (hopefully), and any exploiting done now will either be long forgotten or at least nullified in time anyway.

Like you said, Anet gave the go-ahead to allow people to do this. So that right there means the guy should not have been banned. There is no middle ground with Anet; either you are playing, or you're banned. No suspensions, no warnings, nothing. Boom, your account's down. Main reason I haven't even bothered getting the game, because I'm afraid I'll sneeze in the wrong direction and suddenly my account will be banned. Fuck that. Fuck THEM.

[General_Typhus]

Haha snap son

[Laste]

Can you post what you consider to be the green light? Considering there was a post on these boards saying how everyone strongly recommends not doing it, because bans are probably inc. I doubt in such a tight economy they would say yes sir, please overburden our transfer system and abuse mechanics to obtain a filthy amount of money.

Sure thing.

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/foru...irst#post77112
ReginaBuenaobra - North American Community Team Leader
"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."

[Agent Mercury]

In all honesty, Anet has gotten fucking insanely ban happy since GW2 was released. I think THAT by itself is going to cause a massive drop in their player base. I personally believe that an MMO company should not ban people for exploiting the game so soon after release. It's inevitable that there will be bugs and exploits to be found. Just fix them and move on. The game will be around for years to come (hopefully), and any exploiting done now will either be long forgotten or at least nullified in time anyway.

Like you said, Anet gave the go-ahead to allow people to do this. So that right there means the guy should not have been banned. There is no middle ground with Anet; either you are playing, or you're banned. No suspensions, no warnings, nothing. Boom, your account's down. Main reason I haven't even bothered getting the game, because I'm afraid I'll sneeze in the wrong direction and suddenly my account will be banned. Fuck that. Fuck THEM.

ANET has never been shy about bans. And I like it. They have low/zero tolerance. They don't just ban for anything though. And I am sure this isn't as black and white as it is made out to be.

[Grenzstein]

In all honesty, Anet has gotten fucking insanely ban happy since GW2 was released. I think THAT by itself is going to cause a massive drop in their player base. I personally believe that an MMO company should not ban people for exploiting the game so soon after release. It's inevitable that there will be bugs and exploits to be found. Just fix them and move on. The game will be around for years to come (hopefully), and any exploiting done now will either be long forgotten or at least nullified in time anyway.

Like you said, Anet gave the go-ahead to allow people to do this. So that right there means the guy should not have been banned. There is no middle ground with Anet; either you are playing, or you're banned. No suspensions, no warnings, nothing. Boom, your account's down. Main reason I haven't even bothered getting the game, because I'm afraid I'll sneeze in the wrong direction and suddenly my account will be banned. Fuck that. Fuck THEM.

Yeah, banning exploiters is such a bad move. I bet they are going to lose all players because of that.
Funny thing is, always the guy that is banned is the "good guy" claiming that he didn't do anything.

Exploiters are banned, those are the minority. The vocal minority that are banned and decides to flame A.net because of that.

I hope they keep banning every single one of them.

[Agent Mercury]

sounds like a miscommunication at arenanets end

Not necessarily. We know they investigated this player. And we know he was banned. No one here knows what exactly for.

[Deleted]

Banning people over their own idiotic decisions - welcome to ANet games, gg.

[Deleted]

In all honesty, Anet has gotten fucking insanely ban happy since GW2 was released. I think THAT by itself is going to cause a massive drop in their player base.

Why would they care?

It is not a monthly subscription based game. ANet has already made most of their money upfront and banning players will cause them little to no financial loss. Infact they are giving themselves a ban happy reputation early on which will discourage players to exploit in the future thus saving them the money it will cost to employ a team of GM's to ban people.

WoW's GM team is overloaded with exploit reports etc. If people are scared of getting banned by ANet then it will reduce the amount of GM's they need to hire. ANet are smart and I am sure they will calm down on the ban hammer in a few months.

[Grenzstein]

GW1 had a wonderful community because A.net was really hard on exploiters.
Hope they keep doing this.

[Laste]

Not necessarily. We know they investigated this player. And we know he was banned. No one here knows what exactly for.

It's pretty blatantly clear.

He literally has not paid a single glance at anything other than farming orichalicum for the past week. He even bragged about how he didn't think anyone else would have the patience to perform such a tedious task for as long as he had.

And considering how much gold he acquired, I'd say there's a nothing else he could be doing that would yield the same profit.

[Agent Mercury]

It's pretty blatantly clear.

He literally has not paid a single glance at anything other than farming orichalicum for the past week. He even bragged about how he didn't think anyone else would have the patience to perform such a tedious task for as long as he had.

And considering how much gold he acquired, I'd say there's a nothing else he could be doing that would yield the same profit.

Speculation. That is all it is. People WANT to get up in arms over this. Which server was he selling it on? Was he selling it on multiple servers? Is this okay with them because that wasn't asked. There is a lot you don't know even if you think it is blatantly obvious.

[Grenzstein]

It's pretty blatantly clear.

He literally has not paid a single glance at anything other than farming orichalicum for the past week. He even bragged about how he didn't think anyone else would have the patience to perform such a tedious task for as long as he had.

And considering how much gold he acquired, I'd say there's a nothing else he could be doing that would yield the same profit.

Every single person that was banned said they were innocent and never did anything wrong.
With the current prices of Ori Ingots to get around 602g he farmed more than 5000 ore. I'm sorry, i just can't see this being legit. It's an obvious exploit.

[Agent Mercury]

GW1 had a wonderful community because A.net was really hard on exploiters.
Hope they keep doing this.

Exactly so those saying people will leave I am fine with. The community will get better.

[Granyala]

had made a whopping 602g profit in one week

WTF?!

1 orichalcum bar goes for 5 silver. That would be 12 000 bars. 24 000 ores or 8000 mining nodes. There are 5 in cursed shore, 5 in malchors leap and 2 in frost sund. These 12 ores are on a 5hr respawn timer, meaning you can collect them 4x a day if you play 20hrs. That would be 60 * 4 = 240 ores per day per server.

How many times did the guy trans servers?
How stupid must a person be to think he could get away with something like that?

I's like selling a gazillion exotic weapons bought for 21 Karma points. It's such a glaringly obvious exploit / abuse of the system... NO one should be surprised to get harsh reactions from the devs.

[Binaris]

The player abused a system to gain a massive advantage over other players. This is not a case of Anet being excessive, this is a case of an asshat got what was coming to him. Kudos to you for reporting and Anet for enforcing so quickly before he could wreak havoc on the trading post.

As far as an Anet community person saying it was OK. Do you think that the community managers have, in any stretch of the imagination, authority to make such decisions. The post was vague and does not specify the exact usage, and while the Anet employee should not have made a blanket statement, they are perfectly entitled to step back and re-assess with more facts.

[Laste]

Speculation. That is all it is. People WANT to get up in arms over this. Which server was he selling it on? Was he selling it on multiple servers? Is this okay with them because that wasn't asked. There is a lot you don't know even if you think it is blatantly obvious.

For him to be banned within hours of me sending his information in would be a pretty crazy coincidence, and I think it's pretty silly to believe that's true.
And if you weren't aware, the Trading Post is game-wide, not server-wide.

Every single person that was banned said they were innocent and never did anything wrong.
With the current prices of Ori Ingots to get around 602g he farmed more than 5000 ore. I'm sorry, i just can't see this being legit. It's an obvious exploit.

He's been doing it for a week and prices of orichalicum have been dropping due to how common this has become, so 500 ore is more than likely inaccurate. However, I do agree that it's very obviously an exploit. The problem is, it had been reported over a week ago by multiple players and eight days ago a company official said it wasn't an exploit. I don't see how banning somebody under those circumstances can be seen as fair.

[Grenzstein]

WTF?!

1 orichalcum bar goes for 5 silver. That would be 12 000 bars. 24 000 ores or 8000 mining nodes. There are 5 in cursed shore, 5 in malchors leap and 2 in frost sund. These 12 ores are on a 5hr respawn timer, meaning you can collect them 4x a day if you play 20hrs. That would be 60 * 4 = 240 ores per day per server.

How many times did the guy trans servers?
How stupid must a person be to think he could get away with something like that?

I's like selling a gazillion exotic weapons bought for 21 Karma points. It's such a glaringly obvious exploit / abuse of the system... NO one should be surprised to get harsh reactions from the devs.

Thank you for bringing better numbers than me
Once again: I believe it's almost impossible someone to do this and still think it's not an exploit.

602g is just.. damn, i never had more than 25g. I don't know anyone that even had 50g.

[Granyala]

As far as an Anet community person saying it was OK. Do you think that the community managers have, in any stretch of the imagination, authority to make such decisions. The post was vague and does not specify the exact usage, and while the Anet employee should not have made a blanket statement, they are perfectly entitled to step back and re-assess with more facts.

I think the employee didn't think someone would drive it THAT far. I doubt they'll ban you if you change server twice a day or so.