Bioware suspending for Vendor Credit Dupe

[Jaerin]

Just letting you know the vendor credit dupe exploit from the other day everyone is getting 1 week suspensions at least.

I duped was I would consider a very small amount (under 50k) relative to some people I've heard (10-200M+). No idea if they are stripping the credits, but I would presume that they are.

I have to say a 1 week suspension is definitely long enough to make me think twice about ever trying something again on my main account. Of course it has to come the week my wife is out of town too. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time.

Happy to see Bioware is being strict about these enforcements from what I've seen thusfar, but then again the bots and such are only just now starting to trickle out.

[Epileptica]

One week is far to little for participating in screwing up the economy. This was obviously a cheat, it required effort and know-how, so perm ban should be the only option imo.

[Armond]

One week is far to little for participating in screwing up the economy. This was obviously a cheat, it required effort and know-how, so perm ban should be the only option imo.

I'm of the opinion that the economy needs more money to promote development. This is obviously the wrong way to go about it, but so is perm banning hundreds or thousands of accounts.

[Winfernal]

Atleast they helped bioware to discover the "bug", right?

[Epileptica]

Funny, I feel the problem is quite the opposite. There is money every where - a million a day with little effort. But never mind that, if you break the eula - you are lucky not to be banned. And this is such an obvious exploit - that the only surprise should be not being perm banned.

[Deleted]

How do you exploit this bug?
Because i dont want them banning MY account because THEY screwed up in case i accidentaly do something.

[Jaerin]

It didn't require any effort or know how.

Click-drag drag a stack of items to get a stack of 1 on your pointer and sell to vendor. You got full stack credits, but only sold 1 item. Rinse and repeat.

So yeah it was a pretty straight forward bug that could be exploited over and over. In fact I would go as far as to say that some people may have even done it on accident, but that doesn't mean I did.

I also find it interesting that you assume every single one of these people's pursuit is to "ruin the game economy" and yet most of these people are using it simply to gear their own characters. There isn't a very big market for credits right now due to very limited demand. So its not like you could dump more than a few hundred k on the market on any given server. At the prices that was about $30-100 worth you might have been able to sell per server.

[Deleted]

It didn't require any effort or know how.

Click-drag drag a stack of items to get a stack of 1 on your pointer and sell to vendor. You got full stack credits, but only sold 1 item. Rinse and repeat.

So yeah it was a pretty straight forward bug that could be exploited over and over. In fact I would go as far as to say that some people may have even done it on accident, but that doesn't mean I did.

I also find it interesting that you assume every single one of these people's pursuit is to "ruin the game economy" and yet most of these people are using it simply to gear their own characters. There isn't a very big market for credits right now due to very limited demand. So its not like you could dump more than a few hundred k on the market on any given server. At the prices that was about $30-100 worth you might have been able to sell per server.

Intentionally breaking the rules gives you a ban.
You are lucky its not for ever.

[sidebar]

I'm of the opinion that the economy needs more money to promote development. This is obviously the wrong way to go about it, but so is perm banning hundreds or thousands of accounts.

Why in the world would perma banning exploiters somehow affect the economy negatively? when you remove both supply and demand in equal numbers, there is no noticeable impact to the economy.

In fact, in the long run, perma banning exploiters not only helps the economy, it helps the community as well. Economy wise, exploiters are seldom "reformed" and will just continue to find ways to exploit ... community wise, well frankly, those types of individuals are generally not a *positive* influence on the community.

Well, this is with the assumption the exploiters are not going to want to re-buy the game and re-level toons from scratch.

[Surge]

When did your suspension start? I'm curious because I didn't use the exploit, but I know someone who did it 1 time just to see if it was real. I was playing the game with him as late as about 3:00 AM CST Saturday morning. He hadn't been suspended yet, obviously.

[DetectiveJohnKimble]

Someone in my guild got banned for a week for getting infinite dark side points early on in the game. Seems like it was a bit excessive, considering it doesn't really harm anyone compared to something like inflating the economy, but I guess one week is the standard for all general offenses.

[Armond]

Why in the world would perma banning exploiters somehow affect the economy negatively? when you remove both supply and demand in equal numbers, there is no noticeable impact to the economy.

In fact, in the long run, perma banning exploiters not only helps the economy, it helps the community as well. Economy wise, exploiters are seldom "reformed" and will just continue to find ways to exploit ... community wise, well frankly, those types of individuals are generally not a *positive* influence on the community.

Well, this is with the assumption the exploiters are not going to want to re-buy the game and re-level toons from scratch.

Permanently banning the exploiters only helps the economy in that it removes the inflation. Bioware has (presumably) chosen to combat the inflation by removing the illegitimate credits. This is superior from a strictly economic point of view because it keeps the population the same after the bans expire. There's a part to the economy that is hurt by removing players: with fewer players, there are fewer participants helping to develop the economy. The economy of a small country will develop slower than that of a larger country (without considering international trading, which can't be done in a server-locked game). Even those that bought a new game and rolled new characters would be les able to contribute to the economy because they would have limited resources until they leveled up.

However, that's strictly from an economic point of view, disregarding any other considerations. Bioware has several other things to consider; your point about the community, for example, or the reaction of customers and potential customers to a mass banning this early in the game's life, especially after whatever happened on Ilum.

My comment that the economy needs more money was hasty. On my server, at least, it seems that most people are being blocked by the"need" to upgrade their speeders fully, which is a significant money sink for a new character (i.e. everyone). However, once people get past that, they're probably going to find themselves with a lot of money and few expenses. The solution may be to decrease the amount of money available from "nowhere" (dailies, slicing, etc) or to increase the demand for consumables. I myself have been making a lot of money from slicing (200k at 32ish) and can see myself hitting a million credits and no longer caring about money for most of the rest of the game (exception: color crystals please and thank you).

[sidebar]

There's a part to the economy that is hurt by removing players: with fewer players, there are fewer participants helping to develop the economy. The economy of a small country will develop slower than that of a larger country (without considering international trading, which can't be done in a server-locked game). Even those that bought a new game and rolled new characters would be les able to contribute to the economy because they would have limited resources until they leveled up.

First off ... SWTOR is not a country and trying to establish a parallel is ridiculous ... at least for the SWTOR economy ... so that point is mute.

Also, SWTOR Economy is completely a "middle game" economy, not an end game economy. This means that as the "economy matures" it dies. This plain fact pretty much pulls the legs out from under your theory.

As far as establishing the basis for my statement, there is NOTHING in the economy that supports end game crafting at this time, nor do I see anything in the future. The gear you get from HM FP's (51-ish) is on par with the best RE'd top level crafting stuff ... Normal Ops are like WoW LFR easy and give you 56's ... and daily PvP gets your 58's (which you can strip to put in your PvE gear ... minus the maybe 1 part that has a PvP stat).

End game PvP gear? considering it's all 58's there is absolutely nothing in crafting that even tries to get close.

So ... there is no end game crafting economy. 95% of crafters are "self supporting" with no dependencies needed. There are really only 3 crafting professions that affect the economy anyways. All those factors and more negate any fear of banning somehow affecting the economy negatively.

Seriously ... this economy is nothing like WoW. I am not even going to list out why the two economies are so vastly different as to be in completely different universes.

My points still stand ... banning exploiters is good for the game short term ... and good for the game long term and won't affect the economy negatively in any way shape or form cause the economy is super simplistic and entirely middle game.

[Minikin]

One week is far to little for participating in screwing up the economy. This was obviously a cheat, it required effort and know-how, so perm ban should be the only option imo.

1 week is very adequate for a first time infraction. it amount to $4 of game time. which is fair and strict in the best of terms. the OP actually has a good mindset about it and learns from it.

[Capt Froggy]

I really doubt they would perma-ban alot of players, that would hurt their subscription service.

[Winfernal]

I really doubt they would perma-ban alot of players, that would hurt their subscription service.

Trust me. They don't care about it when they ban. Believe it or not, the majority of people are competent enough to NOT get banned.

[melodramocracy]

This is why beta tests should just be renamed to "beta romper rooms", the majority of people there don't actually test anything aside from server load.

[Deleted]

Intentionally breaking the rules gives you a ban.
You are lucky its not for ever.

Nothing lucky about it, bioware would have been stupid to perma ban thousands of people a month into release...

[Necrolepsy]

Only idiots would have used this EXPLOIT. Good riddance, I think 1 week is too short.

[shimerra]

Nothing lucky about it, bioware would have been stupid to perma ban thousands of people a month into release...

And what if thousands of people had done something warranting of a perma ban? Stupid to perma ban people for this? Yes, and they didn't so for now at least the system works within reasonable expectations.

We'll see what happens when something truly nasty comes about.