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

[Laste]

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.

So quickly? He had already been reported by a few of my friends days prior and the exploit itself had been reported, as I just said, over a week ago. That isn't quick at all.

And if somebody is calling shots without appropriate authority, then somebody should definitely be taking responsibility for that as well.

[Deleted]

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.

They reset when you change server. The most likely way he did it was by finding 2 servers where 2-3 spawns are really close to another 2-3 spawns. Then when he server transfer he does those 2-3 ores then transfer again. That way he minimize time spend on traveling but still do enough ores to warrent the time spend on transfering (this only takes like 30 secs anyways).

[barackopala]

Meanwhile i only know 2 veins...

[Alcan]

Arena Net Bans people for exploiting there mistakes. If anything they should take the rewards away from the exploiter and then apologize to the community because they overlooked something. If its super serious then maybe a 3 hour ban.

[Laste]

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.

I think this is exactly true. In the private message I received, the forum moderator stated that "While it has been stated not to be considered an exploit in the past, these numbers may change that view." But to change your view on something that's been going on practically since launch and then ban people for doing it is pretty ridiculous.

[clevin]

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.

IF they don't have the authority, then they should shut the fuck up. And no, they are not entitled to say one day that it's not an exploit and then say that it is. Oh, sure, they CAN (it's their game), but come on, that's weak. If people ask about something in good faith, get the reply that it's not an exploit, then get banned for doing it that's bullshit. Don't let your enthusiasm for the game blind you to mistakes by the company.

Companies need to be a lot lighter with the banhammer when they've given a green light like this and in general need to do suspensions before permabans. But then, they don't care - they have your money.

[Grenzstein]

If you find a bug and you report it. It's ok.
If you find a bug and you exploit it to get advantage you will get banned.

You may call it whatever you want. If you don't report an issue and exploit it you are worse than the company that is banning people for exploiting.

[Granyala]

They reset when you change server. The most likely way he did it was by finding 2 servers where 2-3 spawns are really close to another 2-3 spawns. Then when he server transfer he does those 2-3 ores then transfer again. That way he minimize time spend on traveling but still do enough ores to warrent the time spend on transfering (this only takes like 30 secs anyways).

Ouch. So basically I can sit in frost sund right next to my vein -> mine -> trans -> trans back and the respawn time of 5hrs would be cut down to 60 seconds?

Thats sick.

[Deleted]

People are forgetting that ANet made pretty clear this method of farming was 'fine'.

"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."

When an official member of ANet says a money-making scheme is okay, how is it an exploit? If it is an exploit, then surely the person who made the aforementioned comment should face repercussions for making a stupid statement public?

[Sojou]

I was in a CoF magg run pug today that wanted to jump the gate to avoid the 200 second timer ignorance of a fight. I fought tooth and nail not to because of potential bans. They were all like "you aren't going to get banned for that" - all I said was "that's what karma vendor exploiters said" and "that's what people said about server hoping to get mining nodes".

Needless to say, the group sided with me and we cleared the place as intended. But I was ready to drop group the moment someone jumped that gate...

[Granyala]

"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."

there are 12 veins in the entire world which are on a 5 hour respawn cycle. How can the guy say that and keep a straight face? oO
They should have known from day1 that if you put in stuff with that kind of slow respawn people will grasp at straws to get more quickly.

[Deleted]

Granyala, that's my point exactly.

If it is an exploit (I'm verging on oversight rather than exploit) but you tell people the method is okay ... and they do it because they've been told it's okay... Isn't that a bit unfair? It would be like a shop owner saying "you can have this for free" and then calling the police arguing that you shoplifted.

[Remilia]

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.

Trading posts are all unified. So it wouldn't matter what server he is on. It was apparently asked and was confirmed by the community leader.

[Deleted]

I asume its okay if you pay for transfers but currently they are free so you lose nothing by transfering and get to farm the same nodes over and over

[Mirantha]

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.

I can see why, at first glance, a Community Manager may not have considered this an exploit. Given that there are free realm transfers open at the moment, mainly to allow realm populations to even out and people to play with their friends, it is quite easy to transfer realms. What this guy did was to take huge advantage of that. The initial reaction by the forum manager was along the lines of "currently it is not an exploit", but they obviously passed the information about what this guy was doing internally for review, and upon review ArenaNet have decided that yes it is an exploit. They would then have taken action on the account as is their prerogative. It may be this that got him actioned, it may have been something else. What you don't know is if there was another reason for it or not. He may have been spewing garbage in /map chat earlier and it was a coincidence that shortly after you reported his name that he was actioned.

I do see that ArenaNet's actions are fair - he took extreme advantage of an in-game function. Based on your inital report, it may not have looked too serious. However, ArenaNet, once they knew the name of who it was, was then able to review the logs for that person and see exactly what was being done. Based on that review, once it was clear to them what was happening, it sounds like they did consider this an exploit and took appropriate action.

I am also not very worried about the game disappearing because ArenaNet are being "ban-heavy". Good on them. For far too long people have been taking advantage in games to gain something for nothing, and have not been actioned appropriately. That is the fault of 1) the player for doing it, and 2) the company involved for not upholding their own rules. People will continue to exploit in a game so long as the company only wags a finger at them and says "bad boy". ArenaNet have put together a set of rules, rules that are no different than any other game out there. They simply have taken the stand that they WILL uphold those rules, and those that are used to getting away with these things in other places are crying about it now because they cannot get away with it here. Good on ArenaNet for actionally upholding the rules at their end that they ask us players to abide by as well. If anything, this could end up reaping more accounts for them as the game will become known as a good, clean, fun place to be once the dust settles.

[Deleted]

Mirantha, what should happen to the community team leader who posted this? Surely bating people into a bannable situation is bad?

[schippie]

To be honest if a community manager states this. Then they shouldnt ban somebody for it. Its honestly dumb that their community managers dont even know the rules. How are players supposed to know them then?

It really is like two parrents disagreeing how to properly raise their child both disagreeing about the way to do it. Arena net in this department lacks any guidelines if you ask me. And it would be nice to finally get some clear information what is considerd a exploit and bann and what isnt. Since apparently even their own staff doesnt know the rules anymore raises red flags.

And if they come out that nothing their CMs says is cannon then CMs are rather pointles and could be cut out and replaced with MVP like system and let them do the moderating. Would safe Anet a lot of money to.

[Deleted]

GW just like SWOTR's already digging it's own grave. From a business pov you can't start banning people before the game reachs a few months otherwise you'll prevent people from wanting to buy the game coz they'll end up getting banned (not necessarily but it will start making people doubt their choice to purchase the game) for silly exploits that technically were caused by bad developpers or shitty game insight from devs/company itself.

[Veyne]

No where in the quoted text did anyone ever say it was okay. They just said it wasn't considered an officially recognized "exploit" at the time. Since then, either ArenaNet changed their mind, or the CM had wrong information. But he never said "Go ahead and do it, you'll be fine!"

I'm kinda left wondering, are some people really that oblivious when they find out something that obviously doesn't work as they'd think it would? At what point does these people ever think to themselves "Wow. Something's not right here. I probably shouldn't do this."

Sincerely - Guy that doesn't really care about Guild Wars 2.

[PaladinBash]

Perma-banned for an exploit. That's what you get son. 140% behind Arenanet on this.