640 replies to this topic

[Gli]

Millimidget, on 31 January 2013 - 02:13 PM, said:

I'm sure they would have overlooked one of their friends or family abusing the recipe.

I'm assuming that was implied when this was posted:

raspberry jam, on 25 January 2013 - 01:29 PM, said:

Yes really. Choosing to support either side in this debate is a no-cost choice. One side would improve the game for the entire playerbase, the other would maintain the status quo. It is therefore morally reprehensible to not pick the one that improves the situation.

I wasn't banned, didn't even know about it until afterwards. I know someone who got banned, but he got unbanned shortly afterwards. It pays to have connections.

I just want to be sure, but raspberry refuses to elaborate.

Edited by Gli, 31 January 2013 - 03:06 PM.

[XPhiler]

raspberry jam, on 31 January 2013 - 01:54 PM, said:

I went with the only hint of a definition you have given so far, which is

"Exploits are always recognized after the act of their exploitation. That's because their presence was unintentional and unrecognised beforehand."

And then removing the two "recognized" parts because they form a tautology, you're saying that the presence of exploits is unintentional... Well of course, but that is the only thing you have said about their nature.
If you provide me a useful definition, you can start claiming that the bans are not arbitrary.

No, you are not banned for obvious exploiting, because the mesmer portaling thing is also obvious exploitation and that never results in bans.

And yes, it is well defined in many countries, down to exact sums of how much (purchase value) you can receive as a gift in certain circumstances. Anything above that counts as a bribe and/or as (in some countries) taxable gifts. And you know damn well that the description you gave is nowhere near as detailed as that which a police investigation would provide, which would be used in court.

Again yes, it is the (legal) responsibility of any citizen to know the laws that can affect him or her at any given time. He should have known it. Could he? Did he? Of course not. But that's not the point, or else you'd have to let people free if they simply stated that they didn't know it was illegal to murder people.

Retroactive punishment pertains also to the details of arbitration. If the punishment for theft is due to the amount being stolen, then the scale of punishment that was in effect when the theft occurred must be used. And yes, courts in many countries ignore this principle and yes, it is a violation of human rights. Then again such violations are pretty much built into many legal systems.
Anyway, this means that decisions of whether to ban or not for exploits (of this kind) is retroactive punishment.
Of course this is completely legal. It's just not moral.

And it's not good for the game.

Vaporizing people is possible today (although not with a "phaser") and is murder.

And yes, they have the right to ban you for logging on on a Thursday. Even if they don't even consider banning anyone else that logged in on that same day. That is what the words "they have the right to ban you for any reason" mean.
As you say, that doesn't mean that they would, but no one said that they would. I'm just saying that what they have the legal right to do is not at all connected with what they have the moral responsibility to do.

For starters being help out by a mesmer is likely not even considered an exploit, not sure why it should really. The whole point of the portal skill is for the mesmer to transport friendlies from point A to point B. I'd say its much more likely that its not an exploit rather then it being one. But in any case it doesnt matter one big. Even If you're abosolutely right and the portal is obvious exploiting, Arenanet have every right to decide that kind of exploiting is harmful enough to warrant any action. Whats wrong with that? and in any case that wouldnt change the fact you're banned for exploiting. Some judges decide to give probation to first time robbers. Some robbers get set free because police mess up the case. None of that means you arent punished for robbing.

Ohh come on, do people have to spell everything out to you. There is no way to know what anyone is guilty of without a court case playing itself out no matter how detailed laws are and they're not. Take your bribe instance for example, a bribe can simply be a promise. Does that mean if the wife of an official promises him that she will not be late if he cooks dinner before she gets home they're guilty of bribary? of course not. On the other hand if whoever promises to return some favor for whatever favor s/he is seeking then it is bribary. Same type of issue but one case its legal and in the other it isnt. Nothing in the law makes that distinction and why would it? you cannot have everything perfectly, its just impossible.   Lets go to the extreme maybe it will become obvious to you. Mr X is a contractor hired to build an appartment block. He decides to change a few things in the building design to cut costs. What is he guilty of ? who can tell! stealing, fraud, involentary homocide, its impossible to tell until something happens and a court of law processes the case. There is no way to tell with absolute certainity before the fact of what you are guilty off. a person cannot one morning say ohh today I am going to get back at my EX but I just want to get in a little trouble not a lot, if I just puncture her car tyres I will force her to change the tyres and all I am guilty of is damage ~$100 of property. It just doesnt work that way. It could simply be that the act of slashing that tyre turns in attempted murder or even multiple counts of manslaughter if she doesnt notice drives off and then tyre tears up pulling her into incoming traffic. You can never quantify what crime you're about to commit because this is not a shop where you get to buy whatever you want and thats all you get. You're responsible for your actions and after whatever you do plays itself out then you get to see what the consiquences of your actions are.

Its just impossible to define what exploiting is specifically like its impossible to define things like what bribery is. If everything could be defined perfectly why would you need a jury at all ? it would be obvious who is guilty or innocent and of what.

Exactly, if you allowed people to go free if they claimed they simply did not know what they were doing is wrong you would never punish anyone cause thats what everyone would say. Same here. You cannot state exactly what is and what is not an exploit and you cannot simply allow everyone do what they want just cause they claim they thought it wasnt an exploit.

It is not retroactive punishment in no way. Everyone knows Exploiting isnt allowed and that rule predated any ban. What you're saying here is someone kills another person using the mytical phaser, they are accused of murder and then saying hey your law didnt state specifically that you cannot kill people with phasers, this is the first time i am hearing of it so thats retroactive punishment and it shouldnt be allowed. But guess what, like you yourself said, murder is murder it doesnt matter what method you use to kill same thing here (but of course much less serious) exploiting is exploiting, it doesnt matter what exploit you use. one knows that exploiting isnt allowed and should never engage in it.

Of course whatever they do is connected to a moral responsability. If they ban even a single person for say logging in on thursday do you think a single person in the world would ever buy a single expansion? They're legally free to ban whoever they want but bans come with a cost. Even when their ban is morally justified such as stopping excessive exploiters and even when they act honorably in such bans by offering complete refunds even though legally they dont have to there will definitely be people who for that action stop doing business with them. Either cause they think its unfair like you do or for feat that they might end up being banned themselves. Think how much bigger those consiquences will be if they ever ban people without any moral justification!

[FoxBat]

XPhiler, on 31 January 2013 - 03:29 PM, said:

What you're saying here is someone kills another person using the mytical phaser, they are accused of murder and then saying hey your law didnt state specifically that you cannot kill people with phasers, this is the first time i am hearing of it so thats retroactive punishment and it shouldnt be allowed. But guess what, like you yourself said, murder is murder it doesnt matter what method you use to kill same thing here (but of course much less serious) exploiting is exploiting, it doesnt matter what exploit you use. one knows that exploiting isnt allowed and should never engage in it.

With murder the end result is pretty well defined. With exploit the end result is "achieving anything the game devs didn't intent." Which is really hard to determine considering they don't tell us their intent 99% of the time.

Edited by FoxBat, 31 January 2013 - 03:39 PM.

[XPhiler]

Millimidget, on 31 January 2013 - 02:13 PM, said:

The issue isn't exploiting, it's the alleged risk posed to the in-game economy and Anet's projected gem sales. All exploiters aren't banned, so therefore exploiting itself isn't an issue; it comes down to specific cases, with a large measure of personal discretion and a heavy focus on the costs involved.

I think the lesson to learn here is that if you feel you're exploiting, get as many other people involved in it as possible, and there's no way they'll pay the costs to ban all of you.

I'm sure they would have overlooked one of their friends or family abusing the recipe. Then again, if one of their friends or family had come across the issue, we might have actually seen a prompt response, or at least an acknowledgement and a warning regarding it on the forums.

The fact that they put their vacation ahead of fixing the recipe tells me that it didn't seem important enough at the time; that was their decision to leave what was apparently so game breaking a bug in, and the consequences should have been theirs to accept as well.

Foisting the blame onto the allegedly few jerks who profited from it seems extremely petty. Gail's statement practically dripped venom as I was reading it. Pyrrhic victory, if you ask me, and there were classier ways to go about handling this.

I don't like seeing game developers as lesser people than I view myself, but that's what I saw here. They made a mistake, they compounded it by putting vacation ahead of work, and they feigned indignation when they realized it was their own laziness and ineptitude which allowed this to happen.

It reminds me of the housing crisis, with the left-wing politicians looking to blame (jew) bankers for the results of the politicians' own misguided policies.

EDIT: It also reminds me of a speech the Joker makes to Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight. Something about, when everything goes according to plan (precursor manipulation) no one panics.

biggest problem here is everything you said is all conjucture. How do you know this was about damage to the economy / lost profits instead of dealing with the exploitation problem?

That not all exploiters are banned is a reasonable thing to do. Some people might "exploit" by accident. Do the exploit a few times without knowing its really an exploit. For example the karma exploit at launch. Some people might genuinely thought the cost of that armor set was correct bought it cause they liked it and that was it. Why would you ever want to ban those people just cause technically they used an exploits. It would be redicious. Besides this isnt even about punishment. This isnt paying for your crimes, this is detering people from engaging in exploits when they come across one. You dont need to ban every single exploiter to do that. For a start at least ban the worst offenders just so people know you're serious about it. then if they just try to keep it down or do like you suggest then yes banning everyone might be a solution. Leaving exploiters free to do as they wish costs money to the company as well, it looses you legitimate players.

How are you sure they would overlook a friend / family member exploiting?

What vacation did they put ahead of fixing this?
http://wiki.guildwar...s/December_2012

Exploit was introduced in the game on the 14th of december
Fixed on the 16th.

lets not forget, exploit had to be discovered, reported, investigated, fixed and then deployed. Does 2 days seem exessive to you? cause to me it seems extremely efficient. I wish all MMOs had such quick response times.

Please point to me where specifically they said, what we developed was great and there was nothing wrong with it, its just these 200 people that messed things up cause personally I didnt see that anyway. What gaile said on the other hand was that this was indeed an exploit and that it was close. Its arenanet's responsability to make sure there are not exploits the fact that called it for what it was, an exploit means they accepted their part of the blame. You want to see how "Foisting the blame" looks like? Eve Online had the same Exact exploit. It was exactly the same thing. You used money to earn LP which then you convered into more money then you intitially had to use to earn the LP you started with essentially creating an endless loop of profit. 1 Alliance bragged  publically that using this exploit they made 5 trillion isk, thats a lot! anyhow CCP response to that was:

http://www.pcgamesn....rent-laserproof
"we can’t really say quite yet whether this was appropriate for EVE or not.  At the same time, news of this sort of thing doesn’t surprise me as EVE is filled with some of the most imaginative players in the world who enjoy exploring opportunities wherever they may arise."

I mean seriously is there any ambiguity if something like spending 100 to buy X which you then can convert for 100+y is an exploit or not to the point of allowing you to profit 5 trillion? btw to put in some perspective you can buy 1 month subscription time for about 480m isk, so 5 trillion has the equivalent of about $156,250. in terms of Gw2 that would be something akin to 12,500,000 gems guess how much ingame gold that is.

I have no idea how people can claim Arenanet did not take responsability for the Exploit. Just cause they punished exploiters who exploited that exploit a lot doesnt mean they didnt shoulder their part of the blame. Why do people feel one negates the other?

[XPhiler]

FoxBat, on 31 January 2013 - 03:39 PM, said:

With murder the end result is pretty well defined. With exploit the end result is "achieving anything the game devs didn't intent." Which is really hard to determine considering they don't tell us their intent 99% of the time.

Murder isnt that well defined either because there are many types of murder. There is premeditatation, different degrees, aggrivated circumstance, manslaughter which goes in different categories as well, involuntary, negligent, constructive etc.. Its hard as well to say in which category any murder falls into with certainity.

anyhow, exploit is defined a bit more in detail then anything devs didnt intend:
http://wiki.guildwar...om/wiki/Exploit

"An exploit is the misuse of a software feature or bug in a way that allows a player to generate in-game benefits without the risk or time expected by the game's designers."

So far they have been lenient enough to make sure they avoid that ambiguity area where someone might not have realised that they generate in-game benefits without the risk or time expect by the devs.

I said it before but I will say it again. If a player thinks something is working as intended they will threat it like any other feature. For example the karma exploit. A player doesnt buy multiple armor sets for the same character so a person who didnt realise that the karma vendor when bug was giving an in-game benefit without the extend of time dev expect for players to earn it would have had no reason to buy more then a single set.

Same with the snowflake exploit. If a player though that the snowflake jewel was in line with any other jewel in terms of benefit vs cost / time why would they craft hundreds of them and salvage them and never do that same thing before with the other items they felt were the same equivalent?

One would only repeat 100s of times an exploit in a short period of time only if they realise that exploit has an abnormal return vs cost / time. Not only that but they realise its more then it should and that devs will close it soon so they need to get as much as they can before that happens.

I personally dont see any ambiguity.

[raspberry jam]

Trei, on 31 January 2013 - 02:36 PM, said:

The exploiters who decided to abuse the bug that many times enough to get banned also had a moral responsibility not to have done it, no?

Sure, but their responsibility is nowhere near as grave. That is why they should lose the profits of what they did, but no other action needs be taken against them.

Gli, on 31 January 2013 - 02:57 PM, said:

I never intended to provide a definition and I wasn't aware the onus to provide one was on me. You grab a line of text I wrote, painfully twist it into the shape of something that might, if you're desperate, be construed as a definition, and then proceed to tell me that definition is wrong. You've obviously ran out of things to say.

I never claimed the bans weren't arbitrary. I actually stated that the measure of punishment was discretionary. That's me agreeing with you. The difference between you and me is, I'm perfectly happy with the manner in which they go about dissing out discretionary punishments.

And you still haven't explained what you meant with: "It pays to have connections."

Oh. Sorry for not saying. The onus is on you since you insist that the bans are just. I'm asking why they are just. How can they be when you won't even say what they are banning for?

XPhiler, on 31 January 2013 - 03:29 PM, said:

For starters being help out by a mesmer is likely not even considered an exploit, not sure why it should really. The whole point of the portal skill is for the mesmer to transport friendlies from point A to point B. I'd say its much more likely that its not an exploit rather then it being one. But in any case it doesnt matter one big. Even If you're abosolutely right and the portal is obvious exploiting, Arenanet have every right to decide that kind of exploiting is harmful enough to warrant any action. Whats wrong with that? and in any case that wouldnt change the fact you're banned for exploiting. Some judges decide to give probation to first time robbers. Some robbers get set free because police mess up the case. None of that means you arent punished for robbing.

Ohh come on, do people have to spell everything out to you. There is no way to know what anyone is guilty of without a court case playing itself out no matter how detailed laws are and they're not. Take your bribe instance for example, a bribe can simply be a promise. Does that mean if the wife of an official promises him that she will not be late if he cooks dinner before she gets home they're guilty of bribary? of course not. On the other hand if whoever promises to return some favor for whatever favor s/he is seeking then it is bribary. Same type of issue but one case its legal and in the other it isnt. Nothing in the law makes that distinction and why would it? you cannot have everything perfectly, its just impossible.   Lets go to the extreme maybe it will become obvious to you. Mr X is a contractor hired to build an appartment block. He decides to change a few things in the building design to cut costs. What is he guilty of ? who can tell! stealing, fraud, involentary homocide, its impossible to tell until something happens and a court of law processes the case. There is no way to tell with absolute certainity before the fact of what you are guilty off. a person cannot one morning say ohh today I am going to get back at my EX but I just want to get in a little trouble not a lot, if I just puncture her car tyres I will force her to change the tyres and all I am guilty of is damage ~$100 of property. It just doesnt work that way. It could simply be that the act of slashing that tyre turns in attempted murder or even multiple counts of manslaughter if she doesnt notice drives off and then tyre tears up pulling her into incoming traffic. You can never quantify what crime you're about to commit because this is not a shop where you get to buy whatever you want and thats all you get. You're responsible for your actions and after whatever you do plays itself out then you get to see what the consiquences of your actions are.

Its just impossible to define what exploiting is specifically like its impossible to define things like what bribery is. If everything could be defined perfectly why would you need a jury at all ? it would be obvious who is guilty or innocent and of what.

Exactly, if you allowed people to go free if they claimed they simply did not know what they were doing is wrong you would never punish anyone cause thats what everyone would say. Same here. You cannot state exactly what is and what is not an exploit and you cannot simply allow everyone do what they want just cause they claim they thought it wasnt an exploit.

It is not retroactive punishment in no way. Everyone knows Exploiting isnt allowed and that rule predated any ban. What you're saying here is someone kills another person using the mytical phaser, they are accused of murder and then saying hey your law didnt state specifically that you cannot kill people with phasers, this is the first time i am hearing of it so thats retroactive punishment and it shouldnt be allowed. But guess what, like you yourself said, murder is murder it doesnt matter what method you use to kill same thing here (but of course much less serious) exploiting is exploiting, it doesnt matter what exploit you use. one knows that exploiting isnt allowed and should never engage in it.

Of course whatever they do is connected to a moral responsability. If they ban even a single person for say logging in on thursday do you think a single person in the world would ever buy a single expansion? They're legally free to ban whoever they want but bans come with a cost. Even when their ban is morally justified such as stopping excessive exploiters and even when they act honorably in such bans by offering complete refunds even though legally they dont have to there will definitely be people who for that action stop doing business with them. Either cause they think its unfair like you do or for feat that they might end up being banned themselves. Think how much bigger those consiquences will be if they ever ban people without any moral justification!

The thing that is wrong with it is that it makes punishments retroactive since at the time when you utilize an exploit, you have no idea of whether you will get banned or not. Yes it's the same thing as a judge letting robbers off the hook, except that even first time robbers usually get some sort of punishment.

And yes, the law (concerning bribery) does make such a distinction. It is well defined, and that's why some cases of obvious bribery still doesn't result in a conviction - but that is ok since it's more important to let innocent people go unpunished than to punish criminals. Mr X is guilty of breach of contract, and if you slash someone's tyres and they somehow don't notice it when they drive off then yes you could be guilty of manslaugther. But that is beside the point - because there are many exploits that go entirely unpunished. In fact bans are the exception, not the rule.

If you cannot state what an exploit is, then you cannot morally punish people for it. Because that would be arbitrary punishments and that is morally reprehensible.

And yes, it is retroactive since the decision of whether the action is punishable or not is taken post facto. The same is not true for for example murder, since it is well defined. Murder is always punishable, the decision is only whether the person is guilty of murder or not.

Well, the banning because it's Thursday example is just that - an example of their legal rights. As you point out, that doesn't mean that their legal rights are the same as their moral responsibilities. However, you are yet to prove how any ban is morally justifiable.

[Trei]

raspberry jam, on 01 February 2013 - 09:28 AM, said:

Sure, but their responsibility is nowhere near as grave. That is why they should lose the profits of what they did, but no other action needs be taken against them....
...
...If you cannot state what an exploit is, then you cannot morally punish people for it. Because that would be arbitrary punishments and that is morally reprehensible....

We all know what exploits are with reference to games.
In this case, it was the fact that there was a very reliable way to loop the creation of a single craftable item to generate many ectos in a very short amount of time.
Loops like these cannot be intended in any stretch of imagination.
The exploit here was abusing this loop hundreds and thousands of times in order to try and profit from it as much as possible before it gets fixed.

"Nowhere near as grave"... and that would justify shifting all their responsibility to Anet?
That's basically all it amounts to if only the profits are taken - nothing at all done to them.

Sorry, logic does not work that way.
Once again, Anet's "moral responsibility" to us legit players is in fact exactly to ban these people.
It amazes me how you are still trying to warp and twist it a whole 180 degrees around.

They clearly did wrong.
They were duly punished.
End of their story.

If you feel Anet did wrong too, call for Anet's punishment.
That should have nothing at all to do with the exploiters' punishments.

Edited by Trei, 01 February 2013 - 10:11 AM.

[Gli]

raspberry jam, on 01 February 2013 - 09:28 AM, said:

Oh. Sorry for not saying. The onus is on you since you insist that the bans are just. I'm asking why they are just. How can they be when you won't even say what they are banning for?

I insist that the bans are just? Please, I never even hinted that I feel they are, much less insisted. I've only ever expressed approval of ANet's handling of the bans, nothing more.

[XPhiler]

raspberry jam, on 01 February 2013 - 09:28 AM, said:

The thing that is wrong with it is that it makes punishments retroactive since at the time when you utilize an exploit, you have no idea of whether you will get banned or not. Yes it's the same thing as a judge letting robbers off the hook, except that even first time robbers usually get some sort of punishment.

And yes, the law (concerning bribery) does make such a distinction. It is well defined, and that's why some cases of obvious bribery still doesn't result in a conviction - but that is ok since it's more important to let innocent people go unpunished than to punish criminals. Mr X is guilty of breach of contract, and if you slash someone's tyres and they somehow don't notice it when they drive off then yes you could be guilty of manslaugther. But that is beside the point - because there are many exploits that go entirely unpunished. In fact bans are the exception, not the rule.

If you cannot state what an exploit is, then you cannot morally punish people for it. Because that would be arbitrary punishments and that is morally reprehensible.

And yes, it is retroactive since the decision of whether the action is punishable or not is taken post facto. The same is not true for for example murder, since it is well defined. Murder is always punishable, the decision is only whether the person is guilty of murder or not.

Well, the banning because it's Thursday example is just that - an example of their legal rights. As you point out, that doesn't mean that their legal rights are the same as their moral responsibilities. However, you are yet to prove how any ban is morally justifiable.

Sure when you use an exploit you have no idea if you're going to be banned or not. How is that different from commit any crime, you have no idea if you're gonna get punished or not or even what kind of punishment you're going to receive. In neither case can you quantify what price you will have to pay for your misdeeds.

No it doesnt, please point to me where law on bribary makes a distinction such as that your partner trading favors with you isnt bribary.

You can define fully well what an exploit is, you cant define every possible instance of exploit. Just like laws are always  well defined but you dont have a reference of every single case and combination that falls within that law. For example we know what consitutes murder, performing an action that results in another person cessation of brain function but you can never know before hand if your action will fall in that category. (again slashed tire example, Murder law doesnt say that slashing a tire makes you guilty of murder yet slashing a tire might still make you guilty of murder after the fact) Same thing here. You might not know if crafting that jewel and salvaging it over and over is specifically an exploit because obviously no where says that it is. Yet you know that an Exploit is: "An exploit is the misuse of a software feature or bug in a way that allows a player to generate in-game benefits without the risk or time expected by the game's designers." Thus you know that if this action is creating an abnormal reward it is an exploit (and there is no doubt you know that fully well, else you would not be repeating it over and over again trying to gain as much as possible before devs lock you out of it) . There is no arbitrary punishment at all. Its clearly stated in multiple places that exploting can lead to a permanent ban. So any punishment within the minimum to a maximum range is not considered arbitrary its considered discretionary which is different.

Not at all. If I slash a tire I have no way of know whether that action is going to lead to a murder charge before hand or not. All I know is if I kill some I am guilty of murder. I know what murder means. But thats it. Same here. I know if I exploit I am guilty of exploiting. I know what Exploiting means "An exploit is the misuse of a software feature or bug in a way that allows a player to generate in-game benefits without the risk or time expected by the game's designers." I cannot know for certain if my actions are exploiting or not (though people only got banned when there was no ambiguity that they knew fully well that they were indeed exploiting) but that doesnt matter just like it will not matter that when you slashed the tire you had no way of know for sure that you would have killed someone.

How a ban is morally justified? It is in many ways.

how about cause its immoral to let legitimate people who play by the rules get walked over by players who find no problem cheating their way to success?

When you bought the game you agreed to abide by its rules. Its immoral to just decide to ignore them because its profitable to you even though it damages others.

A good publisher has the moral obligation to ensure their game is fair for everyone.

People were warned. They even were given an amnesty the first time it happened. Yet they choose to ignore that and do it again. why is it immoral they're made to face the consiquence of ignoring the rules once again?

[raspberry jam]

Trei, on 01 February 2013 - 10:09 AM, said:

We all know what exploits are with reference to games.
In this case, it was the fact that there was a very reliable way to loop the creation of a single craftable item to generate many ectos in a very short amount of time.
Loops like these cannot be intended in any stretch of imagination.
The exploit here was abusing this loop hundreds and thousands of times in order to try and profit from it as much as possible before it gets fixed.

"Nowhere near as grave"... and that would justify shifting all their responsibility to Anet?
That's basically all it amounts to if only the profits are taken - nothing at all done to them.

Sorry, logic does not work that way.
Once again, Anet's "moral responsibility" to us legit players is in fact exactly to ban these people.
It amazes me how you are still trying to warp and twist it a whole 180 degrees around.

They clearly did wrong.
They were duly punished.
End of their story.

If you feel Anet did wrong too, call for Anet's punishment.
That should have nothing at all to do with the exploiters' punishments.

Well, they were doing what ANet allowed them to do. We all payed for a virtual playground here, it's the provider (ANet) doesn't make sure that everyone can play safe, it's they that do something wrong, not the people playing. I am calling for "ANet's punishment".. In a way. See, by banning players, they shift the responsibility for the potential damage to the economy, onto these players. But if that is instead blamed on ANet, there would be a profit motive in improving QA. That should be their atonement, because better QA will mean less bugs which will mean a more enjoyable experience for everyone.

But that can't happen if ANet keeps blaming players for their own mistakes.

Gli, on 01 February 2013 - 10:22 AM, said:

I insist that the bans are just? Please, I never even hinted that I feel they are, much less insisted. I've only ever expressed approval of ANet's handling of the bans, nothing more.

But approving of morally reprehensible punishment is also morally reprehensible. Why do you do it?

[XPhiler]

raspberry jam, on 01 February 2013 - 11:17 AM, said:

Well, they were doing what ANet allowed them to do. We all payed for a virtual playground here, it's the provider (ANet) doesn't make sure that everyone can play safe, it's they that do something wrong, not the people playing. I am calling for "ANet's punishment".. In a way. See, by banning players, they shift the responsibility for the potential damage to the economy, onto these players. But if that is instead blamed on ANet, there would be a profit motive in improving QA. That should be their atonement, because better QA will mean less bugs which will mean a more enjoyable experience for everyone.

But that can't happen if ANet keeps blaming players for their own mistakes.

But approving of morally reprehensible punishment is also morally reprehensible. Why do you do it?

You just love playing with words. No they didnt get banned for doing what Arenanet allowed them to do (craft the Jewel / Salvage the Jewel) they got banned for doign what Arenanet Prohibited them from doing. Do that cycle 100s if not 1000s of times hence exploit what Arenanet allowed them to do by profiting abnormally.

They also didnt shift the blame, repeating this over and over again will not make it true.

Arenanet were to blame for the exploit existing in the first place. They fixed that as soon as they found out about it. By fixing it and calling it an exploit they took responsability for it. (Obviously you cannot fix something if you didnt do it badly first)

Exploiters were to blame for exploiting. They got banned for it. Arenanet once again took responsability for their actions by providing these people with a refund, not just of the game but any purchases they did ever. They didnt have to do that but they still did.

If anything they took more responsability then they should have by offering refunds but I just cant see how anyone can honestly claim Arenanet refuse to take resposnability for this. They quite clearly did!

[Trei]

raspberry jam, on 01 February 2013 - 11:17 AM, said:

Well, they were doing what ANet allowed them to do. We all payed for a virtual playground here, it's the provider (ANet) doesn't make sure that everyone can play safe, it's they that do something wrong, not the people playing. I am calling for "ANet's punishment".. In a way. See, by banning players, they shift the responsibility for the potential damage to the economy, onto these players....

Disagree.
The players were not banned for "potential" damage here.

They were not just playing, they were exploiting.

The disconnect here seems to be that you are of the view that anything that can be done in the game is fair game.
I implore you to reconsider this extremely unreasonable and childish stance.

The only way Anet could be accused of shifting responsibility would have been for them to leave the bug in the game and take no action, tell players fix the bug ourselves.

Whether Anet should have set up a test server or did more to minimize such bugs from occurring has nothing, NOTHING to do with the decision those banned players took to exploit the bugs.

That decision was what got them banned.
No one else made that decision for them.

[raspberry jam]

XPhiler, on 01 February 2013 - 11:08 AM, said:

Sure when you use an exploit you have no idea if you're going to be banned or not. How is that different from commit any crime, you have no idea if you're gonna get punished or not or even what kind of punishment you're going to receive. In neither case can you quantify what price you will have to pay for your misdeeds.

No it doesnt, please point to me where law on bribary makes a distinction such as that your partner trading favors with you isnt bribary.

You can define fully well what an exploit is, you cant define every possible instance of exploit. Just like laws are always  well defined but you dont have a reference of every single case and combination that falls within that law. For example we know what consitutes murder, performing an action that results in another person cessation of brain function but you can never know before hand if your action will fall in that category. (again slashed tire example, Murder law doesnt say that slashing a tire makes you guilty of murder yet slashing a tire might still make you guilty of murder after the fact) Same thing here. You might not know if crafting that jewel and salvaging it over and over is specifically an exploit because obviously no where says that it is. Yet you know that an Exploit is: "An exploit is the misuse of a software feature or bug in a way that allows a player to generate in-game benefits without the risk or time expected by the game's designers." Thus you know that if this action is creating an abnormal reward it is an exploit (and there is no doubt you know that fully well, else you would not be repeating it over and over again trying to gain as much as possible before devs lock you out of it) . There is no arbitrary punishment at all. Its clearly stated in multiple places that exploting can lead to a permanent ban. So any punishment within the minimum to a maximum range is not considered arbitrary its considered discretionary which is different.

Not at all. If I slash a tire I have no way of know whether that action is going to lead to a murder charge before hand or not. All I know is if I kill some I am guilty of murder. I know what murder means. But thats it. Same here. I know if I exploit I am guilty of exploiting. I know what Exploiting means "An exploit is the misuse of a software feature or bug in a way that allows a player to generate in-game benefits without the risk or time expected by the game's designers." I cannot know for certain if my actions are exploiting or not (though people only got banned when there was no ambiguity that they knew fully well that they were indeed exploiting) but that doesnt matter just like it will not matter that when you slashed the tire you had no way of know for sure that you would have killed someone.

How a ban is morally justified? It is in many ways.

how about cause its immoral to let legitimate people who play by the rules get walked over by players who find no problem cheating their way to success?

When you bought the game you agreed to abide by its rules. Its immoral to just decide to ignore them because its profitable to you even though it damages others.

A good publisher has the moral obligation to ensure their game is fair for everyone.

People were warned. They even were given an amnesty the first time it happened. Yet they choose to ignore that and do it again. why is it immoral they're made to face the consiquence of ignoring the rules once again?

Of course you know, it says in the law book that if you do this and that you are liable to get this and that sentence. Sometimes there is a scale of punishments and then you can look up what punishments courts usually issue in the case of your specific crime.

Partners trading favors is usually handled by common-marriage laws that will join the two partners' economies, thus making it a moot point who buys the food you'll eat that evening.

If you slash a tire in such a way that a person will magically not notice it and drive away you should understand that that can result in their death. So yes, it'd be at least manslaughter (since you probably didn't mean to kill the person). But the crucial fact here is that you are not second-guessing anyone. If you are handed a car with a slashed tire (but you don't notice the damage), and you drive away, the car goes out of control and you crash into the nearest wall and get hurt, but not dead - you won't get punished, because it's not your fault. Instead, it's the person who introduced the damage - ANet, in this case - that gets the blame, because it is their responsibility for having slashed the tire/released the bugged patch.

With the definition of exploit that you finally managed to provide, the player is forced to second-guess ANet. Basically you are required to ask yourself not how the game works, but how it is intended to work. Did the recipe guy who tagged the snowflake as rare (or whatever it is) actually intend for it to be of "rare" quality, or was it literally a mistake - a physical misclick or the like? If so, does he even realize what "rare" means (that it'll salvage into ecto), or is he uninformed of the salvage ratios? If not, did he simply brainfart and miscalculated the value that can be tapped from the loop? Maybe the QA guy that should look at all these values (not test play, but actually look at the work) made all these mistakes as well? Maybe all of these never happened, and instead some error, either in software or hardware, introduced a flipped bit or whatever during compilation of the patch, causing the snowflake to be marked as "rare"?

All those questions, and probably more, players have to ask themselves to make sure that the gameplay is "unintended". Questions that should not need to exist. Because a good publisher has the moral obligation to ensure their game is fair for everyone. And that includes not having to try to second guess ANet's poor designers, QA staff, compilers and whatever else.

Anything else leads to retroactive, arbitrary punishments handed out for the mistakes that the policeman, judge, jury and executioner themselves did.

[raspberry jam]

XPhiler, on 01 February 2013 - 11:29 AM, said:

You just love playing with words. No they didnt get banned for doing what Arenanet allowed them to do (craft the Jewel / Salvage the Jewel) they got banned for doign what Arenanet Prohibited them from doing. Do that cycle 100s if not 1000s of times hence exploit what Arenanet allowed them to do by profiting abnormally.

They also didnt shift the blame, repeating this over and over again will not make it true.

Arenanet were to blame for the exploit existing in the first place. They fixed that as soon as they found out about it. By fixing it and calling it an exploit they took responsability for it. (Obviously you cannot fix something if you didnt do it badly first)

Exploiters were to blame for exploiting. They got banned for it. Arenanet once again took responsability for their actions by providing these people with a refund, not just of the game but any purchases they did ever. They didnt have to do that but they still did.

If anything they took more responsability then they should have by offering refunds but I just cant see how anyone can honestly claim Arenanet refuse to take resposnability for this. They quite clearly did!

But if ANet allows them to do it once it allows them to do it 100 or 1000 times, or more. The proof of that is that it was possible to do in a system that ANet designed. The prohibition is retroactive, when ANet decided to label this as "unintended".
And yes, that is shifting the blame.

If they took full responsibility for it, there would be no bans.

Trei, on 01 February 2013 - 11:44 AM, said:

Disagree.
The players were not banned for "potential" damage here.

They were not just playing, they were exploiting.

The disconnect here seems to be that you are of the view that anything that can be done in the game is fair game.
I implore you to reconsider this extremely unreasonable and childish stance.

The only way Anet could be accused of shifting responsibility would have been for them to leave the bug in the game and take no action, tell players fix the bug ourselves.

Whether Anet should have set up a test server or did more to minimize such bugs from occurring has nothing, NOTHING to do with the decision those banned players took to exploit the bugs.

That decision was what got them banned.
No one else made that decision for them.

Who are you telling to disagree?

Anyway yes, I think that anything that is possible to do with the game client should be fair game. If the results really were unintended, then fine, undo the results. Remove the profits. I don't see how this is childish in any way, but I'm willing to hear your explanation of it.

This was never about a test server, but about actual QA - look at the shit you put out. Not just test play, but look at the actual numbers. That's what I loved about old ANet because they actually paid attention to the numbers. If new ANet did the same you would never see something like this.

[Gli]

raspberry jam, on 01 February 2013 - 11:17 AM, said:

But approving of morally reprehensible punishment is also morally reprehensible. Why do you do it?

There's nothing morally reprehensible about removing miscreants and other undesirable individuals from a place you own, be it a real one or a virtual one, as long as the removal is based upon the actions and not upon inherent qualities of the individuals. Why do you think it is?

Edited by Gli, 01 February 2013 - 12:07 PM.

[XPhiler]

raspberry jam, on 01 February 2013 - 11:48 AM, said:

Of course you know, it says in the law book that if you do this and that you are liable to get this and that sentence. Sometimes there is a scale of punishments and then you can look up what punishments courts usually issue in the case of your specific crime.

Partners trading favors is usually handled by common-marriage laws that will join the two partners' economies, thus making it a moot point who buys the food you'll eat that evening.

If you slash a tire in such a way that a person will magically not notice it and drive away you should understand that that can result in their death. So yes, it'd be at least manslaughter (since you probably didn't mean to kill the person). But the crucial fact here is that you are not second-guessing anyone. If you are handed a car with a slashed tire (but you don't notice the damage), and you drive away, the car goes out of control and you crash into the nearest wall and get hurt, but not dead - you won't get punished, because it's not your fault. Instead, it's the person who introduced the damage - ANet, in this case - that gets the blame, because it is their responsibility for having slashed the tire/released the bugged patch.

With the definition of exploit that you finally managed to provide, the player is forced to second-guess ANet. Basically you are required to ask yourself not how the game works, but how it is intended to work. Did the recipe guy who tagged the snowflake as rare (or whatever it is) actually intend for it to be of "rare" quality, or was it literally a mistake - a physical misclick or the like? If so, does he even realize what "rare" means (that it'll salvage into ecto), or is he uninformed of the salvage ratios? If not, did he simply brainfart and miscalculated the value that can be tapped from the loop? Maybe the QA guy that should look at all these values (not test play, but actually look at the work) made all these mistakes as well? Maybe all of these never happened, and instead some error, either in software or hardware, introduced a flipped bit or whatever during compilation of the patch, causing the snowflake to be marked as "rare"?

All those questions, and probably more, players have to ask themselves to make sure that the gameplay is "unintended". Questions that should not need to exist. Because a good publisher has the moral obligation to ensure their game is fair for everyone. And that includes not having to try to second guess ANet's poor designers, QA staff, compilers and whatever else.

Anything else leads to retroactive, arbitrary punishments handed out for the mistakes that the policeman, judge, jury and executioner themselves did.

No it doesnt, what the law would state is something like that a public official would be guilty if it traded influence for a price. price might be defined it includes things like money, favors, promises etc.. and influence would be defined as I dont know deciding on stuff which benefits whoever is bribing you. But it wouldnt go in such detail as to explicity exclude that its okey so far as your partner does it and in return for a meal. keep in mind this same thing would be considered bribing in certain cases. But it would be up to the court to clear that up. The law itself cannot simply put in any possible scenario and list which is okey or which is not okey.

You dont need to use magic for someone to miss a slash tire. Unless you have a habbit of running a checklist before driving off like pilots do it can happen very easily. But anyhow thats irellevant. Point of fact is that yes you need to use your own judgement. If you decide to slash the tire its your responsability that such an action might put the driver in danger. The law doesnt tell you that its up to you. Just cause you never intended to harm anyone appart from the tire is irellevant. That murder has no mention of slashing tires is irellevant. That you were sure that slashing a tire isnt akin to murder is irellevant. if your victim drives off and dies you're still guilty both morally and legally.

same with an exploit, its up to the player to make a sound judgement if what they're doing is legal or not. (legal as in allowed obviously) Lets not manipulate stuff here, arenanet never banned anyone for something thats hard to judge if its an exploit or not like your mesmer portal case. Arenanet only banned people when the case was clearly an exploit and then only when they were sure the exploiter knew well it was an exploit (doing it 100s or 1000s of times.) Do you have any doubt that something like crafting an item 5 times and salvaging leaves you with 10x the investment you made is an exploit or not? be honest!

[XPhiler]

raspberry jam, on 01 February 2013 - 11:55 AM, said:

But if ANet allows them to do it once it allows them to do it 100 or 1000 times, or more. The proof of that is that it was possible to do in a system that ANet designed. The prohibition is retroactive, when ANet decided to label this as "unintended".
And yes, that is shifting the blame.

If they took full responsibility for it, there would be no bans.

Who are you telling to disagree?

Anyway yes, I think that anything that is possible to do with the game client should be fair game. If the results really were unintended, then fine, undo the results. Remove the profits. I don't see how this is childish in any way, but I'm willing to hear your explanation of it.

This was never about a test server, but about actual QA - look at the shit you put out. Not just test play, but look at the actual numbers. That's what I loved about old ANet because they actually paid attention to the numbers. If new ANet did the same you would never see something like this.

Again playing with words. Arenanet allowed them to craft the item and salavage it not to exploit it. They were allowed to use it as much as they want, this wasnt about creating 1000 items. If they did that for legitimate reasons than thats okey. For example craft 1000 of that item thats exploitable for them to sell. But crafting and salvaging results in an abnormal profit hence thats an exploit, hence someone who also crafted 1000 items and salvaged them though technically he did the same thing would be guilty of exploiting. There is a difference that you're missing (or convinently ignoring) between what you're allowed to do, the action you do and the reason of why you're doing that action. My driving license allows me to drive. I can legally drive around as much as I want. That does not mean I can also run people over. Thats what you're essentially saying. Hey the goverment is allowing me to drive so anything I do while I am driving should be allowed. No not at all.

I think you need to revisit what the meaning of taking responsability is.
re·spon·si·bil·i·ty  

/riˌspänsəˈbilətē/
Noun

• The state or fact of having a duty to deal with something.
  
• The state or fact of being accountable or to blame for something.

1. Anet cause an exploit. That created exploiters. How do you deal with that? close the exploits ban exploiters.
2. Being accountable. how do you do that? Admit you have an exploit.

Anet's action satisfy both in my opinion. But please explain to me how just closing the exploit and letting exploiters be so that it encourages them to exploit more next time would be taking more responsability cause honestly I dont follow the logic.

Ohh please old Anet never did any rebalancing right?

[Trei]

raspberry jam, on 01 February 2013 - 11:55 AM, said:

Anyway yes, I think that anything that is possible to do with the game client should be fair game. If the results really were unintended, then fine, undo the results. Remove the profits. I don't see how this is childish in any way, but I'm willing to hear your explanation of it...

Because it's what separates us rational, sentient adult human beings from animals.
Just because the exploit was there, making it possible for me to exploit it, therefore I should exploit it?

You can easily buy a pet rabbit, you can legally buy a knife.
You can use the knife on the rabbit for fun and cut its legs off.
All of these are possible.
Should you?

You can go around demeaning people with disabilities, insult them, call them liabilities to society.
Should you?

You can insist on forcing your way into packed lifts before anyone has a chance to exit and make room for you first.
Should you?

You can name your child after Hitler.
Should you?

Responsibility has much less to do with what you can or cannot do than what you should or should not do.

The banned players chose to do something they should not have done.
The bug would have no impact on the game if not for this singular specific individual choice each of them made.

Who should take responsibility for this singular specific individual choice each of them made?
Anet or the individuals themselves?

[raspberry jam]

Gli, on 01 February 2013 - 12:07 PM, said:

There's nothing morally reprehensible about removing miscreants and other undesirable individuals from a place you own, be it a real one or a virtual one, as long as the removal is based upon the actions and not upon inherent qualities of the individuals. Why do you think it is?

But they are not miscreants. They simply used what was available to them. ANet is the complete creator of the game world and can simply avoid putting things that should not be used into the game world. If they don't do that then the sole responsibility for the problems caused is with ANet.

XPhiler, on 01 February 2013 - 12:24 PM, said:

No it doesnt, what the law would state is something like that a public official would be guilty if it traded influence for a price. price might be defined it includes things like money, favors, promises etc.. and influence would be defined as I dont know deciding on stuff which benefits whoever is bribing you. But it wouldnt go in such detail as to explicity exclude that its okey so far as your partner does it and in return for a meal. keep in mind this same thing would be considered bribing in certain cases. But it would be up to the court to clear that up. The law itself cannot simply put in any possible scenario and list which is okey or which is not okey.

You dont need to use magic for someone to miss a slash tire. Unless you have a habbit of running a checklist before driving off like pilots do it can happen very easily. But anyhow thats irellevant. Point of fact is that yes you need to use your own judgement. If you decide to slash the tire its your responsability that such an action might put the driver in danger. The law doesnt tell you that its up to you. Just cause you never intended to harm anyone appart from the tire is irellevant. That murder has no mention of slashing tires is irellevant. That you were sure that slashing a tire isnt akin to murder is irellevant. if your victim drives off and dies you're still guilty both morally and legally.

same with an exploit, its up to the player to make a sound judgement if what they're doing is legal or not. (legal as in allowed obviously) Lets not manipulate stuff here, arenanet never banned anyone for something thats hard to judge if its an exploit or not like your mesmer portal case. Arenanet only banned people when the case was clearly an exploit and then only when they were sure the exploiter knew well it was an exploit (doing it 100s or 1000s of times.) Do you have any doubt that something like crafting an item 5 times and salvaging leaves you with 10x the investment you made is an exploit or not? be honest!

Huh? Correct, it's down to prices (purchase value, usually) and gifts that are otherwise valued on a personal basis (sexual favors can be considered bribes in some countries). Getting a dinner made for you by your spouse is not a bribe, not because the spouse didn't use it as an illicit bargaining chip, but because it is not covered by any bribery law. If a court can prove that a civil servant or the like made a uncalled for decision because of his spouse promising to make food for him, it would be considered professional misconduct, not accepting a bribe, since a dinner (in this case) is not a bribe.

See, that's how the law works - if something is not explicitly forbidden, then it's ok. And laws that go something like "if you do something unspecified that the legislator didn't intend for, you are guilty" would never exist, they are unconstitutional in any even remotely democratic country on earth.

I think you have never driven a car with a flat tire. If you can't tell when you just look at the car, and can't tell when you get in, you're still very likely to notice as soon as you start driving.

Now what you need to ask yourself is: if ANet slashes your tire (releases a bugged patch), and you notice it, would it be ok to drive the car (loop the craft/salvage cycle) anyway?

The real world answer to the question is: no, clearly not, since driving with a damaged tire means that you are presenting a danger to other drivers. But GW2 isn't the real world. ANet built the road, built your car, built your tires, slashed not just your tires but everyone else's as well, and most importantly, if any collisions do happen, ANet have the power to magically restore the cars and any drivers/passengers getting hurt to pristine condition. Suddenly there is no danger to anyone else, and that means that yes, it is ok to drive the car even with the slashed tire.

ANet has sole responsibility here.

XPhiler, on 01 February 2013 - 12:37 PM, said:

Again playing with words. Arenanet allowed them to craft the item and salavage it not to exploit it. They were allowed to use it as much as they want, this wasnt about creating 1000 items. If they did that for legitimate reasons than thats okey. For example craft 1000 of that item thats exploitable for them to sell. But crafting and salvaging results in an abnormal profit hence thats an exploit, hence someone who also crafted 1000 items and salvaged them though technically he did the same thing would be guilty of exploiting. There is a difference that you're missing (or convinently ignoring) between what you're allowed to do, the action you do and the reason of why you're doing that action. My driving license allows me to drive. I can legally drive around as much as I want. That does not mean I can also run people over. Thats what you're essentially saying. Hey the goverment is allowing me to drive so anything I do while I am driving should be allowed. No not at all.

I think you need to revisit what the meaning of taking responsability is.
re·spon·si·bil·i·ty  

/riˌspänsəˈbilətē/
Noun

• The state or fact of having a duty to deal with something.
  
  
• The state or fact of being accountable or to blame for something.

1. Anet cause an exploit. That created exploiters. How do you deal with that? close the exploits ban exploiters.
2. Being accountable. how do you do that? Admit you have an exploit.

Anet's action satisfy both in my opinion. But please explain to me how just closing the exploit and letting exploiters be so that it encourages them to exploit more next time would be taking more responsability cause honestly I dont follow the logic.

Ohh please old Anet never did any rebalancing right?

Yeah? Where's the limit? How much do you need to cycle to get banned? Is it ok to do 100? is 400 ok? What about 319? Maybe everyone who cycled 320 times and more got banned. What's the difference from someone who did it 319 times? And it doesn't matter what number you say. If you did it even once after realizing that the loop worked, it's an exploit. But people who did it, say, 40 times did not get banned for it. They realized that it was an exploit and they did it anyway.

I know what responsibility is, and I don't even spell it as "responsability".

Also, yes, ANet frequently rebalanced, but you know what? When they rebalanced a skill, they didn't ban people for using it before the rebalance. Regardless of how many times they used the skill.

Trei, on 01 February 2013 - 01:23 PM, said:

Because it's what separates us rational, sentient adult human beings from animals.
Just because the exploit was there, making it possible for me to exploit it, therefore I should exploit it?

You can easily buy a pet rabbit, you can legally buy a knife.
You can use the knife on the rabbit for fun and cut its legs off.
All of these are possible.
Should you?

You can go around demeaning people with disabilities, insult them, call them liabilities to society.
Should you?

You can insist on forcing your way into packed lifts before anyone has a chance to exit and make room for you first.
Should you?

You can name your child after Hitler.
Should you?

Responsibility has much less to do with what you can or cannot do than what you should or should not do.

The banned players chose to do something they should not have done.
The bug would have no impact on the game if not for this singular specific individual choice each of them made.

Who should take responsibility for this singular specific individual choice each of them made?
Anet or the individuals themselves?

Lots of questions.

1. If you want to harm a rabbit for some (probably sick) reason, then that would seem to be a reasonable way to do it.

2. Only if actually believe that disabled people are liabilities to society. Some people (various religious nutcases etc.) do and it would be unreasonable to demand that those people should not be able to speak their mind.

3. No, it would probably result in getting jostled and having your feet stepped on. Would recommend waiting until people get off.

4. I personally don't like the name, so no. It's fairly common in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries, though.

ANet should take the responsibility. They are the creators of the game, and they can undo any damage that the exploiting players could potentially cause to it. All the exploiting players did was to use the things that they were given by the creators of the world that they paid for the grace of playing in.

[XPhiler]

raspberry jam, on 01 February 2013 - 03:35 PM, said:

But they are not miscreants. They simply used what was available to them. ANet is the complete creator of the game world and can simply avoid putting things that should not be used into the game world. If they don't do that then the sole responsibility for the problems caused is with ANet.

Huh? Correct, it's down to prices (purchase value, usually) and gifts that are otherwise valued on a personal basis (sexual favors can be considered bribes in some countries). Getting a dinner made for you by your spouse is not a bribe, not because the spouse didn't use it as an illicit bargaining chip, but because it is not covered by any bribery law. If a court can prove that a civil servant or the like made a uncalled for decision because of his spouse promising to make food for him, it would be considered professional misconduct, not accepting a bribe, since a dinner (in this case) is not a bribe.

See, that's how the law works - if something is not explicitly forbidden, then it's ok. And laws that go something like "if you do something unspecified that the legislator didn't intend for, you are guilty" would never exist, they are unconstitutional in any even remotely democratic country on earth.

I think you have never driven a car with a flat tire. If you can't tell when you just look at the car, and can't tell when you get in, you're still very likely to notice as soon as you start driving.

Now what you need to ask yourself is: if ANet slashes your tire (releases a bugged patch), and you notice it, would it be ok to drive the car (loop the craft/salvage cycle) anyway?

The real world answer to the question is: no, clearly not, since driving with a damaged tire means that you are presenting a danger to other drivers. But GW2 isn't the real world. ANet built the road, built your car, built your tires, slashed not just your tires but everyone else's as well, and most importantly, if any collisions do happen, ANet have the power to magically restore the cars and any drivers/passengers getting hurt to pristine condition. Suddenly there is no danger to anyone else, and that means that yes, it is ok to drive the car even with the slashed tire.

ANet has sole responsibility here.


Yeah? Where's the limit? How much do you need to cycle to get banned? Is it ok to do 100? is 400 ok? What about 319? Maybe everyone who cycled 320 times and more got banned. What's the difference from someone who did it 319 times? And it doesn't matter what number you say. If you did it even once after realizing that the loop worked, it's an exploit. But people who did it, say, 40 times did not get banned for it. They realized that it was an exploit and they did it anyway.

I know what responsibility is, and I don't even spell it as "responsability".

Also, yes, ANet frequently rebalanced, but you know what? When they rebalanced a skill, they didn't ban people for using it before the rebalance. Regardless of how many times they used the skill.

Lots of questions.

1. If you want to harm a rabbit for some (probably sick) reason, then that would seem to be a reasonable way to do it.

2. Only if actually believe that disabled people are liabilities to society. Some people (various religious nutcases etc.) do and it would be unreasonable to demand that those people should not be able to speak their mind.

3. No, it would probably result in getting jostled and having your feet stepped on. Would recommend waiting until people get off.

4. I personally don't like the name, so no. It's fairly common in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries, though.

ANet should take the responsibility. They are the creators of the game, and they can undo any damage that the exploiting players could potentially cause to it. All the exploiting players did was to use the things that they were given by the creators of the world that they paid for the grace of playing in.

Obviously your wife making you dinner in exchange for you washing the dishes is not a crime. But A business man inviting you to dinner can be (assuming the obvious you're a public official of course) Same exact thing. If the law like you said is absolute how come the same exact action is sometimes a crime and sometimes is not. I hope you're not saying the law it self has a clause saying that as long as its your wife then its okey right?

You're wrong. If laws only applied to explicitly stated things then you get tons of loop holes. "What this pill, ohh dont worry officer its not extasy. You'll notice color is different and if you tested you'll see the formula is slightly different hence its a completely different thing. I called it immaginarium. There is no law that says immaginarium is illegal right?

Or Scamming, every day people come up with new creative ways how scam people. They have nothing to fear, they just wait until the legislation is changed to cover their method until then they're safe they cannot be procecuted cause well law doesnt cover their new scam yet.

Still playing with words, Anet didnt exploit, they just missed the exploit so arenanet didnt slash your tire, they just forgot the knife on the pavement where some people decide to use to slash the tire. You keep trying to make it sound like Anet did the exploiting. They didnt. People did and they're the one guilty of exploiting no one else. And no Arenanet dont have the power to always make everything that was bad go away. Just cause an exploit is caught early this time it doesnt mean next time it will as well. Unlimited supply of money creates massive advantages. It can damage Market, give advantages to WvW, Damage other players etc.. Just look at Ultima online where exploits had a habbit of becoming part of the game world cause they had no safe way of removing them. If an exploit runs for a month the money it generates and the stuff that will be created and traded will go around so much that nothing short of reverting the whole server will fix the damage done and no one would ever be happy with something like that. So no best way to do it is teach exploiters that exploiting not only doesnt pay but it costs.

What does it matter how many times you need to do it before you will get banned its irellevant. From the players perspective doing it once is enough for them to deserve to get banned because 1 or a million its still not allowed. But Arenanet are faced with a problem. Who used the recipe and salvaged it without realising there was an exploit? Last thing you want is to ban someone who is innocent. So they decide on a number that in their opinion is safe enough to split innocent people from definite exploiters. This time they choose some number in the 100s, lets say 100 for clarity sake. It doesnt mean that whoever salvaged 99 didnt exploit or doesnt diserve to get banned it simply means that they felt that 99 has an unacceptable risk for false positives while 100 doesnt. They took action against anyone who did more then 100. Thats all there is to it. The 100 is a discretionary ammount they come up with. Just like a judge might decide that someone who steals less then $500 might be better off getting of with probation then going to prison.

Fine you know what Responsability is then care to answer the question and explain to us how letting exploiters off free is taking more responsability then fixing what you did wrong and taking action against whoever abused what you did wrong?

What you're suggesting is simply to leave exploiters free to exploit and you have not yet explained how that will benefit anyone. The only thing you said is it makes devs more responsable which is frankly illogical because like it has been pointed before multiple times no reason why devs cant strive to be responsable and ban exploiters at the same time.

Luckly we're lucky enough that Anet prefer not to have exploiters as costumers and if you look around you'll see plenty of games with people crying out for that same thing in their games. Cheaters make the game unfun for everyone (including themselves imho) I am not sure why you're defending them so much.

[Gli]

raspberry jam, on 01 February 2013 - 03:35 PM, said:

But they are not miscreants.

Of course they are, don't be silly.

raspberry jam, on 01 February 2013 - 03:35 PM, said:

They simply used what was available to them. ANet is the complete creator of the game world and can simply avoid putting things that should not be used into the game world. If they don't do that then the sole responsibility for the problems caused is with ANet.

ANet should take the responsibility. They are the creators of the game, and they can undo any damage that the exploiting players could potentially cause to it. All the exploiting players did was to use the things that they were given by the creators of the world that they paid for the grace of playing in.

They are not only the 'complete creator of the game world', they're also its sole proprietor, and with that distinction comes the privilige of not having to take crap from greedy players that stumble over themselves to exploit bugs or oversights that inevitably pop up in any comparably complex software product not tailored to perform critical processes.

When they don't need to tolerate someone's continued presence, and they don't want to tolerate someone's continued presence, why would they tolerate someone's continued presence? Their perception of someone as valued costumer that's to be cherished and supported ends when that someone shows himself to be more trouble than he's worth through objectionable actions.

Morality doesn't figure into it. It's just business. And again, ANet's responsibility doesn't figure into it either. The product is sold "as is", with provisions for refunds and damages as established by local law.

[Trei]

raspberry jam, on 01 February 2013 - 03:35 PM, said:

Spoiler

1. If you want to harm a rabbit for some (probably sick) reason, then that would seem to be a reasonable way to do it.

2. Only if actually believe that disabled people are liabilities to society. Some people (various religious nutcases etc.) do and it would be unreasonable to demand that those people should not be able to speak their mind.

3. No, it would probably result in getting jostled and having your feet stepped on. Would recommend waiting until people get off.

4. I personally don't like the name, so no. It's fairly common in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries, though.

ANet should take the responsibility. They are the creators of the game, and they can undo any damage that the exploiting players could potentially cause to it. All the exploiting players did was to use the things that they were given by the creators of the world that they paid for the grace of playing in.

I see you have totally missed the point of the post.

Yeah, all one would have done was to cut up a rabbit for fun, or insult a blind man, or do all sorts of other stupid things... because it is possible, because they can, because they are given all that is necessary to do so, therefore they should!



To think that I was actually concerned that sensible readers might actually take your argument about moral responsibility seriously... not anymore. Not after what you have just revealed about yourself.

I no longer see the need to return to this thread.

Edited by Trei, 01 February 2013 - 05:21 PM.

[Red Sonya]

Trei, on 01 February 2013 - 05:17 PM, said:

I see you have totally missed the point of the post.

Yeah, all one would have done was to cut up a rabbit for fun, or insult a blind man, or do all sorts of other stupid things... because it is possible, because they can, because they are given all that is necessary to do so, therefore they should!



To think that I was actually concerned that sensible readers might actually take your argument about moral responsibility seriously... not anymore. Not after what you have just revealed about yourself.

I no longer see the need to return to this thread.

Can I have your stuff?

Seriously though, growing up did you not think sometimes your punishment was beyond what you did for it? Well that's how Anet works as well. They are the MOTHER (to some the Mother F hehe) and they decide the punishment. If you didn't do anything wrong you wouldn't be punished. You should always think before your actions in an online game because things you THINK are legit and sooooooo easy to make a profit usually ARE an exploit and you should run as far and fast away from them as your parents told you to do with a stranger.

Edited by Red Sonya, 01 February 2013 - 06:33 PM.

[Millimidget]

XPhiler, on 31 January 2013 - 03:58 PM, said:

biggest problem here is everything you said is all conjucture. How do you know this was about damage to the economy / lost profits instead of dealing with the exploitation problem?

They didn't ban anyone for abusing the HotW exploit. It's roughly contemporary, and is a blatant exploit of game mechanics. All you can say about the snowflake recipe is that some players, using perfectly legitimate game mechanics, abused a broken recipe for personal gain.

The bans had nothing to do with exploiting.

Gli, on 01 February 2013 - 12:07 PM, said:

There's nothing morally reprehensible about removing miscreants and other undesirable individuals from a place you own, be it a real one or a virtual one, as long as the removal is based upon the actions and not upon inherent qualities of the individuals. Why do you think it is?

That's quite a bit different than banning people for exploiting, and is totally open to the subjective opinions of the employees handing out the bans.

And yeah, Gail's opinion of the banned players was totally on display. For all I know, she's a neo-Nazi, and the fact that I'm Jewish could be sufficient to have me banned. It seems like a totally ridiculous assertion, but as I'm now aware, it's well within her right to do so. I'd have more faith that such action wasn't her prerogative if I had seen this issue handled differently.

Edited by Millimidget, 02 February 2013 - 01:01 AM.

[beadnbutter32]

I think all this blathering about legality and definitions of this and that are pointless.

Go read the terms of service for this game.  Anet can pretty much ban you whenever they choose, and they don't have to prove anything to some court.

Arguing that Anet's actions are somehow immoral or inappropriate or unfair, are moot under the terms everyone agrees to in order to gain access to the game.

Anet has plenty of shortcomings, but as far as unfairly prosecuting/banning players goes, they have been rather conservative.

Either bring something new to this discussion or let it lie in peace.

[XPhiler]

Millimidget, on 02 February 2013 - 12:53 AM, said:

They didn't ban anyone for abusing the HotW exploit. It's roughly contemporary, and is a blatant exploit of game mechanics. All you can say about the snowflake recipe is that some players, using perfectly legitimate game mechanics, abused a broken recipe for personal gain.

The bans had nothing to do with exploiting.

That's quite a bit different than banning people for exploiting, and is totally open to the subjective opinions of the employees handing out the bans.

And yeah, Gail's opinion of the banned players was totally on display. For all I know, she's a neo-Nazi, and the fact that I'm Jewish could be sufficient to have me banned. It seems like a totally ridiculous assertion, but as I'm now aware, it's well within her right to do so. I'd have more faith that such action wasn't her prerogative if I had seen this issue handled differently.

I am sorry but what you're saying has no logic. I dont know what reasons they had to leave hotw abusers unpunished but that they chose to do nothing about that doesnt somehow change the fact these exploiters were banned for exploiting. Happens in real life too, sometimes judges decide to give probation instead of jail time for crime X other times they give jail time for crime X. You're saying that ones getting jail arent being punished for that crime just because some were left relatively unpunished for the same crime. Thats completely untrue. I would imagine the disconnect comes from the severity Anet see between the two exploits. I dont know facts so I cannot say for sure what went down but maybe people didnt exploit HoTW as much as you think they did. Who knows. In any case if you're so sure these people were not banned because they exploited then why did they get banned?

[raspberry jam]

XPhiler, on 01 February 2013 - 04:49 PM, said:

Obviously your wife making you dinner in exchange for you washing the dishes is not a crime. But A business man inviting you to dinner can be (assuming the obvious you're a public official of course) Same exact thing. If the law like you said is absolute how come the same exact action is sometimes a crime and sometimes is not. I hope you're not saying the law it self has a clause saying that as long as its your wife then its okey right? You're wrong. If laws only applied to explicitly stated things then you get tons of loop holes. "What this pill, ohh dont worry officer its not extasy. You'll notice color is different and if you tested you'll see the formula is slightly different hence its a completely different thing. I called it immaginarium. There is no law that says immaginarium is illegal right? Or Scamming, every day people come up with new creative ways how scam people. They have nothing to fear, they just wait until the legislation is changed to cover their method until then they're safe they cannot be procecuted cause well law doesnt cover their new scam yet. Still playing with words, Anet didnt exploit, they just missed the exploit so arenanet didnt slash your tire, they just forgot the knife on the pavement where some people decide to use to slash the tire. You keep trying to make it sound like Anet did the exploiting. They didnt. People did and they're the one guilty of exploiting no one else. And no Arenanet dont have the power to always make everything that was bad go away. Just cause an exploit is caught early this time it doesnt mean next time it will as well. Unlimited supply of money creates massive advantages. It can damage Market, give advantages to WvW, Damage other players etc.. Just look at Ultima online where exploits had a habbit of becoming part of the game world cause they had no safe way of removing them. If an exploit runs for a month the money it generates and the stuff that will be created and traded will go around so much that nothing short of reverting the whole server will fix the damage done and no one would ever be happy with something like that. So no best way to do it is teach exploiters that exploiting not only doesnt pay but it costs. What does it matter how many times you need to do it before you will get banned its irellevant. From the players perspective doing it once is enough for them to deserve to get banned because 1 or a million its still not allowed. But Arenanet are faced with a problem. Who used the recipe and salvaged it without realising there was an exploit? Last thing you want is to ban someone who is innocent. So they decide on a number that in their opinion is safe enough to split innocent people from definite exploiters. This time they choose some number in the 100s, lets say 100 for clarity sake. It doesnt mean that whoever salvaged 99 didnt exploit or doesnt diserve to get banned it simply means that they felt that 99 has an unacceptable risk for false positives while 100 doesnt. They took action against anyone who did more then 100. Thats all there is to it. The 100 is a discretionary ammount they come up with. Just like a judge might decide that someone who steals less then $500 might be better off getting of with probation then going to prison. Fine you know what Responsability is then care to answer the question and explain to us how letting exploiters off free is taking more responsability then fixing what you did wrong and taking action against whoever abused what you did wrong? What you're suggesting is simply to leave exploiters free to exploit and you have not yet explained how that will benefit anyone. The only thing you said is it makes devs more responsable which is frankly illogical because like it has been pointed before multiple times no reason why devs cant strive to be responsable and ban exploiters at the same time. Luckly we're lucky enough that Anet prefer not to have exploiters as costumers and if you look around you'll see plenty of games with people crying out for that same thing in their games. Cheaters make the game unfun for everyone (including themselves imho) I am not sure why you're defending them so much.

In a way, yes. You and your wife have combined economy, therefore her "gift" of a dinner is not a gift. A home cooked dinner at someone else's place is a gift, but not necessarily a bribe. In some places it is, or can be, in some places it can't possibly be. It depends on the actual wording of the law.

No, laws only apply to exactly what the laws state. In your example, the problem of "designer drugs" is well known, and is actually exactly what you describe. A molecule that has the same effects as MDMA, but is chemically different from it. In some countries this is solved by having the law ban, for example, all amphetamine-derivative analogs. This does not mean that such a law isn't explicit - it just says that drugs with the same effects as for example MDMA are banned regardless of their molecular strucure.
In other words, in such countries "immaginarium" would be illegal, in countries that only ban specific drugs based on molecule, it would not.

Yes, there are scam methods that are perfectly legal. And that means that the scam is legal as well - or rather, that it, legally speaking, isn't a scam.

No, ANet introduced the error. It doesn't matter that they did so by accident. And yes, they do have the power to undo "bad things" - since they can rollback, and since they can edit individual characters. Actually, editing individuals is a better idea. And yes, an exploit that runs for a month with a large section of the population using it, would cause damage - that just means that ANet, if they take responsibility for the exploit, have an additional profit motive to detect and fix it as soon as possible.
And that is good for us players!
I really have explained this several times, yet you do not understand it.

Gli, on 01 February 2013 - 05:09 PM, said:

Of course they are, don't be silly. They are not only the 'complete creator of the game world', they're also its sole proprietor, and with that distinction comes the privilige of not having to take crap from greedy players that stumble over themselves to exploit bugs or oversights that inevitably pop up in any comparably complex software product not tailored to perform critical processes. When they don't need to tolerate someone's continued presence, and they don't want to tolerate someone's continued presence, why would they tolerate someone's continued presence? Their perception of someone as valued costumer that's to be cherished and supported ends when that someone shows himself to be more trouble than he's worth through objectionable actions. Morality doesn't figure into it. It's just business. And again, ANet's responsibility doesn't figure into it either. The product is sold "as is", with provisions for refunds and damages as established by local law.

Sure, you can try to bug out and say that it is about business - and indeed, it is. Banning exploiting players is good for business in many ways. For example, ANet's bugs seems to be the exploiters' fault, the bandwidth costs for the servers are slightly reduced, and the exploiting players might even buy a new account.

But yes, morality does figure into it.

Trei, on 01 February 2013 - 05:17 PM, said:

I see you have totally missed the point of the post. Yeah, all one would have done was to cut up a rabbit for fun, or insult a blind man, or do all sorts of other stupid things... because it is possible, because they can, because they are given all that is necessary to do so, therefore they should! To think that I was actually concerned that sensible readers might actually take your argument about moral responsibility seriously... not anymore. Not after what you have just revealed about yourself. I no longer see the need to return to this thread.

No, not because it is possible and because they can. If you actually read what I wrote, then you'd see that I said that if you truly think that disabled people for some reason is beneath non-disabled ones, you should by all means say so, and if you live in Spain or Brazil, calling your son Adolpho would not be a problem. It is immoral to place the interests of nonhuman animals before interests of humans, it is immoral to request someone to shut up about what he really thinks, it is immoral to decide what someone else should call their kid (if it is socially acceptable in their culture).

You have nothing. Besides, ANet is banning exploiters too just because they can. Not because they should.

Red Sonya, on 01 February 2013 - 06:33 PM, said:

If you didn't do anything wrong you wouldn't be punished.

Unless the ones dealing out punishment is trying to cover for something that they did wrong.

Edited by raspberry jam, 04 February 2013 - 09:44 AM.

[XPhiler]

raspberry jam, on 04 February 2013 - 09:43 AM, said:

In a way, yes. You and your wife have combined economy, therefore her "gift" of a dinner is not a gift. A home cooked dinner at someone else's place is a gift, but not necessarily a bribe. In some places it is, or can be, in some places it can't possibly be. It depends on the actual wording of the law.

No, laws only apply to exactly what the laws state. In your example, the problem of "designer drugs" is well known, and is actually exactly what you describe. A molecule that has the same effects as MDMA, but is chemically different from it. In some countries this is solved by having the law ban, for example, all amphetamine-derivative analogs. This does not mean that such a law isn't explicit - it just says that drugs with the same effects as for example MDMA are banned regardless of their molecular strucure.
In other words, in such countries "immaginarium" would be illegal, in countries that only ban specific drugs based on molecule, it would not.

Yes, there are scam methods that are perfectly legal. And that means that the scam is legal as well - or rather, that it, legally speaking, isn't a scam.

No, ANet introduced the error. It doesn't matter that they did so by accident. And yes, they do have the power to undo "bad things" - since they can rollback, and since they can edit individual characters. Actually, editing individuals is a better idea. And yes, an exploit that runs for a month with a large section of the population using it, would cause damage - that just means that ANet, if they take responsibility for the exploit, have an additional profit motive to detect and fix it as soon as possible.
And that is good for us players!
I really have explained this several times, yet you do not understand it.

Sure, you can try to bug out and say that it is about business - and indeed, it is. Banning exploiting players is good for business in many ways. For example, ANet's bugs seems to be the exploiters' fault, the bandwidth costs for the servers are slightly reduced, and the exploiting players might even buy a new account.

But yes, morality does figure into it.

No, not because it is possible and because they can. If you actually read what I wrote, then you'd see that I said that if you truly think that disabled people for some reason is beneath non-disabled ones, you should by all means say so, and if you live in Spain or Brazil, calling your son Adolpho would not be a problem. It is immoral to place the interests of nonhuman animals before interests of humans, it is immoral to request someone to shut up about what he really thinks, it is immoral to decide what someone else should call their kid (if it is socially acceptable in their culture).

You have nothing. Besides, ANet is banning exploiters too just because they can. Not because they should.


Unless the ones dealing out punishment is trying to cover for something that they did wrong.

Going by your own example of designer drugs / amphetamine-derivative which is a generic definition how is that any different then an saying abusing any exploit. If someone buys a designer drug with a promise that its so new its not illegal yet how is s/he supposed to know what its drived from and if its truelly illegal or not?

Not only that but drug laws in most cases are way more broad then you state. In the US for example its not just derivatives that are illegal but also if they have a similar chemical structure. Many countries have laws again designer drugs.

They dont have the power to undo bad things, only a full revert would that. Think about it. Person A created 500 ectos through the exploit and sold them cheaply thus all 500 got sold. Person B bought them and crafted various named Exotic and put them up for sale again. Person C bought those crafted items and sold/salvaged his/her old set now that he got the new set. How are you going to revert that? just remove the profit Person A did? sure okey what about the price drop ectos suffered because of other people like Person A undercutting severly everyone else? what about Person B? he didnt exploit but he still profited subtentially because of Person A exploiting. Do you take his/her profit as well? what about people like Person C? they didnt really profit because Person B didnt undercut by much but technically his equipement shouldnt exist. So tell me how would you revert this rather simple mess. Now multiple that by what actually happened you got 200 person A and it wasnt 500 ectos as 270k which means who knows what the count of even persons B is never mind Persons C. What for sure is to manually go in and revert all of this you'd tie up support for months making it worst for legitimate users who seek support. Most of all why would you want this? because a developer / a tester made a mistake and didnt realise the new update was exploitable? While you want whoever actually exploited and caused the mess to walk on free like nothing happened so they'll have absolutely no reason to even think twice next time they run across another exploit? and what for? this? "have an additional profit motive to detect and fix it as soon as possible." isnt avoiding to give 200 people full refunds of anything they sold a much bigger profit motive to detect and fix it as soon as possible? btw they just took 2 days to detect and fix the exploit. I hope you're not going to argue 2 days isnt good enough.

Its not that I dont understand it, its just that it makes no sense. Leaving players free to exploit as they please will not generate a profit motivation to fix anything. I really dont see it. whatever profit damage exploiters do (gold->gem is really the only way I can think) still happened. Those ectos were still sold and people will still flip them once the price recovers, people will still craft stuff with the each ectos they both so arenanet are still going to loose the money from that exploit its just that it will not be the exploiters who profit. In addition by banning the guilty and giving them refunds not only they loose the profit you're mentioning but they're missing 200 potential customers in the gem shop (one of which we know had already bought $140 worth of gems so quite a good customer even)  but they're also loosing 200 box sales + Credit card charges and whatever gems those 200 people bought. They definitely made it more expensive on them by banning those players then they would if they had left them be. Please explain to me exactly how you believe Anet saved money by banning them cause in all honestly I cannot figure out how you got to that conclusion.

Bandwith costs are slightly reduced? are you going to tell me that you think that the box sale itself will not pay for the bandwidth? I think you're vastly overestimate bandwith costs. Or are you conviniently forgetting they didnt just ban players but they gave them full refunds including gem purchases they made. Ergo they saved a fraction of what they paid to do the ban.


Care to explain how banning exploiters covers the fact of you letting an exploit slip by in the first place? I fail to see how thats possible to be honest.

[raspberry jam]

XPhiler, on 04 February 2013 - 10:43 AM, said:

Going by your own example of designer drugs / amphetamine-derivative which is a generic definition how is that any different then an saying abusing any exploit. If someone buys a designer drug with a promise that its so new its not illegal yet how is s/he supposed to know what its drived from and if its truelly illegal or not?

Not only that but drug laws in most cases are way more broad then you state. In the US for example its not just derivatives that are illegal but also if they have a similar chemical structure. Many countries have laws again designer drugs.

They dont have the power to undo bad things, only a full revert would that. Think about it. Person A created 500 ectos through the exploit and sold them cheaply thus all 500 got sold. Person B bought them and crafted various named Exotic and put them up for sale again. Person C bought those crafted items and sold/salvaged his/her old set now that he got the new set. How are you going to revert that? just remove the profit Person A did? sure okey what about the price drop ectos suffered because of other people like Person A undercutting severly everyone else? what about Person B? he didnt exploit but he still profited subtentially because of Person A exploiting. Do you take his/her profit as well? what about people like Person C? they didnt really profit because Person B didnt undercut by much but technically his equipement shouldnt exist. So tell me how would you revert this rather simple mess. Now multiple that by what actually happened you got 200 person A and it wasnt 500 ectos as 270k which means who knows what the count of even persons B is never mind Persons C. What for sure is to manually go in and revert all of this you'd tie up support for months making it worst for legitimate users who seek support. Most of all why would you want this? because a developer / a tester made a mistake and didnt realise the new update was exploitable? While you want whoever actually exploited and caused the mess to walk on free like nothing happened so they'll have absolutely no reason to even think twice next time they run across another exploit? and what for? this? "have an additional profit motive to detect and fix it as soon as possible." isnt avoiding to give 200 people full refunds of anything they sold a much bigger profit motive to detect and fix it as soon as possible? btw they just took 2 days to detect and fix the exploit. I hope you're not going to argue 2 days isnt good enough.

Its not that I dont understand it, its just that it makes no sense. Leaving players free to exploit as they please will not generate a profit motivation to fix anything. I really dont see it. whatever profit damage exploiters do (gold->gem is really the only way I can think) still happened. Those ectos were still sold and people will still flip them once the price recovers, people will still craft stuff with the each ectos they both so arenanet are still going to loose the money from that exploit its just that it will not be the exploiters who profit. In addition by banning the guilty and giving them refunds not only they loose the profit you're mentioning but they're missing 200 potential customers in the gem shop (one of which we know had already bought $140 worth of gems so quite a good customer even)  but they're also loosing 200 box sales + Credit card charges and whatever gems those 200 people bought. They definitely made it more expensive on them by banning those players then they would if they had left them be. Please explain to me exactly how you believe Anet saved money by banning them cause in all honestly I cannot figure out how you got to that conclusion.

Bandwith costs are slightly reduced? are you going to tell me that you think that the box sale itself will not pay for the bandwidth? I think you're vastly overestimate bandwith costs. Or are you conviniently forgetting they didnt just ban players but they gave them full refunds including gem purchases they made. Ergo they saved a fraction of what they paid to do the ban.


Care to explain how banning exploiters covers the fact of you letting an exploit slip by in the first place? I fail to see how thats possible to be honest.

Drug dealers are usually untaxed, black market operators. That is illegal, but unfortunately in most countries where consumer rights laws exist, they don't cover black market purchases. "Amphetamine analog" (I didn't say amphetamine derivative, and indeed the law is not concerned with molecular structure but with biological effect) is generic, just like "murder" is generic. "Murder" does not specify the methods used, just the fact that there was a killing, that it was premediated, and that it was not permitted by some other law.
It is different from an exploit because it does not involve second guessing the intents of the developer. If it is a drug that gives similar effects to amphetamine or any of its derivatives, then it is illegal.

Er, yes, many countries have laws against designer drugs, that's what we have been talking about for two posts now... Do you even follow the discussion?
See, you can't just ban "designer drugs" period. Because every single drug that is being developed in medical laboratories around the world is a "designer drug" to some amount. The antibiotic levofloxacin is a "designer drug" because it was invented in a lab... Would you ban that? If you made a law banning "designer drugs" then it would become illegal. Levofloxacin is used to treat really heavy diseases like anthrax and plague; maybe you'd prefer to have people die from that instead.
That's why laws against designer drugs carefully specify what they mean, and that's why the law specifically address analogs of various known drugs.

Yes, a full revert would do it, and a rollback is a full revert. Again you prove that you don't even know what words mean.
Not to mention, of course, that what ANet actually did was to ban the exploiter, thus in your example, the damage to the economy still remains.

No, gems for 200 people is not enough of a profit motive; selling expansions to potentially hundreds of thousands of people is.
And yes, it was found in 2 days; that proves that your example about an exploit lingering for a month is unlikely to happen and therefore meaningless.

Leaving players free to exploit obviously means that ANet will have a vested interest in allowing as few exploits as possible. I don't know how you could fail to understand that.

Sure, the box sale will probably cover the bandwidth, but that is beside the point. If you can sell the box and then not have to pay for bandwidth, you would obviously make a profit there.

I have explained several times how banning exploiters make it look as if the exploit was the fault of the playerbase instead of the fault of the developer.

[XPhiler]

raspberry jam, on 04 February 2013 - 11:51 AM, said:

Drug dealers are usually untaxed, black market operators. That is illegal, but unfortunately in most countries where consumer rights laws exist, they don't cover black market purchases. "Amphetamine analog" (I didn't say amphetamine derivative, and indeed the law is not concerned with molecular structure but with biological effect) is generic, just like "murder" is generic. "Murder" does not specify the methods used, just the fact that there was a killing, that it was premediated, and that it was not permitted by some other law.
It is different from an exploit because it does not involve second guessing the intents of the developer. If it is a drug that gives similar effects to amphetamine or any of its derivatives, then it is illegal.

Er, yes, many countries have laws against designer drugs, that's what we have been talking about for two posts now... Do you even follow the discussion?
See, you can't just ban "designer drugs" period. Because every single drug that is being developed in medical laboratories around the world is a "designer drug" to some amount. The antibiotic levofloxacin is a "designer drug" because it was invented in a lab... Would you ban that? If you made a law banning "designer drugs" then it would become illegal. Levofloxacin is used to treat really heavy diseases like anthrax and plague; maybe you'd prefer to have people die from that instead.
That's why laws against designer drugs carefully specify what they mean, and that's why the law specifically address analogs of various known drugs.

Yes, a full revert would do it, and a rollback is a full revert. Again you prove that you don't even know what words mean.
Not to mention, of course, that what ANet actually did was to ban the exploiter, thus in your example, the damage to the economy still remains.

No, gems for 200 people is not enough of a profit motive; selling expansions to potentially hundreds of thousands of people is.
And yes, it was found in 2 days; that proves that your example about an exploit lingering for a month is unlikely to happen and therefore meaningless.

Leaving players free to exploit obviously means that ANet will have a vested interest in allowing as few exploits as possible. I don't know how you could fail to understand that.

Sure, the box sale will probably cover the bandwidth, but that is beside the point. If you can sell the box and then not have to pay for bandwidth, you would obviously make a profit there.

I have explained several times how banning exploiters make it look as if the exploit was the fault of the playerbase instead of the fault of the developer.

I agree with you that defining what an exploit is. It can be a bit hard to tell when something rewards more then what developers intended. Arenanet know that and thus never went against people when exploits can be a bit ambiguous. They only went after cases when such a situation was obvious. Most of the game rewards approxmately 1g per hour of play. If you crafted this exploit one by one (the most inefficient way to do it) and salvaged it one by on and stopped to sell 1 ecto every 5 salvages you would end up with 2 ecto for like 30 seconds work (I am being generous here) that means about 60s for 30 seconds. This means playing as inefficient as possible would earn you 72g per hour. Do you really think there is any question if this is an exploit or not?

Sure, hey people you all loose 2 days worth of progress because Rasberry jam thinks its better for the game if everyone suffers for what these exploiters did. Expect this to happen again since exploiters didnt really loose anything and are sure to try again. I know well a rollback would fix the problem but a rollback isnt feasable it would annoy everyone people that did nothing wrong included and what for so that exploiters are free to exploit whenever they feel like it?

Lol check with CCP about that. The faction warfare exploit has been there since faction warfare was introduced so it took months. I was personally aware of some exploits that ran for years. Just cause this one exploit quickly become public knoweldge it doesnt mean they all will.

Because Anet have a vested interest in having no exploits regardless if people are free to exploit or not. Thats plain obvious, what do they gain with exploits in the game? nothing, what do they loose? more money made by exploiters means less gem purchases, people leaving the game cause no one likes to play a game ripe with exploits, exploiters get bored of the game quickly (what do you play for when you have everything ?)

Sure if you sell the box and then you have less bandwidth usage you make more profit but you're completing ignoring the fact that whoever got banned got a refund hence then didnt get extra profit from them because they got the money from the box and saved the bandwidth they'd use on top of that no. They gave him the money back, lost the money for the bandwidth he used from the moment he bought the game until the moment he got banned and also whatever credit card / bank charges that where incurrent at the sale and for the charge back. So your statement is completely wrong on all counts. Banning these players wasnt an extra profit for Anet because of saved bandwidth, it was a cost nothing else.

No you havent not once and you cannot because its absurd. Banning exploiters shines a spotlight on the fact you have an exploit and only developers can create exploits. I have yet to see anyone claim the exploit was the fault of whoever got banned but please feel free to look around and find me a single post were someone states the exploit was the fault of whoever got banned.