window of opportunity to confess
What was the exploit, anyways? I haven't heard about it until now...
Ya i think that people who exploited that come foreward should get like a 1 or 2 week suspension from the game. Also, does anyone have a general idea when the servers will be back to normal?
Yeah, those who have exploited are going to face a lot of angry players when the game comes back... It's like in school when the whole class gets punished for one kid's misbehavior.
Just put some unremovable duncecaps on their avies for a month.... :devil:QuoteYeah, those who have exploited are going to face a lot of angry players when the game comes back... It's like in school when the whole class gets punished for one kid's misbehavior.
you mean for example
1.) standing next to them giving them the eye?
2.) equate them to them to being an NPC and have 8 people ask them if they need a quest?
3.) spam them with trade requests?
nothing will be done to them ingame.
In my opinion, the exploit should be explained in the forum. If I understand correctly and PlaneShift will be down until the exploit is no longer available, there is no possibility that anyone will be able to use it when the server comes back up. Thusly an explanation of how it was done will allow those who didn't realize they were doing and/or how they did it to confess their mistake and be exonerated. It may be clear who abused it to become rich; The logs see all. But what if I have done it accidentally and wasn't aware of it?
???
The way this is being handled it seems quite obvious that it's very very hard to find all the people exploiting this, that would be the only reason to open this 'confessional'. If it were easy for you to identify them all, you would just punish them all, not open this 'Honesty Box'.If they were having problems finding guilty people, then it would be much easyer to just clear the DB, i think, rahter than wait for people to raise their hands. This thread is just wanting to make things fair. If some one truly feels bad for what they did, and are willing to loose thier money they wrongfully earned, and what ever they baught with that ill-gotten money, and play with a guilt-free conscience, then this is thier oppertunity.
why punish those who didnt do anything wrong
The way this is being handled it seems quite obvious that it's very very hard to find all the people exploiting this, that would be the only reason to open this 'confessional'. If it were easy for you to identify them all, you would just punish them all, not open this 'Honesty Box'.
So hopefully the server downtime is purely to fix the bug in the system, as the only other reason I can see that you would put down the server is to stop the guilty ppl from covering their tracks, which would mean there is a possibility of getting away with it...
I think it would only make sense to plug the hole in the boat before you bail water. By taking the server offline is not punishing the player base, instead it is to protect it. It is the responsible thing to do. I myself appreciate them trying to protect the integrity of the game and the inventory of my characters by doing so :D
I would also like to point out that finding an exploit is not cheating....
Actually, those that can hunt them down and find them are doing the community a great service as long as they are handling their findings responsibly. As testers some of us are going to happen accross bugs in the game from time to time. There is no reason to be embarassed in finding them, especially if there is a gain of some type to be made. The right thing to do is to let a GM or Developer know through appropriate channels and move on.
Where it crosses into wrongdoing is when someone finds the bug and gains an unfair advantage by exploiting it and not notifying the PS team. By gaining tria, stats, weapons, and the like you didn't rightly earn you have crossed the line. By telling your friends about it and continuing to abuse it you are only making it worse. There is no good excuse for it other than laziness. It is dishonorable and the end result will always be you lose what you gained and more, unfortunately the rest of us will suffer as well :-\
I just feel like Im being punished when they said the server will be down till people come forward [...]
When something like this occurs, it is natural to say that it is a "problem" in the code. The reality of it is that there is no sign in the code that points saying, "problem is here". It can take much time to identify the nature of a "feature" such as this, longer to formulate a revision, and then longer to test it to be sure that it was fixed -- without breaking something else. I am fully supportive of keeping the server offline for as long as it takes to correct the problem.
this helps me get my mind off work.As he said, it has become more than just a game, it is a stress-reliever, but i, too, want things to come back soon. I has been months since i have been able to play, and i got PS yesterday, but late at night, so i havent had much chance to play.
[...]Names posted?What do you actually need their names for?
Anyway, I hope the exploiters will get a damn harsh punishment, up to a perma-banI read several saying things like that - two little points on that:
| (http://www.thismoment.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/blog/inquisition.jpg) | Now, old woman! You are accused of heresy on three counts. Heresy by thought, heresy by word, heresy by deed, and heresy by action. Four counts. Do you confess? |
I couldn't resist myself ;P
But, NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!
(http://www.thismoment.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/blog/inquisition.jpg) Now, old woman! You are accused of heresy on three counts.
Heresy by thought, heresy by word, heresy by deed, and heresy by action. Four counts.
Do you confess?
I am worried that maybe these trias were bad trias now. can anyone maybe calm me down and say that 20,000 is nothing for a high powered player and I have nothing to worry about, cause Im panicing right now that I will be mistaken for one of the people that cheated and my character will get deleted or worse.Yeah, I guess it's nothing for people who hold several million tria ;)
I wonder about 2 things
Was it really possible to use this bug without knowing it ?
And if so ... what if my Character is innocently wiped away ?
and ... *cough*
Have maybe the Guild-Houses been payed with that money ?
And if so ... *cough* ... what ?
I really would say it should be told public how the exploit worked to make all players be sure if they're save or not.
Don't worry Thazmaps. It takes less than two hours to make 25k tria by mining gold and making gold ingots. I was collecting tria to buy a guildhouse but I gave up when I saw prices like 7M so I started to give tria to the poor.
Btw, I think the punishment has to be unavoidable and fast to be effective. Not just cruel.
If you don't care for the way it is being handled, I can show you the exit, and you are free to leave and not return. :)
And for the rest of you that has been able to keep it professional and not run around screaming like a headless chicken, a movie. Enjoy :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGXxrjnVE9A
Who gave you the right to start a witch hunt which brings forth
So stop focusing on your revenge and bloodthirst, but use the time to figure out a new roleplaying-event for you can set up some kickass plot=PWhen a robber gets his sentence, it's not revenge, but executing law.
What I am against though is, having their names public.Oh, um. I didn't realise that was the intention.
Can't you post the list of characters being deleted/changed? (or just a hash of each, to blur it a bit)
Or how can I know that the chosen method to detect the exploiters is mathematically perfect and does not depend on probability?
About 3 hours remaining for the confessions, then we can restore the server.
Edit: Wait your location is France. Mustn't have set your local timezone.
as if killing gold mines is not enough of a wipe... Orino calm down...
everyting is posible, I can do about 130k in 8 houers.... so I think even after the wipe the most populated and active guilds, would make the prices of GHs go in the stars again... buceuse there are still a lot of guilds that want it tomuch... that much to ruin the game experience to them selves, just to optain it....
@evil scotsman: By the way, which one is Pink?
Due to RL concerns the server must remain down for at least 3 more hours, this was unavoidable so let us not gripe.
Stylee i do train higher levels.. but like in real life i dont try to get a PH.D. in 20 dif things.. what are you a metallurgist ,a magician .. a warrior or, all 3.. how many people do you know that have 10 PH.D.'s in real life you would spend a fortune to get a PH.D. in 1 thing as in TRAINING higher levels.. (HIGHER EDUCATION) costs alot of money.. i spend just as much as veryone else in training but i focus on 1 thing as a MAJOR and 1 thing as a MINOR study as in real life.. you cant train a PH.D. in 10 things and expect it to be cheap
i have a major in SWORDs with a minor in Crystal way.. my sword lvl is only around 80 and crystal way is around 40 every thing else is lower levels.. but no i dont train anything over 100 why would i need anything over 80 sword unless i was worried about dueling.. but back to the subject in real life you can only get a higher education in 1 thing maybe 2 if you are rich. but everyone else cant afford to get higher schooling because they are not wealthy enough
I want to see a public list of those cheaters. So that I can remove them from my buddy list and put'em on my ignore list. Such a list of names would also be helpful for guild people, so that they can decide whether they leave their guild or not. The damage on the honor of the guild is unremovable if there were those cheaters in it.
What about money and items cheaters have given to other players as a gift? In my opinion the material balance in the game is disastrous now. But: this only effects the balance, not the testing. As we all know: we are all alpha-testers. And I really like to be one.
>Enrion gives the developers a free beer and a pizza
I could not restrain myself, so I will give you my opinion on this. You won't like it.It's not a matter if we don't like it, more about the way it is written in. As far as I can see your post is constructive criticism - and thats always welcome, IMHO :)
What is this all about? We had a inventory code rewrite. A bug was left in the code. That is to be expected and it will not be the last bug. It will most probably not even be the last money making bug.I agree, it might not be the last bug, probably not even the last dupe bug, but the question is: do we want people to abuse bug for their own benefits?
The code runs on a public server, so people will use it and find the bug. So far so good. Because it is a public server, you will not only have your role playing friends trying the code but the complete mix of people who play with very different intentions.I agree here too, many different people might find a bug. But there are ways to make them public: GM's (by petition or sending one a tell, saying you might have found a bug), Forum/IRC: not that hard to make a forum post, describing what problem you have found. those who don't have a forum account might contact the devs (and/or the tester team) on IRC. There are different IRC channels about planeshift, in case of a bug I suggest you to directly join the public dev channel: #planeshift-build on Freenode, because in this channel the chances are higher to find an official Dev or an official Tester. There is yet another way to make the problem known, probably the most welcomed way: the Bugtracker! At http://bugs.hydlaa.com you can submit the bugs you have found, you can even reply to another bug report, saying you have experienced the same (or under different circumstances). However, there are ways to make bugs known. and those ways have been IMPROVED very well recently!
The roleplayers are the people who you want to play with.This is so absolutely not true!
But there will always be the people who only play for the thrill of advancing their characters and even those who play to find and exploit bugs. They will always be here and it is completely wasted emotions if you feel hurt by their doings. Live with it. They will stay here longer than you.Here I can agree once more. there are a lot of people playing the game for different reasons. There is also no problem when people find bugs and report them - not at all! There is a problem with people finding bugs, keeping them secretly or sharing them to their "friends" to have a small group of people that advances from this bug. This is not only unfair for other players who work hard to earn the tria and develop their characters, it also hinders the advancing of the game as a whole.
And by the way, they are the best bug hunters, so you even want to keep them as testers. This is the way it is done in the security industry all the time.
Now a money making bug has been found and exploited. As I said before that is neither surprising nor will it be the last time. What are the consequences? Lets look at what you can do with all the money: You can buy training but only if you have the necessary progress points, so you have solved only half of the problem. You may have billions of Tria but it won't help you much. Oh, you could buy a guild house. Well, that is another thing only half thought through and a problem I better not go into now. Probably the worst thing you can do with all the money is ruin the market for the few things that are traded in game. But that will equalize itself fast after the bug has been fixed. It is only a small shock for an economy that hardly was balanced in the past and will not be for a long time to come. So what is the point of all this excitement? Why even bother with a few cheaters?I agree once more, not very surprising that a bug has been found, remember the game is still in development.
Now how is this problem handled? The server is shut down for fixing. That is surely the right thing(TM) to do. We are told, that there is a sure way to find the cheaters and that their accounts will be deleted. Well, this sounds like overreacting to me. A cheater will have a new account in no time and if this is his or her main intention in the game the deletion of the old account will only be a minor nuisance.What has a cheater from cheating if he does not spend the money? Nothing but a sack full of money! Tho, Mr Cheater will buy training and train his character up, as for skills that takes some time, a lot of time. Now the character (NOT the account) will be deleted and Mr Cheater has to train again, without being able to produce tons of trias he will need more time now. - thats in my eyes some minor punishment, but it is a punishment. I think Mr cheater will try to abuse other bugs in the future too (as you mentioned, there are people whose intention it is to do so). The devs have found them one time and will find them again, thats for sure. And I am pretty sure if Mr Cheater gets caught twice, the punishment will be even harder: Banishment from the game.
If the way to determine cheaters is not absolutely foolproof and you cannot really separate them from people who found the bug and maybe never noticed, you will hurt only the people who you punish wrongly. Only think about all the guilds where large sums of money are currently collected for the guild treasure by members working day and night to get enough money to have perhaps a chance of aquiring a guild house! Punishing only one player wrongly will do more harm than anything you can gain by punishing the right people. I can only hope that you are totally aware of this.That was exactly what I mentioned with my first post. No one is save from trapping into a bug and not noticing it and many people were worrying that they get punished now too. But if you had been around for the previous dupe bug you might know how it was handeled there: A money and item wipe, everyone suffered from it, many have complained about it, but at the end they moved on and kept playing (or left the game). The devs have heard these complaints and this is why they are handling it different this time.
Why don't you keep it behind the curtains? If you know who cheated you also have their mail addresses. Therefore you can handle the whole affair silently perhaps with the announcement that these people have been or will be dealt with.As far as I can see the devs are handling it mostly behind the scenes, they do not have published a list of those they have caught. I wish they had published the list, so that those who have cheated get blamed publically for it and those who accidently trapped into the bug or are on the list because they have cheated money but did not cheat theirself, neither knew it was cheated money know about it and can send an email to the devs.
And now this abysmal thread. Who gave you the right to judge your players morally? Who gave you the right to start a witch hunt which brings forth - as you can already read in this thread - all the bad things in people even down to denouncing others? This is an outrage and completely unresponsible and being in a position of power you really should know better than this!Who gives them the right to judge other players morally? I guess that questions is answered by itself: The moral gives the right for that. Tho the devs are not judging the players morally here, the players do (me included). Why? Simple! Most people play the game for joy, spend a lot of time with the game and the project as a whole, the devs spend their free time with the project and it not fair to ruin other peoples work this way. Tho I ask myself why YOU are asking who gives them the right, it sounds like you feel judged, it even sounds like you have something to hide and don't want it to become public. Do you? :P
P.S.: No, I don't like cheaters but I also know that they are unavoidable and the faster you learn this lesson the better you can sleep in the future.They are unavoidable as a whole, but the individual cheater might get caught and it is way better to do this, than to punish all players by a mass wipe
Lol,
"Forgive me father for I have sinned..."
10 fricken pages...what is there to talk about? These are people who exploited a bug, it's no different from the time items were being duped and it took Elvi running around Hydlaa dropping rare duped weapons for it to get fixed. Don't repeat the mistake, fix it early and ban the people who are running around with all of this duped crap.
Typical. The day I finally get around to starting again and downloading the client on my new computer this happens! Bloody exploiters!
10 fricken pages...what is there to talk about? These are people who exploited a bug, it's no different from the time items were being duped and it took Elvi running around Hydlaa dropping rare duped weapons for it to get fixed. Don't repeat the mistake, fix it early and ban the people who are running around with all of this duped crap.
for crying out laud Suno, that wasn't me d'oh