Money exploit: Confession Window

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

Due to a bug which allows players to duplicate the money we investigated the data in the database and we found evident traces of people exploiting the bug willingly. Those chars will be deleted. If you wish to save your character from deletion we will provide a small window of time for people to come forward and admit to having exploit cash. Those who come forward will be able to retain their character, but will have the money removed.

It is unfortunate that this occurs and people keep quiet about it, and we take no pleasure in having to remove money. Every effort is being made to keep all legitimately made money in play.

Please if you would like to keep your character and you have exploit money come forward now and save yourself the hours you have put into your character. We can tell very well who is doing this, and we realize our own role in it, this post and what comes after is our effort to lessen the impact of this on the honest players who have earned their way fairly.

Talad remains ever vigilant in the protection of his players, some of us might not be as nice.

You have 24 hours from this moment to respond before character deletion.

Please send an email to info@planeshift.it and provide this information:
- Name of character
- Money gained with the bugged money
- Items bought with the bugged money
- training payed with the bugged money

The server will stay down until we fix this situation.

[Cebot]

I am really glad the duplication bug was found early this time and is getting fixed. I also love the way you are going with that, giving people the chance to apologize honestly for it.
Although I think there might come up problems.

For one: Someone who has willingly exploited the bug to get rich very fast could apologize, loses just the tria and can continue as nothing happened before. But with the duped money that player could have bought items/training. So in case of such I would suggest at least a set-down of skills by 2 levels. This might sound a bit hard for some, for others it doesn't mean anything, but it shows that you are not going to tolerate the abusage of bugs and don't forget about it when they apologize for it.

Second: Those who did it once, maybe twice (I am not sure if it is trackable how often they did it, or how much money actually was duped by each) I think should get away with a bruised eye (losing the money).

Three: What is with those who accidently ran into that bug (including those who may not even have figured out that they ran into this bug)? I suggest to make a list of players available who were tracked down so far. So that these who accidently trapped into it still have the same chance of keeping their characters as those who willingly did it.
(Also, what will happen to these who have recieved duped money in a trade?)

Anyway, I like the idea of how you are going to handle the situation this time, just these 3 things came up to my mind about it

greetings,
Cebot

PS: for those who willingly abused the bug: Do you think it's fair play to do so? Others have worked hard to earn trias, many others will work even harder and then you come along abusing a bug this way...Think about your gameplay and how you'd feel if you had spent ages working for the money and someone just comes around being more rich in way less time. Be happy that this time no general wipe will be done. Last time a dupe bug was around every player suffered from it!

EDIT: fixed a typo

[Nikodemus]

I think the devs will know very well if someone is lying to them in the applogize e-mail;)

[Under the moon]

Guild members, I also recommend posting this in any guild site, forum, or IRC channel you have. You would not want to lose members and friends because someone heard about this too late.

[peeg]

Translated and posted on the german community as well ....

[Hassadria]

Can the devs keep the list of abusers and should something similar happen again and other glitch users will be revealed, compare them against the list and without remorse delete those who abused again? Maybe even ban, and account delete.

Miaua and Hassadria

[Piker]

I was hoping you'd make them confess in this thread, that would have been far better.

Right now it feels like they'll get away with it (their reputations) and just lose some items and duped tria, hardly punishment enough.... How about posting a list of those abusers once they have confessed?

[Mordaan]

It's darn near impossible to account for every scenario.  If a record is known of all those who actually used the exploit, that's good news.  That way the rest of us don't have to pay for the abuse of a few.  So, overall good job!

Wait...
What the heck is a confession window?   

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

window of opportunity to confess

[peeg]

A short time period in which you have the chance to confess what you've done.

I really hope those cheaters get a real punishment. Just deleting their cheated stuff seems far to slack to me.

[Parallo]

Typical. The day I finally get around to starting again and downloading the client on my new computer this happens! Bloody exploiters!

[Mordaan]

window of opportunity to confess

Ohhh, pfffft!  I totally misread that.  I thought that was the exploit...some sort of new screen.  lol   

[Raa]

Put the darned server back up. I want to plaaaay.

 

[SerqFeht]

What was the exploit, anyways? I haven't heard about it until now...

I think that there should be a little bit more of a punishment for those that exploited it a lot, and became wealthy for it, but not a large one for someone that accidentally found it, and never used it again.

[Caarrie]

What was the exploit, anyways? I haven't heard about it until now...

I dont think any dev plans on telling the public, those that abused it know what they are talking about.