Slashdot Mirror
ArenaNet Suspends Digital Sales of Guild Wars 2
kungfugleek writes "Throughout the launch of subscription-free MMO Guild Wars 2, ArenaNet has stated that the player-experience is their top priority and, if necessary, they would suspend digital sales to protect their servers from crushing loads. While the launch has been considerably more stable than most big-budget MMO's in recent months, some players, especially those in Europe, have experienced trouble logging in and getting booted from servers. So yesterday, ArenaNet held true to their word, and temporarily suspended digital sales from their website. Personally, I think this is an incredible show of customer-centered focus. To turn down purchases, especially first-party purchases, where the seller gets a higher percentage of the sale, during a major title's first week of sales, would be inconceivable by other companies. Is this a bad move for ArenaNet? Will there be enough of a long-term payout to make up for the lost sales? And does this put pressure on other major studios to follow suit in the face of overwhelming customer response?"
New submitter charlieman writes with related news: "Yesterday ArenaNet banned players for exploiting an error in their new game Guild Wars 2. The so called exploit was in fact an error on ArenaNet's side, leaving weapons at a low price from some vendors. Players saw this and started making profits buying and selling the items.
Should players be penalized for errors committed by the game developers? Taking in account that the game is fairly new, the economy hasn't stabilized yet and most don't know the value of things. Today they've given these players a 'second chance', but shouldn't they be apologizing instead?"
To be honest, I do not think it is necessary. Most folks know what is right from wrong in real life. The fact that it is a game means very little.
If, for instance a electronic trading firm decided to offer shares at far below market price and I decided to buy, they only need to put in a call to their local stock exchange to cancel it. How is this any different? ArenaNet accidentally offered something for sale for too little money, and the players, being rational consumers bought at a low price and sold at a higher price. This is capitalism.
As a general statement, of course not. But these players *should* be penalized for knowingly exploiting those errors for profit - that goes against the spirit of the game, and lowers the general quality of play, things that should be greatly frowned upon when done intentionally.
LegendMUD
Let's not start with the reddit meme all over again. In comparison to every other MMO arenanet punishes players instead of focusing on fixing problems.
Payday for a lot of people (including myself), go onto site to buy it and oh look... Not sure I can be bothered waiting for amazon copy to arrive, being weekend and all...
And I suppose being arrested for receiving stolen goods after taking advantage of a shady boot sale is also terribly unfair?
There's this little voice in your head that says "this is too good to be legal," and you're supposed to listen to it.
If you're a gamer and you found a way to make the game do something it clearly shouldn't let you do (i.e., teleport across the battlefield, buy high-end gear at unreasonably low prices, disconnect other players, etc.), you're exploiting. Period. And if you keep doing it, you're knowingly and intentionally exploiting. And a lifetime ban is simply the kindest thing you deserve.
Contrary to popular opinion, "whatever you can get away with" is not a valid ethical choice, and if you get busted, whining about it just looks douchbaggish and immature.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
> Should players be penalized for errors committed by the game developers?
That's basically how every exploit ever could be summed up. Some are more obvious than others.
In the case of the specific currency trading (karma to gold), most of the bans from what I've read are temporary ones. The one big 'high-profile' ban was some video streamer who after getting the tempban encouraged his viewers to harass ANet into unbanning him, which as a result netted him a permanent one.
The game is fantastic so far, and ANet has been very forthcoming with information on bugs, problems, bans, etc.
Sorry, no sympathy. The people who got banned bought *thousands* of weapons. That falls *squarely* in the realm of exploiting game mechanics, it doesn't matter where the fault lies. This comment on Reddit says it best:
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
It's not at all unreasonable to ban players for exploiting.
SE banned FFXI players for exploiting a similar bug (buy low from NPC / sell high to NPC) when the CoP expansion came out. So it is not the first time players have taken the punishment for testing failures of the developer.
I've heard this shit several times that if the developer doesn't produce magical bug-free code then dickheads have every right to exploit the shit out of the bug and ruin the game for everyone else as it's the 'fault of the devs' for 'letting them do it'. I've seen other MMO economies trashed by such stupidity on the part of the players and so at the very least temp bans should be handed out to discourage such retards from wrecking other people's enjoyment.
After a very cursory and unscientific perusal of the comments on reddit and slashdot, I find it interesting that (in general) slashdotters seem to more supportive of the banning of people who exploited the bug, while redditors seem to think that ArenaNet acted too harshly.
LegendMUD
That you do not want to argue what some other site had on it? So how does that make it 'right' again?
So the error was caught and fixed. Those that exploited it were dealt with. I have no sympathy for them. Why should I? Because it is a game? Games have rules. If you do not follow the rules of a game you are usually tossed out. For example in chess there is nothing physically stopping me from moving my pieces anywhere on the board. But if I did that no one will play with me.
Cold busted.. deal with it... Consider it a 50 dollar life lesson.
What are you talking about? The exploit was fixed within hours.
Players got banned for buying low and selling high?
I'm glad I didn't get that game, because I probably would have been banned too.
There are a few RPGs where you can buy things in one town and sell them in another for higher, and I've always abused that to make gold.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
About sales: the game is still available in box form from game stores and online (such as Amazon). The digital sale stop was not meant to completely stop incoming player population, just to slow it down.
Furthermore on this topic, ArenaNet has been trying to keep the number of servers low so they don't end up with a lot of empty servers when the initial hype dies down. Though, due to player and guild names being globally unique, doing server merges are much easier compared to other games.
About bans: ArenaNet is banning for exploiting because they want to send a very clear message that exploiting design errors will not be tolerated. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is and shouldn't be taken advantage of. There was an item for that that was selling for a fraction of its expected cost, so some people bought hundreds (or thousands) of that item to be used for other purposes (crafting and mystic forge). ArenaNet banned those player. People that did around 50-100 purchases just got a 3 day suspension.
To add, people that were banned are being given the option to submit a customer service ticket and have their account unbanned and converted to a 72-hour suspension instead. They must also promise to delete any items or money they gained through the exploit. This was done as it was the first exploit found in the game.
ArenaNet is doing all this to send a very clear message on how they expect their players to behave, and I'm happy they are.
Its not what it is, its something else.
Use of exploits, errors, cheats of ANY SORT! in an online multiplayer game should be punished very very harshly. As in starting with a minimum of one month ban. No refunds.
When you find such a thing there should only be one action. Report it. Period. End of story.
It's the only way to have a good stable community of long term gamers. Instead of a fad game full of exploiting kiddies that move onto the next game after they 'own' and ruin yours.
As evidence you can look at any of the thousands of games where they did not punish them harshly or at all. You might have to dig tho. Many of those games no longer exist because they failed and died.
Was there anything the players had to do other than buy and sell? If not, I consider this a valid example of buy low/sell high.
If on the other hand, the players had to do something funky to get these low prices, I would consider the ban legit.
About sales: the game is still available in box form from game stores and online (such as Amazon). The digital sale stop was not meant to completely stop incoming player population, just to slow it down.
But are they shipping new boxes to stores? They can't do much about what stores already have in inventory.
Pay players, who find serious game flaws, to report them, with in-game credit. If a player can make a cool $1 million dollars by barely lifting a finger (i.e. submitting a bug report, perhaps using an in-game interface), wouldn't that be preferable to grinding said $1 million dollars for hours on-end?
Can we please not link to shit on reddit? It's bad enough we get cross-over douchebags spreading their shitty memes and infecting discussions here with their idiotic level of circle-jerking inane commentary. We don't need to encourage them.
Comparison in real life, this is like a vendor mis-priced items on the shelf - the merchant could possibly stop it at the cashier and revise it or whatever, but if he sold it fair and square transaction complete and customer out the door with the goods, is there any recourse?
I might be old and bought up on a diet of Pacman and other 80s awesomeness....
but I cant help but think....
Its just a a FUCKING computer game!
No wonder my gaming interest has dropped off in recent years. This is all moronic.
"Just because you can, doesn't mean you should."
There are people out there that forget this, or flat out don't believe in that line of thinking. Cheating is cheating, whether in a game or in real life. Unfortunately, my nephews were brought up believing it is perfectly fine to use public aid as much as you possibly can regardless if you actually need it or not. The problem is, their yardstick for measuring what needs are is broken compared to what hardworking folk would think. Most people will file these things under desires or even luxuries, but seldom are they actually needs. For my nephews, that line of thinking easily crosses over into computer games. They think that because they found a way to "beat the system" means they should do it as often as possible before it gets changed. Their morality compass is skewed by how they were brought up to think. They honestly find nothing wrong with it. Their normal mode of thinking is selfish, and they never think about how their actions will affect others in the same group.
This is just my nephews, who unfortunately, were brought up this way. I know of many more people, some personally, some through friends, that have this same type of default mode of thinking. I will even go as far to generalize that this type of thinking can be very generational - as in it is passed down generation through generation.
Kudos for ArenaNet for towing the line and banning people who are obviously exploiting game inconsistencies or bugs. With a system this complex, nobody can expect everything to be 100% correct all the time.
For a different example, I was watching a YT vid of a GW2 raid. The leader of the raid was actively telling the other people how to use positional exploits to avoid damage so they could get through content without much danger. That kind of thing pisses me off. For almost exactly the same reasons. It almost makes me wish there was a community reward program for reporting players like this. Unfortunately, I fear there is more room for abuse then what good it would do.
I don't even play these games anymore, but I have been following this today. I can't believe anyone thinks its okay for a company to charge you for a product, then when you use it as it was designed to ban you. Can you imagine if Microsoft of Apple did this. Opps you found a flaw in our software, your no longer allowed to use it. Any sane company would of reversed the transactions or destroyed the items, fixed the bug, and said they were sorry. Honestly if they banned me for playing a game I bought from them I would sue.
Where in the rules does it say "dont buy this jsut to sell it"? That would be like banning players In TOR back when slicing would net you a giant heap of credits every hour. If its in the game and you dont have to break anything to do it, its legal.
It's both an example of buy low sell high AND an exploit. You'd have to be retarded to not see this would crash the economy. To suggest they thought it was intentional is dishonesty worth of the Romney campaign.
Just wipe their accounts of all characters after the bug is fixed. They can keep playing, but they will have to start over from scratch.
They committed a virtual crime, punish them accordingly. Banning their accounts is like a virtual death sentence and disenfranchises them of real world money. At least wiping their characters gives them a chance to reform and return to being productive members of the community.
of an obvious bug is an exploit. Right or wrong, it's just rude.
Just because you don't chain up your bike, doesn't mean it's ok is someone takes it.
The developer side of things need to be done internally.
Frankly. I hope they were able to take the money they made away from the people who did it more then once.
.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I know I didn't anticipate it, but one of the unforseen benefits of a "no monthly fee" game is that they can do this - flat-out BAN players who exploit the game, or who ignore repeated warnings.
Anet has made a significant effort to warn people about names like Penishead or FloppyTitLover as inappropriate, giving them 72 hours to think about it when they don't change.
And they've aggressively suspended accounts for people shouting 'faggot' over general chat.
Now they flat-out ban people that are obviously exploiting the game.
I don't care if it's dull as checkers, I'm going to buy their next expansion just to show me support for this behavior.
What I find particularly pathetic is that people are having so much trouble over this. "But there's no stated POLICY that I couldn't name my toon 'D1cksm0ker'!" and
"They didn't rez me, so I got angry and called them a faggot on chat, so what, free speech!"
If you sincerely have trouble understanding appropriate conduct and inappropriate conduct in these obvious circumstances, either your parents failed or you're starting to believe the internet libertarian lawyer brigade who assert that if it isn't specifically prohibited, it's practically mandatory.
Personally, I prefer a world in which there ARE social norms like saying please and thank you, and not calling someone a "cocksucker" just because they play better than I do in pvp. I don't find the behavior boundaries that hard to conform to, nor do most people.
-Styopa
Publishers want to sell as many copies of their game in the first week while people still have a fever for it - especially handy when a game is really not all that great. If ArenaNet expects the game to be so good that it's played for the next ten years, the first week of sales holds a smaller significance. And, btw, notice how Nintendo doesn't hold to the "first week of sales" philophy when they have game and hardware shortages? A lot of people couldn't get Wiis for a long time after it was first released and it still sold well. I have a feeling that "The so called exploit was in fact an error on ArenaNet's side, leaving weapons at a low price from some vendors" is not the whole story, there may well be more to it. But, still, even if it were the case ArenaNet's been swamped with support cases that they likely just made a mistake. It happens and the "offenders" got reinstated. The "offender"'s intentions are a little questionable, though, who buys tons of items and sells them for a profit withing an MMO unless they're farming?
and then a Memo is put out requesting that the boxes be placed on Hold (the DM will see this in moments and he will then light up the phone tree to get this to the stores).
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
no they fix problems and punish people who abuse an obvious flaw.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Just go to gamestop and buy the online version there :P
The sale isn't blocked on retailers.
No slicing still gives free money, it's supposed to. It's just supposed to be rate limited, and the rate was too high initially. This would be like finding an instant respawn that infinitely re spawned slicing container that always produced a significant amount of credits. Looting it once is legitimate. Looting it twice is understandable. Looting it for hours over and over is clearly an exploit.
When they *didn't* ban people after having had the one day huge honour exploit on ilum they screwed up PVP for months, there were suddenly a pile of people who did exploit, that were now rank 60 and getting all the best gear, and everyone else who needed a couple of hundred hours of work to get to the same point. It was a mess.
All the companies will have in their TOS that you can't exploit a game bug to personal benefit, and that you can't take unfair advantage of game mechanics the same way, this is probably technically the latter, but that's the point - it's exploiting a game mechanic to make money. Buying and selling once could believably be legitimate, a couple of more times and it's not really serious (imagine you could do this every day, but only twice, well.. so what? ) but for hours on end, that's bad....
So if I exploit bank software and take all you money, it's legal?
How about exploiting a flaw in your router and moving all your data to my machines, is that legal?(Note I said mv not cp)
No, abusing obvious exploits is rude, and it's wrong. Note everything need to be codified into a strict rule book. Welcome to a society, watch you manners and have fun.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You have a gap in your logic there. Players were not punished for the error, but for EXPLOITING the bug.
Open window? Your problem. Me climbing in? Breaking and entering. It really is that simple
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
You see it with regards to breaking in to systems all the time. There's this attitude that it is 100% the responsibility of the user to secure their system and if they don't have perfect security, it is fair game to break in. That is not the law, of course, but geeks will argue the point continually. They think if you can do it in the electronic realm, that means it should be ok to do.
Of course it always amuses me that none of them feel the same way about the physical world, they'd all be very mad if you broke in their house, which I guarantee would be easy to do (almost nobody has good home security).
It's too bad this story is split. It is obvious the exploit/ban topic is stirring up much more conversation than the headline topic about the suspension in sales. When I read the story I was really more interested in seeing discussion about the sales decision.
Oh really? I remember back after a major patch in WoW where PvP gear was mistakenly put up for nothing, and a few bans got issued for exploiting it. Not to mention the screwed up launch of LFR, where several guilds got bans that took them out of contention for world firsts because of gear exploiting the mistake by blizzard that allowed gear trading.
Buying from an in-game merchant that is there to sell stuff and selling to an in-game merchant who is there to buy stuff (usually the same merchant) has never been an exploit in any game I've ever played. I guess GW2 has strange rules.
WTF is with these "economies" in video games? People can't even set up a properly working, stable economy in the real world due to greed, corruption, and outright stupidity. If thieves like Goldman Sachs are allowed to cheat and get away with it to the tune of billions of "real" dollars, who the fuck cares if someone makes a few extra gold coins in a fucking video game?
Dude, I didn't roll a lawful/good character. Deal with my chaotic/evil ways. :P
#SickNotWeak
1) Software Bug = (Wikipedia def) "software bug is an error, flaw, mistake, failure, or fault in a computer program or system that produces an incorrect or unexpected result, or causes it to behave in unintended ways. Most bugs arise from mistakes and errors made by people in either a program's source code or its design"
2) Exploit (in regards to computer gaming) = (Wikipedia def) "An exploit, in video games, is the use of a bug or glitches, rates, hit boxes, or speed, etc. by a player to their advantage in a manner not intended by the game's designers"
3) GW2 Terms of Service entry 17: "You will not exploit any bug in Guild Wars 2 and you will not communicate the existence of any such exploitable bug (bugs that grant user unnatural or unintended benefits) either directly or through public posting, to any other use of guild wars 2"
Therefore
Yes, Exploiting (point 2) a bug (point 1) should get you banned (point 3).
> The so called exploit was in fact an error on ArenaNet's side,
> leaving weapons at a low price from some vendors. Players
> saw this and started making profits buying and selling the items
In EQ, people on the public test server (which exercises changes coming down the river on an industrial scale) saw the vendor price for some crafting pattern go way up. Well, if the sell price goes up, so does the buy price, even if it is just a ridiculously small fraction.
So off to the live servers they go and load up every backpack and bank slot with stacks of these patterns. Update happens, bam! 5000 plat in the bank. At that early point in the game it was mildly godlike.
I still recall the community letter bleating about [Mort Goldman voice on] how awful, just awful, you players are.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
...by pirating. Because information wants to be free, maaan, and you have no right to keep it from us.
This sits wrong with me, if you are going to ban someone who didn't hack (modify code) on an exploit, you also need to refund the cost of the game.
I understand why exploits like this are unethical, I totally understand removing the ill-gotten gains in game, heck I would even be OK with digitally penalizing the characters. But preventing someone from using a game for playing by the rules laid out is too much. The players paid real world money for this and a digital fix is too easy.
There is no doubt the players were seeking a morally unfair advantage for themselves, but they were not directly trying to harm or remove enjoyment from others even if they did so indirectly. If the problem can be solved in game, and it can, it should be.
There is a much bigger issue at stake here about customer rights to electronic purchases.
I remember something similar in Everquest where one NPC was selling items vastly cheaper than they should. There was a rollback and I believe a handful of people were banned for seriously exploiting it.
It's fairly easy to see what's wrong with murder, theft or assault. But what, precisely is wrong here? It's not like only limited people can use this exploit, is it.
And if an "unfair leg-up" is "wrong", then it's wrong to have an auction house where you can pay money to get new bling.
What, exactly, have they done wrong? And where, precisely, are the laws written down that state this, in the same way as we have in our real-life judicial system?
People who approve of people who reduce their taxes by finding methods of deducting expenses should have NO problem accepting the people who exploit errors in the game to get game-only wealth.
Is it someone else's fault that you dropped a tenner yesterday and I found it today?
No.
Even though it is "obvious" it wasn't my money, I kept it.
And where, precisely, is the harm? EVERY window was open and EVERYONE could walk through them.
It is no different than knowing the triangle-triangle-triangle punch in Tekken is an exploit. It's absolutely no consequence at all.
Maybe instead of 100 hours farming some people got away with only 20 hours farming for gold. Big whooo.
Because many people play video games to escape the obvious flaws in real life. It is tragically amusing that the negative elements of society in games are much better handled than out in the real world.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Exploits are not new (even if it was a mistake on ArenaNet's end, it is still an exploit) and the punishments for using them are not new either. Ethics dictates that if you know some act to be wrong, then it would be wrong to perpetuate that act even if you can get away with it. Argue this all you want, but they were at fault and are lucky they are even getting a second chance. As for other legal issues, courts have found Terms of Service to be binding and thus we must follow them. If they say that inappropriate conduct can result if an ending of a person's account, then they can do it. Free speech doesn't apply in this case, and even using that as a reason shows a supreme lack of understanding about what free speech is. Free Speech isn't a blanket protection for what you say. You can say whatever you damn please, but that doesn't mean you cannot be punished for saying it.
Clearly, if this cost them a sale, then you have a problem with exploiters being punished.
I'm pretty sure the GW2 community won't miss you. Enjoy Rift.
Guild Wars 2 is a game. If the developers of Guild Wars 2 weren't insightful enough to check their math and mechanics it's clearly their fault. If there was a Risk clone that had a territory that would give a player +10 bonus troops, is it the player's fault that he or she camps on that spot and plays the game logically? This whole fiasco sends me one clear message: It doesn't matter how balanced, good, or enjoyable your game is. The only way to get money is to make a game that's pretty and over hyped with advertisements. This is exactly why we will not have good games from big name publishers. Previously I heard that the Guild Wars 2 developers were D&D experts and well-versed in RPGs, and I was really hoping that they were going to draw from many creative sources and integrate them into a newer and improved vehicle for future RPGs. Not so much. Instead of admitting to the faults of their product they take it out on the customer. How are they going to react to people who have optimized characters? What do they define as broken? Will people be banned for sharing or positing information regarding how to be most efficient at playing the game? This knee-jerk reaction is terribly timed and unnecessary. Did they really expect it to be perfect at launch?
HUGE Security Resource+ - version 6000 - 08/31/2012
http://cryptome.org/2012/08/huge-sec-v6000.txt
http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=f3Z4fQvK
http://pastebin.com/f3Z4fQvK
"The so called exploit was in fact an error on ArenaNet's side, leaving weapons at a low price from some vendors. Players saw this and started making profits buying and selling the items. Should players be penalized for errors committed by the game developers?"
That's the very definition of an exploit - you notice something odd that is probably not supposed to be this way, you realize you can get some sort of advantage out of it, and then you repeatedly go back for more. All exploits (almost anyway) are based on some error a developer made, so the seeming outrage of the submitter is in a word idiotic. The fact that this was an obvious error makes it even worse.
Everybody is discussing the bans for exploiting bugs, is that really what is most interesting about this story? Heck no!
A company (ArenaNet), which like any company is appropriately profit-centric, stopped selling their product at the peak of demand in order to ensue a consistent experience for people that had already bought the product?
I don't know about you guys, but that seems awfully inconsistent with the commonly accepted defacto business approach in our life & times!! Usually it goes more like this;
Profit above all else, short-term thinking, screw the people that've already given us their money - how do we generate more sales? That's what we're all used to, right?
Now ArenaNet are showing us how things should really be done! Long-term thinking, customer satisfaction & experience is treated as a higher priority than immediate profit (naturally this line of thought leads to more profit in the long-run). That's amazing. Can you imagine a marketing head proposing such a thing at any other company? You'd be fired on the spot for spewing crazy-talk! Go ArenaNet, setting a new standard for post 2012 MMO launches and online business practice :D
Hey, I'd prefer to model the real life to the gaming world, but I guess some would call that murder for some odd reason.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I guess his reason to not buy it was them stopping the sale of the game, not that they banned the exploiters.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Of course, they also rolled back the money and did some banning for some EQ potters that were making an item they could sell for a few coppers more than the cost of the components to make it. Gee, I guess a lot of games feel crafters have to lose money whenever they make something, EQ sure did.
I know the GW2 thing isn't about crafting (this time), but the point is still valid.
Back in Earth & Beyond, beginning players found a 3 point trade route in the starter system (Sol) that did an ok profit margin, about 30% if I remember correctly. Turns out it was higher than the devs intended, so they fixed it and some players started yelling it was an exploit and the ones using should have been banned. So, in a game where you were supposed to find profitable trade routes (costs varied at each location), and only one Star system you will have seen (too low level to go to another one), a reasonable trade route would get you banned? No, the devs didn't go psychotic and nuke anyone, they just adjusted the prices and went on. You know what 'damage' that did to the economy? Some low levels were able to afford a slightly better weapon or engine a week earlier than they could have otherwise.
If the money levels in the GW2 thing were extreme, then a money rollback as the values were adjusted would be reasonable. Banning people for it is just plain nuts. Calling it an exploit is a bit of a stretch, as an exploit either takes doing something special or extreme, if not an all out 'attack' on the system to achieve. Buying and selling from an npc merchant in the normal fashion is normal activity. It's a pricing glitch. The devs and testers screwed up by not finding this before release. Correcting the issue is appropriate, punishing players for doing the obvious is stupid.
actually, your comparison is wrong.
The real one is this: if you exploit the market and it's later found to not be legal (aka not okay with arenanet), they don't take away what you've already done.
Welcome to your own imaginary society - it's not actually like what you state it is.