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?"
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
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.
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.
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
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.
This is more akin to a bug in an ATM causing it to give you free money. It may be the fault of the bank but it's theft for you to exploit it and if you do get caught then you will be punished.
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
Had I been playing this ArenaNet game I would have thought that was the case.
Uh. No. This is not Wing Commander privateer where iron is bought low on a mining asteroid and generates a modest profit when resold at a refinery world.
This is more on par with buying iron low at the mining asteroid, selling it for a modest profit at the refinery, then noticing the refiner is listing the raw iron you just sold it for half what you paid at the asteroid. So you buy it all back, and then notice the refinery will pay you their original purchase price to buy it all back... so you sell it back to them at enourmous profit without any travel or risk at all.
Then you see they are again selling it a fraction of the price you just sold it to them... so you stand there and repeat until you are wealthy enough to buy the refining world outright. Meanwhile telling yourself that there was nothing wrong with this because buying low and selling high and being a trader is a legitimate mechanic.
They knew it was wrong.
First, they only banned people who did it many, many times. The minimum for a ban (3-day, not even permanent) was over 100 times.
Second, the items were seriously discounted. It would be like buying a car for the price of a soda. You'd have to have totally ignored the pricing on all other items to not notice it was wrong. Also, this was mid-level items, so you'd have to have ignored the prices on the low-level items vendor standing next to the mid-level vendor to not notice.
Either the people banned were deliberately exploiting an obvious bug, or they were complete blithering morons.
Not a sentence!