Gather round! Lets talk about exploits!

[Oreg]

Hello all!


After careful review, I also felt that we could definately benefit from a more productive policy, and the many parties involved have reviewed and settled upon what we feel would be a better way to handle exploits.

I think I have isolated the source of Turbine's issues. Somewhere during the "careful review" stages of many many MANY decisions made at Turbine, a poor suggestion is put forth by someone which a 42 charisma and an 8 intelligence. Far too often this suggestion gets adopted and implemented, then hotfixed to death over the subsequent months.

Find this person and squelch him/her and you have solved your problem. Hint - he is the one in the corner smiling nervously stuttering "Wha? What? Me? No, it's not me ....it's Flimsy Salamander, the new guy"




The above was meant to be humor.....sort of.

[Oreg]

When you sit in a forum criticizing people for doing the same things you do, I won't consider this "the place" anymore.

You mean like this?

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=142776

You seem to have self proclaimed yourself as the exploit Avenger yet you admit to suggesting a questionable tactic and *gasp* being upset when they chastised you and called it an exploit. 135 posts in 23 days - most of them about exploits. Seems weird.

[Rameses]

When you sit in a forum criticizing people for doing the same things you do, I won't consider this "the place" anymore.

Lyllie, you claim I am being sanctimonious because I say I hate exploiters and yet because I was in a PuG raid that bypassed the game mechanics where I had no control over the dynamics of the party I should be publically embarrassed and harrassed by you.
Take your best shot.

I am, Rameses!

[Lyllie]

I'm going with a growing population of posters in this thread too! If you would CORRECT the problems instead of asking players to do your work for you, this entire conversation would not have taken place!

Pets have long been a bane of this game. They have caused the same problem since almost the beginning. Since I KNOW Turbine has been aware of this problem since the beginning as well, you're only back-peddling because the knowledge is now wide spread.

I would imagine it would take less time to correct these problems with a competent programmer, rather than a team of GMs responding to outlandish claims of exploits.

But then again, your programmers can't even fix the ladders in the game....

Don't ask us to do your jobs, it's what we pay you to do!

[Lyllie]

Lyllie, you claim I am being sanctimonious because I say I hate exploiters and yet because I was in a PuG raid that bypassed the game mechanics where I had no control over the dynamics of the party I should be publically embarrassed and harrassed by you.
Take your best shot.

I am, Rameses!

yes because you've told others to "leave the group" when they were in the same situation.

[Aspenor]

yes because you've told others to "leave the group" when they were in the same situation.

Link me. You can't prove that statement.

[Altarboy]

I do not think I am comfortable with labeling anyone a "tattler or NARC" for using the features in-game that Turbine has provided us to use. When you turn in a ticket with a drop-down list of things any person can report, how does that make anyone horrible for using what they provided all of us to use?

You can say the EXACT same thing about exploits...Turbine provides them...the player just uses them

For instance, if I go on a quest or raid and we are doing ok then out of no where someone springs a bug or exploit on the rest of us when we agreed that we won't be cheating, its not right to the group.

This is the ONLY situation where it makes any sense at all...the only time it time it affects YOU.
[/quote]
I can't argue against the rest of your post having an exploit just Sprung on you sucks

[Rowanheal]

Na, I say a pink fluffy tu-tu and a pretty little tiara with the whole "Exploiter Curse" idea. Wait, on second thought maybe some would actually...want that. Ick....lol >.<

PINK is not a punishment. How dare you take my color and use it such a manner...

Pink is beautiful and not to be worn by the uncouth.

Although if it would get more PINK in game... hmmmm

See ya in Stormreach,

-R

[Sambvca]

None of this would ever have happened if someone left spinning at shrines alone.

WHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm beating a dead horse!!!! WWWHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

[ThrasherGT]

Lyllie, you claim I am being sanctimonious because I say I hate exploiters and yet because I was in a PuG raid that utilized the broken AI game mechanics where I had no control over the dynamics of the party I should be publically embarrassed and harrassed by you.
Take your best shot.

I am, Rameses!

Fixed that for ya

[Kistilan]

Actually, that seems an idea... but I'd go for -5 to loot, for about two weeks. Just so exploiting really hurts.

I really like this idea as a beginning measurement on those who exploit and are caught.

Also, I read a lot of posts pointing fingers at Turbine, stating that they did it, so it's wrong. In all the MMORPGs I've seen, I've never seen so much pointing back at the company and stating that it's the player's right to cheat due to a poorly programmed module/block/item in the game.

Seriously, they created the game as a machine. It's a mode and a method to play in a world of DDO. Nothing is ever perfect and it requires good judgment and sound character as an individual to make the proper choice.

I'm going with my car analogy again. The government builds a road. The state places a speed limit in the zone on the road. You are now given a mode of doing something (travelling) and you are given a rule to follow, clear as day (the speed limit). If you choose to go over it because they didn't physically stop your vehicle from accelerating beyond the speed limit, does that fly in court when you get a speeding ticket? HECK NO.

We're all notofied on how to behave. This really isn't a debate for this thread.

The Thread's Purpose is to inform us what these rules are. What are exploits. What are not exploits. What the consequences of breaking rules involving exploits are. That's the purpose. We're not supposed to be arguing or stating that Turbine is turning us into NARCs or tattlers. You don't HAVE to report them -- the KK even said that in his post. What you SHOULD to at the very minimal is NOT EXPLOIT and leave or discourage your party from exploiting. Reporting the exploiters is optional. Reporting the exploit so it can be corrected via this Thread and PMs to the KK is encouraged so you never have this morally-difficult decision again.

[Vhlad]

The community service team has good intentions with this thread and it is a BETTER policy choice to give us an official avenue to talk about this stuff more freely, so we don't necessarily have to play in fear.

We don't know if they will actually start banning people or how they will handle exploiting. This thread *could* be more to ease the minds of those who are so adamant against exploiting and give people some kind of assurance and direction so they stop attacking each other or arguing on the forums or in-game about what not to do.

I don't think people should be angry Q or the kobold for this thread. It really is a step toward better policy. I'd rather not see things get swept under the rug again. So don't be sad or regret the thread! Thank you for making it!

[Lyllie]

Fixed that for ya

no, this has nothing to do with the mobs in the game. He said it correctly.

[Aspenor]

Fixed that for ya

Not really, wrong quest. Don't fix what ain't broke.

[Altarboy]

Altarboy, that was an incredibly well thought out and well phrased post. You kept your cool and made excellent point after excellent point. Unexpected coming from you Kudos to you!

Sorry I think I might be sick or something!

[Uproar]

The community service team has good intentions with this thread and it is a BETTER policy choice to give us an official avenue to talk about this stuff more freely, so we don't necessarily have to play in fear.

We don't know if they will actually start banning people or how they will handle exploiting. This thread *could* be more to ease the minds of those who are so adamant against exploiting and give people some kind of assurance and direction so they stop attacking each other or arguing on the forums or in-game about what not to do.

I don't think people should be flaming Q or the kobold for this thread. It really is a step toward better policy. I'd rather not see things get swept under the rug again.

QFE -- personally didn't think I flamed them... this seems like a positive step. That does not mean other steps are not necessary -- I flamed the person who is making the decision to ignore those steps (I assume that is not them).

[juniorpfactors]

How about 5 neg levels too?

heck just send em to the Abbot LOL

jrp

[Kistilan]

heck just send em to the Abbot LOL

jrp

LOL!!!!!!

That would be like, a new exploit, honestly. Get in trouble to get to the abbot for the end reward. Hmmm.....

But if they sent them nekkid.....

[Angelus_dead]

I don't understand what the difference is between posting in your LFM "no exploits" and informing each party member that you will not be using exploits upon them joining!!!

As already explained, the difference is that avoiding a group because of something in the LFM message is a totally passive action that doesn't communicate with the group members in any way. They have no idea why you didn't join them- if they think about it at all, they assume you weren't even looking at the LFM list, or that you are on timer for the quest, or whatever.

But waiting until later to do that kind of negotiation about what is acceptable means it's no longer a private thing. Names are known on both sides of the equation. When a player joins a group and then leaves, other members will ask "Why, what happened?", or just make a guess on their own. That kind of thing leads to those names being remembered as undesirables, and it spreads to other characters on the account, other members of his guild, and even other players seen in LFMs with him. And the effect is mutual- the excluded player (and all his buddies) will have that tendency to retributively punish the people who kicked him out, or get into other hostilities.

It is not easy for all players to reach the same opinions on where the line lies between clever tactics and harmful exploits (and its harder because open discussion of exploit examples is prohibited), so it's harmful for game longevity to push players into the role of exploit-watch policemen. With small-ish server populations, players can't much afford to getting into the position of blacklisting and/or being blacklisted.

That's why it's better to allow that kind of exclusion to be done in the LFM up front, so it's not a bait-and-switch and it's less likely to be seen as a direct personal attack on someone's judgment or ability.

[RTN]

As someone else has written, if you are going to enforce this policy (and I think it's a mistake) then you're going to have to be more explicit with what things are banned and considered exploits. You don't have to give us step by step instructions on what we can't do, but you can give us general descriptions of things in a quest that we're not supposed to take advantage of. Some that are quest specific, you really need to tell us that. I'm sorry, but that's what you have to do in order for this to have any sense of fairness.

You've asked people to PM you details. Fine, that's an explanation of how exactly to do it. But then you need to tell us, in general, which ones you've decided are banned tactics. And don't use names of tactics. What "hero tactic" means to one person might be very different from how another person, guild, or server uses it.