Teach SSG a lesson

[acemonkey]

You're missing the correlation. Going "easy" on the punishment means my actual game play will not be negatively impacted. If the guilty parties lose the XP they exploited, they are far more likely to return. If the characters are deleted... they aren't as likely to return.

All signs point to several characters having been deleted on GLand: no longer on their guild rosters, the names of the players available at character creation, etc.

I am completely fine with a 7 day ban. I'm fine with a month long ban and rollback of XP. I am not fine with the punishment exceeding the benefit of the exploit (character deletion and loss of gear).




I am hesitant as a result of stories, which may or may not be legitimate, in which certain users received a saga end reward and then boxed and were punished. Admittedly, this seems unlikely, but if true definitely cause for hesitancy if punishments are being leveled with out due diligence or just cause. More than that, I am hesitant to invest in a game that is so willing to permanently delete a large portion of the consistent player base on a server. Maybe the number of cheaters is higher in Ghallanda. I don't know. I don't care. I do care if it becomes harder to fill groups. Why continue to pay for a game that is increasingly less playable.

Granted, this is a slippery slope type deal. I just don't like what appears to be a giant genitalia measuring contest between SSG and those that happen to find weaknesses in the poorly written code if it means my gameplay experience suffers.

This is a false argument, noone accidentally got deleted, they earned their deletion when they exploited xp to avoid the grind you claim you need them for. Why would they group up and do tr after tr legit grinding when they can exploit it? if they aren't fully punished, they'll just use the next loophole that comes up.

Really though, if you need cheaters to group with or else, I think it's better for the rest of us to choose the or else option. Bye!

[Lalangamena]

Do not pay for anything for awhile, cancel vip, etc. Money talks and they will get the message that their programming stinks and policies are idiotic.

awesome!
just bough DDO points, ty




p.s. ban exploiters.

[grandeibra]

I am not fine with the punishment exceeding the benefit of the exploit (character deletion and loss of gear)

If punishment is simply equal to the unfair advantage that cheaters got then there is ZERO incentive not to cheat apart from some personal code of ethics. That type of punishment makes zero sense to me. It HAS to be at least in some way more than the gain or it is not a deterrent.

I just don't like what appears to be a giant genitalia measuring contest between SSG and those that happen to find weaknesses in the poorly written code if it means my gameplay experience suffers.

It is not about the players who find weaknesses in the code (many/most of us do). It's about the people who chose to cheat not just in minor ways (like the classic hold the door to repeat shadow crypt) but in major ways. If you think SSG are doing this in an epeen way, and not mainly (or even purely) from a financial business perspective, I would disagree.

Personally I don't mind the cheaters in game, I don't care about em, and I enjoy running hi level quests with many of em. I just think as real persons a lot of em are entitled brats with ethics at a level I personally wouldn't enjoy dealing with.

[changelingamuck]

Really though, if you need cheaters to group with or else, I think it's better for the rest of us to choose the or else option. Bye!

^This.

OR

[tuanter1]

I like the comment about how people do cheat in this game, after being apart of ddo for the last 12 yrs. exactly how many have at one point participated in trying to get free items, bypass vip/tr process requirements of playing a quest you should not be able to play, earned experience to level that was not actually earned. Is there a master list of glitches and broken code that is easily exploited to jump through hoops to avoid paying for VIP, In-store items, Content.

I know many people exploit every single day with out even Knowing they are breaking some rule. So many people break the rules everyday,
A) because everyone else is doing it, and its just common behavior in DDO game.
B) why start banning people for today, when for almost the entire history of DDO people have found ways to get around mechanics that are not meant to be.

How many broken wolf players are there, how many Arcane Archers using imbues, how many people have locked red door quests of the cream of the crop quests to exploit the experience to bypass re doing the the entire chain to do over and over again, until the exp is sucked out of it dry. how many people have duppped store items, how many ways are there to hyper farm ingredients, game items, found quest glitches to by pass the actual time require to obtain them.

There would be literially no players left to finance DDO, if you banned every single person and allow them to keep going this long. So you wanna drop the hammer, **** off a bunch people. maybe incur a small amount revenue for the shake of holding firm.

But really good luck with that.. maybe SSG now the new company needs to stand firm and accountable for the game it has taking over. And begin to fix the mistakes of past programming, removed the exploitable material, and own up to there own faults.

And treat their loyal, long standing, well paying customers with the respect they may require, if is in there interest to keep collecting revenue from those said above players that have and well most likely continue to find ways to abuse, make unconscious or conscious choices to exploit game mechanics for as long as this broken game manages to stay a float.

I don't necessary believe in cheating, but hey some of the stuff I have accepted as a very good way of earning back a lot of time spent on lag, broken chars, the 150 something trs I have finished and downtime that is also very common, and very annoying, and have yet to been seen any ownership, or fair trade of grief shared by the company.

Well once and awhile they put up a exp bonus weekend, to make up unforeseen downtimes... yeah you pay for a service to play, and you can't play it, and you pay with real money, you should be awarded real money back. Hahaha yeah good luck with that, I know which end of the stick I usually get.

[slarden]

I like the comment about how people do cheat in this game, after being apart of ddo for the last 12 yrs. exactly how many have at one point participated in trying to get free items, bypass vip/tr process requirements of playing a quest you should not be able to play, earned experience to level that was not actually earned. Is there a master list of glitches and broken code that is easily exploited to jump through hoops to avoid paying for VIP, In-store items, Content.

I know many people exploit every single day with out even Knowing they are breaking some rule. So many people break the rules everyday,
A) because everyone else is doing it, and its just common behavior in DDO game.
B) why start banning people for today, when for almost the entire history of DDO people have found ways to get around mechanics that are not meant to be.

How many broken wolf players are there, how many Arcane Archers using imbues, how many people have locked red door quests of the cream of the crop quests to exploit the experience to bypass re doing the the entire chain to do over and over again, until the exp is sucked out of it dry. how many people have duppped store items, how many ways are there to hyper farm ingredients, game items, found quest glitches to by pass the actual time require to obtain them.

There would be literially no players left to finance DDO, if you banned every single person and allow them to keep going this long. So you wanna drop the hammer, **** off a bunch people. maybe incur a small amount revenue for the shake of holding firm.

But really good luck with that.. maybe SSG now the new company needs to stand firm and accountable for the game it has taking over. And begin to fix the mistakes of past programming, removed the exploitable material, and own up to there own faults.

And treat their loyal, long standing, well paying customers with the respect they may require, if is in there interest to keep collecting revenue from those said above players that have and well most likely continue to find ways to abuse, make unconscious or conscious choices to exploit game mechanics for as long as this broken game manages to stay a float.

I don't necessary believe in cheating, but hey some of the stuff I have accepted as a very good way of earning back a lot of time spent on lag, broken chars, the 150 something trs I have finished and downtime that is also very common, and very annoying, and have yet to been seen any ownership, or fair trade of grief shared by the company.

Well once and awhile they put up a exp bonus weekend, to make up unforeseen downtimes... yeah you pay for a service to play, and you can't play it, and you pay with real money, you should be awarded real money back. Hahaha yeah good luck with that, I know which end of the stick I usually get.

I am sure SSG will give your ideas the appropriate amount of consideration it deserves.

[Singular]

I am sure SSG will give your ideas the appropriate amount of consideration it deserves.

Does anyone read our posts?

I think it's just us

[tuanter1]

Accountability here is a bit one to chew for a company. I charge people, commercial businesses, and large industries a fair price per/hour, per/contract to retain my services. As a way to compensate for the time I spend doing said work I agree to do. I have a very good idea of what my time is worth in a monetary sense.

Now when I just spent an hour of my day playing some game, and half way through some raid that I may of been playing is broken, or has some dumb glitch like auras, or combat logs or what ever flavor of the week it may be. As for why the game just froze and either the entire raid wiped, or was completely threw off the server.

Now I must re group, find more time to re run and risk more time and resources, on failing these raids/quests. Resources I mean by, things I have paid with my hard earned real money, I used to buy exp pots, healing, mana, blah blah, you know what I mean. These things are just burned up and straight up wasted product I have purchased, while being frozen in lag, used up in re grouping a lag wipe, or just plain kicked out of the game while my character is floating in limbo, till the client can boot me out of what instants I may be "stuck" in.

So lets say I Tally all the wasted time on the said above occurances, where I earned no award in the sense of entertainment, an item, favor, or what ever it is I am seeking to achieve with the time spent to finish a game mechanic of time played. And attached a monetary value to the time wasted, and sent a bill to the video game company, as to what I "consider to my monetary value of my time" in the everyday world to feed my family, pay for my home, and finance my entertainment needs. This would certainly "Cost" a lot more then, the few dollars a day I may actually pay per day on the game. It would be unfeasible to have me as a customer, cause they would not profit, and in fact would incur a substantial loss amount, where the ratio would be very unbalanced.

So lets say I Tally all the wasted time on resources that were wasted as a result of the above said problems of lag, crashes, glitches. Counted every minute of used exp pot that was used, counted every mana pot I used prior to crashing, and sent a bill back for reimbursement of my real world money I used to pay for those said items. Again this would be a large cost to the company, not sure how the balance of this would be, sure if they could manage to figure out the ratio of honest use, and there end of wasted product. It surely would be no benefit to them to have sold the product to begin with. As prior actual cost of in game design, process, purchase admin.. and now investigate the said amounts, of human resources that cost real world money. These said resources would not provide any profit what so ever. And again incur loss....

Lets say every single player sent a bill in to SSG for this, well gosh dang it, we are on a sinking ship, in fact the ship didn't even leave the dock...

Well i could on and on for ever about this and being refunded, reimbursed for the many things that have wasted my time, and money. But i think you got the idea....

So lets try to figure out how to mitagate the damages and wasted time.... Lets try making the customers more accountable for the companies faults. yeah okay that makes even more sense. What makes sense, is the reality you been shafted alot, and you should quit wasting so much time, and money to satisfy your entertainment needs. But you really like this game and you continue to incure more inconvienance, more wasted money, more wasted time,, for why, maybe you hope this legenary game of DnD could, should be one of the best online games out there..... and its a great place to invest all this energy into it.... okay sure....

So the company wants to act like my Daddy, and spank my bum for taking two cookies, when he said i could only have one cookie. My daddy wants me to discipline me for not respecting his authority, he wants to change my behavior. Well guess what SSG is not my Daddy, and i really do not have alot of remorse for the what i may have done wrong, and it hasn't really enforce by ablitlity to act lawfully with thier rules. And if they really think they can change there game this way, i would beg them, with all honestely to have a reality check, and put the pipe down. This is unattainable, you can not change people. You have almost no power, nor is it a very practical way to achieve profit in a business sence.

So what can they do, what power do they actually pocess.. Well they own this game, the employ the people that run this game, Right there, they can fix the problems that lead to the "bad behavior".... its like telling a person their an addict, and your going to fix em, your going to house them, feed them, lock them in a room, change their minds. Just doens't happen.. an addict needs to find out at some point for him self that he is and needs to seeks help to fix his own ****, on his own time.

Good luck SSG on taking on the idea you can change human behavior, so they won't break your rules on some "fantasy" video game! The idea its self is a "FANTASY". My opinion that this is very good waste of time and energy, and you should focus your resources on actual things you can do, and hopefully well provide a profitable, enjoyable product that people are more then willing to empty there pockets too.

[caberonia]

I agree they should be taught a lesson.. I might have to buy some points to teach them that if they are actually going to START punishing exploits for the greater good of the game and it's future then I might actually start supporting them more. Had they started doing so long ago the in game economy wouldn't be shot among other issues.

Of all the decisions they have made that I have been against.. and the overall direction the game has taken being the anti-thesis of what i think it should be... they finally got something right.

[Heathir]

Your right in some regards but your taking your examples to the extreme. Most players have red-boxed a quest, used an enhancement that isn't working as intended, or used pathing to their advantage. I do not believe most people have duped. I personally don't know anyone that has duped and I was playing when the duping was rampant. I don't know anyone who has found an exploit to bypass lives or generate UNEARNED experience. Being able to run a quest over and over again for exp gains is not near on the same level as bypassing entire lives in 30 minutes.

The players keeping quests open for reruns are still playing the game. It is an exploit, but the severity is minor compared to the mass dupings that happened or the recent saga exploit.

The impact on the game of the saga exploit would have similiar reach as the duping issue we had long ago.

I understand the stance that this is not a PVP game, don't judge yourself by another player. But when the game becomes flooded with that many past lives the developers would have to adjust content as the pendulum swings towards a population explosion of triple completionist/Epic/Racial toons.

I guarantee there is a metric they use to judge the average power level of a player in DDO. Then build content based on the communities average power level. Flood the game with that many lives and you qould unbalance the equation impacting those who didn't participate in the exploit.

[slarden]

Accountability here is a bit one to chew for a company. I charge people, commercial businesses, and large industries a fair price per/hour, per/contract to retain my services. As a way to compensate for the time I spend doing said work I agree to do. I have a very good idea of what my time is worth in a monetary sense.

Now when I just spent an hour of my day playing some game, and half way through some raid that I may of been playing is broken, or has some dumb glitch like auras, or combat logs or what ever flavor of the week it may be. As for why the game just froze and either the entire raid wiped, or was completely threw off the server.

Now I must re group, find more time to re run and risk more time and resources, on failing these raids/quests. Resources I mean by, things I have paid with my hard earned real money, I used to buy exp pots, healing, mana, blah blah, you know what I mean. These things are just burned up and straight up wasted product I have purchased, while being frozen in lag, used up in re grouping a lag wipe, or just plain kicked out of the game while my character is floating in limbo, till the client can boot me out of what instants I may be "stuck" in.

So lets say I Tally all the wasted time on the said above occurances, where I earned no award in the sense of entertainment, an item, favor, or what ever it is I am seeking to achieve with the time spent to finish a game mechanic of time played. And attached a monetary value to the time wasted, and sent a bill to the video game company, as to what I "consider to my monetary value of my time" in the everyday world to feed my family, pay for my home, and finance my entertainment needs. This would certainly "Cost" a lot more then, the few dollars a day I may actually pay per day on the game. It would be unfeasible to have me as a customer, cause they would not profit, and in fact would incur a substantial loss amount, where the ratio would be very unbalanced.

So lets say I Tally all the wasted time on resources that were wasted as a result of the above said problems of lag, crashes, glitches. Counted every minute of used exp pot that was used, counted every mana pot I used prior to crashing, and sent a bill back for reimbursement of my real world money I used to pay for those said items. Again this would be a large cost to the company, not sure how the balance of this would be, sure if they could manage to figure out the ratio of honest use, and there end of wasted product. It surely would be no benefit to them to have sold the product to begin with. As prior actual cost of in game design, process, purchase admin.. and now investigate the said amounts, of human resources that cost real world money. These said resources would not provide any profit what so ever. And again incur loss....

Lets say every single player sent a bill in to SSG for this, well gosh dang it, we are on a sinking ship, in fact the ship didn't even leave the dock...

Well i could on and on for ever about this and being refunded, reimbursed for the many things that have wasted my time, and money. But i think you got the idea....

So lets try to figure out how to mitagate the damages and wasted time.... Lets try making the customers more accountable for the companies faults. yeah okay that makes even more sense. What makes sense, is the reality you been shafted alot, and you should quit wasting so much time, and money to satisfy your entertainment needs. But you really like this game and you continue to incure more inconvienance, more wasted money, more wasted time,, for why, maybe you hope this legenary game of DnD could, should be one of the best online games out there..... and its a great place to invest all this energy into it.... okay sure....

So the company wants to act like my Daddy, and spank my bum for taking two cookies, when he said i could only have one cookie. My daddy wants me to discipline me for not respecting his authority, he wants to change my behavior. Well guess what SSG is not my Daddy, and i really do not have alot of remorse for the what i may have done wrong, and it hasn't really enforce by ablitlity to act lawfully with thier rules. And if they really think they can change there game this way, i would beg them, with all honestely to have a reality check, and put the pipe down. This is unattainable, you can not change people. You have almost no power, nor is it a very practical way to achieve profit in a business sence.

So what can they do, what power do they actually pocess.. Well they own this game, the employ the people that run this game, Right there, they can fix the problems that lead to the "bad behavior".... its like telling a person their an addict, and your going to fix em, your going to house them, feed them, lock them in a room, change their minds. Just doens't happen.. an addict needs to find out at some point for him self that he is and needs to seeks help to fix his own ****, on his own time.

Good luck SSG on taking on the idea you can change human behavior, so they won't break your rules on some "fantasy" video game! The idea its self is a "FANTASY". My opinion that this is very good waste of time and energy, and you should focus your resources on actual things you can do, and hopefully well provide a profitable, enjoyable product that people are more then willing to empty there pockets too.

I think the part in bold best puts your post in perspective. I am ok if they ban people that won't change, because those actions are very harmful to the health of the game. I am glad they had softer penalties for some people as a warning.

I am not sure what you did and what your penalty was, but it doesn't seem like you intend to change your behavior so good luck breaking the rules in your next game. Buh-bye.

[hinton]

I think the lesson for SSG is the player base doesn't like cheaters. We are more likely to support them financially when they take steps against them. We are also more likely to support them when they are open with us

[PermaBanned]

I like the comment about how people do cheat in this game, after being apart of ddo for the last 12 yrs. exactly how many have at one point participated in trying to get free items, bypass vip/tr process requirements of playing a quest you should not be able to play, earned experience to level that was not actually earned. Is there a master list of glitches and broken code that is easily exploited to jump through hoops to avoid paying for VIP, In-store items, Content.

I know many people exploit every single day with out even Knowing they are breaking some rule. So many people break the rules everyday,
A) because everyone else is doing it, and its just common behavior in DDO game.
B) why start banning people for today, when for almost the entire history of DDO people have found ways to get around mechanics that are not meant to be.

How many broken wolf players are there, how many Arcane Archers using imbues, how many people have locked red door quests of the cream of the crop quests to exploit the experience to bypass re doing the the entire chain to do over and over again, until the exp is sucked out of it dry. how many people have duppped store items, how many ways are there to hyper farm ingredients, game items, found quest glitches to by pass the actual time require to obtain them.

There would be literially no players left to finance DDO, if you banned every single person and allow them to keep going this long. So you wanna drop the hammer, **** off a bunch people. maybe incur a small amount revenue for the shake of holding firm.

But really good luck with that.. maybe SSG now the new company needs to stand firm and accountable for the game it has taking over. And begin to fix the mistakes of past programming, removed the exploitable material, and own up to there own faults.

And treat their loyal, long standing, well paying customers with the respect they may require, if is in there interest to keep collecting revenue from those said above players that have and well most likely continue to find ways to abuse, make unconscious or conscious choices to exploit game mechanics for as long as this broken game manages to stay a float.

I don't necessary believe in cheating, but hey some of the stuff I have accepted as a very good way of earning back a lot of time spent on lag, broken chars, the 150 something trs I have finished and downtime that is also very common, and very annoying, and have yet to been seen any ownership, or fair trade of grief shared by the company.

Well once and awhile they put up a exp bonus weekend, to make up unforeseen downtimes... yeah you pay for a service to play, and you can't play it, and you pay with real money, you should be awarded real money back. Hahaha yeah good luck with that, I know which end of the stick I usually get.

I figure it's like when I exceed the speed limit on the highway. When I buzz a cop doing 65 in a 55 zone, I've never received a ticket. When I was pulled over for doing 127 in a 65 zone, the consequences were rather severe. Red Dooring Shadow Crypt was 60 in a 55; no or a few EPLs to multi ECompletionist was more severe imo.


Edit:
On further thought, this whole affair may also kinda call into question the idea that $pender$ might get more leniency... All those Reincarnation Timer Resets could only have come from an Ottos Box afaik...

[Heathir]

I figure it's like when I exceed the speed limit on the highway. When I buzz a cop doing 65 in a 55 zone, I've never received a ticket. When I was pulled over for doing 127 in a 65 zone, the consequences were rather severe. Red Dooring Shadow Crypt was 60 in a 55; no or a few EPLs to multi ECompletionist was more severe imo.

PERFECT EXAMPLE!!!

What goes hand and hand with it is: if I got pulled over for doing 65 in a 55, I am pretty sure the cop wouldn't let me off if I said "I have been doing this for awhile now so it shouldn't be a problem" or the other response we are seeing "Everyone else does it so why am I getting a ticket?"

Now to keep some more perspective. If i got pulled over going 10 miles an hour over the speed limit and had a perfect driving record it is possible I would get a warning and told to slow down(This would be the people who got their toons rolled back but got to keep them)

If I got pulled over and had multiple warnings, or tickets on my record, its pretty safe to say I am getting the ticket.

[westudi]

This is a false argument, noone accidentally got deleted,

As I said, I found that unlikely, but supposedly it did happen.

Really though, if you need cheaters to group with or else, I think it's better for the rest of us to choose the or else option. Bye!

Raids. No one in my guild was punished in any way as none of us took part. We're in many different time zones. I can't always raid with my guildlies, so, shockingly, I am forced to pug raids now and then. Your implicit suggestion that I run with cheaters shows your high horse view point is justly founded however. Classy discourse.

Another solution would be to merge the servers. I'm cool with that too.

As for the notion that banning for an extended period of time isn't sufficient punishment, I disagree. That is beyond the gain of the exploit. Roll back the exploit AND suspend the account. The length of the ban should be scaled to the use of the exploit in question.

[Heathir]

As I said, I found that unlikely, but supposedly it did happen.



Raids. No one in my guild was punished in any way as none of us took part. We're in many different time zones. I can't always raid with my guildlies, so, shockingly, I am forced to pug raids now and then. Your implicit suggestion that I run with cheaters shows your high horse view point is justly founded however. Classy discourse.

Another solution would be to merge the servers. I'm cool with that too.

As for the notion that banning for an extended period of time isn't sufficient punishment, I disagree. That is beyond the gain of the exploit. Roll back the exploit AND suspend the account. The length of the ban should be scaled to the use of the exploit in question.

Here is a great idea. Give them a choice. Keep your character and all the levels you gained. SSG takes the average time an average player spends earning that many levels and you are banned for that length of time or get the toon deleted.. People who only did 1 life would have a short ban and keep the levels they "Earned". A hardcore one could be looking at a 6 month to year long ban. Sounds just as arbitrarily effective as rollback and suspend.

Sounds pretty redonkulous, doesn't it? They cheated, they were warned they would get banned by their peers in the very thread where they learned the exploit, steps were left out of the method so they actively sought to replicate it or to contact someone to tell them the missing steps. This was PREMEDITATED cheating. Deletion of the offending toon is fair.

[Pyed-Pyper]

Does anyone read our posts?

I think it's just us

Perusing the naming choices of the Anniversary event should answer that question, not to mention the quick deletion of some threads related to the recent disciplinary action.

[SerPounce]

I am not fine with the punishment exceeding the benefit of the exploit (character deletion and loss of gear).

"Punishments" pretty much by definition exceed the benefit that the person gained by wrongdoing. It's not really a punishment if it doesn't, just reparations. If you rob a bank you don't just have to give back the money, you get a "punishment" in addition (such as incarceration)

If the only drawback to cheating is that you might lose what you gained by cheating there's really no disincentive to cheat from a game theory perspective. You either end up ahead (if not caught) or neutral (if caught), so cheating is on average a gain. If you want to disincentive cheating you have to punish significantly beyond the benefit gained.

I'm really happy SSG had the guts to pull the trigger on this. I'm sure it's a tough call from a business perspective because these people are paying customers, but as a consumer of their product it's very encouraging to see them cracking down.

[Gremmlynn]

You're missing the correlation. Going "easy" on the punishment means my actual game play will not be negatively impacted. If the guilty parties lose the XP they exploited, they are far more likely to return. If the characters are deleted... they aren't as likely to return.

All signs point to several characters having been deleted on GLand: no longer on their guild rosters, the names of the players available at character creation, etc.

I am completely fine with a 7 day ban. I'm fine with a month long ban and rollback of XP. I am not fine with the punishment exceeding the benefit of the exploit (character deletion and loss of gear).

Then what''s to keep them from doing the next one if they know if caught all that will happen is losing it's advantages? That makes it worthwhile in the hope of just not getting caught.

[Gremmlynn]

Thanks for that. It's nice to see not everyone posting here has been possessed by the spirit of Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Hyperbole much?

Or maybe you just don't see the difference.

What's going on here is equivalent to a group of kids losing access to a candy store because the owner caught them stealing. While maybe all of them weren't, it just isn't worth the guys time to bend over backwards to find out. They will all live without access to his candy.

Anyone who had a false positive will likewise still live without access to the game. While that may cost SSG some revenue, they obviously feel the likelihood of that or the the amount of hoops that would be needed to jump through to prevent the possibility simply isn't worth it.