Curse

Martin Alvito · Apr 29, 2008, 12:20 AM // 00:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ctb

I've already covered this line of "thinking" and won't debate it with you any further. It's an endless cycle since there's no limit to what "might have been". What is relevant is what was probable, and what was probable, given the extraordinary frequency of bugs in software, was that the behavior of the double ram cheat was unintended. Simply put, anybody who believes otherwise is either lying, intentionally ignorant, or plain stupid. End of debate.

Where is the cutoff? When does something non-probable become probable? How do I know when a trick to make me go faster is cheating?

"I cannot define it but I know it when I see it" doesn't cut it as a standard. This is a well-established principle of law (the famous quote is from Potter Stewart's dissent to a Supreme Court decision).

I give you sound reasoning, and you give me, "If you don't agree with me you're either a liar or an idiot." This is the basic problem in this argument - instead of working through the problem logically, you're assuming you're right from the get-go and trying to post hoc justify the conclusion.

If you assume from the start that your argument is correct, OF COURSE you'll find it's correct! I can prove anything that way. Up is down, black is white, whatever.

Build an argument that is logically consistent, please. To elaborate on the earlier speeding analogy: you're trying to argue that it's fair to pull someone over that's doing 90 on the highway if you pass a law against speeding, but set no speed limit. This sounds attractive on the face of it, but how does your hypothetical speeder know that 90 is too fast unless you set a standard? What is too fast? 60? 70? 80? 90? If you give your police officers discretion but they enforce the law differently, then what?

In the case under discussion, no standard existed. Nor is it likely to emerge.

Martin Alvito · Apr 29, 2008, 12:22 AM // 00:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kashrlyyk

The update page itself does that. It says: "Fixed a bug!" and it DOESN`T say "Fixed the description!"

Wow. OK, so it was decreed a bug in April.

In February, what was a player supposed to do? Appeal to support?

Ask Gaile or Patrick or Izzy if Double Ram was cheating?

Come on, man. You can't argue that someone should have known that 'X' was an unintended bug in February if it's declared such in April. Unless you have invented time travel.

byteme! · Apr 29, 2008, 12:43 AM // 00:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

It's not our fault you (and other people) prefer to live with eyecaps over their eyes...

Look, there is SKILL involved. This skill, however, is no more than knowing when to activate Ram and Dash.
Now, according to both descriptions (assuming you take the Ram speed buff into concideration), this would mean than when you are at ANY given RRPM, Ram should get you to 100%, no matter what, and Dash would up your speed by 25%...

Now logic, which is the one thing we got, tells us 2 obvious things:
-Ram is most effective at low speeds. Because the netto gain is higher than if you were to be at an initial higher speed.
-Dash is best used BELOW 80% and above 60% (whatever the natural rrpm is) RRPM.

From these 2 gives bits of information (and You can't proove either wrong), it isn't rocket science to figure out on WHEN to use your skills.

However, because there is no explanation on the effects of Hills and such other, Anet found it necessary NOT to give us the "idea" behind the RRPM meter, what exactly affects it, and eventually what is needed to keep it a high rate.

The fact that these people in top 100 get these monsterous scores (480K+) shows it isn't just a "small" effect the terrain has on the beetle. (Or stacking with skills)
This is 100% Anet's fault(The fact there is sucha small "elite"-lucky-few), and as far as I'm concerned, I concider the people in top 100 no more than lucky people who found an "exploit/glitch" that's on the thin line between acceptable and not acceptable, BUT in NO WAY I'm convinced that these people have more "skill" than I do...
If I had 1 match with ANY of these players at their best (assuming I could keep up with them), I would start getting these consistent 470K+ times aswell.

NO, it's NOT skill, it's mere luck and balancing the thin line between exploiting and "not-knowing-better"...

*This intire post is focused on the current top 100 aswell, as far as Dual Ram goes, that was glitched, heck it even shows on official Wiki, and thus these people deserve to get banned (temp or perm) and their prices (rollerbeetles) retracted...

So what you are saying is you "think" you are just as good as the top 100 and deserve to be there? Get in line. There are thousands who think the same way. What makes you any different? You proved my point in my previous post. Please continue with your rant.

IattackU · Apr 29, 2008, 12:47 AM // 00:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

Wow. OK, so it was decreed a bug in April.

In February, what was a player supposed to do? Appeal to support?

Ask Gaile or Patrick or Izzy if Double Ram was cheating?

Come on, man. You can't argue that someone should have known that 'X' was an unintended bug in February if it's declared such in April. Unless you have invented time travel.

If he invented time travel, I call dibs.

But martin is right, April comes after February, they said it was a bug in April. People used it in February, it was fixed in April, they didn't know it was cheating, cause they were not told it was cheating.

BTW, martin that "hint" you gave in the last thread about rollerbeatle helped a lot.

Shayne Hawke · Apr 29, 2008, 02:59 AM // 02:59

After I got flamed on the first page for QQing over losing a strategy of racing about "exploiting a bug to get highscores," I pretty much realized that arguing from my standpoint was useless. If ANet deems it a bug and has fixed it accordingly, there's not a whole lot I can do about that, and as such, I just spent all my time over the event in DA.

As far as where the argument has gotten to now, lots of good points have been made over the vague rules concerning the skill descriptions, their actions, and the whole way that RBR works. I'm not going to argue from those points, because I see that everyone else is doing it much more efficiently than I probably could.

To be totally honest, my opening statement was crap to my real intention, which has been to grind out as many Gamer points as I can get. I could care less about highscores, as I already earned my minipet during the first event, when I relied on my luck more than my skill and knew not about the Ram exploit. Unfortunately for me, I was only able to get 1.7k Gamer points this event, rather than ~3k that I'd managed in RBR after knowing about Ram, and 2k in RBR that I'd managed without it.

The second event weekend after I discovered it, I posted it on the wiki. I doubt it was labeled then as a bug, and I'd never heard any other discussion about it from anyone else there.

RBR still boils down to three things to win: being lucky, being smart, and not being pushed on the ground. Nothing has really changed that, and nothing really will. It still has lots of flaws, and I was just disappointed that this was the one they decided to tackle.

I'm going to ask that this thread be closed soon, as the event is going to be finished tomorrow, and I wouldn't like to see this argument get much more heated.

Bront · Apr 29, 2008, 03:17 AM // 03:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kashrlyyk

Remember the duping exploit and that players got banned for buying armbraces cheap? Why did they do that? Right: "They should have known!" That was the explaination ANet/Gaile Gray used. Tom Swift and strcpy both gave a good explaination, why that reasoning is bullshit.
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...5&postcount=59

and

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...5&postcount=73

The same with the 50000XP bug! It is very easy to never realize and be confronted with the fact that the XP bonus for completing a mission is only given to you once!
Even worse that bug had no influence on the game! You get enough skill points anyway, the levels are capped at 20 and a cheap survivor title is not that important. Still they banned people!

So basically in the past it didn´t matter to ANet, if you knew about the bug when you exploited it or if it had any effect on the game. So why should they care now?? ANet should be consistent. So either ban the Ram exploiters or unban all those that got banned for similar things in the past.

Both are examples of breakdown in normal game play. Duping is fairly obviously exploiting a bug. Getting rewards for a mission a second time when it normally doesn't give those is an obvious bug.

However, getting a bonus from using a skill while the skill is still active might not even be noticable (as many have said they didn't even know, I never knew, though I only raced for about an hour durring the last festival because it looked like fun), and the bug has been there for... 2 years?

They just aren't comparable. Nor, honestly, is it provable who used it. Banning the top 100 wouldn't help, as we've already seen that removing the bug hasn't changed that, so how do you suppose they go about implementing these bans fairly?

Not only that, but they aren't comparable in impact to the game. Extra XP gives you skill points, Levels (if you needed them), and now, fodder for consumables. The Armbraces gave players extra money. The bug gave people... a possible slight edge that, when removed, doesn't seem to effect the game?

Texmod is technically against the User Agreement, but you don't see A-net banning people for it.

I just don't get the outrage. I'd rather they spend time banning RMTs and Spambots, or making improvements to the everyday game.

IattackU · Apr 29, 2008, 03:43 AM // 03:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bront

Texmod is technically against the User Agreement, but you don't see A-net banning people for it.

since when, from what i remember, your allowed to mod your own game client (texmod). As long as it does not interfere with the server or any one else's game client.

"Thanks for being patient, Kurd! I've checked on this question for you, and I've been told that you would be permitted to try to use this program to mod your own GW client's textures if you'd like. Since this is a question that others may be curious about, I'll go into some more detail about it.

As a general rule of thumb, we don't mind if you do things like this to make your own playing experience more fun. Some people really like to mod, and we recognize that this can often be a valuable learning tool. When you're doing it, though, keep in mind that we ask that you don't use our content to mod other games. Please do not attempt to extract anything from your GW.dat with the intent to use it in a mod for another game or project. Also keep in mind that we can't support any changes you make. In other words, if you try to make some changes and your game crashes, don't contact support because there really isn't anything they will be able to do for you. Make sure you have your disks handy to reinstall

In case anyone was concerned about this reply, keep in mind that alterations that people make to their own .dat files will not affect the play experience of others. All of that important data is stored server side, so any changes that would be able to be made are purely cosmetic. For instance, if someone re-textures their sword to look like a gigantic pickle, they will be the only one to see this change. You won't start seeing people wielding pickle swords running around in random arena any time soon

Also keep in mind that we are always interested to see what stuff you guys come up with. If you do something exceptionally cool that you feel would really benefit the community as a whole, don't be afraid to let us know about it.

I hope this answers your question, Kurd, and thanks again for being patient with me as I tracked down the answer for you

--Image:UserEmilyDiehlStar.gif Emily Diehl (talk) 17:57, 26 June 2007 (UTC)'"

Source:http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User_...archive#gw.dat

manitoba1073 · Apr 29, 2008, 04:52 AM // 04:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Martin Alvito

Pffft. You're making stuff up. I play out of International sometimes, and American sometimes.

Go crawl back under your bridge.

Do you not read. All I said was I saw that guild in Korea district.

Then I said I saw you ingame and didnt believe you were cheating. I never said you was in korea district.

Now go pull you head outa ur A$$.

However I do have 1 question for you. You mentioned you wont beat the combo regardless at the end of a race.
what combo is that?

Bront · Apr 29, 2008, 04:59 AM // 04:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by IattackU

since when, from what i remember, your allowed to mod your own game client (texmod). As long as it does not interfere with the server or any one else's game client.

You misunderstand.

By a strict, direct interpretation of the user agreement, you can't. I am well aware that they basicly waved that part of the User Agreement for mods that give you no in game advantage, don't steal passwords, don't hack the game itself, and only effect you, and I think that's a good thing, but technicaly, they could ban people for it.

That was my point. Just because they can ban people for things, doesn't mean they always should, or will.

Kashrlyyk · Apr 29, 2008, 05:18 AM // 05:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by MoriaOrc

...
...Cultist's Spike bug exploit...
..

So with that, we would have these conclusions:
- PvP bug exploiters are not banned (Cultist Spike and Double Ram)
- PvE bug exploiters are banned (50k XP and duping)

MoriaOrc · Apr 29, 2008, 05:35 AM // 05:35

First off, I'd like to remind you that this argument is based on the premise that everything you've said about how terrible the double-ram glitch has been to the game is god's own truth. Cultists Fervor was an extreme example of a similar exploit, a skill combination that is so obviously broken beyond belief that no one could reasonably think it'll be anything but closed as soon as it's noticed.

Lets look at some more examples then.

Duncan runners: Allow you to skip the quest and four early bosses and go straight to the final boss. No bans.
Guild Hall Travel: Allows you to travel directly to any PvE outpost without getting their fairly. No bans.
Pre-Sear Item Transfer: Exploit security vulnerabilities to bring post items into pre. No bans (that I've heard of).
HM EotN Introduction: Re-Running the final quest gives you 10k Rep Points *every time.* This is basically the same as your Augury Rock example. Where were the bans?
Various AB glitches: Gank people in their "safe zone" or get out of your base early. No bans.

There are lots of bugs and glitches that get exploited by someone, or often by many people. This isn't PvP or PvE specific. I don't even know which side you'd classify Roller Beetles as, it's really neither.

The point is, there is no hard and fast rule for what gets a ban and what doesn't. If you want to compare double-ram to duping and Mallyx shortcuts, then that's your prerogative. If you want to use an exploit that was closed and dealt with years ago as the only real comparable example that did result in bans, that's your prerogative as well. There are plenty of more recent examples that are worse then double ram in terms of their in game effects, but did not result in bans.

Clearly, ANet:
- Considers the double ram to have been less detrimental to the game then either duping or Mallyx shortcut.
- Has changed their policy about what constitutes a ban-able offense since the Augury Rock exploit.

Kashrlyyk · Apr 29, 2008, 05:48 AM // 05:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by MoriaOrc

.....
Duncan runners: Allow you to skip the quest and four early bosses and go straight to the final boss. No bans.
Guild Hall Travel: Allows you to travel directly to any PvE outpost without getting their fairly. No bans.
Pre-Sear Item Transfer: Exploit security vulnerabilities to bring post items into pre. No bans (that I've heard of).

Those doesn´t stop people from achieving things on their own. Unless Double Ram or the Cultist Spike. Both stopped you from having any chance to win.
But yes, it seems like they changed their "strategy".

Quote:

Originally Posted by MoriaOrc

HM EotN Introduction: Re-Running the final quest gives you 10k Rep Points *every time.* This is basically the same as your Augury Rock example. Where were the bans?

This is not a bug! Even today when you rerun missions you get reputation points. The mistake was the huge amount of points you got with that one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MoriaOrc

The point is, there is no hard and fast rule for what gets a ban and what doesn't.

And that is the problem! If two people did the same offence both need to be punished or none. But right now some are punished and some are not.

maraxusofk · Apr 29, 2008, 05:53 AM // 05:53

i bet if anet removed all the boxes and gave all racers all skills only avaible to be used once (except dash, harden shell, and ram) people would still complain somehow. i say make this truly skill based by removing the randomness. at least then people who consistently get on top will be on top more with undeniable proof.

MoriaOrc · Apr 29, 2008, 06:31 AM // 06:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kashrlyyk

Those doesn´t stop people from achieving things on their own. Unless Double Ram or the Cultist Spike. Both stopped you from having any chance to win.
But yes, it seems like they changed their "strategy".

Perhaps not, but the same could be said of duping or Mallyx shortcutting. I distinctly recall calls for bans to a certain extent for each of those topics when they were new.

Quote:

This is not a bug! Even today when you rerun missions you get reputation points. The mistake was the huge amount of points you got with that one.

But the bug was that the re-run reward was set to the same as the first-time reward. And it was extremely high. This had essentially the same effect as the Augury Rock bug, it allowed players to get certain point values (Dwarf Rep vs Experience) very high, very quickly. I would argue that it's worse, as dwarf rep is actually useful, while experience points were basically worthless at the time of the AR bug.

Quote:

And that is the problem! If two people did the same offence both need to be punished or none. But right now some are punished and some are not.

But the problem here is that there have been different offenses, of varying degrees. Something like the Duncan run was a lower degree of the same offense as the Mallyx shortcut. Considering the change it's had on the high score board (very little), the Double-Ram apparently didn't have much effect on top 100 times (and so, on Mini distribution).

Creeping Carl · Apr 29, 2008, 06:38 AM // 06:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kashrlyyk

So with that, we would have these conclusions:
- PvP bug exploiters are not banned (Cultist Spike and Double Ram)
- PvE bug exploiters are banned (50k XP and duping)

I didnt agree with the 50k XP bans, at least not for a perma ban. But how can you not see how duping is a perma bannable offense whereas abusing skill mechanics isnt?

And I'd think you'd be thankful that duping IS a bannable offense, since you as a PVE player and all other PVE players are significantly affected by such exploits. As a PVE player myself, I'm GLAD that they punish for duping in PVE. And hey, if PVP had any reason to dupe stuff, I can guarantee there would be bans in that too.

Now quit with the lame attempt at making it look like there's some sort of favouritism between PVP and PVE when it comes to banning.

maraxusofk · Apr 29, 2008, 07:26 AM // 07:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ctb

And there's a skill description that explains the skill's behavior.

i do agree that anet should have put the phrase "after the 3 seconds, user returns to the original rpm before they used ram" that is the key missing phrase. however, most people should have known that from using the skill OVER 2 YEARS. it never crossed anyone's minds that "gee if i used ram when i have max rpm, maybe ill return to max rpm afterwards."

i never got a roller beetle from racing but i jsut think these claims of HAXORS + ABUSE seems silly.

Kashrlyyk · Apr 29, 2008, 07:32 AM // 07:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Creeping Carl

I didnt agree with the 50k XP bans, at least not for a perma ban.

I don´t think that Permanent Bans should be in any game. If some player really hurts the game, sue him.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Creeping Carl

But how can you not see how duping is a perma bannable offense whereas abusing skill mechanics isnt?

I don´t see that. Even if everybody dupes, I can still make the decision to get the rewards others dupe, by playing the game, like it was meant to be done, and I can succeed in doing that.
Unlike those PvP exploits. I can still participate in PvP without them, but if I am up against someone halfly competent, I do not stand a chance! I can not succeed. And that makes PvP exploits so much more harmful and punishable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Creeping Carl

Now quit with the lame attempt at making it look like there's some sort of favouritism between PVP and PVE when it comes to banning.

I don´t know a single time where PvP exploits were banned. I know a few for PvE. Unless there is a rational explaination, why that is, I can not ignore the theory of favourism.
PvP exploits I know of: Grenth Balance, Cultist Spike and Double Ram.

arcanemacabre · Apr 29, 2008, 07:40 AM // 07:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kashrlyyk

I don´t know a single time where PvP exploits were banned. I know a few for PvE. Unless there is a rational explaination, why that is, I can not ignore the theory of favourism.

If I'm not mistaken, wasn't there a PvP exploit where someone was able to crash everyone's client during a match? I'm pretty sure there were a few bans handed out for that.

The dopple xp ban was definitely wrong, I agree with that, but abusing a bug in the system for personal gain versus using skills as they were intended (albeit fatally imba combinations unforeseen by balancers) are quite different. No one got banned for 55ing, solo trapping, and all sorts of other ridiculous skill combinations farmers put together to 'abuse' PvE, so why should they be in PvP?

manitoba1073 · Apr 29, 2008, 07:47 AM // 07:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by arcanemacabre

If I'm not mistaken, wasn't there a PvP exploit where someone was able to crash everyone's client during a match? I'm pretty sure there were a few bans handed out for that.

The dopple xp ban was definitely wrong, I agree with that, but abusing a bug in the system for personal gain versus using skills as they were intended (albeit fatally imba combinations unforeseen by balancers) are quite different. No one got banned for 55ing, solo trapping, and all sorts of other ridiculous skill combinations farmers put together to 'abuse' PvE, so why should they be in PvP?

The client crash wasnt just PvP it was in the whole game including PvE and PvP.

arcanemacabre · Apr 29, 2008, 08:01 AM // 08:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by manitoba1073

The client crash wasnt just PvP it was in the whole game including PvE and PvP.

I'm aware of that, but those who were banned were ones using it in places like AB and RA, possibly other PvP areas, but I distinctly remember those two. It was also quickly fixed for that very reason. Crashing the client in a PvE PUG - who cares?