Curse

Chthon · Aug 13, 2007, 04:25 AM // 04:25

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Spent some time hopping towns trying to wheedle some info from the people selling multiple armbraces. Most of them started to ignore me when I started to ask too many questions. Some of them would stop ignoring me and suddenly become very defensive when I suggested they used some sort of exploit. IMO, they didst protest too much. Didn't get any useful information other than that.

Also encountered a surprising number of people trying to sell one or two armbraces they had recently traded for. This makes me suspect that the masses of armbraces are real, and not figments of a display glitch.

Also saw an usually large number of people selling torment weapons, as well as people selling "armbraces or torment X." This leads me to suspect that at least some of the people responsible read the forums, are aware the world is on to them, and are now trying to lie low by selling the weapons instead of the armbraces.

Theory:
Here's what I hope is a systematic breakdown of possibilities:

Display bug? - the armbraces aren't real. I think this is unlikely. There's too many "little people" selling one or two - plus that screenshot. Moreover, the sellers are offering single armbraces.
Global item dupe bug? - anything can be duped. I think this is unlikely. First, if you could dupe any item at all, why armbraces? I'd expect them to be duping req9 ele swords, crystallines, etc. Second, given their apparent lack of self-control, I think it's more likely than not that we'd know if they were duping something else.
Stackable item dupe bug? - anything stackable can be duped. I think this is also unlikely, for basically the same reasons. Why armbraces instead of ectos? If I assume that they would have gone just as hog-wild with ectos if they could, and it seems that they did not, that implies they could not.
So that leaves something specific to armbraces Trying to look at the lifecycle of the armbrace one step at a time.
- Gemstone Farming? IMO, this is highly unlikely. Even if someone had an effect farm build (and fed it to a bot), the sheer volume of gemstones needed to get thousands of armbraces just isn't possible.
- DoA rewards chests bugged? This strikes me as unlikely. First, AFIAK other chests use the exact same code, just with different contents, and no one has found a way to exploit any of the other chests. Second, even if there was a chest exploit, doing the DoA quests to reach the exploit would be very time consuming.
- Mallyx quest reward bugged? This is a possibility. There's been bugs with quest rewards and full inventories since day 1. Perhaps it's as simple as having room to take less than 4 gems? Perhaps with partial stacks in your inventory that can accept some of the gems without registering that you accepted them? While it's true that Mallyx hasn't been beaten very much recently, it might only take one person with an un-cashed-in reward.
- Spirit of Truth bugged? This seems most likely. (I thank Shan for explaining the theory to me.) Perhaps there's some way to clear the gems from your inventory during the exchange, get an armbrace anyway, then reacquire the gems. I can imagine 4 possible ways to get an item declared "out" of your inventory: (1) stick it in the trade window, (2) actually trade it, (3) drop it on the ground (Spirit of Truth is in an explorable after all), and (4) drop it in the trashcan (without confirming). Any of these should be testable by trying them on any collector in an explorable zone. (I'll do so tomorrow if no one beats me to it.)
- Coffer bugged? Seems unlikely. This thread reports coffers are functioning normally. Also, I strong suspect that the contents of a coffer is set when it is created, so a rollback exploit (if it existed) wouldn't do any good.

What Now?
Unfortunately, this has been going on too long for a rollback. What else can a-net do?

Making the armbraces go poof is one possibility. The major bad thing about it is that, from my own observations, a fair number of people have innocently traded most valuable items they owned for an armbrace or two - for a-net to turn those armbraces to dust (or chitin fragments, or any other less-valuable object) would really hurt these folks. Another weakness is that it will have to be done very soon or not at all, because the people holding multitudes of armbraces appear to have already started converting them to torment items. If the armbraces aren't wiped out quickly, most of the wrongdoers' ill-gotten inventories will already have been laundered.

A second possibility that's been suggested is to make armbraces un-tradable. This reduces the harm to innocent buyers. (If they wanted a torment weapon, they are unhurt. And if they wanted to speculate on armbraces, at least they get a torment weapon.) However, this shares the same weakness as the above option - the multitudes of armbraces can just be converted to torment weapons and sold.

A third possibility is to do one of the above, and also make torment weapons un-tradeable. That would make the ill-gotten gains completely illiquid, albeit at the expense of ruining part of the economy.

A fourth option is to scan for accounts with unusually large numbers of armbraces and/or torment weapons, yank the logs, then ban.

Ultimately, I suggest a combination approach:
Make armbraces and torment weapons un-tradeable TOMORROW. Now you have time to scan for accounts with unusually large numbers of these items, go through the logs, figure out how they did it, and ban them. If they're smart, they might delete their inventories before you scan them, but at least that gets rid of the items. Once a cycle of scan-and-ban is complete, armbraces and torment weapons can become tradeable again.

Nurse With Wound · Aug 13, 2007, 04:25 AM // 04:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by OOshadeOO

this has been going on for 3+ weeks if there is a rollback i wonder how many people will quit gw where i seen a thread today about titles being grinded so anet tries to keep ppl into guild wars, im shure they realize that a 3+ week rollback would make alot of people angry and wouldnt be the way to keep people into the game.

Rollback after Monthly AT finale, double fame weekend in HA and Dragon Festival would be the end of Guild Wars. They cannot punish thousands of legitimate players for crimes of the few. If thats not one-two days problem, they have to come up with some other solution. best Solution is to trace and permaban offenders.

jhu · Aug 13, 2007, 04:28 AM // 04:28

perhaps this is an inside job? given the recent eve on-line scandal, it's within the realm of possibility.

Tarzan Yamada · Aug 13, 2007, 04:31 AM // 04:31

I can see a way to fix this problem: Release more of these extremely rare mini pets into the game. Maybe through new quests, or promotions, or birthday presents or just as random loot. If they aren't so rare anymore, then they won't be worth all this.

Martin Alvito · Aug 13, 2007, 04:35 AM // 04:35

There's another possibility, and it's likely that this is the strategy that ANet will play:

Close the loophole. Do nothing about the illicit items.

For a list of cases where this strategy has been played, I refer you to:

1) old-school 55 UW ecto farming
2) exploit where anything that died (even you) dropped
3) Hard Mode Urgoz

No rollbacks in any of those cases. 1 and 3 went on for a long time; they figured out 2 within about 24 hours.

My current expectation is that there's going to be a LOT of tormented shields out there in the very near future.

jhu · Aug 13, 2007, 04:38 AM // 04:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tarzan Yamada

I can see a way to fix this problem: Release more of these extremely rare mini pets into the game. Maybe through new quests, or promotions, or birthday presents or just as random loot. If they aren't so rare anymore, then they won't be worth all this.

this is a symptom of a potentially more severe problem - alleged armbraces duplication exploit.

Martin Alvito · Aug 13, 2007, 04:44 AM // 04:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tarzan Yamada

I can see a way to fix this problem: Release more of these extremely rare mini pets into the game. Maybe through new quests, or promotions, or birthday presents or just as random loot. If they aren't so rare anymore, then they won't be worth all this.

Shall they release tons more Crystallines, Runic Blades, Stygian Reavers and Dwarven Axes while they are at it?

Your proposal won't fix the problem. We have the drop system we have, and scarcity of certain things is part of the deal. Just pray that ANet has enough sense to tie item skins and/or pets to titles or accomplishments in GW2. Something along the lines of the PvP Reward system, basically - modified to also include rewards for PvE accomplishments.

Hlaford · Aug 13, 2007, 04:49 AM // 04:49

It is not a quest bug. It has nothing to do with Armbraces themselves, but the value. I have been told how to do it by a "friend," of mine, but do not have the capability, as it requires two, CLOSE computers. I have seen it work, for I know him in real life. So, quit your speculation. It can be done with anything, Armbraces are just the most valuable stackable item, so you can buy anything with them. THAT is why they were duplicated. It has to do with two characters being on at the same time. That's about the extent of my knowledge. Now you know. There is no Salvaging of coffers, no weird trade window bug, no quest exploit.

shadowofskip · Aug 13, 2007, 04:50 AM // 04:50

Hopefully this is resolved soon... most of us work so hard to get a tiny fraction of what these guys have..

suddenly not looking forward to gw:en =\

GloryFox · Aug 13, 2007, 04:51 AM // 04:51

Or you can just simply devalue the items by changing the number Necessary to acquire the weapons. This might upset some high end $$$ people but it will hurt the exploiters even more. Then close the loophole when they find it. You can always harm the demand and cost of return investments by simply increasing the supply.

Hlaford · Aug 13, 2007, 04:52 AM // 04:52

A few of the people responsible for the duping have already destroyed their items, in fear of being banned. GW:EN will be fine.

korcan · Aug 13, 2007, 04:53 AM // 04:53

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hlaford

It is not a quest bug. It has nothing to do with Armbraces themselves, but the value. I have been told how to do it by a "friend," of mine, but do not have the capability, as it requires two, CLOSE computers. I have seen it work, for I know him in real life. So, quit your speculation. It can be done with anything, Armbraces are just the most valuable stackable item, so you can buy anything with them. THAT is why they were duplicated. It has to do with two characters being on at the same time. That's about the extent of my knowledge. Now you know. There is no Salvaging of coffers, no weird trade window bug, no quest exploit.

some proof other then just your word would be nice. i could claim to be tom cruise and im sure a ton of people would believe that.

The Girly Monk · Aug 13, 2007, 04:53 AM // 04:53

Usually when Diablo 2 has these exploits they Screen the servers and scan through daily data to find people cloning objects into there inventories out of no where, so im guessing theyll just ban whoevers conducting these exploits maby.

Enko · Aug 13, 2007, 04:54 AM // 04:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Herbalizer

Those results will be most interesting.

heh looks like all the people with the 1750 armbraces are asleep. no offeres yet.

undeadgun · Aug 13, 2007, 04:57 AM // 04:57

i feel sad to say this,but i have to, this whole armbrace thing has already been affect other High-Ended items, not only just mini pets, today sold my req 9 inscriptable CRystalline Sword, for a big amount of ectos, later on buyer PMed, "hey just sold your sword for 750e+5arms to a ebayer"... me:"-_-!" so i am totaly lost and i am scared to sell anything at this moment......

CyberNigma · Aug 13, 2007, 04:57 AM // 04:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hlaford

It is not a quest bug. It has nothing to do with Armbraces themselves, but the value. I have been told how to do it by a "friend," of mine, but do not have the capability, as it requires two, CLOSE computers. I have seen it work, for I know him in real life. So, quit your speculation. It can be done with anything, Armbraces are just the most valuable stackable item, so you can buy anything with them. THAT is why they were duplicated. It has to do with two characters being on at the same time. That's about the extent of my knowledge. Now you know. There is no Salvaging of coffers, no weird trade window bug, no quest exploit.

Then perhaps it's possible with one computer (there are ways to run multiple instances of GW on a single computer), or if it has to be two OS's/hardware configs then you could do it with VMWare Server (free) since you have control over the virtual hardware (VMWare NIC). There are very few things that in reality need two computers where virtualization exists. I dunno the specifics so I don't know which one would be the case.

Hlaford · Aug 13, 2007, 04:58 AM // 04:58

It is possible, and I bet GW will fix it. All they have to do is stop the reconnect ability. And BAM no more duplication

Hlaford · Aug 13, 2007, 04:58 AM // 04:58

I already have.

Matrix · Aug 13, 2007, 05:04 AM // 05:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hlaford

. All they have to do is stop the reconnect ability.

Not the gratest solution at all. But for the time being is much better than to have all this S**t going on.

Hlaford · Aug 13, 2007, 05:06 AM // 05:06

To stop it until a better solution is obtained, Like, No Trading in a mission. BAM that also will fix it.