Curse

Chicken Ftw · Jan 14, 2008, 02:52 AM // 02:52

It's hard to understand because it has no NPCs, is only accessible by a ferry, and leads right to a boss of an elite area, one you normally have to conquer 4 other areas first to reach. None of this reeks of being off to you? Not only that, all of you somehow knew to keep it secret, whether by being told by someone else, or your own gut feeling that it's not legit. I'm sorry if I'm not buying your story, but it just seems insane that you couldn't realize something was up.

guildwars101 · Jan 14, 2008, 02:55 AM // 02:55

how the hell could a "secret outpost" that you paid to get too or glitched into that no one else knew about and few people visited that let you skip hours of work and attian valuble items not be an exploit...stop saying you didnt know it was real...its like finding a way to get to HoH w/o fighting any of the previous maps and not orchestrating a HoH skip but just getting there and defending yourself by saying no one ever said it was a hack..

Puritans Aid · Jan 14, 2008, 03:00 AM // 03:00

i did not pay ot get there.

i did get 1 armbrace, about 25 runs, 14 completed, the rest failed.

I did not know that you had to do the 4 areas of thequest over and over, i was shownthis//and told it was how it always was.

I beleive in the EULA, it says KNOWINGLY exploited.

I didnt know.

I never spent more than 12 seconds in the town, I didnt look around for what was wasnt there. We formed party in gh, as we do for everything we do, ussually because I will be in EOTN , and they will pull me from GH to some place wherever they need help.

Puritan.

fusa · Jan 14, 2008, 03:06 AM // 03:06

I'm a DM on another online rpg where we had a a group of people who had their accounts deleted, and one banned. Before we took action against the people we started an investigation. We carefully examined server logs from six servers to track who was exploiting the server. After a month of this investigation we had to stop. Since another person was caught hacking people's accounts which used a similar method they were using. The method we used to stop the person hacking into other's accounts also stopped the exploits used by the people under investigation. Originally we only knew of a couple of people who might be using the exploit. After the investigation we found the majority of one guild plus one other person was using this. The person outside of the guild was banned for about 15 accounts (for breaking about every rule on the server several times over) and the guild members had their accounts deleted. If their accounts weren't deleted it would have required a server vault wipe to repair the damage their guild did to the economy. The guild was fairly new and was using large amounts of high end items that it took people well over a year to acquire. We were certain that there were more people using this to profit, but since we had to block the method we didn't catch everyone, but we did catch the worst offenders. We also had a fairly large thread of innocent pleas and insults.

The recent events here in Guild Wars has reminded me a lot of this. Arena-Net found about the exploit a few weeks to months ago. They started investigating who was using this. Eventually when the exploit went public they did too, with a swift banning of the worst of the exploiters. And now people are making up every excuse they can think of to make themselves look innocent.

It all comes down to if you can't play a game without hacking, exploiting, or cheating then don't play it. You'll save yourselves a lot of money and time wasted and everyone else the trouble of putting up with your immature BS.

Dr Strangelove · Jan 14, 2008, 03:07 AM // 03:07

It's really, really hard to believe that anyone can be that oblivious to their surroundings so as to not notice that many red flags after that many runs. I'd say it should have been obvious to any reasonable human being. You really can't prove your intent or what you were thinking anyway, all you have to show are your actions. 25 runs, no reports on the forums, no support ticket.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Puritans Aid

My mom made me pay for a grape I ate at the grocerie store. I know more about morals/right/wrong than most adults, and I live by them.

Must...resist...snarky...comment

FeroxC · Jan 14, 2008, 03:07 AM // 03:07

A mere 14 successfull runs and you got an Armbrace :O lucky git, realistically im never going to be able to get one

I got a question, if you got your account back Puritan would you delete your Armbrace ?

spyke136 · Jan 14, 2008, 03:09 AM // 03:09

are you honestly saying you've been playing since 2006 and you didnt know that you had to do the first 4 quests in DoA before mallyx? lol.

i dont understand the defense that "you still had to fight the 16 mobs before mallyx" um did you have to do the 4 quests and the 100s of mobs too? if your answer is no, then you exploited the game which was enabled by a hack. everyone tried to keep it a secret because they knew it wasn't legal. if you didn't think it was wrong to be doing it you should be banned for being that dumb. either way you deserve to be banned. it wasn't an exploit because it wasn't available to everyone, it was only available to those who knew the hacker, or were ferried there by someone ferried by the hacker.

only 117 people out of thousands of people playing were banned, which also lends itself to this being more than a glitch in the game. was anyone banned for ferrying thru the guild hall ambassador? not that i know of, why? because it was available to everyone and a glitch in the games code. in this instance someone had to hack the gw code, and so it is NOT a glitch and therefore everyone involved deserves to be banned.

i do think however that anyone who just went there once and left (without doing the quest) should be acquitted.

Snow Bunny · Jan 14, 2008, 03:09 AM // 03:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Puritans Aid

I beleive in the EULA, it says KNOWINGLY exploited.

I didnt know.

Oh, I'm sorry. It didn't look at all suspicious to you?
"Oh, we found a way to circumvent the entire quest tree"

I mean, if you simply admit what you did was wrong, then yes, it's admirable, despite your transgressions. But this ridiculous denial of complicity is insane.

I mean, it's like finding four briefcases in the street, each containing $700,000.
You'd KNOW something was up.

Thank goodness you people aren't on trial for anything serious, you'd get torn to pieces.

Snow Bunny · Jan 14, 2008, 03:16 AM // 03:16

I simply don't understand how you can deny that you knew something was wrong.

It's like when someone tries to scam you with the "drop your weapon and let me dupe it" trick.

We all know something is up when that happens. How is something of the same sort, only this time in your favor, any different?

Antheus · Jan 14, 2008, 03:20 AM // 03:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Puritans Aid

i did not pay ot get there.

i did get 1 armbrace, about 25 runs, 14 completed, the rest failed.

I did not know that you had to do the 4 areas of thequest over and over, i was shownthis//and told it was how it always was.

I beleive in the EULA, it says KNOWINGLY exploited.

I didnt know.

I never spent more than 12 seconds in the town, I didnt look around for what was wasnt there. We formed party in gh, as we do for everything we do, ussually because I will be in EOTN , and they will pull me from GH to some place wherever they need help.

Puritan.

Why are you angry at Anet then?

Your guildies, your friends lied to you all the time. You were deceived by them, used as a party filler so they could profit.

Where are they now? Why aren't they defending you? Why don't you talk to them, have them come up here and say what went down, how they hid the inconvenient truth from you.

Some friends they are.

Are they also all banned? Or did they make it so that only you got banned, while they are safe on alt accounts?

Perhaps they knew you better, they probably knew how easy it would be to get you in on this, and let you take the fall. Why so angry at everyone else.

You didn't know, so exploiter and hacker labels don't apply to you, you can sleep soundly at night. There's no need to get mad at Anet, they are doing what they have to.

But why not try to go after the real people. Your so-called friends that brought this upon you. They're likely having a laugh right now, reading this, seeing how they dragged you down, and you were none the wiser. People can be so mean when it comes to profit.

Why not report all this to Anet, say who these people were, and show how you were fooled into this? Why not let the true people take the blame. The ring leaders, who do this to unsuspecting players.

Mai · Jan 14, 2008, 03:23 AM // 03:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Puritans Aid

Anyway, and either way, If I dont get my account back, I will miss you all, yes even you naysayers, because it takes all types for the world to go around.

I find that hilarious that you call us "naysayers" even though you used the exploit 25 times. We are merely pointing out your own stubborn idea that you are innocent when we all know that you are not. You provided the evidence that incriminated yourself even more so than anyone.

There is something called common sense and playing the ignorance card can only get you so far but 25 times?......No...Just no

Puritans Aid · Jan 14, 2008, 03:23 AM // 03:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Antheus

Why are you angry at Anet then?

Your guildies, your friends lied to you all the time. You were deceived by them, used as a party filler so they could profit.

Where are they now? Why aren't they defending you? Why don't you talk to them, have them come up here and say what went down, how they hid the inconvenient truth from you.

Some friends they are.

Are they also all banned? Or did they make it so that only you got banned, while they are safe on alt accounts?

Perhaps they knew you better, they probably knew how easy it would be to get you in on this, and let you take the fall. Why so angry at everyone else.

You didn't know, so exploiter and hacker labels don't apply to you, you can sleep soundly at night. There's no need to get mad at Anet, they are doing what they have to.

But why not try to go after the real people. Your so-called friends that brought this upon you. They're likely having a laugh right now, reading this, seeing how they dragged you down, and you were none the wiser. People can be so mean when it comes to profit.

Why not report all this to Anet, say who these people were, and show how you were fooled into this? Why not let the true people take the blame. The ring leaders, who do this to unsuspecting players.

Sadly, a few of them have apparently gotten extremely rich alts, and are laying very low. One appologized, and told us to blame him to A net.

The rest are on here, and on the petition, and have hte same issue I do.

Puritan

Daenara · Jan 14, 2008, 07:40 AM // 07:40

You know, it's kind of scary to think that I could have had my account banned. I can see it happening like this -
"Hey, want to kill Mallyx?"
"I'm not up to him yet"
"It doesn't matter, you can just zone to him like the guild hall map travel bug. But don't tell anyone, we're trying to keep it quiet so prices dont plummet."

I would have just known that no one was banned from the map travel bug, and thought "ehwell, they'll fix it soon." I would have had nothing to do with hacking the .dat file, just doing something which Anet had already shown was not bannable. I have a friend who had his account banned like this... he knew it was a bug, and couldn't even imagine that it involved "hacking" anything. It was wrong of him to do... but the 3 gemsets that he made in an hours fun with friends wasn't worth the permanent ban of his account.

Anyway, my 2 cents in this thousand page conglomeration which I'm sure no one is reading anymore.

tmakinen · Jan 14, 2008, 07:46 AM // 07:46

Well, this thread has an amazing amount of endurance. The following excuses are being repeated ad infinum:

I didn't do it.
I didn't do it so many times as to warrant a ban.
I didn't have to do it because I was filthy rich to begin with.
I didn't know it was illegal.
It wasn't really illegal.
You can't prove anything.
Everybody would've done it given a chance.
It was not worse than many other exploits.
Why are other people not banned for doing X?
I paid for the game, ANet cannot take my money away.
I've played X hours over Y months.
Wahhhh! You all are so mean to me!

It looks like some people believe that there must be some magic words that absolve any wrongdoing and it's just a question of trying everything until something works. Face the rap, none of the above (even if in some cases true) will get your account back, ever. There is only one possible way to get the ban lifted and the relevant incantation is:

I did it for testing purposes only.

However, this is not a magic incantation because it must be absolutely true to work. The necessary conditions are:

* you tested an exploit only to the extent that it was reproducible
* you immediately deleted any ill-gained goods
* you immediately sent a detailed description of the exploit to ANet
* you refrained from doing it again, even on alt accounts

Furthermore, it is useless to argue your point on these forums. ANet has every GW character under a surveillance camera 24/7, they've got the tapes and when you get in a dragnet your actions are reviewed. If they don't feel like lifting the ban no amount of hair splitting will change the outcome.

leprekan · Jan 14, 2008, 08:06 AM // 08:06

To those saying burn them.

Wouldn't it be nice to have Anet look far enough back to ban all the Duncan ferry people as well? How about those HOS people? I mean you are all so anti "exploit" shouldn't Anet just look a few months back and clean all those people out as well? What that isn't fair to go that far back to ban people? My nephew was banned for farming Mallyx one day in November and not since. This was an impact on the economy how? After all, that Duncan ferry was just as much an exploit for profit as Mallyx was. Sadly it was far more devastating to the economy than Mallyx ever would have been. Those greens were 100k + items and onyx was 10k and dropped everytime .. the farm didn't take any longer.

Please stop acting like the two are different. Same thing was used .. one person with all 4 zones completed to ferry people that did not have all 4 complete. The "hidden outpost" was so easy to oops into it is a miracle it wasn't used before it was.

Time will show if Anet is honest that this was a generic guild hall ferry. You may not like the comparison but it is more than fair to make it.

BlackSephir · Jan 14, 2008, 08:10 AM // 08:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by leprekan

Wouldn't it be nice to have Anet look far enough back to ban all the Duncan ferry people as well? How about those HOS people?

Sounds cool. Can we have ban weekend this week? Aka, no lag weekend? Pretty please AN?

Oh I almost forgot...
I don't buy this "I didn't know it was an exploit" crap. If you really have so many obvious signs "this isn't right" and you still can't figure it out- banned for your own stupidity

spyke136 · Jan 14, 2008, 08:18 AM // 08:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by leprekan

To those saying burn them.

Wouldn't it be nice to have Anet look far enough back to ban all the Duncan ferry people as well? How about those HOS people? I mean you are all so anti "exploit" shouldn't Anet just look a few months back and clean all those people out as well? What that isn't fair to go that far back to ban people? My nephew was banned for farming Mallyx one day in November and not since. This was an impact on the economy how? After all, that Duncan ferry was just as much an exploit for profit as Mallyx was. Sadly it was far more devastating to the economy than Mallyx ever would have been. Those greens were 100k + items and onyx was 10k and dropped everytime .. the farm didn't take any longer.

Please stop acting like the two are different. Same thing was used .. one person with all 4 zones completed to ferry people that did not have all 4 complete. The "hidden outpost" was so easy to oops into it is a miracle it wasn't used before it was.

Time will show if Anet is honest that this was a generic guild hall ferry. You may not like the comparison but it is more than fair to make it.

except no one had to hack the game to use the other exploits. the mallyx town is not a bug or an exploit it is a hack. that is why everyone was banned. stop QQing and move on.

jeesuss89 · Jan 14, 2008, 08:21 AM // 08:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by leprekan

To those saying burn them.

Wouldn't it be nice to have Anet look far enough back to ban all the Duncan ferry people as well? How about those HOS people? I mean you are all so anti "exploit" shouldn't Anet just look a few months back and clean all those people out as well? What that isn't fair to go that far back to ban people? My nephew was banned for farming Mallyx one day in November and not since. This was an impact on the economy how? After all, that Duncan ferry was just as much an exploit for profit as Mallyx was. Sadly it was far more devastating to the economy than Mallyx ever would have been. Those greens were 100k + items and onyx was 10k and dropped everytime .. the farm didn't take any longer.

Please stop acting like the two are different. Same thing was used .. one person with all 4 zones completed to ferry people that did not have all 4 complete. The "hidden outpost" was so easy to oops into it is a miracle it wasn't used before it was.

Time will show if Anet is honest that this was a generic guild hall ferry. You may not like the comparison but it is more than fair to make it.

I agree 100%.

From what I've read from the 2.000+ (yes, there was more as mods have deleted majority of the one-liners in the thread, which is fair enough), A-net's two arguments for conducting the ban are as follows;

1) The affect this has had on the economy, and
2) Access to a hidden outpost IN WHICH an affect has been made on the economy.

I believe that those who really had no effect on the economy should be punished, but not to this extremity. It really isn't fair on those who made no personal gain from this, and if no personal gain was made, how could an ENTIRE economy suffer from one who has made no gain whatsoever???

As for how this location came to be accessible by anyone through standard gameplay, this cannot be explained by myself as I cannot provide the true story, as I do not know truly how one person made it there. My opinion however, is a simple glitch. Someone mistakenly arrived at this outpost, and began ferrying, much like any other ferry, and began sucking in a lot of newbs/stupid/ignorant/oblivious people. I'm sure most of the 117 would fall into this category.

This is my opinion. I will not respond to those who find it necessary to call me out for believing this, or those who want to flame.

leprekan · Jan 14, 2008, 08:21 AM // 08:21

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlackSephir

Sounds cool. Can we have ban weekend this week? Aka, no lag weekend? Pretty please AN?

Oh I almost forgot...
I don't buy this "I didn't know it was an exploit" crap. If you really have so many obvious signs "this isn't right" and you still can't figure it out- banned for your own stupidity

Epic fail for not answering the questions. Then again the witch hunt isn't looking for fair now is it.

Uh .. I think everyone that did it can say that it didn't seem to be any different than the Duncan ferry. Geeeee form a party then a ferry takes you to the last boss in a quest that had 4 others that the ferry can skip. To anyone being remotely fair .. same damn thing that Duncan was.

Duncan was not a ban offense. Oh I had questions if it was right .. then again had questions about Duncan as well. However, Duncan wasn't a ban offense. Reasonable to assume that Mallyx would not be as well. There wasn't a burning bush saying this is WRONG! Everything we had been shown in 32 months stated a ferry was not a permaban.

leprekan · Jan 14, 2008, 08:40 AM // 08:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Creeping Carl

Yes yes. It's all a witch hunt. All 117 of you are completely innocent. It's a conspiracy I tell you. I mean, how could anyone know that warping to a hidden outpost that let you shortcut to the endgame of an elite area was an exploit?

It's completely ANET's fault for not being perfect and for not forseeing this. All games should be bug proof and hack proof. Otherwise, it's all up for grabs to cheat...I mean use any advantage! And if they arent going to ban the people who exploited Duncan then they should let the 117 go free. And let the botters go as well, because they didnt ban people for taking advantage of that one recent glitch where cupcakes were dropping when they werent supposed to.

No one was exploiting MallyX, even if they farmed him a billion times to profit from it. And even if they farmed him, it wasnt much of a profit, it was all for fun. Besides, we all know that it was really a dev who led the first ferry to MallyX. So it's not anyone's fault for cheating!

Nope. We are all guilty .. as guilty as the people that used a ferry to Duncan.

There is the witch hunt. Double standards are really cool as long as they are not used on you.