Curse

Creeping Carl · Jan 14, 2008, 08:42 AM // 08:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by leprekan

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.

It's only a double standard if the circumstances were exactly the same. They are not.

By the way, I never used a Duncan ferry. So you can't accuse me of being a hypocrite either.

BlackSephir · Jan 14, 2008, 08:45 AM // 08:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by leprekan

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

Epic fail overall. You asked if AN should ban HoS and Duncan 'exploiters'. I replied "sounds cool". Now, know what it means? This means I wouldn't have anything against it. You're sadly mistaken if you think I was one of people who used these exploits. That's why I wouldn't have anything against banning them. Is that clear? Good.
Go ahead AN- do the "cleaning". After that, only pure ones will remain. And I will be one of them [/saint]
But I know they won't. Wanna know why? Because there weren't any hacks involved. No secret outposts. Everybody knew about these bugs while 117 kept it secret for their own benefit- for months? Awesome.

Friday · Jan 14, 2008, 09:10 AM // 09:10

I have read this thread from the start and been keeping track of it... it is still making me shake my head in wonder at human nature. The amount of justifications and "bargaining" over the consequences of doing something wrong is truly amazing. Amounst the BS there have been well presented statements from both sides BUT there are some posts like tmakinen's one on the previous page that should be printed and pasted on every players screen.

On a side note:
One of my guildies stated, with wide eyes, "I was almost banned!!! I went there once with friends, but it wasn't right"...

A 14 year old figured THAT out, so go figure on the ones that didn't.

*waves at BB - you go guy! you rock as a level headed, mature and really great teen!!

arcanemacabre · Jan 14, 2008, 09:21 AM // 09:21

Really, this is more about a deterrent than a punishment. The next time someone stumbles upon an exploit, they will think twice about trying to profit from it, and will be more inclined to send a support ticket or post it on the forums instead.

SirJackassIII · Jan 14, 2008, 09:22 AM // 09:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Puritans Aid

I didnt know.

Steps of Mallyx The Unyielding Quest:

1. Go to the City of Torc'qua and destroy Lord Jadoth. -skipped
2. Go to Ravenheart Gloom and destroy the Greater Darkness. -skipped
3. Go to The Foundry of Failed Creations and destroy the Fury. -skipped
4. Go to the Stygian Veil and destroy the Dreadspawn Maw. -skipped

After these 4 steps, you get the following steps:

5. Report your success in defeating the Lords of Anguish to High Priest Zhellix. -circumvented using GH ferry after orgininal hack!
6. Speak to High Priest Zhellix to commence the assault on the Ebony Citadel of Mallyx the Unyielding. -cleared
7. Seek out and destroy Mallyx the Unyielding in his Ebony Citadel. -cleared
8. See High Priest Zhellix for your reward. -cleared

Nowhere does it even come remotely close to saying you can go straight to Mallyx and kill him. "I did not know" is not a valid argument. The quest itself makes it perfectly clear that you need to beat the first 4 overlords before advancing to Mallyx. This is unlike The Last Hierophant, where the quest is:

1. Defeat Justiciar Thommis
2. Defeat Rand Stormweaver
3. Defeat Selvetarm
4. Defeat Forgewight
5. Destroy Duncan the Black

Which are all given at the same time, actually suggesting you can do Duncan before the others (but apparently not intended), the problem with this setup being that Duncan's chest is better and the bug that caused completion of the quest upon killing Duncan. The thing is, there wasn't really anything odd in the "ferry" of this quest since the same can be done for "The Final Assault", except that that one didn't cause party members to complete the entire quest line as well, which was a well-known bug and fixed pretty fast.
As opposed to exploiting the GH bug/hack for several months and keeping it a secret because of the chance you might get banned and it'd get fixed if ANet found out...

The two situations are completely different, in execution, in scale, in personal gain, in time period and in possible interpretation of the quest itself. As such, Duncan Run can not be used as a precedent to the Mallyx Hack/Ferry.

And for the record, I didn't do HoS runs (which wasn't an exploit either, it was a farm run) or Duncan Runs. Nor do I think those people should be banned.

lishi · Jan 14, 2008, 09:35 AM // 09:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by leprekan

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.

is not double standard.

It would be if the infraction was of the same type and gravity.
And pretty much everone think they are not.

Abnaxus · Jan 14, 2008, 10:00 AM // 10:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by leprekan

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.

After reading Leprekan's explaination of how the "Mallyx ferry" worked, and provided that what he says is true, my opinion is that the permaban is an extreme measure, and probably A.net which have their faults should rethink about that.

Anyway some considerations about ferries need to be done, otherwise putting on the same level different kind of ferries is just wrong and aimed at generating confusion:

- Duncan
This "exploit" happened the very 1st day people arrived at Slaver's Exile.
It was a "bug" immediately discovered, and several players and forum users refused even to consider it an exploit, they affirmed this was the way the game was designed.
And I can't blame them, because if the very 1st day you arrive in Slaver's and find things working this way, you can't be sure this is an exploit, at most you can think it's a bad design and should be changed.
Then A.net corrected their software mistake and made things work in a more proper way.
A.net made the mistake, players acted as beta testers and discovered the mistake that A.net employees were not able to find before game release.
They couldn't ban paying customers for the bad work of their employees.

- Urgoz/Deep taxi
To me, this sounds as a real exploit.
Anyway, A.net left it in game because it was the only way to bypass the worst biggest awful game design mistake in the whole history of GW, that is allowing only to members of a faction farming alliance to access the elite area on a campaign, thus excluding 99.9999999 .... % of GW customers from the elite area.
I know people who stopped buying GW campaigns for that.
Because of this, since Factions came out, I never was a single time in Deep/Urgoz, because I simply refused to beg someone for a taxi.
It took them one and a half year to correct the mistake with scrolls.

- HoS runs
This was not an exploit, it was simply the easiest dungeon in game, the way it was designed allowed players to run through it with no effort and easily kill the boss.
Then A.net redesigned the dungeon and give it a difficulty level comparable with some others.

- Consulate Docks
Technically, this is an exploit.
Anyway, the impact on the game is so minimal (the possibility to get immediately max armor, that requires anyway that the player has already gold and materials for that) that A.net didn't bother to fix it, probably the cost for reviewing the code wasn't worth the final result.

And now Mallyx.
Leprekan says no software hack was required to perform this.
Assuming this is true, it's another programming mistake from A.net developers, similar to Duncan.

But there is a difference: this software bug has been discovered 1 year after DoA was introduced, when every GW player with a minimal experience should be perfectly aware of how the NF elite Dungeon is intended to work.
And players who discovered the bug are among the most experienced GW players, some of them have thousands of hours.

They should have refrained from exploiting the bug they discovered, give immediate notice to A.net support, and not involved other players into the exploit.
In this way they led some less experienced or naive players in such a situation, like Leprekan's example of his nephew.

So:
- A.net is guilty because of their programming mistakes
- but the experienced players who discovered and used the bug are 2 times guilty. because they used the bug without giving notice of it to A.net, and involved other players in this bug exploit.

Nevertheless, I consider a permaban too excessive from A.net, they have their faults in the whole story.
It's unfair to destroy an account in which a player has put years of effort just because of a moment of weakness.

But a simple suspension of an account for 1 week, as many asked, is not acceptable. 1 week is nothing considering the times involved in this game.

I would recommend a really significant punishment for the exploiters.
I suggest a period between 6 months and 1 year of suspensions, which in my opinion is a harsh punishment that hits really hard a dedicated player, but gives them the possibility to come back again one day.
A second possibility must always be given, even in a game death penalty must not be allowed.

All this, I repeat, assuming no software hack was involved.
Otherwise --> permaban

Davros Uitar · Jan 14, 2008, 10:00 AM // 10:00

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.

Sounds to me like a desperate plea to garner wider sympathy by trying to tie the rope around more necks. Now part of me says sure - why not - lets have them out too. You can gather then that I took moral stances on Duncan, HOS, and ferrying. Why did I do that - because I felt it was wrong.

A question is how many wrongs does it take to make your issue right. The answer is none. I realise though that your one hope in all this is that they change their hearts and make the very link you are arguing for.

Hyothetical -some dude has the ability to play with programs and discovers a way to access the secret outpost. He rationalises that this will be found out over time, but he convinces himself that now that he is in he can draw a Duncan parallel. Surely when it gets found out they can use the Duncan defence. A group forms and works hard to keep things a secret for a very long time. At last the secret is out - time to use the defence. The judge overrules and its punishment time.

Now that may be the way it played out and it might not be. Who can tell without access to all the logs etc. One thing is for sure - the judge ain't buying it at the moment. I don't blame them either. The Duncan thing was a quickly known, and very obvious miss on the part of the programmers that gave people something to exploit. The message was out almost instantly, people were all over it, and even at that time there was no move on the part of Anet to close the loop. It actually took the eventual weight of complaints from the puritannical brigade (the ones that felt it wasn't right to use it) to get Anet to change and get the thing closed down.

In this case there was no widespread knowledge, and no sense of ennui on the part of Anet. When they did find out they acted strongly and quickly - just as many in the comunity like to see. To contrast the 2 events as equal means that you are only looking at the 4 quest simplifictaion part of things (not that I blame you - it is about the only thing you have to cling to). What you are deflecting away from is the "no right to be there, kept it secret for 6 months, personal gain limited to a select few, lack of Anet knowledge of what you were up to". In terms of that last one, Anet was well aware of what was happening in Duncan and HOS and it needed a groundswell against it to make them change their minds.

Surely the fact they closed those other things down sent you a message that you were in for trouble. Obviously there were some in the 117 that convinced themselves that Duncan would save them. Well this time it wasn't something that Anet had to change their mind on, and so the Hierophant defense may not come through for you.

Edited to correct spelling

SirJackassIII · Jan 14, 2008, 10:22 AM // 10:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arwen Granger

Can you please provide proof that gw.dat was modified in the current discussion? If this is your speculation, then don't write it down as if it is authorative. If you heard it from 3rd party, it's hearsay. Care to name the source?

A better worded version:

They didn't stumble upon it, one or several player(s) managed to hack the clientside version of Guild Wars according to ANet. This allowed them and people they partied with to enter an outpost that is otherwise strictly off limit and can not be stumbled upon by accident.

There are people that said they have /resigned and traveled to their GH and back during the time of the exploitation in the specified location and did not enter a "secret outpost" of some sort, making it highly unlikely it was just "stumbled upon" as a regular Ferry originally.

Creeping Carl · Jan 14, 2008, 10:23 AM // 10:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Abnaxus

Nevertheless, I consider a permaban too excessive from A.net, they have their faults in the whole story.
It's unfair to destroy an account in which a player has put years of effort just because of a moment of weakness.

But a simple suspension of an account for 1 week, as many asked, is not acceptable. 1 week is nothing considering the times involved in this game.

I would recommend a really significant punishment for the exploiters.
I suggest between 6 months and 1 year of suspensions, which in my opinion is a harsh punishment that hits really hard a dedicated player, but gives them the possibility to come back again one day.
A second possibility must always be given, even in a game death penalty must not be allowed.

Great well written post Abnaxus. But I disagree that a permaban is too harsh for those who knowingly exploitied this. And it's not really a "moment of weakness" if the accused have used the exploit multiple times. That pretty much negates the moment of weakness.

In Leprekan's explaination, if his nephew did really only use this exploit once and unwittingly, then yes, his ban should be lifted. But Leprekan himself has admitted to using this exploit multiple times using the defense that it was no different than the Duncan exploit. In his case, a perma ban is well warranted.

Fril Estelin · Jan 14, 2008, 11:13 AM // 11:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arwen Granger

Sorry, the first page didn't mention gw.dat file modification. I'd like to understand how you can say gw.dat modification is the culprit. Do you know something more than others technically to lay that claim?

So, if you can add more to this discussion about this gw.dat modification that you claimed, show proof please.

Look at the OP and Gaile's message where she says:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gaile Gray

Only by hacking the client

Quote:

and hacking the client to go to an inaccessible map

Quote:

anyone who hacked his client

Quote:

because someone hacked his client

Quote:

This is hacking the client

If this is not clear, the "client" is composed of the 2 files Gw.exe and Gw.dat (and sometimes temporary files). Hacking the client means that either these files were modified (using a 3rd party program), or the packets sent by Gw.exe were modified using a 3rd party program.

Once the modified packets (due to either modifications) are on the server, they're logged, so that any suspicious activity can be detected and proofs of bad behaviour can be found. No one except ANet can have access to the server.

EDIT: encryption is often misunderstood (security is a process of securing things and encryption does not "make" things secure but enables one to protect certain things), so I'd suggest we stay out of it in this thread.

Sjeng · Jan 14, 2008, 11:44 AM // 11:44

Okay, reading the last few pages got my mind spinning... People are getting into details on how the client might have been or could be hacked.
This is all going WAY over my head, and I am SURE there are people among the 117 who have no idea what people are talking about here either, but still they got banned, probably because they got zoned there by a party leader who had access.
I still feel a perma-ban is WAY too harsh for doing that. Ban them to make sure everyone knows that this was an exploit, and one shouldn't use exploits, but don't PERMAban them. perm-ban the actual hackers, with some PROOF of them hacking the client. The community wouldn't be rampaging on in 100+ rant pages if Anet provided proof, and had different bans for hackers and (accidental?) exploiters.

fgarvin · Jan 14, 2008, 11:53 AM // 11:53

There was prolly no GW.dat file hack, but most likely something similar to Requia. Requia was a program that sat between client and server and allowed the player to create scripts with an awesome amount of flexibility. The author would update the program with each GW update, forcing a day or two of downtime in order to update all the memory addresses. You could still control your character while the script did its thing.

If the script was written poorly the game would crash and ultimately ANet would ban the player...just ask my nephew. I didn't find out about this program until he got banned and I was forced to contact NCSoft regarding my account, ensuring that the 50k I gave the little bastard would not get me banned as well. He was using it to farm Oink's house as well as the other popular areas, but also he used it to allow his Mes to interrupt everything but 1/4 second casts by whatever he had targeted.

So, if I remember correctly, Gaile mentioned a third-party program was involved, and my guess, it was something similar to Requia, which could transport your character to any outpost from any other as long as you had the proper "address" for the area.

edit - forgot to mention, it could also tell the player the HP of any mob.

FeroxC · Jan 14, 2008, 11:56 AM // 11:56

Guys when they say clientside hack they arn't talking about reverse engineering binaries or modifying the GW.dat a simple checksum would stop that.

This hack either worked by modifying the client as it ran in memory(unlikely) or modifying outgoing packets(likely).

feisar84 · Jan 14, 2008, 12:22 PM // 12:22

Hey everyone, I have finially gotten through all 100 pages of this thread, the fact that this thread has alomst hit the 2,000 post mark is an achievement in itself.

I am a member of the 117. Before my first killing of mallyx i killed the four lords. This was a grueling process done at ungodly hours over a long period of time, 10 months or so (living in australia its hard to find groups at my convienance.)

After many failed attempts at citidel i gave up.

A few months later i found a group, completed the mallyx quest, which at the time was hard, i died a few times and the party nearly wiped several times. But we finished the quest and i accepted the reward. After this i completed the quest a few more times. At the time i was not aware i was taking part in an exploit, at the first sign this felt fishy i quit doa all together. I guess at this time i should of reported it as suspicius activity, but without the knowledge of how i thaught stopping was the best action i could take.

Thats my story, I would like to apoligise to the guild wars community for this. I feel really bad for being a part of something that has caused the guild wars community great pain.

I would like to thank everyone who has supported the '117'. I personially do not know any of you. I feel like i was innosantly caught up in this and i have issued a ticket with support. I am sure that there were plenty in the same boat as me and id like to offer my sympathy, i know how you feel and it does not feel like justice.

Thankyou. sorry about spelling.

Fril Estelin · Jan 14, 2008, 12:33 PM // 12:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by feisar84

Thats my story, I would like to apoligise to the guild wars community for this. I feel really bad for being a part of something that has caused the guild wars community great pain.

I would like to thank everyone who has supported the '117'. I personially do not know any of you. I feel like i was innosantly caught up in this and i have issued a ticket with support. I am sure that there were plenty in the same boat as me and id like to offer my sympathy, i know how you feel and it does not feel like justice.

Thankyou. sorry about spelling.

Kudos to you. We're spending a lot of time on the bad stuff, but I think your post deserve a +1, even if you're on the "accused" side of the argument here. If people were humble like this, the page counter of this thread would probably be far under 50 and I hope that these problems would be solve with common sense and a lot more sensibility (Anet are actually not happy about banning and as stated by someone else in this thread who his a GM in anotehr MMO, this is not an easy and happy experience to go through, on both sides of the argument).

Let's hope that we all learn from this. And never forget that in GWG we're in the realm of "words".

Messy · Jan 14, 2008, 01:08 PM // 13:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Puritans Aid

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.

That's 21 too many runs. I don't buy for one second you didn't know. Unfortunately for you, even your friend outed you, you have been around long enough, you are not stupid, your guildies were out there to make money... and you continue to make no sense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Puritans Aid

Sadly, a few of them have apparently gotten extremelyrich 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

Hopefully they won't have those extremely rich alts for long, since once you are perma banned you are not allowed to use their servers. Makes you wonder how they got their riches since it seems, as also supported by your friend, that THAT'S what your guild often did. Sounds to me like a bunch of corner cutters.

Quote:

Originally Posted by leprekan

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.

I realize the desperation to try and get your nephews account back, but you screwed up and dragged him with you. Did you seriously need a burning bush to tell you there was something very very fishy about that outpost?? You made a wrong assumption and now you are paying the price. Ferry's to Duncan were openly offered in ALL chat in the LEGAL post where it originated from. Nobody was trying to hide it. It wasn't a hush-hush-swear-you-will never-ever-tell situation. You didn't have to go to a GH to and map back and forth. You've been around long enough, you should have encouraged your nephew to play clean instead of showing him how to cheat and cut corners.

My own nephew plays this game. When he started his first character, I encouraged him to play the game, follow the story line. I would help him whenever he needed help, show him the ropes.... but I would have never ever encouraged him to cheat.

I don't know if the gw.dat was modified, only ANET knows, and there is no way they are going to tell us IF nor HOW this was done. What best source than the people that own the game? or better yet.... player 1... whoever it was that went in there NOT using a ferry but doing something else.

In the end, it's ANET's ball and ANET's playground... they have the goods and they make the rules..

Quote from Official Website :

"NC Interactive reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to (1) delete or alter any Account ID or (2) terminate any license granted herein, for any reason whatsoever..."

they really don't even have to explain anything to us, if you want to get technical. You guys are lucky they are even taking the time to look into it. Threatening them is surely not going to get them to reverse anything, since they need no reason whatsoever you close your account. If you truly believe you are innocent, take a deep breath and let them investigate.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RTSFirebat

But I'm sure the 117 is only a first wave of bannings. We may never know the true number of bannings done after this lately situation.

I surely hope this is just the first wave. If they are going to ban people that used this exploit, then go after all that did. I am sure they have logs of all that entered. The 117 is Just the Tip of the Iceberg

Original Thread and Picture here

Huo Star · Jan 14, 2008, 02:27 PM // 14:27

When did any of us see Anet release an update with access to this inaccessible area, did it ever appear on gwiki so that the rest of the community could do the same?

Never I hear you say, I wonder why this secret profiteering society never let on, oh right because they knew it was wrong and could gain massive amounts from it.

All this bs of I only did it x amount of times or I have xxxx amount of hours on my account or I gave away my ill gotten goods, tough doo doo you still used an exploit zoning to somewhere that wasn't even on the map and should have only been available to Anet employees for testing/updates or whatever they needed it for.

Alya · Jan 14, 2008, 02:33 PM // 14:33

I'm surprised that many people seem to miss an obvious thing, which (I think) makes Anet to punish the Mallyx exploiters in a much more severe manner than the Duncan or GH map travel exploiters. Technically ferrying to the Ebon Citadel uses exactly the same mechanics as the Urgoz/Deep ferry.

However, in the Mallyx case the reaction from Anet seems to be very much over the top. The answer is obvious: they see it as a breach of their security. The effect on economy is nothing, or they threw in this argument only for smoke and mirrors.

I am still not convinced that there was a hack, to start with. Possibly it was discovered accidentally and then there it was a domino effect: the ferried became a ferry himself. (Again, exactly like Urgoz and The Deep.) To those quoting lines about hacks and hacking: I don't have much credibility in Anet's statements. The fact that they didn't bother to fix the access to this hidden outpost LONG after it was reported to their support service is not of any credit to them, either. (Simple renaming of "The Ebony Citadel of Mallyx, Elite Mission" into "Developers Site, Leave Immediately and Report" would do.) They started swinging the ban bat ONLY after this travel glitch was published on a message board.

So... from Anet's point of view, it really doesn't matter whether one was gainig profit from farming Mallyx from this closed outpost or not. Just the fact that these people were able to get there is already an ultimate offence in their eyes. That's the real reason for bans.

I commiserate to the people who got dragged there unawares.

P.S. I don't know anyone of the 117. And I haven't been to Mallyx myself, even haven't done the necessary pre-requisite quests.

P.P.S. Bolded out some bits for better clarity.

FeroxC · Jan 14, 2008, 03:00 PM // 15:00

FFS its not a bug, a bug is when a programmer makes an unintentional mistake and that mistake is HIS fault.
E.G. Duncan.

This area was coded as to be unaccessable to normal players - somebody modified the client to gain access to this place. It was the hackers fault people got in not the programmers hence the stricter punishment.