Wow, another great move by this company! So happy to see these people get the plug pulled as they are nothing but bad apples in an otherwise healthy orchard. Kudos Arenanet!
The real reason why A.Net is so active with the bannings is to avoid any economical exploits that would mess up the gold-gem trade.
This said it's nice to see a developer paying attention.
It shows they didn't have the insight to incorporate effective data collection and roll-back capability. Instead they make sweeping bans. This is a sign of poor design and an effort to cover their own mistakes by denying consumers their $60 product.
If this is the case they should admit it and freely refund said banned consumers' investment.
I'm starting to think you were one of the ones banned.
The real reason why A.Net is so active with the bannings is to avoid any economical exploits that would mess up the gold-gem trade.
This said it's nice to see a developer paying attention.
It shows they didn't have the insight to incorporate effective data collection and roll-back capability. Instead they make sweeping bans. This is a sign of poor design and an effort to cover their own mistakes by denying consumers their $60 product.
If this is the case they should admit it and freely refund said banned consumers' investment.
I'm starting to think you were one of the ones banned.
I played beta but didn't buy retail. I am a registered member of these forums and entitled to post my opinions, just like you are.
The real reason why A.Net is so active with the bannings is to avoid any economical exploits that would mess up the gold-gem trade.
This said it's nice to see a developer paying attention.
It shows they didn't have the insight to incorporate effective data collection and roll-back capability. Instead they make sweeping bans. This is a sign of poor design and an effort to cover their own mistakes by denying consumers their $60 product.
If this is the case they should admit it and freely refund said banned consumers' investment.
Nothing about what you wrote makes any logical sense.
Due to frequent travel in my youth, English isn't something I consider my primary language (and thus I obtained quirky ways of writing). German and French were always easier for me despite my family being U.S. citizens for over a century. Spanish I learned as a requirement in school, Japanese and Korean I acquired for my youthful desire of anime and gaming (and also work now). I only debate in English to help me work with it (and limit things). In addition, I'm not smart enough to remain fluent in everything and typically need exposure to get in the groove of things again if I haven't heard it in a while. If you understand Mandarin, I know a little, but it has actually been a challenge and could use some help.
Also, I thoroughly enjoy debates and have accounts on over a dozen sites for this. If you wish to engage in such, please put effort in a post and provide sources -- I will then do the same with what I already wrote (if I didn't) as well as with my responses to your own. Expanding my information on a subject makes my stance either change or strengthen the next time I speak of it or write a thesis. Allow me to thank you sincerely for your time.
Most people are opportunistic. I'd like that to be different, too, but it's human nature. We always want the best value for our time spent and we always look for ways to improve "our positions" by and large hopefully not at expense of others, but no human being is obligated by that restriction.
We're always pushing the envolope. We do it as children consistantly, pushing the boundaries of rules to learn the limits of those rules and even why those rules even exist. This is indicative of intelligence, because those without insight are conformed to the molds of external pressure.
When a parent makes a mistake, mis-detailing an agenda or leaving some exploitable opening bad things occur and it's the parent's job to fix said issue, because they are the adults and they are the people in charge. If the punishment is too harsh the behavior of the child becomes even more rebellious, even more outlandish, next time with appropriate measures so the parent's likely have no concept of awareness.
ANet just kicked the kids out of the house for a poor reason in a knee jerk response. The least response will be collective organized disdain. I can easily see, though, some number of spurned "children" finding a way back in and utterly causing chaos in many and assorted varieties.
OKay. I can understand where you're coming from. There's no doubt that the treatment is harsh, but I've been in other MMOs where to "err is human" is taken to extremes making for horrible communities.
I'm glad that you used children as example because children are amoral (without morality) they NEED to be taught right from wrong. Adults are assumed to be moral and understand that breaking the rules comes with consequences.
Why should AN give folks multiple chances to exploit ?
There are plenty of games that don't ban chat trolls and exploiters , wide selection of them in fact.
Now there's finally one that we that prefer to not be with such types can choose to play.
I'd much rather play with a strict rules enforcement policy than the past ones that make it where general chat is a joke and exploiters rarely face consequences.
AN isn't hiding the fact that they will are are banning folks for such things , so why the exploiter defenders here think they should give multiple chances to cheaters amazes me.
Actually it doesn't now that I think of it , it seems many today think rules are optional to follow.
Anyway I'm glad to see here and on the reddit thread etc it seems those who support AN over this far outnumber the small percentage of cheaters and chat trolls who can't control their behavior.
Anet already got their money from the Box price. Banning exploiters is good PR and doesn't cost them anything. It's a smart strategy.
Keep that in mind if you see any other good "deals". Like an ore node that lets you continuously mine it or price errors such as the one above or...anything really. /paranoid now....
I don't see how that can possibly be the case...ANet has to be betting on repeat cash shop revenue returning a profit above and beyond the cost of maintaining the game and developing future content or I don't see how they could have convinced investors to fund this game. It's bad business to throw out permanent bans on first-time offenders, and it's especially bad business to do it right at launch, when word of mouth could discourage some people from buying the game for fear of spending $60 on a drink coaster after getting slapped with a ban by an overreactive customer service department.
Hey, I want a fun, friendly community as much as the next person, but ANet could create that kind of community just as easily with GM warnings followed by temporary bans and clearly defined communication with first-time offenders as to the reason for their disciplinary action. Some of the things I've read about the way ANet is reacting to its issues this week makes me wonder if ANet isn't equipped to handle this game growing too big too soon and is purposely making decisions to keep population stable for awhile until it has hired some new staff and made some changes to their plans for the game's future.
People aren't getting banned for just playing and having fun, they are getting banned for breaking the games rules that they agreed to when they first started playing. If someone looks at these bans and goes "I best not buy this game because I will be banned when I do something wrong," then good, I dont want those people in my game anyways.
I've played dozens upon dozens of MMO's through the course of over 10 years, want to know how many times I've been banned, a big fat 0. Why? Because I dont break the game rules that are designed to creat an enjoyable playing experience.
I don't own retail GW2 but I'm willing to bet nothing in "game rules" states:
"If an item is priced too low in game don't buy it"
Exactly. They didnt break any rules. Banning people permanently for your coding errors literally days after launch is horrible, imo.
If they really wanted to fix it, they should have just restored all the weapons/karma. Banning people is the lazy route.
The real reason why A.Net is so active with the bannings is to avoid any economical exploits that would mess up the gold-gem trade.
This said it's nice to see a developer paying attention.
It shows they didn't have the insight to incorporate effective data collection and roll-back capability. Instead they make sweeping bans. This is a sign of poor design and an effort to cover their own mistakes by denying consumers their $60 product.
If this is the case they should admit it and freely refund said banned consumers' investment.
Nothing about what you wrote makes any logical sense.
Agreed. Seems a case of a lot of folks who didn't understand that if you cheat and you get caught, there is a price you gotta pay.
They knew they were exploiting, if you read the posts many of them even admit they felt guilty but wished they could take back their choice to exploit game mechanics.
The real reason why A.Net is so active with the bannings is to avoid any economical exploits that would mess up the gold-gem trade.
This said it's nice to see a developer paying attention.
It shows they didn't have the insight to incorporate effective data collection and roll-back capability. Instead they make sweeping bans. This is a sign of poor design and an effort to cover their own mistakes by denying consumers their $60 product.
If this is the case they should admit it and freely refund said banned consumers' investment.
Nothing about what you wrote makes any logical sense.
An online game should have instituted a means by which developers can collect data and garner constructive counter-measures against exploitation. With said data they should be able to choose any specific NPC's transactions or any specific toon's transactions and remove or retro-act said transactions. In other words they should have been able to push a button, get a report, see the problem, fix the npc and roll-back any interaction or transaction that occured.
What they've shown in this instance is that they have no such function. They didn't spend the time/money in development for such loss-prevention counter-measure. All they can do is ban. This is a sign of poor design and lack for foresight. They should freely admit they didn't build the game with the capacity to combat said contingencies and give refunds to those for whom they have little or no recourse than "to remove".
This morning there was a widely-publicized, newly-introduced exploit in which specific cultural weapons were selling for one-thousandth of their normal price. We fixed it with an emergency build this morning. We want to thank the vast majority of players who became aware of the issue, responsibly reported it, and did not exploit it. However, a smaller group of players did significantly exploit it, each purchasing hundreds or thousands of these weapons. We permanently banned 3,000 accounts of players who substantially exploited it, and applied 72-hours bans to another 1,000 accounts of players who mildly exploited it.
To be such a rightful post you must be a GM or a PR from Anet, since you have info i haven't even heard about and i played all the day like many other ppl without even realising what was going on.
So: 1) A WIDELY PUBLICIZED: what? I logged in and i received no message from a GM nor an official message logging in that there was a problem, a glitch, any possible danger i can stomp in willingly or by surprise and... oh... THERE WAS NOT EVEN AN ADVISE ON YOUR OFFICIAL WEB PAGE. So i really kinda would like to know how was this glitches publicized and how community was advertized it was a glitch. Adverstized because i am a totally new player, never played GW1, never played any GW2 beta so i don't have a clue of what are the currency of item.
2) Those currencies are a game programmers responsibility: so i do wonder what has been of the guy who mistook the coding and allowed those items to be on sale for an OFFICIAL PRICE. Because if a customer who spent 50-80$ to buy the game only 3 days ago, today got banned, well... i hope at least the sense of justice to be fair for everyone.
3) i do agree with all the guys who said it was a mistake, and i understand that a sign must be done before things get out of hand. BUT i really wonder what i have to expect from a company who create this atmosphere 4 days after the official launch. Atmosphere which is NOT customer friendly. And here i want to specify: the rules of behavior (which pertains not at all to a tribunal, so are a private contract between a company and a user) actually involves the company as well in behaving correctly towards its customers: there was no advise, there was no warning for the banned ppl and not even of the server going down for fixing the thing with a patch.
To be totally honest i think you guys got really frightened by what goldsellers (and i spotted 3 only this afternoon: gratz on that btw) may have done meanwhile and you lost the control over the situation. This is really really disappointing, also because the game is promising and just at the beginnin of its history: a suggestion, next time instead of reversing the responsibility of your faults on customers, ban ppl but make a public post excusing yourself with your player base (and not only because you go online and your broker system doesn't work: another reason for excusing yourself to your customers i saw no where)
P.S.: no, i'm not a banned player (i am online right now on my ele, Kyryel on Far Shiverpeaks)
Since gold can be sold for real money, I think the bannings may justifiably be correct. I read in the Reddit post that someone who bought 50 was not banned, but somone who bought hundreds of thousands (i.e. BOTS) were.
I don't have any problem getting rid of that scum.
The real reason why A.Net is so active with the bannings is to avoid any economical exploits that would mess up the gold-gem trade.
This said it's nice to see a developer paying attention.
It shows they didn't have the insight to incorporate effective data collection and roll-back capability. Instead they make sweeping bans. This is a sign of poor design and an effort to cover their own mistakes by denying consumers their $60 product.
If this is the case they should admit it and freely refund said banned consumers' investment.
Nothing about what you wrote makes any logical sense.
An online game should have instituted a means by which developers can collect data and garner constructive counter-measures against exploitation. With said data they should be able to choose any specific NPC's transactions or any specific toon's transactions and remove or retro-act said transactions. In other words they should have been able to push a button, get a report, see the problem, fix the npc and roll-back any interaction or transaction that occured.
What they've shown in this instance is that they have no such function. They didn't spend the time/money in development for such loss-prevention counter-measure. All they can do is ban. This is a sign of poor design and lack for foresight. They should freely admit they didn't build the game with the capacity to combat said contingencies and give refunds to those for whom they have little or no recourse than "to remove".
An online game and the company has the right to do whatever is deemed necessary to cheaters. They banned 'em. Case closed, have a nice day.
"If a function in a game is "broken" due to an oversight by coders and/or game developers, and the flaw is "exercised" by some portion of the player base, it is the developers' responsibility to fix said flaw so the exploitation ceases."
Gamers traditionally call this "constructive use of game mechanics", skewed or otherwise. Is it "grey area" of morality? Of course it is but...
The developers have now effectively STOLEN $60 from thousands of people (real money, not roll-back game money) when the mistake was theirs.
It doesn't matter how you shape it. This game company are now not only incompetant, but also theives. I'm so glad, so glad, I didn't buy this retail. ANet just really pissed off thousands of opportunists with half a brain. Very bad things will come of this.
They stole nothing. You agree to a EULA before you play. If you choose to take advantage of something you know is wrong you have broken the EULA and you get your ban. Nothing was stolen from the cheaters.
The real reason why A.Net is so active with the bannings is to avoid any economical exploits that would mess up the gold-gem trade.
This said it's nice to see a developer paying attention.
It shows they didn't have the insight to incorporate effective data collection and roll-back capability. Instead they make sweeping bans. This is a sign of poor design and an effort to cover their own mistakes by denying consumers their $60 product.
If this is the case they should admit it and freely refund said banned consumers' investment.
Nothing about what you wrote makes any logical sense.
It makes complete sense, and I agree with everything he said. If ANet had the proper data collection in place and the capability to roll-back character inventory/exp to an earlier state, there would be no reason to throw around bans as the first and only form of disciplinary action. They could have fairly quickly tracked any of those karma items that were bought at the bugged price and removed them from the game, along with any gold/gems that found their way into the economy as a result. Yes, it would've required an investigation, but that's exactly why any MMO dev operating a high-population game needs to have that staff and those tools in place. So far, it seems like ANet's only reaction to any sign of misconduct is either a 72-hour ban or a permaban, and I think that's too heavy-handed. Say what you will about WoW, Rift and ToR as games, but their companies were prepared to deal with a high population in a professional manner.
I'm on the non permaban side for exploits. I don't think it's fair that players should be punished for exploiting a devs mistakes. A temp ban to discourage it, maybe. Removal of the benefits they gained from the exploit, sure. But I just think a permaban is an easy option for the devs to correct the damage caused by their own mistakes without as much effort as rolling back a few characters.
Gold sellers, game advantage hacker etc. sure, get those guys banned. Banning people for using something the devs gave them in the first place is just wrong though. The dev(s) responible for the mistake are the ones that should be punished in some way.
and no, I'm not one to look for or take advantage of exploits. This is the first I've heard about the one in GW2.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
Anet already got their money from the Box price. Banning exploiters is good PR and doesn't cost them anything. It's a smart strategy.
Keep that in mind if you see any other good "deals". Like an ore node that lets you continuously mine it or price errors such as the one above or...anything really. /paranoid now....
I don't see how that can possibly be the case...ANet has to be betting on repeat cash shop revenue returning a profit above and beyond the cost of maintaining the game and developing future content or I don't see how they could have convinced investors to fund this game. It's bad business to throw out permanent bans on first-time offenders, and it's especially bad business to do it right at launch, when word of mouth could discourage some people from buying the game for fear of spending $60 on a drink coaster after getting slapped with a ban by an overreactive customer service department.
Hey, I want a fun, friendly community as much as the next person, but ANet could create that kind of community just as easily with GM warnings followed by temporary bans and clearly defined communication with first-time offenders as to the reason for their disciplinary action. Some of the things I've read about the way ANet is reacting to its issues this week makes me wonder if ANet isn't equipped to handle this game growing too big too soon and is purposely making decisions to keep population stable for awhile until it has hired some new staff and made some changes to their plans for the game's future.
People aren't getting banned for just playing and having fun, they are getting banned for breaking the games rules that they agreed to when they first started playing. If someone looks at these bans and goes "I best not buy this game because I will be banned when I do something wrong," then good, I dont want those people in my game anyways.
I've played dozens upon dozens of MMO's through the course of over 10 years, want to know how many times I've been banned, a big fat 0. Why? Because I dont break the game rules that are designed to creat an enjoyable playing experience.
I don't own retail GW2 but I'm willing to bet nothing in "game rules" states:
"If an item is priced too low in game don't buy it"
Exactly. They didnt break any rules. Banning people permanently for your coding errors literally days after launch is horrible, imo.
If they really wanted to fix it, they should have just restored all the weapons/karma. Banning people is the lazy route.
You really should read the rules before commenting lol... Reread that TOS my friend lol.
"If a function in a game is "broken" due to an oversight by coders and/or game developers, and the flaw is "exercised" by some portion of the player base, it is the developers' responsibility to fix said flaw so the exploitation ceases."
Gamers traditionally call this "constructive use of game mechanics", skewed or otherwise. Is it "grey area" of morality? Of course it is but...
The developers have now effectively STOLEN $60 from thousands of people (real money, not roll-back game money) when the mistake was theirs.
It doesn't matter how you shape it. This game company are now not only incompetant, but also theives. I'm so glad, so glad, I didn't buy this retail. ANet just really pissed off thousands of opportunists with half a brain. Very bad things will come of this.
They stole nothing. You agree to a EULA before you play. If you choose to take advantage of something you know is wrong you have broken the EULA and you get your ban. Nothing was stolen from the cheaters.
Nothing bad will come of this. Good will.
Yes, that's true. That is, however, only the reason they can't be sued.
It doesn't change the fact this instance is indicative of a poorly-made system and thus a poorly-made game. They simply don't have the capacity to professionally deal with it.
This morning there was a widely-publicized, newly-introduced exploit in which specific cultural weapons were selling for one-thousandth of their normal price. We fixed it with an emergency build this morning. We want to thank the vast majority of players who became aware of the issue, responsibly reported it, and did not exploit it. However, a smaller group of players did significantly exploit it, each purchasing hundreds or thousands of these weapons. We permanently banned 3,000 accounts of players who substantially exploited it, and applied 72-hours bans to another 1,000 accounts of players who mildly exploited it.
This morning there was a widely-publicized, newly-introduced exploit in which specific cultural weapons were selling for one-thousandth of their normal price. We fixed it with an emergency build this morning. We want to thank the vast majority of players who became aware of the issue, responsibly reported it, and did not exploit it. However, a smaller group of players did significantly exploit it, each purchasing hundreds or thousands of these weapons. We permanently banned 3,000 accounts of players who substantially exploited it, and applied 72-hours bans to another 1,000 accounts of players who mildly exploited it.
This is great news in 2 different ways. First the obvious anti-exploiting stance. This is reassuring to me as an honest customer. The second cool thing is that most of those banned will probably end up putting another $60 into Arena Net's coffers as we all know how addicting a good game is. I have no doubt most will re buy the game.
Most people are opportunistic. I'd like that to be different, too, but it's human nature. We always want the best value for our time spent and we always look for ways to improve "our positions" by and large hopefully not at expense of others, but no human being is obligated by that restriction.
We're always pushing the envolope. We do it as children consistantly, pushing the boundaries of rules to learn the limits of those rules and even why those rules even exist. This is indicative of intelligence, because those without insight are conformed to the molds of external pressure.
When a parent makes a mistake, mis-detailing an agenda or leaving some exploitable opening bad things occur and it's the parent's job to fix said issue, because they are the adults and they are the people in charge. If the punishment is too harsh the behavior of the child becomes even more rebellious, even more outlandish, next time with appropriate measures so the parent's likely have no concept of awareness.
ANet just kicked the kids out of the house for a poor reason in a knee jerk response. The least response will be collective organized disdain. I can easily see, though, some number of spurned "children" finding a way back in and utterly causing chaos in many and assorted varieties.
And if they find a way back and cause chaos they will be banned again and out another $60. Stop trying to pretend that a game company is a parent and the players are kids. I am a grown man and I dont attempt to cheat and act like a child. They got what they deserved.
Comments
I'm starting to think you were one of the ones banned.
My Guild Wars 2 Vids
I played beta but didn't buy retail. I am a registered member of these forums and entitled to post my opinions, just like you are.
Nothing about what you wrote makes any logical sense.
OKay. I can understand where you're coming from. There's no doubt that the treatment is harsh, but I've been in other MMOs where to "err is human" is taken to extremes making for horrible communities.
I'm glad that you used children as example because children are amoral (without morality) they NEED to be taught right from wrong. Adults are assumed to be moral and understand that breaking the rules comes with consequences.
http://www.reddit.com/user/ArenaNetSupportTeam
Anet going ham and telling you how many times you exploited
love the guy one the second page that did it 2k+ times and wants his account restored
Why should AN give folks multiple chances to exploit ?
There are plenty of games that don't ban chat trolls and exploiters , wide selection of them in fact.
Now there's finally one that we that prefer to not be with such types can choose to play.
I'd much rather play with a strict rules enforcement policy than the past ones that make it where general chat is a joke and exploiters rarely face consequences.
AN isn't hiding the fact that they will are are banning folks for such things , so why the exploiter defenders here think they should give multiple chances to cheaters amazes me.
Actually it doesn't now that I think of it , it seems many today think rules are optional to follow.
Anyway I'm glad to see here and on the reddit thread etc it seems those who support AN over this far outnumber the small percentage of cheaters and chat trolls who can't control their behavior.
Exactly. They didnt break any rules. Banning people permanently for your coding errors literally days after launch is horrible, imo.
If they really wanted to fix it, they should have just restored all the weapons/karma. Banning people is the lazy route.
Agreed. Seems a case of a lot of folks who didn't understand that if you cheat and you get caught, there is a price you gotta pay.
They knew they were exploiting, if you read the posts many of them even admit they felt guilty but wished they could take back their choice to exploit game mechanics.
Well deserved bans imo.
An online game should have instituted a means by which developers can collect data and garner constructive counter-measures against exploitation. With said data they should be able to choose any specific NPC's transactions or any specific toon's transactions and remove or retro-act said transactions. In other words they should have been able to push a button, get a report, see the problem, fix the npc and roll-back any interaction or transaction that occured.
What they've shown in this instance is that they have no such function. They didn't spend the time/money in development for such loss-prevention counter-measure. All they can do is ban. This is a sign of poor design and lack for foresight. They should freely admit they didn't build the game with the capacity to combat said contingencies and give refunds to those for whom they have little or no recourse than "to remove".
To be such a rightful post you must be a GM or a PR from Anet, since you have info i haven't even heard about and i played all the day like many other ppl without even realising what was going on.
So: 1) A WIDELY PUBLICIZED: what? I logged in and i received no message from a GM nor an official message logging in that there was a problem, a glitch, any possible danger i can stomp in willingly or by surprise and... oh... THERE WAS NOT EVEN AN ADVISE ON YOUR OFFICIAL WEB PAGE. So i really kinda would like to know how was this glitches publicized and how community was advertized it was a glitch. Adverstized because i am a totally new player, never played GW1, never played any GW2 beta so i don't have a clue of what are the currency of item.
2) Those currencies are a game programmers responsibility: so i do wonder what has been of the guy who mistook the coding and allowed those items to be on sale for an OFFICIAL PRICE. Because if a customer who spent 50-80$ to buy the game only 3 days ago, today got banned, well... i hope at least the sense of justice to be fair for everyone.
3) i do agree with all the guys who said it was a mistake, and i understand that a sign must be done before things get out of hand. BUT i really wonder what i have to expect from a company who create this atmosphere 4 days after the official launch. Atmosphere which is NOT customer friendly. And here i want to specify: the rules of behavior (which pertains not at all to a tribunal, so are a private contract between a company and a user) actually involves the company as well in behaving correctly towards its customers: there was no advise, there was no warning for the banned ppl and not even of the server going down for fixing the thing with a patch.
To be totally honest i think you guys got really frightened by what goldsellers (and i spotted 3 only this afternoon: gratz on that btw) may have done meanwhile and you lost the control over the situation. This is really really disappointing, also because the game is promising and just at the beginnin of its history: a suggestion, next time instead of reversing the responsibility of your faults on customers, ban ppl but make a public post excusing yourself with your player base (and not only because you go online and your broker system doesn't work: another reason for excusing yourself to your customers i saw no where)
P.S.: no, i'm not a banned player (i am online right now on my ele, Kyryel on Far Shiverpeaks)
From the Eula.
Since gold can be sold for real money, I think the bannings may justifiably be correct. I read in the Reddit post that someone who bought 50 was not banned, but somone who bought hundreds of thousands (i.e. BOTS) were.
I don't have any problem getting rid of that scum.
An online game and the company has the right to do whatever is deemed necessary to cheaters. They banned 'em. Case closed, have a nice day.
They stole nothing. You agree to a EULA before you play. If you choose to take advantage of something you know is wrong you have broken the EULA and you get your ban. Nothing was stolen from the cheaters.
Nothing bad will come of this. Good will.
It makes complete sense, and I agree with everything he said. If ANet had the proper data collection in place and the capability to roll-back character inventory/exp to an earlier state, there would be no reason to throw around bans as the first and only form of disciplinary action. They could have fairly quickly tracked any of those karma items that were bought at the bugged price and removed them from the game, along with any gold/gems that found their way into the economy as a result. Yes, it would've required an investigation, but that's exactly why any MMO dev operating a high-population game needs to have that staff and those tools in place. So far, it seems like ANet's only reaction to any sign of misconduct is either a 72-hour ban or a permaban, and I think that's too heavy-handed. Say what you will about WoW, Rift and ToR as games, but their companies were prepared to deal with a high population in a professional manner.
I'm on the non permaban side for exploits. I don't think it's fair that players should be punished for exploiting a devs mistakes. A temp ban to discourage it, maybe. Removal of the benefits they gained from the exploit, sure. But I just think a permaban is an easy option for the devs to correct the damage caused by their own mistakes without as much effort as rolling back a few characters.
Gold sellers, game advantage hacker etc. sure, get those guys banned. Banning people for using something the devs gave them in the first place is just wrong though. The dev(s) responible for the mistake are the ones that should be punished in some way.
and no, I'm not one to look for or take advantage of exploits. This is the first I've heard about the one in GW2.
like who? any mmo developer in history would ban such activity
You really should read the rules before commenting lol... Reread that TOS my friend lol.
Yes, that's true. That is, however, only the reason they can't be sued.
It doesn't change the fact this instance is indicative of a poorly-made system and thus a poorly-made game. They simply don't have the capacity to professionally deal with it.
I am starting to want to buy this game.
This is great news in 2 different ways. First the obvious anti-exploiting stance. This is reassuring to me as an honest customer. The second cool thing is that most of those banned will probably end up putting another $60 into Arena Net's coffers as we all know how addicting a good game is. I have no doubt most will re buy the game.
And if they find a way back and cause chaos they will be banned again and out another $60. Stop trying to pretend that a game company is a parent and the players are kids. I am a grown man and I dont attempt to cheat and act like a child. They got what they deserved.