Handling Exploits? (nostalrius whitekidney)

[tantadruj]

First "public" offers, to trade exploits, came to light just recently. It would appear a known horde player (given how fast he reached level 60) is trading the exploits under the same name as his in-game character. It must have been very easy for him to reach level 60 given the lack of care to conceal his identity.


What I would like to hear from Kronos STAFF (not testers, not unofficial PR, not just some whatever opinions) but from developers is: how will you handle such eventuality?

And i am asking for a real answer and not what you have under FAQ (regarding cheats) which is just a polite neutral excuse.

While it is understandable there are bugs and that not everything can be perfect on day one...there are some things which either "make or break" the game. It is not my desire to point the finger and call server crappy just since there is loop hole. What i want to know is to what extent it will be handled.

WILL you do a selective rollbacks? Will you do general rollbacks? Will you do nothing and will "eventually" patch the problem while those benefiting from it get away (or maybe there is a ban or two) and the damage to to the community and economy can not be undone?

 

[Rawhide]

I know you don't want to hear it, but all your questions are answered in the Twinstar rules.
I'm sure the developers have better use of their time, than to give answers that are already available on the forum

Copy Paste:

Notice
- The length and the extent of a punishment imposed for abusing bugs and errors not described in this list are exclusively up to the GM or the server’s administrator.
- If a player encounters a bug not described in this list, it does not mean that he cannot be punished. In such a case, the length and the extent of the punishment imposed are exclusively up to the GM.

“Five times is enough”
- If a player repeatedly violates the server rules and the number of his bans reaches five, his account might be permanently banned without any previous warning!

The length and the extent of a punishment are completely up to the GM/admin
- It depends on the GM how he will assess the gravity of the violation and what form, length and extent of the punishment he will decide to impose. It is also solely up to him whether he will take into consideration some secondary circumstances when deciding about the punishment.
- If we find out that a violation of the rules has been committed by a character which had been undoubtedly created solely for the purpose of breaking the rules or that a gross violation of the rules has been committed, the GM is allowed to ban not only the character proven guilty, but the guilty player’s other accounts as well.

Besides banning somebody, we can inflict a material punishment
- If a player behaves inappropriately, there are more ways of punishing him. Besides banning him temporarily, we can also affect his character’s stats, abilities, level, achievements, remove his gear etc. For example, if a player is proven guilty of bugging honor/arena points, he will not only be banned for some time, but we will also delete some (or all) pieces of his PVP gear and reduce (or eradicate) the number of his honor/arena points. We can similarly cope with a case of bugging some reputation: depending on the GM’s decision, the player proven guilty of committing this violation will lose a certain number of reputation points without any claim for resetting the quests he has already completed. You can certainly think of more situations when this rule can be applied.

 

[Drevil]

First "public" offers, to trade exploits, came to light just recently. It would appear a known horde player (given how fast he reached level 60) is trading the exploits under the same name as his in-game character......

i can tell you how to kill baron geddon solo in 5 hours pls 100$

 

[tantadruj]

Rawhide your copy paste is not satisfactory. Their notice is too general and their example rather vague, but thx for the effort.

Drevil needs a better sense of humor trolling.

 

[Zed]

Dat joke :> and nice avatar

 

[tantadruj]

There is at this time quite a large number of people deciding weather or not to switch servers. All these people could use something more than just "we will have less buggs".

A clear and less "lawmakers" like statement would help sway the population....that is IF developers can take some time to do that or perhaps they rather let the community (which in cases of wow more or less often resembles a shit bucket) do the talking for them.

have fun

eof

 

[muff]

that is IF developers can take some time to do that or perhaps they rather let the community (which in cases of wow more or less often resembles a shit bucket) do the talking for them.

i agree that exploiters should be dealt with appropriately, but phrasing like that (i.e. weird veiled insult) probably isn't going to help get an answer.

also, philosophy: if wow players are a bucket of shit, then when you play are you intentionally swimming in shit? that can't be good for you!

 

[Aieris]

Well, taking example from Twinstar cata (and i assume, that kronos will not be difference), when an exploit is used by only few people, then they are punished separately (item removal, honor reset, acc ban, etc.). But if it's used by many (like hundreds), then there will be whole server rollback.

The main problem with punishing exploiters is, that there must be someone who will report them. It's not in GMs power to watch over all players, so it's up to you (us) to make reports and provide proofs. There is special section on forums for reporting exploiters.

 

[forerun]

So if some whitestomach or something get and idea to dupe an items to get a tons of gold but not share that exploit to community he can do that forever? If he have a chance to find bugged mob spawner to make fast lvl 60 he can do that? Or bugged quest which don't have permanent completion stage. Or he will have a bot or teleport hack or chest teleport or something or teleport to veins or herbs and that teleport will be not detectable by that server warden ( by injecting hack to 3d endscene or something ) Thats something scary. If somebody don't notice it.

 

[Aieris]

How do you want to punish something nobody knows about?

 

[forerun]

Hmm by checking hackers site with exploits and automatically add that exploits to warden system to make cheaters go rest in peace. I'm pretty sure that even now on the internet exists many nasty things to deal with it there.

 

[Rawhide]

Rawhide your copy paste is not satisfactory. Their notice is too general and their example rather vague, but thx for the effort.

Drevil needs a better sense of humor trolling.

You are most welcome.
Sorry to hear that you didn't find it satisfactory.But that's their official policy it seems.
I guess it's vague, due to fact they want to deal with exploitation on a case-by-case basis.
I rather like it and think it makes alot of sense, but offcourse it needs to be enforced to have any effect.

 

[Aieris]

Hmm by checking hackers site with exploits and automatically add that exploits to warden system to make cheaters go rest in peace. I'm pretty sure that even now on the internet exists many nasty things to deal with it there.

But now, you talk about hacks, not exploits. Anti hack protection on Kronos is on high level.

 

[filvorja]

Late to the game, but here it goes.

It depends on the severity of the exploit and the impact it has. Excuses like "I didn't know this was not intended" do not save you in a 10 year old game.
If you blatantly try to trick the system you will have to face the consequences. Yes, even permanent bans are possible if you exploit.

 

[orkchop]

GRIZZLY are known for this kind of scumbag exploiting. Not punishing the offenders is a joke, and makes the server a joke as well.

 

[SgtFreakshow]

GRIZZLY is also known for getting away with exploitation too, dunno how they manage to lubricate the behinds of the administrators of the servers they play on to get away with it, but it's happened before.

 

[orkchop]

GRIZZLY is also known for getting away with exploitation too, dunno how they manage to lubricate the behinds of the administrators of the servers they play on to get away with it, but it's happened before.

Well I guess being a top progression guild, they get special treatment. Top guilds on retail get special treatment all the time. Just look at Method who recently beat Blackhand with proven account sharing. Blizzard did dick all. All in all, I hope GRIZZLY and guilds like that stay on Nostal.

 

[Spacey]

Late to the game, but here it goes.

It depends on the severity of the exploit and the impact it has. Excuses like "I didn't know this was not intended" do not save you in a 10 year old game.
If you blatantly try to trick the system you will have to face the consequences. Yes, even permanent bans are possible if you exploit.

Examples ?

 

[XJ9]

GRIZZLY is also known for getting away with exploitation too, dunno how they manage to lubricate the behinds of the administrators of the servers they play on to get away with it, but it's happened before.

Grizzly doesn't do blatant exploitation. Keep in mind you are referencing a guild that has been going around for 2-3 years who just garners a bunch of blind hatred. I'd estimate between Scriptcraft (early-mid 2012) and now (early 2015) they've done the level up, and raid process at least four times. They as a guild don't even need to progress anymore. They join a server, level up, get basic gear, then almost immediately are steamrolling the content as if on their original characters. These people have basically had fights on farm status for nearly three years.

On Scriptcraft people hated Grizzly because of their egotistical attitudes, then I guess two years later they're just hackers? Having raided with Grizzly on Scriptcraft I can say they don't really do anything gamebreaking in terms of an exploit even though it was maybe like 3-5 raids. Any of what may be deemable as an "exploit" was doable in the actual game if my memory serves. Like bypassing Nefarian's Shadowflame without 40 ony cloaks. The only instance I can ever recall of them ACTUALLY "exploiting" has to do with the C'thun thing. Yet people also choose to ignore the fact that it wasn't even an exploit, it was just something to do in the coding with shamans. For them to do the fight "fairly" you were basically requiring them to use NO shaman totems whatsoever which defeats one of the biggest purposes of having a shaman. Know what the worst of it all is? GRIZZLY can just as easily come to the server under a fake name, fake characters, level and gear up like they normally do and there would be absolutely zero flak. I guarantee you they know this too. If their guild was <Filler Guild Name> instead of <GRIZZLY>, nobody would say a thing.

TL;DR - Grizzly doesn't intentionally exploit and people are just following the blind hate train as seems typical. Likewise, instead of offering valid reasons why they could be exploiting or proving their claims, they find it easier to just badmouth them on any server. Some day will ****ts learn that they take this blind hate and use it for motivation. They've said so themselves.

 

[Zzuk]

Here is the probably only real solution backed up by experience:
On Feenix I sniped standing 1-5 on Alliance side Al'Akir for probably 5 months without a ban. On Warsongs server I sold about 300k gold in a day. Emerald Dream was pretty much the same with a lower scale.

Exploits got fixed and we just found something new. Over and over again for more than 2 years.
Assuming that it is enough to fix all known problems is just stupid. You will never know everything being possible.

The right word is taking precautions. Have a heuristic system which will analyse different factors and note down suspicious players for a manual check:
Player earns daily 4k gold without using the AH? CHECK
Player is only logged in for about an hour daily and stil earns more than the player having a much higher playtime? CHECK

All checks have been positive. Flag the account for a check by a GM.

Thinking you can prevent each exploit is as stupid as thinking an anti virus will protect you from every threat on the internet.
Also its very important to try to close all teleport methods. Most exploits arent viable without teleporting.

 

[quasist]

Hmm by checking hackers site with exploits and automatically add that exploits to warden system to make cheaters go rest in peace. I'm pretty sure that even now on the internet exists many nasty things to deal with it there.

Aren't warden turns off if you use wine? :w00t:

 

[dsquidvicious]

I think this question on what will be done about exploiters is a very legitimate concern and deserves a more in-depth answer despite what some may say is the thread starters questionable tone.

Displaying evidence of rolling back, fixing, and banning previous exploiters could definitely prove helpful in bringing peace of mind to new and existing players.

More than anything, however, i believe that suggestions regarding the creation of monitoring systems for player actions and protocol to then investigate suspicious player behaviour are some of the most important steps that can be taken to prevent and deal with exploitation. Not to mention that having this kind of system may bring reassurances of Twinstar's/Kronos' security to the playerbase.

 

[borislav]

Grizzly doesn't do blatant exploitation. Keep in mind you are referencing a guild that has been going around for 2-3 years who just garners a bunch of blind hatred. I'd estimate between Scriptcraft (early-mid 2012) and now (early 2015) they've done the level up, and raid process at least four times. They as a guild don't even need to progress anymore. They join a server, level up, get basic gear, then almost immediately are steamrolling the content as if on their original characters. These people have basically had fights on farm status for nearly three years.

On Scriptcraft people hated Grizzly because of their egotistical attitudes, then I guess two years later they're just hackers? Having raided with Grizzly on Scriptcraft I can say they don't really do anything gamebreaking in terms of an exploit even though it was maybe like 3-5 raids. Any of what may be deemable as an "exploit" was doable in the actual game if my memory serves. Like bypassing Nefarian's Shadowflame without 40 ony cloaks. The only instance I can ever recall of them ACTUALLY "exploiting" has to do with the C'thun thing. Yet people also choose to ignore the fact that it wasn't even an exploit, it was just something to do in the coding with shamans. For them to do the fight "fairly" you were basically requiring them to use NO shaman totems whatsoever which defeats one of the biggest purposes of having a shaman. Know what the worst of it all is? GRIZZLY can just as easily come to the server under a fake name, fake characters, level and gear up like they normally do and there would be absolutely zero flak. I guarantee you they know this too. If their guild was <Filler Guild Name> instead of <GRIZZLY>, nobody would say a thing.

TL;DR - Grizzly doesn't intentionally exploit and people are just following the blind hate train as seems typical. Likewise, instead of offering valid reasons why they could be exploiting or proving their claims, they find it easier to just badmouth them on any server. Some day will ****ts learn that they take this blind hate and use it for motivation. They've said so themselves.

can you suck more grizzly dick? i don't know who they are but you're clearly sipping some major coolaid.
if i was in this grizzly guild i wouldn't appreciate your post :lol:

 

[orkchop]

@XJ9, they've been caught red-handed cheating and exploiting to level up. Get their cocks out of your mouth.

 

[Struckd]

Cool it on the dick talk/insults. There have been an increasing number of those lately.

I have heard of Grizzly's infamy and all of it as rumor is the wind without any real solid evidence. Its good to see someone batting in their court...if only to disrupt the circlejerk.