View Full Version : [SARCASM]The reason people like SWG[/SARCASM]
Sony Strikes Back
...or maybe not. Apparently something interesting has been going on inside the world of StarWars:Galaxies. There is some sort of credit duping bug and after being heavily exploited by folks such as this "bruceleee" on the Intrepid server. Such an original name! Well apparently he and others started giving out these duped credits for nothing or were "tipping" heavily with them. Instead of trying another less extreme method first Sony banned everyone involved. Whether they knew they had these duped credits or not! So after this mass banning all sorts of friends of these people gathered in Theed (you know, Naboo?) to protest this or something. A bunch of CSRs (GMs, essentially) told them all to leave or they'd shut the whole server down! I find that part particularly amusing. So this one player, Allehe, starts acting as a reporter giving a play by play of whats going on while being randomly transported across the game. I guess some people even got teleported into space. Ouch. I guess they did shut down the server at some point when Sony made good on their threat but is now up and running again!
Here's a picture of the message (http://www.uploadyourimages.com/img/151411screen.jpg) from SOE. Here is that reporter's account (http://intrepid.galaxyforums.com/index.php?showtopic=7190&st=0) of the events. Finally, here (http://vnboards.ign.com/SWG_General_Discussion/b5184/74129279/p1), is an IGN board that gives a little follow up on the whole deal.
Yes, I know, this isn't standard warbucket fare but I thought you kids might like a distraction from WOW or something.
Edit: Here (http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Chilastra&message.id=261939) is a neat little chatlog with a CSR or whatever their hired nerds are called
Courtesy of http://www.warbucket.com
Who says these problems are exclusive to Neocron? :wtf:
That chatlog, was well... aloof to say the least.
How's that slogan go?
The customer is always right? Well, little known fact. Customers also tend to be anally retentive. :lol:
juvestar15
21-08-04, 05:05
This is very gay. I was a Weapon Smith before i left SWG. That means i could be sleeping and a credit duper buy all my weapons. I'd wake up with a banned account.
Unfortunatly there is no way around it. There is no way to prove who is envolved. I think what most dupers do is distribute cash to about 50 people. They know about 10 of them. So after their account gets banned, they jump on their 2nd account and get their money back from teh 10 when the smoke blows over. Sure they lose the money they gave to the other 40 but getting those extra 40 involved ensures the money is kept alive and all 50 account aren't banned. From the sounds of things though they have banned all those accounts. It's a stupid way to combat exploits but how else are they going to do it? They shoudl delete the money and refund any traded items. That would be too much work for them. :rolleyes:
WIth the protest though, SOE doesn't care about the bannings. They jsut didn't want too many people in the one place. They have restrictions on player events because one time there was this huge battle organised and it brought down the server for 3 hours. So SOE put a stop to organised player events. I think this is why they were getting angry. I highly doubt they care about customers being angry. There are so many subscriptions that it would hardly effect them if 1 server got a little pissed off.
This is very gay. I was a Weapon Smith before i left SWG. That means i could be sleeping and a credit duper buy all my weapons. I'd wake up with a banned account.
Unfortunatly there is no way around it. There is no way to prove who is envolved. I think what most dupers do is distribute cash to about 50 people. They know about 10 of them. So after their account gets banned, they jump on their 2nd account and get their money back from teh 10 when the smoke blows over. Sure they lose the money they gave to the other 40 but getting those extra 40 involved ensures the money is kept alive and all 50 account aren't banned. From the sounds of things though they have banned all those accounts. It's a stupid way to combat exploits but how else are they going to do it? They shoudl delete the money and refund any traded items. That would be too much work for them. :rolleyes:
WIth the protest though, SOE doesn't care about the bannings. They jsut didn't want too many people in the one place. They have restrictions on player events because one time there was this huge battle organised and it brought down the server for 3 hours. So SOE put a stop to organised player events. I think this is why they were getting angry. I highly doubt they care about customers being angry. There are so many subscriptions that it would hardly effect them if 1 server got a little pissed off.
You would be surprised. Verants (Now SOE) first giant fuckup like this was back in EQ with the mystere banning, and I think it was a little over 200 accounts that dissapeared in an hour.
After that they apologised. They were unbannign accounts after the protest, so I'm sure they only barely averted a similar reaction.
I used to play, and still play SWG here and there. That had to have been one of the most interesting things that has ever happened. I read everything about it....Shows you how great SoE can be at times. lol. People practically had to threaten them just to get out a single sentence of info.
You would be surprised. Verants (Now SOE) first giant fuckup like this was back in EQ with the mystere banning, and I think it was a little over 200 accounts that dissapeared in an hour.
After that they apologised. They were unbannign accounts after the protest, so I'm sure they only barely averted a similar reaction.
I remember from my EQ days that the game client disabled alt tab and other methods for switching to desktop and there were programs around that allowed
you to run the client in a window, such programs were considered exploits :rolleyes:. Later Verant was forced to allow alt tab in the client because the DirectX EULA requires this functionality (or so I was told...).
They banned everyone who got the duped money. Why? To stop the economy to completely fuck up. 90% of the people who got banned are just some ppor fools who received the duped money without knowing. And all those people will be back in game when the exploit is fixed and those some exploiters are found and banned.
Sucks if your account is banned "for no reason" but hey, before the economy is completely fucked, i`d take that ban. Its not forever, its just a try to get hold of all that illegal money.
On the other hand, SWG economy is worse than NCs could ever be. Prices for high end stuff are beyond belief and the only chance to get stuff from other players is ebay or a hardcore player who likes you and is gonna to quit. Well that or you are extremely lucky. o_O
Did i mention the high end rare stuff is loot only and if you compare it to rares in NC...well imagine a CS compared to a lazar rifle.
/edit
thousands of players happy with the exploit removed > some ppl who got accidently banned :lol:
WIth the protest though, SOE doesn't care about the bannings. They jsut didn't want too many people in the one place. They have restrictions on player events because one time there was this huge battle organised and it brought down the server for 3 hours. So SOE put a stop to organised player events. I think this is why they were getting angry. I highly doubt they care about customers being angry. There are so many subscriptions that it would hardly effect them if 1 server got a little pissed off.
Yeah, I'll second that, the lag and server instability of SWG are LEGENDARY... you guys think NC has it bad, try hunting with 5 other people on an SWQG server... no FREs, but the lag is so bad, you can't even run together... and the moment I SEE a tree, even with minimal graphics settings on a system that plays DOOM 3 at mostly maxed settings just fine, my FPS goes fractional...
I once lag-skipped (where you suddenly jump a few feet because the server and your client were mis-synched and the client updates your position) across an entire city and through a mountain on a bike!
Not to mention that supposedly if there are over 255 of the same thing in a small area (a zone basically, but since they don't have zone lines, it's a little more fuzzy than that) the DB goes all wonky...
Personally I say we get a whole bunch of NC players on trial accounts to go screw their DBs by throwing gobs of melons all over populated areas... but that's just me...
[edit] and yah. their economy is as bad as saturn... high end stuff involved quests that take a dozen capped players working together to get a single item (IE the Mandalorian battle armor takes a few capped combat chars to protect a capped technition, a capped armorer and a capped artisan... to get one set of armor) so you'll have to pay a few hundred RL dollars or millions of credits, thousands of chems, and a dozen high-level dropped items.
Ouch! Just read this..
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Chilastra&message.id=261939
Sony are deleting threads left and right, so odds on this might vanish too.
Eloran Starlighter: What will occur if I sell an item, and am paid with duped credits? What if I am maliciously tipped? Why should I be flagged and banned? Should the economy screech to a halt?
CSR Chris R.: You will be banned
CSR Chris R.: I would advise you not to do anything that would put your account at risk
Lol, they can do it because they've got the playerbase i guess, so long as they dont piss *everyone* off, once you get a community against you, you are f**ked whatever you do for them.
Banning innocents is just lame. people should have done what they did and more because games or not, a lot of work goes into those damn things. Its something they should accept as the host of it all...
Clownst0pper
21-08-04, 11:47
If we all protested on saturn, in plaza 1, would we get our friends unbanned who were wrongly banned?
No, nor we would we get the server closed.
I'd rather lose my epic items than put up with that shit.
The Ottoman
21-08-04, 12:04
If we all protested on saturn, in plaza 1, would we get our friends unbanned who were wrongly banned?
No, nor we would we get the server closed.
They would send in STORMBOTS to restore order. Reeza has no mercy for rioters. :D
Darth Slayer
21-08-04, 12:07
Similar thing has just happened on Lineage 2. Lots of people got banned for duping items and money tho that bug has been fixed now...... :rolleyes:
Now If only they where as harsh on the Farmers.
Scorpius.
If they can detect the money and who has it (and clearly they can, since they are banning anyone who has the money), why is it such a problem to just delete the cash? I just can't understand it. That is akin to me walking out of MB, being shot by somebody who's hacking, and both of us being banned over it. :wtf:
GambitFlame
21-08-04, 12:25
Posted on the SOE forums
Now this is what really enrages me to the point where I might just cancel everything. I talked one of my co-workers into letting her 11 year old daughter play this game. This little girl wanted nothing in the world except to make a Twil'ek Dancer and ID. She didn't even KNOW about the forums here and received a million dollar tip from a random customer the other night on the Lowca Server. Her account was banned yesterday as well.
Now this game has many many millionares in it, how in the h.ell is a little girl supposed to know that the money is coming from a duper and not a grateful weaponsmith or something? I had to explain to her what a duper was, she didn't know!
I talked to this little girl for an hour last night listening to her cry, she was 2 months into a 6 month account and was very very close to Mastering Dancer. Needless to say I felt partially responsible for her being subjected to this so I bought her an account with a 6 month membership last night.
Bottom line is, SOE are completely retarded and cannot be trusted to handle situations like this. I'm all for people getting banned for duping credits but to simply go around and ban anyone that has ever been in possesion of one is stupid beyond belief. They need to put the banning stick down until they learn to use it responsibly.
And people complained about the 'Massive Banning Action' a couple months ago. Of course, a lot of us supported it.
GambitFlame
21-08-04, 12:31
And people complained about the 'Massive Banning Action' a couple months ago. Of course, a lot of us supported it.
Thing is tho with SWG you could be tipped 10000 crs for say giving doc buffs. If those credits were part of the duped ones then BANG your account was suspended, suspension for playing the game is retarded.
Sure ban the exploiters/dupers but not the general people that are only out to use their profession to earn a little scratch.
SOE totally over reacted and the number of banned/suspended accounts are up in the thousands....
If we all protested on saturn, in plaza 1, would we get our friends unbanned who were wrongly banned?
No, nor we would we get the server closed.
No one is wrongly banned in neocron. GM and support decisions are flawless and above criticism. In fact there were no bans, you must have imagined it. Move along.
OK, that's scary, I got a character named BruceLee in SWG :p
juvestar15
21-08-04, 13:28
If they can detect the money and who has it (and clearly they can, since they are banning anyone who has the money), why is it such a problem to just delete the cash? I just can't understand it. That is akin to me walking out of MB, being shot by somebody who's hacking, and both of us being banned over it. :wtf:
Duped money gets around quick so it would cause massive problems if the money was deleted. Not only would the money have to be deleted, so would any items sold or used. It would be a nightmare. SOE find it easier to ban anyone that is attached to the money.
Lets say i duped 1 million credits. Then i went out and bought armor, weapons and med packs. Then i had the weapons/armor sliced(enhances stats). On top of that i would have gotten buffed.
-300k for armor
-50k for weapons
-100k to get it all sliced
-10k for buffs
If that money was deleted then the Armorsmith, Weaponsmith, Slicer and Buffer would all get screwed. For them not to get screwed they would need their shit refunded. But Slicing and Buffing aren't recorded transactions and they aren't prices that are written into the game. Weapons and Armor are on vendors so that's easy to fix. But refunding slicers and buffers just wouldn't work.
whats a slicer and buffer in swg and how long they work?
whats a slicer and buffer in swg and how long they work?
Ok third try at a reply. I had to delete the first two for being too sarcastic.
Who cares? If you really want to know go and ask on an SWG forum. I can guess that the answer will be extremely boring (it's SWG related after all).
juvestar15
21-08-04, 15:16
Slicing is a skill in the Smuggler profession. You hand the slicer your weapon and/or armor and they will improve 1 stat on it by a percentage. So if i gave them a rifle, they could enhance the speed of it or the damage of it. Their slicing skill determines how good of an enhancment it is. It is all random. So one time they can slice your weapon and you get a 20% damage increase, the next time you get a 35% speed increase. The better the slicer the more chance of the slcie being higher(35% is MAX).
With armor it's a little different. You can slice the resists or encumberance. Encumberance is just how the armor effects you when you wear it(High encumberance is bad).
Buffing is done by Doctors. Master Doctors with the right clothing/drugs/droid and buff packs can enhance your stats by 2500+. In SWG everyone has HAM bar, Health/Action/Mind. Doctors buff Health and Action. I would think the average joe blow would have about 800 Health/Mind, with buffs that can increase to 3300. Also there are 2 sub-bars for each HAM. One is for regeneration and the other is for how well you use that certain stat. That comes to play when you use special attacks in combat.
Now to why it's hard to track them...
To get my weapon sliced i would open up a trade window with them and put my gun in it. They would slice it then tell me the price. I would then tip him that price. Same goes for Doctors pretty much. You tip them and they buff you. For both situations there is no fee written into game's database, you pay them based on their prices. But lets say i owe a slicer 100k and i give him a weapon to slice. He charges me 5k to slice it, so i tip him 105k. Sony has no way of proving that the 105k was for the slice. It's the same with paying Doctors to buff you. With Armorsmiths/Weaponsmiths however, they have a vendor palced in a house. THey upload their items onto the vendor and set a price for it. If a customer buys a weapon for 100k, then it can easily be traced since it was on the vendor.
You can see why SOE just banned anyone remotely connected. :D
Slicing is a skill in...
It's such a chore being right all the time.
Hmmm. slicers eh?
Might be a good idea for NC2, apart from modding, get a techincian to improve your weapon, but only once , after then it's flagged. :) would be nice to have more unique weapons, after all, A slotted c/s can have the same mods as a lot of others, but fewer will have the same Rate of fire or handling...
SOE doesnt have a clue about running a MMORPG or making one, apparently the devs working on SWG at the moment didnt actually make it, which is why they screw up so much even on simple stuff and settle for copy/pasting old features, changing the texture and hyping it up all the time. SWG could have been very good, unfortunatly its owned by SOE who are only interested in money and statistics and not making a great game.
The game's population is deing FAST, last I played I was hearing of entire clans quitting and going to other games. Its only a matter of time before the number of players/subscriptions is lower than it costs to keep all the servers running and they have to chop some.
Someone should write all the crap/fuckups they do and the way SOE support treat people down and send it to a mag :)
No one is wrongly banned in neocron. GM and support decisions are flawless and above criticism. In fact there were no bans, you must have imagined it. Move along.
<<waves hand>>
these are not the credits you are looking for
"these are not the credits we are looking for"
move along
It's such a chore being right all the time.
There is no chore. The chore is a concept
*swishy hands*
If that money was deleted then the Armorsmith, Weaponsmith, Slicer and Buffer would all get screwed. For them not to get screwed they would need their shit refunded. But Slicing and Buffing aren't recorded transactions and they aren't prices that are written into the game. Weapons and Armor are on vendors so that's easy to fix. But refunding slicers and buffers just wouldn't work.
I don't think that's a very good reason. Seeing as those traders are going to be even more screwed currently, what with being banned and all.
juvestar15 ooh thanks, was wondering abit how it all worked.
Mrchumble if you werent sent from the gods to enlighten us all with your extraordinary and grand wisdom I would flame you back to hell. but btw you were wrong, it was intresting since it concern one of the facts bout the thread.
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