I've seen a number or a LOT of postings from players about bannings where the players were caught completely by surprise by an email from SOE that told them that they were being banned from all SOE games due to having used an exploit at X location, and the players seem to be clueless about what they did wrong!
I want to avoid this situation. In a number of gameshave mistaken an exploit, as a feature of the game, and I was not just a little astonished to find that it was not a feature, and of course I stopped the action or destroyed the item to avoid any possibility of accidental self-incremination.
In this game, I accidentally created an itemthat had I been more patient in its use, I would have discovered an item with ungodly properties, but I figured it was just bugged and useless, and requested assistance from a CSR about the item, and requested replacement with a normal item. How very close I could have come to being banned, by accidentally creating such an item, but instead, that CSR could tell from my response that his reply was timely for I was about to destroy the item, he could tell I had no cluewhat I had and so he had me destroy the item and replaced it with a normal one and we shared a laugh and I thanked him for his help, but how very close I could have come to being banned had my ticket gone to a less perceptive CSR!
BTW: Tho the item had the property of nearindestructableness, it wasn't really that great of a thing and didn't afford any significant benefit aside from saving a few thousand measily credits and lasting much longer than intended, it really wasn't that great if an item to have, but it was an exploit all the same, and one I was completely unaware of. Note, that I did give out or post here even one percent of the info needed to duplicate this item. Besides, even if I knew I could get away with it, I would never attempt to create the item again, because I would not trust such an item. Being a programmer, I know that such things or actions could cause me unwanted side-effects, such as perhaps making my game crash, or perhaps having the item malfunction at a critical moment causing some great loss. Most of us probably feel safer in the game using tried, tested and true methods and items rather than bizaare items, or unorthodox procedures, because they could have unwanted side effects that we might find most unpleasant.Most importantly tho, is that this game is so complex, that possibly nobody but the most experienced player could descern normal actions from unortodox, but new players like me, wouldn't have a chance!
I'm sure most players feel the same as I do when I say that no benefit, no exploit no matter *what* so called benefit or advantage it might provide is worth risking losing all our hard work via a banning, that might be made the more painful, because of not having any idea what one did wrong.
I'm sure, the above demonstrates, the fact that every online game is inherantely so complex, and this one to me seems to be far more complex than any I've played previously, that it can be very easy, even difficult to be able to descern the difference between something that is working as intended, and something that is an exploit.
Not knowing what to avoid, can be a very scary thing. In my experience, some exploits are easy to identify such as if you stumble on a way to duplicate credits. Other exploitsare *no*t so easy to identify.
Using common sense, itsn't enough, at least not for me, we are imperfect beings, imo, and accidents, happen, exploits are mistaken for features.
I don't know if this is possible, or even practical, but I would like to see a list of known exploits where only a dev can post, where there is just enough info to enable the player to avoid the exploit without giving them enough info to enact the expoit or just a list of hints about what to avoid that would help us *honest* players to avoid such "Traps".
Of course, some exploits would have to be left out because there is no way of being able to inform the reader how to avoid them without telling them how to do them.
I know of two exploits, One of which I already reported to a csr as a bugged item, having no clue that it was an exploit, and the other is something I would never attempt even if I wanted to because I have not the needed skills and I can't think of any way to describe them so a player could avoid them, without giving away how to do them, but maybe there aredozens of exploits that look like features working as intended that could be described in some way, that would enable players to avoid these exploits without givingenough info to enable even the most resourceful player to figure out how to do it.
No flames, please, they would be pointless, because I have my doubts that it could be pulled off unless the info was *very* carefully worded, so if you were flaming me because you believe this is not practical without giving away too much info, I would be agreeing with you, because I have my doubts as well, but I guess it don't hurt to ask. Please reader, plse don't PM me withURL's to sites telling how to exploit, I and a lot of us do not want to know, we only want to know what KIND of things to avoid!
Recently a LOT of Jedi were banned for some sort of exploit in the Jedi village. Last night I was in a group that was too small to take on the next wave of invading sith, so I suggested that we choose a spot off to the side of the sith spawn, and stay away from the village, and thus help the village by using strategy, rather than just sitting at the village gate like kittens on a freeway waiting for the truck to come mash us into the ground, but for all I know, this might be exactly the act that caused all the bannings. How would I know, how would anyone know? We wouldn't!
To us last night, this seemed, and still seems like a valid strategy and wise descision. If you are going to be fighting mobs that you know are going to trample to a spot where everything there is going to die in a blink of an eye, wisdom dictates that you stay away from "Ground Zero" and chose your own area of battle.
We did well, we survived with only a few deaths, tho nearly all in the group did do some rushing into the extreme danger zone we still did well, and when the forces outside the village were defeated, only then did we enter the village to finish off the remaining evil force.
I doubt that this was anything but a valid and approved use of strategy, but I've seen games where simular use of strategy were branded as forbidden, much to everyone's surprise!
So, even tho I doubt a SOE rep will respond but I'm asking anyway, for how will we learn, unless we ask questions?How will we avoid exploits that don't look like exploits without some sort of guidelines more than what might be devined by common sense, which I find in myself isn't that common? ... DOH!!!
Sure, I admit, we have some guidelines such as these...
* Avoid situations where we might be able to hit a mob or player, but they can't hit back.
* Taking advantage of pathing problems in the game.
* Anything that would appear to give an unfair advantage. - This one is a bit nebulous tho.
* If an item is supposed to wear out but doesn't or has much more durability than it's supposed to it should probably be destroyed or if it's very expensive, request that a CSR witness you destroying the item, and request a replacent as in my case where the item creation was accidental, but not cheap.
These are but a sampling of things that are obvious, but I find that in every game, there are exploits that are not obvious at all, but for all intents and purposes appear exactly like features of the game that are "Working as intended" but are not!
Sorry for the long diatribe.
Message Edited by Alaro on 11-08-2004 04:31 PM
Message Edited by Alaro on 11-08-2004 04:40 PM