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the whole idea of the game is to kill monsters in a social setting and get loot that you can only sell to a vendor in the long run anyway.
perhaps treat it as such?????
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no, if you cared to read, they had all of their ill-gotten gains removed
they do have purchase logs
 
they took away all money related to plant sales
and all items bought with said money
 
they even went overboard to be sure (from what i heard people lost stuff that wasnt from cheating)
please stop saying they didnt get punished, this is the cheaters trolling you by saying they still have their stuff.
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			So, to put this in perspective.  What we have is a situation, where a large majority of the top end guilds, participated in an economy exploit.  Why is it, those that would seem to have the most to lose, would be so quick to exploit in mass?  Utter shining disappointment in drop 3 perhaps?  The patch, postponed to make sure it was solid, was released in grand Carbine style.  Was it bug free like they said it would be?  Clearly, those of you crying haven't experienced the mediocrity available that is End-Game.  	
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So, to put this in perspective.  What we have is a situation, where a large majority of the top end guilds, participated in an economy exploit.  Why is it, those that would seem to have the most to lose, would be so quick to exploit in mass?  Utter shining disappointment in drop 3 perhaps?  The patch, postponed to make sure it was solid, was released in grand Carbine style.  Was it bug free like they said it would be?  Clearly, those of you crying haven't experienced the mediocrity available that is End-Game.  
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Unhappy with the way they handled this situation, unhappy with the changes to engineer dps rotation, unhappy with the threat nerf, unhappy with them removing the incentives for farming raremobs.
 
Carbine, you got till the end of my subscription to convince me its worth playing the game anymore, because right now its really not fun and doesn't feel like I'm making any progress in game when i do play.	
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			I was referring more to people's willingness to be so quick to exploit.  Satisfaction with a product generally doesn't lead to this kind of behavior. And there is no basically getting away with it.  Everyone got away with it.  Don't kid yourself.  	
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I was referring more to people's willingness to be so quick to exploit.  Satisfaction with a product generally doesn't lead to this kind of behavior. And there is no basically getting away with it.  Everyone got away with it.  Don't kid yourself.  
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Honestly, who cares... only thing useful to buy in this game is CREDD (does not actually give you an advantage in game) and AMP and abilities points.
 
AMPS and ability points do give an advantage... but there were only a couple on the AH at the time of the exploit... which means maybe 1 or 2 people have gained an advantage over us reg folk.
 
People need to stop panicking and just relax	
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Honestly, who cares... only thing useful to buy in this game is CREDD (does not actually give you an advantage in game) and AMP and abilities points.
 
AMPS and ability points do give an advantage... but there were only a couple on the AH at the time of the exploit... which means maybe 1 or 2 people have gained an advantage over us reg folk.
 
People need to stop panicking and just relax
 
 
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Carbine = all bark, no bite.
 
Been a while now since this all went down and all the feedback I got so far in game and out from other people is that most if not all got the laughable slap on the wrists of 3 and 7 day "suspensions". And most of those if they moved the plat to a friend/another account/bought up the AH/CX kept their ill gotten gains as soon as they logged back in and got it mailed back to them and/or sold all the stuff they bought for cheap for a profit.
 
But hey, at least you didn't lose more of your paying playerbase (what little of it is left) by sparing the rod here. Which probably why your punishments had no teeth and everyone is laughing their way to the bank at you. Meanwhile, honest people got hosed with inflation.
 
GG Carbine. Way to show your incompetence (again).	
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Maybe the cheaters make up the majority of the active player base?
 
Frightening thought.	
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Maybe the cheaters make up the majority of the active player base?
 
Frightening thought.
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Folks,
 
I feel the need to step in here.
 
I could write a forum post claiming I was actually Queen Victoria working as a Community Manager on the side. I could write a forum post that I am a secret millionaire, or a spy for MI5, or that I own a pet Turtle named Leonardo.
 
Making a post on the forums is very easy.
 
There is a reason we don't discuss the details or status of a specific account in public, and because of that we can never confirm or deny actions taken against somebody, so it's very easy to create a very one-sided story as we simply can't share all the facts for business and legal reasons.
 
Cougar's post says everything we need to and can do. We're not going easy on people. We're not taking this lightly.We all know actions speak louder than words, unfortunately a lot of *our* actions are going to be behind the scenes on this one, as with any exploit in any MMO, so our hands are a little tied on this.
 
I understand your frustrations, I can even understand a little bit of suspicion. All I can do is ask you to trust us and remind you that our intent here is to do what's best for everyone.	
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Folks,
 
I feel the need to step in here.
 
I could write a forum post claiming I was actually Queen Victoria working as a Community Manager on the side. I could write a forum post that I am a secret millionaire, or a spy for MI5, or that I own a pet Turtle named Leonardo.
 
Making a post on the forums is very easy.
 
There is a reason we don't discuss the details or status of a specific account in public, and because of that we can never confirm or deny actions taken against somebody, so it's very easy to create a very one-sided story as we simply can't share all the facts for business and legal reasons.
 
Cougar's post says everything we need to and can do. We're not going easy on people. We're not taking this lightly.
 
We all know actions speak louder than words, unfortunately a lot of *our* actions are going to be behind the scenes on this one, as with any exploit in any MMO.
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Which makes it extremely hard to take anything for granted.
I'm sorry, but unless we actually see something happening and people being severely punished for abusing and sinking the ingame market, whatever being written in this topic is going to be lost.
 
Whether the posts from these people are true or not, the fact remains they abused the system, and honestly got away with it.
Just the fact they're able to post on these forums or ingame about their punishment in less then 72 hours of the bans going out says enough.
 
In my oppinion, people who deliberatly abused the system and basically destroyed a large part of the game economy with it have no place in this game.
I'd give them the option of an account wipe or permanent ban.
Has been done before by Ragnarok Online for serious offenders, and I don't see any problem in it being applied here.
Can't play honestly? then don't play at all. It's really simple.
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I don't think the Devs are listening
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Which makes it extremely hard to take anything for granted.
I'm sorry, but unless we actually see something happening and people being severely punished for abusing and sinking the ingame market, whatever being written in this topic is going to be lost.
 
Whether the posts from these people are true or not, the fact remains they abused the system, and honestly got away with it.
Just the fact they're able to post on these forums or ingame about their punishment in less then 72 hours of the bans going out says enough.
 
In my oppinion, people who deliberatly abused the system and basically destroyed a large part of the game economy with it have no place in this game.
I'd give them the option of an account wipe or permanent ban.
Has been done before by Ragnarok Online for serious offenders, and I don't see any problem in it being applied here.
Can't play honestly? then don't play at all. It's really simple.
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I'm having a pretty hard time believing it to be honest.
 
I mean if you were an actual cheater AND had gotten away with some profit.....would you really come on here to announce 'ha ha actually you didn't get all my money Carbine!'
 
Surely Carbine can see whose account the forum post is linked up to, so the cheat would lose everything. 
 
It would be a bit like a bank robber shouting 'Yeah you caught me police guys, but you didn't know about my secret stash under the third bush on the right did you? Ha!'
 
A cheat came on here to blab on Carbine even though it would mean he'd lose his gains just because...what? His morals? (Snort)
 
I smell a bridge dweller :D	
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This has nothing to do with the devs, this has to do with Carbine policies.
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IMNSHO, and I know it will probably sound childish, but I think that the people that come on the forums to talk about how they were exploiters and got un-banned or not punished at all should have their posts reported, as much as possible.  If they are bullshitting us and trying to make Carbine look bad and they didn't actually exploit in game, oh well, they should have known better.  If they are being serious, maybe Carbine will take the hint and re-evaluate the actions against those people.
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Um, a day during the weekend?
 
I don't know what superhuman beings you expect the devs to be, being able to monitor all threads in the forums 24/7...
 
Not everybody are like: http://xkcd.com/386/
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Folks,
 
I feel the need to step in here.
 
I could write a forum post claiming I was actually Queen Victoria working as a Community Manager on the side. I could write a forum post that I am a secret millionaire, or a spy for MI5, or that I own a pet Turtle named Leonardo.
 
Making a post on the forums is very easy.
 
There is a reason we don't discuss the details or status of a specific account in public, and because of that we can never confirm or deny actions taken against somebody, so it's very easy to create a very one-sided story as we simply can't share all the facts for business and legal reasons.
 
Cougar's post says everything we need to and can do. We're not going easy on people. We're not taking this lightly.
 
We all know actions speak louder than words, unfortunately a lot of *our* actions are going to be behind the scenes on this one, as with any exploit in any MMO, so our hands are a little tied on this.
 
I understand your frustrations, I can even understand a little bit of suspicion. All I can do is ask you to trust us and remind you that our intent here is to do what's best for everyone.
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Might I point out that whilst it is completely understandable that people are sceptical of Carbine's methods in part due to an arguably understandable lack of transparency we should treat anyone who claims they are a cheater who got away with it the same. Or anyone who might have heard somewhere that someone got away with it. After all we've seen a lot of claiming here but absolutely no proof.
 
As it stands we have no idea of the details of how this is being handled. Carbine won't share and anyone who makes claims has not delivered solid evidence. So you either trust both for which you have little reason to, I would imagine. Or you trust neither, which seems to be the more realistic option. Anything else would be a double standard.	
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I'm sorry, but unless we actually see something happening and people being severely punished for abusing and sinking the ingame market, 
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LOL, drop and F bomb or call someone F'ing annoying and see how fast the red caps react
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That the economy recovers is good, really good.
But that's not relevant to the discussion. It would indeed be a lot worse if the economies on the server did not recover from this.
 
Also not sure why you quoted exactly that sentence, since it does not entail the current state of the economy.
It was the action that was important: Sinking the economy back then and profiting from it.
 
As pointed out before, we currently have no way of knowing whether Carbine actually went through with these punishments or simply stayed with a slap on the wrist.
Even if what you say is true, that they got their platinum wiped, but still made some out of it, then honestly that's not acceptable either.
As I stated before, if you play a game with the intend to abuse the heck out of it, you should be banned from playing it, since you have no place in this game.
 
If anyone here remembers the giant credit dupe from SWG, where million of credits where duped and pumped into the system, people ended up with wiped accounts and and banned accounts as well.
And they offered no "come forward" option, they just came down with the banhammer.
Same happened in Ragnarok Online with people duping out equipment and zenny. Whole accounts of top players got wiped out there, or just completely banned. (I know, since I was a GM there)
 
Right now we have one response from Cougar and Anlath, being countered by statements from people on the forum and ingame.
And sorry for saying this, but based on their previous promises, it's really hard to just take it on their word at the moment.	
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Not sure what server you are on, but Warhound is where it was arguably abused the worst, and the economy is already back to where it was only a few days after the incident (Credd price, AMP/Ability points, Modules, Flux, Eldan Signs etc are at or lower than they were prior).  So this crutch of a statement everyone is falling back on should just stop being used.
 
I do agree however that people who did it to a certain extent should have had a longer punishment, but it was just sort of handled poorly.  I know people that made like 10-20p off of it, and lost the previous 200p they had before the incident, as well as a majority of their mats for runes etc they had.
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Ever work in an organization where people have different authorities and responsibilities?
 
Those that filter out swear words and close unnecessary treads are the forum moderators. They have the authority and responsibility to do just that, and probably not much more. They also probably have a phone number to wake up someone with more authority if really necessary, but I don't think "someone posted vague suspicions" is considered that kind of emergency.
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Do i need to quote the numerous Buster Casey posts stating it's been reported, I'll check back on it etc...etc...etc... this was a catastrophic failure of the system and not the first time it's happened, I can't help but feel like I'm talking to Kaa whenever a red name comes on and speaks "Trust in me, Just in me, Shut your eyes,  and Trust in Me"
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			What's done is done.  Action was taken, and the entire reason for action was to make sure the economy was not destroyed.  Well here we are, and the economy has bounced back.  There are people who got more severely punished than others (as I know some).  But at the end of the day, if the issue is fixed and action was taken against offenders, then who really cares?  Why is an issue still being made out of something that is done/fixed?  I left high school a long time ago, and i'm betting most of you did too (so act like it).	
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			It feels like all exploits are handled with kid gloves. The rampant exploiting and win/trading in PvP showed people that the risk is worth the reward in many senses of exploitation.	
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The fact that a red name did not respond to a forum post stating that "someone kept 50 plat" on a Sunday, but on a Monday when his workday started, is a catastrophic failure? Wow.
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What's done is done.  Action was taken, and the entire reason for action was to make sure the economy was not destroyed.  Well here we are, and the economy has bounced back.  There are people who got more severely punished than others (as I know some).  But at the end of the day, if the issue is fixed and action was taken against offenders, then who really cares?  Why is an issue still being made out of something that is done/fixed?  I left high school a long time ago, and i'm betting most of you did too (so act like it).
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I'm not talking about that one post I'm talking about the whole affair.
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Well let me clarify something for you, I was issued a 3 day vacation by a red letter here on the weekend, so for you to say they don't work on the weekends is foolish. 
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Just, as a very quick note, there are several VERY good reason Carbine doesn't talk about whose accounts they actioned, how many, and what exactly they did to all of them.  The first of those being that the playerbase, like all founts of internet culture, are horrifying to behold at their pitchfork-iest.  It doesn't do well to name a guild or many players of a certain guild that may have, in the majority, been banned, then have that stigma attached to people who did not who are in that guild.  Nor would you want, especially in the DOXback culture, to give anyone a certain target.  Nor, if you're wrong, do you want to have publicly shamed someone for something they didn't do.  It's why everyone still cares about who did it even after the economy was returned to normal and the damage is gone, people want to watch a public lynching.  It's essentially the same reason people were getting strung up without trial, to assure "justice was done" in the absence of our knowledge of due process and circumstances.
 
The other is that, essentially, it's not our business.  If you get banned on the forums, the mods don't come by and publicly say who you are and why you were banned.  They don't even tell you how many.  All that really matters is that what affects us is done, and the economy is already recovered and/or fixed.  What we don't need to know are things like whether this was a small, well-organized team or a rush of exploiters, legitimate players just need to know that everything's fixed and Carbine is bringing the hammer down.  I do know of a few people who disappeared already for it, at least one of whom I know personally who didn't think, at the time, it was a big deal ("lol, I got plat! .... Oh noes!")  A lot of not-very-smart people got banned because they literally figured out how to do it and thought they should just get the money while the getting was good.  That's a lot different than the people who would have used it to crash the economy and spike CREDD for the day.  By the time we're getting enough context to understand all these little cases, we're getting enough information to stray into lynch mob territory.  I assume some of the bans, for these less serious cases that came forward after the fact, will be receiving lighter punishments.  For those that aren't coming back without paying another entry fee, I'd really rather their information ends up in a black hole where no one else can possibly find it.
 
Of course the offenders were banned and I'm assuming that if they didn't come forward, they got banned for life.  Nobody would come on here and paint a bullseye on themselves if they'd really gotten away with robbery.  Carbine had to call in devs (no, not just the mods that watch the forums, the actual coders themselves) to write a flash fix, do what they needed to do, and shut down their gardens until they could do it in earnest.  Carbine has to pay those devs for that time.  Carbine also has to deal with conspiracy theorists and the lynch mob here now.  There's no way they aren't punishing these people, they've done no good, they've done a lot of harm, and Carbine has no reason to keep them around.
 
Take a deep breath, people.	
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Folks,
 
I feel the need to step in here.
 
I could write a forum post claiming I was actually Queen Victoria working as a Community Manager on the side. I could write a forum post that I am a secret millionaire, or a spy for MI5, or that I own a pet Turtle named Leonardo.
 
Making a post on the forums is very easy.
 
There is a reason we don't discuss the details or status of a specific account in public, and because of that we can never confirm or deny actions taken against somebody, so it's very easy to create a very one-sided story as we simply can't share all the facts for business and legal reasons.
 
Cougar's post says everything we need to and can do. We're not going easy on people. We're not taking this lightly.
 
We all know actions speak louder than words, unfortunately a lot of *our* actions are going to be behind the scenes on this one, as with any exploit in any MMO, so our hands are a little tied on this.
 
I understand your frustrations, I can even understand a little bit of suspicion. All I can do is ask you to trust us and remind you that our intent here is to do what's best for everyone.
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Carbine has no reason to keep them around.
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On the forum? Well, that is the job of the forum moderators. They have the authority to ban people from the forum, depending on such things as language, personal attacks and similar. They probably have an exact written instruction what they may issue forum bans for. That does not mean that they are decision makers at Carbine, or are authorized to speak on behalf of Carbine on more than their "jurisdiction".
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Raiders pay the bills son.
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it wasn't a mod
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Raiders pay the bills son.
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While players can "make up stories" as you allege, so can you and the rest of CRB.
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What's the point of this discussion as of now? Neither side can or will prove anything. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see exploiting scumbags get permabanned as much as the person next to me, but this is how things is handled this time. I hope they won't be as lenient next time. Do you guys expect CRB to list a names of exploiters on the forums? You know it's defamation, right? I could be proven wrong, but I'm fairly sure defamation in general isn't allowed in most media. 
Do they deserve the defamation? That's up for debate and personally I would find it highly amusing to see said list, but I won't, and I'm sure as hell not going to spend 20+ posts crying about it as if it's going to happen. 	
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For reference, only Forum Moderators or a member of the Community Team would issue you a forum suspension and none of the Community Team were around this weekend. If it was a game ban, that was done by our CS Team and they don't post on the forums (MrSmiley being the exception to the rule :P )
 
If you were suspended from the forums by a member of staff and you felt it was unjustified, please contact; theredphone@carbinestudios.com so the Community Team can investigate.
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Not sure what server you are on, but Warhound is where it was arguably abused the worst, and the economy is already back to where it was only a few days after the incident (Credd price, AMP/Ability points, Modules, Flux, Eldan Signs etc are at or lower than they were prior).  So this crutch of a statement everyone is falling back on should just stop being used.
 
I do agree however that people who did it to a certain extent should have had a longer punishment, but it was just sort of handled poorly.  I know people that made like 10-20p off of it, and lost the previous 200p they had before the incident, as well as a majority of their mats for runes etc they had.
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I often wonder why MMO companies don't have a Wall of Shame to list characters belonging to players who have been permabanned so that we can have the grim satisfaction of knowing that the worst offenders get the worst punishment and we might possibly recognize some of those names from our own experience.
 
If these tales are to be believed, the only name that would be on Wildstar's Wall of Shame would be Carbine itself.	
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You are presuming that the reason the economy is recovered is because the wealth that was concentrated into the hands of a few people has been removed. The very simple alternative explanation is that they have simply stopped using it to trash the economy and are holding it in storage until the outcry settles down.
 
Then they retain every advantage, can win every auction, can manipulate pieces of the market one at a time instead of all at once and stay in a dominant position indefinitely.
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Then they retain every advantage, can win every auction, can manipulate pieces of the market one at a time instead of all at once and stay in a dominant position indefinitely.
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You are presuming that the reason the economy is recovered is because the wealth that was concentrated into the hands of a few people has been removed. The very simple alternative explanation is that they have simply stopped using it to trash the economy and are holding it in storage until the outcry settles down.
 
Then they retain every advantage, can win every auction, can manipulate pieces of the market one at a time instead of all at once and stay in a dominant position indefinitely.
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Dominant with respect to what?  There's a fairly hard ceiling on the amount of power that plat can buy you in this game.  If they aren't actively using their hoards of money to ruin the economy then I don't see the problem.
 
I'm not saying that the exploiters shouldn't have their ill-gotten gains removed.  I am saying that at this point you are basically making them into the bogeyman, some shadow threat that isn't hurting anyone and may not actually exist but very well could if they felt like it.
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Dominant with respect to every person who ever competes with them for a bid. Dominant with respect to every item that ever shows up on the auction house. Dominant in their ability to create artificial shortages and profit off the increased demand.
 
As for your statement that plat can only buy so much, tell that to all the people who buy carries straight past attunement and through rated BGs and into raids using their plat. I'm sure they'll find it just as funny as those of us who watch them do it.
 
The exploiters don't have to trash the economy completely to maintain a clear and decisive edge over everyone else in the game for every iterm of interest in the game that they got by cheating. They just have to hold on to a much larger share of the pie than someone else who plays the exact same game but doesn't cheat. Their goal is surely not to simply destroy the game. Their goal is to make sure that in every way they CAN stay firmly in control of the markets and access to content, they DO.
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If any of you actually believe that carbine took the necessary steps to prevent future exploits, you are sadly mistaken. I personally know of several people who did this exploit for hundreds of plat and dumped it into the economy, bought multiple ability points, amps, mounts, INCLUDING the 80plat mount speed increase. None of the character based upgrades or cosmetics were removed from their account and they only suffered a 24 suspension. They did in fact remove most of their plat and in addition some items that weren't even included in the laundering process. 
 
I think its pathetic the way this was handled, and there is no reason the entire community shouldn't abuse the next thing they find to get ahead. OBVIOUSLY IT PAYS OFF. I sent in video and screenshots of these guys buying the 80p mount upgrade before they got suspended and then racing me on my savage warpig at the exact same speed after the suspension. I figured that would get it taken away from them...they still are vroom vrooming on their max speed hoverboards. 
 
Players from North Africa (guild) on Warhound thought it was so hilarious at the slap on the wrist they got, they decided to make a circle called "known exploiters" and run around the city laughing at the people who did not abuse this exploit.
 
 
So as far as the comments regarding "these guys are lying about people getting away free of charge" it is totally incorrect. Yes they may have not reaped their entire benefits, but just the 80p upgrade would make this 24hour suspension worthwhile. Not to mention 4 of these guys scored multiple ability points/amp upgrades that were not taken away.
 
Raise your hand if you can farm 80p in 24 hours. 
 
 
As a side note- None of the people i speak of turned themselves in and still managed a 24 hour suspension.	
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If any of you actually believe that carbine took the necessary steps to prevent future exploits, you are sadly mistaken. I personally know of several people who did this exploit for hundreds of plat and dumped it into the economy, bought multiple ability points, amps, mounts, INCLUDING the 80plat mount speed increase. None of the character based upgrades or cosmetics were removed from their account and they only suffered a 24 suspension. They did in fact remove most of their plat and in addition some items that weren't even included in the laundering process. 
 
I think its pathetic the way this was handled, and there is no reason the entire community shouldn't abuse the next thing they find to get ahead. OBVIOUSLY IT PAYS OFF. I sent in video and screenshots of these guys buying the 80p mount upgrade before they got suspended and then racing me on my savage warpig at the exact same speed after the suspension. I figured that would get it taken away from them...they still are vroom vrooming on their max speed hoverboards. 
 
Players from North Africa (guild) on Warhound thought it was so hilarious at the slap on the wrist they got, they decided to make a circle called "known exploiters" and run around the city laughing at the people who did not abuse this exploit.
 
 
So as far as the comments regarding "these guys are lying about people getting away free of charge" it is totally incorrect. Yes they may have not reaped their entire benefits, but just the 80p upgrade would make this 24hour suspension worthwhile. Not to mention 4 of these guys scored multiple ability points/amp upgrades that were not taken away.
 
Raise your hand if you can farm 80p in 24 hours. 
 
 
As a side note- None of the people i speak of turned themselves in and still managed a 24 hour suspension.
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			^ If what you say is true it's very discouraging :/ As someone who had to grind for Plat for CREDD and to buy the 80 plat riding upgrade and the full strain hoverboard (150 plat) it just makes me very sad to know I worked my ass off and someone simply cheated, and in the end, I feel like I was the one screwed over.	
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I'd like to see the video and screenshots of this. Maybe erase their names on the screenshot or something, it shouldn't be a big deal.
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Ill edit it and upload it when i get home from work. I honestly don't see how making it public will have any different effect on which was already evaluated by carbine themselves. They will get what? another 24 suspension and the mount upgrade taken away? What else that i'm not aware of will they get away with....fact of the matter is they did VERY little investigation into the accounts and just removed plat and anything gardening related. Carbines claim to investigating the laundering is a complete lie. 
 
While were being totally upfront here...My savage warpig is a laundered item...a exploiter bought it for 60p and sold it to me for 20p, I wasnt aware of it until he got suspended and fessed up. Low and behold i'm still riding around on my warpig. This exploits tentacles stretched much further than carbine was willing to investigate and with drop 3 happening a mere few days before this exploit exploded, Rollback wasn't even an option. 
 
This exploit was around for a LONG time and carbine was aware of it and couldn't manage to get it fixed until it blew up in their face.
 
 
#drop3bugfree	
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Do you not believe him? 
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There is a reason we don't discuss the details or status of a specific account in public, and because of that we can never confirm or deny actions taken against somebody, so it's very easy to create a very one-sided story as we simply can't share all the facts for business and legal reasons.
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When you can mark a clear difference between the exploiters and the people who were doing these same things (i.e. buying attunement runs, paying for PvP carries, cornering markets) with legitimately earned gold then I think people will take you more seriously.  Otherwise it sounds like a bunch of fear mongering about vague bogeymen.
 
As a side note, I did laugh out loud a bit at the idea of paying for attunement anymore, with so many DS guilds advertising in general for any warm bodies to fill out their raids.
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{| class="blockquote"
As a side note- None of the people i speak of turned themselves in and still managed a 24 hour suspension.
----
			If I had known how much you could ultimately profit off of this exploit and only get a 3 day temp ban, and lose only SOME of your ill-gotten gains, I would have participated.  Maybe next time, more of us will jump on the exploit band wagon since the punishment is so light that it's very worth it.	
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{| class="blockquote"
If I had known how much you could ultimately profit off of this exploit and only get a 3 day temp ban, and lose only SOME of your ill-gotten gains, I would have participated.  Maybe next time, more of us will jump on the exploit band wagon since the punishment is so light that it's very worth it.
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{| class="blockquote"
Raise your hand if you can farm 80p in 24 hours. 
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{| class="blockquote"
So far your argument is essentially that a counterfeiting exploit is no big deal because the game's economy doesn't matter that much, so I'm not too concerned that someone reading our posts is going to take you seriously and not me.
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{| class="blockquote"
That's a nice straw man you set up there.  Guess it was easier than a legitimate response.
 
The fact is that Carbine is prevented from going into detail about what it is doing for various reasons, so the only gauge we have to see their efforts is the health of the economy.  In many ways it is back to its pre-exploit state, and even you have noted that it is improved from the abysmal state it was in at the height of the exploit times.  But rather than congratulate Carbine on a job well done, or at least acknowledge that they are doing something, you've moved from legitimate concerns about the average Joe losing buying power to fear mongering about bogeymen with millions of exploited plat, waiting in the shadows to out bid you on that item or buy their attunement.  Except that state is no different than before, when people were buying PvP carries and such with their legitimately earned plat.
 
 
I don't know the exact details of the exploit, but if it was the one that I think it was then it was around for a long time before drop 3.
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{| class="blockquote"
Hey look, another white knighter who doesn't have clue about hyperinflation or how economies in game work. /golfclap
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{| class="blockquote"
The fact is that Carbine is prevented from going into detail about what it is doing for various reasons, so the only gauge we have to see their efforts is the health of the economy. 
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			Be it PvP carry or garden exploit, it is becoming clear that it is beneficial to jump at the chance to make illegitimate income in this game, as the repercussions are little to none.  That is the problem that I personally have with this.  People that made a lot of plat off of the recent exploit got a 3 day ban and didn't have nearly as much plat taken as they had made.  Carbine had a chance to show the user base what their stance was, and now they've done that.	
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{| class="blockquote"
IF their efforts have been completely ineffective, the cheaters have the ability to set the health of the economy to whatever level they consider it most beneficial to themselves to be--and they have an obvious reason right now to make things look better.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Do tell, what are these various reasons? I think we could have a whole lot of detail we don't have, and I haven't seen a reason yet why we couldn't. They've made the point that they can't talk specifics about individual accounts, which is fine with me. I don't need specifics about accounts. But I would like specifics on process and results.
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{| class="blockquote"
Do tell, what are these various reasons? I think we could have a whole lot of detail we don't have, and I haven't seen a reason yet why we couldn't. They've made the point that they can't talk specifics about individual accounts, which is fine with me. I don't need specifics about accounts. But I would like specifics on process and results.
 
The fact of the matter is that your gauge of their efforts is useless. IF they have been successful, then the economy looks better because the gold has been removed. IF their efforts have been completely ineffective, the cheaters have the ability to set the health of the economy to whatever level they consider it most beneficial to themselves to be--and they have an obvious reason right now to make things look better.
 
A gauge that can't tell the difference between 0% and 100% is a waste of everybody's time. That's not a boogeyman. That's reality. Your argument that it's the best we've got is ONLY true because Carbine is continuing to keep all details about what was and wasn't done to themselves, and so far the only reasons they've given for that only apply to individual cases and not the problem as a whole. 
 
 
I'll congratulate them when I have some valid reason to believe that they have in fact gotten it under control. I am always happy to give them credit for a job well done and to defend the game from people who have completely unrealistic expectations or just whine for the sake of whining. 
 
Not so much for defending the game when we're being told "trust us, we've got it covered".
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{| class="blockquote"
Assuming the cheaters are working in concert or are even bright enough to manipulate the economy to that extent is really stretching things.  No, it's not entirely impossible just not something I'd credit without solid evidence of such a conspiracy.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
[...]
I didn't take advantage of the exploit for several reasons, but the most logical one being that I might get away with keeping some measure of the plat, or I might be banned for life, and none of us know what happened to who or what.  IF they came out and told us, I might.  And those who don't have my more righteous virtues would be inclined to do exactly what people in this thread are proposing, make a cost-benefit analysis using precedent.  This happens a lot on WoW forums, when you see people saying, "My friend got banned for a week, I got banned permanently for the same thing!  Why?!"  Well, they don't tell you why, so you can't try to re-create favorable outcomes.
[...]
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{| class="blockquote"
Dinwitt is expressing his dissatisfaction for your rationale.  You're alleging that an illuminate-style ring of elite players, now sitting on vast sums of plat (that they have, according to you, not gathered by legitimate means), and can then somehow manipulate the markets to make more plat (I'm not entirely sure what other schemes you're assuming they will be able to perpetrate).  Your evidence for this appears to be word of mouth from other players (generally about other players) that give you the impression that Carbine enforced no full bans nor took anyone's plat away.
 
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{| class="blockquote"
A lot of us do know what happened to people (assuming the people are being honest about their punishment), and know how much some people benefited from this, even post punishment.
The people that were punished may simply be lying to their friends about their punishment, though I don't see why they would be doing so.
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{| class="blockquote"
You are presuming that the reason the economy is recovered is because the wealth that was concentrated into the hands of a few people has been removed. The very simple alternative explanation is that they have simply stopped using it to trash the economy and are holding it in storage until the outcry settles down.
 
Then they retain every advantage, can win every auction, can manipulate pieces of the market one at a time instead of all at once and stay in a dominant position indefinitely.
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{| class="blockquote"
I'm sorry, Vic, but really. I am not alleging a conspiracy of any kind. I'm alleging that cheaters stop cheating when the referee announces that he's going to be looking really hard for cheaters.
 
I do not now, nor have I ever, claimed that Carbine enforced no full bans. I don't know how many full bans they enforced. And neither do you. Because they aren't willing to tell us.
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{| class="blockquote"
I do not now, nor have I ever, claimed that Carbine enforced no full bans. I don't know how many full bans they enforced. And neither do you. Because they aren't willing to tell us.
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{| class="blockquote"
More plat was taken out of the economy than still remains.  A large majority of people had hundreds of "legit" plat before using this exploit and EVERYTHING was taken away.  All characters rolled to 0 money on all characters of the account.  Not only money, but crafting mats, eldan signs, rune crafting mats that took hours and hours to farm, etc.  I am not sure you understand what was all done to have such an entitled attitude of what exactly happened.
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If you have a link to a developer stating this, I'd love to see it. Otherwise, you're just doing the same "listening to word of mouth" that everyone else is doing.
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{| class="blockquote"
You don't?  You don't think your friends had ever lied to you about the severity of their punishment/extents of their exploits?  Ever?  You have no idea why they would do that?
 
Or, the better question, if they'd really gotten away with robbery and are amassing money for some kind of strange economic power stranglehold, why on God's green Earth would they have told someone?
 
I didn't even have to step foot on the Internet before I knew a thousand reasons people would lie to their friends about what they'd done.
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{| class="blockquote"
I know because i knew atleast 60+ people who got busted with this incident personally for a long time.  They have nothing left, and i think it is safe to assume that the same thing happened to many others.
 
Better than your assumption of "OMFG NOTHING HAPPENED TO THEM?!?!?!?!"
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{| class="blockquote"
 
 
 
Do they have every reason to not tell us how many? Or would you prefer to keep responding to the argument I didn't make instead of the one I did make?
 
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{| class="blockquote"
Screenshots, please. If it's expected for every report of people laughing about how easy they got it, it's expected for every report of people claiming the smackdown.
 
By the way, should I presume that not one of these 60+ people you know got permabanned?
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{| class="blockquote"
Correct, I don't know why some of my friends would tell me that they had a 3 day ban and kept a ton of the profit.  I entertain the idea that they may be lying, as I clearly stated.  Why are you on the attack... calm down.  I'll answer your questions I suppose:
 
 
Correct, I don't know what they have to gain out of admitting that they were not punished enough.
 
I didn't say that.  I actually stated the opposite; that they may be lying, and I just don't see the reason why.
 
Still the same question here?  No, I am not saying ever, and I'm not even saying this time.  You are the one trying to make it sound like I am not entertaining the idea that they could be lying.
 
Correct, I don't know what they have to gain out of admitting that they were not punished enough.
 
Oh... so you are in the same boat as me... after all that.  I also don't know why they are admitting to getting away with keeping a lot of the profit, except that it may have been the truth.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Screenshots please of all these players with 1000 stashed plat and goodies. 
 
Oh wait... Assumptions, right. 
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{| class="blockquote"
Yes, there is.  If one knew how many people got what punishment and on did some research, one could feasibly extrapolate why people got the ban and why they didn't.  Without that number, one would be missing the essential part of the equation to let you judge that.
----
			Sure, I wouldn't mind a screenshot at this point	
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{| class="blockquote"
Sure, I wouldn't mind a screenshot at this point
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That's not proof of other than there was an exploit, players made a lot of platinum, since then they've been banned, was able to appeal for lower sentence and instead of rollback they went in manually removing their gains. 
What part am I missing? 	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Is it OK with you if they publicly announce how many people they've permanently banned?
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{| class="blockquote"
Provide the equation for me, please, and what research could in fact be done to solve every other term in it except "how many people got banned".
 
I have no doubt whatsoever that Carbine could do this, if they datamined well past the point of it being at all useful for them to do so. But none of the rest of us have enough information to do this without making assumptions so absurd as to render the calculation meaningless. The number of people punished is not the missing key to cracking the code to who got banned and why.
 
 
 
I'm sorry, are you seriously taking the position that the number could be "too high"? That there's a bunch of people playing the game who would be super upset if cheaters got told to go cheat somewhere else? Want to take a poll and come back to me when you find out the answer to that one?
 
As for the possibility that the number might be too low, well... yeah. I would call it well within the realm of possibility that the number of people they've banned is too low to satisfy some people.
 
In fact, I would call that the only sane reason why they would refrain from providing that number. Because it might be too low.
 
Excellent point, Vic, I agree with you completely on that one.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
That's not proof of other than there was an exploit, players made a lot of platinum, since then they've been banned, was able to appeal for lower sentence and instead of rollback they went in manually removing their gains. 
What part am I missing? 
----
			I want proof of this entire tinfoil conspiracy, holy crap this is just getting drawn out way more than I expected. There is no real outcome what so ever from this either way, it's crazy. Also waiting for the guy claiming he had proof almost 6 hours ago to upload his stuff, but I apologize if he's still at work. Timezones and me aren't best of buds. 	
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{| class="blockquote"
I want proof of this entire tinfoil conspiracy, holy crap this is just getting drawn out way more than I expected. There is no real outcome what so ever from this either way, it's crazy. Also waiting for the guy claiming he had proof almost 6 hours ago to upload his stuff, but I apologize if he's still at work. Timezones and me aren't best of buds. 
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{| class="blockquote"
I think it would just be a number without meaning, and anyone who cited it would be unable to do so in context.  And I think that it would stray to close to topics Carbine needs to keep private to provide proper context for the numbers.
 
Do you remember all the reasons and excuses Carbine offered to not disclose information about bots?  Just sed exploiters for bots in most of those and you'll already have the text for any public statement Carbine is going to make about exploiters.
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{| class="blockquote"
Inflation isn't a conspiracy, it's economics.
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{| class="blockquote"
I don't see any hard evidence of anything at all. Prove to me it's inflated. Prove to me the exploiters still have their possessions. 
 
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{| class="blockquote"
How about if they publicly announce whether or not it's even possible for people to evade detection by simply emailing plat to their buddies? Should we assume that cheaters wouldn't come up with such a clever ploy if I hadn't just brought it up?
While we're at it, how about if they publicly announce whether or not the only factors in their punishment is plat exploited and willingness to come forward? Should we assume that cheaters will be able to take THAT information and use it to stash their wealth?
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{| class="blockquote"
 
At this point, your claims about inflation are reaching conspiracy levels.
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If they'd permanently banned everyone who'd even gained a large amount of money at that time, legitimate or illegitimate (for we do not know whether Carbine actually knows that the exploit was used and are just using plat sum numbers) then the number would be too high for a lot of people, possibly even you.
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Literally conflating correlation with causation.  Pretty sure that I am done here.
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{| class="blockquote"
Not to worry, I don't mind. Truth be told, I was pretty sure I was done having a rational discussion with you when you ascribed my concerns to a conspiracy theory involving a "shadow cabal".
 
But I would hate to be accused of relying on a correlation when I note that letting cheaters slide has cost Carbine revenues. If you want me to hunt down some posts from people giving exploits and cheating as explicit reasons why they're leaving the game, I can do that. I'll admit that I didn't think it would be necessary, since there have been a lot of them, but I'm happy to do so if you seriously believe that it hasn't played a role.
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{| class="blockquote"
I know because i knew atleast 60+ people who got busted with this incident personally for a long time.  They have nothing left, and i think it is safe to assume that the same thing happened to many others.
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{| class="blockquote"
 
 
 
 
Dunno. Plan to answer my question so I don't have to assume?
 
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{| class="blockquote"
Once you explain to me how I am suppose to screenshot what i said.  Are you trolling?
----
			If I may interject briefly, the null hypothesis in this case is that Carbine isn't a bunch of filthy liars.  So instead of this back and forth over who needs to provide screenshots and video first, the one trying to show that the null hypothesis is false should have the burden of proof.  Carry on.	
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Can the back and forth bickering stop already?
It isn't even contributing to the discussion, just the two of you arguing about who's right or wrong.
Here's a tip : you'll never know until Carbine reveals something.	
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We were told we'd get a post from DaOgre about this in the Economy section earlier in the thread weren't we?  I'm guessing he's tied up with other stuff and that's why it's not arrived unless I've missed it.
 
{| class="blockquote"
Thanks for the thought out response.  I want to respond to this but am probably going to be pretty busy for the rest of the day today, and like I said I don't want to totally derail this thread either.  I'll start up a thread in the Economy forum on Monday (or you can if you don't see one from me) and I'll respond to some of your points here, because I think moving things to PM denies other people the opportunity to weigh in too.  I'd love to talk about this more.  Thanks again for your feedback and thanks for sticking with us.  I really like the class action lawsuit idea haha.  If I get the chance to post again today or over the weekend I will though
 
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Lets please try to refrain from the personal attacks here folks, and get back on topic. Discussing the game and issues surrounding the game is fine, however we do request you please not attack one another or opinions that may be different than your own.
 
Thank you
- Team WildStar	
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{| class="blockquote"
If I may interject briefly, the null hypothesis in this case is that Carbine isn't a bunch of filthy liars.  So instead of this back and forth over who needs to provide screenshots and video first, the one trying to show that the null hypothesis is false should have the burden of proof.  Carry on.
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Yep, I agree you can't just "trust" anything particularly nowadays and things haven't exactly been clean sailing up to this point either.  Also I agree that if things appear "normal" again then enough may have been done but things aren't "normal" across the board by the sounds of it.
 
If Carbine were capable of rolling back CX/AH transactions, emails and trades etc then that should have happened and refunded or returned the item to the owner who profited and take the money off them.  This surely could have been done without a rollback to characters as a whole.  Anyone who was then involved their accounts "should" be banned anyway so we aren't much worse off as a whole and economy returns to normal.
 
The fact we've been told a rollback isn't possible to me means there is something up because why would you need to rollback everything and not just the transactions side.  Are there untraceable ways to move money/items around that they don't want people knowing about and can't actually recuperate them therefore leaving them to scrape together what they can and possibly leave holes here there and everywhere.
 
I'm not particularly confident the ability is there to fully trace the full paths of the cash/items etc and will remain so until proven otherwise.  If it is possible then get your DB folk to write a recursive query and get right to the bottom of the thing and return the stuff to where it should be and reverse the whole thing!
 
Still I can't judge as I have no proof, I can only state my suspicions and for some people (fortunately I don't tend to use the CX/AH too much myself) this has screwed people over like you said about housing items etc.
 
The whole CREDD side is another story and involves all sorts of issues with real monetary refunds etc, not just in game stuff so that must have a decent transaction record and then they could check the in game sales from those accounts etc.  Probably different datasources and I'd put money on it that "the time spent doing so wouldn't be good time spent" or something would be the chiefs decision on that one.  That's without even considering the fact they made cash out of it.
 
Maybe them saying how much was introduced to the economy and how much was removed would be an indicator but who's going to prove it's not a loada rubbish dreamed up!! :)
 
I think that'd be a good summary figure though for each server, how much was generated, how much was taken back..to see if it even slightly stacks up!
 
If that can't be done then I'll bet my house they can't trace everything!  Cheaters should never prosper.	
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{| class="blockquote"
Maybe them saying how much was introduced to the economy and how much was removed would be an indicator but who's going to prove it's not a loada rubbish dreamed up!! :)
 
I think that'd be a good summary figure though for each server, how much was generated, how much was taken back..to see if it even slightly stacks up!
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I distinctly remember Aion and GW2 not only banning people outright for any participation in exploits, but also posting data on just how many people were exploiting and the severity of their punishments relative to the exploit.  Both of those games are published by NCSoft.
 
This is clearly a Carbine Studios decision.  I don't want to sound ultimately negative yet again, but it seems like Carbine Studios has a bit of an ego issue.  It seems some people think that they're more capable than they actually are, regardless of how it looks to the community.
 
I don't think it's because, "they value the players," because what company in their right mind would spare exploiters and give their already small (especially after layoffs) teams MORE work to discover the extent of the the laundering and exploiting.  I mean, don't they have other things to do, such as getting patches out on time / monitoring the disconnections of BGs etc?
 
Even though Yasfan is being very fair with CRB in this thread, I'd say from an outsider's view that this makes CRB look like a very, very shady company.	
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{| class="blockquote"
I distinctly remember Aion and GW2 not only banning people outright for any participation in exploits, but also posting data on just how many people were exploiting and the severity of their punishments relative to the exploit.  Both of those games are published by NCSoft.
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Hey guys sorry I was out yesterday.  :(  
 
Going to make the other thread in the Economy section now. 	
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{| class="blockquote"
Hey guys sorry I was out yesterday.   :( 
 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Hey guys sorry I was out yesterday.   :(
 
Going to make the other thread in the Economy section now. 
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