Claims bug - It's time to do damage control, Daybreak

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Warrior007, Dec 8, 2016.

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  1. Ducreux Augur

    My concern is that I am currently looking at a permaban on both of my two main accounts, one of which has been active since 1999 and between then and now has never had an offense against it.

    Yes, I took advantage of the exploit, along with a lot of people that are looking at 5-10 day suspensions instead of bans. I don't want them banned as well, I'm just curious what makes me so special? The only special item I can think of that I claimed was my Guise of the Ancient Gods which has been sitting in my claim window since I attended SOE Live 2014, an illusion mask. I didn't sell defiant and I wasn't plastering general chat/forums with instructions on how to perform the exploit.

    I'm not disputing the fact that I deserve a suspension (if that is the punishment that the majority of people are getting for this) and the items removed (again if that is the solution daybreak is taking to this situation).
  2. Miteeth New Member

    Thats like saying to a bank robber who has already used some of his funds, shouldn't go to jail or be punished, but simply just give the money back.

    Mmm yeh, I sure am glad your not in any positions of power.
  3. RadarX Augur


    You will need to take your concern to our Customer Support team. They don't utilize the forums and they are the team reviewing these.
  4. Ducreux Augur

    I have submitted my appeal already, and hope to receive an answer sometime in the next week. I am simply posting here as sometimes the best way to get real answers is through public channels.

    I don't know who is going to the one reading my appeal, will it be a knowledgeable CS rep that can thoroughly consider the issue? Or some outsourced labor that will give me a canned response about "reacquiring my character through standard gameplay"?

    I hope the former but I've seen too many instances of the latter. I realize you don't control any of what is going to happen RadarX, I just hope you allow us to continue voicing our concerns.
  5. HisNameIsRobertII New Member

    I know people that have actually been USING the OP gear in question, for months, yet they didn't even get suspended. Is there an explanation here? The suspension is only focused on those that cheated recently?
  6. RadarX Augur


    All our CS folks are in house (some of them are there right now at 11:30 PM local time working on this) and the ones working on EQ require a more technical knowledge than some of our other products so are more veteran.

    The only answer you will get here I'm afraid is just me reiterating statements from earlier. Accounts were reviewed and those exceeding a certain thresholds received action. I can't outline what that was specifically because I didn't develop it.

    Some tips I can provide though not just for you but anyone appealing suspensions/bans that I've seen help over the years:

    • Be honest and upfront about what you did.
    • Be a human being. I'm not saying you have to be polite but realize you are talking to another human being who is trying to do their job.
    • Understand we know how important EQ is to you guys but realize it's just as if not more important to us. It puts food on our table.
    • Be patient. We have 7 products and get a fair amount of tickets a day. This issue isn't a lost item so requires a lot more time to review and process.
  7. Really Angry Bear Journeyman

    It's possible they only sorted through claims records for the past few days, when this went public. I know that one of the people who I originally heard of wearing the defiant gear(who likely has had it for awhile) was still prancing about the Nexus after many of the suspensions had been issued and disconnected.
  8. arwilly Lorekeeper

    I imagine suspensions/bans are still happening. Hopefully theirs are incoming. You reap what you sow folks. You knew claiming the items wasn't right and you did it anyhow to gain an unfair advantage. Enjoy your temporary/permanent vacations. Thanks DBG for doing the right thing!
  9. Diseases New Member

    I cant imagine the work that has to go into fixing this. I do not understand coding as much as I wish I did, but I am sure its alot of work to fix this issue and delete the claimed items. I claimed on my toons and expect a suspension, that is fair. I knew full well what I was doing and the potential consequence.
    I am also guessing that the TLP servers bring in alot of cash flow to DBG - If this issue is not resolved 100% this server is over. And I for one will not invest any more time or money into any DBG game. And the bans are way over the top. The time dedicated and money invested into Everquest turns into a lifestyle, we have relied on DBG and paid a monthly sub to DBG to ensure we can play this game. We work with you on bugs, we understand issues happen. But if we get banned for a mess up on the code side? Willfully rebelling or not - ban us for your mistake in the first place. Short to longer duration suspensions needs to be in place over bans.
    I fear of losing trust in the operators of the game we all enjoy so much. Its not worth the lifestyle and the toll it takes if we can get banned for something like this.
    And FFS suspend everyone that abused reguardless of what they claimed. Pick and choosing who to punish
  10. Kaponen Lorekeeper

    This is exactly what I am upset about. If you are going to suspend accountholderA for 5 days for simply claiming a random item and destroying it, then that needs to happen to all accounts/players across the board. Seeing accountholderB still in the game after admitting to performing the exact same action (regardless of which particular item he/she chose) is unfair and a clear double standard.
  11. Branntick Augur

    Seems silly that there is such a spectrum of punishments. Should be so much simpler.
    • Claimed one item? Plausible that you were just testing it. No suspension, items removed. Done.
    • Claimed several items? Clear malicious intent. 5-10 day suspension for anyone who claimed several things.
    Perma bans for something like this though? Laughable. Permabans should be restricted to thing like racism in public channels or actualgame breaking bugs like intentionally crashing zones to farm things.

    Disclaimer: I didn't claim a single item. Still think permabans are pants on head if that is an actual punishment someone is facing over this.
    MakeEQGreatAgain likes this.
  12. bodes Augur


    The perma bans are going out to the people who did this weeks or months ago and communicated how to do the exploit to others. The communication of a game-breaking exploit to other players and NOT to DBG is what is bannable and different from the other cases.
  13. Branntick Augur

    Here's the thing.

    SOE/DBG have zero consistency in how they treat things like this. As a result, the punishments issued after the fact have absolutely zero positive (deterrent or otherwise) effects on the playerbase.

    The severity of the penalty is less meaningful than having consistency in how the penalty is applied. Risk is a deterrent, but when the risk isn't clearly defined, human nature gravitates towards taking unwise decisions.

    Consider the following scenario:

    I can rob someone at gunpoint. I assume I have a 25% chance of getting caught and facing X years for armed robbery or whatever. Maybe I will (not really), the potential benefits of that 75% are huge!

    OR

    I can rob someone at gunpoint. I have a guaranteed 100% chance of facing Y years and having everything I managed to steal taken away.

    While nothing in life is guaranteed, nobody would bother with armed robbery if the risk SEVERELY outweighed the potential benefits. There are also a lot less variables in exploiting a video game than there are your chances of escaping law enforcement in armed robbery. When everything is recorded in logs in extremely detailed ways, finding the abusers is trivial as long as it is reported.

    TL;DR: SOE/DBG's history of applying punishment for exploits is too inconsistent for the punishment to matter. Apply punishments with consistency and reasonable terms, and abuse of exploits will likely drop naturally.
    Lithien likes this.
  14. bodes Augur


    Part of a professional CS rep's job is to make those judgement calls. I'm guessing they don't use super long theoretical murder scenarios in that process.
    Funky Cheese likes this.
  15. Branntick Augur

    Which is irrelevant to the point I'm making. I'm trying to influence the judgement calls, which is probably an exercise in futility.

    Consistency will yield more beneficial results than severity. Not only does DBG get to hold on to their subscribers by avoiding permabans except in the most serious, irreversible offenses, but it also means that nobody has to feel like they're obligated to partake in an exploit because they might get left behind if the CS staff is feeling lenient that day.

    Having the rules clearly stated, and having them consistently enforced is both more effective and less work in the long run than letting this boil over to where half the server has to get a 10 day vacation because they legitimately thought they would be able to keep their items and they don't want to be the virtuous tool who didn't partake and got punished for it.

    We're talking about very, very simple human nature here.
    Lithien likes this.
  16. bodes Augur

    Why are you so convinced it's not consistent? It sounds like 5 days per /claim exploit. Potential upgrade to ban if you match one or more of the following: helped others exploit, hid the exploit for a long time, or had prior exploit-related suspensions on your account.
  17. Branntick Augur

    I'm not talking about consistency within the particular incident. I'm talking about consistency across all exploits historically.

    95% of the justification I hear for people taking part in this is "lol, DBG won't do anything" or "well, here's 5 other incidents that I consider just as bad where DBG didn't do anything".

    It's basically become a meme that DBG will let you get away with a ludicrous amount of , and then they turn around and take a super harsh stance on one particular incident. We can argue about the degrees of severity but I don't think it's particularly relevant, because as I said, consistency is more important than severity.

    I didn't partake because of how severe this is compared to past incidents, but I still think it hurts DBG more than it helps them to suddenly play bad cop right now. You just disenfranchise people who legitimately thought they wouldn't be impacted because of precedent.

    DBG is one of the least respected game studios around right now because of precedent.
  18. bodes Augur

    The most critical thing is finding and removing the mounts that give 1800 hp
  19. finallysomesanity New Member

    At some point is your team going to remove the items themselves? These items still seem to exist on several characters despite the bans / suspensions.
  20. Zinth Augur

    I just wonder what they want people to expect?

    1. mounts with buffs on sale... clearly not intended... nothing happened
    2. boss in Ar double spawns... clearly not intended... nothing happened
    3. people raid keyed area without keys... clearly not intended... nothing happened
    4. people glitch VT bosses to skip trash... clearly not intended... nothing happened
    5. people claim something in their claim window... clearly not intended... then people get suspended

    if they followed their own rules, 90% of the server would be suspended/banned by now... so either stick to the rules or to hell with em... someone wearing a piece of armor vs. a mount they bought in marketplace? who cares? not gonna hurt you or you or you...

    Another thing, if they suspend your account, you can't login, how do you even make a petition then, which requires you to login... Is that a way to avoid people making petitions when suspended?
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