First, Thanks for the reply! It's nice to see someone is looking at the forums so we can start doing progression again. Second, This has been in the game for a very long time (the ability to do this), and it's been known, reported, and not fixed over the years. Who gives a crap? Oh some toons got some group gear faster... it's still group gear. The only way any suspensions / bans should happen from this, is if it were being used in a RAID, to quickly gain keys, diminishing any real race among the servers for first place. Even then, the punishment should be focused at the guilds who were using it. What SHOULD happen is DBG coming out and saying "Hey this has been around, and been reported (by me and others) numerous times on numerous other missions. Since this is a new expansion we had to do something about it, sorry for the guilds who planned to raid and could not." Everything else is trivial.
The word “exploit” is a buzz word being used as an excuse for poorly thought out content that was poorly implemented. DBG knew the issue existed and pushed it live anyways. Any issues that occurred is purely DBG fault and could have been easily been prevented.
I’m not trying to excuse anyone’s actions. However, DBG needs to take responsibility and implement a fix that doesn’t take weeks.
I would have said more did this for spells, augs and group visibles than for VP keys, you have to do all other progression to get into VP.
Let's start of by saying i have not done that mission yet at all. Doesn't change the fact that i simply angry with people being so well trained not to see the truth. Facts are as follows. 1. This is just a game. 2. Completely and totally DB's fault on bad design. 3. You damn straight if i knew about it i would use it over and over and over. 4 I don't see you complaining or leaving your raids when let's say Zerkers Dicho was bugged Mr. Honorable one. 5. You ALL have used bugged over powered Abilities over the years that was taken out due to DB's thinking they over powered. (EXPLOID BAN) Let's ban you all for 4 weeks for each HS, Decap, SK epic use on and on and on. Same logic follows you knew it was way to powerful and DB did not intend you to kill swarms (just one of million examples for fools yelling BAN BAN BAN) 6. This is nothing but DB's fail way of doing new X-pac right before Holidays and letting all devs off on vacations knowing full well there will be need in fixing countless bugs as it was for many years. 7. Most of you are just sheep that was brain washed not to use you brains in life or in game and now you mad at smart people that can think outside the box. 8. Costumer is always right. DB, if you want my $$$ stop the blame game and fix your internal devs disappearance problem. ( If you care for them change x-pac release date to like October )
It is true that sometimes I am in doubt whether it is an exploit/bug or not. For example: I was in a 2-group-raid that found out you could participate in the VP-Talendor mission without having the VP-key. I helped them complete the mission and got a shiny achievement-familiar as a reward. Im still not sure if it was a bug that allowed me to participate without the VP-key(I wasn't the requester, and Im not sure how far the requester was in progression, think he had completed all quests/missions in the unlocked zones at least, unsure if he had a VP-key). However I have previously been given task-adds, allowing me to complete various quests out of order. I have also experienced being "piggied" into locked raidzones(arx-mentis) without any progression done. All those "special-case short-cut rules" (task-adds out of order/ piggy-backing in raids, etc), makes it difficult to distinguish between "grey-areas" and intended design. Sometimes it is quite obvious, when it is a real exploit though, which I guess is the case in the OT-mission(I stil don't know the nature of the OT-mission exploit). The fact remains, that DBG felt it was necessary to remove the NPC completely, so It must have been severe.
Sorry Drogba, no, this is not a grey area. Exploit is by definition using existing mechanics in order to achieve results unintended by the developers. That is why the word "exploit" is used and not "cheat" or "hack". It is exploiting a flaw in the system. These missions have, what? 6 hour lockouts right? There is a very clear reason for that: to limit the amount of gear/currency/flags entering the game world. Dropping the mission in order to get 2 of those 3 much much quicker than normal is clear exploitation of a flaw. People should just be happy they aren't suspending people for it. Reminds me of what is going on in the South Carolina lottery right now. The lotto had a programming flaw, that caused tons of winning tickets to be incorrectly created (instant print ticket type). When people figured it out, there was (to quote the words of a store clerk), a "frenzy" to buy tickets before they shut it down. One lady was complaining that her and her family had raced out and bought a ton of tickets when they found out (trying to exploit the situation), and said she had "won" $18,000 that the state owed her (or they needed to "pay her back" what she paid). This is the same thing. If you purposefully exploit a situation that you should know is not right, then you get to deal with the consequences of your choice versus turning yourself into a victim and blaming everyone else. Might as well find an ATM accidentally giving 100s instead of 20s, then just keep withdrawing cash and then complaining when the cops arrest you for theft.
But this is what eq players do. They find an exploit, and due to years of seeing exploiters not punished and people keeping their ill gotten gains, they just go and try and rush to do it themselves, and then play victim the few times there are some consequences.
dont think people who exploited it are playing the victim card... it's 2 different issue: some people abusing the group mission , and some raid guild not being able to get T1 flags. fixing the first exploit shouldn't impact the 2nd issue...
Exploiting flaws in the system should be standard practice for any gamer taking their game seriously. Maybe to you and to me, and most of us, but not to all players, surely. Are you saying not a single newer player could fall victim to the trap? Not a single kid? No casual joining a random group just following along? If we are talking about bans/suspensions, then it's not the same thing. It's one thing to deny that person their winnings, it's another to take her to prison. Did they take her to prison or inflict some kind of punishment on them? That is what i'd equate to bans/suspensions. I'd even be in favor of refunding at least her tickets, but i can see how some would not share that view, as I assume intent has at least been clearly established.
Integrity. Look the word up. If you find it hard to have while playing an unimportant game you probably have a real hard time with it in real life.
In any case, I don't think I made use of this exploit myself (if it is, what people think it is). I was just face palming reading the comments about banning people (as i imagine those people are facepalming reading the pro-exploit comments me and others make) and couldn't resist to engage about it :/ Actually, i'm willing to bet that the reason the npc was removed, as opposed to just the group mission being disabled, would be because there is an exploit that affects both the group and raid mission. Though maybe the populist view is correct, and devs were slack/it took more effort to not just remove the npc as a quick fix.
Totally 100% unrelated, i hand in wallets i find at train stations, and correct cashiers when they make mistakes with the amount of change (in my favor or theirs). And i'm certainly not loaded or anything. Games are games, play to win. People have feelings, and most of us naturally feel compelled to be compassionate, and many of us will bug report if we think something is in some way detrimental to the game, but it is still 'a game'.
Let's not pretend anyone playing EQ in 2017 isn't aware that getting around a lockout timer isn't an intended method of progression. There's no gray area here, saying the onus is on the devs to ensure there are no exploits is laughable in a game as big/old as EQ. Yeah, they let exploits go unfixed for awhile because a lot of the time it's not worth the effort to fix, they decided this one was, it doesn't change the fact that if you used it you WERE exploiting. For the record: I agree it's dumb to have an NPC be both the group and raid progression requester, there's no reason to not provide some redundancy in case one of them has to be temporarily removed.
Not unrelated at all. People have a tendency to do things differently when nobody is looking or they are covered with anonymity (KKK, ANTIFA come to mind). People who cheat to win are almost always frown upon. I haven't seen too many games where people are hailed for cheating to win.
^ Performance enhancing drugs... in... literally... every... aspect... of... life/sport/gaming... Disclaimer: I did not use any of the previously suggested exploits
These comparisons about EQ and <insertwhateveryouwant> exploits are starting to get out of hand. But I'm gonna keep the popcorn flowing...
"Cheating" and doing whatever you can to gain an "edge" are two entirely different things. Suspensions/bans shouldn't be handed out IMO if trying to gain an edge or save time within regular constraints of game. If using outside of game tools/programs, sure, ban those folks away. I really don't see the big deal on any of this stuff in thread. I remember when CoTF was current expansion and chase rare raid item was dropping in group game for tiny period. Many folks did much more server wide to get a bunch of those and no bans etc. were issued. In fact, all that obtained it were allowed to keep. The stuff going on in this expansion is a much smaller deal
