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Item Stack Resale Exploit


EricMusco

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Hey folks,

 

Here is another update on the exploit, and the action we have taken. We are continuing to investigate accounts and action is on-going. Here are the actions we have taken against accounts:

  • Suspension time, up to and including a permanent ban (more than 500 accounts have been permanently banned so far)
  • Removal of all Credits
  • Removal of all Currencies
  • Removal of all items which could be gotten from the exploit, including recurring Event Currencies and Companion gifts
  • Resetting of all Companion Influence to 0
  • Resetting progress of all Alliance Commanders to 0

The nature of this exploit is that players could use it to gain a wide array of things. This includes anything from credits, to event currency, to Companion affection via Rank 6 gifts. We are working to ensure that the action we take against player is fair, but makes it clear that use of exploits will not be tolerated.

 

We have seen quite a few comments and questions about accounts which have participated in laundering ill-gotten items and credits around. I will have an update on this later today. Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

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Hey folks,

 

Here is another update on the exploit, and the action we have taken. We are continuing to investigate accounts and action is on-going. Here are the actions we have taken against accounts:

  • Suspension time, up to and including a permanent ban (more than 500 accounts have been permanently banned so far)
  • Removal of all Credits
  • Removal of all Currencies
  • Removal of all items which could be gotten from the exploit, including recurring Event Currencies and Companion gifts
  • Resetting of all Companion Influence to 0
  • Resetting progress of all Alliance Commanders to 0

The nature of this exploit is that players could use it to gain a wide array of things. This includes anything from credits, to event currency, to Companion affection via Rank 6 gifts. We are working to ensure that the action we take against player is fair, but makes it clear that use of exploits will not be tolerated.

 

We have seen quite a few comments and questions about accounts which have participated in laundering ill-gotten items and credits around. I will have an update on this later today. Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

 

What about top 10 guild rewards withdrawn from the guilds with exploiters? :rak_02:

 

EDIT- since my last one was so short minded...

 

Ill admit, im happy you're administering bans and punishments, but I think its best to just perma ban the people who did it in mass quantity, while resetting any possible progress from this is good, it feels like its just a slap on the wrist. People do game breaking things knowingly to shift the balance in there favor, and while resetting all possible progress is good, I think it should be perma ban worthy. While I am happy that they are getting severe punishments... maybe im just a sadist that wants them to suffer more.

Edited by peter_plankskull
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Hey folks,

 

Here is another update on the exploit, and the action we have taken. We are continuing to investigate accounts and action is on-going. Here are the actions we have taken against accounts:

  • Suspension time, up to and including a permanent ban (more than 500 accounts have been permanently banned so far)
  • Removal of all Credits
  • Removal of all Currencies
  • Removal of all items which could be gotten from the exploit, including recurring Event Currencies and Companion gifts
  • Resetting of all Companion Influence to 0
  • Resetting progress of all Alliance Commanders to 0

The nature of this exploit is that players could use it to gain a wide array of things. This includes anything from credits, to event currency, to Companion affection via Rank 6 gifts. We are working to ensure that the action we take against player is fair, but makes it clear that use of exploits will not be tolerated.

 

We have seen quite a few comments and questions about accounts which have participated in laundering ill-gotten items and credits around. I will have an update on this later today. Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

 

Thanks for the update and especially "We have seen quite a few comments and questions about accounts which have participated in laundering ill-gotten items and credits around. I will have an update on this later today."

 

How you handle that aspect and what normality you can bring back to the economy by handling it will go along way to bringing some respect back to the game from many after how poorly this was handled ( leaving it open so long ).

 

I honestly don't care if no one got banned etc. My main point of interest if the removal of as much generated credits as possible.

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So much for only a small amount of players exploiting. ;)

But thanks for giving some numbers, I appreciate this a lot. Hope you were able to hit some credit farmer bots as well.

I am a little worried that a lot of players laundered their credits to alt accounts, so I hope that you are tracking this as well so that players lose all exploited items.

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We have seen quite a few comments and questions about accounts which have participated in laundering ill-gotten items and credits around. I will have an update on this later today. Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

 

Thanks for the update. I wish you all the luck in the world in your forensic accounting exercise and look forward to seeing many QQ posts of people who lose what they thought was safe.

 

Assuming you guys can catch them...

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So much for only a small amount of players exploiting. ;)

But thanks for giving some numbers, I appreciate this a lot. Hope you were able to hit some credit farmer bots as well.

I am a little worried that a lot of players laundered their credits to alt accounts, so I hope that you are tracking this as well so that players lose all exploited items.

 

I am also interested in how the laundered credits are being handled. From what I have read on the reddit forums, a lot of the transferred credits are still there on alt accounts.

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Hey folks,

 

Here is another update on the exploit, and the action we have taken. We are continuing to investigate accounts and action is on-going. Here are the actions we have taken against accounts:

  • Suspension time, up to and including a permanent ban (more than 500 accounts have been permanently banned so far)
  • Removal of all Credits
  • Removal of all Currencies
  • Removal of all items which could be gotten from the exploit, including recurring Event Currencies and Companion gifts
  • Resetting of all Companion Influence to 0
  • Resetting progress of all Alliance Commanders to 0

The nature of this exploit is that players could use it to gain a wide array of things. This includes anything from credits, to event currency, to Companion affection via Rank 6 gifts. We are working to ensure that the action we take against player is fair, but makes it clear that use of exploits will not be tolerated.

 

We have seen quite a few comments and questions about accounts which have participated in laundering ill-gotten items and credits around. I will have an update on this later today. Thanks everyone.

 

-eric

 

Eric, just so you're aware, there are multiple accounts from reddit and other sites from players who've supposedly made 500mil-billions and more who used other accounts to exploit and then laundered the credits through the GTN and personal transactions. And they're claiming that the exploiting accounts are banned but the credits and their receiving accounts are safe and secure and still in use.

 

So, I sincerely hope you guys can track the credits and remove them from the system and get the 'real' accounts and not just the exploiting accounts.

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That's insane. Prices tripling in a month? That's hyper inflation right there.

 

Yeah :( indivudual packs were up for 900k-1m

 

Im not buying -anything- until things stabilize (which sucks for the legit sellers since i usually buy 5-6 crates off the gtn when a new pack comes out)

Edited by XiamaraSimi
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Yeah :( indivudual packs were up for 900k-1m

 

Im not buying -anything- until things stabilize (which sucks for the legit sellers since i usually buy 5-6 crates off the gtn when a new pack comes out)

 

Well, there you go.

 

Congrats, BW, you gave me another reason not to play. That, on top of the no new PVE content for the foreseeable future and letting this exploit go on for six weeks.

 

No way in hell am I going to come back until they fix this mess.

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Yeah :( indivudual packs were up for 900k-1m

 

Im not buying -anything- until things stabilize (which sucks for the legit sellers since i usually buy 5-6 crates off the gtn when a new pack comes out)

 

Yes I am in agreement here, I'm not buying anything off the gtn for long long time, even going to avoid any cartel market sales if I can help it.

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Yes I am in agreement here, I'm not buying anything off the gtn for long long time, even going to avoid any cartel market sales if I can help it.

 

What sucks is that I buy CM stuff from the GTN, not with cash. Now I'll be just sitting back and waiting for them to eventually fix this mess before buying 'anything' more from them.

 

What a gorram mess.

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What sucks is that I buy CM stuff from the GTN, not with cash. Now I'll be just sitting back and waiting for them to eventually fix this mess before buying 'anything' more from them.

 

What a gorram mess.

 

....if there was some kind of feature that players could use to report an exploit to this company.....perhaps...all this could have been avoided.

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What sucks is that I buy CM stuff from the GTN, not with cash. Now I'll be just sitting back and waiting for them to eventually fix this mess before buying 'anything' more from them.

 

What a gorram mess.

 

Yeah CM items are quite inflated right now, especially decos which I assume cheaters bought up en mass.

 

There is always the risk of if you did buy something you don't know for sure it's not from a cheater ( one would assume they cancelled their auctions when the ban took effect but if their mule accounts are still active then so too could mule items ) and having it deleted or something at some stage.

 

A shame because I mostly play the game for GTN stuff and building a my fortune but my sales will take a huge hit from this but then I've only got about a day if that of sub left so less GTn slots to manage and I'm not losing anything I pay for anymore.

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LOL I hope everybody is ready for the accounts of the innocents to be caught up, banned, and robbed of credits when this drag net sweeps through. I hope you all haven't made any large purchases, or moved any credits around over the last 6 weeks, otherwise you will be enjoying the ban with the rest of us. Edited by Darkside
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LOL I hope everybody is ready for the accounts of the innocents to be caught up, banned, and robbed of credits when this drag net sweeps through. I hope you all haven't made any large purchases, or moved any credits around over the last 6 weeks, otherwise you will be enjoying the ban with the rest of us.

 

It'll be easy for them to appeal it and prove their innocence. and probably earn a free month in the process.

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So much for only a small amount of players exploiting. ;)

But thanks for giving some numbers, I appreciate this a lot. Hope you were able to hit some credit farmer bots as well.

I am a little worried that a lot of players laundered their credits to alt accounts, so I hope that you are tracking this as well so that players lose all exploited items.

 

Small number is relative. Even a few thousand across all the servers is only a small % of the total population. I would think there were a lot more Ravager's exploiters than this.

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Yeah CM items are quite inflated right now, especially decos which I assume cheaters bought up en mass.

 

There is always the risk of if you did buy something you don't know for sure it's not from a cheater ( one would assume they cancelled their auctions when the ban took effect but if their mule accounts are still active then so too could mule items ) and having it deleted or something at some stage.

 

A shame because I mostly play the game for GTN stuff and building a my fortune but my sales will take a huge hit from this but then I've only got about a day if that of sub left so less GTn slots to manage and I'm not losing anything I pay for anymore.

 

The market is all kind of sideways right now, stuff like rare and expensive CM items have seen huge price spikes and a major reduction in availability as exploiters looked for ways to 'store' their ill-gotten gains, while other general items have had their prices fall (crafted items, gifts, contracts).

 

I've seen a number of new 'crafters' show up the past couple of days posting pages of items which all require rare materials, and all at prices far lower than the typical market rates.

 

My assumption is some of these new 'crafters' are simply players who exploited, maxed all their companions (faster crafting / more crits), bought up materials and are dumping finished goods as a way to launder credits.

 

This makes it more difficult to earn credits crafting as the profit per item has fallen, requiring the crafting and sales of more items just to make the same amount of credits (more time invested), yet those credits are now devalued when it comes to buying desirable items.

 

On the flip side, I've bought lots of cheap gifts and other items the past couple of weeks that were most likely dumped by exploiters, so even while I'm taking a hit with crafting, I've 'benefited' somewhat from this mess.

 

In the same vain, people buying CM items to sell in game (or who had rare items to sale the past week or two) are likely gaining more credits than they normally would, with some of those sales being made with exploited credits.

 

No idea how the market will look a few weeks from now, but hopefully things will calm down a bit and all markets will move back to normal trends.

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LOL I hope everybody is ready for the accounts of the innocents to be caught up, banned, and robbed of credits when this drag net sweeps through. I hope you all haven't made any large purchases, or moved any credits around over the last 6 weeks, otherwise you will be enjoying the ban with the rest of us.

 

 

 

Well Darkside.

I know I sold a couple Akk Dog licences, a couple Sith insidious sets and a few of the Resolute guardian sets as well for my credits.

just hope the people who bought it weren't part of that helacious exploit.

Can't blame sellers if they bought cartel packs.

the devs don't want part of any massive lawsuits from players wrongly accused of that crap.

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Instead of banning, just take all their stuff and force them to wear a title that says exploiter on all their toons.

 

I've never understood this approach.

 

You want to force a title on them that says exploiter. There are two points immediately proving this approach useless.

 

The most obvious one: You can't force them to play the game. You want to force a title onto them? Great. Then they'll stop playing. They'll just not log in at all.

 

The second issue: I think someone who is branded an exploiter doesn't really care if he is a lone player. A friend of mine doesn't join guilds by default. He doesn't do Ops. He only farms single heroics and does SF. Farming a few credits by crafting. That's it. What do they care if they have to wear a title?

 

That suggestion was always an utterly stupid "Shame the wh**e!" approach. But that only works if the lady in question is:

 

A. Forced to be present for the shaming

B. Is actually in any way impacted by the shaming

Edited by Alssaran
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