What is being done about the exploiters who made billions by buying companion gifts and selling them back? If you don't take away their money I'm gonna be pissed that I didn't exploit as well.

 

Why don't you just worry about you?

Yup, I leveled about 30 companions to 50, then bought another 5000 of each type of gifts for later. Luckily I had about 65 million credits to spend, so was able to take advantage of the lower gift price. It worked out pretty nice since it took 477 gifts to reach 50, from rank 1 if you had the legacy perks. That was around 460,000cr to go from rank 1 to rank 50. Way worth the cost and much better than the 4,770,000 it normally cost.

I leveled up a bunch of mine too, with the goal of getting 8 50s for each of my crafters. Not quite there yet (I've got to finish up the storyline and run some heroic Starfortress missions for alts), but I bought a stack of 9999 of each type to finish those up once I do and have leftovers for new toons. I'm figuring it will be worth it in the long run, although I have to admit I was nervous that BW would say "we're lowering all gift prices permanently because you all liked it so much". Ha ha, fat chance.

"we're lowering all gift prices permanently because you all liked it so much". Ha ha, fat chance.

Oh gosh I wish! lol I didn't log in on Mon to get more gifts like I planned to RL happened. lol Then forgot till Patch had started yesterday. ARGH! lol So I didn't get as many to 50 as I would have liked. lol

Oh gosh I wish! lol I didn't log in on Mon to get more gifts like I planned to RL happened. lol Then forgot till Patch had started yesterday. ARGH! lol So I didn't get as many to 50 as I would have liked. lol

It is amazing to me how much satisfaction I got out of leveling companions to 50 so quickly. I've wanted 8 50s for each crafter for ages, and honestly never thought I would accomplish it.

Well, that's called work and I have no issues with that as I do it myself. What makes me mad is people exploit and make billions in a matter of minutes when I work my butt off to earn my 100 million in credits.

That was what I specifically meant. That's what makes me mad when I'm trying to go about the game honestly and these things SEEM to go unpunished.

I appreciate Eric getting in here and letting us know things are being done, though. I like these kinds of details--punishing HARSHER for people who deliberately exploit and hide, and going easier on people who made a mistake and fessed up to Eric/Keith/et al.

Curious as to how much they can really do if people have laundered the money. I mean lets say someone bought the gift->sold them and made a bunch of money. What if they bought things on the cartel market with blood money? Will that affect the person they bought from? What if they then sell the item back on GTN and someone else buys it. Now someone has bought an item that has been touched by blood money, are they guilty? What if they put the blood money in a guild bank and other guildies use it unknowingly? What if they mail trade blood money or blood money bought items to people? What if they made lets say 100mil off gifts but now only have 5 mil between their toons? How can they take that money away? Now weeks have gone by and the blood money has largely been integrated into the economy and items touched and effected by it have moved around. Probably would have been better on day 1 to check to see who bought stuff from that vendor and taken action, now it seems like it's going to take an insane amount of effort to track all the money....effort that could be put into fixing bugs etc.

Ultimately I don't really care what happens. I had like maybe a million credits before, couldn't buy ****, and still have a million credits now and can't buy **** so if people made a billion credits it didn't effect me whatsoever

Hey folks,

 

Keep in mind that we try to avoid talking about exploits and action taken against players. However, I know there is a bit of concern about this exploit and its implications on the game so here is where things stand.

 

We have already begun taking action against players, but the brunt of those actions are still to come. As you might imagine, gathering all of the data to understand who exploited and what they did with the money, takes quite a bit of time. Know that over time we will be applying account actions, along with removing a large quantity of credits and other ill-gotten gains.

 

Part of what takes so long is that some players know they are doing something they shouldn't and so they try to hide it. Moving credits around, using alt accounts, etc. It is important to us that we take appropriate action against each individual, and we are extra harsh against those who try to hide what they have done. Similarly, some players who participated have already self-reported either to Keith and myself, or to Customer Support. We absolutely take that into account when looking at what action we will take.

 

And again my usual thanks to the absolute vast majority of our players who helped in reporting the issue quickly and avoided using it.

 

TLDR - Some action has already happened with the brunt of it still to follow.

 

-eric

Thank you for the update. I personally do not need all the details on what is being done but I do want to know that something is being done.

SNIP...

 

TLDR - Some action has already happened with the brunt of it still to follow.

 

-eric

Sorry but after the chair exploit and the joke that was the actions you took for that. I don't believe you'll do much of anything but claim you did something because we have no way to really know, while those of us that did nothing just have to continue to deal with it as we have been.

Sorry but after the chair exploit and the joke that was the actions you took for that. I don't believe you'll do much of anything but claim you did something because we have no way to really know, while those of us that did nothing just have to continue to deal with it as we have been.

If its any solace, the com exploit hit some people pretty hard. Two guys from my guild got completely credit and commendation wiped from using it. Even the 2billion or so credits they had before they exploited, was taken from them. I'm hoping something similar happens here.

Perma ban and acount removed for good, thets the way you handle any cheat/exploit or hacks. Simple as thet. If you alow players thet done anything like thet to come back or stay then why should we thet plays fair care? Or is it so few players left thet you cant aford perma ban them ?

Punishment and rehabilitation for a "crime" like theft. No need to bring the death penalty for such a minor infraction.

If its any solace, the com exploit hit some people pretty hard. Two guys from my guild got completely credit and commendation wiped from using it. Even the 2billion or so credits they had before they exploited, was taken from them. I'm hoping something similar happens here.

The ones I ran across back in the chair exploit days got a week ban but kept the billions of credits.

I fully expect this same thing to happen which is complete garbage. A claim of bioware to have punished the exploiters but in reality, it was a really small net they cast and most got away (and I dare say everyone).

Want go conspiracy route with me and make a bet credit sellers don't get busted and we get hit even harder with seller spam and in game mails in the coming weeks / Months? Ever so often a nice exploit hits for easy billions.

Credits were never my strong suit Credits lol

Seriously?! Is that YOU???

I live by this motto [link]

I for one think this was handled the right way, considering the circumstances.

First, they realized the mistake and attempted to fix it quickly.

Second, when the fix created a situation where the gifts effected were a low price (not an exploit, as explained by Mr Musco) Bioware allowed players to purchase the low price gifts.

Third, the fix for that came shortly thereafter.

Now, naturally, this exploit did create quite a few problems with inflation in the game. But I can see why this will be a difficult fix, and will give them the time to fix it.

I think this bug brings up an important point though....low priced companion gifts are a desirable thing in this game. Perhaps Bioware might consider reducing the cost of the gifts across the board in the future, especially the class 6 gifts.

I think this bug brings up an important point though....low priced companion gifts are a desirable thing in this game. Perhaps Bioware might consider reducing the cost of the gifts across the board in the future, especially the class 6 gifts.

Well, yeah. Especially since you can have so much companions right now, having such high priced gifts doesn't make sense. But that's just my opinion.

As for the exploiters, well, they'll get what they deserve. Still, I'm more concerned about the impact this could have on the GTN too. Will Bioware simply remove those credits from the game ?

Hey folks,

 

Keep in mind that we try to avoid talking about exploits and action taken against players. However, I know there is a bit of concern about this exploit and its implications on the game so here is where things stand.

 

We have already begun taking action against players, but the brunt of those actions are still to come. As you might imagine, gathering all of the data to understand who exploited and what they did with the money, takes quite a bit of time. Know that over time we will be applying account actions, along with removing a large quantity of credits and other ill-gotten gains.

 

Part of what takes so long is that some players know they are doing something they shouldn't and so they try to hide it. Moving credits around, using alt accounts, etc. It is important to us that we take appropriate action against each individual, and we are extra harsh against those who try to hide what they have done. Similarly, some players who participated have already self-reported either to Keith and myself, or to Customer Support. We absolutely take that into account when looking at what action we will take.

 

And again my usual thanks to the absolute vast majority of our players who helped in reporting the issue quickly and avoided using it.

 

TLDR - Some action has already happened with the brunt of it still to follow.

 

-eric

And why i dont believe you? Something tells me that you guys cant afford loosing even 1 subscriber. There are throwers and wintraders in solo ranked which were reported thousand time by different players. Yet those guys are still around throwing and wintrading. Thats why you imagined your "Sorry, we can tell anything about measures we are taking against other players" because you actually dont do anything

And why i dont believe you? Something tells me that you guys cant afford loosing even 1 subscriber. There are throwers and wintraders in solo ranked which were reported thousand time by different players. Yet those guys are still around throwing and wintrading. Thats why you imagined your "Sorry, we can tell anything about measures we are taking against other players" because you actually dont do anything

Trust me they will ban anyone In the past I know people that have been banned for less stuff and exploiting is now something they will do the serious bans for

I for one think this was handled the right way, considering the circumstances.

 

First, they realized the mistake and attempted to fix it quickly.

 

Second, when the fix created a situation where the gifts effected were a low price (not an exploit, as explained by Mr Musco) Bioware allowed players to purchase the low price gifts.

 

Third, the fix for that came shortly thereafter.

 

Now, naturally, this exploit did create quite a few problems with inflation in the game. But I can see why this will be a difficult fix, and will give them the time to fix it.

 

I think this bug brings up an important point though....low priced companion gifts are a desirable thing in this game. Perhaps Bioware might consider reducing the cost of the gifts across the board in the future, especially the class 6 gifts.

Yes they should be dropped to the price they just were. Even at that price, I spent about 12 million credits to lvl up 10 companions for my Crafters.

The prices were originally supposed to be a credit sink. But now there are all these Billions of extra credits in the game, those credit sinks just hurt the average players more and do nothing to the Uber rich in the game that the credit sinks are aimed at.

If they wanted real credit sinks they would make a vendor with some BOL or BOP vanity items that cost 100+ million credits. The urber rich love to show off their wealth and because it’s a vanity item, it doesn’t affect actual game play or mechanics, the average player isn’t affect by the credit sink.

Trust me they will ban anyone In the past I know people that have been banned for less stuff and exploiting is now something they will do the serious bans for

It’s a shame they don’t apply the same standards to hackers and other forms of pvp cheats

Hey folks,

 

Keep in mind that we try to avoid talking about exploits and action taken against players. However, I know there is a bit of concern about this exploit and its implications on the game so here is where things stand.

 

We have already begun taking action against players, but the brunt of those actions are still to come. As you might imagine, gathering all of the data to understand who exploited and what they did with the money, takes quite a bit of time. Know that over time we will be applying account actions, along with removing a large quantity of credits and other ill-gotten gains.

 

Part of what takes so long is that some players know they are doing something they shouldn't and so they try to hide it. Moving credits around, using alt accounts, etc. It is important to us that we take appropriate action against each individual, and we are extra harsh against those who try to hide what they have done. Similarly, some players who participated have already self-reported either to Keith and myself, or to Customer Support. We absolutely take that into account when looking at what action we will take.

 

And again my usual thanks to the absolute vast majority of our players who helped in reporting the issue quickly and avoided using it.

 

TLDR - Some action has already happened with the brunt of it still to follow.

 

-eric

So the usual huff and puff no action. got it.

It’s a shame they don’t apply the same standards to hackers and other forms of pvp cheats

Or the Toxic crap on the fleet

Or the Toxic crap on the fleet

But that requires a new system to be put in place and actual rules on what’s allowed and what’s not. (Doesn’t mean I don’t agree with you)

Cheating in pvp is pretty defined, it’s not allowed and we have a system to report it. We send reports directly to Musco and others. But those cheats only get a slap on the wrist or nothing at all, when they should just permanently ban them.

Nothing is going to happen except a slap on the wrist and they keep all the exploits. I know this because people I used to associate with told me in different occasion this occurs. Then the next bug exploits and the same vicious cycle.

Only thing different from the companion vendors was that they added a small fix but let everyone take a discounted price. This was a nice bug just like the CXP in the daily areas. Nice to have companions who are 50 and can survive just about every fight provided the player is using their CD's and DCD's and rotation properly. This also helps with crafting during conquest for shorter time periods for return on making invasion forces.

What Bioware needs to do is lower the companion prices slightly so it can be within reach for most players. A stack of 480 was 480k instead of 4.8 or 5 million credits rounded up to get a companion from influence of 1 to 50. Jedi Consular and Sith Inquisitor classes were the class benefited from the companion gift vendor "Extravaganza" about 6-7 companions.