AH/AD exploit....what do you think?

I'm wondering how they can avoid a roll back at this point.  The amount of zen/AD that has been abused and exploited at this point is insane.

For the last 2-3 days at least the AD to Zen exchange has been cleaned out regularly....the amount of exploited AD floating around the AH and being used to instant level the crafting professions is unacceptable. 

Even if they ban EVERYONE who abused this how many people were directly affected by damage to the economy?  How many people lost AD and zen to this?

Should be interesting to see what PWE/Cryptic's response to this will be.

I've been busy at work and hadn't even heard about it, wow -

It really blew up last night but from reddit posts this has been silently going on since open beta started. Apparently someone finally blew the whistle on this last night on the official forums, posting how this was accomplished and suddenly everything went crazy But it makes sense though, for the past few days the zen exchange for diamonds (and vice versa) has been getting cleaned out consistently. Meaning someone (people?) have been cleaning it out to buy items off the zen store etc etc etc... The damage done to the economy and the game itself is massive.

I am one of the people who support a full roll back. I love the game and I don't want to see it ruined by exploitation. I don't want foundry gone, though. I want characters reset to 1 (or not, this point doesn't matter much to me). Gear could be reset due to people exploiting other aspects of the game (pirate boss farming), all Zen purchased with money would be refunded, all AD (other than foundry pack AD) would be wiped. This would allow the economy to begin anew and this time without a massive exploit that was silently (and then not so silently) ruining the game's economy and thus its longevity.

» Edited on: 2013-05-19 17:38:22

Yes, I completely agree with that. It's the only way to remove the abuse; however they have already stated there will be no full roll back or wipe. I think they will roll it back a few days but that only solves a small bit of the problem, mostly being the huge amount of abuse that happened once the exploit went viral. It does nothing to solve the abuse of the exploit by some since open beta began. Even banning those accounts will not solve alot of the issues....there are just too many ways to move the AD around that PWE won't be able to do anything about. For example, having your secondary accounts sell items on the AH for crazy high prices, high enough to move AD but not insane enough to be noticed. Use your exploiting accounts to buy those items from your secondary accounts and the AD is now safely laundered. If someone knew about this exploit for over a few days...then the rollback will not affect them that much. They've already moved the AD from their banned account to the secondary ones. Their exploited AD is safe and sound. So basically doing a small roll back of a few days will only remove the small amount that happened over night.

» Edited on: 2013-05-19 17:54:28

Going to be interesting to see what they do. Some type of rollback seems inevitable. Selfishly I hope they give me back the 600,000 astral diamonds from founder pack that I would spend more wisely.

I know they have said that there will be no full wipe, but if they just reset all characters to lvl 1 or just delete all items/currency and refund zen, they have helped the problem while not being a full wipe. And this exploit was known and reported in closed beta. It was never fixed and has been happening in small amounts until today, when it was released and many more started to abuse it.

» Edited on: 2013-05-19 18:02:06

heheh How is resetting to level 1 and deleting all items/currency and refund zen not a wipe? That's pretty close if not an actual wipe :) I agree, it has been happening and those that have been doing it for awhile will have (and continue to) benefit from this with all the AD they've accumulated.

Of course, my brother and I just started playing NWN this last weekend. We got leveled up about 4 toons to lvl 15 through completing quests/zone content. It would be a low-blow to reset/wipe. I don't think I can stomach grinding those lowbie zones/quests yet another time! A few turds who abused the AH cause everyone to be punished with a wipe. ESO, GET HERE FASTER!!

@Abusabus because it would be called an account rollback :P. A wipe would erase the characters. They have been very careful to say "There will not be a complete wipe". Meaning there could very easily be a partial wipe. A complete wipe would include foundry and character creation. Partial could just be items or currency. The only thing I don't want erased would be foundry. People have spent a lot of time on those and it would be hard to recreate them. Characters can be releveled.

Since my playtime is limited, I would hate to lose the levels I have already acquired. If they do a wipe, as long as I get the 600000 astral diamonds back then I guess I will deal with it. I spent a lot of AD to get zen and buy a bag of holding. My highest is only 28 and aside from buying that bag I haven't bought anything else with AD or zen. Exactly what kind of impact did these exploiters have on someone like me? I assume the people most affected would be those who are high level or very active on the AD Exchange. For people who didn't get to log in today due to them shutting the servers down, I wonder how they are going to handle the daily prayer requirement for getting the ardent coins?

Massive amounts of in game money tend to make everything player sold cost more. This places those that make most of their money from playing the game at a disadvantage, while those playing the market for most of their money get more.

er...isn't Neverwinter still in Open Beta?

Yes, it is, but they stuck their foot in their mouth by saying there would be no character wipes when the transition from OB to Release. I think they just made a mistake that many future games are going to examine and learn from. "indefinite open beta" has been becoming a trend over the past year or so, because game shops felt it gave them an excuse to not release a "finished product" as expected in past, from developers that claimed their product had gone "gold". In Cryptic's case, it just bit them in the butt. I'd love to be a fly in their boardroom this week.

They've posted this FAQ on the issue: http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?266921-FAQ-AD-AH-Exploit-Follow-Up edit: of note Q: This bug existed for more than 7 hours. What are you doing about the fact that players took advantage of this before the rollback window? A: We are performing additional log searches and investigations to ensure that the appropriate actions are taken against any accounts that performed the exploit before the rollback window. Exploits that were performed prior to our rollback window make up a fraction of a percent of total impact, so we will be dealing with those issues selectively as not to cause greater impact on those legitimate testers.

» Edited on: 2013-05-20 06:15:56

Wow! I wind up busy again through this weekend and BOOM! On a good note the rollback won't bother anything except maybe the offline crafting I started in that time frame which is definitely not a big deal. I think they are taking the right action to this per waht I just read in the ever updating post you linked, Sekkerhund. Though I had to chuckle at how MANY comments were added to it. Crazy stuff. So I guess I'm actually happy I wound up busy Friday through Sunday on something that came up on Tuesday or so for me for me. ;)

heheheh yea I was oblivious to this as well. My best friend has kept me apprised and informed, he's like me, an old gamer, ex-Microsoft software tester and was also a STE with the MS Games division, so he's my "other half" when it comes to having a finger on the pulse of the gaming world. Another thread of interest that he sent me (this might be the reddit post that the OP referred to): http://www.reddit.com/r/Neverwinter/comments/1ennb6/can_we_make_some_sort_of_official_thread_for_the/

Sounds like from the forums that they actually did a rollback.

not much of a roll back, just to right before the exploit was posted on the forums. We'll see what they do about all the long term abusers.

You most likely won't hear about it. For legal reasons, they can't release much details on bans and what not.

The first time I heard about this I git in game and replicated it. I then sent a ticket to support explaining in detail how it was done and the impact it could have on the game if went unchecked. This exploit had been known by players since closed beta. What did I get for reporting this issue like a good beta tester? ya know, since it's an open beta...I got perma banned. I lost years of play and real money spent on Star Trek Online because PWE uses one login. I have sent a ticket explaining i tested and reported the exploit in good faith. no response... so, I don't know how I feel about this.

Yet further proof that it's in "open beta" by name only. Everything they keep doing points toward release but they like to hide behind the open beta. I don't usually rely on PWE or other companies for the info...the long term stuff will pop up on reddit and other info sites if anything comes of it, which I really doubt. Time will tell.

Volkoth, I would be incredibly surprised if they don't help you out. They stated on the forums that their net could have caught innocent people and that you should e-mail them. I'm having troubles finding the post now, but it was there... I swear! lol I hope they get you straightened out quickly. I'll see if I can find the e-mail they provided just to be sure you have access to all the proper channels for this exploit.

Thanks Kal, I read that post too. I e-maled and submitted a ticket monday. no response yet =(

I was really enjoying Neverwinter until this whole fiasco. Without a full server wipe, the game has no integrity as far as I'm concerned. Sadly, they've already written themselves into a corner with their whole stance on "no wipes once 'open beta' starts", so it looks like my time in Neverwinter has come to an end prematurely. :-( Pretty excited about Dragons Prophet though, that is looking good and opens May 30!

The exploit didn't affect me at all besides give me a whole bunch of rage posts to read on the forums. My characters didn't explode. I was still able to go on quests, explore dungeons, joke around with friends, and have a great time. Of course I don't spend all my time in game buying and selling in the auction house. So I can see people that spend a lot of time playing game markets could have their fun disrupted temporarily and that sucks. And I suppose their fun could be on shaky grounds for another week or whatever as things stabilize. I feel bad for that. I wouldn't have even known about the exploit if I hadn't happened to go to the forums. I noticed some goofy negative values in the AH so I knew there was an error somewhere, but I just ignored those listings and went about my merry way having fun in the game. So now that they've banned people, rolled back 7 hours, etc. I find that I'm still having the same amount of fun that I had before the big explosion. Hopefully auction house focused players can get back to having fun soon too. This game is just a lot of fun in my opinion.. lol.

» Edited on: 2013-05-22 11:25:06

EDIT: moved to new post

» Edited on: 2013-05-22 15:36:23

No wipes don't affect my feelings on it. I have no idea how it will affect the game economy and really wouldn't notice if it did. I'll still play it casually, never had intentions of playing it full-time or hardcore anyway.

getting flashbacks of how PWE handled (mishandled) exploits in PWI, players banned or items taken mistakenly and others that abused the exploit never touched.

Folks, take what you read, regarding exploits and developer's actions taken, with a grain of salt. No one is guilty, everyone is innocent and didn't do it or mean to do it. Prison is full of examples. "Just testing" isn't a good excuse, regardless of actual intentions. If you read about an exploit... DO NOT DO IT and you won't have any problems. Also keep in mind, that part of the member credo for being a member of the Gaiscioch family is that you will not cheat or exploit. Doing so and getting caught, can not only get you banned from the game, but it can get you blacklisted from the family. So no matter what purpose or reasoning you might have to try out an exploit, don't cave in to temptation and just walk away from it. Its just a game and not worth the consequences.

If it looks like an exploit and it feels like an exploit, its probably an exploit. - Daglar

» Edited on: 2013-05-23 11:12:05

» Edited on: 2013-05-23 11:12:35

LOL OMG, I was going to write something similar to that in another thread that I just responded to. I call it the "duck rule". hahahah +1