2 uniques in bank: exploit?

[Octo]

Oh and one other thing:

Remember that this game is made FOR the players and not for the developers, customer support or whatever.

We get the game we want, you get our money. Im fine with it, as long as you dont impose actual work on me for every change you do. Just to make it easier for yourself.

[zjozz]

Originally posted by Noer
What does unique mean?

Does it mean this item is the only item on this server of this kind? Does it mean I am a unique person if I got this item? Does it mean I can only wear one of these items? Does it mean I can only own one of these items? Well, I got an idea what it is SUPPOSED to mean. But how can we be sure? It has never worked EVER, and it has never been explained. Its just a flag on the item.

Just like the special flag. Anyone know what that means?

Its a flag in the database, you can't expect people to know what they mean. And you can certainly not expect people to accept that you ban people on it when you never explained the flag and when it never worked.

Your socalled workarounds to have more than one unique on you is to store it in bank. Well, boohooo - I must say. Thats one big nasty exploit. How dare people store their items in their bank. You realise that most people actually have more uniques in their bank now because your code never worked?

Hell even your ARKs don't know what is going on.
http://www.tpg.dk/download/iq1.jpg
http://www.tpg.dk/download/iq2.jpg
ARK is confirming it is allowed to have 2 unique rings on. 1 week later Demios got banned first accused for duping. When that didn't stick, then banned for having multiple uniques in bank and something duped and then last it got changed into just banned for having multiple uniques in bank.

Okay, you made a mistake. But covering up with new and more silly reasons to keep that ban is a total joke.

The solution is simple and everyone will be happy:
- Explain to everyone want you mean by unique.
- Announce that you are going to fix the unique-code in an upcoming patch.
- Announce that violating the unique-code when it actually works will get in problems.
- Unban the people you ASSUMED would know what you internally know about the items.

Is it really that hard to eat this burned cookie? Is it that hard to admit a mistake? Is it that hard to correct what is wrong? You saw how this is concerning the community on IRC today.

AMEN!

[Claire]

You have then actually banned a person for something
you specifiaclly said you wont ban anyone for.

Originally posted by Cz
We will not ban people for owning two of the same Unique item. I would suggest you do not wear / wield two of the same Unique item though.

To ban a person on such a vague issue that you yourself isnt
totally clear on, is a a much to drastic measure.

You could atleast give a proper warning that you will enforce new
rules that concernes alot of people.

Demios is a respected player in the AO community and
one of the nicest and most decent person i've met in this game.

Banning demios on these grounds seems nothing more then
a personal vedetta.

I couldnt care less about the items allthough it is guild
property which we have worked very hard for. Since there
is no way to store guild items, Demios was the unlucky one
that was given the task of storing it.

This is a trivial matter that 100's of people playing AO is
guilty of and does not warrant a permanent ban!!

This is a discrace.
Do the right thing and unban Demios now.

Claire

[Cz]

Mandor, feel free to send me an e-mail with all the names of the people you feel have been "banned for this reason" without notice. I will look into it. I can't give you an explanation though, as I can't give you information about the status of another customer's account, or the reasons for the status.

Nostra343 and Zeronx, I agree with you, and my statement was used to shut off yells of "liar, liar" in the thread and get breathing time to get the point through. I got that, got my explanation posted, and Noer and Azzazzimon understood my point (I believe).

I will not ban people directly for calling me a liar. I have very thick skin when it comes to such issues. However, when flammable cases like this hit the bulletin board, I will do what I have to to keep them confined.

Zarch, Noer, Azzazzimon and others, I will not comment on specific cases (legal matters regarding customers' accounts). Due to this, I can't discuss the case with you.

Dscaper and Octo, I've already stated in the announcement currently on top of all forums here on the bulletin board that we will not ban people for owning several of the same Unique item. I also listed an exception, which I doubt will be very strictly used. We do ban for other issues though.

{Edited for bad English.}

[gnuman]

Cz, there was plenty of questions in my post that wasn't directed to the specific case. And which are all unanswered.

[Cz]

Sorry, Noer, I was doing the run-through first. Will get to your questions.

[Seraphim]

I'd like to put up a argument here as well.

DO NOT BAN PEOPLE BECAUSE OF YOUR FLAWED CODE! Fire those instead that can't program properely and fire those that base their reasons for banning people on pre-assumptions instead of investigation.

I am intrested to continue to subscribe to this service. But I am not intrested in paying people's salaries whose reasoning is completely based on bad childhood, e.a.

[Cz]

Originally posted by Noer
What does unique mean?

Does it mean this item is the only item on this server of this kind? Does it mean I am a unique person if I got this item? Does it mean I can only wear one of these items? Does it mean I can only own one of these items? Well, I got an idea what it is SUPPOSED to mean. But how can we be sure? It has never worked EVER, and it has never been explained. Its just a flag on the item.

Unique means you can only own one at any time, no matter where it is stored. This in answered in my announcement currently at the top of every forum.

In-game you get the text "Your trade partner already has this unique item..." when trying to give a second Unique item to somebody who has one in his inventory. And yo get the text "You have already got this unique item..." if you try pick up a second of a unique item already in your inventory.

Just like the special flag. Anyone know what that means?

The Special flag doesn't have any rules connected to it. It is mor or less just set to 'hide' the QL of an item, I believe.

And you can certainly not expect people to accept that you ban people on it when you never explained the flag and when it never worked.

We don't expect people to accept it, and we don't do it.

Your socalled workarounds to have more than one unique on you is to store it in bank. Well, boohooo - I must say. Thats one big nasty exploit. How dare people store their items in their bank. You realise that most people actually have more uniques in their bank now because your code never worked?

Yes. I also understand that people have two of an item that wasn't Unique when they got it, but is Unique now.

Hell even your ARKs don't know what is going on.
http://www.tpg.dk/download/iq1.jpg
http://www.tpg.dk/download/iq2.jpg
ARK is confirming it is allowed to have 2 unique rings on.

The ARK also states that it will be reported as a bug / exploit, indicating that it is not final word.

The solution is simple and everyone will be happy:
- Explain to everyone want you mean by unique.
- Announce that you are going to fix the unique-code in an upcoming patch.
- Announce that violating the unique-code when it actually works will get in problems.
- Unban the people you ASSUMED would know what you internally know about the items.

Explained it, and will check on the code fix. Violating the Unique code will probably get you in trouble now too, if you fail to comply with a warning. The ban / unban will be taken on individual cases, not as a general "let's unban them all" amnesty, based on the facts in the individual case.

[Cz]

Originally posted by Destructiva
DO NOT BAN PEOPLE BECAUSE OF YOUR FLAWED CODE! Fire those instead that can't program properely...

So we should let the people duping 100 billion credits stay in the game, and continue to exploit? I respectfully disagree, and don't see much point in arguing about that.

And, as far as I know, we don't have people who "can't program properly", unless you define "program properly" as "making 100% flawless code", in which case I doubt you will find many programmer who can "program properly" at all.

[gnuman]

Originally posted by Cz
Unique means you can only own one at any time, no matter where it is stored. This in answered in my announcement currently at the top of every forum.

Yet you have banned at least one person before that was clearified.

In-game you get the text "Your trade partner already has this unique item..." when trying to give a second Unique item to somebody who has one in his inventory. And yo get the text "You have already got this unique item..." if you try pick up a second of a unique item already in your inventory.

Not if the item is in the bank. And that is what this is all about.

The Special flag doesn't have any rules connected to it. It is mor or less just set to 'hide' the QL of an item, I believe.

Yes, that was what I guessed aswell. But how can you enforce rules on stuff that wasn't before AFTER the person got banned. Its not like the person gets a chance to correct himself, because you keep getting new excuses for banning.

We don't expect people to accept it, and we don't do it.

That is exactly what you did. You banned a person over stuff that never worked and never was explained how it was supposed to work. And as you can see here we don't accept that kind of treatment. We are afterall paying customers and not a charity-institution.

Yes. I also understand that people have two of an item that wasn't Unique when they got it, but is Unique now.

Or items people just dump in bank now and then. I suggest you try it out yourself. I seriously can't remember myself if I got more than one Omni Interops coat on me. I just dump the junk in my bank now and then. You make it sound as it is rocket science to get around the unique flag. Well, it isn't.

The ARK also states that it will be reported as a bug / exploit, indicating that it is not final word.

The example was more a proof on that noone has a clue on what is going on. What is policy and what is not.

Explained it, and will check on the code fix. Violating the Unique code will probably get you in trouble now too, if you fail to comply with a warning. The ban / unban will be taken on individual cases, not as a general "let's unban them all" amnesty, based on the facts in the individual case.

Demios wasn't warned, wasn't suspended. Permanent banned with no way to correct the wrong.

[Cz]

No, Noer, we did not. You do not know the entire case, and I can't inform you any more due to legal restrictions. Period.

[DaveDread]

Originally posted by Noer
And you can certainly not expect people to accept that you ban people on it when you never explained the flag and when it never worked.

Originally posted by Cz
We don't expect people to accept it, and we don't do it.

Read this a few times. Was there perhaps any other bannable offense (however unvoluntarily it might have happened) that Demois had experienced?

edited for formatting.

[gnuman]

lol - so now you changed reason for Demios' ban again.

I don't bother this anymore. Good bye Funcom. You got one less troll to worry about. I had one thing left in this game, my friends. Rest of the game has been tried 10 times forward and backward. And now you start doing bull**** on the people aswell. Well, then nothing more keeps me here.

I don't envy your job Cz, covering up and making excuses for incompetent people banning people without even having a clue on what is going on. I just warn you, players don't take that kind of treatment. As said before we aren't doing charity here. We are paying to have a game not for you to have a playground. Spend your resources on fixing your game instead of spending it on banning people hurt by the bugs and then spending additional time on covering it up.

Find me in Asherons Call 2.

[Cz]

Originally posted by Noer
lol - so now you changed reason for Demios' ban again.

Nope. Never did. You said yourself that two reasons were stated. Not changing anything, as far as I know.

[gnuman]

Originally posted by Cz

Nope. Never did. You said yourself that two reasons were stated. Not changing anything, as far as I know.

Latest I heard was that you removed the idiotic reason that Demi had duped. Let me tell you. Almost EVERYONE has duped. Not that they did it on purpose or even are aware of it. And why and how? Because your servers crash. So now you are back to that reason again?

[Cz]

I won't discuss somebody else's case with you. I think I've said that enough times now. You stated two reasons yourself. Now you say we removed a reason? What you base that on, you know best yourself.

[Darkbane]

Seems most of this discussion isn't about so-called unique items, but about someone that got banned. Not going to comment on that but would be very suprised if there wasn't good reason.

As to the uniques thing... another partly implemented feature causing trouble. By all means, make unique do what it is supposed to do (I'm perfectly aware of what that is, and have been for a long time, I'm also perfectly aware of how well it works). I would suggest revisiting the items that have unique on them.

Take Flurry of Blows... there is no reason for this being unique, you can't actually make use of more than one at a time since it locks a skill, and as its purchaseable in shops, it just adds insult to injury. Thankfully you removed unique from MA attacks, which made no sense either.

IQ rings are an example of an item where unique is appropriate, as are many 'special' items from bosses and unique mobs.

I'd suggest that you put up a list of all items currently in game that are unique, link to it from the launcher, and ask players to delete or sell any excess items. Do this at least 2 weeks (a month would be better) in advance of fixing the unique flag to give people plenty time to sort themselves out.

If you do that, the you should be able to delete any excess items in a player's bank (lowest ql ones first) or inventory without any fuss as you'll have given plenty of due warning (do state in the launcher exactly what will happen to items that are still non-compliant).

[_________________Nai]

I want Demios back, please return her to me. Risk of sounding selfish...I need her becasue she is one of my main reasons Im still in game. She has allways been so kind to me and I hate to see her threated in this manner.

I will NOT go trough my bank to check if I have some things that Im not supposed to have 2 off. I will NOT do so on any alts either.
I will however not, if so should be the case, use anything to benefit me in any way that would not be possibel whit a properly working code. I will of course delete anything that I should not have 2 off If I should see it and I will delete anything that I get a official warning from you.

I have a strong gut feeling that someone told FC and knew very well that Demios could get in troubel for this, even if its something all have to a extent, dual of unique items. If this is the case then this person should have extensive knowledge about who the poor thing was that keept TC dragon armor. If some is behind this you can go to hell and If I ever get the name I will start a war against you that will make you wish you NEVER was born. I so really hope I get some names so I can unleash some rage and by god I will hurt you so bad.

Sincerly yours, Naishee

Ps. Love you Demi Ds

[________________Schu]

So we should let the people duping 100 billion credits stay in the game, and continue to exploit? I respectfully disagree,

No we shouldn't, I concur with those sentiments. You exploit, you lose your right to play. Seems simple to me. However, someone in your organisation doesn't agree.


3 words:

Cloudeh
Garzu
Resta

[Seraphim]

Originally posted by Cz
So we should let the people duping 100 billion credits stay in the game, and continue to exploit? I respectfully disagree, and don't see much point in arguing about that.

And, as far as I know, we don't have people who "can't program properly", unless you define "program properly" as "making 100% flawless code", in which case I doubt you will find many programmer who can "program properly" at all.

You are aware of that you just proved my recent point that you assume that people are out to cheat?
And by proving my point, you are also saying that Funcom's programmers "can't program properly" since Funcom are concerned about the programmers constant inability to release frequent bugfixers\or\bugfixes, which any other decent programmer would do as soon as bugs has been found in the code. Which leads me to a different question, what purpose does the test server serve then if not to chase for bugs or potential dangers (exploits) in the code? Not to mention the internal test server. Am I clear or do I need to explain this, slowly, to you?

And let's be realistic, shall we. Anarchy Online was released 21th of June 2001. Since patch 11.x, Funcom has altered the orginial contents of this game to something that looks like a bad sci-fi Everquest-clone and you haven't still fixed major bugs like duping.

Now, do I want to buy the boosterpacks\shadowlands or recommend my friends to do so? No, I am already level 200 and reasons for continuing seems rather distant as Funcom denies that their code is buggy and decides punish "bad" players instead based on pre-assumptions instead of investigation. And I don't want to know what Funcom and their "talented" programmers are going to introduce us to in the expansions.