The exploit in question was only available to linkshells involved several endgame activities. The basic premise was finish the activity and then before the item drops from a treasure chest or monster the alliance of parties would break into their separate groups. For you Warcraft players, a raid would cease to be a raid and break down to the parties involved. Then each of the 3 parties in the alliance would get a copy of whatever items would drop. So, instead of 1 set of loot, you would grab 3 sets of loot -- including some items that could be sold for millions on the auction house.
Square-Enix's solution was patch the glitch in November and apply a variety of bans, warnings, and account suspensions seemingly haphazardly after a few months of investigation. Some of the community is up in arms over the bannings, but others are saying that it's not such a big deal when it only happened to a small fraction of the community.
Either way, what has been highlighted is how far some people will go to cheat the system when dealing with a game that even the MMO community could call "sadistic design." Do you agree with what Square-Enix has done with their community regarding this situation?
