Massively

EVE Online nukes over a thousand botters from orbit

Matt Daniel — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:30:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, News items, Dev Diaries, Sandbox

Look upon CCP's works, ye botters, and despair! EVE Online players recently noticed "by virtue of reading various shady forums" that the CCP team has suspended or banned a large number of botters. CCP Sreegs stopped by the official site today to respond to some of the community reactions to the mass bot-nuking. Many fans seem to believe that the bannings are a publicitity stunt to drum up interest in the upcoming Fanfest. CCP Sreegs responds that, of course, this isn't the case. He notes that during CCP's recent periods of turbulence, there was no team responsible for "handling the technology responsible for nuking botters," but now that there's a full team once more, "[CCP has] now thrown the switch again and turned on the catching bad guys machine."

Other players are crying out that the current three-strike system is too soft-hearted. Sreegs respectfully disagrees, citing the fact that, of all players that go on to receive two strikes, only something like 3% go on to earn a third. But what's to stop these problem players from transferring their characters to a new account and carrying on as usual? Sreegs also announced that a new system is being put in place that will indefinitely revoke the character transfer privileges of any suspended players, no matter how many strikes they have against them. For the full story as well as a bit of insight as to how CCP deals with botters and cheaters, just click on through the link below.

EVE Online nukes over a thousand botters from orbit originally appeared on Massively on Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Daily Grind: When does a clever loophole become a bannable exploit?

Brianna Royce — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 08:00:00 EST

Filed under: Bugs, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Opinion, The Daily Grind, Miscellaneous

Trouble has been brewing this week over a Star Wars: The Old Republic "exploit" in which people use seemingly legitimate (but perhaps unintended) game mechanics to tip the balance of the game in their favor. Of course, this is nothing new to veteran MMO players, who have seen hundreds, even thousands, of such loopholes and bugs spackled and patched since first MMO came online. Entire World of Warcraft guilds have been banned, however temporarily, for "exploiting" poorly coded raid AI, for example.

I've always felt that it's the game company's responsibility to counter loopholes before anyone takes advantage of them; the onus should be on the developer, not the player, to set the rules of the game using hardcoded mechanics. The players can't be expected to suss out the game-designers' intent, after all. Other gamers believe that "exploiters" really ought to know better and deserve whatever punishments the game's GMs mete out. What do you think? When does a clever loophole become a bannable exploit?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

The Daily Grind: When does a clever loophole become a bannable exploit? originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 07 Jan 2012 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Over one percent of League of Legends players have been banned

Brendan Drain — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Game mechanics, MMO industry, News items, Free-to-play, Dev Diaries, MOBA

Handling antisocial behaviour has always been a problem for online game developers, and MOBAs like League of Legends certainly get the worst of it. The inherently team-based nature and slippery slope gameplay in MOBAs makes it very easy for one antisocial player to ruin a game and cause your team to lose. The problem is normally tackled head-on with a report tool and a suite of hired GMs, but what do you do if your game is free-to-play and has over 15 million registered players? It would be impractical to hire thousands of GMs to police a community of that size, so Riot Games came up with an alternative in the Tribunal system.

The Tribunal allows players who have played enough games to reach level 30 to vote on whether to take action against a reported player. Once enough votes are tallied, either the player is pardoned automatically or his case is submitted to a smaller GM team to await punishment. The system went live earlier this year, and Riot has now revealed how incredibly successful the system has been with the publication of some very interesting banning statistics. The biggest shocker is that a whopping 1.4% of LoL's over 15 million players have been banned with the system, a workload that far exceeds the capacity of a traditional GM team. Ninety-four percent of players submitted to the Tribunal are punished, with about 50% of them never reoffending.

Skip past the cut for an image showing these and other statistics, and stay tuned to our weekly Not So Massively column every Monday for more LoL news and updates.

Continue reading Over one percent of League of Legends players have been banned

Over one percent of League of Legends players have been banned originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 25 Dec 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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RuneScape dev panel highlights incredible success of bot bans

Brendan Drain — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 16:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Video, Culture, Events, real-world, MMO industry, Patches, News items, RuneScape, Free-to-play, Casual, Dev Diaries

Over the past few weeks, we've heard a great deal about browser MMO RuneScape's struggle against botting and RMT. The bot problem has become progressively worse over the past year, with bot makers countering every change developers made to stop their bots from working. This week developer Jagex celebrated bot-nuking day as it deployed a massive update designed to permanently stop all of the popular reflection and injection bots from working.

At this year's annual RuneFest event, Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard presented a fantastic insider panel on the facts and figures behind bot-nuking day. Mark explained the company's position -- that normal players botting to speed up gameplay was counter to the goals of RuneScape. "We don't want your computer to play with our computer," he told attendees, "we want you to have fun with our community." Before delving into facts and figures, Mark reminded attendees of the element of unfairness that bots create. "I want to know that if I'm putting in 30 minutes this evening, that that 30 minutes is equal to everyone else's 30 minutes."

Want to know how many million accounts were banned since bot-nuking day? Read on for a summary of the facts and figures from the talk and to watch the full video in HD.

Continue reading RuneScape dev panel highlights incredible success of bot bans

RuneScape dev panel highlights incredible success of bot bans originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 30 Oct 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Not So Massively: Clockwork girls, ban tribunals, and runestones

Brendan Drain — Sat, 28 May 2011 20:00:00 EST

Filed under: Trailers, Video, Culture, Lore, MMO industry, News items, Free-to-play, Not So Massively

Welcome to Not So Massively, our weekly roundup of the top news from popular multiplayer online battle arenas (MOBAs) and other multiplayer online games that aren't quite MMOs. Published every Saturday, the column covers games such as League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, Defense of the Ancients, Bloodline Champions, and more.

With the growing popularity of MMOs, it's great to see developers borrowing ideas from them and making them work in other online game formats. A growing number of online games are being released featuring elements of online persistence, iterative development, and character progression that we've come to expect only from MMOs. In last week's Not So Massively, we reveled in League of Legends' dubstep, got technical with Heroes of Newerth's new hero Martyr, and looked at Bloodline Champions' new match replay system. We also introduced Rise of Immortals' immortal Aislynn and looked at the huge Realm of the Titans content update arriving just in time for closed beta.

In this week's Not So Massively, we introduce Ubisoft's upcoming online FPS Ghost Recon Online, look at Bloodline Champions' huge patch 1.2 update, and peruse development plans for the Rise of Immortals cash shop and its co-op PvE. This week is also a big week for League of Legends, with the player-mediated banning Tribunal now in live testing and the awesome new clockwork champion Orianna on the way.

Skip past the cut for all this week's news from the land of not-quite-an-MMO-but-pretty-close-to-it.

Continue reading Not So Massively: Clockwork girls, ban tribunals, and runestones

Not So Massively: Clockwork girls, ban tribunals, and runestones originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 28 May 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Banned WoW player offers $1,000 for reactivation

Rubi Bayer — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Culture, MMO industry

If you lost an MMO account through hacking, banning, or any other method, what would you pay to get it back? One California World of Warcraft player didn't hesitate to put a hefty price tag on that possibility.

"I got my WoW account banned yesterday during the archaeology bot ban wave. I wasn't a gold farmer or seller, never bought gold. I just botted archaeology because it's a boring profession. I'm looking for a WoW Account Admin [...] to unban my account for $1000USD. No questions asked - your anonymity will be preserved."

The plea for reinstatement says it all. The anonymous player posted via Craigslist last week, offering any form of payment the recipient might ask for -- including "an envelope under a tree." While it's a safe bet that nobody on the WoW team will open this particular can of worms, it's an interesting look at how far some players will go to preserve the time invested (or not invested, in this case) in gameplay.

Banned WoW player offers $1,000 for reactivation originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 22 Mar 2011 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Exploring Eberron: The race discussion has been banned

Rubi Bayer — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Culture, Free-to-play, Exploring Eberron

Don't worry, it's just a one-week ban. Once again, it was an interesting week for Dungeons and Dragons Online fans. Tuesday night's banhammer took everyone by surprise, and the reactions on both sides were pretty interesting.

I was really excited to discuss DDO races this week, but this week's problems left me thinking long and hard about the dynamics of player/developer interaction in this game. Check out that handy comments section at the end too, because I'd really love to hear what you have to say on the banning issue.

Follow along after the break, then weigh in!

Continue reading Exploring Eberron: The race discussion has been banned

Exploring Eberron: The race discussion has been banned originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 12 Nov 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Final Fantasy XI cracks down on cheating

Eliot Lefebvre — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Final Fantasy XI, Exploits, News items, Academic

Square-Enix can get very touchy about certain things with Final Fantasy XI. Revealing the precise numbers and mechanics behind many of the game's elements seems to be one of them that none of the game's fans are terribly pleased with, but they're just as touchy about people cheating in the game, which fans can't help but be happy about. The game's terms of use clearly state that the use of third-party applications interacting with the game is expressly forbidden, and the game has recently dropped the hammer for good on one of the distributors of third-party hacks.

The announcement, which can be found on the official site or mirrored on Allakhazam.com, states that the game's team had been monitoring the sale and distribution of certain undisclosed third-party applications, and they had subsequently shut down both the servers for the programs as well as the sellers. The specific applications are not named, as is normal for Final Fantasy XI -- they don't want to encourage anyone to seek out the cheats, after all. The announcement also includes the usual warnings about bannings and account security when connected with third-party cheats. It's always good news when the less scrupled side of a game's community gets shut down -- now if only we could pass some of this along to NCsoft for their recent woes.

Final Fantasy XI cracks down on cheating originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 26 Dec 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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See an Aion GM in action blowing up spammers

William Dobson — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Aion, Humor

NCsoft has always been fairly vocal about about their assault on Aion's goldspammer and bot epidemic. They bolstered the game's spam filter a while ago and their Game Surveillance Unit reportedly banned over 27,000 botting accounts just last week. It's great to hear about these positive statistics, but if your game experience has been ruined in the past by some of these unsavory characters, you might be looking for something more visceral -- and thankfully, we've got that for you.

Enter Youtube user MidoriPeanut, who managed to catch an Aion GM in the throes of a banning spree and recorded it all for the rest of us to enjoy. The movie features the GM blowing up a number of goldspammer ad stores, all set to the dramatic Syringe by Emilie Autumn. Sure, this could all take place behind the scenes and the offenders would quietly disappear from the world, but isn't it a lot more fun seeing them cast off to hell by a cutesy animal? Get out the popcorn and head past the break to see the banishing in action.

Continue reading See an Aion GM in action blowing up spammers

See an Aion GM in action blowing up spammers originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 06 Dec 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Matt "Positron" Miller prepares his radioactive banhammer against mission architect abusers

Seraphina Brennan — Tue, 05 May 2009 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Super-hero, City of Heroes, City of Villains, Business models, Culture, Exploits, Forums, Game mechanics, News items, PvE

Mission architect -- an amazing system that allows a very creative player-base to finally take the reigns of creation and make amazing in-game arcs that feature personalized stories, personalized characters, farming, well made.... wait, what?

Yes, you heard that right, people have already began to leverage City of Heroes's architect system into nothing more than powerleveling tool, and the community doesn't find that to be too enjoyable. Luckily, Matt "Positron" Miller, the lead designer, has already stepped up with a post to the community on the City of Heroes message board about how they plan on dealing with these problems.

The team wishes to remove the rewards some characters may have gained through powerleveling, all the way up to removing access to characters that were solely leveled up via mission architect exploits. Past working on a player by player bases, some badges will be changed while others may be removed entirely due to the exploiting groups surrounding them. Lastly, but certainly not least, the team will be proactively banning missions that are created to exploit the system.

For Matt's full plan, check out his post over on the City of Heroes message board.

Matt "Positron" Miller prepares his radioactive banhammer against mission architect abusers originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 05 May 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Darkfall bans another wave of cheaters

Jon Shute — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Darkfall, Game mechanics

Adventurine's public voice for Darkfall, Tasos, has announced through their forums that the have banned another 213 players for cheating using 3rd party programs. This is claimed to be 90% of the currently detected cheaters, with the final 10% awaiting verification. Cheaters were detected automatically but the verification process is manual.

The message contains a warning that cheaters tend to be very outspoken and so are expected to be proclaiming innocence on the forums. These threads will be deleted and those accounts will also be banned. Darkfall has a zero tolerance attitude to cheating, and previously Tasos has declared that there were a couple of bannings per day.

Darkfall bans another wave of cheaters originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 28 Apr 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You wouldn't like Aventurine when they're angry...

Seraphina Brennan — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: At a glance, Fantasy, Darkfall, Business models, Culture, Exploits, PvP, Opinion

Aventurine smash! Well, they smash people who attempt to impersonate GMs and cheat in their game, at least.

Over at Hardcore Casual, Syncaine has put up a post discussing Aventurine's hardline attitude to players in their game, Darkfall. The company has already said, straight out, that they will ban players for an offense like attempting to impersonate a GM or cheating in their game. No warnings, no temporary boots, we're talking a full ban on the first offense.

What is unclear, from the perspective of a player, is how well Aventurine is implementing their own policies. From one player's perspective, it seems that the GMs are certainly on the ball and are dealing with people who attempt to use joke names. But as to how many people may have been banned by Aventurine's staff? Well, that's an unknown number that most likely will never be released outside of the company.

Even so, a hardline stance like the one Aventurine is taking isn't seen very often in MMOs. Companies worry about alienating their player base with moves such as those.

Interested in the full post? Check it out over at Hardcore Casual.

You wouldn't like Aventurine when they're angry... originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 14 Apr 2009 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Lame scams still profitable in Guild Wars, over 1000 bans every week

James Egan — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:30:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Guild Wars, Exploits, Game mechanics, MMO industry, Opinion

Would you fall for this? (Please say 'no'...): A complete stranger approaches you on the sidewalk outside of your bank and shows you a rare coin he says is worth twenty thousand dollars. "I want to just give this coin to you," he says, "but I don't want anyone to know we did this... tax issues, you see." The stranger suggests putting it in your safe deposit box, but because he's so concerned about privacy, he wants access to your safe deposit box to be sure the rare coin gets there, with no one the wiser. The problem is that he can only get in there with your express permission...

We're guessing 99.99% of you would never get suckered by something asinine like this, but why then do people fall for the exact same thing in the virtual realm? Specifically, it seems that Guild Wars players regularly turn over their login info to account thieves in hopes of getting something for nothing, as mentioned by Ravious over at Kill Ten Rats. This ultimately leads to a continuous deluge of stolen accounts, tears, and rage.

Continue reading Lame scams still profitable in Guild Wars, over 1000 bans every week

Lame scams still profitable in Guild Wars, over 1000 bans every week originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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178 starbases involved in EVE Online's multi-trillion ISK exploit

James Egan — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:30:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Bugs, Events, in-game, Exploits, Game mechanics, News items

The last several days have brought us some news of a rather significant exploit in the sci-fi MMO EVE Online. The game boasts a dynamic virtual economy which is in many ways integral to the game itself. (Inter Stellar Kredits, or ISK, is the currency upon which EVE Online's economy is based.) When rumor broke of a multi-trillion ISK exploit in the game, it raised a few eyebrows. However, when CCP Games themselves confirmed it and announced they would launch an investigation into the matter, it became more serious, as reflected by the economic impact on the market in the game. (Remember kids, internet spaceships are serious business... EVE tends to have more drama than the average massively multiplayer online game.)

CCP Games provided an update on the investigation today, stating that 178 starbases were discovered exploiting the issue and have been destroyed. This is the first time they've been willing or able to put a solid number on how extensive the exploit was, in terms of the scope of the operation. CCP stated: "We have also banned all those we have found directly involved and all accounts we have found to be connected to those players. The investigation is still under way and will take a while to conclude." Also part of the investigation is the Internal Affairs aspect, which some players have been following. CCP Games reports that they haven't found links between any of their own staff (or the Council of Stellar Management, for that matter) and the starbase exploit. See the official announcement from the EVE developers for more details on how the investigation is progressing.

178 starbases involved in EVE Online's multi-trillion ISK exploit originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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CCP Games on the extent and impact of EVE's starbase exploit

James Egan — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Bugs, Exploits, Forums, Game mechanics, News items

Massively has been watching the issue of a significant starbase exploit in EVE Online, through which some players reaped vast financial rewards, as it went from rumor to confirmation from the developers themselves. Unlike your average run-of-the-mill exploit in most massively multiplayer online games, the exploit in question has had a significant impact on EVE's virtual economy -- the backbone of the game itself. All players in EVE interact in one vast galaxy, and their actions in the sandbox can create ripples felt by their fellow players, which has certainly been the case in this past week.

EVE Online's developer CCP Games has opted to hold off on responding to most press inquiries for comment on the issue, having issued a statement on the matter and then focusing on the investigation and a weekend meeting with EVE's player-elected community representatives, the Council of Stellar Management (CSM). The minutes from that meeting are now available, and several of EVE's developers took part in the discussion: namely CCP's Lead Economist Dr. EyjoG (Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson) and CCP Arkanon -- who heads up the company's Internal Affairs division, which investigates the CCP Games staff themselves, hopefully ensuring that no CCP employee can abuse their influence over the game.

Read on for Massively's highlights of the state of affairs in EVE Online, in the wake of the starbase exploit.

Continue reading CCP Games on the extent and impact of EVE's starbase exploit

CCP Games on the extent and impact of EVE's starbase exploit originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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An update on the EVE Online starbase exploit

James Egan — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 19:00:00 EST

Filed under: Sci-fi, EVE Online, Economy, Exploits, Crafting, News items

In the wake of last week's revelation of a market disrupting exploit in EVE Online, a growing number of players have been calling for increased transparency on the situation. EVE's developer CCP Games has stated they've discovered seven player-run corporations taking advantage of the player owned station (POS) exploit, which yielded a vast amount of materials used in the EVE Online's manufacturing (crafting) system. Three of those corporations were in two alliances, and over 70 accounts have been banned thus far in connection with the exploit. The starbases used in the exploit have been destroyed by CCP, and they've stated that the corporations in question are now effectively inactive following the bans.

CCP Games has not released the names of characters, corporations, or alliances linked to the exploit, but a player named "moppinator" of the AMT. corporation (part of Ev0ke alliance) stepped forward and issued the following statement on the extent of his alliance's involvement:

Continue reading An update on the EVE Online starbase exploit

An update on the EVE Online starbase exploit originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 14 Dec 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Blizzard bans Battle.net accounts before WotLK launch

James Egan — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:30:00 EST

Filed under: World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Exploits, Game mechanics, MMO industry, News items, Legal

Blizzard recently announced that they'd be switching over to a new centralized account system, tying together the company's online games through Battle.net. Existing World of Warcraft accounts are essentially replaced by Battle.net accounts, and will allow for the tracking of achievements across the Blizzard titles. But some players, roughly 350,000 of them, found another unexpected feature arrived with the Battle.net account integration: bans.

Gamesindustry.biz reports: "Blizzard has revealed that is has closed over 350,000 StarCraft and Diablo II accounts which were found to be using third-party hacks. The company further revealed that the Diablo II CD keys associated with the closed accounts are now barred from playing on Battle.net for 30 days and warned that repeat offenders face a permanent ban." Check out the full report over at Gamesindustry.biz, along with a statement from Blizzard about the bans.

Blizzard bans Battle.net accounts before WotLK launch originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Flying Lab banning for RMT already

Krystalle Voecks — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST

Filed under: Pirates of the Burning Sea, Launches, New titles

In an almost "news of the weird" situation, word came out yesterday evening that the fine folks at Flying Lab are already seeing grey-market gold selling in their still-in-pre-launch game Pirates of the Burning Sea. While any MMO veteran knows just how pervasive gold selling is in any game, this is perhaps the first time we've heard of them opening up shop quite so openly before a game is even officially launched.

As Aether states, "we will [be] following up with the appropriate disciplinary actions, which could include confiscation of the resources in question, and ultimately banning accounts that sell or buy these illicit resources." We certainly wish Flying Lab the absolute best of luck with stamping it out -- and hopefully keeping chat channels clear of the spam that seems to be everywhere these days. But you have to admit, the fact that the gold-selling companies are getting this brazen before official launch isn't exactly a good sign.

Flying Lab banning for RMT already originally appeared on Massively on Sun, 20 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A Brazilian court bans EverQuest

Michael Zenke — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 23:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, EverQuest, Culture, Events, real-world, MMO industry, Politics, Legal, Education, Virtual worlds

In a classic moment of governmental insanity, word has gone out that a court in the Brazilian state of Goias has put a ban out on Sony Online Entertainment's EverQuest. The consumer protection agency for the country has apparently picked up on the ban, and is noting it on its official website.

Kotaku readers have been writing in to that site, expanding on this decision and a similar one that has been handed down on the tactical shooter Counter-Strike. This ban technically applies to the whole country, as decisions made in one court system are technically the law of the land throughout Brazil. A reader noted that at the moment only the state of Goias is applying the ban, as other court leaders seem to think the decision may be flawed.

Fascinatingly, EverQuest isn't even commercially released in the country of Brazil. Even more interesting, reader comments seem to indicate this is a forced ban: copies of the game reported being 'taken' by the police. The ban (on EQ, anyway) seems to stem from the moral ambiguity of many of the quests:

As for EverQuest, Procon states that it "takes the gamer to complete moral conflict and 'heavy' psychological conflicts; for the tasks that are given to them could be bad or good. (...) Violent videogames that use violence are capable of forming agressive individuals, making it evident that is strong its influence on psyquism, reinforcing aggressive attitude against certain individuals and social groups".

Further commentary is available at Rock, Paper, Shotgun.

A Brazilian court bans EverQuest originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 18 Jan 2008 23:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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