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Exploiting odd behaviours

Posted: 14 Jan 2018 23:15
by Mirandus

Code: Select all

Greetings Denizens of the Donut,

I pen this on behalf of the Gnomes who work with me to ensure that
things within the realms work as they are intended.

I have received disturbing reports of Mortals finding things working
in odd ways within the realms but not reporting them so that they
might be addressed. Instead, these mortals have chosen to use these
odd happenings to their advantage.

I find this deeply disturbing and disheartening. We rely greatly on
mortals bringing strange occurences to our attention. If they do not
these unintended happenings could have grave consequences. Exploiting
them for your own benefit is not only against the rules, but it's just
plain selfish.

We ask, simply, that if you come across something that is strange
or out of sorts, even if it benefits you in some way, to report it.

If you don't, we reserve the right to reverse any benefit you may
have gotten from the exploit and it will severely hinder our trust
in you.

*Report bugs that you find even if they benefit you. If you exploit
them, you'll lose whatever you gained and be difficult to trust in
the future.*

Mirandus
Archwizard of Players

Re: Exploiting odd behaviours

Posted: 15 Jan 2018 18:01
by Draugor
Tbh, if people dont report whats a clear bug, give them a death without recovery.

Re: Exploiting odd behaviours

Posted: 15 Jan 2018 18:58
by Toferth
Except often it's blurry.. like "is this npc supposed to see in dark or not".
Reporting everything can end up in _loads_ of false positives.

Re: Exploiting odd behaviours

Posted: 15 Jan 2018 21:24
by Zugzug
Knights reporting for 2 years that their rack duplicates items.

(according to the knights):

Wizards: "Hmm, we are just not sure if it's a bug. Maybe your rack is just very nice and made in canada? Can't really tell if it's a bug or not."

Oh, and see Mallor's suggestion about game crashing vs regular shutdown for losing a ton of equipment, please. I save automatically every hour, yet somehow that still doesn't affect anything.

Re: Exploiting odd behaviours

Posted: 15 Jan 2018 22:36
by gorboth
The Knight's rack was bugged due to a wizard adding new rack technology to numerous guilds without awareness that the technology would bug. This was nothing cheatery, it was just a bit of a sloppy mistake. Both good and evil guilds were involved in having the bug. As soon as I was made aware of it, I removed the rack and told the Knights they would not have a rack until it was one that didn't have any such bug in it.

Amazingly - the bug was fixed within hours of the Knights not having a rack! :-)

G.

Re: Exploiting odd behaviours

Posted: 16 Jan 2018 00:05
by Manglor
gorboth wrote:The Knight's rack was bugged due to a wizard adding new rack technology to numerous guilds without awareness that the technology would bug. This was nothing cheatery, it was just a bit of a sloppy mistake. Both good and evil guilds were involved in having the bug. As soon as I was made aware of it, I removed the rack and told the Knights they would not have a rack until it was one that didn't have any such bug in it.

Amazingly - the bug was fixed within hours of the Knights not having a rack! :-)

G.
There were more than a few however, in AA, that knew about the bug and deliberately abused it repeatedly. They knew full well that this was a bug and profited greatly from it.

What happened to them, when the bug was found?

Re: Exploiting odd behaviours

Posted: 16 Jan 2018 03:19
by Mirandus
There are a lot of types of bugs,

The one's I am talking about are ones that give you some sort of benefit you wouldn't normally get. If an NPC sees in the dark/doesn't that's not critical. If you can clone items, or sell something for WAY more then it costs to buy, or something that grants you a benefit you're not entitled to...that is different.

Re: Exploiting odd behaviours

Posted: 16 Jan 2018 05:58
by gorboth
Manglor wrote:
gorboth wrote:The Knight's rack was bugged due to a wizard adding new rack technology to numerous guilds without awareness that the technology would bug. This was nothing cheatery, it was just a bit of a sloppy mistake. Both good and evil guilds were involved in having the bug. As soon as I was made aware of it, I removed the rack and told the Knights they would not have a rack until it was one that didn't have any such bug in it.

Amazingly - the bug was fixed within hours of the Knights not having a rack! :-)

G.
There were more than a few however, in AA, that knew about the bug and deliberately abused it repeatedly. They knew full well that this was a bug and profited greatly from it.

What happened to them, when the bug was found?
Basically, they got lucky. Wizards can and do punish people who abuse bugs, but they do so as they see fit. In this case, we would have needed to punish a huge number of people who benefitted from the exploit. At some point, it makes more sense for the wizards to say - okay, this one was on us. It has been available for enough time that it has become a widespread thing that people are doing. At that point, we pretty much need to slap ourselves, fix the problem, and offer this face to everyone who abused the bug:


Image


But everyone should keep in mind that behind that vexed but amusing facial expression lies the heart of a merciless killer and eater of cheating mortals. In this case, the meal was too large for our appetite.

G.

Re: Exploiting odd behaviours

Posted: 16 Jan 2018 06:15
by Draugor
Thing is this tho, the bugs where reported, but nothing happened, so people should just not use the rack? Even if it doesent get fixed?

Knights reported theirs now and then for 2 years if you're gonna believe them, AA reported it atleast twice during that period when the rack went nuts.

Re: Exploiting odd behaviours

Posted: 16 Jan 2018 08:31
by gorboth
Totally true, Draugor! It wouldn't have made much sense to punish folks after wizards had a chance to fix the problems, and didn't. And, yes, there were reports. Not enough, but some. ;-)

I was away from the game for the bulk of this time. I came back, read a few reports, and decided to remove the rack until someone got around to fixing it. As stated previously, that happened amazingly fast. *grin*

G.