EZ Server

Exploit

So today I received a message about folks exploiting Magorian at the last day of an event that was already extended fairly graciously

Context

We originally had Magorian at a 8 hour cooldown per instance because that was the intended cooldown for him to be spawning. Several Halloween events folks expressed frustration over waiting for this so we lifted it to be nice and probably shouldn't have done so

Because of this complete lift, folks found a hole and decided that it was ok to exploit respawning Magorian over and over again to get loot of certain items at an accelerated rate that was appropriate for an NPC that spawned once per player, once per 8 hour cycle

On one hand I'm disappointed that even though we changed mechanics to make it easier for players, that the server also didn't say anything about this for what looks like two events now.

On another hand, I'm impressed with the amount of people who have fessed up to doing this and it matches just about everyone I see in the logs and my data

Fairness

For other context, I believe in passing judgement for these sorts of things in a fair manner.

There's no sense in massive bans when folks may have made honest mistakes should be given another chance, but if they continue to completely disregard that second chance that's when there's no excuse and a ban should be issued.

I'm known to give suspensions and item revocation instead of a hard ban because we're all players, we all play against the system in the best way we know how and sometimes that involves a little gray area from time to time and given a second chance I've seen people turn it into something positive more times than just flexing bans.

There are times when bans make sense, there are times where suspension, or extended suspension with item revocation make sense

All I ultimately care is that folks are having fun playing on the server enjoying the content and having a place they can escape life.

Everyone uses macros, everyone automates things to certain degrees, its part of the ethos that is EZ server

Where the line is less grayed, is when exploits are being made that clearly unbalance the server in ways that are hard to deny. When these exploits sit around all the are doing is ruining things for you and other players, so just call them out.

Historically we have a great community of players and this has been no problem and we've had exploits reported and they usually were compensated for being honest and forthright because that is the kind of attitude we want in our community

Action

At this point, there's a good amount of people that were involved here. You know who you are

We ran a 10 day because 2020 has been a suck year and we want folks to have fun, I've been beyond busy to put on anything else. The event is already overly giving, it was designed to multiply the rest of your play time at EZ to a blatant degree.

Its just disappointing that folks would think that these things are not logged, recorded and can't be traced because its all there and you might as well not waste your time

Before I do anything, I'm going to leave it open forum for a while

At this point I'm not sure that we should even do actual Halloween during Halloween because of this

What do you think is fair? What do YOU think should happen? This is your server and your community

I will be the first to come out, and admit that I was one of the people who exploited this. I know better, I know that there are logs kept, but I got greedy. There is no justification as an above average player of Everquest and EZServer to not realize that what we were doing was an exploit, and clearly not intended. I have always tried to be helpful (if not a smart ass) whenever I can, and want to apologize to everyone who may be affected by mine, and other's poor decisions. While the exploit in question didn't directly harm anyone (other than shaking screens constantly), I understand why Akkadius feels the way he does, as I'm sure he hopes that players like myself would report this type of thing, not abuse it for a week.

I would implore you, Akkadius, to not punish the general server population by withholding future events, they had no part in the abuse of this exploit, and should not be punished for the actions of a minority.

I will accept whatever Akkadius, or the general consensus deems fit. I've never cared for people who exploit, and simply got caught up in the loot pinata. I apologize to Akkadius for putting him in a position to have to deal with this, and hope to be able to move on from it.

-Dracawarrior

 Icestriker

I want to personally apologize to Akkadius. You gave us the Halloween event and we did take advantage of Megorian to get items for our toons.
For this I apologize. I honestly don't think it would be fair to stop the Halloween event. I personally think you could suspend my account for the next event.
to let others get items that we took for granted. Please take this into consideration. I personally will never do this again.

                                                                                                                                                                                Icestriker

I didnt do this, but might have looted an item from this being done /shrug if it was and it is taken that is fine i will work to get another.

My only question is, why is Gavin Newsom a fag?

Run some queries on the logs, identify the XXXPLAYER has gone offline messages, nuke the loot acquired from that kill.  It sounds like the exploit involved dropping the character from the world and logging back in with some interval so it should be easy to identify based on that.  Blanket bans and rollbacks aren't Akka's style and frankly wouldn't accomplish a whole lot anyhow.  Maybe identify players that are active and trustworthy and deputize them since there is no GM presence to keep people honest.  With all the instancing and dynamic zones, it's unrealistic to expect the server to police itself.  None of these ideas are fleshed out in the least, I just wanted to throw them in for the sake of sparking conversation.

Look for less identification because I have it all, looking more for more what people think in terms of what action should actually be taken on behalf of said actions

I too was involved in this, when I discovered a couple days ago that magorian would respawn after i left the zone and came back. I felt special and spoiled like it was my birthday. I admit I did not even take a second to consider what was broken about it, I just focused on making him dead until the cycle broke itself. It was fun not knowing weather I would get only 1 or 10+ kills on him before he stopped spawing. I could see that I was not the only one getting the spawns, I saw the message spam again and again and FOMO brought me right back to it as soon as I could spawn him again.

After talking to Akka, I really can see his point how this sort of thing can make the server unbalanced. It's not really fair that we can kill the top boss so many times while others are struggling to make even just one set and some people weren't even able to get one. I allowed greed to get the best of me and I admitted immediately to Akka what I had done, but I was not the one to report the flaw and I feel that I should have, looking back.

It's easy to get caught up when all you see are stars and it feels like this is the best thing that's happened to you in as long as you remember. The high I experienced when I killed him has seldom been matched, I would say it's like seeing a GSS after you've spent a week trying to get even one.

I fully accept responsibility for these actions and the consequences that come because of them. It really hurts to see Akka say they may not even be able to play the event now, when I was the one that was in the wrong here. I am truly sorry I was apart of this, I have made a habit of looking out for and helping others in this game and I fell so far from my own example.
-Arkain

How about they all go get a face and nose hair wax. Post the video on YouTube, post here for us to watch. Not only does that seem painful but it will give us all a good laugh.

Will give my two cents on the matter of exploits cheating in video games period ...For me are the folks involved really sorry they did it? or sorry they got caught if Akka didnt say anything i think just my opinion i doubt anyone would have fessed up to anything so for me my vote is perma ban or delete toons and make them start from scratch start all over it says in the rules there are consequences for breaking said rules if nothing is done or not firm enough people will exploit in the future or break the rules sry if no one agrees but thats my two cents on the matter peace 





                                                                                                                                                                    kleo williams

as a somewhat newer player i don't have really any idea how offensive or inoffensive the exploit was, but i'm generally against bans since we have a relatively small playerbase and the low-mid tier players rely on the higher tier guys for info, advice and help. also cancelling the halloween event would be a bummer and would punish those of us who have already suffered so much traumatic screen shaking :D

checken

IMHO I think that delete items gained by the expoiters, and never take off the lockout again. I wasn't involved, but seems like most of the exploiters were end gamers anyway. Short suspension maybe. :(

On another note can we get pumpkins in nexus flameless next time. It lags out some older/slower systems. :-[

In my opinion, Halloween is, itself, a kind of "exploit." It is a chance to earn 2x loot, ZP, and amazing augs as well as phenomenal XP over a short period of time.  Ice, Draca, and whoever else are able to pull off this exploit are so far above me in the game that, hearing they did is a little like being at mile 5 in a marathon and hearing that the people in the front at mile 22 had the sweat knocked off their brows to reduce weight.

Now, I've had my own vanilla server and I know first hand how it ruins the game to be able to walk up to Quarm in PoTimeB and do a #destroy. If having fun is the goal of the server, then having god-like powers to kill instantly the toughest thing is a killer. However, so is the mindless killing for days and days hoping for a GSoA or a T5 mob to pop.

Enter the exploiters. If we are honest with ourselves, one of the great joys of the game is to progress even the tiniest amount. However, another, often overlooked joy is to help someone else. I relish the fact that I can be a person that is able to take a newbie by the hand and help push them through something that would take them weeks to accomplish on their own.  When I get bored of the monotonous killing, being able to give someone new the rush of progress not only gives me a shot of dopamine, but helps them, too. Ice and Draca, and whoever else was exploiting have helped my char numerous times and given me the rush of being a helped newbie. Now that I'm able to help others I can see both sides of the being helped and helping coin. Yet, for Ice, Draca, and whoever else was exploiting the event....who is there to give them the thrill of being helped get better? They are the top! I'm not excusing what they did, but I completely understand the rush of getting loot that by all rights you didn't earn.

I would not like to see anyone banned. In my opinion the presence of Ice, Draca, and whoever else that was using the exploit doesn't affect my game play in the slightest. As I said, they are so far out in front of me and my crew that it's meaningless to be jealous or feel they have harmed me because they and/or their alts got the tiniest bit better. Their giving back to the community greatly outweighs any perceived slight I may have experienced in hearing of their cheating.  

Punishment? Permanently change their race to fairy.

Many years ago when haloween first came out there was a full roll back due to a few individuals exploiting the new content.  I had just worked up to my first couple of UW's with some serious legit grinding that week then poof they were gone due to a few that found the loopholes. I was pissed.  I think that it's very unfair to punish the entire community over a few individuals, the rules come up every time u log in.  IMO a total banishment (although stated in the rules) would be extremely harsh, but a slap on the wrists may not deter future exploits, since many have tried and been busted in the past.  I believe an individual rollback would be more in order since they fessed up to it, it seems fair, I'm sure u have the logs that can do that.  Wouldn't blame u if you weren't so generous in the future with the extensions like this although the community as a whole will now pay the price.

First off, thank you Akka for the event, and the extension you gave us all, much appreciated

This seems to be a small handful of end players who just got carried away as they have the ability to take advantage of a loophole
Some if not all of these have publicly admitted to atm, you know who they are

These are well respected players and always help others / give helpful info where needed and are an asset to us all
To ban them would be a disadvantage to the server as a whole and the server would suffer

To me you have a few options, prob more than these
1. Putting timer back on, if this will fix the issue
2. Have a private discussion with the players involved though email/discord to discuss
3. Roll back to the end of the original event on offending characters
4. Delete all but acceptable amount of special HW loot / percentage of spears/instance tokens on all offending characters
5. Just a warning that they have all been very naughty boys  ;D

I'm just sorry this had to be put on you to sort out at all

I don't think banning events from the whole server is a favored option, as the majority played within the rules
Again, punishing the server for the actions of a few, but it is your decision in the end and is respected

I hope we can put all this behind us very soon and move on to more enlightened topics

It did seem strange that there was magorian kills like every 30 seconds for hours after the original end time.

Personally I'd suggest a roll back to just before the event started for those characters that did the triggers/their bots and deletion of any loot from those kills as they did likely offer a lot of loot out to people as a side effect - minor punishments for exploiting just encourage it to continue next time. Either way  :(

i would like to thank you for the awesome extended halloween event. dracawarrior and icestriker have helped me so many times while playing here.they are very nice players and funny lol. i do think that all who were involved should be named on the site.we all make mistakes and this is, and hopefully will be there only offense. i played eq for years and this is such a blast from the past.i have made some great friends along my short time here.hi sikkaan brogok. as for punishment i think posting the offenders names is shame enough.p.s. pleqase look into my guild request :P

I have thought about this for a bit and talked to Icestriker....he is my friend so i am trying not to be biased in my analysis of the situation. I think that any account that participated in this exploit (but didn't loot any items from the chest Magorian drops) should be rolled back to before the event and suspended during next HW event.  Any account that participated in the exploit and LOOTED items from the treasure chest, that's a different matter....I am concerned because in the past I would jump on the BAN WAGON fast...but like I said i am biased as these guys are friends and guildies and i have a lot of respect for them all....it is very complicated but we do have a rather small community and many of these guys (not myself) are very helpful to the community....that should also play a roll.  If it was someone like me who didn't help other people that often I would say throw the book at them....I would not punish the entire community by banning the next HW event.  Maybe put the timer on Magorian again...disable zp in HW zone...make it so that the lockout timer on completion of the Magorian event locks all accounts out for 24 hours by ip address (if that is possible) so that other people aren't feeling screwed out of an inability to even spawn Magorian and thus inadvertantly fueling possible exploiting......

Arkain, Draca, and Icestriker are all well known on the server for always being helpful. Ignoring this fact is not helpful. I don't know who else was involved as they didn't announce themselves here, but speaking from my experience with these 3 that makes me feel that I really don't have an issue. As far as I knew, all three of them didn't really benefit from "extra" farming, they were all maxed and even had MULTIPLE warriors maxed. Was it wrong? Yes, but as far as I know they caused no harm to other players. And it's far more likely they'd use those additional resources to help others (as is there track record BEFORE the incident, I would imagine that all this scrutiny would only cause them to be even more helpful). This isn't a competitive server really, I mean it kinda is with the leader board, but I don't think it's accurate nor does anyone care. There's no IRL monetary gain for them. This is a game, and even more than that, it's a splinter of a game (albeit imo better than the original). This was a self-serving exploit, no competitive advantage was gained. So here's my thoughts:

1.) Ban is not an option, even with the rules, I think it'd be silly to Ban 3 or more of the most influential and helpful members of this server.
2.) Personalized rollback - this is a possibility, it makes more work for Akka, but it does seem to be the best way
3.) Ban from next event - This may be a possibility, but again, with them being as influential and helpful to the server, this may be more of a punishment to the server.

Here's my idea (Something more subjective and less objective):

4.)  They are required to do "Community Service" hours, where on their honor ALL loot and time spent on the server for X * 8 hours (X being # of times Magorian was exploited) is used to serve others, ie; helping kill corals in Abyss, OC pulls, UW farming, etc.
This could be on their honor system, but we can even make it MORE categorical by having a thread for each offender and having people post in there how many hours they were helped until the total required "Community Service" is reached.

They did something wrong, but they didn't commit a crime, harm the server or get an UNFAIR competitive advantage (again, there's no advantage to be gained when there's no competition). They got greedy and thought they found a loot piñata. Look at it for what it is, there's no need to white knight this or try and look at it purely objectively. These aren't rando's here to harm the community and server, they are LARGE parts of this community and server.

Self hazing is the key with vids so we can laugh.

Even if you were to roll their characters back to level 1 most of the guildies including myself would log back on and give them everything they need so they'd be back to where they were minus HW items within a week. Probably back in Sleepers in 2 weeks.

The population on the server already sucks and those 3 actually help everyone.

All 3 are both guildies and friends, but I don't know why people think that they shouldn't be held to the same standard as anyone in the same situation.  I don't know what penance needs to be exacted, but it should be a bit more than a shoulder shrug of indifference.

Judgment should never be done in a vacuum. Taking into account what they have/haven't done leading up to the event isn't a shrug of indifference; it's determining if this is behavior is a pattern or a one off. It's determining if this was a single bad judgment call or a constant goal of skirting the system.  Yes; in a MMO with HUNDREDs of THOUSANDs of players, you can be more strict because there's not enough time or capability to review the actions of the individual on this basis; but we are not even hundreds of players on this server... we're like maybe 50 people total? It's worth it to take the time and actually take action based on who they are, not JUST what they've done.

A repeat offender is not treated with the same judgment as a first time offender. A penitent individual who's shown a history of giving and helpfulness to the community should not be judged the same as someone who's given nothing to the community and has only sought to self-serve and constantly seek to exploit. Yes, we should try to hold people to the same standards when we cannot judge their character, but in this instance we CAN judge their character; so why are we shirking that responsibility?

I am not advocating for a shoulder shrug, but obviously taking into account who they are as a player and member of the community is necessary. To not do so would be foolish and callous.

Roll the offenders back and lock them out during next Halloween. No sense rolling everyone back because of a handful of people. If you do roll everyone back, I suggest you re-run the event with the timer back on for Mago.

I agree. Rules are rules, you cant just save up enough karma points to get away with murder. Sparing them will onley make it seem like you can get on the nice list on the server, and then do what you want. I know i exaggerate, but whats done is done, and comming out when you get caught is not the same as reporting a bug after a few "tests"

If its just a slap on the wrist and a harsh talk, then it seems like you can get favors with the devs. Im sorry for the people who are involved.

Thanks for everyone who has responded to the thread

• Original Magorian cooldown has been returned
• The ability to bypass realm checks has been removed
• Anyone who exploited Magorian this round and last round has had any DL/TL/ZP loot subtracted from the exploited kills

Nice none of my stuff was taken away after this :)



-edit - I hope everyone knows I'm joking... I haven't been playing... so no gear taken away because I didn't exploit :)

Wow, no Majorian gear rolled back, lotta <Origins> made out pretty good on that deal.

Akka just said you guys also need to haze yourself by waxing off your right eyebrow, walk to the crowded areas of your town for a mile without a mask, have a penis drawn on the left side of your cheek and record people's reaction.

True story.

Jealous ? not at all I just prefer getting my loot the legit way sorry, obviously you don't agree with that concept.

No exploited mago gear rolled back? Wha... what?

A slap on the wrist it is...

Ego's stroked, its now become a pathetic buff/help overcompensation.

No one else has ever helped anyone else on this server before....pffffffff

Can't wait for the next, (now probably watered down) HW event.

ok here is my 2 cents..

Im not new, I have been on this server for a long time, I did take a extended break but I'm back and grinding my butt off. I can't get out of t2 cause of chest spawn rates but cheating has never come into my mind. I abhor it.

That being said, I understand the pull to take a few extra shots at getting ahead.

Since it breaks the rules clearly stated, my opinion for punishment would follow as such :

Since logs tell the truth, removing everything from previous event from the inventory of those who were at fault and a ban on event zones or events in general for the upcoming event the rest of us deserve.

Lets not forget the same people who abused this and benefited from it, also more then likely donated and helped us all by keeping the server running. this should be taken into account as well..

ultimately the decision lands on management, and we will all deal with that decision as follows.

I think removing players and toons from the server hurts us all, Removing events hurts us all.

Make the punishment targeted.

I know this post was old, but I just learned of it :)