Warning on exploiting the game

I applaud the developers for addressing this early with a public post; I know that governance issues are nobody's favorite thing to tackle.

I realize this is controversial, but I've dealt with this in real-world contexts for a number of companies.

The most cost-effective and efficient solution to bug exploitation is a robust, well documented bug-bounty program.

This is particularly true of games. It won't stop dedicated groups from churning accounts and selling gold via a grey market, but it will redirect virtually all other hacking efforts to your cause.

There are two components that it has to have.

1) You need to give really solid rewards -- the kind that get your attention. Amazingly cool in-game goodies, significant amounts of store credit, and for really notable bugs, actual cash, enough to matter to someone. The rewards must scale with severity of the bug/exploit, and;
2) you need crystal clear rules that state you cannot get anything, and will actually get permanently banned, if you find a bug and either

a) share it with anyone except the dev team or
b) fail to file a report on it within X hours of using it Y times (24 hours / 3 times is good -- you're looking for a 100% defensible ban).​

Implement this and then give out some killer, public accolades listing the rewards received, and issue some crushing, public bans -- in both cases give detailed descriptions of the exploit you patched and name people rewarded or banned -- and you'll very quickly get rid of virtually all opportunistic, repetitive exploiting by otherwise great community members. You'll even find that you get overreporting -- stuff like "a dragon gets caught between these two trees and I've killed three of them" -- and you can then decide if it's a bug, or not.

Then you're free to focus on disrupting the account churners by IP address and accumulation velocity metrics.

 

well if any of these people were dukes they miss their lot placement (72 hour ban)

 

Serves them right if they were cheating exploiting or corpion exploiting..

 

First rule of Server/Client programming: Never Trust the Client.
Second rule of Server/Client programming: See Rule One.

 

On the other hand, Props to @Chris and the data collection in game that (I assume) allowed the perpetrators to be caught and actioned in short order.

 

@Berek @Chris if i was in Single player Offline And not connected to the Net, Am i free to do what i Like As in give myself tons of gold etc? as long as i dont try to do the same online?

 

Duke Nukem and Lord Green make excellent points. Although, I'm not sure that the mechanics to enforce either framework is yet in place. That said, it's worthwhile to put a bit of thought into both and the underlying principles behind them.

(Please forgive me in advance if this concept has been discussed elsewhere. I'm back from an extended absence.)

Duke Nukem brings up the idea that the experience of SOTA and the virtual IP that we create with it is a collective property, held in trust for us (the investors/participants) by Portalarium. Essentially, that it is a form of Commonwealth. I'm sure that Portalarium's legal team might take some issue with this idea, since the EULA protects Portalarium's IP rather tightly, but the concept is useful for the purpose of this topic.

I would suggest that the Portalarium Team, and those community members that advise them, consider the idea that an exploit of any kind is a sort of Theft. And that the Theft is an offense against the entire community (not just Portalarium's IP), which has some quantifiable value based on how that exploit devalues that which is the Common Good or Common Wealth.

This approach creates a mechanism where we, the community, are incentivised to assist Portalarium in policing this kind of behavior. And that would allow us to help lighten the administrative load on Portalarium, so they can focus on creating the best possible environment for us all.​

A Word of Warning - There is a slippery-slope to this reasoning. If we choose to treat exploits in this way, Portalarium may be well within their right to treat extreme examples of bad behavior as actual IRL theft of their IP (which it might very well be). I would prefer to see exploits and other bad behavior policed by (preferably) the community or (if necessary) by Portalarium. The idea of involving IRL Law Enforcement just doesn't seem to have any good endings to the Story.

 

Online Offline Online Offline Online Offline Online Offlin

 

Does this also include reporting exploits found while playing in offline mode? (clarification -- I'm referring to playing offline not disconnecting the network cable while playing online)

I would imagine that the exploits that are being used in offline mode are probably are things that need to be patched for online players as well. Chris mentioned that an exploit was patched on the server side. I would hate to see players get banned from a local version of a game, and they might not even think to post a bug report because they might not even look to the forums an see this thread. Maybe they need to get a notification.

 

@Berek and @Chris after answering @HogwinHD ya mind letting us know if AFK Macro'ing a gustball is considered an exploit. I'm guessing no, since they're still functioning in-game.
Damnable gustballs!

 

In offline mode, we don't even log in, so technically the players can be banned from editing save or memory, right?

 

Cleary in the EULA, not being there is not allowed. They cannot do a thing about macros since to many tools can do it, AFK no, NO.

 

I think they should be banish to WOW or something

 

I've always liked public stockades

 

Way to hit a nerve. Well, I am glad to see them take a firm stance now regarding exploits. Let the gustball debate continue.

 

Lol, it's good to be back.

 

Our great PvP just went up a notch '...

~Can You Smell What the Rock is Cookin~

Welcome back DavenRock !'
~Time Lord~

 

BWAHAHA....no.

 

got eeeeem

 

"I know you're cheating somehow O'Sullivan! But am I" ?'

~Time Lord~