I have been known to specifically use the term integrity when I discuss guild leadership and Sodality specifically. It has been a key pillar in everything I’ve done since I was first given an officer flag. When I say that we conduct ourselves in that fashion, I don’t just mean as individuals but as a guild. To us, integrity always meant that we would tackle raid encounters as they were intended to be completed and never by exploiting. By our very tenets a victory outside of the “rules” was no victory at all.
Many years ago, in a game called EverQuest, it seemed that the developers had this exact same mentality. Sony GMs were known to over-react to even the slightest hint of impropriety. Guild officers would be permanently banned and whole organizations suspended when something was done in a dubious fashion. Sometimes they got things wrong and created a customer service nightmare. Most of the time, however, those that were punished knew they had done wrong.
These days it seems that nobody is really concerned with fair play. Players routinely use dubious tactics that I would consider near exploiting when it comes to raids and group encounters. Their justification? “If the game allows it, it must be okay!” How misguided and shameful is that? Anyone who has been around a while knows that QA shops are undervalued and under-staffed. They can’t catch everything. What is even worse, however, is that customer service (who is also under staffed) and management allow this behavior!
When you think about banning today you immediately assume that the player was a gold seller, channel spammer or inappropriate language user. Suspensions are also pretty darn rare. We live in an industry that is more or less all or nothing (nothing being the more frequent choice). I really have to ask the question: are we so afraid to lose one customer here or there? Even if they’re bad for the game? When I see a player exploit and get away with it, I am saddened. It is like cheating at Monopoly. If this behavior is carried over into competitive raiding it is far more devastating.
It was our commitment to doing encounters as intended that kept Iniquity from ever being that highly ranked world wide in EQ2. As much as I respect Scott and his crew they just didn’t ban anyone for cheating. We literally caught a guild exploiting, sent screen shots and video and no actions were taken other than to fix the mob. Which, in truth, was pretty hilarious. That guild, who shall remain nameless, got quite huffy with me on the public forums when I called them out for exploiting. They claimed they didn’t! The mob, however, was removed from the game not two hours later and was gone for over a month. That pretty much let everyone know this guild had cheated and a server community can be a harsh mistress.
I feel like MMO designers should be more involved in this issue, however. Many people just see these games as diversion but the fun can really be destroyed by cheating. If you won’t put up with someone cheating in Scrabble why would you do so in World of Warcraft? It is time we challenge our developers and ask for more. Lets hold guilds and players accountable to their actions and restore fair play to our beloved games. Bring back the suspensions. Return onto us the bans! Increase the customer service budget so there can be enforcement and let everyone know that if they consistently break the rules they’ll find themselves looking for a new game. The community will be better for it.
All characters are © 2007 - 2012
I’m of two minds on this.
First, any and all players outright cheating and hacking should be banned forever, their houses burned down and their families cursed to the 10th generation. There is no excuse for that kind of behavior.
However, when it comes to exploiting there’s a lot more grey areas. You often hear two expressions when it comes to exploits:
-creative use of game mechanics
-exploiting an encoutner
Now most people agree that clever players should be rewarded and not punished even if it was not “intented” for an encounter. They once added a raid boss in WoW that used to heal itself to full health frequently if certain conditions where met. Players discovered an ability that reduced a target healing received by 20%. When applied to the boss it meant he never healed to full. In the end it was not intended but can you really punish players for using an ability? The other example I like was a boss that used a charge mechanic but players found a way to position him in a corner so he could not charge anything but the designated tank. Is using the terrain an exploit or a sign of intelligence?
I’ve been in a progression guild working on new bosses. Often we would find ways to take down a boss and we weren’t sure if it was the right way or not. Did we figure out the trick or did we find an exploit? It’s hard to reach into the developper mind and figuring it all out.
All this to say that I’d rather have devs fix encounters and not ban players for exploits on encounter. Change the encounter, fix it, and pat the players on the back for their creative minds.
You make some good points about creative tactics. I see some of those as not so grey though. For the reduction on healing, if the effect works on the monster, it is safe to assume it is okay. If it isn’t, they’ll patch that.
Facing a mob into a corner is also smart tactics. Getting a mob stuck in the geometry, however, so he can’t charge is an exploit in my eyes. If the mob is charging into that corner at the main tank, that is just good aggro management.
You’re right though. There are questionable situations. I think if CSRs were more available, however, and gave guidance we’d be okay. Obviously nobody would be banned on a first offense. The CSR would just say, “Hey guys, that is an exploit. Please don’t do it again.” Habitual offenders, however, aren’t needed.
My disdain for exploiters is epic. Truly. Most of it comes from my days in EQ2.
There are a few good articles about the difference between emergent solutions and exploiting.
http://www.hartsman.com/2009/07/18/emergent-play-in-mmos-its-about-the-balance/
http://thatsaterribleidea.blogspot.com/2009/06/emergent-solutions-vs-exploitative.html
I’m pretty sure it can be hard to decide which is which at times, but some effort should be made. The informed CSR approach might be a good way to go.
Exploiting is like porn, you know it when you see it.
I think it has to do with the dynamics of large companies and also with the American customer service ethic.
From a game point of view banning people who exploit clearly makes sense. It’s a much better game if people have to win by skill rather than exploiting pathing or something.
From a business point of view banning also makes sense. Once it’s clear to the community that you ban exploiters then you actually have to deal with relatively few exploiters. Most people stay well within the bounds if they believe punishment is effective and inevitable for cheating.
However once your a big company you have dedicated customer service staff dealing with problems as they come up. And players will whine and complain and go above people’s heads and threaten law suits to get their way.
I think this is a particularly American problem because Americans are much more inclined to complain. In an English restaurant if the food is served lukewarm the customer will almost invariably just eat it. American visitors invariably send it back and may even send the replacement back for the smallest fault.
So you have your poor harassed customer service team and what they basically want to do is move on with their lives by satisfying the customer. They don’t want to deny the complainer and they particularly don’t want to back a customer into a hole where the only option less is serial complaining/threats of legal action.
I was actually thinking about simply not having customer service at all beyond the minimal for the game I’ve been pootling around with. Got a problem? Send us the error log and re-download the client. Got banned? Sorry, no appeals, in fact you’re not even a customer any more so this service is closed to you. *Click*.
Harsh but it’s annoying watching game design being driven by whining. Don’t think it helps us get good games.
The problem is a business one, not cultural as Stabs says. Look at it in pure dollars and cents: if someone is exploiting an encounter, what is the cost of banning vs. not banning.
Cost of banning = loss of income from banned + loss of income from friends who leave.
Cost of not banning = loss of income from people upset about the incident.
The truth is that in most cases the loss of income from banning is greater, at least in the short term. Did you or any of your guild quit after reporting that guild for exploiting Ferrel? If not, then Sony made the right decision. Banning the exploiters would have only lost Sony some income.
I know this from personal experience on the other side. In Meridian 59, a lovely dupe bug was discovered many years after launch; in theory this bug was in the game since the beginning. I added code on the server side to detect it, but not stop it unless I set a flag. I let the exploiters go on for a few days then stopped the bug and used the logs to ban everyone who had exploited. In the end, we banned about 5% of our player base at that point.
The sad truth is, however, that we saw no return on that. In fact, people were furious because we didn’t fix the issue fast enough, and we banned some “good” people who felt they had to exploit the problem to “compete”. We didn’t see people re-subscribe in numbers greater than the number we had banned. In the end, it was a business loss for us to do the right thing and punish cheaters by banning them. That’s really unfortunate, in my opinion.
My thoughts.
I can’t really disagree with you Brian. It most certainly does result in a loss of income. I suppose when I talk about banning I usually see it on a smaller scale. One or two at a time after some warnings. Were any warnings given to the exploiters?
You’re also correct. None of us quit after witnessing the exploiting. We were, however, validated so our case is not a fair example. The exploiters weren’t banned but they were more or less publicly shamed since the mob was removed immediately after they completed the encounter.
Fair != money
I’m with Brian on this one. Working as a developer (not games tough) when a bug/exploit is found it’s the responsability of the devs to fix it. Punishing users will more often than not cost you customers and make you look like a sloppy developer.
On the other hand you can fix the bug and “congratulate” the players who found it. Not fair at all from a game perspective but in the end everyone is a winner. It’s not the players fault a bug exists after all and many gamers are of a mind that if something is possible in a game without outright hacking then it’s okay to do so.
In the end its a number game like Brian said. You want to keep the maximum customers and your decision should reflect that.