Clone Wars, The Exploit... Continuation

[oMek]

Eyelet is spot on here, I have a VK that was sold to Incon himself and certainly duped many many times. Infact I am told that it was duped 285 times. now because its sister that was made with the same serial number motor is also flagged. I think the problem is that it is breaking down to the component level and flagging everything with those components without cross referencing if the sister item's serial number has ever been duped because I know that it has not been. and I know the sub components are not duped either because I personally looted them 2 of them and crafted both myself. so only the final craft could have been duped which should be easy to check the serial number of both final crafts and see that serial x has been duped x times and serial Y has not been duped at all.

From what I gather, comps could be duped from crafted items. and staff has no way to tell which comp/item was original or duped so everything gets flagged.

Dump a copy of bas to another HD, hell I will send staff one. Use that to work on the tools and wipe the server!

[lordkator]

From what I gather, comps could be duped from crafted items. and staff has no way to tell which comp/item was original or duped so everything gets flagged.

Dump a copy of bas to another HD, hell I will send staff one. Use that to work on the tools and wipe the server!

FYI there are 500 Million objects in Basilisk's db. The sceneobjects table alone if 633 Gigs... When I dump the entire db to JSON it consumes about 1TB of disk space for just one snapshot.

The reason we keep Basilisk alive is not just the database, without players the database is useless. How exactly would we be able to monitor 1 million+ transactions a day that happen on basilisk if it's just a database on a disk somewhere?

The wipe will come!

Sadly I lost five months of my life to these people, I could have been coding on other parts of the project all that time.

[stilgarfett]

We're talking about the *components* the duped items were made with. Components that were legit but because of *one* final product being duped, all other products made from those components ending up being flagged. Again we seem to be observing the behavior that it doesn't just flag the original item as duped too, I'm aware it may be difficult to distinguish that. The issue is about *sister items* from the same batch of legit components being flagged only because one of them was duped at some point down the road. These items should be easily distinguishable because they share nothing with the dupe other than *legit* components.

Could you please check if that is happening, or whether we're misinterpreting the reason why some items are being flagged? For example this rifle. Neither it nor any of its components have ever left my hands, the only reasons I can imagine it being flagged is that crafted components from the same batch ended up in other rifles that got duped, or of course that one resource from one of the crafted components is affected, which is always difficult to figure out.

This is a very important point that has wide reaching impacts. I completely understand flagging and deleting items (be they finished crafts or components) that were actually duped. But to also delete any other items that were legitimately crafted from non-duped components creates a broad ripple effect of tons of items being deleted from many players who never did anything wrong. It would be great to distinguish between the legit and duped items and limit the impact to only the duped items. Otherwise there are many innocent players who will lose many millions of credits even though they only crafted legit items or bought items they had no reason to doubt were completely legit.

[Pitchcontrol]

I'm sorry but it is IMPOSSIBLE to know what is valid in a batch of items if one was duped.

These people would borrow weapons and dupe them and often give back the dupe!

They would dupe items they were crafting with even after having sold other items they crafted with those resources.

It's not a false positive, it's reality.

Oh and quite a sad example of greed at its worst.

And what if you first delete all duped items from the players that are banned? After you deleted those items, you do another scan for dupes on community? This might unflag a bunch of items? Most of their duped items where probably stored in their houses and banks...

[kenobuOwan]

I'm sorry but it is IMPOSSIBLE to know what is valid in a batch of items if one was duped.

These people would borrow weapons and dupe them and often give back the dupe!

They would dupe items they were crafting with even after having sold other items they crafted with those resources.

It's not a false positive, it's reality.

Oh and quite a sad example of greed at its worst.

So then leave the items... don't delete them. The vast majority of the 6k is junk with maybe 500-1k anything of value. Delete the stuff from those temp-banned.

it's only hurting alot of innocent people. Consider it a gift to the community.

[Poobacca]

So then leave the items... don't delete them. The vast majority of the 6k is junk with maybe 500-1k anything of value. Delete the stuff from those temp-banned.

it's only hurting alot of innocent people. Consider it a gift to the community.

He said if they leave the duped items in game it will corrupt the code and destabilize the server (or something to that effect). Get rid of all of it. Most important keep the people that were involved out of the game even 1.0+. No more VPNs to hide behind either.

[neutrineaux]

Please consider a server wipe at this time. A server wipe with end-stage beta would be apropriate prior to launce of 1.0, and this is certainly a reasonable way to address the duped items as well as treat everyone fairly.

Also, please consider a sub-lifetime ban on the participants. A harsh ban, yes. But we do not really have a gigantic population. Permanently culling dozens or hundreds of players may not be the best approach long term.

Just my thoughts as someone who did not participate in RMT or duping.


The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

[lordkator]

Please consider a server wipe at this time. A server wipe with end-stage beta would be apropriate prior to launce of 1.0, and this is certainly a reasonable way to address the duped items as well as treat everyone fairly.

Also, please consider a sub-lifetime ban on the participants. A harsh ban, yes. But we do not really have a gigantic population. Permanently culling dozens or hundreds of players may not be the best approach long term.

Just my thoughts as someone who did not participate in RMT or duping.

We have 5,000 active players a month, we're not worried about 40 people who aren't good for the community anyway.

I of all people desire a wipe but we're not ready yet, these situations actually help us improve our tools, the scale of Basilisk's dumpster fire is very useful for tools to put out fires in our 1.0 server.

[trasixes]

We have 5,000 active players a month, we're not worried about 40 people who aren't good for the community anyway.

I of all people desire a wipe but we're not ready yet, these situations actually help us improve our tools, the scale of Basilisk's dumpster fire is very useful for tools to put out fires in our 1.0 server.

Can you imagine the disaster it would've been if the wipe had been a year ago, and this dupe method crept into the new server? So you're obviously right - take your time. Take out the garbage, first.

[neutrineaux]

We have 5,000 active players a month, we're not worried about 40 people who aren't good for the community anyway.

I of all people desire a wipe but we're not ready yet, these situations actually help us improve our tools, the scale of Basilisk's dumpster fire is very useful for tools to put out fires in our 1.0 server.

I offer this will all sincerity and humility:

If you are truly not worried about the impact this may have (is having) on your player base, you would be well advised to seek advise from others in customer service/communications industries. I have a lot of contact with a couple of these folks who either play or have played this and other MMOs. Some outcomes of the decisions being made have potential serious long-term consequences that do not appear to be factored in, at least from visible indicators.

Again, I offer this with humility, as someone in a customer service industry with contacts as mentioned. No offense or hostile criticism intended.

[cmurphy50]

I offer this will all sincerity and humility:

If you are truly not worried about the impact this may have (is having) on your player base, you would be well advised to seek advise from others in customer service/communications industries. I have a lot of contact with a couple of these folks who either play or have played this and other MMOs. Some outcomes of the decisions being made have potential serious long-term consequences that do not appear to be factored in, at least from visible indicators.

Again, I offer this with humility, as someone in a customer service industry with contacts as mentioned. No offense or hostile criticism intended.

This is a test server. Always has been. Always will be. Customer service isn't really a concern. This isn't a business.

[ForceFielding]

This is a test server. Always has been. Always will be. Customer service isn't really a concern. This isn't a business.

Than why ban the dupers???

Why not let them back in so they can try to do more stuff like that so that it can be fixed?

It's just a test server, right?

[neutrineaux]

This is a test server. Always has been. Always will be. Customer service isn't really a concern. This isn't a business.

The test server part seems irrelevant -- we all know that, and saying it does not address my point in any way; but as to the "not a business" assertion, a business may be defined as "any project with which one is concerned; a person, partnership, or corporation engaged in... a service; that with which someone is seriously concerned; a project."

So yes, it is a business.

And customer service is absolutely a concern. Thus the presence of CSR/Customer Service Representatives.

But all that aside, I was just making an observation with my personal recommendation based on "the buzz" from other players. I assume a server wipe with terminal beta (or multiple final betas) will happen before final launch. This seems like a good time for that, from my perspective. Ultimately, the developers know what they want from a wipe and terminal beta, and I am not privy to that information. Please consider my wipe suggestion in that light.

And when I have checked the number of people logged in, it has been down more than the 40/5000ths that would be a direct hit from the banned accounts. Maybe the fallout is short-term, and admittedly my data is limited and anecdotal. Either way, treating your customers in a way that promotes loyalty is a basic business tenet. And my hope is to promote that being giving an extra modicum of consideration.

Also, the mention of leaving cheaters in the game so you can follow them and see how much more cheating they come up with may have been offered sincerely or sarcastically, but that does have merit. In fact, add the most clever offenders to the dev team, a la FBI, to hunt for weaknesses in the system.

But when the 1.0 launch occurs, give them a generous less-than-forever-ban as the price for their transgressions.

[Lolindir]

As you can see in my 2nd post, we know what items are on the duped accounts. Deleting items on banned accounts and make a new scan will not change what we have found on active accounts.

[Pitchcontrol]

As you can see in my 2nd post, we know what items are on the duped accounts. Deleting items on banned accounts and make a new scan will not change what we have found on active accounts.

They traded weapons for other weapons with a trade back option on it. So they duped those and than used the trade back option to give the original weapon back to that person who had no clue it was duped. Some of those dupes where sold and hit the community, but some where stored in a bank or house of the dupers and where not sold to other people. So if you delete all duped items from the accounts that are involved in this ponzi sceme. There is a chance that only the original item will exist on the server.