Exploits and banning at DDO

[Rumbaar]

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=172475

The following activities are considered to be violations of the Terms of Service:

    * Using summoned items or creatures to trigger a game bug
    * Purposely using any method that causes monsters or NPCs to become completely unresponsive.
    * Bypassing a door, forcefield, barrier or other geometry which causes monsters or quest events on the other side to become unresponsive.
    * Purposely causing monsters to become stuck or unresponsive on geometry.
    * Using a game bug to remove any or all danger to yourself and/or party.
    * Using any method to repeatedly loot a chest without repeating the quest objectives/content/monster encounters associated with the chest.
    * Using any method to loot a chest or accept quest reward with any character who did not complete the related quest objective from start to finish.
    * Bypassing a quest timer or flagging mechanic which allows you to complete a quest or objective more often than allowed.
    * Any method of removing quest-only weapons, soul stones, or items from a quest instance and/or selling them on via the Marketplace or Auction House.
    * Communicating details on how to exploit, or indicating quests which may be exploited in public. (Including in the LFM panel. Vague comments on your play style are welcome in the Who Panel or your Character Profile.)

The following activities are NOT considered to be violations, but tactics ("cheesy" or not), that may or may not be "fixed" in the future.

    * Corralling a monster in a corner or other area, as long as the monster remains "conscious" and continues to attempt defense and/or escape.
    * Using the environment (not a ladder) to climb to another location that does not result in monsters or quest events becoming broken.
    * "Perching" on geometry to get a better ranged shot at a monster, as long as the monster remains responsive.
    * "The Hero Method" when it does not involve triggering a bug.
    * "Bouncing Agro"
    * Distracting responsive monsters so a team member can complete another part of the quest without incident.

Now over that official forums after a day of threads and a large post it was cleaned out and threats of bannings were given for any further talk.

Now Tolero post this response to the quest details above:
http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=3137167&postcount=3

Nothing new needs said, the issue that got people in the hot water is already listed in the above.

But who knows what the infraction was.  There was mention of a 2 person guild getting banned.  In the Update 5 Patch 1 notes they mentioned they have reduced or limited the spawn of enemies in the Demon Quest raid.

Now I can't see anything wrong with sitting at a spawn point in game and killing all day long to gain renown reward.  If those at Turbine didn't have the forethought to test their own code and game mechanics.  Then what are the players to do?  If the game works as intended, and it was like this for years prior.  With no public word, banning players for such actions is pathetic.

They have a hard time keeping the Known Issues thread complete and still don't have a listing that any Guild Vendor items [Arcane/Devine] are not working.  For a 24/7 365 days a year MMO, they are still stuck in the Mon-Fri 9-5 mindset.

[Rumbaar]

Well I got an infraction notice from Tarrant for this thread post:

One day at Microsoft or Google Inc ...

So you're in this group.  They have 100+ members in this group.  You have one of your characters in this group.  You can't possibly know what each and every person in that group stretching across a 24hour time zones.

You don't even associate with them much, and have been associating mostly in an alternate group or non at all.

I have a friend in this exact situation, but alas he was hit with what can only be a guilt by association impact.

How can a whole group be affected by actions by those that have no knowledge of and or control over?  Worst still the vagueness of the response gives no education to the individual to ensure that by intention or mistake repetition of said event is avoided.

Purposely vague and no de-script to avoid any breaking of forum rules, think of it as an exercise in morality and social studies.

Offer Wall ...

A friend of mine who has done zero exploits, was banned, and has a toon in only one other Guild and has done zero runs that could have been constituted as a exploit run.  He hasn't even been running with them, due to running up a low toon that is actually in OS ...

[DDOLeaks]

Well some of the bans have been for an exploit of Guild Renown system.

A character has a finite amount of renown that can be gathered for a Guild in a (I think) 24 hour period.  Once you reach this limit you'll not get any more renown in chest or reward, or very reduced.  Not sure.

But if you leave a Guild this renown 'meter' is reset.  So if you leave and join a guild it will have reset your renown and you'll be able to farm renown without that false 24 hour limit.

The ease and little consequence of joining a guild means a lot of people join, leave and rejoin a guild over a period of time and sometimes in the one day.  Also as a joke some people kick and invite people from their guilds, this has been deemed a renown exploit and thus some mass bans have taken place.

So you can't leave and join, or even be kicked and join a guild too often as it will be deemed a ban worthy event.  Of a new system, where the limit of how much you can farm per 24 hours in not known and the mechanics behind any limits or formulas is not known [to players and even GM's], how are players meant to know what and not to do.  Specially where the guild system and in/out's have been a common occurrence for many years.

A leader kicks a person from the guild, and that person joins, then is kicked again and again.  An officer can effectively cause this person to be banned from the game.

[Rumbaar]

Interesting ...

I guess it falls under this entry then:

    * Bypassing a quest timer or flagging mechanic which allows you to complete a quest or objective more often than allowed.

But the fact that the timer for this renown 'limit per 24 hours?' isn't a client side known timer?  No way to check and even no official documentation to even confirm it exists!!

I suspect it must be more than this, or I hope!