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#1 LordNecris Aug 05, 2014 2:37:19

Hello, fellow players. As you probably know, WotC is currently cross-promoting Neverwinter Online, as active and (unlike PC games are seen usually) canonical part of the Tyranny storyline.   While the game is definately fun and worth a look, I feel I must raise awareness to the fact that not everything in that game is sunshine and rainbows. A VERY vocal PvP Minority, who goes out of their wait to break Character Classes (unless it is a specific build that either makes the character overpowered in PvP, usually the class played by the PvPer making the post, or it shoehorns the character into PvE, while being a free kill in PvP), which doesn't have any shame about using exploits.   A few months ago, someone listed the exploits that happened until that point. Since Module 3, Icewind Dale, 3 other, big exploits have been found.   1. During Character creation, one can pick the Ability Score of the Character. For Humans, it is the usual '+2 to any one', for other races, it is a 'pick 1 of 2'. This window is normally not available, however, players have found 'Chat Line' commands which could pull this window up again, thus enabling the player to stack the Ability scores outside of the '+20 points during the course of leveling towards level 60'. This Exploit was primarily done by the PvP community, and when it seemed that it had become risky to use, they tried to cover themselves by 'accidently' writing the command line in zonewide chat channels, posting it on various messageboards (reddit, for example), to get as many people as possible to do it (even 1 click did already apply the exploit, and you couldn't exit the window normally, since it was a part of a not closeable framework for Charcreation). Punishment for them, even for those actively BRAGGING about it, was: 3 Day Account Suspension and restoration of their Ability Scores to 'normal'. They kept all their assets (PvP currencies, Leaderboard Standings) they had aquired while using it.   2. When Module2 (Dread Ring) released, the 'Enchanting' system got changed. No longer did someone need a currency with a timegate on its aquisition, to change out enchantments. Before this change, to upgrade an enchantment, you simply fused 4 of the same rank and type. If the fusion failed, you lost 1 of the invested Enchants. When the 'new' system hit, you had to feed the enchant you wanted to upgrade with sources of refinement points (special refine stones, other enchants), and THEN use a reagent purchased with the timegated currency to attempt an upgrade. When THIS however fails, the reagents are lost. An upgrade from Rank 5 to Rank 6 (120 points of stat bonus to 150 points. Which adds up) thus can cost, at ONE failure, 25000 units of the timegated currency, which, even if you can aquire more than that per day, is limited to a 'refining' of 24000 a day. Usually, the upgrade from R5 to R6 takes 3-4 tries on average, despite the stated success chance. The loss of the reagents can be prevented by using an itemshop (Microtransaction) item, a socalled Preservation Ward (100 of their store currency for 10, Ward is consumed instead of the reagent, when it fails). Now, the 'Exploit' was, that one could use a chatline command to pull up the 'old' Pre-Module 2 Refinement window. Thus, someone using a Farmbot to plunder fixed location profession nodes a couple thousand times an hour (MANY bots) could generate lots of 'Rank 4' Enchantments, which could then be fused to Rank 5, or, when desired, even further. This Exploit was actually found by Cryptic/PWE themselves. When they investigated the Exploit indicated under 1. They permabanned the bots, changed a few nodes - and they are now still back in business, just make 20 new ones for each banned.   Now, the big one. As it was, in a previous thread, described, shortly after the socalled 'Open Beta' (Or, what any reasonable human would consider a 'Launch', they opened their Itemshop for the public, after all), there was the 'Caturday' Exploit. Using a bug in the Auction house that ran on the timegated currency to generate limitless amounts of it, out of thin air. The latest exploit, discovered and made public on the 4th August this year (yesterday), consisted of malicious use of a 'Lockbox' prize, to generate limitless amounts of the timegated, already refined currency. Just that, unlike Caturday, of 100 million a pop, for 2 or 3 weeks, this has been going on for multiple months, but 'only' at around 500000 units a pop. Screenshots have shown up that were dated over 4 months old, showing a 'how to' for this exploit.  As of now, no rollback has happened (would mean a rollback of over a half year!), they did make the item untradeable (which was a key component in this exploit), and nothing else has happened yet. Removal of the assets are not really possible, since they have spread through the whole community, due to large scale laundering. At this point, the potential penalty for the exploiters, if the past has been ANY indication, would be a 3 Day temporary ban. In fact, in a previous exploit, PWE actually CONGRATULATED those who were 'lucky' enough to cash in on a bug in their 'Lockbox' scheme.     Now, everyones' friend - the Lockbox. In all PWE games, and sadly, a rising amount of even Subscription games these days, you get Lootboxes/Lockboxes. Usually filled with 2 or 3 prizes corresponding to the current 'storyline', a few 'always in it' minor prizes, and at an increasing rate, a 'even if you don't win, here is something' token which usually consists of a secondary currency, which is used to entice people to open more boxes, so they can actually save up for those secondary prizes. The odds of winning any specific prize is NOT specified, the random generator on the 'secondary currency' amount has, even by those that open hundreds of boxes on the testserver (charcopy trickery, but nothing happening on the testserver ever makes it back to Live), been reported as 'next to impossible to get even half of the maximum roll'.     With these informations in mind - If you are interested, check in with the game, play it - but I can only ask you, think twice or even more often if you are willing to drop hard money on this game.   Thank you for reading this TL;DR, and bear with my grammar and spelling, not a native english speaker.