Regarding Exploits

Regarding Exploits

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Recently there have been quite a few discussions regarding exploits. Some of you want to know what they are, some want to know specifically what's a bug and what's an exploit? Others want to know how we deal with exploiters and those who promote their use.

We'd like to offer a little clarification on some of those points to help you understand our stance on the matter.

Firstly, despite an attempt to be more transparent with the players regarding exploits by posting a description in the forums, we were unable to continue with that method as we found that this information was taken advantage of and instead of using it for good, it was used for evil! An increase in the use of those exploits was seen across the servers and therefore we had to remove the post. (Exploitation thread)

Therefore our decision is not to release "lists" or descriptions of exploits to the community as it is ultimately counterproductive and merely informs unscrupulous players of which exploits are available leading to increased usage of such exploits.

When players are found to be using, detailing or promoting the use of exploits we review the case and categorise the incident into one of three categories:

1. Black
2. White
3. Grey

In case of actions that belong to the category “black” we consider those an exploit for which the player will be punished without reservation if found guilty of using. Punishment can range from warnings to permanent game bans.
They fall into one of four types:

Hacking or altering the game client / server data / data transfer between client and server
Acquiring additional items without using trade / crafting / AH or original gameplay techniques, (e.g. duping)
Damaging / changing other players' character data by other means than the use of original gameplay techniques (i.e. trade etc.)
Using terrain collision to avoid fighting a mob / boss that you would be required to fight in the course of original gameplay
The white category is for things that are actually legitimate gameplay techniques, they will never be punished as long as they are not used to avoid basic features of encounters. An example of this could be crowd controlling a boss while you destroy all of his lesser mobs. As you will agree this is more a tactic than anything else.

The grey category is for everything in between – actions that fall neither into the black or white categories.

Actions that fall into the grey category will be reviewed on a case by case basis. We regard an action within the "grey" category as an exploit and will punish users accordingly if:

The action compromises fair gameplay.
If the action compromises server-stability and the services connected to it

We hope this helps you to understand how we view and deal with exploits.