Please be reminded of POLICY 7 regarding bug abuse:
GemStone IV Player Policy: Bug Abuse
Attempts to gain an unfair advantage which circumvents the letter or spirit of the rules presented in the documentation and version notes, as judged solely by Simutronics, are a violation of policy. Types of abuse range from sending special characters or signals to the software to obtain an unusual result, to using normal game mechanics in ways they are clearly not intended.
Examples of serious bug abuse: Disconnecting from the merchant manager to avoid paying the purchase price of an item; finding a "feedback loop" with spells or mana points, which allows spells to be cast multiple times with little or no cost; repeatedly injuring yourself (or another character) in order to generate experience for an empath or cleric; finding a special circumstance in which to use a potion whereby its quantity is not decremented when it is used; abusing game mechanics to cause duplication of items or silver.
Abusing bugs disrupts the balance of GemStone IV and reduces its effectiveness to remain an entertaining product. Sometimes there will be a great temptation to abuse a bug for personal gain because the negative effect is not readily apparent. Therefore, Simutronics will exercise no tolerance whatsoever for anyone participating in this type of activity.
Bugs should always be reported. Serious bugs should be REPORTed and BUGged, while minor ones should be BUGged. If you observe someone else abusing a serious bug, or discussing a plan to abuse one, and fail to report it, you are subject to the same penalties as they are. Serious bugs should be reported through GemStone IV Feedback.
Benefits obtained from bug abuse may be confiscated. Failure to cooperate with Simutronics as to the extent or nature of a bug, or failure to be honest about the benefits obtained from bug abuse, is grounds for immediate lock-out from GemStone IV.
A few days ago it came to our attention that a bug existed in the new-style enchanting formula that allowed items with a material that should be impossible to enchant to be instead enchanted with a completely blanked difficulty rating instead. While unfortunate, bugs do happen. We fixed the bug that was causing this and were prepared to move on, pending an investigation of logs to see how many items were enchanted while this bug was in effect.
Unfortunately, during this investigation we discovered pretty damning evidence that a group of players was not only aware that this bug existed but were organizing to exploit it as much as they could before it could be discovered and patched. We discussed the evidence and the best course of action over the last few days and have come to the following decisions:
All players who were involved in the organized bug abuse will be issued an official warning for game mechanics abuse as per POLICY 7. All items that were enchanted as a result of this bug will be reset back to their original enchantment level. No refunds of essence, silver, bloodscrip (in the case of items bought specifically to abuse this bug or subsequently serviced at Duskruin), or any other costs incurred to enchant these items will be permitted.
We would like to remind players who were aware of this bug and the plan to abuse it but failed to report it, that POLICY 7 does allow for penalization on that basis.
As a summary, please be sure to BUG all bugs and then refrain from abusing said bugs to gain an in-game advantage. If you become aware of a bug and a plan to abuse it, you must also REPORT it or else you risk being penalized as well.
Coase
This message was originally posted in Help for Players, Policy Discussions. To discuss the above, follow the link below.
http://forums.play.net/forums/19/210/2230/view/468
