Users Unjustly Banned from Star Wars: The Old Republic Simply for Looting in High Level Zones

[Shawn Zipay]

Guess what? If you loot a chest in an area that is above your character's level, you can probably expect to be banned from Star Wars: The Old Republic. I'm not even joking about this.

At least one user has been confirmed to be banned for entering the game area, Ilum, below level 40 despite the area being a 40+ zone with items and loot for characters level 40 and above. Those users? Yeah, they're now banned from the game because apparently looting higher end gear is against the game's Terms of Service.



This simply says that yeah, it's ok to go exploring in the zone but don't you DARE loot anything there or else. So, instead of fixing a design flaw in the game, the team will simply ban your account. And if you attempt to trade a lot on the game's trade network? Oh buddy, you better believe you'll get in some hot water for that as well!



Really? This is the answer to design flaws? Banning your player base that found exploits in your game, instead of say, oh, I don't know, fixing the exploits or flaws and preventing it from happening in the future? That is just horrible.

[Thortok2000]

This could be taken out of context.

For instance, if it's not supposed to be possible to get into the zone before the appropriate level, but the user used a cheat or exploit to do so (like walking through a glitched wall for instance, or a teleport hack), thereby gaining 'easy access' to loot that it was not supposed to be possible to get through the use of a cheat or exploit, then turning around and selling it on the Auction House, that's definitely an exploit and bannable. They'll obviously patch the game to prevent in the future, but the user's intentionally cheating and/or exploiting and the user knows he's intentionally cheating and/or exploiting and therefore deserves the ban for using this for profit instead of reporting it as a bug. World of Warcraft often does temp-bans, even for high-end guilds, for using exploits on new content that might have an exploitable bug in it that is clearly an unintended exploitable bug.

For instance, in the new Looking For Raid system, it was clearly stated over and over by Blizzard that the design is that you only get loot from a boss once per week. Even if you kill the boss again, you cannot get loot from it. There was an exploit where you were able to give loot you won to someone who was not eligible to receive loot from that boss anymore that week. So they'd run with their alts, have their alts win the gear, and hand it over. This allowed them to get a total amount of gear much faster than it was clearly intended for.

Those guilds got a 1-week ban (I say guilds, but pretty much only the actual characters/accounts that performed the exploit. It did work out to be most of the guilds in question though.) They accepted their ban gracefully even though it meant they were that much less likely to get the 'world first' achievements they were aiming for.

Now, if instead it's a case of "Huh I wonder what's behind this door" and you walk through it like normal and it says "now entering the cellar, a level 50 zone" and you walk up and loot something and leave, playing the game apparently completely like normal, and you get banned for THAT, that would just be stupid. That would clearly be bad game design and the user is not at fault for 'exploiting' something he did not realize was an exploit. Simply saying that 'this is a level 50 zone' is not enough discouragement if you can enter it as freely and easily as you enter any other zone.

As far as the 'trading too much', there are definitely ways to intentionally try to crash the economy. Take for instance the idea that if you got 500 people to log onto one server, go to one area, and spam their most server-intensive spells and abilities, and crash the server... How is the game supposed to be designed against that? Possible, yes, necessary? It shouldn't have to be.

So a malicious auction house takeover (for instance buying EVERY SINGLE THING that ANYONE puts on the auction house above the price YOU want it to be at, and the raising prices of everything by 5000%) is something that would be exceedingly difficult to program the game to simply detect and "not allow", when it's far easier to use human judgement for the detection and banning for the "not allow."

But of course, if it's a matter of using the auction house to good effect and simply using it more than anyone else, not to crash or control the economy but because you simply like to buy and resell, then that's stupid too. To clarify: One method of AH using is to grief other players by denying them access to items and gear unless they pay outrageous prices they probably can't afford. Another use is to snatch stuff that people list below market value and resell for a personal profit, but still sold at close to market value for a reasonable price. You may make a profit, but you're not ripping anyone off or attempting to control the dynamics of supply and demand.

So again, the context for these two situations is pretty important before you go and decide whether they're 'unjust' or not. Please realize that I don't mean offense when I say the following: Try not to slant your journalism too much before researching all the facts. The context could be exactly what you imply it is, or it could be what I've suggested, but having the facts for certain added to the article would definitely contribute either way. =D

[RYKUU]

Re: Users Unjustly Banned from Star Wars: The Old Republic Simply for Looting in High Level Zones

While it seems silly, rules are rules.

[CptainCrunch]

I dont agree with "rules are rules" when you can go into an area, pick up items and then use them as if you ranked up to get them and then get banned for it. That seems more like entrapment than rules.Thortok is right that we dont know the entire story and what is really possible. What I do know is that there are ways to block people from using certain weapons or unlocking things without being a certain level. Its been in different games for years now.So it does all come down to what really happened, which unless someone plays the game and checks it out, we wont know.

[RYKUU]

Re: Users Unjustly Banned from Star Wars: The Old Republic Simply for Looting in High Level Zones

Indeed, we don't know the entire story, additional information MAY alter my opinion. However a game has every right to implement whatever rules they want. Clans do this, communities do this, it is everywhere.
It is quite simple, if you don't agree with the rules then tell them or don't play the game. If SWOTOR has said you cannot do this, level design aside, you cannot do this.

[LunaTiK TunaLiK]

Re: Users Unjustly Banned from Star Wars: The Old Republic Simply for Looting in High Level Zones

I totally support banning people who buy mass quantities of things from auction only to put them back up for a higher price.

[Infernalis]

Re: Users Unjustly Banned from Star Wars: The Old Republic Simply for Looting in High Level Zones

I've seen some people in WoW only playing with the (minimalist) economic aspect and that is what they enjoyed the most. It's part of the game although yes it's annoying in a game like WoW or SWTOR as you only have one auction house for the whole world, in EVE online good luck trying to do something like that, the player will just move to another auction house with less rigged price.