Tag: exploit

Virtually Everyone Possesses Duped Cash In DC Universe Online


DC Universe Online has a problem; An exploit allowed players to inject a gross amount of money into the game’s economy. How gross? According to Daybreak, trillions. Enough that virtually everyone in the game is now in possession of the fake cash, regardless of whether or not you’re aware of its origins. The cash has made its way through the economy and into so many player’s hands that Daybreak shut down trading cash and use of the broker while they figured out what to do about it.

The answer? Fix the exploit, ban the exploiters, and enforce a one-time “progressive tax” to fix the economy. You rich folks aren’t going to like this.

We have settled on six tax brackets for this one-time event, totaled at the ACCOUNT level, which are as follows:

  • Cash below $500,000,000 is not taxed at all.
  • Cash between 500,000,001 and 10,000,000,000 is taxed at 5%
  • Cash between 10,000,000,001 and 15,000,000,000 is taxed at 10%.
  • Cash between 15,000,000,001 and 20,000,000,000 is taxed at 20%.
  • Cash between 20,000,000,001 and 25,000,000,000 is taxed at 25%.
  • Cash above 25,000,000,001 is taxed at 100%.

Daybreak has admitted that the goal is not to fix the economy in one swoop, but to get rid of most of the cash that was introduced with the exploit. Their “look on the bright side” explanation is certainly something.

“We also want to maintain some of the scale of wealth legitimately present in the game. You may have less cash after this tax, but for the most part you will still have more than the people you had more than before, and less than the people you had less than before.”

On the plus side, if you had your investments wrapped up in items instead of cash, you’re pretty much safe from the number squash.

Source: DCUO

Steam Cleaning: Valve Bans Yet Another Title For Impersonating Dota 2


It must be a day ending in Y, because Valve has terminated yet another Russian developer for publishing a game on the Steam marketplace with the express purpose of scamming items from established Valve titles. In this case, the creator in question was able to change the title of his game to Dota 2, including adding the official Dota 2 logo as his own, and began uploading items with the same art, description, and titles as those in Dota 2. The developer would presumably be able to distribute items to himself and friends in order to better facilitate their crimes.

Thankfully Valve implemented changes the last time this incident occurred, adding a warning to players trading for items from a game they do not own. This developer went even further and apparently discovered an exploit that allowed him to upload items without approval. In order to stem scams, Valve requires that games past a certain trust threshold before they can make use of Steam inventory and trading cards.

A Valve representative posted that the exploit has been patched.

“Scammers figured out a way to get items in the Steam economy without having their game approved for release first. We fixed that today.”

The title was quickly removed and has been virtually scoured from Valve’s systems, going as far as deleting the app and its community hub entirely.

(Reddit)

RuneScape Slams Clue Scroll Exploiters With Banhammer


Jagex has dropped the banhammer hard on six accounts found to be exploiting a bug in this past week’s clue scroll overhaul. Jagex posted on the RuneScape Subreddit to note that while six accounts were banned for utilizing the exploit, more than 50 other accounts were banned for attempting to trade said exploited goods for real money. The exploit involved a very specific set of circumstances and led to rewards being duplicated and then distributed around the economy.

In the post, Mod Infinity noted that Jagex is confident that most of the items have been swept up, that the impact on the economy would be negligible, and that items that were sold to other players will be removed with the gold reimbursed to the buyer.

It was indeed much harder to reproduce than just having a full inventory, that just sends excess loot to the bank. This required you to have a specific inventory set-up, a specific final clue step, and a specific final clue challenge. Those exact circumstances sadly did not manifest in testing.

(Source: Reddit #1, Reddit #2)

Epic Strikes Again: Sues Over Fortnite V-Buck Exploit


Since last October, Epic Games has launched at least six lawsuits against individuals creating or advertising cheats for Fortnite, and as of last week you can add another one to that list. Epic has filed another lawsuit in the Northern District of California court, this time against an individual Yash Gosai, over his advertising of exploits in Fortnite Battle Royale.

While Epic’s previous lawsuits targeted creators and distributors of aimbots, this lawsuit deals with an exploit surrounding Fortnite’s premium currency V-Bucks. According to the lawsuit, Gosai is accused of developing and publicizing an exploit allowing people to gain free v-bucks without paying real money. Epic Games took the action of removing the video via DMCA takedown notice, which the defendant counter-claimed, and now the case is going to court on three claims: Copyright violation, breach of contract, and conversion (monetary damages).

Unlike the other cases we’ve covered where Epic Games is mostly seeking injunctive relief, barring the defendants from playing/cheating in their games, the fact that Gosai is being accused of both using and distributing an exploit to illegitimately acquire RMT currency for Fortnite makes this lawsuit one of the few where Epic is actually pursuing monetary damages. Epic is seeking unspecified damages plus interest and lawyer fees. As Yash Gosai is a resident of New Zealand, this case might take a while.

Both parties are scheduled for a meeting in April.

(Source: North California Court Docket Case 3:2018cv00152)

[NM] For Honor Exploit Costs Ubisoft $10,000 After Ignoring Major Game Balance Issues


It’s a tale that sounds tailor made for news headlines, but at a recent tournament held by Ubisoft for For Honor, the grand prize of $10 thousand ultimately went to contestants who played, dare we say it, dishonorably. The Hero Series is an effort by Ubisoft to bring players back to its fighting game For Honor, following reports of heavily dwindling population numbers on PC and console. This weekend, the Hero Series held its live finals from Burbank California, broadcast live on Twitch.

Unfortunately the tournament went off with numerous hitches, with players making use of and widely publicizing just how many bugs and balance issues still remain in For Honor six months after launch, including one player repeatedly, from repeatedly using an unblockable charge move to a player taking advantage of a bug to knock down his opponent on a small incline. Viewers criticized the fact that many of the exploits/bugs on display have been an issue ignored for months by Ubisoft, as well as the perceived flippant response from its Creative Director in presenting the champion award. The exploit used to win the tournament, which takes advantage of a bug when a player unlocks from his target on swing, causing his attacks to become unparryable. According to players, this has been in the game since virtually day one.

For a competitive fighting game, For Honor can only suffer from Ubisoft allowing exploits to win the day at its tournament. Since its launch in February, For Honor’s population on Steam has plummeted from an average of 28,000 to an average of just over two thousand over the past month. Ubisoft has referred to reports of a declining user base as “fake news,” despite the public availability of user data for players on Steam.

Exploit Knocks Secret World Legends Into Extended Downtime


What originally began as a simple maintenance downtime has resulted in the Secret World Legends servers being offline for much of the day, with services now expected to resume at 5pm eastern. The downtime originates from an exploit discovered in the game that allowed players to generate mass quantities of currency. As a result, Funcom has taken the servers down for an extended period of time to figure out what to do about the exploit and to deal with the spread of bad currency being injected into the economy.

We’re terribly sorry for any inconvenience caused by today’s extended maintenance. As some of you may know by now, there was an issue discovered with the Exchange and it’ll take time to come up with a proper solution to both the underlying issue and the effects it may have caused. Today’s maintenance period has been extended until at least 17:00 EDT / 21:00 UTC (please correct me if the conversion is wrong somehow) and we’ll try to keep you in the loop on any other developments. Patch notes will be posted on the official website at www.secretworldlegends.com once the servers are back up.

While the exploit itself wasn’t dealt with until this downtime, Funcom reacted quickly after learning of its existence and was able to disable to auction house to avoid further complications. For now, the servers aren’t expected to come back up until 5pm at the earliest.

(Source: Reddit)

Guild Uses Exploit To Kill ArcheAge Boss, Loots Permanent Ban


ARCHEAGE 2014-10-10 12-02-23-78

In a rather interesting turn of events, Trion Worlds has taken to the forums to discuss a recent high profile incident of a guild using exploits to kill a boss monster in ArcheAge. The Leviathan is a massive world boss in ArcheAge that is so powerful that it has yet to be defeated in combat in North America. Legitimately, at least. Videos began surfacing on the ArcheAge forums of the guild Rage Quit obtaining the first kill on a very clearly bugged boss, the Leviathan can be seen floating above water and stops attacking, not unlike a giant pinata. As one might expect from such a high profile kill, it didn’t take long to attract Trion Worlds’ attention.

According to senior community manager Seraphina “Celestrata” Brennan, all participating members of Rage Quit have been banned with no chance for appeal, a grand total of 53 players, while the guild as a whole has been disbanded. Accounts that participated in the event and were members of the council have had their membership revoked, while those who were found to be contesting the kill will not be punished. In addition, all loot generated from the kill has been removed from the game world.

First of all, our new policy on exploits is well-known at this point. We do not tolerate exploits or those who abuse them in our game. Any individual taking advantage of an exploit will receive a permanent ban. This is a non-negotiable stance. The Leviathan kill in question was clearly broken and floating to all bystanders in the videos captured, so the guild involved had full knowledge that something was wrong. They made the active decision to proceed forward with the kill regardless.

According to Trion Worlds, only one member of the guild contacted the studio to report the kill, and even then demanded compensation in return for the details. XLGames has been notified of the exploit and should be working on a fix.

(Source: Trion Worlds)

Trion Worlds Offers Refunds To Bug Abusers


ARCHEAGE 2014-10-10 12-02-23-78

Trion Worlds is offering loyalty token refunds for players who purchased the Mirage Donkey mount with the purpose of exploiting a bug, after said bug was fixed. The exploit allowed the donkey to run faster while strafing or going backward than it did moving forward.

Community manager Scapes posted the following on the Trion Worlds forum:

We are offering Loyalty Token refunds for Mirage Donkeys due to the upcoming Secrets of Ayanad update fixing a bug that grants the mount unintended speed bonuses. If you want to trade in your Mirage Donkey for its purchase price of 300 Loyalty Tokens, contact our Support Team with the subject “Mirage Donkey Refund”. Please make sure to remove all equipment prior to submitting your ticket. No Companion Crusts used on existing Mirage Donkeys will be refunded.

Players have until Tuesday March 17th to get their refund request in.

(Source: Trion Worlds)

ArcheAge PLEX Available Again… Again


ARCHEAGE 2014-10-10 12-02-23-78

Trion Worlds has announced the ArcheAge APEX are officially back up and available for purchase.The item, providing a method for players to extend their subscription without paying real money, has been the subject of numerous exploits, resulting in it being pulled from the cash shop for small periods of time.

The following announcement was posted on Twitter yesterday.

Adventurers, APEX is now available again for use and purchase. Thanks for your patience!

(Source: Twitter)

Wildstar Cheaters Given 24 Hours To Confess


WildStar64 2014-05-08 13-12-45-60

A recently discovered gold exploit is in the process of being patched out of Wildstar, and in the meantime players are being put on notice. Carbine Studios knows who you are and what you’ve done, but you may not be completely out of luck.

We are aware of the gold exploit feedback that has been circulating social media and the forums.  At this point, we are working to get a hotfix put together as soon as possible.  A rollback will not be necessary at this time; the current scope of abuse is not outside our ability to manually correct where necessary.  Please understand, if you have abused this exploit, we will be taking action against your account.  As you all know, we take exploits seriously and will not hesitate to lifetime ban accounts that have been caught abusing any exploits.

Players willing to atone should contact customer service within 24 hours, in exchange for the loss of your ill-gotten gains and a reduction in your punishment.

(Source: Wildstar)

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