Print Page | Close Window

14NOV14 - Further exploit permabans

Printed From: Illyriad
Category: News & Announcements
Forum Name: News & Announcements
Forum Description: Changes, patch release dates, server launch dates, downtime notifications etc.
URL: http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/forum_posts.asp?TID=5954
Printed Date: 28 Mar 2024 at 11:36
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.03 - http://www.webwizforums.com


Topic: 14NOV14 - Further exploit permabans
Posted By: GM Stormcrow
Subject: 14NOV14 - Further exploit permabans
Date Posted: 14 Nov 2014 at 19:12
Hi all,

A follow up on the last post.  Apologies in advance for the length.

Acronyms
Quick guide to related Illy acronyms that I use in this Wall of Text.
  • igm = In Game Mail
  • GC = Global Chat
  • AC = Alliance Chat
  • ToS = Terms of Service
  • CoC = Code of Conduct
  • CDD (a one-off acronym) = cnenc / delif / deghoul (three accounts run by the exploiter)
Preamble
I'm going to post Player Names, Alliance Names, and parts of chats and igms below.

We very rarely share this level of detail.

Also - contrary to some people's beliefs - we don't generally read AC or igms.  On a purely practical level, Alliance Chat is 5x larger than Global Chat, and there are more than 100 million igms.  

We honestly don't care what you say in your alliance chat & igm channels until: 
  1. Someone who was in your alliance chat or read your igm makes us aware of a serious ToS/CoC infringement by copying and pasting the text into a petition.  RL death threats. Nazi propaganda. Racism - that kind of thing.  Then we look through that bit of text to see if the report and the realtity are fair and accurate reflections of each other and if we should take further action.

  2. We have proven & game-breaking exploits, and we need to find out who's behind it, who knew about it, who benefited from it etc.
I know that I'm breaking many of GM Rikoo's very sensible rules here, but there's a number of compelling reasons why I'm doing so.  Please don't take this as an invitation to break them yourself... I get a wholly dictatorial right of veto on this one!

Why I'm sharing this information
  1. This exploit affected everyone ingame, and will continue to have shockwaves for a while (about 12% of the liquid cash economy was removed during the banning process)

  2. There are a large number of people who have written to us saying "No, surely not! Not Player [insert name here]! you must have made a mistake!"

  3. The exploit goes to the very top of well established and respected alliances

  4. The exploit *may* have happened prior to this, and we're currently investigating further in the past

  5. This is a reason that you may perceive as "self-serving", but we believe is "self-preserving"... one of the banned players involved in this exploit (Silverleaf) has been threatening us via email to "go public" with a negative social media and PR campaign against Illyriad, unless we allow them back into the game.  I don't take kindly to threats, and so I'm willing to break our own rules to put this out there first - although I already see some social media from Silverleaf about how "iniquitous" we've been in this case.
Who has been banned?
25 accounts have been banned, in addition to some of the original banned or abandoned exploiting accounts (such as cnenc).  

The permabanned accounts are:
  • Tullernas
  • Nesse
  • Odd
  • iwasgoldgenerator
  • ubaar
  • Morto
  • Shleprock
  • Ta-Ryn
  • Devlin
  • Hawkson
  • Coel
  • Coelgrim
  • the derelict
  • Tryllean
  • just for sec
  • Snow dog
  • BytorMac
  • Silverleaf
  • gravywavy
  • LadyGrey
  • Brock Fairly
  • snookrim
  • delif
  • lucre
  • deghoul
The most recent account removals have removed an additional 12.5 Billion Gold from the game economy, including 2 Billion gold that Odd deposited in the [Roads] alliance coffers recently (which has also been reclaimed by us).

Where we are right now
As most of you know, the alliance in question regarding this exploit is (so far) predominantly, but not exclusively, Fairy Road Authority [Roads].

Most of you already know that we've permabanned a number of players and most of them (not all) were from [Roads].  However, we've just permabanned Odd, the leader of [Roads] and his alt Nesse, the leader of [Druid] for a variety of reasons that we'll explain further below.  We've passed alliance superuser privileges down the alliance role heirarchy so that the alliances can both still be managed by the remaining players.

I want to be absolutely clear here - we believe the remaining players in [Roads] are innocent of involvement in this exploit, and despite this sorry story, a number of [Roads] players come out of this very well indeed.  Many [Roads] players have assisted us with our investigations by answering questions or volunteering information.  The only players I'm going to name in this post are those who have been banned.

If you don't know what the exploit was, http://forum.illyriad.co.uk/12nov14-gold-exploit-closed_topic5948.html" rel="nofollow - you need to read this thread , where we outline the mechanics of the exploit.

Expanded detail and timeline
The person who ran this exploit had 3 accounts.  In creation date order, the player names were: cnenc, delif and deghoul - all created this year, and we have not yet found evidence that the exploit was known about until the 5th of August 2014 (although we are going back to check).

This is an abbreviated timeline, edited to present some of the most relevant and glaring facts:
  • 16 Mar 2014 - cnenc account created

  • 05 Aug 2014 - This appears to be the date cnenc discovered the exploit, as his available gold to send out suddenly skyrockets from single digit millions a week into the billions, daily.  In a 12 day period between 05 Aug 2014 and 17 Aug 2014, cnenc generates 40,580,270,365 (40.5 Billion gold). The majority goes to his trader at Centrum, but the other main beneficiaries are [Roads] members gravywavy, Brock Fairly & Odd - who recieve amounts ranging between 1.5 Billion and 4 Billion Gold each during this 12-day period. 

  • 17 Aug 2014 - cnenc's ingame account is banned by GM Rikoo for rule infractions

  • 25 Aug 2014 - delif account created

  • 25 Aug 2014 - Odd, the leader of [Roads], invites delif to join [Roads] alliance - without any ingame comms from delif to anyone, let alone Odd
  • 25 Aug 2014 - delif accepts Odd's invitation to join [Roads]

  • 26 Aug 2014 at 06:56, Odd introduces delif to [Roads] Alliance Chat (delif has not yet communicated with anyone via Illyriad comms channels, so you may well wonder how Odd knows delif)
  • 26 Aug 2014 - delif (32 population & on Day 2 of existence) sends 2.1 Billion gold to gravywavy [Roads] and 2.0 Billion gold to Silverleaf who is in [Shade] at this point, having left Roads temporarily.

  • 27 Aug 2014 - delif sends 6.3 Billion gold to Brock Fairly [Roads] and 2.1 Billion to Silverleaf [Shade]

  • 31 Aug 2014 - delif sends 4.2 Billion gold to BytorMac [MOON] 

  • 01 Sep 2014 - delif comes out of New Player Protection (!)

  • 07 Sep 2014 - Silverleaf rejoins [Roads]

  • 08 Sep 2014 onwards - delif sends out a few hundred million regularly to various people in [Roads] and other alliances, until... 

  • 23 Sep 2014 - A Concerned member of [Roads] raises suspicions with Odd about delif's distribution of Gold

  • 23 Sep 2014 - delif ceases sending Gold to [Roads] members

  • 07 Oct 2014 - deghoul account created (this is the alt account for delif, trading just above Centrum)

  • 09 Oct 2014 - delif sends 2.45 Billion gold to Silverleaf

  • 20 Oct 2014 - deghoul leaves [Roads] and joins [mCrow]

  • 21 Oct 2014 to 04 Nov 2014 - delif transfers 69.5 Billion to his alt deghoul

  • 04 Nov 2014 - deghoul leaves [mCrow] & remains unallied
From this point onwards, I'm going to refer to cnenc, delif & deghoul by the acronym "CDD", to refer to "the primary exploiter" as a single "grouped" player.

So why did you permaban Odd?
We firmly believe that Odd was a primary player in this exploit conspiracy, and that he dissembled and lied - even to his own alliance.

For a start, Odd received Billions of Gold from CDD.

Then there's the peculiarity of Odd inviting delif to join the alliance.  How exactly do you get to invite a new player - with no ingame communication in GC or igm - on Day 1 of the new player's existence? On that same day, delif generates and distributes 4.2 Billion Gold to [Roads] players.

For Odd himself to invite players to join the alliance that he runs is extremely rare.  In 2014, Odd has brought a total of 4 players to [Roads] - including delif - compared to more than 144 invitations issued by the other members of Roads with recruitment privileges in the same period.  

It's pretty clear that Odd and delif had prearranged delif's immediate alliance membership via out-of-game channels.

Here's an igm communication between Odd and a "concerned member" (whose name has been changed to ConcernedMember) of the [Roads] alliance.

Here's the exchange - I've edited out some less relevant parts:

From: ConcernedMember [Roads]
To: Odd [Roads]
Subject: delif
Received: 23 Sep 2014 19:23

just who is this delif guy?

From: Odd [Roads]
To: ConcernedMember [Roads]
Subject: RE: delif
Received: 23 Sep 2014 20:30

Dunno. Been in Roads for a month, apparently. Is he misbehaving?

From: ConcernedMember [Roads]
To: Odd [Roads]
Subject: RE: RE: delif
Received: 23 Sep 2014 22:05

Well i just find his behavior....suspicous... He sent me 500 million gold..... I dont really know what to make of it

From: Odd [Roads]
To: ConcernedMember [Roads]
Subject: RE: RE: delif
Received: 24 Sep 2014 06:28

Thanks for raising the subject. I'll keep it in mind. Anomalies need considerationa and this is one.

In summary, a concerned member of [Roads] believed something a bit fishy was going on with delif's distribution of Gold and igm'd Odd about it. Odd pretends not to know delif, and closes the topic with a vague handwave.  Other players in [Roads] raised questions about delif which were similarly brushed off or ignored, and kudos to these players for noticing it and raising it with their alliance leader. 

Odd, however, never followed up on it with delif in igm or alliance chat.  In fact, Odd has never, ever igm'd delif/deghoul (or vice versa) beyond the original system-generated alliance invite "You have been invited to join Fairy Road Authority by Odd." and the system-generated acceptance "delif has accepted your alliance invitation".

And given that delif was one of only four people invited directly by Odd to join [Roads] in the entire year,  invited on the same day his account was created,  and was personally introduced by Odd into the [Roads] Alliance chat... it is simply not credible that Odd does not know who delif/cnenc is.  

Add to that - if you look back up at the timeline - this conversation with the concerned member is the same day delif suddenly stops sending out his exploited Gold.  That's circumstantial, for sure - but we find it extremely likely that delif has just been told by someone out-of-game that people are getting suspicious, and he needs to dial the exploit back a bit.  delif doesn't send substantial Gold again (until one last multi-Billion send to Silverleaf in October) before leaving [Roads] and joining [mCrow].

One of the [Roads] players who got in touch with details apparently got an earful about sharing information with the GMs and "naming names", especially cnenc.  I don't need convincing that's because the only big multi-Billion Gold direct payment from CDD to Odd was the one from cnenc.  Odd didn't want us making the connection between delif/deghoul and cnenc - and therefore looping back to Odd.

OK... but what about Silverleaf?
Well, even if we ignore the 6.55 Billion Gold that was sent from CDD to Silverleaf whilst he was not just in [Roads] but whilst he was also temporarily in [Shade]... 

... and let's ignore the fact that Silverleaf received his first payment of 2 Billion Gold from a player who's less than two days old ingame, on the same day that this player joined the alliance - let's put those to one side for a moment. 

Silverleaf has been in touch with us via email multiple times since his permaban from the game.  

We've had attempts to be nice to us.  We've had demands of reinstatement.  We've had threats of 'trashing our reputation' via social media.  We've had 'I never kept the money, I gave it all away' justifications.  We've had pretty much everything from Silverleaf.

What we've also had is big dollop of palpable untruths.

As a single example, explaining his suspicions about the Gold he received from delif:

"i am a gracious recipient of gifts - no matter need or the trepidation that i felt at the time-  One time,  when it was heading in I i mentioned it in AC and in fact I had decided to sent the gold back to them but the accts the majority of it come from were gone ( abandoned -) by the time it arrived"

He received his Gold payments during the month of August, and again in September and again in October.  The CDD accounts and towns that sent this Gold to him were fully in existence until we banned them a couple of days ago. No abandons, nothing to prevent him returning the gold if he truly believed it was tainted.  

So his statement above is simply wholly untrue.  Even setting aside the many Billions of gold he received, we simply do not find Silverleaf to be credible.

What about Brock Fairly?
We've received emails from many people saying "Brock's a nice guy, surely you've made a mistake, banning him".

Notwithstanding the 7.4 Billion Gold that was sent to Brock Fairly from CDD, the following igm leaves us in no doubt that Brock knowingly colluded in profiting from this exploit:

From: deghoul [mCrow]
To: Brock Fairly [Roads]
Subject: RE: pres caravans
Received: 02 Nov 2014 09:29

i sent you my pres of 33,450 please keep them in safe and do not sell :)

you have the Right to use 10% to 20% for your own :D

i just calculated the price of these things if being real buyer

they are equal to( 515 GBP) OR( 823 USD) hahahahahahaha

And then, nine hours later, having read the igm...
  • 02 Nov 2014 20:42 - Brock converts 15 Prestige Scraps into 1,125 Prestige for his account.
We don't think that collusion gets more obvious that that.

What about the other players who have been banned?
Some were exploiters. Some were accessories to the exploit.  Some were alts of the banned players.  There are many reasons.  I'm not actually going to go into specific detail about each and every other banned player and why they were banned because it's not going to add much overall, it's going to take up time better spent on other things, and we're crystal clear that the actions we've taken against the players we've permabanned was the right thing to do.  We hope the examples we've detailed above (largely because they're the most prominent/contentious/obvious) removes any doubt as to the reasons for the actions that we've taken.

What does this mean for [Roads]?
There are many very good people at [Roads] who we're sure were entirely out-of-the-loop regarding these goings-on... and there are many who entirely laudably believed and verbally supported their companions and who might now be feeling betrayed by people they trusted.  We do understand this, and we sympathise.

It would be entirely unfair to tar every member of [Roads] with the tainted brush of the corrupt few, and I very much hope that the community will actually regard the remaining members of [Roads] with both trust and a presumption of innocence.  We certainly do.

So, what's next in this saga?
I've had a couple of people mail me to say that this is a "dev witchhunt".  It isn't. This is a serious issue that needs resolution and transparency; which is why we're sharing all these specific details.  It affects everyone by distorting the market and providing artificial pressures on the Illyriad economy.

Not only that, but investigating issues like this takes substantial amounts of development time out of our schedule.  This has eaten more than one man-week so far; so everyone suffers from the lack of progress on other areas of the game.

I'd be surprised to find that other people knew of or used this exploit previously - but I'm willing to be surprised, and I'm willing (and going) to look.

We're going to take a good number of random sample database restores from the last few years to see if anyone previously had town taxrates set out-of-bounds.  Some senior players have indicated that they have been (historically) surprised by some alliances' access to instant huge money, and we'll be happy to look into any particular date range if it's put to us in a petition with all relevant details.

Final thoughts
Illyriad wants as many players as we can get.  Any game does.  

But we equally have to protect the integrity of the entire game system as best we can so that it's equitable for everyone.  A sandbox game that has the freedom and vast scope of Illyriad has so many moving parts that it's sometimes extremely hard for us - or anyone - to spot these kind of subtle exploits.

Some players have suggested that we've acted on this so quickly because Illy corp is worried about losing money via prestige sales.  That's both unfair and illogical.  

Magical Gold arriving out of the air and being spent on prestige scrolls created an artificially high demand for prestige scrolls.  This means that more prestige scrolls were being created and therefore more prestige was bought by players.  So this exploit actually benefits Illy corp (in the short term, before it would have completely trashed the ingame market economy - "Quantitative Easing" can only go so far).

So, closing this exploit has actually shut off an (artificially-created) source of additional revenue for Illy corp.  If we wanted additional cash we'd have let this exploit run, not shut it down!

I would, of course, urge anyone who knows about an exploit to get in touch with us.  One of the things I hope that this has proven is that we record, and have access to, everything that has ever happened ingame.  If you cheat, you will be uncovered.

Regards,

SC


EDIT: Added Hyperlink to earlier thread detailing the exploit
EDIT2: Corrected impact on the economy figure from 20% to 12% M0/MB Gold removed
EDIT3: Fixed a couple of typos


-------------
GM Stormcrow | http://bit.ly/rLKfoT" rel="nofollow - Twitter | http://on.fb.me/uvfajA" rel="nofollow - Facebook | http://bit.ly/rBzlzf" rel="nofollow - G+



Replies:
Posted By: jcx
Date Posted: 14 Nov 2014 at 19:41
finally. nice read! Great work Devs!

-------------
Disclaimer: The above is jcx|orcboy's personal opinion and is not the opinion or policy of Harmless? [H?] or of the little green men that have been following him all day.

jcx in H? | orcboy in H?


Posted By: Jejune
Date Posted: 14 Nov 2014 at 19:46
Again, amazing work by the devs, and just an incredible thing to read. I still believe that the outside gaming community should know about this story and how the game developers caught the conspirators.

On a personal note, I found Brock's IGM about frauding the game really disgustipating: "they are equal to( 515 GBP) OR( 823 USD) hahahahahahaha" ... Brock converts 15 Prestige Scraps into 1,125 Prestige for his account. 

Yeah, hahahahahaha -- you're a thief. A real-life thief.


-------------
https://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/a/p/394156" rel="nofollow">


Posted By: Diva
Date Posted: 14 Nov 2014 at 19:52
Now I feel exploited because of going for the mystery of Audrey to help ODD and Nesse.. 

But I am thankful that the Devs have the betterment of the game at heart without people exploiting the prestige and the marketing systems.

Thanks Devs.. 
D


-------------
"Um diva.... you are sort of acting like a .... diva...." - PhoenixFire


Posted By: mcdwarf
Date Posted: 14 Nov 2014 at 20:04
Thanks for the transparency and shutting down those guys.


Posted By: Maccam
Date Posted: 14 Nov 2014 at 20:07
Originally posted by Jejune Jejune wrote:


On a personal note, I found Brock's IGM about frauding the game really disgustipating: "they are equal to( 515 GBP) OR( 823 USD) hahahahahahaha" ... Brock converts 15 Prestige Scraps into 1,125 Prestige for his account. 

Yeah, hahahahahaha -- you're a thief. A real-life thief.

Well said.  That gloating was a massive slap in the face for people who have bought prestige, and therefore who fund the game for all to play.


Posted By: Tyrande Whisperwinds
Date Posted: 14 Nov 2014 at 20:07
While it's good to see that this exploit was caught and ppl were banned, still can't help myself from thinking that this exploit in particular was treated differently from other exploits in-game (such as permasats accounts per example), because it involved gold (and real money in the end, with the new prestige scrolls).




Posted By: Brandmeister
Date Posted: 14 Nov 2014 at 20:10
An interesting read.

What happens in a permaban? People have sent a great many troops to help Nesse and Odd on the ultimate item quest. If defending their cities is now pointless, perhaps we still have time to recall the armies, and go help another player? The quest itself is still worthy.


Posted By: GM Rikoo
Date Posted: 14 Nov 2014 at 20:11
Originally posted by Tyrande Whisperwinds Tyrande Whisperwinds wrote:

While it's good to see that this exploit was caught and ppl were banned, still can't help myself from thinking that this exploit in particular was treated differently from other exploits in-game (such as permasats accounts per example), because it involved gold (and real money in the end, with the new prestige scrolls).

Well, if you're wondering if we were more inclined to act on something that was literally an exploit/hack and so so so against the rules than acting on something that is allowed through the rules and game mechanics, then yes.

But, if you're implying that we acted because somehow shutting this down gave us some sort of financial benefit, Stormcrow covered that in his post: 

"Some players have suggested that we've acted on this so quickly because Illy corp is worried about losing money via prestige sales.  That's both unfair and illogical.  

Magical Gold arriving out of the air and being spent on prestige scrolls created an artificially high demand for prestige scrolls.  This means that more prestige scrolls were being created and therefore more prestige was bought by players.  So this exploit actually benefits Illy corp (in the short term, before it would have completely trashed the ingame market economy - "Quantitative Easing" can only go so far).

So, closing this exploit has actually shut off an (artificially-created) source of additional revenue for Illy corp.  If we wanted additional cash we'd have let this exploit run, not shut it down!"

Thanks, though.

GM Rikoo




-------------
Illyriad Community Manager / Public Relations / community@illyriad.co.uk


Posted By: Brandmeister
Date Posted: 14 Nov 2014 at 20:14
@Tyrande: I don't think there is a valid comparison to permasat accounts. Permasats also create a large amount of additional gold and advanced items that float around the game. If passwords are shared, it's technically a violation of the ToS. But it does not strike me anywhere near as noxious as tricking the game server by sending intentionally erroneous data to an unchecked function call, and then generating 12% of the circulating gold in the entire game.


Posted By: Ryklaw
Date Posted: 14 Nov 2014 at 20:29
+1
Thumbs Up


-------------
Finishing the Race!
II Tim 4:7,8


Posted By: Consul Zynot
Date Posted: 14 Nov 2014 at 20:37
WOW nicely done DEVS


Posted By: G0DsDestroyer
Date Posted: 14 Nov 2014 at 20:52
Originally posted by Jejune Jejune wrote:

Again, amazing work by the devs, and just an incredible thing to read. I still believe that the outside gaming community should know about this story and how the game developers caught the conspirators.

On a personal note, I found Brock's IGM about frauding the game really disgustipating: "they are equal to( 515 GBP) OR( 823 USD) hahahahahahaha" ... Brock converts 15 Prestige Scraps into 1,125 Prestige for his account. 

Yeah, hahahahahaha -- you're a thief. A real-life thief.

To be correct here... Brock wasn't the one who said that in his igm, that was a message sent to Brock from deghoul, at least that's what it looks like to me

from SC's post:
From: deghoul [mCrow]
To: Brock Fairly [Roads]


-------------
http://live.xbox.com/en-US/MyXbox/Profile?gamertag=G0DsDestroyer" rel="nofollow - Tia mi aven Moridin isainde vadin


Posted By: Lagavulin
Date Posted: 14 Nov 2014 at 20:56
An excellent set of posts from Stormcrow and Rikoo.  I very much appreciate them.  Thank you.


Posted By: Jejune
Date Posted: 14 Nov 2014 at 21:15
Originally posted by G0DsDestroyer G0DsDestroyer wrote:

Originally posted by Jejune Jejune wrote:

Again, amazing work by the devs, and just an incredible thing to read. I still believe that the outside gaming community should know about this story and how the game developers caught the conspirators.

On a personal note, I found Brock's IGM about frauding the game really disgustipating: "they are equal to( 515 GBP) OR( 823 USD) hahahahahahaha" ... Brock converts 15 Prestige Scraps into 1,125 Prestige for his account. 

Yeah, hahahahahaha -- you're a thief. A real-life thief.

To be correct here... Brock wasn't the one who said that in his igm, that was a message sent to Brock from deghoul, at least that's what it looks like to me

from SC's post:
From: deghoul [mCrow]
To: Brock Fairly [Roads]

Right, G0ds. Actually, my post was a composite of deghoul's IGM and Brock's purchase. Still, I think "hahahahahahaha" characterizes both conspirators quite accurately.


-------------
https://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/a/p/394156" rel="nofollow">


Posted By: Berde
Date Posted: 14 Nov 2014 at 21:25
What becomes of the various buy/sell orders currently in the markets?


Posted By: Maccam
Date Posted: 14 Nov 2014 at 21:38
Originally posted by Nesse Nesse wrote:

...I did receive a message from cnenc, saying that he was sending me gold. I looked and found a large amount incoming. 100 or 200 million. A large amount, but not extreme. Later, I found I had 4 billion on each of my two accounts, Nesse and Odd. Since there is no trail of who sent caravans, I had no way of checking the source... 

A small point, you can see who sent what to where here:

http://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/#/Communication/Notifications/3

It goes back 2 weeks...time enough.  I am not saying you knew how to do it, I'm just saying it is possible.


Posted By: Hiei
Date Posted: 14 Nov 2014 at 22:18
I NEVER would have thought this was going on. Nor, knew it was a possibility. Sad to see some nice players go.  I guess it was for the better. Thanks GMs


Posted By: Starry
Date Posted: 14 Nov 2014 at 23:17
Well done Devs!!    As someone who purchases prestige, the thought of someone being able to cheat to get prestige with an exploit really angers me.    Thank you for shutting down the exploit and the related accounts.   I've quit games in the past when exploits such as this were not addressed by the Devs, glad to see you are actively watching for players using exploits.

 


-------------
CEO, Harmless?
Founder of Toothless?

"Truth never dies."
-HonoredMule



Posted By: Alcie
Date Posted: 14 Nov 2014 at 23:55
To re-quote:

1) We firmly believe that Odd was a primary player in this exploit conspiracy, and that he dissembled and lied - even to his own alliance.

2) Odd received Billions of Gold from CDD.

3) Odd inviting delif to join the alliance. It's pretty clear that Odd and delif had prearranged delif's immediate alliance membership via out-of-game channels.

4) Odd has never, ever igm'd delif/deghoul (or vice versa).

5) Odd know who delif/cnenc is.

6) One of the [Roads] players who got in touch with details apparently got an earful about sharing information with the GMs and "naming names", especially cnenc. Odd didn't want us making the connection between delif/deghoul and cnenc - and therefore looping back to Odd.

__

my response: _____________________________________________________
1. I firmly believe Odd was not involved in the exploit conspiracy.

2. I may have received billions too.. not totally sure because I don't pay attention to all the comings and goings of caravans.. I definitely got a fair chunk though. cnenc/delif made it a point to give gold to people who had helped him on his current or past account.


3. I knew cnenc was delif before Odd did. I believe I recruited one of cnenc's characters first in fact.   and the fact that he was cnenc was fairly public, although not ultra public because the details of whatever happened to cnenc's previous account were not public, although the fact he had done that 11-town glitch was well-known.

4. Odd never emails many people except in alliance-alls. I certainly had plenty of contact with and about delif.

5. see point 3.

6. I feel like they are quoting this last one about me and in which case they massively mis-read what happened. Odd was not even involved at all. Someone in roads (not Odd) yelled at me for trusting the devs with names even if I was just defending people. I now see that person was correct and I should not have trusted the devs.   If this quote was unrelated to me, there is however also a general sense that naming other people's alts is impolite in this game and people often get reprimanded for it.

7. There isn't a 7, but if you are going on a banning spree, ban me too. I knew more than Odd. And yet I did not know there was an exploit. I suspect the same goes for most (though not all) of the people who were just banned.

8. The devs are acting as judge/jury/executioner and pretending that they know people better than they do and that circumstantial evidence = facts. From what I just saw them say about Odd, I can only assume they are fundamentally are horrible at investigating.

9. delif/cnenc cheated. he should be banned. Perhaps a few others did things they shouldn't have done. These should be warned and punished. perma-banning is not a good solution, especially as your net was so wide it clearly captured innocents.

10. Odd is a great guy but the devs clearly underestimate how clueless and distracted he can be

11. I am sure the devs think they are in the right here. DEVS-- you are great peopel (usually). But, as I said before, I firmly beieve you are terrible investigators, at least in the sense of interpreting and judging. You have done a huge wrong here while trying to do a big right. I hope you make ammends.


12. Just to be clear... Is it illegal to know someone is an alt of a person who (may have--but you never tell us normally) previously been suspended? You let that person back in the game making it seem like he was an allowed player...

13. feel free to ban me. I don't think I deserve it, but I do think I deserve it more than Odd merely for knowing more.


Posted By: Lagavulin
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 00:24
The case against odd, as laid out by SC, seems pretty strong to me, albeit circumstantial.  

I have a great deal of sympathy for the idea that players could have received 500M or more Gold and not known it.  I pay very little attention to the gold in my cities unless I am running in the Red.  And that is something I rarely do.

One of the banned accounts, deghoul, bought two prestige scraps from me.  At 70M and 75M iirc.  At the time I wondered who his main was.  It never occurred to me that there was a cheat or that he was cheating.

So I am, very slightly, concerned that some player got caught up in the Great Ban who did not know there was cheating going on.  But its only a twinge of concern.  In this instance the action of the Devs looks appropriate to me.


Posted By: Alcie
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 00:32
Originally posted by G0DsDestroyer G0DsDestroyer wrote:

Originally posted by Jejune Jejune wrote:

Again, amazing work by the devs, and just an incredible thing to read. I still believe that the outside gaming community should know about this story and how the game developers caught the conspirators.

On a personal note, I found Brock's IGM about frauding the game really disgustipating: "they are equal to( 515 GBP) OR( 823 USD) hahahahahahaha" ... Brock converts 15 Prestige Scraps into 1,125 Prestige for his account. 

Yeah, hahahahahaha -- you're a thief. A real-life thief.


To be correct here... Brock wasn't the one who said that in his igm, that was a message sent to Brock from deghoul, at least that's what it looks like to me

from SC's post:
<div style="line-height: 16.7999992370605px; : rgb255, 248, 229;">From: deghoul [mCrow]
<div style="line-height: 16.7999992370605px; : rgb255, 248, 229;">To: Brock Fairly [Roads]



Brock was honestly worried about delif/deghoul/etc. possibly breaking rules and getting other people in trouble for quite awhile. I conversed with him about this. I guess he was a little too nice to turn him in even after he may have known there was a real issue.   I do not completely know if Brock was at 'real' fault or not. But this is illy, not a police state.

I do know Brock was a kind and honest person and also not the one doing the exploit.

delif/cnenc/etc. liked to talk random trash which we tended to ignore. Again, this is illy, people are nice here, we tend to give the benefit of the doubt.

On a different note: cnenc once bragged he could hack the email system. He liked to brag about all sorts of things.. I tended to think he was making it all up but his actual hack makes me think perhaps not. This also worries me even more about putative cicumstantial evidence... The only thing with email I personally saw him do was some small thing which seemed like a minor bug I never got around to putting a ticket in for and forgot about. But it worries me that he may have been able to (and may have done) more. reading other's emails lately?


As to all of you saying 'yay devs, you are wonderful, clearly no one would be so stupid without being a conspirator' To you I say:

1. This is a friendly and trusting game.. to a fault perhaps.

2. You say that until the devs over-reach again and it happens to fall on you this time.



Posted By: Lagavulin
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 00:48
Alcie makes a very good point about this being a friendly game where we give other players the benefit of the doubt.  

It would be very difficult for me to turn someone in except in the face of overwhelming personal knowledge.  Even then I can see myself telling that person "don't do that" rather than turning them in.

This is not RL.  This is an escape from RL.  Though the individual escape will take different forms for each of us.  Turning someone in breaks the Third Wall between RL and Illy.  I can easily imagine that making 'turning someone in' a thing hard to even think of let alone follow thru with.

But I will say again.  Stormcrow's recital of the sequence of things looks, to me, very bad for odd.


Posted By: Veneke
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 01:07
Credit where credit is due - the devs have acted on this exploit/hack with considerable vigour and transparency. That's not always something that you see, particularly the latter, but it is always a welcome sight.

The problem with transparency is that it's never fully transparent. We can't see what the devs see, only what they're telling us. This inevitably leads doubt as to the veracity of the claims. I'm new to the game, so perhaps I'm more willing to trust that the devs wouldn't go on a banning spree, particularly in the wake of the Moka incident, without being pretty sure of things. So even though their explanation has a few holes here and there, I think it's reasonable to assume that their assumptions based on the entirety of the evidence (which is obviously not wholly reproduced here) are largely correct.

What isn't clear though is if the people who received gold between 8 and 23 Sept received permabans or not. If this was the extent of their involvement then permabans seem overly harsh.


-------------
"May have been the losing side, still not convinced it was the wrong one." - Captain Malcolm Reynolds


Posted By: Angrim
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 01:36
the devs will not be swayed, so there is no purpose in having an opinion on the rightness of their arguments.

i will miss Odd, another vet ejected from the game. we did not always see illy events in the same way, but afaik he was always honest with me.


Posted By: Diva
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 02:55
To receive THESE amounts and not question is complicity, especially using it for prestige buys on the market and improving your score. 
The scrolls/parchments/tomes were exploited with unearned gold.




-------------
"Um diva.... you are sort of acting like a .... diva...." - PhoenixFire


Posted By: Aurordan
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 03:00
Say what you will about iwasgoldgenerator, at least he was honest :P

But yeah, good riddance to cheaters. 


Posted By: Glin
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 03:08
Originally posted by Alcie Alcie wrote:

To re-quote:

1) We firmly believe that Odd was a primary player in this exploit conspiracy, and that he dissembled and lied - even to his own alliance.

2) Odd received Billions of Gold from CDD.

3) Odd inviting delif to join the alliance. It's pretty clear that Odd and delif had prearranged delif's immediate alliance membership via out-of-game channels.

4) Odd has never, ever igm'd delif/deghoul (or vice versa).

5) Odd know who delif/cnenc is.

6) One of the [Roads] players who got in touch with details apparently got an earful about sharing information with the GMs and "naming names", especially cnenc. Odd didn't want us making the connection between delif/deghoul and cnenc - and therefore looping back to Odd.

__

my response: _____________________________________________________
1. I firmly believe Odd was not involved in the exploit conspiracy.

2. I may have received billions too.. not totally sure because I don't pay attention to all the comings and goings of caravans.. I definitely got a fair chunk though. cnenc/delif made it a point to give gold to people who had helped him on his current or past account.


3. I knew cnenc was delif before Odd did. I believe I recruited one of cnenc's characters first in fact.   and the fact that he was cnenc was fairly public, although not ultra public because the details of whatever happened to cnenc's previous account were not public, although the fact he had done that 11-town glitch was well-known.

4. Odd never emails many people except in alliance-alls. I certainly had plenty of contact with and about delif.

5. see point 3.

6. I feel like they are quoting this last one about me and in which case they massively mis-read what happened. Odd was not even involved at all. Someone in roads (not Odd) yelled at me for trusting the devs with names even if I was just defending people. I now see that person was correct and I should not have trusted the devs.   If this quote was unrelated to me, there is however also a general sense that naming other people's alts is impolite in this game and people often get reprimanded for it.

7. There isn't a 7, but if you are going on a banning spree, ban me too. I knew more than Odd. And yet I did not know there was an exploit. I suspect the same goes for most (though not all) of the people who were just banned.

8. The devs are acting as judge/jury/executioner and pretending that they know people better than they do and that circumstantial evidence = facts. From what I just saw them say about Odd, I can only assume they are fundamentally are horrible at investigating.

9. delif/cnenc cheated. he should be banned. Perhaps a few others did things they shouldn't have done. These should be warned and punished. perma-banning is not a good solution, especially as your net was so wide it clearly captured innocents.

10. Odd is a great guy but the devs clearly underestimate how clueless and distracted he can be

11. I am sure the devs think they are in the right here. DEVS-- you are great peopel (usually). But, as I said before, I firmly beieve you are terrible investigators, at least in the sense of interpreting and judging. You have done a huge wrong here while trying to do a big right. I hope you make ammends.


12. Just to be clear... Is it illegal to know someone is an alt of a person who (may have--but you never tell us normally) previously been suspended? You let that person back in the game making it seem like he was an allowed player...

13. feel free to ban me. I don't think I deserve it, but I do think I deserve it more than Odd merely for knowing more.
So you knew all these things were going on and you didnt report it, send an igm to the devs, or open a petition?
You honestly thought cnenc was generating THAT much gold in an honest capacity AND you knew one of his previous alts had been involved in a previous in-game scam? Really?
Maybe I misread your post above, but if not---then yeah... I don't see why you are still here.


Posted By: Rill
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 03:33
I am really sad at the loss of players I respected and care about.

To the remaining players in Roads, I can only imagine your sense of loss and perhaps even bewilderment.  It is my hope that the Illy community will stand with you during this time.  I intend to.


Posted By: Sheza
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 03:39
Your right Rill.  it is sad .  

-------------
If Horses don't go to Heaven when they die. then I want to go where they go.


Posted By: Alcie
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 03:41
Originally posted by Glin Glin wrote:


So you knew all these things were going on and you didnt report it, send an igm to the devs, or open a petition?
You honestly thought cnenc was generating THAT much gold in an honest capacity AND you knew one of his previous alts had been involved in a previous in-game scam? Really?
Maybe I misread your post above, but if not---then yeah... I don't see why you are still here.


Did I honestly think a player who had 10 cities and was really into sieging and thieving and earning gold could have quite a few billion gold to throw around? yes, yes I did.

did I know cnenc had just spontaneously gotten 50 billion or whatever and was buying up prestige? no, no I didn't. I suspect most of the people who got banned didn't either or didn't believe him even if he said so.


Did I suspect his cnenc account had been kicked? also yes, at least eventually. Do I know what the devs said? do I know if the devs let him have a new account? no, I don't. I saw him there so assumed he must be allowed to be there. The devs aren't usually exactly forthcoming about those types of things. He never really tried very hard to pretend the new account delif was not cnenc. He did portray himself as retired and only coming on to say hi. I had assumed most of the patches of gold were him emptying his old account. I did not know the extent of gold, I did know several cases and it seemed not too unreasonable to me. If you had 10 billion gold and quit the game what would you do? Parse it up and send it to a few friends.


As I said before, the default in this game is to trust. A lot of people evidently trusted someone they shouldn't have and got banned for their good will.


Do things look more suspicious IN RETROSPECT now that I know what was going on? yes, yes they do. Just like it did to the devs. big pictures look very different than localized windows. If you are not careful, though, the little details that were all that were important at the time get washed away.


It is so easy to find fault in someone elses' thinking when it doesn't involve yourself.


Posted By: Alcie
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 03:56
Originally posted by Rill Rill wrote:

I am really sad at the loss of players I respected and care about.

To the remaining players in Roads, I can only imagine your sense of loss and perhaps even bewilderment.  It is my hope that the Illy community will stand with you during this time.  I intend to.



Thank you Rill. I know we appreciate those words.

The devs were good to say this was not a witch hunt, but I am afraid it over-upsets me when I see players who act gleeful and slavering for blood over this. The devs I know at least meant well, even if I firmly believe they were mistaken about a lot of what happened or, more to the point, the intentions and beliefs of the people who walked amongst the partial contexts and partial facts which were scraped up.

Anyways, I really appreciate the people who speak towards this as a thing of loss rather than glee. I deeply hope that the new tradable prestige does not make this (and the other recent banning from today ) common occurences.


I have said my piece on the forumns and should not have continued in an additional pointless backlash. I am sorry for that.

I will stop spamming the forumns. Thank you for everyone who makes this a great game. Let us continue to try to make this a game which focuses and promotes the positive and caring rather than the negative.




Posted By: Glin
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 04:10
I honestly cannot believe that anyone would receive more than a few million gold into their ciy via caravan and not notice. 

I also cannot believe that so few people were recipients of those massive gifting arrangements and chose to not report it.  Hey to those who at least questioned their alliance leader then thats great- but such a superficial response as --uh whatever i dont know him--- would have set off red flags to me!!! 
So if I misunderstood your lengthy post and you don't have any part in the concealment of the scheme while it was happening-- then so be it. 
But yeah.. I can see how in retrospect you could say, wow- why didn't I question that? I'm trying to actually believe that anyone could be sent hundreds of millions or billions of gold without any purpose such as trade and not be uncomfortable and not question the persons motives. 
Especially as this appears to have funded a war-time period. 
Was Roads funding a war via Odd or Ness and his alliance with these funds? Was the whole war just a cute giggle to theme Was it cute to them when players quit the game as their cities were destroyed? Would they have lost their cities if the war had not raged so long without the access to the gold that Odd and Nesse had?
No, I dont really expect you to respond. I'm just wondering if others are wondering the same thing.
Take care Alcie. I'm sure that at the end of the day, we both agree that the worst part of this whole affair is the sense of betrayal everyone in Illy feels. 


Posted By: Rill
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 04:20
Originally posted by Glin Glin wrote:

Especially as this appears to have funded a war-time period. 
Was Roads funding a war via Odd or Ness and his alliance with these funds? Was the whole war just a cute giggle to theme Was it cute to them when players quit the game as their cities were destroyed? Would they have lost their cities if the war had not raged so long without the access to the gold that Odd and Nesse had?
No, I dont really expect you to respond. I'm just wondering if others are wondering the same thing.
Take care Alcie. I'm sure that at the end of the day, we both agree that the worst part of this whole affair is the sense of betrayal everyone in Illy feels. 

Which war could you possibly be referring to?  The exploit described by the developers began in August 2014, and I am not aware of any wars that have been fought between then and now.  Even if you take the original date of creation of the cnenc account, April 2014, the most recent war that occurred was essentially over by that time (although final peace was not signed until June or so).

Let's try to think clearly about this.  Obviously this is an upsetting situation, but there is no need to make it worse than it is.


Posted By: abstractdream
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 04:54
This exploit did not happen during any major war.

I want to say that there is a point, for me, where I would question, warn and even distance myself but "turning in" is a question I cannot answer. If approached by a Dev/GM, I would not lie, nor would I lie by omission, but to come forward? That is the question I cannot answer.

-------------
Bonfyr Verboo


Posted By: Glin
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 07:51
Rill and abstract, you can wish that into being if you want-- but while other alliances were working hard to rebuild their cities, these two alliances (possibly a third..?) had access to an unbelievable amount of gold for rebuilding. Further, it stands to reason that if three or four people knew of this- then there were more. And it definitely controlled major changes in market values. So, I really think you are short sighted if you are gonna sit there and say that the war was not a precursor to the thieving.   
Controlling mass amounts of gold and gifting it definitely changed strength outcomes. Frankly, it would asinine for anyone to believe it has not.



Posted By: Rill
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 08:11
So you are claiming that something that happened after the war was over in some way contributed to the war or its outcome?

In terms of rebuilding after the war, the alliances that had members who participated in this exploit were not involved in the war anyway.  They were not rebuilding their cities in the first place.

In terms of the possibility that this exploit made rebuilding more difficult by increasing the cost of resources, I have to defer to active traders.  I sell mainly basic resources and I haven't noticed any such effect.  Basic resources used to rebuild cities are not a "scarce" resource in Illy, so even the availability of additional gold would not affect the market for them much.

With regard to the possibility that additional people knew about the exploit who have not yet been discovered, I trust that the developers will be able to find them and deal with them appropriately.  Until then I don't see any reason for us to believe that this extends further than what has been described thus far.

Innuendo aside, do you have any facts to support your contentions?


Posted By: Glin
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 08:26
Do you understand the concepts of elasticity?


Posted By: Rill
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 08:55
No, during my MBA program in which I took a finance emphasis, they neglected to cover basic economic concepts.

Sarcasm aside, I don't claim to be an economist, but I have a general grasp of how money supply can affect prices.

I am essentially arguing that supply of basic resources is highly elastic and that therefore any change in demand for resources driven by increases in money supply would not have a very large increase in price and therefore would not be likely to affect people's ability to rebuild.

In addition, in this case the growth in gold appears to have stayed concentrated in a fairly limited number of hands.

Given a higher concentration of wealth, it seems likely that the effects of inflation would be felt more in the market for discretionary goods, such as advanced harvestables, crafted items, etc., for which supply is more inelastic, and not so much in the market for commodities, since the supply of those commodities is elastic.

Commodities by their nature have a low income elasticity of demand -- people will tend to prioritize rebuilding their cities over other activities such as the above.  Therefore an increase in income would tend to have less effect on the demand for basic resources than for luxury goods, as described above.

In addition, based on the description the developers have given regarding the ways in which a great deal of the increased money supply was used, a lot of it did not enter the economic system, but rather was deposited in alliance inventories or used to purchase prestige scrolls.  Or in some cases, simply sat in players' accounts.  This in many ways could be seen to parallel the economic recovery from the most recent recession, in which in spite of relatively "easy money" policies the people who had the money did not "spend" it (such as by banks making loans in the case of the U.S. or by players buying things in Illy).  The result in the United States was a period of low inflation in spite of "easy money" policies.  A similar situation seems to have occurred in Illy.

Given that I have an understanding of elasticity, do you see it being relevant to this situation in a way other than the one I've described?

Your argument for an observable economic effect is speculative at best, and any attempt to link it to war is utterly specious.


Posted By: jordigui
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 14:41
Rill +1 (or A+)


Posted By: abstractdream
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 15:07
Originally posted by Glin Glin wrote:

...Especially as this appears to have funded a war-time period.
Was Roads funding a war via Odd or Ness and his alliance with these funds? Was the whole war just a cute giggle to theme Was it cute to them when players quit the game as their cities were destroyed? Would they have lost their cities if the war had not raged so long without the access to the gold that Odd and Nesse had?


So, I was responding to that quote. All the gobbledygook aside, I can attest to the fact that the war was long over by the August date described by SC. I can also tell you that rebuilding relies very little on markets and market values. That is just how I see it, based on my own and my alliance family's experience. I cannot testify to other's experiences but I can extrapolate and I would bet this exploit had little to no effect on those of us who fought in the war or who are rebuilding.


-------------
Bonfyr Verboo


Posted By: Glin
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 15:36
Rill, your comment makes you look like a rake. You may have an MBA but you need to grow up.

At best. 

Abstract: you are seriously underestimating the costs of rebuilding from the war. 

The fact that two alliances and a member from a third had access to unlimited gold which gave countless 'friends' an advantage over the rest of the server makes it look like there are truly "lots" of cheaters. 

And hey, I don't care if you don't like me saying it. 
Stop trying to "react" to my comments and just take them at face value. 
There appears to be a lot of immoral people threaded throughout several alliances. 




Posted By: Bimoda
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 15:38
+1  to Rill

And as a side note, do you want to come help me with my business finances?  Wink

Originally posted by Rill Rill wrote:

No, during my MBA program in which I took a finance emphasis, they neglected to cover basic economic concepts.

Sarcasm aside, I don't claim to be an economist, but I have a general grasp of how money supply can affect prices.

I am essentially arguing that supply of basic resources is highly elastic and that therefore any change in demand for resources driven by increases in money supply would not have a very large increase in price and therefore would not be likely to affect people's ability to rebuild.

In addition, in this case the growth in gold appears to have stayed concentrated in a fairly limited number of hands.

Given a higher concentration of wealth, it seems likely that the effects of inflation would be felt more in the market for discretionary goods, such as advanced harvestables, crafted items, etc., for which supply is more inelastic, and not so much in the market for commodities, since the supply of those commodities is elastic.

Commodities by their nature have a low income elasticity of demand -- people will tend to prioritize rebuilding their cities over other activities such as the above.  Therefore an increase in income would tend to have less effect on the demand for basic resources than for luxury goods, as described above.

In addition, based on the description the developers have given regarding the ways in which a great deal of the increased money supply was used, a lot of it did not enter the economic system, but rather was deposited in alliance inventories or used to purchase prestige scrolls.  Or in some cases, simply sat in players' accounts.  This in many ways could be seen to parallel the economic recovery from the most recent recession, in which in spite of relatively "easy money" policies the people who had the money did not "spend" it (such as by banks making loans in the case of the U.S. or by players buying things in Illy).  The result in the United States was a period of low inflation in spite of "easy money" policies.  A similar situation seems to have occurred in Illy.

Given that I have an understanding of elasticity, do you see it being relevant to this situation in a way other than the one I've described?

Your argument for an observable economic effect is speculative at best, and any attempt to link it to war is utterly specious.


-------------
Bimoda - Dragon Fairy: Illyria Fairy Nation [FAIRY]


Posted By: Rua
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 15:56
I don't understand why there are so many people here saying devs did a good job. To me it looks like the investigation led to completely wrong conclusions resulting in giving permabans to wrong people.

Odd (Nesse) operated with huge amounts of money for a long time: there was no reason to exploit the game he truly loved and devoted so much time risking what he already had. If anybody does not know this, Odd is a great guy and has been an active part of Illyriad community since 2011 leading two alliances, each of them being interesting and unique. From what I know, he was waiting for new features in the game, such as introduction of more complex magic system and roads, that were mentioned very long ago. He has 10 cities on both of his accounts and his wife has 9 cities, mostly generating gold, so I am sure he had billions of gold long before receiving anything from CDD.

The reasoning why CDD sent money away to good people, who helped him in the past, is very clear. If Odd received a message about an old player wanting to join an alliance in a Facebook group, I do not see why he would not add him: even if he knew cnenc had been banned, he might have not known the reason behind it.

As for Brock, he received the money and a strange letter, then he bought prestige scrolls - looks like it was his only fault, based on what I read in this topic. And it looks clear that he did not send the money to himself, otherwise the letter would not be needed.

I am sure that the investigation has led to wrong conclusions and Odd is innocent, probably as some other people from the list.

It is interesting that I could have been among the banned: two days after I created the account, delif sent me a friend request. I sent him a letter introducing myself and he replied to me. Luckily I did not get any money from him. I suspect he might have known me from before, when I played this game and abandoned my account later. Though I don't remember having known anybody with such a peculiar style of writing messages: no capital letters or punctuation marks.


Posted By: GM Rikoo
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 17:10
Keep the comments civil, players, or I will simply remove them and possibly the player from the forums, no warnings other than this one.


GM Rikoo




-------------
Illyriad Community Manager / Public Relations / community@illyriad.co.uk


Posted By: abstractdream
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 17:28
Glin, I was simply stating my experiences as a counter point to your statements. I am not required to accept your statements at any value. I have no idea what your experiences are since there is no player with your in-game name. Perhaps you can elaborate?

-------------
Bonfyr Verboo


Posted By: Rill
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 18:02
This whole situation is sad and bewildering for many.  Attempts to use it to create a moral panic are unnecessary and counterproductive.


Posted By: Tamaeon
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 19:51
I don't think the devs wanted to ban these players, but after reading SC's post... I can only conclude that they had no choice. Anyone who exploits the system of any game for such huge amounts of currency, will invariably get banned. No game developer or admin can allow themselves the luxury of letting such an action go unpunished. Zero tolerance was the only move here.

That said, it's a shame that we lost good players like Odd/Nesse... but he must have known that the consequences would be severe if they got caught.

It's quite clear that these players grossly underestimated how thoroughly the Devs would research the entire issue.

As far as I'm concerned the Devs have handled this one in an exemplary manner Clap

edit: corrected spelling mistakes


-------------
"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each prayer accepted, and each wish resigned."


Posted By: Epidemic
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 21:38
Its impossible to know what most players involved were thinking when they were receiving massive amounts of free gold. Is this a scam/cheat? Is this a rich benefactor selling prestige to spread the wealth? etc...

All i'll say is i've played games where this cheating is rampant and i've played games where rich players, who spend $50k - $100k without batting an eyelash, (i'm playing such a game now) freely spread the wealth among their alliance and friends.


Posted By: Berde
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 23:00
Originally posted by Epidemic Epidemic wrote:

... i've played games where rich players, who spend $50k - $100k without batting an eyelash, (i'm playing such a game now) freely spread the wealth among their alliance and friends.

Clearly, I need richer friends.


Posted By: Brandmeister
Date Posted: 15 Nov 2014 at 23:31
Originally posted by Glin Glin wrote:

Abstract: you are seriously underestimating the costs of rebuilding from the war. 

Maybe I am mixing up account or alliance names, but didn't his alliance have to rebuild almost everything after the war? They would seem to know more about it than most.


Posted By: Glin
Date Posted: 16 Nov 2014 at 00:34
well, it certainly makes you wonder why he's not more upset the cheaters were cherry picking who they gave that gold to. It certainly looks like it went to specific players to rebuild or pass along to those that needed to rebuild for a price.

So, hows that make you feel knowing some players played by the rules are are still building up their towns and others... well, it certainly doesn't look like they are struggling to get the funds for it..


Posted By: Mahaut
Date Posted: 16 Nov 2014 at 02:39
Glin
Without in any way attempting to say who is right or wrong or guilty in all this sorry mess please stop trying to drag the past history war into anything. It's totally irrelevant.
Out of the alliances and players in alliances mentioned in Stormcrow's post..........
Roads wasn't involved in the war. 
mCrow wasn't involved in the war. 
Dwarven Druids wasn't involved in the war. 
Blood Moon wasn't involved in the war. 
Illyria Fairy Nation wasn't involved in the war.
Shade was, but Silverleaf was in Shade for just 4 months and that was after the peace was signed, he was in Roads before and after that period. I don't know why he moved to Shade or why he moved back out again but helping them rebuild after the war with stolen gold wouldn't have been the reason as he could have done that from any alliance or from no alliance.

I don't know who you are Glin but really, if you are struggling to rebuild perhaps asking your alliance for assistance instead of throwing wild and unfounded conspiracy theories about might be a plan. We've apparently got enough of the real thing without making 'em up.


-------------


Posted By: Glin
Date Posted: 16 Nov 2014 at 05:04
I really dislike those people making comments that denigrates the severity of the crime against the trust of the other players. 

You can try to tell me there was no war time ( yes that includes the post war rebuild) motivation for the gold greed but frankly you are just full of  it. 

There would be no reason for the greed unless they thought they were getting one-up on other players. 

and schmucks who stand around and say there is no proof of this and that are just really trying to say they think the rest of the players in Illy are not as important as their worry of keeping the peace between alliances or keeping their friends names clean. 

That makes the naysayers unclean as well. Part of the problem. trying to denigrate the truth and the reality of the betrayal through cliche pundits meant to defray honest responses. 

Well, here's the thing. There are lots of people today in gc who spoke up and all said the same thing. They are glad the dolts got banned. As well as the people who "knew about it" but chose to look the other way as their towns were used to launder the gold through Illy.

So yeah, hey. Thanks for all of you taking the time to tell all the Illy players which of you cant support the truth. It says a lot to the rest of us.


Posted By: Epidemic
Date Posted: 16 Nov 2014 at 06:06
Originally posted by Glin Glin wrote:

I really dislike those people making comments that denigrates the severity of the crime against the trust of the other players. 
Well, here's the thing. There are lots of people today in gc who spoke up and all said the same thing. They are glad the dolts got banned. As well as the people who "knew about it" but chose to look the other way as their towns were used to launder the gold through Illy.


If someone wanted to give me 1 billion in gold i'd accept it and send them a gracious 'thank you' letter. Am I to be demonized and called names because I accepted a gift and my hindsight wasn't 50/50?

Until this glitch/cheat came out very few of us would of thought it was possible, so why demonize anybody without getting their side of the story. The only 'unlimited gold' glitch we knew about was permasits.

Don't be so quick to play the blame game and at least have the respect to talk from your game account.


Posted By: Aurordan
Date Posted: 16 Nov 2014 at 07:12
Originally posted by Glin Glin wrote:

I really dislike those people making comments that denigrates the severity of the crime against the trust of the other players. 

You can try to tell me there was no war time ( yes that includes the post war rebuild) motivation for the gold greed but frankly you are just full of  it. 

There would be no reason for the greed unless they thought they were getting one-up on other players. 

and schmucks who stand around and say there is no proof of this and that are just really trying to say they think the rest of the players in Illy are not as important as their worry of keeping the peace between alliances or keeping their friends names clean. 

That makes the naysayers unclean as well. Part of the problem. trying to denigrate the truth and the reality of the betrayal through cliche pundits meant to defray honest responses. 

Well, here's the thing. There are lots of people today in gc who spoke up and all said the same thing. They are glad the dolts got banned. As well as the people who "knew about it" but chose to look the other way as their towns were used to launder the gold through Illy.

So yeah, hey. Thanks for all of you taking the time to tell all the Illy players which of you cant support the truth. It says a lot to the rest of us.

It's not the severity of the crime that people are objecting to, it's the connection you're drawing to it's use in the war.  That is provability untrue. The offending fund transfers are laid out here and none of them were combatants in any alliance at any time.  

Also, I'm not sure what perspective you're speaking from, but I would guess that abstractdream for his part is estimating the the mechanics of rebuilding about exactly right.  


Posted By: Mayflower
Date Posted: 16 Nov 2014 at 12:37
Thumbs up to the dev team!

-------------
http://elgea.illyriad.co.uk/a/p/105635" rel="nofollow">


Posted By: The Duke
Date Posted: 16 Nov 2014 at 13:43
To be clear here, Shade was unaware of silverleaf using any kind of exploit and there was never any outrageous donation of gold 1 billion or higher, to any of our players or our alliance coffers( this can be confirmed by the GMs). Silverleaf asked specifically to join Shade to become a more military rounded player as he had been in roads, which has never been a military alliance. Shade accepted him, and when according to him he had received enough direction he exited Shade and moved back into roads. 



-------------
"Our generation has had no Great Depression, no Great War. Our war is spiritual. Our depression is our lives."


Posted By: Rill
Date Posted: 16 Nov 2014 at 19:56
The person who created the exploit was wrong.  Anyone who knowingly benefited from it was also wrong.

Attempting to draw connections from the exploit to any war is factually inaccurate.  Attempting to use the wrongdoing to tarnish the characters of those in Roads who did not know about it is wrong.

Two wrongs don't make a right, Glint.  Please stop with this "moral" crusade, which looks to me just like you trying to use an incident of wrongdoing to smear people who were uninvolved but for some reason you don't like.


Posted By: Belegar Ironhammer
Date Posted: 16 Nov 2014 at 20:46
Originally posted by Glin Glin wrote:


You can try to tell me there was no war time ( yes that includes the post war rebuild) motivation for the gold greed but frankly you are just full of  it. 

So, your argument boils down to "I hate you and you are wrong."

Your reply to Rill's well thought out economic analysis was "You are a rake."

The cheaters were banned and the gold was pulled back. Some of us think that the Devs could have taken a closer look at Odd before banning him.

We are not saying that we think we are superior to the rest of Illy in anyway. But you have labeled me and some of my friends as "schmucks" "naysayers" "unclean" and "part of the problem"

The only one being insulting here is you, Glin. And the only one hiding behind an account is you, Glin. 

If you desire honesty, then why do you wear a mask? 


Posted By: GM Rikoo
Date Posted: 16 Nov 2014 at 22:01
And with that, we have came to the end of this discussion. When some of the former players are literally threatening to take action by spamming us (and who knows what else) until they are reinstated, (I know, the irony is amazing) it's time to shut down the conversation.

If you have questions about policy from now on, IGM me. Any other topic openings or attempts to discuss this out-of-bounds will be shut down.

GM Rikoo


-------------
Illyriad Community Manager / Public Relations / community@illyriad.co.uk



Print Page | Close Window

Forum Software by Web Wiz Forums® version 12.03 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Copyright ©2001-2019 Web Wiz Ltd. - https://www.webwiz.net