UPDATE:

Shard is back up.
Also i should probably clarify. There were 3 bugs, the potion duplication bug, the potion resource bug(internal), and an inheritance dependency bug(internal). People exploited bug #1 for gold gain. We're rolling back because of bug #3. I can clean up the exploitation by hand, but i wanted to be sure 3 didn't have pieces left in the system that could muck things up later. If people had reported bug #1 sooner and not been abusing it(which generated a ton more errors in the logs and therefore took a lot longer to go through), i would have found #2 and eventually #3 faster.
Sorry the rollback took as long as it did. Broadband is the only one who can perform them, and he's busy as always.
Total rollback time was almost exactly 48 hours. Originally it was intended to only be 36.


ORIGINAL POST:

Well looks like we have another round of idiots today. Yes, that means some people were stupid and decided to abuse bugs and got caught.
Unfortunately, this turned out to be around 6 people.

Since I am hoping this is a random outbreak of mass stupidity, i'm going to give people the benefit of the doubt, and restate my earlier warning in case they didn't get the hint.

If you abuse a bug, you will be caught.
If you are friends with someone who abuses a bug and don't tell staff, you will be caught. Especially if you take things from them.
IF you know of a bug and don't report it, you will be caught.

I want to congratulate the 3 players who bothered to report the bug. They are examples of what people should do. Even if one of the people who reported it was reported by a second person because "they didn't want to get involved". And even if one of the people who reported it abused the bug anyway and tried to hide the evidence.

Now, given that this was an economy related bug (you could gain cash from it), I want to spell out in no uncertain terms what would happen to these 9 idiots if this happens again, random outbreak of stupidity or not:

You will lose ALL cash.
You will probably lose a house or two.
You will go on public display, your name will be announced, and your characters will probably be forced to wear the prefix(like lord) of [CHEATER] for a month.

Everyone has given up way too much to have morons f*** up the economy because they got a little greedy. If you think this is harsh, well go complain to everyone who lost their gold because we had morons messing up the economy for the last 3 years while bb wasn't around to fix bugs.

I repeat, this is everyone's final warning. Bug abuse is not going to be tolerated any longer. Not even "oh i didn't know it was a bug". Everyone knows what is expected behavior, and what is obviously a bug. IF you can make 10k in minutes, then it's probably a bug.

On that note whenever broadband wakes up we will probably have a rollback to fix this idiocy. Also it's annoying to have to deal with this type of stuff the minute i get home in the evening. Stop breaking shit/rules. It's not hard, i promise! It won't kill you!

cool, so can I have some forgiveness for being banned like 1 year ago for a bug that several people abused?

Terek Molt! Long time no see, smoker! Would be cool to see you in game again dude but yr gonna have to PM uhh I guess Thassius or Broadband if you want to be unbanned and plead yr case heh-heh. They've been around lately.

Damn cheaters! Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one here that hasn't abused a bug in the past... hmm that's probably why I suck so bad lol

Well I cant really say anything bad about these players. Not like I havent abused a bug
once or twice. Plus Im one of the morons that kinda had to get the server restarted
from the very beginning so the economy would work properly, and the reason players now
have like 10k to 0 gold :( my bads

well guess it wasnt my stupid move....lol

look its Terek

Lawl [Cheater] Tag is awsome :P

[CHEATER] is a quality idea! Just wondering though...We've had the rollback now - have said cheaty cheatys had direct penalties?

For the sake of those losing stuff, i hope so (lucky enough didnt effect me this time).

stupid rollbacks, so silly bob...

If I catch you abusing bugs for gold, I will not be changing your name.

If I'm in a good mood, I will delete your bank account.

If I'm not, I will ban you.

You have been warned.

If you think that is harsh, think of a whole server's worth of people who just lost 48 hours of time. How would you feel if you'd spent 10 hours mining only to lose everything you earnt fairly because someone else decided to cheat?

_________________
Thassius
"Blessed are the noobs, for they shall inherit Obsidian" - Thassius

See this is why we don't let jorus or thassius or even blinkers do the judicial branch of staff.
And heaven help you if bb's the one to catch ya, because no one can overrule him.

I'm the nice one.

Thass is nice he just hides it :P

im too old and dont have time for this shit, i do what i can cause i love this shard, but i have to ask, am i the only one who has ever beta tested a game before? you dont exploit the shit you find in a beta. lmao idiots. thats the whole point of beta, for players to help find problems so we can go full "final" release faster.

some of you are doing a great job of helping i wish i could play more and help but its 1 am in the morning and i have to go to work now, for 12 f****** hours.

At the rate this is going obsidian beta will be over by the time im your age drizzt and thats a while.

I've never seen a game beta that's lasted for 2 months, or however long it has been going on...

In all fairness we've been out of beta for months now. Just that annoying banner on the website that broadband never updates.
But still, abusing bugs just causes hell.
And yes we will be doing more to expose those who abuse so that they suffer the wrath of the players who they have wronged, rather than just relying on administrative punishments(which will be insanely harsh to begin with).

Hopefully this will curtail the impulse and cause people to be like "hey report that asap, you don't wanna get caught. you hear what happened to the last guy?"

most mmorpg betas can last two months easy, and that is on a professional server with paid staff and usually the beta is closed and tested by only invited hardcore dedicated players only.

it would not be a stretch to say a beta would take a free shard with unpaid staff and a small playerbase a lot longer. also uo is over 10 years old and one of the buggiest games of all time, and obsidian has a ton of custom stuff.