I’m pretty sure most if us assumed there was already a system in place to stop it happening and only tried out of a sheer sense of “screw it, let’s see IF it works.”
So, you all made an organized scheme. 
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What can I say?
If it DIDN’T work, no harm no foul.
As it DID, at that point most of us were curious how much we could get away with.
The answer being “not much”.
As in… you got greedy lol. You found a gold mine and wondered… huh, how much we can loot? 
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One way of wording it, yeah.
I mean if we’re getting technical perhaps the “proper” thing to have done would have been to try it once, confirm that it works then reported it, buuuuut it is what it is.
They were already aware it worked because of other guilds exploiting it in past contests. But they chose to broadcast it, the others were more sly and have thus avoided any bans. Which is unfortunate.
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I had an idea which I have not yet seen mentioned. What about offering a “Bug Bounty” as a reward/incentive for reporting issues without necessarily exploiting them?
I recognize that differing views have been expressed regarding the Terms of Service and interpretations of cheating/exploitation. I’m not getting into that at all, but rather trying to find a middle ground solution which could serve the needs of both the players and the developers.
Obviously we wouldn’t want people digging around, looking for bugs or exploits, but when one is found, we could try to motivate players to report the bug so that it may be addressed rather than exploited in the wild.
Bug Bounties are commonly used by organizations, and perhaps a system like this could serve as both an exploitation deterrent and a mechanism by which users could earn some type of compensation for their efforts in identifying and properly reporting issues.
What are your thoughts? Could a Bug Bounty system be implemented for the mutual benefit of players and developers? What type of rewards/incentives do you think would be appropriate and how do you think they would affect player behavior?
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I have actually had that in previous games I have worked on and unfortunately it doesn’t always go well. It’s not something I would like to try here at this time, but can keep in mind!
The fact that I didn’t think of doing it?
Well, we can look at this exploit directly. If it was reported right away, it would probably be a big spender. Because a F2P player would most likely never do that (unless supported by spenders). So I can see why you used the “it doesn´t always go well”… in many cases it just can´t go well.
I will say, while I don’t always like the responses I get, @Loutre has been very quick and responsive. I feel like even more so than Polaris used to be.
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Curious why the ban only applies to more than 2 guilds? Why not more than 1 guild change? Seems like this favors or protects players (or guilds) who exploited the same issue, but only happened to start it a day later? Anyone in “violation” of the ToS more than once, should all be held to the same standards of accountability . It’s not like they did it once and stopped…they did the exact same thing, but only started a day later. So why not at least a 2-day ban?? Seems questionable, at least apply your standards fairly and without bias or favor.
We felt those that received 3x or 4x the rewards were the one’s exploiting it the most. We won’t be removing any bans for this and I feel this discussion is going in circles now as I am continuing to repeat what I have previously said in this thread and others.
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So you’re saying 2x rewards was ok then. That seems very arbitrary and raises some red flags. I’m not asking you to remove bans (there is a difference and it’s not the same question as before). I’m asking that you apply them fairly and with some type of consistency or merit and not have it be arbitrary to only impact part of the “offenders” while not penalizing other offenders. Seems like it is a fair request to me.
They received warning to not do this again and if they do they will also receive a ban. Abusing this exploit was not ok, but we chose to send warnings to everyone and only the handful of players who abused it for 3x/4x the rewards received the 3 day ban. Again, I have stated this already and will not be discussing it further as nothing will be changed in regards to the warnings/bans that were given.
Still haven’t explained why it goes from 0 days banned to 3 days banned for one extra instance. Why doesn’t it scale to a 2 day ban for those who jumped one less time? Explain to me the merit on how that is fair treatment?
That players that did this did not receive any warning. I don’t understand why have the cooldown period if this was not intended ??
Does a player changing guilds to hit bigger bots
and get reward tiers warrant the punishment?
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We did send warnings. If you are one of the players who received the 3 day ban you will have a message when you regain access to the account.
Closing this thread as it is just becoming an argument again for the guild contest exploit which I will not be discussing further and you can read my previous comments on.
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