Important information for all players

I will do my best to answer these questions.

So long long exactly has this exploit been out if admins only just found out about its existence 12 hours ago?
We can't say for sure, but my current estimate based on the frequency of suspicious bans of the nature of the one that led us to our conclusion is approximately two days.

Have all the responsible parties been banned, items confiscated?
We have handed out multiple bans based on using this exploit. It is a hard thing to say whether items have been confiscated - this exploit is entirely related to meso, which means that any items that changed hands were legitimate items, it was the meso that purchased them that were not. This means that it's not items being confiscated but rather mesos that were given in return for legitimate items. Would it be fair to remove 60m from someone because illegitimate mesos purchased 200 Heartstoppers? I don't personally think so, because that person's net value has stayed the same. The exploiters have been removed, as many as we've found, and along with them went the illegitimate value, in either mesos or items purchased with them. The short answer is yes, we've been working hard even before we knew the source of the mesos to make sure that they stay out of the game, and we will continue to do so moving forward.

What were they doing with all that exploited meso? Can we even track their expenditure in the game?
The majority of it appears to have been purchasing Chaos and White Scrolls with the intent of creating overpowered attack gear, as those two scrolls in particular were the ones that were hit the hardest by this particular incident. We are doing our best to track their expenditure at this time, and the items resulting from any mass scrolling are fairly easy to follow. It may be possible that some have slipped through the cracks, however I trust that our staff will find most if not all of them and remove them from the game as necessary. It may take time, and it is entirely possible that excess meso are still in the server floating around because of this issue. Over the long term, I anticipate that we will find more and confiscate as we do. We may also be looking at alternative methods of removing mesos from the server in other forms if we deem it necessary - we're currently looking at macro numbers and assessing the best course of action, as this all has happened very quickly and will likely not have an answer that is just as quick and easy.

What steps have been taken to prevent this exploit from occurring again?
As I'm sure everyone is aware, our current state of the server is primarily focused on returning the server to the state it was in prior to the new source update, as far as functionality goes, and we've made a lot of progress with that. At this time, that focus has not changed; we will still be focusing on returning the features to the game that we have always had; think Horntail, Carnival PQ, Hired Merchants, etc. However, that's not to say that we haven't noticed what has happened the past few days. This is our first major issue in the nearly seven months that this source has been live, and it's made sure we know that, no matter how amazing of a job Kevin is doing on the development of our code, breaches may still be present. I can assure you that we will be looking into checking more potential areas of concern moving forward as well, and doing our best to balance that with the reimplementation of features as mentioned previously.

Thank you for your questions - I hope that my answers will provide some clarity to anyone reading this thread.

~~~
In response to the screenshot posted containing messages from Matt to an unknown player(s); please be aware of context when considering the meaning behind words, of which that screenshot comes with none. I am not going to go digging for the source of that screenshot, I would think that would be given alongside the screenshot itself when making a post aimed at proving a point about someone's character, so my opinion based thereupon will be entirely off of my own feeling and interpretation of the limited information provided. What I see is a situation, likely from a few years ago, near the beginning of the server's lifespan, in which a player was banned by Matt for some sort of objectionable content or behaviour, in which the discretionary nature of being a Game Master came into play. This conclusion comes from two main reasons; the first being that the poster directly claims that the screenshot is from an "older player" and the second being that, years ago, our server was a lot more personal than it is now. Four years ago, we did not have thousands of players on our server on a daily basis. We had ten or twenty, and because of that, situations were different. In those times, a GM would make a judgment call based on character rather than based on buzzwords like the one that rhymes with "trigger" or the one that rhymes with "maggot." Back then, if you were an ass, you would get banned, whether it was by Matt himself, or John, Dan, Chelsea, Christine, Aly or any of the older Game Masters who were there at the time.

That is, to repeat myself, only my own interpretation based off of what I see in front of me, and how I know this server has been over the years. I urge everyone to make their own conclusions based off of what they are given, and what context they can find. My final point is that I am not sure exactly how that post relates to the meso exploit that we were facing, as it rather instead seems as though it represents distaste for an individual in specific rather than how recent events have been handled. Please be careful when considering responses from emotionally charged individuals, as they are often biased and may not fully represent the truth behind a situation. Thank you.

 

I can think of 3 solutions:

• Increase the tax rates on every transaction by an agreed upon percent.
• Issue "Royals Bonds" that will pay the buyer an agreed upon interest percentage each period (probably biweekly or monthly) and will also return the principal amount after a set amount of periods (maybe 3-6 months?)
• Allows players to buy certain NX items from the shop for mesos.

The first two are very basic dumbed-down versions of how governments deal with inflation IRL.

 

increasing tax- yes

Royal Bonds- honestly a horrible idea. Before I got permabanned for acc sharing I had ~50 bil pure. If you gave me guaranteed interest I'd be filthy rich regardless of the percentage.

certain NX items from shop- agreed, gotta be pretty expensive for it to work and you'd probably have to add expiration date to all CS items currently out and about

 

this is a very bad idea

 

The point of the Bonds is to immediately decrease the liquid supply of mesos in the economy. Once the inflation has died down just stop issuing bonds. Additionally, it means that buyers will not be able to spend any of the money they used to buy bonds until the bonds have matured. So if you spend 1b on bonds and get like 5% return you will end up 50m richer for "free" but only after like 6 months. And if inflation dies down after 3 months, the buyer will still not have access to the money they spent for another 3 months. (The amount, percentage, and times I put are just for the example)

 

The problem with this is that most of the server would actually not get the bond. Those who will make use of this are ones that are barely playing the game, and won't be actively dumping currency into the game anyway.

In light of the recent events, this kind of exploit has been around in private servers since the start. How the owner of the arguably most popular server requires external help is beyond me. This raises questions of competency, as I'm sure many of you would have.

I would still be playing the server for sure, and am looking forward to how the Staff deals with this mess. There are a couple of great ideas being thrown, and I hope considerations can be made. You can't stay at the top forever.

 

I think that demand for the bonds will depend on how high the interest rate is. If bonds do sell for say 1b each at 5% interest, than 10b could net 500m after the bond matures. That being said I think this is a moot point since I doubt this idea will be implemented anyway. But, I can't say that I am not extremelly curious as to how real world economics would work when applied to a video game community.

 

See, the funny part about this is your assumption that people have a right to be here and as owner Matt is 100%, black and white, in the wrong for maintaining 100% control over what happens with his server. What's more funny, is how you black out everything in that screenshot but what Matt said. Almost like you know he was 100% in the right but that doesn't help your narrative.

So I ask you this. What is your point? Why are you here? What do you intend to get out of this thread and your continued posts? Are you so bitter about something that you'll spend an enormous amount of time to ruin it for everyone else?

 

If I'm not mistaken, I believe that screenshot is one that Alex took circa 2013?

 

Yeah it appears someone else took it. But I think what I said still stands. He's using it to make a point. A point that IMO is worthless without both sides.

Edit: he could at least post the link to the thread in question.

 

Will bringing the search owl back in free market do any help? That way people will make prices lower so as to be on the top of the search list?

 

I posted this in the other thread but I think this one is more active,

Not sure if lotteries have been presented but its a crazy big potential sink.
The time frame can be whatever, or even no time frame with it based how the tree was, when its full, it pays out.
For example, granted you're level 50, you can enter into a lottery, 3 options.
Low - Fair - High
Low - Enter 1m, every time it reaches 100m it pays out 62.5mil
Fair - Enter 10m, Upon reaching 1bil someone wins 625,000,000
High rollers - Enter 40m or something, winner gets 2.5billion.

Or it could run on a timer where every 24 hours it pops.
Could be cs-go betting site styled where you can put as much as you want into the pot for a higher % chance of winning.
Or some sort of limit like stated above.

Pretty limitless options and lotteries are fun imo

 

Since medals have been implemented in game, why not have the town donor medals added in? It will provide the meso sink the server needs and give bragging rights to the high rollers who have tonnes of meso lying around. On top of that, the medal ownership resets every month making it a continual meso sink. Players would constantly throw their mesos in to retain ownership of the medal. http://bbb.hidden-street.net/quest/title/title-challenge-donation-king

 

allow people to buy ap reset from cash shop by mesos.nobody hurt.ap reset just add some HP or MP,and mesos use up.

 

Feel free to add my idea to your list! I'm happy to contribute

 

This is an underrated comment. Owls would be a HUGE factor in lowering price. Not just by one meso so the shop appears higher up, but in increments. Rather than selling a CS for 600m, people will think, hey, I want to sell this more quickly, so I'll put it up for 575m and the first owler will see how "cheap" that is and snag it up. Soon 575m becomes the norm. The cycle repeats with someone who drops it to 550m. And so on, until it returns to a somewhat "normal" price. Of course, I don't foresee this dropping the costs back to their regular costs of 300m, but I could see it making a measurable impact over a month or three.

 

Not sure whether the roll back suggestion was serious, but maybe its actually possible?

I think a gm admitted that most damage was probably done in 2 days time. We managed to survive a 3 day rollback. A 2 day rollback wouldnt kill us right?

 

The more often the meso circulates, the more meso is sunk.
Take 2% tax for example. If 1b of meso circulates 2 time a day, a week later it becomes 1b*0.98^14=753.6m. or say 1/4 of the meso is sunk.
Getting Hired Merchant and Owl ASAP would definitely help.

Any one remember what we have before the new source? 2 full hired merchant channels, and a lot of shops in ch 3 to 20.

 

theres already been more than 2 days since this happened. making a 2 day rollback at this time would be useless.