Hypothetical Situation

[Sanna]

just a note, about being hypothetical:

IF the person was already a GM brewer, already at 250 skill, and performed this simple combine and found it was not trivial, then they would know with 'no harm done'.

but then the usefulness of this combine would be lost for the hypothetical situation.

[scarbrowed]

Well, when I discovered the new LoY needles could make a profit smithing up to 132, I agonized a few days before posting to these boards because I thought it would be considered an exploit and nerfed. And I guess I was wrong, because it is now common knowledge that I've seen posted in a few smithing guides.

Admittedly, that was not a way to get to 250 or anything that dramatic, but it's the closest thing I can think of that actually happened like this scenario. So I guess I can honestly answer, I would post it here and see what happened.

[Kahmon]

Skull Ale

This brings to mind the discovery of skull ale. The person who figured out the recipe almost immediatly posted the recipe and how cheap and easy it was. Very soon it was discovered to be trivial at 202 and only 3 silver per 3 item combine (Plus the skull which is reusable). This made it by far the easiest way to 200 Brewing.
About 3 days later there was a patch lowering the trivial to 152

[bana-zir]

blue diamond vendor bug...

Assuming this is now fixed, I am curious. What type of "bug" involved a blue diamond?

[eqNichola]

Dunno the details but I seem to recall that one of the main NPC vendors in the baz seemed to acquire an infinite supply of BDs once he had been sold one, or something like that.

[Ndaara]

There was also the deal where a random vendor in POK would have a stack of them on zone reset. Or something like that. I never did find one selling them during those days though.

[Cigarskunk]

OK, find a recipe that is cheap, easy and totally vendor which takes one up to 250 - work off of the assumption that there isn't a profit to sell back or there isn't a profit worth mentioning.

Well, if I didn't have the skill maxed out already, being a good little tradeskiller, I'd obviously test out the combine to discover the trivial of this mystery combine so that I could report on it - after all, if, say, a rat ear and a flask of water starts giving me smithing skill ups, there's no way to know that it isn't some funky quest combine that trivials at 20 if I'm a 5 skill smith.

Having confirmed the recipe and it's trivial, I'd initially be quite elated and would utilise it on the appropiate alts that either needed or could be productive with a 250 in that skill - I'd be too thrilled at having made this discovery to have thought about anything else at this point.

Having done the skilling that was needed to be done, I'd finally have calmed down enough to start thinking logically and perhaps reconsider the validity of this particular recipe - maybe even considering it just a one time fluke (once upon a time a guild trainer allowed me to keep buying skill ups even after I ran out of practice points - I honestly didn't realise this till the NPC had taken all of my money - I do truelly wish that I had more plat on me and that I was training something difficult though ).

After having waited a few days to see if the situation resolved itself, I'd send Sony a feedback, or maybe even a post in the Dev corner noting this problem.

Should Sony chose to totally and utterly ignore this info provided them as they have ignored all of my other feedback, then I'd have to assume that it wasn't something which concerned them and send Mom and email so that she could post the info in the proper recipe section and determine whether or not it was a problem recipe by her own ethics.

But that's a boring ethics game - let's really get down and dirty with the question - let's take two different sinarios and answer both.

1) Recipe is in a tradeskill that you haven't GM'd yet and/or is in a very difficult to GM tradeskill that you may or maynot be working on - do you "test" the recipe out to "confirm" it takes you all the way to 250? Do you also "double check" with a few alts to cover all of the cultural bases for that tradeskill?

2) Recipe is in a tradeskill which is your primary bread and butter tradeskill, is VERY hard to GM and you've already GM'd or effectively GM'd that tradeskill - sharing will only turn your tradeskill into the next JC and derail your personal gravytrain.

So, is your answer for instance #1 the exact same answer as for instance #2? THAT'S a real game of scruples. :twisted:

[Lilosh]

Cigarskunk:

I think both of those scenarios / are perfectly valid explanations as to why I keep it to myself.

1) Hard Tradeskill? 250? If you tell someone, before working on it, it may get yanked, or lord knows what, and removed.

2) If I , as a baker, found thet Fish Rolls weren't trivial at 250 , to me, I would probably not post it anywhere, or tell anyone. I dont need 6 million people sprouting up as GM bakers overnight. (Even though 4 million seem to spring up every day as it is.)

Either way.... the second scenario would sorely tempt me to petition it, since it's my chosen field. A bit hypocritical, perhaps. Who knows.

Big can o' worms, Yessiree.


-Lilosh

[Tiggera]

A warning about reporting bugs and exploits

I have reported bugs before to the Sony/Verant staff, and after several problems I am honestly reluctant to do so again. Here are a few reasons why.

The 1st bug I reported that was an exploit happened in the Gorge of King Xorbb (no, this is not a baking exploit, but it has the same problems.) If I pulled a minotaur to the Runnyeye zone area, ran into the beginning of the tunnel mouth to a point, then stopped... the minotaur outside sometimes stopped also. I did not do this intentionally, but saw it happen several times over the hours I was trying to gain some exp. Eventually, I figured out exactly where the spot was and bingo, I could do anything I wanted to at that spot... nuke the mino, sit down and med, anything but move. The risk? If I hit the wrong spot and it kept coming... I had to root it, back up, and fight it as I was supposed to OR I could zone into Runnyeye. I am not one to take advantage of this kind of thing normally... really. Once I figured out the geometry I /petitioned a GM and told my story... going so far as inviting them to come watch so they could see exactly what was wrong. The GM thanked me for my honesty, told me I there was some kind of clause for reporting these serious exploits in which I would be rewarded with free EQ (was vague on the time frame though) and the servers came down within 10 minutes. My billing statements have kept coming in on a regular basis. (Ok, this is weak but if I am promised something I expect to get it.)

The second time was a friend of mine. He only HEARD about an exploit with Phinny... using the Eye of Zomm to get Phinny to aggro through a wall, pop over to the zone line after a few seconds, and make the whole raid thing really easy. His guild wanted him to do this (use his cleric for healing) but he refused. He wanted no part of such an exploit. When his guild raided, he was elsewhere. The next day, he reported the bug. Verant's logic: The only way you could know about this exploit is if you have used it. Congratulations, your account is now locked for 2 weeks. Servers came down, and an emergency patch removed aggro from the Eye of Zomm.

I am sorry to say that when I report bugs that are not in my favor, they are rarely, if ever, fixed. I remember when the message still read "This combine is trivial" basically, meaning your skill could no longer advance (wording has changed to make English majors in college happy since the original meaning still left some sliver of a chance that you could get a skill up.) When a combine is trivial, does that mean I should not fail on it, or if I do it should be a really rare thing (even 1 in 20 at worst?) Verant has never appeared to think so. While working trade skills up, trying to combine supposedly trivial items needed elsewhere, I failed 30-50 percent of the combines on these trivial items until my skill was markedly higher, say 30 or so points. My /petition was answered with "we are looking into that." They have been looking into that since not very long after the game changed from beta to live. The same logic applies to things like catching players casting heal spells through walls and fearing things then using pathing bugs to kill them without risk... If a player does this, lock the account. If an NPC does, well, we can't do anything about it right now... we will look into it. I am sorry to say I no longer /bug or /petition things that are in the player's favor.

(Sorry for the long rant, this is a real sore point with me.)