Exploiting for fun and profit

Post by **pyrella** » October 16, 2002, 1:15 pm

Saw this on Slashdot of all places. People basically macro farming pp and such, devaluing our virtual economy, blah blah

http://player2player.net/modules.php?op ... le&sid=724

Bubba Grizz · Post by **Bubba Grizz** » October 16, 2002, 1:28 pm

Hrmm if I were an ambitious man I would think about picking up a few accounts to do this. Good thing I am too lazy.

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » October 16, 2002, 1:34 pm

IF it is really possible, i'm sure those of us who have normal jobs and don't make $6k a month are intrigued by this

the problem is of course the value of pp on ebay will always go down, and the more attention this gets the more likely it is to be fixed/nerfed.

Neost · Post by **Neost** » October 16, 2002, 2:12 pm

According to Hackersquest, this has already resulted in mass bannings and been nerfed.

It involved a program available from sourceforge called macroquest and fletching. Some people claim to have made up to 34k per hour. There was a lot of whining and moaning about this becoming "public" and all the fletching vendors where it worked being loaded with macro users.

Reading a bit on Hackersquest, apparently the right combinations now result in a net loss of 5-8pp per sale.

EDIT: Well, after reading this, it seems like the macro users have found yet another tradeskill related profit pool. I guess I should've read the link BEFORE I posted. However, if you are interested you can go to http://www.hackersquest.com, hit the forums and read about the fletching macro too. I'm too lazy to go find it and post the link.

Skunki · Post by **Skunki** » October 16, 2002, 2:27 pm

there was a motd when i logged on the other day that said macro programs will result in bannings etc.

Neost · Post by **Neost** » October 16, 2002, 2:51 pm

Doesn't surprise me. Supposedly when using these macros there would be a flurry of vendor responses every 1-3 minutes. GM's started checking those vendors for that and if they didn't recieve a response from the player for a period of time do one of several things:

1. Kill the player by summoning into water or a nearby mob.
2. Remove equipment from the players character.
3. Insta-ban if it was a repeat offender.

Don't know if all of these are possible, but stripping a character would be funny.