It’s been a few days since the release of Guild Wars 2, and weeks, if not months since the game was in beta, but players have only just discovered an exploit which allowed them to purchase certain faction-based weapons at a tiny fraction of their cost.
The players—thousands of them—went on a shopping spree, netting hundreds of the items to resell them at many times their purchased value. The exploit threatened to damage Guild Wars 2‘s economy, which is as fragile as any massively multiplayer game’s.
To take action against the exploit, ArenaNet permanently banned 3,000 players for willfully exploiting the game, while thousands more were handed 72-hour suspensions for their part in the exploit.
ArenaNet’s lead producer Chris Whiteside explained the company’s decision to ban the exploiters, whom he claims knew precisely what they were up to when they bought dozens of the items at an “unrealistically” low cost.
“We take our community and the integrity of the game very seriously, and want to be clear that intentionally exploiting the game is unacceptable. The players we banned were certainly intentionally and repeatedly exploiting a bug in the game.
“We intended to send a very clear message that exploiting the game in this way will not be tolerated, and we believe this message now has been well understood.”
Players affected by the permanent ban can contest the ban and reduce it to a 72-hour suspension by contacting ArenaNet and agreeing to delete all items and wealth gained through the exploit.