Should Intrepid offer a bug/exploit bounty system?

Most software devs with a brain offer these. And since the enormous number of exploits have made that other MMO currently unplayable, should Intrepid implement such a system?

I think most of us who have played subscription-based MMO's know that any sort of rampant duping/infinite resource (for instance) often results in irreparable damage to the player base and word of mouth. Suddenly the well becomes poisoned and subs drop off when such exploits are left unfixed for even a few weeks for both of the aforementioned reasons.

Personally? As someone who has found multiple of these sorts of exploits in past MMO's, I always keep them to myself or tell a small number of trusted friends that I know won't tell others. This way we can just sit on the exploit without anyone finding out about it. There's simply no immediate incentive for the player to tell the Devs about it, but if you pay players who report these exploits and glitches before knowledge of them becomes commonplace? Well - that's just being smart, and that's just doing what other types of software companies do to protect their own interests.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

RandomPlayer0001

maouw wrote: »

You cannot trust the playerbase to be noble.

Especially in a game where you can get an advantage over the person next to you.

^ Yep, exactly.

I did chuckle a little when I read, "...tell a small number of trusted friends that I know won't tell others." Believe me, as soon as one other person knows, they will tell others (whom they likewise will trust not to tell others), and so on, and so on. Usually, the exposure of exploits in games spreads very quickly.

JamesSunderland

Yes, i believe that intrepid should offer a bug/exploit bounty system.

Even tho some people might say "decent people will report it without a bounty" which is true,
not all bugs/exploits will be found by "decent people", some people will take the risk and will take advantage of those as it has always happened, giving an incentive for those people to take the righteous path is a net positive, its the best way to deal with bugs and exploits even before they blow up and cause way more trouble requiring mass bans, rollbacks, and game economy damage.

I believe the best rewards for that system would be things that doesn't affect the game economy such as: Extra subscription time, Embers (in-game marketplace credits) and Unique in-game Titles(Bug Finder, Bug Squasher, Bug Hunter, Bug Exterminator, etc...)

Ulfbrinter

RandomPlayer0001 wrote: »

I did chuckle a little when I read, "...tell a small number of trusted friends that I know won't tell others." Believe me, as soon as one other person knows, they will tell others (whom they likewise will trust not to tell others), and so on, and so on. Usually, the exposure of exploits in games spreads very quickly.

Incorrect, I used an exact example of what I am concerned with in WAR. I could detail the various steps if you'd like or refuse to believe me. My exploits were never patched while I played and I was never banned. This would have changed (as in I would have reported them) should I have merely had a genuine incentive (cash) to report them. Since I didn't, I didn't. And close friends, particularly those IRL, are pretty good at keeping these secrets from spreading, lol.

Ulfbrinter

Nagash wrote: »

I mean we are paying to bug test now with the alphas and betas

And yet someone in this very thread discussed how a guildmate found an exploit and planned on not reporting it in hopes it was never patched. Funny that.

Nagash

Ulfbrinter wrote: »

Nagash wrote: »

I mean we are paying to bug test now with the alphas and betas

And yet someone in this very thread discussed how a guildmate found an exploit and planned on not reporting it in hopes it was never patched. Funny that.

I mean that will happen in any competitive game. guilds will use everything they can to get an advantage

Ulfbrinter

Nagash wrote: »

Ulfbrinter wrote: »

Nagash wrote: »

I mean we are paying to bug test now with the alphas and betas

And yet someone in this very thread discussed how a guildmate found an exploit and planned on not reporting it in hopes it was never patched. Funny that.

I mean that will happen in any competitive game. guilds will use everything they can to get an advantage

Which is precisely why you offer a bounty system.

Noaani

Ulfbrinter wrote: »

RandomPlayer0001 wrote: »

I did chuckle a little when I read, "...tell a small number of trusted friends that I know won't tell others." Believe me, as soon as one other person knows, they will tell others (whom they likewise will trust not to tell others), and so on, and so on. Usually, the exposure of exploits in games spreads very quickly.

Incorrect, I used an exact example of what I am concerned with in WAR. I could detail the various steps if you'd like or refuse to believe me. My exploits were never patched while I played and I was never banned. This would have changed (as in I would have reported them) should I have merely had a genuine incentive (cash) to report them. Since I didn't, I didn't. And close friends, particularly those IRL, are pretty good at keeping these secrets from spreading, lol.

You know what this says about the kind of person you are, right?

Intrepid would be better off in the long run by not giving people like you a reason to play Ashes over other MMO's, and hope such people move on quickly.

Being the only MMO with a bounty system would simply attract people with your mindset, which would be very bad for the game - worse than almost any bug that has made it to a live game.

JamesSunderland

Noaani wrote: »

Being the only MMO with a bounty system would simply attract people with your mindset, which would be very bad for the game - worse than almost any bug that has made it to a live game.

Attracting people looking to report bugs to benefit from the bounty system would be good for the game.
Can elaborate on how exactly such bounty system would "be very bad for the game"?

Sathrago

JamesSunderland wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Being the only MMO with a bounty system would simply attract people with your mindset, which would be very bad for the game - worse than almost any bug that has made it to a live game.

Attracting people looking to report bugs to benefit from the bounty system would be good for the game.
Can elaborate on how exactly such bounty system would "be very bad for the game"?

The issue is that @Ulfbrinter stated " My exploits were never patched while I played and I was never banned. This would have changed (as in I would have reported them) should I have merely had a genuine incentive (cash) to report them. Since I didn't, I didn't."

There is a clear incentive for reporting bugs. Having a better, well polished game that works as intended. That should be all you need to sit down for a minute, type out a bug you encountered, and continue on your way without exploiting it for short term gain at the expense of the game as a whole.

Noaani

JamesSunderland wrote: »

Noaani wrote: »

Being the only MMO with a bounty system would simply attract people with your mindset, which would be very bad for the game - worse than almost any bug that has made it to a live game.

Attracting people looking to report bugs to benefit from the bounty system would be good for the game.
Can elaborate on how exactly such bounty system would "be very bad for the game"?

Who would you rather play a game with; people that report bugs to make the game better, or people that would only report bugs if there was personal gain to be had?

The notion of needing personal gain for doing the right thing qualifies an individual to be considered the "worst kind of person imaginable". The game doesn't need to target people that fit in to the group of "worst kind of people imaginable".

Sure, there is the dubious potential for a few minor bugs to be fixed faster ( which is the reality of what we are talking about here), but that is at the expense of more of the worst.kind of people imaginable playing the game.

JamesSunderland

Sathrago wrote: »

There is a clear incentive for reporting bugs. Having a better, well polished game that works as intended. That should be all you need to sit down for a minute, type out a bug you encountered, and continue on your way without exploiting it for short term gain at the expense of the game as a whole.

Yes, there is a clear incentive for reporting bugs.
But not for all people, as i stated in my first comment in the thread, a lot people will prefer personal gain and advantages even through risk over "the greater good" of the game or the community.

Noaani wrote: »

Who would you rather play a game with; people that report bugs to make the game better, or people that would only report bugs if there was personal gain to be had?

The notion of needing personal gain for doing the right thing qualifies an individual to be considered the "worst kind of person imaginable". The game doesn't need to target people that fit in to the group of "worst kind of people imaginable".

Sure, there is the dubious potential for a few minor bugs to be fixed faster ( which is the reality of what we are talking about here), but that is at the expense of more of the worst.kind of people imaginable playing the game.

Definitely "people that report bugs to make the game better",
but sadly without "people that would only report bugs if there was personal gain to be had" No matter how you classify them, when not provided with the extra personal gain incetive can find bugs that can be extremely detrimental to the game as a whole, which can cause immeasurable damage to the games name and playerbase.

Those type of people have way more numbers than you might think, they cannot be ignored,
i have seem this so many times, in so many games it saddens me.

A Utopian vision of a perfect community where all the individuals care more for the game than their personal entertainment and self interest/advantage specially when money can be involved(RMTs) is not only delusional, but ludicrous.

Ulfbrinter

Sathrago wrote: »

There is a clear incentive for reporting bugs. Having a better, well polished game that works as intended. That should be all you need to sit down for a minute, type out a bug you encountered, and continue on your way without exploiting it for short term gain at the expense of the game as a whole.

Not for people looking for an advantage, and not for people looking to make money exploiting the game (RMT). Those people gain nothing, let me repeat because for some reason it keeps falling on deaf ears: NOTHING by reporting these bugs. You aren't going to convince the guy who sells gold to just stop doing this because of some moral imperative. You aren't going to convince the guy who wants to duplicate mats and save himself hours of time to stop because... reasons? You need to provide tangible and tantalizing rewards. A title, or some costume isn't going to sell it to these people because I was one of these people and if Mythic tried to suss out bugs by this method I'd just laugh and keep doing it - I can promise you that.

Noaani

JamesSunderland wrote: »

Those type of people have way more numbers than you might think, they cannot be ignored,

Really?

Then why now? Why this game?

If there are so many of these people, and they find bugs that people like myself don't find, why has no other game done anything about this?

While all games have bugs, very few have had major setbacks because of them. Why attempt to bring in what amount to undesirable players in order to fix something that players don't even see?

Noaani

Ulfbrinter wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

There is a clear incentive for reporting bugs. Having a better, well polished game that works as intended. That should be all you need to sit down for a minute, type out a bug you encountered, and continue on your way without exploiting it for short term gain at the expense of the game as a whole.

Not for people looking for an advantage

Get better at the game, then you wouldn't need to exploit it to find an advantage.

Again, this is the exact type of person that all multiplayer games are better off without. The idea of targeting a feature directly at such players is not healthy for any game.

Ulfbrinter

Noaani wrote: »

Ulfbrinter wrote: »

Sathrago wrote: »

There is a clear incentive for reporting bugs. Having a better, well polished game that works as intended. That should be all you need to sit down for a minute, type out a bug you encountered, and continue on your way without exploiting it for short term gain at the expense of the game as a whole.

Not for people looking for an advantage

Get better at the game, then you wouldn't need to exploit it to find an advantage.

Again, this is the exact type of person that all multiplayer games are better off without. The idea of targeting a feature directly at such players is not healthy for any game.

Noaani, I really need to impress upon you that you aren't making an argument against my initial thesis anymore. You're just derailing it into impassioned arguments about things unrelated. "Git gud" had nothing to do with whether or not a bug bounty system ought to be put into the game.

Songcaller

I don't think you should have any rewards for bugs in game. Effectively, we have paid to test and find bugs. Even when I didn't pay to test in older closed betas we were not paid for bug finds/reports. There will be so many bugs between now and launch that is simply not financially viable for IS.

Furthermore, you have mentioned RMT as a main source for not reporting bugs. Rmt is big money and unless IS gave out a massive reward for an exploit report the rmt will still be more valuable to any exploiters.

Edit: if you want to be paid for bug reports and bug fixes become a coder/developer.

Nerror

Relying solely on players to find all the exploits is a bad idea, bounty system or no. Gotta hire the professionals and let them do their thing for sure.

JamesSunderland

Noaani wrote: »

Really?

Then why now? Why this game?

If there are so many of these people, and they find bugs that people like myself don't find, why has no other game done anything about this?

While all games have bugs, very few have had major setbacks because of them. Why attempt to bring in what amount to undesirable players in order to fix something that players don't even see?

Yeah, Really.

Why not?

As if any publisher would care enough, not be greedy enough or be efficient enough to do anything about it.

Very few? Even games that had years before coming to the west suffered with things like bug/exploit abuse which caused mass bans, rollbacks, and game economy damage which caused a lot of damage to the games name and playerbase.

It is not that "players don't even see" is that they only see it too late or only hear about it when it is already gone and caused all the damage.

Ulfbrinter

Nerror wrote: »

Relying solely on players to find all the exploits is a bad idea, bounty system or no. Gotta hire the professionals and let them do their thing for sure.

Intrepid already have QA, in fact, pretty much every game ever has a QA team, but that doesn't prevent massive exploits from being discovered by players. I am not advocating a player only system, but rather that Intrepid have their QA team but also pay out to players who report on massive bugs.

Sathrago

Ulfbrinter wrote: »

Nerror wrote: »

Relying solely on players to find all the exploits is a bad idea, bounty system or no. Gotta hire the professionals and let them do their thing for sure.

Intrepid already have QA, in fact, pretty much every game ever has a QA team, but that doesn't prevent massive exploits from being discovered by players. I am not advocating a player only system, but rather that Intrepid have their QA team but also pay out to players who report on massive bugs.

This all falls back to my original point that these days many companies frontload their QA testing onto players with tons of purchased alpha/beta access with only minor funding for a proper QA team. I am currently working as QA for an Indie game and let me tell you, it takes some time but is one of the most effective ways to catch game-breaking bugs. New world doesn't have a QA team as far as I am concerned. Neither does World of Warcraft. There are too many OBVIOUS bugs and issues that are immediately noticeable by anyone playing the content.

Now if a bug or issue is too difficult to fix quickly, they should alert players to the issue and perma ban anyone that continues to use it to gain some sort of advantage. A good QA team will find these game-breaking bugs. A bad or non-existent one will bet on players to find all the issues and cause even more delays and problems for their development team. The sooner you catch these issues the easier it will be for the Dev team to fix. The last thing you want to do is build up a house only to find out some of the wood was rotten, causing it to collapse even in places with good wood.

Child Item