That's Not a Leprechaun Waiting for a Pot of Gold!

This is a common sight on the planet Ilum. You've just battled your way through enemy forces in hopes of obtaining some sort of epic reward. But when you reach the end of the dark tunnel you find a level 11 character using a 3rd party program to "AFK" loot the security chest that spawns about every 5 minutes.

Inside these chests, players can usually find reward items which scale in level or value to the planet's difficulty. Armor pieces, weapons, stims, or sometimes just a good amount of credits can be found inside these chests.

Many players have voiced their displeasure with what is happening here. On Keller's Void, an East Coast US server, there are even stories circulating about a character who made it all the way to level 50 just by entering warzone PvP matches and going AFK in the corner until the match was completed, gaining all the experience the players who participated in the battle would recieve. Obviously this person pictured here rode the back of another player, perhaps even of their own creation, simply to "camp" the security chest, robbing anyone who actually fights their way to it of any riches it may have inside.

What can BioWare do to prevent this from happening? It is quite obvious that a 3rd party program is being employed here as the chest is opened and looted the very second it spawns into the world. Didn't BioWare state that they would not tolerate the use of 3rd party programs in this manner shortly before the game's release? These items are ending up on the Galactic Marketplace, making these "credit farmers" a fortune.

Here are suggestions from some of the players I have spoken to :

- Spawn a "boss" NPC along with the security chest every 5 minutes which would very easily dispatch any character not of the appropriate level in the vicinity. This boss could also hold the "key" to the box itself making it impossible to open unless the key is obtained from the NPC.

- Put a level requirement on the security chest, making it impossible to open unless the character is 5 levels above or below the items actually inside the chest itself.

- Put a level requirement on the entire planet, making it impossible to set foot into the areas where these chests spawn until a good portion of the character's class quest is completed.

Please feel free to comment and give your suggestions as well. Nothing is more frustrating than finding someone who is obviously away from keyboard taking away your opportunity to gain items which may help you accomplish your goals in Star Wars the Old Republic.

SWTOR 1.0.2 Now Live Patch Notes Farmers Fracking Players Again

Thank you credit farmers!

"- Removed some high-level harvesting nodes from Tatooine, Corellia, and Ilum."

To all you ass hats thinking your cool by camping a node and saying well its in game so I will take all I can have fracked it for the rest of us. This is why you suck balls your actions take from all players. I'm not pissed  at BioWare for this it was the farmers that forced them to do it.

lot's of nice bug fixes and some odd ones too... It's good to see patched getting rolled out so fast.

General

- Guilds that are currently leaderless will have an Officer chosen and promoted to Guild Leader.

Classes and Combat

Sith Inquisitor

General

- The Darth title is now properly granted to Sith Inquisitors.

Bug Fixes

- Corrected an issue that could prevent players from taking cover when targeting large NPCs.

- Fixed a bug that caused some abilities with activation times to be interrupted when used from cover.

Crew Skills

Gathering

- Removed some high-level harvesting nodes from Tatooine, Corellia, and Ilum.

Flashpoints and Operations

Cademimu

- General Ortol can no longer be pulled out of his room.

Maelstrom Prison

- Corrected an issue that could cause Kilran to behave incorrectly when defeated in cover.

Taral V

- General Edikar now has the correct loot in Hard Mode and no longer enrages in Normal Mode.

Operations

Eternity Vault

- Gharj can no longer be pulled out of his encounter room.

Bug Fixes

- Fixed an issue that could cause choosing Nightmare Mode to not set enemies to Nightmare difficulty.

Items

General

- PvP lockboxes now cost 70 commendations, contain more consumables, and always contain an item.

Bug Fixes

- Corrected several PvP items that were Bind on Equip. They are now Bind on Pickup.

- PvP vendors on Capital Planets now offer the correct PvP items.

- Commendations received via in-game mail are now correctly added to the Currency tab.

Missions and NPCs

Missions

Imperial

- Number One with a Bullet: Players who choose dark side options now correctly receive the mission First Strike after completing this mission.

- First Strike: Players who did not receive this mission will now receive it upon entering their personal starships.

Republic

- Death Cloud: Players can now complete the “Toxic Waste” bonus objective regardless of how quickly they complete this mission.

Bug Fixes

- Corrected mission steps on several planets that could cause client instability.

- Fixed issues with some missions that could prevent pending rewards from being accepted.

Space Combat

Bug Fixes

- Fixed an issue that caused a client crash if a space station was destroyed in Space Combat.

UI

Maps

- Group members no longer appear on all planets on the Galaxy Map.

- Corrected an issue that could cause map notes to disappear after logging out and back into the game.

- Corrected some map notes that referenced the incorrect map.

- Updated map notes for “travel to planet” steps in class missions on Nar Shaddaa, Hoth, and Belsavis to indicate the planet’s space station.

Bug Fixes

- Group members outside of a player’s phase are no longer prompted to roll on items.

- The In-Game Customer Service Portal no longer appears to hang while the “updating” message is displayed.

- The Guild interface now properly displays the guild member list when it is sorted.

- The “Show Sith Corruption” option no longer toggles off when transitioning between areas.

Miscellaneous Bug Fixes

- Taxi rides are no longer occasionally interrupted, causing the player to be dropped from the taxi.

- Using the /dismiss command now correctly dismisses a vanity pet.

- Corrected some issues that could cause players to become stuck on the loading screen when logging into a character.

- Players can now use emotes while riding a vehicle.

- Fixed a bug that prevented some text-only mail messages from being received.

- Graphics preferences in settings files are now consistent with actual settings in use.

- Being in Do Not Disturb mode no longer prevents characters from being logged out for being away.

- Corrected an issue that caused poor performance on some machines in indoor areas with shadows enabled.

- Fixed an issue that could prevent players from being logged out for inactivity.

Bots Farming SWTOR get Arms Ripped Off

... well they got their accounts disabled anyway! Farmers, and some players, thought it was a good idea to venture into high level zones and camp high level reward chests for hours on end. On some servers, it got to the stage where there were four or five level 15 toons camped around one level 50 reward spawn. The clever little farmers thought they had outsmarted BioWare by venturing into zones that were neutral to their faction; so Republic toons would go into the Sith Heroic area and stand and farm among all the Republic NPCs that would not attacked them. The perfect spot for the farmer was in a safe place away from aggressive mobs, but close enough to be able to collect the respawn of the high level chest or crystal.

BioWare have taken the Wookie approach and have figuratively ripped the appendages off these farmers by first suspending and then banning any accounts that have been involved in credit trading.


To be honest, I am surprised at how little spam I'm getting in the game. I think I have had just two whispers offering me credits over the last three weeks. Unless the farmers find another loop hole that's hard for BioWare to track, it looks like BioWare have gotten it under control pretty quickly.

Some players have kicked up a fuss on Reddit and other social networking sites, complaining that they should be allowed to stand there all day and farm the chests, because the game allows them to and they're just collecting credits for their own use. What these players don't realize is that BioWare are not just cracking down on this because of farmers, they are also protecting the economy balance in the game. Anybody who believes their account has been unjustly banned can submit a petition to BioWare. Stephen Reid has replied, in detail, in the forums about this issue (see below).

If something in the game seems too good to be true, for example, being able to farm a level 50 chest every 10 minutes for 4000-5000 credits a pop, when you are only a level 14 character, I would suggest that you just don't do it, or you might get your arms ripped off ... ask any bot who has played against a Wookie :)




Stephen Reid said:

Our Terms of Service team recently took action against some accounts playing Star Wars: The Old Republic, and we wanted to give you some insight into what happened and why.


First, action was taken against a number of accounts for what's commonly known as 'gold farming' - or in our case, credit farming. These accounts were found to be exploiting the game in a variety of ways to maximize their credits in order to sell them to other players. Our Terms of Service team took action against these accounts and removed them permanently from the game.


Second, a smaller number of accounts were warned or temporarily suspended for exploiting loot containers on Ilum. To be completely clear, while players may choose to travel to Ilum earlier than the recommended level (40+) and may loot containers if they can get to them, in the cases of those customers that were warned or temporarily suspended, they were systematically and repeatedly looting containers in very high numbers resulting in the game economy becoming unbalanced. 


None of these accounts were banned for their actions and no accounts have been banned for travelling to Ilum while still relatively low level. By comparison, the number of accounts that were warned or temporarily suspended was considerably lower than the number of accounts banned for 'credit farming'.


It's important to remember that our Terms of Service team is extremely careful and thorough in their investigation of any potential exploit or unusual activity in-game. Working closely with the development team and using extensive metrics based on player activity, they are able to determine what is normal player activity, what is unusual and what is exploiting. Our goal is always to ensure a fair game experience for all players while also protecting the rights of individuals, and if people are disrupting the play experience for others action will be taken.


While we will not discuss the details of any individual action, whenever we take action against an account we believe they have clearly broken our Terms of Service. Any action taken against an account can be appealed and in some cases actions have been rescinded. 


While we understand people's concern about actions taken against accounts, please remember the Terms of Service team exists to help ensure a balanced and fair game experience for all. When you see reports of actions taken against someone's account, remember they are choosing to tell their version of the story - and there are two sides to every story.


In summary, our Terms of Service team took action against a number of accounts that were 'credit farming' to remove them permanently from the game. They also warned and temporarily suspended - but did not ban - a smaller number of accounts for activities on Ilum that were decided to be game exploits.


Some adjustments will be made to Ilum in the near future to discourage future exploits. However, the planet is still open to anyone who wishes to travel there.


The goal of the Star Wars: The Old Republic team is to maintain a service for our customers that is fun to play and equitable for everyone. Critical to this goal is making sure that gameplay is fair and reasonable and we are constantly on the lookout for anything that would prove to be a detriment to your gameplay experiences.


Thanks for reading, and we hope this gave you some insights.