ArenaNet:Developer updates/20070817B

This is an archive of Developer Updates, originally posted through the official website. It includes semi-official announcements, clarifications, and news from the developers.

[Dev Update] External Items in Pre-Searing - 17 August 2007

Players have expressed concern about various items appearing in the Pre-Searing Ascalon that are not naturally obtained in that area. There is some confusion about whether such items are legitimate, or whether they are appearing in that area as a result of a cheat.

There are three ways that externally-obtained items may have made their way into Pre-Searing Ascalon:

• Players activate their bonus weapons in Pre-Searing. We have no problem with this, and although the items are not really balanced for the area, we will not stop players from generating or using those items.

• About a year ago, we briefly introduced a bug that allowed players from Pre-Searing to travel to their guild halls and back. We quickly fixed this bug. Since players may not have understood that it was a bug, we didn't ban anyone for taking advantage of it.

• Recently, some players figured out how to hack their game client in a way that allowed them to travel from Pre-Searing to Battle Isles and back. Players who hacked their client to travel to and from Pre-Searing were clearly knowingly exploiting the game, so we will be banning all of them.

Here are the details of what will result from this situation:

• If you hacked your client to travel to/from Pre-Searing, you will be or have already been banned.

• If you received an item that was recently smuggled into Pre-Searing by a hacker, and our Support team believes that you knew or should have known that the item you received was the result of an exploit, then you may also be banned.

We regret the concern that this situation has caused our players. We are confident that we have closed the exploit that allowed players to carry external items into Pre-Searing Ascalon, and we feel that we have reached the best possible resolution of the matter.