"An unfortunate, but funny glitch in Bioware's new MMO is allowing players to avoid damage by dancing.

Like some sort of bizarre version of Footloose set in outer space, dancing in Star Wars: The Old Republic can now get you in a whole mess o' trouble. Bioware's ire, however, is somewhat more logical than Reverend Shaw Moore's; a player choosing to "get down" during combat currently prevents enemies (and even bosses) from targeting properly.

Knowledge of the exploit has already spread rapidly across the various SW:TOR star systems, leading to massive exploitation that the developer has yet to patch out of the game code. Don't think that gives your Sith Inquisitor a license to boogie though, as multiple accounts are already being walloped by the almighty ban hammer."

- Mike Kayatta escapistmagazine.com

Me personally if they are simply banning folks permanently without any sort of warning first, then this whole thing just sounds down right awful for folks playing the game. And makes me question if the admins are kind jumping the gun on folks. What do you folks think?

If its possible without hacking the game then its fair for players to use. They should patch it but until then they should just live with the people who abuse it instead of banning them. Especially since its a paid mmo.

That game will be a whole lot less fun if you can't dance your way to victory...

I'd love to see some confirmation that EA is actually banning people for this aside from some guy saying it in an "article." Seems sensationalist at best.

@MB said:

I'd love to see some confirmation that EA is actually banning people for this aside from some guy saying it in an "article." Seems sensationalist at best.

Its on destructoid and the escapist, I think those sites are trustworthy enough

@kashif1 said:

If its possible without hacking the game then its fair for players to use. They should patch it but until then they should just live with the people who abuse it instead of banning them. Especially since its a paid mmo.

They give warnings for the exploits first, and if the person keeps doing it, they are banned. It's like this in every MMO. Including WoW.

Also, it's usually a temporary ban. Which this probably is as well. Some guy tried to pull this earlier too by saying that he was simply getting nodes on Illum at a low level then got banned without warning for being there, but it was found that he was using an exploit, was warned, then continued to do it.

Submit for your humorous approval

None of that can be true right?

I mean... come on I know EA kinda sucks but this would be on a whole new level

@kashif1 said:

@MB said:

I'd love to see some confirmation that EA is actually banning people for this aside from some guy saying it in an "article." Seems sensationalist at best.

Its on destructoid and the escapist, I think those sites are trustworthy enough

The Destructoid article doesn't saying anything about accounts being banned for this, only the Escapist one does...without citing any sources.

@MB said:

@kashif1 said:

@MB said:

I'd love to see some confirmation that EA is actually banning people for this aside from some guy saying it in an "article." Seems sensationalist at best.

Its on destructoid and the escapist, I think those sites are trustworthy enough

The Destructoid article doesn't saying anything about accounts being banned for this, only the Escapist one does...without citing any sources.

As I said, it's probably another situation like that Illum one. The guy tried to get people believing that he was perma-banned without warning for being on Illum at a low level and taking nodes to level up. But it was later found that he was using an exploit with a friend on the opposite faction, was warned once, but continued to do it. Then was temp-banned.

We fucked up, so now you pay the price! EA is quickly taking back its title as most hated publisher from Activison.

Bioware confirmed for no fun? Dance battling a Sith Lord to death shouldn't be bannable, you should get an award. Of course the issue should be patched, but... come on. This is goddamn hilarious.

@TheKing said:

We fucked up, so now you pay the price! EA is quickly taking back its title as most hated publisher from Activison.

Before making snap value judgements without thinking, you should consider things like what @CL60 said.

If players are being warned before they're banned... Fine. FINE.

It's certainly not the best solution, and Bioware should probably own up to their mistakes and let this shit slide until the inevitable patch is released, but it's better than instant banning without warning. Also, the studio's PR team is dropping the fucking ball. You have one job, PR team, and that job is to anticipate possible public relations disasters and head them off at the pass, or, failing that, mitigate the damage they cause your property. You are doing neither of these things.

Exploiting has always been bannable in MMO's. They were aware of what they were doing, I cant feel sorry for them if they have been banned.

Man, if this were Saint's Row 3 this "glitch" would be a feature, or at least encouraged.

@Atary77: awesome

It's like Space-Footloose.

Banning them seems extreme.

Something I wished they did during my days of playing WoW with all the douchebags standing on the fire cauldron things in the Auction House. Ban Hammer That MotherFugger!!!

The ultimate source of the banning notice is 4chan. So yeah. But tanking by dancing would clearly be part of the Saints Row MMO.

If true, then that's fucked up. For dancing? Apart from not enjoying MMORPGs, this is the second reason of why i don't play those games. Asshole moderators....if true.

Hm. I usually dance in the middle of fights, not the ones I'm in, but the one other people are involved in. Some times I'd see a player (usually a trooper) fighting against some enemies, so I would run in the middle of the gun fire and start dancing for fun. Looks like I'll stop doing that.

This is an MMO, not a single player experience. If people are exploiting and breaking the game, on purpose, to cheat the system and gain an unfair advantage that allows them to do things they wouldn't otherwise, and shouldn't, be able to do, then it's a problems. Bioware and EA aren't doing anything wrong by banning (probably temporarily, mind you) people that are exploiting and cheating their multiplayer game. People know better, they shouldn't get a free pass "just because an MMO which is an incredibly complex system that can break in weird ways due to weird things allows for it." If the MMO had an exploit that allowed you to beat the final raid boss in the game without ever taking damage or having to follow the game mechanics, and the players know/knew that it was never intended to work that way, then guess what, the people that exploited the system should be punished. Straight up. This is no different.

@TheDudeOfGaming: You didn't even READ the story, did you? This isn't a case of "people did /dance for fun and got banned." This is a case of "a weird glitch causes dancing to effect combat in a weird way that was never intended and allows people to exploit the game in a way that was never intended, and then abused that exploit and were banned for it."

@Brendan said:

@TheKing said:

We fucked up, so now you pay the price! EA is quickly taking back its title as most hated publisher from Activison.

Before making snap value judgements without thinking, you should consider things like what @CL60 said.

True... either way I'm hating EA more and more lately for other reasons.

@ShadowConqueror said:

Banning them seems extreme.

Yeah, why not patch it before the exploit becomes too commonplace?

QA testers dropping the ball. How could they not put everything through the /dance test in an MMO?

It's very possible suspensions / bans are happening.

source

Bioware really is starting to spiral downwards. It's really sad :(

You know things are bad when they have a conference about DA3, pretty much ripping on DA2 and making fun of it in every way, whilst the Main Writer of the game is just sitting there, looking as if he's gonna cry.

Let them dance.

@rebgav said:

@FateOfNever said:

This is an MMO, not a single player experience. If people are exploiting and breaking the game, on purpose, to cheat the system and gain an unfair advantage that allows them to do things they wouldn't otherwise, and shouldn't, be able to do, then it's a problems.."

Nah. If anyone can do it without altering the game in any way then it should be fair game. The players aren't breaking the game, the game is broken. By all means, ban the behavior from pvp if you must but if someone chooses to dance their way through pve content because the game allows it, what difference does it make?

It's a problem in a game where gear, resources, and experience points = power. It allows someone to tip the power balance in their favor for exploiting the game - exploiting, doing something in the game that gives you an advantage that the designers never intended to be in there.

Again, if someone could, let's say, go clear the final content in the game, by themselves, because "I can dance and break the game" that shouldn't be allowed. You can't compare this to a single player experience, the way you're doing. And you can't really compare it just to PvP experiences either (like I'd like to do but realize it would be an irrelevant point.)

It would be like playing D&D or something with your friends. One of your friends realizes that there's a flaw in the system that they can exploit that makes them more powerful than everyone else at the table. The Dungeon Master, the one running the show, has the right to either say "ok, that's fine" or go "knock that shit off because it's not cool." if he says "knock that shit off" the player either has to listen or quit playing. Period. That's the way it is. Bioware/EA is the dungeon master. They're saying "knock that shit off or quit playing" and some people feel they're above the laws that are being set for them and aren't listening. At that point, banning is perfectly valid.

Is there pvp? Do people dance fight?

What a bunch of sensationalist garbage.

If they killed a raidboss using dancing wouldnt that be a reason to ban? How is it any different from using less funny glitches that has gotten a handful of WoW guilds banned (like the dudes that got banned back in AQ40 because they passed a buttload of trash)?

Game companies need to become more transparent in their dealings with gamers, that is for damn sure. However, the Hate-EA-wagon is rolling without mercy or critical thinking (even if there are a few fair reasons).

Exploiting known bugs/glitches is a bannable offense in all MMOs, and is in the Code of Conduct that you agree to as part of the Terms of Service when you choose to play the game. I don't know why people are crying foul, here.

Hey. Bioware.  The game engine you're using has hotfix capabilities. Use them.

@rebgav said:

@FateOfNever said:

It would be like playing D&D or something with your friends. One of your friends realizes that there's a flaw in the system that they can exploit that makes them more powerful than everyone else at the table. The Dungeon Master, the one running the show, has the right to either say "ok, that's fine" or go "knock that shit off because it's not cool."

If everyone at the table can benefit from the same exploit then it becomes a question of individual choice on behalf of the participants. At no point does it make sense to punish paying customers because the product that they are paying for is broken. On a pve server, what is the difference between a character which has danced its way to the level cap/the best loot and a character which has been played properly to the same end? The players had different experiences, while no-one else has been negatively affected.

Besides, I'm sure that end-game raids filled with dancing Sith are probably pretty funny to watch.

Funny or not it doesn't matter. And the difference between someone that danced their way to victory and someone that didn't is that the person that danced their way to victory could do content that they could not otherwise do. Someone dancing their way to victory is, presumably, never at risk of death (or, nowhere near at the same risk as someone that doesn't) so they can do flashpoints solo, they can do heroic 4 content solo, so on, making it a different experience. On top of that, you keep saying that it's the game is broken, but it is the players that are breaking the game. It is not 'normal' behavior to dance in the middle of fighting a bunch of enemies. Just because you CAN do it doesn't make it normal behavior. And the game itself is not broken and enemy AI isn't working all together. The players have to make a conscious decision to perform an action that breaks the game. THEY are the ones breaking it. Does Bioware/EA need to fix it? Of course they do, and they will as soon as they can. But until that time players know better, and are given warnings, and then ignore those warnings.

I think we're also talking about the difference between getting a warning and not getting a warning. If Bioware/EA is banning with no warning, I will say it's bad form on their part. Players should obviously know better. Telling the police "I didn't see a speed limit sign so I assumed it was ok to go 90 miles per hour past this school" doesn't get you off the hook. But if Bioware/EA are issuing warnings telling people "don't do this behavior" and they are ignoring it, of course they're going to get punished. As they should. If your mom or dad tells you "don't smoke in my house" and then you smoke in their house, and they tell you to stop and you keep doing it, guess what, you should be punished for it. Not say "but it's not hurting anyone, so it's fine, shut up and let me abuse you and your house however I like."

Damn it Kayatta beat me to the footloose joke!

Danceing it will save your life.

They knew what they were doing was wrong and therefore deserve what they got.

@Buzzkill said:

It's very possible suspensions / bans are happening.

I worked as a GM with EA and there were times where someone did something but we were unsure if it was an exploit. We banned him to keep people from doing what he did even though it wasn't illegal. They own the game, they have the right to terminate you without cause. Another instance was a guy who didn't know how to spell Japanese. So he asked someone if he was ***. The guy answered with yes and it seemed like a harmless conversation. Someone reported him for saying *** and I was forced to suspend his account for further review even though it clearly showed he didn't know how to spell it. I asked him "why did you say ***?" He replied with "I was trying to say Japaneese". By him not spelling it correctly, I knew he wasn't in the wrong. His account was suspended.

source

Using a random forum post to further your stupid crusade of hate against EA/Bioware?

NICE!

It's a FACT that they are giving out warnings before banning, as somebody already tried to pull this stupid bullshit before(Saying he got banned for doing nothing, without warning), but got caught, and he had indeed gotten a warning, but kept doing what he was doing anyway.

Not really Bioware's fault... more like EAs

No one really seems to have all the information here. I will say that people should be careful about coverage surrounding this though, because several sites have already reported on proven fake e-mail messages as if they were real, which is only spreading misinformation.

@benjaebe said:

No one really seems to have all the information here. I will say that people should be careful about coverage surrounding this though, because several sites have already reported on proven fake e-mail messages as if they were real, which is only spreading misinformation.

and to that I give you this:

JovethGonzalez Joined: Nov 2011

Yesterday , 07:48 PM Just wanted to let you know that this email is a fake. There are no such things as "special dance zones”. Nobody puts our players in a corner. Everybody is free to get down. We are NOT banning players for the use of emotes. Joveth Gonzalez | Associate Online Community Manager

taken directly from the official forums

gul·li·ble

Phewww, someone made the footloose reference before I had to.

@Atary77 said:

Like some sort of bizarre version of Footloose set in outer space [...] Bioware's ire, however, is somewhat more logical than Reverend Shaw Moore's

Oh god. The sheer potential for comedy in this sentence is staggering.

Seems appropriate!