[POLICY EXPLOIT] Dupe Your Char/Items/Equipment (Live Server)

[Daeity]

I did something similar to this a while ago

After I moved my character, changed the name, gear etc then went to my old realm and said it was deleted, they said that they can see in the logs it was transfered to X realm a few days ago with the new name X.

Maybe it's just luck of which GM you get

Ah yes, was just typing that.

It needs to be timed in coordination with their weekly maintenance cycle (database backup). You don't want them to see certain records. =] Make sure the name is changed immediately after their maintenance period. There is risk involved, and yes - it does depend on the GM. The rare one will dig a little deeper and see the deception.

FYI (if anyone was interested).. they backup character information for a max of 6-12 months that you can restore back to (this is on a Storage Area Network). All other logs (crucial data like transfer info, name changes, server error codes, and yes even chat logs) is text based and compressed. That's all stored on permanent offsite (and onsite) storage for liability purposes (you never know when a chat log is needed!)

[apsyka]

hmm
-Well detailed
-Evenly spaced
-a complete follow through
-a warning tag...
i rate this guide 5stars!
great guide if only i could do it but very very nice guide

Agree, same for me.

[nike23aaa]

haha mate maybe sorry for not saying great guide good job well it's prety good but i got other way * Marry Gamemaster and get whatever you want lol *
Catching GM with good mood is like 100 to 1 well i talked with GM's a lot while playing this game so lol good luck guys with this anyways and think about marry GM

[Igsy]

it does work. I did this a while back, but slightly different. Because my characters name was 'Milfhunter' (as a joke), a GM Messaged me after I got to 40/45 because someone reported me. The GM logged me off, but before trying to change the characters name, I used the pay-to-transfer option, and changed its name on the other server, then made a new character, messaged the gm, and got the character restored. Its good if your friend is the same faction, but on a different server, and you don't wanna level up all over again. +rep for posting

[Traz]

Nice il try it out

[Bane.]

Errr...So...The real only purpose of this is to sell the char and get some $$$ to donate to MMOwned, correct? =p

-The Dude

PS - Loved the guide, confirmation of this working yet with anyone?

[Skulled]

hope it works thx

[Blizzhaxer]

Even if it doesn't work it's still a nice guide so +rep. (Well If I could give rep that is. XD)

[Wonderboy]

Long and extensive but really cool!

[locky Mc lock lock]

now this is the kind of long winded piece of .......art that i like G matey keep it up

[megalord20]

ah i dont wanna risk it lol

[sinfulkid]

your an idiot this is completely worthless, and the gms do get paid and are infact in game.

[tomit12]

FYI..

I was going to release this information next month, but with the very recent public rantings in regards to holes in the Transfer process, it wasn't going to take long for others to figure this out. I'm hoping that you can still do this before it's fixed!

**** WARNING: DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK! ****

First, a couple things you need to understand:

1. GMs are simply "Chat Agents" working from an interface at their PCs to interact with virtual characters (ie, the customer).
2. GMs are over-worked, underpaid, and generally apathetic. But they're genuinely nice and their job after all is customer service.
3. GMs do not have readily available access to highly detailed Transfer/Deletion/Character logs, however they _can_ submit Character Restoration requests from their SAN _very easily_. Even then, many of their records are inaccurate or missing data.
4. GMs are required to cover large quantities of helpdesk tickets in their queue, so they will never thoroughly investigate a simple/innocent request.
5. Because of all these things, you want a GM for this Policy Exploit. You do not want to raise suspicion, otherwise the Ticket will be escalated to a Specialist (next level of GM who are more thorough investigating requests.) All of this will make sense below.
6. This *probably* won't work if your account has been Restored once already (they typically allow 1 restoration per account.) However, it will depend on the
mood of the GM (we've have never tested it though.)
7. Ensure that Character Transfers are not delayed (ETA should be 24-48 hours or less.)

How To Duplicate Your Character/Items/Gold/Etc:

1. Level up your character to 55-69 and fill up XP bar until it's near levelling. (*)

2. Report your own name or have a friend report your Characters' Name for violating the TOS Naming Policy.

a) If you already have an offensive name, great! You can have your name changed easily.

b) If you don't have an offensive name, claim that you are reporting your own name because you discovered a business with the same name and you realized
that you have violated the TOS. Or, you can claim that your Character's name as a religious significance and discovered that it was offensive (named after a god or deity, accidental racial slur, etc).

Note: Read the Character Naming "Terms of Service", it's very extensive and there are tons of ways to have your name changed by reporting yourself.

3. At this point, a quick investigation will take place and when approved, a forced Character Change Name task will happen. You won't be able to log into your character until you change your name.

4. Don't change your characters name right away! Wait until just AFTER Tuesday's weekly backup (Wed/Thu is fine), then change your name to something non-offensive.

5. Immediately request a server transfer for this character to any other server. (Typically takes 24 hours.)

6. When the transfer is complete, login to the character and change his configuration around. (This might not be required, but we did it anyways to "differentiate" this character from the previous server one.)

For example: Level him to the next level, change their gear, sell off or buy supplies into your bank, change their talents, join a guild, etc.

7. Login to the old server, and create a NEW character using the NEW NAME. Level it to 10 or so. (Once again, this may or may not be required, but we did it for the reasoning below.)

8. Before next Tuesday's maintenance, open a Helpdesk Ticket IN GAME and on your OLD SERVER using another Character on the OLD SERVER. These tickets will go immediately to the normal GM Queue and not Specialists.

Tell them that your Girlfriend/Boyfriend or family member deleted your character by accident. Or that you deleted your character by accident while cleaning out your account. Or, say that you got drunk and deleted a single or multiple accounts.

You need to be as innocent as possible to avoid escalation. Do NOT report that your account was hacked, otherwise they will fully investigate before issuing a Restoration task!

Also, tell them that the deletion took place on the date 1-2 days before the previous Tuesday's maintenance day. (Tell them the exact date, don't mention Tuesday's maintenance.)

9. The GM will issue a restore (usually during Tuesday's maintenance) of your OLD CHARACTER on the OLD SERVER. The NEW CHARACTER on the NEW SERVER remains intact.

10. You now have 2 characters on 2 servers.

(*) The process above can be changed slightly. Changing their configuration might not be required, but we did it anyways to differentiate our OLD character
from our NEW character. Reason: If they were ever to look back through their records, they would simply see a 69 Hunter and a 70 Hunter on two different
servers, with two different names, and with completely different gears and specs.

If you run into any problems while trying this, just claim ignorance. "Whoops.. sorry, forgot that my character was transferred! I guess by Girlfriend
didn't delete my account after all! Sorry."

Summary:

Everyone in our residence has been running this process for a good 6 months now. All of our friends' friends' have been doing this now too, so it was getting to the point where the knowledge should be known. We have typically done 1-2 characters simultaneously (report both names for TOS violations at once!) and there are about 70 characters that have been duped across multiple servers now (all 60's to 70's).

It was pretty easy to figure out (knowing GM policies/procedures & logging/backup process) and we suspect that there are probably thousands (if not tens-of-thousands) of duplicate accounts across all servers. I can't even imagine how much gold/items/characters out there are duplicates, considering how easy this way.

Hope this helps, and I hope this doesn't get fixed too soon!

*****TLDR Version at the bottom*****


A few things to note:

1) The name change information is largely erroneous. The only copyrights recognized and actually changed are Star Wars, and Lord of the Rings. It will virtually never work to say 'Oh, Roshambo is actually a religious deity'...they actually go have to google your name before forcing a name change, due to internal policy.

2) All the waiting till after maintenance, only changing your name at a certain time and the other associated stuff is pure crap.

The various realms are all contained in groups called RACs. Each account has a different set of characters, deleted or otherwise, that the GM can see. If you move your character from a realm on 1 RAC to another realm on the SAME RAC, he/she is guaranteed to see what you are trying to pull. If you don't want to GM to see them, move the character to a realm on a DIFFERENT RAC.

How do you know which realms are on the same RAC? Look at the Battlegroups. The Battlegroups are the same groupings of realms, even though they will never tell you that. All of the realms in each RAC are in the exact same location as well, regardless of what the time zone on the realm is.

"9. The GM will issue a restore (usually during Tuesday's maintenance) of your OLD CHARACTER on the OLD SERVER. The NEW CHARACTER on the NEW SERVER remains intact."

2 things wrong with this - Either:

A) It has been too long to recover your items, which takes a LONG time, and the GM just restores your character themselves (unlikely if you do it within a weeks time), or your character has all their items intact, in which case the GM looks at your character sheet and sees that it was deleted due to transfer, or

B) Your items are gone (which happens rarely), and they escalate your ticket to a specialist, who are the ONLY GMs that can create your items again to fully restore your character. If a specialist catches you trying to have a transferred character restored, not only will they not restore your old one, but due to how recently you transferred the character, they have the option to punish the account (and usually exercise that option).

The SAN stuff is all nonsense as well. The deleted characters are kept right on the RAC itself.


TLDR version:

If you want this to actually work, make sure your character REALLY violates the naming policy (the name has to be something dirty, racial or otherwise...saying you found out it is a company name will not help you). Then, move the character to a realm on a DIFFERENT Battlegroup, this way the character isn't immediately apparent.

I still don't think it would actually work, because the character window they have to pull up shows them exactly what happened to the character, plain as day. You'd basically have to luck out and find someone really stupid, who doesn't mind being fired soon for not doing their job...and this is assuming they haven't already put in a safeguard for stupid GMs... I haven't worked there in about 4 months.

[somknight]

:icon_headbang: urewin: :bow: just duped my lvl 70 epicced mage d/ed and sold all the junk i didnt need then sold the 3k gold to a gold selling website LOL

[Daeity]

your an idiot this is completely worthless, and the gms do get paid and are infact in game.

Original Quote: "2. GMs are over-worked, underpaid, and generally apathetic. But they're genuinely nice and their job after all is customer service."

You've backpeddled into the troll excuse.
You have no point.
You have no meaning.
You have no significance.
You will be forgotten.
Godspeed.