Let me make this clear, this thread was created due to the fact that several players were found to be abusing this bug. This is not the first time we have had people abuse a bug which allowed for easy gains of large amounts, which we took similar actions against those involved. (Thank you Garry for introducing that in one of your surprise updates.) This thread was not created to shame or hang them out for everyone to see. We launched a wide internal investigation into the events that happened on the date we found this to be occurring. While there are claims that it was done in the name of testing, it was already known to exist by one of those involved so no further "testing" would be required. Additionally the amount that was obtained through this method may be small for their collective wealth, the money was put into the bank account with never notifying
@Fredy,
@Bolli,
@MoronPipllyd, or myself know that they had conducted any testing, what they gained, or how it was needed to confirm what was already known. So in all fairness it is little to no different than anyone else caught abusing this. We are deeply saddened by their actions and the actions of anyone else that would use such methods for personal gain. We had to remove several people last time there was a large scale bug, and we are having to this time as well with regrettable findings.
While the money was eventually removed by their own doing this was not until extensive questioning of their doings and motives. Even if a bug such as this is rather sensitive and other players should not know how to replicate, write one of the four people I mentioned previously a private conversation or try contacting us on Teamspeak immediately. Anyone caught doing shady behavior with any exploit that is used for personal gain with no intention to notify us of it must be dealt with in harsh ways I'm afraid. We expect all members of the community to be held to a certain degree of professionality.
So again this thread is not to single them out, but we would rather address the people directly than have rumors fly around about their expulsion. We still thank
@Ben Lockwood and
@Standish for their time as administrators and the hard work they had done as such. It is with a heavy heart that we had to let them go.
Any exploits discovered should be reported to senior administration or above immediately and any independent testing needs to be closely monitored. You are not automatically granted permission to use it as you like without saying anything until it is discovered by us.
I hope this has helped make some of this clear as to why we had to handle it the way we did. Whether you believe they were guilty of the accusations or not, please be respectful of all the members by not slandering them by any means. You are free to disagree with what we did, but we hope that we can ensure things like this don't happen again.
Thank you.