Guild Wars 2 Snowflake Exploiters Face Permanent Bans

Guild Wars 2 Santa delivers coal and permanent bans to naughty youngsters who use exploits.

Throughout the holidays, ArenaNet ran a charming modest Christmas event referred to as Wintersday for festively-inclined Guild Wars 2 players. However, one of the items introduced in the event, a high-level snowflake in this case, was bugged. By combining the snowflake with a Black Lion salvage kit and a lot of metal, unscrupulous players might produce limitless globes of ectoplasm, a exceptionally-sought after crafting material.

The exploit was closed almost as soon as it popped up, but not before a slew of decidedly un-festive Guild Wars 2 gold players managed to fill their virtual pockets with ill-gained loot. Those who got caught doing so are now facing a permanent ban.

The usual responses were aired, that it's ArenaNet's responsibility to fix such bugs & that players shouldn't be punished for taking benefit of game mechanics, broken or otherwise, but those claims were shot down by ArenaNet support liaison, Gaile Gray.

"Any time you take 1 thing and can make 2, and then four, and then sixteen... ya gotta know that's just incorrect. (I will not quibble on the odds, yet overall, that form of doubling was not outside the realm of possibility.) And to perform that action hundreds and hundreds of times? That's named 'exploitation,' & that's against the User Agreement, the Rules of Conduct, & all that is holy," she wrote.

"Exploit closed," she added. "Worst offenders terminated. That's what has to take place to make items right for all of us."