I am a long time lurker, rare poster.  I originally came to the vault for the dick jokes with a little DDO sprinkled in.  I have noticed recently that most new members are just here looking for exploits.  So I am here to help.  Before you jizz your pants in excitement, realize you will have to put some work in.  I do not give a man a fish, I teach him how to tip strippers.

Instead of you coming here to beg for the info, then being told who to PM , then opening a picture of a penis with two 90 degree bends (yes two), I am going to teach you how to be at the top of the exploiting pyramid.

The first thing to realize is that there are different types of exploits.

Quest Exploits:  Quest exploits allow you to complete a quest much quicker then norml.  A common, recently fixed one was in the Maze of Madness.  You were able to get above the maze and complete very quickly.

Value Exploits:  Value exploits allow you to gain game wealth very quickly.  By either quickly getting items or plat.  The recent dupping exploit and an exploit that would allow you to open a chest an infinite number of times would both be value exploits.

XP Exploits:  XP exploits are different then quest exploits because they allow you to gain XP outside of a quest with little effort.  For a full description of these exploits you will need to speak with Otto or Jeets.

Stupid Exploits:  These are the exploits that exist, yet have no value.  If you find a way for your pure 20 monk to stay centered while wielding a bastard sword and shield, awesome, more power to you.  But no one cares about this exploit.

Fun Exploits:  Fun exploits generally make the game easier but do not effect the economy or any quest directly.  Using the axe out of VON 1 when you are level one would be a good example.  Currently there are a number of fun exploits.

Now that you have an idea of the types, how do you find them?  There are two ways to find exploits, on accident or on purpose.  I will give you an example of an accidental find.  We will use the quest Litany of the Dead.  When it originally came out the final chest was in a tower in the orchard.  When a side was completed you would then enter a new instance, break a crystal,a chest would spawn.  This chest dropped the most valuable game items at the time.  Tome pages and named items.  In our example a group completes the quest as normal.  During the final fight with the undead beholder a player dies, then dc's.  The other five players complete, go through the door, and loot the chest.  The dc'd player reconnects and is in the quest dead (before the time of ddo store and cakes).  He really wants to loot the chest and asks if someone can come help him.  The cleric in the group decides he will.  He enters the still active quest through the front door.  Runs to the end and rezzes the player.  They both go through the door.  There is a new crystal, they break it, and a new chest respawns.  The cleric is able to loot the very valuable chest again.  And has also just discovered an amazing exploit.

Finding an exploit on purpose is very different.  There is trial and error and you should have a basic understanding of game mechanics.  Using the above Litany example.  A smart player runs the quest for the first time.  Realizes that the chest is spawning in a separate instance.  Understanding how game mechanics work the player then asks himself, how can I get into the chest instance by avoiding the quest?  Maybe he tries to find a way to climb the towers, maybe he realizes right away, just run through the quest again.  Maybe a couple times he tries to run through the quest and the wall is up (initially in the quest to prevent this type of exploit, but it did not always go up).  Either way, he sees the potential, and then gets to work on the how.

If you are going to try and find exploits, ask yourself first, what has worked in the past.  Many exploits are variations on a game mechanic that is chronically buggy.  If it works with this, how about with that?

Next is the life cycle of an exploit.  Now that you found a great value exploit, infinite plat we will use, what do you do with it?  First thing to do is share it with your close friends.  If you are reading this, we are now close friends, send me a PM.  You do this because exploiting is like sex, it is just not as fun to do alone.  Spend a couple days making infinite plat with your friends, buy everything of value on the auction house, plat cap all of your characters, now what?  Now it is time to expand the circle.  You share it with a couple other people, the not as trust worthy ones.  You do this so the exploit will spread and many people will be doing it.  Why you may ask?  Once again it is like sex, if you get caught doing it in public, it's better if the police have more then one bare ass to chase.

Turbine gets grumpy when people exploit and eventually will do something about it once it gets out of hand.  Turbine is also a for profit endeaver.  They will not ban 10% of thier player base, therefore losing 10% income.  If just you and your friends happen to be caught?  They have no problem banning eight people.  That is why eventually your great exploit has to filter into the masses.  The beauty is that you got bored with it three weeks ago and sucked all the value out of it you wanted.  Now if bannings start, your clean, for the last three weeks at least.  And if you do get nabbed, due to the number of people doing it, your usually looking at a short vacation.  And 99% of the time when you go back, the value you got out of the exploit is still there.  The other 1% of the time, well...

So now that you are armed with the tools you need, go forth and open your shared bank, run away from the banker, dc in mid action, jump on every wall, run around with your mail box open, find a use for 9000 potions of wonder, and come back to tell us all about your great findings.  And if none of that works, PM Epoch.

TL;DR

Brac wrote on Nov 18^th, 2013 at 3:35pm:

great post! Also some people are more naturally inclined to find exploits, due to their curious nature of trying things differently.

A tale from the old days: When I was a teenager, many moons ago, we had no MMOs, and UO was still a few years away from being developed. What did a bored nerdy teenager do?

we played on MUD (Multi User Dungeon). One of the guys (the super nerdy one), was always doing weird stuff around, and he eventually found a way to dupe the currency. The way it worked is, if I remember correctly, you typed "drop 1 coin", and the coin would drop to the ground, but at the same time never leave your inventory.

It only worked for 1 coin, not 2, not 10 (weird bug). Anyways, he wrote a small script and did this for hours... He got then so rich and started buying all the shinies, the "gods" (how we called mud admins) got suspicious, and eventually he was banned. Good times

Exploiting is always fun, so practice safe exploiting!

Build a man a fire and he'll stay warm for a night.

Set a man on fire and he'll stay warm the rest of his life.

Legato wrote on Nov 18^th, 2013 at 4:23pm:


Ah MUDs, where exploits that ruined the economy could be handled by something so simple as a pwipe, or less agressively, by rolling back the pfiles.

Do you classify finding ways to get beyond the walls as a Fun Exploit or does it have it's own category ?

devs almost certainly visit the vault, so they might trace you from here to the game... plus of course, everyone will think you are a bit of a plank

Flav wrote on Nov 18^th, 2013 at 5:19pm:


I would say Fun Exploit.  It hurts no one and just makes your own play more interesting.

merciless wrote on Nov 18^th, 2013 at 5:44pm:


fixed.

youre welcome, im in a fixing mood today

merciless wrote on Nov 18^th, 2013 at 5:44pm:


The devs do visit this board, we are their QA dept now.

Folks that been around fer a spell can affirm the strong correlation between exploits that require store items being posted on the vault and turbines sales of those items. I know that sounds a bit far fetched, but some sales have been hours after open vault postings.

TL;DR   If you want turbine to gain more revenue via the store then share exploits.

Brac wrote on Nov 18^th, 2013 at 3:35pm:


First of all, thanks for the well-written, entertaining post.

Second, please change your avatar.  The picture you have chosen has the unfortunate effect of making Azog both extremely horny and extremely hungry at the same time.  This leads to him becoming severely disoriented and confused.  This confusion in turn leads to Azog molesting pancakes.

In short, please think of all the innocent pancakes being turned into donuts and eclairs, and change your avatar.  Thanks.

So Brak, if you're reading this, I'll assume we're close friends now.  I'll be waiting for a PM. No hurry, any time today is fine.

killersincx wrote on Nov 18^th, 2013 at 5:37pm:



As long as you didn't use the same account/name whatever here and on the other forum.
Basically if you can be linked back to an account you will.

One Turbine Employee (ir)regularly posts here : MajMal.
Several other Turbine Employees are known to lurk here.
And last some of the Fanbois that gets their panties in knots over Exploits come here just so that they can rat out to Turbine who is exploiting what.

The safest way to post an exploit is to create a sockpuppet account here and post it in the Honeypot then to chone said sockpuppet account as proved by the Duping Exploit.

Oh and when you reach Fight Club level you will be disapointed by the Fight Club...