Huntgate News and Information

Apologies are in order. Exactly one week ago we promised you guys that we would move on from Huntgate and never touch on the topic again on Unblogged. Well, that was not correct… Because news and information were just pouring in throughout the week. So we don’t really have a choice to get you folks up-to-date with the latest developments. Here we go!

1,000 Hunts = 1,000 ToS Violations

First of all, we learned a little bit more about who got banned and what customer support used as basis for ban durations. Logically, you would think that exploited currency would be the number one criteria, but according to some exchanges with customer support, that’s not the case. Apparently they first and foremost looked at the number of times you were doing glitch overall. One exchange we saw clearly states that the “exploited ADs don’t matter” and that by exploiting X times, a player violated the ToS X times.

That’s a bit of a weird approach. But it might explain why players that felt that their net gain from the exploit wasn’t too big still got severe punishments. Talking about punishments: Apparently another heavyweight content creator got caught up in the whole mess.

FNHUSA57 had remained silent very long, which already raised questions what’s up with him. He finally released a video last week saying that his account is suspended, but hasn’t received an e-mail yet. Now some messages from peers on social media indicate that he has indeed received a perma. His guild started to sent out ingame messages urging members to contact support and plead for his release. Players can also use the hashtags #freefhnusa57 and #freetheplayers to support FNHUSA57.

[su_youtube_advanced url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGDrWXRLcpk” https=”yes”]

You can surely debate about the circumstances, but losing a content creator of this magnitude is never great. We don’t know how often he did the glitch, but he said in the video that he got “caught up” in it and has streams to proof it. But that might actually be the issue because PWE especially came down hard on those that streamed the exploit, knowingly or not. So maybe him streaming bugged Hunts might be what triggered the perma. If the ban stands, the game surely lost one of its bigger creators. FNHUSA57 streamed every week and additionally produced YouTube content. Huge shout-out and we hope he lands on his feet!

Perfect World Statement

While Perfect World by the way still hasn’t answered their players, it did sent out a statement to official news outlets that reported the ban wave. The matter of fact that this made the news on sites like MassivelyOP.com and others shows that this is definitely big. Neverwinter is a small game and most outlets only ever repost official blogs or press releases. Apparently that’s why Perfect World felt like they had to “clarify” the incident.

[su_quote cite=”MMORPG.com” url=”https://www.mmorpg.com/neverwinter/news/update-cryptic-offers-insight-into-recent-neverwinter-ban-wave-over-in-game-exploit-1000049892″]Players were notified about the exploit and abuse consequences via an official statement from our Community Manager on the ArcGames.com Forums, which was also replicated on Reddit. Exploits such as this one can negatively impact the health of Neverwinter and affects all its players. The exploit is now fixed; players who chose to abuse the Hunts system were in violation of our Terms of Service, so action was taken against them. Any players who would like to dispute actions against their account may contact our Customer Service team.[/su_quote]

In our opinion this sounds too much as if the devs gave warning in advance and then banned those that would still exploit. Which obviously wasn’t the case at all. The day the devs posted the acknowledgment was the day they also hotfixed the exploit. Additionally not all players regularly visit the Arcgames forum or Reddit. So PWE did not make sure all the players got the message. A better way to carry out the announcement would have been via an ingame message or e-mail.

Unfortunately many sites just picked up the statement and made it sound like the game handled the incident transparently when the opposite was the case. This didn’t prevent Huntgate from becoming a PR disaster though. Some sites chose to post a more in-depth coverage highlighting more sides of the argument. And of course pretty much every bigger YouTuber went out and released critical coverage.

New Subreddit and Microsoft Refunding Money?

Huntgate also led to players trying to establish an alternate Subreddit. You can find it at /r/neverwinteronline and it’s already fairly active. The sub aims at providing a more open talk about ingame topics without any toxicity. So in case you like Reddit as platform, but feel like the official sub is too restrictive, you now have an additional option. Please spread the word!

Here’s also some rumor from the new sub: A thread indicates that Microsoft might refund money for Huntgate. We can’t say whether it’s legit. But in case you received a perma on Xbox you might want to contact the Microsoft support and see if you can work something out.

Is This Finally the End?

That’s the news for today! This time we won’t promise that we’ll never speak about Huntgate again by the way. Unless Perfect World itself addresses the issue however, there might not be too much to talk about going forward. We’ll still be monitoring the community and will update you guys on any developments!


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15 thoughts on “Huntgate News and Information

  • October 1, 2018 at 9:03 am
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    I’ve never used any exploit at all, as far as I am aware. And this is the problem for people who claim they have been unjustly banned. It’s not always easy to tell or obvious that something is an exploit and, very often, it only becomes an exploit when Cryptic/PWE declare that it is. This can be a problem when they refuse to acknowledge the existence of such things, much less allow open discussion or even simple reporting of such bugs on the official forums.

    This particular exploit, however, does seem quite obvious and specific steps had to be taken to reproduce it.

    * They did mention it in the PC patch notes and told PC players that if they have used it they will know when they log in.
    * They warned people on console that action would be taken.
    * The patch for it could be circumvented, so they did a hot fix.
    * they started banning people, probably via a badly written algorithm.

    So, if people circumvented the patch and continued to abuse the exploit, they deserve some sort of action against their accounts. Counting the number of ToS violations from the start of Mod 14 is hardly fair, but counting from the patch that fixed it is probably reasonable.

    Of course, when it went to console it was supposed to have already been fixed, which is maybe why they were hit harder. But surely Cryptic could easily send in-game mails to all players, or make regular and frequent Admin announcements, or put it in the game launcher splash screen?

    I’d like to see a detailed timeline of all this. PWE should not be dishonest by misrepresenting the issue.

    Maybe, for your final blog on this, you could re-write that PWE statement with the relevant dates and times added, including the bug reports to the Preview Thread etc?

    🙂

    #freefhnusa57

  • October 1, 2018 at 10:55 am
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    Does Neverwinter even have any content creators left?
    A quick search for ‘neverwinter’ on youtube either gives you ban videos, or videos by people that are now banned.

    If you’re a new player, this game company looks terrible.

    • October 1, 2018 at 1:57 pm
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      There are “content creaters” in game. They may not be posting stuff atm out of protest, but they are playing

  • October 1, 2018 at 1:12 pm
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    Still doesn’t help when a popular website for the game releases step by step info on how to do the exploit at the same time as console launch. This website boasts 75k regular visitors. They’ve not once admitted that they probably played a big part in the console debacle but they sure as hell were quick to edit their post removing their advice of enjoy it while it lasts.

    It’s funny how they still post up poor players, bad ARC… What’s not funny is the amount of people who have been banned from the game So thanks for all you’ve done nice to see you won’t take ownership of your part in killing a decent chunk of the Neverwinter population.

    • October 1, 2018 at 2:07 pm
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      NWO:UN did not compel anyone to do this. Just because information is available doesn’t mean you must do it. Everyone playing Nevertwinter is an adult or is under the supervision of an adult. This website gives people the power of information, its up to each person to decide what to do with it. That’s why its “uncensored” and that’s why people come here vs the arc forums. People want to be free to share information and its up to each person has sovereignty to use that information by their own standards of ethics and levels of risk tolerance.

      Instead of doing the exploit, you did have an option to buy sapphires on the cheap to resale post fix. Which is not a violation of the TOS. Some smart people did that instead 🙂

    • October 1, 2018 at 2:26 pm
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      We didn’t encourage anyone to exploit, we didn’t ban anyone, and we sure as heck haven’t edited any posts after the fact. And, contrary to “ARC” we answer our critics, have been doing so for the last weeks. If you followed the conversation and posts here and on other places, you’d know your points are not valid. But that’s fine because around here, anybody can freely speak their mind. Isn’t it great that you can come here while others are getting their critical posts deleted on Arcgames and the official Subreddit?

      Here’s a deal by the way: We take responsibility once Cryptic / PWE does. Have fun waiting for that day to never come!

    • October 1, 2018 at 5:05 pm
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      Did Unblogged actually say “enjoy it while it lasts”? Does anyone have a screen shot of that?

  • October 1, 2018 at 5:16 pm
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    LOL! I looked at the petition and I had to laugh at a “player” calling himself “FNHUSA IS TRASH”

    “14 hours ago
    BAN ALL CHEATERS

    GET THIS TRASH OUTTA HERE!

    YOU GOT WHAT YOU NUBS DESERVED”

    Well, I spoke to fhnusa57 in-game once or twice and I’ve seen many of his guides etc, and he was a really decent, friendly and helpful player, one of the Names, Faces and Experts in the community!

    #freefhnusa57

    • October 2, 2018 at 8:20 am
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      Oh, looks like I made an error here. FNHUSA57 is a console player, so it wasn’t him I spoke to, it was a PC player who made detailed build threads.

      By the way, j0Shi, you spelled #freefnhusa57 wrong in paragraph 4 of the article. You have the “h” and “n” reversed, as #freefhnusa57

      #FreeFNHUSA57

  • October 2, 2018 at 3:37 am
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    Sadly, I found out today that “Temporarily Suspended” really meant “Account Permaban.” Tried to appeal, tried to appeal the denial of appeal, but Knuckles stood his ground. Never received any notice, did not promote anything on social media, and stopped before they released the Sept. 12 notice. I know, i know, cheaters never prosper, but I still feel as if I and many others got a bit of a raw deal. Not trying to use this forum to kvetch, using it as a therapeutic outlet for the sadness-anger-depression-and maybe relief?- at giving up a game that has willingly taken tons of my money only to leave me feeling like none of it really matters anyway. Signed petitions, but how often do the devs actually listen to the community? Anyway, like I said, not asking for sympathy, I deserved punishment, and I can see both sides of the argument. Just….bummed. Was fun while it lasted XD

    • October 2, 2018 at 4:05 am
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      Sorry to hear! This by the way is a great example of the sentiment we’re getting from players. Sure some rage, but the majority of those that exploited understand the penalties, just don’t agree with the severity.

      Suspended, but actually banned seemed to have happened to FNHUSA57 as well.

    • October 2, 2018 at 8:13 am
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      I think 10 days and losing your currency, except what you bought with cash, would be harsh enough. If they did that, would you ever abuse an exploit again?

  • October 2, 2018 at 4:33 am
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    HUSA is a fucking idiot anyway.. this cunt is asking for $5000 to travel from Florida to another state.. all he gives a shit about is money.. hence why he’s a fucking prick.

    And I can tell you this… there is NO WAY he did not know about this glitch he says he has proof that he did not do it. (what about when he’s not streaming)

    what a load of fucking bullshit.

  • October 2, 2018 at 4:41 am
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    Well, instead of a ban wave they should have gone with a rollback for the accounts in question to the day the exploit was used actively the first time. And players, that were dragged into this by others without really knowing what was going on should only have received a warning.

    Considering how fast they were with fixing the bug, that allowed players to finish the daily quest in Barovia within minutes through the indirect “help” from other players, i can only say that this whole mess stinks to high heaven.

    Anyway, i do hope that the players involved will bring up this fiasko every time a new ARG game is being released in public, so that everyone sees how PWE “handles” their customers.

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