Item GlossaryEverQuest icon

Earring of Sad Exploitation  
 

Lore Item No Trade
Slot: EAR
AC: -99
STR: -99 DEX: -99 STA: -99 CHA: -99 WIS: -99 INT: -99 AGI: -99 HP: -99 MANA: -99 ENDUR: -99
SV FIRE: -99 SV DISEASE: -99 SV COLD: -99 SV MAGIC: -99 SV POISON: -99
WT: 10.0 Size: TINY
Class: ALL
Race: ALL
Slot 1, Type 7 (General: Group)

Item Lore:I was a Ten Starred Yttrium Earring
Item Type:Jewelry
Stackable:No
Submitted By:Danalog
Lucy Entry By:unknown
Item Updated By:SwiftyMUSE
Source:Live
IC Last Updated:2021-07-27 08:48:11
Page Updated:Sat Sep 7th, 2019

Expansion: Shadows of Luclin Shadows of Luclin


Rarity: No Longer Dropped
Level to Attain: 1

[Drops | Comments ]

Drops

This item is found on creatures.

Sanctus Seru
NPC Name
Lord Inquisitor Seru



Zone(s) Found In:


Zone Name
Sanctus Seru

From Lord Inquisitor Seru before he was supposed to be reachable and thus killable, hence "Exploitation"
Screenshot

Uploaded November 27th, 2008
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Oh, and one more thing....
# Nov 12 2002 at 9:53 PM Rating: Decent
I find it hilarious that Seru wasn't "supposed to be killable". Well, the players who killed him certainly didn't know that he wasn't "supposed to be killable" or they probably wouldn't have bothered trying. If Verant wants to make a mob truly invulnerable, it can do so, be it by giving it AE death touch... or simply making it a thing you can't attack like bazaar merchants.

The players are just playing the game that was provided to them. Don't punish players for not being able to read the mind of the game designer and divine which tactic is "right" and which is "wrong". If something is allowed to occur in the game world, most people are going to assume by default that this is intentional, unless it is an extremely obvious bug (spontaneous generation of currency by hailing the banker nonstop, or whatever). Guild encounters with high level mobs that they may have little firsthand knowledge of shouldn't be subject to such scrutiny. How the hell would UberGuild#1 know how hard Seru was supposed to be for them? Or that the tactic they were using wasn't just as acceptable as the various tactics that are used that take advantage of quirks in terrain and mob scripting in various other high level encounters?

Enough of this "cheater, cheater" B.S. please. Until Verant starts issuing mob killing handbooks (Vulak for Dummies! Only $19.95!) and assigning referees to guild raids, players should be allowed to assume that they can use whatever features of the game and its environment that prove the most effective, and if Verant doesn't want it done that way, they have ALL the authority and ability to make the neccesary changes, and instead of threatening to ban people or casting aspersions on their character PERHAPS they should take responsibility for their design flaws and simply fix the problem that they themselves have created.

(... Actually, just see my post below, I already ranted about this, but I had to take another moment to laugh at Verant and their invincible Seru.)
RE: Oh, and one more thing....
# Nov 12 2002 at 11:29 PM Rating: Good
Actually...they did know he wasn't supposed to be killed. They did it anyway to see if they could. They did. Verant was ready with this joke. There were no punishments handed out..just useless loot.

Most thought it was funny.
RE: Oh, and one more thing....
# Jan 08 2003 at 6:25 AM Rating: Decent
when they FIRST took him down he had great loot, if not, too good loot. if only to amuse themselfs while we couldnt get to him..... then when VI realized players had got to him, and killed him, using a bug in the game(aka: unfinished/bad programing on their part), they changed it to these - pieces. not so much as a joke but because they felt embarased that they were cought with something very unfinished that wouldn't have taken long to fix, just they didnt feel the need to, or that we wouldnt be able to take him down anyways. he was perma rooted and couldnt summon.... this obviously wasnt intentional and is changed now but that is why they didnt ban them, instead take back/change what they thought to be unattainable.

those that now have keys and take him down without using bugs, and those that found the bugs to make VI so red in the face, my hats off to you. =)
RE: Oh, and one more thing....
# Nov 15 2002 at 8:59 PM Rating: Decent
45 posts
My understanding is that Sony gave them GREAT loot with this guy. Then they noticed people were whacking him, so they took each item of that great loot, and turned it into a joke. The kind of joke they could code in 5 minutes.
Remember, they could have seriously punished people. Instead, they took away items that were not intended to be in their hands.

If I found a goblin with 100,000 platinum pieces on him, and killed him a couple times, and they noticed, I would be ECSTATIC if all they did was take the money away. Especially by doing it in a damned funny way. Good job, Sony!
RE: Oh, and one more thing....
# Nov 12 2002 at 11:44 PM Rating: Good
Code Monkey
Avatar
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7,476 posts
That pretty much sums it up, Wolfran. Can't say as to whether they thought it was funny or not though =)
____________________________
Do what now?
RE: Oh, and one more thing....
# Nov 13 2002 at 1:24 AM Rating: Default
This is probably the best way to deal with these kind of guys... give 'em useless loot, and let them laugh, or cry. I thought it was pretty funny...

It's amazing how the use of an exploit galvanizes people. Whether you think you should be able to, or not, the rules are pretty simple. If you use one, and you know that it is one, you're done (and if you're not sure... report the issue, and C.Y.A. (Cover Your A*$) ). Yet people still think that they should be allowed to use them. It's not what you think... it's what rules have been set in place by SOE/VI. You don't like 'em, don't play. Period.

Besides, I think if you do a survey of the players, I think most of them would like the rule regarding the use of exploits just as it is. Ah well, that's just my opinion...


Utno Mwitaji
35th Season Magician
#REDACTED, Posted: Nov 12 2002 at 9:15 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) this is NOT a twink item.
#REDACTED, Posted: Nov 12 2002 at 9:14 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) oops sorry hit the send button twice, eventually thought of a subjet name
"Exploits"
# Nov 12 2002 at 8:58 PM Rating: Decent
The silly thing about all this is that everyone know the rules (its not like Sony is hiding this... and it's nothing new), and yet they complain about getting caught using an "exploit". Boo hoo... good tactics are one thing, and should be rewarded. Using a program bug to your advantage is quite another... and an item such as this is a fair reward (and is better than being punted for cheating). Remember all the crying over the Sleeper incident a while back? You cheated, you got caught, you pay the consequences... it's not like this should be a surprise to anyone at this point, except maybe to the kiddies buying their "uber" characters from Ebay... and that is a whole other discussion.

Besides, what the point to cheat playing a game like this? If you're playing EQ just to be an "uber" and get the latest and greatest stuff, you're missing the point. Have fun, interact with the game as it was meant to be, and stop whining about getting shafted because you cheated.

'nuff said... and apologise to all for beating an issued to death once again... heh.

Utno Mwitagi
Mage of the 35th Season
Firiona Vie
RE:"Exploits"
# Nov 13 2002 at 11:48 PM Rating: Good
To me, a spell that is made to throw your target high into the sky being used to get over walls doesn't sound like an exploit. The only reason this is concidered an exploit is because Verant didn't think of this perpose for the spell when they included it. I've never heard of it before, or thought of it myself, and obviously Verant didn't either. How does that make this an exploit? In my mind an exploit is a coding bug, such as walking through walls, climbing on invisible floors, or somehow, using improper coding to gain an unfair advantage. Coding was NOT an issue here! The spell did exactly what it was designed to do, and because some innovative person used it to something other than its original effect does not make this an exploit. In my opinion Verant has 2 options here.

1. If your key quest to a mob isn't done and you don't want the mob to be killed, DON'T SPAWN THE MOB!! This is the most obvious one to me having worked on an online game myself. If you don't want someone to be able to access it, for the love of god, don't put it on the server! People are playing you for this game so it is YOUR responsiblity to keep them from getting to things you don't want them to, not theirs. I'm not saying its right to use coding exploits to access things( and I'm sure doing my work I made my share of accidental exploits) because exploits are in the same area as cheating. You are using code to modify your stats, or situation, or both.

2.If you don't want people to gravity flux over objects, change the spell so that it would freeze the players x and y co-ordinates. It wouldn't be hard, seeing how there are already spells that specifically do this(root) so just tack on the root code to the spell, and have the effect killed when the person lands. You could even just give it a rooting effect for 3 or so seconds, and have it wear of irregardless of a person landing or not.

What really bothers me is that rather than fixing a possible issue before it came an issue, they included this kind of crap on him. That tells me they anticipated a problem, COULD have fixed it, and didn't. Thats not a human mistake. In my eye, thats incompetance. Thats all I have to say about that...

Edited, Wed Nov 13 23:29:57 2002
.
# Nov 12 2002 at 8:42 PM Rating: Default
Monk item
#REDACTED, Posted: Nov 12 2002 at 8:38 PM, Rating: Unrated, (Expand Post) Uh...I have a few of these....is that bad...or good......I am also the guild leader of FoH in disguise....LOL
geez
# Nov 12 2002 at 7:16 PM Rating: Decent
Look peeps.. Verant has set up rules since day one, that if you kill a mob due to a bug.. there are gonna be problems.. Making exploit loot is a way to handle the cheaters.. If you say that you are constantly angry at Verant for their rules.. or that you have some kind of inside knowledge that Sony/Verant wont fix the problems cause it cost money, and we arent anything but a monthly source of income for those guys.. hey I got an idea.. STOP PLAYING.. Grow up.. Its just a game.. and you have to play it by their rules.. you dont like it.. then quit
RE: geez
# Nov 12 2002 at 7:42 PM Rating: Default
well said.
/nod
RE: geez
# Nov 12 2002 at 7:44 PM Rating: Decent
/agree. This is VI's way of saying "stick THIS in your ear, Uber cheater!"

Too bad they can't make it "NO DROP/NO DESTROY"...like a curse only a GM can remove.
#REDACTED, Posted: Nov 12 2002 at 7:13 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) get a life Gammal. If the system allows it it is not cheating. Plain and simple.
Exploits
# Nov 12 2002 at 6:27 PM Rating: Decent
This attitude that verant has around "exploits" is truly the most foul thing in EQ (even given looting pus-filled pelts from diseased rats :)

Vertant/SOE/whatever has this stupid idea that players should be trying their very hardest to play the game and do well, but should keep in mind some arbitrary ruleset about which part of the world physics are "good things" and which part are "bad things". I have news: finding exploits in the rules of the universe is called MAGIC!

I heard that the big "exploit" here was that people gravity-fluxed over the walls of the central area in SS, and took on Seru (I wasn't there, so that could be rumor).

Ok, so they used a spell that modifies gravity to get to somewhere they couldn't normally. WHY THE HELL IS THAT A PROBLEM? Whys is it a problem to hide where a mob can't see you and cast on it? Why is it a problem to do anything that the game lets you do?!

Verant should be thrilled when they see things like Seru getting taken down early. That means that their players are so into the game that they WANT to spend time figuring these things out.

But no. We're supposed to hold one hand behind our backs and say, "there are no pathing bugs", "there are no targetting bugs", "there are no zone geometry bugs", etc, etc. Instead, why doesn't Verant just fix the problems? They could hire a few developers to re-write the pathing code or the targetting code (they've done some of this, actually, but only where they HAD to). The answer is that hiring programmers to fix those problems reduces profit margins, and that's a no-no.

You see, you're not a player. You're a revenue source. You're a number of dollars per month. And as long as you're not going to quit playing the game, spending money on you is not a financially savvy move.

Why fix the targetting code in Sleeper's Tomb? Why not just ban the players that use it to their advantage? Can you imagine that in the real world? Can you imagine a bank saying "all of our vaults have no doors or locks, and the money is spread out on the floor in your way between the front door and the tellers... touch it, and we'll shoot you, but it would cost us too much to pick it up." Heh, I know I wouldn't be doing business with that bank long.

Then again, maybe I just need to go get some more coffee.
RE: Exploits
# Nov 12 2002 at 6:56 PM Rating: Decent
I'm not sure if I've ever seen so much whining and crying to try and justify cheating. Code is not perfect, people are not perfect....they cannot always be expected to think of every possible way that the 400,000+ subscribed users might try and cheat. It is obviously a pathing bug because what mob in its right mind would follow that path to pursue you. They are working with a limited environment and trying to think of every way to put it too most use. There will be bugs and problems, some of them that might take colossal effort to fix. Are you a programmer? Have you ever taken a look at the code required to run EQ? Maybe its not all as simple as you envision it. Get over it already....CHEATER!

Gammal
RE: Exploits
# Nov 12 2002 at 9:12 PM Rating: Decent
Maybe this issue isn't quite as simple as YOU envision it. Undeniable cheating would be using 3rd pary software or any other means to alter the mechanics of the game or to reveal information about the game that isn't intended to be discoverable through the normal course of play (ShowEQ for instance).

Bugs, however, do not exist because of the scheming of some unscrupulous hacker. They exist because the game programmers and designers released their product to the public with flaws still present in it. Some of these bugs are occasionally used to the players advantage, however the VAST majority of them are harmful to the player and some can be hugely disruptive to play or in the very least a source of constant irritation.

I understand the huge task it must be to code a game like EverQuest, and most players accept the fact that bugs will happen and they dutifully alert Verant to them and wait as patiently as they can manage for a patch fix.

One issue with "exploit bugs" is the fact that unless Verant makes an official announcement or gives an official warning concerning a bug, there is no way for a player to know for certain whether what they are encountering is a "bug" or simply poorly designed and implemented content that isn't deemed by Verant to be in need of a fix or is for some reason impossible to fix. There is no way for us to know conclusively that there is actually a problem in most cases, unless we are specifically warned about it.

""It is obviously a pathing bug because what mob in its right mind would follow that path to pursue you.""

Mobs don't have minds. They have a script that they follow, written by the programmers. Pathing is determined by zone terrain and is considered a feature of the zone, not the mob. (Thus, when Verant wants to get wacky for Halloween, they simply spawn different mobs at the spawn points in WC and the new mobs path about like the regular ones they have temporarily replaced, instead of just standing in place or crazily charging around.) Given the quirky, frustrating, and occasionally down right bizarre pathing that exists in many zones that are considered "unbugged", it isn't surprising that when players encounter something with "bugged pathing" they simply shrug their shoulders and keep trying to kill it anyways. There is NOTHING obvious about pathing, bugged or unbugged, and it isnt the players job to sit around worrying about. Roughly the same could be said for completing quests, spell effects, tradeskills and so on...

When bugged content makes it into the "live" game, it isn't the fault of the player who just shelled out another $30 to experience it. The responsibility lies solely with Verant. They produce the game, we buy it and then play it. They are selling us a faulty product and then accusing us of fraudulent behavior when we manage to use one of the flaws to our advantage, which is a rare occurence, because most bugs are harmful to players.

I understand that some of this debugging taking place after the game goes live is unavoidable because there are so many X factors involved when players are unleashed to interact with the environment. Fine. If Verant finds a bug that they deem exploitable, they should do whatever is neccesary to prevent any exploitation of it as an immediate precaution. This could include despawning mobs, bringing zones down, or bringing every server down. The problem must be fixed, even if a portion of the content has to be redesigned or removed. Flawed content cannot be left in the game with the onus placed on the players to simply work around it. If something disastrous and widely unbalancing occurs, the GMs can obviously remove items from players, rollback characters, rollback the world for that matter.

Punishing players for the existence of the bug and their attempt to "play through" is NOT the solution. If a GM witnesses players using a bug to their advantage, they should assume that they were not trying to "cheat" but were simply playing the game that was provided to them. If the GM needs to intercede or issue a warning, so be it, but "bug exploitation" shouldn't be a bannable offense, because no known bug should be allowed to perservere in the game long enough for the GMs to rightfully assume that the players are not acting in good faith or in ignorance of the issue. Players should not be put in the position of having to discern whether an encounter is bugged or just poorly designed, nor should it be the players concern whether his tactics are orthodox or not. If a player can manage to do something (anything) in-game, it is because the game allows it. The players ultimate cue for when they are no longer permitted to do something should be when the bug is fixed and they are simply no longer able to do it.

If an exploit bug is left in the game and never fixed after it is discovered, for whatever reason, it shouldn't be considered an exploit any longer. If the game is broken, fix it.

Don't blame all of us for playing it "wrong", when you didn't bother to design it "right".

Talibkweli 61 MNK etcetera etceterea

PS: Yes, my post was longer than it needed to be, but I'm waiting for dinner to be delivered so too damn bad if you all read it !!!



RE: Exploits
# Dec 12 2002 at 7:43 PM Rating: Decent
18 posts
Obviously they did. They nerfed the reward. Thus the item in question.

TalibMT wrote: "I understand that some of this debugging taking place after the game goes live is unavoidable because there are so many X factors involved when players are unleashed to interact with the environment. Fine. If Verant finds a bug that they deem exploitable, they should do whatever is neccesary to prevent any exploitation of it as an immediate precaution."
RE: Exploits
# Nov 13 2002 at 12:55 PM Rating: Default
You obviously have no idea of what you are talking about. Bugs will always exist in a game as big as everquest. If you do not have at least a basic understanding of what 'programming' is like, do not even post.

If you want a bug free game, go play pong.
If you want a game with as many variables as EQ, then deal with some bugs, because no matter how perfect, or long a team of programmers work on this game, there will be bugs.


I do however agree with you as far as the 'cheating' goes.
RE: Exploits
# Nov 13 2002 at 2:55 PM Rating: Default
On 11/16/2002 I have removed my flaming comments as they add nothing to the discussion about the item.

Sorry for any ruffled feathers.

Tarz


Edited, Sat Nov 16 11:21:35 2002
#REDACTED, Posted: Nov 12 2002 at 8:03 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) lol Gammal, im not going to even say what i want to. All i will say tho is that you, sir, must be one pathetic loser.
OMG!
# Nov 12 2002 at 6:01 PM Rating: Decent
Before any more idiots post here saying, "Who the hell would want this," or "This must be for a quest," or something stupid like that, READ THE ENTIRE PAGE!

This was dropped by Seru BEFORE he was supposed to be able to be killed!
#REDACTED, Posted: Nov 12 2002 at 5:58 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) I've never seen an item with negative ac before. I guess I would'nt, because who is going to wear something that takes away ac??? =)
RE: Negative AC
# Nov 12 2002 at 6:10 PM Rating: Default
*
54 posts
The Silken Whip of Ensnaring also has an AC hit to it. Certainly as a weapon it was something that many people would have used, (in spite of the AC hit) considering that it was a Kunark-era weapon.
#REDACTED, Posted: Nov 12 2002 at 5:58 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) Must be for quest or who would want it?
RE: WHAT THE?
# Nov 12 2002 at 6:00 PM Rating: Good
"Dropped off of Lord Inquisitor Seru before he was supposed to be killable, hence 'Exploitation'"
Maybe someone used an exploit to kill him.
RE: WHAT THE?
# Nov 12 2002 at 6:58 PM Rating: Default
Heh, no maybe. If you have pieces of this gear (there is more than just this earring) then you got it by cheating....plain and simple.

Gammal
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