Fielding user questions...(in the order received)
If I bought glitched items before the announcement/before I knew they were glitched, will I be banned?
Each case is being investigated individually. Whether you knew if the items were glitched or not is not a factor in this equation. What matters is if the account in question grossly exploited the glitched items. If an account has not been banned already, it is highly likely that it will not be banned after the fact.
If I unknowingly received glitched items from a friend before the announcement/before I knew they were glitched, will I be banned?
See answer above.
If I bought and sold glitched game items before the announcement/before I knew they were glitched, will I be banned?
See answer above.
If I won't be banned for buying, will the items disappear? Will I get a refund?
The items will very likely disappear and depending on the situation, it is likely that the gold will not be refunded. Again, this will be analyzed on a case-by-case basis.
If I won't be banned for receiving a trade, will the items disappear?
More than likely, the items will disappear.
If I won't be banned for buying/selling, will a rollback for my account happen?
A rollback will not happen, instead we have a team restoring items manually and they are doing their best to restore everything to the state they were prior to the glitch.
When are trading/vending passes going to be restored? **
Trading/vending passes are being restored as each account is cleaned up. It will not be a mass restore, as the only accounts that currently do not have trades/vends are those that are somehow directly involved in the game items glitch. It will probably take a couple/few weeks to clean up all the accounts since they have to be done manually.
Is there a time frame for when the modbase and the admin hope to have this matter taken care of? **
It will probably take a couple/few weeks to clean up all the accounts since they have to be done manually.
Is it possible to tell the difference between glitched and non-glitched game items? **
At the time of the glitch, there were several hundred game item trades in progress. Let's say a trade was originally 500 tickets, due to the glitch the 500 tickets became 100+ million tickets. We have record of all the accounts that were involved in these pending trades. From there, we can see where all the glitched game items went, whether it was to another user, sold back to stores, sold in the MarketPlace, etc. So, unless you were involved in one of those trades or if you happened to buy a rather huge amount of game items (usually at a really competitive price), you would know if you have glitched game items. Otherwise, our team can and has tracked where these items have moved, so we know where the glitched game items are and who has them, etc.
I just want to know if it's safe to be buying again. I'm buying ink, but I'm avoiding any really good deals out of fear still.
All the accounts that were involved in the glitch had their trades/vends canceled. Doing this, removed their items from the Marketplace. In essence, it should be safe, but use your judgment...if it seems too good to be true, then err on the side of caution and don't buy (just to be safe).
What I really want to know is what is working, what is safe to use at this point (marketplace, trading?), what I shouldn't go into (fishing?), etc.
Everything should be safe at this time. As I mentioned in the answer above, just err on the side of caution if something doesn't look right. Ex. 1 million inks should not cost only 100 gold. Fishing is working for most people, but we have reports that some people are experiencing issues with rods and bait and we're working on this as well.
Sad thing is, if you and I were to shop at a store...And we were unpleased, we'd take our business elsewhere. It doesn't effect gaia if we leave, so they don't bloody care.
Your (Gaians) dissatisfaction absolutely matters to us, which is why we're spending several weeks of people power/time to manually restore all the items involved in this glitch and restore things back to the way they were prior to the glitch. This affected several hundred users and affected the Gaia economy and we don't want the game items to lose value in the Marketplace, etc. We care if you leave...Gaia isn't a viable community without its users. Without you, there wouldn't be a Gaia. So please understand that this greatly affects us as a company and as an online community. We are doing everything we can to correct this issue and bring everything back to normal (pre-glitch), it just takes time to correct.
Does the glitch Amnesty Program apply to banned users?
Yes, it does. Anyone who has been banned due to the game items glitch is more than welcome to reply to the thread. Be sure to name the account that was banned along with the item names and quantities. There is no need to post stories/reasons along with this, just the facts are fine.
I believe that Gaia needs to clear the confusion and tell us what they're doing, how they're handling it, what exactly we should do about game items currently (whether glitched or not), and how long it should generally take for the whole mess to be fixed up.
Right now, we are manually cleaning up accounts involved in the game glitch items and removing the glitched items. In some cases, gold is being restored as well, but this is determined on a case-by-case basis. Do not touch glitched items, please leave them in your account. It will likely take 2-3 weeks to restore the accounts.
How will I know? Will they disappear? If so, will I get the gold I paid for them back? Can I continue to buy and sell inks in the mean time?
If you account was involved in the glitch, the account was either banned or trades/vends were disabled (after the game items glitch, of course). The glitched items will be removed from the account and you will be notified that your account has been restored/unbanned, etc. In most cases, gold will not be refunded, but it will be determined on a case-by-case basis. If you have your trade/vend pass in place, you may buy and sell inks, but (and I've said this before) err on the side of caution, if it looks to good to be true, it probably is.
I highly resent the fact that it is implied that we did something wrong.
While this is not a question, I wanted to address the statement. Our intention was not to imply that anyone did anything wrong. We banned many accounts and disabled trades/vends in order to stop ALL trades, sales and other movement of glitched game items from moving further than they already had once we realized the magnitude of this glitch. In terms of creating the Amnesty Program, the intention was not to imply guilt on the part of the user, but rather create a forum where everyone could step forward to redeem themselves from this event. Some people were buying/selling/trading glitched items at a phenomenal rate and some people were not. This allows everyone to turn over (speak up about) their items in a no questions asked manner. We do not need or require reasons for the glitched items. The whole thing was a big screw up and we own up to that. All we ask is that you own up to actually having the items.
Also, are water balloons consider to be game item too?
Yes, water balloons are game items.
Why didn't you just close the market?
We disabled trading site-wide as soon as we learned the magnitude of the glitch. Closing the Marketplace wasn't really an option, so instead we opted to disable trades/vend for all accounts involved with the glitch.
"From Sagger's Journal"
Why do we ban the users who have exploited the glitch?
There are several reasons we need to ban people who have tried (and even succeeded, temporarily) to exploit this glitch.
1. It makes us work harder when glitches occur. If people try to exploit them instead of reporting them immediately, it takes us longer to find them out, and then it's harder to contain and fix. We have to keep in mind that glitches will always happen, regardless of the amount of effort we put into preventing them. If we ban those who tried to exploit the glitch this time, people will report it faster the next time, and more people will refrain from exploiting it.
2. Had we not banned glitch exploiters, we would be sending a very bad message to the community; that breaking the rules is ok sometimes. We just can't do that - we put a lot of effort into making Gaia a great place to hang out, and the Rules help us to do that.
We take no pleasure in banning users. But it's something we have to do sometimes.
crying
I hope this helps alleviate your concerns. Please do not stress about what will/might happen to your account. We are doing everything that we can to be fair and to restore things back to normal. We really appreciate your patience while we deal with this issue.
I see two in one hand.
Back to one.
