To mods: Please do not delete this thread and just ask me to file a support ticket. I posted this to inform everyone of a zeny exploit on Classic, this can't be done anymore anyway since the USRC NPCs are gone. It's better if more players were aware about this so they can avoid having deals with suspicious people. This can help prevent people from being involved in whatever action the GM team would take.
...RIP Classic?
Read the video description. I don't understand why the GMs didn't just open a Sakray server for Classic. Things like this are bound to happen, unless the management really knows their thing and can determine any and every possible exploit and adjust whatever it is they're implementing to make it invulnerable.
For those who didn't understand the video, it's simple.
1. Make a novice, get him to town so you can invite him into a guild with recall.
2. Delete the said novice, make a novice with the same exact name.
3. Bring the novice to the USRC grounds, change him to a Mastersmith/Biochemist with level 10 Enlarge Weight Limit and 99 STR.
4. Farm zeny by doing the following steps: buy slim potion tokens, get free pots from the consumable refiller, sell to the tool dealer, restock your slim pots, sell, repeat.
6. Once you have enough zeny, logon the guild leader of the guild and cast recall in a castle.
7. Your USRC character will get recalled. You're now outside the USRC map.
8. Transfer the zeny, bwing (savepoint: USRC map), repeat from step 4.
You can't do this anymore since the USRC NPCs are gone, but GMs feel free to check and see for yourselves to confirm that this method works. I tried this on 2 novices though - made a novice, deleted, made a novice with the same name and made him a swordsman then recalled. It worked. Guild window will show the character as a level 1 novice but you will still get recalled. This is a very old trick and I don't know why the GMs didn't forsee this. People used to do this to get their allies' guild leaders recalled into the same spot (create novice, invite to guild, delete, create another one and make him a guild leader). This makes 1 recall actually mean 4 recalls (1 guild with 3 guild leaders as "members") in the same spot without having the 3 other guild leaders walk/snap to the recall spot. Anyway...
How many people do you think know about this exploitable characteristic of the guild system, and how many of them actually used this to their advantage? It's not like the arena was monitored by GMs 24/7, so who knows if big guilds did this during times when the population was at its lowest? How long has the USRC arena been on Classic? How much zeny do you think has been added to the market? How many people have had successful deals involving dirty zeny? Anyone who watched the video can tell you that this method could potentially produce an unlimited amount of zeny that can be spent outside the USRC map (a.k.a. ZENY THAT ISN'T USELESS; ZENY THAT AFFECTS THE IN-GAME ECONOMY). Also, say hello to unlimited blue pots, slims, cobwebs, coating bottles, etc. Poison bottles and bomb sets are technically unlimited too, but fortunately nobody would find it practical to exert the amount of effort required to obtain a huge supply of these things. Nonetheless, this still means free WOE supplies for everybody... well, for everybody who abused this, at least!
Another thing that could have possibly happened is, people made level 85/90 trans characters and brought them to the "main" world then just get the rest of the levels. That would have saved them a lot of time and supplies! This is very easy to detect though because of the Unknown Item everyone gets once they enter the USRC map. I guess the GMs can just wipe all characters with those Unknown Items.
Lastly, people could have brought in items from the main world and used them during the USRC matches. How? Do the same-name-novice thing in the video, pass on gears to the USRC character, bwing. Variant Shoes, Valk gear, overupgraded items, and even god items could have been used! I'm not sure if the GMs checked each and every player's equipment during the tournament but if not then some teams might have had an item advantage over the others. Having a way to get out of the arena also means people had access to storage. BG gears for USRC, anyone? Heck, people could have just warped (yes, it's possible...just make a Champ/HP USRC char, get recalled, warp to your savepoint) their 98/70 trans characters or w/e into the USRC map and used them in the matches if the GMs weren't too keen on the characters' levels. Anyway USRC is over and the winners have been announced so let's get over it. I'm not accusing anyone of doing anything illegit; I'm just saying that it MIGHT have happened.
I'm actually thankful the GMs gave the USRC cards/equipment a bit of thought. Giving them the "USRC" prefix makes it easier to wipe all the items, but no one knows if some people used those cards on normal equipment and used them for PVM/WOE. I'm talking about something like everybody reflecting MVP earthquake by using free USRC Maya Cards. I also wouldn't be surprised if a random WOE video shows some guy sporting a Dark Randgris Helm[1]. I know, too obvious and it's a free ticket to getting a permaban, but you get the point.. (Before I forget, as far as I know DRH isn't even supposed to be slotted in RWC/USRC lol. This isn't really related to the issue at hand but uh... 
)
As for the zeny issue, I suggest that you do at least one of the ff.:
- server rollback to the time before you implemented the USRC arena
- zeny wipe, but you have to make sure that people don't have any means to save even just a portion of their (possibly exploited) zeny. one method for people to do this is buying a -_-load of mastelas and then selling them back to the npc after the wipe
- trace and revert all trades involving zeny which came from the USRC arena, and then wipe the said zeny <-- best thing to do, but I doubt it's possible
- think of other ways to deal with this issue? lol
I know that doing the things I suggested would generate a lot of negative feedback from the community but what else can you do? I'm sure this thing has been going on for weeks and I don't think people would like to play on a server which suddenly had billions or maybe trillions of zeny added to the market because of a faulty, abusable system. Anyone who had a lot of time to kill could have generated A LOT of zeny in just a few hours. People might have even used bots for this. I hope this thread can be kept open so that others can post their suggestions on how to fix this problem.
tl;dr - Zeny and supplies were definitely brought out of the USRC map. Something must be done about this if we don't want a really screwed up game economy. It's possible that main world items were transferred to USRC characters to be used in matches. Moreover, main world characters might have been used to participate in USRC, but this is much less of a concern as the tourney is over.
EDIT: NOT my video, so please don't ask more details about it. I posted everything I know here.
Edited by IAmMysteltainn, 25 August 2013 - 06:40 PM.
