3,000 Guild Wars 2 Players Banned for Taking Advantage of Weapon Exploit

ArenaNet has cracked down on Guild Wars 2 players who took advantage of a recent exploit in the game, permanently banning the accounts of those who “intentionally and repeatedly” took advantage of the glitch. Fortunately, just this once, the studio is offering to turn the permanent ban into a 72-hour account suspension.

Guild Wars 2 came out over the weekend for those who pre-ordered the game and earlier this week for those who opted to wait for the official launch.

Quite a few problems concerning the MMORPG have already surfaced, with developer ArenaNet being forced to suspend players who used offensive language, while hackers have been trying to get into the accounts of gullible players with fake emails.

Now, it seems that a rather major glitch was found in the game, dubbed the “Karma Weapons Exploit”, which allowed players to really take advantage of the online experience and earn lots of items and currency.

ArenaNet released an emergency patch in order to eliminate the problem and has now proceeded to punishing those who took advantage of the exploit by permanently banning their accounts.

“Today we banned a number of players for exploiting Guild Wars 2. We take our community and the integrity of the game very seriously, and want to be clear that intentionally exploiting the game is unacceptable. The players we banned were certainly intentionally and repeatedly exploiting a bug in the game. We intended to send a very clear message that exploiting the game in this way will not be tolerated, and we believe this message now has been well understood,” the game’s Lead Producer, Chris Whiteside, told fans on Reddit.

Fortunately, as a gesture of goodwill and just this once, the studio is offering to turn the permanent bans into account suspensions, provided players delete the items and currency they got by using the exploit.

“We also believe and respect that people make mistakes. This is in fact the first example of a widespread exploit in the game. With this in mind, we are offering the members of our community who exploited the game a second chance to repair the damage that has been done.”

“This is a first and final warning. Moving forward, please make sure you that when you see an exploitable part of the game, you report it and do not attempt to benefit from it,” he added.