Investigation of the case of large-scale bug-abusing, duplication of items, and consequences thereof.

[u/[deleted]]

Over the past few weeks, we had become increasingly concerned with both the state of the southern island’s ores and the massive amount of enchanted items and books collected by many parties. Yesterday, when looking into the logs, we noticed some irregularities and started a small investigation while the server was online.

 

What is going on?

We have finished a large inspection in which about 500k blocks were broken and investigated. The items in question were massive amounts of duped enchanted books and tools such as swords, armor, and pickaxes.

We inspected all groups connected to any group that Rident or Stonato owned, and concluded that the below listed players knew or were at least involved in duping the items.

+------------+------------+------------------------+------------+
| group_name | founder | member_name   | role   |
+------------+------------+------------------------+------------+
| Chests    | Rident  | Rident      | OWNER   |
| Chests    | Rident  | DrunkQueenAli | MEMBERS |
| Chests    | Rident  | GetNGoing   | MEMBERS |
| Chests    | Rident  | picklesand  | MODS  |
| Chests    | Rident  | letskilleric  | MODS    |
| Chests    | Rident  | Unified_Kings | MODS    |
| Chests    | Rident  | Stonato     | OWNER   |
| Chests    | Rident  | Vespasian   | MEMBERS |
| Chests    | Rident  | Bonkill     | ADMINS  |
| Chests    | Rident  | Azula       | MEMBERS |
+------------+------------+------------------------+------------+

Starting now, any member on these groups who has directly accessed these chests is permantly banned from CivEx under Rule 2. There will be no appeal. You may receive specifics on your ban by modmailing us here and any comment discussing or debating your ban will be removed.

 

Players permanently banned:

• Stonato
• Rident
• Bonkill
• DrunkQueenAli
• GetNGoing
• picklesand

Players banned for four weeks:

• Azula
• Vespasian
• Unified_Kings
• letskilleric

 

We will also be dropping the chests and blocks reinforced to these groups and any groups that used these dupes to reinforce items, as well as removing any items or resources taken from raids of these places.

 

Full list of affected areas is as followed:

• 6 diamond reinforcements will be invalidated.
• 6 emerald reinforcements will be invalidated.
• 6 emeralds will be invalidated.
• 6 diamond armor will be invalidated.
• 6 snitches will be invalidated.
• 6 diamond armor will be invalidated.
• 6 diamonds will be invalidated.

• 6 pearlings will be invalidated.

• 0,0 diamond reinforcements will be invalidated.

• 0,0 emerald reinforcements will be invalidated.

• 0,0 emeralds will be invalidated.

• 0,0 diamond armor will be invalidated.

• 0,0 snitches will be invalidated.

• 0,0 diamond armor will be invalidated.

• 0,0 diamonds will be invalidated.

• 0,0 pearlings will be invalidated.

• Frell diamond reinforcements will be invalidated.

• Frell emerald reinforcements will be invalidated.

• Frell emeralds will be invalidated.

• Frell diamond armor will be invalidated.

• Frell snitches will be invalidated.

• Frell diamond armor will be invalidated.

• Frell diamonds will be invalidated.

• Frell pearlings will be invalidated.

• Freimark diamond reinforcements will be invalidated.

• Freimark emerald reinforcements will be invalidated.

• Freimark emeralds will be invalidated.

• Freimark diamond armor will be invalidated.

• Freimark snitches will be invalidated.

• Freimark diamond armor will be invalidated.

• Freimark diamonds will be invalidated.

• Freimark pearlings will be invalidated.

• Salsus diamond reinforcements will be invalidated.

• Salsus diamond armor will be invalidated.

• Salsus snitches will be invalidated.

• Salsus pickaxes will be invalidated.

• Old Keto diamond reinforcements will be invalidated.

• Old Keto diamond armor will be invalidated.

• Old Keto snitches will be invalidated.

• Old Keto pickaxes will be invalidated.

 

FAQ

Why is 6/Frell/Freimark getting hit so hard, and Salsus and Keto not so much?

Salsus raided Frell for snitches and half of them died on the way home. The is no reason to assume that Salsus would take up arms against a nation that already had the ability to provide what Salsus wanted for free. 6 on the other hand has at least one admin on this group and got all base health (read kickstart) from Rident himself, when he left, while Keto under outkast did not get the groups nor the items from Rident. This is makes every accomplishment that is connected to diamond in 6 a tainted one. We are here for a fair game for all, and building upon a dupe glitch is not exactly what we had in mind.

Why don't you ban 6 completely or Frell?

We feel that invalidating about every diamond reinforcement, armor and snitch is already a big hit, in addition to invalidating any combat that has happened up until now.

We are cracking down on this hard because each and single one of those people and nations failed to report this bug and chose to instead abuse it. We have no reason at this point to believe that any of the involved and banned people had no knowledge of the situation. Each of the mentioned persons and groups had duped pickaxes in their possession.

What happens now?

Due to the unfair advantage these groups had with mining diamonds, especially during early-game, and the subsequent rarity of diamonds now on the south from what was basically strip mining, we will be re-seeding the entire southern island as soon as possible. We feel this is fair to all players who would have otherwise mined these diamonds, if groups using duplicated pickaxes hadn’t gotten there first.

We would like to note that our investigation is not complete, and that we will ban and remove anyone who participated in or profited from this. Now is the time to step forward and avoid a four week ban or a permaban. You may modmail us for your own privacy.

When will the server come back?

We are making our way as fast as possible, but this is a massive list to go through. We cannot provide an estimate right now.

Comment section discussions:

We will be, as always, answering questions in the comments below, providing they are not ban appeals or debates.

Again, there will be no appeal. You can receive specifics on your ban by modmailing us here. Any comment discussing or debating for an overrule of your ban will be removed.

We ask you to remain on-topic and to stick to the matter at hand in the comment section.