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Development Update: Item Glitch (Updated) Updated Friday, July 18th: We are working on a forum post and/or announcement for today to talk about item norm. ~pan In a rush, but I wanted to make a quick journal entry about the "fish glitch." We are making a formal announcement later today. Also: read the journal entry from Sagger. What Happened? Trades that were pending during the item normalization were translated into the new schema. Unfortunately, game items were mistranslated, so people ended up with millions of different game items. How Many People Did This Affect? There were a few hundred of these trades that were accepted -- i.e., the items actually made it it into someone's inventory. Some people that found themselves with 147 million fish reported it. Thank you, you are saints, and if there is a Gaia heaven you should be in it. Some people that found themselves with 147 million fish decided to flood the market or make fish hats or trade it off to mules to try and hide the trail. This is where the economic effects came from. So What Did We Do? We had an exact list of everyone that was affected. So, we: - Turned trading off - Banned the people that exploited the list - Followed the thread of transactions and took care of ones that looked suspicious - Took all the problematic transactions from the marketplace - Turned trading back on Will There Be A Rollback? There will be no rollback of the economy. We are taking away ill-gotten gains from the exploiters, however. Did People That Traded With Exploiters Get Banned? Only if the transaction looked really suspicious (i.e., 1 million fish for 10 gold). It is possible some innocent people got caught in this. We are looking at all of the bannings really carefully. Is It Safe To Trade? Yes, it should be. Don't worry about it. Avoid game items until the official announcement if it makes you feel better. But About All The People Were Banned? We are almost certainly going to unban a percentage of users, if not all. Why Did You Ban? It was an immediate reaction to try and limit the impact to the economy. We are looking at reversing some number of the bans. A decision on that will be made soon. Sorry for the short answers at this point -- I'll fill this in later.

Posted by: Panagrammic Thu Jul 17, 2008 @ 06:47pm

Read my journal!

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Nerelda
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Commented on: Thu Jul 17, 2008 @ 06:55pm


	At this point, I'm really worried about getting banned wrongfully. A friend always donates to me daily and we didn't notice til after the announcement that the daily trade donation was filled with all that extra stuff, and I had already made a few tattoos with inks by that point. I didn't trade or sell anything though and have left them alone. I'm not sure who I should notify of this to make sure it gets cleared up properly. I would gladly give ALL game items to get this straight. (BTW, my friend can trade again, but I cannot, so not sure what this means)

Commented on: Thu Jul 17, 2008 @ 07:47pm


	Thanks for the announcement x.x And are all the bannings done? I sold some fish riiiiiiight before the announcement <.<;

Masco
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Chocobo Princess
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Commented on: Thu Jul 17, 2008 @ 08:14pm


	Thank you for keeping the populace informed about what's happening. And thank you and your team for your dedication in reviewing all the affected sales and trades. Keep up the good work. domokun

Commented on: Thu Jul 17, 2008 @ 08:39pm


	Thanks for that outline, I was getting pretty worried when I bought some skins off the MP and then thought "Oh no, am I going to be banned for this.." At least you guys caught it at some point... 3nodding

Jiang Ryudo
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Miles To Go
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Commented on: Thu Jul 17, 2008 @ 08:58pm


	Haha, I hope my friend gets unbanned once it's reversed. He had bought some off vend. And was borrowing several million gold from my boyfriend, on his account. burning_eyes

Commented on: Thu Jul 17, 2008 @ 09:00pm


	Thanks for keeping us uptodate Pan. It's good to get some informal words out of someone from behind the scenes. I still don't understand some people's justifications for it though. "Well, I didn't notice the 100mil+ items extra looked suspicious" or "well, its a reward for me being so good". I hope this teaches people to not exploit obvious holes in the site.

Kiyoske Dante
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snufflypoo
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Commented on: Thu Jul 17, 2008 @ 09:57pm


	silly people, you'd think they would know better. thanks for getting the system back up and running in relatively short time too!

Commented on: Thu Jul 17, 2008 @ 10:04pm


	I'm just wondering about the trades that were active during the normalization. They reappeared but I can't cancel one and I get an error when I try since I got the gold back that was in the trade when the normalization started. I haven't tried the second trade yet.

Shrimp_Man
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Jean-Paul
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Commented on: Thu Jul 17, 2008 @ 10:29pm


	Thanks for the updates and for all the hard work.

Commented on: Thu Jul 17, 2008 @ 10:32pm


	@Shrimp Man: If you get a cancellation error it means that their inventory hasn't been converted yet. All of the inventories should be converted by next week.

Panagrammic
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Azurae Skye
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Commented on: Thu Jul 17, 2008 @ 10:42pm


	So that's what that big fish glitch was all about...I figured it had something to do with item norm. I was fortunate enough to not be glitched, so I didn't have to deal with it thankfully ^^ I just have one somewhat off-topic question for you, Panagramic dear. After item norm, the items you had equipped were turned gray and moved to the end of your inventory. I read that the turning gray is a permanant feature, and I don't particularlly mind that, but the moving to the end of the inventory is driving me CRAZY. I (and many other gaians) have my inventory set up all special by color and clothing style, and have to rearrange everytime I make a new avi. This has prevented me from making new avis ever since Item Norm, and I'm getting a rather frustrated with it. Will the moving equipped items to the end of the inventory be fixed soon, or is it something we're just going to have to live with gonk ? Thank you for your time! Sincerly, Azurae Skye

Commented on: Fri Jul 18, 2008 @ 12:24am


	Ok ... if you ban people that only look supicious, do you ever go over their case when it's all said and done? I'm only asking because my friend is being investigated for buying blotted gold when she clearly did not. ... And right now, she lives in fear that she will lose her account and that would not be good. (Considering she spent at least $200+ on that account.) Oh and if she was to keep her account, would you guys watch her like a hawk even though I could tell you that this whole thing started because she told this guy that she wouldn't go out with him. (We go to the same school) But if she does lose her account, will you repay her? I mean, you have every transaction on file. ...

Dark Mercenary X
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Lady Kayura
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Commented on: Fri Jul 18, 2008 @ 12:24am


	But didn't this affect more than just fish? What about the people that bought dyes for low prices? If it's found that the items were made from glitched bugs, will the dye be removed and gold returned as a mod said? Or will it be removed at all? Are you finished with the bannings?

Commented on: Fri Jul 18, 2008 @ 12:35am


	Another off-topic question: Can you stop the page from reloading when you try to go from the tops to lte's say the bottoms. ... That's really annoying.

Dark Mercenary X
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PinkPandora
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Commented on: Fri Jul 18, 2008 @ 02:09am


	Gone.

Commented on: Fri Jul 18, 2008 @ 02:33am


	Hmm...my trading pass is still disabled, and I still have the millions of Brown Ink that I discovered in my inventory after hearing about this glitch. Do you have an expected time when all of this will be finished? (Also, I still have the 300 or so Blue Inks that I bought in the MP and only later realized might have been glitched. Is 100g per ink suspicious? It was under half the average price at the time...)

Platonix
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Bunai
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Commented on: Fri Jul 18, 2008 @ 02:43am


	i havent traded or bought anything with this account...which is my main ^_^ so i hope everyone who wasnt aware of the glitch, gets a fair deal to get their accounts back thanks for working so hard though

Commented on: Fri Jul 18, 2008 @ 04:29am


	In the section, "Did People That Traded With Exploiters Get Banned?", that fits my situation the most. Ahh I hope all goes well. I haven't realized how clueless I was, so I got banned without knowing if items were glitched, even if they were obvious. I kept getting worried and thought that it's mean for the admins to ban innocent people just because of assumptions. But now after reading this, I should stop complaining and be patient because admins and mods ARE human afterall. D;

EpicFailName
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Kai-Shan Valandria
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Commented on: Fri Jul 18, 2008 @ 07:04am


	I'm quite disappointed your update didn't mention the grand majority of users I've seen affected by this. I've run across only a handful of people actually banned for exploiting the glitch themselves or buying 200 million bugs, but far, far more often, I've run into people who either bought underpriced skin dyes or bought the ink to make them. The latter fear for their accounts and their new dyes, and many of those had their vending/trading passes disabled. I'm also among the latter - I had quite a few inks to begin with, from stocking up before the tattoo update and the DC, and when I saw the prices had gone down to a far more reasonable level, I bought enough to make myself two skin dyes. I had seen the announcement, but it said fish items - didn't bother me, since I don't buy fish. Only after I'd rejoiced in my new skin dyes and delightedly changed my avvie did I head over to the forums and discover that while I'd been off merrily buying inks, the announcement had been changed to include ALL game items. I woke up the next morning to find my trading/vending pass disabled, and I've been on here for the past two days, waiting for official word and to hear whether my account will be banned (even though I bought my inks very close to fair market value, and only bought enough for my body dyes, no extra) or whether my legitimately-gained body dyes will be taken from me. I'm also left with next to nothing to occupy my time while I wait - no vending pass, so I can't start recouping the 80k I spent. I could play my usual games, fishing and cards - but I wonder if it's worth the time. One bit of information I've been hearing more and more of from Gaians affected by this glitch is that not only glitched items are being taken from their inventories, but ALL game items. Surely one can tell the difference? That leaves me worrying not just about my account and my dyes, but if some mod is going to go through my inventory without checking my trades and pre-glitch MP history, and decide that my thousand-odd fish I've fished for over the past few months must be glitched, or all my cans and paper bags count as "too many to be normal", or if (heaven forbid) they decide my 26,000 tokens I traded for a few WEEKS ago need to be taken away (I'm a card shark, it's my main source of income on Gaia, so understandably I'm always well-stocked on tokens). I understand you guys are working hard fixing this glitch and the after-affects, and I feel the pain of the already-overworked mods who also bear a lot of the burden of cleaning up this mess. I'm glad to see the MP seems to be recovering nicely. However, it's a hollow feeling of happiness, as I'm forced to do nothing but sit and wait, watching from the sidelines when I'm primed and ready to go, muscles tensed to get back in the 'game'. Also, though I'm definitely not arrogant enough to tell you guys how to do your jobs, may I add a few suggestions?: - If announcements are edited, can they please be sent out again automatically? Usually you guys are pretty good about this, but this time around, the crucial announcement was not re-sent, and that created a lot more work for you guys, as well as a lot more fear, anger, confusion, and paranoia amongst the userbase. - When there's a problem this large, can we please have announcements sent, detailing the problems, solutions being taken, and time frames for fixes (if possible on any of the above)? All we've had this time around are one brief sticky in Q+A (which is locked, so users can't even post their issues with the glitch, which would probably make it easier to find all the affected people), three user threads I've found (one of which was the only way I'd found out about the edited and un-re-released announcement), and now the journal entries by you and Sagger, to which I've been directing people for half the day. In my personal experience in management, I find groups of people are far more understanding about problems if they are kept abreast of the issues at hand. - I hate to sound self-serving, but may I ever-so-politely suggest that users who have only had a brief brush with this glitch have priority, now that most of the real problem users seem to be taken care of? It's a word I hate to say, but I find it deeply, deeply unfair that users who were banned for exploiting the glitch intentionally themselves as well as users who were...uninformed enough, I'll say...to think that someone selling one million bugs or 50,000 inks for 10g was legit seem to be taking precedence over those of us who did and do our best to follow the rules, and only picked up a few glitched items in our usual MP travels. I could be entirely wrong, but it's not very heartening to see most of the information coming out to be about banned users. How about those of us who've had our trades and vending passes locked, and would love nothing more than to get back to our normal Gaian lives? Anyway, thanks for all the hard work, I'm very much looking forward to the upcoming events. I'm just hoping I'll be able to participate. crying Also, my captcha is Altar today - oes that mean I should start to pray for the safety of my account and the return of my vending pass? stressed xd crying

Commented on: Fri Jul 18, 2008 @ 02:19pm


	I agree with a lot of the comments above. I too am stuck in a position where my trading pass is still disabled and I'm sitting here with millions of inks that I bought from the MP that I really just want you guys to confiscate from me. XD I've been holding off PM-ing any staff because I know that you guys are really busy trying to fix all this, but it would just be REALLY nice to have some kind of idea when things should be fixed by? You mentioned that there was going to be an announcement later today (on the 17th) which obviously wasn't sent. I really implore you guys to send one out today, because I think that these journals are pretty hidden away and hard for users to find, so I think that a lot of people are still in the dark. But as I said before, most of all, I would just like to know when I'm going to get my trading pass back or I'm going to be banned. Overall, I would just like to have some kind of time span! Even a guestimate would be fine. Thanks for all the hard work that you guys do. I really don't blame you guys for the glitch or think that you're being unfair about things; I would just really like it if we could have more information!

Astharis
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France Hopper
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Commented on: Fri Jul 18, 2008 @ 04:26pm


	Just fyi: I think Ralleys got hacked into again. The other people's text and challenges showing up - even in an empty room - is back. Add to that the wheel has been acting funny lately. Yesterday it suddenly stopped on me while the music wasn't even over. Today it looked normal until when it should've stopped, it jerked suddenly and kept going. You guys might want to take a look into that.

Commented on: Fri Jul 18, 2008 @ 10:20pm


	From my point of view, I can see resolution of the glitch items in two different ways. 1) If the glitch fish/bugs/paper/flowers spawn glitchy ink/hats/bouquets when converted, then some sort of rollback will necessary for everyone's sanity. And then people are going to be hurt financially, but it would be a necessary evil. (Glitch tokens appear to me to be a separate issue, since they aren't actually converted in the same tangible way.) If glitchy items are irreparable and cannot be legitimized, then kill em all. But do explain to everyone the nature of the decision. But 2) If the glitch fish/bugs/paper/flowers do NOT spawn glitchy items, or if those items CAN be code "sanitized" or legitimized in some way for unknowing third party purchasers, or relatively innocent converters of de minimus amounts of game items, I say, do it. I have no idea really how this stuff works. Aside from the inherent evil of having yet MORE newspaper combovers in this awesome cyberworld, I perceive that the market influence is fairly benign. There is just not a huge amount of unjust enrichment you can receive from a billion pink daffodils. The resulting items are annoying, sure. But shrug. Inks are the only item of real intrinsic value (sorry, goofy bag hats and fish hats, not so much). But the marketplace totally needed more inks. Body dye doesn't have to be an elite item for everyone to be happy, or to maintain Gaia's real life financial integrity. Anyway, love to Staff, and hugs and consolation and aspirin. Don't have to be a programmer to see that this is one big honking headache. heart heart heart

Rei_Toei
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AtypicalGiraffe
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Commented on: Sat Jul 19, 2008 @ 02:16am


	sorry i could not help posting this

Commented on: Sat Jul 19, 2008 @ 11:36am


	My trading pass is still disabled cause i bought glitched red ink off the marketplace (nothing suspicious, just 100 ink-batch at normal red-ink price, so how could i possibly know D:< ? especially since i read announcement when it was only warning about fish. and read the edited version only when i got banned from trading already. you should make additionakl announcements when you edit an announcement you know. so many people would be saved from buying glitched things and being banned ) and i'm really expecting to have my trading pass back cause i have many trades opened with artists and i can't confirm them when they do pictures and accept them .__. so i'll be waiitng for further news. ps. i still have several millions of daisies in my inventory. i havent touched them since they appeared though D:&

Too Much Luff
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Makoto_Gin
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Commented on: Sat Jul 19, 2008 @ 04:44pm


	[♠] [♦] [♠] ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ I honestly and seriously hope you and the staff manage to get this issue sorted out soon.It's such a nuisance this has happened,but even more so that people exploited it and made it worst.I know that there are many who were foolish enough to do that and many many innocents who got caught up in it (i.e. one being a friend of mine who bought butterflies at a reasonable price was not aware they were glitched until the vendor kept increasing the amount and the price.),and I believe it is only far to review the cases and to start unbanning accordingly.Some of those folks have put time and effort into making this site grow and get the items and sense of community they have now,I hate to see it be ruined do to something they had no control over or was unaware of at the time. My Captcha is trial parts.Does that mean everyone who was banned will be having separate trials xd ? ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ ▬ [♦] [♠] [♦]

Commented on: Sat Jul 19, 2008 @ 05:31pm


	Today is already 19th! I REALLY would like you guys to fix this... I found out on wednesday that I can not trade or use the marketplace. I wish you just opened our trades back, so we can send YOU those mistake. I mean, that would be fair. We send you the weird numbers of game itens, the money we got from selling (never under the market price), the body dyes made with them... and you send back the money to make those body dyes. I don't mind if you take all my game itens... but then I would like to keep the body dye I did. I just want to go back to my normal gaian life. Sorry for bothering you.

Ketsushin
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PinkPandora
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Commented on: Sun Jul 20, 2008 @ 07:51am


	I'm sorry I had to bother your journal with my problem. I freaked out and wasn't thinking rationally. I am thankful you even posted in the first place. ^^ And I still do enjoy reading it. Thank you and I'm sorry.

Commented on: Mon Jul 21, 2008 @ 06:47am


	What I want to know is why they didn't make a new announcement to tell us that it was all game items- not just the fish- that were glitched.

scutoid
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Solace Glow
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Commented on: Mon Jul 21, 2008 @ 08:48am


	So each account affected by the glitch has been blocked off from tradeing... that would explain why I couldn't buy or sell, I got my 10million flowers off someone giving them away in the chatterbox and now I can't trade or buy or sell sad and worried about being banned wrongly. But great work and hope you guys fix it up soon. i'd relly like to get back to the marketplace

Commented on: Mon Jul 21, 2008 @ 11:19am


	Oh no! ;___; I was stupid and I converted the 148 million papers into hats BEFORE knowing they were glitched. I converted them because I thought they'd take less space and I only realized that newspaper combovers WEREN'T game items after converting -.- Lots of them got lost in the "transaction" though o__o; I don't know what happened with them. I really hope nothing happens to my account, I just want all that laggy crap removed and my vending pass restored. I haven't touched any hat because after finding it suspicious moments after converting them I decided to ask in the Q&A forum T___T.

Daeonica
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vix diesel
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Commented on: Mon Jul 21, 2008 @ 09:28pm


	I really hope this and the messed up inventories get fixed soon. Item normalization has made me not want to do anything on the site anymore.

Commented on: Wed Jul 23, 2008 @ 05:07am


	It's not your fault What about the glitches in the marketplace..? When is anything going to be done about it, or even addressed? Don't be afraid to let go

Demonic Peach
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