RuneScape - Oddments Exploit for Discounted Keys Leads to Temporary Bans, Community Backlash

Last week RuneScape acknowledged an exploit that revolved around players cashing out items to receive more oddments than the current cost of the discounted Treasure Hunter Keys. The resulting exploit allowed players to hoard a substantial number of oddments and treasure hunter keys. Treasure Hunter Key discounts have since been removed from the Oddments store.

While the initial information regarding the exploit pointed to less than 4000 players that took part in the exploit, but that number ballooned to nearly 7000, after investigations reported that there was a small, yet growing number of players that took severe advantage of the exploit. Jagex attempted to dissuade the community from getting worried about the exploit ruining the in-game economy, as the subset of "abusers" was minimal due to their fast reaction time. 

Statements from Jagex in two separate posts explain that, while they do take responsibility for the exploit, the bans were not only warranted but were necessary per their terms of service:

“We want to take this opportunity to remind everyone that we do not tolerate bug abuse or exploits in RuneScape. We hope that our actions and communication today make this clear…

We do feel that the initial player bans were done in accordance with our policy on knowingly exploiting a bug or error (found here: https://www.runescape.com/game-guide/rules). However, we will also be discussing this in our review and investigating further.”

It’s important to note that the exploit was reported August 24th and a hotfix was issued later the same day. RuneScape continues to garner a wide audience, as their Community Awards will attest November 7^th. It may be unlikely that the August 24^th oddments problem will win for best exploit, but based on the communities response, they should certainly add the category.