To be clear, the upload refunding system was not an exploit but contained an exploit.

I am aware of how the upload system works. You are not understanding that there was a bug where you could have as many gralats as your heart desired.

It is fixed now. I can keep repeating myself.

Care to explain that bug since you know what you're talking about?

Nope. You will just have to take Hoyt's and my word on it. The quote you had of Hoyt explains it very well.

This is not something that would have been done unless there was a real reason to do it ;(

As you can see it created a lot of drama because we all know this system has been around forever. Luckily when the exploit was discovered it was put to rest quickly.

Not really going into this so deep but let me get you the definition of exploit.

Yes this refund system was added, but It was never designed to be used as a crutch for new Items and other newly released content. That is where the exploit comes in, because this wasn't the intended purpose. Just because it wasn't patched for years, doesn't mean it didn't need to be patched. The purpose of Refunds was for players that didn't like there uploads, so we would compensate them with at least half price towards there next upload after 24 hour time span. So by implementing Refund Tokens we fixed this exploit of the Refund System instead of removing entirely still giving the players that option.

If you guys want to Nitpick about the choice of word "Exploit", then this conversation is going to get no where. This change was indeed needed and sometimes along the way adjustments need to be made.

Might as well give furniture their own set of tokens as well if that's the definition of exploit. You know how much money we can make during the holidays from selling furniture..

It isn't nitpicking, several staff members made posts on the forums that had glaring inconsistencies and misleading statements in them and now people are wondering why that happened. Hoyt labeled it a "bug" (wasn't a bug at all), claimed it allowed players to "generate gralats" (it doesn't, they actually lose gralats), and also claimed that he couldn't disclose the "exploit" because Upload Tokens don't fix it (which they apparently do).

If you guys don't want players expressing their concerns in instances like this then I think you should announce things with more clarity, it's not too hard. The real reason for this change is way more acceptable than the reason it was carefully framed as. The Classic players have all the right in the world to question weird stuff like this when people who don't even play the server come along out of nowhere and make these changes.

He already explained that there is an exploit.

Sorry but people who weren’t even staff when the refund system was implemented shouldn’t be discussing it’s “intended design” and claiming people are exploiting it, you say “we” but you did not develop or implement it originally so don’t group yourself with the people who actually did and try to speak on their behalf.

The intended design of the refund system was to refund an upload and return half of the Gralats, it does not matter what they use the Gralats for. The quote for exploit you provided literally says that exploit is the use of a bug/glitch, but all they did was use an intended feature.

It wasn’t patched for years because there is nothing to patch, you guys want to change it now which is fine and actually something I agree with, but don’t try to act like it was a broken system that was being exploited.

#FreePokki

Lets go back to before the token system.

A head upload costs 20000
A body upload costs 10000

Too lazy to farm, have no time, or just tired of the upload you own? refund it for half of what you purchased it for and spend the gralats on something you'll use.

Half of what you earn is losing gralats, there was no conceivable way to profit from refunding your uploads.

In other words, players refund their uploads around events such as christmas. You as staff would notice the spike in refunds, You should know for a fact that is due to an event and someone refunding a large amount of uploads is not someone exploiting a system or however you labelled it.

Please explain this "bug" or continue to defend a ludicrous money grabbing change, it is obvious to anyone who has been playing iclassic or any graal server long enough that the reason this change was implemented was due to refunds being more common then a gralat pack purchase.

The only exploit was that there were not gralats being purchased as much because there was the option to exchange your 20k upload for 10k worth of new items at nexus.

I predict that the next 'fix' will be to remove the resale of furniture at half price.

This is fine. You can do that. But you should warn the players first. Let them get a fair shake instead of acting like cash hungry thieves and sneakily changing the system without prior intimation. Just like the other systems that have been brutally slashed this way.

HOWEVER
This change to uploads will have the opposite of the desired effect, instead hurting and not helping sales as I've already stated... purely because fewer people will buy uploads (if you can't refund it, it's exactly half as enticing) and because fewer people will buy uploads, there will be fewer gralat packs purchased in order to buy uploads.

The people who buy packs on impulse at limited time events will not just suddenly pay more because they don't have uploads to cash in. They will still have the same budget.
In fact, if you look at it from a point of view where more players buying more items creates 'inertia' in the system (oh hey, that's a cool mount, where did you get it?) you will see a drop in players purchasing items overall.

Don't get me started on that dumb move to rotate stock in the hat stores lol

So, wait. When they made the upload system, they didn't intend for people to refund customs via the method they scripted, and then use those gralats to buy something? I can't seem to wrap my head around that.

What if it's still in the original packaging, and we have the receipt?

Yeah... I agree with 4-lom. The whole Upload Token thing will just make players go 'meh'.

Yeah, these are basically my exact thoughts. What I think probably should have been done:

1. Honest announcement without any confusing or misleading language
2. Warned players ahead of time so that they have a couple days to refund things, because there's a possibility people purchased things with the expectation that they'd be able to refund them for gralats
3. Maybe have even offered a 50%-off weekend for uploads just to ice the wound a bit

The one thing that makes me not believe that there was ever a bug or possible way to exploit it is because of the entire fact that apparently when I asked around several people in school, Militaries. And asked people of 774 and even other hackers in graal and exploiters. Nobody even heard of such a thing. How could a bug that allows people to refund heads for infinite gralats, Be not even heard of by anyone that would've been the most likely to know of it? It just makes no sense.

Secondly, why would you create upload tokens if this same bug could be used to create infinite upload tokens? I mean more people would probably use it to get uploads opposed furniture and other items since uploads are more valuable than furniture items