Star Wars: The Old Republic players face temporary bans for Ilum exploits

Bioware have been sending out warnings and temporary bans to players that have been systematically looting containers on the high level PvP planet, Ilum. The zone is recommended for level 40+ players, but some have discovered that it's possible to snatch expensive loot at low levels, and have spent so much time doing this that Bioware claim that they are unbalancing The Old Republic's economy.

In a forum post spotted by RPS , community manager Stephen Reid writes that warnings and temporary bans have been dished out to those "systematically and repeatedly looting containers in very high numbers," asserting that "no accounts have been banned for travelling to Ilum while still relatively low level."

Reid explains that players mining Ilum's casks on a large scale were deemed to have breached TOR's terms of service. "Our Terms of Service team is extremely careful and thorough in their investigation of any potential exploit or unusual activity in-game" he writes. "Working closely with the development team and using extensive metrics based on player activity, they are able to determine what is normal player activity, what is unusual and what is exploiting."

"Our goal is always to ensure a fair game experience for all players while also protecting the rights of individuals, and if people are disrupting the play experience for others action will be taken," he adds. He also mentions that alterations will be made to Ilum soon "to discourage future exploits." Until then, low level players will still be able to travel there, but will likely face penalties if they spend enough time cask hunting.

Star Wars: The Old Republic players have had an extremely busy first couple of weeks. According to some stats released on The Old Republic site after Christmas, 60 million hours were played in week one. 260 million quests were completed and 3 billion NPCs killed. There was even a flash mob in Times Square, New York. It looked a little bit like this: