'Guild Wars 2' perma-bans 3000 players for first widespread exploit

ArenaNet permanently bans 3000 users who exploited an in-game vendor.

Guild Wars 2 developer ArenaNet permanently banned 3000 players for exploiting an in-game vendor that incorrectly sold items at incredibly low prices, lead producer Chris Whiteside told the Reddit community.

"We take our community and the integrity of the game very seriously, and want to be clear that intentionally exploiting the game is unacceptable," he wrote. "The players we banned were certainly intentionally and repeatedly exploiting a bug in the game.

"We intended to send a very clear message that exploiting the game in this way will not be tolerated, and we believe this message now has been well understood."

As this is the first widespread exploit in the newly release massively multiplayer game, ArenaNet is, however, offering to downgrade permanent bans into 72-hour bans for users agreeing to delete all items and money gained through the exploit.

The long-awaited Guild Wars 2 released earlier this week. ArenaNet have since suspended sales of the game from their official website after the game's servers were overloading with players.