Quote from Aryiane;698585:
Oh I'd heard of the tieve box thing, but I wasn't playing at the time...and I don't play mabi so, this whole banning because of an exploit kind of...yeah.
That suprised me too. I figured it would last at least a few days, it was crazy fast on their part. .-.
The Tieve Boxes were given out as a free Item for the day (one per character). Since any character (no matter the level) was eligible to receive it, even one just created could claim the prize. Unlike all the previous giveaway items, once opened, the contents of the Tieve Box could be traded (all the other things were stuck on the character); this made it highly exploitable.
Immediately there was uproar (and gloating) about how people were obtaining what had been a high-priced and exclusive items freely (Bunny Ears mainly). However, I believe it was Sunday when the Tieve Boxes were (first) the special, so no response was expected until Monday (Nexon doesn't do weekends). To everyone's surprise Tieve Boxes were available AGAIN on Monday as the giveaway item (there was no repeat of prizes beforehand). More exploiting was done as more people were aware of it by now. More upset people filled Nexon's forums with posts and ultimately Nexon decided to ban people differing periods of time (based on how bad the abuse was). Some people were banned permanently, most for just a week or so, but the punishment didn't come until a few days had passed. I recall that it was almost like Nexon changed their minds about punishing people after hearing so many people whine about it.
This time around however, the Simple Flour (that was added) was part of the Holiday Events. That is, you HAD to buy it if you wanted the Master Baker title. Anyone making just enough cookies for the title would have some left over (if they bought it from the NPC). It doesn't take a genius to realize that paying twice the individual resale value for a pack of 5 is a worthwhile investment. However, it took at least a week after the update (I'm not sure how long it was really, maybe two weeks?) before they patched the price. By this time people could have made many billions if they were determined.
So yeah, the economy got screwed up really bad for a time, and probably won't fully recover from the mass influx of gold (from people who were smart enough to launder their gold). But this is why I primarily farm for stuff. I don't ever expect to be able to buy much with my gold.