Having wasted my entire weekend tracking down various unsavory types and throwing them out from the game and/or depriving them of their ill-gotten gains, let this stand as a warning. I am extremely angry and will not be lenient with those that think that they can get away with ruining the game for those honest pirates who dutifully puzzle away.
Some of the things I dealt with include:
* Exploiting a bug for hundreds of thousands of pieces of eight, instead of using the ever-so-handy report bug feature. It‘s only a click away, and it‘ll result in your getting vast rewards from me, instead of my wrath. If you think you can profit from an exploit without having everything you gained, at minimum, taken away, and at worst every single account ever logged into your machines banned, you‘re dead wrong.
* Trying to hide the trail of exploit-generated money. I can track every single piece of eight, regardless of how many accounts and pirates you create/delete, or how many places you put it and take it out. Don‘t even try - it wastes my time, and makes me more likely to throw you out altogether. This also applies to those that assist the exploiters in laundering the pieces of eight, who did not exploit the bug themselves. Incidentally, this also applies to items - I know where every single item ever created in the game is and how it got there. Don‘t try to hide stolen items. Again, you‘re wasting my time, and I will find you.
* Using bots. I have plenty of mechanisms at my disposal to know when you‘re doing it and to boot you from the game for good. Automating any game mechanisms is strictly forbidden by the Terms of Service, and tampers with the skill-based notion of our puzzle world.
* Fighting yourself using alts and throwing matches - This one‘s almost as bad as using an exploit to generate pieces of eight - it messes with the leaderboard standings and the integrity of the game. I have reset the standings of several prominent, high-ranking players to Novice/Able, in light of their cheating to obtain high standing and experience ratings. They are quite fortunate that I did not ban them. I hope that it causes them to think twice before repeating their severely misguided actions.
Cheaters waste our resources, and prevent us from adding new content to the game as quickly as we otherwise could. If you find something that might be a glitch, -please- report it using the report a bug feature. There‘s absolutely no way to get away with abusing our systems, and it‘s a waste to even try.