It's not cheating if SI don't fix the bug, right?

I think they coded this bug out of existence by now, but the effects can still be noticed in Miller, which is running a follow-up of codes. Basically what happened is this, some users were buying up Returning Stars and waiving them to gain a higher position in next year's draft.

What they did was exploit a small loop-hole in the code. They signed cheap and not very good Returning Stars from teams who were glad to get rid of them for a bit of cash, they kept these players for a few days and they waived them to gain rank in the draft, ending up ahead of genuine new players and the legion of regular restarters we have every season.

This meant for example that a club with a Level 12 reputation was ending up in the list of Reserved Players. These Reserved Players are basically the very best stars returning and they are reserved for a reason. These players are allocated to users who are new to the GameWorld. You could end up with guys like Pato, Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo or Xavi for example.

Our exploiting friend ended up in this list three seasons in a row. Even after the bug was fixed, he still ended up there, presumably because he waived so many Returning Stars before that he lodged himself into the top 20 of the draft for some time to come.

Despite this being an exploit, it isn't entirely a bad thing. After all, the nature of beta is that you try to fix bug like this one and the only way to know that they are there is to try and see if you can bend the system in a way it wasn't designed. Naturally, your obligations as a tester would require you to actually log such attempts if successful, so that the development team can fix it.

For example, about nine months ago, I discovered an exploit where it was possible to invite CPU clubs into competitions with prize money and basically hammer them into oblivion whilst gaining money at the same time. It was basically the ultimate DYM, when properly ran, you could potentially make 450k profit pro half hour by hammering a single CPU club. Not a bad deal I would say.

Naturally, I logged this bug with the development team when I noticed it was working and it is now no longer possible to use this exploit to boost your club's finances. I did what any good beta tester would do when he discovers an exploit, I logged it and provided the developers with a load of evidence of what I did exactly so they could fix it. As a sort of reward, I got to keep the 200k I made with these competitions, as I had ran them in a small scale form

Unfortunately, our exploiting buddy I mentioned earlier did no such thing. He didn't report the bug on the forums, he didn't flag it in-game, he kept it quiet and continued to exploit it for about two to three seasons. By that time, we as a moderator team had noticed him climbing the ranks of the draft in an odd way, but we needed the time to gather evidence of what he had done exactly before we finally logged the bug. At around the same time, a regular user also flagged this on the forums.

So, what do you do as a moderator in such a case after the bug is flagged? We looked into the situation and because the exploit was never flagged by said user, we issued a warning and took his Returning Stars allocation for that season, hoping that would fix the situation.

Next season, he ended up in the top 20 of the draft again, so naturally we repeated the process, which apparently angered said manager. He was furious at the moderator team for taking his Returning Star again, as he failed to see that he was still benefitting from his exploiting efforts several months before.

He failed to see the causality between waiving a bunch of Returning Stars and climbing the ranks when he shouldn't have been able to and him ending up in the top 20 of the draft, above genuine newcomers from Beta Coppell, so he vehemently protested what we were doing, claiming it wasn't a cheat if SI didn't fix the bug.

That brings me to a rather interesting point and a flaw in his logic. How can they even know there's a bug if you didn't report it? You are saying you're not cheating because they never fixed a loophole you didn't report in the first place. Am I the only one who thinks this is weird?