Quote Originally Posted by Alhanelem View Post
Nice try, troll, but no, SE did not ban "most of the prominent players." They only banned most of the prominent *cheaters.* Any person could have seen the treasure pool duping had to be a bug, not intended and should not have done it, and exploiting bugs was clearly mentioned in the terms of service. Those people deserved to be banned. Despite this, those people do not represent "the majority of prominent players.
For the most part, the two concepts became equivalent, especially the longer bots, Windower, and illegal programs and exploits became the means to become prominent.

By the time the Salvage bans became in force, the only reason any prominent player was able to stick around was either a restarted character or a deliberate turn of the back by Square-Enix (Anyone remember the illegal first kills on Pandy Warden??)...