(Inside reader note: The title should be read while thinking back to the time Blizzard told us open-world PvP without instancing was technically impossible and that’s why Wintergrasp was made, likely the same week some 2000 or whatever EVE battle happened.)
Two things related to this Massively story.
First, the exploit with the cash shop has been around since day one. It’s news now because everyone is aware of it. If you were one of those idiots stating “exploiting isn’t that rampant” a few weeks back, hi. This is how shit works kids. Fools who get caught and make news aren’t the ones you worry about, because if you are dumb enough to get caught by Trion, you were never a factor to begin with. Instead what you should have worried about are the organized “play to win” guilds who know about all this stuff and exploit it quietly right under Trion’s nose. (That said, in a way Trion fixed the problem; with AA being such a dumpster due to their mismanagement, if you are playing AA still you aren’t really ‘winning’ anything).
Second, the fact that Trion refuses to do rollbacks leads me to believe they can’t. Like they technically don’t have the ability because they are Trion. I fully expect a “We have to ask XLGames about that” statement if demand for rollbacks continues, because that is always Trion’s PR ‘get out of our own mess’ card with AA (Which they showed is 100% bull when they finally got somewhat of a handle on the in-game chat spam).
Keep doing you Trion, please please keep doing you.
Hardcore Casual 
Is this one of those “If a tree falls in the forest,,,” things? If the general population doesn’t know there’s an exploit does it matter that there’s an exploit?
Well when the tree is falling on your head every time you go to buy or sell anything, or fight anyone, I’d say it matters. I guess if you sit at character select or play the game as an sRPG never leaving a safe area or interacting with anyone, then… no?
I meant as a general principle, not just in this specific instance. Not suggesting for a moment that exploits don’t matter or don’t need to be fixed but mightn’t it be best for the devs to simply close the loophole and say nothing rather than to come in with the big song and dance that a rollback causes when most of their players probably haven’t even woken up to the fact that an exploit’s been going on?
Absolutely not, because again whether you knew about it or not, unless you never interact with anyone else, it HAS effected you, and the better the sandbox, the more impact it has.
Imagine if in EVE just one person found a dupe to create infinite ISK. CCP didn’t catch them for a few weeks, and during that time they spread tens of trillions of ISK around to multiple alliances, plus billions to random pilots by mass-buying things off the market. Now further imagine CCP has a Trion-level of ability when it comes to MMOs, and can’t track the ISK duped.
Only one person knows about the dupe, and its now fixed. All good?
So depressing watching Trion destroy AA. IT could have been a fantastic game if it had been handled correctly. I’m just glad I have found something else to enjoy whilst watching the game fall apart.