Support NeoGAF

[ManaByte]

http://news.com.com/Hackers+slam+Everquest+II+economy/2100-1043_3-5829403.html

According to Chris Kramer, director of public relations for EQ2 publisher Sony Online Entertainment, the players had on Saturday begun using their so-called "duping bug" to make large quantities of platinum, the game's currency. (A duping bug is a hack that exploits a weakness in online games' code to effectively create counterfeit currency or other goods.)

The players then began trying to sell the ill-gotten plat on Station Exchange, the official auction exchange for EQ2 weapons, armor, currency and other virtual goods. "The amount of money in the game increased by a fifth in about 24 hours," Kramer said. "We have a lot of alarms for this kind of thing, and they all went off on Saturday."

The economy of the MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) was quickly brought back to its pre-attack state, Kramer added.

But many players of online games such as EQ2 are opposed to such trafficking, mainly since it gives people with money to spend an advantage over those who put in the time advancing their characters manually. So SOE has segmented EQ2 into discrete servers, some of which allow the trading and some which don't. Players from the two kinds of servers cannot play against each other.

Kramer also said that SOE has tools that allowed it to track all the duped platinum and remove it. Thus, he said, while the EQ2 economy had taken a huge inflationary hit on Saturday, the company's customer service team put in a lot of overtime over the weekend and the problem was largely resolved by Sunday.

 

[Date of Lies]

man, every goddamn MMO has a "duping bug"

you'd think they'd learn by now

 

[AtomicShroom]

man, every goddamn MMO has a "duping bug"

you'd think they'd learn by now

And I suppose you can inspect a program composed of thousands and thousands of lines of code and instantly pinpoint a single duping issue just by looking at it?

 

[Jive Turkey]

man, every goddamn MMO has a "duping bug"

you'd think they'd learn by now

Especially SOE since they dealt with it in EQ1. I mean I know the development and operating teams are different but you think they'd at least share notes.

 

[Synth_floyd]

Inflation in EQ2? They gotta bring up those interest rates and manage the number of foreclosures and bankrupcies so they can get rid of the deficit and get some GDP growth going!

 

[hooo]

And I suppose you can inspect a program composed of thousands and thousands of lines of code and instantly pinpoint a single duping issue just by looking at it?

What he said.

 

[Dave Long]

Yeah. This stuff is going to happen. They fixed it quickly, shut down the selling of goods by players while they did and things are a-ok now.

 

[fresquito]

Probably these problems will end the day MMOs focus on real gameplay instead on leveling up.

 

[Carton]

And I suppose you can inspect a program composed of thousands and thousands of lines of code and instantly pinpoint a single duping issue just by looking at it?

Yes, don't make a criticism unless you're able to do at a glance what a team of paid professionals cannot in months.

 

[Thraktor]

Probably these problems will end the day MMOs focus on real gameplay instead on leveling up.

I agree completely, why on earth do we accept (and throw huge amounts of money at) MMO games that we wouldn't touch with a ten-foot videogaming pole if they were singleplayer?

 

[Open Source]

Because we're monomaniacs with a desire for public accomplishment and social interaction that we cannot achieve in real life?

 

[GDJustin]

Probably these problems will end the day MMOs focus on real gameplay instead on leveling up.

www.puzzlepirates.com

 

[XMonkey]

man, every goddamn MMO has a "duping bug"

I don't think FFXI has had one, at least not for the year and 5 months I've been playing it.

 

[Thraktor]

Because we're monomaniacs with a desire for public accomplishment and social interaction that we cannot achieve in real life?

Touché, my friend, touché.

 

[Pimpbaa]

I agree completely, why on earth do we accept (and throw huge amounts of money at) MMO games that we wouldn't touch with a ten-foot videogaming pole if they were singleplayer?

I would play WoW if it was singleplayer. It would be kind of lonely tho. WoW > Any game released during the time WoW has been out.