On Thursday April 17th Zenimax Online Studios announced they had identified an item duplication bug. Using the guild bank, players were duplicating stacks of items. The most popular of these items were legendary crafting materials such as Tempering Alloy and Dreugh Wax. Because of their high value and that they have a maximum stack size of 100, made these ideal for exploitation. This bug has since been fixed, and the damage looks minimal to the average player. But what does this mean for the economy going forward? How was a bug like this even possible? That, and more, will be explained.
Along with the bug being fixed, many accounts have been banned. ZOS hasn't yet stated just how many accounts have been banned. But they did have a large round of bans earlier this month. Jessica Folsom from ZOS made this statement last Wednesday "Today, we made our first major strike against those who choose to cheat
in ESO, permanently banning thousands. This is only the beginning of our
ongoing efforts to keep the game free from botters, speed hackers, and
gold spammers." I didn't see a large impact in the past week, but I did see a large impact yesterday. Each bank I walked into (both yesterday and today) had about 20-30 less players than before this latest round of bans. It doesn't sound like a lot, but that is only one phase (instance) at a time, not to mention all the other banks I didn't visit. Doing some mental math here, hundreds of accounts were banned, possibly thousands (I halved my estimate on account of this being Easter weekend). I think its safe to say we won't be seeing a large impact on the economy. Anyone who dodged the ban bullet is going to be careful not to attract the attention of ZOS.
So, just how DID this exploit come to pass? There isn't a simple answer. Lets start by looking at the engine used in the Elder Scrolls Online. Originally ZOS used HeroEngine, the same engine used in Star Wars: The Old Republic. However, they used this engine only to help get themselves off the ground. Eventually they made their own engine, from scratch. This way (in theory) they would be able to do much, much more. By using a completely custom engine instead of using an engine built by ENGINE DEVELOPERS there is bound to be a few bugs and glitches. My favorite is falling through the map and landing on a test model for terrain and different objects. Unrelated glitches aside, past Elder Scrolls games have been riddled with bugs and glitches, including item duplication.Bethesda and Zenimax have worked on other games with very few bugs, so what makes Elder Scroll games so special? Well, they almost always change engines, or modify them. If you didn't expect to encounter such a significant glitch in ESO, I have three words for you: Prepare for more.
The other large contributor to how this glitch was allowed to be exploited, lies in when it was originally reported. If you think it was originally reported sometime in April, please sit down. The answer may make you lose your balance. This bug was first reported in February. Yes, February. Some people are claiming it existed in the ALPHA build of the game. It wasn't a widespread or well documented bug at the time, and we have the NDA to thank for that (along with the fact that of course, there were far fewer people playing the game at the time). I wish I had a copy of the NDA to refer to, but I do believe we were bound to be vague in regards to late game content, and prohibited from bad publicity. Don't quote me on that.
The reason it took so long for this issue to be resolved is because it wasn't pressing at the time. Major bugs that have a widespread effect are top priority. Easy fixes and less widespread bugs are secondary. Publicity as well. Anyone else remember that bug where a few players got Veteran Rank over the course of a Beta Weekend? Yeah, well, they fixed that a few days later. While I don't encourage or condone exploiting Elder Scrolls Online, or telling others how to exploit in such a fashion, sometimes a demonstration gets the ball rolling.
Many players are calling for a server wide rollback. While this is a bit of grim news,I don't think such rash action is necessary. Any gold or materials still in the system will either be distributed through buying and selling in the coming weeks, or hoarded for later. Those hoarding for later won't be driving the economy down, and are more likely to spend over the market price for goods (since they have so much money to throw around).
This bug could have been triggered by accident. If you were banned, and feel it was unjust, you can petition an appeal by following the steps found here.
The next article I plan on writing is in regards to alchemy reagents. More specifically, the rarity of them. If you'd like to share your insights with me, drop a line in the comments below, or hit me up in-game (@SoyezFerme). I've also been known to frequent the Tamriel Gold Goblin Teamspeak.
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