Aion Bug Awards Players Trillions in Currency

[Tom Goldman]

Aion Bug Awards Players Trillions in Currency

NCsoft must have been running a secret lottery for certain players of Aion [http://www.amazon.com/Aion-Tower-Eternity-Steelbook-Pc/dp/B000VL4J9Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1280954225&sr=1-1] that logged in this week to find themselves trillions richer.

The economies in MMORPGs are fragile, delicate entities that must be balanced properly lest they spiral out of control and end up completely destroying a game's fun factor. You certainly don't want a massive influx of in-game currency to just appear out of thin air, as was the recent case with NCsoft's Aion. A few players logged in to the Azphel server on January 4 to find that they were trillionaires, courtesy of a bug.

To be exact, the players were given nearly 35 trillion Kinah (Aion's currency). I don't play Aion (I'm waiting for a free trial) so I'm not exactly sure how the game works, but it looks like the money was erroneously awarded to players for siege warfare via some kind of glitch. According to Massively [http://www.massively.com/2010/01/05/aion-money-glitch-gives-trillions-to-players/], Azphel's auction house went haywire, with item prices skyrocketing as if they had wings of their own.

NCsoft's solution to the problem was the dreaded server rollback, through which everything is reverted to an earlier state. This means if you spent the day of the glitch whistling a tune and happily leveling on your side of the world as the evil trillionaires were destroying your server, you've got to do all that leveling over again. Maybe you collected a really awesome set of wings or a pretty top hat. Well, that stuff is gone now.

As awesome as it would be to log in to a game and find myself rich beyond belief, an in-game economy is so important that I personally would probably have returned at least 33 trillion Kinah if his happened to me. The other trillion would be my reward, and I'd buy enough wings or whatever to last me a lifetime. NCsoft later said it found additional bugs that had a "direct impact on the stability of the Azphel economy," but didn't specify what these were. This just goes to show you, if a bug affects one player in a MMORPG, it affects them all.

Source: Massively [http://www.massively.com/2010/01/05/aion-money-glitch-gives-trillions-to-players/]


Permalink

 

[Asehujiko]

Hmmm, looks like I'll stick to Dwarf Fortress for my share of gamebreaking bugs. Cutting somebody in two with a thrown coin is actually fun.

 

[Jared]

Wow...thats, alot of 0's!

 

[Xero Scythe]

I actially was one of the people who got the cash. It was about 34.7 Tril. Kinah for me. And I didn't spend it, 'cause I knew I would be royally screwed. I just stayed off. I guess I was right, because I avoided the rollback. Still lost about 50,000 kinah that was originally mine.

 

[Swaki]

aion already has enough grind and punishment, thousand of players dont need to be punished with more grind.

but i guess it's the only solution, I'm hoping for those on the servers that they will compensate them in someway.

 

[grimsprice]

I actially was one of the people who got the cash. It was about 34.7 Tril. Kinah for me. And I didn't spend it, 'cause I knew I would be royally screwed. I just stayed off. I guess I was right, because I avoided the rollback. Still lost about 50,000 kinah that was originally mine.

Question: What is the normal currency levels like?

Some games have maybe 100 gold being very very very rich. While others deal in the millions of (insert currency). How does 34.7 trillion compare to the normal game currency levels?

 

[Jadak]

I think I'll be staying MMO free until The Old Republic comes out,.

 

[LeonLethality]

aion already has enough grind and punishment, thousand of players dont need to be punished with more grind.

but i guess it's the only solution, I'm hoping for those on the servers that they will compensate them in someway.

Like a day with double exp or something kinda feel bad for those who lost progress

 

[Xero Scythe]

I actially was one of the people who got the cash. It was about 34.7 Tril. Kinah for me. And I didn't spend it, 'cause I knew I would be royally screwed. I just stayed off. I guess I was right, because I avoided the rollback. Still lost about 50,000 kinah that was originally mine.

Question: What is the normal currency levels like?

Some games have maybe 100 gold being very very very rich. While others deal in the millions of (insert currency). How does 34.7 trillion compare to the normal game currency levels?

hmmm... About 100,000 Kinah is very rich. Yeah, try and wrap your head around that one.

 

[camazotz]

I actially was one of the people who got the cash. It was about 34.7 Tril. Kinah for me. And I didn't spend it, 'cause I knew I would be royally screwed. I just stayed off. I guess I was right, because I avoided the rollback. Still lost about 50,000 kinah that was originally mine.

Question: What is the normal currency levels like?

Some games have maybe 100 gold being very very very rich. While others deal in the millions of (insert currency). How does 34.7 trillion compare to the normal game currency levels?

I played Aion for a month or so; the Kinah currency can get pretty high....I seem to recall guildies with cash in the hundreds of thousands who'd throw a few thousand my way at low levels. That said, I think 34.7 trillion would break any MMO economy to bits...

 

[Abedeus]

Double exp means nothing for those that are level 50 and were doing really long and tedious (and filled with Random Number Generator - RNG) quests.

I actially was one of the people who got the cash. It was about 34.7 Tril. Kinah for me. And I didn't spend it, 'cause I knew I would be royally screwed. I just stayed off. I guess I was right, because I avoided the rollback. Still lost about 50,000 kinah that was originally mine.

Question: What is the normal currency levels like?

Some games have maybe 100 gold being very very very rich. While others deal in the millions of (insert currency). How does 34.7 trillion compare to the normal game currency levels?

Hmm. The game is few months old in EU/NA. I'll say this:

To fully equip my level 34, almost 35 Templar with blue gears (high-quality, higher than green or white), I would have to spend... more or less, 20 millions. That's a lot. And I'm talking about blues of my level.

My Spiritmaster has blue armor parts (except for accessories and weapons, obviously), I've spent about 500k on them. But they are only from level 23. If I wanted a full level 28 blue set, I would have to pay about 700-800k.

The most expensive items are Godstones that go from 1,2mln to even 15-20 mln. Same goes for some stigmas.

For 35 trillions, I would be able to fully equip myself with Legendary (Orange color) set, weapons, upgrade them to +10 and still have cash left for... ten more characters, probably. Or even more. 35 trillions is an ungodly amount of cash.

 

[samsonguy920]

Then there might be those players who did a quest or grind, ended up with crapgear, then the rollback happens and they do it again and end up with awesomegear. Rollbacks aren't always bad.

 

[Worgen]

kinda reminds me of an update bug that happened in warhammer online, there is usualy like a .5% chance of players to drop gear in pvp but during a update of the type that ppl could still play, they messed up with the % chance of gear dropping so instead of .5 it was like at 80-100%, it was awsome getting to get all that wicked stuff that usualy takes forever to get. Best part was that mythic decided to let it slide and not roll back anything

 

[Captain Pancake]

Resisting... urge... to make... bad taste joke... linking real world depression... to Aion inflation...

Gah, I hope I pass my will roll...

 

[Abedeus]

Then there might be those players who did a quest or grind, ended up with crapgear, then the rollback happens and they do it again and end up with awesomegear. Rollbacks aren't always bad.

Yeah.. Write a paper, 4 pages long. I'll come to your house overnight, and burn everything. Would you write it again any time soon?

 

[Go Fighting In The War Room]

Wow trillion.... no M or B at the start.... but a T....

That's alot of virtual currency!

At least it didn't start with Quad, Pent and so on...

 

[Trivun]

MMO economies are a perfect example of art imitating life, especially here and now. If the Royal Mint suddenly printed, by accident, trillions of pound sterling and shipped this sum (again, by accident) to the homes of thousands or even millions of people across the UK (an extremely unrealistic scenario, but bear with me here), then naturally the UK economy would go into meltdown. You'd see hyperinflation as demand for goods skyrockets and supply concurrently falls rapidly. As consumption rapidly rises, due to more disposable income, then prices will shoot up and hyperinflation will eventually lead to an adverse effect on the economy. I won't go into more details as this will probably bore people.

But the point is, I can see exactly why the Aion tech staff had to do a server rollback. It may be harsh for grinders and other people who played the game sensibly, but if the staff hadn't done so then the effects for the majority of honest players would have been devastating.

 

[Ciler]

Too bad the coins don't have any actual physical weight or size like in pen & paper D&D... I'd like to see people try to lug around 35 trillion gold coins...

 

[SantoUno]

Holy shit that is a lot. Even if they did reclaim everyone's bugged wealth I mgiht have at least bought a bunch of expensive shit just to try them out.

 

[Marohen]

Well, it's good to see that all five people playing Aion are now doing well for themselves!