The Elder Scrolls Online "Dupe Bug" Takes Guild Banks Offline - Update

[A-D.]

So they went right to the banning-stage of fixing issues. Yeah i cant see this backfiring at all. /sarcasm

Just fix the exploit, look for the people who have too much gold, reduce the gold by 90%, take away any duped items and call it a day. Outright banning people does not help you, in fact you should ignore this because it means people will abuse and break the game in any effort to get ahead, which helps you with finding shit like this.

If you ban them, that means any exploit found will be kept strictly confidential, nobody will be told how to do it or what it is. It wont be reported and the few who find it can profit. Banning offenders isnt the solution you're looking for.

 

[Remus]

So they went right to the banning-stage of fixing issues. Yeah i cant see this backfiring at all. /sarcasm

Just fix the exploit, look for the people who have too much gold, reduce the gold by 90%, take away any duped items and call it a day. Outright banning people does not help you, in fact you should ignore this because it means people will abuse and break the game in any effort to get ahead, which helps you with finding shit like this.

If you ban them, that means any exploit found will be kept strictly confidential, nobody will be told how to do it or what it is. It wont be reported and the few who find it can profit. Banning offenders isnt the solution you're looking for.

So let people break the game, so you can catch them doing it, but do nothing to punish those that do it. Yea that won't break the game at all, billions of duped gold in circulation, rulebreakers constantly looking for more inventive ways of disrupting the game without recourse....yea, no thanks.

 

[Scow2]

So they went right to the banning-stage of fixing issues. Yeah i cant see this backfiring at all. /sarcasm

Just fix the exploit, look for the people who have too much gold, reduce the gold by 90%, take away any duped items and call it a day. Outright banning people does not help you, in fact you should ignore this because it means people will abuse and break the game in any effort to get ahead, which helps you with finding shit like this.

If you ban them, that means any exploit found will be kept strictly confidential, nobody will be told how to do it or what it is. It wont be reported and the few who find it can profit. Banning offenders isnt the solution you're looking for.

So let people break the game, so you can catch them doing it, but do nothing to punish those that do it. Yea that won't break the game at all, billions of duped gold in circulation, rulebreakers constantly looking for more inventive ways of disrupting the game without recourse....yea, no thanks.

The game shouldn't be breakable in the first place. If the progression is the fault of the game (Bad code, dupe glitch, etc), punishment should be restricted to undoing the damage. - if it's in the game's rules/code, it's not cheating.

Banning should only be used for people who use third-party tools, modifications, software editing, and the like.

 

[thiosk]

No MMO will ever be "ready." This bug slipped through. It will be remembered by all in the community as "black tuesday" (or whatever) and folks next year will still talk about it.

Maybe even for two years. Heck, they'll try to keep this one going for at least two.

Kingdom of Loathing survived a meat duplication bug. So can TES

 

[RedBackDragon]

deleayed reaction here but what the heck , a dupe bug in a elder scrols game ?????????? *mock shock horror face* NEVVVER! *cough* filled the imperial city up with cheese wedges *cough* god bless oblivion and its cheese....

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

So they went right to the banning-stage of fixing issues. Yeah i cant see this backfiring at all. /sarcasm

Just fix the exploit, look for the people who have too much gold, reduce the gold by 90%, take away any duped items and call it a day. Outright banning people does not help you, in fact you should ignore this because it means people will abuse and break the game in any effort to get ahead, which helps you with finding shit like this.

If you ban them, that means any exploit found will be kept strictly confidential, nobody will be told how to do it or what it is. It wont be reported and the few who find it can profit. Banning offenders isnt the solution you're looking for.

So let people break the game, so you can catch them doing it, but do nothing to punish those that do it. Yea that won't break the game at all, billions of duped gold in circulation, rulebreakers constantly looking for more inventive ways of disrupting the game without recourse....yea, no thanks.

While I can certainly agree that "do nothing" is a poor policy, full-on banning people for a bug that was reported during beta and left unfixed for this long is just asinine; especially when the bug is said to be "so easy you can do it on accident." Really makes you wonder, how many of those people who got banned were actually abusing the glitch, and how many of them legitimately triggered the bug on accident.

I can certainly agree that a permanent ban is a necessary punishment to have in an MMO, but when the punishment basically means "You can't give us money anymore", you need to make sure that you're only shutting-out the people who really deserve it. Something like this bug was largely Bethesda's fault, so playing the "zero tolerance" card and full-on banning people was completely arrogant of them. Even more-so when you consider that the game is new and NEEDS players to keep itself relevant. Going too ban-happy will only scare customers away. Punishing people who exploit glitches is a delicate balance, and Bethesda went way overboard with this one.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

deleayed reaction here but what the heck , a dupe bug in a elder scrols game ?????????? *mock shock horror face* NEVVVER! *cough* filled the imperial city up with cheese wedges *cough* god bless oblivion and its cheese....

Okay, hands up: is there ANYONE who thinks anything titled "Elder Scrolls" has even the slightest chance of not being released with at least a handful of game breaking bugs?

Yes, well, it's quite a different story in an MMO than in single-player games. In something like New Vegas or Skyrim, a duping bug isn't really a huge deal. You either dupe or you don't, and the only person effected is you. If you feel that the game gets too easy when you dupe, then you can only blame yourself if you do it anyway. In an online environment, however, a bug running this rampant basically turns into a case of "exploit or lose"; especially when the bug had been reported several times in previous weeks with no acknowledgement from the developers.

It's definitely no surprise and nothing new that a Bethesda game is buggy as all heck (and yes I know it's a different developer shut up), but this is still a completely new case, and Bethesda really needs to up their game on noticing and addressing potentially game-breaking bugs like this, or else ESO is going to be a very short-lived game when people get sick of the economy being a constant mess and decide to go back to playing WoW or maybe that new Wildstar game that's coming out soon.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

Wow, this game is looking better and better by the day. (Better at keeping me well away from MMOs, that is. Though, my The Old Republic cynicism proven right always helps, too.)

So let people break the game, so you can catch them doing it, but do nothing to punish those that do it. Yea that won't break the game at all, billions of duped gold in circulation, rulebreakers constantly looking for more inventive ways of disrupting the game without recourse....yea, no thanks.

Going right to permabans is beyond excessive in this game's case. The Elder Scrolls is a series known for its bugs and cheats. Some guys knew this is a bannable offense in other games, but I'm sure there's plenty of people who were treating it like any other TES game out their especially if what I here about it being a "single player TES game with more than one player character active and has a monthly fee" is true. They should just ban first timers for couple days or give them a warning that this won't fly in an MMO.

 

[A-D.]

So they went right to the banning-stage of fixing issues. Yeah i cant see this backfiring at all. /sarcasm

Just fix the exploit, look for the people who have too much gold, reduce the gold by 90%, take away any duped items and call it a day. Outright banning people does not help you, in fact you should ignore this because it means people will abuse and break the game in any effort to get ahead, which helps you with finding shit like this.

If you ban them, that means any exploit found will be kept strictly confidential, nobody will be told how to do it or what it is. It wont be reported and the few who find it can profit. Banning offenders isnt the solution you're looking for.

So let people break the game, so you can catch them doing it, but do nothing to punish those that do it. Yea that won't break the game at all, billions of duped gold in circulation, rulebreakers constantly looking for more inventive ways of disrupting the game without recourse....yea, no thanks.

Its already been pointed out by others, but i will do it again anyway for the sake of it.

If you find a glitch in the game that lets you do something you shouldnt, and the developer finds out, either via bug report or because the method used has become so widespread and known that it is impossible to ignore, then all punishment that is needed is to remove all the items that they aquired due to said glitch.

For example if you find this one monster, that on being killed drops 2 very rare items and 1000 gold, per kill, garantueed. Then what should be done is to fix the problem with the monster and then check in the database for who hung around that area alot and is suddenly very rich, then simply take away the ill-gotten gains of exploiting the glitch for personal gain. Just banning people does not help anyone, neither the gamers, the offenders, the community in general or even the developer. Lets assume i find a glitch, abuse it a couple times to make sure that it is there and then report it, should i now be banned for "doing it a couple times"? If your answer is yes, then i will not re-purchase the game, i will not continue to give them money and i will tell anyone i know to stay the hell away from the game.

I should not have to tell you what the result is of such a thing happening not just to one person, but several hundreds if not thousands. Imagine at least every third player abused this glitch for a while, now imagine the playerbase, for easier math is 300.000 Players. You now have to ban 100.000 Players. Thats 100.000 Players who will not pay a subscription anymore. Chances are thats 100.000 Players who wont bother with your products in the future.

So no the punishment should fit the crime, if the bug is there, is known and it takes them until now to fix it? Then at best what they could do is take away any items or wealth gained from exploiting it. Outright banning them though doesnt help because chances are, if you plug that hole, a bunch of them would try to find the next one. Your argument is essentially "so there is people doing QA and bug-testing for free, lets get rid of them for breaking the game and finding the bugs".

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Id they dupe stuff after finding the bug then i dont see the problem. Anyone would exploit it and i dont see why people should be banned for it as its Zenimaxs fault. But if gamers used another program to cheat, then they should be blocked. Cant ban people for exploiting a bug due to developers incompetence.

 

[DikkieDik]

This is not an MMO, i think the best way to describe it is a solo shared game. U dont need each other, but its fun to team up to get through the dungeon faster, its so fast i just run through all of em. Theres no balance in the game at all. the dungeon bosses are heavily camped so no challenge there. just running and running and running.btw i have the running perk on lol.There are some solo bosses, but with so many quests, u can do them easily when ur 5 lvls up. There are so many armor drops, u never really need to worrie about buying something so gold doesnt matter really, i just use it to buy more space in my inventory. im lvl 33 atm maybe its gonna change when i hit 50 well see. That being said, im loving it, im playing it like i played skyrim, only i have a little help from unknown friends.

 

[Zagzag]

and how Bethesda will address the economic damage already done remains unclear.

I really wish that the media didn't further confuse people about who is and isn't responsible for this game with misleading statements like this. Bethesda have absolutely nothing to do with this game.

 

[Daaaah Whoosh]

Id they dupe stuff after finding the bug then i dont see the problem. Anyone would exploit it and i dont see why people should be banned for it as its Zenimaxs fault. But if gamers used another program to cheat, then they should be blocked. Cant ban people for exploiting a bug due to developers incompetence.

So, you're saying that anyone who breaks into your house and steals all your stuff because you left the window unlocked should go free? An exploit is called an exploit because you're not supposed to use it. It might be the developer's fault for letting it into the game, but it's not their fault some people would rather break things than wait for them to get fixed.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Id they dupe stuff after finding the bug then i dont see the problem. Anyone would exploit it and i dont see why people should be banned for it as its Zenimaxs fault. But if gamers used another program to cheat, then they should be blocked. Cant ban people for exploiting a bug due to developers incompetence.

So, you're saying that anyone who breaks into your house and steals all your stuff because you left the window unlocked should go free? An exploit is called an exploit because you're not supposed to use it. It might be the developer's fault for letting it into the game, but it's not their fault some people would rather break things than wait for them to get fixed.

Its a game. Nothing to do with real life. Hate idiots that use real life when arguing about a game. Might as well use that against murder in a court. lol. End of the day its a game, they left a bug in that people found and used. Gamers shouldnt be banned for that, maybe have that loot taken off them, but not banned.

You do realise their is a difference between real life and games? Just curious.

 

[Someone Depressing]

And this is why you shouldn't make a buggy piece of shit, heavily based on an engine best known FOR being a buggy piece of shit.

Ah, it's like Runescape, except with a bug.

It's obvious the best thing to do is just starting from scratch.

 

[Sewa_Yunga]

Spoiler: snip

Id they dupe stuff after finding the bug then i dont see the problem. Anyone would exploit it and i dont see why people should be banned for it as its Zenimaxs fault. But if gamers used another program to cheat, then they should be blocked. Cant ban people for exploiting a bug due to developers incompetence.

Of course they can. Abusing gamebreaking bugs is against the TOS/EULA/whateveryouagreetowheninstallingthegame. Duping items is most definitely such a gamebreaking bug. Besides, they can ban people just for giggles, if they feel like it ;-)

I'm curious how Zenimax will act now. If the abuse was as massive as the article suggests, there could be a huge bleed over of duped items (or items bought with laundered money) to legit players. What a mess.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Spoiler: snip

Id they dupe stuff after finding the bug then i dont see the problem. Anyone would exploit it and i dont see why people should be banned for it as its Zenimaxs fault. But if gamers used another program to cheat, then they should be blocked. Cant ban people for exploiting a bug due to developers incompetence.

Of course they can. Abusing gamebreaking bugs is against the TOS/EULA/whateveryouagreetowheninstallingthegame. Duping items is most definitely such a gamebreaking bug. Besides, they can ban people just for giggles, if they feel like it ;-)

I'm curious how Zenimax will act now. If the abuse was as massive as the article suggests, there could be a huge bleed over of duped items (or items bought with laundered money) to legit players. What a mess.

I agree they should have stuff taken off them for exploiting the bug. But not banned. Banning should be for people that cheat intentionally. Exploiting a bug isnt that in my opinion. That bug is the developers issue and not the same as using aimbots of fps games.