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

[Andy Chalk]

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

ZeniMax has disabled guild banks in The Elder Scrolls Online because of a dupe bug that's breaking the in-game economy.

Update: ZeniMax has issued a statement saying the dupe bug has been fixed. "Yesterday, we identified an item duping bug in ESO that some players chose to exploit," a rep said. "We acted quickly, and have since fixed the issue. We have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to abusing exploitable bugs, and those who were found doing so will have their game account permanently banned."

There is still no word on when guild banks will be restored.

Original story: A dupe bug, for those unfamiliar with the term, allows players of online games to duplicate in-game items at will, which they can then sell to vendors for effectively unlimited money. As you might imagine, that throws game economies completely out of whack, which is why developers tend to move rather aggressively to stamp them out.

One such bug has struck The Elder Scrolls Online, which a Reddit user described as "so simple... that it is possible to do it by pure accident." According to the post, the bug has been known among players for more than a week, and the situation has grown so bad that a full recovery may require "something drastic."

"Players in full legendary gear, billions of gold (From duping mats and selling them to vendors over and over), and so much more. Money, items, etc is completely worthless," Reddit user Mistress-Rarity wrote. "People are completely panicking that Zenimax will have to drop a nuke, but nobody knows what they can do to fix the problem."

ZeniMax posted a notice in The Elder Scrolls Online forums early this morning that "Guild bank functionality has been temporarily disabled on the North American and European megaservers," but said nothing about why it was pulled. The l.04 patch [http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/81292/patch-notes-v1-0-4] released yesterday reportedly addresses the issue to some extent by forcing players to stack items in inventory before placing them in guild banks, but some users have suggested that it covers up the bug rather than fixing it, and how ZeniMax will address the economic damage already done remains unclear.

Source: The Elder Scrolls Online forums [http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/23cc8j/elder_scrolls_online_dupe_bug_found_billions_of/]



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[Deathfish15]

From what I've read about the community, this "bug" has been known about for over 3 weeks of Beta PRIOR to the game's official launch. That means the developer was well aware of it, but gave no care/chance to fix it before the main game's launch. But then again, this game seems to be more of a single-player game with multiplayer chat/PvP. Too bad the subscription isn't justified.


Captcha: buy some time

 

[Ligisttomten]

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?

Completely different developer, different engine altogether. It just stinks of yet another MMO rushed to release long before it's ready. Retail beta-testers seems to be the new trend these days.

 

[Freyar]

It's Neverwinter all over again. Sanity Checks are useful.

 

[rofltehcat]

Well, I think every MMO has had a bank-related duping bug by now. However, this does not explain why it passed QA (they should test for such things specifically) and why it stayed unfixed for so long. Of course stuff like this can still happen but at least their damage control should be better and from what I hear there are some other game breaking bugs (& progression-blocking bgs) in the game.

 

[Raesvelg]

Well, if they take the route Square-Enix took with FFXI, their solution will be to quietly collect information for a little while and then ban everyone who participated. This sounds arguably more severe than the two major such incidents in FFXI's history, but a server rollback and mass banning would tend to discourage people from similar behavior.

 

[SilverStuddedSquirre]

I can't help but laugh. This would not be an issue If they had implemented the Multiplayer that the FANS of the series wanted, rather than the MMO the CEO wanted.

Everybody I have ever spoke to on the subject was just looking to be able to bring your save over to a friends, and have 2-player co-operative, OFFLINE. I'm no programmer so please somebody tell me if it would be more feasible to have released a patch in the form of say a $15-20 DLC that allowed such a feature, or make a whole new MMO? Or even why from a technical standpoint, this can't happen.

I know it won't happen as long as the Marketing department lives by the idea that local multilayer mean Units not sold.

 

[INVALIDUSERNAME]

I can't help but laugh. This would not be an issue If they had implemented the Multiplayer that the FANS of the series wanted, rather than the MMO the CEO wanted.

Everybody I have ever spoke to on the subject was just looking to be able to bring your save over to a friends, and have 2-player co-operative, OFFLINE. I'm no programmer so please somebody tell me if it would be more feasible to have released a patch in the form of say a $15-20 DLC that allowed such a feature, or make a whole new MMO? Or even why from a technical standpoint, this can't happen.

I know it won't happen as long as the Marketing department lives by the idea that local multilayer mean Units not sold.

For something like Multiplayer Skyrim? It might have worked but they usually balance these things around risk/reward where they take into account how many people will actually use it and if it actually adds anything to the game.

The issue with ESO is it didn't start development 2 years ago. Its been worked on since 2007, so I don't think they saw Skyrim exploding into such a megalithic success but, lo and behold, it brought so many people who probably didn't even know what Elder Scrolls was into the scene thanks to savvy marketing and, well, dragons.

So, I can't tell you if the DLC would have paid off but, to be fair, it's not like they up and decided this MMO needed to be made as soon as Skyrim launched. This train wreck has been in the making since Burning Crusade was relevant.

 

[iseko]

Well, if they take the route Square-Enix took with FFXI, their solution will be to quietly collect information for a little while and then ban everyone who participated. This sounds arguably more severe than the two major such incidents in FFXI's history, but a server rollback and mass banning would tend to discourage people from similar behavior.

might not be the best way recedent to have a rollback 2 weeksafter release...

OT: lol!

 

[Issurru]

This is kinda depressing, I've really been enjoying this game. Now I have to worry about what they're going to do with the game now that this has happened.

Kind of annoys me that people would exploit this to the degree that they probably have and somewhat ruin it for others. Guess I'll be sticking to doing everything solo or my group of friends and hope everything works out nicely.

 

[Ninmecu]

Maybe they'll just go the blizzard route with D3 and not bother giving a rats ass and instead just make gold and almost all items BOA, because, y'know, that's such a great idea!

...Sigh, my cynicism is showing again. On topic though, even disregarding the ES in ESO, disregarding the fact that a completely different company worked on it, disregarding the fact that this bug was found during the beta(Of which several like this were found in the D3 ROS beta but they still haven't fixed some of them until now, 3 weeks post launch.) things like this depress me, I'm amazed we've come to this point where we allow things like this to happen, but at the same time, I realize the majority of the populace is actually composed of people smart enough to go about their daily lives but not smart enough to form complex thoughts or opinions on their own.


Yup, my cynicism is out in full force today. God damn.


On the one hand, I feel for the players who are being negatively affected, on the other hand, I feel those players should just say "Fuck it" and see where it goes from there.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

I can't remember the last time you could dupe items in World of Warcraft for example (mounts sure), but not items.

Or perhaps it was so long ago that I forgot, but I can't seem to recall any of that happening throughout all the 10 years that I have played it.

"Burny" captcha: too salty!

 

[Charli]

I can't remember the last time you could dupe items in World of Warcraft for example (mounts sure), but not items.

Or perhaps it was so long ago that I forgot, but I can't seem to recall any of that happening throughout all the 10 years that I have played it.

"Burny" captcha: too salty!

Thing is most items worth having are binding... I know duping is still possible but the risk and costs involved with doing it on WoW just isn't worth it to most hackers. Even the occasional mount duping outbreak get snuffed out pretty quick.

As such the economies in WoW tend to function as you would expect, lower prices on crowded servers, higher on low, undercutting and reselling quite simple.

*rolls around in WoW money pit*


Where as in newer games where every tom dick and harry is doing it because their friends, cousin, uncle, knows this super rad cheat, its easier to hide more sophisticated organizations and gold selling. And since most are free to play, the risk of getting the gold is practically not there, a simple account generator or someone managing that area would be all that is required to get right back into it, with a handful of legitimate seeming accounts handling all the transfers.

But this? This is just catastrophic, and in a sub game too, and I mean I was not enthralled by the beta of this game, but that sucks Zenimax. Get it the hell together.

 

[StriderShinryu]

I can't say I'm surprised this happened, but I am curious about what the actual response will be. If it was easy enough to do that players could do it accidentally without even knowing about it, I wonder how they will end up defining "abuse" of the glitch. A perma-ban is a pretty rough punishment so I'd hope they have some actual way of differentiating between those who did it accidentally and those who did it intentionally (and, as for abuse, maybe those who did it a lot).

 

[oliver.begg]

if you had a fast mouse finger and like to click stuff this can get you banned.

thats the level this is at.