While I was
away...
----------------
Someone
duped some dupes into thinking there was a WoW dupe. Or did Blizzard dupe the
duped dupes and cover up the dupe? Um, something appears to have happened.
Let’s backtrack, complete with some funky flashback music, to get into the
nitty-gritty...
It all
starts when this screenshot is pasted across all the internets, backed up with
posts like this that state a dupe bug can be recreated when you take advantage
of a client-server sync error in dungeons.
Scores of
Dr Twister wannabees – you know, abusing the game for the good of the game of
course, suckas! – now feverishly attempt to enter and exit Maraudon. It is not
clear whether the ever-increasing throng of people repeatedly disappearing into
Maraudon are people who are making this bug happen, people who are trying to
get the bug to happen and can’t, or are just abusing the system another way and
teleporting their level 30 characters to chest spawns. It must be noted that in
threads such as the one linked above, posters replying to the original message
cannot recreate the bug.
Focus now
rested on the official WoW forums, now aflame with discussion and accusations
about said screenshot and dupe. Blizzard remains tight-lipped thereby fuelling talk
about rollbacks and bannings. It is here in my travels that I questioned the
validity of the rollback comment – I do not think Blizzard would do a rollback,
days after the last patch which is meant to have introduced this dupe, that
affects the entire playerbase just to get rid of some cash that seems to have
been made by only a very, very small percentage of the population. Or, at
least, I hope they wouldn’t be that stupid. The cries of people losing a week’s
worth of playtime would be louder than any generated by a dupe bug.
Now, I
further interrupt here to ask a question – Did no one wonder why the fuck with
a supposed bug that allows you to dupe money – twice your current cash with
every time through it that could potentially earn you millions of gold – the
screenshot was instead of someone selling multiple Krol Blades? Why would you
bother going through the motions of putting items up for auction to get gold
from them if duped gold was already at your beck and call?
Enter stage
left someone with zoom skills who shows how the Krol Blades screenshot is,
ironically enough, duped. Yes, it is a fake.
War still
rages on the WoW forums between those who say there is no dupe (Blizzard would
never allow that! (Hello Diablo 2)) and those who say there is a dupe (OMFG. I
quit! Not like last time. This time I really quit!) until someone from Blizzard
finally decides to show their face.
I understand that this is a very serious concern for you
folks. Rest assured that we are actively investigating the reports of a duping
exploit. There is currently no legitimate evidence of duping taking place at
this time or in the recent past. This does not mean that we have concluded that
no such exploit occurred, however; we are still actively pursuing all leads.
Should we find conclusive evidence of such exploits taking place, we will take
action as dictated in our policies. Naturally, we are very much aware of the
potential impact such a bug would have on the game, and are doing everything in
our power with the tools available to us to uncover the exploit, should it
exist.
I must also apologize for not speaking with you about this before now. We were
away, and this issue sprang up in our absence. You should have received
communication about our stance and the actions we were taking earlier than
this. I recommend that, should you find any evidence of this exploit, you eMail
[email protected] to inform our team.
As I'm sure you understand, the potential damage a duping exploit can bring to
a game can be devastating. It is my hope that you will aid us with any
information you may have. Thank you.
“We were
away”? “We were away”? For fucks
sake. Call me kind of crazy – it’s happened before – but if I was someone in
power at a company that currently most of the PC gaming population is looking
at and observing – and what a magical time it would be. Free icecream on Fridays for everyone
– I’d freakin’ make sure someone would be available each day to comment to my
customers on issues important to the game and the playerbase. You know, it’s
kind of like a job. Even if it involved giving the hacks and someone from the
programming team to give clarifications, that is so much more useful than
silence followed up with a weak-sauce explanation. And when this comes from a
company now known to have poor communication with it’s MMO customers, well, it
just multiplies the issue.
In any
case, our little story seems to end here, with Caydiem stating that no dupe bug
exists.
I have been informed that the investigations have more or
less concluded (they’ll still be watching, of course, but the labor-intensive
scouring of data is complete). It has been determined that there is not a
repeatable dupe exploit. You should not worry about rampant inflation; the
majority of what has been floating around is rumor and image manipulation.
Furthermore, it should be noted that causing any realm instability in such a
fashion (like jumping in and out of instances repeatedly in an attempt to
exploit or otherwise cause something not intended by Blizzard) is an actionable
offense and we will be watching for offenders. Feel free to report people you
see doing this to the GM staff.
And that seems to be where our story will stay. Subsequent
posts on the issue have fallen into the deep dark depths of the forums or have
been closed. Posts regarding battlegrounds have now taken center stage. Fuck.
In other
news, WoW reached 3.5 million subscribers thereby meeting my prediction it
would smash through the Lineage barrier. With 1.5 million Chinese subscribers
coming in just over 1 month and new areas still yet to be tapped, it seems the
5 million mark could be the next to go.
Oh, hang
on, this perhaps explains the “We were away” bit.
Snorting white lines off the stomachs of
hookers.
----------------
SOEbay was
officially launched, allowing EQII players to buy their way to the top and
leaving lawyers salivating over the first person who wants to sue because of a
lost item.
SOE sent
out a press release that gave a small breakdown of the types of sales that
occurred during a two week testing phase.
Now, I know
they state only a small number of people were involved, but the small numbers
they state in terms of the average amount people spent, the amount of total
plat sold (with 1/6 of it coming from one single sale) and the average cost of characters (much lower than any listed on IGE
or similar sites) makes me questions just how successful this will be.
Looking at
the EQII forums, these questions are starting to be strengthened as I glance
over a quiet Station Exchange board and posts referring to an absence of people
playing on the 2 new servers. In fact, across all the internets that includes
EQII guild and fan sites, talk about the Station Exchange seems to be
conspicuously lacking.
Then again,
when you’re charging big fees for someone to sell on your server, does SOE
really care?
So, now
that SOEbay has reared it’s ugly head, what’s next in store for the company
constantly on the lookout for pushing gameplay marketing?
Well, as one long-time EQ player found out, how about GMs giving away information about your private conversations with them to other players?
Our second story of the day starts right here with a Monk player a bit miffed that someone else was asked to go to the EQ Communit Summit to represent his class that he feels he has worked so long for. Now, I'm not here to question the decision. That's up to SOE. I know shit about either of the two players involved. But in any case, it is a big deal to those involved so the player in question decided to comment to a EQ GM about the matter.
A few days later, on a message board frequented by the player who messaged the GM and the player who ended up going to the summit, it was revealed that somehow mysteriously Nedrom knew that Homer had talked to a GM about the community summit and had mentioned him.
How was
this so? How could a player find out information that was in a private message
that are always assumed to be taken in strict confidentiality?
Homer fired
off a firey email or two to SOE and received a response.
Dear Mr. xxxxxx,
My name is Christina Delzer and I am the Community Relations Manager for
EverQuest. I have looked into the allegations you have made that an SOE
employee, particularly Rashere, has given out personal information about
you to another community member. I can assure you that neither Rashere
nor any other SOE employee has done so. We here at SOE value our
customers and their privacy. We appreciate that our customers desire to
keep their personal information private and that when there was a
possibility that someone within our company breeched that trust you
brought it to our attention so that we could ensure this did not occur.
Sincerely,
Christina Delzer ~ Kytherea
Community Relations Manager
EverQuest
Ok. So you take personal information including private discussions
with your GM staff very seriously? Ok, my mind is at ease now.
Wait a fucking minute. No, it isn’t. And neither was Homer’s.
That still didn’t explain how one player found out information about a private
message to a GM. Another email to SOE, complete with screenshot evidence,
produced this revision of SOE matters.
Mr. xxxxxx,
While Rashere may have shared the conversation details, he did not share
any personal information.
Sincerely,
Christina Delzer ~ Kytherea
Community Relations Manager
EverQuest
[email protected]
http://eqlive.station.sony.com
Oooh. So,
that’s alright then. SOE employees can discuss player emails, messages and
in-game conversations to other players as long as they don’t mention who wrote
it? Clearly that makes perfect sense and everyone who wants their messages to
be kept private can rest assured that although other people will find out, no
one will know they said it as long as
they lie low.
SOE – Causing
complaints since 1999 so you don’t have to.
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