Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems
Yeah, there’s another dupe glitch in New World. If you can’t figure out the details of that exploit (though apparently it’s “very easy“), that’s by design. Things like this are devastating to an MMO’s in-game economy, and Amazon Games is well aware of that fact – shutting off the economy and cracking down on those using/spreading the exploit, all in an effort to stem the bleeding.
Players got upset that the game was breaking, the quality of the game suffered, and the developers had to pull the plug. Not on the whole game, mind you, just the trading economy part. Though, to be fair, this is an MMO – trading things with other players is a pretty huge part of that sort of game.
A community manager had this to say on the issue:
“Hi all, We are aware of a possible duplication exploit that has been circulating the forums and social media. We are disabling all forms of wealth transfer between players (ie. sending currency, guild treasury, trading post, player to player trading) while we investigate. Any player that has engaged in the use of this exploit will be actioned against. Once the duplication exploit has been investigated and we are ready to turn on wealth transfer again, we will update this post. Thank you for your understanding.”
This is better than a completely trashed economy, for obvious reasons, but still far from what anybody wants. With such a huge part of the MMO experience carved from the game, many players are frustrated and fed up, with a few threatening to quit. With no ETA on a possible fix, a move like this is likely to result in a player drop – frustrated players might not be around to hear the news of a fix, if it takes too long. Especially since this isn’t the first time New World has faced an issue like this.
Overall, this doesn’t bode well for the fledgling MMO, but only time will tell if this is a short speedbump or a lasting wound.