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Neverwinter experiencing in-game economy exploits

Forum users report exploit; auction hall and astral diamond exchange temporarily taken offline.

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Developer Cryptic Studios and publisher Perfect World took the astral diamond exchange and auction hall of its massively multiplayer online game Neverwinter offline to "resolve a high-priority bug" that involved a currency exploit.

The auction hall and astral diamond exchange are currently offline due to the exploit.
The auction hall and astral diamond exchange are currently offline due to the exploit.

The cheat allowed players to duplicate astral diamonds, the in-game currency bought with real-world money. Users reported the exploit in the game's official forums, according to a report on Massively.

The game's publisher, Perfect World, has locked threads about the exploit and taken action against a number of accounts that allegedly used the bug. Suspected cheaters will receive email notifications, while users found guilty may have their accounts either temporarily or permanently banned. Players who believe they have been unfairly caught up in the issue are being urged to contact customer support.

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H0RSE

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Edited By H0RSE

Cryptic handled this really well. They caught the exploit early, and the rollback was only 7hrs. Imagine if the exploit went of for days or weeks? Throughout the entire process, Cryptic kept the community updated on progress and never left their players in the dark. I also heard they are working on a package to give players for their support.

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nathangray

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@H0RSE Dude you're trying so hard to defend them. Stop. The exploit DID go on for days and weeks. Over a week ago someone posted in the forums the steps they took to make over $6,000 in diamonds, cash out then quit the game. The thread was locked and edited to prevent people from following steps. Both Diamonds and EXP have been exploitable since the game first launched, it was only once massive amounts of people started figuring out how to do it that they did a rollback, but by then the wound had already been festering out of control. They are doing anything BUT a good job at handling this, they've let their game be destroyed nearly the moment it began. They are never going to get those diamonds out of the economy, and with the majority of their population already at cap several times over because of exp exploits, there's no point to anything but endgame content. If you look at the auction house, for weeks now all the greatest gear has been cheap as balls, because people have literally been able to exploit exp and even armor sets to allow 1hit kills in dungeons, letting them solo and flood the market with equipment.

How you can cheerlead for them is beyond me, but whatever floats your boat dude.

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H0RSE

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Edited By H0RSE

@nathangray @H0RSE

There's a really sad phenomenon that takes place in the gaming community, and it seems to have gotten worse as time goes on, where people can't have a positive outlook on a game or a developer, etc. when bad things happen, without being labeled a fanboy, troll, or as you say "cheeleading."I'm not "trying so hard" to defend them - this is my actual opinion on the matter *GASP!!* There's no extra effort on my part.

I have been dealing with Cryptic since City of Heroes, and then again with Champions Online. I spent many many hours playing their games, and respect the studio and their works, so as far as the episode with the AD/AH exploit, shit happened and it was dealt with. I guess the glass is just half full from where I'm sitting - where you are, not so much.

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MN121MN

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Wow, that escalated fast

Exploiting something the devs overlooked, and then blaming it as hacking......

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Exectech

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@MN121MN Hacking is the practice of modifying the features of a system, in order to accomplish a goal outside of the creator's original purpose. Sounds like hacking to me.

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H0RSE

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Edited By H0RSE

@MN121MN

Regardless if it was "hacking" or not, is not the point. The point is that an exploit was found, and instead of telling the devs about it so they could fix it, they took advantage of it - that's why accounts/IP's, etc. were banned and why it ultimately is the perpetrators own fault. It doesn't matter if they hacked it or simply clicked on a button that said "click for money exploit."

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adwerk

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They did a rollback. People lost alot of stuff, including myself. Lost all the gear I had aquired the days before. Sucks, but I wasnt intending on playing again.

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H0RSE

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@adwerk

The rollback was only for 7hrs, so if you lost gear you acquired "days before," I'd like to know where to find this rip in space-time that you apparently went through...

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holtrocks

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Its a surprisingly good game its F2P but not pay to win, so far at least.

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2bitSmOkEy

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This game has been a massive exploit fest from the start. It's surprisingly really good, besides that.

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jesusismyhomie

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If you want people to play the game correctly and actually make it fun then stop using real life $$$ for items. Diablo 3 is prime example on how to destroy something that could have been fun.

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H0RSE

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@jesusismyhomie

They charge real money for optional items/services, so I don't really see what your complaint is? I am currently lvl 38 and I haven't *had* paid for anything - the money I spent was my choice, and in no way needed to proceed within the game. It is a F2P game, so they need to generate revenue from somewhere - where would you suggest it came from?

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krystyla

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@jesusismyhomie its either that or paid subscriptions

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Tripwolf

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@krystyla @jesusismyhomie Paid subs make ppl treat their accounts with more respect.

Who cares if their Free account gets banned?

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H0RSE

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@Dizzy1976 @krystyla @Tripwolf @jesusismyhomie You are making no sense.... If a player is paying a fee every month to play a game, then it tends to create a obligation to play, like if you don't play you are wasting money.

Are you suggesting a person constantly cancel and resub according to if they feel like playing or not? Although it is doable, it isn't really practical. If a player is going on hiatus for an indefinite/lengthy amount of time, this makes sense, but what if a players desire to play changes month-to-month, or what if they paid for a 6 month or yearly subscription and don't feel like playing anymore halfway through?This is a situation where it can feel like work, since you are playing primarily because you don't want to waste that money you spent.

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krystyla

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@Dizzy1976 @krystyla @Tripwolf @jesusismyhomie well i did that after realising wow felt like a 2nd job

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Dizzy1976

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@krystyla @Tripwolf @jesusismyhomie Uhhh if you dont want to play...Cancel the damn subscription...its really not that hard to do...people these days.

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krystyla

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@Tripwolf @krystyla @jesusismyhomie paid subscription makes you play when you dont even want to

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krystyla

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the lore is weird in the game why doesnt the choice of god affect the clerics spells how can a half orc choose corellion?!?!?

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xGarrettThiefX

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Edited By xGarrettThiefX

@krystyla What ?? For real ?

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krystyla

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@xGarrettThiefX @krystyla its gonna be even weirder with drow and im still wondering what happened to the drow turned dark elves again at the end of lady penitence

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DarkE0n

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I've been playing this game all month. It's super awesome and I don't even like mmorpg's. Hopefully it gets fixed soon and hopefully it'll survive and thrive after Elder Scrolls Online is released.

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blackothh

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Edited By blackothh

ah, that explains why the game was all messed up yesterday.....


Im enjoying the game alot, i did not expect it to be so good. hope it gets fixed soon!

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Arthas045

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Edited By Arthas045

Hate to see exploits like this, but the game is a sleeper man..... The game turned out to be way better than I had thought.

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blackkatrecordi

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i thought it was in Beta??? isnt finding bugs like this what Beta is for?

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Thanatos2k

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@blackkatrecordi It's the new scam companies are using - make people pay for beta.

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ranbla

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@Thanatos2k @blackkatrecordi True, and it's sad that so many people fall for this. If people would just hold onto their money until the game is officially declared released, then when things go wrong, the company and fanbois don't have the beta excuse to fall back on.

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colt_a

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@blackkatrecordi Once you stop wiping characters and start taking people's money its not really beta anymore. Cryptic is using the beta guise to make people not mad that they are paying for a game that isn't even halfway complete.

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stev69

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@blackkatrecordi Its complete and its as complete as its going to get, its just not very good. It was a mistake to let Cryptic loose with such an IP. You can cap a toon in a couple of days if you put some effort in, it took me four days to get to forty with very little effort, its such a generic snooze fest. The faster combat is fun in the beginning but it flatters to deceive, and once you get past that you quickly begin to realise its just another obvious online cash shop.

I can't even see how they expect to make any money out of it, there really is no need to buy anything form the cash shop, they really are relying on lame hooks and impulse buying from people with no attention span to make it work, its so obvious its not even funny. I pity anyone who preorded, if those people are happy with their purchase they won't be for long.

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H0RSE

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Edited By H0RSE

@stev69@blackkatrecordi "You can cap a toon in a couple of days if you put some effort in, it took me four days to get to forty with very little effort, its such a generic snooze fest."

- In the original Guild Wars, you could hit lvl 20 (max lvl) in one day...There is more to an MMO than the length it takes to lvl your toon...

"The faster combat is fun in the beginning but it flatters to deceive, and once you get past that you quickly begin to realise its just another obvious online cash shop.

I can't even see how they expect to make any money out of it, there really is no need to buy anything form the cash shop,"

- So it's an obvious online cash shop, but you can't see how they could make any money since players don't need to buy anything... Wouldn't that kinda defeat the purpose of being an "obvious" cash shop? Wouldn't something so blatantly "obvious" constantly be looming over players, letting them know that they eventually will have to spend money, rather than opting for the "pay for this optional, not required to progress content," business model? Sounds a bit contradictory....



"I pity anyone who preorded, if those people are happy with their purchase they won't be for long."

- There was no "pre-order." It's a free game.... you could purchase a founders/guardian pack for early access to beta's, but it isn't a pre-order. A pre-order would necessitate the existence of a "regular" or "post" order, which doesn't exist.

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X-RS

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Edited By X-RS

@stev69

Did you play any good foundry missions? I played one and it was way better than in game content (had to read, challenging combat). I'd say thats the hilight of this game for DnD fans.

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bdixon76

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@stev69 @blackkatrecordi Almost all of this F2P crap is a snooze fest meant to milk people for money. Also, pushing SO hard for the casual player kills the game because it TOO bland and TOO easy.

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blackothh

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@stev69 @blackkatrecordi i would buy things if they were not so stupid expensive. its like 10$ for another inventory bag. and we need like 4 to fill out.

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blackothh

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@colt_a @blackkatrecordi yea im getting annoyed that games are doing that, because all it does is piss people off when they change something that they already paid for because it was overpowered or something. But they do have a lot of bugs that are still annoying me that i want them to take care of. Like notably, if im on skype and i close the profession window it minimizes my game and hangs up on my call lol. Beta should be Beta and everything starts from scratch on release day.


But i am enjoying the game in general.

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Mojira7

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The game is fun. But I haven't logged in the last week. I wish it weren't so ...linear... with the story campaign...but hey I guess that's what the player created dungeon foundry thing is for :)

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blackothh

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@Mojira7 The foundry stuff has a huge potential!

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maitkarro

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Astral Diamonds bought for real money, nah, you get Zen for real money or trade Astral Diamonds for it or vice versa.

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DiscGuru101

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Edited By DiscGuru101

Not mentioned: they rolled back all accounts 7-hours too.

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RomanKingNYC

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It's a shame because Neverwinter has turned out to be the surprise hit of the year for me. It's actually a very polished game and I am enjoying playing it. I hope they fix the issue so that I can get back to my Kick Ass Trickster Rogue.

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Edited By Hurvl

In this world of economical turmoil, it's both interesting and sad to see MMO's face economical mishaps as well. If only the real world economics could be fixed by taking it offline and fixing a bug, but then again, it's easier to find exploits in MMO's I'd guess. It also points to the the fact that people are always looking for loopholes and individual gain, whether it's on the expense of others or not.

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SauhlGood

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@Hurvl markets of any kind with humans as the weakest link do not self-regulate, despite the free-market capitalists bs

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Tripwolf

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Edited By Tripwolf

What do you expect when dealing with a Pay-to-Win game?

You can buy the best mounts, gear, enchants and everything else with RL money. Can't get more pay-to-win than that.

Of course people are going to go out of their way to exploit your game.

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slowram

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Edited By slowram

@Tripwolf Hmm, sounds like life.

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doolies

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Astral Diamonds are not the in game currency bought with real world cash, that would be Zen.

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Tripwolf

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@doolies You buy Zen and trade it for AD. It's the same thing.

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skate17e

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@Tripwolf @doolies you can get AD with gold...It's NOT the same thing

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deactivated-5fdcd979043b9

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@colt_a @skate17e @enartloc @Tripwolf @doolies I've bought several items with gold and then sell them for AD... How the hell is that not getting AD for gold?...

Like the man previously said, do play the game before commenting.

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colt_a

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@skate17e @enartloc @Tripwolf @doolies Maybe you should play the game. You can't get AD for Gold. Gold is a near worthless currency only good for buying potions, kits, and your mount. It has no conversion rate into AD (the real currency of the AH). You can only get AD from daily quests and converting Zen you bought with real money.

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skate17e

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Edited By skate17e

@enartloc @skate17e @Tripwolf @doolies maybe you should play the game before commenting? Thanks

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enartloc

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@skate17e @Tripwolf @doolies you can't get AD with gold,stop lying

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