The developers of Ashes of Creation have taken significant action against a group of professional gold farmers. The head of the MMORPG makes it clear: Those who buy or sell gold for money risk their accounts.
What happened? On the official Discord channel, head developer Steven Sharif addressed the community last night (January 5, 2026) to report on a strike against a coordinated group of professional gold farmers.
The group comprised around 80 accounts and nearly 210 characters. It is believed that the gold farmers exploited a security vulnerability to generate gold and duplicate materials (a so-called dupe exploit). Such activities can have an extremely negative impact on a game’s economy and encourage real-money trading (the sale of gold for euros or dollars, also known as RMT).
How are the developers responding? According to Sharif, the recent maintenance work has already brought a fix for the security vulnerability to the servers. They are now in the process of identifying the duplicated items and tracking the gold transactions in the economy. The items generated through the exploit must be removed from the database.
Furthermore, the studio head of Intrepid explains how they intend to deal with the caught accounts and characters:
I want to make it clear: We have a zero-tolerance policy towards RMT. Participation in RMT, no matter which side of the transaction, will result in a permanent ban. It’s not worth risking your account, and it undermines the significance of your achievements. If you or someone you know is considering RMT, just say no!
Steven Sharif on Discord
A list of the banned characters will be published soon.
“A rare victory for Ashes”
How does the community react to the news? Many players are pleased with the bans imposed on the gold farmers and exploit users. Others complain that the bot problem in the MMORPG’s alpha is already said to be much more widespread.
- McBeefyBare writes on Reddit: “There are so many caravan and fishing bots everywhere …”
- NsRhea adds under McBeefyBare’s post: “Yesterday I killed a mining bot. It dropped over 400 stones. You can see them moving from one place to another trying to mine something that isn’t there, then quickly turn around and try again at another spot.”
- BlamaeuxPrivateEye praises the MMORPG’s team on Reddit, but also makes it clear that he has been dissatisfied with other issues in the past: “I’m actually a hater, but I love seeing bans for RMT. A rare victory for Ashes.”
- Anykeysttv writes on Reddit: “Imagine real-money trading in a yet-to-be-released game. I increasingly doubt that the game will even be released, as I keep reading about how the community is ruining the game already.”
Do such bans even make a difference? Many other MMORPGs like Lost Ark have had enormous problems with farming bots and real-money trading for years.
Particularly attractive to gold farmers are online role-playing games where a) it is very difficult to earn gold without spending money, but gold significantly eases virtual life, and/or b) the economy of a game (such as an auction house) is directly linked with a premium or real-money currency.
If there is also a free-to-play model, through which gold farmers can easily create new accounts for free, it becomes nearly impossible to sustainably win the fight against bots.
In Ashes of Creation, point a applies, but not point b. Additionally, currently, one has to pay to access the early-access version. While the purchase price may be eliminated with the release version, a monthly subscription will then take effect, which one must subscribe to in order to play Ashes of Creation.
If the developers can successfully identify and ban bot and RMT accounts early enough, they have a chance to mitigate the issue. Ultimately, how attractive Ashes of Creation will be for gold farmers in the long run also depends on how many players are willing to buy gold for money. Unfortunately, history shows that some gamers are quite loose with their wallets: The 8 most expensive items in MMOs sold for real money
