In the new MMO New World (Steam), Amazon has allegedly cracked down hard and banned a number of cheaters who exploited a “Gold-Dupe” exploit. Honest players praise this but raise concerns: Only those who were foolish enough to get caught were banned.
Why were people banned?
- In New World on November 1, 2021, there was a “Gold-Dupe”: This is when players can multiply the in-game currency by exploiting game bugs.
- These “Gold-Dupes” are so dangerous because they can sustainably damage the economy of a game in a short time. Gold-Dupes are among the worst things that can happen to a game. MMORPGs are particularly susceptible to such exploits in their release phase.
- A user on reddit now says that several people who exploited the latest Gold-Dupe have been permanently banned on his Discord server. This is a surprisingly swift response from Amazon.
“Action will be taken against any player who exploits”
What does Amazon say? The reports of bans coincide with a statement from Monday evening, where Amazon admitted a Gold exploit in New World and announced that they would take action against any player who exploited it (via forums.newworld).
Amazon has not specified how they will deal with dupers, but apparently they are imposing permanent bans.
What else is Amazon doing? To limit the Gold-Dupe exploit, Amazon banned all “Gold Transfers” in the game last night. You can no longer even give gold to someone standing next to you.
Amazon had already cracked down hard during the last Gold-Dupe and removed the server transfers from the game.
“They won’t catch anyone who invests a few brain cells in washing gold”
Here’s what is being discussed: Most players welcome the harsh penalties against exploiters and especially praise how quickly they arrive.
But a reddit user notes that during the ban wave, only players who were too dumb to wash the gold properly that they duped get caught. There are methods in the game to wash duped gold through secondary accounts and redirect it in a way that makes it untraceable where the duped gold ends up.
The player says:
There is no way to ban a player who uses a few brain cells to wash the gold properly without also banning a lot of innocent players as collateral damage.
Reddit user Hororo
Why is a Gold-Dupe so serious? The problem with “Gold-Dupes” is that such illegally created gold remains in the game, leading to massive inflation of gold. As a result, “legally created” gold is worth less, prices rise.
If such exploits remain undiscovered for a long time and are frequently used, the damage to a game’s economy and integrity becomes irreparable. Only a rollback of the servers to an earlier point can help, causing all players to lose their invested time. That’s a nightmare.
In the MMO ARK: Survival Evolved, exploits were so bad in 2017 that they introduced completely new servers where “honest players” could start anew; the old ones were practically given up by the studio:
