In the MMORPG The Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) on Sunday there were serious issues that affect the game’s economy. The bug is now recorded as “Black Sunday” in the history of the MMORPG – as the day when the economy of ESO collapsed. Unless Zenimax can do something about it.
What happened? On Sunday, August 18, there were problems with guild traders in ESO. The problem occurred on the PC mega server in Europe.
As players report in the official forum, this bug resulted in players being reimbursed “billions of gold”.
So gold was generated that was not previously in the game and “reimbursed” to players from nowhere. It was a kind of magical gold duplication that apparently occurred due to severe lags and server issues.
So much money is circulating in ESO that everything is becoming more expensive
This is the impact: Players believe this bug has ruined the economy in The Elder Scrolls Online.
This bug has since been dubbed “Black Sunday” – in reference to “Black Thursday”: On a Thursday in October 1929, there was a massive stock market crash.
This bug primarily worries hardcore players who have worked hard to possess a lot of gold in ESO. Now that so much “artificial gold” is in the game, they feel that their “hard-earned gold” is worthless. It’s a kind of hyperinflation.
That also leads to very concrete problems: Items that previously cost 4000 gold now cost 25,000, it is said in the forum (via eso.forum).
Hard to reach because of gamescom
This is the problem: The problem is bad enough in itself, it is exacerbated by the fact that it occurred on a Sunday and the gamescom 2019 is currently taking place in Cologne.
In the days since Sunday, unrest among players has increased. They feel that the economy of ESO and what the traders have just been working for is now ruined, and there has been no official statement for a long time.
Players even demanded a complete rollback of the servers to the moment before the bug occurred. However, that window is likely closed now.
Additionally, there are allegations that threads in the official ESO forum discussing the issue are being deleted.
Zenimax wants a decision from the boss
This is the statement from ESO: The German Community Manager, Kai Schober, has made a statement that he had not issued any statement because he is currently at gamescom. He is now trying to demand binding statements from his boss Matt Firor or Creative Director Rich Lambert if he catches them in Germany between all their appointments.
According to English Community Manager Gina Bruno, they are still investigating the issue with the guild traders and the multiple bids on the PC EU server.
It is said that the problems were likely due to overall overloading of the game and were caused by many add-ons and “multiple bids” that came at the same time.
For the time being, certain functions of add-ons have been disabled and they are working on further safeguards. In the medium term, they are considering methods to reduce the load on the game caused by the guild traders.
At the moment they are looking at which guilds have received too much gold and are considering the right way to deal with it.
This is what is behind it: ESO is often criticized for allegedly bursting at the seams and suffering from the performance. Apparently, these difficulties have now led to this strange problem that hits players on the EU mega server hard, who have invested a lot of time in the MMORPG.
Zenimax is working on a long-term solution for the performance issues.
Thanks to MeinMMO reader Samantha, who made us aware of the problem.
Update 22.8. 14:34: We from MeinMMO conducted an interview with Zenimax about the incident.
