For 6 years, there has been a bug in Path of Exile that has finally been resolved after years of seeking a solution. The developer who ultimately managed to fix the bug provides insights into the “hunt” for the problem in a “Dev Blog” post and explains why he will not forget the bug anytime soon.
What bug is it? The bug that has puzzled the developers of Path of Exile for years has become known as “Mangled Text” – in German, this roughly translates to “Verstümmelter Text”. A look at the consequences of the bug shows that this name is fitting.
If you now believe that a text bug is harmless, imagine the following: You read an article on MeinMMO about the new expansion of Path of Exile, but instead of normal letters, various symbols are displayed in the middle of a sentence or a word, which replace the actual letters. Perhaps multiple letters or even whole words and paragraphs are stacked on top of each other.
The article would be unreadable, and it would be significantly harder to understand what the author is trying to convey. In a game, this would mean that the quest, the skill tree, or even story-relevant conversations would be incomprehensible.
In the following image, you can see an example of the curious bug that presents the terms “E-Mail” and “Password” in a very unusual way, reminiscent of the worst font in the world:
The Spectacular Mangled Text Bug
Why is the bug so spectacular? The bug is near infamous among the developers of Path of Exile. The first report of the bug surfaced in 2016, and over the years, many more followed.
The bug existed for years, and before it was resolved, various members of the developer team attempted to solve the riddle, according to the “Path of Exile” Dev Blog post. The problem was that the bug had been very difficult to reproduce for a long time.
Reproducing a bug is, however, the key to investigating the problem and finding out precisely what went wrong.
Ben, the developer who was able to fix the bug after 6 years of searching, will not forget the bug anytime soon. He describes the symptoms of the bug as strange, the search for it as annoying, and says he will almost miss the bug because it existed for so long.
This bug will stay in my memory because it shows particularly strange symptoms, because it’s really annoying to find, and because it has been known for so long. In a way, I will almost miss it, as it is one less “big riddle” to work on. I guess I just have to find the next riddle that can fascinate me!
“Path of Exile” UI programmer Ben in the Dev Blog
If you are fans of Path of Exile and are interested in the successor of the action RPG, feel free to check out MeinMMO’s video that provides you with all the information currently known about Path of Exile 2:
The Community Shows Some Sentimentality
How do players react to the fix of the legendary bug? In the comments under the Dev Blog post, there are several players who vividly illustrate how well-known the bug is in the community. We provide you with a brief overview of notable player comments:
- D1amxnd: “I’m glad you found the solution, but I will probably miss the bug.”
- Lisek8: “Good job, it must have felt great when you figured it out. Great read, I love these little tidbits since I’m a software developer myself. Keep it up!”
- HDTanel: “I’ve stumbled upon this ‘feature’ for years and just thought of it as a ‘great feature’ of the game.”
- Aethroz: “Rest in peace, you beautiful bastard!”
Path of Exile 2 currently has no official release date, and Diablo 4 is also a while away. However, there is currently an action RPG “Last Epoch” on Steam that has been accumulating countless positive reviews and seems like a mix of Diablo and Path of Exile.
On MeinMMO, you can find out what makes Last Epoch special and why it is referred to as a mix of the two success titles.
Action RPG on Steam mixes Diablo and PoE, has over 10,000 positive reviews – “That’s Diablo 4”
