Bethesda, the developers and publishers of Fallout 76, have banned a well-known player. This player had previously discovered an exploit and reported it. Apparently, his tests were the reason for the ban.
Who is the player? The banned player calls himself on reddit mebdev, but is also known by the name undefined7161. In the community, many players know him as the guy who created a map for almost everything.
mebdev is responsible for tools like the Map76 and other free aids that Fallout 76 players use to enhance their gameplay. He is part of a group of dataminers who continually developed more tools for Fallout 76 and helped find bugs.
What kind of exploit is this? In a forum, mebdev learned about an exploit that helped players obtain extremely powerful items. They caused the legendary vendor to accept caps due to a glitch. Normally, she only accepts Legendary Scrips.
As a result, players cheated their way to a bunch of weapons with a “God Roll.” They simply bought more weapons until they had all the perks they wanted.
Ban for his research
Why was mebdev banned now? After reading about the exploit, mebdev set out to replicate it. He spent some time using tools and data mining to trace how the glitch occurred.
He apparently figured out how to replicate it – simultaneously with some other people from his group, who drew Bethesda’s attention to the issue. He also applied the exploit several times himself, then dropped the weapons afterwards.
As he reports, he then left it alone but was banned the next day.
In his report on the situation at Map76.com, he states that Bethesda did not respond to his support requests for weeks and months. Three of his colleagues were also affected – one permanently, another was released again with a warning.
What happens next?
This is what will happen to the site and tools: As long as the matter is not resolved, mebdev plans to take Map76 offline and not develop any further tools. He writes:
The longer I wait for a response from Bethesda’s customer support, the more my faith in their ability to respond to their players diminishes. I do not think this is an issue with their developers or community managers, but specifically with customer support.
Dissatisfaction among mebdev and players: mebdev himself also acquired the new subscription Fallout 1st, which he returned after major problems with the features. Currently, this subscription is causing significant tensions among players:
