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World of Warcraft Duping Bug Found
Over the course of this morning several people have sent me tidbits talking about an exploit on WoW that allows duping of items. Apparently forum posts are being removed on official channels, but there are a few places where you can learn about the exploit and see
screenshot evidence. In equally exciting news, my Rogue on Azjol-nerub is probably 2 hours away from 60 and since Blizzard will undoubtedly fix this bug soon, I'll have to finance my epic mount the old fashioned way!
Let me guess... Too busy duping items?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
China's unemployment rate raised 50% this morning due to this bug.
Fun game while it lasted, now I fear its gone the way of Diablo II. Many servers are allready swamped with duped items. Even if they fix the bugs it would require a roll back to address the economy problems. Such a roll back would cause many players such as myself to pack up and leave (whats the point of spending weeks doing somthing when it will just be undone in the next roll back?).
Ah well, it is just a game after all.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Hmm... judging by the screenshots...
DELETE FROM user WHERE username LIKE "Gu%en";
All it will take is for Blizzard to parse their logs to look for this. I'm hoping to see some accounts banned.
Somebody should have told Leeroy Jenkins about this one.
Every server also went down for maintenance this morning and the web is being flooded with news of the exploit. Wonder how long it'll be before the exploit is fixed and the exploiters are banned. Good job blurring the name on the screenshot, but it won't take long for Blizzard to see who has that many epic items for sale on the auction house and put 2 and 2 together. Maybe it's just me, but when I agree to a terms of service, I tend to abide by it the same as I would any other contract. Does nobody care what they put their name to or agree to anymore?
I suspect they are working on putting together a lawsuit.. Doesn't slashdot hold the patent on duping?
Starsucks
in the event that thread is closed or dead: http://www.firepacket.net/wowdupe.html BTW, what happened to that "unique id" that each item had that prevented anyone from ever having two of them?
MIRROR:
1 ef0e8bf4d92/index.html
http://mirrordot.org/stories/46bab61809b5dd911662
For every single dupefix, three new dupes are created. Goodbye, WoW economy..
/goes back to playing Shadowbane.
In Shadowbane, the dupes didn't quite kill the game like originally thought. Instead, they reinforced the idea that 'rare' items needn't be that rare for a good pvp game. Rare items usually just mean someone spent more time to get them - and better pvp'ers don't necessarily spend more time playing the game.. So in Shadowbane, if your guild is a good experienced guild, you can completely stock your guilds' characters and many alts with the best pvp gear. Then, it all comes down to organization, experience, and how well each character is built to win in pvp.
PVE is lame. Anyone who has pvp'd in any decent pvp mmorpg knows that. Maybe if Wow's economy gets totally fucked, I'll give it a try. But, hell if I'm gonna spend hours and hours to make a perfect character with decked-out gear that doesn't involve pvp.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
This story was already posted earlier. Oh wait...
I mean, go to IGE or simular and just buy all your gold if you really want to buy your epic mount. You're a fricken millionaire right?
I mean, if you're just going to do an exploit to get your gold what's the difference? Hell, just buy an account with a couple of level 60 characters.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Ultima Online had this problem... a lot.
...
... ;)
It really killed the gold market, everything was incredibly inflated because people would dupe 10 million gold checks (which are what they sound like, just a marker for 10 million gold)
It's not always trackable if you move it into items... trade it away, buy stuff from stores then resell it... it's like virtual money laundering...
Though that all depends on if/how WoW tracks gold, perhaps they've made improvements over UO (as UO is rather old)
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
Seems to be UUI, which is just a package of a bunch of smaller mods. The top bar is called Titan Panel if you want to download just that.
The reported bug:
On a heavily loaded server: You give your gold/item to a friend. You then enter an instance area. If you load, fine, no bug. If not, and it kicks you out after 1 minute (due to load), you still have your gold.
So obviously what is happening is that the "Failed to load" instance response is going back to some character checkpoint previously created, with this checkpoint being somewhat older.
The fix (which will probably be put in place by now) is to checkpoint the character when he/she attempts to enter an instance. So you aren't gonna be able to exploit this bug anymore. Sorry, 1AM3 CH3373RZ!
Also, if blizzard DID serial # all items, then it will be a pretty simple script to prune the duplicated items. But as they probably don't serial # gold, it might still have some economic disruption.
Test your net with Netalyzr
Like press the following in a sequence X Y A B 4 3 5 3 2 8 7 and then press all these together (probably with the help of your friend) Alt+Ctrl+Esc+Insert+Delete+F5
Then you will see you have unlocked all your levels but have crashed windows.
What does your Credit Report look like?
From the FoH Boards: Apparently there is a gold dupe that happens when you zone in and out of the orange side entrance of Maraudon. I don't have the details unfortantly, so I couldn't say if its just a huge farce or the real deal. Anyone else able to confirm this? Edit: Apparently this is done with two people. Heres post I found over the issue. New edit is for the title to reflect the fact whole inventories can be duped. "Topic: I just duped 900g! Me and a friend were going to go to mauradon. He put a soulstone on me, then I zoned into the instance, but the loadbar didn't move. A minute later, It put me back outside the instance, and I no longer had a soulstone on me. Thats when I got an idea. I gave all my gold to my friend, zoned in, and when the same thing happened (no load bar, auto-zoned out), I had all my money and my friend had all the money I had given him. "
Awww, there is only one beer left and it's Barts.....
I know the guy meant "rubberbanded", but it's still a great word.
rubberbanned v. To be repeatedly banned from and attempt to return to a server or IRC channel.
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
Make sure to say hi to the other 5 Shadowbane players for me, thanks.
Alas, Babylon.
They can still probably catch the people abusing the bug for gold. I know that less than a year after EQ came out, the GMs had available an economic report that showed them who had accumulated an unusual amount of money in a short amount of time.
;)
As their machines got faster and they got more hard drive space, they started logging a *lot* more details. I'll go out on a limb and say Blizzard is doing something similar. I don't know how long the bug was being abused, so it's hard to tell whether anyone at Blizzard actually dropped the ball or whether it was just now being abused to the point where it was easily detectable.
In any case, they certainly know about it now
For a few days, people have been sitting in Ironforge just giving away gold. I assumed then, and now feel 99% sure, that these were people who'd used the dupes and were trying to muddy the waters - make it so that Blizzard would have to either completely screw over legitimate players who thought they were just getting a nice gift from people on "their side" etc.
So, what can be done to remove this stuff from the environment? Some are suggesting a rollback to the last maintenance spot, making people lose a week of progress (and, presumably, pissing off legitimate people/losing accounts) in order to get the duped stuff out of the economy. Does it even need to be removed?
I, personally, don't really care if it's there or not - the "economy" as it is seems pretty random anyway, and I'm not terribly bothered if some other player has things I don't.
Clearly they need to fix the actual exploit/bug, and hopefully remove the accounts of the people who actually did it (not that that will accomplish anything other than getting rid of a few suburban teens while the people who make real money off this just go buy a few more copies) but is it really that big a deal to the average player?
Since I can't tell them apart, I treat all ACs as the same person.
The other day on the Mannoroth server someone was selling mounts at a discount.
He was selling undead mounts for 50g he said he had enough for "everyone who wanted them".
I was like, how can someone stock up on hundreds of mounts and sell them at a discount ?
Now I realize he bought one duped it to hell and sold it at a discount. A nice way to make money and a way for poeple to get their mount cheap !
Therefore, the word addiction comes to mind and you won't leave no matter how much you bitch about rollbacks.
If anyone deserves to be modded up in this thread, it's you. I can't imagine playing these games as an adult. I grew up playing D&D-style games on my Commodore 64 (Ultima 4, Bard's Tale, Pool of Radiance, etc), but I can't even imagine playing these MMORPG games.
1. I'm an adult. My serious computer game playing days should be behind me.
2. Is there an end to these things? My only saving grace that let me return to a normal eating/sleeping pattern with games of the past is that they freakin' ended at some point. I don't think I ever would've seen the light of day if I played a game that never ended. Especially if it gave me a poor facsimile of social interaction by being able to communicate with real people inside the game.
3. How in the world could anyone with a job compete with the people that play this 24x7?
Those games are dangerous.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Blizzard absolutely has something like this going on. When they first started cracking down on gold buyers, there were some instances where guild "treasurers" were mistakenly banned because they had insane amounts of gold they were holding for their guild.
People are going crazy over this, but I don't think it's the end of the world. I wonder if a rollback is even necessary. If a character is exploiting this for massive gain, it'll be pretty easy to catch them in the act; either their selling 15 copies of [UberPurpleSword] or they've gone from like 50 to 5000 gold in 6 hours. Those characters that get in under the radar or just exploit it for minimal gain aren't really going to hurt the economy that much. Fine, maybe some characters get a lot of gold or a lot of good items, but so what? The gold will eventually be spent one way or the other, and Soulbound ensures that eventually all the items will become worthless as well.
Actually, when I viewed the front page, this story was duped. Two completely identical stories, one only viewable for subscribers. After a refresh, it was gone.
I wonder if it was a glitch in the database, a humorous admin, or just the usual dupe getting caught.
I'm not convinced that this exploit really exists. If there is an exploit, I'm not sure I believe that the linked instructions are correct.
w ow-dungeons&T=89153&P=7
First of all, people started wondering if something was wrong when they noticed level 30 players in Maraudon, a level 45+ area.
That is suspicious.
Then, they noticed them cycling between locations repeatedly.
Again, suspicious.
But the "instructions" that this article links to say it can be done in The Deadmines, which is a level 20+ instance.
If it can be done in the deadmines, then why bother going to an area like Maraudon at level 30 where you are likely to be killed?
In addition, it is suspicious that this has to be done "early in the morning after a reset" in order for it to work. Convenient to dissuade people from testing it.
A lot of people are treating this as fact this morning, but no one can actually log in to try it for themselves because the servers are down for maintenance.
The supposed source of the exploit is http://www.gamebugs.org. Take a look at their public forums where everyone is writing "please activate my account!!!" messages. A number of messages on the official WoW forums list the gamebugs.org URL in the subject line (very convenient for them, don't you think?).
Here is a link to a more detailed thread on the official forums:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?FN=
PVE is lame. Anyone who has pvp'd in any decent pvp mmorpg knows that.
Well that's constructive. Would you care to explain why?
In the meantime; I like PvE, thanks. I've played Planetside, and Guild Wars, and both have good PvP IMHO, but I prefer generally prefer PvE. It may not be as action packed, but maybe when I get home, and I'm tired, stressing myself out isn't what I want to do.
You're right, I'd have to spend countless hours to get the perfect character, but y'know what, I don't mind, because I don't PvP, and therefore just "pretty good" equipment is fine for me and my PvEing.
1. 7/19 - Weekly maintenance extended | 7/19/2005 10:52:00 AM PDT
f n= wow-general&t=4095298&p=1&tmp=1#post4095298)
(Tyren)
The weekly maintenance has been extended while we investigate the validity of the claims regarding a possible exploit in the game. We remind our players that discussing possible exploits on the official forums is a violation of the Code of Conduct, and such threads will be deleted without prior notice.
(http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?
I'd be interested in your numerous publications about how to "program proper code" and/or make a MMORPG bug-free from day one. Actually, a book on how to make a bug-free software, whatever the software would do. But I doubt anyone would risk writing one.
OMG you have just explained this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The linked screenshot is plainly edited to show multiple copies of the same item: the texturing behind each Krol Blade item line is identical and there is a cut line horizontally between each one, whereas normally the item line is transparent and the auction window texture should be seamless & varied behind the items.
This doesn't confirm the existence of the bug either way.
Additionally, Blizzard has extended their normal Tuesday maintenance to investigate the duping claims.
Live simply, that others may simply live. -Gandhi
Am I the only one who thinks its absolutely retarded that a link was included with instructions on how to perform the dupe?
Way to go Slashdot. Its always nice to see (semi) mainstream news sites helping people cheat at the online games they play.
If only we could find the duping bug on Slashdot.
Have fun: Join D.N.A. (National Dyslexics Association)
eh, calm down...losing a few mod points isn't the end of the world. They probably though it was flamebaitish because the attitude you took and cursing the guy out. You could have just pointed out (politely) that you didn't appreciate that Slashdot posted links on how to do the hacks. But really, you have to understand...slashdotters are a lot of engineers...we like to break things down and see how they work. If there is a way to mod something, a way to hack something, we want to understand how it works, even if we don't play the game you take too seriously. In any case, the servers are down, this will be fixed...there really isn't a reason to freak out so much. Free yourself...stop caring about mod points, they are meaningless anyways.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
Secondly, news spreading faster will guarantee a more timely fix. Blizzard has demonstrated numerous times that they'll allow bugs that hinder players to sit around for long periods of time without being addressed, while bugs that are exploitable to help players get hotfixed as quickly as possible.
Similarly, obscure exploitable bugs tend to stay around a lot longer than highly visible common knowledge exploitable bugs.
OH NOES teh economy is rooined!!!11
Seriously people--what game are you playing? There is no economy in WoW once a server reaches even just adolescence.
Epics go for hundreds of gold while their similar rare counterparts sell for 20%. Medium or heavy leather doesn't even sell. The market is totally saturated.
Just enjoy the game and don't worry about this kind of crap. Blizzard isn't going to roll anything back--they know from previous MMORPGs that controlling an economy is a feeble effort at best. You can't create a fair environment when the players aren't on level ground, and they're not trying to make it fair. They're just trying to make it fun for both casual and hardcore gamers. A rollback is not going to help that purpose and it's not in their best interest.
I threw it into PS and adjusted the levels real quick to see for myself and its clearly a cut and past job. Here are my results side by side with a screenshot I took... Enjoy! http://homepage.mac.com/murdockscott/otherimages/d upeFake.jpg
Doc.
Agreed.
MMORPGs are pretty hard to secure (i.e. this single break doesn't seem that bad to me), but Blizzard also had a legitimately bad record going into WoW.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Actually, the most convincing evidence is that if you log into the game and crank up the gamma, and then crank the gamma on the linked image, you can see that in-game, the background pattern doesn't repeat (at least, not seven or eight times in the window vertically), and the long boxes for each item don't overwrite what's there before - instead, they tint it darker, so even the background inside each item box should be different.
It's clearly not that way in the linked image, so it's decidedly a fake.
That doesn't mean that the problem does or doesn't exist, though.