Amazon Game Studios has revealed that it's issued over 1000 New World bans to players using any of several gold dupe exploits. The studio also says it's looked into whether duped items and gold have had an impact on endgame progression and found that this mostly hasn't happened.
Why have these New World bans been issued?
In the past few months, several economy-breaking New World gold bugs have been discovered. These include a furniture dupe glitch that led to AGS disabling trading yesterday (which is still down), as well as other gold duplication exploits, some of which appeared after others were squashed. In a new developer blog, Amazon says that it's issued over 1000 New World bans to players using these exploits and has removed 98% of remaining duplicated items and coin in the game as a result. Some duped items remain, but Amazon says these were discovered by players who "stumbled upon" the glitch and didn't take any action to exploit it, so those players won't be banned.
Although Amazon admits that duped gold and items have "hurt many players' experience", the studio says that this problem hasn't impacted the endgame much. There hasn't been a "significant uptick" in players with high-level gear; while some armor has been duped, most max-level equipment is still rare. Of all the players who've reached the cap of level 60 in New World, just 9.1% have a single piece of 600-gearscore equipment. Only 5.8% have an endgame-level Voidbent item, and just 2.4% have a full set of 600-gearscore items. That's likely to be cold comfort to players who have been affected by the economy, though, and it's worth noting that New World trading is still disabled at time of writing. It's worth checking out Amazon's full blog post for the lowdown on this issue.
Why are all these New World glitches happening?
As a new MMORPG, New World was always bound to run into its fair share of teething problems. Let's not forget the World of Warcraft Corrupted Blood incident, or the fact that Final Fantasy XIV was so poorly-received on launch that the developers had to nuke the world and restart the game entirely (although perhaps that one goes beyond "teething problems"). The latest gold dupe glitch in New World is just one of a growing list of game-breaking bugs, though, including the infamous hatchet damage bug and the one that causes players to get stuck in the Immobilized status.
You can pick up New World right now via Steam. It's $39.99 as a one-off payment, with no subsequent subscription fee to pay. You may want to hold off until you can trade with other players again, though, since the in-game economy is pretty dependent on being able to do this. It remains to be seen whether Amazon Game Studios will be able to stay on top of any further gold dupe bugs that may develop, but we'll bring you more on this game as soon as we get it.
Are you reassured by Amazon Game Studios' new dev blog? Let us know in the comments below!
