Dupping - any word on roll-back?

[Catweazel]

Second, while this MAY be a partial solution for some servers, I can tell you it won't be for Stromm. Currently the skies are red on my server and are expected to remain red for the next nine months to a year. What that means is that there will be no market for your AAAAA's on Stromm (and I imagine a few other servers).

Obviously we have no idea how many boxes are stored away on alts. If there is a chance to make some amends by making the level 80 augs combine in a different box, and there is still time to make such an adjustment it would presumably be a healthy situation for everyone. Surely no-one would have stockpiled duped AAAA boxes "just in case" they were usable in SOF?

The current market might be dead but at least the new one need not be tainted.

[Tobynn]

Obviously we have no idea how many boxes are stored away on alts

True, but the duped items stored on alts doesn't concern me much. Its the bucketload stored on corpses now in Shadowrest that concerns me.

[gggrant]

Obviously we have no idea how many boxes are stored away on alts. If there is a chance to make some amends by making the level 80 augs combine in a different box, and there is still time to make such an adjustment it would presumably be a healthy situation for everyone. Surely no-one would have stockpiled duped AAAA boxes "just in case" they were usable in SOF?

The current market might be dead but at least the new one need not be tainted.

I don't think you understand what I was saying. It is not expected for anyone to be raiding the zones where the new aug stones will be dropping on my server for almost a year. I imagine there are a few other servers in similar straits. In other words, there will be no market for the new AAAA boxes.

[Qaladar Bragollach]

Not to mention there are many guilds on many servers just now getting into demi or else knocking on the door and level 80 will push them into it.

For those people AAAA's will continue to be a large market.

[Roanne]

I was away from EQ on vacation when this whole duplication exploit was going on. On my return a few days ago (after the fixes and supposed bannings) the market is still flooded with AAAAs and I can safely predict *none* of the pre-exploit legitimate producers of AAAAs are still making them (for commercial purposes anyway). Everyday there are more AAAAs for sale and I cant sell the one I had on my trader at what it cost to make.

The market is definitely ruined and probably for a long time. Pre-exploit I could sell 1-2 AAAAs per week and there were typically 5-6 AAAAs for sale in the bazaar from 3-4 different traders at any given time. Right now there are 24 for sale at less than I can make them for. Most of those are from 3 traders I never saw selling AAAAs before and they seem to have a steady supply of AAAAs as their stock keeps going up, not down.

Im no detective but I know where Id start looking if I were really interested in finding the exploiters and defending the integrity of the market. Yes, its possible these sellers are just running a buy low, sell high business plan but there are currently no buyers buying AAAAs and prices are going down so I dont think theyre just buying cheap from other traders. It seems the logs of these traders should lead to people who clearly exploited the bug if anyone really cared to pursue it.

The devs cannot claim to have done the legitimate players hurt by this exploit any favors nor to have taken the integrity of the "market" seriously other than to have eventually fixed the game mechanic that made it possible in the first place.

Okay, so the AAAA market has shifted to a buyers market. I can accept that. I sure dont need the cash from selling these to get by and I can find something else to spend my free time and tradeskills on. I can save the one AAAA I cant sell for personal use, then just buy any others I need at below market cost while supplies last.

However, I predict it will be a long time before the market returns to normal. Eventually the extra supplies will be used up, but as near as I can tell no one has even investigated how large the supply is nor done much to remove the illegitimate bulk of it.

Whether or not AAAAs go on for use in level 80 augmentations is rather inconsequential from my perspective. Level 80 augmentations will be the driving force of the market as soon as casual raiding players have access to them. If AAAAs are still used, the demand will help dry out the exploit market sooner but the legitimate producers of AAAAs will not benefit from that market until then. If AAAAs arent used, whatever replaces it will benefit whoever can make it, but the sub-level 80 market will be skewed for a long long time.

As Ive always said, the real market winners in the tradeskill game have always been those who acquire and sell the raw materials used in tradeskills, not the tradeskillers. We just play the game to feed our bad habits.

[Catweazel]

Not to mention there are many guilds on many servers just now getting into demi or else knocking on the door and level 80 will push them into it.

For those people AAAA's will continue to be a large market.

I don't think you understand what I was saying. It is not expected for anyone to be raiding the zones where the new aug stones will be dropping on my server for almost a year. I imagine there are a few other servers in similar straits. In other words, there will be no market for the new AAAA boxes.

I understood. I am suggesting that it is possible to create a new market for level 80 augs that will be totally uninfluenced by the current mess. Timing is really irrelevant.

The issue of what to do with the current market is beyond my skills. It is wrecked, and if suspicions of others are correct, will remain wrecked until Shadowrest is empty.

As Ive always said, the real market winners in the tradeskill game have always been those who acquire and sell the raw materials used in tradeskills, not the tradeskillers. We just play the game to feed our bad habits.

In this particular case though, the raw materials are now sitting gathering dust if the real manufacturers are not making any. A quick survey of gnome bolt prices over the last few weeks verifies this very quickly.

[Rawckett]

I would love to see a subtle adjustment to the recipe for AAAA boxes for level 80 cultural armor augs from SOF -- call them AAAAA boxes or whatever and add a clockwork gnome bolt to the recipe or something.

That would be a good idea to do now. If people were really innocent, they'd most likely not be effected now if this was changed, as well as chaning the Bazu and LB augs to match.

That would really stick it to the cheaters.

[Marissas]

exponge Shadowrest of bodies on all servers, voila

[Itek]

exponge Shadowrest of bodies on all servers, voila

Player-wipe. It's the only way to be sure. (That's a !$%!#$ JOKE for the humor impaired, not a serious suggestion. Don't, repeat DO NOT, pretend it is an actual suggestion.)

I already did that joke.

[Ngreth Thergn]

There is another possible thing to do, but again, it would punish some legitimate people.

I could change the name on the AAAA to "Obsolete Ambleshift's Amazing Automated Amalgamator" (as long as that is 50 characters or less... and I am not counting right now...) and have the recipe make a new one that I replace in the combines.

But again, that is going to punish those that legitimately made them and have not been able to sell because of the mess.

So I am **NOT** particularly keen on the idea.

I cannot comment otherwise on the efforts of CS in any way (which is why I have been quiet for a while), this would just be something that *I* can do.

[Mufu]

Should do the same thing to bags, All valuable bags become rocks, deleting all their contents. That will fix them.

[Zopharr]

I could change the name on the AAAA to "Obsolete Ambleshift's Amazing Automated Amalgamator" (as long as that is 50 characters or less... and I am not counting right now...) and have the recipe make a new one that I replace in the combines.

But again, that is going to punish those that legitimately made them and have not been able to sell because of the mess.

That would also hurt a lot of folks who have bought them. My guild maintains a 'list' for Last Bloods. Getting on the list requires having the AAAA, mechanoinstructions and lubricating goo and showing them to an officer. (Don't ask me why they don't want the seal as well.) We'd have about a dozen folks in my guild alone out plat, especially as many of the knights are cottoning on to the fact that they can get better armor than raid drops without spending DKP.

I'd much prefer that CS track down the relevant accounts and ban them and all accounts associated with that credit card. If they can track down what happened further down the line, pull any 'contaminated AAAAs, and refund whatever was paid (probably leave alone anyone who has already made a seal for simplicity's sake). But that's a CS issue, not a TS issue.

(Quellious doesn't seem to have been hit much. High-end containers, whether Tae Ew or Leatherfoot Haversacks are rare - haven't seen any in over a week. AAAA market seems the same as before; saw two AAAA up for 78K last week but otherwise the same 115k-125k being sold by the same vendors as usual.)

Garshok

[Vorton]

I had a thought for a bit of a compromise that just might kill two birds with one stone. First there are a large number of ill gotten AAAAs suspected of being hidden around the various servers. Second most consider using up an AAAA for a chronal or discordant stone to be too much effort/coinage for the result.

My idea is to rename all AAAA in the game, give a bit of warning so that people with a stone ready to go can use it, to Ambleshift's Basic Combining Device. Set all chronal and discordant augs to use the new ABCD. Have the current recipe in game continue to make Ambleshift's Amazing Automated Amalgamator and create a new recipe for the Ambleshift's Basic Combining Device.

For ease of changing things I think that removing the requirements for 3 of the 5 Clockwork Gnome Bolts from the AAAA would put the difficulty at about the right level for the chronal and discordant augs. Therefore simply changing the Ambleshift, Poxysmit, and Scrindite gearboxes from using CGBs to vendor bought gnomish bolts, and dropping the trivial down to around 200, to make Ambleshift's Average, Poxysmit's Pedestrian, and Scrindite's Standard gearboxes and use those in place of the others to make the ABCD would be about right.

That still puts a bit of hurt on legitimately made AAAAs that can't be used up in time but doesn't leave them with a completely useless product.

[Qaladar Bragollach]

Yes it does leave them with a useless product. We get 1-2 bazu stones a week. Chronal's? I've seen one and it rotted cause chronal + elaborate armor = not an upgrade for anyone.

Discordant I've never seen one.

[Liwsa]

Just make the current AAAA and tokens no drop. Folks that have them for their own use can still use them. Folks that dupped them will have them for their own use but can't sell them. Change the recipe name to something else, using the same recipe so that the folks MAKING them can still make them as the new item.