GOODBYE, ECONOMY, WE KNEW YOU WELL [Author: Lietgardis]

Each of these platinum scarabs exploited out of vendors are worth just under a D note, or 50,000 pyreals. Burdened players left them on the ground in stacks of 100. Most of Dereth’s new multi-millionaires didn’t need to exploit, they needed only to scrounge.

As of this morning, pyreals are officially worthless. While they’ve never been worth much in trades between players, all supplies from NPCs are essentially free. There’s no need to loot monsters, there’s no need to trade items for D notes; all spell components, mana charges, healing kits and stamina potions are paid for until the Zone shuts down the last server. Risk and reward theory dictates that this is a bad thing.

Assuming that that’s the problem, there’s no simple solution at this point. The damage has been done. The servers should have been brought down last night, rather than the posting of a noncommittal revert warning. Delete all platinum scarabs? People have already sold quite a few, and already have their money. Delete all higher-value trade notes? People made legitimate money last night, and it’s not fair to take theirs away. Delete all high-value NPC purchases, like master robes? People bought those with legitimately-earned money last night, too. Ban the exploiters? Few people actually exploited, it was the passersby that profited.

Despite the protests from those that did play fairly last night, the servers should be reverted to yesterday. No words about quality assurance — bugs are a given. No words about the punishment of exploiters — exploiters started it, but regular players got rich too. Words about fixing reported bugs? One could comment on the frequency of game updates, as that’s the issue there. For now, all most would like to see is a return to normal. A return to normal for the pyreal economy means a revert, and the pyreal economy is frankly more important than a few players’ night’s worth of powerlevelling.

Update, 11:15 AM CST: New server lobby message reads All AC Worlds are coming down in 45 min 9:45 am PST as we prepare a hotfix for a severe bug impacting the economy. We’ll be reverting all character to a point late Wednesday night to mimimize the impact. C State Network for more info. [sic]