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Some New World players are exploiting a recently-discovered bug that allows gold to be duplicated in massive quantities. In the hours since the exploit was discovered, Amazon has issued a statement reminding players that intentionally exploiting bugs like this is against the game's Code of Conduct and offenders will be banned.
The exploit was discovered following the release of update 1.0.3, which finally brought server transfers to the popular MMO, a feature created to address the long server queues many players experienced at launch. Some players who attempted to transfer their characters to a different server were hit with a "Character_Persist_Failure" error. Some players with this error discovered that, if they sent gold to another player and then logged off and back in, the gold they traded away would magically return. In the MMO business, we call that a gold dupe exploit. Gold dupe panic quickly spread on New World's subreddit today, and Amazon Games is taking the (now corrected) bug seriously.
"Some players among this small set transferred gold or items while their character was affected. All of these transactions are logged in our database. We are reviewing them now and any players found deliberately using this condition to gain advantage will be banned for exploiting. We will also remove items or gold received where appropriate," Amazon's forum statement reads.
Per the New World code of conduct, it's against the rules to "exploit bugs or other unintended uses of game features." Amazon is deliberately painting with a broad brush, going as far to say, "We reserve the right to determine what constitutes unfair play and to take corrective action we deem appropriate." It's unclear if players set to receive bans for the gold exploit will be permanently barred, or if this will earn a slap on the wrist.
Considering New World uses an entirely player-driven economy fueled by raw goods and a gold standard, any exploit that magically produces more money could quickly get out of hand.
Ironically, some New World players have recently reported a currency shortage on their servers caused by a lack of high-level activities that produce gold, the deflated value of raw goods on the player market, and the absence of NPC vendors that players can consistently sell stuff to. It's unclear how widespread these concerns are across New World's many disparate server communities, but it's nonetheless an interesting consequence of the game's unique economy.
