It wasreportedearlier today that there was a significant exploit going on in the MMORPGLost Arkover the weekend, one of the worst we’ve ever seen. It was an exploit that could theoretically give players a near infinite number of resources, including honing materials, quality stones and, of course, gold. It understandably had legitimate players in a fury, as they worked hard on their accounts and people exploiting the bug were gaining significantly.
Well, that’s no longer the case, as Amazon has been quick toannounceappropriate disciplinary actions towards anyone who took advantage of this bug. According to the studio, around 2,300 players were involved, with only around half of the players actually opening the unintended rewards.
Lost Ark Suffers Game Changing Exploit
Players found themselves with unlimited resources overnight.
Tiered Suspensions
Banished Days Before the New Raid
Starting today, Amazon has announced that players who participated in this exploit will be punished based on how many chests they opened:
Basing this solely on the number of chests being opened is something we were surprised about because, theoretically, one exploitation would net the player upwards of seven chests to begin with. So if you took advantage of this once and opened the chests you got, you are susceptible to at least a two-week suspension. The rest of the suspensions seem close to what we thought would happen, with Amazon setting an example of players who abuse the system to a high degree.
*There might be a short suspension if Amazon still needs to remove the items from your account during the upcoming maintenance.
Removal of Items
Taking Back What Doesn’t Belong to You
Along with the suspensions, Amazon will be reviewing each account individually and removing the items and gold that were obtained. This includes even those who did not get a suspension. For items that were used, such as honing books and quality stones, Amazon will evaluate their gold value and may reduce it from the account’s gold pool. If you don’t have enough gold to cover the cost of the items, the account will be in the red with negative gold that needs to be paid off before being able to interact with features such as the marketboard.
Amazon will be reviewing each account individually and removing the items and gold that were obtained.
As for items such as Wishful Amulets which don’t have a gold value, the skill’s tripod level will be reverted to their initial stage.
What Was the Exploit?
Igniting Your Roster
If you haven’t been following theLost Arknews as of late, over the weekend, an exploit of the Ignite Server has been brought to the attention of the masses. It involved being able to go into the strongholds of players from the segmented servers, and by doing so, they would obtain rewards from the Express Pass system implemented to reward new and returning players.
These aren’t insignificant rewards, either, as it includes a ton of honing materials, quality stones, level 5 tripods, and even level 9 gems. This was first reported early on in the server’s life cycle, but it mostly went overlooked until recently, and at that point a decent chunk of the population decided to experiment, including ourselves.
This has been one of, if not the biggest exploits Lost Ark has seen, with some of the largest ramifications that could very well spill into the main economy, provided the reports of another bug were correct that could convert bound gold into unbound gold. Regardless, Amazon has brought down the ban hammer to hopefully deter players from doing anything like this in the future.
Amazon Talks Lost Ark Tier 4, Western Changes, Ignite Servers
We spoke with Amazon to get more information on Lost Ark’s long awaited Tier 4 release.
