Mass currency duplication leads to extended downtime followed by seven hour rollback

It's been a tough weekend for the Neverwinter team.

A number of unscrupulous players took advantage of an in-game bug to wantonly duplicate massive quantities of the Astral Diamond currency.

The exploit used the Open Beta Gateway and the Auction House and had an immediate and increasingly detrimental impact on the game's economy.

As announced on the official forums, the Cryptic team took drastic action. Not only were the perpetrators identified and punished -- including some permanent bans -- but the team was left with little choice but to perform a rollback on the progress of all players in the game.

As shown on similar occasions in other MMOs,players can become rather aggrieved when they lose progress; there is no doubt of the severity of the issue for a rollback to be initiated.

All progress made between 5:20am Pacific and 12:20pm Pacific on Sunday was reverted back to its previous state.

As such an exploit could have done irrevocable damage to the game's economy if left unchecked, it's good to see that the dev team was willing to take the necessary measures for Neverwinter's long term health.

Do you think Neverwinter's team made the right decision?

Scott "Jarimor" Hawkes, Editor in Chief