Monria Mining Bug

It all started with a bang. Monria launched on 5 of November 2013 (3 days ago). One day after the launch came the first big mining claim. Roko the Wolf was just mining Monria with Ziplex TK220 and level 5 amp when he got huge deposit of 40,126 PED Lysterium Stone. If you are not Entropia player that means he got 4000 USD for pressing the left mouse button. It was posted on Monria forum and I thought “that was quick” and gratz him with the message “Gratz, Roko the Wolf. That was fast.” I’m not hardcore miner, but it seemed fast to me to get 40k after just one day of Monria.

It seems that a lot of experienced miner realized what this means, grabbed their mining gear and headed for Monria to mine hard. While the MindArk team was sleeping in their beds proud of the new stuff they implemented in Entropia Universe less than 30 hours ago, the miners mined their asses hitting global after global. Until yesterday ( around 48 hours after Monria release) one good person made a post on Monria forum that there is some mining bug on Monria:

“I hate to be the whistle blower here, but I'm now certain mining is bugged/broken on Monria. I don't know if this really is a bug or just an idea gone wrong. The result must be devastating to the economy. Or at least create an unfair loot distribution. Anyway, the problem is that it's way too easy to find deposits in some locations. And they seem to be amped, CND style too (I think that was the original intention though). But with the current distribution it is being exploited to the max. Just keep an eye on the global log and you'll see. And the mining towers. IMO, the servers should be taken down ASAP.

I think the problem is the distribution/spawn. At first i had miserable mining, but then got two globals and a couple of nice finds in a row. At first i thought "ah.. dynamic ". This was in the level 4 cave. Then i played later yesterday evening and got a massive and some other nice finds seemingly oddly close to each other. It kind of seems like many places are completely dry, but when you get a hit, you can drop probes close be and keep hitting more deposits. I did some testing (hope i don't get banned for it..), unamped, and ended up with 15 ample lysterium claims extremely close to each other. I'll attach a screenshot of the mini map so you can see what i mean. I see that others have made the same discovery and you can find people with large claim clusters everywhere. Stick a big amp on it and you'll most certainly get a few big ones, or towers. In the global log I’ve seen certain people getting endless floods of lysterium globals and hofs. But it's not only connected to lysterium, I think it's just that lysterium is a very common find on Monria and the globals reflect that. But when you see the same person getting 40 lysterium globals within a few minutes, something is indeed not right.

I'm sorry to say, this is the worst mining bug/exploit so far in the history of Entropia. I've done FOMA mining, been playing since 2004 actually. There are people who have probably made tens of thousands of PEDs over the past 24 hours due to this.

Just walk around a bit and you'll see people with huge claim clusters around them

To verify, i just did another test and basically could get 10+ claims by re-probing the same spot. I FOMA was like this I’d be a billionaire by now

It's odd that MA seem to take this so lightly. I submitted a support case this morning when I woke up and saw that the situation had escalated during the night. But they haven't even replied yet.”

When MindArk finally woke up and discovered the unpleasant situation they are in they had to act fast, take the server down immediately and lock some accounts for investigation what really happened.

“Due to issues affecting mining, the Monria server has been taken offline. MindArk's development team is working hard to resolve those issues and get Monria back up and running as soon as possible.

We apologize for any inconvenience, and appreciate your understanding and patience during this unexpected maintenance period.”

Other players also share their experience with the bug

“I started mining on Monria yesterday evening. First the return was really crappy, barely found any deposits at all. Then out of a sudden, i hit two globals in a row and a few considerable -> large in a row. When I came back later, i hit another dry spell, and then bam!, a massive and a few consecutive hits. So I started experimenting and found out that most areas are completely "dry", but where there is an ore/enmatter spawn, it would be incredibly dense. So basically you could drop bombs on the same spot and keep getting hits. So there was definitely something wrong with the distribution/spawn.

It was already late at night for me, so i got to bed, but in the morning i saw that things had escalated as people had found out about the bug. Of course, noone said anything, but there were people with huge claim clusters around them and of course some amped up and flooded the log with globals and hofs. So I created a support case to MA (which they haven't even replied to yet) and contacted the Monria staff and made a post on the Monria forum with an example screenshot and explanations.

I chose not to paste anything here, because I thought it would draw too much attention and there would be a huge influx of players exploiting the bug.

Also, it's no coincidence that the two biggest exploiters are soc mates and have a 40k and 5k lysterium übers on the HoF lis”

Message from MindArk's development team:

“An issue has been identified affecting mining activity in some areas in Entropia Universe. MindArk’s development team is investigating the issue, and hopes to have it resolved as soon as possible.

Some affected avatar accounts have been temporarily locked until the identified issues have been resolved. While we regret the inconvenience this may cause for some of our users, such precautions are necessary in rare cases to protect the real-cash economy of Entropia Universe. Affected accounts will be unlocked as soon as possible.

Thanks for your patience while we resolve these issues.”

Now all this is really complicated. All this is MA fault. But there is rule in the game:

8. MindArk’s Rules of Conduct

j. You must immediately report errors and bugs in the Entropia Universe to MindArk whenever You discover them. You may not “cheat” or otherwise neglect to report errors or bugs, use bugs, slow connection, Internet latency, or other 'exploits' for own benefits or for the benefit of others.

It is obvious that those people weren’t supposed to hit so much globals in such small period of time. They exploited some bug. It’s hard to say if they are aware that they are exploiting bug or not. The game is dynamic and you can hit big anytime just by luck. Are you exploiter in those cases? If MindArk now takes the peds from those players, how can you be sure that when someday you hit big ATH they won’t tell it was exploit and take it all back? On the other hand all that money will have to be paid from the other players. Once the pure TT value that is probably more than 100 000 USD for all the players that exploited the bug. This money will be paid by Entropia Universe players. I’m not sure if only from players on Monria or from everyone in Entropia. And second this will bring down the price of all of the mined resources down to 100% which will make loss for all good miners and traders. I don’t have enough information to say what the right move in this situation is. May be MindArk will cover the losses from the salary of the programmer responsible for the mess.