One of the hardest thing for both publishers and developers in the online gaming industry is to approve (or decide upon) a rollback.

Every once in a while, some “wise guy” will find an exploit inside the game which threatens the integrity of the game and/or the game balance which is mostly hinged upon the economy. Almost all games have a fixed drop rate so that rare and powerful items are kept… well… rare (and valuable).

The moment one screws up with this delicate balance, the entire game and the community crumbles down like a deck of cards.

During my years here at the company, I have witnessed various roll-backs and I must say, it really is a tough call to make. Dissatisfaction from the player base is among our top concerns. That’s why most rollbacks are done with some compensation involved. I remember the time in Ragnarok when a bug in Alberta allowed anyone to upgarde ANYTHING (yep, even accessories) to a sure +10!!! /gg

That was disaster!

Imagine a game wherein everyone had maximum upgraded gear? During that sad night, all people had to look to me to make the call. Given the gravity (no pun intended) of the situation, the only logical choice was to roll it back. I couldn’t allow the game to suffer if all hell broke loose. Now, the pRO team is again faced with a tough choice. I am there to guide and support them all the way, of course but I want them to analyze the situation and decide for the good of the customers (and for the brand and the business). The dreaded “duped item issue” is another challenge to hurdle…

Currently, there is talk and suggestions from the community. Now this is good. For me, feedback (if it is constructive) is helpful since it allows the game team to make informed choices. Though we get complaints (and customers DO have the right to complain), sometimes the stress alone makes it tougher. There are a lot of components to an issue. And an issue such as item duping (which is happening also now in Khan) is serious shit! I kid the not). The IT team will have to look and investigate, the Prod Dev GMs will have to verify and try to replicate the cause. While various people and teams will spend sleepless nights trying to figure out solutions and tricks to try to correct the problem. See? It’s not all fun and games in a gaming company.

Khan just rolled back today due to exploits in the game. Together with the Khan team, it was a tough choice to make. But to protect the game and for balance issues, the only logical thing to do is roll it back.

I hope that the players (for whatever game) understand the necessity of this. A lot of “innocents” will indeed feel “affected” or feel that their time, effort and money was wasted with the rollback. But trust me, if we allow the problems to continue, in the long run, ALL will be wasted.

That’s a mouthful! Whew!

Cheers!

 GM T