Neverwinter Days: The great economic collapse of 2013
Betas, Fantasy, Lord of the Rings Online, Bugs, Economy, Opinion, Free-to-Play, Neverwinter Days
As I was getting set to write that column, Neverwinter's economy exploded and then imploded over the course of a weekend, thanks to a nasty exploit that involved, yup, the Gateway. Suddenly my topic had to shift from "isn't this a neat tool?" to "check out what the tools are doing with this tool." Seeing the economy effectively destroyed in a matter of hours and how Cryptic Studios dealt with this PR nightmare might be old news at this point, but it's definitely worthy of reflection, analysis, and speculation as to how trust can be rebuilt in this fledgling title.
Let's get cracking -- we have a lot of ground to cover!


