New dupes!

[Laraven]

Just use Google, you can easily find exactly how they are duping the spectral cub.

kk, I don't see the big secret, and Im angry I just goggled to try to find out how and couldn't see anything. So, please give me a link to what is going on.

[Quintessence]

I strongly advise against searching on how this duping process works. Websites that share this type of information could contain malicious code, and might be banking on curious players (researching into this) so that they can exploit them instead. Better to be safe than sorry, and avoid websites that promote the breaking of the game.

Any attempt to "test" duping will lead to a ban from Blizzard. There won't be any possibility of disputing it either. Don't do it. In this case, curiosity will lead to nothing but trouble.

It's certainly frustrating and it's hurting the pet market and the game itself, but all we can do is continue to provide Blizzard with detailed feedback and information regarding any suspected duping we come across. Even though they can't share with us the goings-on behind the scenes (or provide the full and unabridged truth), we just have to trust that they're doing their best to fix it and prevent it from happening again.

[Tiggindy]

Just use Google, you can easily find exactly how they are duping the spectral cub.

...

What bugs me about this whole mess is that it literally takes 5 mins on Google to learn how to do it, yet Blizz keeps denying it is happening.

Send the link to Blizzard if you haven't already.

[Vallon]

i like the influx of unattainable pets. Is that so wrong?

[Quintessence]

i like the influx of unattainable pets. Is that so wrong?

Absolutely not. "More pets" is not the issue, though.

The issue is that these "duped pets" shouldn't exist and only exist through exploiting code in the game. Because of this, if Blizzard finds and confirms any of the dupes, they will remove them.

So let's say you find a seller in trade chat willing to sell you a level 6 Spectral Tiger Cub for 50k. You think, wow, that's a really good deal, so you buy it. He trades it to you, you add it to your journal, and you go on your merry way. The next day you find it gone from your Pet Journal, and end up petitioning a GM to find out why. Turns out the seller was selling dupes, and Blizzard removed all the pets he sold, including the one you added to your journal. Blizzard may or may not refund your gold, but either way you've just lost a pet that you thought you had finally collected.

Others also find that the duping has driven down the pet's worth, which hurts the overall market (in-game and IRL). It's not as if there just happened to be a ton of newly discovered TCG codes causing the influx of pets. People with intent to cheat other people and the game are causing all the changes, which just has a negative impact overall.

[Azrile]

I strongly advise against searching on how this duping process works. Websites that share this type of information could contain malicious code, and might be banking on curious players (researching into this) so that they can exploit them instead. Better to be safe than sorry, and avoid websites that promote the breaking of the game.

Any attempt to "test" duping will lead to a ban from Blizzard. There won't be any possibility of disputing it either. Don't do it. In this case, curiosity will lead to nothing but trouble.

It's certainly frustrating and it's hurting the pet market and the game itself, but all we can do is continue to provide Blizzard with detailed feedback and information regarding any suspected duping we come across. Even though they can't share with us the goings-on behind the scenes (or provide the full and unabridged truth), we just have to trust that they're doing their best to fix it and prevent it from happening again.

Agreed completely. You have to be very careful when accessing those types of websites. (you have to know how to shut-down a lot of auto-features on your browser) I only went there when I saw it posted about here, and I was curious why it was lvl 6 pets, and ONLY that one pet that was being duped. IMHO, that is a silly way to do it, if you have a dupe, then why not do the more expensive pets, and why make them lvl 6, because it became obvious which ones were duped because of that odd level. I saw a quick summary of how it was done. It wasn´t a hack, it was simply a bug, that caused the spectral cub to become bugged in the pet list so that when it was caged, it wasn´t removed from the pet list. It required that pet, and it required it to get to lvl 6.

The thing that bothers me is that 6 weeks ago when we wrote to Blizzard, all we got was this nonsense about ´it is compromised accounts, not a dupe´.. when it clearly WAS a dupe. So here we are, 6 weeks later and they are still being duped, and we now have an army of Blizzard-fanboys who refuse to acknowledge it is a dupe, and instead shout us down by saying ´it is compromised accounts´. if it was compromised accounts, it would have been ALL the pets at basically an equal porportion and there would have been no reason there would be 95% of them at lvl 6.

By the way, from my understanding what is happening now is from TCG. People have figured out how to ´scan´ the actual packs to find the God-packs that are nothing but rare pets and mounts without having to buy all the other normal packs. The god-packs are being stolen by employees and then sold.

[Quintessence]

The thing that bothers me is that 6 weeks ago when we wrote to Blizzard, all we got was this nonsense about ´it is compromised accounts, not a dupe´.. when it clearly WAS a dupe. So here we are, 6 weeks later and they are still being duped, and we now have an army of Blizzard-fanboys who refuse to acknowledge it is a dupe, and instead shout us down by saying ´it is compromised accounts´.

I wouldn't be surprised if this all started on compromised accounts, but then spread to any account since it's just exploiting a bug. I think Blizzard continues to insist that it's compromised accounts because that's the vaguest way to imply that something shady is going on without going into detail of what's actually happening.

In the end, I don't blame Blizzard for not fully disclosing what's really going on, as it would encourage people to research the bug and possibly do it themselves. Darn us for being curious!

By the way, from my understanding what is happening now is from TCG. People have figured out how to ´scan´ the actual packs to find the God-packs that are nothing but rare pets and mounts without having to buy all the other normal packs. The god-packs are being stolen by employees and then sold.

I think this has been going on for a while now, ever since they introduced loot cards. The way it was explained to me is that because of the foil on loot cards, there's a little extra weight to the card itself. All a store clerk needs to do is open a box and then weigh each pack to determine which one is a God Pack.

Buying a sealed box is the best way to go if you want to be sure you'll receive some sort of loot (not necessarily a God Pack).

[Azrile]

Sure, once the dupe is found, then they would use compromised accounts to buy lvl 1 pets, dupe them to level 6 and sell them.

But the people arguing think that the pets are level 6, already on a real account, and then that account is hacked and the pets sold. That makes no sense since it is only one pet that is being sold, and why in the world would hundreds of honest people have lvl 6 spectral cubs just happen to be sitting on their accounts the moment they are hacked.

[Domie]

What bugs me about this whole mess is that it literally takes 5 mins on Google to learn how to do it, yet Blizz keeps denying it is happening.

The more people talk about dupes, the more people are gonna do it, if blizzard goes out and says everybody could be duping if they knew how, a lot of people will start trying to do it. Just because they say it doesnt happen (i would like to see a quote on that one btw), doesnt mean they dont do anything about it. I know about dupes in the past that have been fixed, so i dont see why any new one shouldnt, as soon as they find out how it works and how to prevent that from happening.

But as i said, more talk about dupes makes the problem worse, if you know about a dupe, just report it and move on. I do see the irony in my post.

[Squall]

this whole duping must be a US thing. I have not spotted an etheral soul-trader/spectral tiger cub for months on my server

I guess that is an argument against those who argument that there are no dupes, since Codes can bee redeemed in US and EU (can't they?), but dupes can not be traded over that border.

[Poofah]

if blizzard goes out and says everybody could be duping if they knew how, a lot of people will start trying to do it.

I can understand their reasons for not being honest about the extent of duping. However I think they're doing us a disservice. If they can't/won't do anything about duping, then that has a big impact on the value of the item(s) being duped. And since they are not at all forthcoming about it, we are left in the dark with no official word on why spectral cubs (for example) have plummeted to less than 1/4 their prior value.

But as i said, more talk about dupes makes the problem worse, if you know about a dupe, just report it and move on.

I don't agree. If we can't trust them to keep us informed, then a community like this is exactly the place where we should share this kind of info. Duping will happen with or without us talking about it. Better that we're informed so we can avoid being taken advantage of.

[Azrile]

I am with Poofah,

I think if we bring it up often and loudly, they are forced to deal with it as a priority. If nobody talks about the dupe, sure they are going to fix it, but it would not be as big of a priority nor would they be aware of it as early.

That is where the disconnect is, and I hope they finally realized their mistake. In the very beginning, they misunderstood what we were saying. They thought there was suddenly just a bunch of rare pets available... and they gave the standard ´oh, that is just people selling off valuable things from hacked accounts´.. That is why we had to push and say ´no, it is ONLY one pet, they are ALL level 6, and here is how it is being done´..

If we had not been crazy-mad on the forums, they would never have realized it was indeed a dupe, and not just compromised accounts being vendored.

Anyway, I think the level 6 spectral cubr bug has been fixed. They haven´t removed any of the ones made before, but you apparently can´t make them anymore. And just to state again.. I have never sold a single spectral cub. I bought a non-level 6 one for gold once the prices dropped though lol

[Azrile]

this whole duping must be a US thing. I have not spotted an etheral soul-trader/spectral tiger cub for months on my server

I guess that is an argument against those who argument that there are no dupes, since Codes can bee redeemed in US and EU (can't they?), but dupes can not be traded over that border.

I have not seen the spectral cub on any of my real servers either. But when the dupe started, Ilidian went from having 2-3 listed for 200k to having 20 listed ( most lvl 6) for 60k. But that was just a part of the limitation of the exploit. Once you bugged your spectral cub, you could not log out, you had to dupe it immediately. Which is why the level 6s only showed up on servers that had lvl 1s for sale originally, which were not a lot of servers.

Also, gold is more valuable to the gold-sellers on the high population servers.

[Kpb321]

Certainly once you've bugged it you could fill up your entire inventory and bank with caged cubs. Then log out and back in learn 3, log on another character on another server and cage three there. Rinse and repeat on any server you want. I personally haven't seen one on my home server either but it's a low pop RP server so I'm sure the demand is probably lower as well as the potential market and the gold is probably less valuable and lower demand too making it unlikely a gold seller is going to be trying to sell one. A reseller might move one over to the server but that is about it.

[Worgenbait]

I think Dragon Kites are the new one right now. Had a seller in trade chat on Echo Isles server selling multiple copies of the Dragon Kite tonight (and to be completely honest, I bought one for 65K). It was a level 1 pet, so it might not have been a dupe, but who on earth would sell a legitimate Dragon Kite for 65K. Not the best English skills either.

[Sanzul]

I'm sorry there is 0 chance of the spectral tiger cubs being 'compromised accounts'. Because the people selling them were using brand new level 1 accounts that had no achievement points or 10 achievement points earning the Going Down achievement.

Just because they got the stuff from stolen accounts doesn't mean they'll sell it using the stolen account. That would be silly, as they can be banned any second (if they're in a guild with people that know them, the account can be suspended within five minutes of being stolen). Once an account is stolen, it's gutted and anything of value is quickly handed over to another account. That second account does the selling, and is going to survive much longer before getting banned.

That doesn't mean the cubs can't be duped, but the fact that it's sold by level 1 characters doesn't mean the stuff can't be stolen.