Throwing open Diablo 3 players’ wardrobes to the public with the new Character Profile feature has had an odd side effect: we can now see some clear evidence of duplicated items in the wild. Blizzard claim that making perfect copies of items is a rare occurance in Diablo 3. They’ve even said, on occasion, that it’s impossible to do. But when no fewer than six players can currently be seen wielding identical, supposedly randomly-generated weapons, you’re forced to wonder how widespread a problem this really is.
Six wizards have been found to be wielding an item called Arcanum Mind. Items and their stats/affixes are randomly generated in Diablo 3, meaning that the odds of just two of the same item existing should in theorybe infinitesimally slim. Six of the same itemis damn near proof-positive that some duplication has happened, either as an accidental glitch or as part of a deliberateexploit. Here are the six character profiles accused of possessing the goods, some of whom have either ditched the weapon or stripped naked completely, kinky gits. You can view their profiles, thanks to the magic of online character profiles.
Arcanum Mind, according the the original poster, is “one of the best sources in the game” and isworth over 500 million gold at auction – meaning this snapshop of dupes represents three billion gold’s worth of loot. That’s £7,500 when traded into pennies.Player Faetal was also seen to be wearing two identical rings, Damnation Shelter, before all of her clothes flew off in a guilty, hastydisrobing. Many players report seeing identical items drop in normal play, suggesting that there exists some innate tendency for Diablo 3 servers to hiccup out seemingly duplicated items, but to see this many of such an expensive items duplicated warrants a raised eyebrow.
This is a big deal for legitimate players hoping to shift their authentic goods on either the real money or gold auction houses, as a supply of easily duplicated high level items will drive down prices and cripple Diablo 3’s fickle economy. Gold prices arealready permanently pinned to the bottom limit of 25 pence per 100k set by Blizzard, and if faith in the game systems continues to be undermined by the above parade of identikit wizards, it’s unlikely we’ll ever see that number rise.We’ve asked the publisherfor a comment, and will update you should they respond.