Dune: Awakening "shutting down all servers" for emergency fix to yet another exploit that put entire bases at risk: "Lost my base and 1k hours of progress"

Another day, another new Dune: Awakening exploit – except this time, the exploit is serious enough to cause a full-blown server shutdown lasting literal hours.

Yes, you read that right… And, of course, as luck would have it, the shutdown is happening right before the weekly Deep Desert reset – the Coriolis Storm. That usually wouldn't be a problem, considering the recently added Base Backup Tool, but this server shutdown has come entirely as a surprise from Funcom. No warning, aside from the knowledge that a new hotfix to address the big bad base-destroying exploit was underway.

The hotfix couldn't wait, apparently, with the developer announcing the shutdown in an online post. "We are shutting down all servers in all regions at 10:00 UTC/11:00 CET as we work on a critical issue where player bases and placeables can be destroyed with certain weapon types," it reads. "The estimate downtime is 6 hours. This is in preparation for a hotfix we will release between 17:00 UTC/18:00 CET to address this issue."

Funcom concludes its message by thanking players for bringing the exploit to their attention – and honestly, I understand why the shutdown has gone into effect, even if it costs a few Deep Desert builds.

If you haven't seen it yet, it basically allows folks to destroy other bases and raid everything for materials. One person describes it in a sad post on Reddit, first saying, "This shouldn't be an MMO but singleplayer" about Dune: Awakening.

"Lost my base and 1k hours of progress to the new base exploit," they continue. "Logged in to see this. Funcom won't help cuz their tools don't track players… I'm done." Attached is a screenshot of what used to be their base.

There are countless other threads like it online, too, which is likely what caught the dev's attention. Heck, we've even got streamers openly bragging about looting other players' things via the exploit, so, yeah.

It's one of those fixes that needs rolling out ASAP, and it seems Funcom got the memo. It's not great knowing that the timing of the shutdown and patch might mean the Coriolis Storm wipes other fans' work out of the Deep Desert, though – that's for sure. Here's hoping the servers come back up in the nick of time and everyone's able to salvage what they need to. And, you know, the exploit is finally kicked to the curb.

Dune: Awakening has been no stranger to such base-destroying exploits, after all, and many of us hoped the Chapter 3 update would largely be the end of it.

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