Paul Barnett, the outspoken British designer on the Warhammer Online team has responded to this week's rumors that the contribution system doesn't exist. In a video posting to his YouTube account, Mr. Barnett has done the unexpected and cop'd to the problem.

While the problem is not that the system doesn't exist (as is theorized by many players) but that there's a bug in the code. It's not an issue in Public Quests, he says, because the formulas involved there are much too complex for this to be an issue. However, the less complex math involved in keep sieges allows this rogue bit of code to affect the system.

In what is an even larger kick in the pants, this bit of code had been identified as bad, and was scheduled to be taken out of the game BEFORE launch. That, apparently, didn't happen. Mythic is "currently working on it" and expect it be taken care of "soon". One wonders though, if they knew about it before launch why it hasn't been noticed and taken care of quietly before now.

To see Mr. Barnett's video, and to hear him completely trash the coding department at Mythic, please check his YouTube channel.