Edit: Upon further research, I think I might have jumped the shark gun. Evidently, the only way to hit the platform with a frag bomb is if you aim for it. Unless you hit it by accident while you’re hitting adds. I’m going to leave this post here as a testament to my tendency to leap without looking, but if Ensidia was indeed aiming these bombs at the platforms, they deserve the punishment they’ve received.
Edit edit: evidently, I also like to use idioms I’ve only heard once and assume I know what they mean before looking them up. Big thanks to Eidotrope for making me less lazy.
Ensidia got a world first 25 man Lich King kill, and then promptly got a 72 hour ban (google cache link, until their servers come back up) for it. A warning, there’s some pretty heavy profanity in that link.
Why did Ensidia’s raid team get banned? Because, like all good engineers, their rogues were throwing bombs as part of their rotation, and that made the encounter easier because of a now fixed bug.
Blizzard, this is a bad decision. I understand the necessity of punishment for “crime” in your world, but it’s supposed to be a deterrent that makes people more likely to choose to do the right thing. If you release a fight that gets easier when people use an ability you evidently forgot existed, it’s not the fault of the players for not being mind readers, it’s your fault.
What should they have done? How on earth, in the absence of any public testing, were they supposed to know that the encounter was not going as intended? Maybe they should have realized that it felt too easy? But then what; just closed up shop in case they were exploiting a bug without realizing it?
Do the right thing- remove their ban, credit them the game time, re-instate their achievements, and next time, take intention into account. If they had started stacking engineers at the expense of their normal crew, then sure, it would have been clear they were intending to exploit. If they just did their thing the same way they do every other fight in the game, however, it’s your fault, not theirs, and you should never punish other people because you didn’t test enough.
How on earth, in the absence of any public testing, were they supposed to know that the encounter was not going as intended?
Their 10-man kill earlier that day.
Take intent into account indeed. I guess Kungen just accidentally typed /use Disgusting Oozeling 31 too many times in his macro, yes?
I think your logic went over my head- are you talking about the mini-pet?
Yes, where they exploited the world first C’thun kill (under the name Nihilum – Ensidia is a merging of Nihilum and SK Gaming’s best players) by trivializing the stomach acid on C’thun Phase 2.
He’s talking about the C’thun encounter. When you’re in C’thun’s stomach, it inflicts a stacking debuff that does increasing amounts of damage. The Disgusting Oozeling, when it’s out, inflicts a minor debuff; if you desummon and summon the Oozeling in quick succession, you get more than one copy of the debuff (since it persists briefly after the Oozeling despawns, but doesn’t stack with itself). Because the Oozeling was off the GCD, you could make a macro that was “/use Disgusting Oozeling” 32 times; that would summon and desummon it 16 times each in very rapid succession. Since the debuff limit was 16, you could push the stacks of stomach debuff off completely, and trivialize the encounter.
I edited my post- I have heard that the only way a frag bomb would trigger this bug is if it was aimed for a platform.
I agree that they shouldn’t get a 72hr ban but I think taking the achievement away way is the right call. IMO
So then you also agree that Exodus’ 72-hour ban was unjustified?
Not really sure what Exodus did. All I know is it was some thing with Yogg. But if it was a dps/tank/healer doing something that they do on every fight than yeah.
So you are saying Ensidia’s Rogue aims grenades at invisible bits of terrain that was previously there in all encounters?
And you know that the rogue did this how? You dont nor do I. What I am saying is what I have posted. You dont have to agree with it. It is my opinion.
No need to argue. At least not here.
I think it’s harsh if taking the achievement means they can’t start on the hard modes next week, that’s harsher than just a 72 hour ban.
I reckon fairs fair… there is a better than average chance they were indeed aware of the bug, and used it to get through the encounter. Not strictly the way it’s supposed to be done, but if Blizz drops me a gun that does 5k DPS, should I not use it?
Take the world first credit, and achievement, burn their tries for the week, and lift the ban.
Yes, they’ll blow through normal next week, and then only be a day or so behind the chase for heroic mode.
On the one hand, it’s not cheating to find the best way to do an encounter within the confines of the game even if it’s far outside the developer’s intentions. Even if it exploits known or unknown bugs. If Blizzard wants that bug to not work on that encounter, all they need to do is fix it (and they did, I think.)
On the other hand, Blizzard can ban anyone for anything. They own the accounts, they own the characters, they own everything in WoW. They can do whatever they want, and be well within their rights. From a PR perspective, you may think it’s a bad decision, but really the only people that are likely to quit over it are the people who got banned.
Cool.
Should’ve been even more than 72 hrs.
It is easy to hear Ensidia’s side, especially muqq’s angry response, and judge that Blizzard did something wrong.
However, remember that we do not have the entire picture. I seriously doubt Blizzard decided to ban one of the most famous guilds in the world as an afterthought. It is quite possible Ensidia are not as innocent as they claim to be.
Blizzard makes mistakes. Maybe the Ensidia ban was a mistake… But maybe Blizzard has enough evidence to warrant such a move. Although muqq has several viable points in his post, it is quite possible that Ensidia knowingly cheated.
I suspect the ban is in place in order to slow them down a bit. After all, they used an exploit to not only defeat Arthas but to unlock the Hard Mode encounters and thus access to Hard Mode loot.
So if Blizzard allowed this to stand, the guild would essentially have cheated themselves into a head start on the next tier of content.
In the interests of a more level playing field amongst Ensidia’s peers, the ban makes sense.
I tend to doubt Endidia’s actions were honest mistakes. Bleeding Edge guilds like that do their research in immaculate detail looking for strategies, theories and techniques to give them an edge. When they get caught exploiting, it’s easy to blame Blizzard for not doing their work. Guilds like Endsidia have been through the newest content enough to know when something seems amiss or perhaps not working properly, so I’m not really buying Muqq’s story.
I wonder if, like other people have mentioned, being on the bleeding edge of content, Ensidia might not have tested this as a guild on the Test Realm, and walked in not entirely in the dark.
Not saying they did or didn’t, but all content is released on the PTR first, and playable basically as it will be released, with minor changes of course.
It is not beyond the scope of reason that a guild that plays to win and plays hard would not have sorted out, AS A GUILD, to use the PTR to pre test the strats and details of any given content.
I test new content all the time there, just saying.
I am total agreement.
The punishment do not fit the “crime”. Yes, they exploited a design weakness, but that is what good analytic minds do.
Analyze each attempt on the boss and devise a new strategy. If somebody noticed the bombs help, why not use it?
The same reason you’re not supposed to abuse any glitch- just because you can doesn’t mean you’re allowed to. If they saw the bug and deliberately used it to get a world first, they deserve their punishment.
Raise your hand if this impacts you.
Lower your hand if your guild is not in the world top 25.
For the majority of the WoW world, this means absolutely nothing. This, and the related patch, does not change the fight for us.
There’s so much we don’t know and will never know. We don’t know how many of their rogues are engineers, how many became engineers for this fight, when they learned of the bug (before, during, after?), if Muqq was actually banned or just playing an epic joke on the WoW community, how major of an exploit this is (does it trivialize the encounter ala Exodus’s Yogg+0 exploit or make it marginally easier?)…We know so very little that all we can do is speculate, which is quite fun but ultimately worthless.
I think they exploited it and, after their snippy comment on their website, Blizzard got pissed and banned them. Had they not given the virtual finger to Blizz, they prolly could play through the weekend.
Nothing I write here will matter to Blizzard or Ensidia, but it might matter to Euripides. So, I’ll say that I don’t think “jumped the shark” applies to this post.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jumping_the_shark
Damn you and your correct usage of idiom! Fine, I’ll go fix it :P
If you read kungens blog here http://www.ensidia.com/Kungen/blog/4081/
Makes some good points about the amount of bugs that have been and still are present within the game. Whatever about any past encounters they were involved in the simple fact is.. on your first tries on a 25man boss thats been out a few hours and given the constant laggy buggy shite we see every day.. i really dont think they were at fault.
Seriously how it gods name are you going to cop that a bloody saronite bomb is causing a bug.
Blizzard is run by complete morons these days anyway.
Learn to test the content correctly before releasing it but i guess thats about as likely as them updating the servers so my guild can actually progress in icc rather than the mother of all laggyness.
If they used a bug that they knew about deliberately to trivialize a part of the encounter, they deserve their punishment. Regardless of any separate complaints about bugginess.
The thing is, if they knew that they were bugging the event it owuld have become pretty obvious to the gm’s who were watching them fight and nothing short of a fast pm from them to the guild would have sorted that, but no.. let them kill it and then ban them.
Rather stupid imo. And as to if they knew it or not.. personally depite anything people say they have done in the past.. on this ocassion i dont believe they did. Blizzard made a retarded mistake on a global level.
Everyones entitled to say what they think but you can’t say.. yes they were purposley bugging it, or they were unaware oof the issue unless you were in the guild and at the fight.
It does seem very suspisious but i do side with them on this ocassion.. blizzard actions were shady at best and like i said.. if you got gm’s watching the fight.. would it not have made sense to stop the fight instantly as soon as they this happening.
They test using the PTR and people willing to log on to the PTR to assist in the process. Most likely, Blizz went back to the PTR data and found members of Ensidia using the bombs during the PTR encounter and used that to prove to themselves (and I say themselves because that is who they have to validate the ban to) that they used an “exploit”. Basically, they probably found a bug and instead of doing what someone with access to the PTR is supposed to do, report the bug, they put it in their strat and used it when the content dropped. That is in fact against the ToU.
These guys know what they’re doing and KNEW what they were doing. And they know that they are being watched like a hawk because of their history.
They took a calculated risk and lost. Badly. Good for Blizzard.
Or maybe they figured they’d get more press for finding an exploit than simply getting the world first kill.
Meh. A guild that gets paid to play WoW got banned for a few days. I actually laughed at this, because I don’t see it as a big deal. They’re still the most recognized guild in all of WoW.
Lol at jumping the shark though. Yes, Euripedes, you’ve jumped the shark. Time to hang up the keyboard and gun and retire to FPS console games.
Ouch. I’m in trouble because I quit FPS games back in the days of doom and quake. My wife has a wii, though… do those have any shooters on them? Lastly, how do I remove the keyboard from the laptop to hang it up?
:P
Blizzard has overstepped their own rules and regs. The stripping of achievements and gear is not part of the policy for the exploitation of bugs or game mechanics. Those should be reinstated regardless.
So let’s see.
1. They design the encounter and dont allow annyone to test it apart from thereselves.
2. The encounter is deployed on live servers.
3. Ensidia reach the place discover and exploit a bug.
Now about the bug , im not quite sure what it was , but if im not mistaken they used an enginier ability or something like this , annyway something that it was already there .
4. So ppl kill the boss and recieve the achiv , and the BAN ( wtf?? )
They way i see this is instead of banning Ensidia Blizzard should better fire theire test team , and how can u ban a person that enter first time on an encounter (its wasnt even on ptr), i mean they tested it and said … ok ppl u can go kill fat dude, all ok , lol , then ensidia entered killed the boss , and got the BAN .. lmao
Can’t believe this , Blizzard is failing on designing theire own shit … and punish the first who descover that.
I reread Blizzard’s policy indepth. Whether Blizz’s GM’s (who obviously watched Ensidea’s attempts at LK) thought they “exploited” a bug or not the first step would have been to PM a warning to the offender, during the encounter.
Second this is the most serious ban without being permanently banned. Which means that the exploit needs to meet the following requirements:
1.Intentionally, maliciously, and/or repeatedly.
2.Exploit damages another character, their gameplay, the service itself and/or its economy.
3.Whether or not an attempt has been made to conceal the exploit’s use.
The incident does not meet enough of these requirements to warrant the suspension of 72hrs. Stripping the achievements and rewards from the encounter are not idenitified as punishments for any type of offence. Blizz has this all wrong. Are Blizz going to look at all the encounters prior to the hotfix and ban every team that used the bombs? That would be fair.
Don’t forget, Blizzard has the right to apply their policy (or choose not to) in any way they like.
Their policy does not include the right to strip weapons and achievements, stripping these is definately not justified. If they ammend the policy and add stripping achievements and items gained during the exploit to the policy, next time they strip these for an exploit fair enough.
But you are right Euripides, Blizz can choose how to apply the bans as they see fit. They probably set the precendt with Exodus, and will now dish out a 72hr ban for any guilds that they believe exploited a bug in end game encounters.
Rilgon makes some good points, biased or not.
And your point is what? This event hit all three of those points.
1) The exploit was used repeatedly, on every attempt they made (if you believe their initial statement on it). Eryu’s blog states that he was instructed, if it happened again, to just ignore the val’kyr. (here’s the intentional).
2) The gear obtained from this exploit has the potential to damage other characters, as Tarren Mill-EU is a PVP server. Having unjustly acquired LK weapons has the potential to skew PVP encounters dramatically.
3) Every attempt was made to conceal it until Blizzard outed the bug and made it impossible for Ensidia to conceal it any further.
There is absolutely no way in which this ban is NOT unjustified. Especially if you dare claim that the Exodus ban was justified.
Remember, a parsing of the combat logs revealed that every saronite bomb hit at least one enemy NPC target, every time.
So if they were aiming for the platforms, they were very skillfully only attacking the platform when a mob was near it.
Where can I see that? Also, was the NPC always the target of the rogue casting the bombs? If so, that would change my opinion again.
You can see it here in this post.
However… this is an AoE ability so you can still aim for the platform and hit the mob… The thing is, the mobs shouldnt be near the edge of the platform because they (Valkyr)would grab you and push you over the edge. Easiest way to tell would be if Ensidia releases some of their frapsed videos of the encounter and I am pretty sure they have at least one… Makes me wonder why they dont release it if everything is a they say
edit: I forgot to paste the url of the post :)
http://www.mmo-champion.com/news-2/ensidia-suspended-for-72-hours/
ok paragon legit lich king first kill
INTERVIEW Shaylee kk go now the hunter
questions like how hunter unfriendly was it speed up those podcasts :D
Yeah, Faeghleis, our producer, is working his hands to the bone. In addition to being a raid leader for his guild, he is also producing both the hunting party and call to auction. In addition, he’s one of the hosts for call to auction. This is all on top of running a successful audio company. We’ll keep recording new episodes, but I’m not bugging him to speed up the post production :P
I’d like to first point everyone to an article by sirlin: http://sirlingames.squarespace.com/blog/2009/7/7/dr-house-and-the-professor-who-played-to-win.html
The bit on Twixt is the portion I’m talking about. Sirlin articulates what I’m trying to say much better than I ever could.
Here’s the thing that bothers me about Blizzard, and to be honest, Most MMO companies tendency to ban for arbitrary rules. What designates a “fair” boss strategy and an “unfair” one? It’s absolutely ridiculous to expect players to gimp their ability to reach any goal if the game allows for it. Where do you draw the line? Is it bad then to have healers stack on tanks in the Rotface encounter because it makes dealing with the slime pools “too trivial”? Gamers, especially those who take things seriously and competitively, should NEVER be punished for doing what is allowed within the limits of the game.
Ok, to beat a dead horse a bit here, but here’s my two cents on it:
1. Using exploits to gain an advantage is cheating by another name.
2. Saying that the fact they exist elsewhere in the game and they’re being exploited just the same is like a robber saying “hey look, there’s other banks getting robbed, go after them before me”. It won’t fly.
3. regarding the number of bugs that were supposedly bitched about: Call up Blizzard, tell them exactly how to fix the code, and then come back to me. Yes most people who play hard core WoW know a bit about computers, but few understand the complexity behind even the simplest programs.
Ok , im not gonna even try explaining you the fact that they have a number of … im not sure but lets say 11 million players playing this game , and paying that monthly fee , so u do the mats here and u will realise that they can easily hire a competent test team.
You’re forgetting the fact that you are buying a product here (the game with all its features), so since i’m not paying less than that monthly fee im not expecting less from them either.
And you are also forgeting the fact that all top high end guilds are in a competition for achievments like world first and stuff like that.
And i never understood why Blizz never admit when they were wrong and take proper action about it.