On Cheating.

While the main focus of this blog is dedicated to all things Resto druid, I'd like to chime in on the recent 72 hour ban of the members of Exodus who used an exploit to defeat Yogg Saron +0 keepers. Quite frankly I'm rather upset that blizzard decided to institute a ban on the members of Exodus and removed their achievement of world and server first for the kill. Exodus had all the same tools and skills as every other WoW player and they used those tools and skills in a creative way to defeat a boss that has been calculated to be otherwise mathematically impossible to defeat.

My main points of contention with blizzard are: The exploit used by Exodus was put into the game by Blizzard, Exodus did not have any tools or enhancements that weren't available to all World of Warcraft players, the result of a 72 hour ban is essentially saying that creativity will be punished.

What bothers me the most is that Blizzard decided to punish Exodus for blizzard's own mistake. If they didn't want the guardians aggro into the brain room and evade bug, then they should have programmed them not to go into the brain room and evade. Had this been caught on the PTR or some other testing area, the person who found the bug would not be punished but rather praised for finding such an ingenious exploit. Unfortunately, Blizzard send out the patch as it was with bugs and all and when the bug is used to defeat an encounter, the bug catchers are punished as a result.

Exodus didn't go into Yogg +0 with some godmode stick. Exodus spent hours upon hours wiping and learning and trying and mashing their heads against this wall of an encounter. And they were faced with a problem: how to handle the guardians that spawn in phase 3 and are unable to be killed since there is no Thorim to finish them off at 1%. I'm not a mind reader but the idea of leaving a shadow priest in the Brain room to cause healing threat from Vampiric Embrace and aggro the Guardians into the Brain room to evade bug probably was not the first strategy they attempted. And prior to the hotfix any guild could have done this, not just Exodus. So since they had no extra help or enhancements, the only reason behind the ban is entirely based on the creativity of the members of Exodus.

What is this 72hour ban supposed to mean? Is it supposed to be a warning or deterrent to other guilds to not think creatively and try different boss strategies? Is there supposed to be only one way to defeat an encounter and straying from the path will result in punishment from blizzard? Or is Spock just really upset that Krik was actually able to beat his unwinnable encounter? (Kirk actually cheated to win his scenario though because he did things not available to other Starfleet cadets by changing the scenario's programming). I'm not happy with the message Blizzard is apparently sending to top end progression guilds and their approach to new content. Trying strategies not sanctioned by Blizzard will be punished, and as an extra kicker Blizzard will throw in encounters that are completely unwinnable until they decide to nerf the encounter. No me gusta.

So in the end, don't quit your day job to play WoW for 50-60 hours per week and become one of the top raiders in the world, you might just be punished by the game you so desperately want to beat.

P.S. here's a link to the statement made by Exodus and the video of the shadow priest doing the exploit, my first thought on watching the video was "damn, that's a ton of guardians"
http://www.exo-guild.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1829
The statement turned into a little bit of a QQ fest and strangely morphed into a "pro-America, Europe sux" statement but whatev.