It looks like Ensidia's 25-man world first on the Lich King will go down with an asterisk next to it, because they've all just received a three-day ban for "Abuse of in-game mechanics or glitches with intent to exploit or cheat in World of Warcraft." The Ensidia blog post reporting this is down as of this writing due to traffic, but you can still view the Google cache.
The story is that Ensidia made use of Saronite Bombs to "bypass The Lich King fight mechanics" (Saronite Bombs and similar items were disabled in a hotfix last night). In addition to the temporary ban, all items and achievements they gained from downing Arthas have been revoked. Before the ban (but after the hotfix), Ensidia put up a post claiming that they didn't think the bombs were an exploit; Blizzard obviously isn't buying it.
Meanwhile, Muqq, the Ensidia player who posted about the ban, has taken this as an opportunity to quit WoW (and rant a bit at Blizzard about "half-assed encounters"), saying "to ban people when they do not know what's causing the bugs is just a [expletive] joke."
It looks like Ensidia's 25-man world first on the Lich King will go down with an asterisk next to it, because they've all just received a three-day ban for "Abuse of in-game mechanics or glitches with intent to exploit or cheat in World of Warcraft." The Ensidia blog post reporting this is down as of this writing due to traffic, but you can still view the Google cache.
The story is that Ensidia made use of Saronite Bombs to "bypass The Lich King fight mechanics" (Saronite Bombs and similar items were disabled in a hotfix last night). In addition to the temporary ban, all items and achievements they gained from downing Arthas have been revoked. Before the ban (but after the hotfix), Ensidia put up a post claiming that they didn't think the bombs were an exploit; Blizzard obviously isn't buying it.
Meanwhile, Muqq, the Ensidia player who posted about the ban, has taken this as an opportunity to quit WoW (and rant a bit at Blizzard about "half-assed encounters"), saying "to ban people when they do not know what's causing the bugs is just a [expletive] joke."
I read their post about downing him, and they were saying that their rogues were just using the bombs in their rotation like they do on every encounter. Seems kind of lame on Blizzards part if that's the case.
Spend 10 minutes buffing, popping 4 different DPS flasks, elemental weapons on stones, flasks.
And then when you run in C'thun bounces lasers off the entire raid and 20 people die.
Repeat ad infinitum.
Uhh.. I use bombs every cooldown. Am I next for banned? Doubtful. They did something wierd with said bombs is my guess.
I read their post about downing him, and they were saying that their rogues were just using the bombs in their rotation like they do on every encounter. Seems kind of lame on Blizzards part if that's the case.
Eh, of course they're going to play innocent. If they were being stupid and saying things in guildchat like "oh shit what an awesome exploit", or "wow this makes it much easier, keep doing that..."... Blizzard probably looked pretty deep into it to see that they knew exactly what they were doing.
I don't see any guild standing up and saying "Oh, you're right, we deserved this."... because honestly, who the hell gives Blizzard any leeway on this sort of thing? Doesn't matter what you do, you're always the one that was wronged.
What's that? Some player was caught selling child porn in the sewers of Dalaran and got banned?
Totally Blizzard's fault for facilitating his means of communication... he should get a refund.
I think the guild knew what they were doing, and just expected to get away with it. The dude bitching about it and saying he quit is just being a drama queen. He isn't going anywhere.
I read their post about downing him, and they were saying that their rogues were just using the bombs in their rotation like they do on every encounter. Seems kind of lame on Blizzards part if that's the case.
They had done the fight on 10-man before and knew how it was suppose happen, but when it bugged out on 25-man, they didn't stop and try to figure out what was going on first.
What makes it more suspicious is that they did not put of a video of their 25-man kill, like they did for all other world first.
And apparently, you have to aim the Saronite Bombs at the sides that fall off, not the Lich King, to exploit the bug. But this might just be hearsay.
Jephery on
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Ensidia suspended for 72 Hours
A few hours ago, all the players involved in the Lich King 25 world first kill of Ensidia had their account suspended for 72 hours, Gamemasters also removed the achievements and loot acquired during yesterday's raid.
Date of Violation: 03/02/2010
Type of violation: Exploitation – Abuse of in-game mechanics or glitches with intent to exploit or cheat in World of Warcraft.
Details: Use of Saronite Bombs to bypass The Lich King fight mechanics Consequences for Account: Account suspended for 72 hours, all items and achievements gained removed
This isn't my place to discuss whether the ban is rightful or not, however Ensidia was nice enough to provide me with more information.
First, it seems that the bug was caused by a single rogue (always blame it on the rogues!) who used Saronite Bombs throughout the fight. Apparently the siege damage caused by the bombs bugged the encounter's mechanics and respawned the platform destroyed by the Lich King during the encounter.
It results in the fight being fairly easier because you end up with more room to move and more importantly, you do not have to care about Valkyrs taking away your raid members anymore. (They will just land on the rebuilt platform when they fall down)
The problem with the Saronite Bombs is simple, a lot of rogues have been using them for the past months (and it's been documented on ElitistJerks for quite some time now) and a lot of high-end rogues who like to maximize their DPS just consider it part of their normal DPS rotation.
Below are the WoL reports for all the boss fights in yesterday's raid.
These logs clearly show that Naihiko uses Saronite Bombs all the time, and we're talking about a raid who never saw the Lich King and couldn't really know that it would bug the encounter. Additionally, I took the time to screenshot Naihiko's damage report during his last 5 raids. (I realize that two raids are in the same week, this is only because he used his alt Naihika)
Jan. 14
Jan 20.
Jan 24.
Jan 27.
Feb 3.
Of course, all these screenshots are based on text logs and I do realize that they can be modified easily (but it does look like a lot of work to include so many entries). The only "wrong" thing Ensidia did is to keep going and kill the boss with the bug because they had no way to identify the source of the problem. Even going through raw combat logs wouldn't help because it looks like they only show Saronite Bomb damaging NPCs.
I also want to make it clear that I'm not trying to defend or attack anyone here, I just thought it could be a good thing to bring some more information to the discussion. Hopefully, it will start a more interesting and mature discussion about the issue, you totally have the right to think that Ensidia should be banned, just don't be aggressive about it in comments. (or in my mail)
GPIA7R on
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited February 2010
They cause the frozen throne to rebuild itself, which apparently trivializes the fight.
Or somesuch.
Munkus Beaver on
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
edited February 2010
I thought we were done paying attention to normal mode firsts, anyway?
reVerse on
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited February 2010
The Lich King was a bit of an exception, since he had zero outside testing and everyone was going in blind to fight and figure out the fight on live.
Munkus Beaver on
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited February 2010
Blizzard is closely watching all 25m attempts on the Lich King right now (since there aren't that many). I'd be surprised if they weren't immediately aware of the siege damage issue. Likewise, I'd be surprised if Ensidia wasn't informed at some point of the bug.
Munkus Beaver on
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
I do think it is a little silly that they get banned for a broken encounter.
That's assuming they didn't know what was going on, I imagine they would have reported a bug that made the encounter harder, but they didn't report one that made it a lot easier at least until after they got their first kill (if it was them who reported it at all). Just like the whole ooze pet thing on C'Thun.
I used to be in a guild that would use a pet to skip the trash leading up to the Eagle boss in ZA, I didn't like cheesing the encounter (it's more fun to try legitimately and wipe) so I left that guild for one who didn't exploit bugs in an encounter for their own benefit.
Ensidia knew something was bugged and making the encounter a lot easier than intended and I imagine if someone else had gotten a kill before them using this same bug they'd have been furious, like how Exodus cheated to get YS+0 before them.
edit: I'd have not bragged about a dodgy world first either.
edit2: Ensidia actually said "We're not going to kill it like that" about Exodus' YS+0 kill, double standard, ho!
When you are on the bleeding edge like that, I can see why they wouldn't stop to figure out what was breaking it. World firsts can come down to the wire and having to stop what you've always done because it breaks an encounter just seems wrong to me.
It makes for good reading though, gotta love all the drama.
I don't think the idea of wiping it would really appeal to them, especially when you only get X number of attempts. If they knew that bombs were bugging it out, then they deserve to be b&d. If they didn't know and the GMS did nothing.. someone needs to be docked pay. Hell, even if THEY KNEW and the GMs WATCHED them do it.. stupid.
It seems like any world first anymore is because of an exploit. If I was in one of those guilds, I'd wait for someone else to do it, let the hotfix come then go kill it. Seems to be the way to do it.
It would be as simple as them going, Hey man, don't use bombs you are bugging out the encounter. Instead they watched and did nothing.
They'd have to know what they were doing that was causing the bug. If they can't figure it out, I don't blame them for continuing. If a GM told them what not to do and they did it, the ban is reasonable.
Septus on
PSN: Kurahoshi1
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited February 2010
It's probably going to be impossible to have full information about what happened because Ensidia will only release information that paints them in a positive light, and blizzard has a policy to not reveal internal policy decisions on punishment.
Munkus Beaver on
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
It would be as simple as them going, Hey man, don't use bombs you are bugging out the encounter. Instead they watched and did nothing.
They'd have to know what they were doing that was causing the bug. If they can't figure it out, I don't blame them for continuing. If a GM told them what not to do and they did it, the ban is reasonable.
But it was probably a very obvious thing... watching them aim bombs over there instead of right on the mob... or thinking "Hm, why is this platform not going away? ITS CAUSE OF THE LICH KING'S MAGIC... nothing to do with the siege explosives I'm throwing at it"
Well for the world first Cthun kill they clearly did use an exploit as for this it seems blizzard did not think of everything and needs to point the finger at someone
What sucks is that they remove the ability to use bombs, not fix the problem with the bombs. Engineers are screwed again.
They very temporarilly removed the bombs incase anyone else got the idea to try it.
I believe it's fixed in this morning's restarts. Logical answer to me... rather than stop everything and figure out the problem and fix it, interrupting everyone else.
Ensidia doesn't strike me as the type of guild who just mindlessly zergs down their encounters. I'd be surprised if there wasn't several minutes of discussion between attempts, and as someone noted in the mmo-champion thread, apparently they had already downed the 10 man version too.
I somehow find it difficult to believe that they were not at least somewhat aware that the bombs were doing something they weren't supposed to do.
Well for the world first Cthun kill they clearly did use an exploit as for this it seems blizzard did not think of everything and needs to point the finger at someone
If you find a bug that gives you 50g every time you /emote pick your nose at this very specific mob in Stormwind... you know something's wrong, and you report it. If you keep doing it, and exploit it, then you're in the wrong and deserve to be punished thusly.
It would be as simple as them going, Hey man, don't use bombs you are bugging out the encounter. Instead they watched and did nothing.
They'd have to know what they were doing that was causing the bug. If they can't figure it out, I don't blame them for continuing. If a GM told them what not to do and they did it, the ban is reasonable.
But it was probably a very obvious thing... watching them aim bombs over there instead of right on the mob... or thinking "Hm, why is this platform not going away? ITS CAUSE OF THE LICH KING'S MAGIC... nothing to do with the siege explosives I'm throwing at it"
They're playing ignorant
Playing? Or actually being?
we're talking about a raid who never saw the Lich King and couldn't really know that it would bug the encounter
It's day 2 of anyone seeing the fight; the precise mechanics of what is and isn't supposed to happen isn't as widespread as it'll be a month or two later.
It would be as simple as them going, Hey man, don't use bombs you are bugging out the encounter. Instead they watched and did nothing.
They'd have to know what they were doing that was causing the bug. If they can't figure it out, I don't blame them for continuing. If a GM told them what not to do and they did it, the ban is reasonable.
But it was probably a very obvious thing... watching them aim bombs over there instead of right on the mob... or thinking "Hm, why is this platform not going away? ITS CAUSE OF THE LICH KING'S MAGIC... nothing to do with the siege explosives I'm throwing at it"
They're playing ignorant
For a guild smart enough to get world first hard modes, I find it hard to believe they didn't know what was happening and continued anyway.
What a double edged sword new content is for Blizzard, If they release it to testing then it's a race against lag and server uptimes for world firsts. If they don't it's a crapshoot that something may still bug the encounter because it hasn't been tested by the best.
Gnutson on
Erai - Operative <--Imperial Double Agent--> Sniper - Eari
SW:Tor - Tao - Kryatt Dragon Server
I wonder if they'd have been banned if they said "Hey, we killed the boss but only cause of some bug in the encounter, we couldn't figure out what was causing it."
Instead of: "World first, woo!"
edit: someone posted this question on MMO champ:
Why was the rogue planting saronite bombs at the edge of the platform, where he could be instantly killed by any valkyr, and where the Lich King and the adds are never tanked? What was the rogue DPSing? Does Ensidia tank the Lich King and the adds at the edge of the platform, where any raid member can be carried away and instantly killed?
Besides, seeing as Ensidia always seem to have someone fraps their first kills, why not just post the video showing the Rogue not using the bombs on the platforms instead of the mobs?
edit2: aparently according to the logs every bomb hit a mob, so maybe the rogue didn't knowingly attack the platforms 8-)
What sucks is that they remove the ability to use bombs, not fix the problem with the bombs. Engineers are screwed again.
Its just a hotfix until they can make those platforms not have anything to do with siege damage
Ah ok, I had just read/heard they flatly disabled bombs, not that they only did that long enough to fix the bug.
Bigity on
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited February 2010
There really isn't much to discuss here without actually knowing exactly what happened. Whether it was clearly incidental and accidental or if was willful and intentional.
All we know is that at least one of their rogues did something that did cause the encounter to become bugged/exploited and that they benefited directly from it.
This sends a message that, in the future, if you think you are bugging an encounter out, that you should seriously consider figuring out why. I'm certain Ensidia would have noticed that something was different about the fight (having done it on 10m) and realized that, somehow, the fight was not as it was intended to be.
Given the close relationship that blizzard keeps with the top end guilds, what with watching their attempts closely and congratulating them on completing the content, if Ensidia had even tried to report a possible bug while continuing with their attempts, then they'd be spared the hammer.
And this does put future guilds on notice: If you think the encounter is being bugged, report it.
Munkus Beaver on
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Also we've been really underestimating the Lich King this whole time, losing every battle since Illidan made him look weak but he's so strong he kicked the best guild out of the whole universe for three days.
Also we've been really underestimating the Lich King this whole time, losing every battle since Illidan made him look weak but he's so strong he kicked the best guild out of the whole universe for three days.
Good thing Forlorn Legacy is no longer as good as they once were
Brainleech on
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GumpyThere is alwaysa greater powerRegistered Userregular
edited February 2010
If they didn't know the bombs were doing it, then I can't really see much reason to blame them. Even if they knew *something* they were doing was causing an issue, limited attempts kinda stops them from just experimenting to try and stop it.
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http://www.wow.com/2010/02/04/ensidia-temporarily-banned-for-exploits/
It's probably a good thing that mmo-champion just picked up all those new mods. It sounds like they're going to need them.
All I have to say about that.
EVERYONE GET TOGETHER
K NOW SPREAD OUT
Spend 10 minutes buffing, popping 4 different DPS flasks, elemental weapons on stones, flasks.
And then when you run in C'thun bounces lasers off the entire raid and 20 people die.
Repeat ad infinitum.
Uhh.. I use bombs every cooldown. Am I next for banned? Doubtful. They did something wierd with said bombs is my guess.
Eh, of course they're going to play innocent. If they were being stupid and saying things in guildchat like "oh shit what an awesome exploit", or "wow this makes it much easier, keep doing that..."... Blizzard probably looked pretty deep into it to see that they knew exactly what they were doing.
I don't see any guild standing up and saying "Oh, you're right, we deserved this."... because honestly, who the hell gives Blizzard any leeway on this sort of thing? Doesn't matter what you do, you're always the one that was wronged.
What's that? Some player was caught selling child porn in the sewers of Dalaran and got banned?
Totally Blizzard's fault for facilitating his means of communication... he should get a refund.
I think the guild knew what they were doing, and just expected to get away with it. The dude bitching about it and saying he quit is just being a drama queen. He isn't going anywhere.
They had done the fight on 10-man before and knew how it was suppose happen, but when it bugged out on 25-man, they didn't stop and try to figure out what was going on first.
What makes it more suspicious is that they did not put of a video of their 25-man kill, like they did for all other world first.
And apparently, you have to aim the Saronite Bombs at the sides that fall off, not the Lich King, to exploit the bug. But this might just be hearsay.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Or somesuch.
I used to be in a guild that would use a pet to skip the trash leading up to the Eagle boss in ZA, I didn't like cheesing the encounter (it's more fun to try legitimately and wipe) so I left that guild for one who didn't exploit bugs in an encounter for their own benefit.
Ensidia knew something was bugged and making the encounter a lot easier than intended and I imagine if someone else had gotten a kill before them using this same bug they'd have been furious, like how Exodus cheated to get YS+0 before them.
edit: I'd have not bragged about a dodgy world first either.
edit2: Ensidia actually said "We're not going to kill it like that" about Exodus' YS+0 kill, double standard, ho!
It makes for good reading though, gotta love all the drama.
I think this is the best part. I've seen more than a couple of comparisons to that situation already.
They'd have to know what they were doing that was causing the bug. If they can't figure it out, I don't blame them for continuing. If a GM told them what not to do and they did it, the ban is reasonable.
But it was probably a very obvious thing... watching them aim bombs over there instead of right on the mob... or thinking "Hm, why is this platform not going away? ITS CAUSE OF THE LICH KING'S MAGIC... nothing to do with the siege explosives I'm throwing at it"
They're playing ignorant
Its just a hotfix until they can make those platforms not have anything to do with siege damage
They very temporarilly removed the bombs incase anyone else got the idea to try it.
I believe it's fixed in this morning's restarts. Logical answer to me... rather than stop everything and figure out the problem and fix it, interrupting everyone else.
I somehow find it difficult to believe that they were not at least somewhat aware that the bombs were doing something they weren't supposed to do.
If you find a bug that gives you 50g every time you /emote pick your nose at this very specific mob in Stormwind... you know something's wrong, and you report it. If you keep doing it, and exploit it, then you're in the wrong and deserve to be punished thusly.
Playing? Or actually being?
It's day 2 of anyone seeing the fight; the precise mechanics of what is and isn't supposed to happen isn't as widespread as it'll be a month or two later.
For a guild smart enough to get world first hard modes, I find it hard to believe they didn't know what was happening and continued anyway.
What a double edged sword new content is for Blizzard, If they release it to testing then it's a race against lag and server uptimes for world firsts. If they don't it's a crapshoot that something may still bug the encounter because it hasn't been tested by the best.
SW:Tor - Tao - Kryatt Dragon Server
The wording implies they just removed the siege damage aspect of bombs, but otherwise work normally.
Sucks for anybody doing Wintergrasp or SOTA though, I guess.
Instead of: "World first, woo!"
edit: someone posted this question on MMO champ:
Besides, seeing as Ensidia always seem to have someone fraps their first kills, why not just post the video showing the Rogue not using the bombs on the platforms instead of the mobs?
edit2: aparently according to the logs every bomb hit a mob, so maybe the rogue didn't knowingly attack the platforms 8-)
Ah ok, I had just read/heard they flatly disabled bombs, not that they only did that long enough to fix the bug.
All we know is that at least one of their rogues did something that did cause the encounter to become bugged/exploited and that they benefited directly from it.
This sends a message that, in the future, if you think you are bugging an encounter out, that you should seriously consider figuring out why. I'm certain Ensidia would have noticed that something was different about the fight (having done it on 10m) and realized that, somehow, the fight was not as it was intended to be.
Given the close relationship that blizzard keeps with the top end guilds, what with watching their attempts closely and congratulating them on completing the content, if Ensidia had even tried to report a possible bug while continuing with their attempts, then they'd be spared the hammer.
And this does put future guilds on notice: If you think the encounter is being bugged, report it.
Good thing Forlorn Legacy is no longer as good as they once were