The Weekly Marmot - Looking for Exploits

[Mwawka]

Ah it is here where our opinions differ. This is purely anecdotal but I've managed to meet and speak to several people in my life who would all be considered in the top 1% of their respective competitive fields and by and large every single one of them was willing to do literally "anything they could get away with" to beat the competition. For them it wasn't even really a question, or an option, to consider any path except that which yielded the largest possible risk-reward ratio. Again this is pure anecdote and I admit that but it definitely changed my perspective "what it takes to be the best." Yes impossible amounts of hard work and effort. Yes impossible amounts of natural talent. But it also takes a certain type of drive that not everyone has.

I concede that people who are willing to do 'whatever it takes' often get ahead, but that doesn't mean that people who choose to set moral boundaries for themselves aren't equally able to get ahead. I've also known many people who are in the top 1% of their field and yes some of them are what I would classify as morally bankrupt. However, more of them are people I would classifiy and dedicated, hard workers who are willing to make personal sacrifice to get where they want to go, but not willing to cross any line even if they could get away with it. Not every baseball player used steroids, and lots of those who didn't were still great players at the top of the game. I'd like to think that not every politician is crooked (tho that one I'm not sure of). Not every successful stock trader would use an inside tip if it were given them. You can get there without 'cheating' if you are willing to put the work in. There can only be one fastest man in the world, yes, but that man doesn't need to cheat to be the fastest man in the world, even if others around him are.

[Reev]

I concede that people who are willing to do 'whatever it takes' often get ahead, but that doesn't mean that people who choose to set moral boundaries for themselves aren't equally able to get ahead. I've also known many people who are in the top 1% of their field and yes some of them are what I would classify as morally bankrupt. However, more of them are people I would classifiy and dedicated, hard workers who are willing to make personal sacrifice to get where they want to go, but not willing to cross any line even if they could get away with it. Not every baseball player used steroids, and lots of those who didn't were still great players at the top of the game. I'd like to think that not every politician is crooked (tho that one I'm not sure of). Not every successful stock trader would use an inside tip if it were given them. You can get there without 'cheating' if you are willing to put the work in. There can only be one fastest man in the world, yes, but that man doesn't need to cheat to be the fastest man in the world, even if others around him are.

Sort of like you can point to Barry Bonds and say all sports people do this kind of thing, or you can point to Michael Jordan and say some people are just exceptional players and maintain their integrity. Or you can point to Tiger Woods and Kobe Bryant and just say that all sports people are hornballs.

[Gregasaurous]

Okay, so yes, Blizzard is very inconsistent with serving punishments. This does not make what they did unfair. Every guild that took part in the exploit did so willingly. And I don't care what any of them say about it being Blizzard's fault, they knew what they were doing. And if it wasn't completely obvious that that wasn't how Blizzard had intended for the loot system to work and therefor by cheating that system they were breaking the rules, then I could care less what they have to say for themselves. Anybody that self-righteous deserves a good slap on the wrist.

And as far as the race being broken, I don't think it is. When H-Rag was killed, all 6 of the other heroic bosses had been on farm for weeks, if not months (I don't remember the exact time frame). I would imagine most of the raid was 387 iLvL or better and wasn't going to get much out of another few weeks of farming the 6/7 H. Now, maybe we will see another Top guild take the world first because they didn't participate in the exploit. If they do, I would say that they more than earned it. But, I'm willing to bet that If a guild that did receive a ban, gets 8/8H within a week of the world first, there will be controversy then, but we'll see aobut that when we get there.

[Mwawka]

Agree with Rowdy.
Listening to the Manacast LFR Ban eases understanding the mentality of high end raiding and the analogies to real life crime and stealing and cheating have no sense.

Another point, there are "exploits" being used right now in the game that are atleast 6 months old.
Why Blizzard is doing nothing about that ?

I listened to the podcast today and all it did was remind me of my son's reaction when I used to take video games away from him when he was 10. They blamed Blizzard, they blamed Americans, they blamed everyone they could think of but themselves. They made a choice, they thought there would be no repercussions, and they were wrong. I understand they are very upset right now, but it's their own fault they aren't raiding this week.

Also, competitive raiding is real life to a lot of people. This is a real life competition for the people involved in the chase and really, other than the number of people watching and the amount they are being paid, no different that any sport or game, computer or otherwise. So this is a real life example of cheating to get ahead.

How I would have loved to have conducted that interview and asked them some real questions, rather than just giving them a forum to rant about how unfair it is. First question, "Did you know it was an exploit?"

[Rowdy]

If you really listened to it and think that they blamed anyone but themselves, then you need to listen closer, sir. But...

How I would have loved to have conducted that interview and asked them some real questions, rather than just giving them a forum to rant about how unfair it is. First question, "Did you know it was an exploit?"

...ah, okay. You did not listen. They conceded that within the first few minutes. Thank you, come again!

*shakes his head*


@ Rawer

Another point, there are "exploits" being used right now in the game that are atleast 6 months old.
Why Blizzard is doing nothing about that ?

Correct. There are still fights in this game that are years old and bugged to hell. There are still a lot of exploits used every day by a lot of people. Nobody cares and I doubt Blizzard will start careing.

[Mwawka]

If you really listened to it and think that they blamed anyone but themselves, then you need to listen closer, sir. But...

...ah, okay. You did not listen. They conceded that within the first few minutes. Thank you, come again!

*shakes his head*


@ Rawer

Correct. There are still fights in this game that are years old and bugged to hell. There are still a lot of exploits used every day by a lot of people. Nobody cares and I doubt Blizzard will start careing.

So, when the dude had the tantrum over the Americans on the forums being responsible for the ban, I was listening to what exactly? That being my first question, my follow ups would have built on the answer. Instead they were given free reign to cry and boohoo about how unfair it all is and blame everyone else. If you didn't hear that I'm not sure what you were listening to.

[Rowdy]

What? Do you refer to his anecdote of the American top-guilds complaining about Ensidias (Nihilums?) Hodir kill? Had nothing to do with anything.

Please refer to a passage where they say that it wasn´t exploiting and that it was completely unjustified to get banned for it. Please do!


btw: Europes coming! 8 hours for Paragon to go 5/8

[Mwawka]

What? Do you refer to his anecdote of the American top-guilds complaining about Ensidias (Nihilums?) Hodir kill? Had nothing to do with anything.

Please refer to a passage where they say that it wasn´t exploiting and that it was completely unjustified to get banned for it. Please do!


btw: Europes coming! 8 hours for Paragon to go 5/8

I'm not gonna argue with you. I heard immature people who got busted doing something they knew was wrong and can't accept their punishment. I just listened to excerpts again, and heard the exact same thing. This is not an encounter exploit and I actually think top guilds need to get a pass on high end fights if they kill them using certain types of exploits. They act as beta testers for Blizzard, quite frankly, and help Blizzard get the fight set up properly for the rest of us and I think there has to be some understanding of that. However, manipulating the loot system in the manner they did took all luck out of getting the gear and was obviously not intended, yet they CHOSE to do it anyway, somehow thinking they'd be above any meaningful consequence. They were wrong, so shut up and accept it, because it wasn't unfair.

btw: I'm not American and I have no investment in who wins the Heroic race. If I were a betting man, I'd still put my money on Paragon.

[Rowdy]

I'm not gonna argue with you.

...

They were wrong, so shut up and accept it, because it wasn't unfair.

Whre did I or anyone else say it was unfair?

I asked you a simple question, but you seem unable to come up with anything that you pretend someone said. Way to go!


"Please refer to a passage where they say that it wasn´t exploiting and that it was completely unjustified to get banned for it. Please do!"

[silverf1re]

I agree that in Blizzard EULA it clearly states that taking advantage of bugs and exploits is punishable by ban so i have no problem of them actually handing down the bans because we all agree with those terms to play the game. However having said that I don't think that the rule itself is all that fair. Blizzard is a multi million dollar company and should be able to put out a product that is complete. I would have fixed the problem and taken away the gear that should not have been attained and left it at that. Blizzard put out a faulty product and I don't think you should be able to put all the blame on the user. Again even though that is how I feel we all agree to the terms and conditions and in stets in black and white what will happen if you exploit bug, whether that is fair or not I guess really doesn't matter but thats how i feel

[Scottpoet]

If everyone who had used the exploit, had reported it first during their time in the PTR on the official forums or using an ingame ticket, and blizzard failed to hotfix it before 4.3 went live. Blizzard would have been in the wrong to institute the bans.

But instead these guilds tested for ways to break the gear drops in the LFR PTR, failed to report them, and then planned their game time around the best way to use the exploits to their advantage once it went live. Blizzard gave specific direction through numerous official posts on LFR system as to how the gear drops were supposed to work.

This idea, "that a friend of a friend who knew a guy that heard a rumor from someone in another guild that reported it to blizzard during PTR and was told by a GM that it was ok to exploit it, so why am I being punished?" That is BS twenty layers deep. Because if you are in a world first guild and you fail to report a exploit that will directly affect the race for world first and instead try to keep it a secret for your own personal gain putting other world first guilds at a disadvantage... YOU ARE WRONG

[Krenian]

I'm just going to say this:

Even the top guilds have accepted the punishment (Save Ensidia but they're known for that.)

And yet we still have people defending what they did.

If the guilds you are defending are up and straight about the fact they messed up and they are accepting the punishment, that should go a pretty damn long way for everyone here to see that they damn well knew they were doing something wrong.

It's pretty shocking that people are still defending the guilds when they themselves have admitted and have taken the punishment in stride. Everyone might want to take a step back from defending the guilds they are defending and realize that those guilds have moved past this and are now looking towards doing the race come their bans being removed.

Honestly, to me it's mindboggling that people would think this was right but to each their own.

All we can learn out of this is that even the top guilds aren't immune to temptation. They ate from the forbidden fruit, they got caught, and they're serving their time. (Again, except Ensidia who seems to maintain this is all Blizzard's fault and that they should not be given so long of a ban. Sorry, but that guild has gotten itself in a hole of ridicule that it has to come out. Have fun at that.)

We can all agree to one thing here: This should have never have gotten as far as it did. Hopefully both the top tier guilds and Blizzard realize this and work together into making the game stronger from this point on.

[lionhearts]

Just a couple of tangential yet related thoughts.

Part of integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is looking, even when you think you won't be punished for the doing the unethical thing.

Anyone that's taken at least an intro economics course should recognize the prisoner's dilemna situation these "top" guilds placed themselves when they began the decision making process on whether to cheat or not to cheat.

I'm grateful that the cheaters lost this one. I hate that cheating has become so endemic in world culture these days. I hope these guys learned a lesson and won't cheat again.

[Roclor]

Ok, lets look at things this way. In some onlineline games if you get caught cheating or exploiting your account gets a permanent ban and you have to buy the game and start all over. If the importance of getting the World First Achievements means that much the top guilds then the punishments should match it as well. To me, if your exploiting or cheating the system to try and be the No. 1 guild in the world, then you really dont even deserve the opportunity for that to happen. This game has slowly developed into a play ground for exploiting and hacking, not just in raids but in the rest of the game itself. Underground miners, gold farmers making 20 lvl ones form words in mid air, and you cant stop it with 3 and 8 hour bans. Its obvious that these top level guilds have no respect for Blizzard or the rules and enforcement as they plainly said they would not get punished. Just likes the stakes are high in being world first, as should the cost of getting caught cheating. Since it involves world and server firsts, your taking away the chances of legitamate players from achieving those goals honestly. Also makes you wonder how many other exploits they used where they didnt get caught. In my opinion closing their account or stripping all their toons would more suffice. They did it with Bot users, who by the way deserved it too, why not here. I feel they are actually being dealt with lightly because of who they are. And with them being so well known and exploiting, its just embolding others to do the same. This in turn ruins the experience for all of us. Though not the same genre, look what happened to Modern Warfare 2. Cheaters running hacks and no way to kick them cause the lack of dedicated servers made the game unplayable at times. Keep in mind those guilds arent the only people playing on there servers, but seem to be the only ones people seem to care about.

[Rawer]

It's pretty shocking that people are still defending the guilds when they themselves have admitted and have taken the punishment in stride. Everyone might want to take a step back from defending the guilds they are defending and realize that those guilds have moved past this and are now looking towards doing the race come their bans being removed.

If this was an World First on a first come to boss phase exploit ala "saronite bombs" exploit I'd be with you and the only ones punished were Paragon for exploiting a bug to be first because they were the only ones knowing it, I'd be with you on this.
But this was a bug as old as PTR, that in order to manage you needed organization and more than 25 people online, you basically were going to LFR with a full premade and you could do whatever you want with the loot. The Roll for loot was basically obsolete.
I'm not defending in the sense that they were innocents, I'm defending them in the sense that Blizzard is more at fault in this issue of bugged content.

Furtheremore not only those top guilds got banned but those were hurt the most. Lots of people exploited the loot in LFR but too few got a 8 days ban. Hell lots didn't even got banned.

[Mwawka]

Whre did I or anyone else say it was unfair? I asked you a simple question, but you seem unable to come up with anything that you pretend someone said. Way to go!"Please refer to a passage where they say that it wasn´t exploiting and that it was completely unjustified to get banned for it. Please do!"

Perhaps people should listen themselves if they want. Obviously we're hearing what is being said completely differently, but I wasted enough time listening to that garbage, I'm not going back to transcribe passages because you challenged me to. The podcast as a whole tells more than a snippet from it ever could.

[Rowdy]

@Krenian

If the guilds you are defending are up and straight about the fact they messed up and they are accepting the punishment, that should go a pretty damn long way for everyone here to see that they damn well knew they were doing something wrong.

It's pretty shocking that people are still defending the guilds when they themselves have admitted and have taken the punishment in stride. Everyone might want to take a step back from defending the guilds they are defending and realize that those guilds have moved past this and are now looking towards doing the race come their bans being removed.

Honestly, to me it's mindboggling that people would think this was right but to each their own.

Its amazing how you still write the same stuff over and over again and still nobody has defended anything as being "right".

Some people are just looking a bit deeper into the problem and point out, that there has to be more consistency going forward and that Blizzard can´t go on with the arbitrary course they´ve run so far. Nothing more, nothing less.

We can all agree to one thing here: This should have never have gotten as far as it did. Hopefully both the top tier guilds and Blizzard realize this and work together into making the game stronger from this point on.

Yeah, everybody agrees.

[Krenian]

Discussing stuff is fine. I have no problems with discussions and disagreements.

Calling people names is where I draw the line. People are on thin ice right now. Bring it back to an acceptable level.

[feralminded]

Discussing stuff is fine. I have no problems with discussions and disagreements.

Calling people names is where I draw the line. People are on thin ice right now. Bring it back to an acceptable level.

Well I just hope people can agree to disagree politely. I'd like to think we all agree that what these guilds did was wrong (regardless of why) and that for the most part even they have accepted it and moved on. I also think we (mostly) all agree that consistent and strong punishment for exploits as a deterrent is a net positive for the game on a whole. Turns out we all agree on a lot and we have no need to get overly unpleasant when picking over the very narrow field of things we may in fact disagree on.

I like these kinds of discussions ... lets just keep them civil and remember that for the most part we all largely agree on the wider-scope issues here.

[Theotherone]

Everybody grab a LaBatt's and calm down ,eh.