Stars (TW - Crystalpine Stinger) already working on Firelands Heroic - Shannox World First Kill
A lot of guilds killed all the bosses of the Firelands raid in normal mode already but it seems that Stars (TW - Crystalpine Stinger) decided to take it one step further.

After clearing the encounters in normal mode, the entire raid changed faction to reset their raid ID and started working on heroic encounters shortly after, that kind of thing happened in the past and it's not really surprising to see it used again to grab first kills.

As I write these lines, Stars killed Shannox in Heroic Mode. It's not really my place to judge if something is against the rules or not and I will just keep tracking heroic first kills as they happen.



Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
Eternal Embers and Seething Cinders Droprates
You’re assuming the drop chances for embers averages out to .5 per boss in 10’s and 2 per boss in 25’s, which it doesn’t. Whether you’re in 10’s or 25’s you’re going to see an equal drop average for Eternal Embers per player, and the same can be said for Seething Cinders. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

New Content - Differences between PvE and PvP Players
The answer to your question revolves around a common difference in how PvE players and PvP players approach the game. Generally speaking, PvE players want more quests, more dungeons and more raids to experience -- more and new content is king. On the other hand, while some PvP players do want new maps, many others would be happier if we perfected the Arena or BG maps that already exist - or even if we cut existing maps. After all, PvP players don’t graduate out of Arathi Basin or Dalaran sewers the same way PvE players graduate from dungeon to heroic, or raid tier to raid tier. We did make some improvements to the existing PvP maps, such as trying to return Ring of Valor to circulation and changing the way flags work in Eye of the Storm (for rated play).

We’d love to add a lot more maps than we currently do, but we need to do it in such a way that doesn’t make the PvP experience worse for players who are more interested in refining their PvP experience than in seeing new maps. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Patch 4.2 Hairstyles
We had a bunch of hairstyles we threw in for testing on the PTR and the majority of them did not pass the test. (quality, art direction, bugs, etc.) (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Patch 4.0 Raids now puggable
We specifically intend for the 4.0 raids to be puggable now that Firelands is out. Grabbing some tier 11 by way of Justice, quest rewards, plus across the board difficulty nerfs should really be enough to get them going.

The patch has only been out a day or so though. I think it'll probably take a little bit before people really get it into their heads that they should be pugging the previous tier because it's not too hard to be successful. It's just getting people used to the various encounters and mechanics.

Maybe people are waiting for the holiday weekend? If nothing else, leading one yourself is always an option. I think we'd agree that we need some better ways to get pug raids together considering we intend to follow the "New Raid is Hard, old Tier is Puggable" format from here on.

Still unsure what that means regarding the final raid (i.e. Deathwing). Do pugs not get to see him until the next expansion is released? (Not saying whether that's a good thing or not, but personally I enjoyed getting to Arthas on some of my alts without spending near as much time as I did on my main.)
In ICC we had a stacking raid buff over time which gradually made the content easier. Not saying we’ll do that exact thing again but the philosophy was around even then that everyone who wants to can eventually see the content, but it’s going to take very organized groups (which typically means raiding guilds) to see the encounters first.

So casuals will constantly be a tier behind for the rest of the life of this game? If that is what is actually coming out of your mouth I'll save myself the time and unsub now. What a piss poor vision for your game. There are normal and heroic versions of raids for a reason. That heroic difficulty was implemented so that the two segments of the population (casual and hardcore) would both have something to do. You are now bifurcating the raiding population AGAIN, by telling casuals that they have to run around in the left overs.
Trying to label all of our players as “casual puggers” vs.” hardcore raiders” is ridiculously simplistic. Among raiders there is an enormous diversity of players. There are those who will raid virtually every night when new content is out, to guilds that raid once a week (and even then will cancel raid nights fairly commonly). If you must try to label raiders, you’d be closer to the Blizzard model if you said normal mode is for organized raids, heroic mode is for more hardcore organized raids, and the previous tier of content (and Baradin Hold) is targeted for pick-up groups. Also consider that even within a raid zone we try to design easier bosses (usually near the front) and more challenging ones (usually at the end) which can help blur those lines and offer smoother transitions for each category.

Overall, we think you’ll have a better experience playing World of Warcraft if you play with friends, either existing or those you meet in game. WoW, while much more solo friendly than most older MMO games, is still intended as a multiplayer game. We provide features like Dungeon Finder for when playing with friends isn’t possible, and as we said above, we’d like to offer more features like that. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Tabards Tab
Are there any considerations for a tab for your tabards?
Yes!

[...] To clarify: he asked if we were considering it, and yes we are considering it. :) (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Keyring Removal
On a serious point though some people are upset about the removal of the key ring. While that seems like we're just taking it out to be bullies, it specifically frees up storage space we can then make into useful features. Not that it will specifically be used for 'tabard storage', but we are going to be using the space the removal of the key ring freed up. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Thrall and Aggra's "wedding"
Correct. Their pledging of their lives to one another was essentially their 'wedding', although I'm sure Orcs don't use such nomenclature to refer to these things. Maybe 'life bond' fits better. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Does Blizzard plan on adding the rest of the dungeons and raids to the Dungeon Journal?
Absolutely. With the time it takes to present a single boss in the Dungeon Journal we were only confident supplying Cataclysm content with the release of the feature in 4.2, but we are on a path to filling it out with all dungeons and raids in the entire game. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Steam Summer Sales
In a very, very, very unrelated sidenote, Steam Summer Sales are up. I don't usually news non-WoW stuff but ... well, I like Valve and I'm pretty sure a lot of people will be happy to hear the news. Also, don't forget that we have a Video Games Forum!
This article was originally published in forum thread: Stars Heroic Shannox World First Kill, Blue Posts started by Boubouille View original post
Comments 622 Comments
  1. gutnbrg's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Ultragrisen View Post
    Totally wankers i must say, takes out all the meaning of competition, as from now they are on my blacklist and will never count any kills from them.
    bahahaha im sure they are heart broken that an ugly basement dweller will no longer count their kills as legit....Grats Stars!!! I dont know how anyone can call this an exploit, they paid money to faction change and then went in and killed a boss without abusing game/boss mechanics....completely legit kill, i hope they pissed every other top guild off, not just the whiny lil brats that frequent this forum...

    ---------- Post added 2011-07-01 at 07:27 AM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Omirr View Post
    You can state your opinion in a much less raging and offensive way .. /reported

    First of all, they should congratulated for getting a heroic kill fast. But since we don't know how long they worked on it, we can't say it's the fastest (aka world's first) kill yet. Technically, yes it is, but that's simply because others didn't get the chance to work on it. I'm pretty sure Blizzard wants to keep the competition going between the top guild so they'll remove their kill and possibly ban them. Let's see what happens next reset to see who really deserves that world first FoS.
    and by "other's didnt get the chance to work on it" u mean that other top guilds arent as clever as stars....bc plenty of other guilds got the patch b4 stars and killed normal mode b4 stars and they had plenty of "chances" to get into heroics, they just didnt use their brains...
  1. slimj091's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by godofslack View Post
    Ok first thing's first the fact that the majority of the public don't see this as a real sport is irrelevant. What matters is the opinion of those that do. And the vast majority of us think that what they did is full fledged cheating. Also, there is no evidence they fought the actual fight. Once you are caught cheating your actions are suspect. And there is no evidence that they actually did the fight as intended. In fact I lean on believing that they didn't, as the only evidence is a single screenshot. No video, no "proper" screenshot, no statement by the guild itself. And finally, no one sane has ever said that the current system is fair. But, jumping forward a week certainly isn't either. And this is a guild that bitched over Paragon's non-exploiting Nef kill and Method's clearly unaware-of-bug kill. I find it a bit odd that a guild that runs around telling people to "fight with honor" has no problems taking a cab part of the way down the race.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxF0vygnF2Y this is what you sound like. seriously. "getting world first's is a sport" lol.. best one i've heard in a long time.
  1. Balo's Avatar
    I bet if Paragon did this everyone would have no problems with it what so ever. I say gratz to STARS very very cleaver indeed.
  1. gutnbrg's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by TheFNK View Post
    Actually it's arguable that nearly EVERY exploit could be repeatable by people other than the exploiters.

    Archimonde Stump? Hey not an exploit. Everyone can do it!

    Disgusting Oozelings? Again totally fine.

    Pretty sure they all didn't accidentally change factions. At the same time. Then reformed and started raiding. It's an exploit and angrily lashing out won't change that.

    not an exploit and no1 said it was an accident that they faction changed, ur mad, get over it, good night
  1. mmoc80ca0b0994's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by gutnbrg View Post
    bahahaha im sure they are heart broken that an ugly basement dweller will no longer count their kills as legit....Grats Stars!!! I dont know how anyone can call this an exploit, they paid money to faction change and then went in and killed a boss without abusing game/boss mechanics....completely legit kill, i hope they pissed every other top guild off, not just the whiny lil brats that frequent this forum...
    +1

    I just had a great laugh reading through this thread first thing in the morning at work. Grats to Stars, nice that US/EU get to experience what the TW guilds have been doing for all other patches.
  1. Nekovivie's Avatar
    Banned? no, they've not broken any rules.

    Kill + achi + loot removed? Most likely. It's exploiting and doing something you aren't supposed to be able to. It's using real world currency to get an advantage in game, which is obviously across the line.
  1. MakeMeLaugh's Avatar
    Well, it doesnt matter now, even if blizz removes the world first achiev from STARS, they already killed it so GG, this is the world first
  1. Brett Skullcrack's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by La View Post
    to be fair, STARS and other guilds in Asia had to wait a week or more later before they got patches a while ago, not sure if it`s still like that now, but regardless they always only had shots at the later, harder heroic bosses and killed them before guilds that had a very long time to practice.
    Which is why STARS were held at such high regard by players. Now they got the content same week as US and EU, but rather than competing head on they chose to cheat and disqualify themselves from T12 race.
  1. mmocafc46af0bb's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Barrowwind View Post
    Saranite bombs anyone
    Were part of the rotation for any serious raiding rogue in ICC - they have logs which proved the rogue in question, along with MANY MANY MANY other rogues at the time had been using Saronite bombs on every boss in ICC for weeks and weeks prior to their Lich King Kill. So what, they banned them for their rogue doing something which was a standard part of the min max DPS rotation?

    I am no Ensidia Fanboy (Always preferred Paragon myself ) but the way Blizzard handled the fiasco surrounding the Lich King Kill was utterly appalling. ANY top guild would have encountered the bug - Ensidia just got there first. The fault is arguably Blizzard's since they MUST have known that Saronite bombs were part of the min max DPS rotation for a rogue (It was even mentioned the the EJ rogue guide at the time) and they equally also KNEW that Saronite bomb siege damage had caused problems with collapsable floors before - on the ToC PTR they would break the floor if used, sending everyone down into anub arak's area before arthas had arrived - thus trapping everyone down there with no boss to fight and ruining the lock out. Blizzard KNEW Siege damage did strange things with flooring, and that they didn't therefore test siege damage (which they must have known was a part of the min max dps rotation for a rogue) when they added another encounter with similar strange geometry and the destruction / reconstruction of the terrain smacks of gross negligence on the part of their internal testing teams.

    Still, I digress - What Stars did was cheating the mechanics of the game. There is NO other way of describing it. Blizzard DO NOT INTENDED HEROICS TO BE KILLED IN ONE LOCKOUT, that's partly what the shared lockout between normal and heroics is there for. The fact that a top guild purposefully used an out of game, external paid for service to reset their lockouts just so they could go for world firsts on the heroics (normal modes really do not matter) before anyone else is very unfair on everyone who cannot be bothered to pay IRL money to do so. I don't care who it was that did it, Stars, Ensidia, Paragon, Method - whatever, the fact is the same, they cheated the system and should be punished. If what Ensidia did in ICC was worth a ban, then this most definately is too.
  1. godofslack's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by slimj091 View Post
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxF0vygnF2Y this is what you sound like. seriously. "getting world first's is a sport" lol.. best one i've heard in a long time.
    Being an Internet Coolguy shouldn't be mistaken for an argument. Newsflash anything competitive and challenging can be classified as a sport. And there is no argument that WoW raiding isn't competitive and challenging, and it does has it's fans. But, ignorance is bliss.
  1. mmoc80dbf3c0c8's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by dascylus View Post
    It falls under "obtaining a competitive advantage over other players" in the EULA. Or in other words, exploiting, which can oftentimes result in permanent account suspension based on the severity of the exploit taking place. The fact that these actions were premeditated won't help their case with Blizzard's customer support staff. You can say you were testing the encounters as much as you want, but the straight facts is you did something with the full intent on gaining a competitive advantage over other players and maximum punishment should be expected.

    World Firsts does'nt count in wow progress if people use this, they have said so... this world first are just in peoples minds, if they wanna make a clear
    by spending real money for reset then good for them, most people wont see it as a world first, BUT I do, regardless what rest of the elite hoggers think

    This is not under exploiting by any means, this has been around since faction change came out, IF this was exploiting then race change should count aswell since a raid can go specific race to do specific task, or just go human for pvp... lol?

    many hugs
  1. Bluepolasky's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by MakeMeLaugh View Post
    Well, it doesnt matter now, even if blizz removes the world first achiev from STARS, they already killed it so GG, this is the world first
    agree whith this coment
  1. Zetsu727's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by godofslack View Post
    What you misunderstand completely. It's not the same people who are putting those "useless" things in that are responsible for encounter design. Do you honestly believe that they benched people from Firelands design to make the new /roar emotes?!? Not everyone is Chris Metzen!
    What you're misunderstanding completely is the fact they shouldn't be putting people on new features to implement when they have so many existing issues to address. I know there are different development teams handling different aspects of the game. I'm speaking about Blizzard as a whole. I'd rather they pool resources into thoroughly testing a content patch for an additional two weeks or however long it needs rather than implement stuff that isn't ready. People were in the Molten Front doing dailies on Day 1 because the daily quests were randomly resetting. Cauldrons were malfunctioning in Firelands to where charges were consumed and no flasks handed out. Stars is getting heroic kills on Day 2 since their patch day because Blizzard hasn't fixed something that's been a known issue since the Faction Change feature became available. There are many more issues I could list, but I think the point is clear.

    The bottom line is, I'd like to see Blizzard handle these situations before they arise, rather than wait for someone to cross the line far enough to where they "feel the need to step in". I'd be willing to wait a little longer for a much more solid patch release.
  1. mmoc8db892df16's Avatar
    You do realize, that blizzard does absolutly noch care for the rankings right? Rankings are pure community basd and therefore does the listing of wowprogress etc. absolutly make a difference in the meaning. sure people can have their own opinion about things like this, but it still counts, that blizzard does not take away anything from those guys, becrause they don't have ranking oder something official like that. I think its not necessarily cheating, but defferently an unfair move against any other guild in thw world. this is abusing the gamemechaniks, but in a wrong way, because this game should not be balanced around people, who get "better" by having more real-life money, that would be unethical. I, myself am waiting for the ID reset to begin with the hardmode race, since we cleared everything one day one, and find it vary unfair, simply because i will never pay to take steps like that. we all already pay monthly feeds and that should be enough. However..we will see what comes in the future. Maybe Blizzard talks to those guys and maybe even bans them for the abuse..but in definitly they will not be stolen of something they have achieved by killing one heroic boss, that stands as is it, as sad as it is!
  1. asharia's Avatar
    grats to stars if blizzard didnt want them to do it, they would have made the saves carry over
  1. TheFNK's Avatar
    Don't all the armchair GM's here realize that the final arbiter of whether this was "exploiting" or a "creative use of game mechanics" will be Blizzard?

    I mean discussion is fun but throwing around all these absolutes is heinously silly.
  1. Kurosaki's Avatar
    Hey guy still cool with the micro transactions Blizzard has in place now? Its a good thing that they don't give other player and "advantage" LOL

    Now that that out, this is the slippery slope of the micro transactions alot of people have bin talk about. If they kill Rag Hero it should count cause according to Bliz and alot of WoW players the Micro transactions do not effect game play have a nice day.
  1. goozen's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Nekovivie View Post
    Banned? no, they've not broken any rules.Kill + achi + loot removed? Most likely. It's exploiting and doing something you aren't supposed to be able to. It's using real world currency to get an advantage in game, which is obviously across the line.
    Agree with this, as they gained a unfair advantage due to paying more and this isn't somthing that blizz want.
  1. Dominian's Avatar
    Don't worry they are too honorable to xploit atremedes and made a video about it but, not too honorable to exploit blizzards paid services to get ahead. Everyone who doesn't know the meaning of the word I'll help you. It's when you take advantage of something that isn't supposed to happen. Blizzard fixed server transfers resetting a lockout, faction change is either an oversight or mistake. So stars took advantage. Sure its accessible to everyone, everyone that wants to pay over $1250. Don't pretend you don't have a brain, you know they wanted to try to get ahead and took the low road like everyone who exploits something this company has overlooked and gets changed later.
  1. Adrood's Avatar
    I agree with Loot removal + kill + achi , cuz this doesn't seem like playing a fair challenge with other guilds ... however not banned .. technically they didn't break any rules .. but this option shouldn't have been available for them in the first place .... so World first does not belong to them ... i dunn care if 500 euros were spent on this the hell with it ... Blizz might lose over 500 million euros due to angry players from this incident ...

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