Looking back on the Ensidia Saronite Bomb Ban:

[Tekloth]

See my other comment. We ignored half the fight, didn't get banned.

So how do you justify this ban? Is it because they were Ensidia? Or did Blizzard just feel like it? Does it matter when it's bugged or if it's the newest tier? Don't think so.

A reset or reroll would have been enough. Players used and are still using bugs sometimes, there are no set rules that Blizzard made. Do you really think someone is going to think "Oh wait, I am now ignoring a mechanic so this could ban me but I can still spellsteal mobs from another location to increase my dps and perm stun adds."

Of course the "rules" for bannable offenses in situations like these aren't set in stone like they are with bots or exploits like glider, but rather done on a case by case basis.

I justify this ban on the basis that, even if they didn't know what caused the platform to respawn in phase 3, they still made the call not to kill the val'kyr when it clearly wasn't intended to work like that, and ignoring the val'kyr in a normal situation would've resulted in the deaths of 3 players per wave so they would've lost almost half of their raid while ignoring the val'kyr in a normal situation. That's a pretty huge difference between losing half your raid and not losing a single player when ignoring a boss mechanic.

It's so simple that it's stupid to even argue about this.

[Gilian]

Now, to end this silly debate once and for all:



HOW IS THAT NOT EXPLOITING A BUG?
How is that not ignoring a key mechanic of the fight?

When they didn't DPS the val'kyrs, they gave themselves an easier enrage timer to start with because they didn't "lose" 2.1M damage (700k hp per val'kyr) per wave. Not that the enrage timer was even an issue on normal though. BUT, there's a 2nd threat from the val'kyr: if you didn't kill them, they killed people (unless you were a warlock and could use demonic portal or whatever the hell the teleport is called). On Paragons video* of their 25 man normal kill they get 4 waves of val'kyr, that's 8.4M damage "lost" from Lich King to the val'kyr and 4 chances of 3 people dying.

Besides:



Why on earth didn't they just kill the val'kyr then, instead of ignoring them?


It makes no sense to me when people try to defend Ensidia on this ban, when it's blatantly obvious that this was ignoring a key mechanic of a boss fight which is supposed to kill people if not dealt with.


There would've been nothing wrong if they would've still killed the val'kyr even after the bombs had "reset" the platform back to full size. They didn't, thus the whole ban was brought upon them by themselves. End of story.


*No fanboyism included, I could've chose any video, this was just the easiest one to find

Every time I see people defending Ensidia on this and reasoning, or trying to explain why this ban wasn't justified makes me want to do bad things to small, cute and fluffy kittens.

Where does it say you have to 'fake' mechanics if they are bugged otherwise you get banned? I'm sorry but no one would have ever killed those valkyrs if they weren't a threat just like we never killed the valkyr that picked up a warlock with a portal.

Should they have been punished? Sure, but not a ban. They could have just reset their loot and kill after they fixed it.

---------- Post added 2012-10-11 at 08:28 AM ----------

Of course the "rules" for bannable offenses in situations like these aren't set in stone like they are with bots or exploits like glider, but rather done on a case by case basis.

I justify this ban on the basis that, even if they didn't know what caused the platform to respawn in phase 3, they still made the call not to kill the val'kyr when it clearly wasn't intended to work like that, and ignoring the val'kyr in a normal situation would've resulted in the deaths of 3 players per wave so they would've lost almost half of their raid while ignoring the val'kyr in a normal situation. That's a pretty huge difference between losing half your raid and not losing a single player when ignoring a boss mechanic.

It's so simple that it's stupid to even argue about this.

I read it the first time. It's just completely unfair they get banned for it and others don't. And in my opinion a ban for something like this is too harsh. You simply can't justify banning them and not others who have done the same. If you think that's stupid then we can just stop argueing I guess.

We ignored half the fight of Kael'Thas but I never got a ban or anything.

[Tekloth]

Where does it say you have to 'fake' mechanics if they are bugged otherwise you get banned? I'm sorry but no one would have ever killed those valkyrs if they weren't a threat just like we never killed the valkyr that picked up a warlock with a portal.

I read it the first time. It's just completely unfair they get banned for it and others don't. And in my opinion a ban for something like this is too harsh. You simply can't justify banning them and not others who have done the same. If you think that's stupid then we can just stop argueing I guess.

We ignored half the fight of Kael'Thas but I never got a ban or anything.

Warlocks weren't a threat on val'kyr because they had an ability to teleport from anywhere within the range of the portal, that's just "clever use of game mechanics". As is getting Lich King to start phase 2.5 (2nd AoE phase) while you have val'kyr alive and carrying players. They just drop the players on the platform if it respawns in time.

Who used that bug other than Ensidia? I haven't heard of anyone else.

I didn't get banned when we killed Kael'Thas because he stopped spawning adds in the last phases after a patch. By some peoplese logic here we should have just let our raid wipe and wait for a fix. Or maybe pretend we are dpsing adds? Keep joking. You wouldn't do that either.

That happened on its own, and didn't require any specific player-based events to occur. So you can't really call a ban on that because you didn't have any chance of avoiding it unlike on Lich King. Now I'm not saying that the rogue should've stopped using Saronite Bombs, but that he had the OPTION of not to use them. Anyhow the use of Saronite Bombs alone, again, wasn't the reason for the bans.

[zeophor]

What are your thoughts on this today? Should Blizzard have acted differently/issued an apology?

Of course they wouldn't have acted differently or apologized. The whole point of this was to drive attention away from the fact that Blizzard's QA failed miserably yet again, not even testing the fight with what at the time was completely normal part of a rotation for a minmax rogue.

[Hevlex]

They cheated. Banned, deserved.

[SilentStocket]

We did.

They didn't get banned because they used Saronite Bombs.
They got banned because they ignored a key mechanic which was made possible by the use of Saronite Bombs.
There's a difference there. They wouldn't had gotten banned if they would've just killed the val'kyr.

Everyone who was ever playd this game knows that if you don't have to kill stuff you dont.

[sam86]

What's the story Tekloth, annoyed horde get world first because they are better?
Ban is not deserved, it is blizzard fault to allow the bug in first place
Imagine them advertising: we will publish a game with bugs, if you find them we ban you, that will surely get many people won't it?
Saronite bombs bugged encounter, well they were part of fury warriors/combat rogues rotation at least back then (not just rogues), and they are part of it since Ulduar days
If they wanted to really avoid bugs, allow the fight to be tested on public test realms, if they exploit it on PTR and on live servers, they deserve ban, but to hide the fight from PTR then your crappy testing team fail to find a bug and blame others is a cheating instead of admitting "sorry I sucked at coding and testing I should admit my mistake"

[Tekloth]

What's the story Tekloth, annoyed horde get world first because they are better?

Mm, no, not really. I still root for Paragon. Also stating that horde players are better than alliance goes to show the maturity of the person behind the keyboard on your end.

Ban is not deserved, it is blizzard fault to allow the bug in first place
Imagine them advertising: we will publish a game with bugs, if you find them we ban you, that will surely get many people won't it?
Saronite bombs bugged encounter, well they were part of fury warriors/combat rogues rotation at least back then (not just rogues), and they are part of it since Ulduar days
If they wanted to really avoid bugs, allow the fight to be tested on public test realms, if they exploit it on PTR and on live servers, they deserve ban, but to hide the fight from PTR then your crappy testing team fail to find a bug and blame others is a cheating instead of admitting "sorry I sucked at coding and testing I should admit my mistake"

AGAIN, it wasn't the Saronite Bombs which caused the ban. It was what resulted after they found out the bug; a concious decision of ignoring a key boss mechanic (the val'kyr) made possible by Saronite Bombs bugging out the platform.

[MouseD]

Wasn't is also reported and found that they had a bunch of their raid team change to engy profession to max out the use of the saronite bombs on the platform.....

[Tekloth]

Wasn't is also reported and found that they had a bunch of their raid team change to engy profession to max out the use of the saronite bombs on the platform.....

If memory serves me correctly, there were speculations, and a few people said that Ensidia actually did that. Can't remember if it was ever confirmed though..

[Ryme]

It warranted a reset on the kill, not a ban.

[Edward Solomon]

If memory serves me correctly, there were speculations, and a few people said that Ensidia actually did that. Can't remember if it was ever confirmed though..

Do you think Ensidia was going to change their professions for a normal mode boss? That's so silly

[Verain]

It was absolutely not a mistake.

In order to bug out the platform, you had to throw bombs where you would not have normally done so. The raid even ignored valk dps to put more on the boss, so it wasn't like they didn't understand the significance of their exploit.

[underdogba]

This might be a little off topic, but I remember reading a rant like this and reading commentary on it. Something bizarre was noticed.

Apparently the commentary pointed out many word-for-word similarities between the rant and a rant on a consdierably older MMO (don't remember which). As if the guy had copied and pasted the meat of it and just changed the details to suit Lich King in World of Warcraft. Anyone know what I'm talking about, or possibly have a relevant link? Don't think it was OP's link but it might be.

It was a guy from <Death and Taxes> complaining about Naxxramas I believe, and he took something Tigole (Jeff Kaplan) himself wrote complaining on the EverQuest forums and adapted it almost word for word.

[Edward Solomon]

It was a guy from <Death and Taxes> complaining about Naxxramas I believe, and he took something Tigole (Jeff Kaplan) himself wrote complaining on the EverQuest forums and adapted it almost word for word.

It's not off-topic, your attempting to discredit Ensidia further via a charge of plagiarism. Either present your evidence of your claims or stop talking.

[Devildeer]

Can you back this up with evidence? There was clearly only one rogue (not seven) using this. You say anything you want and look good, but it doesn't mean it's the truth (Flip-flopper 47% Mitt Romney in the debates for example).

Keep reading, fanboy... It was everywhere around in the web, armory links and stuff. Why are you buthurt?

[Edward Solomon]

Keep reading, fanboy... It was everywhere around in the web, armory links and stuff. Why are you buthurt?

It ***WAS*** everywhere on the web? If it was everywhere on the web it WOULD STILL BE ON THE UNDYING WEB. Find it or you are lying.

[sam86]

No one here tried server firsts ? No one at all ?
I'll be very surprised that Ensidia has their fury warriors and combat rogues (I'm sure both these specs need engineer to min/max dps) not changing to engineer since 4.1 out (Ulduar) (death knights dps unholy I think did not need engineer to max dps)
Any end-game hardcore raiding guild doesn't allow any of their main members to have a gathering profession like mining / herbing / skinning, even after their buffs in Wrath you aren't allowed, we had a paladin forced to change mining to JC or leave guild, I think incription was also a no profession to hardcore raiders, most people get JC for epic gems and other profession is different depend on class/spec (I had enchant/tailor as priest discpline, JC was minor buff but I was holding guild recipes for gearing etc)

[Devildeer]

It ***WAS*** everywhere on the web? If it was everywhere on the web it WOULD STILL BE ON THE UNDYING WEB. Find it or you are lying.

You can start by reading the old comments in this article:

http://wow.joystiq.com/2010/02/04/en...for-exploits/5

I was about to start looking for the armory links but the "master engeneer" and "artisian engeneer" granted within some minutes won't be there anymore... so meh.

If you want to be blind, it's up to you.

Also sorry for my bad english.

[Edward Solomon]

You can start by reading the old comments in this article:

http://wow.joystiq.com/2010/02/04/en...for-exploits/5

I was about to start looking for the armory links but the "master engeneer" and "artisian engeneer" granted within some minutes won't be there anymore... so meh.

If you want to be blind, it's up to you.

Also sorry for my bad english.

On the first page of that link you see the following:
"It's worth a mention that the language Muqq used at the end of his post is identical (save places and names) to this post by Tigole (scroll to the bottom -- it's the last thing on the page), written of EverQuest in 2002. Be warned, neither of these are safe for work."

That is Muqq's post, the thread I provided in the OP is written by KUNGEN, NOT Muqq. So trying to discredit Kungen by saying he plagiarized Tigole is a flat out lie. It was Muqq who did, and that's not the material I presented in the OP.

Also in that article it is clear that only ONE players (Muqq) was using Saronite bombs, the other INVENTED six-seven players were not. THere is no evidence of such a claim. Also we would have never changed professions for a NORMAL MODE encounter.