To those wrongfully banned in the 30,000 lot recently for exploiting

[Forumchibi]

I call bullshit on this. Humans are inherently curious and have been since the dawn of time. We didn't have to go to the moon but we did. Not just because we could, but because we were curious. Curiosity is a base part of human nature and denying that makes you no better than an animal.

Defending Blizzard's retarded policies and unwarranted bannings also isn't doing you any favors. You cannot sit there and tell me that thirty thousand people.. THIRTY THOUSAND. Just think about that number for a moment. You cannot tell me that thirty thousand people ALL exploited this glitch to gain any sort of meaningful monetary gain or otherwise on purpose. Whenever a mass ban happens in any game there's always at least a handful of accounts that fall through the cracks and for a ban this size, that handful is considerably larger just as the number of unwarranted bans surely is. Don't be stupid.

(I'm going to note first that I don't agree that a permanent ban is necessarily warranted for all of those accounts, but for the people saying no punishment was needed at all, I have to disagree that Blizzard was unjustified for taking action.)

Your analogy is silly. Going to the moon didn't break any laws (well, except maybe the laws of gravity at the time, LOL... ahem), and was done to better humanity through learning, which is why it was widely approved and celebrated. Clearly Blizzard did not approve nor celebrate the use of creating infinite herbs, whether for amusement or money, and in fact said not to do such things in the ToS people agreed to beforehand. Also, I highly doubt anyone learned anything from it besides "my friend/the forum post that told me about this was right!"... well, that, and that Blizzard really will ban you if you're bad.

Saying you were curious is not ever a valid excuse to break a law. Every crime in the world would be excusable if that were the case. "I was just curious if I really could get home with a blood alcohol level of .3, I didn't think those people would still be awake and on the road with me at that hour!"

Curiosity is natural and innocent - knowingly breaking a rule purely for fun or personal gain is not innocent in the slightest. If you know you're forbidden to do something, but do it anyway, it's intentional, and it's not curiosity anymore - it's mischief. Wondering what a view looks like from the top of a building under construction is curiosity. Pushing past the signs saying 'Do Not Enter' and crawling through a hole in the fence so you can climb it is mischief, no matter what you don't disturb and how pretty the view is.

I can't tell you that thirty thousand people did this all for profit, but I can definitely tell you that not one of them who didn't report it actually thought they were doing something allowable. They may have thought that Blizzard would turn a blind eye or not notice, but I guarantee none of them thought that a method to create infinite herbs was legitimate or okay. That people like the OP only did it to test it, but not profit from it, shows that they knew it was morally wrong to use it, or else they would've gone to town with it. They knowingly dangled their toes over the yellow line hoping they were safe as long as they didn't put an entire foot over it, but this time they happened to be punished for it.

And no, just because you think it's good clean fun doesn't mean it's harmless. You're essentially slapping Blizzard or any lawmaker in the face by thinking you're above the law because you can do things that you personally don't think effect anyone else, which just opens the door to doing more things that you think are in good fun, until stuff hits the fan. If you're going to do something irresponsibly, you know by its very nature that there are multiple outcomes, but still have to take responsibility for all of them. Just because no one knows doesn't mean a minor can legally get drunk in their own home and that they're guilt-free the one time the police or an ambulance is called. Poking the items in the 'do not touch' display case is all well and good until you break something. Even something simple that doesn't seem to have any unfavorable results can still go horribly wrong - being able to walk through walls to explore in WoW is all well and good, until you have to explain to the GM how your character is completely stuck, naked and upside-down on the spectral sandbox tiger on GM Island. Finding a way to transmog Thunderfury won't hurt anyone (and would be awesome!), until the one day you forget to take it off in town or an LFG and it spreads like wildfire. It's only a matter of time, and for these people, this was that time.

Besides, Warcraft already has a red button in Ulduar that says you should not push it, exhaust your curiosity on that if you must.

[Sydarm]

Im going to pop back in and throw in the towel that my "unban" was a mistake on their part and I was rebanned only a short hour later. I even phone customer support who said the penalty is a little harsh and even put in his own note on the ticket to have the ban lifted. It was denied again for a 3rd time.

Yes, i disconnected myself out of sheer boredom and "oh look cool i can mill herbs and DC myself" .. I didn't DC myself in order to find a way to dupe or take advantage. AND i am an inscriptionist.

But again, exploiting is exploiting, many guilds and people have PURPOSEFULLY exploited with the intent in mind to gain an advantage. Mine was not. There is a difference.

This is straight from blizzards website

Bug Exploitation
We have a top notch Quality Assurance team who work tirelessly to stamp out bugs in the World of Warcraft. However, they face a constant uphill struggle with a game as large and complex as World of Warcraft. Some bugs are minor and do not affect gameplay, but sometimes these bugs can be used to provide an unfair advantage to certain players or to negatively affect the service itself. Factors included in determining an appropriate penalty for knowing exploitation of a bug include:

Whether or not the exploit is performed intentionally, maliciously, and/or repeatedly.

If a player is found to have abused an exploit, they may:

Be given a verbal warning if exploitation is unintentional and no attempt has been made to hide its occurrence. (I actually submitted a bug report AND tweet about it)
Be temporarily suspended from the game.
In extreme cases the account will be closed outright.

=============


Regardless what the white knights, a simple disconnect is NOT an extreme case. People have done far worse in this game and get 3 hour bans. I would even take a 72hr ban for causing a disconnect to myself. But permanent closure? gimmme a break

[Esubane]

If I read correctly on certain exploiter website this dupe method wasn't just DCing yourself, it was involving a lot of steps that had to be done in very specific order to work.
And if anyone got caught doing this - there is almost 0 chance of a person performing THIS EXACT SEQUENCE without intent. It's like one in a billion. So low it's irrelevant.
So if they ran a script that caught people doing this - they KNEW bout this methid and tried it intentionally. Scale doesnt actually matter - when you rob a bank with a gun, you rob a bank with a gun, taking 1 dollar or a million doesn't matter

Account closures for someone who only tried this without any monetary gain is bit harsh but it's a deterrent for others.
If I knew that I'll only get 72h ban for botting/duping for my first offense - i'd abused the shit out of it, exploit out millions of gold, got banned for 3 days and be set.
Game would be garbage if such system existed.

[Forumchibi]

(I actually submitted a bug report AND tweet about it)
=============
Regardless what the white knights, a simple disconnect is NOT an extreme case. People have done far worse in this game and get 3 hour bans. I would even take a 72hr ban for causing a disconnect to myself. But permanent closure? gimmme a break

I'm sorry to hear that - I do agree that a permanent is pretty harsh since you didn't gain anything with it and reported it.

[impending doom]

If you knew the punishment for peeing on the street was three years in jail, then no. You suffer the consequences of your actions, which is something that many people seem unable to do.

According to Blizzard's own terms, it doesn't seem like using a bug just to DC yourself is enough for a permanent ban. And my reply was towards the overly simplified attitude of "if u do anything forbidden, you deserve whatever punishment is given, case closed", which can be pretty dangerous attitude IRL. Besides blindly banning everyone who have done something suspicious, without further investigation, gives just false sense of security. Those people who abused it the worst will be affected the least cause they made enough money to (illegally) buy several new accounts and just continue.

I might in some level understand that based on the large number of people triggering the bug, and limited resources of Blizzard, could be used to justify wide perma bans, IMO they should focus more resources on stopping the real abusers than making sure nobody got "too harsh" penalty. BUT saying that people who only tested the bug without any gain deserve the same as those who actually exploited it, is just ignorant and missing the real problem.

No, some players actually know how to act in a social setting and have at least perused over the ToS well enough to know what not to do. Stop assuming everyone plays with their time invested characters as haphazardly as you.

Yes some, but the point is that I've seen a lot of (minor or major) infractions happening in the game and only a tiny part of those gets a perma ban, most don't get anything. Oh and I don't believe that the majority of players have ever read even half of the ToS.

[Pann]

If I read correctly on certain exploiter website this dupe method wasn't just DCing yourself, it was involving a lot of steps that had to be done in very specific order to work.
And if anyone got caught doing this - there is almost 0 chance of a person performing THIS EXACT SEQUENCE without intent. It's like one in a billion. So low it's irrelevant.
So if they ran a script that caught people doing this - they KNEW bout this methid and tried it intentionally. Scale doesnt actually matter - when you rob a bank with a gun, you rob a bank with a gun, taking 1 dollar or a million doesn't matter

Account closures for someone who only tried this without any monetary gain is bit harsh but it's a deterrent for others.
If I knew that I'll only get 72h ban for botting/duping for my first offense - i'd abused the shit out of it, exploit out millions of gold, got banned for 3 days and be set.
Game would be garbage if such system existed.

The exploit may well have many steps and the chance of accidentally discovering it is minimal. However there will be people that have tried it because their friend has told them that by repeating the sequence they will be disconnected, upon being disconnected they log back on and have a good laugh with their friend without any gain of any sort.

Hmm, your analogy is up there but I still think the interstellar war scenario is out in front.

I doubt Blizzard would ban you for 72 hours and let you keep the gold you gained from an exploit.

[Tsimp]

ITT: Jaded assholes who take wow way too seriously.

[impending doom]

If I read correctly on certain exploiter website this dupe method wasn't just DCing yourself, it was involving a lot of steps that had to be done in very specific order to work.
And if anyone got caught doing this - there is almost 0 chance of a person performing THIS EXACT SEQUENCE without intent. It's like one in a billion. So low it's irrelevant.
So if they ran a script that caught people doing this - they KNEW bout this methid and tried it intentionally. Scale doesnt actually matter - when you rob a bank with a gun, you rob a bank with a gun, taking 1 dollar or a million doesn't matter

If the bug is used just to DC you, it doesn't dupe anything, you need a longer sequence of actions to actually exploit it to make a dupe. And if you compare it to a bank robbery, it would be more like doing it without a gun, through an open backdoor, in which case taking just 1 dollar or a million would give a different punishment afaik.

[quikbunny]

AND i am an inscriptionist.

Ban deserved just for this. You were a Scribe, not a "inscriptionist".

[Tehterokkar]

You SHOULD have reported of the issue the instant you had the "rollback". Instead you kept it to yourself and decided to be silent and not report it asap and avoid the ban.

If you don't report it right away and ask the GM to remove the items from your bags, you will be considered as those that exploit it all the time.

[quikbunny]

If I knew that I'll only get 72h ban for botting/duping for my first offense - i'd abused the shit out of it, exploit out millions of gold, got banned for 3 days and be set.

This is the case though for botting. If you resell the gold for real money then you can get a ban pretty fast, but if you stay "off the radar" and use gathering bots the odds of being banned or even getting caught are so incredibly small.

[Rhaktor]

Don't break the rules, don't get banned. Worked for me over the last 8 years.

[hasslehoof]

Oh, I see the mod is going to be a white knight. First you have to define "Exploiting", do you agree with the ban that Ensidia got on their LK normal kill?

Having actually known people from Ensidia that were present on the kill, they didn't know what was causing the bug, they knew the fight was bugged though and thus, should of actually told Blizz rather then do a bugged boss. They realised that they were skipping the hardest part of an encounter which made the encounter a complete joke.

So yes, they were in the wrong.

[Deathray]

this happened to me when I DC'd from blizzard cuz my internet shut off, I didn't realize i duped 500g into 1000g. whoooooops

[Descense]

Now......that explains how some guy could get 40 darkmoon rabbits for sale.

[starkey]

im sorry but this is way too funny lol

what does being a vanilla player makes you so special lol

Yep he is special, he has pissed 8 years of his life away on this game he should be put on a pedestal.

[Raiju]

Having actually known people from Ensidia that were present on the kill, they didn't know what was causing the bug, they knew the fight was bugged though and thus, should of actually told Blizz rather then do a bugged boss. They realised that they were skipping the hardest part of an encounter which made the encounter a complete joke.

So yes, they were in the wrong.

OP reported the bug, as I stated earlier in the thread blizzard are the poorest company I've ever seen handling things like this when you actually report the issue. You still get warnings, bans, etc. They can't handle things.

Face it, the only people defending this haven't been on the side where they did everything in blizzards best interests (testing a bug and reporting it without exploiting is praiseworthy not banworthy) and still got mistreated by blizz.

[Elvine]

Exploiting, major or otherwise, is exploiting. Doing it for fun or because you're curious doesn't make it something else.

Agreed with this statement.

[walkingtall]

Mess with the auction house and they hit you like Bobby Boucher.

Make BG's completely unplayable by botting and it's nothing but the sweet sound of silence.

[Pann]

Now......that explains how some guy could get 40 darkmoon rabbits for sale.

As I understand it this exploit allowed people to reset the cool down on daily crafts as the Darkmoon Rabbit is a drop if the pets were duped it was with an entirely different exploit.

Mess with the auction house and they hit you like Bobby Boucher.

Make BG's completely unplayable by botting and it's nothing but the sweet sound of silence.

I have to say that it is the lack of consistency that is my biggest issue with this whole situation. Despite what some are claiming that it will ruin the economy it simply was not wide spread enough to do so and I doubt without this thread many would not even be aware that it had happened. Yet behaviour that has genuine impact on others play time such as battleground bots and the abuse that some throw at others seemingly goes unpunished.