Raid Finder Loot Exploit Suspensions, Paragon Apology

Raid Finder Loot Exploit Suspensions
Blizzard finally commented on the Raid Finder Loot exploit resultingin multiple accounts suspensions in a lot of guilds.
Originally Posted by Bashiok (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Shortly after patch 4.3 was released, we became aware that some players were abusing an exploit to obtain loot from the same Raid Finder bosses multiple times in a single raid lockout period (one week). The Raid Finder loot mechanic is of course intended to only allow a person to roll on boss loot drops once per raid lockout period. The raid lockout mechanic has been a mainstay of the World of Warcraft rules since Onyxia and Molten Core, ensuring that no one can obtain loot from a boss more than once per lockout. Due to the nature of the exploit and the clear intent of those who abused it, they've been issued notices and given temporary suspensions from the game. We’re also working to remove all Raid Finder items from those who used the exploit.

It's also worth noting that Paragon posted an apology on their website

An LFR Apology
There has been a lot of misinformation going around, so to clear things up, here is a truthful account of what exactly happened with the LFR and what we have to say about it:

The patch hit EU servers on Wednesday. We started off with our 5x Firelands runs to wrap up legendaries and called it a night. For Thursday, we had an elaborate plan to run a personal LFR raid for every main character to get the maximum amount of loot.

As we were doing the first few runs, we noticed an unrealistic amount of tier pieces on some guilds' armory profiles, which we thought was unattainable through normal means. We started looking into it, and found out that you can loot passed gear from bosses, regardless of save status, if you zone out and back into the instance. This did not provide the raid with any extra loot, but it did eliminate a major portion of the RNG that would have been involved in simply doing personal runs for everyone.

We acknowledge that using this unintended behavior, which was quite clearly a bug, to our gain, was wrong. The fact that others were using it as well is no justification for doing it ourselves. We apologize for doing it, and accept whatever consequences follow.
This article was originally published in forum thread: Raid Finder Loot Exploit Suspensions, Paragon Apology started by Boubouille View original post
Published on 2011-12-06 07:28 PM
488 Comments
Comments 480 Comments
  1. Defiant's Avatar
    Yeah and bet there unbanned now! Just because there a top guild they get treated like royalty!
  1. mmoc272372c562's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Defiant View Post
    Yeah and bet there unbanned now! Just because there a top guild they get treated like royalty!
    No more. They are no longer a top guild. You can't be a top guild when you cheat... I love the mix of boasting around "Firelands x5"/discharging guilt "it's not our idea, some screwb guild" and word chosen "bug/behavior" instead of Exploit. And the whole apology thing, lol... it never works

    Quote Originally Posted by Tython View Post
    I agree. I don't think this is the first time they exploited. It's usually a 72 hour ban then permanent. I've never heard of an 8 day ban until now...
    Rules aren't this flat... They can perma ban you tomorrow if they want to. Even if you never had any warnings. Apparently they put 8 days to thoses who did that repeatidly, and one day or 3 day do thoses who only did it once or so. Regardless of their history. Since it also cluterred forum, investigations teams etc 8 days was to be an example. They knew it would make the front page of MMO Champion, it's their way of saying "look what we do to exploiters, think again". It's a good investment... Perma would have been too much imo.
  1. Deepone's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by lkonig View Post
    Paragon players should have the gear removed from each toon that received it. They all should receive at least a 1 week ban and any worlds 1st should aslo go bye bye.They knew they were using a glitch in the game to gain gear unfarely.
    Please don't post without at least familiarizing yourself with the basic facts. All of the above already happened.

    ---------- Post added 2011-12-07 at 09:26 PM ----------

    Quote Originally Posted by Izuria View Post
    All blame Paragon. How about blaming Blizzard for ONCE AGAIN not being able to deliver bugfree content which, like everything else, has already been beta tested.They earn so fucking much through this game and can't even test it properly.They're just too fucking greedy.
    1) "Bug-free" is a phrase used by marketing droids and idiots. There's no such thing in the software world, a point proven time and time again when 20 year old code that has been published in textbooks, released as open source for all the world to read and made its way into dozens of operating systems has new bugs discovered in it yearly. I guarantee that every line of code in WoW has a hidden bug in it that no one's thinking about. Very few of them will ever affect a player, though.

    2) "Has already been beta tested"? You're actually complaining about how bad Blizzard's user are for not discovering this bug?! Come again?

    3) "They earn so fucking much through this game and can't even test it properly" -- well, I guess you have no choice but to go play that other bug-free game... which one was that, again?

    Edit: I suppose I should point out, as if it weren't obvious, that none of the above excuses bad software. I consider WoW's bug rate to be fairly reasonable given that so much of it works flawlessly. However, they do open themselves up to more problems than are strictly required by re-inventing the core mechanics every release. I'd love to see a WoW expansion that added a new class or race, a new continent, new raids and new dungeons and didn't f**k with the rest of the game...
  1. halogen's Avatar
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eftLPkwTsUI
  1. Kuja's Avatar
    Wonder what Para's sponsors will say about this. Getting banned for exploiting and losing the world first, second and third place does not look good in their book.
  1. Tython's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by donniedarko7 View Post
    No more. They are no longer a top guild. You can't be a top guild when you cheat... I love the mix of boasting around "Firelands x5"/discharging guilt "it's not our idea, some screwb guild" and word chosen "bug/behavior" instead of Exploit. And the whole apology thing, lol... it never works



    Rules aren't this flat... They can perma ban you tomorrow if they want to. Even if you never had any warnings. Apparently they put 8 days to thoses who did that repeatidly, and one day or 3 day do thoses who only did it once or so. Regardless of their history. Since it also cluterred forum, investigations teams etc 8 days was to be an example. They knew it would make the front page of MMO Champion, it's their way of saying "look what we do to exploiters, think again". It's a good investment... Perma would have been too much imo.
    In my opinion, if they wanted to send a strong message, a perma ban would do it but I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that but I appreciate your post. It does make good business sense for Blizzard.
  1. Byuiso's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Izuria View Post
    All blame Paragon. How about blaming Blizzard for ONCE AGAIN not being able to deliver bugfree content which, like everything else, has already been beta tested.They earn so fucking much through this game and can't even test it properly.They're just too fucking greedy.
    The point of the PTR is to catch stuff like this, when a group holds back information like this, how is Blizzard suppose to know?
  1. Vengfulr3ap3r's Avatar
    Lol man so much hate going around about this toward Paragon. I wouldn't call them cheaters in the least, Nor should they be punished. You know why? Its an oversight on blizzards part and all you guys are saying they, the guild, should get perma banned for "abusing an exploit".. sorry to tell you guys.. But think about it for a second, Its blizzards own fault! Think about it, Sure the PTR is for testing, but how idiotic would a developer be to NOT bug test their own shit... AT ALL. Lol, Everyone develops it, bug tests it internally to make sure all the important stuff works correctly.. and THEN they post it as alpha or beta for OTHERS to bug test to see what OTHER bug's are there AFTER they've already made sure all the important crap works correctly...

    This is something anyone with half a brain could have guess would be possible, Simply because of how loot worked. Once its in your inventory it can be traded for 2 hours to anyone within the party. So stoping someone from rolling on it... just stops them from getting it initiall. Its blizzards fault for being to stupid to actually think 2 seconds in front of their face... so they punish people for it instead of admitting THEY screwed up? fixing the bug THEY didn't think could happen or test for.... man.. No wonder they lost 1.7m players lol.
  1. greatmefisto's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Vengfulr3ap3r View Post
    Lol man so much hate going around about this toward Paragon. I wouldn't call them cheaters in the least, Nor should they be punished. You know why? Its an oversight on blizzards part and all you guys are saying they, the guild, should get perma banned for "abusing an exploit".. sorry to tell you guys.. But think about it for a second, Its blizzards own fault! Think about it, Sure the PTR is for testing, but how idiotic would a developer be to NOT bug test their own shit... AT ALL. Lol, Everyone develops it, bug tests it internally to make sure all the important stuff works correctly.. and THEN they post it as alpha or beta for OTHERS to bug test to see what OTHER bug's are there AFTER they've already made sure all the important crap works correctly...

    This is something anyone with half a brain could have guess would be possible, Simply because of how loot worked. Once its in your inventory it can be traded for 2 hours to anyone within the party. So stoping someone from rolling on it... just stops them from getting it initiall. Its blizzards fault for being to stupid to actually think 2 seconds in front of their face... so they punish people for it instead of admitting THEY screwed up? fixing the bug THEY didn't think could happen or test for.... man.. No wonder they lost 1.7m players lol.
    Deeopne actually summed it up for you dear sir.. Also if you would have half of brain you would read game rules. Blizzard clearly says that exploiting a bug to your unfair advantage meets with punishment. It is there black on white, do you like it or not.
  1. Newcon12's Avatar
    They deserve way more imo. They knew exactly what they were doing, and who doesn't know that exploiting like that is a wrong, you would expect the top guilds to know that. The apology isn't that they are apologising for doing it, as people have already said. They are apologising for getting caught and want to make it seem like they are the 'victims' and that people feel sorry for them. Which is working for some, I hope the ban doesn't end prematurely, because they are a 'top' raiding guild, which feel they have to cheat to remain top hmmm interesting. I think the punishment they have received is good enough as they won't be able to get most of the worlds first kills on heroic. my rant over
  1. mmoc040bc4a50f's Avatar
    Plenty of haters on here, bet every single one of you would have done the same thing if you weren't lagging around on the first boss still, I'm certainly no fanboy of any guild but I do know that 99% of wow players would cheat if they knew how to and have ninja'd at some point, pot and kettle springs to mind
  1. mmoc489567f5e5's Avatar
    No need for an apology.Blizzard left a bug in the game and they are well in their right to use it.
  1. Vengfulr3ap3r's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by greatmefisto View Post
    Deeopne actually summed it up for you dear sir.. Also if you would have half of brain you would read game rules. Blizzard clearly says that exploiting a bug to your unfair advantage meets with punishment. It is there black on white, do you like it or not.
    Didn't exactly feel like reading 470 posts repeating the same exact thing. Sorry to disapoint you, But I don't have that much time to waste.

    Its not "exploiting a bug". Its an oversight on blizzards part for NOT testing to make sure the meat and potatoes of that patch were working properly BEFORE giving it to the masses to bug test. You do not. Under any circumstance. Plop down a piece of software, or a game, to the masses WITHOUT making sure it at least has down the basic's of what you want it to do. Beta testing ISNT for massive bug finds. its for the little ones they are to busy to find. There for they're BANNING PEOPLE for 8 days BECAUSE THEY WERE TO LAZY TO DO IT THEMSELVES. How is it the players fault blizzard didnt take into consideration how loot ALREADY worked. and HAS WORKED since i started playing? it isnt. its just blizzard to worthless to admit they can make a mistake, so they're punishing the players for it. Lol. Maybe if they weren't to lazy to test their own shit this wouldnt have happened. Well they're either being lazy or creating more blizz store content, or rehashing more content.... Or fighting out a way to buff frost mages more. One of the four. So im quite sory to inform you, But I do have half a brain... and this shit. is why me and 1.7 other people quit. When you lose that many people in 9 months. You are doing something wrong.
  1. Ihazcakeforu's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Vengfulr3ap3r View Post
    Its not "exploiting a bug". Its an oversight on blizzards part for NOT testing to make sure the meat and potatoes of that patch were working properly BEFORE giving it to the masses to bug test. You do not. Under any circumstance. Plop down a piece of software, or a game, to the masses WITHOUT making sure it at least has down the basic's of what you want it to do. Beta testing ISNT for massive bug finds. its for the little ones they are to busy to find. There for they're BANNING PEOPLE for 8 days BECAUSE THEY WERE TO LAZY TO DO IT THEMSELVES. How is it the players fault blizzard didnt take into consideration how loot ALREADY worked. and HAS WORKED since i started playing? it isnt. its just blizzard to worthless to admit they can make a mistake, so they're punishing the players for it. Lol. Maybe if they weren't to lazy to test their own shit this wouldnt have happened. Well they're either being lazy or creating more blizz store content, or rehashing more content.... Or fighting out a way to buff frost mages more. One of the four. So im quite sory to inform you, But I do have half a brain... and this shit. is why me and 1.7 other people quit. When you lose that many people in 9 months. You are doing something wrong.
    You just said it yourself, the loot wasn't working the way EVERYONE KNOWS it is supposed to "since you started playing". How hard is to to understand that this is an exploit? It was obvious that it wasn't working as intentended and it was abused.... Theres just no discussion about this, it's pretty clear cut
  1. Droodeffekt's Avatar
    Paragon did what everyone else was doing at the time, not that it is an excuse but it has been happening for a LONG LONG TIME.

    The last one I remember was the Firelands dailies and heaps of people could get multiple marks the first day as the reset happened at 12:00am (my time) and also at 3:00am (my time) and therefore they got extra tokens if they realised this.

    At the end of the day, if Blizzard makes a mistake like letting people get loot more than once or more marks etc, well then so be it. People are always finding things like this to get a little further but it never really hurts anyone, paragon gets a little extra gear, someone gets a couple of marks extra and so on. If it wasn't paragon and just some random on your server noone would even blink an eyelid, but as soon as it is some well known guild BAM! everyone says OMFG HOW COULD YOU!.....

    Bugs have and will always exist, patches will not always go live as intended but you should not be banned due to blizzards mistakes. Firelands patch hit in 4.2 for the first 2-3 days of trash runs the epics were dropping like greens and heaps of people got them, they patched it and fixed it 2 days after the patch went live and people didnt get all their items taken off them and banned... WHY because a patch didnt go as intended..... people were not exploiting but merely riding the luck, just like paragon they rode the luck of being able to get people items and they did it.

    Worry about spending your time elsewhere Blizzard like stopping DK's rolling on agi trinkets and polearms and less time on banning people who find the mistakes that you made and benefit a little. Much rather someone get a piece of gear than dks rolling on agi.

    Kind regards

    Droodeffekt.
  1. Mangaman's Avatar
    Haha I love how in the last paragraph they point the finger at other people, way to take responsibility douche bags! (imitating Paragon)"but everyone else did it too!" Wah. Man up.
  1. Natman205's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Astelia View Post
    >Exploit >Get caught >Apologize No intentions to apologize otherwise. pathethic.
    Would you go to a police station and apologise if you were speeding down the highway but didn't get caught? No? Pathetic. It's not really pathetic. At least they are having somewhat of a go at redeeming themselves. I am sure if you were in the same situation they were, you would do the same.
  1. Simplevintagex's Avatar
    Love how they "apologize" without ever really admitting they did anything wrong. They knew what they were doing, and they knew their status would prevent them from being permabanned. It's blatant, and obvious unfair treatment on Blizzard's part, but whatever.
  1. Tython's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Idletime View Post
    Remove yourself from this for a minute and quit worrying about Paragon. Worry more about the stability of the policies set in place by this company. Since forever and a day Blizz has said, We will not tolerate hacks or cheats. I am now crying boloney. They now officially do and are deleting all references to this incident on their site - completely covering it up to the public that thinks otherwise. Exploits are a form of cheating, and there's no logic around this. Get some honor and integrity in your tiny little lives and maybe the world would be a better place. Paragon and the others should have been outright banned. Doesn't matter if it was 100 accounts or 1 million or all 10 million. You as a company either have the integrity to enforce the rules or you don't. Sure, SWTOR is coming out, who cares. You've officially now endorsed cheating as "OK" as long as one of the top guilds in the world promoting the game does it. Hypocritical sacks of $%&@.
    I agree. Star Wars can't come fast enough!
  1. mmocf87b51648a's Avatar
    i dont feel sorry for them tbh, they should know better by now and a ticket about it is easy made. they are prolly only sorry they got caught or that is was seen as an exploit in the end and not a bug that just had to be fixed.
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