reports coming in on the action against people who abused the WQ exploit

[xenogear3]

I read the penalty is just 3 days.

Did Blizzard change its mind?

[rda]

In short, if you're ignoring "evidence" from either side, you're part of the problem and people have every reason to never take you seriously.

"Blizzard can't be wrong. The blue post is infallible proof"
"The guy who made the exploit can't be wrong. He made it after all"

While that's extremely simplified, some of these responses makes me believe people are being willfully stupid.

Argument backing the exploiter:

- Originally posted the exploit
- The exploit has been unable to be replicated by a site of experienced exploiters
- Said exploiters also poked holes in his method in which he replied saying it was hotfixed, long before Blizzard made a statement saying that they were trying to fix it. He then posted a day later saying that it was working again
- There has been no proof of the exploit occurring.
- There has been no proof of anyone getting banned.
- He made a series of exploit posts that were even worse thought of than this one.
- This exploit made no sense whatsoever. Go read the method if you wish.

Arguments against the exploiter:

- He's lying, no matter how you look at it.
- A Blue Post can be taken in a way that contradicts him.
- His reason for lying now could be to troll the community. Saying it's to avoid a ban is stupid and doesn't make any sense whatsoever.

Arguments against the Blue Post:

- It's worded in a way that the community can't decide what it means
- Blizzard was under constant pressure by the community flipping out over the alleged exploit
- Blizzard has stated blatantly false things before, in Blue Posts as well as twitter. The two that still ring the bell the loudest are: "Everyone abusing the Artifact Power exploited will be rolled back", which never happened, and "Duping doesn't exist" during the duping fiasco, which still makes a large portion of the community laugh to this day.

Arguments for the Blue Post:

- A Blue posted it.

I'm not saying either side is wrong for trusting one over the other. I'm just saying blind fanaticism is a trait of the fool. Weigh both and come to your own conclusion.

This is a good summary.

Please observe that (a) all specifics speak that the "exploit" is a fake, (b) the only thing that speaks that it is not a fake is "A blue posted it", and (c) even that single thing speaking that it is not a fake is tainted by blue CMs goofing up regularly and ending up misspeaking or saying outright nonsense, we have plenty of history here.

There is just nothing to talk about. Where's the exploit? Who ever did it? Who ever saw it done? Nowhere, nobody. It's the CM misspeaking. End of story.

[Raelbo]

Please observe that (a) all specifics speak that the "exploit" is a fake, (b) the only thing that speaks that it is not a fake is "A blue posted it", and (c) even that single thing speaking that it is not a fake is tainted by blue CMs goofing up regularly and ending up misspeaking or saying outright nonsense, we have plenty of history here.

There is just nothing to talk about. Where's the exploit? Who ever did it? Who ever saw it done? Nowhere, nobody. It's the CM misspeaking. End of story.

Why is it that you always have to take every opportunity to shit on Blizzard for every little mistake they make? Not only is it annoying but it also undermines your credibility because you come across as a bitter cynic - which is a strong motive to be biased.

Yes, the CM misspoke. But gloating about it and trying to slip in snarky comments about how they are regularly "goofing up" and saying "outright nonsense" is just asinine. Most likely what happened was that Ythisens passed the info about the exploit on to the devs. The devs said they'll fix it as a matter of priority and take action against anyone caught using it. They were all acting on the assumption that the hoax was real and how they would have acted had it actually been real. It simply never occured to them that the people they were dealing with were being deliberately dishonest.

Hopefully everyone knows the story of the The Boy Who Cried Wolf. The moral of that story is not that the villagers who rushed to assist the boy were idiots....

As far as I am concerned Ythisens was acting on good faith. That he got tricked does not make him a gullible idiot, it just makes the hoaxer look like a smug prick. I think that in the end there are going to be some well deserved perma bans coming out of this - for the guy(s) who created this hoax.

[Deleted]

I think they shouldve went even further and made it a perma Battlenet ban so they cannot play ANY Blizzard Games

And they should also be arrested for destruction of private property.

[Raelbo]

Cuz I trust that guy over the blue poster. Look at the actual ownedcore topic and see the responses there. The only person who replicated it is only himself and one friend which is probably him as well.

For me it's not about trust. It's simply about fitting a plausible explanation to all info we have.

I mean let's be honest here. The self proclaimed hoaxer is absolutely not trustworthy. Logic dictates that he is lying either way. Either the original exploit is his lie, or the claim that it is a hoax is his lie. Given that there is a rational explanation for the blue post for either scenario, it's simply a question of what lie makes the most sense.

Frankly, a prankster who succeeded in tricking people and is now gloating about it just seems far more plausible than some idiot trying to convince people that a provable thing was just a hoax.

[Femininity]

Whether the exploit is real or fake, this thread is diamonds.

[rda]

Why is it that you always have to take every opportunity [...]

This is simply your wrong perception of what happens. The reality is different.

Yesterday I wrote something that was praising Blizzard a bit and something that was dissing Blizzard a bit. The praise was: the way they scale AP is good (fixing percent progress on the last AP level) because they successfully avoided creating an incentive to hold on / stress associated with that. The dissing was: Blizzard CM misspoke and this created a small unnecessary storm out of nothing with the fake exploit that was a hoax, if CM spoke more carefully this wouldn't have happened. The former is a small praise. The latter is a small diss (and yes, I absolutely agree that the CM had no intention to mislead, he just miscommunicated somewhat, I said as much as well). Now, the difference is that the praise was just one post and the dissing was multiple posts. But why is that? Because there was nobody saying to the praise: "hey, this is not the case, what they did with the AP sucks". And there were tons of people saying to the dissing: "it was clearly an exploit and you are a dummy".

That's all that happened.

PS: Simpler - your take-away from my post that you quote is me saying that CMs are dumb and misspeak. But my post isn't about that, I made it to say that the exploit is fake, that's it. The note on CMs misspeaking is a side thing. It plays a role in the post, but it isn't the center of it. So, yeah, it's your perception playing tricks on you. You want to see dirt, you see it. I am not sugarcoating things, but that's the end of it, I don't gloat.

[Deleted]

this is the power of the internet, the media and fake news.

at the end of the day you don't know whats real and it is up to you decide what you want to believe. there are many arguments for every side, the most importants are basically that there are no screenshots of this exploit actually happening and a CM actually confirming this exploit is happening.

No matter whats actually true, the outcome should be a lesson for everyone. Not for this particular case, but in general.

Because,

There is this one guy, starting all this, out of nothing. He doesnt need anything specific to do this, all he needs is a keyboard. the entire community believes him, without questioning. nobody knows anything, but the rumors keep going and at the end of the day, there was this huge exploit and ppl are spending hours and hours raging about anything connected to this case, if there was in fact - nothing. the lesson right here is: be more open minded and start thinking before you step down into big conversations.

the overall media is aware of the people reactions, which is similar whats happening to the US president trump. according to media, trump was the biggest douche even before he tried to become the president. the media made his picture and the people started to believe them, without making their own opinion.

this brings me to the next point here, why is a CM responding, if there wasn't any exploit?

its because they are scared of the outrage. simple as that. you don't want all forums, intern and extern and the wow server, spammed with exploited stuff. you want to calm the community and scare the potential exploiters to keep the damage small. we'll never know for sure if this CM's post is true, but if we use our brain, we know, its not true. its simple marketing. and if this has happened right here, it has happened again and will happen again in the future.

you should learn the lesson and blizzard should learn the lesson and at the end of the day, there are still those few guys out there, duping TCG mounts while blizzard is denying it. but thats okay, because the outrage is small and nobody believes it anyway, until its acutally happening right infront of their eyes.

[rda]

^^ I'd say what the lesson is but I'll get accused again of gloating over mistakes of you know who even though what I say will be unequivocally true. So I'll pass.

[hasslehoof]

this is the power of the internet, the media and fake news.

at the end of the day you don't know whats real and it is up to you decide what you want to believe. there are many arguments for every side, the most importants are basically that there are no screenshots of this exploit actually happening and a CM actually confirming this exploit is happening.

No matter whats actually true, the outcome should be a lesson for everyone. Not for this particular case, but in general.

Because,

There is this one guy, starting all this, out of nothing. He doesnt need anything specific to do this, all he needs is a keyboard. the entire community believes him, without questioning. nobody knows anything, but the rumors keep going and at the end of the day, there was this huge exploit and ppl are spending hours and hours raging about anything connected to this case, if there was in fact - nothing. the lesson right here is: be more open minded and start thinking before you step down into big conversations.

the overall media is aware of the people reactions, which is similar whats happening to the US president trump. according to media, trump was the biggest douche even before he tried to become the president. the media made his picture and the people started to believe them, without making their own opinion.

this brings me to the next point here, why is a CM responding, if there wasn't any exploit?

its because they are scared of the outrage. simple as that. you don't want all forums, intern and extern and the wow server, spammed with exploited stuff. you want to calm the community and scare the potential exploiters to keep the damage small. we'll never know for sure if this CM's post is true, but if we use our brain, we know, its not true. its simple marketing. and if this has happened right here, it has happened again and will happen again in the future.

you should learn the lesson and blizzard should learn the lesson and at the end of the day, there are still those few guys out there, duping TCG mounts while blizzard is denying it. but thats okay, because the outrage is small and nobody believes it anyway, until its acutally happening right infront of their eyes.

this is bad bait, try harder next time.

then again this is mmoc where people would believe you if you told them guillible was tatooed on to their forehead.

[Raelbo]

This is simply your wrong perception of what happens. The reality is different.

I can accept that it may not be the way you intend to come across, but it is. If it was just me, then it stands to reason that I'd have the same issue with everyone. I am not even the first person in this thread to make this observation.

Anyhow, your call, but I suggest being more aware of the way you come across because, even if the readers are misinterpreting you, it is affected by the way you choose to write and the effect is still the same: it undermines your credibility by making you seem like a guy with a chip on his shoulder.

PS: Simpler - your take-away from my post that you quote is me saying that CMs are dumb and misspeak. But my post isn't about that, I made it to say that the exploit is fake, that's it. The note on CMs misspeaking is a side thing. It plays a role in the post, but it isn't the center of it.

I get that. But you chose to put that barb in there. It didn't add any real value and it hijacked your actual point. You don't get to blame the reader for that.

- - - Updated - - -

this brings me to the next point here, why is a CM responding, if there wasn't any exploit?

its because they are scared of the outrage. simple as that. you don't want all forums, intern and extern and the wow server, spammed with exploited stuff. you want to calm the community and scare the potential exploiters to keep the damage small. we'll never know for sure if this CM's post is true, but if we use our brain, we know, its not true. its simple marketing.

That's a pretty cynical answer to your own question.

He responded to let people know that they had been heard and that Blizzard wasn't just ignoring the issue.

Did he do it to allay fears and calm people down? Yes. It's part of managing a forum
Did he do it as a cautionary note to potential exploiters? Yes. It's far better to warn players off doing something stupid than have to punish them after the fact

This isn't about marketing it's about client management.

you should learn the lesson and blizzard should learn the lesson

The lessons each party can learn is based on their reaction. People who reacted with outrage should learn to calm down. Blizzard could learn to be a little more careful in exactly how they word things.

But really, this is a classic case of a Boy Crying Wolf. The real lesson there is don't be that guy.

[Tharkkun]

None of those wowprogress armory links prove anything. Being geared with full 355 boes just means you have a lot of gold. The AH is packed with 355 boes and they are constantly being bought/sold since Bfa launch.

Like I said everyone seems to claim this exploit exist yet no one has a single armory link to prove it.

What makes you think their armory will exist now that the account has been banned? You troll harder than anyone with misinformation in class forums. What makes you think we should think anything you say is credible at all?

- - - Updated - - -

Proof of what? That nothing happened? Yeah... You should better proof that something happened. No evidence of anyone beeing banned. No evidence of a single character that exploited. ^^

Blizzard never comments on people being banned other than saying a mass banning of X number of accounts occurred. That's if they comment at all. I don't think those who were banned are going to come to a website and brag about it either.

[Clozer]

What makes you think their armory will exist now that the account has been banned? You troll harder than anyone with misinformation in class forums. What makes you think we should think anything you say is credible at all?

- - - Updated - - -



Blizzard never comments on people being banned other than saying a mass banning of X number of accounts occurred. That's if they comment at all. I don't think those who were banned are going to come to a website and brag about it either.

From old exploits there were shit ton of evidence. Videos/screenshots of someone exploiting and you could at least say 20 players that exploited by taking a look at their armory. Right now there isn't a single player that was found exploiting and nothing that indicates that the exploit ever worked. Not a single email went out about any banns - stuff that was indeed available in old exploits. ye.. this was all fake.

[OMGTwitchTV]

Oh, so skipping levels and buying gold is not cheating the game?

Cheating implies going AROUND the rules. You should know that. Boosting is a paid service, or free with every expansion and is therefore not cheating. Purchasing WoW tokens to sell for gold is a service, ALSO provided by Blizz and is therefore not cheating. Your argument is invalid.

[ONCHEhap]

i think that banning people for an exploit is wrong.

it is the company's fault for making a game that allowed an exploit to happen.

I think that arresting people for robbing a store is wrong

it is the owner's fault for making a door that is openned too easily

[KevyB]

Very good on the bans.

[Alex86el]

I think that arresting people for robbing a store is wrong

it is the owner's fault for making a door that is openned too easily

the difference is, this is not real life, and no one is stealing from anybody.
some people love to compare real life with silly games.


its like i make a maze, and challenge people to beat it,
but i forget to close off an important path,
and people go through it, right at the finish line.

it is my fault. the maze is faulty.

i will fix the maze, and of course i wont give them the prize.
but i cant punish them for using what i gave them.

[rhorle]

i will fix the maze, and of course i wont give them the prize.
but i cant punish them for using what i gave them.

Except you did punish them by not giving them the prize. It is like you don't understand what you are saying.

[Cel]

even if it was a hoax, the guy causing it should be permabanned just for wasting dev time to investigate something that doesn't exist, rather than focusing on other things...

Im with this guy. I can't be asked or care to dig up whether the exploit is fake or not. I don't really care. I don't want exploits in the games I play, I don't want people that like to take advantages of exploits in the games I play, so if it is true, perma-bans sound appropriate.

People putting the blame on Blizzard are silly and have not a single clue of what comes with programming and developing software. Bugs happen. That's why there's a TOS that specifically talks about taking advantage of exploits. I am an advocate of playing ignorant doesn't absolve you of your actions, specially when the ignorance is blatant.

On the other hand. If this was all a hoax, I hope the person that presented the hoax and anyone that furthered the rumor are deserving of perma-bans as well. Heavy hand? Maybe, but I tire of trolls and attention seekers. I rather them not be in the game wasting dev time with what is essentially a mental handicap of always needing people noticing them, just as much as I don't want to play in the same environment as cheaters.


Ban them all! Or shuffle them all off to their own isolated shard where they can destroy their own environment rather then the one we all share.

Get all the kids that like to pee in the pool into their own pool, so to speak.

- - - Updated - - -

the difference is, this is not real life, and no one is stealing from anybody.
some people love to compare real life with silly games.


its like i make a maze, and challenge people to beat it,
but i forget to close off an important path,
and people go through it, right at the finish line.

it is my fault. the maze is faulty.

i will fix the maze, and of course i wont give them the prize.
but i cant punish them for using what i gave them.

Except you are forgetting a very important part of your analogy. You are forgetting that you handed each person that stepped into your maze a waver that stated (and they agreed to) to not take advantage of unintended flaws, and they did anyways.

If this thing truly was real, then they broke the ToS. They broke the rules. They don't deserve to play. They can always buy a new account. I think perma-ban is valid. They agreed to rules, then broke those rules they agreed to. In this specific incident, once again, if real, broke the rules in a very destructive way in the fact that they essentially rep, item, gold duped. This destroys the integrity of the market, the game, and other players progress. Their account is forfeit.

Should Blizzard do their best to catch all bugs? Yes. Do they? I can't claim to have enough knowledge about that to say. Does all software suffer from bugs and mistakes and is it reasonable to expect that? 100% yes. Thats partially why the ToS exists.

[Deleted]

I think that arresting people for robbing a store is wrong

it is the owner's fault for making a door that is openned too easily

Partially.

If the owner's store is in a bad neighborhood that is prone to robberies and he did not take proper precaution in which that precaution would have prevented the robbery than yes the owner is partially at fault.