Tales from the Customer Service Forum: Can't sleep, Blizzard is after my goldz
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Jul 1st 2007 at 7:30PM
There are a lot of conspiracy theories in WoW. The top raiding guilds all have GMs on their roster who give them tips on how to kill bosses. Blizzard is getting kickbacks from gold farming companies to let them keep selling their product. Blizzard hates (insert class name here.) But I gotta say, I've just found the most far-fetched Blizzard conspiracy theory of all time.
Lonecrow, a level 68 night elf hunter on the Icecrown realm, ran the antivirus program AVG a couple of weeks ago and noticed that WoW patches were coming back listed as Trojan horses. A Blizzard employee promptly told him that some antivirus programs were detecting patches as malware and that it was a known issue. Unfortunately for Lonecrow, he got hacked ten days later. The perpetrator made off with 850 gold and all his gear. An unfortunate coincidence? Maybe. But not for Lonecrow.
He decided that rather than being infected by a keylogger or something that his AVG wasn't picking up, Blizzard itself was hacking accounts and stealing gold. He was targeted because he reported a bot in Burning Steppes, a bot that was clearly farming gold for Blizzard itself. Blizzard, or a rogue/fired Blizz employee, is just waiting for an opportune time to hack the rest of us and steal our accounts. "I had saved up a large amount of gold and they waited until they knew I was about to buy my flying mount at level 70 soon and took the cash, " Lonecrow wrote. "You all are infected by a rogue blizzard employee and don't even know it. They have millions of people's logins. It takes time to go through them and find one with the money ... This patch is OBVIOUSLY the culprit without a doubt." And he demanded a full criminal investigation into the internal corruption of Blizzard.
Of course, Lonecrow got beaten to a pulp by the CSF regulars, who noted that since Blizzard owns the characters and the information and can make gold simply by pressing buttons, it was highly unlikely that they were running complicated trojan programs to rob ... themselves. Of 850 gold. As Ashenbra put it, "I bet Blizzard used your gold to buy themselves some Krol Blades."
What's your favorite WoW conspiracy theory?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Humor
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Blah blah blah Jul 1st 2007 7:35PM
my favorite theories are anything involving drop rates... that somehow various factors decrease the "randomness" of certain drops.. you know what i'm talking about
Chris M Jul 1st 2007 7:46PM
My favorite was the one where if you killed Mr Bigglesworth in Naxx, you'd get better drops from Kel'Thuzad.
Granted, I only got a chance to run Naxx once before BC hit; but it was pretty funny the theories our guild had going around.
Chris
MrAwesome Jul 1st 2007 7:56PM
Blizzard has total control over all the data in WoW. They already have your login information, they don't have to steal it. They also have power over your character information. If they wanted to rob you, either for their gain or your loss, they could just change the data. There is absolutely no need for any huge conspiracy.
Shadowisp Jul 1st 2007 8:59PM
Gold Theft conspiracy, I love it... common response is they have the power, so why use hacks... inside job fools, all conspiracies have corrupt agents of evil... well they use hacks to not get caught with their hands in the cookie jar :P
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Aliens created WoW to test the human race and enslave the choosen ones into Gold Farming Slavery on Seti Prime IV in this galaxys greatest MMO played by thousands of alien races, with graphics so mind blowing 37% users go crazy at the sight of its beauty.
outforprophets Jul 1st 2007 9:05PM
Here's my own conspiracy theory:
Being in a group increases your drop rate chance for uncommon items. Note: You don't even have to be on the same continent with the other member(s), just in a group, so don't tell me that it's the increased group efficiency (more mobs killed = more loot = more greens).
Rich Jul 1st 2007 9:59PM
#5
I almost have to agree with that one! Yesterday was the first day in awhile my friends were on and were grouped up but doing our own thing. Man, it was raining greens and blues for me. When I was solo'ing I'd be lucky to get a green every 30th kill in the Outlands.
knulpm Jul 1st 2007 11:09PM
Pre BC we were running Scholomance and an Assassin Blade (BoE decent sword, world drop) dropped and somebody who wasn't me won it to sell on the AH. So we started talking about world drops we'd had as we cleared the early trash.
This guy in the group had the most insane, quasi Schizophrenic explanation ever on how they calculate when you get BoE epic drops. I can't even remember enough post it here but I remember a big part was that you had to move from zone to zone killing different types of mobs to keep people from "farming" the same mobs over again. He refused to listen to anyone else when they said he was crazy.
lighthunter Jul 1st 2007 11:14PM
My favorite one so far is the realm market crashes. I have never seen them, but a lot of people I have talked to about them say there out there.
Kanat Jul 2nd 2007 10:46PM
Hmm I guess I'll list them in order:
If you kill a hundred of the same mob, an epic will drop.
GMs actaully play the bosses so if an undergeared guild goes in, they can prevent them from having blind luck.
Old Ironforge was supposed to be the home of the gnomes because everyone hates them so bad, the dwarves put them underground (Yeah, that one came from Dram-Blight)
If you blink outside the Deeprun Tram, you end up on GM island.
Thijz Jul 2nd 2007 4:37AM
Blizzard can create items and money with a simple command, why would they get into all this trouble!?
rayza563 Jul 2nd 2007 6:37AM
9. Blizzard can create items and money with a simple command, why would they get into all this trouble!? posted by Thijz...
I found the theory hilarious i dont play the game but i know sht loads about it lol. Ye why would they steal your money lol do you really think blizzard expected that people would go as crazy as they have for this game i mean korean geeks are dying playing this game WTF. Lol thats why ppl with too high levels and too much gold become (i cant believe im saying this) far too powerful for there own good and blizard dont know wat to do when woo many people get too good... Rayza563
Kyr Jul 2nd 2007 7:46AM
@5:
You know, I hadn't actually thought about it conciously until I read your comment, but... I've been farming Zaxxis ethereals for consortium rep for a few days straight now. Solo. Nothing decent ever dropped, just crappy "of the owl" greens and such. Then, we are invited for a guild raid, I decide to kill a few more mobs while the raid forms, and BAM - khorium champion plans! I remember similar happenstances pre-tbc wherein people in an Onyxia raid would farm the lvl 45+ mobs outside her lair and come up with boe epix almost every time.
Immelmann Jul 2nd 2007 8:49AM
@5. Thats an interesting theory indeed! Something I will have to try.
And alot of you are missing the point of the original post. The guy is saying there is a rogue blizzard employee, stealing account names and using them for their own personal use. While I'm sure GM's could "Push a button" to create whatever amount of gold they wanted, the average blizzard employee could not use this to benefit themselves. While this theory is plausible, I'm willing to bet 100 to 1 that the designers of the game made it impossible to get someones password from the main database. There is no way that it is stored in clear text, the field is most certainly encrypted, just as credit card numbers would be. So while they may be able to get your Account Name, your password would be near impossible.
The funniest urban legend or conspiracy theory I have heard in game was that if you skin the mobs in the area you are fighting, then they respawn faster, I got reported for debating with the guy that started this theory that he was a lunatic.
tynk Jul 2nd 2007 9:26AM
at #5 and everyone else who rubs a chickens head and spins around 4 times before landing the finishing blow on a mob.
correlation != causation
this is how lot drops work. when a mob dies a semi random number is "rolled".
Every drop on the loot table for that mob has a set of numbers that correspond to it. The more common the drop is decided to be the more set of numbers are assigned to it.
what ever the random number matches, drops.
Now, the part that some people confuse is how the random numbers are created. Computers are NOT capable of truly random numbers. I will repeat that because it bears repeating. Computers are not capable of truly random numbers. So what happens is a a large number of pieces of information are dumped into an algorithm and the output apears to be random. Common pieces are the date and time to the second and three or four static chosen numbers.
On to what you have "seen". I will point back to correlation != causation. Just because your random number happened to land on the khorium champion plans does not mean the group had anything to do with it.
Thats enough for now. I could be writing for hours about the "dark voodoo" people get into thier skulls about how things work. It comes down to the same thing, people who do not understand how it works, make stuff up to make them feel better. Oh, here comes Appolo in his charriot pulling the sun into the sky. :)
viktorie Jul 2nd 2007 9:50AM
@ #13: It was my understanding that the loot table is referenced when the mob is spawned, not killed. So what drops has nothing whatsoever to do with who killed it, their level, their class, or what phase of the moon it happened to be.
viktorie Jul 2nd 2007 9:50AM
Just to clarify, not saying that's what you were implying, just reinforcing #13s post.
bsm0f0 Jul 2nd 2007 9:57AM
@12
Yea, they do respawn faster. They also respawn faster if you loot vs. if you don't loot. Tested and proven. A lot of times if I'm soloing a quest with high respawn rate, I won't loot the corpses or if I do, I'll leave an item on them ... even if its cash ... to prevent those asshats from repopping and ganking me before I can kill the mob I'm there to kill.
@5
I've noticed that as well. I have a group of guildies that do I do "farming" groups with. If we are trying to farm mats, cash, rep rewards, etc ... we form a raid group and all head off to our repsective spots or group up together to help one individual out. Without fail we always loot at least one BoE epic, a ton of blues and greens, and increased rep rewards for whoever is doing rep.
Jellodyne Jul 2nd 2007 10:00AM
Sounds crazy, but Blizzard IS after your gold. They take it in real world currancy, one month at a time, then convert it into in-game gold using a secret process.
Roguerhunter Jul 2nd 2007 5:08PM
Hi,
I am writing this because this just happened to me last night. I logged in onto my account having not played for a little over a month due to the fact I am in the Military and was away for training. What happened Next was that all my characters were gone even the ones on different servers. I open a GM ticket and no response also I e-mailed blizzard and they said to change my password and to give them characters names, servers, how much gold I had and gear. Don’t they keep a tract of this stuff I had 2 mains and a lot of other 50-65 characters. I am a casual player and no one around to even know my account info. Anyone had any experiences someone help me in this process. I been playing wow since I was in Iraq about 3 yrs now and this happens it’s not right....
Thanks
Roguerhunter
Fai Jul 4th 2007 3:23AM
@18
Yea of course they keep track of it. Would you like some random to be able to send a mail to blizz to ask to do whatever with your account though?
I was thinking not.
They're just making sure they are, in fact, talking to you. A GM ticket should work, but GM tickets usually take a while to process so just be patient...
And yeah, change your password, because if someone hacked your account, that means they still have your password so if they restore it without you changing it, people just get a second chance at de'ing your stuff or whatever they're doing with it.