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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsThe Martin Fury scandal: Karatechop reveals all
by Lesley Smith 
Apr 30th 2009 at 6:33PM
WoW Insider: Who are you?
Karatechop: I'm Karatechop, the Guild Leader of The Marvel Family on Vek'nilash-US.
There are postings on the net where someone purporting to be Karatechop says they work for Blizzard. I'm assuming this is not the case?
I'm not an employee of Blizzard. I'm not a hacker, I'm just a person who had a pretty tight regular group of people who liked playing WoW.
How did this whole thing start?
One of my guild members, Leroyspeltz, had his account hacked back in December. He was an Officer at the time and whoever hacked his account ravaged the guild bank, which happens. Once Blizzard was able to rescue his account, he noticed several of his toons were gone.
When you say gone? Are we talking deleted or transferred?
According to him, some were deleted and some were transferred to other accounts, but at the time he assumed they had been deleted. He opened a ticket with Blizzard back in December I believe and they never responded.
Things just sat there until sometime in mid-March. We had a looting error in 25 man OS . As the guild leader I handed an item to Leroy by mistake so he immediately opened a ticket so the item would go to the proper player. They resolved that problem then they asked him for more information on this problem he had reported months ago that hadn't been solved. He received some emails from Blizzard detailing what they were sending him, and when he logged in on April 19th all of his characters were back.
So what happened next?
All of them had in-game mail from Blizzard and lots of random items. He had no idea why he was getting them. Most of them seemed to fit Blizzard's usual M.O. for restoring hacked account, tons of low level stuff, stacks of Silverleaf and the like. Blizzard has rarely restored any toon I've seen hacked to its former glory. They seem to give you some random stuff and just leave it in one of these multiple in-game mails. On his level 13 warlock, I believe, was Martin Fury.
When he realized he had Martin Fury and shared that information with you, why not open a ticket immediately?
I was unsure of what it was exactly. Sure, we read the stats, but we didn't even contemplate a ticket.
Why not?
It was in-game mail from Blizzard. We just assumed it was something they sent him. We didn't think it was real. I honestly thought it was something Blizzard gave to one of Leroy's alts for four months of ignoring the problems with his account.
So when did you first use Martin Fury?
On April 20th the guild was in a 10-man Ulduar run. Leroyspeltz was not in my Ulduar group at the time when he opened the mail. We were on Ignis and I brought Leroy into the group. We tried it and it worked.
And you didn't consider this cheating or worry that a GM might notice? You didn't worry you might get into trouble?
No, it came from Blizzard. We were laughing about it. After killing Ignis we went out and reset the raid to heroic. We went back in and killed Flame Leviathan
How many charges did the item have?
When we got it, Martin Fury had 100. We used it fourteen times.
So when did things go wrong?
We had used it on Malygos and 25-man OS earlier in the week and, again, this wasn't, for me anyways, a way to get loot or achievements. This was purely a comedy thing for me. It was funny. We went back to Ulduar with twenty-two people and made several legitimate attempts at Flame Leviathan. This is where I feel really bad. Some of the people we had with us didn't know we had Martin's Fury. Then we engaged and used the item, it was a riot!
I was unable to play over the weekend and didn't check in with my friends. When I tried to login on Tuesday is when I had discovered my account was banned. That's when they started to let me know that we had achieved some world's first, which was also never my intent.
So you hadn't achieved any world firsts?
Some of the people wanted full clears, but I didn't want to take that away from the guilds who had worked so hard to get there. I didn't think we had world firsts, but some people have claimed we had. I also wasn't worried about hiding anything as, again, it was an item sent to us by Blizzard.
Did Blizzard get in touch with you? No GMs mid-instance?
No. They claimed to have sent me an email once I found my account was banned, but this didn't happen either. I had to jump through the hoops to reset my email address with my account banned and open a web form questionnaire.
And your account is still banned?
Yep.
And, during any of this, you never took screenshots?
I'm not that type of player. We never took screen shots that often of anything. We didn't record encounters. Again, it was a group of friends who just had a good time playing the game together
Do you think it's fair that you've been banned?
No, I don't believe banning is fair, especially since this would be my first infraction in the 4+ years I've played the game. But it's Blizzard's game and they are the ones calling the shots, so fair is relative. Up until the bans, I honestly didn't think I was destroying the World of Warcraft.
You must have thought that this item didn't belong in a player's hands even if it came from Blizzard?
I thought it odd, but with the charges I wasn't sure.
Do you expect to get your account back?
No.
Do this bother you? Has it put you off WoW?
Yes, I loved that game. I was never bored with it, I had 159 days of my life on that character.
Are you going to reroll?
I don't believe so. I think I'm going to try something else. Again, this being my first infraction on any level whatsoever it seems like they overreacted. Where they really failed was that they locked the accounts of all my guildies who were online at the time. Not people who had any of those raid IDs mind you, but everyone.
Did many people on your realm know what was going on?
No. Not even the whole guild just the people on the runs. Actually it wasn't even all of them. As I said before I tricked 3 or 4 of them, I thought it was funny.
Who else has been banned as a result? Was it just you and Leeroy? Was it other folks in the raid or your guild?
Everyone in the guild who was online had their accounts locked for twenty four hours, regardless of whether or not they were in the run.
How are they reacting to this?
They aren't happy. Some are upset at me, but most of them have my back on this. We didn't hack the game. We were given a 'You Win' button and it was something we used.
Well thank you for speaking to us.
Thanks for taking the time.
Filed under: Blizzard, News items, Interviews
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 37)
B Apr 30th 2009 7:10PM
Obviously you don't know the definition of exploit. He didn't break the games mechanics in his favor. He just used a item he was given.
I don't think there's a raiding guild in the history of MMOs that wouldn't use it. Knowing of the repercussions or not.
At the end of the day; It's Blizzards fault. They shouldn't be permabanned (if they're going to be). Blizzard has the right to mop up the mess but they shouldn't do anything serious.
AyaJulia Apr 30th 2009 7:25PM
"Your friend gets a super powerful item that u dont believe works and it turns out to work. You trust Blizzards judgment and start using it.
So you're saying you would immediately make a ticket for Blizzard to notify about the item? Not even use it once?"
Uh.
Yes?
I don't understand how anyone could see this as ANYTHING but a mistake. "Trust Blizzard's judgement"? Really?
"Here. We're sorry. Kill EVERYTHING. We don't mind."
It takes a special kind of person to believe that.....
Reuben Apr 30th 2009 7:49PM
I'll tell you why I would have trusted Blizzard: the wording of the item description; "Kills all enemies within a 30yrd radius. CHEATER." The word cheater makes it sound tongue-in-cheek, like Blizzard just having some fun. If he truly did trust Blizzard, then I can't blame him.
Tuhljin Apr 30th 2009 8:38PM
Kudos to AyaJulia for actually having principles when it's apparent they are looked so down upon in this day and age, and in particular in this specific petty, selfish, rationalize-it-all-away, "I-can-do-no-wrong"/"it's-someone-else's-fault" crowd.
vexis58 Apr 30th 2009 8:49PM
I seriously don't see how people say this is all Blizzard's fault. He was obviously sent a GM item by mistake. If I got such an item, I would honestly do one of two things:
1. Keep it in my bank so I can point it out to people and say "look what I've got"
2. Submit a ticket and tell Blizzard what happened.
I had a master looter issue recently where Blizzard took 3 months to transfer an item to me from another player. If I had gotten a GM item instead, I would have immediately told the GMs about it, NOT assumed it was meant as an apology, NOT gone and tried it out, and most definitely NOT gone into the current highest-tier raid dungeon and killed multiple bosses on hard mode alongside a raid full of other people.
I seriously don't understand how people can think this guy is right.
Clbull May 1st 2009 9:27AM
@Rofllol: Heres the thing though, he DIDN'T get world firsts on every boss, I think that nearly all of Ulduar has already been world firsted within days of release, minus the hard modes of course. Even if he did get a world first, it would not have been in a legitimate way.
The way I see it, his friend was sent an unobtainable item by mistake, and they decided to have some fun with it. Maybe Karatechop shouldn't have exploited it and should have instead reported the item straight away, but a permaban for using an overpowered item that that was sent by mistake seems a bit harsh.
Gimia Apr 30th 2009 6:42PM
Enough of this crap! The truth of the matter is that Blizzard owns all of our accounts and they lend it to us for our monthly subscription. That means what they say is final and you are required to play by their rules.
Worcester Apr 30th 2009 7:02PM
True, Blizzard does own all of the content of WoW. And that makes me wonder.
Why did this item have a weird name like "Martin's Fury"? Why did it have a fun little quote, like "cheater"?
If this is a developer's item, and never intended for player use. Then why the hell wasn't it marked as such?
Maybe it could have been aptly named "Developer's Shirt" and perhaps the flavor text could have read, "This item is for in-game development only, and is not intended for players under any circumstances. The use of this item by any player constitutes a break of the EULA and will result in a permanent account ban."
Sure, it's not as much fun for the devs running around as "Martin's Fury", but it would be clear and to the point.
Karilyn Apr 30th 2009 7:28PM
@Worcester
The word "Cheater" on the item, wasn't clear enough?
sooper Apr 30th 2009 7:52PM
@Karilyn
Blizzards humor is always present in the game. This isn't any different.
Kakistocracy Apr 30th 2009 7:52PM
Karilyn, do you take serious every bit of flavor text in the game?
If so, I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.
Karilyn Apr 30th 2009 8:01PM
Nope, I don't take every bit of flavor text in the game seriously.
However, it doesn't take rocket science to realize that if you are a player who has this item in your hands, you are not supposed to have it.
AyaJulia May 1st 2009 2:48AM
@Worcester
The funky things Blizzard puts in for us players aren't just for show. They have fun with themselves. They have fun with their games. They have fun with their jobs. And....
....wait for it.....
They have fun with their dev tools.
If you never intend a player to see an item, what harm is it to name it something funny to the people around the office? There's probably a Sword of a Thousand Truths somewhere, or an Ocarina of Time, who knows.
Hell, it's probably part of the job training there that "Any item named Martin ____ is a developer item and not meant for players."
Why do I seem to be the only one who can reason these things out?
Avan May 1st 2009 5:54AM
@AyaJulia
Cavalry Lance [PH]: http://www.wowhead.com/?item=45759
See how that [PH]? It is a tag, and PH is short for "placeholder." This lets players know that the item (or sometimes NPC) is just a placeholder item (or NPC). Internally, the tag might be used for the same purpose, be it dealing with bug reports or just marking things off as placeholders. There's no reason for developer items not to be tagged [Dev] or something similar to that, as I'll try to show below.
"Hell, it's probably part of the job training there that "Any item named Martin ____ is a developer item and not meant for players.""
Game masters are not able to restore items to players. They're the kind of people you call up with a problem and will ask you if your computer is plugged in; Their purpose is to figure out what your problem is and either help you resolve it on your own or patch you through to someone else. An account specialist, a position that likely requires more training than the general customer service GM, is needed to restore your items. These are the people who can give players anything. Accidentally delete your character? Guild bank emptied by hacked account? Master looter misassigned loot? All handled by an account specialist.
Even if it is (as you had said) probably part of the job training to know what items are actually dev tools, marking an item with [Dev] would let any forgetful or uncertain specialists know that they're giving players a developer item; This would also let any player that errantly recieves a dev item know that they got a dev item. In any case, a [Dev] tag on items would be more redundancy, which means better reliability of the specialists.
"If you never intend a player to see an item, what harm is it to name it something funny to the people around the office?'
When you're dealing with a database of items that is available to customer service specialists, that database is, by extension, available to the players. As for the database of things harmlessly named funny being available to people around the office: Who knows if those customer service reps and specialists even work in the same building as Blizzard? For all we know, GMs could be working for a contracted CS center instead of working directly for Blizzard. As we all know, GMs are the "face" of Blizzard for the players; The more redundant their tools are (like adding a [Dev] tag to items), the more reliable that "face" can represent Blizzard.
Scott Apr 30th 2009 6:43PM
Articulate, intelligent, complete sentences.
This is NOT the type of person who needs to be banned permanenty from WoW. If anything, we need more of these to counter-balance the "LAWlcatZroflcopter" players.
Tuhljin Apr 30th 2009 8:40PM
Once again, the superficial takes precedence over principles. "Oh, he speaks well! Who CARES what he may have done or what he believes!"
Hogan Apr 30th 2009 6:43PM
Thats freakin bull :( Blizz should apologize or at least look into this for real and not just ban and mass lockout people who had nothing to do with it -_-
Deb May 1st 2009 7:07PM
I agree! Millions of subscribers times $14.99 per month should allow any company to hire enough people to oversee their product.
Dave Apr 30th 2009 6:44PM
I don't buy that story at all. He had "159 days of his life in that character" and it only seemed "odd" they had such a powerful item when he saw that normally somebody would get a few blues and stacks of silverleaf?!?!? I don't think so.
samslaw25 Apr 30th 2009 8:22PM
This.
He kept saying "we just thought it was funny" because it clearly was an error. If he had just bought WOW last month, I could see just cause for thinking it was a semi-legitimate "gesture" by the Blizz team.
But the guy has been playing for 4 years. He knows that's not a real thing. We all know it's not an in-game reward. It makes no sense and it's completely disingenuous for him to imply that they thought it was legit. They knew better, just like you'd know better if the bank gave you $10k instead of $1k. You use that windfall at your own risk.