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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsExodus punished for exploiting Yogg-Saron encounter
by Zach Yonzon 
Jun 29th 2009 at 10:47PM
Contrary to some reports, however, Exodus released a statement on their website that members of their guild were not banned, clarifying that Blizzard meted out a 72-hour suspension for their abuse of game mechanics. They argue that the encounter wasn't beatable to begin with, similar to the C'thun fight in Ahn'Qiraj before it was fixed, prompting the exploit. In the same statement, Exodus also points at Ensidia's arguably hypocritical stance of complaining about the abuse considering Ensidia used similar questionable methods to achieve other World Firsts. Serennia mentions this behavior in his column at wowriot, as well, bringing into question Blizzard's apparent double standard when meting out punishment.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Cheats, Guilds, Blizzard
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 8)
Verit Jun 30th 2009 12:25AM
Well either way - Blizzard I'm positive didn't intend for mages to have 40k dps for that fight...
Talking with a friend at Blizzard - he said simply - yeah gm's in Europe have a different set of standards than they do here, because honestly this isn't the first time Nihilum/Ensidia have been accused and even caught exploiting a really tough raid boss. I've never heard them serve time for their miss-deeds though.
devilsei Jun 30th 2009 2:51PM
Ya know... wasn't there a similar exploit to Hodirs with Anub'arak where mages would spellsteal a certain mob's buff in Storm Peaks, get summoned to his chamber, and used the massive DPS increase to trivialize that encounter's "achievement"?
Yeah, didn't they say that was a big "no no" and hot-fixed it?
Think so.
haha Jun 29th 2009 11:03PM
Ensidia is the best guild by miles, if it would have been killable without exploits they would have done it - and way before this no name guild. Anyone actually thought an american guild got wirld first?
engineering is underpowered Jun 29th 2009 11:05PM
It's unfortunate that time can't be rewound to have Blizz remove Ensidia's Hodir kill to make them do it again, the correct way. And extremely pathetic that Ensidia complains about this kill when they themselves made snide comments about other guilds being jealous and complaining about their Hodir kill. And also really shitty that after they beat Hodir, they promptly emailed Blizzard about the method they used - they could have let Blizzard know BEFORE they used the exploit. Then everything could have been fair.
Vacant Jun 30th 2009 5:44AM
iirc ensidia were the only people to do it in under the original 2 minute timer?
they were looking at 2.20 without spellsteal buffs, and 1.59 with them.
and after correspondance with the dev team, about a method they used to kill which they quite clearly documented, they decided to up the timer to make it more realistic.
they took buffs avaliable to them, and used them to help defeat a boss, using the other buffs avaliable in that particular fight. without this extra boost the fight would be near impossible within the current gear level (maybe possible towards the end once everyone has BiS but even then it's tight). this is akin to using your midsummer foods ontop of your normal food buff, zomg that's clever right there, but it's an avaliable buff, and i don't think anyone would make a huge deal of someone getting a world first while buffed with it.
what Exodus did, was remove the 10-15 adds in p3 that make y0 an achievement. the management of those is what's important, and they didn't do it. they deserve the book thrown at them.
i don't really understand why people seem to think that because you think like this i'm some sort of fanboy, rather than a rational onlooker.
Falcrist Jun 30th 2009 8:35AM
Flower power was not the first clever use of game mechanics that Ensidia or the guilds that formed it have used.
A few possible examples:
C'thun: Disgusting Oozling exploit. (The macro was spotted on a hotbar in one of the screenshots of the kill. Unfortunately I don't have that particular screenshot any more.)
Lady Vashj: "badly bugged and actually spawned a second time."
Twins: No video from first kill. Sat on a torch? (No! They would never do that!)
No bans were handed out for these exploits. Yet Ensidia screamed to high heaven when they suspected someone else of exploiting. Double standards much?
That aside, I have only one thing to say to Exodous:
Way to make the U.S. look bad, D-Bags!
Hellblast Jun 29th 2009 11:08PM
Skogsturken youre actually wrong about exodus, expected from an ensidia fanboy. They have downed algalon (only 16 other guilds have done that), and have every other thing except AitD done. By no means a "no name" guild. And ensidia/nihilum has had a questionable past, but they always have some defense. Im glad exodus didnt get a perma ban or anything extreme because people like Ensidia have exploited before.
engineering is underpowered Jun 29th 2009 11:07PM
Can you please explain how it's not comparable?
engineering is underpowered Jun 29th 2009 11:12PM
Oops, meant to be a reply to jam's comment - massive fail on your comment system by the way - I hit reply on my own comment three times before I was able to put this comment in the proper place!
jam Jun 29th 2009 11:19PM
Using an existing spell (spellsteal) to gain an existing buff (pollinate) is exactly the same as evade-bugging the encounter and making the entire thing trivial, amirite?
Also, one of the guilds said it right away that they did it, the other did not.
engineering is underpowered Jun 29th 2009 11:24PM
Pollinate definitely seemed to make the entire encounter trivial.
And it doesn't matter if they say they exploited afterwards; the point is, they went through with the kill first and then tried to cock-block.
jam Jun 29th 2009 11:27PM
My my, you're misinformed. It wasn't a first kill; other guilds had already killed Hodir hardmode, and it got BUFFED after that (2min timelimit) making the race very unfair.
engineering is underpowered Jun 29th 2009 11:36PM
I'm not misinformed. I know full well of the other Hodir kill (which was NOT exploiting, in my opinion, because the encounter was indeed working as intended at the time of that kill). I do believe that it was one guild that had killed Hodir before Ensidia exploited, though, not more than one as you imply. Never in my statement did I award Ensidia with credit for the world first Hodir kill. They did not, and have not, earned that right.
Sanguinefrozenboy Jun 29th 2009 11:08PM
They cheated and got punished.
Serves them right.
Ensidia is still a bunch of whiners though.
mrbreck Jun 30th 2009 11:03AM
This sums everything up quite nicely.
Gadrick Jun 29th 2009 11:08PM
Seriously? /sigh, if all of Exodus's raiders did not use any additional software to "hack" the fight, then give it to them. They used all of the fight mechanics at their disposal to achieve a certain goal using what they had. If Ensidia comes forth with some way that is an "exploit of the software" first of all, they knew about it already which means they might have or actually have used it before. All Exodus did was actually having the guts to use what Blizzard gave them to get "Alone in the Darkness". Also, it's just game and should be kept in mind that all these achievements won't matter much when the next expansion comes out and the next "top raiding guild" pwns an instance 1 hour or so after it's launched for the first time.
The Claw Jun 29th 2009 11:13PM
The post on the Exodus homepage was hilarious in its lack of class. At first I was sympathetic towards them (I don't think discovering and reporting bugs should be punished, even if you do exploit the bug in order to "test" it), but after reading that, all I can offer is a big Nelson-style "HA HA!"
Jagoex Jun 29th 2009 11:15PM
Imho, Serennia got it right. Blizzard does indeed play favorites. The irony, though, is that he gets a lot of that special treatment himself!
Sean Jun 29th 2009 11:19PM
A little off topic, but I have an idea for a new "hard mode" Achievement. I call it Bare Back. Criteria: clear 10 man Ulduar (excluding Algalon) using only the default Blizzard UI. No add ons. Vent is ok, but otherwise just the code that Blizzard gave ya.
And of course, Heroic Bare Back for the 25 man version.
The Claw Jun 29th 2009 11:44PM
The Lua API _IS_ the code that Blizzard gave us, you idiot.