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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 5 of 8)
Thebum Jun 30th 2009 7:16AM
The main difference is that the way Exodus did it allowed them to skip parts of the mechanics while the way Ensidia did it they still had to pay attention to every single mechanic in the encounter. That's the difference, and that's one of the reason why they got different punishments. The other reason is that the european gamemaster team got a different set of rules when deciding whether to ban or not. This has nothing to do with Blizzard favoring Europeans, it has to do with that it's different teams with different rules deciding the punishments for the two guilds.
Devi Jun 30th 2009 12:35AM
WHO CARES what guild gets to do a world first? I couldn't care less which bunch of so called 'professinals' actually manages something that will be triviell soon enough. In which world do people care about something that will be TOTALLY forgotten as soon as new content arrives? Sure...these bunch of no-lifers (don't even try to argue that fact, as no one with anything resembling a normal life can keep up with their raiding schedule) are kings (kungs???) in their own little world, but the majority of sane human beings just laugh and move on. We all know that Ensidia, their little Swedish kung, and all his 'meatballs' have backstage passes in development...so of course they would cry foul if someone else manages something they haven't. Cheating/exploits are wrong....no matter who does it...and I have no problem believing that Ensidia have done their fair share of that in earlier killls also. The whole thing is rotten to the core...end of story.
I will probably be told that I am jealous and other nasty things for the above statement...but again...I don't care!!! Just felt it needed to be said...
Squeek Jun 30th 2009 7:31AM
By your train of thought, we should never hold the Olympics. Advances into the study of the human body and proper training at a young age have produced hundreds of athletes who are capable of beating previously unbeatable world records. As science progresses and more knowledge / genes are passed down to future generations, we continue to have stronger, better, faster offspring each generation.
So, should we just wait for scientists to say "We fully understand exactly how the human body works and can now train athletes who can operate at 100% of the human potential." before we hold another Olympics? No. We continue to hold Olympic events knowing full well that we haven't tapped into the full human potential because all we care about is who is the best -right now-.
The same goes for WoW. Each new raid for progression opens the door to more guilds to try to be number one. If they miss it, they can try again. The only difference between this and the Olympics (besides the obvious) is that instead of every four years, it's every four months.
megamogx Jun 30th 2009 12:35AM
Reminds me of the good ol days when i had the time to raid endlessly and we had to fight reign(crapkalegos guild) for all the server firsts, then they got themselfs temp banned for exploiting giving us a lead on progression and ultimately a server first cthun...
Mordockk Jun 30th 2009 12:39AM
sorry to be a nub but maybe i missed it. can you guys explain what they did to kill the boss that blizzard is claiming as cheating?
Treeston Jun 30th 2009 9:25AM
They had a paladin (I think) and a warlock stay in the brain room. The warlock chain-lifetapped and the healer spamhealed, thus getting healing aggro on all the guardians.
Because they couldn't reach him inside the brain room, they evaded.
Ezmode kill.
Mordockk Jun 30th 2009 9:45AM
ya but wouldn't they be driven insane if they were in the brain room?
Nuu Jun 30th 2009 12:46AM
Rubbish.
Exploiting is exploiting, whether it's Ensidia or any other guild. If they punish Exodus, they should punish Ensidia, as well.
If one guild can do it and get away with it, then everyone else should be able to, too.
bluexxiii Jun 30th 2009 12:50AM
There's a big difference between doing something that could feasibly be possible, and something that was CLEARLY exploiting.
Evading mobs and completely removing an aspect of the encounter is worlds different from spell stealing a buff. I'm not denying that spellstealing a buff helped guild A to complete an encounter. But they didn't literally try and break the fight to succeed. They used fully intentional in-game mechanics to facilitate their victory. This whole Yogg-Saron thing is a different story.
They didn't use game mechanics creatively, they broke it. They took something that was clearly a bug, and manipulated it.
Often times, with these types of things, you have to look at them realistically. Did ensidia try to break the game? No, they said "damn. how can we get more DPS for this fight? OH SNAP! THAT BUFF! I be that will work" compared to saying "Damn, Yogg is hard, remember when that mob evaded? something that's never supposed to happen anyways, think we can get all the others to evade too?"
Now, both can be considered exploitation, for sure. If you are using spell steal to solo naxx, I don't think you can do that with a clear head and say "Oh man, blizzard meant for this to happen!" or killing void reaver in 30 seconds when he has a 10 minute enrage? The difference is those people were doing something they knew was wrong, and they repeated it, week after week, trying to 'get away with it'.
Ensidia said "i bet that buff will help!" then immediately told blizzard, they said "This is hard, so we tried this buff, it worked, did you guys mean to do that?" And it was fixed.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not an Ensidia fan, but I don't believe for a second that they intentionally tried to break something to make their lives easier.
lilienmeer Jun 30th 2009 1:04AM
While I agree with Exodus' suspension, I'm also laughing with them over the insane amount of QQ that came from Ensidia.
SidusNare Jun 30th 2009 1:12AM
Where the hell has this idea that something you do without additional software / hacks is an exploit?
If I can do something in the game, whatever it is, without using other software to change the conditions of the game, its not an exploit. If its unintended, its on Blizzard, and perfectly ok for anyone to do it. If Blizzard corrects their mistakes and releases a new patch, then that's the new "the way things are", and whatever I can do in the game, whatever it is, without using other software to change the conditions of the game, its not an exploit.
If anything Blizzard should be apologizing.
PeeWee Jun 30th 2009 5:41AM
"If its unintended, its on Blizzard, and perfectly ok for anyone to do it."
1) Learn to read
2) Read the World of Warcraft Exploitation Policy
3) ...
4) Profit!
http://www.wow-europe.com/en/policy/exploitation.html#be
Common sense isn't.
SidusNare Jun 30th 2009 6:21AM
@ PeeWee et al
I apologize if I was unclear, I was not purporting to interpret Bizzards TOS, I was expressing dissatisfaction with it.
Land Jun 30th 2009 1:12AM
I tend to agree with most of the people here, why is it the vast majority of guilds are banned for "glitches/un-intended game mechanics" when it is a proven fact that Ensidia has a long and documented history of taking advantage of them and getting a pat on the back from Blizzard?
loreaddict Jun 30th 2009 1:25AM
The difference between this and Ensidia's "exploit" is that Ensidia didn't try to cover it up with " It was a one in a million lucky shot" crap, they stated openly that they had used an outside buff for the fight.
Noscy Jun 30th 2009 1:35AM
I wonder if those pesky mages that soloed the military quarter got banned, I certainly hope not. This on the other hand Exploiting an evade bug just isn't cricket.
vern Jun 30th 2009 1:36AM
Please don't transform this into a conflict North America VS Europe. It's really not that.
That being said, it was fair to see Exodus punished and it would be fair to see Ensidia punished as well as it was proven they used exploits too.
Vanich Jun 30th 2009 1:43AM
^ This
For me, it's not US vs. EU, its Ensidia vs. The rest of the wow community. And it would be regardless of the nationality of Ensidia, even if I was a part of it.
Ensidia gets away with stuff that other guilds/individuals get banned/suspended for, thats all I'm seeing from these events. Special treatment is special treatment, no matter how you try to slice it.
jon Jun 30th 2009 2:07AM
not an ensidia fanboy/hater or exodus fanboy/hater but LOL @ mages doing 40k dps.. if you believe that you're a fucking tool. They beat the clock by 2 seconds, 2 freaking seconds because, and that would make like 4 seconds on their previous, un-"exploited" attempts (like 2:02min or something like that) so yeah, in a dps race like hodir HM, 34-33k dps increase to each dps (they were stacking mages in the fight) doesnt equal to 4 seconds... get your facts right people
Zaniac Jun 30th 2009 2:15AM
This is not about Blizzard playing favorites.
This is not about Ensidia getting away, or Exodus having done something worse.
This is about a complaint having been made, and thus Blizzard investigated.
Did anyone care to complain about Ensidia's supposed cheating? No?
Then why expect action to be taken against them?