Rz

Basically the news of this is everywhere now, worldofraids.com, wow forums, etc.

The guild Overrated was the first and currently only US Horde guild to kill Kel'Thuzad. They were caught using an exploit in AQ40 that removed Skeram's platform and allowed them to skip straight to C'thun. The exploit is some kind of data file put in the wow directory called "patch 5."

I have this direct from a member of Overrated who was formerly of Aurora with me. Allegedly they did this three weeks in a row.

As of now the entire guild has been perma-banned.

 

Nathariel

While it is unfortunate for one of the top rating guilds to be banned permanently, you cant say that it isn't expected if they use hacks.

Also being a top rated guild they would have more than the usual amount of GM interest in their activities.

 

♦ Praetorian

As noted in a couple of other threads that touched on this subject, the extent to which WoW "trusts the client" makes it so that properly savvy people can do some really abusive shit by manipulating the clientside files. The obvious question is how in the world they thought this would be a good idea or that they could get away with it.

As for the "fairness" of banning people who weren't actually using the hack themselves, I'd say that having guildmates fall through the floor and then having them summon you to C'Thun doesn't exactly absolve you of blame.

Really, Blizzard has to be very draconian in their punishment of this sort of thing, so that people won't even think twice about trying to abuse mpq trickery to their advantage. Anything else would have the potential to ruin the game -- just removing a single floor is actually a pretty tame manipulation in the grand scheme of things.

 

Elendril

this is what we call in the business "getting what you deserve"

 

Cryect

Well not the entire guild 7 members who didn't participate in the actitivties didn't get banned. Though several recruits did get banned including those rejected.

Really is there much to talk about considering they cheated, got caught, and openly admitted that they did? Blizzard acted as they should of, though I know of one person who thinks Blizzard is kinda pulling a double standard where they ignore a lot of PvP exploiting of similar activities (heh btw he's kinda antiraiding and pro "model changing" in a good way).

The biggest result of this will lead to the nerfing of potential creativity in WoW.

Example of what I mean



Should give me the needed boost to finish a project of mine though >_>

I need to do something useless.

 

• Falk

I think it's also kinda odd why Blizzard's code doesn't... not spawn mobs until you're supposed to see them. For example, not spawning C'Thun till Twin Emps die.

One area I could see this would benefit greatly performance-wise would be the Razorgore encounter. Why does Razorgore have such a high demand on internet connection? There aren't -that- many mobs involved in the encounter itself. However, if you /tar Corrupted, you end up looking at suppression room mobs - that's right; somehow the server thinks it's necessary to send information about what the entire 100+ odd mobs in the suppression room are doing, during the Razorgore event. Having them spawn after Vael dies would have solved many problems people had while the servers blew (more than they do now).

Maybe I have little faith and a totally shot perception with regards to people's morality in general, but basically in my experience, if you don't want someone to do something, it has to be impossible; rather than exploitable with a big "YOU WILL BE PUNISHED" sign on it.

 

Masq

I agree totally, they obviously had an example to make.

http://www.aftermathlb.com

 

Bury

They certainly didn't seem like nice people. griefing another guild's world buff, and then recording their vent to rub it back into their face?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WC3pVCbWtyM

 

Edgewalker

Shame that it's the only US Horde KT killing guild down the drain.
Oh well.

 

henaki

They killed people on a PvP server and gloated about it? I don't see the big deal here.

Gur - Level 64 Undead Warlock on Hellfire

 

Phanuel

PvP happened on a PvP server? No way.

In all seriousness, that's why PvP servers seem to be leading the way. They have communities and better player retention because there's something outside of raiding to do (and nice A-H balance).

 

Groglox

I don't really understand why they would even do this. I doubt any guild as good as them is stupid, so they obviously knew it was an exploit. They already have everything on farm, so it isn't like they needed the extra time to squeeze in more progression attempts ( I could maybe understand a super hardcore raiding guild doing that to help them progress faster). Sure noone likes the trash, but when you have KT on farm..it isn't like you struggle to clear it.

 

Northerner

I quite liked the little pvp video myself, although I rarely play on a pvp server myself. As an old DAoC player though, I see nothing wrong at all in trying to stunt the progression of a rival faction within the game rules.

As to the whole banning and so on, well all I can say is this ain't no Conquest in MC situation. Cracking model files specifically to bypass content (and especially in this case it being hours worth of stuff) is premeditation and deserves the punishment given out. If it were my call to make, I might have intervened earlier and simply rolled back all the involved characters three weeks plus given a ten day suspension or some such. The rollback alone would be a pretty strong disincentive but to be completely fair, I'd be wrong to make that call and I know it.

No matter though, if the Overrated crew wants to reroll, level and gear (if desired) again they'll all be right back to where we will all be a month or so into the expansion anyhow. Sure you'd be out a very few hard to replace shiny things but nothing the expansion won't eclipse anyhow. I don't know how they'll react but I'm sure there are a lot of people pretty unhappy about things right now.

 

Zalera

I can't even imagine what kind of raid leader would even seriously consider doing something like this, let alone get the entire raid to exploit through an instance that was released over half a year ago, just to save a couple hours. Shouldn't these types of people have some kind of integrity? Or even, you know, common sense? :/

 

Zagzil

Ah.

Not to write an overly caustic post (maybe tomorrow), but honestly, nobody was that angry or disappointed. I feel like the perma-ban is a bit of a harsh penalty, and we'll see how it all turns out. At the moment, looks like we're pretty much screwed.

Good luck on getting the first Kel kill, some US horde.

Oh and by the way, griefing people with world buffs means we are big jerks who deserve bans, thanks.

 

diospadre

The world buff thing was pretty hilarious, but damn you guys were stupid otherwise.

 

Scuba

Dumbest


Move



EVER

 

Farstrider

It's not that related, but I lost an entire account back in the summer due to a string of naming violations (yeah I know I should have learned my lesson but I find it almost impossible to type something in that naming box that doesn't make me giggle). Basically if you're going to break the EULA, make sure your characters are spread out across a number of accounts (I have 3 or 4). Anyhow, I wouldnt't beat yourselves up about it too much, you'll be in very similar gear by level 64-65 anyway, and you'll probably have a jump on people in terms of having level 70 paladins as early as possible since your guys will have had a few months off raiding.

<Fric> "If I ever met a NG who could read through all my posts in this thread and still date me I'd finally have found love."
<Zeroblack> "Your safest bet is to go for that new HG then. I'm not altogether sure she can read."

<Isambard> "As for being told the CDOs were completely safe, caveat emptor. If you understood Gaussian copula correlational risk analysis and still thought the stuff was safe, then I suppose you're either an idiot or got swindled."

CDO banter is best banter!

 

Kody

Yeah really, that was dumb as hell to do. We got suspended for using actual game mechanics, hacking the mpq is uh...that's in another league all its own in out-there-ville. A stop sign should have gone up somewhere and clued people in that it wasn't the brightest of ideas.

I feel bad for the people that got banned that weren't actually involved though if it's true, because we definitely had a couple people suspended way back when during the MC stuff that had nothing to do with the initial warnings due to fd trap pulling.

 

henaki

Not to be a jerk but I honestly want to know why you guys did it. Did you guys figure you'd get a slap on the wrist? Or were you prepared to be permabanned?

Gur - Level 64 Undead Warlock on Hellfire

 

Winz

gotta feel bad for the apps that got banned, but still it's not like even they were unaware. exploiting game mechanics is one thing, but altering game files etc.. this kind of thing deserves a ban as far as im concerned. its just a shame that the former #1 US guild is now a laughing stock, can we get some more KT kills please?

 

Emth

Am I to understand that some people who never attended any of the raids where this exploiting occured also got permanently banned? Because if so thats pretty screwed up in my opinion.

http://ctprofiles.net/404078