A View From The Road: Fail to the King

[JourneyThroughHell]

If Ensidia weren't caught, that would've sucked for those Paragon guys.
So, good job, Blizzard, I guess.

 

[DTWolfwood]

Better to live in Infamy than to live in anonymity!

They cheated but i guarantee they will still be the ones remembered for the kill. Sorry Paragon you may have the title legitimately but no one cares when you do the right thing.

Welcome to the society bred on bad news.

 

[John Funk]

I never really got into WoW (partially because I saw what it did to people), so I'll have to see if I got this straight. 25 people were fighting the uber-last boss, and somehow the battle had a clunky mechanism. Now, since they finished the battle, with the said clunky mechanism, and only then reported, they are considered evil.

What did anyone expect them to do? To phone in and say they were having a problem? Would Blizzard immediately fix the issue, so they could still win the race? I can't understand how this is their fault. They wanted to be first, they got there, there was a bug (which is Blizzard's fault) they finished it and reported it.

I would call this a trap. No one in the world would just hit the pause button to send a message about a possible error during the last encounter of a game, so, eventually any a team would have to be punished for an error that was Blizzard's. Congrats!, you got the BAN-ticket. May the 2nd best team win???

I guarantee it wasn't a one-shot; they had plenty of time between attempts to do it.

And considering that it was hotfixed immediately after they reported the bug, then yes, yes they would have finished it quick.

In preliminary attempts, Ensidia discovered that the Saronite Bombs that their Engineers were using had an unforeseen effect

Okay, do you have any evidence to support this claim other than...

To suggest that they couldn't realize what was going on and figure out what was causing it is absolutely absurd.

This seems be the basis of your article, you find it absurd they didn't figure out what was going on, but don't you think that it also might be reasonable to assume they were busy, you know, actually trying to get the World First to stop to investigate what was causing the bug out of a hundred things they were doing at the time?

This article is basically lynching that guild, and branding them as cheaters without any bloody evidence. I thought tar and feathering was frowned upon these days, guess i was wrong...

What do you expect them to do, stop fighting the lich king and casually wait for a fix?

I would have expected them to stop using the bombs, easy enough to do.

"Oh hey guys, something is causing the platform to bug out. I wonder what it could be?" "IT'S THE SARONITE BOMBS MAN!" "Are you sure? Why not the flasks of endless rage or prayer of mending?" "IDK LOL. I SOMEHOW FIGURED OUT THAT SARONITE BOMBS HAVE BEEN CAUSING THIS TO HAPPEN, EVEN THOUGH IT'S INCREDIBLY UNLIKELY FOR ME TO HAVE COME TO THAT CONCLUSION BASED ON THE EVIDENCE AT HAND."

It could have easily been Prayer of Mending or Flask of Endless Rage causing the bug from their point of view. Saying "Oh they should have known!" doesn't apply to this scenario, because there's no way that they could have known.

Except, they did know, because A.) they'd found a similar bug earlier with the floor in ToC, and B.) they reported it.

 

[VanBasten]

In preliminary attempts, Ensidia discovered that the Saronite Bombs that their Engineers were using had an unforeseen effect

Okay, do you have any evidence to support this claim other than...

To suggest that they couldn't realize what was going on and figure out what was causing it is absolutely absurd.

Except, they did know, because A.) they'd found a similar bug earlier with the floor in ToC, and B.) they reported it.

You never mentioned this in your article, and I kind of think pointing out such facts is necessary when you're accusing someone of cheating. Especially since its nowhere near common knowledge, not even among WoW players. I had to google to see what you were talking about.

 

[John Funk]

In preliminary attempts, Ensidia discovered that the Saronite Bombs that their Engineers were using had an unforeseen effect

Okay, do you have any evidence to support this claim other than...

To suggest that they couldn't realize what was going on and figure out what was causing it is absolutely absurd.

Except, they did know, because A.) they'd found a similar bug earlier with the floor in ToC, and B.) they reported it.

You never mentioned this in your article, and I kind of think pointing out such facts is necessary when you're accusing someone of cheating. Especially since its nowhere near common knowledge, not even among WoW players. I had to google to see what you were talking about.

Second page: "In all fairness, Ensidia did report the bug so that it could be fixed ... but only after they'd gotten the kill (and a cynic could say that ensures that nobody else could get the kill by using their bug, but I digress)."

They reported it; ergo they knew what was going on.

 

[Chakanus]

"me me me"

I guarantee it wasn't a one-shot; they had plenty of time between attempts to do it.

And considering that it was hotfixed immediately after they reported the bug, then yes, yes they would have finished it quick.

-cut because it's for other people-

Thank you for your clarification. As I said I know very little regarding WoW, and, if by any means they had more than one shot at it, and saw the bug being presented continuously and said nothing until they had taken full advantage of it, than you (and all in the community) are in every right to be angry. FLAME ON! YEAH!!! *swoosh*

 

[VanBasten]

In preliminary attempts, Ensidia discovered that the Saronite Bombs that their Engineers were using had an unforeseen effect

Okay, do you have any evidence to support this claim other than...

To suggest that they couldn't realize what was going on and figure out what was causing it is absolutely absurd.

Except, they did know, because A.) they'd found a similar bug earlier with the floor in ToC, and B.) they reported it.

You never mentioned this in your article, and I kind of think pointing out such facts is necessary when you're accusing someone of cheating. Especially since its nowhere near common knowledge, not even among WoW players. I had to google to see what you were talking about.

Second page: "In all fairness, Ensidia did report the bug so that it could be fixed ... but only after they'd gotten the kill (and a cynic could say that ensures that nobody else could get the kill by using their bug, but I digress)."

They reported it; ergo they knew what was going on.

That excerpt says little and proves nothing. Did they report the existence of the bug, or the cause of the bug? If it's just the existence it says nothing of their guilt, if it's the latter it still doesn't prove they immediately figured out what was going on and then proceeded to use it to intentionally exploit the mechanics.

The fact that they knew saronite bombs affected collapsible floors before this encounter is the damning evidence here, not that they reported the bug.

 

[DarkSaber]

In preliminary attempts, Ensidia discovered that the Saronite Bombs that their Engineers were using had an unforeseen effect

Okay, do you have any evidence to support this claim other than...

To suggest that they couldn't realize what was going on and figure out what was causing it is absolutely absurd.

This seems be the basis of your article, you find it absurd they didn't figure out what was going on, but don't you think that it also might be reasonable to assume they were busy, you know, actually trying to get the World First to stop to investigate what was causing the bug out of a hundred things they were doing at the time?

This article is basically lynching that guild, and branding them as cheaters without any bloody evidence. I thought tar and feathering was frowned upon these days, guess i was wrong...

I agree and I suspect this character assisnation might be due to them being a European guild, instead of the "darlings of WoW" article we got earlier this week about the american guild getting a first on the most pussy-ass version of the Lich King.

 

[John Funk]

In preliminary attempts, Ensidia discovered that the Saronite Bombs that their Engineers were using had an unforeseen effect

Okay, do you have any evidence to support this claim other than...

To suggest that they couldn't realize what was going on and figure out what was causing it is absolutely absurd.

This seems be the basis of your article, you find it absurd they didn't figure out what was going on, but don't you think that it also might be reasonable to assume they were busy, you know, actually trying to get the World First to stop to investigate what was causing the bug out of a hundred things they were doing at the time?

This article is basically lynching that guild, and branding them as cheaters without any bloody evidence. I thought tar and feathering was frowned upon these days, guess i was wrong...

I agree and I suspect this character assisnation might be due to them being a European guild, instead of the "darlings of WoW" article we got earlier this week about the american guild getting a first on the most pussy-ass version of the Lich King.

Oh please.

At the end of the article I mentioned that the legitimate world first went to Paragon, an EU guild. If Blood Legion had cheated, they would have been deservedly spitroasted.

 

[Dogstile]

In all fairness, Ensidia did report the bug so that it could be fixed ... but only after they'd gotten the kill

What do you expect them to do, stop fighting the lich king and casually wait for a fix?

It was the first set of people to fight the hardest boss in the game so far.

Trust me, they all died at least once. There was time to at least send a quick report of "Uhh, Blizzard dudes? The floor's coming back. Is this right?"

Really? You think they're going to be sat around wiating for a bug report or do you think they're going to keep trying for WORLD FIRST.

 

[Niveama]

Normally I tend to only lurk around these forums and don't post but personally I feel the need to defend Ensidia here. Why? cos i give a sh*t about them? Not really, but, as a WoW player I respect the amount of time and effort they put into a game.

When I heard about the ban and the reasons for it I wasn't actually surprised top end guilds have been know to exploit bugs to get world firsts before.

I have read just about every thread around on the internet and NOWHERE is there any suggestion that Ensidia had any idea that the cause of the bug was the saronite bombs.

Yes they noticed the bug, yes they reported it, and if you have read Kungen's blog it is suggested that they were being watched by Blizzard as they made their attempts on the Lich King.

As has been pointed out already they could have noticed they a bug was occurring but there is no way for a player to establish what is causing the bug unless you effectively checked every single possible spell, ability and combination of such, by doing an attempt without them.

These guys were racing to get a world first, they had limited attempts, they didnt stop to test the boss encounter on blizzard's behalf.

As you rightly said Blizzard kept this one off the test realm for the significance of the fight and they were right to do so, were they right to ban Ensidia for killing the Lich King first while the fight was bugging most certainly not.

However, having written all this in their defense, I should also point out that noone outside of the 25 people in the raid know the truth. If they wrote in the ingame chat that they knew the bombs were causing the bug then Blizzard would have known the truth and would be 100% right to ban them. As most end game raiders will only use voice chat during a raid Blizzard will most likely not have access to that information.

As we live in a society where people are innocent until proven guilty I feel it is unfair for Blizzard to have banned them.

Based on the information available to us!

In the article I saw no evidence that proves that they knew it was the bombs that caused the bug. You supposed based on the fact that they are experienced raiders that they could automatically work out that it was the bombs that caused the bug to occur. But you have no facts to prove it.

As an on off casual WoW raider I havent seen the end game raid bosses but i know when I am doing progress raids with my guild I'm not taking the time to notice if something I'm doing is causing a bug, I'm just sticking to my rotations and making sure I'm in the right place at the right time. As has been seen from the evidence of the rogue in questions logs he was just following his NORMAL dps routine. He did not add the bombs to make the platform bug he simply did what he did on every other boss.


Point is there is no evidence to say that they knew the cause of the bug and therefore the ban is unjustified. However if blizzard have evidence that they did know the cause then of course they were right to ban them, but Blizzard have not come forward and presented this evidence to the public which would settle all the threads like this, which leads me to think (personal opinion) that it doesnt exsist.

Anyway thats a long enough wall of text to digest for now.

 

[Bigeyez]

In most programming languages a number data type (integer, float) is not linear but more like a loop (there is one difference between the min value and the max value).

Unsigned integers have a value from zero to MAX_INT (defined by the OS environment and in most 32 bit systems/languages ~16 billion).

If you set an unsigned int equal to zero and then subtract one, it will overflow and be equal to MAX_INT.

unsigned int iMin = 0, iMax = MAX_INT;

iMin = iMin - 1; // iMin now equals MAX_INT
iMax = iMax + 1; // iMax now equals zero

Great post! Thank for explaining what I struggled to explain. Yeah I knew the gist of it and that it worked like that but seeing it written out like that makes it perfectly clear. Kudos!

As for some of the debate going on in this thread now, Remember that it doesn't matter whether they exploited on purpose or not. Even if you do believe their story and they didn't know what was causing the bug they KNEW the fight was bugged and was not behaving like it should have been.

They had already killed him in the 10 man version so they knew how the fight should work. They themselves admit on their own personal blogs (go to Ensidia's website and read them if you don't believe me) that this bug was happening EVERY single attempt they did and that they were actively trying to figure out what was causing the bug. Instead of reporting it, they continued to attempt the encounter until they downed him. Then instead of reporting the bug to both Blizzard and on their website they posted a "World First" shot on their page and didn't mention the fact that they had killed him while the encounter was bugged. The truth didn't come out until the fight was hotfixed an hour later by Blizzard (which means Blizzard watched their encounter which they have been known to do in the past). After that they finally admitted it on their own website, but still wouldn't go into any details until they got banned. They then proceeded to act like children and nerd rage...

So even if they had not known what was causing the bug, their behavior during the entire situation and the fact that they tried to hide that it was a bugged kill from everyone is what makes them no better then a guild like Exodus that they bashed for exploiting.

 

[Niveama]

That is a fair point that they have not acted in a particularly adult manner about it.

But to be banned for exploiting means that they specifically knew what was causing the bug. You cannot exploit a system unless you know the cause.

Blizzard were able to work out the cause, that much is clear from the ban email that ensidia got.

As for the Exodus matter you seem to have forgotten that after they recieved the ban Exodus came forward and said they had known exactly what they were doing to cause the bug. They had noticed on a previous attempt that the encounter had bugged when someone had been left outside the encounter room. Then then went back and deliberately recreated the conditions to cause the bug in order to get the world first.

Ensidia have made no such confession. I said previously if the evidence is there that they did know what caused the bug then I think they should get banned, in fact I'd be really pissed off that they didn't man up and admit to it in the fashion that Exodus did. Which raises the question are they cowards and liars or have they been done an in-justice?

Are you saying that you would not get upset if you were wrongly accused of something? I know i would. Sure I might not act in the way that they do, and the way they acted certainly does them no favours.

They would have got the world first either way bug or not I genuinely believe that, but as it stands at the moment they have been banned for Blizzard's mistake. I would have to go back to the EULA to read if it is a bannable offense for the game bugging and you suffering it, yes they got the world first when the encounter was bugging but given that other guilds were able to do it without the bug then it is certainly doable.

 

[TheMatt]

Nice to see people who cheat get in trouble for it. They had it coming.

"John Funk's guild is still stuck on Festergut and Rotface."

Oh fuck, mine too buddy. Rotface is just impossible without 24 other RELIABLE people and I don;t even want to think about putricide. I fought him on 10man and we got flattened in about 30seconds.

We took him down to 94% though! Woot!

 

[Bob_Marley42]

Big fat meh. I don't play WoW but in any competitive game I'm of the opinion that if you can do something without altering the game on your end (ie, it was built like that) its entirely legitimate. Use every tool you have available to ensure victory, failure to do so is utter foolishness.

 

[Weaver]

If you look up "taking a game too seriously" in the dictionary...

 

[likalaruku]

Aww, when you posted "Fail to the King," I though it would have something to do with Dr. Ashen's reviews of knock-off handheld consoles. One of his videos has that same title.

I say if you discover an exploit no one has used before, you deserve brownie points, not punishment.