Poster: Villains at 8/24/2005 11:46:17 PM PDT
Subject: Bliz mistakenly suspends a full raid guild |
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The short of it is that roughly 35 members of my guild (Zug Zug, on Garona) were just banned for apparently exploiting and 'cascading' Ragnaros (the Firelord). Anyway, here is a copy of the email sent to the members in question:
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Account Action: 72 Hour Suspension
Offense: Intended Exploitation - Cascading raid instance to circumvent in-game raid timer
Details: Player involved in three Ragnaros kills from the times of 8/14 - 8/22. These kills were only possible through cascading the Molten Core instance which is against the intended game mechanics.
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Now I'm simply going to run down quickly how this is possible, and why three kills from the period of 8/14 - 8/22 is not only possible, but what we did.
We had our raid timer on this particular weak set to end up expiring on Sunday, 8/14. It was also the day that Ragnaros was sceduled to die, so we finished him off, then zoned out for a couple hours and waited for our timer to expire, upon which time we zoned back in and killed Lucifron and Magmadar, locking us in to a zone set to expire the following Saturday, 8/20 (because, as I'm sure many of you are aware, MC does in fact have a 6 day cooldown).
We finished up MC that week, dropping Ragnaros on Friday, 8/19. Which then leads us to the fatal final day, Sunday, the 21st. Since our flag expired on the 20th (see above), we had a full zone ahead of us. We did a full clear on Sunday, fully expecting to then be able to use the rest of the week to get back to attempting BWL (we got into this situation in the first place because we were doing 6 day MC clears, we wanted to shift things to Sunday clear only).
In conclusion, I'm posting this here in an attempt to get my guild back on their feet before the misawarded 3 day suspensions, in addition bliz needs to review their policy on catching cascaders, as it's obviously faulty, and I would hate to see this happen to another raiding guild who tries to get the most out of their timers. Finally, if nothing does change, other raid guilds need to heed this as a warning, as there is no doubt this could also happen to you.
-Villains
Guild Leader, Zug Zug
(PS. our dkp site is http://www.zugguild.com/dkp, if anyone would care to verify the above information)
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Edit 1: We have recieved our first response to our e-mailing, the e-mail and its response is below:
On 8/25/05, wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com> wrote:
Hello,
Thank you for contacting us about your World of Warcraft account. The instance is on a 7 day timer and in your own record you killed Ragnaros in 5 day. The instance is not intended to work like that. thus you are in violation and are Cascading the instance. The account action will not be changed under any circumstance.
Thank you for your time
Regards,
Tonst
Account Administration
Blizzard Entertainment
www.worldorwarcraft.com
Customer satisfaction is a top priority here at Blizzard Entertainment, and we would like your feedback on the level of service you have received. Please feel free to provide such feedback at the following web address: http://www.blizzard.com/support/?id=eSurvey000&i=219&d=8/25/2005%2011:14:09%20AM&t=bhartin@gmail.com
-----Original Message-----
From: emailremoved@gmail.com
To: wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com
Sent: 8/24/2005 11:04:09 PM
Subject: Account: D
I am the owner of the account named 'D'.
As I read this, my entire guild is being suspended, one by one, for
some claim that we were exploiting the raid timers to clear Molten
Core more than a normal timer would allow. This is blatently FALSE.
As of the patch 1.6, everyone's raid timers were reset. Our normal schedule was that we cleared Molten Core on Sundays as a single run.
After this reset, we decided to stagger our MC runs over weekdays to net an extra clear over the course of 5 weeks or so. At no time did
we clear MC more than once per the normal 6-day timer. Instead, we managed to clear MC prior to our timer reset, zoned out, allowed our timer to expire, then re-entered to clear through Magmadar in order to start our next timer.
At no time did we 'cascade' any other raid timers.
Our MC schedule for the dates in offense ("Player involved in three
Ragnaros kills from the times of 8/14 - 8/22"):
8/7 [Vil's note: typo, actually started on 8/8] - Killed Lucifron, started timer.
8/14 - Killed Ragnaros
8/14 - Timer #1 ends
8/14 - Killed Lucifron after our timer ended normally.
8/19 - Killed Ragnaros
8/20 - Timer #2 ends
8/21 - We clear MC in a full run, Lucifron through Ragnaros.
As you can see, these are three completed and legitimate timers during
the dates in question, from 8/14 to 8/22.
We ask to have all of our player accounts re-instated and an adjustment to our accounts to compensate for the loss of play time due to this false accusation.
Thanks,
Draskuul of Zug Zug on Garona
Luci 8/07 , rag 8/14
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Edit 2: Handy picture for those who are more...visually inclined (ishack though, so it's here for however long it lasts).
http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/373/calendar2oo.jpg[ post edited by Villains ]
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-dungeons&t=124053&p=#post124053 | | | Poster: Caydiem at 8/25/2005 3:27:26 PM PDT
Subject: Re: Bliz mistakenly suspends a full raid guil |
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Since the contents of this thread have become something of a hot topic, I wanted to take a moment to comment on the points raised. The timer quoted in the email to these individuals was indeed incorrect; the true timer on Molten Core is six days, not seven. As such, the kills performed by the guild Zug Zug were completely legitimate. While clearly an unfortunate mistake, maintaining the integrity of the high end content of World of Warcraft (specifically, making sure raid timers are adhered to) is a top priority of the GM staff.
We do not discuss the specifics of penalties levied to accounts with any individuals other than the registered user of the account. However, I can assure you that concerns brought to the attention of the GM staff through the appropriate channels have already been addressed appropriately, as you can see through the most recent responses. We sincerely apologize for the confusion surrounding this and appreciate that the players in question conducted themselves with patience and courtesy. :)
- Caydiem -
/moo
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-dungeons&t=124053&p=#post125130 | Poster: Caydiem at 8/25/2005 3:33:16 PM PDT
Subject: Re: Bliz mistakenly suspends a full raid guil |
| |
Q u o t e:
owned
anyway, I think that it kinda sucks that the only way to get a GM response is to post in the R&D forums.
It isn't. The individuals in question used the proper means of getting something like this addressed -- we have eMail addresses specifically for issues with suspensions and GM interactions.
- Caydiem -
/moo
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-dungeons&t=124053&p=#post125137 | Poster: Caydiem at 8/25/2005 3:27:26 PM PDT
Subject: Re: Bliz mistakenly suspends a full raid guil *edited post* |
| |
Since the contents of this thread have become something of a hot topic, I wanted to take a moment to comment on the points raised. The timer quoted in the email to these individuals was indeed incorrect; the true timer on Molten Core is six days, not seven. As such, the kills performed by the guild Zug Zug were completely legitimate. While clearly an unfortunate mistake, maintaining the integrity of the high end content of World of Warcraft (specifically, making sure raid timers are adhered to) is a top priority of the GM staff.
We do not discuss the specifics of penalties levied to accounts with any individuals other than the registered user of the account. However, I can assure you that concerns brought to the attention of the GM staff through the appropriate channels have already been addressed appropriately, as you can see through the most recent responses. We sincerely apologize for the confusion surrounding this and appreciate that the players in question conducted themselves with patience and courtesy. :)
- Caydiem -
/moo
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-dungeons&t=124053&p=#post125130 | Poster: Caydiem at 8/25/2005 3:33:16 PM PDT
Subject: Re: Bliz mistakenly suspends a full raid guil *edited post* |
| |
Q u o t e:
owned
anyway, I think that it kinda sucks that the only way to get a GM response is to post in the R&D forums.
It isn't. The individuals in question used the proper means of getting something like this addressed -- we have eMail addresses specifically for issues with suspensions and GM interactions.
- Caydiem -
/moo
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-dungeons&t=124053&p=#post125137 |
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