I liked how someone pointed out on WoW.com that the very bottom part is a direct copy/paste with some minor alterations of a nerd rage letter sent by Blizzard's Lead Developer who was an avid player of Everquest 2 some five years ago or something like that. It was essentially, a slap in the face to him because he did the same thing.

EDIT: ywehc is the author of this thread and I responded to it but somehow came in as the author.

http://www.ensidia.com/muqq/blog/4078/

What Velanna was referring to in his response above ^.

An interesting read. It is too bad he decided to lace it with profanities as that detracts from his overall message and makes him sound like a flustered child instead of an adult who is conveying his serious, and well deserved, frustrations over his gaming experience and this final insult with the Lich King encounter. There's a time and place for the colorful metaphors and if his objective was to get other gamers to say, "Man that dude from Ensidia really told off those fucking bitches at Blizzard," congratulations, he has accomplished his goal. However, if he really wants Blizzard to take action to a wrongful suspension and to resolve the inadequacies of the game, I feel he missed his mark as this is circular file material.

I think Muqq wrote this for his audience, not Blizzard. Aside from that, if Blizzard representatives didn't behave like crying children themselves, they could take an objective look at this post and seriously consider some of the valid points he made.

Even fights with weeks of testing and being released for months can have exploits that no one could have ever thought of. Look at Yogg 0, it was out for as long as it was before someone thought of an ingenious way to trivialize the hardest part of the fight. Testing or not bugs always make it to live and considering the many many times Ensidia has blatantly expoited world firsts (*cough* spell steal freya trash buff for hodir *cough*) and never been banned this has been a long time coming.

I see it as a frustrated rant from someone who has the maturity of a teenager.

The fact is that they violated terms of service when they realized they had a bug on their hands, discussed how they could trigger it again, and how they could alter strategy to take advantage of said bug. They then followed through with altering strategy to take advantage of said bug and achieved a kill.

They can cry about it all they want, but honestly the majority of the feedback I've read sides with Blizzard. They didn't earn a ban by bugging out the encounter, they earned a ban by:

1) Recognizing a bug was occurring, yet failing to report it
2) Altering strategy to take advantage of said bug. Remember they easily could have continued killing Valks like normal, but instead they happily, gleefully, and wantonly abused the bug. The fact that they could've killed the boss without using the bug has absolutely no bearing... because they did abuse it and made a conscious decision to do so.

It was #2 that was the clincher. The only thing I sympathize with Ensidia about is that enforcement of this type of behavior seems inconsistent, but it's hard to prove that since we only hear about bans when they go against a guild like Ensidia or it's a world first.

The best comparison I can make is the Exodus Yogg 0 kill, when Ensidia cried foul and screamed at the top of their lungs for a ban. There are only two tangible differences between the two scenarios:

1) Exodus knew how to trigger the bug and did it on purpose while Ensidia realized a bug was occurring but weren't sure why.
2) Exodus could not have killed Yogg 0 without the bug, while Ensidia obviously was capable of killing the Lich King.

Neither of the above matters, the TOS explicitly states that taking advantage of bugs is a "serious violation". Whether you know how they are triggered or not and whether or not you need the bug to achieve the kill has absolutely zero significance.

I agree here

to my knowledge what they were doing was using the bombs to rebuild the platform and thus removing the need to kill val'kyr because when you got dropped you wouldnt fall to your death but instead fall to the rebuilt part of the platform

they obviously knew what they were doing and continued to do it

how does this help your argument phaythe lol

According to Ensidia, they claim they didn't know why the platforms were rebuilding. However, they have admitted to discussing what was causing the bug and how they could take advantage.

Of course, it's not like Blizzard has published all the information they have either. My opinion that the ban was completely deserved is based solely on what Ensidia has admitted to.

This was right below those two points:
Neither of the above matters, the TOS explicitly states that taking advantage of bugs is a "serious violation". Whether you know how they are triggered or not and whether or not you need the bug to achieve the kill has absolutely zero significance.

This is the way I see it. Stealing is illegal. Exploiting bugs violates the TOS.

Stealing is illegal with no contexts or exceptions. If someone leaves their wallet unguarded, out in plain view, on a bar counter where you could grab it without anyone noticing, does that make it ok to steal the wallet? Is that thief any better or worse than a con man who deliberately misleads in some grand scheme to get your money? In both cases, is there not a conscious decision to steal that must take place?

The decision to exploit the bug warranted the ban. In both cases, Exodus and Ensidia made that decision when they altered strategy directly to take advantage. How the bug occurred and why is totally irrelevant, as long as Ensidia knew it was a bug, which they have already admitted to.

Honestly, I think Blizzard should ban way more than they do now (if they don't already and we just don't know about it). Ensidia should've been stripped of their kill and probably banned for Hodir IMO. People who blew beasts off the ledge as well. You'll be hard pressed to get me to be sympathetic to people who I see as nothing more than cheaters.

I am unfamiliar with the wallet in question, good luck finding it.

You should probably be banned for that time you were with us when the mages never spawned on Gunship.

Your argument is retarded, noone accidentally finds a bug then decides to quit raiding for the day or wipes the attempt. By all means, continue going on about it being the wrong thing to do... but when it actually happens, its a totally different story.

not sure who you are talking to here but yea i agree noone would stop, and if I was in a raid that was exploiting to kill something i would fully expect to be banned the next day

fact is, or so i am lead to believe, they kept continuing to do it and didnt report the bug at all. Had they reported that the platform was reconstructing itself i think the outcome may have been different.

Im not sure how hard it would be to notice the plat form raises back up everytime you threw a bomb, and for that im leaning towards thinking they knew what was causeing it, despite what they claim

Who said quit raiding? Why does no one get that the ban was for the decision to exploit the bug, not for the fact that a bug happened?

You do realize they had options available, right?

1) Report Bug. Continue trying to kill Lich King while handling Valks as normal.
2) Not Report Bug. Alter strategy to take advantage of it.

They CHOSE option 2 and were banned for it. It's amazing to me that Ensidia and the "Blizz is always wrong" crowd is completely incapable of admitting that a decision was made to exploit the bug.

Also consider this:
1) Would Ensidia have reported the issue immediately if it was preventing them from getting a kill, rather than helping them?
2) Would Ensidia want any other guild who killed the Lich King this way banned?

The fact is that they're mad because they got caught. If the situation was different, they would probably be singing an entirely different tune.

blizzard was watching every single one of ensidia's attempt phaythe, as they are watching any guild who gets there first or on the first day, you have to assume that the GM(s) weren't afk getting popcorn to see if ensidia would down it

I agree they should've lost their achievement and loot and had to do it again, the ban was a little insane due to blizzards lack of testing a well known dps rotation

the problem so many people have with the ban is that blizzard didnt step in during ensidia's attempts and say okay hold on something is wrong give us a min to figure out why their respawning, instead they wait until many hours later and come up with a ruling, its well within their TOS yes but still doesnt make it fair.

blizzard chose to take the stance "well you should've reported the problem" instead of saying "yes we missed this and the GM(s) watching didnt take proper actions"

you sit there and say that Ensidia SHOULD'VE done XYZ, its a two way street

We are the ones that agree to the TOS dynamy, blizz just provides the game and enforces the rules as they see fit, they dont really agree to much more than that

im well aware of their TOS as it clearly states "we can do whatever we want, when we want and not tell you why"

doesnt make it fair, its like playing baseball and telling someone you're going to throw them a fastball, throw them a curve and watch them swing themselves into the ground (sports reference try not to die). I'm within my right to throw what I want, doesn't make it fair.

but what does fair have anything to do with it? they exploited (even if they didnt know what was causing it) and was punished as blizz saw fit

like i said b4, had they reported the bug on the 2nd attempt that the platform was rebuilding itself i think the outcome would have been different for them

I don't understand why you two automatically assume they knew everything about the bug the moment it occurred. All the information provided to us by Ensidia (likely limited, I know, but the only thing you can base assumptions on) says that the bug only happened on two attempts, out of a grand total of four. It had the potential to happen twice every attempt.

They stated that they agreed not to kill the valks IF the bug happened again. Obviously since it didn't happen every attempt, they could not assume it would happen (or know definitively what caused it, imo). Even then, they still had to kill the first set of valks on time every time.

Even if this is banworthy, I don't understand how you can say they should have done something differently. Noone else would have while competing for a world first, save potentially reporting the issue while attempting it. If it takes them an average of 2-3 days to get to tickets and they were banned 3 hours after the kill, what makes you think that would have changed the outcome?

i never said they knew everything about the bug, i said thy knew there was a bug

they didnt report it, they got banned for exploting said bug

and i agree, i dont think anyone else would do anything differently(save the reporting it right away) but if i was in that postition i would fully expect to be banned.

and as stated before, there was more than likely a GM watching them as they were killing him, so a ticket saying something about a bug more than likely would have been answered right away