wow NHM Race Day 12: Unfounded Exploit Accusations

[Starym 3,779]

 

Exorsus get accused of exploiting and prove it's not true.

Obviously today's highlight was the amazing Gul'dan World First by Exorsus, who raced past Serenity and took the gold in the Nighthold Mythic race but, unfortunately, that wasn't the only big thing that happened. Some people just didn't get enough drama from this race it seems, even with the Serenity/Method lockout and the Fusion exploit and ban, a select few reeeally wanted more bad things to have happened in the final raid of Tier 19. The whole story involves a Darkmoon Faire trinket, a bug that may or may not be just aesthetic, and a series of coincidences that made this triumphant day way more annoying for Exorsus than it should have been. So what did or, in this case more relevantly, didn't happen? (Spoiler alert: they didn't exploit anything.)

Exorsus got the WF kill at 14:11 CET and had a nice afternoon, enjoying their success, and then this image was posted on the MMO Champion forums and reddit.

Aside from the amazing artistry on display of having a screenshot pasted into paint and then screenshotted again, the image shows two epic trinkets equipped, along with the buff from this trinket active in the buff bar: Darkmoon Deck: Promises. Later, a clip was also added (that turned out to be very conveniently edited) and both were "suggesting" that an exploit was used that made you retain the buff from the Darkmoon trinket while having two other, different trinkets equipped. Apparently this was a known exploit for a while now, but some people said it was only an aesthetic bug, that the buff showed but didn't work, while others said that it gave you the actual effect as well.

The discussion/accusations went on for quite a while, and Exorsus members kept insisting that this had nothing to do with the kill, but the reddit thread was mostly distrustful, probably because of Exorsus' previous Helya ban and possibly also related to the recent Fusion ban as well. Meanwhile, the main Warcraft twitter account even congratulated Exorsus on their win, but wasn't enough to convince people:

Congratulations to @ExorsusWoW on World First Mythic Gul'dan! https://t.co/a3zmQs4EuY

— World of Warcraft (@Warcraft) February 4, 2017

Then community manager Lore went even further to placate this, now very popular, exploit theory but even that wasn't enough:

@clm911978 we have no reason to believe there was anything shady going on with their kill

— Josh Allen (@devolore) February 4, 2017

Finally, a very frustrated Alveona, GM of Exorsus, went on the MMO Champion forums and shared the Warcraftlogs page of the player in question, for the Gul'dan kill, clearly showing that he did, in fact, simply have the Darkmoon trinket equipped normally and was using it in the fight, no exploits or anything similar was even possible.

He also had this to say:

Quote

Tired of reading this accusations. If 2 confirmations from Blizzard is not enough, linking here screenshot from warcraftlogs http: // i.imgur.com/fqdV8U5.png
P.S. Thanks a lot for cheering & congratulations.

So what actually happened in the end, why did this even get started, other than some really hungry drama hounds? As mentioned above, Exorsus' druid was using the trinket during progress and the kill, as the fight is quite long, so it's a good choice for mana regen. A while after the kill, he started streaming and still had the trinket on. As he went back to Nighthold to take a screenshot, the mobs outside the entrance aggroed him and the trinket was activated as he went into combat. The bug then appeared as he zoned in to Nighthold in combat, with the buff, and it did not get removed (as you can see here), and then stayed on for a long time. Whether it was just the icon or actual stats staying doesn't really matter, as this was all after the kill, but the point is he later changed out the trinket. Some intrepid watcher made a clip, only showing how the druid had the buff on as well as two non-darkmoon trinkets and there you go: instant drama.

It's quite unfortunate even Blizzard's word isn't quite good enough for some people, both because of a lack of trust, but also because that lack of trust isn't exactly unfounded: Blizzard have, in the past, let some exploits slip. But that wasn't the case this time and we certainly feel sorry for Exorsus having their big triumphant day somewhat diminished by this fabricated drama. In any case, huge congratulations to them once again on a well deserved victory!

So, did anything else happen today? Not that much. Quite a few guilds caught up to Limit and Entropy at 8/10, downing Star Augur and completing the top 10 on him: Openness, Danish Terrace, ScrubBusters and second-best guild name ever owners, FatSharkYes. The big stuff still left to see in the race is whether Serenity or Method make it past the finish line next, as well as how the top 10 on Gul'dan shapes up, even though only From Scratch is even on the boss other than those two.

[Amateurpeeweeeeh 37]

What is first-best guild name ever owner?

[Starym 3,779]

4 hours ago, Amateurpeeweeeeh said:

What is first-best guild name ever owner?

Hexual Sealing. No contest there. Only found out about them during this Heroic progress race while covering, I was very much a FatSharkYes fan before.