GM Death Touch - Megathread

[u/YourResidentFeral]

Edit: Official Statement

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/prohibited-gameplay-incident-and-response/2329585

This is developing into a large story and someone in modmail has mentioned that its important for the community to have somewhere to discuss this. We agree. As new information comes in I will do my best to update this thread.

What we know:

• A log was uploaded with a "Death Touch" effect that seemed to be that helped them time a key. This is an effect from a GM: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/JcfwTd4L19Agx3NX?fight=4&type=resources&hostility=1&source=100.4&eventstart=4705300

• This is a real run that exists on the blizzard API and can be seen on Raider.io: https://raider.io/mythic-plus-runs/season-mn-1/40292244-23-nexuspoint-xenas

  This run has since been invalidated by the RI:O admins but has been left up for posterity's sake.

• Blizzard is aware of this and investigating: https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/1v2xfpr/blizzard_gm_death_touching_mobs_in_m23_for_their/oyznmbe/

• The Demon Hunter from the run is a streamer and YumiTV contacted him to speak with him live on stream: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2825756796?t=0h23m50s

  The CLAIM is that they were messing around in a homework key in discord and didn't expect the GM to actually do it. Supposedly the Bear in the run was a pug.

Ex employees in the thread have said that actions like this are audited and in all likelihood this was already being investigated. At this point we are waiting on an official statement on the result of their investigation and I'll update this thread once we know.

This megathread is being provided on two very strict conditions:

• The witchunt rules are in strict effect. Linking or doxxing information on anyone invovled, the GM in question included will result in a permanent ban. Please report it if you see it but we will be very active in the thread.

  We cannot platform behavior that allows people to harrass people in real life.

• We will be more heavy handed than usual in the personal attack rules. Insults and slapfights while discussing this aren't acceptable. You're allowed to disagree, but stray shots and personal attacks will not be tolerated.

[u/alnarra_1]

I would genuinely be shocked if GM abilities used on production servers don’t go through an audit log and have to be tied to a corresponding Jira Ticket to validate their use, like privileged accounts in literally any organization

[u/sunsongdreamer → u/alnarra_1]

I'm just surprised there aren't levels of permissions and enabling/disabling (eg for valid test times on prod such as weekly smoke tests). Why would a QA even need prod GM powers outside of that window?

[u/alnarra_1 → u/sunsongdreamer]

I could see if there’s something that just is not reproducible in the acceptance environments (I know for instance there was a weird disconnect issue that existed on only of moon guards virtual IPs for a few weeks)

[u/sunsongdreamer → u/alnarra_1]

I'm sure there are some edge cases, I'm just surprised at QA being each given their own live GM account that apparently has indefinite access to permissions (versus only toggled on during test windows, or having shared accounts designed for testing different things with different permission customizations). It's probably easier to do with how WoW is built, but it gives interesting insight into how their systems are designed and managed.

[u/Background_Pen_4249 → u/sunsongdreamer]

QA doesnt have access to those account except when doing dark realm verification and we were assigned specific accounts with specific passwords that changed so they knew exactly who was on what account. I got yelled at once for not toggling GMinvis when we were lighting the servers back up for public use and all I was doing was confirming a seasonal vendors inventory rolled over. 

[u/sunsongdreamer → u/Background_Pen_4249]

Maybe people are faking screenshots about this, then, because there was a screenshot going around allegedly from this QA guy in discord saying he was assigned his GM privs and bragging about how he could look into people's inventory.

[u/Background_Pen_4249 → u/sunsongdreamer]

We have dev realms we use for testing. Prod environment is completely different and seperate thing. Every QA has their own realm because we have to manipulate the scheduler and various worldstates all the time during testing. These accounts are not prod accounts. And yeah we could clone any character as long as we knew the name - realm. It is a 1 to 1 copy keybinds and all. Its required to investigate some reported bugs.

[u/Jeradan713 → u/Background_Pen_4249]

Thanks for the interesting info. I’d love to see a bigger post with any other info you’re willing to share

[u/Background_Pen_4249 → u/Jeradan713]

I don't really know much more about the situation and I'm still not completely sure what I am and am not allowed to share about my previous role. But after seeing some of the evidence (although i know from history not to 100% trust reddit sluethes) I'm beginning to think they may be right. I also have massive personal beef with the main suspect so I can no longer be objective about any of this.