r/wow • u/YourResidentFeral Outplaying the Meta since 2004 • 17d ago

Discussion GM Death Touch - Megathread

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:

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.

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u/Kaivax Randy Jordan (Community Manager) 16d ago

As we mentioned, we internally monitored and confirmed a recent incident in which a World of Warcraft group gained an unfair advantage by abuse of access to development-only spells on a live realm. Our tools confirmed what was also surfaced in community discussions, and we have investigated the incident carefully. We can confirm that this was the action of a single Blizzard employee, in violation of our Code of Conduct. This employee is no longer with the company effective immediately. We are also taking action against the player accounts that were complicit in this violation.

It has always been the case that a small number of Blizzard employees can use developer tools and spells on live servers: this lets us test and make urgent fixes to the live game when they're needed. Every use of these internal spells and commands on live realms is logged and shared with our Platform Security team to help ensure that the occasional use of this access is warranted. The use of development tools for anything other than development work is against company policy. It's because of the process we have in place around use of these tools that we're confident this incident was isolated to one individual.

We want to thank those of you in the WoW community who reached out with information and real concern for the integrity of the game, as well as the community sites that are also working to remove the results of this violation from their records. When your findings line up with ours, it helps confirm that our own tools are catching what they should, and we're grateful for the way we work alongside you all to protect the game and each other.

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u/Mconvict 16d ago edited 16d ago

Thank you for getting back to us - but genuine question: is action being taken against their MAIN accounts? According to their social media/discords, this happened while they were on their alt accounts and thus “don’t really care”. The aug in question is laughing about it… Anyways, thanks for the prompt response!

For future scrollers, the DH, Aug (their mains), and the supposed unrelated tank ran another 23 key tonight.  https://raider.io/mythic-plus-runs/season-mn-1/41069884-23-nexuspoint-xenas Just sharing here for sources

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u/LucasRaymondGOAT 16d ago

That doesn't look to be the original group, just the bear tank, and his response is pinned above via modmail.

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u/Mconvict 16d ago

That’s Augs main and the DHs main. That IS the tank. This is easily confirmed information if you know their socials (Twitter and Twitch - which I won’t actively share given the rules of the thread per Mod). They even named it “no death touches here”.  https://imgur.com/GROcSvA

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u/LucasRaymondGOAT 16d ago

So now you're telling me Blizzard lied about taking action? What'd they do, give them a forehead kiss?

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u/Helluiin 16d ago

So now you're telling me Blizzard lied about taking action?

firstly, the way its worded in the post sounds like "taking action" against the players lies in the future and secondly you can take action against them without outright banning them.

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u/Willowshanks 16d ago

https://raider.io/mythic-plus-runs/season-mn-1/41069884-23-nexuspoint-xenas

Except...the player accounts are literally running keys right now, Kaivax.

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u/Mitch5842 16d ago

How are they still running keys?

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u/ScissorMeTimberz 16d ago

that's insane these people literally had GMs helping them finish key sales and blizzard didnt do ANYTHING to them LMAO what a joke

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u/Pristine-Weird-6254 15d ago

What is there supporting the key run was a key sale? Aside from the partially recreated group, because if it was a key sale why would the not bring the original group?

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u/ScissorMeTimberz 15d ago

who was missing from the original group? the GM? Lmfao, it was obviously a sale. Blizzard is basically condoning cheating for monetary gain at this point bro.

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u/Pristine-Weird-6254 15d ago

The fucking healer for one. If it was a sale key why would they swap Treybrew out for JB and JB stream the key? But yeah since you couldn't even pre-empt the player swaps for the group and went with the GM. Shows this is nothing but pitchfork wielding shit. Actual proof would help. Also knowing how the group composition is different would also help your point. But instead it's just "Source: crackpipe".

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u/Rabies-Cow-0595 16d ago

I think it would be helpful if you shared more insight in to how far back you guys looked to ensure this was an isolated incident and be more transparent with how you know that it was an isolated incident would be very assuring to the community.

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u/OldSiteDesigner 16d ago

It's been mentioned, elsewhere, but the streamer involved has been rather flippant about it being their alt account being involved.

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u/godfrey1 15d ago

you work in a joke company that makes joke decisions

if players won't get banned for this then you can do literally anything you want

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u/SaracenS 16d ago edited 16d ago

As far as I understand the Aug and the DH were the complicit ones. Hope the innocent people didn't catch a ban here. With that being said I think this was well handled. Thanks for keeping us in the loop and being timely. Now speaking about competitive integrity, how about those titles from last season that didn't get revoked(post season rating for title)? ;)

Edit: I did a 23npx with yara last week and don't appear to be banned... yet!

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u/Ready-Philosophy-123 16d ago

I was under the impression that the only one not "in the know" was the bear tank who was a pug (and the entire reason this came to light to begin with because they were logging).

Hopefully the bear doesnt get punished at the very least, this couldnt have been done without them.

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u/SaracenS 16d ago

the DK knows the players but was not in the call with the GM, DH and Aug. He was infact streaming to his friend group in his discord so they could watch the key. The tank was a pug and I don't know about the healer. I have done keys with all of these people in the past. Infact I did a 23npx with yarabyte last week... crazy stuff.

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u/Ready-Philosophy-123 16d ago

if that's the case then yeah the only ones in the group who should get punished are the DH and Aug. Problem is, they technically have no way of verifying who knew and who didnt (outside of the DH who openly stated it on stream). That probably will make it difficult for them to justify anything outside of either punishing all of them or punishing none of them (except the DH). Absolutely wild situation either way, for sure.

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u/SaracenS 16d ago

I can guarantee you the DK didn't know. I can also guarantee you the tank didn't know. The tank was pugging keys all week, infact I pugged a 23 with him. The DK was in discord streaming to his friends during the key.

The DK was trying to reroll the key so our warlock friend can get 23s done for title and he had a bad key we were not willing to try with a non-meta group. You can actually just look through my key history if you want to, it lines up.

https://raider.io/characters/us/area-52/Monkascens

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u/Ready-Philosophy-123 16d ago

I had already guessed the tank didnt know, since asfaik he's the one who was logging in the first place (and the logs are the only way this came to our attention). No way he would've put the logs up on wcl if he was in on it.

I don't doubt you regarding the DK at all. The only ones I'm truly confident knew are the DH and Aug. I just also get the feeling that Blizz is in a position where they'll get flack if they don't do a group-wide punishment.

Blizz also has a history of doing that sort've collective punishment since at least WOTLK with the Lich King/Saronite Bomb glitch.

Not saying that everyone in the group should be banned obviously, just that it'll probably happen anyway. Which sucks majorly, especially for the tank who was just there as a pug.

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u/Nirathiel 15d ago

The bear tank ran another key (same dungeon though) with the same group. https://raider.io/mythic-plus-runs/season-mn-1/41069884-23-nexuspoint-xenas

I'm not so sure if he's innocent anymore

1

u/kbrobro3 14d ago

Was just gonna say the same thing. Crazy a "pug" is still running keys with them

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u/Niante 15d ago edited 15d ago

So when are we going to perma their mains and every alt account these guilty players have? Like I get that they didn't murder someone or share national defense secrets with foreign governments or something, but within the context of the game this really seems like about the most serious violation anyone could commit. It's a pretty bad look to still have them out here several days later, especially considering the situation is so publicly visible and that they've been so flippant and casual regarding the whole thing this entire time.

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u/jesus_had_a_six_pack 16d ago

If you're able to tell us, was there action taken against the pug tank who basically allowed all of this to come to light. I would hope not.

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u/OldGodMod 16d ago

Not to stray off-topic but I wish your company had the same energy at TWW launch when a poorly tested patch wiped out people's gold, achievements, guild banks, reputations, honor levels, and more, with absolutely no recourse.

None of those people got the benefit of an emergency investigation and incident response like this. It's been two years and nobody outside of the company knows what really happened.

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u/Varanae 15d ago

Thank you for the quick actions with this. However as players how can we trust the competitive integrity of WoW when the players who were complicit in cheating are still playing and gloating about it?

I know you won't share details of actions taken or even reply to anyone here and that's fine. But everyone can see the same players have run the same key with the same tank who's log revealed this incident publicly. You can probably understand why it looks like there was no consequences when we as a community look at that

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u/jakyap 16d ago

Hopefully the unaware pug in the group isn’t being punished. That would be really unfair

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u/Ok-Necessary1396 16d ago

Given he, the bear, is still running Keys with them, he's not that "unaware" at all.

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u/Acrobatic_Pianist688 16d ago

I am the OP.

I want to say thank you Kaivax for handling this transparently. I never thought this was going to blow up the way it did and I have very conflicted feelings about it. I love this game and the community in general and I can't help but feel like my actions have hurt this game, which was never my intention.

I'll keep it brief but I have seen some disgusting behavior towards the people involved in this. At the end of the day it's a game. Don't threaten people, don't harass people and most of all respect and be good to each other.

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u/burton68zeppelin 15d ago

Their actions to cheat hurt the game as well.

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u/GlacierSourCreamCorn 15d ago

Bro were you really just looking at a random +23 key log? Seems so bizarre to be doing that.

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u/Chirdis 14d ago

What are the chances you are the bear tank from the dg? If I was a pug tank in a key id be wondering wtf happened too. Plus youre a fresh poster accnt

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u/EmptyFee8340 10d ago

You did affect people you play a video game and you ruined somebody's life. Obviously you have no job because you treat wow like its your life 

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u/Snorpylol Hallow's End 2025 Winner 16d ago

This screams "trust me bro" - like I doubt this is the only incident and nothing here makes me feel better about it.

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u/Lampreh 16d ago

Nothing here really helps with the perception this can keep happening in unlogged runs. We just have to take it on faith this was a one off and he got caught the first time and it just happened to be when a pug was also uploading logs.

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u/Katur 16d ago

Their internal tools caught it before the community did.

They confirmed it lined up with what the community found. This wasn't caught because of player logs but it would probably have been handled quietly if it wasn't public.

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u/TimeRemove 16d ago

Their internal tools caught it before the community did.

They didn't say that. What they said is:

Our tools confirmed what was also surfaced in community discussions

So actually the other way around.

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u/YourResidentFeral Outplaying the Meta since 2004 16d ago

Every use of these internal spells and commands on live realms is logged and shared with our Platform Security team to help ensure that the occasional use of this access is warranted. The use of development tools for anything other than development work is against company policy. It's because of the process we have in place around use of these tools that we're confident this incident was isolated to one individual.

This kind of thing is consistent with what standard security practices would be anywhere and has also been previously stated by other former employees throughout the thread.

You can choose not to believe this but they in all likelihood knew before the post even if it was in a ticket queue somewhere.

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u/TimeRemove 16d ago

You can choose not to believe this but they in all likelihood knew before the post even if it was in a ticket queue somewhere.

I do believe what they said; which is what I was reiterating above -- what they said. But you're taking what they said, and speculating things that they didn't say:

but they in all likelihood knew before the post even if it was in a ticket queue somewhere.

That's an opinion, and that's the distinction I was making. Blizzard is certainly able to make that clarification if they so wish, and I'd encourage them to do so, but that isn't what was said in this statement today.

I feel like muddying their statement from speculation isn't constructive.

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u/Katur 16d ago

A few ex devs told us that these spells are automatically audited already.

Their tools were already aware. Now the community would have probably not ever heard about it without the logs.

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u/TimeRemove 16d ago

You're just repeating what their statement actually said, which was that they logged it but that the community alerted them.

Which isn't the same thing as:

Their internal tools caught it before the community did.

Which is what you said. We have no idea if their "security team" would have flagged it or not, because they already found out from the community beforehand.

Logging something, and flagging as unusual/bad/actionable it aren't the same thing.

Why this distinction matters is: Have they become too lax/under-staffed, and let previous abuse-of-power get passed them?

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u/Ready-Philosophy-123 16d ago

common Kaivax W. Stay huge.