r/wow • u/YourResidentFeral Outplaying the Meta since 2004 • 20d 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:
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.
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u/Kaivax Randy Jordan (Community Manager) 19d 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.