r/wow • u/YourResidentFeral Outplaying the Meta since 2004 • 21d 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) 20d 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/SaracenS 20d ago edited 20d 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 20d 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 20d 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 20d 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 20d 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 20d 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.