Ensidia Banned!

By Saffrin on February 4th, 2010

Does the punishment fit the crime?

Ensidia feels the ban-hammer.

Many of us never thought we'd see the day when this infamous Euro guild would suffer a ban at the hands of Blizzard. After their most recent stunt however, no one should really be surprised. The punishment definitely fits the crime.

For those of you not in the know, here's the short version of what happened:

Ensidia exploited the normal mode Lich King 25man encounter by using Saronite Bombs to cause the main platform to rebuild, making the encounter significantly easier.

Soon after the Ensidia kill was announced, the following was posted by Daelo, the Lead Encounter Designer:

We just made a hotfix that disables the siege damage dealt by Saronite Bombs and the Global Thermal Sapper Charge. The siege damage of the bombs was causing the Frozen Throne platform to rebuild, which greatly decreases the difficulty of the encounter.

We'll reenable the siege damage in a later update when the issue with the Frozen Throne is fixed.
Daelo (Source)

Then came Ensidia, who made the following statement:

Yes it seems this bug does relate to our kill. We had no idea that our Rogues using Saronite Bombs in their rotation (as they always do) was causing it and thusly it occured every try we did. Short version, we're not going to stop trying the boss when all we are doing is playing our normal game. It would be nice if these kinds of things, much the same as Holy Wrath on Anub, were tested before release.

It does make the fight easier, but we are 100% sure it would have died either way. It only affects one of the easier phases.

As a side note this only occured in 25 man.

The statement was hard to believe and sounded like a blatant lie, but all the community could do was wait and see.

A second blue post was made by Valnoth, the Lead World Designer, who hinted at the ban to come:

It is not our policy to discuss disciplinary action for exploitation. With that said, we take exploits very seriously and will action players that use exploits to overcome an encounter.

We continue to closely monitor all 25 player Lich King attempts and will take action if we deem players blatantly exploiting the encounter.
Valnoth (Source)

And finally, the proof of the ban, brought forward by a veteran member of Nihilum, Muqq. The entry is long, and I won't do it justice by simply copy/pasting it in its entirety here. Read the entire thing by following this link (Be forewarned: lots of Blizzard hating and cursing found inside!)

Critical part of the entry:

I got suspended today for supposedly and blatantly exploiting the Lich King encounter in 25-man mode. Here's the mail:

Date of Violation: 03/02/2010

Character Name Involved: Muqq
Type of violation: Exploitation – Abuse of in-game mechanics or glitches with intent to exploit or cheat in World of Warcraft.
Details: Use of Saronite Bombs to bypass The Lich King fight mechanics Consequences for Account: Account suspended for 72 hours, all items and achievements gained removed

In other news.

Blood Legion vs The Lich King 10man video released! Follow the link in the youtube description to view part 2 of the video!

Multi-phase fight and definitely over-tuned if the goal is for it to be aimed at 10man-only raiding guilds.

Call to WoWProgress: Bring Ensidia back down to 11/12 bosses until they defeat the 25man encounter legitimately. We're all waiting.

12 comments so far. Add yours!

Saffrin February 4th, 2010 at 9:00am

... and the main thought running through Mek’s mind is, “This is much better publicity than actually getting the normal mode kill legitimately.”
Casagrande February 4th, 2010 at 11:23am

While this isn’t quite as blatant as some of their previous exploits, their denial of it and claim of a legitimate kill (rather than posting something like “Cool, Lich King bugged out”) made their intentions very clear, and I’m glad Blizzard finally did something about them.
Koohwip February 4th, 2010 at 11:27am

See my ticket worked! HAH
Lr February 4th, 2010 at 1:15pm

Under the thrill and pressure of keeping competitive and image, I’m not sure I would’ve told the rogue stop using the bombs once I realized what was happening if I were an officer in Ensidia. The bomb use for increased dps was a continual thing throughout any encounter.

It’s bad scripting by Blizzard to have “siege health” or “siege damage” play any of a factor in that encounter.
Astralis February 4th, 2010 at 2:56pm

I agree with Tsiksun. I blame Blizzard. And I don’t have any love for Ensidia.

Using Bombs is a legit DPS increase. If for example casting heals bugged the encounter somehow, should try to do it without casting heals? It’s the same thing, just on a significantly smaller scale. What people are complaining about is Ensidia using all of their abilities, one of which happens to bug the encounter out.

Fix the encounter.

It would be different if it was something like ‘setting a flare’ bugs the encounter out. Something that you wouldn’t normally do. But if you are on progression content you should be allowed to use all of the things your character can use - flasks/consumables/potions/bombs/etc without having to worry about the encounter breaking.
Winchestor February 4th, 2010 at 3:45pm

I dunno, as for me, I think the ban was overkill, even though they have had it coming for a long time now. I would say its more Blizzards fault then Ensidias. All that should have happened, was for them to remove their loot/achievement and respawn the boss. People were getting upset because they got the easy pass to heroic modes, where no one else could because of the hotfix. Make them kill the same version of LK as everyone else does and I think people would be happy. It would also make them eat their words if they couldn’t kill him again! >:)

“It does make the fight easier, but we are 100% sure it would have died either way. It only affects one of the easier phases.”
Azamoth February 4th, 2010 at 4:04pm

Given what the general public knows the ban seems heavy handed. Its possible that they knew exactly what was happening and specifically bugged out the encounter, but we’ll never know. However Blizzard has access to all of their chat logs (guild/officer/whisper etc), combat logs, and other details. They have the complete picture of exactly what happened.

Blizzard reviewed the evidence and decided they exploited.
Tirilwen February 4th, 2010 at 6:00pm

Given the ubiquitous use of bombs in high-end raids, Blizzard’s action just appears like it would hit the first guild to finish the encounter.

At the same time, I have much more faith in Blizzard’s bird’s eye analysis than Ensidia’s account. But their remedy is still harsh, and given the information the public has, a poor PR move. It would be amusing to remove the achievements/loot and respawn the boss, and let Ensidia eat their own boast:

“It does make the fight easier, but we are 100% sure it would have died either way. It only affects one of the easier phases.”
Taryssa February 5th, 2010 at 1:44am

I agree on the respawn, but their ban is long overdue. No remorse here.
Glida February 5th, 2010 at 2:54am

the problem is not so much “using bomb” on the fight, it’s more of using the bug to their advantage. They used the bug to skip valkyrs all together in phase 3, that is the exploit.
Quavvy February 8th, 2010 at 7:31pm

Muqq quoting Tigole was pretty lame. He mentioned that a GM was watching in GM-mode, yet he failed to alert that GM that they were bugging the encounter? Like they didn’t know? If they’re as intelligent of gamers as they claim to be, they had to have known. And they conveniently left that part out when they were claiming a world first.

Nice blog, Saffrin.
pregnancy miracle June 27th, 2011 at 5:27am

http://tinyurl.ws/2a
pregnancy miracle pregnancy miracle