Some Guy Gets A Blizzard-Only WoW Item, Goes On Rampage

@Dangeresque Wants to Take You For a Ride: Didn't the article say it was a SHIRT?

Nowell

I don't think he did hide the fact, he went on a rampage after all. Lets face it, if we all woke up tomorrow and discovered that we had some super hero like power, the very last thing we'd do is report it to the government/police/hospitals, why should this guy be any different?

However, if he did manage to hack the game he deserves everything he got, achievements and all

Gaz

@Dangeresque Wants to Take You For a Ride: the funny thing is, reading from the article, he mentions that there were 100 charges on it. So i assume it could only be used 100 times. If this was a dev testing item, why would they bother putting a limit on it?

That's probably the question that went through his mind, which is probably why he was second guessing whether it was a mistake or not.

Jotsy

Man I am so glad I don't care about MMOGs or an sort of silliness otherwise this would somehow bother me. I think its amusing when this sort of thing happens, infact I remember hearing about such incidents during my time as a CSR at an MMOG developer. It amazes me how much people get attached to things that do not exist. Let go of the chain people! I remember having people call in about silly stuff like their gear missing and expecting us at tech support to be able to do something about it. And these were people my parents age crying and cussing at me over the phone behaving like children. Anyways, I would probably also go on a killing spree but would have saved the evidence beforehand.

Let's see that e-mail, buddy.

They should have logs of the shit they granted to the hacked account :/

@Archaotic:

Its always the gnomes. HORDE FOR LIFE! >_<

...as soon has I get a life that is...honest.

Ginger Gouki

@Archaotic: im near sure you do ;)

just kidding lols

damn gnomes is right. can't kill em all....but we can sure try!

No YouTube video? God damn it.

I wonder if the name "Martin Fury" is available as a player name in WOW: That would be awsome.

Alright let's do this
Marrrrrrrrrrrrtttiiiiiiiiiiin
Furrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry

Flyhawk

@Serajadeyn: Both people would be banned.

Valnen

@K1NG EV1L:
I would have done this and taken it for some pvp action

TruEvl

@Archaotic: "Of course it was a fucking gnome. They're behind everything that's wrong in Azeroth. Not the Scourge, not the Burning Legion. It's the god damn gnomes."

You sound like a Gnazi.

716

Wow, Blizzard are such carebears. Let someone in EVE get something like that, then we'll talk about how worse it can be.

@dojita: Not really, but its close I guess.

@OriginalGman: He wouldn't have been banned if he logged out immediately and contacted customer service. Assuming this is a GM's fault.

Valnen

@potatojenkins: Someone doesn't like MMO's. Or more specifically WoW.

WoW is a great game, it's just not for you.

Valnen

should have auction housed that bad boy for 9,000,000,000 gold on a very short time period. you get the gold, and when the other guy uses it he gets banned.

WIN.

Serajadeyn

@Archaotic:

I agree, filthy money-grubbing gnomes with their large noses. If only there was some kind of camp we could round them all up in...

Yeah. You guys thought the rape joke was bad.

@kylo4iskyle4: Choke wasn't offensive at all.... or maybe I just don't get offended easily by such things.
Actually, no there is very little to be offended by in Chuck Palahniuk's books. I don't see what your point is by bringing it up. I mean, the most offensive or outrageous thing in that book would be Victor raping a woman at her request?

Combine

@kylo4iskyle4:
People very close to me have been victims of sexual abuse. As I've said, I know far, far more personally than most people here on Kotaku the crippling effects it can have on a person. That being said...it was about David the fucking Gnome.

It was a bad joke, I accept that, so let's just let it fade away into the ether, ne?

Flame Leviathan is the first boss in the new raid instance, and isn't hard at all. It's a vehicle battle, all that matters is know how to press 2 or 3 buttons. Oh wait, that's like every class in the game....

Anyway, what he SHOULD have done was gone into an opposing city and started some shit. He was going to get banned anyway, might as well live it up.

@Archaotic: Fucking aye, i hate the little shits.

sideshowbob916

I would have done the same damn thing this guy did. Restore his account Blizzard, you shouldn't make weapons that are that crazy anyway.

Jsmoke

@Derek Rumpler:

Brilliant point, why would a hacker work so hard to get this item only to use it and not film it...

i call bullshit on Blizzavision

@Archaotic: I can take a joke, I read Chuck Palahniuk for crying out loud (have you ever read Choke? Though he is still mighty offensive.) It was just the context and I see it being used more then ever.
@Dangeresque Wants to Take You For a Ride: I didn't mean to come across as a jerk, but if you've ever spoken to, or met a victim of this crime you'd never make a joke about it. To me personally, yeah, it's pretty offensive to make a make light of it, more uncomfortable then most. I'll drop it, as this isn't the place. My main question was why Kotaku allows it, especially since they're part of the Gawker network with Jezebel, whose readers would be incredibly offended by such statements.

@potatojenkins:
"What, you want innovation, depth, and quality in an MMO? What the fuck genre are you playing? Here, do some instances! Because, you know, having instanced stuff in a monthly pay MMO, and having it be the majority of the "main" game makes absolutely perfect sense! Oh, and here's some more junk to grind!"

God, Blizzard are dicks.

"YOU'RE INTERRUPTING THE SHALLOW GAME CLICKAN! BAN! Afk, money hoarding."

@Dangeresque Wants to Take You For a Ride: Its a debug item, right? So do you think they would forbid certain character classes from using it?

@sandal-hat wishes he could quit Capcom: Nope, it's for getting a Comment of the Week. I should know- I don't have very many friends. *Goes into a corner, cries*

@kylo4iskyle4:
I'm pretty sure anyone who would be offended by a joke featuring a late 1980s children's cartoon has much, much more pertinent issues to be attended to than somebody making a joke on the internet.

The joke wasn't exactly in great taste, but that's all it was, a joke. Sexual abuse is serious business, and I more than most people know that.

@Archaotic: Not anymore!

@kylo4iskyle4: Out of curiosity, I just want to know why the internet is such serious business. Chill, brah. If the comment was set up to actually make you believe him, only turning things around at the end, sure, that's uncool. But it was clear, from the start, that it was a joke. You didn't think it was funny? Fine, don't laugh. But don't pull some white knighting bullshit talking about how he's hurting people's feelings. No one cares. Yes, rape is a real crime. Yes, rape is bad. Guess what? So is murder, so is theft, so is fraud. Somehow, the rest of the world understands that it's okay to make jokes about those.

Your intentions are good, I suppose, but you're just coming across as a jerk. Welcome to the internet. Manners and taste are rare commidities here. Chill.

@Qix213: You mean platinum right? Gold was worthless in EQ.

Valnen

@K1NG EV1L: You couldn't keep it secret. Blizzard would find out eventually and ban you for not reporting it.

Valnen

@concerning: hehe ;)

@kylo4iskyle4: Actually the star is given to people with a fuck-ton of followers and/or friends.

sandal-hat wishes he could quit Capcom

@magnakaiser: He used the item. If you have GM powers when you're not a GM, you log out immediately and contact customer service. To do otherwise is against the rules, meaning you deserve what happens to you.

You can't exploit bugs in MMO's either, even though they are technically the programmers fault. That's just the way it works bud.

Valnen

He was given the powers of a GM to kill anything. It's funny how he got the item, I mean, the GM really fucked up on the item restoration and gave him the ultimate I win button.

zerokoolpsx

@Seelen: He exploited the system. If a GM accidently does something like give you GM only powers like the gnome in question, you are supposed to IMMEDIATELY log out and contact customer service.

Otherwise, you're breaking the rules and that warrants punishment.

Valnen

Comes to show you can't trust anything descended from godless, unthinking machines.

Beezle212

lame. they fucked up and allowed him to use it. he should not have been banned. Item removed and achievements stripped yes, but not banned.

KillTheAcademy

It's like WoW's version of Death Note

@kylo4iskyle4: BAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

avprox777

@Kobun: When you play an MMO, you know not to do things like this. It's his fault.

Valnen

@Archaotic: Out of curiosity, I just want to know why its allowed here on Kotaku to make light of a serious and often traumatizing crime. I can understand (and still disagree) with people using it for "Man, that was a nice headshot, you got raped". But to actually insinuate that your fake sister got raped for a witty punchline is in very poor taste. The star is supposedly awarded to people who's comments are of a high quality. That is not an example of what that system is in place for.

WoW has achievements? I haven't played since about 3 months after it came out (found it far too tedious personally). And frankly why would Blizzard respond so badly? He didn't go in the middle of town and start blasting everyone in sight. He didn't try to break the game by offing some major NPCs or anything.

I personally would have held onto it somehow, tried to keep it as secret as possible, and waited for the next in-game funeral. The best time I ever had with WoW was watching that video where that group just invaded and destroyed everyone at that funeral. Hilarious.

jargy1

@Derek Rumpler: No way, man. ...I couldn't if I wanted to. Priests can't equip plate armor. =(

Flame Leviathan isn't what I would call...difficult.

Valnen

@Firkraag: I wouldn't use it.

...It's a paladin shirt. Just look at the stats! Bleeech.

@EtisArap: It would be an invaluable tool for testing. Let's say that there's some problem with the boss's little event when you kill them. To be able to watch it ingame, and thus verify the nature of the problem, do you want to rally 24 other people to do a ten minute struggle against the boss, and that's not considering fighting to REACH the boss, or the potential to wipe... or do you want to just right click your shirt, and get to the point?

It's really quite necessary to bug test the game.

I would have vendored it.

@Archaotic: Well, it is possible that it was sent to his guildie on accident, or as a joke, or whatever. It doesn't have to have been hacked. Using it is a terms of service violation, however. Hell, the item's tooltip says "Use: Kills all enemies in a 30 yard radius. Cheater." It is clearly not intended for your average player, and he used it anyway.

This is comparable to if you borrowed five bucks from a friend, and he accidentally gave you a twenty, but you decided not to tell him and just spent it all anyway. AKA a dick move.

@ThePurpleWall: You're just bitter cause you're not sure how to pronounce my race's name. Here's a clue- it sounds just like it is spelled.

Alliance with hooves represent!

Martin Fury is going to be my kid's name.

thewafflecult

One Shirt to rule them all,
One Shirt to find them,
One Shirt to bring them all
and in the darkness bind them.

gaijira

@MadMinstrel: Shut up, Hermione.

@K1NG EV1L: Would you resist the power? Would you really?

I feel like this almost happened to me once. I found an item that wasn't mine in my character restoration after it was hacked... but it didn't do anything... or perhaps I'm making this up out of wishful memory to be as 'cool' as that guy.

@concerning:

Oh shit, i'm an idiot, it said contraction. SLEEP TIME.

concerning

@Archaotic: EEEEEEEEEEK!! I think I saw one in my garden! HEEELP!

MadMinstrel

@Venny:

"Who would *not* have used it?"

I count one... have I got the idea totally wrong??

concerning

@Polaski: I got banned from EQ for figuring how to dupe gold. After getting every cradit card i could get a hold of on the banned list i made enough on ebay to put half the cost of my '93 RX7. Pretty nice car for a 19 year old. Too bad it had no backseat.

@Dreamwriter: Blizzard's internment camps are the best!

@EtisArap: This is a big reason why I can't bring myself to play timesink MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft. I've seen too many stories of Blizzard arbitrarily banning people to want to see my money and time go to waste. If Karatechop's story is true, and it certainly seems plausible, I don't see why he should suffer for Blizzard's error.

So blizzard says he hacked his way to the item. That means that they also believe that it is possible to hack your way into blizzard items. Someone get on that and make a video quick.

For reals? I definitely wouldn't have returned that!

@concerning: It is = It's

That's a contraction. Not to be confused with the things that pregnant women have right before they shoot a kid out of them.

@Archaotic: One of the best things in Wrath is Gorge the Corpsegrinder: "I hate gnomes."

gaijira

@MINIBOSS: Naw, if you read the article, the other guys were only banned for 24 hours while Blizzard figured it all out.

Dreamwriter

Worth the ban.

He should have saved it for some epic, epic moment though, like trying to convince a raid group to bring him along for one of the hardest raid points in the game and just tell everyone at the hardest moment in the instance "Ok everybody just stand back and watch" and proceed to blow minds.

Matt0505

Martin Thunder is better!!!!!

I remember using this on a less-than-public server not too long ago. It was fun for about 2 minutes, but then it just got boring. Too easy.

cinemandrew

@Balance_In_Life: Dumb Alliance noobs...

;)

@EtisArap: Bliz makes items like this to test scripting, what happens after a boss is killed, etc. It's not to test the item itself.

gaijira

Ha. It would suck to be banned for a game like this, but hell.....I wish this happened to me. I only stopped playing due to college and fundage. If I stopped playing because I got banned for doing something like this.....I would be VERY proud. XD

If I had such an item in any game, I would have kept it a secret instead of flaunting it the way he did.

K1NG EV1L

@sephycloneno15: You make valid, valid points.

Man, some guy rips off billions from a bank in Eve and gets praise from the Eve head economist for making his job so interesting. Some guy gets a test-item in WoW and all the discussion is centered upon in-universe bigotry and South Park quotes.

I know which MMO is more hypothetically deserving of my theoretical dollars.

sephycloneno15

@Archaotic: You bastard... I'm a damn Gnome... You hate us because you fear us! GNOME POWAA!!!!

@dojita: I was totally thinking the same thing.

If he cheated, props. WoW is over 11 Million strong internationally and at least a good percentage devotes a lot of time trying to find genuine vulnerabilities, duping bugs and methods of "cheating" -- to no avail. Blizzard has been notoriously good at keeping WoW fair both in PVE and PVP as of late.

What I mean to say is, hire the damn guy if he "cheated" his way into generating the item.

ProfessorOak

@ThePurpleWall: hahaha i thought of that too actually! I love that episode ^_^ <3

Holy crap! We fucked up! We can't have this, we'll be utterly embarrassed, it'll get around the internetz, our jobs are in dang...

... oh right, we can just blame a scapegoat and ban him.

Problem solved.

WOO HOO!

I honestly don't see why he got his whole account perma-banned if Blizz really did send him the item. Maybe a week suspension or something, or taking away of achievements; but if his story is to be believed it was someone at Blizzard that needs the axe for accidentally sending someone the item.

Anyone who says they'd report it to a GM right away before going crazy with it is a liar. I personally would've gone to Dalaran or some enemy capital and gone crazy.... and gotten banned. But hell, it might've been worth it.

The best part is the item description: "Use: Kills all enemies in a 30 yard radius. Cheater."

gaijira

He shouldn't have been banned for what he did. I know I and everyone who's reading this would've done the same thing in a heartbeat.

Blizzard didn't just ban the guy, they banned everyone in the guild who was online at the time of banning :(
That's a bit harsh Blizz, some of those guys had no idea what was going on.

@Seelen:
Players aren't supposed to have access to GM items. The only way he could've gotten it in his possession is for SOMEONE to have hacked it. Even if he didn't hack it, he was in possession of hacked content, which is definitely against TOS.

@concerning: Nope, it's a double contraction, as was said :P

@concerning: Additionally, it isn't not a double non-contradiction.

I'd risk getting banned using this item as well, if i'm not banned i'm the most notorious on the server. IF i'm banned I can spend my time better outside of wow :) WIN WIN

This is pretty funny. Personally, I wouldn't be able to resist doing the same thing, were I given an item like that.

I don't understand how it is against ToS though, can anyone elaborate?

Seelen

@Channing:
That isn't a double contradiction.

concerning

Gnomes are the root of evil!@Archaotic:

Gnome mages are the root of all evil.. esp pink haired ones..

Good thing he didn't have access to the machine from Scooby Doo and the Cyber Chase that transports items from video game into real life

or bad thing

You can't give the sword of a thousand truths to a noob!

Combine

This reminds me of when Meatwad got the shirt of the undead.

"You say plague of snakes, all I hear is Easter Bunny, Easter Bunny, Easter Bunny."

@ryangreen02:
No, my sister was raped by David the Gnome when I was a little kid. How dare you bring back such horrible memories!

...wait. I don't have a sister.

Why is this weapon even made? It seems like a Blizzard GM fuck all weapon that shouldn't be in the game (even for testing).

But whatever. I would have done the same thing (if you receive the power of god, you cant just pass it up).

EtisArap

Why would Blizzard even test an item like that in the first place? It definitely wasn't right of him to hide the fact that he had it, but I don't entirely believe that he hacked just so he could rack up some kills.

Nanaue

Sounds like the sort of thing that would happen on a friends Everquest server a while back.

t0yrobo

Ultimate attack channeled through a t-shirt? I need it now! But man what harm does a couple of achievements being raked in? And un ban him. I would think being a test item it would be pretty hard to cheat or hack it into your inventory.

mitch_93

@Archaotic: You're just jealous because they finally found the nuggets on a chicken.

didn't we watch this in south park?

@Derek Rumpler: Agreed. I hope he decimated some Orcs while he was at it.

Of course it was a gnome.

Holy shit, man. Is this the WoW equivalent to the mystical Xi?

We all would have done it. I would have used Fraps and put it up on YouTube also.

Genius.

GHNeko

I wish I didn't quit. Sounds like the new expansion has brought a bunch more chaos!

Sounds like some southpark nonsense.

Dogysamich

Who wouldn't've used it? (Double contractions are awesome!)

I also have to say that's a great title/name combo.

Of course it was a fucking gnome. They're behind everything that's wrong in Azeroth. Not the Scourge, not the Burning Legion.

It's the god damn gnomes.

@concerning:

He abbreviated "Not" and "have"

God you people are annoying. HE SAID IT RIGHT. STOP CORRECTING HIM.

ReconToaster.

@Combine: That was pretty much the only part, I think it was finding out that he was a gay man that made it the more offensive [at the time] but he thrives on shocking people. Plus, if you've ever read "Guts" that was some pretty twisted stuff.

Maybe surprisingly to you all, I actually don't get offended easily. I write and resent limitations to what you're allowed to discuss. There was a friend [girl] I had for two years that when the FS was over she ripped on my "offensive writing", actually ironic since Chuck's her favorite author. But yeah, my rules are no cancer or rape jokes, even in satire.

Once again Archaotic, I apologize for the aggression I displayed.

@kylo4iskyle4: This discussion was pretty fun. I was enjoying it.

Then you had to harsh up the vibe by acknowledging rape in a non comedic sense, effectively killing my comedy hard on.

y u do dis

@Dangeresque Wants to Take You For a Ride: "This is comparable to if you borrowed five bucks from a friend, and he accidentally gave you a twenty, but you decided not to tell him and just spent it all anyway. AKA a dick move."

Finally, something I can understand! I don't play WOW so I have no clue what everyone is talking about. Power Levels? Gnomes? Guilds? GM? Hacking? Now I finally understand what the hell is going on! Thank you for that analogy!

@Nowell: Yeah, I believe it did.
But seriously, I really hope someone recorded this and puts it on youtube.

Combine

@ThePurpleWall: how girl get pragnent

Lol reminds me of when I got outside the walls in Ultima Online Alpha test and found a wand of fire. They had a mock trial and everything for me and a guild mate. We weren't banned luckily.

@ryangreen02: Trust me, the game hasn't changed even slightly. Wrath is the reason for me quitting.

PwnofProphecy

sO epic.

Furysetzer

@Jotsy: There is a charge limit on it to test the charge limit scripting.

It's a test item, it test things. Stability of the loot system, boss death scripts (including possible bugs in sync death fights such as Core Hounds), item scripting, etc.

Acaeris

I was hoping that it would be the Sword of 1000 Souls.

: [

if it was a dwarf... it would be much worse.

I hate dwarfs

Hero-Link

Is that a joke? He got banned because of a mistake Blizzard did? I sure as hell would sue them for that. After all hes paying to play the game.

@Dangeresque Wants to Take You For a Ride: I'll be your friend.

@ComputerMonkey: Except this isn't the real world. It's a game. And he didn't steal the shirt, it was given to him.

@Combine:
Oh yeah. I totally would have had some fun with it before reporting it.

I would gladly have returned any gold or items obtained during my kill spree, just to be fair (and hopefully not banned).

I think I might have submitted a standard support request, the ones that usually take a couple of days to get a response on, and then gone bat shit crazy. That way, I could say that I did report it.

Murph1908

Lol, own't, this made my day. How ironic it was a gnome warrior.

Does anyone else thing that shirt remind anyone else of AAA, Arch Angels Staff of Apocalypse? Or am I just too old?

Sthompson

A shirt that kills people? A freakin shirt?

You have got to be kidding me.

Cranker

@Hindesite: Just because the whole world would commit a crime, doesn't make the crime any less of a crime.

Here's a brilliant idea: how about you not create shit like this in the first place, Blizzard?

No wonder WoW is 99% grinding, the creators can just cheat their way to any point in the game and feel their e-penis engorge.

Now get off your fat asses and put your cheetoh-stained hands to work at making StarCraft 2. Unless you're content to have money but no respect. In which case you're doing awesome, actually.

How was a violation of the game's TOA?

Kuren

I don't think this guy should be punished, he should just be allowed to keep his achievements. If would be so much better if Blizzard just randomly gave people awesome items, it would mix the game up and, if you did it rarely, it would be like winning the lottery to one lucky person.

I don't even play WoW... and I still would have used it. Once in a life-time chance.

lolomfgisuck

@[www.wowdb.com]

Camann

@Channing: I wouldn't have, not without asking a GM first at any rate. Rightly or wrongly it's the sort of thing you're bound to end up getting banned for and there's no way I'd risk my account for the sake of some cheap thrills.

The-JJ

Wow. Most of you need to go outside or soemthing.

Jimbotron

Interesting... I heard about this a few days ago, it was on the WoW forums..

Blizz removed the topic and no one knew what happened other then him one-shoting flame leviathan. (At the time the topic was closed, Blizz said no action would be taken.)

Poison_Shroom

Well you have to stop thief before the problem get's bigger i guess...

Dorikasu

I would have gone back and solo'd Deadmines.

@TRT-X: The crime isn't stealing the shirt. It's using it. And then immediately going in to harder content and using it again. And then the next week using it AGAIN on that same content.

Sorry, I don't care if you stole the gun or were given it by the Pope. If you use it to commit crimes repeatedly, you gotta take some responsibility for the action.

The Pope maybe also should reconsider that whole gun-giving thing too, of course... I'm guessing an account ban is pretty light punishment compared to what some (dumb) GM schlub got if somebody really made that level of mistake.

@ThePurpleWall: how is babby formed?

@TRT-X:
And, being virtual, effectively everything he did can be undone.

sirsri

Could just be a temp ban to figure out who flubbed and gave a GM item to some scrub. You can negotiate to have your account reopened, you might not win, but you can.

@Jimbotron: It's scary out there. I heard gnomes are raping people.

@PositivelyGreg: If an item was ninjad blizz would do nothing about it.

Also all that he did can be undone furthermore a banhammer is an overreaction sure ban him for a few days a week even but not forever

starwind-hawking

Know what if this had happened to me i would do the exact same thing.

starwind-hawking

Blizzard has a problem. They think they should ban people for their programming or GM mistakes.

My account was hacked last year when someone cracked Blizzard's security and gained access to my characters. It took some time but I eventually got the account restored after they banned me for "exploits". Once they got it through their heads that the account had been compromised they restored it but, of course, most of my items and all my gold had been removed.

They never did explain how someone could crack my password. Their security system is weak at best and yet they wanted to blame me for their problem. Glad I left that game.

"This could have been a lot, lot worse?" What the fuck else could have happened? It's a GAME. Jesus.

Schmeg Peg

@Archaotic:
Its true. I don't think gnomes even EXISTED in Azeroth before WoW.

@PositivelyGreg: Except, it's NOT a crime.

Yes, in real life, people would not commit a crime just because it was easy. But this was not a crime. He was given an item in a GAME, and used it as such. I can't imagine that anyone being GIVEN such a thing in a GAME would not use it and see what happens.

Why would they think they'd have to report it to Blizzard if it was given to them? For all they know, it was legitimately given to them.

Again, not a crime.

@Jimbotron: Just make sure you don't dress too sexy while going outside, or you might be asking for it and get r... nevermind.

WoW...yay, more WoW

@mightymeatsauce: rofl

Ah ha ha, if I somehow had gotten the shirt and was interested in getting banned, I would of made a bee-line for Wintergrasp. Now that would of been spectacular.

kouhotaru

@Seelen: The other responses to your question pretty much sum it up. Also, the Terms of Service are VERY one-sided in favor of Blizzard (what a surprise) and basically they can ban your account on the slightest pretext.

Moriturus

Funny thing is that wow could benefit greatly from an official version of something like this. A great element to any game is called "Chance" - adding some random craziness now and then isn't wrong, it's exciting. They could do it a few ways:

-Wow lottery in which the winner gets some omnipotent device that's only good for a limited time or limited use. Binds on pickup.

-A "silent benefactor" that slips one of these in your mailbox and you do with it what you please.

-whatever whatever, etc.

Blizzard controls the game, so adding in something like this would excite people, and the thing would be limited enough that even though it's not fair, it would be fun.

coffinmouth

@incognit000: Uh, all game developers have tools like this, it's called "debug".

coffinmouth

@MrMighty: Yeah but wow supports so many users of varying backgrounds, of course they would be carebears (nice description btw). Everyone in EVE knows that things can go crazy, so it's expected.

coffinmouth

@Archaotic: Mimiron is further proof of this.

That's a shame, Blizzard's basically taking the attitude of "We fucked up, but instead of admitting it, we'll just ban you instead!". Nice. Honestly they could've just made the whole thing easier by removing the Martin Fury, any items obtained from those raids where they used it in, and let them off with a 24 hour ban at the most.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't know of any possible way for players to get items like this on Blizzard servers...

@Xusder: Damn, I was just about to get out my hand puppets to help people understand, why didn't I think of the money example. I told the puppets they were going to be useful again, they are going to be so sad.

Kyoya

@PositivelyGreg: Hey, here's the power to change anything you want in the world, but don't use it.

@sandal-hat wishes he could quit Capcom: No, stars are most often awarded for have a comment both nominated and posted in the CotW post, or manually given by editors as in my case. If Kotaku still awards stars based on a set number of followers, then I'm not sure how many it would be, but it's certainly more than 50/60.

@kylo4iskyle4: If every Gawker blog had to outlaw anything that might offend Jezebel's entire readership(good and bad ones), a ton of things would be censored/disemvoweled/bannable.

@Dogysamich: Came here for the South Park reference. Am mostly satisfied. Expected to see:

"You can't give the sword of a thousand truths to a NOOB!!!!"

I'm done now. That is all.

@Archaotic: Gnomes and humans are one of the reasons it took me so long to start playing Wow back in the day. Their designs are SO fucking awful. Gnomes are just terrible, PERIOD, and humans look like my dad with a beer belly. Sorry Blizzard, but I don't escape into MMOs to kill dragons as my dad.

So, did he do bad of using it?!

@sephycloneno15: The difference is, the billions that were stolen in EVE were from a player bank under the explicit rules of the game. You are warned repeatedly in EVE: don't trust anyone with anything you're not willing to lose. A more realistic analogy would be the discovery by certain EVE players of an exploit which allowed them to dramatically and illegitimately increase production of certain items. I've forgotten the details, but those players were perma-banned.

Moriturus

@smcallah: But, it's a violation of the Terms of Service, which in the NON-real life of WoW, can be a "crime" justifying perma-banning. (Remember, Blizzard is judge, jury and executioner with no right of appeal under the ToS.)

Moriturus

It could of meant the end of the world... of warcraft.

@Dangeresque Wants to Take You For a Ride: Oops my bad. Well I guess I don't need all these friends... DELETED!!!!

sandal-hat wishes he could quit Capcom

He should of at least made a video of him using it.

Bigfoot

@Balance_In_Life: so that's why i secretly hate you..all this time i thought it was because that one time in band camp...

@Acaeris: i dunno, if i were to test the charge limit scripting, i would give it a low charge, like 5 or something.... or make it a separate item. i wouldn't want to have to click something 100 times just to see what happens when it runs out...

Jotsy

@Skullabrineâ„¢: I hate this shit too. Who actually reads the "terms of use"? Where exactly would the average user be told that "if you get a suspiciously awesome item, you should report it to the admins?"

What incentive should Blizzard offer you for reporting it, versus what incentive do you have for taking your new toy for a spin? If Blizzard wanted an effective system, they could reward players for reporting exploits or strangely-gotten goods. Perhaps in a way that simply using the unintended bonus could not.

Off the top of my head, they could, say, ALLOW the user to play with their toy for an hour, for entertainment purposes, with the understanding that all character progress gained (items, gold, exp, achievements, etc) would disappear after time was up. Or give a large sum of gold. Or something.

Furthermore, banning somebody for not reporting something they didn't know they should report is kinda harsh. A fairer way would be to revert the character to the state they were in BEFORE they started using the broken thing. Not taking the customer's money and saying "you can't play with us anymore."

From what I understand, this kind of thing is a problem in other MMORPG's, so it's not just Blizzard that needs to review their policies.

jmaster14656

If you give someone unlimited POWER!!!, of course they are going to use it. You can't blame the person, just take it away and reset all their achievements. Problem solved.

jakster4u