A man, a remote, a giant level 80 mechanical boss
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Feb 23rd 2007 at 1:30PM
A stealth change to the Gnomish Universal Remote on Tuesday broke the hearts of a select few engineers who had realized the full power of the device. Before the fix, engineers could control fel reavers, mechanical mobs in Tempest Keep, and even -- if they were lucky -- the giant mechanical boss Doomwalker who roams outside of the Black Temple and kills you if you try to sneak into the area.
I talked to a warrior on my realm that had successfully controlled Doomwalker and asked him a couple questions about his experience. He said that his control of Doomwalker lasted about a minute, during which he was rooted to the spot. Doomwalker had three abilities: A chain lightning that bounced up to ten times, a 10 percent sunder armor, and Earthquake, a channeled AOE that does 2000 damage a tick and killed me a ton of times while I was trying to farm herbs. Unfortunately, he said, Doomwalker was chained within 30 yards, so he couldn't go ravage the Alliance (or Horde) city. He said no one came to the Black Temple in the minute he had control, which was too bad. In the past, he had controlled Fel Reavers and used them to kill Alliance in Hellfire Peninsula.
While he considered himself "very, very, very, very sad" that the ability to control Doomwalker was gone, he admitted that it was overpowered. "When were you ever allowed to control a raid boss? Besides Razorgore."
Do you think that things like this are an innovative use of game mechanics, or a cheap way to be a jerk with a bug? Do you think they were right to fix it?
Filed under: Engineering, Bugs, The Burning Crusade, Bosses
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
A Feb 23rd 2007 1:41PM
Personally, I think it's a shame they fixed the "bug". If it's mechanical and the ability to control such things exists, then you should be allowed to do it, at least for some period of time. It shows creativity and ingenuity in using what Blizz has given.
I'm kind of sad that I didn't think of attempting to take control of a Fel Reaver in HFP and wreak some havoc on the Alliance there. The so-called truce that seemed to be in place upon release of BC has quickly gone away.
Zuuler Feb 23rd 2007 1:43PM
I don't see why being a boss grants them the ability to be immune to things that other creatures of their class/race/whatever are vulnerable to. Biggest complaint for me, being a lock, are demons who are immune to banish or enslave. I agree, it should be harder to perform these actions on bosses, but not impossible.
Being able to control fel reavers sounds like fun though. I like the idea of laying down a mega stomping on some poor alliance as he stops to pick some felweed, hehe.
I think Blizzard should put more stuff like this in the game. The time he had control of Doomwalker was short enough that it would have had no real bad side effects. He broke control and I am sure, stomped the warrior who had controled him.
Hooper Feb 23rd 2007 1:48PM
As a low level engineer, this was the first cool thing I had heard about for engineers, giving me some hope for the future.
Then they took it away. Heavin forbid we have anything good come out of our profession.
-Hooper
Rayze Feb 23rd 2007 1:52PM
Ehh I'm no engineer so I could care less, but still would've been fun to have my own Fel Reaver to whip Alliance butt lol
Flit Feb 23rd 2007 2:02PM
Sorry, but it should have stayed. One minute of control is not a huge problem. Yeah, it would be annoying, but all you need is the fel reaver to attack the guy who was controlling him after the control breaks. Also, if it was becoming a griefing problem, you just flag the guy (pve) who is controlling the fel reaver, so you can go after him if he just keeps greifing. Engineers are the worst.
tyger Feb 23rd 2007 2:31PM
Blizzard had to get rid of the "bug" because there was a fear of copyright infringement from Mattle's Rock em Sock em Robots Game.
Imagine...two Fel Reavers going at it...
Oh that would have made a great video on YouTube.
Outlander Feb 23rd 2007 2:48PM
two words... blizzard sucks.
everytime players find something really rare and cool like that they take it away calling it a bug. once again they have deemed something a bug that really wasn't There was no harm in allowing control of fel reavers or any other mechanical mob. that is what they were for. I know I can recall using the harvest reapers back in westfall to wreak some funny havoc and the mechs in deadmines were a blast but somehow this was a bug??? give me a break. the gnomish universal remote was working as intended and they are the ones who created a bug now! sheesh.
Kabira-Fenris Feb 23rd 2007 3:08PM
I can't believe so many people are angry that they can't control Doomwalker via a cheap engineering p.o.s. that they were apparently using in Westfall.
Yippster Feb 23rd 2007 3:13PM
Blizzard has the right to change any aspect of the game at any time, its their game, their intellectual property, their "intentions".
When the remote was added to the game I'm sure it was not their intention to have it used to control level 70+ elites. If they didn't intend it, and it exists, its a bug.
They make mistakes, they are human, who are we to be like "Haha you screwed up you didn't think of this we've outsmarted you now you have to keep this quasi-exploit in the game". That's the impression I get by reading some of these posts.
Should the player be punished for making this discovery? No. Should the player be rewarded for making this discovery? No. He got his kicks for awhile, now it's done, and life goes on.
I am Feb 23rd 2007 3:18PM
i knew they were chasing me down! i said to myself theres no way an aggro range could be that big... I'm on to you terrorists! althought it is pretty cool and should be hard to do not impossible.
Exnihlio Feb 23rd 2007 3:17PM
I used this item to MC the named fel reaver that appears for a quest outside of area 52 and proceeded to wipe a 5 man ally party with it continually. That was a lot of fun. I confirmed last night that it still works on mechanical mobs in tempest keep, just not on the mechanical bosses.
Smutcakes Feb 24th 2007 12:59PM
Engineering is supposedly the worst profesion right now and the first to be reviewed. As they now with the hotfix made the profession even more useless I have little hope for the review.
aledail Feb 27th 2007 4:11AM
I never been on a araid before but I can see this bug being ever useful, for exsample boss is on 50% (or whatever) and raid is about to whipe - now MC it for 1 min and the raid has time to heal and buff with out the boss attacking - im not sure how others feel about this but seems like a bug to me - as no other boss is CCable (as far as I know)
Aledial (37 hunter - hellfire EU)