Player receives Developer item in the mail, one-shots Ulduar
by Alex Ziebart 
Apr 29th 2009 at 4:00PM
We first received a tip on a mysterious guild that was blowing through Ulduar's hardest achievements one after the other, all in one day, about a day or two ago. Their gear and raid experience stated very well that they were in no position to do any of those achievements, but we sort of shrugged and let it pass by. It was odd that these players were barely in Naxxramas gear, and their first recorded Kel'thuzad kill was only two weeks prior to their explosion of Ulduar achievements, but we initially ignored these reports because surely, nobody could be hacking the game. On top of that, the forum threads submitted to us all had so many posts deleted from them that they were completely incomprehensible. There was nothing solid about any of it.
Tips on it are still flooding our mailboxes today and a bit more information has surfaced, so let's look into it a little, shall we? The guild is The Marvel Family of US-Vek'nilash. The character Karatechop is the one that has attracted the most attention, and you'll see why in just a moment. If you look over his gear, it's not that bad, really. Epic tank gear, a lot of it from Naxxramas, so it's feasible that he could make some progress through Ulduar. It gets weird when you go to his Statistics and/or Achievements panels. Let's go to his statistics first.
If you can't make out the numbers there, his largest recorded hit is 353,892,967 damage. That's just shy of 354 million damage. There are a lot of solo quests in the world that let you put out insane damage (The Battle for the Undercity for example) but there are none that cause you to do damage in the hundreds of millions. However, there is something in the game that gives this number some significance. It's the total health pool of Flame Leviathan's hardest hard mode, leaving all four preceeding towers standing. Let's go take a look at his achievements...
Yep, there she is! Orbit-uary, leaving all four towers up on Flame Leviathan. Even more absurdly suspiscious is that they apparently did Shutout at the same time. How were they able to do both? Well, they didn't. Not legitimately. Somehow, Karatechop managed to 1-shot Flame Leviathan.
Flame Leviathan isn't the only thing that Karatechop massacred, either. His achievement list is highly suspect, to say the least. I'd bet that the list will disappear from his Armory within a day or two, so go ahead and look at them via GuildOx instead. For the bosses he's recorded as having killed, he has all of the "Beat X boss in under Y minutes" achievements. Why? He one-shotted everything. It's hard to stay in combat over that amount of time when you can hit things for their full health pool.
There has to be an exploit or something here, right? Surely Blizzard can't be hacked, right? Well, no. I wouldn't call what they're doing an 'exploit' in the traditional gaming sense, nor have they hacked Blizzard's servers. What we're seeing here is the result of an 'oops' by a GM (or developer?) hopefully. The possibility of malicious intent exists, but I have serious doubts anybody would risk their job over this.
What am I talking about, you ask? Let's look closer at Karatechop's equipment.
Flame Leviathan isn't the only thing that Karatechop massacred, either. His achievement list is highly suspect, to say the least. I'd bet that the list will disappear from his Armory within a day or two, so go ahead and look at them via GuildOx instead. For the bosses he's recorded as having killed, he has all of the "Beat X boss in under Y minutes" achievements. Why? He one-shotted everything. It's hard to stay in combat over that amount of time when you can hit things for their full health pool.
There has to be an exploit or something here, right? Surely Blizzard can't be hacked, right? Well, no. I wouldn't call what they're doing an 'exploit' in the traditional gaming sense, nor have they hacked Blizzard's servers. What we're seeing here is the result of an 'oops' by a GM (or developer?) hopefully. The possibility of malicious intent exists, but I have serious doubts anybody would risk their job over this.
What am I talking about, you ask? Let's look closer at Karatechop's equipment.
Hey, that's weird. He has something in his shirt slot, but it's not displaying properly. Error loading tooltip, huh? Well, alright. That's fine. This is the internet, our resources are endless. Let's just look it up elsewhere. You can see the item ID in the bottom left, and I've put the red box around it so you can't possibly miss it. Item #17, how curious.
The Martin Fury scandal didn't end here, no sir. We saw a copy of Karatechop's suspension notice and we spoke with him ourselves. If drama like this is your thing, you might find more of it each week on Guildwatch.
Cheater, indeed. Martin Fury is one of those mysterious, fascinating GM/Developer items that were never meant for player hands. Items you only saw on Wowhead, WoWDB, or Thottbot. The only way to even have a glimpse of them was via datamining. Karatechop, however, woke up one day to one sitting in his mailbox.
Such is temptation. With infinite power at your fingertips, could you resist using it? Karatechop couldn't, apparently. As the saying goes, power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. That can certainly be applied to Karatechop here, but what of the person who awarded it to him? If this is an accident, it's on the list of most unlikely accidents ever.
If you look at item IDs on most any other item in WoW, a two digit item ID is an amazingly rare thing. Those items just aren't in the game itself whatsoever. Even items that drop in the earliest content of the game have at least four digits in their item ID. Almost every item after that has at least five digits. This has two. Either this was completely intentional, or a GM's keyboard stopped working in the middle of typing in an item ID and they sent item #17 to someone instead of, for example, item #17604. And they sent the item off anyway. The chances of this actually being an accident and not deliberate: Very, very low.
No matter how this happened, you can bet a pretty massive internal investigation is happening (or has happened) to find out how it all went down. A member of The Marvel Family posted on his blog about this event, stating that the entire guild has received bans over this even if they weren't present at any of Karatechop's miracle raids. How long these bans will last, we don't know. We can't ask, either. This event essentially brought the entire population of WoW down on this guy's blog like a nuke. It's down for the count.
The whole thing is essentially wrapped up now, the accounts are banned, the item is gone, but it's certainly a memorable event. It's not often someone gets their hands on one of those.
Alternate title: Player gifted with Death Note, vows to fix all that is wrong in Azeroth.
Such is temptation. With infinite power at your fingertips, could you resist using it? Karatechop couldn't, apparently. As the saying goes, power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. That can certainly be applied to Karatechop here, but what of the person who awarded it to him? If this is an accident, it's on the list of most unlikely accidents ever.
If you look at item IDs on most any other item in WoW, a two digit item ID is an amazingly rare thing. Those items just aren't in the game itself whatsoever. Even items that drop in the earliest content of the game have at least four digits in their item ID. Almost every item after that has at least five digits. This has two. Either this was completely intentional, or a GM's keyboard stopped working in the middle of typing in an item ID and they sent item #17 to someone instead of, for example, item #17604. And they sent the item off anyway. The chances of this actually being an accident and not deliberate: Very, very low.
No matter how this happened, you can bet a pretty massive internal investigation is happening (or has happened) to find out how it all went down. A member of The Marvel Family posted on his blog about this event, stating that the entire guild has received bans over this even if they weren't present at any of Karatechop's miracle raids. How long these bans will last, we don't know. We can't ask, either. This event essentially brought the entire population of WoW down on this guy's blog like a nuke. It's down for the count.
The whole thing is essentially wrapped up now, the accounts are banned, the item is gone, but it's certainly a memorable event. It's not often someone gets their hands on one of those.
Alternate title: Player gifted with Death Note, vows to fix all that is wrong in Azeroth.
The Martin Fury scandal didn't end here, no sir. We saw a copy of Karatechop's suspension notice and we spoke with him ourselves. If drama like this is your thing, you might find more of it each week on Guildwatch.Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Events, Bugs, Blizzard
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 15)
detro Apr 29th 2009 4:06PM
woohoo, me wants.
Ekimus Apr 29th 2009 4:35PM
Hijacking the first post.
I believe the earliest valid item ID is 25, a warrior starter sword (http://www.wowhead.com/?item=25). The next valid low number item ID is http://www.wowhead.com/?item=35, a mage starter staff.
kozom Apr 29th 2009 4:42PM
As much as I would like to recieve one of these, I would report it right away since I always try to do the right thing. Needless to say though, i would test it out on a boar or something to see if it actually worked.
Also, the deathnote comment makes this article a win, and the title should be "Name, apple lover" or "Name, Yagami"
Alex Ziebart Apr 29th 2009 4:50PM
I'm aware of what the link is. The guy's blog is legitimately there, and the traffic from this debacle brought it down.
If you have a problem with the link, don't click on it.
Sorro Apr 29th 2009 5:52PM
@detro
Really? A button that makes the game instantly boring and trivial. Why would you want it?
keith Apr 29th 2009 6:14PM
I had a similar situation on Sunday, when I logged in to find the "BLIZZ" GM icon next to my name in chat. And whenever I sent my friends a tell, it would pop up in the special GM chat window.
I know, I know, screenshot or it didn't happen...
http://i646.photobucket.com/albums/uu184/smellybasket/gm.jpg
I wish I had taken more, or that my friends had taken some from their point of view... oh, well, maybe next time?
jbodar Apr 29th 2009 8:42PM
@zephem
As mentioned earlier, I'm sure at least some people are browsing through web filters, which are notorious for having hair triggers on their blocked site alerts. Kindly QQ elsewhere.
bughunter Apr 30th 2009 12:06AM
Man, if I got that thing, you know what the first thing I'd do would be?
Yep.
Take Down HOGGER.
(you know you'd do it, too)
rawrbaby123 May 25th 2009 11:29PM
Why would anyone want an item like this? I think it would take all the challenge and fun out of the game.
Ant May 28th 2009 10:56PM
Alex, I think you're onto something when you suggest it's a typing error by a Blizzard employee.
I can see a scenario where the employee might have been going for 17601, as per your example, happening like this:
presses 1
presses 7 AND accidentally taps the numlock key
presses 6 - which is now right arrow
presses 0 - which is now insert/overtype toggle
presses 1 - which is now end key
presses enter ...and without realising it, item 17, not item 17601 is sent to KarateChop.
If this is how it happened, it's a very, very unintentional mistake - and something that could have happened to anyone. It would only take the slightest amount of distraction.
Would I use the item if I got it by accident from Blizzard? You bet your life I would! I can't believe people are likening this to a million dollars from a bank in your bank account by accident scenario. It's a GAME, people. You go there to get away from real life. You want to be entertained and have stories to tell. Imagine...
FriendofKarateChop: Wassup?
KarateChop: Hey, not much. Blizzard messed up today.
FoKC: Again? What'd they do this time?
KC: Sent me a Martin Fury in the mail.
FoKC: Awesome! What did you do with it?
KC: Nothing. Mailed it back.
FoKC: No, seriously - what did you do with it?!?
KC: Seriously, I mailed it back.
Yep... There's a story to share at the local and tell your kids one day.
Vehx Apr 29th 2009 4:07PM
I wonder how he got it...
It doesn't make sense that the entire guild got banned too. Can't they just look at the raid ID and check to see who was in the instance with him?
Phocks Apr 29th 2009 4:27PM
Exactly. Even then, I'd just say take away the item, take away the achievements, take away the gear, and fire the GM.
Why should an entire guild be banned because some GM handed out a developer only item that should never exist on live realms? Makes no sense to me.
Somethin Apr 29th 2009 4:29PM
You have to report it if you notice a bug.
I highly doubt everyone who knew about it were at his raids
and the others that weren't in it didn't know.
JoeHelfrich Apr 29th 2009 4:37PM
I'd suspect that the initial response was, to paraphrase "Ban them all and let customer service sort it out."
Kakistocracy Apr 29th 2009 4:38PM
Further more, how did they not finish the raid?
Saint Apr 29th 2009 4:40PM
I'm a Blizz lover, but I can tell you exactly why the banned the entire guild:
Embarrassment.
Caught with their pants down the company did the fastest move to secure as little is known about it as possible, and just did a whole sweep of the guild. Just my guess.
What if he had ran someone outside of the guild through it?
ballistic3188 Apr 29th 2009 4:46PM
what i read the reason they didn't finish ulduar is because some bosses you don't kill. they need to be alive for when you take on yogg so the item wouldn't work those encounters
Robert M Apr 29th 2009 5:46PM
@Somethin,
"You have to report it if you notice a bug."
Though I do agree that you should report bugs, I don't know for sure that I took the Blizzard oath of office that says that I do solemnly swear to report all bugs. Blizzard has a staff for that and they “use” you already to test their content, with rarely little returned to you but what they refer to as “quality” time on the PTR’s.
However, a bug is defined as An error or defect in software or hardware that causes a program to malfunction. Often a bug is caused by conflicts in software when applications try to run in tandem.
This was not a bug. It was functioning as intended and therefore no one had any obligation to report such an occurrence. Those of us who would report the mystical item could all stand upon our pedestals in our glass houses, but no one is under any obligation to report and no one has the authority to judge the person that uses it.
If the mistake here was Blizzard’s then banning an entire guild for an item that was used as it was intended to be used when acquired from Blizzard itself is hardly appropriate.
The real tragedy here is that this site has become infested with Blizz-Can-Do-No-Wrong fanboys that can’t even be honest about the tough decision and how they would reach it if presented with the same dilemma. Get off your high horse and at least admit the decision on whether to wear or report would have been more than a click and reporting of a ticket.
DragonFireKai Apr 29th 2009 5:17PM
The reason why the whole guild got banned is because Blizz needs to freeze their characters in order to roll back the achievements. Otherwise, when they figured out which point they wanted to revert to, the players would lose everything they earned legitimately during that span, in addition to their ill gotten gains.
Karilyn Apr 29th 2009 5:59PM
Reason the whole guild got banned was simple.
"Hey guyz, check this thing out! [item link]"
"Whoa, that's cool, let's go pwn Ulduar!"
"Sorry, only room for 25 people, rest of you are going to have to sit out :("
Basically, you can almost guarantee the entire guild knew about what was going on, not just the people in the raid.