The title of this post is somewhat intriguing, isn’t it? To be fair the two events are only remotely connected. They’re both findings from the official forums. And yeah, they’re both appearing in the “Larísa-lets-her-thuoghts-wander-freely-since-it’s-Friday” column.

Cheating or exploring
Let’s talk about my exploit first. There’s something shady or even dirty about exploits and I’m a little bit torn in my vies on it. I suppose it depends on the circumstances.

Some exploits are equal to cheating and that’s a touchy issue, especially if there’s competition involved, such as racing between top guilds. (No, I’m not going to talk about THAT piece of news once again, move on people, this post is not intended to be some pleasant, thoughtless ranting, not food for flame wars.) A wise raid leader makes sure to stay on the safe side, to avoid bans and removal of achievements. If the thought crosses your mind that this might be an exploit, it probably is.

At the same time I can appreciate and sometimes even admire exploits that are results of people using their brains and creativity. Those players are like fearless explorers, always stretching the boundaries in their refusal to do things as “they’re supposed to be done”. They don’t let themselves be dragged into any dull quest- and achievement grind, they don’t mindlessly take their seat in the theme-park attraction, watching what they’re supposed to watch. What they’re looking for is the unusual and unexpected. It’s like a little uproar, where the players take control for a while, until the warning system has been alerted and Blizzard mends the glitch. But by then, they are already far away, exploring some other godforsaken corner of the world that the QA team never visited properly.

The Karazhan exploit
However, even if I can approve of some exploits, I’ve never been an exploiter myself. I’ve just regarded it with curious eyes from a distance. At least I thought so.

But the other day I realized that I exploited Karazhan on a regular basis throughout the entire TBC. It’s true! I was a full-fledged exploiter. Admittedly it was by accident – I didn’t have a clue. But that’s what they always say, isn’t it?

What made me find out about it was a post in the bug report forum. A player complained that after completing the Opera Event, you couldn’t go out and enter Karazhan through the side door, as you always used to. After some investigation from the community managing staff, he got a blue reply: this was intended. That door was never supposed to be opened from the outside. This was an exploit and it had been removed as by patch 3.2.

I was just perplexed by reading this. Why make the door in the first place if you weren’t supposed to enter it other from the inside? And why would anyone want to go out from the castle through that door? To have a stroll in the delightful garden? You have to help me out in this, because I don’t quite see the reason.

I always thought that Blizzard had handed us the two different paths to take through Karazhan after Opera on purpose, offering the players a choice. The further progressed we were, the better gear we had, the more likely were we to take the inside way with the corridor leading from the stage, also known as the “gold way” since some of the trash you missed by taking the way from the outside were dirty rich. If you had Karazhan on farm you didn’t mind the extra effort, since you would clear the instance in one night anyway. On the other hand – while we were still progressing, the side entrance was the natural choice, saving us approximately 30 valuable minutes, time that we’d rather spend on mastering Netherspite’s beams or learning the Aran dance.

What took them so long?
Everyone did this. And all this time it was an exploit, until Blizzard recently stopped it. I can’t help finding it a bit amusing and intriguing. What on Earth took them so long? It reminds me a bit of when they suddenly posted a huge chunk of information about Sunwell island on their website when we were way into Wrath.

You may ask why they’re even bothering to do this at this point of the game. For some reason it never became top priority on their to-do-list, so why not forget about it altogether?

I wonder if there’s anyone at all who clears Karazhan the proper way these days. I thought the instance was mostly inhabited by level 80s who never went any further than the bottom floor, since all they want to do is to roll the dices for the mount. A few might finish it for nostalgic reasons. (I hope to do it myself anytime soon; after not setting my foot there for years, I’ve suddenly got the itch back, longing to see it once again.)

Would it really be that harmful if someone at this point takes a slightly shorter route through the instance?

Sometimes Blizzard’s priorities puzzle me. On the other hand, I find it kind of reassuring that they care about even such a small detail. If there is a bug anywhere they will do whatever they can to find it and remove it. It may take forever, but they will come to it eventually.

Blaming Ghostcrawler
Now over to the second part of this post, where Ghostcrawler takes the blame for everything.

Yeah, it’s true! Read for yourself his comment in a thread in the healing role forum, where they’re discussing where Blizzard is heading. This thread is long and has grown a bit wild, and when we come in there have just been some complaints about how they treated Incanter’s Absorbation, which was heavily nerfed.

“We designed Incanter's Absorption. It's our fault that it worked the way it did, our fault that players assumed they were supposed to stand in fires, and our fault that they assumed their dps was balanced around the assumption that they stood in fires. :)”

OK, Ghostcrawler, I’m with you so far, this might have been a design error, even though it provided a bit of fun for all arcane mages as long as it lasted. But in the next paragraph he extends his sense of responsibility.

“I'm not quite sure of the origin of this recent sentiment that GC blames everything on the players. Let me be perfectly clear. Everything we don't like about WoW is our fault and our responsibility to fix. I like to use the first-person plural to remind everyone that ours is a very large team all working together, but in this case I'll make an exception and take personal responsibility for plenty of the criticisms we have with the game right now.”

Aha. We can all stop blaming the community! Stop blaming the greedy shareholders of Blizzard Activision! Stop thinking that the state of WoW is a team effort. It isn’t. Ghostcrawler just stepped up and offered to be the scapegoat for just about any criticism we have with the game.

Hey there GC! If you happen to dwell somewhere in the shadows, I tell you: How heroic it may sound, aren’t you pulling this a little bit too far? Have a pint, my friend. Cool down. You’re actually doing pretty fine. For all the grumpiness in the community, it’s still a damned good game. Don’t put all that weight on your shoulders. Oh? It was a joke? OK. Got it.

It’s Friday night and my thinking is a bit slow, especially after the sad news the other day about our GM stepping down. But I’m alive. And I’m actually smiling, because we had one of those awesome raids last night, which you can read about in Tessy's lovely report. Two more first kills in ICC hardmode (Rotface and Blood Council), one achievement just-for-fun (read: Tessy) and as some sugar topping I got a lethal dagger and the shiniest necklace you’ve ever seen.

What more could a gnome possibly wish for?

Cheers all!