The most important event in raiding history.

Posted 10/05/10 at 10:29 PM by JamesVZ Updated 10/06/10 at 11:43 AM by JamesVZ

Man, this was an absolute PITA to track down. Without further ado:

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From: Gtath [mailto:gtath@home.com] Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2001 5:22 PM To: bmcquaid@station.sony.com; avancourvering@station.sony.com; jbutler@station.sony.com; mbutler@station.sony.com Subject: Response to your letter dated 06/06/2001 "the "z" coordinate and its nullification of NPC's ability to summon" - We did no such thing. It appeared to people watching the battle that the NPC wasn't summoning the players it was most angry at. We later went into the zone and were able to find a spot under the bridge where the NPC wouldn't summon you but also wouldn't hit you for significant periods of time (it would occasionally become 'unstuck' and resume summoning). "and multiple atmospheres (e.g. water/land)" - Again, we did no such thing. My understanding is that the warder's breath weapon was bugged and wouldn't affect players under the water, nor those with res effects. "they could attack without getting hit back for the vast majority of the time that it took to kill the monster" - Again, false. The dragon was hitting Itzlegend for nearly the entire duration of the fight. The short periods of time he wasn't hitting Itzlegend was taken by the times he was killing the clerics that he had summoned to himself. Again, this was not what was observed, but rather that the dragon was angry at the clerics under the bridge but would not summon them, but also wasn't hitting them. We later reproduced this in the zone ourselves. "for 75% or more of the time that it took to kill the encounter, the monster got beaten on and was not able to fight back." - Again, a blatant fabrication. If you would like us to recreate the encounter and show you exactly what we did, we will be happy to do so. It's also probably worth noting that what alerted GMs to the scene were reports that 28 or so players were defeating mobs that DOUBLE that many had trouble defeating. "the "human figures" in some screenshots are a result of the screenshot taker not patching" - Also untrue unless you're referring to a patch that has not yet been released. I've not seen it yet myself, and will look tomorrow, but my understanding is that the Sleeper's model only appears after one uses the optional Velious patch, and that the graphics for that model are available now via patch. -Brad

From: Gtath [mailto:gtath@home.com] Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2001 2:28 PM To: McQuaid, Brad Subject: RE: Response to your letter dated 06/06/2001

Brad, Thank you for your reply. I respectfully disagree with the statements you made both in public, and in your message to me. I further ask that you allow us to prove our statements by recreating the fight for you so that you can see that we are being truthful. >It appeared to people watching the battle that the NPC wasn't summoning the players it was most angry at. We later went into the zone and were able to find a spot under the bridge where the NPC wouldn't summon you but also wouldn't hit you for significant periods of time (it would occasionally become 'unstuck' and resume summoning). Then I suggest to you that the observer(s) didn't know enough about what was going on to have an intelligent opinion. If you found the existence of such a location, I commend you, but we had, and still have no idea where such a place is. As you will see by our guild chat, there was at no time any instruction given to anyone to "stand RIGHT HERE and don't move", or "Stay on the safe spot" or anything of that nature. >My understanding is that the warder's breath weapon was bugged and wouldn't affect players under the water, nor those with res effects. Your understanding is partially flawed. We had no players under the water because it does persistent damage when you touch it. If the breath weapon doesn't affect you there, I would assume it's because the bridge is blocking LOS. The warder's breath weapon certainly was not affecting players under res effects, and we were well aware of that fact. Indeed it was the reason the clerics were "chain ressing" the melee during the battle (a tactic, I might add, that not only heals the recipient of the resurrection, but also creates zero aggro for the casting cleric). Does this mean that in the future players are not allowed to resurrect the fallen during encounters with this creature for fear of disciplenary action, or will you fix the stacking so that this spell will indeed stack with res effects? This is not the first time that players have used the rules of spell stacking to their advantage, but it is the first time that 26 people have been suspended, and 2 others have been banned for it without so much as a tap on the shoulder and a "Hey... you guys need to cut that out" from a GM. It is certainly the first time we have ever used the tactic, and while we considered the tactic an "Itzploit", we did not consider it an "Exploit". FYI, we also consider using tanks and casters with invulnerable disciplines/spells up versus proximity mobs to be an "Itzploit". >Again, this was not what was observed, but rather that the dragon was angry at the clerics under the bridge but would not summon them, but also wasn't hitting them. We later reproduced this in the zone ourselves. Then I submit to you that the observer was ill suited to make an informed statement as to what was happening. That is not what we experienced. What we experienced was our clerics, Caduseus and Sauw didn't get their COH in time, and were summoned and killed. Yes, we were using the fact that COH wipes aggro to control cleric aggro. Is that an exploit? What we also experienced is that when the battle was over, and Itzlegend and his clerics were dead, none of the clerics under the bridge had any aggro at all. >It's also probably worth noting that what alerted GMs to the scene were reports that 28 or so players were defeating mobs that DOUBLE that many had trouble defeating. I fail to see how this is relevant. We came up with a plan that others didn't, and we thought it was working, even though we lost the encounter. >I've not seen it yet myself, and will look tomorrow, but my understanding is that the Sleeper's model only appears after one uses the optional Velious patch, and that the graphics for that model

are available now via patch. Perhaps when you go to look you should do so on a "clean machine". That is, a machine that you install with a fresh copy of EverQuest, and that you patch using the same method that the rest of us do. After reading your public statement, I checked all of my optional patch buttons, and I received no new files from any of them. I was the taker of most of the screenshots that have been made public. Thank you for taking the time to respond to my message. I hope that you and I can have a meaningful dialog regarding this. I again ask ask that you allow us to prove our statements by recreating the fight for you so that you can see that we are being truthful. All we are asking for is a chance to prove that of all your accusations, the use of res effects in our favor is the only one that rings with any bit of truth. What have you got to lose? -Gtath

From: McQuaid, Brad [mailto mcquaid@verant.com] Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2001 3:36 PM To: 'Gtath' Subject: RE: Response to your letter dated 06/06/2001 I'm determined to get to the bottom of this and understand all that went on fully. Should you be my point of contact? Are you willing to talk by phone if necessary? Can you keep this pretty much between us until we get to the bottom of it all? ---------------------------------------------Brad McQuaid Vice President, Premium Games Sony Online Entertainment/Verant Interactive ---------------------------------------------

From: Gtath [mailto:gtath@home.com] Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2001 4:07 PM To: McQuaid, Brad Cc: "Itzlegend" Subject: RE: Response to your letter dated 06/06/2001 I'll be happy to be your point of contact in the absence of anyone else. I'm not an officer or tactician for the guild, so let me try to get one of those people involved before you decide on me as your point of contact. I'm more than willing to use whatever form of communication you prefer, and have up to this point kept our communications confidential, save for posting your message to me, and my response to it in our private forum. I'm copying this message to (RL name removed), who plays the character Itzlegend, and is the leader of our guild. (RL name removed), please respond to this message, I believe it represents a good faith effort on Brad's part to have two way communication on this issue instead of issuing

multiple public statements. I think you're the one best suited to speak on behalf of the guild.

-----Original Message----From: McQuaid, Brad [mailto: bmcquaid@verant.com] Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2001 6:57 PM To: 'Gtath'; McQuaid, Brad Cc: "Itzlegend"; Butler, Jeff Subject: RE: Response to your letter dated 06/06/2001 Hi guys, Just to let you know, I've personally spent many hours today and yesterday investigating what apparently happened that night you were all suspended. It was complicated enough that I involved all sorts of people: the GMs who witnessed the event, Jeff Butler who also witnessed the event, Kendrick who designed the zone, the programmers who wrote the AI NPC code, and the GM who is in charge of investigating and recreating these events. I also read through both the logs you've provided and our logs of the event (which show the battle, the status and location of the mob, who he was mad at, where he was trying to go, how many HP he had, etc.). First, I'll say that our original public statement was too vague and it also contained a mistake on our part: it turns out the data on the live servers WAS wrong such that the sleeper when awakened did NOT show the correct model (and instead displayed the default model, the male human). We apologize for this. That said, our investigation and logs have lead us to creating the following account of what we believe took place and the methods by which the encounter was exploited. If you feel any of these are in error or are inaccurate, please feel free to respond accordingly. The exploits were performed as follows: 1. Garner high amounts of hate on PCs who are positioned in a location the NPC cannot walk to (in this case, under the bridge). 2. Begin attack 3. NPC then takes enough damage to start summoning 4. Players who are summoned (once every 18 seconds) immediately jump off bridge, returning to the safe point (knowing NPC is unable to damage them, follow them there, or summon for another 18 seconds. 5. During this cycle, the other PCs who are not on the top of the hate list get multiple free rounds of attack without fear of retaliation 6. In the rare event that the topside PCs generate enough hate to get turned on, they are Call of Hero'd or Resurrected out of danger. 7. In summary, the key to this exploit is that during the majority of the 18 seconds the NPC is waiting for his summon to recycle, he is unable to follow and/or damage the PC he wants to kill, creating an opportunity for the other PCs to deal free damage. This is safe zone exploitation, similar to standing on a wall and blowing up an NPC who cannot reach you because of a pathing bug, the only difference being that in this particular case every 18 seconds the NPC had a brief albeit ineffectual opportunity to deal damage. In addition, the majority of PCs in the immediate area have spell effects (e.g. the res effect, snare, etc.) that render them immune to the NPC's area breath weapon, further enabling them to deal damage to the NPC with impunity as well as offer support to the other PCs in the area. --

--------------------------------------------Brad McQuaid Vice President, Premium Games Sony Online Entertainment/Verant Interactive ---------------------------------------------

-----Original Message----From: Itzlegend [mailto:itzlegend@hotmail.com] Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2001 7:42 PM To: bmcquaid@verant.com Cc: gtath@home.com; jbutler@verant.com Subject: RE: Response to your letter dated 06/06/2001 Brad, that isnt an accurate account of our tactics and you know it. You can plainly see by looking at our chatlog that was NOT our intent and definatly not what we were attempting to pull off. In fact i made many statements about how we could keep the clerics off the list so they wouldnt be summoned in the first place - and so the mob would stay on me (the main tank). Sure, what you said would work that way - the cleric MIGHT be able to get back off the bridge before dieing after a summon, only to be summoned up seconds later and promptly killed. It just isnt feasable - i.e. it would NOT work. Beyond that point we werent even attempting what you describe - how can you be banned for an exploit that doesnt even work? The only people able to maintain hate while jumping off the bridge is clerics and other healers. These people are also killed off quickly. If you can really see who the mob is aggro on - then you can plainly see that 80% of the time that mob is aggro on ME. If you are so convinced you have figured out the exploit - then simply try it yourself - because it WILL NOT WORK. Any priest class who is jumping off the bridge will be killed in very quick fassion. And any melee class who trys that would simply fall off the haste list in no time at all. Im sure you have seen our sleepers video. I tanked first, second, and third warders 99% of the fights, with 3 clerics healing me. The 4th warders melee is NO MORE powerful then any of the others - quite weak to a warrior of my caliber in fact. With the clerics i had there in my group i can tank a warder for a solid 7-8 minutes with no chance of death. This is so simple. The ENTIRE challenge of the fight (once the AE's were mitigated) was keeping the warders on ME the entire fight since i was having trouble holding up my aggro with the AE slow effecting me. If the warder was summoning clerics - we were LOSING. And never would have won useing those tactics, exploit or no. Again, HOW can you be banned for an exploit which DOES NOT WORK. We fought this warder the EXACT same way we fought the other warders, accept for this one we kept rez effects on the tank. -1 warrior (me) tanks. -3 clerics, a bard, and a magician are in my group -The rest of my group goes below the bridge to avoid the AE -I build up hate before the rest of the melee add. -The 3 clerics heal me, and occasionally get coh'd by the magician to keep their aggro LOW -Rest of the melee add, and kill while I get healed.

This is the strat we used for all 4 warders. Clerics can keep me alive NP, and with the melee immune to the damaging and slowing AE - we were able to do a decent chunk of damage. Why did we lose? Well, the people under the bridge got aggro'd , and summoned up and killed. We planned on trying again after i got some self-healing items to build up my own hate more, so that i could tank 100% and so the clerics wouldnt get killed. You and I both know it isnt fair to ban 28 players for useing an exploit that doesnt even help you with victory.... even if we WERE trying to do what are you saying. If you still think they are "exploitable" the way you say - please please just try it out yourself. If the clerics get summoned, you are SOL and will never win the fight. The mob does its AE's when it is meleeing (wont cast its AE from a distance like a spell). So your clerics will get quad 500+ most likely for 2 rounds of attacks and either a 750 DD or a 250dd silence which will stop them from being able to cast for a while. 1 summon will totally devistate even the best equiped clerics. 1 Summon will even devistate a melee if they dont have the proper system of heals allready in the process of being cast on them. Could we have killed the 4th warder useing rez effects on tanks? Yes, definatly. But it would have required the 4th warder being on the main tank 100% of the time. This exploit you speak of only means you are loseing the fight if it is working the way you say it is.... If any of this isnt coherant (i know i've rambled a bit) let me know and i will try to further elaborate on why, even if we were useing this exploit, it would only hurt the raid rather then help... please let me know. -(Name deleted)

Brad and Jeff, I would like to supplement (Itzlegend)'s comments if I may, and explain why what you allege here can't work. The typical level 60 Conquest cleric has approximately 3500 hit points with maximum buffs, give or take a few hundred hit points. If a cleric is at the top, or even near the top of the Warder's hate list, that cleric will be receiving additional damage from the warder in the form of "rampage" attacks. As you know, rampage damage is applied to the top several PCs on the mob's hate list, and is applied to those targets regardless of where in the zone the targets happen to be. The result of each rampage, which happens every few seconds, is multiple 300-500 point attacks on the cleric. This damage, in combination with the rounds of melee damage that the warder would do after summoning and stunning the cleric would easily kill, within a single round of combat, any cleric unfortunate enough to try your plan. There is clear evidence that what I say is accurate, because to my knowledge, the only player to survive long enough to jump back off the bridge after being summoned was Bakajikara, an ogre shaman. The reason he survived is because of the sheer number of hit points he has, combined with the fact that he can't be stunned from the front, allowed him to back up and fall off the bridge before the melee damage killed him. From my fuzzy recollection of that first fight, he died shortly thereafter to rampage damage. I know that I personally died on more than one occasion to the various warders as a result of taking rampage damage only. In summary, even if the cleric is on the top of the hate list, and the dragon is trying to get to him, the cleric is taking damage in the form of rampage attacks. Damage which proves fatal for any cleric unfortunate enough to be summoned and melee'd by the dragon. What you allege will only work as long as we have enough clerics to keep throwing to the warder as sacrificial lambs. Using

your tactic, our fight would have lasted a maximum of 1 minute 40 seconds, the time required for all clerics to be summoned and killed. As I have said before, we would be more than willing to recreate the fight so that you can observe first hand what we did, and how we did it. -Gtath

Hello again, Well, we've taken into account your description of what happened combined with our logs and have come to more specific conclusions as to what occurred. Before I list them, however, I'm also trying to solve another problem, and that is why you all seem so confident you're not exploiting - I can only conclude that what you did in your minds wasn't exploiting a safe zone. From approximately 20:46 to 21:07 we have the NPC on top of the bridge, aggro to several different members of the party, and NOT moving. Our logs indicate he wanted to move, but his x,y,z stays the same for over 15 minutes. This means he was stuck because of a pathing bug (no route to under the bridge). This pathing bug, btw, HAS been reproduced internally. Then, some time after 21:07 the attack is called. Occasionally during the battle the aggro of the dragon would switch to the clerics under the bridge. When this happened, again, the mob could NOT walk down under the bridge and kill the clerics. It had to resort to summoning them (which, as you stated, is very dangerous to the cleric and what eventually warranted an abort) once every 18 seconds IF they were still most hated. Here are the events in order as we are able to determine: 1. Tank aggros dragon 2. Tank retreats under bridge (safe zone). 3. THIS IS EXPLOIT #1. Tank probably uses items to gain hate during the approx. 15 minutes the dragon is stuck on the bridge (our logs indicate the dragon was attempting to move towards several players but it's coordinates were NOT changing - thus, those to whom it wanted to move were in the safe zone). 4. HP of the dragon is kept relatively full such that it doesn't summon. Once tank has sufficient hate built up, he signals to begin all out attack 5. Tank is then healed by clerics under the bridge as damage is being dealt to dragon. The strategy here is to keep the tank most hated so the dragon doesn't aggro the clerics. This is valid as long as if the clerics ARE aggro'd, the mob can move to them. 6. Clerics are immune from breath weapon as long as they remain under bridge (this is a valid tactic as long as the area is not a safe zone). 7. Once a cleric complete heals a couple of times, he is COH'd to relatively the same location (under the bridge) to remove hate. (We are not calling this an exploit, but COH might be changing in the future because this goes against the spell's intent). 8. When the group makes an error and a cleric is most hated, the dragon summons a cleric every 18 seconds or so, but does NOT move to the cleric, because they are in a safe zone. THIS IS EXPLOIT #2. That you aborted once some clerics were summoned and silenced isn't relevant in our opinion. Also, that you consider you are losing once clerics are jumping off the bridge after being summoned isn't, in our opinion, relevant. Now, again, the emails I've received from you two indicate to me that you don't believe you were exploiting. Perhaps you thought that since you hadn't attacked in force yet you were not exploiting? And then later because it could summon, you were not exploiting?

If this is so, please let me know. And of course please respond to anything in our account to find inaccurate. Lastly, it is worth noting that using the stacking bug to nullify the effect of the breath weapon on the tank (which you freely admit to) is ALSO an exploit, albeit a less severe one, which in and of itself would probably have resulted in simple warnings. Coupled with exploiting the safe zone, however, is what led to the suspensions. ---------------------------------------------Brad McQuaid Vice President, Premium Games Sony Online Entertainment/Verant Interactive ---------------------------------------------

First, I'd like to apologize for beginning the last email with "that isnt what we were doing and you know it" I didnt mean it like that - which sounds like i was calling you a liar. What I meant, was you should be able to figure out that isnt what we were trying to do, based on screenshots and other evidence which you allready have at your disposal. Ok, now we're rocking... We both understand eachothers point of view and we both understand the aggro issues. Anyways, sorry it took so long to reply - I had people logging in to check the summoning time. 18 seconds seemed far too long.. It has been "common knowledge" at least in our guild, that a mob summons once per 10 seconds - and its true it seems. A friend logged in and got summoned 3 times by a mob before zoneing. This is the log: [Fri Jun 08 20:07:46 2001] Andad Filla says 'You will not evade me Valent!' [Fri Jun 08 20:07:56 2001] Andad Filla says 'You will not evade me Valent!' [Fri Jun 08 20:08:07 2001] Andad Filla says 'You will not evade me Valent!' Twice for 10 seconds once for 11 (not sure why the difference here, maybe there is sometimes a small period of time when summon is "ready" and the mob just has to choose to use it). All mobs summon at the same frequency - im pretty sure on that. Feel free to test this yourself... Im not trying to get you on technicalities here - but there is a large difference between 10 and 18 seconds. However, you are going to say "it doesnt matter how much time", and for the sake of arguement i will agree to that now. You could, theoretically, make small blotches of time (1-2 seconds? or so every 10 seconds...) where the mob doesnt melee useing the tactics you pointed out. I just wanted to clear that up... Because its pretty important in understanding why its useless to assume you can "exploit" this. BTW, Im assuming that in order for something to be considered an "exploit" it has to benefit you... Or, as an alternate approach - I ask that you assume that we wouldnt be silly enough to use an exploit that would lower rather then increase our chances of winning... Before going on let me clarify a few things about hate... based on your statement: gaining hate for 15 minutes. Hate fact 1: All hate decays - and it decays rapidly on high level mobs. These mbos care about "who has made me angry recently" not "who has given me the most aggro total"

How to test this: Find that one mob that has 32k hp and regens 32k hp per tick. Do 50,000 damage to it over the course of 15 minutes or so. Then have someone else start doing damage to it. That person will not have to do anywhere near 50,001 damage before it switches off. This is even more true on end encounters. Hate fact 2: Any and all hate over ~5 minutes old(I dont know the exact time, but it is around 5 minutes) is removed from the mob completly. How to test this: When you found the safe spot in your tests, you probly noticed the mob would just get up and walk off after 5 minutes(forgetting you 100% completly)... if you bothered standing there long enough. In fact, you cant even keep the mob on the bridge for more then 5 minutes without 2 people aggro'd, and doing something to hold their individual aggro (i.e. healing eachother - or in the case of a bard, the bard just sings). Hate fact 3: End encounter ubermobs will only add very VERY low amounts of hate from spells unless they are hurt (and in summoning mode). How to test this with offensive spells: Have an invulnerable GM cast tashanian (a huge taunt spell) 50 times on the warder. Have a melee walk up and hit one time. Watch the warder attack the melee... How to test with healing spells: Have one person aggro warder and jump off the bridge. Have a cleric ch them 10 times (have them use their entire mana pool). Have a melee fight the warder. Watch the warder turn on the melee after 15 seconds tops. Ok, so doing this can get you 15 seconds of free hits as a melee... What you need to look at, however, is how that mana can be (and was in our case) put to much better use. One cleric can keep me alive 120 seconds strait, with 0 chance of me dieing - with coh to clear their own aggro. This seems to be, by your admission, a non-issue though since having clerics at top of hate list serves no function other then to get yourselves killed. Now allow me to respond to your email with this in mind... >1. Tank >2. Tank >3. THIS dragon is aggros dragon retreats under bridge (safe zone). IS EXPLOIT #1. Tank probably uses items to gain hate during the approx. 15 minutes the stuck on the bridge (our logs indicate

Step 3 is 100% critical to this entire thing... The problem here, is it is impossible for me to have built hate while under there. First of all, no matter where u stand, you cant shoot arrows at the mob, so you can toss that idea out.. Useing offensive spells, such as blind orb from the CS fish, or bracer of fenin ro generate practically no aggro at all (see above). You could build up some aggro with complete heal items tho. For example if a warrior bothered to do the soul fire quest they could complete heal themself to keep aggro - and it would probly last to maybe (if you're lucky) the dragon has had 15% of its life taken off. The problem with this? Just go through my saved logs... Not only did i not have a complete heal sword from befallen or a soulfire that night, but I HAVE NEVER owned either of those items, ever... It was just an idea i threw up in guildchat, so our clerics wouldnt keep getting summoned and killed, and to keep the mob on me. It is 100% impossible for me to have built aggro while the mob was standing there for 15 minutes (not to mention the logs should clearly show that i didnt....) Also, if you check the logs, you should see the warder shout his aggro message every 5 minutes or so. This happens when the warders aggro list has been cleared 100% and it re-aggros on the bard. >>THIS IS EXPLOIT #1 Are you trying to justify the suspending of 26 people and the banning of 2 because the mob, before the fight, was trying to get to someone it cant? If that is so - why arent the thousands and thousands of people who have ever been on a vox raid suspended when vox repeatedly tries to get to them, but cant - while they buff in the safe hall?

>4. HP of the dragon is kept relatively full such that it doesn't summon. Once tank has sufficient hate built up, he signals to begin all out attack How exactly do you think I built up aggro? There are hundreds of warriors out there who would LOVE to know how to build a large amount of aggro at the beginning or before a fight... Currently the only method known is by useing a complete heal item - and like i said (and this should be easily verifyable) I didnt have one that night, and I have never owned one. >5. Tank is then healed by clerics under the bridge as damage is being dealt to dragon. The strategy here is to keep the tank most hated so the dragon doesn't aggro the clerics. This is valid as long as if the clerics ARE aggro'd, the mob can move to them. Why? Ok, i can see why, just not in this specific case... Mobs dont summon people unless they are out of their reach - so the "main tank" is rarely if ever summoned while they are fighting the warder. Thus, the very second a cleric is aggrod, they are summoned. Im also pretty sure that once summoned, none of our clerics survived unless they got a timely COH. BTW, why wasnt this made known to the public?? And how do the nag or vox raids get away with this DAILY when they are doing the EXACT same thing. There was a big(huge) arguement a long time ago wether or not it was an exploit to have healers before the gates on nagefin, or in the safehall for vox. After a long time the general assumption was that it was perfectly fine since they could just summon. Heck, it is even a common tactic to manasieve vox while she is in her lair and cannot reach you. >6. Clerics are immune from breath weapon as long as they remain under bridge (this is a valid tactic as long as the area is not a safe zone). Same thing... Nag/vox... This is the very tactic which is all over the web for both of these dragons, and is WIDELY accepted as a perfectly valid tactic. >7. Once a cleric complete heals a couple of times, he is COH'd to relatively the same location (under the bridge) to remove hate. (We are not calling this an exploit, but COH might be changing in the future because this goes against the spell's intent). No.... if the mage was under the bridge when they COH'd, the cleric would be summoned to the very bottom of the world there (deep under the lava-water). The clerics were summoned back to the gate (the entrance to the warder area - this was so they would be out of range of the AE when coh'd - so they dont get silenced). Then they floated back down under the bridge with DMF up. >8. When the group makes an error and a cleric is most hated, the dragon summons a cleric every 18 seconds or so, but does NOT move to the cleric, because they are in a safe zone. THIS IS EXPLOIT #2. 10 seconds but... Again, after getting summoned once - our clerics either a) died or b) got coh'd just after getting summoned There really is no in-between on sleepers tomb warders - clerics just cant take the hits. Yet running Back down the steps at nagefin, or back into the safe hall on nag or vox remains a perfectly valid tactic and isnt challenged by VI... >That you aborted once some clerics were summoned and silenced isn't relevant in our opinion. The clerics that were silenced, got hit while being under the bridge. Under the bridge doenst have a very big area where the AE doesnt hit - so with the melee pushing the dragon around, some of them got hit with the AE while down there. We didnt abort because clerics got silenced... silence only lasts like 15 seconds anyways iirc. We aborted because they were dieing. >Also, that you consider you are losing once clerics are jumping off the bridge after being summoned isn't, in our opinion, relevant.

I cant recall any clerics jumping off the bridge, but assuming they did how isnt that relevant? You are saying that an exploit that doesnt help in the slightest is bannable? How can you justify that? >Perhaps you thought that since you hadn't attacked in force yet you were not exploiting? And then later because it could summon, you were not exploiting? Im defending us based on the assumption that you have to >>take advantage<< of game abnormalities in order to be suspended for exploitation and your guild disbanded. We did not TAKE ADVANTAGE of either of these abnormalities. When the mob was standing on the bridge for however long it was, we did not build up any hate, and we did NOT benefit from it any way. As far as later when it could summon, we did EVERYTHING in our power to prevent that abnormality - and didnt benefit in any way to that as well. >Lastly, it is worth noting that using the stacking bug to nullify the effect of the breath weapon on the tank (which you freely admit to) is ALSO an exploit, albeit a less severe one, which in and of itself would probably have resulted in simple warnings. Coupled with exploiting the safe zone, however, is what led to the suspensions. Cant refute this... However I would like to remind you of CT, Aarynar, Yelinak, and the third warder which were and some still are killed by dozens of guilds useing similar tactics with spell stacking. Yet no action is taken for this. Fight logistics aside.. I hope with this email you can at least agree with me that the action taken against us was far overboard. Guilds arent supposed to be disbanded unless they have had previous incidents - yet we were disbanded on our first. The original punishment was supposed to a warning to everyone, and a suspention if people had prior warnings. Yet 15 minutes after we were removed from the zone we were then summoned to the arena and told our punishment was to be doubled, and that we were to be all suspended, and banned if we had previous warnings. It is our understanding that this is precisely what a warning is designed to do: Inform the violator(s) that they are indeed breaking the rules. As far as we understand it, suspensions are reserved for those who have already received warnings, yet have ignored those warnings and continued their illegal activities. Finally, our understanding is that banning is reserved for those who habitually break the rules despite warnings and suspensions for *the same infractions*. In our opinion, and apparently in the opinion of the public at large, the suspensions we have received, and in two cases, the bannings we have received, are not justified. After your own statement, "I can only conclude that what you did in your minds wasn't exploiting a safe zone" how can you honestly justify the punishment that has been delivered, particularly when in the guide handbook it clearly states: "8.5.4.2 The key to determining wheter a person is exploiting is not in the activity, but int he intent. A player that is using a rain spell to kill masses of monsters may not know it's an exploit, but instead believe that this is simply the function of the spell. It is the responsibility of the Guide to educate the player and ensure that the intention to exploit is present." -Itzlegend

Brad and Jeff, I would again like to supplement (Itzlegend)'s statements, and I apologize if having comments from the two of us is confusing. Some of what I'm going to say here you will find in (Itzlegend)'s letter, since we collaborated on parts of it, but I feel that it is important to include them here, so that you can view them in the context in which they are intended. My focus at this point is conflict resolution, and not to prove who knows more about game mechanics.

In short, you have alleged three different exploits, one of which leads to our certain defeat, and the other two are consistently applauded or ignored by SOE employees. It is this long history of GM response (or non-response) to these tactics that led us to believe that we were not on the wrong side of the rules. You state that these items are indeed exploits, and naturally, you are the final arbiters (no pun intended) of what is and what is not an exploit. However, we do believe it is infinitely reasonable that we drew the conclusion that we were not breaking the rules, based on your company's long record of non-punishment of these tactics. It is our understanding that this is precisely what a warning is designed to do: Inform the violator(s) that they are indeed breaking the rules. As far as we understand it, suspensions are reserved for those who have already received warnings, yet have ignored those warnings and continued their illegal activities. Finally, our understanding is that banning is reserved for those who habitually break the rules despite warnings and suspensions for *the same infractions*. Now that the intensity of the moment has died down, we think that you can clearly see, as we can, that the punishment you have dispensed far exceeds the crimes you have determined we committed. We believe that if you choose to overturn the precedent set by your various GMs on these tactics, it is certainly your right to do so. If you do choose to do this, then one would think that we would certainly deserve only warnings for the events that took place in this incident since it would then become a case of you changing the rules, and then punishing us afterward. In our opinion, and apparently in the opinion of the public at large, the suspensions we have received, and in two cases, the bannings we have received are not justified. After your own statement, I can only conclude that what you did in your minds wasn't exploiting a safe zone how can you honestly justify the punishment that has been delivered? As the Guide Handbook states: 8.5.4.2 The key to determining wheter a person is exploiting is not in the activity, but in the intent. Furthermore, it is our opinion that the disbanding of the guild based on this single incident is also unfair, as we were told by Michelle Butler "Should the guild have a history of problems on their record the guild will be disbanded." I'm sure you will agree that this single incident hardly qualifies as "a history of problems" and that the disbanding of the guild is also a bit extreme, given the facts. On a final note, there are many statements you made in your public release that you have since retracted to us in private. We would appreciate it if you would either amend your letter to reflect your current position, or issue a second letter correcting the errors. I would personally advocate issuing a joint statement detailing the findings of the investigation, the definition of our actions as "punishable exploits", and the resulting amended punishment. We think this would be a great way to highlight how the zone and its inhabitants are new in design, and the permissibility of older strategies and tactics need to be rethought. Conquest was wrong in assuming that older "borderline exploits" were allowed there, and SOE has been wrong in not equitably enforcing these rules within Sleeper's Tomb across all servers. We think that will resolve this issue with a great sense of decorum for both sides. I would like to request that you consider this issue with haste, as our only guild Shadow Knight, Ralanan, is scheduled to participate in the BOTB tournament this weekend. -Gtath

-----Original Message----From: McQuaid, Brad [mailto: bmcquaid@verant.com] Sent: Friday, June 08, 2001 11:27 PM To: 'Itzlegend'; McQuaid, Brad

Cc: gtath@home.com; Butler, Jeff Subject: RE: Response to your letter dated 06/06/2001 Hello, First, comments to your email as follows: > Anyways, sorry it took so long to reply - I had people logging in to check the summoning time. 18 seconds seemed far too long.. It has been "common knowledge" at least in our guild, that a mob summons once per 10 seconds - and its true it seems. A friend logged in and got summoned 3 times by a mob before zoneing. This is the log: > > [Fri Jun 08 20:07:46 2001] Andad Filla says 'You will not evade me Valent!' > [Fri Jun 08 20:07:56 2001] Andad Filla says 'You will not evade me Valent!' > [Fri Jun 08 20:08:07 2001] Andad Filla says 'You will not evade me Valent!' > > Twice for 10 seconds once for 11 (not sure why the difference here, maybe there is sometimes a small period of time when summon is "ready" and the mob just has to choose to use it). All mobs summon at the same frequency - im pretty sure on that. Feel free to test this yourself... You're correct -- we were wrong there. Summon recycle times vary by zone, and Sleepers has a 10 second recycle to make it more difficult. > Im not trying to get you on technicalities here - but there is a large difference between 10 and 18 seconds. I agree, but I think there's an even bigger difference between 10 seconds and constant melee. > However, you are going to say "it doesnt matter how much time", and for the sake of arguement i will agree to that now. You could, theoretically, make small blotches of time (1-2 seconds? or so every 10 seconds...) where the mob doesnt melee useing the tactics you pointed out. I just wanted to clear that up... Because its pretty important in understanding why its useless to assume you can "exploit" this. This is an area it's pretty hard to quantify -- that is, just HOW much of an advantage did it give you. Our opinion remains, though: if the dragon went under the bridge and attacked the clerics there directly, you'd have a significantly harder time keeping the tank alive. > BTW, Im assuming that in order for something to be considered an "exploit" it has to benefit you... Or, as an alternate approach - I ask that you assume that we wouldnt be silly enough to use an exploit that would lower rather then increase our chances of winning... I'll agree with that -- an exploit is using a bug to your advantage. It's still my opinion that in several cases here, that is exactly what you did. ** a seemingly accurate description of hate decay (I'm at home now, so I don't have all my people here to check this out), etc., deleted ** > Now allow me to respond to your email with this in mind... > > >1. Tank aggros dragon > >2. Tank retreats under bridge (safe zone). > >3. THIS IS EXPLOIT #1. Tank probably uses items to gain hate during the approx. 15 minutes the dragon is stuck on the bridge (our logs indicate > Step 3 is 100% critical to this entire thing... The problem here, is it is impossible for me to have built hate while under there. First of all, no matter where u stand, you cant shoot arrows at the mob, so you can toss that idea out.. Useing offensive spells, such as blind orb from the CS fish, or bracer of fenin ro generate practically no aggro at all (see above).

We assume(d) you had items that healed, etc., allowing you to build up hate there. In fact, one of the GMs has been instructed to look at your character in the backups and examine your inventory. In the meantime, I'll take your word for it, however, that you did not. > >>THIS IS EXPLOIT #1 > > Are you trying to justify the suspending of 26 people and the banning of 2 because the mob, before the fight, was trying to get to someone it cant? If that is so - why arent the thousands and thousands of people who have ever been on a vox raid suspended when vox repeatedly tries to get to them, but cant - while they buff in the safe hall? That is part of the justification, yes. As for players using similar tactics on Vox and Nagafen, we are aware they do, and my understanding is that players are warned for it, and repeat offenders are suspended. There is an important difference here, however: Vox and Nagafen have been done many times. What you were trying to do has not. Therefore, if you were to accomplish something this rare and difficult by exploit, you are cheapening the game for others far more than someone exploiting Vox or Nagafen. This fact influenced the severity of the punishment. *more stuff about building up aggro deleted * > >5. Tank is then healed by clerics under the bridge as damage is being dealt to dragon. The strategy here is to keep the tank most hated so the dragon doesn't aggro the clerics. This is valid as long as if the clerics ARE aggro'd, the mob can move to them. > > Why? Ok, i can see why, just not in this specific case... Mobs dont summon people unless they are out of their reach - so the "main tank" is rarely if ever summoned while they are fighting the warder. Thus, the very second a cleric is aggrod, they are summoned. Im also pretty sure that once summoned, none of our clerics survived unless they got a timely COH. This is true. Summon was put in on higher-end mobs to make them more difficult to evade AND exploit. That said, getting one stuck so that he can only summon is not OK just because he can still summon. This is a very important point (and probably an area we're not seeing eye to eye on). > BTW, why wasnt this made known to the public?? And how do the nag or vox raids get away with this DAILY when they are doing the EXACT same thing. There was a big(huge) arguement a long time ago wether or not it was an exploit to have healers before the gates on nagefin, or in the safehall for vox. After a long time the general assumption was that it was perfectly fine since they could just summon. Heck, it is even a common tactic to manasieve vox while she is in her lair and cannot reach you. Again, to my knowledge, CS does enforce exploiting Vox or Nagafen as such. Again, however, I don't think the punishment is a severe because of the nature of the encounter. > >6. Clerics are immune from breath weapon as long as they remain under bridge (this is a valid tactic as long as the area is not a safe zone). > > Same thing... Nag/vox... This is the very tactic which is all over the web for both of these dragons, and is WIDELY accepted as a perfectly valid tactic. Understood, but if it's using a safe zone, it is still an exploit, regardless of which zone or which NPC is involved. > >7. Once a cleric complete heals a couple of times, he is COH'd to relatively the same location (under the bridge) to remove hate. (We are not calling this an exploit, but COH might be changing in the future because this goes against the spell's intent). > > No.... if the mage was under the bridge when they COH'd, the cleric would be summoned to the very bottom of the world there (deep under the lava-water). The clerics were summoned back to

the gate (the entrance to the warder area - this was so they would be out of range of the AE when coh'd - so they dont get silenced). Then they floated back down under the bridge with DMF up. Agreed -- we were wrong there, overlooking the fact that you'd fall to the bottom of the world there. This was an assumption because the logs aren't THAT detailed. > >8. When the group makes an error and a cleric is most hated, the dragon summons a cleric every 18 seconds or so, but does NOT move to the cleric, because they are in a safe zone. THIS IS EXPLOIT #2. > > 10 seconds but... Again, after getting summoned once - our clerics either > a) died > or > b) got coh'd just after getting summoned > > There really is no in-between on sleepers tomb warders - clerics just cant take the hits. Yet running Back down the steps at nagefin, or back into the safe hall on nag or vox remains a perfectly valid tactic and isnt challenged by VI... Again, I believe it IS challenged by us. I just called Michelle Butler and talked to her about this. When they do catch people exploiting Nagafen or Vox in this manner they are warned and often removed from the zone and told they can't do the dragon this spawn. If they are on record as repeat offenders in this area, they are suspended. She also said I was welcome to review warning and suspension logs for this on Monday, so I'll probably take a look at them then. > >That you aborted once some clerics were summoned and silenced isn't relevant in our opinion. > > The clerics that were silenced, got hit while being under the bridge. Under the bridge doenst have a very big area where the AE doesnt hit - so with the melee pushing the dragon around, some of them got hit with the AE while down there. We didnt abort because clerics got silenced... silence only lasts like 15 seconds anyways iirc. We aborted because they were dieing. Ok -- we got this from the guild chat logs, and it was hard to tell exactly why you aborted. I'll take your word for it. > >Also, that you consider you are losing once clerics are jumping off the bridge after being summoned isn't, in our opinion, relevant. > > I cant recall any clerics jumping off the bridge, but assuming they did how isnt that relevant? You are saying that an exploit that doesnt help in the slightest is bannable? How can you justify that? Again, we feel it WAS helpful, both before the main assault and during. > >Perhaps you thought that since you hadn't attacked in force yet you were not exploiting? >And then later because it could summon, you were not exploiting? > > Im defending us based on the assumption that you have to >>take advantage<< of game abnormalities in order to be suspended for exploitation and your guild disbanded. We did not TAKE ADVANTAGE of either of these abnormalities. When the mob was standing on the bridge for however long it was, we did not build up any hate, and we did NOT benefit from it any way. > As far as later when it could summon, we did EVERYTHING in our power to prevent that abnormality - and didnt benefit in any way to that as well. Advantage before assault: Assuming you were not building up hate as well using items, it is still a huge advantage setting up logistically before the encounter. You were able to get everyone in place while the NPC was stuck. Perhaps you could explain from your perspective what you were doing for those 15 minutes and WHY you held the mob stuck there for 15 minutes before attacking?

Advantage during assault: The clerics (when they would reach the top of the hate list -- we realize you were doing your best to avoid this) were hit for far less damage because the dragon was not going under the bridge to melee them, but rather was just summoning them every 10 seconds or so. > > >Lastly, it is worth noting that using the stacking bug to nullify the effect of the breath weapon on the tank (which you freely admit to) is ALSO an exploit, albeit a less severe one, which in and of itself would probably have resulted in simple warnings. Coupled with exploiting the safe zone, however, is what led to the suspensions. > > Cant refute this... However I would like to remind you of CT, Aarynar, Yelinak, and the third warder which were and some still are killed by dozens of guilds useing similar tactics with spell stacking. Yet no action is taken for this. Detecting spell stacking is far harder for GMs to do than detecting safe zone violations. In fact, had Kendrick and Jeff Butler not been watching, this aspect of the event might have been missed for a while (they were more familiar with the encounter, the details of the dragon's breath weapon, etc.) So, unfortunately, punishment for spell stack exploitation probably does occur less often. This doesn't make it any less of an exploit though, and quite simply, it allowed the tank and others to deal MORE damage during the encounter than they were supposed to and receive less. This is why you were able to kill the other warders and get as far as you did with this one with FAR fewer players than the encounter was designed for. > Fight logistics aside.. I hope with this email you can at least agree with me that the action taken against us was far overboard. Guilds arent supposed to be disbanded unless they have had previous incidents - yet we were disbanded on our first. The original punishment was supposed to a warning to everyone, and a suspention if people had prior warnings. Yet 15 minutes after we were removed from the zone we were then summoned to the arena and told our punishment was to be doubled, and that we were to be all suspended, and banned if we had previous warnings. This really is the key here, guys. These encounters were designed for 60 or so players, and you were doing pretty well with 28 or so. Couple that with the fact that these encounters hadn't really been done before and are still very exotic (you guys knew this, which is why you were all so very excited to do this -- bragging rights, and such). This is why the punishment was as extreme as it was: multiple exploits used to prevail over some of the most exotic encounters in the game that are attempted VERY rarely. And it remains our opinion that exploiting these types of encounters severely cheapens the game experience for others. So we came down pretty hard on you all. ** argument that the punishment should be less than it was deleted -- I already addressed why I disagree ** Lastly, I'd like to point out a final factor that was taken into consideration when the severity of the punishment was devised. Let's look at the following guild chat snippet (which certainly is NOT taken out of context): [Mon Jun [Mon Jun [Mon Jun [Mon Jun [Mon Jun [Mon Jun [Mon Jun [Mon Jun [Mon Jun [Mon Jun [Mon Jun [Mon Jun combine, [Mon Jun [Mon Jun 04 20:28:04 2001] Itzlegend told the guild, 'not if they nerf 3rd tomor ;( heh' 04 20:28:21 2001] Sycotic told the guild, 'they plan on nerfing 3rd?' 04 20:28:25 2001] Ketsui told the guild, 'yes tommorow syc' 04 20:28:27 2001] Ketsui told the guild, 'this is our LAST CHANCE' 04 20:28:29 2001] Sycotic told the guild, 'gah fuggin BS' 04 20:28:35 2001] Ketsui told the guild, 'so lets make sure we do it tonight' 04 20:28:36 2001] Sycotic told the guild, 'so no snare sploit?' 04 20:28:39 2001] Ketsui told the guild, 'nope' 04 20:28:40 2001] Gtath told the guild, 'what are they doing to 3?' 04 20:28:44 2001] Gtath told the guild, 'Killing snare sploit?' 04 20:28:48 2001] Ketsui told the guild, 'changing it so we cant snare sploit' 04 20:28:49 2001] Kaetlyn told the guild, 'LoS! Rez! Pathing! Agro! With our powers we summon forth ITZLEGEND!' 04 20:28:56 2001] Caylen told the guild, 'hehe' 04 20:28:56 2001] Caduseus told the guild, 'ROFL'

[Mon [Mon [Mon [Mon [Mon [Mon [Mon [Mon [Mon

Jun Jun Jun Jun Jun Jun Jun Jun Jun

04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04 04

20:28:57 20:29:00 20:29:09 20:29:12 20:29:15 20:29:21 20:29:22 20:29:29 20:29:39

2001] 2001] 2001] 2001] 2001] 2001] 2001] 2001] 2001]

Itzlegend told the guild, 'we dont know that' Itzlegend told the guild, 'its a rumor' Sycotic told the guild, 'i hope not sigh' Itzlegend told the guild, 'dont go afk long' Itzlegend told the guild, 'this isnt going to take long' Itzlegend told the guild, 'we are just buffing healers and me' Dashel told the guild, 'how would 3rd warder die then? zerg?' Itzlegend told the guild, 'it wouldnt' Itzlegend told the guild, 'not without 60 people anyways'

This tells me: 1. 2. 3. 4. You knew the snare bug is an 'exploit.' You'd heard a rumor that we were going to fix it soon and therefore wanted to exploit it ASAP That Itzlengend's 'clever tactics' include using pathing problems/bugs That you knew the encounter would take 60 people were it approached conventionally

So, in summary, we feel: 1. You knew the spell stacking bug was an exploit and planned ahead of time to use it 2. You knew attacking the mob conventionally ('zerg'ing it -- I like the Starcraft reference would require 60 or so people, which, btw, is pretty close to exactly how many players the encounter WAS DESIGNED FOR. 3. You imply that Itzlegend in general uses pathing bugs as tactics 4. You used a safe zone prior to combat to position the target mob where you wanted him, and to allow you time to logistically set up your forces 5. You used a safe zone during combat such that your primary healers could only be summoned every 10 seconds or so as opposed to being melee'd. This gave you time to preemptively CoH and res people out of danger. Had the target mob been able to reach your forces under the bridge, the combat would have worked very differently. 6. You used a spell stacking bug to avoid the major effects of the target mob's area effect breath weapon, allowing you, amongst other things, to deal MUCH more damage over time to the target mob than was intended. And, in making our determination as to the extent of the punishment, we used the following details: 1. The encounter in question is supposed to be one of the most difficult encounters in the game, designed for 60 or so level 55+ players, and could even semi-accurately be described as part of the game's 'end game' (were such a description valid for a game we keep adding content to 2. You knew this was a very exotic encounter, and you planned ahead of time to use exploit(s) you knew were exploits. And, while we do believe that most in your guild probably did not expect punishment as severe, you DID expect us to do something were you discovered (I reference the guild chat where players mentioned that were you discovered doing this by a GM, he'd probably kick you out and shut down/reset the zone). You must understand that this knowledge, the type of encounter, and the actual exploits used are all factors. Keep in mind that many game designers spent a lot of time setting up these final Sleeper encounters, and we feel a guild using exploits to take on these encounters with far fewer people than designed cheapens the encounter, and thus the experience for future guilds who might experience the encounter with a force capable of defeating the encounter without exploit. Because of all this, I am very much inclined to let the disciplinary actions stand. I am also inclined to publicly post much of what I've disclosed to you because it bothers me greatly that this has turned into a situation where many of our players believe we acting wrongly, and out of malice, ignorance, or both. If we are guilty of anything, it is not investigating the details to the extent that I have, and for posting some of the assumptions we made earlier on that were inaccurate. I also believe that our policy of not publicly commenting on warnings, suspensions, and bannings severely inhibits the flow of information such that many of our players don't know how seriously we view exploitation and

how often and to what extent players ARE disciplined for exploiting. I intend on addressing these issues in the very near future by working with our CS department to revise some of our policies. As always, please feel free to address these issues and make comment. -Brad

-----Original Message----From: Gtath [mailto:gtath@home.com] Sent: Saturday, June 09, 2001 2:07 PM To: McQuaid, Brad; 'Itzlegend' Cc: Butler, Jeff Subject: RE: Response to your letter dated 06/06/2001 Brad, > That is part of the justification, yes. As for players using similar tactics on Vox and Nagafen, we are aware they do, and my understanding is that players are warned for it, and repeat offenders are suspended. There is an important difference here, however: Vox and Nagafen have been done many times. What you were trying to do has not. Therefore, if you were to accomplish something this rare and difficult by exploit, you are cheapening the game for others far more than someone exploiting Vox or Nagafen. This fact influenced the severity of the punishment. With all due respect Brad, if there is ever any disciplenary action taken during these encounters, it is extremely rarely. We feel that the target monster is irrelevant if you are going to be applying punishment to tactics used to defeat them. In short, you should punish all instances of a given tactic that you deem illegal, or you risk condoning their use by inaction, which is what we feel you did. It would be very difficult for you to argue that these instances are difficult to detect, because both Vox and Nagafen are killed within hours of the conclusion of each patch. Given the relative commonality of these kills, it's impossible to say that they aren't being punished because you don't know when or where they are happening. > Detecting spell stacking is far harder for GMs to do than detecting safe zone violations. In fact, had Kendrick and Jeff Butler not been watching, this aspect of the event might have been missed for a while (they were more familiar with the encounter, the details of the dragon's breath weapon, etc.) So, unfortunately, punishment for spell stack exploitation probably does occur less often. This doesn't make it any less of an exploit though, and quite simply, it allowed the tank and others to deal MORE damage during the encounter than they were supposed to and receive less. This is why you were able to kill the other warders and get as far as you did with this one with FAR fewer players than the encounter was designed for. Our argument here isn't that the spell stacking conflicts are missed because they are difficult to detect. Our problem with this statement is that spell stacking conflicts have been *applauded* by SOE employees, thereby giving them legitimacy in the eyes of all who play. >This really is the key here, guys. These encounters were designed for 60 or so players, and you were doing pretty well with 28 or so. Couple that with the fact that these encounters hadn't really been done before and are still very exotic (you guys knew this, which is why you were all so very excited to do this -- bragging rights, and such). This is why the punishment was as extreme as it was: multiple exploits used to prevail over some of the most exotic encounters in the game that are attempted VERY rarely. And it remains our opinion that exploiting these types of encounters severely cheapens the game experience for others. So we came down pretty hard on you all. We again think that the rarity of the encounter is irrelevant. If you are going to apply the rules, the rules should be applied consistently and regularly. The simple fact that they are not applied

consistently and regularly significantly weakens your argument. We do agree with you that the punishment was, in your words, "extreme", and that you "came down pretty hard on" us. >1. You knew the spell stacking bug was an exploit and planned ahead of time to use it 2. You knew attacking the mob conventionally ('zerg'ing it -- I like the Starcraft reference would require 60 or so people, which, btw, is pretty close to exactly how many players the encounter WAS DESIGNED FOR. 3. You imply that Itzlegend in general uses pathing bugs as tactics We regularly use the terms, "exploit", "sploit", and "Itzploit" to describe tactics in the game that we feel are unique, and are not in regular use by others. Given this recent turn of events, I have a feeling that this habit will change. >4. You used a safe zone prior to combat to position the target mob where you wanted him, and to allow you time to logistically set up your forces 5. You used a safe zone during combat such that your primary healers could only be summoned every 10 seconds or so as opposed to being melee'd. This gave you time to preemptively CoH and res people out of danger. Had the target mob been able to reach your forces under the bridge, the combat would have worked very differently. I think it's obvious from our conversation here that we were unaware of the "safe zone" effect of our positioning. We think you will also agree that its benefit to our attempt was extremely minor. I refer you again to your previous quote, "I can only conclude that what you did in your minds wasn't exploiting a safe zone." >6. You used a spell stacking bug to avoid the major effects of the target mob's area effect breath weapon, allowing you, amongst other things, to deal MUCH more damage over time to the target mob than was intended. We have never disputed this, and as you say, we freely admit to it. We did not think this was as big of an issue as it is, since, as we have said before, similar conflicts have been used before, communicated to GMs, yet no action was ever taken. A prime example of this is Yelinak's AOE. As it began, Yelinak's AOE could be overwritten by Clarity. Players used this every time they fought him, and SOE employees were aware of this, yet no disciplenary action was ever taken. The only thing that happened was that the spell was changed so that Clarity would not overwrite it. [Mon Jun 04 20:28:04 2001] Itzlegend told the guild, 'not if they nerf 3rd tomor ;( heh' [Mon Jun 04 20:28:21 2001] Sycotic told the guild, 'they plan on nerfing 3rd?' [Mon Jun 04 20:28:25 2001] Ketsui told the guild, 'yes tommorow syc' [Mon Jun 04 20:28:27 2001] Ketsui told the guild, 'this is our LAST CHANCE' [Mon Jun 04 20:28:29 2001] Sycotic told the guild, 'gah fuggin BS' [Mon Jun 04 20:28:35 2001] Ketsui told the guild, 'so lets make sure we do it tonight' [Mon Jun 04 20:28:36 2001] Sycotic told the guild, 'so no snare sploit?' [Mon Jun 04 20:28:39 2001] Ketsui told the guild, 'nope' [Mon Jun 04 20:28:40 2001] Gtath told the guild, 'what are they doing to 3?' [Mon Jun 04 20:28:44 2001] Gtath told the guild, 'Killing snare sploit?' [Mon Jun 04 20:28:48 2001] Ketsui told the guild, 'changing it so we cant snare sploit' [Mon Jun 04 20:28:49 2001] Kaetlyn told the guild, 'LoS! Rez! Pathing! Agro! With our powers combine, we summon forth ITZLEGEND!' [Mon Jun 04 20:28:56 2001] Caylen told the guild, 'hehe' [Mon Jun 04 20:28:56 2001] Caduseus told the guild, 'ROFL' [Mon Jun 04 20:28:57 2001] Itzlegend told the guild, 'we dont know that' [Mon Jun 04 20:29:00 2001] Itzlegend told the guild, 'its a rumor' [Mon Jun 04 20:29:09 2001] Sycotic told the guild, 'i hope not sigh' [Mon Jun 04 20:29:12 2001] Itzlegend told the guild, 'dont go afk long' [Mon Jun 04 20:29:15 2001] Itzlegend told the guild, 'this isnt going to take long' [Mon Jun 04 20:29:21 2001] Itzlegend told the guild, 'we are just buffing healers and me' [Mon Jun 04 20:29:22 2001] Dashel told the guild, 'how would 3rd warder die then? zerg?' [Mon Jun 04 20:29:29 2001] Itzlegend told the guild, 'it wouldnt' [Mon Jun 04 20:29:39 2001] Itzlegend told the guild, 'not without 60 people anyways' This is another exchange where I can use the Yelinak example as an explanation. Yelinak's AOE was

overwriteable by Clarity. This was never punished, though it was known to SOE employees, instead the spell was merely changed in the next patch. That is what we were referring to for the lion's share of this exchange. As for Kaetlyn's comment, LOS isn't significant, Rez, we have already dealt with, Pathing refers to holding the monster in place, which we have already addressed, and Agro refers simply to aggro management, which we think is the key to most high level encounters. > 1. The encounter in question is supposed to be one of the most difficult encounters in the game, designed for 60 or so level 55+ players, and could even semi-accurately be described as part of the game's 'end game' (were such a description valid for a game we keep adding content to 2. You knew this was a very exotic encounter, and you planned ahead of time to use exploit(s) you knew were exploits. With these statements, you infer to us a level of knowledge of what is and is not acceptable that, by SOE's uneven application and in many cases your nonapplication of discipline, is simply unreasonable to infer. It is because of this that we feel the punishment is more severe than our actions warranted. We have been extremely straightforward during this conversation, and we appreciate the dialog, and the chance to explain our side of the story, and yes, argue our points. We are also gratified that this incident has given you pause, and provided an opportunity for you to reevaluate, and possibly improve your communication with the community when disputes like this arise. I have no doubt that you will correct the inaccurate statements that you made in your public response, and I personally thank you for having put so much time and effort into researching this issue with us. We would like to again request that you reverse your decision to disband the guild, since such punishment is reserved for, in the words of Michelle Butler, guilds that "have a history of problems on their record". I'm sure we can all agree that Conquest does not have a history of problems on its record, and that reinstating the guild would be an appropriate gesture of goodwill. I think we're down to this, then: >1. We both agree that you used 2 exploits 2. You didn't think they were a big deal, and felt you get mixed messages from us on how serious or not serious these exploits are perceived by us. 3. We feel that the context of the exploit (who is doing it, where they are doing it, and to what end) should influence the severity of the punishment. You don't, and think it should be uniform. 4. We feel several things said in guild chat imply that it is often your modus operendi to use exploits. You feel we are misunderstanding/taking out of context what was said. I do appreciate as well the time you've taken and the civility and respect used in these email exchanges. Unfortunately, I still do not feel inclined to reverse anything for the reasons I've stated. Especially since I feel it is extremely likely that you used these 'tactics' on the easier warders and have the treausre from these encounters. It has crossed my mind that were you in good faith to return those items, we'd reinstate the guild. I do need to make a public statement soon regarding our more detailed investigation, and hopefully our exchange with you. My idea is to include the last 2 or 3 email exchanges between us in the statement, and I'd like your permission to do so. Barring that, I'll just have to post my messages to you, but none of your comments, which might appear one sided. Please let me know if this (posting both our coments) is ok. We'd also replace any guild member names with Guild Member #1, #2, etc. thanks, -Brad

-----Original Message----From: Gtath [mailto:gtath@home.com] Sent: Sunday, June 10, 2001 3:57 PM To: McQuaid, Brad; 'Itzlegend' Cc: Butler, Jeff Subject: RE: Response to your letter dated 06/06/2001

>1. We both agree that you used 2 exploits Not exactly. Yes we now consider them 'exploits' since you have explicitly defined them as such. At the time, one of them had been sanctioned by SOE employees, in our minds rendering it a 'tactic' versus an 'exploit'. The other we were not aware of, was minimally beneficial in our battle, and which you have agreed that you believe we were not aware of it. "I can only conclude that what you did in your minds wasn't exploiting a safe zone." >2. You didn't think they were a big deal, and felt you get mixed messages from us on how serious or not serious these exploits are perceived by us. Definitely. To reinforce this statement, I provide you with a quote from the message boards on this topic atlumthemad.com "We killed 3 warders over this past weekend. Our Lead GM was present for the fights against #2 and #3, and he watched us place our clerics under the platform to heal safe from the AE silence from Tukaarak. He also watched us "buff" each and every member of our raid with Ensnare by dueling each other, because we knew that Stream of Acid could not take hold over Ensnare due to SoA having a lesser movement speed reduction. We then proceeded to kick Hraashna's ass with one death, and he congratulated us and went so far as to suggest that we go ahead and try Ventani before we left. It was very late, and we didn't feel like going through the motions of using res effects to kill her, so we just stuck the clerics below and charged to see how bad she was. Got her to about 85% and all died. We rezzed in and the GM was again laughing with/at us about how quickly she decimated us. At no time did he ever say that we were doing something that we should not be, and in fact he said that his supervisor was watching at least some of the time, and he also seemed to think nothing of our tactics. I don't see why this isn't the standard attitude Verant takes--watch us, take note of things we do that they don't consider to be intended, and if necessary, nerf those tactics which are deemed too cheesy." Comments similar to this are what we use when we research tactics for high level encounters. >3. We feel that the context of the exploit (who is doing it, where they are doing it, and to what end) should influence the severity of the punishment. You don't, and think it should be uniform. You are accurate in this statement. As is stated in nearly every management and discipline class that has ever been given: "To be effective, discipline must be firm, swift, and consistent." While your discipline here was certainly firm and swift, we believe your consistency leaves a great deal to be desired, and it is this fact that has caused public opinion to be heavily against you in this case. Simply stated, the punishment does not fit the crime. >4. We feel several things said in guild chat imply that it is often your modus operendi [sic] to use exploits. You feel we are misunderstanding/taking out of context what was said. Yes, you are taking our guild chat more seriously than we do. If you listen to the guild chat of any high level guild for a given length of time, you will find banter very similar to ours, and if you watch long enough, you will find plenty of "reasons" to disband said guild. It does not mean that illegal activities are rampant in those guilds, nor does it mean it is rampant in ours. We agree to you using whatever excerpts from our conversations that you wish, with the sole condition that you also make the entire transcript of our dialog available for review.

With all due respect, we find your offer to reinstate Conquest in exchange for treasure won from the last warders lacking. Accepting your offer would imply that we agree with the punishment that has been rendered, and this is not the case. We would be willing to accept your offer to reinstate Conquest with the following amendment: 1. You reinstate Truk and Sticks, and after the suspension period is over, you remove the suspensions from our accounts, replacing them with the warnings that we feel are more appropriate given the circumstances. If this is not acceptable, we would also be willing to accept your offer with the following amendments: 2. You disband and make an identical offer to every other guild that has killed the other warders in Sleeper's Tomb since the last buff of the warders, since they also used these identical tactics in those victories. 3. You disband and make an identical offer to every other guild that has killed Nagafen or Vox for the past three months, since they use these same tactics every time they defeat these monsters. All we're asking for is a little consistency - Either in the manner in which we are punished, or in the manner in which all others who have used these *identical* tactics are dealt. Best regards -Gtath

-----Original Message----From: gtath [mailto:gtath@home.com] Sent: Monday, June 11, 2001 1:53 PM To: McQuaid, Brad; 'itzlegend' Cc: Butler, Jeff Subject: RE: Response to your letter dated 06/06/2001 Brad, We respectfully request that you include the rest of the dialog in your Guild Statement #2, including the supplementary statements I provided, and the last few emails. They are directly related to what happened, and are an important part of the dialog. We feel that they are so important that if you choose not to publish them, we will feel compelled to do so. -Gtath

-----Original Message----From: McQuaid, Brad [mailto mcquaid@verant.com] Sent: Monday, June 11, 2001 2:05 PM To: 'Gtath' Cc: Butler, Jeff; 'Itzlegend' Subject: RE: Response to your letter dated 06/06/2001 If you'd like to, that's fine, and I might as well once this is all resolved. My thoughts were that the

remainder didn't really add much and were primarily focused on whether we could reach a point where you'd return the items from the other encounters in exchange for reinstatement of the guild. To me, this is another issue, and not one I wanted people to focus on (it just confuses things). And I felt compelled to make a statement soon. In any case, I consider the exploit issue closed, and the guild reinstatement for items that I suggested and something we could talk about still open. If this isn't true, please let me know. thanks, ---------------------------------------------Brad McQuaid Vice President, Premium Games Sony Online Entertainment/Verant Interactive ---------------------------------------------

-----Original Message----From: Gtath [mailto:gtath@home.com] Sent: Monday, June 11, 2001 2:16 PM To: McQuaid, Brad Cc: Butler, Jeff; 'Itzlegend' Subject: RE: Response to your letter dated 06/06/2001

>In any case, I consider the exploit issue closed, and the guild reinstatement for items that I suggested and something we could talk about still open. If this isn't true, please let me know. We certainly consider that option to be open, and we are awaiting your reply to our counter offer. -Gtath

The concept of raiding came about fairly naturally for the playerbase, but was probably a bit unexpected for the developers. The very first of what you could consider a true raid was Fires of Heaven versus Lady Vox. The story goes that the first level 50 in the game -- Kalaran, the Wood Elven Rogue leader of Fires of Heaven -- was taking his group through every single high end dungeon in the game and stomping them with extreme prejudice. Some how or another, Aradune -Brad McQuaid's avatar, the creator of EverQuest -- placed a wager with Kalaran and said that he couldn't kill Lady Vox no way, no how. Up for the challenge, of course, Kalaran accepted, and Aradune accompanied him to the depths of Permafrost to face this fabled beast and a half, you can see him in the green armor with the fiery sword. To Aradune's surprise, Lady Vox died that night. The loot? Nothing. She hadn't been itemized yet, so a special set of items were created for this very first raid, most of which would never drop again for the remainder of the game's life. This was about par for the course for the future of EverQuest raiding. Verant would release an untuned, unfinished expansion, and Fires of Heaven would dominate the shit out of it. Later in Vanilla they made what could be considered the first zone tackled from the perspective of a raider, Plane of Sky. Designed around level 60s when the cap was just 50, it required solid group coordination, high gear saturation, and a whole shitload of luck. In the first expansion, Kunark, they would release Veeshan's Peak as the ultimate, end all be all raiding zone. It required a key to get in whose components were from every raid boss in the expansion. It required raids upon raids, 24 hour camps, materials out the wazoo. The whole 9 yards, basically. Veeshan's Peak itself was

extremely unforgiving. Once you zoned in, you couldn't zone out unless you died or cleared the zone. The trash was brutal and quick spawning, the raid bosses were deadly. In other words, this zone was designed from the ground up to fuck you, and fuck you hard. This is a tradition that they somewhat continued with Velious. With the release of Velious, they created raid bosses with more than 32k hitpoints for the first time. In fact, quite a bit more. Mana management, threat management, AE dodging, positioning, this expansion is really where a lot of the concepts used in raiding today were formulated and perfected. Concepts, mind you, that are still at the forefront of raid design. The expansion was designed solely around raiders, there was no level cap increase, no new races, no new classes. There wasn't even a newbie zone in Velious. What there was was a whole lot of raid bosses, dragons, giants, factions, and quests. The keyed zone in Velious was called Sleeper's Tomb. It housed Kerafym, the Sleeper, who was the spawn of two different colored dragons and the most powerful being to exist on Norrath. He was guarded by four warders that made sure no one would wake him up. The parts of the key to enter the tomb were entrusted to several high ranking dragons. Enter: the player. Kalaran at this point had been banned and reborn as Furor Planedefiler, the Human Warrior. FoH did what it did best and beat the everliving shit out of the high ranking dragons, and assembled a small team of players keyed for the tomb. The inside of Sleeper's Tomb at this point was largely unfinished, from missing items to default human models instead of actual mobs, the whole place was broke dick. No one was supposed to be in there this quick, and so like anyone would expect, the whole zone fell to them, warders and all. The Sleeper spawned as a default human model, and the script for the event terminated abruptly. This script was supposed to change the entire world upon its activation, but it didn't even change the inside of Sleeper's Tomb. Verant promptly shut the zone down, and buffed the warders to a point where you couldn't reasonably expect to kill all four. The third one, in fact, was only killable due to stacking buff issues. The fourth was neigh impossible. Well, until Itzlegend thought about it. He popped in IRC the day before, shot some shit with Furor, they talked about it, and came to the conclusion that it could be done. Conquest went into the tomb the very next day. It took them a long time to set up, and even longer to execute, but eventually they were wearing the fourth warder down to a kill. Just as the raid figured everything was going smoothly, Conquest wiped on the fourth warder, and then the GMs deathtouched it and banned Conquest. The emails in the spoiler above sent the raiding community into an uproar. Tigole posted this news update in response. Noows was active with raiders utterly pissed off at the concept of Verant fucking with the community like that. A banning on this scale and to this degree had never really happened before. Not too long after this, Legacy of Steel went into the giant city of Kael to take on the Avatar of War, an as of yet unkilled raid mob. Their success was talked about a great deal. You see, LoS pulled this kill off by abusing recently changed charm mechanics to use an NPC with hundreds of thousands of hitpoints for their tank instead of an actual player. It wasn't easy to pull off, if you couldn't tell by the corpses, but the kill was regarded as clean by Verant. The Avatar of War would not be killed by another guild until the last day of the Velious expansion, by FoH. It's interesting to see the route they took in WoW in regards to things like this. The argument from the playerbase that certain actions should be deemed illegal and then enforced evenly was ultimately disregarded for Brad McQuaid's stance that the gravitas of the boss being exploited was the key factor. Conquest was later banned in WoW for similar reasons -- it wasn't so much that they were using methods deemed less than shady since so much of the playerbase already had been at that point, but rather that they had been using those methods on what was considered the end game of WoW. Another interesting section of those emails was the part regarding hate, or threat in WoW terms, generation. At that point it was assumed due to some odd NPC behavior that hate decayed until you no longer had any. Itzlegend summed it up best in his reply: it's not who did the most threat, but who did the most threat recently. This misconception by the playerbase was even confirmed by Brad as accurate enough, and from a company that wouldn't even tell you what your stats did this was a pretty huge deal for the theorycrafting going on at the time. It was confirmed years later that this was, in fact, not how hate worked.

Anyhow, I thought I'd share. THANKS FOR READING GUYS. Attached Thumbnails

Comments 4 Total Comments 4

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tldr
Posted 10/05/10 at 11:21 PM by MeCh

I didn't read much of the e-mail exchange, but the blog post itself was very insightful for someone whose entrance into raiding came with Vanilla WoW.
Posted 10/06/10 at 12:18 AM by Almehym

Christ I forgot how bad models used to look. Horse shit what happened to conquest, its like beating a blind man for standing on the red square of carpet.

Also..the level of community people had back then, I dont believe I will ever see it in another MMO, the way they designed their expansions for raiders was so nice, sometimes.
Posted 10/06/10 at 1:11 AM by Skellum

This took a long time to read, but was genuinely interesting. Thanks.
Posted 10/09/10 at 2:18 PM by madsushi Total Trackbacks 0

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