Thoughts on the recently banned players?

[masterofcatastrophe]

If you're not aware, when test realm opened up for lemuria, ”The Atmoplex”, a renowned wizard spoiling account for numerous years now, exposed the game assets (as usual) and eventually was able to reach the final battle quickly through an exploit. I'm not gonna spoil the final battle for anyone here, but if you havent seen it yet, I'll just say it's one of the most creative things ever done in wiz, so side note, props to the dev team for the effort put into it.
What I stated now actually will play a role in the argument to come.

The Atmoplex could not do this battle alone and thus asked 5 folks hes supposedly friends with to teleport to him to assist him ”with a battle”.

As soon as the battle was completed, the Atmoplex was banned as well as 3 of the other players. From what I understand, the other players were questing so they couldnt port in anyways (probably for their own good after what happened with the others!



This has caused tension on social media this week with ratbeard (senior dev) suggesting the players knew full well what they were up to and thus were ”ethically challenged”, therefore deserved the ban.
The other side of the aisle, the players, have condemned KI for the bans and even condemned ratbeard's comments.



Now the Atmoplex knew full well he may get banned and didnt mind it, but he did feel a sense of guilt regarding his friends' bans and thus has been rallying the community to protest the ban against the 3 other ”innocent” players.

The Atmoplex has released a video yesterday detailing the events the took place and calling for a reversal to the 3 player bans.

MODERATOR'S NOTE: Video contains spoiler information regarding Lemuria.



Player/Atmoplex arguments:

• This is Test Realm, exploits are expected for bug reporting purposes
  
  
• An exploit in empyrea exposing the Aethyr Titan was performed 3 years ago by YouTube personalities KI favored at the time without repercussions
  
  
• The 3 players are innocent because they simply ported to ”assist a friend”, implying they had no clue they are porting to an exploited instance. The assumption here is that had the players known, they wouldnt have ported.
• The Atmoplex had no intent to spoil the battle, however with the bans, the battle became known as people started rallying to unban the players and thus acting as a double edged sword against KI.
• There are current exploits even in live realm that KI has yet to fix
  

KI argument: Regardless being a test realm, an exploit was used, breaking the ToS, and deserve a ban

Players supportive of the punishments argue:

• If the Atmoplex was exploiting in test realm for ”bug reporting purposes”, then how come he had NOT reported the exploit, as evident in his video?
  
  
• Just because an exploit 3 years ago had no consequences, this doesnt mean you can exploit!
  
  
• The devs worked super hard on this battle, and exposing it within 2 hours of test realm diminishes the player reactions they were looking forward to once everyone had ideally completed test realm at a steady pace (within approximately 10 hours of lemuria questing that is based on awesomethesauce stream length). Therefore, the bans are justified.

[Bailey Jade]

I was wondering when someone was going to post this story.

Its really a touchy subject and I am sure your going to see a divide in peoples opinion. I am sure in what I am going to say, there are going to be those who will disagree with me.

The way I see it, Atmoplex is willing to take full consequence of his own actions, which I think is pretty cool. However, those who ported to him, not knowing his actions is a different story. Perhaps, a lighter punishment should do the trick for both parties. At this point they have been without their beloved game and give them a written warning, but let them have their accounts back. KI can see the chat log of these players and in fact if Atmoplex did informed them of this glictch, then the punishment should be the same as his, BUT, if there is nothing being said like he had mention in his post. then they should not pay the full price, being that they were totally unaware of the situation.

We all know how strict KI is about exploits and even in the ToA. I still believe that a notice should be giving on the opening page to warn players that they are working on correcting the situation and it is advise players should not use the exploit. Anyone caught doing the exploit will be banned. Think about the great glowing mushroom fiasco.

Wizard101: Players banned for exploit? - Wizard101 Forum and Wizard101 Fansite (wizard101central.com)
I have been banned. - Wizard101 Forum and Wizard101 Fansite (wizard101central.com)
Solution To The Recent Banning Spree - Wizard101 Forum and Wizard101 Fansite (wizard101central.com)


I like to add more thoughts here.

Now, as far as I know, ,this all took place on test realm. Anything that you do in test will not go to live, so there is really no harm in it. So should the punishment be, not allowing those involved in test realm, specially if those who knew about the exploit.

[masterofcatastrophe]

I was wondering when someone was going to post this story.

Its really a touchy subject and I am sure your going to see a divide in peoples opinion. I am sure in what I am going to say, there are going to be those who will disagree with me.

Agree with you Bailey, this is why I posted both sides of the aisle this time as opposed to a player driven biased post as there is merit to the arguments on both sides.

[Clover]

I have no experience in bug fixing, patching exploits, or anything of the sort, but it is my opinion that the bans are unjustified. Perhaps not for Atmoplex, but at the very least for the others who are (claiming to be) innocent and could argue that they have deniability.

If the purpose of Test Realm is not TO TEST, then what is it really for? A showcase of content? How many bugs have we seen over the years that were found on Test, reported to KI, then STILL made it to live? If Atmoplex didn't find the exploit, somebody else would have. That's how some communities and players are, they WILL find the holes to make things easier. Every. Single. Time. I do agree that Atmoplex should have reported the exploit, not that I have much faith that KI would have fixed it.

The above said, I abhor Ratbeard's comments. You are a senior developer. A public figure, if you will. You CANNOT say these things on social media, even if that is what you truly think. It's disgusting and those who are upset/outraged, in my opinion, are completely justfied in doing so. I expect better from the people that handle any game. Whether or not these people were "ethically challenged", it's just plain wrong.

jm2c. It's murky water and a grey area at best, this is just my opinion.

[Kingurz]

1. The teleport players have already received a lighter sentence (3 month suspension vice permaban).

2. Ratbeard has a point that using an already discovered exploit over and over (even if it test realm), is NOT the spirit of test realm, especially if you are literally Twitter posting the "success" of beating Lemuria hours after it was opened on Test Realm (instead of calling the bug to developers attention). The players that teleported in may have never used the exploit themselves, but do we know how long others have known about this exploit and have not reported it, continuously used it for an advantage to themselves with no clear intention to improve/fix the game????

3. I think my #2 statement is what makes this specific instance different, but in general, I'm personally against bans from cheats, exploits, bugs being used in test realm (since it is critical to you know actually find them). Third party software/program cheats is a separate issue and should remain bannable even in test realm.

4. Also, I have suspicions of the "innocence" of the players that teleported in. As a 140 player, you should question why someone needs help at the final boss of the world mere hours after test realm opened. Based on the "evidence video" it seems everyone in the server knew they were teleporting into the final fight (it was being livestreamed), even if they they didn't know it was accomplished from an exploit or even how to do the exploit themselves. There is some responsibility by the teleporters themselves to ask some question before jumping off a bridge because all their friends are doing it, but IMO....a perm ban is extremely harsh for anyone other than the player that ACTUALLY used the exploit.

5. If not spoiling the final fight of Lemuria was such a big deal for KI, why didn't they put up a spoiler wall like every test realm before?

[Bailey Jade]

Agree with you Bailey, this is why I posted both sides of the aisle this time as opposed to a player driven biased post as there is merit to the arguments on both sides.

I see that, and I like how you did that.

I have always notice that you can port in the first arch dungeons while some of the dungeons in the higher worlds you can not do this as much. The first arch I see no issues being that how high of a level we can get. However, to port into the abandon backyard, that should be fixed, but no one should be banned for it.

The issue is not really porting to someone, but how one player got to the final dungeon. Skipping over the entire content of the new world, just to get to that last battle. I think that KI needs to go through all the dungeons and fix them so they are all the same. Not some one way and others another way.

[Minecraft Wizard]

I'm no longer reporting bugs because of this. I'm scared to get banned.

[masterofcatastrophe]

I'm no longer reporting bugs because of this because I'm scared to get banned.

@Sparck
@EricStormbringer

This is the adverse effects of bans...
I hope you reconsider ToS sanctions because players are no longer confident they should be reporting bugs to secure their accounts

- - - Updated - - -

5. If not spoiling the final fight of Lemuria was such a big deal for KI, why didn't they put up a spoiler wall like every test realm before?

I remember Mattnetic in sauce's stream said the reason but I forgot why

[MeganFrostFlame]

I think the players that ported into the instance deserved a lighter punishment or none at all. Everything you do in test realm stays in test realm and doesn't go to live realm so there wasn't really any harm done here except exposing an exploit for the devs to fix, even if it seems like they've known about this exploit for years to some extent.

[RookieRecurve]

There is definitely a lot to unpack here. I cannot reasonably say whether or not the bans (now reduced) were justified. What I can say is that the community is sensitive to bans as many have felt that they were dealt an unfair ban/mute, with little recourse to plead their case. Wizard101 has always been know for it's strong sense of community, and to a lesser degree, a sense of frustration that the business doesn't listen to the community in the way that the community expects. They have lost a lot of players over the years due to these frustrations. Naturally, they have the right to run the company as they see fit, but I think they are not listening carefully enough a lot of the time.