03 February – Gaming Guild suspended for 72 Hours. All the players involved in the Lich King 25 world first kill of Ensidia had their account suspended for 72 hours; Gamemasters also removed the achievements and loot acquired during the raid.
Blizzard charged the group with “Exploitation – Abuse of in-game mechanics or glitches with intent to exploit or cheat in World of Warcraft” through the use of Saronite Bombs throughout the fight. Apparently the siege damage caused by the bombs bugged the encounter's mechanics and respawned the platform destroyed by the Lich King during the encounter, allowing gamers extra room to move and engage the enemy.
Although this is not hacking into code, apparently creative gamers who see an opportunity to overwhelm a software weakness are not tolerated by the owners.
The Lich King was added to the game servers at roughly 3pm EST on Tuesday (3/2/10). The same day, this super guild (gamers banded in a group) killed him for a world first. Then Blizzard suspended the guild and removed the achievements (for world first bragging) as part of the punishment. Whether or not the punishment fits the crime is probably pointless. However, Ensidia is a "professional" guild where members are sponsored to play (they are monetarily compensated for the time they put into the game). It’s quite likely that some of the core officers make a living from this compensation rather than a normal job.
Blizzard has been tough on exploits in the past, but this is the first time that they have punished this guild (Ensidia rarely has been involved with exploits for fear of this kind of reprisal).
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Warcraft
With over 12 million monthly subscriptions, World of Warcraft is currently the world's most-subscribed Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game and holds the Guinness World Record for the most popular MMORPG by subscribers. In April 2008, World of Warcraft was estimated to hold 62 percent of the massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) subscription market.
Monthly subscriptions for one player runs $12 to $15 (depending on options), so an average at $13.50 would gross $162,000,000/month, $1,944,000,000. That's just subscriptions, not original purchase or upgrades to new scenarios (like the Lich King at around $50 each subscriber).
World of Warcraft was first announced by Blizzard at the ECTS trade show in September 2001. Development of the game took roughly 4–5 years, and included extensive testing. The 3-D graphics in WoW use elements of the proprietary graphics engine originally used in Warcraft III. The game was designed to be an open environment where players are allowed to do what they please. Quests are optional and were designed to help guide players, allow character development, and to spread characters across different zones to try to avoid what developers called 'player collision'. The game interface allows players to customize appearance and controls, and to install add-ons and other modifications.
World of Warcraft runs natively on both Macintosh and Windows platforms. Boxed copies of the game use a hybrid CD to install the game, eliminating the need for separate Mac and Windows retail products. The game allows all users to play together, regardless of their operating system. Although there is no official version for any other platform, support for World of Warcraft is present in Windows API implementations Wine and Cedega, allowing the game to be played under Linux and FreeBSD.
With all this popularity, a live actor movie is planned. http://www.wow.com/2010/01/19/what-we-know-about-the-warcraft-movie/
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