Project Lore

I first heard about the whole Karatechop case early this week.  I even ventured over to the forum thread that followed the "investigation," only to be dismayed at how unreadable the blues made it via deletions.  Due to the confusion, conjectures, and chaos surrounding the topic at the time I chuckled at the situation and decided to move on.  It wasn't until yesterday that a more reputable collection of information was gathered by WoWInsider's Alex Zeibart. To summarize Alex's investigation, Karatechop appeared on the radar because of the way the toon exploded onto the raiding scene.  His guild and his character were previously a normal raiding guild, dressed in mostly Naxxramas loot.  All of a sudden they began dominating Ulduar's hard modes left and right, while scoring the achievements to boot.  A quick trip to Karatechop's Achievements list and it became obvious that something was up.  I don't care how overpowered you are, no one does ~354,000,000 damage in a single blow.  Since the report went live other team members have followed up with a full interview and confirmation of Karatechop's account closure. The topic at hand has taken the greater WoW community by storm.  I'll admit, I would almost certainly use the item.  If I thought there was a remote possibility that I wouldn't get banned, I'd definitely go dominate everything.  But I am a realist, I know that if I didn't report the error Solidsamm would get hit with the banhammer.  My character is too precious to me, so I honestly believe I would have tried it out, reported it to a GM, and then abused it while I awaited a response.  It could elicit a ban anyways, but hopefully it'd be a temporary one. In my opinion Karatechop was in the wrong and deserved what he got.  Friends and guildies who participated in the raids also deserve some sort of punishment, perhaps an Achievement reset and a temp ban, since they also exploited the game.  To me, the punishments and who deserves what is a secondary issue. How did Karatechop get Martin Fury - a developer item - in the first place?  (In the interview he claims it came from Blizzard via an in-game mail as part of an account restoration to a friend's hacked account) Blizzard needs to get their PR to tell us exactly what happened, and what has been done.  The community knows that mistakes happen.  Missed keys, a rogue keystroke, a ferret running across the keyboard, these are all common typing blunders.  The bottom line is that we need to be reassured that there wasn't any foul play.  The kind of stuff that we have heard about in EVE and Darkfall.  We want to know that Blizzard is on top of this, instead of swinging the hammer at a pinata while blindfolded and dizzy.  I doubt it'll happen though, and that is what I hate most about Blizzard. I told you I couldn't hold back completely, what about you?  As the saying goes, "Power corrupts and ultimate power corrupts ultimately."  Do you think that Karatechop deserves the permanent ban he has been handed or should they have come up with some other solution?  What are the odds that Blizzard will make anything on the topic public?

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