Reflections From The Pond

Dick Fosbury is an american athlete who developed a new high-jump technique in the 1960’s. He discarded the commonly used straddle method of jumping and instead came up with a way of sprinting diagonally towards the bar, turning away and leaping back first over the bar.

Using this technique of his own, called the Fosbury Flop, he won an Olympic gold medal in Mexico City 1968 and set a new Olympic record at 2.24 meters.

It was quite an exploit. 

Exploit? Yes, exploit.

Didn’t you know that exploit can be used to mean something great, something grand, a once in a lifetime achievement?

Sadly, nowadays, in my world at least, an exploit is something bad, a cheat of some kind, something to be avoided.

But how do you know an exploit when you see it?

If I quest around in the world of Azeroth and discover that wow, this huge nasty elite mob can be kited all the way to the fortified town where the town guards will help me kill it, is that an exploit?

Or if I discover that not only roaming elites but also dungeon bosses actually may be stupid enough to let me kite them away from their henchmen adds to be killed leisurely in an adjacent room, is that an exploit?

If I stack up so much dodge that it reaches an amazing 110% and noone can hit me, is that an exploit?

Or if I discover that spellstealing the Bone Armor of the DK’s in Naxx makes me all but invincible and able to kill the raid bosses there all on my own?

If I discover that there is a small path at the edge of the mountain, behind all these pine trees, that will safely take me around the hill on a safe distance from the roaming mobs even if it seems I am walking on thin air doing it, is that an exploit?

And if said path actually leads me past some impenetrable wall into hitherto uncharted territory, is that an exploit? 

Well, in this game, an exploit is what the developers say is an exploit, and they carefully write their EULA to make sure they can ban whomever they like for as long as they like using the flimsy excuse of exploits.

In a way, this saddens me, partly because I think it oppresses the creativity of players and partly because punishing players for finding and using these kind of things makes the world of Azeroth feel less like a real living, breathing, developing world and more like some dry lifeless Potemkin village.

Why did you climb Mount Everest? Because it was there! Why did you swim the Straits of Gibraltar? Because I could! Why did you attempt travel to the North Pole by hot air balloon? Because it was uncharted and unknown and noone had been there before!

And would you not be most surprised if someone came along and told you that no, climbing the north side was considered an exploit because you avoided the icefalls that way, or that donning a wetsuit while swimming was an exploit because that made you too invulnerable to hypothermia. Or that going to the North Pole was not allowed because it was outside the boundaries of the known world.

To me, all of the above exploit examples are players testing the limits, thinking “what if” and then proceeding to test that “if”. They like the game, they enjoy playing it and they are not just sitting around watching boss kill videos or reading up on strategies, they are using their own brains to think or they are out there in the world, poking at things and seeing what happens instead of just following a quest guide telling them where to go.

Clearly, Blizzard has designed their world and the encounters in them and an “intended” way of doing things. But why do you have to do things the way they are “supposed” to be done? Hasn’t anyone at Blizzard ever experienced the joy of actually solving a problem on your own, of finding the solution to the riddle, of reaching the goal your way and not just following in someone else’s footsteps?

I mean, where would we be today if people had settled for doing things the way they’ve always done it? Still in the caves? Still in the trees?

So, should Blizzard just sit idle by and watch as players come up with one clever use of game mechanics after another? No, of course not, just as players learn and get wiser so should the game.

The roaming elites and bosses smarten up and learn from their previous mistakes, run back to their preferred haunts and turn a blind eye to the kiting-happy adventurers, the Naxx DK’s change their buffs, making them safe from pilfering mages, an avalanche blocks the meandering mountain path, rendering it impassable.

But why punish the players who discover these tricks and short cuts? Is it not enough to tweak the game? If some bug or exploitable feature has passed the scrutiny of the developers and the trials of the public test realms and made its way into the world, should we not consider it as “approved by Blizzard” and safe for use? Should Blizzard if not thank these curious players for bringing odds and quirks and alternate ways of doing things to their attention at least not punish them?

Or should the game be stamped ”use at own risk”?

I wonder, if the IOC had been run by Blizzard, had Dick Fosbury been allowed to keep his gold medal? Or would he have been stripped of it for not jumping the way you were supposed to jump?  Would he have been banned for jumping higher than all the rest of the athletes by being cleverer and finding his own way of doing things?

I hope not, but I fear he would have been.

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