The World of Warcraft community is currently watching very, very closely as Blizzard investigates what players suspect may be one of the game’s GMs (Blizzard employees who oversee the live game) giving an unfair advantage to a player in the game’s timed Mythic dungeons.
The issue was first discovered by u/Acrobatic_Pianist688 on Reddit, who posted a thread with their findings. They claimed that they were perusing the website Warcraft Logs, which records detailed information about in-game dungeons and raid runs, when they discovered something strange. The dungeon in question is called Nexus Point Xenas, which was being played on Mythic difficulty with a +23 key. If you’re unfamiliar with the game, Mythic dungeons can essentially be cranked up in difficulty using keystones, with the higher-numbered keystones indicating higher difficulty. +23 sounds scary if you don’t know any better, but it’s actually pretty tame; the record for Nexus Point Xenas at the moment is a +25. It’s not outlandish at all to finish a +23 key, nor is it weird to have done it in 29:43. The time limit is 30 minutes, and the current standing record is 24:34.
No, what was weird here was how fast this dungeon ended. WarcraftLogs says that the trash mobs before Lothraxion, the final boss, were defeated at 27:57. That just leaves two minutes to finish him off which is, uh, tight to say the least. Lothraxion himself died…uh, surprisingly quickly with a “Death Touch” ability. Then, seconds later, one final mob needed to complete the key was killed in a very, very odd way:
Now I’m not out there timing Mythic +23 keys, but I’m pretty sure that’s not right.
What players think happened here is that a Blizzard GM—aka a Blizzard employee—insta-killed that last enemy. That ability: “Area Death (TEST)” is not a real ability that players in the game get to use. Its tooltip reads, “Kills all enemies in a 30 yard radius. Cheater.” It also appears to have been cast by a character named Daijosai, who was not a part of the five-person party doing the dungeon. The only thing that makes sense, apart from essentially some sort of impossible hack, is that a GM was in that dungeon somewhere and, seeing them about to whiff the key, finished it off for them.
Where things get even weirder is when we look at who all was in this group. One of the characters, the Evoker named Schizofien, is actually a known streamer named Yara, and the Demon Hunter, Jabuka, is a streamer named Yiesus. Neither of them were streaming at the time, so we have no video evidence, but there have been some accusations floating around that this was done as a favor for a streamer the GM liked. Then, Yiesus did an interview with Yumytv in which he straight up admits that a GM cheated for them. His explanation is that their group was “slumming it” in pick-up groups (basically grinding out keys with at least one stranger in the team, in this case the Druid tank), and were about to fail the key. He explains that they were in a voice chat with their “GM friend,” and he begged the GM to do him a solid so that he didn’t have to grind out the same dungeon again later. And uh…it looks like they did!
“And I go to my GM friend and I’m like bro, please, can you do me a solid, can you please, this thing has like 20 million [health], just one shot? The one time? For the one time? Look, I meant no harm from it. If Blizzard wants to revoke that key or revoke my title, whatever they see fit, I don’t care. Personally, I think it was harmless. I didn’t expect him to like, do it. In hindsight, he shouldn’t have done it. He was just like, doing me a solid, cuz I fucking hate homework keys…I’m like, bro, my tank fucking up one pull, I now have to spend another 30 minutes of my life—like I’ll do it, I don’t care, I’ll do it, but I like, I’m just like f*ck it, yo bro, please, it’ll be funny.”
Yikes!
Blizzard does seem to be aware of what’s going on and is investigating. In the original thread, community manager Kaivax stepped in to let everyone know the devs were taking action:
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byu/Acrobatic_Pianist688 from discussion
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Why is this such a big deal? Well, first off, World of Warcraft GMs should not be hanging out in dungeons, insta-killing bosses for players. But also, Mythic+ is highly competitive. Each “season” features leaderboards via which extremely skilled players can win in-game rewards for excellent play. This is essentially giving actual, competitive players an unfair advantage in something with stakes. There are also further concerns from players: Has this happened before? If so, how often? Is this just a GM doing this as a favor for a friend, or is it possible money was exchanged? Have past leaderboards been impacted?
Players on social media are fired up about this, calling for everything from bans to the firing of the GM. Granted, we still don’t have the full story. Yiesus’ story doesn’t fully add up with what the logs show, as it seems like Lothraxion may have also been manipulated in some way prior to the final mob he’s referring to in his account. We’ll have to wait for Blizzard to come back with whatever investigation results they’re willing to share. It sounds silly, but given the possible levels of scandal going on here, I hope this is as nonsensical as the streamer’s account seems to suggest it is.
