Advice now that Zolo is 'fixed'

[Talamarr]

This "zolo" trick, in terms of "creative use of game mechanics" is far more serious than killing a faction boss mutiple times.

And there lies the problem. While it's fun for us to split hairs and debate a topic like this, Blizzard ultimately has the final word, wether it make sense or not. There's a list of things they feel is an exploit and a list of things they feel are ok, and some if it will leave you scartching your head. On top of that, they have been known to change their mind on things too.

...oh well...

[Stabface]

LOL.

Indeed, I know quite a bit about it as my roommate at the time was suspended for 72 hours. A lot of guilds on a lot of servers got suspended, I heard about 250+ on Akama, and a few others too, more I'm sure that never said anything in public or I didn't hear about.

Jaina has a near-instant respawn because there is an Alliance quest that summons her outside of her tower in Dustwallow (you could either kill in the tower or at the quest location). She has (had, been buffed significantly now) something around 2-300K HP - less than most L60 raid bosses had by far -- and was a 1-2 minute easy kill. Each person was netting ~5-6g per kill. So you're looking at 100g+ an hour? I know he made something like 1500g in just a few days or so before the suspension came. Remember this is pre-TBC, no dailies, no gold inflation. 100g an hour was a LOT of gold then. Easily 3-5x what most people could grind. It would be like a 25-man mob in TBC dropping around 800-1000g or more total a kill and repopping every 2 minutes.

ALSO, this is after they supposedly hot-fixed the gold drop by an order of magnitude. There are screenshots floating around of a 900g drop in a loot box from her, I don't know if this is real orotherwise faked.



I'll tell you what through Fursphere, I'll put my feet where my mouth is. I have 4 alts sitting at L40 right now I intend very shortly to level up -- how long should it take me to level to 50? 55? 60?

[BobGnarly]

Saying Zolo is an exploit is like saying boxing is illegal. GMs were asked and no direct answers were given and Blizzard simply had to nerf the xp from the skeletons if they wanted to stop it; which they did so this is a moot point anyway. It gave no one a competative advantage; in fact, my toons came out of there EXTREMELY undergeared and gimped. My hunter's pet was a joke, didn't have squat for tamable skills. It simply was a lazy alternative to level; like boosting, imo.

You don't think your toons, that are now 5-10 levels higher than they would otherwise be, have a competitive advantage?

Let me ask you this: Let's say, all else being equal (same class, same start equip, same start level, etc) that you use this method to boost your character's level up, while somebody else takes the traditional path of questing/whatever. At then end of this session you have a 5-10 level lead on this other person. Now you duel, who will win? Or put another way, who will reach 70 first? You gain a very clear "competitive advantage" which is not offset by your 10-min-to-the-AH-fixed-gear-deficiency, and the way you are sure this is true is that you spent the time to do it in the first place. IOW, why would you even bother if it didn't net you such an advantage?

Also, your anology to multiboxing is not quite on since GMs have clearly stated MBing is acceptable, and even before this hot-fix they at best just hadn't replied giving the nod to MBing. Post-hotfix, I think it's clear which way they lean.

You're correct though that it's a moot discussion at this point, and as such, I'll bow out and we can agree to disagree. I just can't believe that somebody thinks that a method of reaping 2-3x more xp than any valid approach known is anything other than an exploit, but I guess I'll just remain befuddled.

[puppychow]

Blizzard usually uses common sense when applying the banstick, to wit:

1. did you use any external programs (hacks, cheats, bots, etc) -> instaban. Keyclone will always remain fuzzy here, Blizzard is ok with it so far but some day they could suddenly decide its not ok
2. Did you get a warning not to do what you are doing, and keep doing it anyways
3. is what you are doing for personal monetary gain (gold seller, account ebayer, etc) or for ingame gain only. obviously a very fuzzy line


In general if you don't break the above basic rules you will get away with nothing happening, a warning, or a temporary ban. The Jaina killers got temp bans, not perma banned. Arena win traders for the most part got 72 hour bans, not perma bans. Of course AFTER the temp-ban wave went out and was well publicized, anyone still win trading got perma banned.

Zolo was a "bug" in the game, it has been around now for 4 years, and only in the last month has it become so popular that Blizzard finally had to fix the loophole. Just like the "Athena" leveling trick was around since day 1, but only got fixed after it got too much publicity, even though its retardly difficult to do and few sane people would even bother trying.

By contrast people still boost through SM cath and have for years, and Blizzard is ok with that because it requires some work on the boosters part and only gives a small advantage over questing (~1 hour per level from 20-40 boosting, not that much faster than following Joana or James guide really but much easier for a multiboxer). The zolo trick was 4-10x faster than questing.

[Sanctume]

Let me ask you this: Let's say, all else being equal (same class, same start equip, same start level, etc) that you use this method to boost your character's level up, while somebody else takes the traditional path of questing/whatever. At then end of this session you have a 5-10 level lead on this other person. Now you duel, who will win? Or put another way, who will reach 70 first? You gain a very clear "competitive advantage" which is not offset by your 10-min-to-the-AH-fixed-gear-deficiency, and the way you are sure this is true is that you spent the time to do it in the first place. IOW, why would you even bother if it didn't net you such an advantage?

You guy would probably win! My 38, now 50 paladin was wearing gear from SFK while in Zolo.

Check this one out: http://www.wowarmory.com/character-s...og&n=Sanctitty

[Kyudo]

Fur I respect you, you've been posting for a long time, but saying people should be banned for this or insinuating that it's bannable pah.

If it'd been there when you were levelling you'd probably have used it, as would 95% of the community. I wish I could have, but I dont have a 70 to tank on my reroll realm.

Blizz implemented it.

People realised it'd do things that Blizz never realised.

Blizz didn't like it, nerfed it.

It wasnt around for long.

Wont get people banned.

End of story.

If they do ban people for having levelled using Zolo, police state here we come.

Pls dont get all high and mighty

[Stabface]

You don't think your toons, that are now 5-10 levels higher than they would otherwise be, have a competitive advantage?

Let me ask you this: Let's say, all else being equal (same class, same start equip, same start level, etc) that you use this method to boost your character's level up, while somebody else takes the traditional path of questing/whatever. At then end of this session you have a 5-10 level lead on this other person. Now you duel, who will win? Or put another way, who will reach 70 first? You gain a very clear "competitive advantage" which is not offset by your 10-min-to-the-AH-fixed-gear-deficiency, and the way you are sure this is true is that you spent the time to do it in the first place. IOW, why would you even bother if it didn't net you such an advantage?

I expect that if I have a L70 helping my low level gain XP and someone else does not, I damn well better have a level advantage when it's all said and done.
My first character just to L60 took 4-5 times longer than a character I recently leveled to 70 on a different server. I didn't have any other toons there and I did get some minimal help from some RL friends but mostly it was just questing and grinding my way up. Comparing 1-60 on these toons I'd have easily gone 10x faster, even with the XP changes it's still several times faster. So taking advantage of game mechanics to be a much more efficient leveler (read: knowing where to go and what to do) an exploit as well?

[Stabface]

Arena win traders for the most part got 72 hour bans, not perma bans.

Didn't they get their PvP gear stripped too?

Some people got their gear stripped but did not get a suspension. Some people got both. I didn't hear of people getting suspended but not getting gear taken away, possible but unlikely.
MOST people who exploited the arena/bgs had nothing at all happen to them. Play in the <1500 bracket for a while and look at all the S3 weapon/shoulder teams that are terrible at PVP and you'll get a feel for how many people bought points and personal ratings and were untouched.

[Toned]

This thread is full of fail...If you find a way to lvl fast or make money that is an exploit NEVER post it.

Reason1: It will get nerfed Blizzard has openly stated that some of their employees multi-box, so I bet a lot of them browse these forums daily.
Reason2: The more people that know about it the faster it gets nerfed.
Reason3: The MOST IMPORTANT reason, If you are posting these exploits that makes it look like the multi-boxing community supports exploiting. Not only that but some noob user(s) will go oh it's on dual-boxing.com it has to be legal. So he/she begin exploiting and end up getting banned because of you. Don't get fellow nooblets banned that's not cool and the people that benefited from the exploits don't be suprised if you log into a bunch of lvl 35s in a week lol.

[Zaelar]

Exploiting something doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. Ever buy low sell high? Thats an exploit. Do quests in a planned order to level quickly? Exploit. Save quests to do after you hit 70 for the gold reward? Exploit. Level up and do a group quest by yourself at a higher level than intended?(or play a hunter) Exploit. Play multiple characters at the same time? Exploit. In all of these situations you're exploiting a game mechanic that is intended, but the results of someone finding a way to get the most out of it probably wasn't intended. They knew you could sit at zolo spawning stuff that gave exp, they just didn't think it could be so rewarding.

And it wasn't around before TBC. You needed level 70 to make it work to a degree worth using.