With an exploit, the first player in WoW Wrath of the Lich King Classic has already reached level 80 and secured the achievement.
Faster than expected, the first player in Wrath of the Lich King Classic has secured the coveted achievement “World First Level 80”. The streamer Naowh mostly played Retail before, but wanted to compete in the race for the first character to level 80. He accomplished this in less than 9 hours, as can be seen in this stream clip:
However, it is controversial how he achieved his goal. Because he exploited a game mechanic that some consider a bug or exploit. Therefore, it is disputed whether he truly deserves the title of “World First”.
What kind of exploit is this? The exploit fundamentally involves gaining experience points by killing mobs. Naowh found an enemy that causes a continuous stream of zombies to appear. The zombies typically disappear after a few seconds when new ones are summoned. The trick – or exploit – here is that the disappearance of the zombies counts as “killing” if a player attacks them in time and deals damage. Every time a zombie despawns but was attacked beforehand, the full experience points are awarded as if it were a normal enemy.
At the same time, Naowh is in a group with other players, all of whom are dead. As a result, he benefits from a small percentage of bonus experience that is usually awarded for group play. However, since all other characters are dead, only his character receives the bonus.
Why is this an exploit? Normally, summoned creatures from other monsters, called “minions”, do not grant experience points. However, this particular creature seems to be an exception, allowing Naowh to gain experience points every time one of the zombies dies. This leads to a steady stream of zombies and thus a constant flow of experience points that have quickly brought Naowh to the maximum level. This may not have been the most interesting way to level up, but it was certainly efficient.
Is Naowh not afraid of a ban? Naowh seems fully aware that he could face a penalty for exploiting this exploit, such as a temporary account suspension. By the way, Naowh is relatively calm about the whole thing. He considers it quite possible that Blizzard will revoke his achievement. He then remarked:
Either I am the World First Level 80 in WotLK Classic or the World First Level 80 who had his achievement taken away.
More “legal” level 80s followed shortly after
Although Naowh apparently had a solid lead, it didn’t take long for more level 80 characters to pop up on all realms. On some servers, disconnects occurred when someone secured the title. Almost 15 hours after the expansion launched, the first heroes at level 80 arrived without using this exploit.
On realms where players were not racing against each other, it took deep into the night and in some cases even until the morning hours of September 28, 2022. However, the coveted achievement has now been awarded on almost all realms.
What do you think? A clever exploitation of a game mechanic that Blizzard overlooked? Or clear “cheating” that should be punished immediately?
