The race to be the first to clear the Mythic difficulty version of World of Warcraft’s new Liberation of Undermine raid is still ongoing, though a group of exploiters have already technically cleared it. Twice.
It all happened last week when the raid launched. A guild by the name of RAoV (Random Acts of Violation) Quality Assurance managed to, somehow, clear the raid’s final boss, Gallywix, before any other boss in the raid while decked out in practically useless grey items. As soon as the feat began appearing on raid-tracking sites like WoWProgress, Raider.IO, and even Blizzard’s own WoW Hall of Fame, players started scratching their heads over how it was done. Blizzard, however, was already on the case.
“We immediately began an investigation into these unusual kills, and we detected a group of new accounts using an exploit to cast an internal spell to kill Mythic raid bosses, including Chrome King Gallywix,” WoW community manager Kaivax said on the game’s forums. “Our security engineers quickly moved to put a stop to the cheat and take action against the accounts involved, and we have cleared the Hall of Fame to await the rightful winner to the RWF.”
It seemed like the problem had been solved and the exploiters punished. Until it happened again on March 10, when a guild appearing to be the same group but using the name “ecnarussAeR ytilauQ VoAR” (RAoV Quality Reassurance spelled backwards) struck a second time. For round two, the group killed every boss using the exploit, and to add a cherry on top, one of the exploiters on the Raider.IO listing for the clear quoted Kaivax’s forum post and issued a response of their own: “QA is really hard.” The second clear was also quickly scrubbed from raid-tracking sites.
As reported by Wowhead, the guild committing these recent exploits shares a name with an older hacking and exploit group that was shut down in 2018 after Blizzard issued them a Cease and Desist letter. It’s currently unclear if this new RAoV is the same one from years ago, or merely a new group coopting the old name. Many of the exploiters used names similar to various WoW YouTubers like Rextroy (who does routinely break Blizzard’s MMORPG in more light-hearted, less nefarious ways), seemingly as a means of throwing investigators off the scent.
Players are already gathering evidence that may point towards a third clear using the exploit, though time will tell if that is indeed the case. In the meantime, Team Liquid and Team Echo are currently in a race to bring down the raid’s final two bosses legitimately, while WoW players who couldn’t care less about the Race to World First are pouring over newly revealed details on how WoW’s in-the-works player-housing system will handle interior decoration.