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I have a new favorite MMO player: a diabolical World of Warcraft Shadow Priest who trapped players inside chimneys until they got an official warning from Blizzard.
Last week, Natlikesbatslivrary uploaded a video to TikTok showing a handful of World of Warcraft players attempting to jump out of a piece of geometry they'd all become stuck in. That geometry? The chimney on top of a house. And the reason? A nearby Priest, suspiciously named 'Chimneytime'.
The Tiktok explains that Chimneytime was ambushing players arriving in the area via a popular flight path. Using the Priest class' Mind Control spell, they could take control of those players for eight seconds, using that sliver of time to jump onto a roof and down a nearby chimney. Once the spell wore off, however, those same players wouldn't be able to jump high enough to get out of the hole they were stuck down.
Eventually, Chimneytime's karma caught up to him, and he was killed by another player. Sadly for those stuck down the chimney, however, their captor's demise didn't give them any extra jumping power, so they were still unable to get free. Of course, anyone stuck could simply Hearthstone out, but that's an easy option that still leaves you with the faff of getting back to wherever it was you were going.
Unfortunately for Chimneytime, karma was not yet done with them. Another player, professing to be one of their guildmates, posted what they claim to be a warning from Blizzard. That note reads that "we've received several reports [of] you using 'clever use of gameplay mechanics' to trap other players in chimneys'."
Blizzard says it's not going to take action this time, but warns Chimneytime that "we do not stand for ruining other players' experiences." The message also reads, "I would like to prevent this from becoming a common thing you do to other players before it gets out of hand, which, based on your character name, I have concerns about. Please note, if you come back onto our radar for this kind of behavior, chimney-related or not, we will take harsher actions."
Chimneytime, however, doesn't seem too concerned about that apparent threat. A link to their Tiktok shows both a bio that reads, "I find absurd game-breaking exploits to terrorize other players" and a video captioned "chimney is over - it's boat time now," which appears to show a similar tactic being used to trap players in some rigging near The Merchant Coast.
The community response is also pretty interesting. Most players seem to think this is little more than some harmless fun, and that Blizzard should leave Chimneytime alone - after all, any victims can simply Hearth to safety, and this kind of emergent behavior is what made World of Warcraft so popular in the first place. For a few others, however, the reaction is simply shock that anyone might have managed to get any kind of moderation response actually written by a human being.
In case you were wondering, my previous MMO hero was the Runescape player who poured hot coffee on his butthole after losing a 1-in-10000 bet.
