BIG EDIT: I found a few short videos that give walkthrough guides on what I'm trying to explain.

After a rather serious... Blow out with a friend over the ethics of something in World of Warcraft, I've been thinking about the concept of when ethics should give way to practicality or vica versa.

For those of you who play WoW and know what I'm talking about, this concerns the spawn point of the rare mob Jadefang in Deepholm and how to reach it. If you're aware of this mob and the problems with getting to it and the exploitative ways of getting around relying on the daily quest to reach Jadefang, skip to below the line of === and read the rest. Otherwise; read on.

For those of you who don't know, there is a rare monster that appears once every 12 or so hours at one very specific place. For one class, it is a prized trophy pet and for everyone else, he offers a miniature companion version of himself to take home with you, and only one person each time can get one or the other of these two rewards on a first come, first serve basis. However, this rare monster is isolated by itself in a short dead end tunnel that cannot be walked, jumped or flown into high above the ground in a winding series of tunnels. The only way to 'legitimately' get up there is by being propelled up there by an explosion from a specific quest. However, this quest is not always available for you to pick up, and in my case this quest has not been present for the last 10 days in a row. The rules of WoW and more morally rigorous players state that if Jadefang is up but the quest is not available, then you just have to sit there and sulk and accept the fact that you can't have what you want.

Here's a video of showing how to do this the only legitimate way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhuq1I4YjiU

However, more than a large handful of people were unwilling to accept this have sought alternative ways of getting it. So far, two ways have emerged that are somewhat exploitative in reaching Jadenfang's ledge. The first is making use of a racial trait of the Night elf race. While since you are 'inside' a cave system, you are not allowed to use flying mounts, if a Night Elf dies inside this cave, they must run back to their corpse from the nearest graveyard as all other races do. However, Night Elves are not ghosts at this point, but Whisps, which allows them to fly, including flying in 'indoor' areas. Meaning that they can die at the base of the ledge and then resurrect on top of the ledge.

A video showing the night elf wisp exploit (with the monster up) can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlWzLq-c_UQ

For non Night Elves though, there is only one other solution. By sitting at the front of the cave on your flying mount, you carefully turn off your modem or pull your Ethernet cable out, thereby disconnecting you. However, the game itself will take approximately 6 seconds to kick you out of the game once you pull the cable out and since you have no connection to the game's servers, you are unaffected by anything and you cannot interract with anything, although you do have free movement for the remainder of the time you are in game for. Using these precious few seconds you have, one flies straight into the cave, not being forced to dismount because they are disconnected and then at just the right moment, they turn their modem back on or reconnect their Ethernet cable and quickly land on the ledge and spam abilities to force the server to recognize they are still there, and once they have reestablished a connection, they are on top of the ledge and are free to kill this rare monster if it is there.

Here is a video showing the disconnection exploit method of getting into this cave: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHEIG-6M76U

=============================

This gives rise to the philosophical debate I find myself in now. Should you always do things properly, even when circumstances dictate that you should seek a more practical, if less ethical or Terms of Service friendly method of dealing with a problem? Please, let's keep this out of real life. I'm not talking about interpretation of the law or criminal acts, I mean purely in fiction such as video games or maybe in day to day situations that do not involve the law.

I personally am a very utilitarian person. I am all for following the rules of the game if they make sense and if they are fair given the circumstances. I am not however, someone who will 'just suck it up and deal with it' when the rules of a game dictate I simply accept poor, flimsy or annoyingly designed mechanics or situations in a game. When confronted with a situation like that, I will attempt to find an alternate way to solve the problem, ethics or rules be damned.

I'm all for discussing this, however if you're going to be like my 'friend' and say things like: "IF I KNEW WHO YOUR CHARACTER WAS I WOULD REPORT YOU MYSELF. HOW DARE YOU RUIN THE GAME FOR ME, YOU SICK TWISTED FUCKWIT" then please keep it to yourself. Your opinion will not be the only one here and the attitude of "I am the entire universe and so my way of thinking is divine edict and all who do not conform are morally bankrupt trashborn and should all be executed!" is not something I'm going to put up with.

With that said, leave your responses here and discuss. :)