I managed to get some play time in SWTOR the other night, and after cutting the heads off a lot of Gormaks on Voss it was time to turn in some quests. During one of the transition screens the loading time went off the charts, and I decided to lurk the SWTOR forums while the game loaded.
What I found was one of the best moments I have ever had in an online game…
Without warning some guy named CatchDeathWalker from the guild Requiem, posted pictures of himself on the Imperial fleet, flashing a dual white lightsaber. Yes, you read it correctly, white! And the masses went wild! Most of you probably know that the white crystal was around in the BETA, but no one had ever found it in the live game. Suddenly it had been found!
The forum boiled with threads, and more and more players dove head first
into the gigantic search for clues as to where it had been found.
CatchDeathWalker himself wouldn´t say much, except for naming a couple of planets… Hoth and Tattoine.
Players started piecing together what little clues they had, and a few actually managed to come up with a few viable solutions. There seemed to be a secret map on the ground on Hoth, which depicted the landscape on the planet with a tiny Wampa evidently marking the location of something. On this location a Legendary Wampa was supposed to spawn. Perhaps this legendary Wampa dropped the crystal?
Other theories involved some vendors on Tattoine, and a well fed Wamprat. If something was done correctly, it would summon the world boss “Queen of the Sands”.
And with this everything exploded. Players moved en mass to the locations in the wild theories. Hours was spent looking for clues, sending messages to CatchDeathWalker for clues, combing the landscape for something that stood out…
Nothing was found, and CatchDeathWalker only reveled in the glory. Words of hate and mistrust started on the forums and soon the threads were boiling again. What had he to win by being such a egotistical player? His guild´s forums were suddenly infested with outsiders spewing hate and bad vibes. CatchDeathWalker and his guildmates did what they could to defend against the masses, but they never said a word about how the crystal was found.
CatchDeathWalker then tried to calm the masses by saying he would create a guide for obtaining it, and the masses were silent again, waiting, searching…
Suddenly, in a crazy twist of events a Bioware representative postet the following on their official forums:
“AllisonBerryman
We’ve done some investigating and discovered that CatchDeathwalker did not obtain the white crystal through legitimate means in the game. Right now, we’re removing the crystal from his possession, and we’re going to have some more information for you as soon as possible about this situation (but don’t worry, we won’t post any spoilers!).
We apologize for not responding to this thread sooner, but we needed to investigate the issue before commenting.
Moderater commenting on the original thread”
And yet again, the forums boiled! CatchDeathWalker´s name was dragged from the top, and stomped upon in the mud. Players raged for being mislead, and had spent up to 30 hours in the search of nothing.
Some hours later another post from Bioware, this time from Stephen Reid, the community manager himself, shed some more light on the issue:
“Hello everyone, I wanted to clarify a little on our actions here. Here’s the biggest question I wanted to address:
Quote: Originally Posted by Part_Time_Hero in otherwords was it intentional ? or something anyone could have stubled upon which was not how bioware intended it to be found?
Unfortunately the actions of the player in question were intentional and deliberate. As well as the item being removed, further action was taken on this player’s account. This was not an ‘easy exploit’, and not something the average player might ‘stumble upon’.
Beyond that, we will not be commenting further – either on the player’s method of obtaining the crystal or actions on their account.
Right now, it is not possible to legitimately obtain a White Lightsaber Crystal in the game through any gameplay method. In the future, it will be possible to legitimately obtain. When that day comes, we’ll let you know so you can go about obtaining the crystal for your characters.
Again, we apologize for not commenting sooner as our investigation was ongoing.”
And yet again the forums erupted, but this time in confusion. Was it suddenly not available in-game? How could this be?
Time went on, and the search for “the great white” came to a halt… CatchDeathWalker´s name was slammed into the gutter, banned from the game for exploiting and hacking. The great feeling of the hunt was gone, and all that was left was a feeling of emptiness, and the feeling of being fooled.
Then suddenly a user on Youtube, claiming to be CatchDeathWalker, posted a video.
In his video, he tells the story of being in a raid, and actually getting the drop from a world boss named Gargath. After looting the crystal he headed to his ship, but when opening his inventory later on, the crystal was gone. He then sent an in-game ticket to customer support, and a week later they reimbursed him the crystal, and apologized for the inconvenience.
Thats when he started using the crystal in his lightsaber, and became the world first finder. As it stands of right now, it´s Bioware´s word agains CatchDeathWalker´s.
Who tells the truth? I really don´t know.
What I do know, is that this part of The Old Republic´s history will not be forgotten in a long long time. Most of all though, I had a great time treasure hunting, even though nothing turned up. I kind of wish Bioware would implement this kind of treasure hunting, because I have never before seen such a mobilization of players and their minds. Nice job on giving me that, CatchDeathWalker, even if you may have cheated…
-Psion
Sources and links: Thread on Reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/swtor/comments/p13qt/white_saber_crystal_is_on_live/?sort=top
Thread on official SWTOR forums:
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=245809
Youtube video from CatchDeathWalker: