Slashdot Mirror
Banned From WoW For WINE & Programmable Keyboard
An anonymous reader writes "Player gets banned for playing World of Warcraft under WINE and using a Logitech Gaming keyboard. "I am an experienced network engineer for an ISP and I am often running World of Warcraft on Linux through the use of WINE..."" Although the e-mails exchanged are unclear
my guess is that the programmable keyboard was more the problem then WINE. Not that you'd ever know that given that Blizzard communicates with their users seemingly almost exclusively with form letters.
Slashdot profile
:)
The keyboard he is using sounds quite cool though
I shall have to look into getting one.
liqbase
I just got out of a pink page of death ban myself here at Slashdot. Somehow they mistook my frequent reloading of pages and multiple-thread bouncing as some sort of bot or malicious bandwidth-stealing script. It was neither.
So I sit out a couple days trying to get the techs behind banned@slashdot.org to notice my emails. Finally, after a long negotiation with these guys and promising that I will turn off all my Firefox extensions when accessing the site, I get let back on.
And this is what I come back to. A story about someone getting banned.
In any situation which one party has vastly superior authority and little chance of penalized. Don't expect them to act in a reasonable manner.
I guess it depends upon your definition of reasonable.
In this case they actively pissed off a customer, terminating the account of a paying subscriber, because they felt that his actions were detrimental to the rest of the community. His actions had nothing to do with Linux, but rather were the result of what appeared to be automated activity (which could have been that a user saw him there stat padding for hours, complained, and then an admin trying conversing with him to find the character just mechanically repeating the same steps). Reading his account, it sounds like he configured a variety of complex activities as macros on his keyboard, and just sat there repeating them ad nauseam for hours while he did other things (fun!), doing this largely automated activity for his own gain. Given that MMMORPGs are somewhat of a zero sum affair, this means that it's at the cost of other players.
I'm actually amazed that the company acted so responsibly. It would have been easy to just backtrack and forgive and forget, but they forged ahead, making an enemy and losing a customer, to try to maintain the "rules of the land". Good for them.
I should also say that the individual in question might want to learn why "the right to silence" can be an important trait. He completely indicted himself in his emails ("so I was sitting her occasionally triggering macros while I watched TV...").
A GM will specifically identify himself/herself as a GM -- not just any random player name. This guy was botting, and I for one cheer his being nuked. He cheated.
The game has has a built-in macro system that does not permit you to do multiple battle actions at once (you can swap multiple items, and perform multiples of other non-combat actions) because casting multiple spells/performing multiple combat skills all with the press of a single button is botting. This guy bypassed the in-game restricions with a hardware/software combination. The rules exists for a reason, and he broke them.
Funny thing is that if he had just been paying attention to the window he would have been fine.
And your comment about English is just flamebait (not that the rest is not).
So you're convinced that every person who accidentally triggers a TOS violation should be permanently banned from a service like WoW, even when:
1. The service claims in forum posts that what he's doing is okay.
2. The user offers to correct the problem, and even accept a punishment.
3. The service has a policy that is supposed to require multiple violations to obtain a ban.
4. The user has no prior history of TOS violations.
5. The user has spent considerable money on the product.
If you think that all that combines to make a "responsible decision" on the part of Blizzard, then allow me to be the first to point out that you're a heartless tyrant, and I really do hope this happens to you. Perhaps you'll see things different from the other side.
I for one, hopes he gets a good lawyer. Given that this is far from the first time I've heard these complaints, a class action suit against Blizzard may just be what's needed to shake things up.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
It just is a matter of degree. In your view you were not botting as you define it to a scope which your event does not qualify.
Look, if your not paying attention to the game go do something else. If it is that boring to do what you were doing then why bother? If it is for improvment within the game should you not focus your attention on it.
Unattended play, botting, macroing. Call it whatever you will.
If you want a game which will allow you to bot, supposedly only attended, then go play Asheron's Call. Turbine themselves approved of combat automation to the horror of the entire industry.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
EULA is now an enforcerable contract with a fanatical following on Slashdot. Who'd a thunk it?
I wonder if that will carry over to the next thread about the next change in Microsoft's license terms.
Has anyone ever established that an EULA is a valid contract in any state?
Edith Keeler Must Die
According to the HTTP specs your allowed to make two requests at a time to a particular server. Fasterfox ignores this, so don't be suprised it you get treated as a little abusive bot -- your acting like one.