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Linux Users Banned From World of Warcraft?
Turmoyl writes "Many Cedega (formerly WINEX) users claim to have been mistakenly caught up in a security sweep of the U.S. game servers performed by Blizzard's World of Warcraft Game Master (GM) staff. Affected users received the same strongly-worded 'Notice of Account Closure' email messages that true bot users did, in which they were accused of the 'Use of Third Party Automation Software.' While diagnosis of this event continues early speculation points to Blizzard's use of the Warden anti-cheating spyware application that is bundled with World of Warcraft, and the odd things that may have been produced by it when it was run via Cedega. Emails to World of Warcraft's Account Administration staff continue to go unanswered while the list of affected people continues to grow."
Well, I've talked with someone who does a lot of this sort of stuff and he explained to me that long ago when Blizzard first debuted WoW, it was an instant success. And there were many people that had developed scripts (duping, afk farming, etc) for games like Diablo that wanted to to do the same thing for WoW.
... after all, you don't want a GM messaging your bot as he sits idle doing his repetitive task, do you?
The art of doing this successfully lies in knowing what addresses of memory that your client application is using to store data. You change these memory addresses & your client's state is altered. But there's some things you can't change because they're located on the server. Realistically, the client has to do some of the computation and storing itself (and with WoW being some huge multi-gigabyte client, there's a lot to investigate). Obvious, you want to reduce network traffic and give your servers a break so you design this to have minimal communication.
The problem then becomes that users will write applications to modify the data & memory that their client applications are using. What results is signals sent back to the server which aren't true and give that user an advantage. Solution? Enter Warden to check these memory spaces and files for any potentially unauthorized changes (checksums, whatever method they want to use or seeing which threads are accessing that memory). And how do you protect Warden from it itself being hacked? You design it kind of like a root kit--that is the user shouldn't be able to alter or disable Warden & they lose the domain over that tiny bit of functionality of their hard drive.
My guess is that before, they were checking if there were any known scripting or programs that were unauthorized and changing this data. And they were banning those and only those accounts. I fear that it now does a verification on the memory space, files & system registry to ensure that it is not being molested by another application or tweaked at all. I am guessing that they have changed the ban notice to ban whenever this verification stage fails and that Cedegra does not emulate Windows to the point of their verification satisfaction or to the point of Warden being able to query all other running applications. Worse yet, I fear they may look to integrate this with the WGA with Windows & some other means with Macs--though that is pure speculation on my part.
The irony of it all? The fact that a talented programmer with burp or some other styled network tool and use linux on a routing box to intercept packets and change them to give him position hacks. Unfortunately, if you use this too much, I believe that random server side verification checks will eventually catch up with you but I can't say I've ever implemented this or been caught using it.
Which brings me to one last point I'd like to make on this topic. I think that this cat n' mouse game of Blizzard versus the cheaters is good for AI. The last possible domain we have is people writing applications that extract data from video memory and use computer vision algorithms to write if-then-case bots. Yes, bots are bad but this is driving people to a corner where they essentially strive to pass the Turing Test
My work here is dung.
I do hope Blizzard will fix these users accounts. I don't currently play WoW on OSS platforms, but I plan on doing so in the future. It would be even better if they would make a Linux version of the game. Then again, I'd probably get caught "cheating" since I'd run it on BSD.
I've seen this happen with PunkBuster checks in some games when you try to run then in another OS as well.
MidnightBSD: The BSD for Everyone
Blizzard is about as customer-friendly as Sony.
These guys really deserve being knocked down a notch or two. Unfortunately, with WoW being as popular as it is, there's not much chance of that happening for a few years yet.
I run WoW in Linux, I only have one box for Windows and I don't want to be sitting at my windows laptop when I have a nice dual head display setup on my workstation with a better video card. If they ban me then so be it, there's money back per month for me. Usually the Blizzard guys are pretty good, so a bit disappointed if this is the path they are wanting to go.
No, but you can get bearded GNOME freaks...
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
I was playing last night with Cedega and was having no problems at all. If its a problem it's probably with very very new cedega software or very very old Cedega software.
..... Then the terrorists win.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
You people have NOTHING to whine about. nada. zero. zip.
You are using it on a non-supported platform. Deal with it.
Blizzard has no responsibility to take how Cedega does things
into account. You can whine all you want about it not being fair,
or how you have some 'right' to play it on your Linux enabled
toaster, but you don't.
Blizzard makes the game for Windows. If you get it to work in
Linux, power to you. But if it stops working, tough luck, it
was never intended to work anyway. You may as well complain to
Nintendo about the quality of Snes9x.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
The first 59 levels were great. 60+ was a whole different game.
Warden was just the last reason I needed to leave the game. A poorly designed client/server infrastructure is no excuse for Blizz snooping outside it's own client's memory space.
>doing his repetitive task
I choose not to play games that hinge on this so much. Aside from the monthly fees, something like Oblivion's fast travel (or even console commands when the gates got boring) is the sign of a better game to me, instead of one which rewards behavior that can be currently emulated by a computer. It's not a job, it's a game!
There's a Wine package for Ubuntu that fixes a couple of bugs associated with WoW. The howto can be found on the excellent Ubuntu wiki at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WorldofWarcraft and details the instructions. It's pretty much a download the package and double click it, then run 'wine WoW.exe -opengl'. This ban rumor pops up periodically but I have yet to encounter any problems.
New information in the thread on the TransGaming forums linked in the original article shows that European Cedega users that play on European WoW servers are affected as well.
If cheating were to go on unabated, the WoW community would shift away to something else. They are trying to tend to their interests and I can't blame them.
What should have happened? Well, for one, someone from the Cedega project who also uses WoW (chances are pretty good) should get into communication with the Blizzard people in order to work out any issues. Allowing people to use Linux while playing WoW is certainly in Blizzard's interest and since Cedega is doing the bulk of the work, I can't imagine why Blizzard wouldn't at least come to the table to work it out. Cutting users off is likely the side-effect of an automated process not seeing what it expects to see and not some assault on Linux users.
Unfortunately, you forgot to mention Slashdot anywhere in your post. And pocket protectors. Oh, and computers.
For anyone that thinks Cedega's (or WINE, for that matter...) anything other than a good short-term solution to
Linux gaming, all I need do is point them to this as a good example of why it's not so hot of an idea. And it's
perfectly within Blizzard's rights to do this action- to the point of ignoring any contact with regards to this
whole affair. Doesn't make it good for PR or customer relations, mind- but it's completely within their rights
to do so. After all, they only support Windows on this title and don't have plans to provide support to other
OS platforms. Again, which is their right.
Native ports wouldn't have as many of these issues.
As for the whole affair... It's Blizzard. They've apparently got a singular attitude about Linux users that
started with the period around Starcraft forward. I wouldn't buy any title from them right now and for some
while to come- you just don't treat customers or potential customers the way they seem wont to do.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Why did this get modded "Troll"? He has a point. If I had mod points I would upmod this...
"Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live." - Mark Twain, "Taming the Bicycle"
I use linux, and I was not banned. Could we calm the knee-jerk reactions just a bit?
Once they get their heads around the next expansion why not start on a real Linux port? Linux is definitely growing in popularity. Blizzard could do well in mindshare alone by creating - even if it is just an authorized version to play through Cedega - a real Linux version, rather than having people run through a relatively unauthorized emulation system which can cause quirks with their weird anti-bot stuff.
Drysc (Blizzard poster) confirmed that "[a]n operating system would not produce a false positive[...]." So, no. This does not appear to be targetting linux/alternate OSes.
You have NOTHING to whine about. nada. zero. zip. People modded him as a troll. Deal with it. We have no responsibility to take how you read things into account. You can whine all you want about it not being fair, or how you have some 'right' to have everyone else read, but you don't. Slashdot moderators make moderations for slashdot readers. If you get it to read it, power to you. But if it stops being read, tough luck, it was never intended to be read anyway. You may as well complain to Nintendo about the quality of Snes9x.
WoW sucks anyway.
Windows users got banned. Linux users got banned. Not all Windows users got banned. Not all Linux users got banned. Could it be that the banned Linux users where doing somthing byond just using Linux?
Naw, cant be.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Why did this get modded "Troll"? He has a point. If I had mod points I would upmod this...
If he wanted be modded +5 Informative, he would have written, "M$ teh suck."
I used to play WoW via Cedega, before I just decided I didn't have enough time for games entirely, and I think this is too bad. If they had stopped me from using Cedega, it would have been my subscription.
Actually, using it via Cedega worked really well once you got it working. I can't say it was "better than Windows," because I've never run Windows on that hardware (at least, not as the bare-metal OS, only in VMs), but it was a lot better than I imagined it would be when I started messing around with it.
I think there are quite a few people who only use Cedega because of WoW, so I expect that the Cedega people will fix stuff pretty quickly, if the Blizzard folks will even tell them what the problem is and what Cedega is doing that Warden doesn't like.
I think it's going to get to the point where "anti-cheats" and "copy protection" are the major things tying games to the Windows platform, because they're fundamentally hard (if not impossible) to implement on a Free OS, because the user -- by design -- can basically modify whatever they want, run debuggers, memory editors, etc.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Well since began my wow adventure some 3/4 months ago its been a fun ride, with bumps along the way. (See last patch day version up date screws cedega over and I'm out of my 15.00 a month experiance for 4 days) And now this... does it ever fucking end? If my account becomes banned by the morons at blizzard I'm personally going to fly to there offices and leave flaming bags of fecal matter for them. They have all the fixing for a damned fine linux client for this game, they just refuse to take the effort and put out the client, the entire opengl engine (while lacking some optimization) works perfectly. This whole thing makes me wanna install windows *shudder* just so I don't have to worry about my account getting shit tanked because blizzard doesnt know how to secure its own code. Things like this are going to drive me away from WoW all togeather in the long run I'm sure. =|
It will probably improve their lives now that they're banned. They should thank Blizzard for giving them their lives back.
Terrible karma and aiming lower, which in this environment of one-sided reason, is higher.
seriously, who cares?
number of people who play Wow =small
number of people who use linux = small
number of people who use linux and play wow even smaller
number of people who use linux TO PLAY wow = tiny
number of people who use linux TO PLAY wow with cedega = absolutely tiny
I doubt blizzard cares. Its a tiny number of customers who are trying to play wow on an unsupported platform. My SNES games dont work on my NES WAAAH!!
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Why did this get modded "Troll"? He has a point. If I had mod points I would upmod this...
Would you rather it get modded Undead, Tauren, or Orc instead?
With the first link, the chain is forged.
When WoW went GA in late '04, the 1-60 run was great. Good quest chains, plenty of instances to go do that were original. Once 60, MC and other raids were doable and took some smarts to deal with each boss's tactics.
Fast forward two years. No expansions, no significant new content other than a raid zone or two, a hastily-made "honor" system which forces people to have to play daily in order to not lose rank, battlegrounds which two of which can be won constantly by exploiting terrain, or just using good ol' speedhacks.
There is no challenge in WoW anymore, just grinding alts to exalted with various factions, or maybe trying to rank in PvP.
In the same two years, Everquest 2 has gone through some major changes, has had two, going on three major expansions. Everquest has had four expansions, each of which added about as much territory as WoW's single expansion purports to add.
To boot, Blizzard still hasn't gotten a handle on network stability and server stability, something which SOE and other MMO makers got to a stable level in about a year or two of having the game running. EQ servers can be up for weeks if not months.
Blizzard *had* a success, but the Burning Crusade expansion is too little, too late. A good number of my former WoW guildies are going back to their raid guilds to explore the new Kelethin in EQ2, or shake down Ashengate for high-end loot in EQ1. There is just a point where even though Blizzard had a high quality product, not maintaining it has soured it for a lot of the players.
EQ3... er Vanguard likely will make a dent in WoW when it goes GA. The hardcore PvE and raiding types will leave, leaving WoW to the b.net kiddies.
SOE sucks and has their own issues/bugs, especially their new customer service ticket system, but they know their stuff, and the servers are up when you log in.
Downmod -1: Unoriginal comeback.
But that was funny, sort of...
"Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live." - Mark Twain, "Taming the Bicycle"
People spend too much time on this game...
[%] Cingular Ringtones
Sorry guys, but you need to pick a better alternative. You don't want to dual-boot Windows fine, but you might want to consider the cons of using a system with such low developer support. You may not like Apple for some reason or the other but Blizzard does developed its game for Mac OS X. I would rather wait for Linux to be ported to Apple intel-based computers than for game developers to see value in porting games to Linux.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
I boot to Windows to play because my first account was banned for no reason when I was using Winex. Luckily, it was banned before I even reached level 10, although it pissed me off I just started another account. Noone ever responsed to my emails or anything.
They should do it the right way, and go straight to the source.
There's no substitute for a face-to-face with a dirty cheater.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
The Linux community has pushed up the expected release date of kernel 2.8 by two full years.
I was doing an experiment about how far a WoW char can get without ever attacking or killing anything, and I got banned, too.
My epic-geared level 60 priest, who never trained any damage spells, and never worked up any skill in weapons, got banned for botting.
All for running WoW on Ubuntu with Cedega.
I did point this fact out to them (nicely) in my email to the account administrators. No response yet.
spyware is software that scans your system and sends information back to a sever without telling you that it is doing so, also spyware usually turns itself on and tries to prevent you from turning it off. Since Task Manager sends no information out, directly or indirectly, and does not turn itself on or prevent you from turning it off, it is not spyware.
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
If you were to have sex with a female undead, would it still be considered necrophilia?
I mean, she's dead but not really dead....
It's probably for the better. Now they can go out in the sun and play (in real life).
If you aren't going to let us legitimately run the game under a Windows compatibility layer, would at least release the Linux binaries already? We know that they exist. Your programmers have told us as much.
There are still better ways of catching cheaters.
The old adage, "Never trust the client..." certainly applies here. The warden should run on the server, not the client. It should authenticate the client across the network.
Granted, you don't want to saturate the network with every little move and detail of gameplay. But fortunately, you don't have to. There is only so much gameplay that a user can do in a given amount of time. The solution is to set a threshold for gameplay actions and client state - call it gameplay bandwidth - if it progresses too fast, it's scripted.
The solution isn't to ban the cheater, but to throttle the gameplay bandwidth, as it were, to a reasonable level. This defeats the advantage of scripting without the attendant possibility of a false positive kicking out a legitimate player.
With respect to altering packets mid stream - well, a good encryption scheme could take care of that. I suspect that most of the work has already been done with the operating system's SSL.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
I'm simply amazed that people spend hours playing the game, and now there are people who spend hours trying to cheat the game? I guess maybe I'm getting old, or am trying to live too much in reality.
I am amazed by the number of ways Blizzard can abuse their customers, and still have the #1 on-line game. How many people will have to cancel with them to get them to changes some of their harsher ways?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
hmmm?
I am curious. Whom do they support? Should they tell the user that they support WOW only on paticular brands of Linux? Or should tbey just throw Linux versions out there on "best of luck"?
Sorry, but Linux is not gaining as much popularity and many of you believe. I think its along the same line of "everyone I know is quitting wow, soon they won't have anyone" type quotes.
WOW works fine on Mac and Windows. Both of those platforms offer two things the Linux platform does not, support and consistency.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Emails to World of Warcraft's Account Administration staff continue to go unanswered
How terribly surprising! After the amazing track record of Blizzards customer support, this is totaly unexpected!
Infinite time means everything that can happen, will. You being you is absolutely incidental. You do not exist.
And Trolls, let's not forget the Trolls.
"Why did this get modded "Troll"?"
Umm, because he's wrong?
Yes, I'm a die hard Linux user and gamer. But I am going to be as completely objective about this as I can be. The accounts are being *banned*. Which is to say: sure, if I try to run EQ2 (what I play instead of WoW) under Linux, and it works for a while and then breaks, all his points are valid. The problem then becomes that I can't go back to my Windows box and play from there. Why?
Because they banned the *account*! It's not like I tried to get F.E.A.R. working and it didn't so "waaaaah, I have to play under Windows!" Rather, I tried to play under Linux and now, even though I paid for the right to play, I cannot play under Linux or Windows at all.
Now, their nazi-EULA probably says they can terminate your *paid* account for whatever reason they want, but if you want to talk about whether there is something to "whine" about, there absolutely is. People's accounts should not be banned because they attempted to get their software working under an unsupported OS. That really is unfair.
I cannot address whether or not any of this is FUD, however, since I don't play WoW and I stopped paying for Cedega. It seems odd that only some of the Cedega users are affected, but not all.
I can remember this being talked about months ago, people were getting these letters and they were running WoW under wine.
Slashdot at 11, we put a man on the moon.
LFG Somebody who gives a shit.
If it merely didn't work properly he'd have a point. However when people lose their accounts that is a bit more serious.
An operating system would not produce a false positive, no.
As a final word to those here concerning their account being closed I can only recommend that you contact our Account Administration team by e-mailing wowaccountadmin@blizzard.com which is also included in the e-mail you should have received.
As I said we take enormous steps to ensure that those we remove from the game are specifically and properly confirmed as being in violation of our rules and agreements before doing so. I still urge those of you who feel you have been wrongfully banned to contact our Account Administration team.
Now, I have two co-workers who were banned who I know don't run bot clients, cheat programs, or anything of the sort. They do run cedega though.
Some people have mentioned that they weren't playing on Linux at the time of the ban but that they were actually on Windows. This doesn't really matter though as the GMs and CMs have said that they don't ban clients as they are individually discovered but rather they build up a large list and weild the ban hammer at once. So, if you were banned it may not have been for actions you were taking at the time of the banning, but instead could have been for something that happened a month ago. My instinct is to blame the period around October 29 when Blizzard made a change to their warden on the server side and it caused all cedega clients to crash upon login. Two days later Transgaming released a fix, but I wonder if a number of clients were incorrectly flagged for those warden-related crashes.
Also, if you were not banned it doesn't mean that your account hasn't been flagged, correctly or incorrectly.
My wife, it kills me, she'll grind through the same thing on D2:LOD 50 times an evening.
I accuse her of being a bot- it's the most mechanical thing you've ever seen.
she writes down many EXP points she got per baal run, then does it again,
then does it again, then does it again, then does it again, then does it again, then does it again, then does it again, then does it again, then does it again, ad infinity..
to a 'gamebandwidth' counter, that'll look VERY suspicious
(BTW some of the repetions above I typed by hand, some I did by cut and paste- can you see where I switched to cut & paste above?---riiiight.....)
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Customer support at Blizzard, from any issue ranging from game play to account issues and payment, is sub-par.
It sux, period.
I don't play World of Warcraft for three reasons:
1) There is no Linux version of the software
2) I don't have the time to spend on a game like this
3) I suck at games like this
I would like regular old Warcraft for Linux, but it doesn't exist.
The only way companies like Blizzard will only get a clue is if their sales dry up and people say "Give us a Linux port or we spend our money elsewhere!"
Remember, hit them where it hurts: the bottom line.
Just my $0.02 worth.
If you get a game designed to run on windows/mac, then try to run it in linux, and it doesn't work properly, that's not the publishers fault, it's the fact that you are doing something the program wasn't designed for....
this is not Blizzard's fault, they clearly state the game is windows/mac only and if your linux install causes problems with the "warden" it's your fucking problem....
oh and cry more about the lv60epixxx you lost, nobody cares
flamebait? me? never.....
Mod it Human. I really hate Human.
I can't believe I'm replying, but here it goes: what should have happened is that that Blizzard should have released a native GNU/Linux client, especially if it really is "in Blizzard's interest". But honestly, I've already written to them requesting ports in the past, and they just don't care. It should be obvious from this and the bnetd debacle that while Blizzard may be a successful company for doing some things right (supporting games forever, making good games in the first place), they could be doing better.
For the moment, let's just ignore that this whole problem is because Blizzard refuses to port their software to GNU/Linux; how else might this problem have been prevented? Is it possible to prevent cheating without root-kitting your customers' computers? I think the answer is a definite yes. It's pretty simple, and I'm confused why game companies keep ignoring the obvious: if you don't want someone to cheat in a multiplayer game, keep the important data out of their reach. If their client says "I'm level 60!" and the server shows they are level 10, the server should ignore that information from the client. The client will always be able to be hacked, no matter what you do, and as someone pointed out earlier, even the stream can be hacked by an intermediate machine not running the client.
In summary: 1) don't trust the client 2) don't install spyware, rootkits or other hostile software on your customers' machines and 3) port your damned software to GNU/Linux!
Nathan's blog
Hehe, you still continue to "Whine".
What I like about PunkBuster is that the majority of games that use it don't require it. So I'm free to play on a server without it, if I must do so. It is also usually a separate install than the game, so I'm free not to install it if I feel that it's spyware.
It's like sex, except I'm having it!
I've been playing WoW through wine and FreeBSD 6.1 for at least a month now; it works perfectly.
I've spoken to at least two GMs about the issue, asking whether this is legitimate; they tell me that I might be flagged, but that if I tell the account management team that I'm just using Wine, they can confirm that. I've also posted in General about it, with a couple of green posts afterwards, and no one locked the thread or anything.
When using the Blizzard Updater, I'm noticing some Warden-looking stuff to stdout, in the form of 'I see Blizzard Updater 52%\nI see Wine Systray Listener'... not exactly sure if that's all it does, but it seems harmless enough for my purposes.
I'm curious why Cedega is specifically being targeted. I'm also wondering why people use Cedega over straight Wine for this particular game...
I see bots quite frequently in WoW. They're always hunters with 6-character names and boar pets. They turn in place looking for prey (any prey), then run off and attack it. If they don't see any prey, they move a random distance in a random direction, then turn in place again. These bots are all over the place. I suspect they're associated with gold-farming operations.
I have a friend who is a great programmer/autistic, he plays WoW on Linux, even got rid of his ATI card to play the game better. I know for a fact that this man would not lie and I believe him completely when he explained how he was banned.
He uses CT Raid, Pearl Unit Fram, Decursive and Self Heal, those are the only mods he uses and they are Lua ones that are internal to WoW.
Blizzard banned him with a note saying using 3rd party software etc etc. I think this is complete bs. Their Warden program is giving a false positive cause he was running WoW under Linux, and this flagged it as being a 3rd party program (along the lines of bots and etc).
He has been trying to reach their support the whole day, and only had been able to get canned responses, Blizzard has no phone support btw.
You are using it on a non-supported platform.
I don't think that word means what you think it means
Deal with it.
They have. They've come up with a solution that allows them to play on a non supported platform.
You are confusing non supported with prohibited.
Blizzard makes the game for Windows. If you get it to work in Linux, power to you. But if it stops working, tough luck, it was never intended to work anyway
Except it hasn't stopped working, their accounts have been rm'd and they've been banned. This hardly the same thing as their non-supported systems failing as a result of a patch or upgrade.
If privacy had a tombstone it would read "We did it for your own good" . -- John Twelve Hawks
The easy, and simple way to avoid all of these problems with gaming on Linux is to just dual-boot into Windows for gaming. It may be a bit inconvenient, but certainly less so than being banned from your favorite game(s) and the pain of non-native performance and compatibility issues.
Uhm, thats EXACTLY what warden does. I've heard it scans the filesystem for known exploit filenames, even reads the titles of your browser windows to be sure you aren't on any questionable (hack/gold) sites.
Now what about CPA's, or others with sensitive information on the same pc.
I refuse to make my multi-thousand dollar computer a standalone WoW client.
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/info/faq/technology .html
Clearly states windows or mac. Those of you who choose to buy the game to play on an environment clearly not supported by the company play at your own risk. But don't whine about it when something goes wrong.
I was banned last night. Rather than whining to Blizzard, I've decided to remove WoW/Cedega from my computer (it was the only non-free software I used).
The whole issue reminded me why I don't choose to use proprietary software. I don't like to be treated poorly *and* pay for it at the same time.
Actually, M$ seems to enjoy a nice set of turfers on Slashdot. Seems to me if he wanted to be modded up, "$ony is teh Suck" is the way to go...
I frequent a large gaming forum, and I hear there have been lots of shady-looking bans over the last couple of days. One guy had two accounts - one of them got permanently closed for "running third-party applications", despite him stating he ran both accounts on the same computer, with the same UI mods.
Another person got banned for disenchanting all the items on one of his characters and mailing them to another character on the same account.
Leveling up builds character.
I played WoW under Cedega with no problems, and I confirmed with a GM that it was kosher. I suspect that most, if not all, of these bannings are legitimate. Cheaters don't usually break down and admit it when caught.
I do not think that Blizzard has any legal basis for terminating people, and believe that it may be a breach of contract on their part.
I posted this to the WoW forums:
Blizzard:
Review of your ToS and "How to Stay in Game" page do not say anything about Linux. I want to know, specifically, if running World of Warcraft in Linux will get my account banned.
If so, I will stop running it in Linux. I will switch to OS X, completely. However, until such time as I get official notice, I had intended to continue running it on Linux, since my primary gaming system is a Linux system.
Could we please get some clarity and/or verification on this?
Here are the relevant portions of the ToS and "How to Stay in Game":
"How to Stay in Game"
World of Warcraft is a persistent online role-playing world where the actions of each player can have a far-reaching effect on numerous other players, whether directly or indirectly. The game is designed to be run by itself, with no supporting software. Any effort to alter or "hack" World of Warcraft will not be tolerated. Any software which allows a player to circumvent the intended use of the game is not permitted.
CONSEQUENCES:
Any evidence uncovered by Support investigations that the account has been involved in the exploitation of World of Warcraft by running software at the same time as World of Warcraft that enables any of the following behavior may result in immediate account closure, whether or not any of the software's features are actually used on, with, or against the World of Warcraft software:
* Botting (automated gameplay, whether or not a human is present at the computer).
* Speed/teleport hacking (character movement speeds greater than those achievable through normal in-game means, including teleportation that is not the direct and unmodified result of an in-game spell, ability or effect).
* Data mining (gathering of information that is not normally available through the in-game user and/or scripting interfaces).
* Software hacking (manipulating the World of Warcraft client and/or server software or the communication between them in any way).
ToS
Nonetheless, certain acts go beyond what is "fair" and are considered serious violations of these Terms of Use. Those acts include, but are not necessarily limited to, the following:
(i) Using or exploiting errors in design, features which have not been documented, and/or "program bugs" to gain access that is otherwise not available, or to obtain a competitive advantage over other players.
(ii) Connecting, or creating tools that allow you to connect, to World of Warcraft's proprietary interface or interfaces, other than those explicitly provided by Blizzard Entertainment for your use.
(iii) Using tools that hack or otherwise alter the World of Warcraft client or server software.
(iv) Using software products that "packet sniff" or provide scripting and/or macroing to obtain information from World of Warcraft.
(v) Anything that Blizzard Entertainment considers contrary to the "essence" of World of Warcraft.
WHEN RUNNING, THE WORLD OF WARCRAFT CLIENT MAY MONITOR YOUR COMPUTER'S RANDOM ACCESS MEMORY (RAM) AND/OR CPU PROCESSES FOR UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAMS RUNNING CONCURRENTLY WITH WORLD OF WARCRAFT. AN "UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM" AS USED HEREIN SHALL BE DEFINED AS ANY THIRD PARTY SOFTWARE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY "ADDON" OR "MOD," THAT IN BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT'S SOLE DETERMINATION: (i) ENABLES OR FACILITATES CHEATING OF ANY TYPE; (ii) ALLOWS USERS TO MODIFY OR HACK THE WORLD OF WARCRAFT INTERFACE, ENVIRONMENT, AND/OR EXPERIENCE IN ANY WAY NOT EXPRESSLY AUTHORIZED BY BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT; OR (iii) INTERCEPTS, "MINES," OR OTHERWISE COLLECTS INFORMATION FROM OR THROUGH WORLD OF WARCRAFT. IN THE EVENT THAT WORLD OF WARCRAFT DETECTS AN UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY PROGRAM, BLIZZARD MAY (a) COMMUNICATE INFORMATION BACK TO BLIZZARD ENTERTAINMENT, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION YOUR ACCOUNT NAME,
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Is it just me, or is this thread like arguing about a new strain of crack that cannot be smoked in cheap tinfoil pipes? Are we an addiction support hotline now? -W
Mod this flame bait, I don't care. Blizzard are greedy company only interested in making maximum profit. They don't care about the community or players.
Why else would a company close down bnet which was helping them not harming them as they proclaim.
I sold over 20 people on warcraft/starcraft/diablo by using bnet for home network play. Then blizzard got a bug up their asses and sued.
I refuse to buy any blizzard product. Any Linux user that does might as well have sold their soul tot he devil for supporting a company that
uses the DMCA to stop community development of tools to support their games.
Sanity is a majority vote.
And they wonder why people run Windows.
The game didn't suddenly stop working. ACCOUNTS WERE BANNED.
Blizzard HELPED the cedega people get WoW working so I'm guessing there may be a legitimate reason for the ban but your comment is uninformed at best.
(yes, call this a troll/flamebait if you must)
/.ers would whine quite so much. Lets consider this - the last time i read about a WoW ban for cheating the guy was 'only using his programable keyboard to level up weapons while he watched TV'. Erm...
... they have to make sure they don't violate the GPL in their porting because you KNOW they're not interested in releasing their source code.
I never figured
Lets be realistic: If you run WoW under linux you're pretty tech savvy. You *ARE* the type capable of understanding, configuring, and running a bot. Do you really think the majority of these bans were unjust? Do you really think Blizzard would keep it customer base if "regular" people randomly and frequently got banned for no reason?
Now lets consider the WoW on Linux side of things. Someone said Linux was gaining popularity. If i have a dollar for every time i've heard that since the mid 90's I could buy all the WoW/linux users an extra WoW PC gratis. Yes, Linux is useful and will be a part of technology for a long time. It's a LOOOOOONG way off from mainstream. A company like blizzard isn't looking to sell 1000's of licenses/yr to linux users. They're looking to sell 1,000,000's of licenses/yr to wintel and mac users. Do you honestly thing such a small revenue source is going to make them port, test, QA, package, and release a separate Linux version of WoW? Ok. Now WHICH version do we support? Which kernel. Do you QA all over again for each new release? At least MS is static for years at a time.
Bigger issue - retail space. How much space does CompUSA/Circuit City/Best Buy/etc. devote to Macs? Maybe 10-15% of it's computer-related space? Maybe 20-25% if you include iPods and check on a good day. Mac >>> Linux in the home market. Given that, do you REALLY think they're going to devote more shelf space to a tiny minority ( ~1% )? A tiny minority that's used to FREE (GPL) software at that? Here's another catch
One more. You think Bliz is snobish because they won't write software for the platform you prefer? Well maybe you're snobbish for refusing to run the platform *they* prefer to write for. Keeping both in mind...check and see which of you is in the majority. Oh, and who makes $10,000,000/month on subs.
Just because you run linux does NOT mean you're entitled to a linux version of every bit of popular software you like/want to run. This is an open market - no communism.
How many users does this impact?
I can't imagine the number being anywhere near 1% of it's user base, so fixing it would cost more than they stand to make.
"I have an odd craving to whisper about those few frightful hours in that ill-rumored and evilly shadowed seaport of dea
I stand corrected. I was siding with him about wanting support on Cedega, but you're right that the account being banned screws you as far as playing again on a Windows box.
"Get a bicycle. You will not regret it, if you live." - Mark Twain, "Taming the Bicycle"
So 1990s - forget WoW, grow up and go out and get a date.
Response 3: Read the EULA. Blizzard advises gamers of its intent to invade in its terms of service. "People should read contracts," says Blizzard rep John Lagrave.
True enough--people should read contracts. But here's the really depressing part of this story--companies like Blizzard know few people read the terms of service and end-user license agreements that pop-up when they install new software or create new accounts, and fewer still have the time, patience, and knowledge to parse the legalese. Without some constraints on what a company can hide within these massive legal tomes, more and more companies will learn that they can invade our electronic privacy for any reason they wish--as long as they disclose it somewhere in the fine print. The cost of such a practice over time is not only access to our personal and private information but also control over our personal computers and devices. Then we really will be prisoners to the Wardens of the networked world.
Ok, So when blizzard changes the EULA to allow spyware, they buy back my game and refund anything I have paid since buying it.
Just for the record, Blizzard in the early months of WoW, both pre and post beta, were "looking into" the possibility of linux development. I followed that on the forums for a while before I started using Cedega to play, thinking it might be a stop gap until the linux client finally emerged. After sinking nearly $200 dollars into that game with the monthly fees attached, they have crapped in my fruit-loops. To all of you out there saying I should have seen this coming, I'd like to know why it didn't happen oh say, two damned years ago. For what its worth, my $15 a month will be going into a little jar labeled Wii. You might even say a wee jar.
Which brings me to one last point I'd like to make on this topic. I think that this cat n' mouse game of Blizzard versus the cheaters is good for AI. The last possible domain we have is people writing applications that extract data from video memory and use computer vision algorithms to write if-then-case bots.
;)
Correct, in 10-20 or so odd years the technology maybe available that is undetectable nor traceable by any server to find if a person is an AI or human.
Lets say in 15 years you have on computer with WoW2 installed on it.
On a second one that isn't even hooked up to the network you simply take the VGA/DVI output to it and then OCR the text states and by able to recognize objects in the virtual world much like Stanley's robot car is able to recognize objects on the road.
Then your AI could simply feed the other computer commands through a USB keyboard.
If the WoW client had sufficient DRM and rootkit abilities then perhaps it could detect such a hardware setup.
But even then perhaps if you had a robotic arm and a camera giving the input making it impossible for another program to detect an AI.
Suffice to say... It will be something Blizzard or any other game company can defeat unless they require game players to physically come to game centers.
Even then... How would you know if the player didn't have an AI chip implanted in his skull?
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
AFAIK, there are three methods that Linux users have to play WoW - thru Cedega, thru Wine, or thru Crossover Office. (YES I know that two of those are just "variations" of Wine).
I have read some of the Blizzard forums and apparently this happened after a Cedega hotfix.
Have any people been banned who only used Wine, or Crossover Office ? So far the only ones I have heard about were using Cedega, which is not "pure" Wine.
People will go pretty far to cheat in online games, one Everquest cheat involved replacing the Windows OS random number generation function...
I never said Warden wasn't, I was actually arguing it was, but that task manager was not.
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
This isn't a troll, but is that not the mentality of WoW users?
/weapons / pubic hairs have been allocated to players by the server, there cannot legitimately be Y gold/weapons / public hairs when XY.
/rant
Draconian "anti-cheating" software. No response from technical support. Homophobia.
In all seriousness the only reason why there are farmbots is because Blizzard has allowed repetative and mundane (read: not fun) tasks to become an integral part of the game, thus creating demand for Warcraft credits on ebay and other places. Its a game. Some people will cheat. They should verify player stats serverside and there is no reason why a properly programmed game cannot stop people altering the data they report to servers - if X gold
Consumers (yes, they are treating you like mindless consumers, not customers, not even clients despite the fact you have a subsription) are being treated like mindless drones preparted to compromise both their privacy and the security of their computers because a video game company tells them o.
This state of affairs is pathetic. If you use Linux, run Cedega, are homosexual, or want to use your globally unique moniker on their servers, don'[t buy the bloody game. If you enter into the contract with Blizzard, _read it first_. If you _agree_ then abide by the terms and don't bitch about it on slashdot. You probably shouldn't even be using Linux to play it. Its a windows game after all (don't laugh - thats how stupid Blizzard tech support staff are)- A free operating system? You must be one of those cheating pirates or something.
I hope the Cedega people can help to fix this, but the problem lies with Blizzard and the mindless Blizzard customers who agree to such policies.
Now mod me into oblivion but consider not buying WoW
Damn! You're right. I wish I had thought of that.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topi cId=47009071&pageNo=3&sid=1#40
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topi cId=47009071&sid=1&pageNo=3#53
"We have been testing our security software with Cedega. Cedega was used and tested before the security procedures and during the security procedures. From this testing we have yielded no hits, meaning Cedega, by itself, does not incur an account suspension.
We have accounts of several Cedega users who have been playing normally during the time that these processes are running. Again, these people are not being suspended simply because of using Cedega or Linux.
We are in contact with the people at Cedega and following up with them regarding individual accounts.
To answer the OP's question, no it is not against the ToS to use Linux or Cedega. We continue to monitor the situation to prevent cases of false positives and to rectify them if they do occur." - Tseric (Blizzard poster)
Again, less knee-jerk reactions.
""When Blizzard releases an expansion for WoW which does nothing but raise the level cap by X and doesn't even feature new content but the promise of new content claiming "You'll buy it because it's WoW"" You obiously dont know anything about WoW because there is tons of new content like dungeons and new zones. You should prolly check your facts before just saying what you think is going to happen. Besides there is already a working beta if you want proof.
I have physically looked at the machines of 2 people whos accounts were closed for "third party software". Blizzard would not tell them what "third party software" they found, what said software supposably allowed them to do, and how they manually verfied that the software was in use. The only thing even remotely hackish installed on both PC's was a third party firewall with application hooking prevention + buffer overflow protection.
The first account was and remains perma-banned, the second is in the process of being perma banned.
I read how great WoW plays with Wine (standard with a small patch for nvidia cards and a registry change for OpenGL, but it is not the commercial cedega). So I gave it a try on my KnoppMyth box (Athlon64 approx 1.8GHz), and it was pulling 50-60 fps spinning and running around Ironforge with all its billion people standing outside the Auctionhouse. Similarly, my Windows laptop (Athlon64 about 2.2GHz) gets 10 fps in the same situation, up to 20 running around the world with no people or anything complicated nearby. It's good enough to play, but it gets annoying in the big cities as the graphics lock up for a few seconds here and there.
After I was amazed at the performance difference, I was intending on getting my laptop up and running with Linux and just play it from there. WoW on the Myth box does slow down significantly when it is recording other shows, so it's not practical in the long-term.
If they're banning ya for getting better performance, that's sucky.
anyone here a lawyer? a class action lawsuit against blizzard might be worth a lot of money.
Why is there such a constant war between game development and alternative OSes? There is a dearth of games for Linux -- none save perhaps some iD titles are major games. It's a disconnect -- Geeks are generally inclined to be both gamers and OSSers, yet no major games run on OSS OSes natively.
IME, Wine doesn't work out of the box, but even if it did, IMO it's a cheat around practicing an OSS life. Running Wine is a surrender to the Microsoft hegemony. Running Wine says, I can't do it all with Linux, I need to have Windows. You can tell yourself it's really empowerment, or that emulation isn't the same thing as adoption or embracement, but I think you're kidding yourself. You're giving in to Windows dominance. The game studios more or less force you to in order to play the games everyone else is playing.
Is there in fact no real overlap between gamer geeks and OSS geeks? Are there no movements within game housen to say "Hey, we support Windows and Mac, why not support Linux too?" Would porting to a third platform -- one that is openly documented -- be that much more difficult than porting to a second?
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
You forgot the "circa 2005" on your post. Interestingly, most of what you said is correct, just terribly out of date. Memory address for both holding data and firing off code have long been discovered, the client is effectively completely mapped out. The server isn't stupid, sending "false" data back to it is more likely to disconnect you and potentially get you banned. At best, the server just ignores/rejects it. Warden has been hacked, they even have fun with multiple different flavors of Warden going to different clients. The good hacks detect the version and, if they can't identify it, refuse to run. Hacks have been hiding behind root-kits and similar techniques for a good long time now. The really fun toys will actually forward tells you get to an IM system or text your cell phone, and even feed responses back into the game. Remote-controlling a bot from work through IMs while chatting with people in the game is fun. My point is, the arms race has been going on for a good long time now.
I've played WoW for two years. I've seen my fair share of people who were banned, and I can say that in every incident I've seen, Blizzard was in the right about the player cheating or otherwise violating the TOS.
Here is just a small sample of people I've seen claim they were banned unjustly.
1. Leader of a large raiding guild who would often try to extract certain "favors" from female players in his guild in exchange for priority on loot. He was suspended once, and when he didn't learn his lesson, was permanently banned. Good riddance.
2. Various people I (and several other players) personally observed using speed hacks, bot programs, and terrain exploits. Again, good riddance... though it is quite funny to disrupt a bot at times.
3. People who were quite clearly buying gold. We're talking about people who have thousands of gold, multiple mounts (including epic mounts), multiple epic BoEs, and top end enchanting formulas before they even reach 60.
It's easier.
Why bother with evidence and proof.
Just accuse someone of something then deny reasonable treatment based on your accusation.
The real problem is again (like every other time in history) it isn't happening to "me" so I don't care.
Ever hear of a witch hunt?
Bwhahahahahahahahahahaha
Eat it linux whiners.
of warcraft...
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
This is exactly why I don't play games online in which AI can have a significant edge. Games like Chess are essentially solved and that is not interesting to me. Games like WOW require a lot of silly repetive actions that *are* better for a machine to perform, so why would I want to perform them myself?
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
To everyone else replying to this, you're missing the point. It does not take $20 million to recompile your software. They would just have to license Cedega's Winelib.
Transgaming would be happy, because they'd get a small kickback. Users would be happy, because it'd likely cost less than actually owning a copy of Cedega. Blizzard would be happy, because they'd have more users.
Of course, it's more complicated than that, but it doesn't have to be a full port -- and a full port probably isn't as hard as you think it is, anyway.
About distros, how is it that every commercial game I've tried on Linux works flawlessly in every distro? Even if it was that hard, the distros would do all the work, bending over backwards to say "We support WoW!"
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
People's accounts should not be banned because they attempted to get their software working under an unsupported OS.
They are not being banned because they are playing on an unsupported OS. They are being banned because the unsupported OS is not interacting with the warden software properly. Thus making it appear that they are cheating.
My account was also banned, and I'm on windows XP. However, I have no reason why. I certainly wasn't cheating (I had shitty gear, and never got past level .. 31? 30? I forget.). I had not logged on to play since May, my account subscription ran out in July, and I uninstalled WoW in August. I don't care, since I never had any intention of playing WoW again (I found it boring); however I definitly won't be purchasing another Blizzard product.
I just got off the phone with Blizz's account department. I paid for a 3 month account, I'm only one month into it and yesterday they banned my ass. Obviously, I'd like the $30 which I paid them for the next 2 months, but after the predictable 45 minute wait, I got the predictable response (I'm a glutton for indignation) and was told that I could get my $30 back only if I managed to pry it out of the president of Viacom's wallet. So I'm curious, does anyone know if they have done anything wrong here? I mean, not morally, but legally. I paid for 3 months and my account has been shut down for doing something not covered by the ToS. If the ToS serves as a contract, aren't they in violation of it?
How would running WoW under Cedega look like Glider or any other botting software? Maybe it's just Warden working funky, but something just seems very off here. It doesn't surprise me, Blizzard acting first and thinking later. If it's any consolation to those banned, you'll probably get your accounts back in a couple weeks...
Might help to make a big stink about it in the meantime though.
Don't buy WoW Gold! Make it yourself!
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topi cId=47009071&pageNo=3&sid=1#40
http://www.transgaming.com/
Give me just one more hit...I'm so...cold...
This is the site where all the scammers are crying about their bans./
http://forums.wowglider.com/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=16
This is a program that automates warcraft. Blizzard can no doubt just cough up $25 and get themselves a copy. People on this slashdot aren't stupid. If blizzard had access to the program and warden has full access to the operating system then nothing can hide. If it tries to hide, blizzard can reverse engineer the thing and find how it hides. No false positives, no mixing up linux users - they can without doubt target such a program. No need for blizzard to seek out strange memory access or whatever - they can just go straight for the program.
The thing is many people put years of work into their characters and have been caught cheating. Now they're trying to scam their way out of their problems - like theyve scammed their way through the game. Don't beleive these idiot posters.
"[a]n operating system would not produce a false positive[...]."
As a former game programmer, I can tell you that one of the first things to look for, if you want to catch cheaters, is suspicious system clock / timer activity.
Let's say Cedega had a bug that for some reason caused a Windows API to return improper values for the vanilla system timer, or the high performance timers. It is very possible that Warden would then detect a speed-hack attempt and flag the user.
I don't know if this was the case or not, but it is ridiculous to claim that the OS cannot produce a false positive.
As a yardstick as to how much effort you need to maintain the code part of a port: Blizzard has four (4) Mac developers on staff, and they're split amongst World of Warcraft and Other Secret Blizzard Stuff. (Of course, they're probably the four greatest Mac developers out there. And it's not counting QA, support, etc.) Source
Now maybe I have forgot some of the small claims court rules since freshman High School; but doesn't the amount have to be over $20 for them to even take it?
Judge Judy: "Alright so what are you two bickering over"
User: "I was using Linux and they shut down my account"
Blizzard: "We do not support it as stated. We rest our case."
Judge Judy: "Well clearly you did not follow the dir-ect-ions!!!!!"
I remember back when I played WoW in Cedega on linux that if I played the game in fullscreen mode but put in managed mode and set the desktop to a value less than my desktop resolution, then World of Warcraft would essentially run in a windowed screen but think it was fullscreen. This was immensely useful if I wanted to read something while grinding for instance. However, I distinctly remember that if I held down the right click button while inside the game and didn't release it and moved my mouse really quickly to the side, the game would slow down immensely, and then send me back to the login screen. I believe something about how cedega sends signals to the client when it is in managed mode made the World of warcraft client freak out and think something weird was happening.
Can anyone who got banned comment on this? Were you playing the game in managed mode rather than fullscreen in Cedega, or was it unmanaged and in fullscreen mode?
So saith wikipedia.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
Their interest lye in the majority and not waste resources on the minority.
I hate to say this but I think you guys are in the minority on this one and it would be a waste of resources on their part and certainly not in Blizzards interest.
Sometimes the Linux community is gonna have to accept cold hard facts like these; they have a business to run and you guys need to get into a business mind. Let Linux run their servers and let Windows do the desktop/game market, come on Linux guys you won the war a couple days ago with that article.
Well the cover up is underway. All posts on the subject are being systematically removed from the blizzard forums and no notice has yet to be received for the banned accounts. Those of you who state 'you must have been guilty' are speaking from ignorance - how would you feel if it happened to you ? The position of 'Guilty Period' with no right of appeal or representation is reprehensible. An appropriate response would have been a warning or temporary suspension first, and a ban on a repeated offense. There can be no doubt an error has been made, Yes - a number of cheats will have been caught, and a lot of innocent people have been accused and penalised as well. I always understood the American legal system had a policy of 'Innocent until proven Guilty'. This is most certainly the case here in Australia, There is the matter of 'Burden of Proof' in this matter that must be attended to, Blizzard can not waive consumer rights (at least, they can not waive consumer rights in Australia). I have been a good customer since release. I have never 'cheated', but I may as well have and saved myself a lot of time. That is the lesson Bizzard are teaching here - you may as well cheat cause we're gonna ban your account anyway. My $0.02.
I like the fact that Blizzard is finally doing something about all the bots and gold sellers out there. Auction house prices are crazy on every server. One simple fix for all this... Make it so you can't jack up the price of items to crazy amounts. For example 5 gold pieces maximum of what the NPC (non player character) vendors want for the item. So if the vendor wants to buy a item from you for 1g the max you could sell it for on the auction house would be 6g. That's what I would do. This would render gold farmers and bots useless. Problem solved.
I've played the game in the closed beta and got it at release time too and have been playing since then. I can level a character to 60 in no time and have been called a bot, especially when I was playing as my wife's character and I had my higher level character set to follow her around and I would heal her as I did quest and grinding to level her to get caught up to me.
All in all the bots and gold selling sites have completely messed up the in game economy.
Yes, I too fell victim to Blizz's wonderful Anti-cheat/spyware program.
I run Wine/Cedega as well, I run a modified version so it works correctly with my video card, but I do not cheat.
I've emailed them with no response, so I wish to thank blizz on a wonderful job of losing the many paying customers.
GG Blizz
Sweet to hear some official word, thanks Blizzard :D
Many players run under Linux and have not been banned. Many people who have been banned for botting claim they have not been botting. Very few people who get caught cheating ever admit to it. I have a hard time believing this story.
'Same speed C but faster'
blizzard bans people, instead of giving out mass warnings first, because it is in their economic interest to do so. most of the people banned will buy the game again - so a 10,000 person ban = (roughly, minus shipping and production fees and people who don't actually come back) $200,000 profit, or a 100,000 person ban = $2,000,000 profit.. the more people banned, the larger the profit. if the company had a heart, instead of mass bans they would send out a mass email message to everyone saying 'you're botting. this is your last warning.' instead; bam, banstick up the arse first go. blizzard has come a long way since their friendly blackthorn game. i've never used third party software for WoW - i gave up the maphacks in SC. i would do the same thing that blizzard is doing right now handling the massive bans though - and then go buy myself a big boat, or give the GMS a christmas bonus - compliments of chinese gold farmers.. go blizzard go!
"We have been testing our security software with Cedega. Cedega was used and tested before the security procedures and during the security procedures. From this testing we have yielded no hits, meaning Cedega, by itself, does not incur an account suspension. We have accounts of several Cedega users who have been playing normally during the time that these processes are running. Again, these people are not being suspended simply because of using Cedega or Linux. We are in contact with the people at Cedega and following up with them regarding individual accounts. To answer the OP's question, no it is not against the ToS to use Linux or Cedega. We continue to monitor the situation to prevent cases of false positives and to rectify them if they do occur." http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topi cId=47009071&sid=1&pageNo=3
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=8 2369804&pageNo=1&sid=1#9
Any game that requires an arms race of technology to support distributed-yet-centralized processing and a monthly fee is just too much shit for me to deal with to supposedly be having fun. It's not a job or an Olympic sport.
I much rather prefer games where you can run private servers and you have your own rules about client anti-cheat measures. I've played on plenty of Q2/Q3A servers w/o punkbuster and you know, we keep out the griefers and cheaters driftin through with a password. And we just have fun.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Nope he still has a point. While Linux is unofficially supported, when people say not supported it includes really really strange and unfair shit happening, which includes a funky anti cheat program falsly accusing a person. What... you thought the only weird shit that could happen in an unsupported system was crashing?
Correct, in 10-20 or so odd years the technology maybe available that is undetectable nor traceable by any server to find if a person is an AI or human.
In 10 or 20 years, they'll use the web-cam that's been standard in computers for years by then, along with the facial recognition software that the CCTV security world will have working by then, to verify that the person at the keyboard is the one who submitted to the licensing agreement.
And you'll get people complaining that their account got locked because their new facial tattoos weren't recognised by the software, and people will figure out how to stream video into the security checker so that they can still play pirate copies or run bots, and the race will continue.
Perhaps if you'd read the numerous articles about the Warden (or the innumerable comments in response to any article about WoW) you'd know that the Warden does not send any information that it picks up from your PC. All that it sends is hashes, to be compared against hashes of known cheats or whatever. So, to throw your question back at you: What about CPAs or others with sensitive information? None of that information ever goes anywhere, so there is absolutely nothing to complain about. The comparison between the Warden and Task Manager is an entirely valid one, as neither sends out your information without telling you.
P.S. Entirely off-topic, but I absolutely loathe clueless mods who throw out "informative" moderations to the same sensationalist tripe that has been disproven time and time and time again.
Santa's suicide mission go!
You were caught running a highly efficient, highly secure, highly robust operating system - namely Linux. In our (Blizzards) opinion this would provide an advantage over other players. In addition, use of this software can lead to exploitation and destabilization of the World of Warcraft server economy. As such, this account has been closed and will not be reopened under any circumstances. The recurring subscription on the account has been disabled to prevent further charges.
The one that runs Firefox.
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
My wifes WoW account got banned for this same reason. The interesting thing is that we had never had a problem with warnings or bans on either of our accounts until I started fiddling with different ways of getting WoW working on my Ubuntu laptop. After trying a few different ways of getting WoW working I logged in a few times to prove that I could from my laptop, but I never spent much time on due to frame rate issues with my graphics drivers.
Now, I am not saying that it's just because I'm running linux with wine, but something I did when I was getting my system to work must have made Warden angery. It would be nice to know what that was, so that if I ever play a new Blizzard game again I will not get banned again.
"On the other hand the benifits(sic) are huge:
* It's faster under Linux than it was under Windows, but not by much."
You must not have a recenty video card. My GeForce 6800 struggled to hold 25fps in WoW at 1024x768 in Linux with a DX-8ish level of graphics quality (options turned down). Under Windows 2000, I could easily run 1680x1050 around 45 fps with fancy DX 9 transparent water and other shader effects maked, something not possible under Linux.
On the old video card I replaced, a shockingly terrible GeForce 2 MX (which served me otherwise well under Linux, since I never used 3D before) ran faster than in Windows because Windows is really bad at basic things. Once the card was upgraded, Linux wasn't able to keep up because Cedega and Wine simply don't emulate DX/OpenGL well enough for the advanced features.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Direct link to Blizzard BBB listing:
(click: [file complaint] down right corner)
Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove
or you could drop it in to vmware, qemu, or xen and use something outside the vm to interface with it... or you could use vnc... or rdesktop... or.... scripting repetitive tasks is what smart people do. You won't stop it until you stop people from being smart.
Why fight it? Why not just accept that's part of the game?
> Realistically, the client has to do some of the computation and storing itself
> (and with WoW being some huge multi-gigabyte client, there's a lot to investigate).
> Obvious, you want to reduce network traffic and give your servers a break so you
> design this to have minimal communication.
No. That is NOT how you write network applications. Clients should not be trusted
any more than absolutely necessary. This really isn't hard to implement, nor would
it place that much extra load on the WoW servers, anyway.
If I were implementing a network based game, I would: a) only transmit data actually
inputted by the user; b) have the server do all the processing regarding battles,
movement of the character and so on; c) have the server the necessary changes to
the environment for the client application to display, and finally d) have the client
do some of the processing in PARALLEL, so as to minimize visible lag artifacts.
In fact, I probably suspect that Blizzard did in fact implement WoW in this way (but
since the entire system is undocumented, I can't really confirm that easily). I
suspect that the only thing the so-called 'cheating programs' did was automate certain
tasks, not actually transmit invalid values.
It's not what you want to do, it's what the game company wants you to do: spend months paying them the subscription fee. And really, in what game does the actual content last months ? None. That's why they need to add repetition, and take a dim view on anyone who automates performing that.
The standard model of handcrafted gameworld simply doesn't allow perpetual gameplay. As AI progresses, it's likely that we start seeing semi-dynamic worlds where new content is generated algorithmically; fully dynamic games would be possible even with today's technology, but would run the risk of upsetting the Horde or the Alliance if their side loses.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Come on, taggers. You know it should be spelled "whine" not "wine", surely?
Rejected Mac Ads
This video reminded me of how friendly Blizzard is towards Mac OSX. Why is it so hard to port to Linux?
To a noob, root is like a gay bar...and he's wearing assless chaps
I run a dual boot system with Win XP and Xubuntu. Personaly I choose wine to run WoW with Linux simply for the fact that it runs better. I can't stay logged into my windows install for more than 10 min without it crashing. Not only is it more stable, but it runs faster as well. In windows I have problems with stuttering and slow downs when too much is going on. Wine on the other hand is smooth, with only some very minor slowdown when I walk into a packed out IF.
I've been using wine to play WoW for almost a year now, and I've never had a problem with my account becoming suspect of any sort of activity that isn't allowed. I seriously doubt that Blizzard would target users of wine/cedega purposely.
Let's start demanding Linux client for WOW. When there are enough us Blizzard has to make one for us. I am not tolerating that MAC OSX is having a client but similar system Linux is not. Porting WOW to Unix has already been made of. Who fuck needs support for that software as long as it works fine.
-Seeing the problem is ½ of solution-
I've got a friend who's a cheater. Most recently the game he is cheating at is Rakion. But that's not the first or last game he's going to cheat at. He starts every game the same, playing legitimately for a couple weeks, then he starts talking about people he notices cheating, at first he takes screenshots and reports the cheaters, but he's impatient. If the people he reports aren't punished immediately he gets mad and thinks the company doesn't care about the game. [That's the point where I can see he's getting ready to do it himself]
About two weeks into playing, he starts sending private messages to cheaters and gets to be acquaintances with them. A couple more days go by and he's running a cheat himself. He'll justify it by saying the company doesn't care anyway because they don't stop cheaters (implying the company tacitly approves of his behavior). A week or two later he'll get caught and dealt some kind of punishment. If it's not a complete ban he'll stop cheating for a little while, but then cheaters who get away with it bother him more than ever, he goes on this hypocritical/psychotic rampage reporting cheaters by the dozen, essentially trying to harass the company into dealing with cheaters. That lasts for about a week before he starts cheating again, and gets another punishment. At that point, he thinks he's smarter than the game company, so he'll find little ways to cheat, small exploits that he thinks will go unnoticed. Instead of obvious cheats, he tries adjusting game properties by small values he thinks no one will notice. For example, instead of cheating to gain infinite health, he boosts his health by 5%-10%. That goes on for maybe another month until the company bans him permanently.
At that point he gets self-righteous and rants about the following topics in no specific order:
It's not any specific game, it's every game he plays, the same cycle. I try to keep him honest, inspire him to take pleasure in normal gaming behavior, but he can't. He's supernaturally compelled to cheat. It's disappointing because I don't get to play games with him that we could enjoy together. It's always fun for the first couple of weeks, and I'm always thoroughly convinced that he's really not going to cheat this time, but after he breaks into the cheating cycle I distance my play from him because I don't want to play with or against someone I know is cheating, and I don't want my accounts to become associated with his in the eyes of the GMs (which has happened on more than one occasion).
One day, I actually got a phone call from a GM that wanted to know how I knew him and wanted to know how he convinced me to open an account for him after he got banned. This wasn't the first time he was banned, he had received a lifetime ban from this game 5 or 6 times, but he always finds ways to get someone to let them use their account. The GM discovered that he was playing on my account because my friend told one of his game acquaintances who he was. He revels in infamy. He can't play a game for the game's sake, he needs people to know who he is. Even if it means that his best friend's account is in jeopardy, he'd rather screw his friend over than risk having people in a game not know how clever he is in circumventing the system. Before I gave him access to a slot on my account, I pleaded with him to just play the game and not tell anyone who he was
Source code of OS X Warden:
ps -ef | grep WoWHack | grep -v grep && echo "you're a very naughty boy"
Computer.
Thanks to eating disorders most chicks are reasonably good looking these days.
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topi cId=47160852&sid=1 --- Why you were banned... This post is a discussion on why I believe a lot of people were banned, including my partner. There has been a lot of discussion on this lately with theories ranging from 'It is Auctioneer' to 'Your Banning Linux Users'. I have to admit I was a fan of the latter, posts from blues and from Transgaming (Cedega) suggest that this is an overly simplistic view. My goal is to establish a most plausible reason for the recent bannings, not to incite argument, but to provide some explanation of what has happened by the simple application of Logic. In the absence of any information from blizzard this is all we have, I seriously doubt I will get it all correct and suspect a few of you can provide additional information beyond the inevitable "you're a cheat, LRN2PLAYNOOB" posts which will follow. How can you identify 'cheats'... This is a pertinent question. How, in a system like World of Warcraft can you implement a mechanism to identify Cheats. You could implement an 'Agent' to find occurrences of known hacks and packages, which has clearly been done in the past. This is too simplistic as there will be a continual race between the cheat authors (i.e. glider) and blizzard to lock these programs out. Or You could establish a system where you check for 'patterns' of use. This would be a more complex solution, in the long run these types of solutions yield better results, in the short term there is a *lot* of training and fine tuning required to get it right. This is synonymous with anti-spam software like SpamAssassin. In my opinion based on a long career in the IT industry, I suspect blizzard have implemented the second option and the 'Warden' program is simply one of the tools used to identify these patterns. Pattern Matching If you consider a pattern matching solution (lets call it the CheatAssassin) it is necessary to establish a checklist of habits that a cheat would be likely to exhibit. This is by no means a comprehensive list, it has been provided as an example of what a theoretical 'CheatAssassin' would do and is restricted to behaviors that could be easily identified through the server logs. Gold Farmers: 1. Likely to spend inordinate amounts of time grinding on relatively low level mobs for gold. 2. Would in all probability hold an unusually large amount of gold for the level. 3. More likely to sell any blues and purples on the AH, even items better than they currently hold. 4. May run certain mods. (i.e. Auctioneer, Bottomfeeder) Bots: 5. Likely to spend inordinate amounts of time grinding on relatively low level mobs. 6. Likely to be wearing a very low level gear for the level of the character. 7. Likely to be lagging, or too advanced in associated stats (trade skills). 8. May spend time walking into walls, trees etc. 9. May exhibit the same patters identified for Gold Farmers. 10. Will use the same spells, command sequences, and behaviours. 11. Would not respond to a 'prompt' or a /whisper.
Other 'suspicious' activities:
12. Runs on a non-standard platform or in a restricted environment. (ie Cedega).
13. Other installed applications (i.e. Wow Model Viewer, debuggers etc).
14. Large gold transfers.
15. IP Address changes (in US one day, China the next)
How pattern matching works...
First, you would establish a mechanism for identifying the required patterns, this can be easily done via the warden, Log file parsing and data mining on the servers.
Second, you would then attribute a 'Weighting' to each of the suspect patterns.
For example:
1. Spending inordinate amounts of time grinding on relatively low level mobs for gold 50 Points.
2. Running on a non-standard platform or in a restricted environment 20 Points.
3. Likely to be lagging, or too advanced in associated stats (trade skills) 5 Points.
4. May run certain mods. (i.e. Auctioneer, Bottom Feeder) 5 Points.
You get loud idiots in a lot of places where they can get attention - they usually move on to something else and are sometimes replaced by other loud idiots.
As an example look at gnome - after a very short time their public face went from being pure rant politics based on misunderstanding a licence, a few badly thought out ways to break gimp, a lack of understanding of the platform they were writing for and no portability to a very good project with the loud idiots elsewhere (and possibly also less loud and idiotic).
One other mistake people make is in assuming that gnu IS linux and that they are not two seperate projects working towards different goals. Opportunists have tried to blur the issue for the purpose of getting personal prestige out of other peoples projects and helped many make this mistake. The FSF is also currently going after the DCMA in the USA and are going out of their way to get as much attention as possible to push this issue in ways you and I may not like - but that certainly doesn't make the organisation worthless - and they are not linux or even really gnu anymore.
This is a good thing. More Linux users should be banned from WoW. In fact, Linux users should be banned from life. Using guns.