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Blizzard Bans 100,000 Cheaters In Massive "World of Warcraft" Ban Spree
MojoKid writes: Like many MMORPGs, World of Warcraft can be a grind. To sidestep the time commitment required to continually level up a character, gather resources, improve skills, or whatever else is desired, some gamers turn to bots, software that automates the process. The only problem is, Activision Blizzard isn't so keen on this behavior and has dropped the ban hammer hard on gamers who've been using them. Activision Blizzard didn't specify exactly how many people it booted, saying only that it was a "large number of World of Warcraft accounts." However, a screenshot of a conversation between a player, Game Master, and Activision Blizzard employee suggests that over 100,000 World of Warcraft accounts were identified and booted.
You must be new here. /. has been like this for nearly 8-9 years.
Om, nomnomnom...
That's a lot of revenue per month Blizzard has chosen not to receive.
Well, there are two points to consider about this:
1) The ban was not permanent, but was only six months. This is a departure from their previous botting bans and will put expiration near the end of the year, which lines up with a potential patch / expansion release.
2) As others have mentioned, getting banned does not prevent you from creating a new account and buying the game again. That's an instant ~$70 for Blizzard, equivalent to a player subscribing for about 4.5 months.
3) Botting had gotten very bad in some places. A lot of customers were complaining about them turning a blind eye to it and they really needed to do something.
Finally, the primary botting software that was targeted was HonorBuddy which is mostly used for player-vs-player activities. Given how much people have complained about the current state of PvP it's not surprising they went after it in an attempt to improve things. As a bonus, the developer of HonorBuddy has said he will be discontinuing development of the software due to the ban wave.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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Well, if they have "players" who have a financial interest in breaking the rules, I don't see a problem with a tax on them.
I remember playing, and honestly, when it was fun, it was pretty fun. When it got to be a real grind, I quit, I didn't pay someone else even more money to keep playing a game that I didn't actually want to actually play any more. And I do suspect gold dealers do affect the game balance decisions somewhat, which means they are actually are affecting the people who don't want to pay.
Of course, there are people out there who will pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars to pimp out a character in WoW or some of those terrible pay to win games, so there's no way that aspect of the economy is going away, unfortunately.
They still have 7M subscribers. I'd hardly count that as dead.
"Old man yells at systemd"
Here's some context:
WoW has a bunch of things you can do.
Level: You have to level to participate in most content. Bots that automate this are often ignored, because they aren't that much better at it. This is not about one of those bots at all.
Raiding, an organized pve (player versus environment, in other games pvm for player versus monster)- an experience at max level versus challenging encounters. If you fail on one "boss", he "resets", and you have to try that boss again from the start. Each boss encounter is 3-10 minutes, and raiding guilds normally meet at specified times when everyone can be available, and clear multiple bosses (ideally all of them) in one or more difficulty levels. The hardest levels are almost unbeatable except for the top few thousand players out of millions, and it normally takes some time for even the professional players to get down the hardest bosses on the hardest difficulties whenever a new raid is released. When you do beat a boss, he drops random loot- potential upgrades, hopefully, to make you and your friends more powerful. The gear dropped from the toughest bosses is the best currently in the game for pve.
No bot can raid. A few bots can automate certain tasks, but these are rarely employed- the tasks needed for automation are so dynamic, and the risks so great, that it's almost unheard of.
Ranked PvP- At max level, you can join a premade group for arena (2v2, 3v3, or 5v5 death match) or rated batteground (objective based 10v10 play). These modes are very difficult to win at the higher level. Participation grants access to the best pvp gear in the game.
No bot does these things. A few players use bots to automate certain tasks- for instance, one really hard task is to "kick" an opponent when they are casting. Since there is a lot of latency and ability to fail (the opponent will often start a cast, then stop, hoping that you will "kick" when he is not casting, thus wasting your cooldown, and allowing him to cast again, this time without fear of interruption), kickbots are a thing- but they are much harder to get away with. All ranked pvp is very hard to cheat at, because you will generate a series of complaints from your opponents, and get banned permanently for it.
This is not what's being discussed, and a kickbot or other arena program is ultimately trying to provide your character with one or more superhuman responses. These are rare and actioned severely.
Casual PvP- generating the gear needed to play in ranked, this involves being thrown in with mostly random people in an objective based pvp environment. Very popular among those who don't want to coordinate in Skype, or people who just want to play some.
*This is what the bot in question does:* It automates this casual pvp. This allows the players to have alternate accounts that are getting gear on multiple characters. This means that they can play pvp with different classes easier than those who do not cheat. A few fools even botted from their main accounts, which the bot authors always tell you not to do. These bots shit up the game- you'll queue up and notice some of the players are bots, and if your team has too many, you'll lose. If the enemy team has too many, your win will not be fun, because bots are stupid.
I don't play WoW right now, but I'm very glad to see them banning these clowns.