ouch.

too bad I don't have anything intelligent to add to this execpt for that I find it amusing/stupid that quite a few people here would find this as a good thing

imo  the biggest problem is blizz not being able to tell apart farmers, ebayers, and gold mongers, that are hurting the game, from players that maybe only use bots to level a character of a class they were curious about playing but wouldnt otherwise have time in their busy raiding schedule.  it also looks like Blizz is using a bot to hunt bots. kinda explains why warden thinks linux users are bots and why bots think trees are mobs.  maybe blizz could look a time played at 60 to determine whether a warning or a ban is needed. a lot of people with 100+days played were banned, you can't bot raiding gear. that kind of play time shows loyalty to the game imo.

WooT go Blizz, maybe, i doubt it, but maybe 1 company taking a hard line approach to these people destroying these enjoyable games will open other companies eyes and in a few years most of these games will be actually fun again.

/Cheer Blizzard

cedega is working with blizzard on this so it seems a solution will come soon hopefully

There's no reason to tell them apart because there is no difference according to the ToS.  A bot is a bot and using one for whatever reason is not acceptible according to their rules.

Also, how many of the players crying foul because they use Linux are legit?  Linux is a perfect bandwagon platform for people to climb on who got caught doing something they shouldn't have in an MMO and I'd guess few of them are actually legitimate wrongful bannings.

Lastly, banning boters hits gold selling sites in their wallet.  Less money for gold selling sites means less money for ads...

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Originally posted by Pemdas
imo  the biggest problem is blizz not being able to tell apart farmers, ebayers, and gold mongers, that are hurting the game, from players that maybe only use bots to level a character of a class they were curious about playing but wouldnt otherwise have time in their busy raiding schedule.  it also looks like Blizz is using a bot to hunt bots. kinda explains why warden thinks linux users are bots and why bots think trees are mobs.  maybe blizz could look a time played at 60 to determine whether a warning or a ban is needed. a lot of people with 100+days played were banned, you can't bot raiding gear. that kind of play time shows loyalty to the game imo.

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i cant believe theyd ban accounts simply for logging in on more then one machine...thats retarded...what if you upgrade your pc?? then its a different machine.  what if you want to play at an internet cafe while your travelling somewhere?  and no explanation either?  gimme a break.  way to micromanage the business and piss a lot of people off blizzard!

Rules are simple enough. Break them and get banned. Resolving issues between detecting cheats and legit users regarding linux are difficult, therefore it's expected some will fall foul, but thats just hard luck.

I've actually stopped playing wow because thier accounts system used for extending subscription only uses microsoft explorer, since i use firefox, i cannot resub, not that it matters, plenty other games to play... bf2142 for example.

It is neccessary to create rules to fight against gold farmers and other exploiters, and if anyone legit falls foul they need to decide if they wish to use wholey legit softwares or not.

However one point remains undisputed. Blizzard allows modding of the game, then states that using "certain" mods will get you banned, with little guidance as to which ones.  imo, it is blizzards own fault that these bannings have become required to such an extent.

Noone can argue that botting is acceptable in a multiplayer game.  And there is little difference between a mod and a bot.

imo, using either is cheating, wether its acceptable or not.  Using anything not in the default package is an unfair advantage and that advantage defines cheats.

Banning farmers is one thing and should be supported but banning someone for logging into the game that has no safety measures built into the software from another location is pathetically ridiculous. There is no safety catches built into the software for that and Blizzard is responsible for this being possible. In fact they allowed “Stan’s” father from South Park to log into the game from another computer.

Banning customers for logging into the game from Linux is utterly ridiculous. They do not license Operating Systems. Linux is open source. The blame is upon a company that has grown too large for its britches and has now officially lost contact with its fan base and customers. This is plain ignorance and “sadly” a real shame. As fan I am really disappointed in some of their decisions.

 

Blizzard is now the Lars Ulrich vs. Napster.

$0E BOE

Blizzard, like every game company to date, is guilty of treating the symptoms instead of the cause.  If you want to build an online game that doesn't have the problems of gold fermers, ebay gold sellers, and third-party hacks, you have to design your game that way from day one.

Rule 1:  Never trust the client.  ALL changes of state need to be determined on the server side, allowing the client to only issue commands, which the server then performs or ignores.  They learned that one in Diablo, where the server blindly trusted the client when it said "I have a +9999 sword equipped".

Rule 2:  Never trust the client *grin*.  Seriously, all traffic between the client and server needs to be encrypted to prevent packet injection.  SSH tunnels would work for TCP streams.  The server establishes a public/private key pair when you create your account.  The client makes another key pair when you install it.  If you re-install, you have to re-upload (and authenticate) your public key to tie it to your account.  That also prevents people playing on other folks' computers (unless you allow a small set of "trusted" keys).

Rule 3:  Don't allow transfers of large amounts of wealth between characters.  Force them to trade valuable goods instead.  Even in the real world, transactions between individuals over a certain amount (I believe it's $10K in the US) are flagged and somoene, somewhere, looks into them.  That won't stop the farmers, but it will annoy them and slow them down a bit.

Rule 4:  Design your gameplay so that "farming" isn't a feasable way to amass wealth.  There are lots of ways to try this, ranging from diminishing returns on repeated activities, to moving away from the faucet/drain economy and actuallying implementing a real closed system (with raw materials added as players join, or devs decide to balance things).  This is the real solution, but it's also the tough one.  I'm not holding my breath here. :)

IMHO, Blizzard cut off their own foot when they dangled the candy in front of the community.  They build a UI that allowed scripting, and have been constanly nerfing it down as people figure out ways to use it for automation.  They designed a grinding game with free transfer of wealth between characters and then are shocked when farmers invade?

I hate farmers, macroers, and exploiters... I'm a crafter and resource gatherer myself, and I always am forced into combat because I can't make any money from selling materials because of the market flood.  I agree with the account bans, even though I don't think the way they're trying to go about it is the right way.  Instead of using "warden" and hitting people with the ban stick when their anti-virus software nukes it, they should redesign their client/server communitcation to be secure, and work with microsoft to develop a secure way to get keyboard and mouse events that can't be injected.

Just an update on Linux users: Source:

From Blizzard:
World of Warcraft players using a Linux-based Windows emulator called Cedega had their bans lifted after an investigation by Blizzard in cooperation with the developers of Cedega revealed that the bans were in fact made in error by Game Master department due to Blizzard’s anti-cheating software incorrectly flagging their accounts has using 3rd party software.Blizzard has also sent out an email which reads...

Greetings,

As you know, Blizzard Entertainment traditionally makes a serious commitment to protect the World of Warcraft community from players who gain unfair advantage through hacks and exploits. Last week, our administrators implemented bans on a large number of accounts that were identified acting against the terms and the spirit of the game.

However, it has since come to our attention that a very small percentage of those accounts should not have been banned. This case of mistaken identity seems to be isolated to users of an unsupported, Linux-based Windows emulator called Cedega.

Once this pattern was brought to Blizzard's attention, our staff worked directly in conjunction with the Cedega development team in a rigorous and thorough review of the situation. We have since determined that your account was one of those accidentally flagged, and as such we are immediately reinstating your account to fully playable status.

Blizzard Entertainment deeply regrets the error, as we understand that this brief account closure presented you with an inconvenient and highly frustrating experience. We remain firmly committed to enforcing our regulations and suspensions for those exploiting our game, in the interest of ensuring that our legitimate customers have the best possible play experience. In this case, however, we regretfully caught a handful of innocent customers in the process, and for that we offer you our genuine apology.

In consideration of our error, we are applying a credit of two weeks play time
onto your account, in addition to crediting back the time that your account was locked. This comes to a total of twenty (20) days credit, which should be visible on your account within the end of the week.

If you have any other questions or concerns regarding this account, please do not hesitate to let us know. We appreciate your extraordinary patience in this matter and hope you will continue to enjoy your time in World of Warcraft.

Regards,

World of Warcraft Support Team
Blizzard Entertainment

No this article is lame.  The reason they are getting banned is because they are doing something more than logging onto another machine.  Too many people are commiting the crime of buying gold and or an account.  They deserve it and they are ruining the game for the rest of us.  This article is just trying to fight for the people that already screwed up and tried to cheat in some fassion.

Blizzard is guilty.  They are in their rights, but in an econimic driven society, they will lose money from these actions...they would prolly lose more by doing nothing.  This lose/lose scenario is something they brought on themselves however.

 

Everything could be solved into the design room, provided they give it enough considerations.

 

Gold farmers is something you can't fight, it is like waving your sword at the ocean...and you are hurting yourself doing so.  However, you can remove all negative impact these farmers can have on the game, thereby more or less fighting it, but most importantly, making the game fun for non-farmers.  They have instancing in the game, which is the MAIN tool to fight gold-farmers nasty impact...however, they fail to understand it...

 

Cheaters must be prevented from hurting the non-cheaters.  This is it.  You don't need to hunt them down, burn them, raze their computers and accounts to the ground.  Again, this could be solved in the design room.  I don't claim I have the solution for this one, but personnally I would have experimented a reclusion, putting all cheaters on a specific server with all other cheaters, yet, as I said, I might not have found the good solution about this.  The fact that I, as an individual, doesn't figure it out is no excuse for a big company like Blizzard with heavy teams, they could have find something...or at least TRY.

 

Everytime they ban an account, please spank their designers for me!  They deserve it.  Especially the raid-enforcers, you can double spanks these! 

Cool, I use to log from my workplace, I use WoW to test computers I'm fixing (ok ok and because I want to log in ^^), so, I'm using the game from at least two IP's

And I'd too love to place the game in a linux computer too...

It's my right to do so, I've been playing the game since it ended the beta period, and now they are going to delete all my efforts? (6 60's by the way)...

Very nice Blizzard....

Blizzard returned the cedega users accounts and gave them free play time...this is OLD news and you should know wtf your talking about before you write and article noob...this is one of the many reason this site sucks

It amazes me, we talk of accounts getting banned, yet fail to mention the word accountability.  This is what it all comes down to.  Accountability on both sides, the Player or as I like to call them CUSTOMERS and Blizzard. 

Unfotuantly, Blizzard has reduced their accountabilty to almost zero.  Its kinda like a No Fault MMO, they don't need reason to ban you or drop you as a customer, and YOU AGREED to this arrangement.  And you AGREE to drop them if they don't deliever the service you want.  As it should be.

I have seen countless people crying foul at being banned just to find out later they just got caught, so I take a lot of these stories with a grain of salt.  However, I do believe with the MASSIVE amount of accounts, some people get caught in the crossfire.

The player in the story getting banned for logging on another PC other then his "normal" PC sounds like a perfect example of someone "Powerleveling" them.  While I am sure that IP traffic is monitored, it would be very simple to flag activity that was not what they concidered normal.  Capturing this iinformation and using very simple tools for verification, is the key. 

In closing, until the "demand" for gold or Power Leveling services is removed, this will continue, and the innocent will get caught in the middle.

Banning cheaters and exploiters is one thing.

Banning gold farming accounts does nothing to stop them. These are "black market" companies who will just purchase a new batch of accounts for their employes. This in turn makes one wonder as it quite obviously will put more money into the pockets of Blizzard.

By gold farmers I refer not to regular players, but those of companies who follow the MMO pop trend to set up farming accounts for selling virtual assets online to profit.

Are you saying that because these balck market companies will buy more accounts for their gold farmers then Blizzard should just do nothing to them?  These companies are making millions off Blizzard so I see no problem with them getting a little of that back.  :)

It doesn't make me wonder, it makes me giggle. 

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Originally posted by AranStormah
Banning cheaters and exploiters is one thing.

Banning gold farming accounts does nothing to stop them. These are "black market" companies who will just purchase a new batch of accounts for their employes. This in turn makes one wonder as it quite obviously will put more money into the pockets of Blizzard.

By gold farmers I refer not to regular players, but those of companies who follow the MMO pop trend to set up farming accounts for selling virtual assets online to profit.

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Banning for logging on from different locations... nice..

 /Working as intended

  LMAO