Guild Wars players recently noticed that Dhuum, the god of death, was cropping up throughout the game world cutting players (more specifically, botters) down with his scythe. As it would turn out, Dhuum was delivering bans (3,700 of them!) by order of the powers that be at ArenaNet to many Guild Wars players (and even disbanding 12 guilds) who have been caught botting and manipulating PvP matches.

Guild Wars Design Director James Phinney explained the situation in a recent update to the official ArenaNet blog:

Today we terminated more than 3,700 accounts for botting and match manipulation. In cases where guilds were found to be involved in these activities, the guilds were also disbanded. More than a dozen such guilds were disbanded and many others are under continued investigation. Today’s actions are significant not simply because of their immediate impact but also because they represent a new era in enforcement for us.

As many of you know, Guild Wars has seen a significant increase in the number and sophistication of bots in recent months. Particularly visible were new types of bots used in PvP. As with any hacks or exploits, our primary concern is the potential negative impact on the experience of other players. To a varying degree, cheaters hurt other players by inflating the economy, devaluing hard-earned accomplishments, or annoying everyone with RMT chat spam to sell gold gained through botting, but cheating in PvP is especially odious because it so directly affects the play experience of others.

ArenaNet will be seriously ramping up their anti-cheating methods going forward, and James offers some parting words to those of you out there who may consider cheating, or even doing something that may be dubious with regards to the User Agreement:

If you have any doubts about whether or not something is allowed by the User Agreement, don’t do it. Don’t take that risk. Account termination means losing not only everything you’ve built up in Guild Wars, but losing the ability to have those accomplishments recognized in Guild Wars 2. Let me give you a real example from today. Here’s an actual account we just terminated: 2,469 hours, 38 titles, 913 plat, 268 ecto, Eternal Legendary Vanquisher monument, Mini Gwen, Chaos Gloves, Mallyx’s Strife, The Holy Avenger, etc., etc. It’s all gone now. Forever. You will not want that to happen to your account.

Read the full blog entry here.

[Thanks Piasek for the tip!]