Comments on: 'World of Warcraft' bans raise players' ire

Some players of the popular online game think the publisher is banning first and asking questions second when it comes to alleged terms of service violations.

[blizzardsucks]

Blizzard does ban innocent players

Everybody hates cheaters, and I agree that Blizzard should aggressively punish them, but there is absolutely no doubt that Blizzard is casting too wide a net and banning innocent players. I know this for a fact because I am one of them.

After a year and a half of playing WoW without any problems, my account was suddenly banned without any warning. Blizzard sent me an extremely vague canned email informing me of the ban. When I replied to the email, I received (after waiting a week for a response) a second canned email message. I have asked for further clarification regarding the ban, but Blizzard has so far chosen to ignore me.

Neither message I received gave me sufficient details about my supposed violation that I could identify exactly what the allegation is, let alone adequately defend myself against it. All I know is that Blizzard alleges my account was somehow ?involved in the sale of virtual property.?

I have never bought or sold gold, or anything else. I did recently mail a large quantity of gold to a friend?s character to help him buy a flying mount, and I can only assume that this action caused one of Blizzard?s automated watchdog programs to flag my account.

I understand that this is ?just a game.? I also understand that the contract Blizzard makes us sign before we play the game pretty much gives it the right to do whatever it wants, including banning our accounts without telling us why. But I still feel like I?ve been robbed, and not just because of the prepaid monthly fees I?ve lost. I have invested hundreds--maybe thousands--of hours building up my characters. That time and effort had value to me, and that value has been stolen from me because of an unjustified act on the part of Blizzard.

[ralfthedog]

I did some research on your account.

You were banned for cheating on you spelling test in your third grade class with Ms. Wilson.

To regain access to your account, please contact Cleavland Elementary.

Please ask for Mrs. Johnson as Ms. Wilson retired 12 years ago.

[sdbob]

Guilt by association

I have two roommates. I'll call them George and John for clarity, and because I don't have their permission to use their real names.

George, John, and I all play WoW. We each have our own accounts, and we do not share accounts with each other. We do share the same cable Internet connection, however, so we all have the same IP address.

George got his account banned by using a powerleveling service. This ban was totally justified. George knowingly broke the rules and Blizzard was totally in the right to ban him.

Neither I nor John knew about George's violation of the rules. George didn't even tell us about the ban because he was embarrassed. We thought he just got bored with the game and quit.

Two weeks later, however, John and I both got our accounts banned for "being associated to accounts which have been closed for intended exploitation." Neither John nor I have done anything wrong, but because we share the same IP address as George, Blizzard banned our accounts as well.

John and I have repeatedly tried to explain the situation to Blizzard, but they won't listen to us. We are, in their eyes, as guilty as George, even though we didn't do anything wrong , nor did we even know about George's actions until after we were banned. (George finally told us about the ban after John and I got banned.)

As I've said, I have no problem with Blizzard banning people who violate the rules, but I have a MAJOR problem with the whole "guilt by association" thing.

[Leya80]

i got banned for sending gold to my husband

we've been playing WOW for 2 years now. i'm an elementary teacher and hubby's an engineer, we work full time and only enjoy WOW at night after work as a shared common hobby. we've enjoyed questing together through almost all the game contents. we've never ever cheated, powerleveled, bought gold or anything like it... although i was the main gold maker for both of us. meaning when we quest, hubby never rolls against me unless he needs, he always passes on everything so i can sell or disenchant and sell materials in the auction house, he never liked dealing with the auction house and he knew that i really enjoy it, so it worked fine for both of us.

until...

my husband reached level 70 before me when i was still 66, and so we decided to start with buying him his flying mount first and then work together on making more gold for mine, so i went ahead and sent him 900 gold from my account to his (and obviously for that i got banned). we really didn't know that sending gold between players was illegal! well i owe him half of my gold anyway! he gives me all his items! we have the same credit card info on file! we're family! we're husband and wife for God's sake!
apparently Blizzard didn't like it, and 2 weeks ago we both were shocked with an e-mail in my inbox that said "Access to this account has been permanently disabled for exploitation of the World of Warcraft economy or for being associated to accounts which have been closed for intended exploitation." note: they didn't ban my hubby's account though, but he never received the gold, they blocked the mail in game or something.
several attends have been made to contact Bliz and reactivate my account, all failed. they keep resending the same e-mail over and over again.

too bad, they just lost 2 good loyal players, hubby's stopped playing since they banned me. because he's mad about it, and he says it's not the same without me anymore :)

[JunkSiu]

Seems to me the rules go beyon common sense

I didn't play online game for awhile and never play WOW. It seems those user agreements become so against common sense. Giving away gold/money and equiptment are so common in online games, and it look like WOW is banning it. Banning BOTs/Farmers is one thing, but going against common sense is another thing.

[Fireweaver]

banned accts, transferred gold, lawsuits

You have the right to be furious.

I haven't played in a year, but I know that when I left I took my account and sent off all of the things I had accumulated over the year of playing and mailed them off to friends and guild members, including about 700 gold. I can't begin to tell you how pissed off I would be to find that my gold and items never arrived, let alone having someone get their account banned because of it.

The online gold DOES have a real-world value, that much has been proven. If Blizzard is literally "stealing" this from players and banning access to players without due cause they'll probably get sued.

Ultimately they control the system, but people playing the games do have rights no matter how totalitarian the EULA is for the game. I have to imagine that people following the rules and getting stripped of something without warning or justification have legal rights. Someone along the line is going to sue them and if they win there will be a landslide of lawsuits. It sounds to me as though many will be justified, too.

Too bad that THIS is the only way Blizzard will ever care.

[nkoi]

Just-World Phenomenon

well, for people who actually read comments, i thought it was very interesting that there was some of this going around in the comments and the article itself. basically people naturally assume the the world is 'just' and people get what they deserve. read more if your bored enough http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_phenomenon

*main point* i want to say that no, people dont have to do something bad to get banned, it just gets me fired up whenever someone say ah, he must have hacked or something because blizzard (or any other group with power) must have incriminating evidence to ban or punish them.

[TexasMo]

rpgSE.com (not a sell site)

You can really track the ban waves of gold farmers at sites like rpgSE.com (not a sell site) It seems that Blizzard has slowed down their ban waves the past week or so to get caught up on all the extra fish they caught in the net and reactivate their accounts.

It just sucks to have to be out over a weeks worth of play time for no good reason at all.

[TexasMo]

moneymaker for blizzard

They actually encourage you to buy another account if you get banned. Its the ACCOUNT that is banned, not the player is the official tag line.

[Kurlus]

Buying into the BS

It amazing to think that Blizzard has the wool pulled so far over peoples eyes that they automatically jump to the conclusion of "If Blizzard banned them then they deserved it." I guess this stems from the "I'm perfect and do nothing wrong" rule that some of these conceded people live by.
Like any person, companies make mistakes themselves, this company just doesn't care if the actions it's doing are right or not. Then again when you have 8 million people for a player base, what's the harm in "accidentally" banning a few hundred.
The point I'm trying to make is, step back and think about what you say before you go pointing your finger. Blizzard said "we conduct a very thorough investigation before the actual ban takes place". Probably as through an investigation as they do when an account gets hacked and let me tell you from experience, it's not very through.
Blizzard's main problem is, with the player base as large as it is, compared to the staff that they have to handle in-game problems, there will be many more stories of horrible customer service relations as it pertains to blocked/banned/hacked accounts.
This is just something we have to deal with until a MMORPG comes out that's more focused on the "customer" than the customers money.

[avermeer]

My brother did it!

You know, maybe not all of them deserve it, but most do. I've adminned game servers of all kinds for years, and when you catch people breaking the rules, they always think they deserve a second chance. No. You knew it was wrong, you got caught, you lose. The excuses are many but boil down to My Brother Did It and You Can't Comprehend How 733t I Am, So You Ban. Whatever. Go Blizzard.

[tagno25]

Free Servers

There are tons of free server at wowstatus.net.
It does break the TOS and/or EULA so you will not be able to play on official servers, but you donot have to pay to play!

[technick²]

Go Play SilkRoad

Go and download SilkRoad Online from silkroadonline.net. They
never ban anyone and if they do its for a very good proven
reason... These people love fat wallets. Even though the game is
free, there is a section where you can buy items in-game with a
credit card. BTW, I had a WoW trial and there were a lot of ups and
downs compared to SilkRoad and gay RuneScape.

[dragonfly8610]

Now that's funny...

one guy who thinks 60 levels in WoW in a short time is more of a life than a guy who spends one week going 10 levels....seems to me Neither of them have a life

[Santa Clauz]

The Free Servers are better!

The Admin of a free server is generally polite, helpful and fan of the game just like the rest of us. Unlike the Blizzard's arrogant bunch of demigods, who close 99% of the Incident Reports with form letter advising you to **** and suffer. Sorry Blizzard, your support people are trash.
Not to mention that in freeland the XP&Loot is better and you level faster!

[TuringTester]

WOW Bans

I don't blame Blizzard. The abuses are more extreme.

Not too long ago I took out my old Warcraft just to reminisce and within minutes the key was stolen and I was locked out upon returning.

Ironically the warning against loosing keys was squarely placed on me for having done something or other improperly. And this a game which I had for about 5 years or more!

Now that the shoe is on the other foot, the squeals sound like storm and stress!

God I love it when He works in mysterious ways!!!

[CliffnMichelle]

Maybe Blizzard should develop software with less exploitable bugs??

Maybe Blizzard should develop software with less exploitable bugs??

That to me would be the real solution. If the game were not so darn bug ridden, it might not be possible to cheat.

And don't tell me they are doing the best they can, for the monthly fee every WOW player sinks into that company, they could cure it on the software end, they are just too cheap and lazy if you ask me.

WOW players should boycott until Blizzard fixes the bugs that allow the exploits to occur.

Insist on that course of action rather than banning people from the game.

The real long term solution is in the softwares foul code and design that allows the game to be exploited in so many ways, its weak product design.

[bob donut]

I'm glad I don't play

Hearing about all these overdone judicial sweeps tells me that I don't want to deal with the people that create games like WoW.

even if someone is so obsessive that they play 12 hours to level up, or they exploit a cheese to get more exp, that's part and parcel of running a mmorpg.

[nokozon]

"Banning [letter] from blizz"

it a very simple concept GET OVER IT if you were banned even if you dont know why just ask blizz why repeatedly and if they say you broke the rule either offer PROOF TO THE CONTRARY or SHUT UP.unlike people here i wont tell you reasons that blizz is wrong or right.i will tell you what to do if it happens to you
step one:try talking to blizz ask teh get question "why?"
Second: if that cant get ther attention and you've tryed it repeatedly then just walk on over to a store and by a new copy of wow for teh cd key and create a new account AFTER reading teh ToS.you'll have to remake a char and such but youll be able to play teh game which is what should be what your mad about. if you dont do this then it more or less states that you wanted your old account back probally with it compliment of high level char so you could farm or such once you have lvl 70 back.if yuo neccessitly refute that you want your account unbanned so you can just play teh game youre more or less saying that "i want my account back so i can sell gold or high level item back to teh general world players" if you playing to enjoy teh game yes having a high level char is gloat worthy and gold makin but be able to bounce back from having your account banned and having to restart is truly what a good nature legit player should be able to do. if your complanian cause you lost yuor char and you were legit yuo need to visit a shrink cause yuo have an obsession.
if blizz say you powered lvl tell them to look at your play time. if blizz say you have a bot make money for you point out way in which the youyr char acted.
and just look at this aticle and teh responses if blizz is making such a big mistake banning as many peopl as tehy supposedly have for very nonchalant actions then why are ther so few post in the us alon there are over 2 million player just in north america then why are tehre so few post less then 0.001% of that populance surely ther would be more if these were too hard and there were numerous bans and such but less then 100 people have responded to this article so either blizz is banning alot of Cheaters and such thus they know they did wrong and so wont persue it or they arent banning alot of wrongly banned peole i think having a game world free of cheaters is worth have a miniscule amount of peolpe banned.
and if you are cheater who are banned and mad about this move on to a game that blizz no longer enforce a strong tolerance to banner like diablo 2 you can make money there for runes and such.

[blizzardsucks]

I disagree

When posting something in an English-speaking forum, you might try actually writing in something resembling proper English. That way the rest of us could understand what you?re writing.

To the extent I could understand what you wrote, I must disagree with your premises.

First, as many other posters have already explained, it generally does no good to ask Blizzard why your account was banned. In most cases, they will not provide you with sufficient information to understand exactly why your account was banned.

Second, it does no good to send multiple emails to Blizzard. They will simply ignore you.

Third, one of the main things that makes the game enjoyable is experiencing the progress of your character. That progress is taken away from you when your account is banned, and simply buying a new account and starting all over again at level 1 does not restore what you lost.

[nokozon]

a final remiscence

this is my last coment to this post
I DONT WANT WoW TO BECOME LIKE DIABLO 2
if your ever played diablo on the open realm servers yuo no what im talking about blizz no longers actively check d2 for hack and such it run teh warden program which is also on wow which might be why some innocent players get banned ther ISNT a person on the other end of the bann letter its automated by a program so mistake are made and as such it proves that man makes mistake and thus there creations make mistakes
thus overall get over teh problem think of the solution and you'll get thruoght eh accidental banning just fine

[singlemomandrockin]

wow bannings

I agree something needs to be done about the cheating, however I also agree they are snaring lot people who are innocent. IE a game friend of mine had been lvling in the outland(known to be easy gold) and sending his gold to another account so he wouldn't spend it and be able to save for an epic flying mount. Bliz banned that account for a week suspecting him of gold farming. which is hogwash since I had been lvling side by side with him only my gold ended up buying stuff i didn't need off the AH

[TuringTester]

Proper English

You're right Blizarrdsucks! People seem hell-bent on destroying the English Language, and to think they have the gumption to ask others to speak English or get out of the country.

[drny169]

My WoW account got hacked while I was at work.

I woke up checked the stuff I had put in auction and went to work. When I came home I could not log in. My password had been changed. So I went on the account management website changed the password and went into the game. And lo and behold. My account had been stripped. All the bags money and even the soulbound items had been taken of my character. So I petitioned in game and went to bed. Woke up this morning checked my email account and found this:
==================
***Notice of Account Closure***

Hello,

Account Name: ************************

This is a notification regarding your World of Warcraft account. Access to this
account has been permanently disabled for exploitation of the World of Warcraft
economy or for being associated to accounts which have been closed for intended
exploitation. While we try to be as lenient as possible in our assessments of
the results of exploitation investigations, exploitative endeavors on your
account have ultimately lead to its closure. The recurring subscription on the
account has been disabled to prevent further charges.

The actions detailed above have been deemed inappropriate for World of Warcraft
by the Support staff of Blizzard Entertainment. Please review the World of
Warcraft Terms of Use at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html
which state that your Password is to be kept confidential at all times and you
are solely responsible for the security of your Password. You may not disclose
your Password to anyone, or allow your Password to be used by anyone other than
yourself and/or your one (1) minor child. You are responsible for maintaining
the confidentiality of your Password, and you will be responsible for all uses
of your Password, whether or not authorized by you. Also, note that the
security of the Account is your responsibility. Furthermore, Blizzard
Entertainment does not recognize the transfer of Accounts, and any unauthorized
transfer of the World of Warcraft software (as set forth on the
worldofwarcraft.com website) will result in the permanent deletion of the
Account attached to that software. As such, this World of Warcraft account has
now been closed by the Account Administration staff based on review of the above
account infraction incurred. This action has been taken in accordance with the
Terms of Use (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.html) and our game
policies (http://www.blizzard.com/support/wowgm/?id=agm01712p). The recurring
subscription on the account has been disabled to prevent further charges.

Lastly, according to the World of Warcraft Terms of Use, to which all players
agree when installing World of Warcraft, Section 5. [Rules of Conduct],
Paragraph C [Rules Related to Game Play] states that you may not do anything
that Blizzard Entertainment considers contrary to the "essence" of World of
Warcraft. This entails access to another World of Warcraft account, including,
but not limited to, the deletion of items/characters and redistribution of
in-game currency or possessions. The bottom line is that we want World of
Warcraft to be a fun and safe environment for all players. Game Play] states
that you may not do anything that Blizzard Entertainment considers contrary to
the "essence" of World of Warcraft.

Thank you for your time and understanding of our position in this matter.
Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns you may have.

Regards,

Narrm
Account Administration
Blizzard Entertainment
www.WorldOfWarcraft.com
============================================

I guess if we go by Blizzards treatment of their customers... rape/mugging/robbery victims should all be jailed.

[Dr. E. Warf]

Innocent?

Wouldn't it be nice for all the 'innocent' people in prison if they could just write a letter to customer service and get out of jail free?
Is it wrong to assume that the type of person who would violate the terms of service would also be willing to lie about their innocence in a letter to Blizzard?
If you are caught beating up toddlers and claim you didn't know it was against the law, should you not be penalized?

[khuss66]

HA!

If I come up to you and say "that 12 year old over there said you were beating up toddlers, your going to jail", or better yet "Your going to jail" the toddler beating accusation never being mentioned.

After spending 12 years in appellate court, the warden all of a sudden says "Your free to go", you reply "was my appeal approved, did you find the actual guilty party, what was I charged with?"

And they respond "be happy we're letting you go. Don't even think of suing for wrongful imprisonment!"

[redmaxblower]

SHADDUPJACKASS

See subject line.