Blizzard once again bans more accounts than other games total subs

[Threash]

In our continued efforts to combat cheating in World of Warcraft, more than 105,000 accounts were closed and over 12 million gold was removed from the game economies in Europe, Korea, and the US in the month of November. The closed accounts were associated with activities that violate World of Warcraft's Terms of Use, such as using third-party programs that allow cheating, and farming gold and items. These types of activities can severely impact the economy of a realm and the overall game enjoyment for all players.

Even with 7.5 mil subs thats a huge number of bannings.  Ohh i bet i can get a lot of amusement looking at the wowglider forums right about now.

[Paelos]

That is so very awesome that words fail me.

[Strazos]

Ahh, if only I could hear the crying of so many conceited nerds with a false sense of entitlement, I could almost climax.

Bwahahahahaha

To quote a certain monkey: "I polish my armor with your tears!"

[Threash]

Ahh, if only I could hear the crying of so many conceited nerds with a false sense of entitlement, I could almost climax.

Bwahahahahaha

To quote a certain monkey: "I polish my armor with your tears!"

You can't hear them but you can certainly read them

[stray]

So these are mainly farmer bots, right? Why can't it be fixed?

[Strazos]

You can't hear them but you can certainly read them

No no no, I'm not trying to rape my eyes.

I think hal's posts are pretty bad (grammatically), but I cannot imagine how bad that forum would be.

[Threash]

So these are mainly farmer bots, right? Why can't it be fixed?

What do you mean by "fixed"? they ban the account and the last thread someone mentioned they were taking the wowglider guy to court. 

[stray]

Which last thread?

Anyways, by "fix", I mean....Err...Well..

Basically, what can't they just take measures to break Glider (Sorry, if it's a stupid question somehow. I honestly don't know how that stuff works)?

Either way, good for Blizzard. Mass bannings might be their greatest innovation.

[Threash]

Which last thread?

Anyways, by "fix", I mean....Err...Well..

Basically, what can't they just take measures to break Glider (Sorry, if it's a stupid question somehow. I honestly don't know how that stuff works)?

Either way, good for Blizzard. Mass bannings might be their greatest innovation.

This last thread.  Honestly i don't if they could break it either, i think they have a hard enough time just detecting it.

[Venkman]

I love this stuff.

On the one hand it's easy to write that "piddly" number off.

On the other hand, in aggregate they've banned a crapload of accounts. I would bet a good percentage of this set were re-ups from previous bannings.

The result is a definitely measurable impact on the RMT industry. Whether you consider that a good thing or not is secondary to the fact that it is happening.

Maybe this is what it took. Since the industry was never going to band together in any meaningful sense to combat this problem, it took the One Company to Rule Them All to do it all on their own.

It'd be nice to see this sort of consistent retribution from other companies. In the past they've bitch about the legal ramifications. Now? Go scalp a freakin' Blizzard lawyer. Obviously they figured it out. Considering law is precedent, that precedent is thereforee out there for others to use. Find it!

[Chenghiz]

I remember hearing that after the first big banning (late summer iirc) the price of WoW gold more than doubled.

[Threash]

I remember hearing that after the first big banning (late summer iirc) the price of WoW gold more than doubled.

Last week i got some gold seller spam, 1k gold was 220 bucks.  I'd love to know what its going for now.

[Merusk]

I just checked IGE, they're still listing 1k for @262.xx on my server, Alliance Side.  Odd, because I know one of the bots that was used for a long time (Brunhilly) finally got banned a week or two ago.

[Nebu]

Does anyone else find it funny that we pat Blizzard on the back for enforcing their EULA? 

I mean, it's a great thing that they are... but it's a sad statement of the state of the genre.

[Merusk]

Does anyone else find it funny that we pat Blizzard on the back for enforcing their EULA? 

I mean, it's a great thing that they are... but it's a sad statement of the state of the genre.

You mean like every single other point we cheer Blizzard for?

[geldonyetich]

These types of activities can severely impact the economy of a realm and the overall game enjoyment for all players.

It's good to get some official confirmation that yes, in fact, these activities harm the game.  You'd be stunned the number of players who argue against this.

[Strazos]

That's because they're idiots. Idiots with someone's credit card.

[jpark]

Maybe this is what it took. Since the industry was never going to band together in any meaningful sense to combat this problem, it took the One Company to Rule Them All to do it all on their own.

Hmmm... we love Blizzard - but perhaps your credit here is misplaced.   Banning is good busines - not because it has anything to do with preserving the player world - but because it acts as a "tax" or "cost" to farmers - in that following the banning they must now buy a New wow account.

SOE tried to incorporate this sort of thing in their exchange servers.  Blizzards approach is better:  they are charging farmers a fee for their activities by forcing them to buy a new wow account.  Good business.

[Hellinar]

So these are mainly farmer bots, right? Why can't it be fixed?

The fix for farming is pretty straightforward. The snag is it would cost Blizzard an unknown percentage of their current player base. Farmers rely on the fact that a bot optimized to gain gold 24/7 can make more money in a month than a casual player can in years. Hence its economic for a farmer to sell gold to a casual player.

The fix would simply be to soft cap the maximum gold accumulation rate to say five times the current average accumulation rate. After that, you would be just out of luck on the drops.

Off course, Blizzard would lose the people who insist on their “right” to grind 200 hours a month for their $15 subscription. An unknown quantity. Myself, I think the improved retention of casual players would more than offset that. But since some prominent Blizzard employees are 200 hour grinders themselves, I doubt if it will ever be fixed.

[Sairon]

Setting an arbitary maximum on farming seems just like a hack at best. There's people out there farming in bursts in order to earn their epic mounts or whatever. If they continue to use the same system as they use now but ramp it up a bit it will cut to much into botting profit to make it worthwile.

[Hellinar]

Setting an arbitary maximum on farming seems just like a hack at best. There's people out there farming in bursts in order to earn their epic mounts or whatever.

But the price of epic mounts is set assuming people will farm for prolonged bursts, so your argument is rather circular. You could drop the price of epic mounts to keep them as common as they are now.

[jpark]

Like efforts on the drug trade - it remains to be seen whether this action by blizzard had any meaninful effect.

This can be quantified - if one looked at gold prices / power leveling services fees and whether such fees spiked following this action.  My suspicion is that this did not happen.  This is just a blip for farmers.

[Azazel]

Well, at worst (for Blizz), it means that they just sold another 100k retail boxes...

[Shavnir]

Gold while still available has skyrocketed in price.  Its several times more expensive than it was a year ago or so.

[Slyfeind]

I'm curious how many people report gold farmers and RMT spam. I do it every time I see it. I amuse myself by imaging the GMs go "Oh, it's Slyfeind again, acting like the World (of Warcraft) Police." But then there's like a thousand GMs, so they probably don't all talk to each other.

Come to think of it, I wonder if RMT people report each other to stifle competition...or even report themselves. Gold prices just skyrocketed, right? It'd be even more profitable for them if they took a hit for the team like that. "Prices are falling! Quick, everybody report each other, and next month we'll be RICH!"

All this banning is nice to see, but what would really rock my world is if the RMTers sued Blizzard for this, and Blizzard won a countersuit against them. That would freakin' pwn.

[Shrike]

I rat out goldfarmers and--especially--bots whenever I run across them. I don't go out of my way looking for them, but if I do run across them, I'll take that minute or two to rain on their parade. What Blizz does then is their affair.

On Whisperwind, gold used to sell for about $90 for 1000g. That was a year ago. Nowadays, I get the occasional mailspam advertising for about $225 per 1000g. Whether supply is down or demand is up (or both) I can't say.

[Azazel]

When I see one spamming in ironforge or somewhere like that, I usually report them (AV seems to be the new place to spam).

When I get tells/whispers, or ingame email (unusually common these days) I always report them. Fuck that shit.

[Merusk]

Gold while still available has skyrocketed in price.  Its several times more expensive than it was a year ago or so.

Back in September -far less than a year ago- I recall checking IGE, WoWMine, and a few other sites for a similar discussion.  At that time you were paying ~$50-$60 /1k gold.  Gold is now listed at  $291.71/ 1k on IGE, an increase of around 6x in price.

  Hell, earlier in this thread I'd checked again and gold was $30/1k cheaper than it is now.  Blizzard's efforts are having a definite, measureable effect on the market.  I doubt it's affecting IGE's bottom line much - yet - but as the price goes higher and higher, you're going to find fewer and fewer people willing to spend the money on the items.  They'll always be there, to be sure, but it's going to move past the point of reasonable ROI eventually.

As for reporting, I was doing every single spam, letter, and tell I got for a while.  However, with the free 12-day accounts that Blizz has available, I've just gotten too many and know that the account I got the mail from was most likely a disposable anyway.  Character names like aaasssddff and zzzcccnnnmmm I just sigh and pop on ignore for a day, then delete because I never hear from them again.

[tkinnun0]

Back in September -far less than a year ago- I recall checking IGE, WoWMine, and a few other sites for a similar discussion.  At that time you were paying ~$50-$60 /1k gold.  Gold is now listed at  $291.71/ 1k on IGE, an increase of around 6x in price.

Hmm, a random EU PVE server has gold for less than 40$/1k, but that's from the spammers, not IGE.

[sinij]

Lets briefly assume that bans were 100% accurate, and not UO-style random witch hunt mixed with trial account closures.

This is a lot of gold farmers, I think this should be wake-up call for WoW developers that it is thriving industry. Perhaps some things should be adjusted (like mount costs) to be less gold-grind centric.

[Threash]

Lets briefly assume that bans were 100% accurate, and not UO-style random witch hunt mixed with trial account closures.

This is a lot of gold farmers, I think this should be wake-up call for WoW developers that it is thriving industry. Perhaps some things should be adjusted (like mount costs) to be less gold-grind centric.

Thats the thing, other than the epic mount i just don't see what people need so much gold for in WoW.  I always had a positive gold flow even as a hardcore raider, the only time i ever had to farm was for that epic mount.  AH epics? anything thats world dropped was obsolete a year ago, i guess maybe rare crafting mats but i just don't see where this need for so much gold comes from, you really can't buy your way to uberness.

[Trouble]

They haven't done a big ban wave since November 14th, at least of gliders. That vast majority of those bans probably happened on that one day.

[Phred]

As for reporting, I was doing every single spam, letter, and tell I got for a while.  However, with the free 12-day accounts that Blizz has available, I've just gotten too many and know that the account I got the mail from was most likely a disposable anyway.  Character names like aaasssddff and zzzcccnnnmmm I just sigh and pop on ignore for a day, then delete because I never hear from them again.

AFAIK demo accounts cant send email. I have no idea how the farmers deal with getting their account cancelled after a mass mailing. Maybe they use the stolen keys from wallmart someone was talking about.

[SurfD]

As for reporting, I was doing every single spam, letter, and tell I got for a while.  However, with the free 12-day accounts that Blizz has available, I've just gotten too many and know that the account I got the mail from was most likely a disposable anyway.  Character names like aaasssddff and zzzcccnnnmmm I just sigh and pop on ignore for a day, then delete because I never hear from them again.

AFAIK demo accounts cant send email. I have no idea how the farmers deal with getting their account cancelled after a mass mailing. Maybe they use the stolen keys from wallmart someone was talking about.

The slightly more irritating one that I have encountered is the guys who have figured out how to join the general chat of EVERY ZONE ON THE PLANET, and spam gold farmer adds in Molten Core or Naxx on level 1 alts every 5 minutes while our Naxx raids are going on.

[Trippy]

The slightly more irritating one that I have encountered is the guys who have figured out how to join the general chat of EVERY ZONE ON THE PLANET, and spam gold farmer adds in Molten Core or Naxx on level 1 alts every 5 minutes while our Naxx raids are going on.

Reminds me of all the spam bots on Battle.net. Blizzard's not exactly known for developing robust and secure networking protocols.