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World of Warcraft: Blizzard Banning Accounts
Dana
Member Posts: 2,415
Staff Writer Garrett Fuller looks into the issue of recent bannings in World of Warcraft and offers his opinions on the situation in this new editorial.
| More and more account issues continue to pop up in the MMORPG world this week. This time it's the monster company Blizzard who has come under fire for banning accounts that have been running third party software or operating in online trade or gold buying activities. These seem like valid reasons for a ban however players are being hit for running the game on Linux or logging in their character from another location. This is causing a stir among players because those who have done nothing wrong are logging in to find their accounts cancelled with little or no explanation from the company. |
The full editorial is here.
Dana Massey
Formerly of MMORPG.com
Currently Lead Designer for Bit Trap Studios
Comments
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
I find it amazing that by 2020 first world countries will be competing to get immigrants.
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
-Semper ubi sub ubi!
always wear underwear
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...
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.
Life is about Living, Sleep is about Dreaming, Games are about Strategy!
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 Stans 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 Blizzards anti-cheating software incorrectly flagging their accounts has using 3rd party software.Blizzard has also sent out an email which reads...
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!
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
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....
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 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.
It doesn't make me wonder, it makes me giggle.
Banning for logging on from different locations... nice..
/Working as intended
LMAO
My account got banned when i play WoW in Mac. Stating that i use 3rd application that relates to botting and no words from them till now.
1 word : Lame
All canceled. Waiting on Warhammer Online : Age of Reckoning.
It's a violation of Blizzard's ToS which is a rule for Blizzard, it's not against the law.
If blizzard didn't have such a farmy game no one would bother buying gold.
http://www.greycouncil.org/
There is something a lot of people don't consider, and that as more people come into a game world the crime and scams increase quickly. Developers can't possibly think of every exploit that scammers, hackers, and exploiters are going to find and come up with. These games are large scale and it can be extremely difficult to catch everything until someone happens upon it and takes advantage of it. Yes developers are technically resposible for their content, but that doesn't automatically mean that someone is "allowed" to take advantage of it for profit at their expense.
I'm personally tired of gold farmers and sites spamming in game to come to their site for leveling and gold. Almost everytime we see this we report it because it goes extremely annoying when there is a bot spamming general chat for 5 lines advertising for their website. I pay monthly fees for this game and part of that goes for not having to deal with adds in the game, yet these people do it anyway, they deserve to be banned.
Most of these people that earn this gold exploit the game, farm things and deprive others from it, or hack accounts and steal from others. No one should be allowed to profit from this behavoir and should be punished.
Using any third party software is known when you play the game to be a bannable offense, so if you're using them you're asking to be banned, plain and simple. Some people my try to be technical and claim that some of the mods are third party software. Well Blizzard condones UI mods to help increase funtionality for the player, not open up the game for profit by eploitation, that should be obvious.
If you buy the game and want to play it go into it knowing that you cannot run bots or third party software legit and that you will be banned for doing so and if you do it anyway, then tough, you knew it going in, don't complain.
I don't personally agree with banning users for using Linux, but it was a mistake on Blizzards part and they owned up to it and credited those users back. However they would be within their rights if they so desired to ban users from doing so because it's not a supported OS that the game was designed for which could lend to some people possibly using that as a means for illegitiment activity.
I also don't pesonally agree with being banned from you account because you logged in from another computer. However none of us know the full story on this, all we know is that the person said that they were banned when they got home and they are claiming that it was because of that. That same person could be participating in suspicious activity, we only have their word to take for it and ultimiately it comes down to them and Blizzard. If Blizzard banned them because they were playing on two different machines, then yes that's wrong, especially when I play on two or three different machines myself as do many others out there. For all we know someone at the IP that caused them to get banned could have been participating in suspicious activity that lead to that person getting banned wrongly. One thing Blizzard is good about though is fixing their mistakes and giving back to those who have suffered for it.
Now for something I'm concerned about in regards to this issue. I don't want to see Blizzard to fall into the same trap SOE did. SOE became a victim of their own success. People started abusing the game so SOE had to severly crack down on their policies. At the same time SOE had the attitude for a long time that they were the only game in town and that is really hurting them now. Blizzard isn't as arrogant as SOE in that regard, however users who participate in this kind of activity ruin things for the rest of us and companies have to take severe actions sometimes to protect their products and the audiance that uses them.
I can honestly say that if Blizzard banned my account because they suspected me of something, then I would be upset, however I would be more curious about what caused it since I know that I'm not doing anything wrong. I would rather help them in their fight against these things and make the game better for everyone instead of just getting irritated bercause i'm out for a couple of days, but that's just my opinion.
There is an interesting pattern with successful MMO's. The meta-game of Devs vs. Players takes over and becomes the focus. An endless arms race between the fortress of the game owners and the chaotic rabble outside the gates.
After a couple of years, they can release some new dungeon or some new toon type or whirling 3-D weapon etc, and that's, like, fairly interesting. But ban 20,000 accounts and that's INTERESTING! Instant most-emailed status when you write an article. Instant flame fest as a forum topic.
Or you get in game and listen to the chat channels. Half of the realm sits there talking about bans, macros, bots, reporting people, farming, ganking farmers, suspensions, exploiters, etc, etc, etc, etc. Asking how to defeat some boss, or discussing almost anything about actual gameplay, is practically a n00b faux pas.
I think that the way each game defines 'cheating' and the way it conducts its inevitable war on 'cheaters' is an integral part of the game design and business plan. The ban department is a profit center for the game, because because the game keeps your prepaid time, and many bannees will buy new codes at least once. Professional services churn through codes, passing the price on to their customers as part of the cost of doing business. Thus the game publisher indirectly participates in the farming economy.
I sure hope that future game designs minimize this whole aspect. It's very distracting.
What you're saying may be true for many companies, but I honestly don't think that's the case with Blizzard. Blizzard has always delivered quality product, always. They spend years working on games to ensure not only their gameplay but their quality, and while the don't always get it right when it's out the door and gone gold, they fix their problems the correct way and keep the game fun by keep the games integrity intact and keeping the cheaters out.
Really, look at games like Starcraft and Diablo, look at how many people still play them online on Battle.net. These games have been live and going for years and it's a rarity that there are that many people still active on games that old. It's not just a few people either, there are a lot of people still playing these games because they're great games. Blizzard has a standard of quality and that can't be denied, just look on any storeshelf today and you still see WarCraft, StarCraft, and Diablo games that still sell well.
Blizzard isn't out to screw people, VU games I can't speak for, but Blizzard is trying to maintain the quality of the game despite what anyone may think. When you have over 7.5 million people playing it's a hard battle to keep the game quality intact against a constant barage of scammers and cheaters.
While it's true that the company does reserve the right to keep the ingame time of prepaid players, how else would you expect them to refund it to people? The can't just credit it back to them, and it's hardly worth it to cut a check to them for it, I honestly wouldn't expect it. If you buy prepaid time and are conduction these kinds of activity it's your own fault if you lose the money, and if Blizzard makes a mistake the pretty much always credit game time to those who they've screwed up on. So how is this some grand scheme?
I'll agree that there are games out there who don't have their players intentions truly at heart, but Blizzard isn't one of those companies. Some may say I'm a fanboy for saying all this, but that simply isn't the case, I've played a lot of MMO's and while it's not my opinion that WoW is the best that I've played, it's been published by a very reputable company. I say that after having taken a year long stance against SOE after they treated me very poorly due to one of their errors, having played half finished games, and started and quit many games with obivious lack of development thought.