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Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft: Bots Banned, Baby
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
The Hearthstone team has posted a short notice on the official site letting players know that, at least as of this writing, several thousand accounts have been banned for utilizing third party programs, or "bots", to play the game. These accounts are banned until 2015.
As we’ve stated, fair play is at the core of the Hearthstone experience, and cheating and botting will not be tolerated.
We’re committed to creating a fun and rewarding environment for our players, and we will continue to closely monitor activities within Hearthstone and take appropriate action against cheating in any form, as outlined in our Terms of Use. From this point on, accounts found to be cheating will be permanently closed without warning.
If you believe that you’ve encountered a possible bot or other form of exploitation, please let us know by emailing our Hacks team at hacks@blizzard.com.
Source: Hearthstone official site
Comments
Call me maybe baby :P
Finally some action...no wonder i never made it past rankl 6!! :P
mmorpg junkie since 1999
A 2 month ban and no removal of any ill gotten gains.
That will show 'em we really mean business !!!!
Next time we will tickle their feet with a feather !!
2015 isn't very far away. Sounds more like a suspension then a ban. If I was calling the shots your account would be null and void.
Shouldn't be any place for cheating and the only way to curb it is to come down hard.
Sounds pretty pussy to me, but I guess a cheater's money is just as green as an honest player's eh Blizz
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
has Blizzard made any changes to how people win in this game? Is it still 'whoever has the most legendary cards win'? I kind of want to play again but if im going to be matched every time with people full of OP special cards then i wont waste my time.
EDIT: nice to see they are banning bots.
Its not all about cards, I have few deks full of normal cards only and it is enjoyable to win most of the time vs those with expensive decks. Just play with the setup and try what is fun.
No fate but what we make, so make me a ham sandwich please.
A two months ban and then back to more bot-farming.
Wow that will teach them a lesson..
It's not a bad strategy. Gives any players with a conscience the opportunity to redeem themselves after this. Any continued douche beggary and you're done.
To hear this community tell it, all the bots are in AA.
I guess some escaped.
Well certain ccg's (like Hearthstone) have closed systems which limit your possible actions to a certain few.
Mana caps at 10
You gain 1 mana per turn
No instant cards that you can play during opponent's turn
No tutors/deck searching/graveyard/selective choices
That's why it's so easy to make a bot for it, just make a deck with a decent mana curve and the bot will just play the most appropriate card for the turn and attack. The end. HS is a very simple CCG, there's *some* amount of interplay and decision making, but it's still pretty simple.
It's especially easy since you can code a priority curve to play specific cards with specific priorities.
I got banned and only botted for all of 1 hour, to see what the fuss was about. After I realized how smart the bot was, I started advocating against it and reporting dozens of players daily.
I have to imagine I'm not the only one who fell victim to this; but I get the same punishment as people who botted 24/7, yet I got no rewards to keep.
I even offered them to strip the server I botted on for that hour, to no avail.
I guess looking around at how slack society is on cheating others i would not expect any different .I think in reality there is no ban at all,they can simply make another account,bot it up and gain a high rank within a couple days of botting.
The cheating situation is far worse,we only know of waht we have seen for ourselves but more exists.I was watching a VERY prominent player just a couple days ago and someone sent him a message on how to cheat the ranking system.He ignored the message a couple times then decided to try it and although happened quickly we could tell it worked and the player smiled and quickly hid the message.
There was the long standing cheats that were more or less bugs that some players took advantage of that Blizzard KNEW about ,yet took them forever to fix them.Blizzard moves VERY slowly on almost everything,they have a very small team working on this game.
I am glad they "claim" to be acting on it but i am not so sure of their effort.Personally the game needs a better system than what is in place.The current system is what sort of turned me off from this game,i am still following it and paying close attention but a system that favors those who just play a lot is not a fair or very well thought out design.I often check out new streamers and enjoy watching new players learn the game but i have seen some pretty good rank 25 noobs which tells me they are vets with new accounts,which again proves how poorly the system was designed to make it fair for real noobs.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Er, you cheated. One hour, one thousand hours, you cheated and should have been banned indefinitely.
A bit crazy that Blizzard has some sort of amnesty program going here, with 2.5 months punishments.
Guess they really won't turn down paying customers if they can help it.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Also it doesn't affect other players so its really not deserving of a perma ban anyway. Hearthstone doesn't have a market or any kind of meaningful interaction so no matter how much you bot you will never impact another player.
There are also quite a few rumors that the bots that made it to legend rank didn't receive bans.
Waiting for:
The Repopulation
Albion Online
Yeah the point isn't to use the bot to earn the daily reward to buy more cards. More cards doesn't give you any benefit.
In what kind of fantasy land do you live?
I didn't cheat, though. I was at the PC, predicting the moves and taking control if it was making bad ones. So, in essence, I was actually playing. I just wanted to see how smart the bot was to know if it was actually an issue.
When I first got the email saying I was banned, I assumed nbd because I can explain and maybe just let them strip the secondary account I used to test it... but Blizzard employees must be trained to not read anything anyone says and treat people like dog shit. They did the same to me long before, when Nax that I paid for wouldn't unlock... or when the game bugs out in arena runs.
I'm all for banning botters; but any investigation into my play history would have shown that I am not (I play normal hours, I do not have an abundance of gold... I even had to pay for Nax); but they wouldn't give me the time of day.
We are going into 2015 and bots are still a problem lol. Ever since I can remember playing MMOs since 2002 there has been an issue with bots and account sharing.
And during the console years people had Game Genie although it seemed a bit harder to cheat on the console games.
This is old news, but you're quite wrong. Violating terms of service, perhaps... Cheating? Not at all.
Cheating requires acting dishonestly to gain an advantage; I received none in this situation. After months, CS determined I was correct and opted not to remove the portraits I had earned, so kudoz to me, I guess.
Holy mother of necro post. You told him it's old news a year later. lol
Violating Terms of Service. Boom! Bam! Ban! Good to hear it. There's no gray area here to be discussed.