In the fantasy MMORPG World of Warcraft , users of the bot “Honorbuddy” were banned for 6 months. The bot originates from Germany. The operator believes that Blizzard’s “attack” is related to a court ruling that favored his company.
Bossland GmbH manufactures, among other things, the bot “Honorbuddy” and also operates a website with a forum. One can imagine what has been going on lately. Because Blizzard banned 100,000 users for 6 months: Early reports mentioned that among the 100,000, primarily Honorbuddies were included.
“We never thought we were unbeatable, that was you. We are sorry.”
The operator of Bossland addresses his customers in a post, giving a statement. He says: It seems that Honorbuddy has been discovered. Some of the banned accounts are 10 years old. They regret that, but it was always said: Don’t use your “valuable” accounts, you do so at your own risk.
Previously, between 2006 and 2008, two bots were discovered each year. That was practically an everyday occurrence. They never thought with Honorbuddy that they were unbeatable, even though some fans believed so.
With Honorbuddy you thought that we are unbeatable, we never thought that, we’ve succeeded since 2010 – Honorbuddy had not a single software detection. It seems there is one now.
The bot manufacturer thinks the ban was revenge from Blizzard
The operator speculates in his statement to the fans that Blizzard was “really pissed” about the fact that Bossland had a first success at the Hamburg district court in an appeal process. But that could also be a coincidence. That is not certain.
It also seems that Blizzard was really pissed at our first win at the court of appeals in Hamburg. It might have been coincidental. Nothing is for sure.
Bossland GmbH has been involved in a complicated legal dispute with Blizzard for several years. In a press release from Bossland in early May, they summarize it this way:
Bossland GmbH fights in various proceedings against Blizzard Entertainment S.A.S. and Blizzard Entertainment Inc., with one proceeding in the stage of revision before the Federal Court of Justice, and in another, a non-admission complaint has been filed before the Federal Court of Justice. The goal of these proceedings is to clarify various legal situations. This includes questions regarding the incorporation of terms and conditions of software when purchasing in physical stores or online retailers, the legal assessment of virtual items, and questions regarding competition law of service providers that have established themselves in the online gaming environment and wish to offer various additional services, services or products that do not originate directly from the online game providers.
Do the 180-day bans expire in time for the add-on?
The bot manufacturer further suspects that the 180-day ban duration has something to do with the release date of the next WoW add-on. Otherwise, so the theory goes, they would have likely banned the players forever. It is hard to reconcile that Blizzard announces “death to all bots” and then only issues temporary bans.
For the time being, they have halted the “Honorbuddy” authentication. They will inform the “customers” when it resumes. Some international gaming sites then reported that Honorbuddy was giving up. However, that seems to have been a bit premature.
David against Goliath with swapped roles
Mein MMO thinks: If you put yourself in the bot manufacturer’s shoes, the situation has a somewhat tragic-heroic aspect. David achieves hard-fought recognition successes against the overpowering Goliath in court, only for Goliath to turn around and bring out the big guns on another battlefield.
However, it is questionable whether most WoW players will have much understanding or even sympathy for this side of the story. Because from the perspective of the “honest players”, Goliath is, for a change, the good guy here.
