A ban wave has rolled over the World of Warcraft. Numerous players have lost access to their accounts – and items.
Some players attempting to log in today for Patch 9.2 “Eternity’s End” might rub their eyes in disbelief – as their accounts have been temporarily suspended. A ban wave has rolled over World of Warcraft, excluding numerous players from the MMORPG. The cause is likely assistance in the Mage Tower, which violates the terms of use.
What happened? Yesterday, on 22.02.2022, an outcry went through the various WoW forums and the game’s subreddit. Numerous players reported that they or their friends had been banned. The bans range from a few days to several months. Particularly bitter is the fact that a new patch is on the agenda today, which these players will miss.
Why were the accounts suspended? The reason for the ban dates back several weeks, as it concerns the Mage Tower. Apparently, many players have sought help in completing these tasks by sharing their account details with other players, who then completed these tasks for them.
If Player A shares their account with Player B to complete a task, then this is account sharing. This is not only dangerous, as it involves sharing login credentials with others, but is also prohibited in the terms of use.
Account sharing can usually be easily proven, as Blizzard can see from the IP address when an account logs in from two widely separated locations in a short period of time.
Which items are involved? Blizzard has since confirmed that they will remove the items obtained through account sharing from the respective accounts. Specifically, this concerns the Mage Book, a special mount that was awarded for completing all Mage Tower challenges.
Additionally, individual sets associated with the Mage Tower successes will be removed from the affected players. They will need to achieve the successes and the associated rewards again after the ban expires – this time without outside assistance.
Community Manager Kaivax explained in the official forum:
It’s important for me to clarify that the prevailing opinion in this thread exactly reflects what we will do. We do not believe that it is enough to simply impose a temporary suspension and then let players log back in with their unjustly obtained rewards.
We will remove both the rewards [sets, mounts] and the kill evidence [achievements] from all players whose accounts have been sanctioned.
What do you think of this approach? A good step that Blizzard is taking a hard stance? Or is the punishment too harsh for “10 minutes of account sharing”?
