A heavy ban wave in World of Warcraft has struck. Many exploiters have been punished – not just with time, but also with a dramatic deduction.
“Exploit early, exploit often” is a saying often heard in the WoW community. The thought is: If you find a game glitch, you should exploit it as much as possible because Blizzard won’t do anything anyway. Many people who tried to log into their WoW account today are probably realizing that this is repeatedly proven to be a misconception. Because many have received a ban and are now missing the start of the raids of WoW: Midnight.
A one-week ban, profession knowledge reset for exploiters
What kind of exploit was that? In World of Warcraft Midnight, players can gain knowledge points for professions once through books that can be purchased from reputation vendors. Each book is actually supposed to be purchasable and usable only once per character. But some players found out that they can buy and use the book multiple times as long as they don’t close the NPC’s inventory in between and have enough resources.
The result: Some players were able not just to buy 10 knowledge points, but managed to get 20, 30, 50, or even 100 of these points. This gave them a temporary advantage of several months of playtime and allowed them to earn a lot of gold.
The bug was fixed after just a few hours.
What has Blizzard done now? Just in time for the start of the raids and the rich depths, Blizzard has acted. The respective accounts have been banned for a week and are no longer accessible. Some also report significantly longer penalties if they are repeat offenders.
Some also report that those who only “lightly” exploited and therefore did not receive a ban had their knowledge points taken away and their professions reset. So they are starting again at 0 knowledge points and are now at a disadvantage compared to all those who played fairly and didn’t exploit. However, this statement has yet to be confirmed.
Why right now? Even though the official season start is still a week away (mythic mode will only open then), the WoW week that has just begun is likely one of the most lucrative of the entire expansion. People are now looking to upgrade their gear, craft weapons, and buy enchantments. Those who spend time on crafting now can earn a lot of gold. But the now banned players are left out and have to miss out on that time.
Also live today are not just bans, but also a lot of buffs and nerfs. Just in time for the start of the raids, Blizzard has indeed made significant adjustments to the balance – some abilities have been nerfed by up to 60%.
