Blizzard has finally taken action. A large number of bans should now provide some relief in WoW Classic and punish many cheaters.
In recent weeks and months, there has been a lot of unrest in the World of Warcraft Classic community. This is mainly due to bots, cheaters, and hackers massively impacting the server economy. But now Blizzard has struck back and suspended numerous accounts permanently or temporarily.
What did Blizzard say? In the official forum, community manager Kaivax has spoken out once again. In a rather lengthy post, he explained that over the last month, more than 74,000 accounts had been suspended. The relevant accounts had violated the terms of service and used bots.
Why has Blizzard remained silent so far? In the statement, Blizzard explains that they usually do not talk about actions taken against cheaters. This time, however, they wanted to make an exception because the topic is hotly debated in the community.
What else was explained? Kaivax also explains that bots are not always as easy to identify as players would like.
Moreover, there are many cases where players may appear to be like a bot, but in reality, there is a real player behind it. After review, these players are back in action, which makes it look to the “reporter” as if Blizzard has done nothing about bots.
Additionally, there are cases where the account of a botter is closed, but then they create a new account and start over with the same or very similar name. Again, it appears as if Blizzard has not taken action, even though that is not the case.
Lastly, Kaivax further stated:
“Real money trading drives [the bot users/providers] to invest a lot of effort into circumventing our detection systems. Although this is a very high priority for us, it is the only priority for profit-driven bot organizations. The account bans we enforce are merely a cost for them to operate their business.”
Do you believe Blizzard’s statements? Do you think the bot issue will improve now? Or are 74,000 still far too few?
