In World of Warcraft, you can be banned for many reasons – but apparently also for being too nice.
If you mess around in World of Warcraft, you are usually reported quite quickly by other players and soon face a punishment. Everything from minor warnings to long account suspensions is on the table. However, there are also players who are unjustly banned, sometimes for the most absurd reasons.
In the WoW subreddit, a fairly popular player reports that he was unjustly banned. The reason? He was just too nice and offered things for free that others charge several hundred thousand gold pieces for.
Why was he banned? According to his own statements, Critzler was banned due to mass reporting. The exact reason is not entirely clear, but upon closer inspection, it seems obvious. Critzler helps people defeat the current final boss Fyrakk on heroic difficulty to achieve a special accomplishment.
This is a service that other guilds often promote in the service channel and charge between 80,000 and 200,000 gold pieces per participant, depending on additional services.
However, since Critzler hosts these raids without asking for gold, he is reducing the income of other guilds that want to profit from it.
The assumption is therefore obvious: Corresponding guilds have reported him en masse to achieve an automated ban. That this works has been proven repeatedly in recent months, such as in the case of the elemental gem cartel. Anyone who wanted to undercut the market was simply systematically reported by jewelcrafters.
This is especially frustrating because Critzler received automated responses when he contacted customer service. The wait times for processing were so long that the 10-day ban expired before he received a proper response. Thus, it is doubly frustrating for Critzler as he missed the entire Hearthstone event and some exclusive rewards.
Is that really the case? Of course, it’s conceivable that there was another reason for the mass reports against him in this case. After all, there have been more cases in the past where people tried to exploit community calls to get unbanned quickly.
However, since Critzler’s ban has already expired and he seems to want to draw attention to the general problem of mass reporting, his story sounds at least plausible. In the comments, several people also mention him positively, who he has already helped in achieving the accomplishment for the current final boss.
In recent months, there have been recurring frustrating experiences reported by the community. Automated responses to tickets that do not address the case at all lead to anger and dissatisfaction.
Not only bans take a long time in WoW – farming a toy that takes over 6 years also takes time.
