What do you do with players who have clearly used unauthorized cheats in an MMORPG like World of Warcraft to gain an advantage? Of course, you revoke the fraudulent achievements and impose penalties. However, the Chinese publisher of WoW goes even further.
WoW is back in China: You may have heard: Since August 2024, World of Warcraft is back in China. NetEase and Blizzard have resolved their disagreements and agreed to collaborate again. This comeback could have led to a new all-time high for active WoW players.
With such a large community, it is inevitable that some black sheep wander into Azeroth, violating the MMORPG’s terms of service. Similar to Blizzard in the West, NetEase regularly wields the banhammer in China. However, the Chinese publisher goes a step further.
There are achievements that should simply be honored with a WoW title:
The modern pillory made in China
What has NetEase done? Firstly, the Chinese publisher has revoked the Mythic-Plus title Hardened Hero from Season 1 of The War Within from 8,992 identified cheaters. Secondly, 3,000 more players have received penalties for cheating in ranked PvP of the season.
In some cases, the penalties only involve the revocation of the fraudulent titles and achievements. However, particularly egregious cases are said to have resulted in bans as well. So far, so normal.
What is remarkable is the third measure: With the announcement of penalties on wow.blizzard.cn, a very long list of punished characters (with their corresponding server names) was also published online. Since not only permanent bans were issued and many of the cheaters are still allowed to be online, this is indeed exciting information for all potential allies and opponents on the affected servers.
What do you think of this kind of punishment? Do you prefer permanent bans for every cheater? Or should Blizzard also move towards publicly naming punished characters and their respective servers? Share your opinion in the comments! In WoW Classic, the developers were so overwhelmed by the bot situation that a player took the hunt into their own hands. Their reward: death threats.
