76,000 accounts closed
by Elizabeth Harper 
Oct 13th 2006 at 6:00PM
In another move against gold farmers, Blizzard has announced that 76,000 accounts were closed and 11 million gold removed from the game during the month of September. And while Blizzard's efforts in this direction haven't halted gold farming or selling (evidenced by adverts in my in-game mailbox as recently as yesterday), they show no sign of halting their own efforts. If you see a player you suspect to be bot-farming, Blizzard encourages you to report them to the Hacks Team via an in-game help request or use of their e-mail form. You probably won't get instant gratification, but all reports do get investigated. 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Brudus Oct 13th 2006 6:26PM
O'rly
http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/7020/kahduyjr4.jpg
Jomike Oct 13th 2006 8:01PM
So which is he Brudus? A botter or a gold farmer? He cant be both. You seem to think they are both the same.
Hubkap Oct 13th 2006 8:28PM
Farmers use bots. Leveling takes time... time that could be spent on toons already 60. You don't think that they use every shortcut they can to get to 60 ASAP, including bots?
And I always wondered how much good catching all these Farmers does. It's not like we see less junk in the AH, or cheaper prices on anything. If Blizz really wanted to stop this, they'd go after the folks Buying the gold. It can't be too hard to write a small program that sends them an alert when a lvl 1 Dwarf sends somebody 500g in the mail and investigate it.
Cappy Oct 13th 2006 11:14PM
And after the first guy got busted the sellers would write a macro to send int in 100 gold increments. This has been in issue in every MMO I have played. Its a game of cat and mouse. but I applaud their efforts, but it wons stop people from buying or selling gold.
However if you look at the prices of gold online, you'll see that in the last 3 months the price has gone from $40/k to $200/k. So it is working, but it still doesn't stop the ever increasing cost of items on the AH.
Michael Oct 14th 2006 2:41AM
so let me get this straight, if gold is selling for about 200$/k that means the epic flying mounts will be worth 1000$. Personnally i don't understand paying more money then your already paying for a game.
LOL Oct 14th 2006 3:35AM
I always just look at the ads on the top of your site to see if the gold farmers are still in business.
Dave Bard Oct 14th 2006 9:51AM
"11 million gold" basically amounts to pennies per server. It's chump change, and I'm sure it hasn't affected in-game economies in any discernible way. On the other hand, it's good to know that Blizz is at least making an effort by closing the accounts of players who have violated (probably blatantly and consistently) the Terms of Use.
Dave Bard Oct 14th 2006 9:51AM
Also, @Cappy, gold farming actually helps curb Auction House deflation -- more gold chasing the same amount of goods drives prices down, not up.
Koss Oct 14th 2006 11:57AM
Also 11 mln gold was taken from game. And if someone provide Hack Team wrong information?
Oraag Oct 14th 2006 11:24PM
the "Hack Team" and blizzard investigation do mess up.
my account got closed about 2 months ago. Their reason was for conduct contrary to the nature of WoW (whatever the hell that means). I thought i pissed someone off with language usage or whatever. I ask for clarification. The next day a 2nd email was sent saying they are investigating multiple party usage of my account. I have NEVER allowed anyone to play my account, and i've never been hacked.
Then i figured out that the reason for this mess was that they thought i sold my account. I started playing in the US, then moved to Korea for the army. The investigators probably thought i sold my account due to the drastic change in IP.
i explained this to blizzard, and after faxing over all my info, etc, they unbanned my account.
Result: 3 weeks of no WoW, banned account for a completely innocent gamer. I was pvp grinding at that time, went from almost rank 10 to rank 8.
Erik Oct 15th 2006 2:15AM
Hah, I hope they don't think I sold my account. Going from hard core gamer to still having an active account but deployed now and no playing...
Sour Oct 15th 2006 2:10PM
Their reliance on "player reports" is rediculous. My account is now banned, I dont hack, i dont bot-farm, and I dont sell gold. I never recieved an email from blizz and they wont reply to my emails. Fantastic service, there goes almost two years of work down the fucking drain. Goooo Blizzard! :(
T Oct 15th 2006 2:51PM
Not sure what their standards are for banning... I usually go to Tanaris on Thursday mornings on Aegwynn and watch the bots go in nice pretty circle patterns by the Alliance gryphon master... Reported at least ten that will let me hit first and then they finish the kill off for me then they step back to wait for the next prey to come by. If not they move in pretty easy to see patterns... Of those, I know at least 3 that still operate. I try to talk to them wave, even tell them that I'm about to report them and no response. On the reverse side. I was out in Tanaris and some lvl 12 ne in Darnassus says something in Chinese and when I respond that I don't speak Chinese, he lets me know, "oh sorry. I already reported you for farming." If you are going to report someone at least next time, actually view them doing the botting before you report... It took me 3 days to get mine unbanned. Thanks WOW. I wasn't aware that botters and gold farmers made it a habit of reporting each other.