Over a hundred thousand accounts closed
by Elizabeth Harper 
Dec 22nd 2006 at 11:43AM
During the month of November, another 105,000 World of Warcraft accounts were closed world-wide for violation of the terms of use. These closures have resulted in 12 million gold being removed from the game's economy. Many of these closures are the direct result in the investigation of reports made by legitimate players -- so keep reporting, all reports are investigated thoroughly, though rarely immediately. So happy holidays, everyone -- and may your new year be festively bot-free!
Filed under: Blizzard, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Remil Dec 22nd 2006 6:22PM
Now who am I going to buy the 10000 gold off of to get my flying mount? JK. But really. Blizz made the game to where having more gold gives you ezmode. They created the monster by making mounts cost 1000g instead of ingame work quest wise.
Gist Dec 22nd 2006 12:07PM
I agree fully with Remil. Blizz is in the business of making money... so they created an environment where gold farmers thrive, then close their accounts. So then the gold farmers have to buy new copies of the game, and blizz will close their accounts. Then they'll buy new copies of the game... and on and on and on. And the only losers are the poor casual players that have to mindlessly grind for months to get a stupid mount.
Mike Schramm Dec 22nd 2006 12:14PM
Considering that WoW has 8 million players, they shut down just over 1% of all worldwide accounts. Is that number high or low?
Dur13l@gmail.com Dec 24th 2006 1:52AM
low!
hell as it is now i need to get a spam guard for my In game Email!!! i get spam...lots of it... All i need now is an email from some russian dude telling me how to get 2 more inches on my penis and it will be just like real life....nice.
They will just end up taking the next step soon and sell it right on the main site.
XXXXXX Dec 24th 2006 2:32PM
They do not follow those reports. There used to be special Goldfarmer GM's dealing with those issues, but in Europe they closed them down and do all the recognition only by warden.
Its hard to say if someone is a Gold Farmer anyhow ... I mean, You write a ticket about someone farming cash for hours - but many legit players do that also ... of course many Level 1 Chars, few quests completed, funny emailadresses and IngameMails in and outbound with Gold ... Then there are the chatlogs also.
But then its also not illegal to speak a non english language ... Some farmers are just normal nonchinese kids, upping they pocketmoney a bit.
One complete other thing are the guys advertising Gold in Ironforge or Orgrimmar. Those Accounts will usually be closed immediately upon receiving and working on the ticket. With long queues this "immediately" might take a while though ...
Ofc Blizzard can announce soon:"80k new sales of WoW this month" This will keep WoW on top of the sales list, which cannot hurt ;-)
Too bad though that You sometimes see a banned farmer again in the game, since they as everyone else have the right to complain and sometimes get through. Better 1 farmer back in business as an innocent player out of the game.
Bunkai Dec 22nd 2006 1:00PM
I don't know about the rest of you, but I, for one, actually report every gold selling whisper and in-game email that I receive. I generally even leave the emails in my inbox long enough for the GM to view it.
Also, thanks to the inactive time reporting ability of the BG mod that I use, I report those that AFK bot in the BGs as well.
These people are just making it harder for us legitimate players to enjoy and advance in the game as intended and there is nothing that will make me stop reporting them as such.
I wish everyone in game followed suit, then maybe we could eliminate the botters and gold farmers altogether.
Ryan Dec 22nd 2006 1:32PM
Bunkai - those whispers and in-game mails you get are from trial accounts that these companies have stacked up on. They log on, advertise to as many people as possible, and then log off. If the account gets reported and banned, oh well, they create another one. Reporting them is useless, you just have to ignore it.
Oh, and about the legitimacy comment... people that buy gold are just as legit as people who don't buy gold. In fact, I would argue that they are just smarter than those who don't buy gold because they don't have to mindlessly farm for hours. They can get what they want and do whatever they want to do... thus making it fun.
It all just depends on your perception. Some people don't think it's fun to farm for an in-game currency and have the money to buy gold. Others like yourself think it's wrong and would never do such a thing. But each person is legit in their own way.
Blizzard is the only one to blame... or thank... for the rise in gold farming companies.
Ryan Dec 22nd 2006 1:37PM
Sorry, one more thing Bunkai... Blizzard has officially stated on the forums that they won't follow through with reports of people AFK'ing in BG's. They can't force people to run around and participate and they have no way to monitor that (according to the post on the forums). The only thing they can do is find people that are using 3rd party programs (such as Ghost Mouse) to move them every few seconds... however most people are sitting there moving themselves every few minutes. So I think that's why Blizzard isn't focusing much attention on them.
Not to put down anything you said, just trying to save you some time since reporting can sometimes be time consuming when you could be focusing on the BG instead.
Hide-Eitrigg Dec 22nd 2006 1:59PM
Instead of banning gold farmers which provide services to the 1/3 of WoW players who buy gold, why not ban the thousands of idiots who keep spamming general chat with their leaking, defective brain cells... you know, the ones who start every rant with "Chuck Norris"...
Profit Dec 22nd 2006 2:17PM
@8 "If Chuck Norris were a gold farmer all the mobs would mail him their gold so they wouldn't have to face him!"
Sorry couldn't help myself.
As for 105,000 accounts being banned, they only removed --on the average-- less than 115 gold per banning. Doesn't seem like a lot to me.
I can't wait until TBC when the average player should have 4-5k gold banked up waiting for their epic flying mount. We'll be seeing 400 million gold or more being banned each month :) Much better numbers.
Also, how many of the 105,000 are actually gold farmers? I know many who were banned just for spamming chat channels with offensive language -- 3 warnings and temporary bans were not good enough for them, they had to push it that one last time.
Inaraserra Dec 22nd 2006 2:23PM
Bunkai.. /sign!
I do the exact same. I'll report every whisper and in game spam that gets sent to me.
And yes, I know that these companies stack up on trial accounts, but if I can help Blizz cut their trial period down by a few days for every one of those accounts, so be it. At least it makes it more difficult for them. I can't stand bots / farmers and spammers.
If enough people did the same, life would be made very hard for these people - and that can only have good results for the game.
Oldbear Dec 27th 2006 1:35PM
To Ryan...
"Oh, and about the legitimacy comment... people that buy gold are just as legit as people who don't buy gold. In fact, I would argue that they are just smarter than those who don't buy gold because they don't have to mindlessly farm for hours. They can get what they want and do whatever they want to do... thus making it fun."
If you read the EULA before you click "Accept", then you would see that the people you say are legit are , in fact, breaking the argeement they said yes to. So I see no problem banning them - It's a risk they take, but you can not, in any way-shape-or form, call them legit. I steal movies and music from the web all the time - but I don't claim to have gotten it in any legit way... I'm breaking the law - I also speed in my car and on the bike - I even rip tags off of matteresses - but I'm not legit... (to legit to quit... hehe).
Dave Dec 22nd 2006 6:25PM
Man I wish they had an ingame filter to catch gold spammers. surely it isn't that had to develop one? And I thought trial accounts weren't allowed to send mail or post in global chats? I hope the gold sellers take a bath now before TBC. I bet now that one can now use honor to buy uber items, they're taking a big hit.
joey Dec 23rd 2006 11:25AM
the thing that nobody ever mentions is market gross value those accounts represent to blizzard.
105,000 account @ $15 per month = $18.9 million a year.
Don't ever say that Blizzard has no integrity.
Chris Dec 24th 2006 11:53PM
Ever since Blizz let ppl log on to Wow.com and play the game for free... this has caused every gold seller out there free reign on the # of accounts they can make to spam thier gold selling talents. So reporting those ppl is useless. What you should be doing is complaining to Blizzard about offering gold sellers a free ticket to sell gold. And BTW... if you think blizz bans account b/c of ppl reporting botting players think again. Blizz actually uses a sniffer that is alloud to look at what program you are running on your computer. Illegal?? Invation of privacy? Nope. You agree to let them to see what you are doing on your computer in the ToC's. Think you actually own your toon. Nope. Blizz owns that too. They just give you the right to play it if you pay them. Check your ToC's. Youll be surprised what youll find.
Xanatos Dec 28th 2006 9:39PM
/reported