Here’s an interesting debate on the World of Warcraft forums about a player who games from around the world because of business travel: “Play WoW on business trips and get suspended?”

You might think by the title that he got suspended from work for exploring the Tower of Azora with a group of night elves — not so. He was suspended from Warcraft for exploring the Tower of Azora from multiple IP addresses.

Let’s assume the Original Poster is telling the truth, and I’m inclined to do so, what should a MMOG company’s policy be with accounts that are accessed by multiple IPs? Clearly there are legitimate, TOS-compliant reasons when a player would use several IPs to access his/her account. Conversely, there are non-legit, TOS-breaking reasons also.

Suspend first, argue later? Ask first, suspend later? Say nothing, spy on the player at the Tower of Azora?

I’m leaning towards flagging the account and looking for other suspicious behavior connected to the account.

My opinion, this shouldn’t be a high priority for investigations. Realize, however, that I’m in the “I don’t care if people sell/buy virtual currency and accounts” camp. People in the “I think selling/buying virtual currency and accounts is wrong” camp might consider this a higher priority and some collateral damage is expected and acceptable.

I’ll qualify that with “FOR THE MOST PART, I don’t care if people sell/buy virtual currency and accounts camp”. I’ll illustrate with a high quality graphic.

Ya see? We’re not so different you and I. (In fact, I used to be much more fundamentalist in my view on IGE/Ebaying game stuffs. Over the years, I moved towards the “fuckit, I don’t care” side of the high quality graphic.)

Back to the original question: how to limit collateral damage when on a seek-and-destroy TOS-violators mission?

For future reference and for the firewalled:
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