(via World of Warcraft’s new statement on buying gold and its “long-lasting effects on players’ personal lives that can take years to recover from.”)

Fortunately for me, the WoW forums has provided some entertainment.

First, amusing and innovative, a gold farming outfit took to the skies to advertise their gold site across several servers: “Gold Spam: Going to new heights. Literally” and “Emerald Dream server just got hacked it seems“. Mods and the original posters pulled the screenshots before I could capture (damn them!), but basically, gnomes fell from the skies to their deaths to form the words and web addy for a gold farming site.

From the first post:

Server: Skywall
Time: 1 am server
Gold Spam of the Month…

Level 1 gnome warriors are falling from the sky in Ironforge to their deaths, and instantly releasing leaving their bodies on the ground in Ironforge.

“Nothing new” you say? Well, so far the bodies have spelled out < < The Name Of A Site That Will Not Be Mentioned >> and keep falling to form more letters as I type this.

I’m currently at the noob starting zone for the gnomes, in Dun Morogh, and have been watching lvl 1 gnome warriors being created, “flying” 20 feet into the air, then walking towards ironforge. STILL IN THE AIR.

Oh the gnomity!

Emailer Indy, who never goes on an adventure without a hat, found this interesting – bound for deletion – thread: “From the Front Lines (A botter’s story.)” Confessed botter Andeasdr wrote:

Short introduction about myself.

1.) I’m a bot developer.
2.) I’m an American.
3.) I work for companies that cheat at WoW for a living.

Purpose of this post? Several reasons.

1.) High five to Blizzard. I botted and cheated at this game for well over a year without a single ban. June ban wave knocked out 8 of my personal accounts (including my epiced out 70 main), and over 200 company accounts. Never thought I’d see the day that Blizzard would completely devastate the botting community, not only dealing a nearly lethal blow to the most popular, but as well as decimating the less popular alternative program.

2.) Let players know that Blizzard -is- dealing with bots. They may not deal with bots in the way you expect. Reporting bots may at times seem fruitless, but trust me, they are doing their jobs. I’ve seen complaints on these forums many times, and can think to myself “If only people knew”. Blizzard can not delve into what they’re doing, and you don’t see much proof of their accomplishments, but they’re there.

3.) Let players know that Blizzard is keeping up with this. I stopped cheating on personal accounts after the last ban wave, so the second ban wave they did a couple days ago didn’t hurt me personally (unless you count the wallet). Yes, they’ve just done two ban waves in the span of 3 weeks. While everyone was trying to recuperate losses, they go and knock the crap out of them once more.

4.) Let players know that the asshat spammers have nothing to do with me. They trip whisper detection and auto-replys so often, it pisses me off too!

5.) Let you know that not all of us want to ruin the game to fill our wallets. I am in this profession because I love Blizzard games, and I’m good at what I do (and who can argue with playing games for a living…). Given an oppurtunity to work for Blizzard instead, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Unfortunately they don’t pay relocation costs and have no HQ close to where I live, nor do I think I’m qualified…being only 21 and having little schooling.

Basically, Blizzard is doing a killer job. Love this game, love the company, and a huge fan.

Blizzard’s Public Relations isn’t so hot because they have to keep many things secret, so if this post can help improve yalls image, I’m willing to endure the flames.

Oh, and I absolutely love the plausible deniability you gave botters a few days ago with the server news. “Players may experience disconnections or be unable to connect.”.

Was a good laugh when we realized that everyone getting DCed and Banned could use that as a cover story.

Thanks Blizzard for everything you do, you’re one of the few companies I actually believe does what they do for the customers. No matter how much some of the outspoken ones whine and complain.

The forum websleuths do their best to debunk his claims, but my opinion, he remained un-debunked.

Someone mentioned the EQ hacks that used to go on which reminded me of that one EQ proggy, had to run on Linux, hell if I can remember the name tho. What it did was, you would zone in and could see what bosses were up and what loot they had. Anything Linux and dual boot and I’m defeated, so lucky for my guild, we had a guy.

So this guy would zone into … say Sebilis … and then tell us, “Nah, you don’t wanna do Sebilis. Maybe Howling Stones has something more to your liking.” and off he’d go. He was richer than God and never got caught and I learned an important lesson: In games, just like in real life, it’s good to know A Guy.

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:
(All Sizes » Original, for larger text)
Page image of WoW Forum thread

On the same night, I had screenshot the same farmer/team on my own server — not Chuck’s server (I checked):

I’m not really sure why non-standard characters are allowed on U.S. servers in the first place. It’s not like we’re all that fanatic about typing &#0252ber over uber.

(If only my guild could see me now, using non-standard characters as if it was second nature. Their hope in ignorant, isolationist Americans would be restored.)

If some dude uses non-standard characters in his player name, I just don’t bother talking to him or ihr. Mostly because it would involve research to establish a friendship, but also it’s the principle of the matter.

Ordinn, Blizzard economist wrote:

In keeping with Blizzard’s aggressive stance against cheating in World of Warcraft, we banned over 30,000 accounts in the month of May, and with that removed well over 30 million gold from the economy across all realms. The banned accounts were taking part in activities that violate the game’s Terms of Use, including using third-party programs to farm gold and items, which severely impacts the economy of a realm and the overall game enjoyment for all players.

We will continue to aggressively monitor all World of Warcraft realms in order to protect the service and its players from the harmful effects of cheating. Please note that selling World of Warcraft content, such as gold, items, and characters, can result in a permanent ban of the involved accounts from World of Warcraft.

Many account closures come as the direct result of tips reported to our GMs in game or emailed to hacks@blizzard.com by legitimate World of Warcraft players. If you suspect that a World of Warcraft player is using an illegal third-party program to farm gold or items, or is otherwise violating our Terms of Use, please report the suspected infraction via one of the means listed above. All reports will be investigated, and those that prove false will not result in corrective action.

Thank you for your continued support, and good luck with your adventures in Azeroth!

I’d like to imagine that this was one huge sting, set up over the past few weeks, involving undercover GM agents and late night interrogations of suspected farmers. Probably it was far less glamorous: players ratting out some guys who were stealing spawns in Eastern Plaguelands.

One of our guild priests is relieved he bought his epic mount last week instead of waiting — supply and demand being what they are. And when I say “bought”, you know I meant he used some real life scratch to IGE the damn thing because who has the energy to farm 1000 gold for their second, third or fourth level 60? Nobody I know.

(Furl archive of forum announcement)

Also from the post: “Please note that selling World of Warcraft content, such as gold, items, and characters, can result in a permanent ban of the involved accounts from World of Warcraft.” Well, there it is, a line in the sand.

Upon reading this, I immediately became concerned about everyone’s favorite webcam bot: The World of Warcraft Bot. Did he escape the bloodletting or was he caught in their net too? I hadn’t checked on the little nipper for a few weeks, and I’m sorry to report that little World of Warcraft bot was indeed caught and banned recently. R.I.P. Bot 3.

You can review some stills from the prior bots’ lives at the gamecam site, currently disabled until Bot 4 is born … due date April 15, 2006.

Ya, I’m as excited about the new bot as you, but I’m going to need a few moments alone with my thoughts. (Taken from us, so young, and on the brink of starting his new life at level 60!)

1. Podcasts. What the fuck. I can’t think of anything less desirable to have on my iPod than a podcast, no matter the subject. I’d rather listen to Hall & Oates Greatest Hits than some guy talking about how he killed a raptor last night in MMOG_08, plus he really likes Pulp Fiction.

2. My guild’s rogues. DKP-hoarding bastards, spend some of that DKP on the rotting rogue endgame armor instead of saving up for some Weapon of the Gods that drops .0001 percent of the time, according to Thottbot, which means it NEVER DROPS.

3. Any of my guildmates’ main characters that random on Ahn’Qiraj 20 or Zul Gurub equipment, icing out somebody else’s alt that isn’t allowed into Blackwing Lair. Jeezus, check the stats. It’s CRAP.

4. World of Warcraft name changes. Unless it’s some moronic name, knock off the name changes. Players are asking for name changes to ESCAPE their poor reputations and history (duh?) and Blizzard is HELPING THEM. Gold farmers, douchebags, ninjas, the cancer operation fakers are all getting name changes which makes it difficult to vote “HELL NO” when they re-app to our guild for the 6th time.

5. Voicechat Censors. Ya, I get that you don’t want your schoolage children hearing “F this”, “F that” and “F those c’suckers” blasting from your computer’s surround sound speakers. I don’t want them to hear that either. Headphones? Ever hear of those? Extra bonus points for everyone: no more annoying-ass echo on your end of the voicechat. It’s an adult guild in an adult game using adult exclamations; I can’t play Ventrilo policeman because you’re too damn cheap to buy headphones.

6. That bitchass Warcraft priest we finally forced out of the guild. She (and it was a she, hi Ventrilo) was only in the guild two weeks, but in that short period of time, she managed to stir up no less than 20 arguments OVER NOTHING, at least one per day. Example: on about her third day in the guild, she was upset that someone had jokingly asked for a recount on her husband’s guild app. Yawn? Example 2: she was upset that another guildmate had offered to buy the AQ20 spell upgrade she had won. “Is this how the guild operates?? Trying to buy spells off a guildmate that WON IT FAIR AND SQUARE??” Err, so? Maybe he offered because he noticed that you didn’t memorize (i.e. use) the spell right away, you stupid twat, which by the way, is DEFINITELY a guild violation. P.S. Enjoy the name change. (F’ing Blizzard)

7. The DKP Haters. WTF, how can you hate math? You show up, you eventually get loot, it’s that simple. DKP is merely a tool to keep track of who’s in line and their position in the line. My experience, the only players that hate DKP are those players that rarely show up for raids and want the Gods of /Random to save them from their shit-ass equipment. Please do not think I am fooled by your rant about how corrupt DKP systems are — math is not corrupt.

Also not fooling me: the “I want, I want, I want, but loot isn’t important to me” people, the DKP Cashouts (enjoy your new guild, and btw, you’ll be leaving sooner than you think with a rather large DKP balance), and the “I have all day to PvP and I have all I want from Molten Core, but I don’t have time to help clear MC anymore” people.

8. Oh ya, I also hate Molten Core. But I still show up to help clear.

First, I continue my search for a professional gold farmer that can speak Spanish if not English. Four years of high school Spanish didn’t do me a damn bit of good.

Plus, I probably forgot 90% of what I learned.

***

Next, doing our own bit of farming in Winterspring — we’re amateurs, remember! That’s an important distinction.

Just trying to do our thing, keeping a sharp eye out for any intruders that might try to take the camp and steal spawns, every few minutes there’s some questor that comes along looking for an assist. As if.

If I’m in a generous mood, I’ll make up a quest that I’m working on so they’ll be on their way. If feeling not so generous, I’ll explain that I don’t do favors. I do, however, accept gold to perform a service.

I could just say no, but I don’t want to appear to be the King Asshole that I truly am. Appearances are important.

***

Still in Winterspring, dodging those stupid named dragons, (Spellmaw, I’m looking in your direction here):

That’s not really fair though. I said jackass, not psychotic fuck.

***

Had been having a few guild issues. Farm-status bosses were giving us some trouble. WHY?? WHY?? Really, there was no explanation other than this: People were napping on the job — the ole AFK/autofollow routine for the majority of the raid.

We solved that problem the same way most guilds solve that problem — a raid kick, or in extreme cases, a guild kick.

***

This is immediately after one LONG-OVERDUE guild kick. I tried to put the fear of a lootless world into the raid team.

They thought I was joking. Probably misinterpreted that smiley as a joke smiley, rather than the evil “I want to gu-kick all of you” smiley it actually was.

Anyways. The loot train is back on track, it’s running on schedule, and people should be happy, right? WRONG.

It is never enough, my friends.