Taken from WoW's homepage: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/



World of Warcraft Accounts Closed - 6/9/06
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 our Hacks Team 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!

Personally, everytime i get ingame spam to buy gold, i file a GM complaint. I'm sure that i've probably seen folks who are botting/otherwise violating the TOU, but i'll be darned if i have any clue how to identify them.
Hmmm....i gues it's time to contact someone in tech support and really, really, make sure that the way i'm using my Logitech G15 doesn't violate the TOU

I need to get me one of those G15 keyboards, then again I need a new compture :|

Heh...Logitech also has a new one, the G11 that doesn't have the LCD screen, and don't forget the Ideazon that Spec just reviewed (it looks awesome). I'm waiting for Blizz to email me back on specifics of the functions of the G15 regarding the TOU. They've been notoriously silent about this; hopefully they will provide me with the info i asked for. If/when i get an answer, i'll post it here.

What's the deal with the G15?

Quote: Originally Posted by Rob What's the deal with the G15?

It allows you to directly record keystrokes as well as being able to specify pauses in between them. So, in my case, even though the functions that i use it for are an exact duplication of what i could do if i wrote a macro in game and then keybound the macro to one of my G keys (i would get the same effect as i have now), the difference in execution is a grey area as far as the TOU goes. I opted for recording keystrokes directly to a couple of keys to avoid having to write macros for each toon and cluttering up my toolbars with macro buttons (so far, i use to G keys to (no pauses): pet stay + passive and pet follow+defensive...this way, one profile and 2 keys give me the ability to use these functions on all my toons who use combat pets without having to write 2 macros + keybind them per toon).

Macro + keybind = ok under the TOU
recording to a G key could = botting depending on how WoW views it.

It just depends on Blizzard's interpretation of the TOU. It's not so much the end results (they are the same, regardless of which of the two above mentioned methods i use), it's a matter of how the commands are implemented. I straight up can't find any official guidelines on this, so hopefully i can get a straight answer from Blizzard tech support. I also just started a pirest, and i'm expecting to utilize a decent amount of macros for that toon. Normally, i don't use a ton of macros (i'd rather keybind the heck out of single functions...a lot of which go to the extra mouse buttons on my MX 518), but i'm thinking that as my Priest increases in level, that's bound to change...er no pun intended.

wonder how closely their system resembles NCSofts? CuppaJo over at the CoH forums has stated that keyboard macros such as the G15 are fine since they still require someone to be at the keyboard. Only thing they're against are afk botting.

The G15 isn't even compatible with Guild Wars sinec their botting and third party protection detects if any program is accessing the game files.

I don't expect to hear anything until this Monday at the earliest. If and when i get a reply, and if it has anything substantive, i'll post it.

Some guy over at PCApex was saying his friend got wrongfully banned so I did some checking around to see what I could find. I am not as familiar with the system that Blizzard uses as I am with PunkBuster, so I wanted to inform myself.

After reading how they go about checking the accounts, monitoring them and then making the decisions I really doubt they make any mistakes. They are able to track every character in all realms. If anyone knows of someone who actually was wrongfully banned, then it was corrected, I would like to hear about it.

If you look on the official forums you find all the background information on the account bannings. Seems that really the only people on those forums I could find were ones who praise the work Blizzard is doing to help keep the game clean. In another WOW forum I found only this thread.

Seems to me it is like when PunkBuster bans people. The only ones who complain are the ones who think they are smarter than the system. But the ones who are really smart just shut their mouth and move along to something without PB.

In PB when someone says they were wrongfully banned be careful when you stand up for them. Unless you are in the room when they play, you really do not know what they are doing. If you think you know them, think of all the times you thought you knew someone you see day to day, who suddenly suprised you with something totally out of character. This is someone online in a game, that most of you have never even spoken with personally.

People cheat for different reasons, and you can read about some in this article. Be careful who you put yourself out on a limb for, the chainsaw may grab you, too.

I totally agree, Foe. I have yet to hear/read about a banning that i didn't think was straight forward.

The only thing that i've found that Blizzard isn't explicit about is some types of hardware. I was finally able to get an answer from GM about the G15. Excerpts of the conversation are here. I'm perfectly comfortable with what i was told by the GM, and i honestly think that it's completely reasonable.

They don't stop do they...sheesh...

You know what's better?

Not playing Wow, seriously, it's not even that good, and all of my freinds have canceled their accounts, it consumes your life.

Quote: Originally Posted by Wafflesomd You know what's better? Not playing Wow, seriously, it's not even that good, and all of my freinds have canceled their accounts, it consumes your life.

Its been said a million times before "World of Warcrack"

Its a hate it or love it think. (I'm not crapping on the thread) :afro: