Wow, just WoW!
Blizzard to players: "We have enough subscribers, sorry. Piss off! Thanks for the money!"
Banned for playing WoW via Linux...?!
This was posted to my WoW guild's forums this morning, from a friend in a different guild. Blizzard Bans Half my Guild For Using Linux
Yeah... so... As you may have heard, Blizzard permanently banned a crapload of people for alleged client-side hacks and bots. This apparently included most of the people who were playing WoW from Linux at the time (using programs like Wine or Cedega).
So far, it looks like Avanthera and Waltenn have permanently lost their accounts and characters. I know Basiliscus Vittatus isn't the biggest guild in the world, but that is like half of us. At least, the half of us that aren't me.
Needless to say, they were honest, paying subscribers, and guilty only of not wanting to reboot into Windows to play WoW.
At the risk of unleashing my massive nerd-rage, I will say that I'm pretty pissed off about this. I haven't been playing WoW much at all lately, but I did keep my account paid up so I can visit people and eventually play the expansion... So I do have something I can cancel in protest.
Blizzard, let it be written that you are Teh Suck.
(So far, I don't think Blizzard has ever unbanned an account, but this would be a good time to start.)
Update:
Waltenn isn't banned... Yet. He is "at risk", though, since he has used both Linux/Cedega and windows recently, and may just not have gotten his email yet...
This is a pretty widespread problem, and the banned group includes some people who were playing on Windows and claim not to be running anything suspicious. There was some question of whether this was due to certain UI mods, but the same mods don't seem to have caused problems for a majority of people (at least not "getting banned" problems).
This does not seem to be a purposeful attack on Linux people; While Linux is not officially supported, many Blizzard/GM posts have referred to people playing on Linux in an approving or accepting way.
In fact, Blizzard claims that they specifically tested their bot detecting tool with clients running on Linux under Cedega (the most popular "windows stuff under linux program") to prevent this from happening.
Unfortunately, everyone who has written in protest to the account admin address got the standard "You're wrong, we're right, thank you for playing" form email back. And so far I am not aware of anyone writing in or posting anywhere to the effect of "I play under linux and have NOT been banned" yet...
Blizzard is communicating with Transgaming (makers of Cedega) about this, but it's not clear if anything will come of it. If they don't sort this out and apologize, my nerd rage will rage unchecked and medieval on their asses (or at least my subscription)
The remainder of this post has been edited, and I apologize. I am just soaking in my own bile today. Don't mind me.
Banned for playing WoW via Linux...?!
This was posted to my WoW guild's forums this morning, from a friend in a different guild. Blizzard Bans Half my Guild For Using Linux
Yeah... so... As you may have heard, Blizzard permanently banned a crapload of people for alleged client-side hacks and bots. This apparently included most of the people who were playing WoW from Linux at the time (using programs like Wine or Cedega).
So far, it looks like Avanthera and Waltenn have permanently lost their accounts and characters. I know Basiliscus Vittatus isn't the biggest guild in the world, but that is like half of us. At least, the half of us that aren't me.
Needless to say, they were honest, paying subscribers, and guilty only of not wanting to reboot into Windows to play WoW.
At the risk of unleashing my massive nerd-rage, I will say that I'm pretty pissed off about this. I haven't been playing WoW much at all lately, but I did keep my account paid up so I can visit people and eventually play the expansion... So I do have something I can cancel in protest.
Blizzard, let it be written that you are Teh Suck.
(So far, I don't think Blizzard has ever unbanned an account, but this would be a good time to start.)
Update:
Waltenn isn't banned... Yet. He is "at risk", though, since he has used both Linux/Cedega and windows recently, and may just not have gotten his email yet...
This is a pretty widespread problem, and the banned group includes some people who were playing on Windows and claim not to be running anything suspicious. There was some question of whether this was due to certain UI mods, but the same mods don't seem to have caused problems for a majority of people (at least not "getting banned" problems).
This does not seem to be a purposeful attack on Linux people; While Linux is not officially supported, many Blizzard/GM posts have referred to people playing on Linux in an approving or accepting way.
In fact, Blizzard claims that they specifically tested their bot detecting tool with clients running on Linux under Cedega (the most popular "windows stuff under linux program") to prevent this from happening.
Unfortunately, everyone who has written in protest to the account admin address got the standard "You're wrong, we're right, thank you for playing" form email back. And so far I am not aware of anyone writing in or posting anywhere to the effect of "I play under linux and have NOT been banned" yet...
Blizzard is communicating with Transgaming (makers of Cedega) about this, but it's not clear if anything will come of it. If they don't sort this out and apologize, my nerd rage will rage unchecked and medieval on their asses (or at least my subscription)
The remainder of this post has been edited, and I apologize. I am just soaking in my own bile today. Don't mind me.