Banned From WoW For WINE & Programmable Keyboard 701
An anonymous reader writes "Player gets banned for playing World of Warcraft under WINE and using a Logitech Gaming keyboard. "I am an experienced network engineer for an ISP and I am often running World of Warcraft on Linux through the use of WINE..."" Although the e-mails exchanged are unclear
my guess is that the programmable keyboard was more the problem then WINE. Not that you'd ever know that given that Blizzard communicates with their users seemingly almost exclusively with form letters.
Anonymous? (Score:5, Interesting)
The keyboard he is using sounds quite cool though
I shall have to look into getting one.
Getting banned from recreational sites (Score:4, Interesting)
So I sit out a couple days trying to get the techs behind banned@slashdot.org to notice my emails. Finally, after a long negotiation with these guys and promising that I will turn off all my Firefox extensions when accessing the site, I get let back on.
And this is what I come back to. A story about someone getting banned.
Re:Not a Suprise (Score:4, Interesting)
I guess it depends upon your definition of reasonable.
In this case they actively pissed off a customer, terminating the account of a paying subscriber, because they felt that his actions were detrimental to the rest of the community. His actions had nothing to do with Linux, but rather were the result of what appeared to be automated activity (which could have been that a user saw him there stat padding for hours, complained, and then an admin trying conversing with him to find the character just mechanically repeating the same steps). Reading his account, it sounds like he configured a variety of complex activities as macros on his keyboard, and just sat there repeating them ad nauseam for hours while he did other things (fun!), doing this largely automated activity for his own gain. Given that MMMORPGs are somewhat of a zero sum affair, this means that it's at the cost of other players.
I'm actually amazed that the company acted so responsibly. It would have been easy to just backtrack and forgive and forget, but they forged ahead, making an enemy and losing a customer, to try to maintain the "rules of the land". Good for them.
I should also say that the individual in question might want to learn why "the right to silence" can be an important trait. He completely indicted himself in his emails ("so I was sitting her occasionally triggering macros while I watched TV...").
Re:Anonymous? (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunetely, for the keyboard to be effective in WoW, Blizzard is going to have to support it and program some hooks into the game for it to be supported. Even if there was a 3rd party program (or even a UI mod) that would take care of the hooks for WoW it would be against the ToS, and my account would be banned for it.
As much as I like the game, I have found blizzard themselves to be fairly nazi about what can do what and who can do it. CmdrTaco had an instance with Blizzard Nazism not too long ago. [slashdot.org]
Re:It's the keyboard, stupid. - And he was BOTTING (Score:3, Interesting)
When you a grinding, if a GM suspects botting they will whisper you looking for you to respond. If you don't respond within a reasonable amount of time you get nailed for botting.
Same thing that admins would do back in the BBS days. A friend of mine and I used to write scripts for Telix to grind for us in a couple of MUDs. We ended up having to make the script give some kind of generic reply anytime someone talked to us and then start beeping to notify us that we were being watched. Worked really well. We never got caught.
Re:It's the keyboard, stupid. - And he was BOTTING (Score:2, Interesting)
God damn I'm glad I'm not playing WoW any longer.
Re:It's the keyboard, stupid. - And he was BOTTING (Score:5, Interesting)
The game has has a built-in macro system that does not permit you to do multiple battle actions at once (you can swap multiple items, and perform multiples of other non-combat actions) because casting multiple spells/performing multiple combat skills all with the press of a single button is botting. This guy bypassed the in-game restricions with a hardware/software combination. The rules exists for a reason, and he broke them.
Funny thing is that if he had just been paying attention to the window he would have been fine.
And your comment about English is just flamebait (not that the rest is not).
WINE is not an unbottable environment (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem with Blizzard's stance on this issue is that they have created a game with some mindless repetitive tasks that beg to be automated. Realistically, they beg to be eliminated entirely since a computer program assigning you fake, easily automated, mundane repetitive tasks isn't good for anyone. Most of WoW is not this way, however. Most of it's parts are interesting and immersive and those are the parts people find fun. Nobody is going to bot their way through an 5+ person instance run (well, almost nobody.)
Blizzard has drawn a hard line on botting but the problem with any line is there are gray areas and the mundane easily automated tasks (like grinding up a weapon skill at L60) that are so wildly easy to automate as to be trivial. Sitting in one place pushing button 1.. 2.. 3.. 1.. 2.. 3.. 1.. 2.. 3.. gets old after about 1000 repetitions. It would even be easy to create a macro keyboard that would fully automate this activity beginning to end. It wouldn't in any realistic way be "botting" but Blizzard would probably ban you.
Blizzard needs to fix WoW. Pull the mundane easily automated crap out. I'm level 60 and never used a crossbow, don't make shoot 100,000 arrows at rats in the tram to level the damn skill.. it's mundane, repetitive, and I don't want to do it. Ramp that skill up much much faster to the point where it's maybe a little weak but I can use it in regular combat and you eliminate the mundane easily automated task issue. They should also allow you to assign one of your characters to a task and log out and have the game essentially fake the thing for a while (fishing, farming mobs, etc). That short circuits a lot of the desire for botting and allows them to control the negative aspects of it (the characters "botting" could appear differently or not at all in-game.)
As a society we should consider making it illegal to ban the automation of easily automated mundane tasks. Do we really want humans to be forced to sit at a keyboard hitting the same 3 keys in the same order for hours and hours? Blizzards stance on this simply shouldn't be allowed. If Blizzard notices a player standing in the same place doing the same thing for hours the thought on their side shouldn't be "Ban this guy!" it should be "How do we eliminate the desire for automating this task?"
Have to give a shout-out to good service here (Score:1, Interesting)
I nearly left when I found that all of my stuff had been blasted by a bug, but their great service and willingness to work with / believe me has made them a customer for life (or at least a very long time).
They have been much better than Blizzard's legendary "We're destroying a year of your work so suck it up" form letters. Props to the guys at Three Rings: You rock.
Re:Not a Suprise (Score:5, Interesting)
1. The service claims in forum posts that what he's doing is okay.
2. The user offers to correct the problem, and even accept a punishment.
3. The service has a policy that is supposed to require multiple violations to obtain a ban.
4. The user has no prior history of TOS violations.
5. The user has spent considerable money on the product.
If you think that all that combines to make a "responsible decision" on the part of Blizzard, then allow me to be the first to point out that you're a heartless tyrant, and I really do hope this happens to you. Perhaps you'll see things different from the other side.
I for one, hopes he gets a good lawyer. Given that this is far from the first time I've heard these complaints, a class action suit against Blizzard may just be what's needed to shake things up.
Typical SlashDot Mob Blames the Victim (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, he used a programmable keyboard. But, you know what, WoW contains a built in macro function that lets you build scrips that automate sequences of commands and trigger them with one key.
If, for some reason, the Blizzard Nazis consider a keyboard macro different than a built in game macro they could have warned the guy. A permanent ban out of the blue is really excessive.
Re:Anonymous? (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the most obvious problems with WoW these days is that there is this massive wall of low level employees (GMs, Billing & accounts etc) who don't have either the authority or time to really look after customers properly. Add to this Blizzards obvious contempt for it's playerbase as easymeat who are pretty much addicts so can be treated like trash and you have a situation where people will frequently get reamed like this with no way to prevent it.
You will of course get accused of botting by lots of players, but lots of players also happen to be 14 year old children who love to point fingers (not to say every 14 year old is like this, but the culture of WoW has shown to me that while there are exceptions if a player sounds like a 14 year, acts like a 14 year old and talks AOL trash talk then he's caek).
In the end Blizz and it's employees can pretty much act as they want and this is the most problematic part of it for me. There is no accountability, GMs have been to behave extremely innapropriately in the past, it's impossible to defend yourself from accusations of cheating because Blizz wants to be seen to having a strong anti-cheater policy so if false positives come up then it doesn't really matter. Amoung the thousands of cheaters those innocent will go unheard.
I suggest that you give up on WoW, and find a MMO that treats it's customers with at least a little common decency. Hmph that might be tricky though.
Re:It's the keyboard, stupid. - And he was BOTTING (Score:3, Interesting)
So why is this a fucking problem? Computers are made for automation of repetitive tasks. If a bot can play the game, you've done something terribly wrong in game-design.
Re:Anonymous? (Score:2, Interesting)
Failing that, demand re-instatement - let a lawyer handle it.
Pummle their weasle faced, pimple nosed tech with their inability to read.
ie - process list shows nothing - wow - must be using 3rd party software.
keyboards are not 3rd party software - however, the G15 uses software to implement the Macros - especially since they can be programmed to use *timing* with them. That 3rd party software (the G15 macro software) is probably what caused the ban - even though Logitech claims that it's usable in WoW.
next possible recourse - Sue Logitech, force them to fight for you to get your account re-instated.
None of these are likely to work - but it's worth a shot.
Re:let me get this straight (Score:3, Interesting)
This is why the Decursive mod isn't fully automated anymore, and why the macro-delay function was made inaccessible by the UI. Anything that will allow you to perform N functions in less than N keystrokes/clicks hits Blizzard's definition of automation. Entire raids got banned for the use of the old Decursive, and that's even less automation than this guy had set up - all Decursive did was cast one debuff-removal spell over and over until deactivated. His setup could change his weapons, heal, buff, debuff, and initiate autoattack while he watched TV.
Re:Anonymous? (Score:2, Interesting)
Now, after reading about his experience I am deathly afraid to buy the keyboard, even if I don't use it for automation purposes.
Blizzard really needs to draw the line though, because the game itself contains the ability to run macros, and there are perfectly legal addons around that automatically buff you while you move, and also buff your entire party with the repeated press of that button. How is this not a different color of the same automation?
Blizzard has not banned those tools.
The banning of the posts on the WOW forums would make me diligent to post this to every gaming forum that I could get my hands on, and try to stop people from playing WoW. But I digress, there will always be thousands of players waiting in the wings to replace those who boycott the game.
At least CmdrTaco only got forced to change his name. I believe he was a little over-dramatic since it's easy to tell someone "Hey I used to be so and so" and then they recognize you from then on. I think "Taco" might be a cool name. Then he could achieve a rank higher than 'Cmdr'
but seriously, the only thing you can effectively do is either don't play the game, or play it and be really careful about stuff like this, because (like Ebay, Paypal, etc.) Blizzard seems to have a "shoot first and ask questions later" policy and seem to not care about customer service in the least, and just like with Ebay and Paypal, it does not hurt them financially to screw-over consumers once in a while, because they have thousands upon thousands of consumers who have no problem with the service. Ebay didn't even want my money when they banned me (of course because of their lack of caring about taking care of their shit I am no longer banned
You were still botting (Score:5, Interesting)
Look, if your not paying attention to the game go do something else. If it is that boring to do what you were doing then why bother? If it is for improvment within the game should you not focus your attention on it.
Unattended play, botting, macroing. Call it whatever you will.
If you want a game which will allow you to bot, supposedly only attended, then go play Asheron's Call. Turbine themselves approved of combat automation to the horror of the entire industry.
Against the EULA (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if that will carry over to the next thread about the next change in Microsoft's license terms.
Has anyone ever established that an EULA is a valid contract in any state?
hmm... how about mono for .NET (Score:3, Interesting)
Where the heck is their support from, anyhow? It looks like 2 Indians and a Russian responded to your e-mails, at least giving a casual glance at the names. It's entirely possible that you're getting outsourced support and they may not be able to do anything directly for you.
Re:let me get this straight (Score:1, Interesting)
Some kind soul had dragged a special mob (used in a quest) that is, essentially, unkillable to the city Stormwind, where he got attacked by all the guards in the area. And the superduper alliance boss for that city. Now, for for the mob to be able to kill that boss, we're talking several days of fighting. Plus the guards. So what I (and many others) did was to find some weapons, start the autoattck on it, and watched a movie (on the tv in another room).
Now, how different is this case from the article case? I'd say "not much, really". Except that I didnt use anything 3rd party, only normal ingame functions. However, my character was levelling weapon skill, and I was watching a movie in another room.
Re:Fasterfox? (Score:3, Interesting)