Blizzard Wields The Banhammer Again

Eurogamer reports that Blizzard is once again clearing house, and this time they mean business. From the article: "Blizzard has banned more than 5400 World of Warcraft players from the game for good as part of plans to clamp down on gold farming and cheating in general. A further 10,700 accounts have been suspended for 'participating in activities that violate the game's Terms of Use, including using third-party programs to farm gold and items.'"

Re:why not...

[Adam Whisnant]

The problem with farming gold and items is that often they're not camping one specific mob, but a small area.

Bind-on-Pickup items, like those won from bosses in dungeons, are worthless to a farmer; it can't be used by (or even go into the inventory of) anyone except the person who wins the loot roll for it. All you can do is sell it to a vendor for about 5g.

Bind-on-Equip epixxxx, which are the ones characters with no vowels in their names try to pawn off for about 800g, are almost entirely random world drops, which have a tiny chance to drop from anything in certain level range. This way, the farmer camping an area makes life miserable for anyone trying to complete a quest there, but there's not overwhelming 24-hour competition for one specific mob.

Gold Farmers are the same as any Alt

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see what the criticism of gold farming is all about from the player's standpoint. Anyone who has an alt character on a separate account is doing essentially the same thing as someone who buys gold on ebay from a gold farmer. They are paying real world money to get an in-game advantage. Thing is, when you get an Alt it is Blizzard who gets all the payments. But with gold farming, someone other than Blizzard is profiting, too. Don't believe them when they say they are trying to keep the game balanced for all players. If you pay Blizzard, you can get TOS-compliant in-game advantages poorer players cannot match. So it isn't about fairness to players at all. It's about Blizzard's bottom line.

I buy gold and don't care what people think. You have an alt, and don't care what I think. Even, steven.

Way to go blizzard!

[dsands1]

You banned 5400 accounts! You're really showing those gold farmers who's boss! Boy, at this rate I bet those companies selling gold will be out of business in NO TIME! /runsOverToIgeDotCom

Hrmm... 500 gold on my server was $30 bucks last week... Let's see what's up after blizzard's heroic bans! Arthas Server, Horde... 500 gold. $31 bucks. =|