Blizzard announced recently that they've been wielding the banhammer:

As part of our efforts to eliminate cheating from World of Warcraft, we recently banned approximately 59,000 World of Warcraft accounts in the month of June, and with that removed well over 22 million gold from the total economy across all realms. While we regret having to take such extreme action, these accounts were participating in activities that directly violated World of Warcraft's Terms of Use, including the use of third-party programs to farm gold and items. Such behavior not only negatively impacts the economy of a realm, it diminishes the achievements of those who play legitimately. We will continue to aggressively monitor all World of Warcraft realms in order to protect the service and our players from the harmful effects of cheating.

Blizzard have a solid history of banning cheats, though this post doesn't really indicate exactly what sort of ban was instituted (that is, whether it was temporary or permanent).

How many slit wrists over this?

so if u get a permanent ban, uve thrown $100 u paid for the game down the drain?

fuk

plus however monthly fees you've spent building your character up...

If you cared about getting banned, you wouldn't be cheating in the first place.

Well, I fell off the fence and am back in the game, I just couldn't resist the sirens call.

woudlnt the accounts getting banned be mainly those chinese farmer accounts?

i hope all my friends and work mates get banned so i get a break from the never ending wow drivel i have to tolerate at work, away from work and in my gmail

pwned

Trog ..
WoW Account Penalties
According to Blizzards forum post the accounts were closed. ie. banned for good.

rofl

uve thrown $100 u paid for the game down the drain?

No youve just made $100 less profit from gold farming, cost of doing business, probably a tax writeoff.

http://goldfarmer.ytmnd.com/

Well, I fell off the fence and am back in the game, I just couldn't resist the sirens call.

There is no escape

so if u get a permanent ban, uve thrown $100 u paid for the game down the drain?

No, you've saved the countless $$$ and time you would have thrown into the game in the future.

omg, speechless @ youtube

those 59,000 don't know how lucky they are.

Not set up at all...

WoW is a terrible thing. they should have banned everyone

This man is the stone which we call truth!

As if anyone's dumb enough to pay monthly for a game they've already paid over $100 for.

Wait... there was at least 59 000 of em...

serioulsy

if my acct got banned , i would be f***ing so emo i wouldnt know what to do

I LOVE MYCHAR

i got like 110 days /played

hes so pr0, were going thru naxx now, killed 4 bosses. good fun to kick back and have a beer or 4 and raid in the arvo.

would f***ing suck BALLS to get banned

60,000.

wow is about $45 dollars these days, besides the loss of a character and the 2 weeks it would take them to get to level 60 again i doubt its a real loss. in saying that its good to see action taken when other games dont do jack well dont publicise in the way blizzard do, ya know making themselves to be forceful and all that.

good fun to kick back and have a beer or 4 and raid in the arvo.

I'm glad you threw the mention of beer in there, ELSE EVERYONE WOULD'VE THOUGHT YOU WERE A MASSIVE NERD

Sadly, beer is not a get-out-of-nerd-free card.

4? u've toned it down exi what happened to the drinking comps? Meanwhile still doing the /roll game? trying to get my guild into it on barthilas but none of the fkers wana do it :|

kind of sucks, just when i hit 60 on this character and wanted to buy 1000g for epic mount

there goes the cheap price :)

thanks to this ban, people who used to rely on ebaying gold to make ends meet in wow (coz they raid when they get back home and dont have time to farm) have been boned. prices of gold has shot up to ~$200 USD for 1000 gold (tripled in price).

just fyi!

thanks to this ban, people who used to rely on ebaying gold to make ends meet in wow

LOL

yeh! LOL!

what?

thanks to this ban, people who used to rely on ebaying gold to make ends meet in wow (coz they raid when they get back home and dont have time to farm) have been boned. prices of gold has shot up to ~$200 USD for 1000 gold (tripled in price).

Hahaha youre joking right? Oh please tell me your joking.

thanks to this ban, people who used to rely on ebaying gold to make ends meet in wow (coz they raid when they get back home and dont have time to farm) have been boned.

that means they don't have time to play WoW, it's as simple as that

What the hell does "make ends meet in wow" mean?! I am having visions of starving orcs dressed in rags holding cups

Repairing weapons, armour and buying health potions and stuff maybe?

It just means that the player is too stupid to gain gold in a legal fashion but has to resort to buying it. Seriously, but his statement made my LOlZ0R

play the auction house, quicker then farming and if u know how heaps better. And you start making real money once u have like 700g and can go for the larger items.

Playing on a populated/old server.
Someone would already be on that game. Selling random books bought from random vendors from far lands. Buying cheap greens to DE.
Or scanning for cheap blues/purples to sell at a higher price.

For those who have no problem with paying real money for some fake. Just so they can enjoy a game more in the little time they have. I don't see the problem.

And for those that spend hours a day farming for gold/mats just to buy or make pots needed to raid for another 3-5 hours. Well f*** that. Also f*** farming 900g for a mount.

Not everyone is HARDCOREZ enough to make legit gold.

Some may argue it's more satisfying earning that gold and then buying a epic mount. Ha!

59,000 lives saved. I'm with infi

Not everyone is HARDCOREZ enough to make legit gold.

This is what I dont understand, the HARDCOREZ would be the ones paying money for the gold because they are too busy RAIDING!@!@ While the average, normal player would be getting his own damned gold. I seriously had no trouble getting my gold for my epic mount.

Its because I wasn't stupid and knew how to make gold.

What the hell does "make ends meet in wow" mean?! I am having visions of starving orcs dressed in rags holding cups

yeh it does sound stupid but this is pretty much the routine of the average wow player who plays the game for its end game content(who also happens to have a job):

9am: work
5pm: get off work
6pm: get home logs in to wow.
7pm: guild goes raiding for the next 6+ hours
12-1am: raiding finishes, ends up costing >50-60g in repairs + other stuffs (during learning new content)
bed time

rinse and repeat.

eventually that just eats away at your gold and guess where these ppl turn to :O

sucks for them. lucky im a bum uni student =/

if buying and selling gold on ebay or wherever wasnt a bad thing, then blizzard wouldnt be banning these accounts.

it f***s economies on realms and makes it harder for people who make their wow gold by legitimate means, by pushing prices of everything higher because some f***** has cheated and can offer someone 1000g for an item which would normally cost 350.

they should be banning all the people recieving ebayed gold aswell for perpetuating the problem, not just some.

so what's the CPI in wow world.

if buying and selling gold on ebay or wherever wasnt a bad thing, then blizzard wouldnt be banning these accounts.

It's the way these people have gone about farming for it. Using bots and other unfair exploits is what ruins it for others. Looks like they'll have to go back to the old fashion way of paying the chinese farmers a dollar a day to continually man the pc's.

if buying and selling gold on ebay or wherever wasnt a bad thing, then blizzard wouldnt be banning these accounts.

Actually it's mostly so blizzard don't have to acknowledge in-game items and gold are worth any real tangible money and face subsequent lawsuits and complications

Using bots and other unfair exploits is what ruins it for others.

Actually hundreds of farmers server-wide who flood the market with items and gold that wouldn't be otherwise farmed (created by the server and brought into the economy with nothing being taken away) if there wasn't a market for buying/selling gold is what ruins it for others.

last edited by Hashy at 13:05:08 29/Jul/06

But I like my ebayed epics :'(

and what the hell does an "epic mount" do for you?

Is it the only way WoW players get to "mount"?

Hahaha no orbitor. An epic mount costs normally 1000g but you can easily get it for 900g. It just makes you travel faster :/ I remember blizard said something about mounted combat and all this cool s***. Another think that was never implimented.

If Blizzard dont want the economy screwed they should have set prices for all items. It's their fault for letting people make whatever prices they choose for weapons, items and s***. It's not the farmers. It's f***ing stupid paying huge amounts for stuff that is easily worth half.

The very idea that the economy shouldn't player-run is f***ing hilarious.

I think maybe MMORPGs are not for you.

It's the farmers.

If Blizzard dont want the economy screwed they should have set prices for all items. It's their fault for letting people make whatever prices they choose for weapons, items and s***. It's not the farmers. It's f***ing stupid paying huge amounts for stuff that is easily worth half.

lol its called free enterprise, if you dont like the price of an Item then go grind for it your self. or get in a decent guild that has most proffs covered, in my old guild we never had t buy anything, 3 alchemists, 2 armors smiths, 1 axe smith(me), 1 hammersmith, 2 guild enchanters(free enchants for the guild, offcourse we all help out in instances, anything not needed goes to thwm for DE), 2 engineers and so on..never had to worry about anything and if you want to make money then you can sell your own items on the AH (but anything you get from the guild bank is to be used to help guildis only) thats how i made my money...

last edited by TufNuT at 08:41:06 31/Jul/06

Its mainly repair bills that kill the top players. 15 - 20g per instance. More if you wipe lots while learning.

And they sure don't get that money back from the raid.

Not to mention they may be raiding non stop for 4 to 8 hours a night. Doesn't leave much time for farming.

While people like me have small repair bills and lots of time to farm pointless crap.

ps. its 1000 for the epic mount +10% discount for faction, +another 10% for rank 3... you pay more then 800 for your epic mount your a mug.

Better yet spend 2 weeks in AV and get your epic for 640.

Damn straight, I definitely didn't spend over 800 on an epic whatever it is.

ps. its 1000 for the epic mount +10% discount for faction, +another 10% for rank 3... you pay more then 800 for your epic mount your a mug.

Seconded, standard epic mounts are bind on use so you can pretty much ask any old tard to buy one for you for 800g.

Personally I bought 500g through a mob, and it cost me around 30$. Sucks to be anyone wanting to buy some now.

The very idea that the economy shouldn't player-run is f***ing hilarious.

Do you mean 'shouldn't BE player -run'?