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Recent Actions Against ToU Violations
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
We’ve recently taken action against a number of accounts that were actively participating in and/or advertising the sale of in-game raid or dungeon clears in exchange for real-world currency. Such behavior is a clear violation of the World of Warcraft Terms of Use.

Additionally, we’ve issued smaller actions against players who were found to be sharing account details in order to gain a competitive advantage during raid progression. Account sharing of any kind is against the World of Warcraft Terms of Use, and will not be tolerated. While the penalties applied as part of these actions were relatively minor, we intend to apply much harsher penalties for such behavior in the future.

As a reminder, in order to ensure fair play and competitive integrity, we closely monitor these and other activities that violate the Terms of Use. This includes selling in-game services for real money, exchanging accounts or characters, and similar violations done with the intention of gaining a competitive advantage in raid progression (such as the purchase or transfer of geared characters or accounts between owners).

Note that while selling assistance with obtaining items, achievements, PvP rating, or other in-game benefits for real-world currency is against the Terms of Use, selling those things in exchange for in-game gold is perfectly legitimate. Players should not feel as though participating in a “gold run” is going to result in negative action taken against their account.

Blue Posts
Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment
EU Forums
I'm sorry that your event on Argent Dawn was overlooked. In the future, if you are hosting a very large roleplaying event that is being impacted by sharding (which, given the above changes, shouldn't happen very often anymore) I'd encourage you to bring it to the Community Team's attention by dropping an e-mail to CMTeamEU-WoW@blizzard.com with the details of the event.

In regards to the EU forums being ignored, I can accept that there's room for improvement but at the same time I think we have also come a long way over the past year or so.

In most cases Lore and Kaivax now mirror information onto the EU forum as soon as it gets posted on the NA forums rather than there being a delay of several hours. Yes, sometimes things fall the cracks or get missed and ideally we want to avoid this.

More recently (since Legion), the EU forums have had developers contributing in the Class Development forum and Watcher (Ion) has also posted several times on the EU forums in topics that were of interest to EU players but not necessarily to NA players.

When it comes to feedback, it isn't considered in a vacuum. We compile feedback from all the game regions (both EU and NA as well as ANZ, China etc.), this includes what players are saying on social media, fan sites, other forums, YouTube videos etc. We will drill down deeper if one region is resonating with something far more than others, to understand why that is the case and what (if any) action is appropriate.

There is also a 9 hour time difference between France (where the EU Community team is based) and California (where the developers are based). When we are in the office, the majority of the staff across the ocean are asleep or going to sleep. This means we don't have immediate access to get answers or information, so we send any requests or relevant details via email. More often than not, the feedback being raised by the EU player-base isn't that dissimilar to what is being raised by the NA player-base, so such matters become topics of discussion during office hours in California, this is often why information comes out during that time rather than during EU hours. Though there have been cases where information has been posted first on EU, which has lead to similar complaints from NA players about being ignored.

The information that we receive and post, in most cases, is a direct result of feedback relaying on a global level, not because one forum is preferred more than the other.

At the end of the day, our priority is to get any information we receive out into the community, it's not really a considered a problem whether that happens to be on the NA forum first, the EU forum first, or another platform entirely if it's more appropriate for the audience in question.

Sorry, did you just copy/paste a response from a Dev post on US forums in response to a complaint that Devs never respond to posts on EU forums? Did someone dare you for a laugh?
Yes I did, because it was information we received during the night that we were asked to share globally. Considering part of this thread was about the RP event in Europe that got missed I felt like it was the best place to put that information as it pertained specifically to the sharding topic. That being said, Community Managers aren't Developers. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Shaman (Forums / Skills / Talent Calculator / Artifact Calculator / PvP Talent Calculator)
Patch 7.3 Elemental Discussion
Catching up a bit on the newest changes people are starting to see on PTR, in particular:

"Static Overload: After using Stormkeeper, your next Chain Lightning causes Elemental Overload to trigger on every target."

Static Overload has been a sticking point throughout Legion (both in our eyes and based on feedback). Too much of the power of Chain Lightning was contained in an uncontrollable and very spiky proc. This is exacerbated by the fact that Chain Lightning is buffed tremendously in short windows by some effects--primarily, Stormkeeper and Lightning Rod.

A fully-controllable redesign of Static Overload should significantly mitigate the randomness in hoping it comes up during the moments it would be most valuable. The version we're trying out on PTR always gives a Static Overload at a high-value moment. We expect that it is overall a net increase to the power of the effect.

Summing up where we are with Elemental after various small changes in this patch:
--Single-target damage is buffed, through a flat buff to all spells other than Chain Lightning, and a larger buff to Earth Shock. We'll continue to monitor overall balance as always.
--Mastery will continue being valuable in higher values, which eases gearing constraints, and also prevents overall scaling from tailing off as it's capped out.
--Burst AoE potential available through Stormkeeper is both higher and more reliable. Increasing Elemental's on-demand AoE burst wasn't a big priority, but it's fine for it to happen in the process of switching to an on-demand design for Static Overload.
--Sustained AoE damage is similar or higher due to a large buff to Earthquake, and the likelihood of Static Overload's total contribution being higher in situations where Stormkeeper is being used.

Well. The first half of this sentence (which to be fair is from my post) couldn't have been any more wrong. As it stands, our average potential per Stormkeeper will drop significantly. The larger the number of SKs you compare, the more painful the comparison becomes.

When comparing what we could expect in 5 Stormkeeper casts: https://gyazo.com/2589d5750139946f30a54692c3de18a8

The bell curve represents the average you'd expect on live, while the red highlight represents what we'll see on the ptr.

When you compare with say 11 Stormkeeper casts, it gets worse: https://gyazo.com/08913ba093027e863b121268bf011424

We might be talking past each other somehow, because as I try to interpret what you're saying, it doesn't sanity-check. Talking about averages--on live you get 0.3 procs per Stormkeeper cast; on PTR you get 1.0. Would need more explanation of which "average" you're saying is going down.

Your first graph, the distribution of proc count on live over 5 Stormkeepers, I'd expect to look more like this (With the "5" column highlighted in red, as you did) (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Heroes of the Storm - August 8 Patch
Garrosh has made his way into the Nexus, along with other patch changes!





StarCrafts - Season 5 Ep 23: Fenix & Zagara Co-op Mission
Another episode of StarCrafts has been released!

This article was originally published in forum thread: Recent Actions Against ToU Violations, Blue Posts, HotS - Garrosh Patch, StarCrafts started by chaud View original post
Comments 52 Comments
  1. aeuhe4yxzhds's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by DesoPL View Post
    This is obvious as fuck, that they ignoring EU playerbase because Asian and US gives more money. And it is nothing new, that Arthylea just do copy paste messages.
    Or EU just so happens to be smarter at hiding it? It might be a hard concept to understand
  1. KevyB's Avatar
    A ToU is something we can all wipe our sweaty assholes with after heavy raiding, in fact blizz should expand and cup our balls while we're doing it.

    Pathetic piece of shit company.
  1. Triggered Fridgekin's Avatar
    Good thing they came down on those ToU abusers not long after raid progression in ToS.
  1. lorquist's Avatar
    As long as they ban the Johns along with the prostitutes, I'm cool with it. Imagine the outrage if blizzard offered boosts for real money, "PAY TO WIN" would be the cry of millions because it's NOT okay.
  1. Decyde's Avatar
    I remeber when Blizzard had balls and would just ban these people outright.

    I've reported too many people who just use the group finder for real money trading.

    Message me on Skype for details!
  1. Kylista6's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Faustel View Post
    This TOU crap is so broken, there are about 5 guild member in my guild who got a 1 month ban for boosting for gold, because the system is fucking automated and people who see any boosting promotion of trade chat just instantly reports it, because they are quite moronic, had a few whisper almost every day i advertised boost for gold, and got messages like 'enjoy your ban scum bag' you are giving power to morons who don't understand that the difference between boost for gold and boost for IRL cash.

    P.S None of these guild member participated in boost for IRL , but they did for boost for gold, and they got banned for it.


    I received a suspension for advertising a boost for gold, not for boosting for gold. So, be careful how you advertise.
  1. Yelmurc's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Decyde View Post
    I remeber when Blizzard had balls and would just ban these people outright.

    I've reported too many people who just use the group finder for real money trading.

    Message me on Skype for details!
    Yea i see Skype for details I report it.
  1. Kylista6's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by noladrew View Post
    You people don't realize how much some of these runs are netting for people lol. It would be stupid for the higher end guilds to accept gold only when they can charge and receive money worth far more than the gold will ever be. The gold has VERY limited applications, even when converted to BNet balance. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating for RMT services, just suggesting to think outside of the box a bit. They aren't doing RMT services to fuck Blizzard, just as much as Blizzard aren't taking action against it because they aren't "getting a cut". On the player side, there is a far higher yield potential from doing RMT services, much higher than accepting only gold. Keep in mind that from Blizzard's perspective, they can't "police" these charges or protect people in terms of buyer protection, to ensure they either receive what they intended to purchase or get their money back. Making RMT services not allowed in the TOU/TOS helps cover Blizzard's ass from a legal perspective, among preventing some amount of headache from having to deal with people getting scammed.

    A point to add, is that the community as a whole is terrible. No punishments go out, GET THE PITCHFORKS! BLIZZARD DOESNT CARE ABOUT INTEGRITY! Guilds/players finally get punished, GET THE PITCHFORKS! BLIZZARD IS PISSED THAT THEY ARENT GETTING THEIR CUT OF THE SALES! Its basically lose/lose for Blizzard, but they are actually promoting some amount of integrity for the game, at least giving that perception. End of the day, Blizzard IS A BUSINESS and they are there to make a profit, but they arent trying to fuck people 100% of the time, get your heads out of your asses. They still have to protect themselves as a company, and their players, to some extent.
    Holy shit, it's a logical, well formulated answer that isn't aimed towards insulting or alienating anyone!

    To back up his statement, some of these people pay hundreds of dollars to be boosted through mythic content, and when a guild can do these boosts in under an hour, that translates to about a $30/hr job for these raiders. Add their sponsorships and stream income, this is how they started to make a living off of raiding, and it's only gained visibility because there is increased insight into these situations (Twitch is the primary one). It's only logical that blizzard would take action to curb this now that it is becoming mainstream and less of a one-off situation with the world-first guilds.
  1. mmoc23d2295e3f's Avatar
    I still don't understand why people pay for carries. What's wrong with humans these days?
  1. Korru's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Professional Extra View Post
    I still don't understand why people pay for carries. What's wrong with humans these days?
    "Gee, I don't have the time to dedicate to a mythic raiding guild but I do have all this gold to waste..."
  1. Zoldor's Avatar
    I don't mind the real money carries, but I understand why Blizz does what they do. It is legal protection on their end and inaction is a terrible way to go about it, makes the company look bad.

    Even still, anyone complaining about the "cancer" of Real Money runs are just mad they can't afford them, get in on the action, or worried about shit they shouldn't be worried about. Like other people's epeen score. Who cares if some lazy fucker is willing to pay 100 bucks to get a run through Mythic NH? Everyone on your realm will know that is how he/she got whatever they have, they won't get your raid spot or guild spot, they don't get anything special from it besides the achievement to link for shitty PuG groups.

    As someone who doesn't do them, or participate in them and on my tiny server I don't see the endless spam everyone is talking about, so for me I couldn't give a shit. Let the big boys make money off the idiots. I'm fine with that. And I agree if Blizz offered it as a standard service I'd be annoyed by it and it would ruin the game, but this little black market, I don't care enough to be concerned with it, but I understand why blizzard is doing it. No one is going to sue joe schmoe over a botched IRL run, but you can be damn sure if they can attach Blizz to that suit they will and that is what Blizz doesn't want is get stuck paying a bunch of piddly suits or pay legal fees to do so.
  1. GreenJesus's Avatar
    Good. I just reported a guild that was advertising "Selling heroic KJ runs, 8/9M guild". Obviously they didn't want to say what the currency or amount was in their advertisement since they probably wanted to get you on Skype and charge you cash. I hate these people that spam chat and carry lazy people that don't want to put in the work themselves to achieve something.
  1. SinR's Avatar
    So when is blizzard permabanning Method?
  1. Softbottom's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Professional Extra View Post
    I still don't understand why people pay for carries. What's wrong with humans these days?
    Time vs money my friend. People who don't care to raid mythic but want mythic loot and have fat wallets can just buy the runs with RL money. It's not worth their time to raid for 2-3 months (6-12 hours a week) to get full mythic gear vs spending 1000-2000$ ML run and get almost fully geared. Some players like to play the game some don't I guess lol.
  1. Tupolew519's Avatar
    garrosh looks cool to me.
  1. KrotosTheTank's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by mariovsgoku View Post
    Good. I just reported a guild that was advertising "Selling heroic KJ runs, 8/9M guild". Obviously they didn't want to say what the currency or amount was in their advertisement since they probably wanted to get you on Skype and charge you cash. I hate these people that spam chat and carry lazy people that don't want to put in the work themselves to achieve something.
    Oh man, Trade Chat PD, coming through.... moron. Did you PM that guild? Did you confirm that they are going for cash? If not, which i doubt you did, you just reported someone for nothing but suspicion. You do realize that advertising how much you're doing the run for is about as dumb as it gets? You're either so high that no one is interested, or so low you just left gold on the table... You have people offer and go from there, friend of mine, his guild just got 2 one million gold sales for ToS and they were only looking for 500k. You're an idiot, and a liar, if you'd tell them that "no no, we only want 500k".

    Get off your high horse and stop bitching about something that doesn't affect you in the slightest.
  1. GSN's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by KrotosTheTank View Post
    Oh man, Trade Chat PD, coming through.... moron. Did you PM that guild? Did you confirm that they are going for cash? If not, which i doubt you did, you just reported someone for nothing but suspicion. You do realize that advertising how much you're doing the run for is about as dumb as it gets? You're either so high that no one is interested, or so low you just left gold on the table... You have people offer and go from there, friend of mine, his guild just got 2 one million gold sales for ToS and they were only looking for 500k. You're an idiot, and a liar, if you'd tell them that "no no, we only want 500k".

    Get off your high horse and stop bitching about something that doesn't affect you in the slightest.
    Why so upset? If someone gets reported without having done anything wrong, nothing will happen.
  1. Phagelives's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by SinR View Post
    So when is blizzard permabanning Method?
    on the far side of Never!
  1. dalrint's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Zzyxzz View Post
    "As a reminder, in order to ensure fair play and competitive integrity [...]"

    Its only fair play and competitive integrity as long as blizzard gets the money. Buying gold(where blizzard gets the money) and paying a guild (And they convert it to tokens)
    is nearly the same as giving the money directly, except that blizzard doesnt get a share. Soo... yes... sure... "fair play and competitive integrity"

    In other words, blizzards says: "Do the fuck you want, but we want your money."
    While I'm sure Blizz wanting the gold purchase to go through them is an aspect of this, at the end of the day, it's more about control over the problems that external RMTs cause.

    Example A: A guild advertises 100 dollars for a run through to guldan and the mount. Guy signs up, gives them 100 bucks, they kick him from the group and do nothing for him. He complains in trade chat, opens a ticket to blizz because he just got scammed (and scamming is technically against the rules of the game) and blizzard can do nothing about it except 'too bad so sad' because they were external to the actual money process. Can they ban the scammer? Sure. But can they help the guy? Nope.

    Example B: A guild advertises 1 million gold for a run to guldan and the mount. Guy signs up, buys some gold from Blizz, gives it to the guild, and they kick him from the group and do nothing for him. Guy complains in trade, opens a ticket to blizzard because he just got scammed. But this time, blizzard can track the gold because it all took place within their servers. They can see the gold purchase, where it changed hands, when the guy got kicked from the group.

    IE: In example 2, blizzard can actually help the person that got fucked. In example one, they're as helpless as he is.

    Talk all you want about blizzard wanting a cut, but example B is better for everyone except the guy trying to make money off raiding.
  1. Sarugaul's Avatar
    Just to make it clear for the few that think Blizzard offers recompense when someone scams gold from you in game..

    They do not.

    They will not give you your gold back, even if they take it from the other player. The other player will barely be punished - I saw the scammer advertising often in trade even after I went through a couple of tickets trying to rectify the situation and recover the scammed gold.

    The truth is, if you can negotiate a RMT and it goes wrong you are far more likely to recover your cash, at least you will have a chance to.

    With Blizzard their policy is 100% the victim loses if someone is dishonest in their dealings with you when it comes to Gold for runs.

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