To those wrongfully banned in the 30,000 lot recently for exploiting

[Escariot]

Lets look at this from a perspective:

1. You were playing WoW, you vendored some loot, you DC, you get double item. You realise this, but it wasnt really your fault, you don't do it again case closed.

If anyone got banned this way, its ENTIRELY Blizzards fault.

2. A friend whispers you, informing you of an EXPLOIT, and you still choose to do it? In my opinion that is grounds for a ban (albeit I myself wouldn't go as far as to make it a permanent one).


3. Everyone else is doing it? I know its kinda cliche, but would you jump down into a well if everyone else jumped? It's grounds for a ban aswell.

[Pann]

I don't think that anyone is arguing that the people that used this exploit should not face some kind of punishment however I do not think that blanket permanent bans are appropriate. Obviously the actions of some will necessitate permanent bans whilst others who have not gained from this and only used it to see if it does actually disconnect you should face nothing more than a warning.

This exploit is no where near widespread enough to have a major or long lasting effect on the in game economy and Blizzard are more than capable of reversing any undesirable economic effects of this exploit. The holier than thou attitude of some the posters is somewhat amusing; this is cheating in a game not murder or theft.

blizzard can and does ip ban repeat offenders who use exploits or bots

Do you have any evidence for this? Considering that most ISPs use dynamic IP addresses and a static IP is usually a service that attracts an additional fee the risk of banning an innocent person by mistake seems rather high.

[kenlongjr]

Lets look at this from a perspective:

1. You were playing WoW, you vendored some loot, you DC, you get double item. You realise this, but it wasnt really your fault, you don't do it again case closed.

No, the EXPLOIT part of this took a lot more than that. simply dc'ing yourself didn't get you anything but disconnected. No extra loot, no daily resets, nothing but disconnected. The EXPLOITERS started with the dc, and grew from there.

[Deleted]

You wouldn't do the DC part if you didn't intend to do the exploit part. Case closed. Noone wrongfully banned. Good job, Blizzard.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Lets look at this from a perspective:

1. You were playing WoW, you vendored some loot, you DC, you get double item. You realise this, but it wasnt really your fault, you don't do it again case closed.

If anyone got banned this way, its ENTIRELY Blizzards fault.

From what I've read, there were half a dozen steps that had to be done in a very specific order, at a very specific point in time before you disconnected. There is no way that anybody used this exploit by accident.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

I don't think that anyone is arguing that the people that used this exploit should not face some kind of punishment however I do not think that blanket permanent bans are appropriate. Obviously the actions of some will necessitate permanent bans whilst others who have not gained from this and only used it to see if it does actually disconnect you should face nothing more than a warning.

This exploit is no where near widespread enough to have a major or long lasting effect on the in game economy and Blizzard are more than capable of reversing any undesirable economic effects of this exploit. The holier than thou attitude of some the posters is somewhat amusing; this is cheating in a game not murder or theft.



Do you have any evidence for this? Considering that most ISPs use dynamic IP addresses and a static IP is usually a service that attracts an additional fee the risk of banning an innocent person by mistake seems rather high.

You're right. Cheating in a game. The punishment isn;t prison or the death sentence. Cheat with intent to cheat = ban.

I have never intended to cheat in this game, and have never been banned.

[Raldazzar]

I wouldn't have bought another account after being treated that way.

How was he treated unfairly? he broke the rules.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

How was he treated unfairly? he broke the rules.

I love seeing people I know post on Facebook about how the "unfairly got pulled over" or something...

"Mannnn. Shoo. The pigs pulled me over and gave me a 200$ ticket, yo!"

Me- Were you speeding or something?

"Yeah dogg. I was going 100 in a 25! So what! Dirty cops shoo."

me- Thats illegal. Were you being chased by a murderer, or was your wife pregnant?"

"No dogg! I was late to my appointment at the vets office! My cat needs braces, yo! Cops is wack!"

[Raiju]

Except the guy got unbanned. If OP had sent a report in after discovering the exploit then he 100% would never deserve any repercussions, but I know myself that blizzard will treat you like a cheater even when you do report things immediately at times. I got warned and threatened with a ban for a flying bug I reported myself without abusing at all and without telling anyone how to replicate before receiving my ticket response. They actually had to make me out to be a wrongdoer because I accidentally stumbled upon a bug flying to SW from UC on a sandstone (bug is now fixed but this isn't enough info anyway, it was a specific point to dismount at)

[Demec]

Sadly permanent ban for most of these 30 000 jerks is very light punishment as they will just pop another account inside the BNET and BG bot to 90 and will be again at same state than before... thanks to the account wide achievements, pets & mounts. Blocking wow access from the BNET account would be great.

[Galbrei]

Don't you have to be banned a couple times before being perma-banned? If the OP is as squeaky-clean as he claim he wouldn't be perma-banned just yet, even if Blizzard did "wrongfully" blame him for that exploit.

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Don't you have to be banned a couple times before being perma-banned? If the OP is as squeaky-clean as he claim he wouldn't be perma-banned just yet, even if Blizzard did "wrongfully" blame him for that exploit.

Exploit using can be an instant permanent ban, regardless of prior track record.

[Tilde]

Are you saying that a perma ban for DCing yourself with a bugged herb is reasonable?

No, it's not reasonable. Their name, address, phone number, and credit card numbers should have been banned from making an account too.

[Idoru]

Oh look at all the perfect law-abiding citizens in this thread.
Pfft, just the regular exploit-thread mentality.

"Thy scum, thou trieth disconnecting thyself! May thee account be banneth for all eternity."

Luckily Blizzard seem to have a more reasonable acceptance to curiosity than the ToU-humpers

The difference is that when I do something wrong, I don't whine about the punishment.

[Pannonian]

Because I got permanently banned for doing a glorified disconnect. I disconnected myself a few times on my alt I havn't touched in a year, and did nothing more. How would you feel in this situation? Blizzard clearly doesn't care because if they bothered to check logs they'd see I bought 2 stacks of herbs, milled 3 times, vendored 3 herbs and never logged on after that. There are people that exploited this, but there are also people who did absolutely nothing and got permanently banned.

hey, i have to tell you a special secret: if you cut a person with a blade, they bleed! Just try it if you don't believe me. And don't worry, you wont get arrested for attempted murder if you tell them you just wanted to know if the person bleeds.

Back to topic: As many have stated: The most plausible course of action for blizzard is to simply ban everyone that has participated. Therefore they will take something that is 100% involved with this exploit. For example a server log message where someone dcs while selling herbs. So these people get banned, because there are enough DC-decks around, and blizzard wants to minimize the damage. So everyone who dced this way will get banned. This will most likley happen automatically. After that they will for sure check the accounts manually. If they see that you didn't do anything else, then they will unban you. As they have to do this manually, it will take time. Therefore maybe someone else who didn't participate will get unbanned in 2 or 3 days, because it takes time.

So for your curiosity you get banned for a few days; maybe they should have unblocked your account earlier, but i don't know how long it takes... also: maybe they ignored your emails because they got thousands of it, and checked accounts instead of answering emails...

@Ripley: Good job in taunting the mod with complete absurd topics. I also like the change in your argumentation to more personal accusations (passive-aggresive). Get a little mor insulting and maybe you get the flame war you are aiming for.

[Raelbo]

You used an exploit.

Let's just clear this up properly: The quoted sentence above makes no sense in the English language. (I am not trying to grammar police you, but rules cannot be applied unless their actual meaning is properly understood, and by screwing up the grammar in this case, you have lost the meaning).

You cannot use an exploit. The way in which you using the word is made up and therefore has no real meaning when trying to apply blizzard's ToUs.

What you actually meant to say, is that the OP exploited a bug in the game - which is indeed a bannable offence in the game. Except that the OP did no such thing.

The term exploit (as used in this context) is a verb meaning "to take advantage of" or "derive benefit from". The OP did not exploit anything because he did not take advantage of the bug, or derive any benefit from it.

What he did do was intentionally trigger a bug out of curiosity, which although also is something that you should not do, it is a far less serious offence than exploiting a bug.

In short, the term "exploit" has no bearing on the OP's actions.

Doesn't matter how much, or the intent behind it. You used it, and that's grounds enough for a permanent ban. I hope this teaches more people to not just do stuff for "fun" because their friends tell them about it.

Sort of. He should not have intentionally triggered the bug. Since he never exploited the bug though, there is no grounds for a permanent ban. However it does justify Blizzard's initial suspicion of him, and vindicates their course of action, culminating in the reinstatement of his account.

And yes, I agree, it is a good lesson to not just do stuff like this.

[LKPVmnjler]

There will always be some false-positives so I'm sure there are a few who did get wrongfully banned. They can simply appeal their ban and it should show the error and get their accounts back. We are talking about maybe 5 ppl out of 30,000 accounts (probably many people with multiple accounts). That scale doesn't warrant a thread, they don't need it.

I value my account and time spent. As much as I want to do certain things I will never do them because of the risk. So suck it.

For the OP's account. If you duped items did you delete them? Even vendoring them one can make the argument that you gained something in a way you shouldn't have. Did you do it multiple times?
Basically from these questions, unless you did it only once and deleted the dupes items, I'd argue you are actually guilty of duping with the intention of gaining an advantage.

It's nice blizzard has looked into the case. I'm sure many would agree even if you duped a couple blood spirits and sold them that doesn't have to be punished by a permanent ban. Rather looking into the people who used this a lot and sold 100+ blood spirits and other items this way seems appropriate.
Do note, this further enhances the idea that when a ban repeal gets "ignored", (someone says they were wrongfully banned) they may have actually looked into it and its more likely that it was really on the side of proper punishment worthy.

[loki504]

blizzard can and does ip ban repeat offenders who use exploits or bots

but then its against there own rules.

because the action is taken against THAT account not against you or your ip

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

but then its against there own rules.

because the action is taken against THAT account not against you or your ip

According to the ToU and the EULA, the account = the offendor.

[Self Inflicted Wounds]

Let's just clear this up properly: The quoted sentence above makes no sense in the English language. (I am not trying to grammar police you, but rules cannot be applied unless their actual meaning is properly understood, and by screwing up the grammar in this case, you have lost the meaning).

You cannot use an exploit. The way in which you using the word is made up and therefore has no real meaning when trying to apply blizzard's ToUs.

What you actually meant to say, is that the OP exploited a bug in the game - which is indeed a bannable offence in the game. Except that the OP did no such thing.

The term exploit (as used in this context) is a verb meaning "to take advantage of" or "derive benefit from". The OP did not exploit anything because he did not take advantage of the bug, or derive any benefit from it.

What he did do was intentionally trigger a bug out of curiosity, which although also is something that you should not do, it is a far less serious offence than exploiting a bug.

In short, the term "exploit" has no bearing on the OP's actions.



Sort of. He should not have intentionally triggered the bug. Since he never exploited the bug though, there is no grounds for a permanent ban. However it does justify Blizzard's initial suspicion of him, and vindicates their course of action, culminating in the reinstatement of his account.

And yes, I agree, it is a good lesson to not just do stuff like this.

Please don't try to argue semantics. You can find that one specific definition to try to justify, or lessen what the OP openly admitted to doing all you want, but that doesn't make it okay. Many people even posted how the bug/exploit was done, and its not as simple as the OP would have you believe.

The OP did in fact exploit the bug as soon as he/she tried it out. To exploit something is to take advantage of it. You can exploit a weakness in armor. You can exploit a weak spot in a wall to break through it. You can exploit an unintended sequence of coding to cause unintended behavior.

An exploit (from the verb to exploit, in the meaning of using something to one’s own advantage) is a piece of software, a chunk of data, or sequence of commands that takes advantage of a bug, glitch or vulnerability in order to cause unintended or unanticipated behaviour to occur on computer software, hardware, or something electronic (usually computerised).

Straight from wikipedia.