All I want is 1 screenshot.

[powerstuck]

Is archaeology even 5 years old ?

[Drusin]

yes, maybe it is. but its definetly inside the realm of stupidity.

How is it stupid? It's a hobby.

[Deficineiron]

Yet when someone right now does the same thing they only receive a 6 month ban. You don't think it's ridiculous that old accounts aren't reviewed when asked about? If our current president can pardon hundreds of people for non-violent drug offenses now that the prison sentence guidelines have been lowered you'd think Blizzard would do the same in a video game.

more generally it just seems like good economics. blizzard has established that they view botting as a non=-permaban offense now. retroactively adjusting account status for the glider and archychat bans isn't a huge leap since they have moved the goalposts out of the stadium already. let folks resurrect their old accounts. take the revenue and run. Why not?

now as far as OP, to spend 10k/29kEUR, obviously one suspects this particular account has an economy exploit problem on a scale beyond anything most players can imagine (buying gold I assume? how do you spend 10k/29k EUR?). While blizzard has also moved into this market, I have not heard that accounts trying to make an end-run around their legal monopoly on gold selling aren't getting permabanned anymore.

[DesMephisto]

dont do the crime if you cant do the time

Old policy - Bot - Perm Ban
New policy - Bot - 6 Month Ban

Even in America we don't hold people to the crimes of old if the policy changes.

[Deficineiron]

Is archaeology even 5 years old ?

yes early cat. 6 years old.

[Thoughtcrime]

Yet when someone right now does the same thing they only receive a 6 month ban. You don't think it's ridiculous that old accounts aren't reviewed when asked about? If our current president can pardon hundreds of people for non-violent drug offenses now that the prison sentence guidelines have been lowered you'd think Blizzard would do the same in a video game.

No I do not. I preempted that argument with the first sentence of my reply. Cheating in a computer game after signing an agreement is not in any way equatable to a criminal offense.

[Eleccybubb]

Is archaeology even 5 years old ?

6 years. Was introduced in Cata.

[Deficineiron]

No I do not. I preempted that argument with the first sentence of my reply. Cheating in a computer game after signing an agreement is not in any way equatable to a criminal offense.

it has been pretty clearly established by prominent forum members in the 1900-page long unnameable thread that cheating is, in fact, on socio-ethical and possibly legal par with a variety of violent felonies. I suggest reviewing the mentioned thread in detail to find the legal concepts brought forth by the mmo legal experts.

that said, since botting in particular is no longer a permaban offense, it may be just a matter of enough noise getting made to get blizz to unlock the older bans on botting (only).

I wish to reiterate, however, that the op's 10k/29k? investment in wow does seem to have almost HAD to have broken any number of TOS clauses and the archybot incident would be the most trivial of same.

[frogger237]

If you really spent 30k on blizzard games then just purchase a new wow account and make a new guy make him look like your old toon and lvl boost him and take a screenshot.

[Coronius]

I'd say... that they could look into each case separately if a plea is made. Sure, you cheated, and they banned you, but... I don't think that breaking the rules just 1 time should warrant a permanent ban. If you do it again? Sure, get lost, but for just once? I don't agree.

Botting is a bit more serious than, say, calling another player something mean. I think it's good that Blizzard have zero tolerance against botting.

[Trassk]

I dunno why you expected to get sympathy on this forum tbh.

[Tock20]

Maybe if you ask nicely enough, blizz will take a screen shot for you. I hope it's your character naked being eiffel towered by thrall and varian

[Deficineiron]

Botting is a bit more serious than, say, calling another player something mean. I think it's good that Blizzard have zero tolerance against botting.

they do not, they do give 6-month timeouts now. This is not zero tolerance.

[Thoughtcrime]

it has been pretty clearly established by prominent forum members in the 1900-page long unnameable thread that cheating is, in fact, on socio-ethical and possibly legal par with a variety of violent felonies. I suggest reviewing the mentioned thread in detail to find the legal concepts brought forth by the mmo legal experts.

Comparing ToS to law is a false equivalency. ToS is a voluntary agreement with a private company. This scenario in particular is more comparable to a person breaking up with their partner after they were cheated on, but forgiving the next person they're with for the same thing. That's their prerogative as this is Blizzard's but legality doesn't come into it. Again, to be blunt: tough titties sums it up.

I will admit however that I don't know what process if any Blizzard adhere to when dealing with this type of situation. I would be surprised if they didn't retain customer interactions with GMs and other customer services for training and legal purposes so it wouldn't be too hard to go back and review that information and decide on whether to uphold or rescind the original decision. As I said, in the end it's their prerogative but based on what I've read about the op I'm inclined to believe that when you brush away the BS he did a little more than collect a couple fragments for an hour.

[Deficineiron]

Comparing ToS to law is a false equivalency. ToS is a voluntary agreement with a private company. This scenario in particular is more comparable to a person breaking up with their partner after they were cheated on, but forgiving the next person they're with for the same thing. That's their prerogative as this is Blizzard's but legality doesn't come into it. Again, to be blunt: tough titties sums it up.

This sort of thinking might work on another web page or away from the PC (or just about anywhere else), but I do try to function within expected social norms while on MMO-C. A little cog. dis. never hurt anyone.

[BdotEscro]

They permabanned you for botting?

I remember I once used a speed hack, stupidly, and they only banned me for like a day LOL

[Akka]

If you REALLY spent 29000 bucks on the game (which I don't believe for one second), Blizzard did you a service by helping you stop being a retarded addict.

[tikcol]

Very sad story. I almost cried.

I can't believe they don't allow you to even take a single screenshot, after being a faithful customer for so long, you got caught on a minor situation where you broke the law and they forget everything you did for them? It's very cold, even coming from Blizzard. No pun intended.

So many hours, so much money, so many memories.. gone.. forever

No, I'm actually crying right now. What can I do to help?

[manypillars]

( i changed name on every 3 days when the cooldown went of )

I know this has probably been asked and answered, but I'm lazy. WHY? I mean, I knew a guy who raced changed every month, but a name change every three days? That just seems excessive.

[Feronar]

I seriously doubt the OP's story.

He says he spent € 29 000, which I find highly suspicious because:

I grew up on the account. That was my childhood.

If he spent that much, during his childhood, where did he get the money? Children typically don't have access to anywhere near that kind of money. I suspect either the OP is making it all up, or there's something he's not telling us.