Should Blizzard allow 'account amnesty'?

[cFortyfive]

banned for a couple minor swear offences.

No worries nobody gets permabanned for occasionally calling other people retards - the level of persistence you need to achieve that is quite hard to reach.

[NatePsy]

No worries nobody gets permabanned for occasionally calling other people retards - the level of persistence you need to achieve that is quite hard to reach.

You'd be surprised if they're unlucky enough. Maybe a step above insults like "retard"

[Seranthor]

Amusingly, I actually did quote the apology article to them at the time. They said that they still 'stand behind the judgement' regardless.


I'm seriously confused now. No botters or gold sellers are being 'let back in'. The only way they could use this, is if they already have an active account. I've seriously repeated this like 7 times now. I can't explain it any clearer. Nobody will be able to just shell out money and jump back in the game.

---------- Post added 2013-05-01 at 01:10 AM ----------


Money? Again (for like the third time). Money drives it. If it's not profitable, then there's no point. Neither you, nor I, are Blizzard's financial team. We don't determine if it can be profitable or not. They could, though.

You dont think botters and the gold sellers have more than one account?

You aren't confused, you are intentionally ignoring the risk to advocate for your position. How are you planning on dealing with the public reaction over the real or perceived act of letting cheaters, botters, and gold sellers back into the game which is already infested with them?

You claim its about money. So tell me how this is more financially advantagous that what currently exists? I really dont see an upside for Blizzard on this... Bad PR from the perception of letting the cheaters buy their old accounts back.. Increased animosity from the playerbase that DID follow the rules toward the cheaters AND Blizzard. Who knows how many folks just say 'fuck it, Blizzard let the cheaters and crap back in, why am I here again' and leave... not to mention the negative word of mouth from those that DO leave over this... Do you really and truly think that Blizzard can make money out of this rule change? If so, explain it for me in more detail than 'they'll make money'... as I see it they'll lose far more money in addition to all the negative press.

[Deleted]

You do shit, they take your shit away, this is a punishment. They take the stuff away you had for years, out of your reach.

I does not matter if you behave like a good boy for the next months or years, the punishment should go on.

You should never be able to play your main again, thats what happens if you break the rules.

[chazus]

You dont think botters and the gold sellers have more than one account?

I guess I should have been clearer, and I apologize for that.
Both the banned, and active wow license would need to be on the same battle.net account. If any account has received an infraction in the past year (or whatever time), then it would not be eligible. This would completely eliminate any 'other accounts' involved.

How are you planning on dealing with the public reaction over the real or perceived act of letting cheaters, botters, and gold sellers back into the game which is already infested with them?

Simple. Post the rules. Anyone can read the rules, and would understand that if there was a botter getting an old account back, then that botter has been playing legitimately for over a year anyway. No 'new' cheaters are being let back in.

EDIT: Lets take the example I posted earlier. Lets say I botted and got my account banned. Since then, I played for 8 years without a fault. I'm already -in- the game. Getting my old account back doesn't change anything. I'm already there beforehand.

So tell me how this is more financially advantagous that what currently exists?

Current system: $15 a month from 1 account
Amnesty system: $15 a month from 1 account, $15 a month from second account for at least 2 months (or possible a form of RaF), $10-70 to upgrade to current expansion, plus whatever fee they want to involve. Personally I feel that the sub + upgrade is fair enough. However I don't think that adding a $50-100 additional fee is entirely outrageous.

I don't think $500 is outrageous either, however I do feel that would be too much to incentivize it. If it's too much, people won't do it, and they get nothing.

[Flatspriest]

I guess I should have been clearer, and I apologize for that.
Both the banned, and active wow license would need to be on the same battle.net account. If any account has received an infraction in the past year (or whatever time), then it would not be eligible. This would completely eliminate any 'other accounts' involved.


Simple. Post the rules. Anyone can read the rules, and would understand that if there was a botter getting an old account back, then that botter has been playing legitimately for over a year anyway. No 'new' cheaters are being let back in.

EDIT: Lets take the example I posted earlier. Lets say I botted and got my account banned. Since then, I played for 8 years without a fault. I'm already -in- the game. Getting my old account back doesn't change anything. I'm already there beforehand.


Current system: $15 a month from 1 account
Amnesty system: $15 a month from 1 account, $15 a month from second account for at least 2 months (or possible a form of RaF), $10-70 to upgrade to current expansion, plus whatever fee they want to involve. Personally I feel that the sub + upgrade is fair enough. However I don't think that adding a $50-100 additional fee is entirely outrageous. I don't think $500 is outrageous either, however I do feel that would be too much to incentivize it. If it's too much, people won't do it, and they get nothing.

Still, NO. Then it would not really be punishment. Then, it would merely be money grabbing. The current system is not broken and if an account is permanently closed for rules violations, then the account deserves to remain permanently closed as a form of punishment. That is another way to teach younger people now that actions have consequences.

[chazus]

Still, NO. Then it would not really be punishment. Then, it would merely be money grabbing.

Some people might consider a year ban + money a larger punishment than just a ban.

Amusingly, celebrities quite often get out of trouble/jail time by simply paying off or paying good lawyers to bail them out. Sort of not helping my argument, really, but it fits. >.>

[Matthew]

No, people should just stop breaking rules if they don't want to be banned

I can see those who deliberately use hacks, cause public disturbances or what-not, but what about the many people who are wrongfully banned? I've never had my account banned but I've been banned from their forums before for simply disagreeing with somebody and not even speaking disrespectfully or using bad language. You get automated robot responses and even if you're able to prove your innocence, the infraction still stands and it creates stigma. You're now permanently branded a "troll" or whatever in their system when you're anything but. I would not be opposed to re-evaluating the discipline systems.

[xanzul]

There's "system requirements" for a reason. And it's clearly says - "Windows and MacOS". NOT "Windows, MacOS, Random Emulator 1, Random Emulator 2, Random Emulator 3". Doesn't matter how legal or not your emulator is. If it's not in system requirement it's not guaranteed to work properly and you use it for your own risk.

If you used it that means you accepted all risks. It didn't work correctly? Blame yourself for this. Better luck next time.

Also I happen to know quite a few people who play Wow under wine and they don't get banned so I'm not entirely buying the whole "banned for using open source" bs. The same thing happened in D3 a lot of people cried foul that they were banned because of wine and yet people who didnt break the rules who used wine to run D3 didn't get banned. As with most sob stories involving being banned from a Blizzard game most of it tends to be false information.

---------- Post added 2013-05-01 at 07:11 AM ----------

I'm curious. Why would a gold farmer/botter, who has not done either of that on a new account for a year+, suddenly start doing that again on the old amnesty account? The people who broke the rules would -already- be back in the game. If they were planning on doing bad things, they'd already be doing it. Not waiting for an old account to use.

Good god...really? Seriously? Why would a botter do something that allows them to continue to bot? Really? Are you fucking kidding me right now? Gold selling and botting is a multi BILLION dollar industry right now. People who steal accounts will take advantage of anything and everything they can to maximize profit including your ill conceived plan. Seriously shut up and go look at the official customer support forums.

[Seranthor]

*snip*

I'll be polite and I'll make this simple... There is an appeals process that exists... use it.. we dont need a new one that incentivizes bad behavior

[xanzul]

Time served + a direct fine (not just having to buy the expansions, since you would have to do that anyway) for breaking the rules and getting banned sounds reasonable to me. It's a fitting punishment.

Just to add some to your idea, perhaps the time required of having no infractions and the fee could be based on the severity of the crime that brought the ban about. Permanent bans for something small like bad language could be 3 months of a clean record and let's say $15. Exploiting game weaknesses without the use of programs would be 6 months and $25. Botting for leveling purposes would be 1 year and $40. Anything more severe than that, like straight up hacking, botting for farming, account selling.. etc., and the account is no longer able to be brought back from purgatory.

Upon restoration, every item you have is bound to your character and all gold is wiped.

The restoration option could also have a required time of having another active account tied to the same battle.net account as well. Something like, you would need an active, up to date account with no strikes against it for 2 years, just to have the option to begin your restoration on the banned account, which is when it begins to officially track your good standing for the time required for the account restoration.

I get what you're going for, and it should be an option in some form. This is more than just simply paying your way out of trouble, this is time served.

Even murderers and rapists eventually get a second chance, and those people are way worse than anyone that's ever cheated in a video game.

How is it reasonable to allow people who got a perm ban to come back to the game on the accounts they got the ban on? I don't get these forums. Half the time people scream and cry Blizzard never bans anyone for the sake of cash and then there are threads like this.

[Flatspriest]

Some people might consider a year ban + money a larger punishment than just a ban.

Amusingly, celebrities quite often get out of trouble/jail time by simply paying off or paying good lawyers to bail them out. Sort of not helping my argument, really, but it fits. >.>

And most of those people would not go to get their old accounts back anyways since they are already playing and don't want to give that extra money to Blizzard. You need to think these things through before making a thread, and then bashing everyone who has an opposing viewpoint to yours.

[Deleted]

My friends account got perma-banned for basically screwing around in BG's in June 2010 when they introduced the 'report AFK' feature.

He was having internet problems and kept get disconnecting in BG's, and they deemed him to be 'duping' the system by only attacking someone every few minutes to remove the 60 seconds inactive debuff.

He got a 3 hour/24 hour / 72 hour ban in the space of 2 weeks, in some cases when he'd only play a single BG and everyone would and he'd get autobanned report him. Because at that time the report AFK system was new future, and everyone was using it on everyone who was even standing still...

He's appealed around 3 times, and he's never been given a proper reason to why he actually got perma-banned, around 90% of people in BGs just screw around nowadays or bot anyway and he actually never broke any rules.

The appeal system works perfectly fine in 99% of cases though, if you look on a certain botting forum, nearly everyone who gets banned for botting gets a 72 hour ban; then if they get perma-banned they nearly always successfully appeal it.

[Wildtree]

It takes quite a lot to get an account banned permanently.. There are usually different strikes with short term bans from a few hours to a few days before the ultimate ban hammer hits. So nope..... Perma ban should remain perma ban.
You willingly broke the rules, and did so severely.
There are cases where someone would argue "I did not know", but had you used common sense, you could have figured it out.

[xanzul]

Actually, most permabans are zero tolerance situations. They're much more common than 3-4 time offenders.

Actually no. I'm risking a ban by saying this but I'm fed up with the misinformation: you are a fucking idiot and this entire thread is built around gathering support for allowing cheaters to be unbanned and you are trying to accomplish it by spreading misinformation. Look up the penalty volcano and just look at the customer support forums in general. Bans don't happen for no reason and upon appeals they get overturned if need be. I'm sorry you cheated I'm sorry you think you should be above the rules but no, you don't get a do over.

Mods I highly suggest you lock this thread because it is going nowhere good and it is only going to spread dissent which I think is the OP's main goal here.

[thunderdragon2]

No, people should just stop breaking rules if they don't want to be banned

some people get caught in banwaves when they did nothing wrong like the rbg win trading hows a team suposed to knwo if there oponants are trying to wintrade and no i dont rbg.

[Wildtree]

My friends account got perma-banned for basically screwing around in BG's in June 2010 when they introduced the 'report AFK' feature.

He was having internet problems and kept get disconnecting in BG's, and they deemed him to be 'duping' the system by only attacking someone every few minutes to remove the 60 seconds inactive debuff.

He got a 3 hour/24 hour / 72 hour ban in the space of 2 weeks, in some cases when he'd only play a single BG and everyone would and he'd get autobanned report him. Because at that time the report AFK system was new future, and everyone was using it on everyone who was even standing still...

He's appealed around 3 times, and he's never been given a proper reason to why he actually got perma-banned, around 90% of people in BGs just screw around nowadays or bot anyway and he actually never broke any rules.

The appeal system works perfectly fine in 99% of cases though, if you look on a certain botting forum, nearly everyone who gets banned for botting gets a 72 hour ban; then if they get perma-banned they nearly always successfully appeal it.

It sucks for your friend, but it's his very own fault.
If you experience such technical problems then you can just stay away from it...

But actually, I don't buy the story.. Blizzard could simply look into the logs. Someone logging out (getting disconnected is about the same thing) is recorded in the logs, and they would see the pattern very easily.

[Flatspriest]

My friends account got perma-banned for basically screwing around in BG's in June 2010 when they introduced the 'report AFK' feature.

He was having internet problems and kept get disconnecting in BG's, and they deemed him to be 'duping' the system by only attacking someone every few minutes to remove the 60 seconds inactive debuff.

He got a 3 hour/24 hour / 72 hour ban in the space of 2 weeks, in some cases when he'd only play a single BG and everyone would and he'd get autobanned report him. Because at that time the report AFK system was new future, and everyone was using it on everyone who was even standing still...

He's appealed around 3 times, and he's never been given a proper reason to why he actually got perma-banned, around 90% of people in BGs just screw around nowadays or bot anyway and he actually never broke any rules.

The appeal system works perfectly fine in 99% of cases though, if you look on a certain botting forum, nearly everyone who gets banned for botting gets a 72 hour ban; then if they get perma-banned they nearly always successfully appeal it.

Report AFK has been in the games since at least mid 2007. Most people just did not know about it, and back then, there was no debuff to tell players they had been reported.

[Wildtree]

some people get caught in banwaves when they did nothing wrong like the rbg win trading hows a team suposed to knwo if there oponants are trying to wintrade and no i dont rbg.

And in such cases Blizzard reverts decisions. Which actually just happened a short while ago.

[xanzul]

Yeah right of course. You don't even get perma banned for botting the first time.

Check out the customer support forums. You will be proved wrong.