Blizzard confirm investigation into KLG piloting.

[cFortyfive]

He said behind the computer, can't you read? lol

Doesn't matter at all in the particular situation.
While I have my doubts something will happen I kinda hope they were actually dumb enough to not mask their ips and whatever else information Blizzard has access to.

[Cyous]

There's absolutely no way to prove who sat behind the computer.

Blizzard doesn't even need a reason to suspend/ban an account. They don't exercise this right as a company because it's bad for business. Regardless, they won't do anything without good reason (in many cases). If KLG had another guild pilot their characters, then they will go straight to the top of the volcano.

You can compare the IP addresses from Pilots 1-20 to the IP addresses of KLG 1-20. If a significant amount match up, this is large-scale account sharing. They will be punished accordingly.

[Deleted]

They don't need to. Like a previous poster stated, ToS/EULA aren't laws. Blizzard can ban whoever they want for whatever reason.

This. They could pretty much ban you because they discover you're a fat ginger kid.
It'd make terrible business and PR sense. But their game, their rules. It's in the ToS.

[Wildtree]

They don't need to. Like a previous poster stated, ToS/EULA aren't laws. Blizzard can ban whoever they want for whatever reason.

In Europe they better have a damn good reason...
Laws vary. And the handling/legal works attached to it might hold water in the US, not in Europe.
You are correct, TOS/EULA aren't laws.. Those are contracts, and terms. An by European laws, any contractual paragraph in any form of contract and terms, is to be treated a null and void if it is not in accordance with the law. For the law, for the courts, these paragraphs are then treated as if they simply don't exist.
That's one key reason why we don't have a cross region WoW.
You wanna play on EU realms as US player... or vice versa. You've got to buy the game from scratch again, because you need to have compliance with the region applicable TOS/EULA..

[Deleted]

They are free to prove it was them, then. I occasionally have to travel oversea on my business trips, and I was banned twice. Ticketed and explained, and they released me within few hours. If this case were true, however, good luck in proving that with any solid proof.

Blizzard stated in their ToS that they can ban whoever they want without a reason. It's always a bad thing to give Blizzard a reason to suspect you.

So all you have to do is say that you didn't share your account and they unban you.

- - - Updated - - -

This. They could pretty much ban you because they discover you're a fat ginger kid.
It'd make terrible business and PR sense. But their game, their rules. It's in the ToS.

So we've gotten from "why is account sharing wrong" to "they can ban you however they please".

[cFortyfive]

An by European laws.

And it pretty much means jackshit to blizzard.

So all you have to do is say that you didn't share your account and they unban you.

Bullshit.

[Deleted]

False. With enough reasonable suspicion (For example: Not reporting your magically appeared Mythic Imperator kill as suspicious), they will not unban you because they just won't BELIEVE you.

The same goes for repeat offenders in other ways. (For example, you get banned for botting multiple times, guess what the chances of getting your account back are?)

Well, yeah, I guess at some point you're screwed.

[kaib]

Not that I care much given that you can get boosts for mostly everything else in the game, including finishing 1st in arena rankings. Not a fan of that, but seems to be 'normal' anyway.

but some guys in that US battle net forum thread claiming that it was a legit progression kill by those guys playing their own chars is giving me a good laugh.

[Deleted]

Bullshit.

I just quoted a person saying exactly that.

[Vargur]

But why is it wrong to pay real money for something like this, when Blizzard plans on giving people a way to buy gear with real money. And why is this a problem now. People got boosted through raids since forever. Which is one of the things people use as an argument in favour of legalized gold-selling.

What's that got to to with anything? Account sharing is against the TOS, and you could buy gold with real money ever since TCG was introduced and the store hatchling pet.

[Qualia]

So all you have to do is say that you didn't share your account and they unban you.

Technically, yes. I explained the situation with my short business trips, the need to use VPN, and attached a link to my flight ticket photo (although the photo wasn't necessary). However, as someone said, Blizzard GMs aren't idiots (most of them anyway). Don't expect them to believe a majority of a raid suddenly decided to use VPN and perform few times better than they used to just a day before, then switch back to their normal IPs.

[Wildtree]

And tha'ts not the scenario we have here, so bringing it up is silly.

The point is, they can prove the computers are nowhere near each other, and they can prove if the computers match the computers used for the accounts in the world-first competitor's guild mates. That is enough for reasonable suspicion.

Of course the can see the IP and the IP family used for a computer.
To prove if it's a computer that's been used by a top world class raider before, that's a bit trickier, but not totally impossible.
Yet if said world class raider hasn't logged in his wow for a few days, and if he's reset his IP, then all there is, is the IP family from the ISP. If the guy who gets the help appears to live close by, in the same town, and has the same ISP, then there is no way of telling whether it's the World class raider or the other guy..

[Deleted]

What's that got to to with anything? Account sharing is against the TOS, and you could buy gold with real money ever since TCG was introduced and the store hatchling pet.

People keep saying it's against the ToS. That's not what I asked. I asked for a reason as to why it should be forbidden. Why should I not be able to let someone else play with the account I payed for? People keep responding with "it's against the ToS". That's like answering the question why smoking/owning/selling weed is wrong with "it's against the law".

[Wildtree]

And it pretty much means jackshit to blizzard.

I beg to differ, else they'd let us play on either side of the pond with our accounts. But they don't and legal background is used as a reason.
Blizzards handling in Europe varies often quite significantly from the US. Much like it varies from that in other regions.

[Qualia]

People keep saying it's against the ToS. That's not what I asked. I asked for a reason as to why it should be forbidden. Why should I not be able to let someone else play with the account I payed for? People keep responding with "it's against the ToS".

Because it's not your account. It's Blizzard account, and you are just buying the access to it. They stated in the contract (ToS) that you aren't allowed to share that access with anyone else except your close family member (i.e: parents to child). Think of real life events tickets, recently. They printed your name on the ticket, you have to bring your ID with you to get in and you can't just give your ticket to someone else.

Why it should be forbidden? Because it will open the door for a lot of issues if people are allowed to share their accounts freely (not that it completely removed account sharing, but it limit account sharing to a certain degree)

[Terahertz]

I'm confused here. Some random guy spotted a random guild progressing quicker than usual, made a forum post about how they were boosted and shit hit the fan?

I'm actually confused here. Getting boosted in a raid really doesn't seem like a big deal at all. Even if they were boosted, in a few months; who cares? It's not like they'll be noted as "the Xth guild to have finished X raid!".

If it was a boost in PvP I'd have understood. But honestly it seems like people are blowing this way out of proportion.

I'm not saying that it's OK though. Boosting is bad. However like I said, people are blowing this way out of proportion it seems to me. They even got an official blizzard response, like holy moly. Make a thread about how X team is boosting in arena and I bet you'll never see a blizzard response stating "we'll look into this".

[Khorm]

People keep saying it's against the ToS. That's not what I asked. I asked for a reason as to why it should be forbidden. Why should I not be able to let someone else play with the account I payed for? People keep responding with "it's against the ToS". That's like answering the question why smoking/owning/selling weed is wrong with "it's against the law".

Because they can improve your account past what you could ever do. You are a very casual player and have achieved nothing of note in the game so you are failing to see that WoW is a very serious competitive game. If you want to let your friend log on to play with all the pets you've bought from the store I doubt Blizz would care, but this is such a systematic rorting of the system that strong deterrence's need to be put in place.

[Wildtree]

Again: We don't need another reason. It's against ToU, therefore it is against what Blizzard wants in their game.

Why it's against the ToU is up to Blizzard. Maybe they just want people to earn things out of their own merit rather than allowing anyone get them shit. Maybe it's to prevent situations exactly like this one, where a mythic prepared guild sells pilots for profit. Who knows? Point is, Blizzard doesn't want it, and that's all that needs to be said.

You provided him with Blizzards stance now..
I think he wants your opinion, not their business philosophy.

[Deleted]

Again: We don't need another reason. It's against ToU, therefore it is against what Blizzard wants in their game.

Why it's against the ToU is up to Blizzard. Maybe they just want people to earn things out of their own merit rather than allowing anyone get them shit. Maybe it's to prevent situations exactly like this one, where a mythic prepared guild sells pilots for profit. Who knows? Point is, Blizzard doesn't want it, and that's all that needs to be said.

That's circular reasoning.

"Why is it wrong to "pilot" a raid?"
"Because it's account sharing."

"What is wrong with account sharing?"
"It's against the ToS."

"Why should it be against the ToS?"
"To prevent piloting."

[Khorm]

I'm confused here. Some random guy spotted a random guild progressing quicker than usual, made a forum post about how they were boosted and shit hit the fan?

I'm actually confused here. Getting boosted in a raid really doesn't seem like a big deal at all. Even if they were boosted, in a few months; who cares? It's not like they'll be noted as "the Xth guild to have finished X raid!".

If it was a boost in PvP I'd have understood. But honestly it seems like people are blowing this way out of proportion.

I'm not saying that it's OK though. Boosting is bad. However like I said, people are blowing this way out of proportion it seems to me. They even got an official blizzard response, like holy moly. Make a thread about how X team is boosting in arena and I bet you'll never see a blizzard response stating "we'll look into this".

Like I said in the OP, they've known this activity takes place but like organized crime it was kept out of the public eye. Now it's been brought front and centre into the public eye and like what happens when criminals do that a crack down takes place.