Over the past few weeks, we’ve taken actions that removed almost 120,000 malicious accounts from the World of Warcraft ecosystem, including both Wrath of the Lich King Classic and Classic Era. This is in addition to our usual, ongoing banwaves, which often include actions against tens of thousands of accounts per week.
As a supplement to these recent actions, we want you to know that as of next week’s regional maintenance, we will be returning the original Death Knight character creation restrictions to Wrath of the Lich King Classic. This means that unless you already have a level 55 character on your account, you will be unable to create a Death Knight. We felt it was very important for the launch of Wrath of the Lich King classic to give anyone who wanted to hop into this iconic expansion the ability to do so with as few barriers as possible. Allowing every account access to Death Knights-- even if they did not meet the historic requirements --was important. However, now that the initial launch period has passed, we no longer wish to allow the unrestricted creation of Death Knights on brand new accounts. It’s a tempting vector for malicious actors to use to get into the game and start exploiting very quickly.
We hope that this helps slow the proliferation of malicious behavior in Wrath of the Lich King Classic. It’s important to keep in mind that as long as there is a demand for gold and other services that players are willing to pay real money for, these malicious actors will keep coming back. Please-- never hesitate to report suspected cheating such as buying and selling gold for real money, automation, and advertisements for power leveling or any real-money sales in chat. Your reports greatly help our efforts to take actions that improve the game.
Thanks to everyone who has commented on this issue over the past several months, and thanks to everyone who helps by reporting suspicious activity.
Can blizz make a system of reporting auctions for malicious behavior? I’ve noticed a fair amount of sus auctions whenever I use the AH.
A sus auction is one where an Item is selling for significantly more than the item is worth. This is usually how gold sellers get their gold to their buyers.
the fact you let it get to 120,000 accounts is just shameful
lets not forget the fact you have Pallies, Priests, Locks and Mages being botted in BG’s as well,
God only knows what else, herb and mining bots open world
no mention or acknowledgment of that
the white knights will always give you a pat on the back for doing what you should be doing anyway
there should be no fan fare at all for this
BASIC quality control is an Act of Congress around here
To not be completely sour, I would like to thank the one person you put in charge for finally getting to this
bots on retail? but you got the wow token?? hello? dont tell these people that the wow token done absolutely nothing for retail when it comes to skinning / herbing / mining bots… let alone raw gold botanica ones
I don’t get why they wait til everyone is already super pissed to make a post like this. It’s been going on so long and at no point where they just like, “yeah, we hear you guys, and we’re working on it.”
Who even knows? The quarter ends on March 31st I think and this is “the week of March 20th”. That’s almost the end of the quarter so it’s probably related to that.
As much as Blizzard claims they don’t profit from bots and I’ve always believed that it’s hard to not be cynical at this point after some of their latest stunts.
I think this is a good thing to address but it’s sure being done late.
