Question about Account penalties

Is it possible to get an answer as to why there is a different set of policies for account punishments these days vs. the days before battle.net accounts? I am actually interested to understand why there seems to be no such thing as permanent bans these days but original accounts can still be permanently banned from 10+ years ago. One of the most popular bannable offenses back in the day was power leveling or buying gold but today you can put in your credit card information and get a level 110 or 100k+ gold legally. These days it seems people can cause much more disruption to the game and only be temporarily banned for 6 months. I am not using this thread for anything other than to try and understand the decisions made on blizzards behalf.

If you are trying to understand blizzard these days then good luck with that .nothing that they do ingame or outside of it makes sense

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Because over time, policies change.

I recall a blue post long ago stating that education is far more helpful than outright banning. It allows the player to reflect, et al.

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It really has nothing to do with the existence of the Battle.net account, nor is that entirely accurate. We continued to apply permanent account closures after 2009, when the Battle.net platform became what it is.

It is only more recently (within the last few years) that we adjusted policy in which we have been applying extended account suspensions instead of closing the account for certain violations. Keep in mind, permanent account closures still happen.

Again, there absolutely are permanent account closures still for some policy violations.

I’m not sure I understand what point you are trying to get at, Charlemurphy. Regardless of what options are available now from us, which were developed for to address specific needs, powerleveling and real world sales of virtual property from third parties continue to violate policy.

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If that is the case it feels like there is little effort going into trying and instead buying into simple and often exaggerate narratives instead.

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This is 100% false. Not to mention, it also opens you up to a world of credit hurt, because you’re buying it from sources that will turn around and use that credit card information for other nefarious business dealings.

They still exist, but only after a certain number of previous infractions, which indicates that the player doesn’t learn. Sentimental attachment to a character is a very real thing, and if a player knows that after a stint of good behavior and patience they can get that character back? Chances are substantially less that they’ll continue.

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To be fair, purchasing ‘boosts’ and ‘gold’ from any third party apart from Blizzard is against TOS for a number of reasons, not least because it puts your account and other accounts in danger. Less about the character being leveled or gold being given, more about the dangers of real money transactions with people who would as soon steal your account as level it.

With boosts, that money is spent on a character boost where you know what you’re doing. Your account is safe, you’re not sharing your data with some hacker who would steal your card and account. For WoW Tokens, the trading there is essentially with a player who spent gold for a token they can trade into game time or Balance. I hope that sounds sufficiently different from highly unsafe and illegal transactions made with people who don’t own the game in question.

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Not necessarily. Money talks, and often the cheaper option available is the more appealing, regardless of the dangers that come with it. Evidenced by how often it still happens today, with the boost and tokens being available directly through Blizzard.

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They weren’t available then, and they are now. That being said, third-party leveling and gold services for money have ALWAYS been against Terms of Service, and still some players try to use that. Just because a better way (that wasn’t doing it yourself) wasn’t available back then, doesn’t make it excusable.

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I’m sorry, Charlemurphy, I don’t really see it. You can make other comparisons to things that are available legally today that weren’t before. It doesn’t make the purchase from before things shifted any less against the rules.

Well yes, that is what following the rules is all about. Regardless of what you want to do you avoid actively violating the established and well documented rules and play the game like everyone else has to.

Now there are other options, but that doesn’t negate the fact that rules were broken and consequences earned.

Will that change some day? I can’t say, but that isn’t up to CS. If you’d like to see a change to how older policy violations are treated you’ll want to submit your suggestion in-game through the help menu or posting in a Community forum like General Discussion.

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On the contrary, all opinions matter. The problem arises when one thinks that their opinion is the only one that should matter.

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The penalty itself was correct for its time, which I think makes a pretty big difference. I could see there being cause for changing a penalty afterward if it was really close to the time when the rules changed, but that would be a large if.

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Eh, in the obvious situation, its my opinion and blizzards that matters.

That’s not how it works, I’m afraid. The only opinion that matters in matters such as these is Blizzard’s.

That’s not to say that you can utilize the forums to voice said opinion where the developers might see it and potentially be swayed, but that isn’t this particular forum, and it’s best to always just drop your note and sometimes forget about it. There’s no guarantee that your suggestion to policy changes will happen.

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Lol, so you agree with my original statement than

No, actually, I don’t. There are some things that I don’t believe in second chances for. But again, if Blizzard decides otherwise, it’s their decision, not mine.

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I’m saying that I said my opinion doesn’t matter. You said it does matter and its only a problem if i believe that my opinion is the only one that matters. Then you said Blizzard’s opinion is the only opinion that matters in these situations which is what I was inferring when I said my opinion didn’t matter.

Then I apologize, because that’s not at all how your wording made it sound to me.

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No worries. On another note, how do you quote a post? This new forum layout seems more clean but when I click the quote button in my reply I dont know how to choose a post to reference.

Highlight the text you want to quote, and the little Quote option will show up next to it! Super handy.

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