The end of a season is before us, and with that means another ban wave for the cheaters. One part of the ban wave that has always bothered me is the fact that there is no publicity to it. The cheating players can go completely unnoticed by just buying another account or say they are swapping mains for the next season. Only those closest to them may realize.
Considering there is a strong social component to this game, I believe Blizzard should publicly post the players affected by the ban wave and the reason for the ban. They should also update the list with any ban revokes issued in error. I know this adds additional work on Blizzard, but I believe it would be a beneficial deterrence if individuals know they may be publicly shamed for violating the Terms of Service.
I think this would just lead to those people being bullied, publicly shamed and/or other drama surrounding them. I don’t think that is healthy for anyone.
While I understand the sentiment, I think going around parading a list of who has broken the rules doesn’t add any value. If anything, it could sort of sensationalize the whole thing and cause some people to cheat just to see their name publicized like that.
I like to hear that ban waves went out because that shows transparency on issues being addressed, but anything beyond “we banned some people for X” is more detail than we need.
I feel like those who are cheating deserve to be ostracized because they are essentially ruining the game. If Blizzard did make the lists public it should be those who are 100% confirmed to stop errors in reporting. I dont believe we should be covering up abuse and help conceal wrong dooers. They have forfeited their rights to privacy by breaking these very understood rules. I believe we shouldnt protect those criminals.
There’s absolutely no reason to expose people for cheating in a video game. They aren’t doing any genuine harm to people. It sucks to deal with a cheater but it’s the most tame wrong doing anyone can do in this game.
There are community resources on third party sites that some Roleplay realms use to keep track of genuine abusers, creeps and racists because many of them put the work in to keep abusing people and it seems no amount of bans or actions have ever stopped them. I think that’s fine, even great, for a community to do if they so choose, nothing for Blizzard to be doing.
As for the cheaters and others who do more serious things, I would hope Blizzard can find a way to permanently ban most of them. It’s a real issue when the only course of action a community feels it has to dedicate their time and energy to protecting others from very well known abusers, tracking them because whatever Blizzard does or can do simply isn’t enough.
Why should anything like that be public? This isn’t some local/state level police department where people committing actual crimes (not going against ToS) have their booking info or mugshot published. What purpose would that serve other than to potentially dox or just drag on something more than it should be? Pretty sure the community know who is banned when they don’t log on anymore or complain about it on Twitter a la “OMG I was banned for NO REASON!!!” when screenshots of their RMT, account-sharing, or other miscellaneous exploits are circulated around in the replies.
I mean big difference between using a PvP talent people dont know about and call it a bug and using kickbot or flyhacking.
The idea is that Joe twitchstreamer using a kickbot who gets banned can just say hes playing a new toon this expansion or someone who steals other peoples accounts gets hardware banned (if they still do this) instead of perma banned which would do nothing since they just make a new account.
Ban waves should be private, I love your train of thought though about making people feel more like they’re in a community of players where we’ve all agreed to and adhere to the code of conduct. I think Ban lists are negative things, let them remain administrative and confidential. Previously it was a common occurrence to release the number of players subscribed to World of Warcraft, you can imagine that Ban lists would cause similar issues.
Ps, all I can imagine you as now is that one in Game of Thrones who goes behind Cersei Lannister and chants “shame, shame” hahahhahaha (only joking of course) I do think it’s an idea in the right direction 100% just not practically apply able unfortunately.
I suppose the issue I’m having with understanding everyone’s point is that you guys don’t want the cheaters to feel negative societal repercussions of being known as a cheater. I think people would be a lot more hesitant to cheat in the game if they knew it risked them returning and being shunned by a community. I do not feel this is a bad thing for the player base.
The origin of my proposal for this thread is mostly due to the competitive scene where people will cheat and then be banned and the masses or people who know them will not know that the player was banned. It’s common for them to use another account or just claim they are rerolling another character for the next season after a ban wave washes over the player base. Therefore they return to the game on the same pedestal as which they left by their peers since their peers did not know that they were only “good” at the game because they were cheating. That’s mainly why I feel the ban list should be public which specifies the reason of the ban and especially clarifies if a ban was withdrawn.
Even outside of the competitive scene though, if you have played this game long enough you’ve most likely encountered the player botting with 50 Druids running around collecting resources. Granted, this is not as much as an issue anymore since last season considering the Auction House merger, but those players would severely harm a server’s economy. A lot of times all a player can do is right click and report, but you may still see the botter around. I think it would be good for players to see if their reporting actually made an impact by seeing if that player was banned. It would encourage players to abide by the “if you see something, say something” ideology. We all know how discouraging it was to “Report Advertisement” in looking for groups only to see all of those same accounts popping right back up once you refreshed the queue. A public ban list may provide players with some reassurance that their reporting actions have effects.
Not at all. I just don’t see the point of making something like this public when people pretty much know when someone’s banned anyway, either because they out themselves by complaining about it on social media/discord, or mysteriously don’t log in anymore. It also just adds fuel to the toxicity dumpster fire, which we should try to be getting away from, yeah? Seems redundant and a waste of Blizz employees time/resources that could be spent elsewhere.
Not to mention that it represents more risk than it’s worth, imagine if a Ban List was made publicly available and shortly after someone’s Ban was revoked for whatever reason. The reason would always represent failure and as Artemisha asserts the likelihood is that would lead to social media issues for WoW which could even damage how people view the game.
My opinion is it is a step in the right direction and its not a bad idea at all, for any reason other than it’s putting the reputation of the game’s playing environment on a ledge. I put more thought to this, and I hate to reply in a way that’s not constructive or just says “your idea’s not good.” Before I tell you about my ideas; it’s your idea @Mornnah, what in your opinion would be the benefit of a Public Ban List? Is it that you think people like to see that justice has been done, action has been taken when someone breaks the code of conduct? Other than that I can’t see any benefit.
Are there any western games that use this method of public lists? From what I’ve heard so far it’s only the number of accounts being mentioned and that is it.
Before I tell you about my ideas; it’s your idea @Mornnah, what in your opinion would be the benefit of a Public Ban List? Is it that you think people like to see that justice has been done, action has been taken when someone breaks the code of conduct?
I think I’ve touched most of my beliefs of the benefits in the two posts above, but I’ll reiterate here in a more concise post.
First: Players who acquire high end-game achievement are not banned until the ban-wave disperses once the season ENDS. These players buy their achievements and continue playing the game, and typically earn the notability of their peers for their achievements. It’s common for these players to simply make another account and return with the same reverence amongst their peers because their peers did not know the person was banned for cheating. Examples are those who are deemed “Cutting Edge Raiders” but purchased their progression with RMT, or those who acquired top PvP Achievements but used kick-bots or other hacks to climb the ladder. Most players playing this game tend to know the PLAYERS but not the accounts; so an account being banned usually goes unnoticed by their peers when the player returns on a new character in a new account.
It’s common for players to report bots or other violations; however, it’s rare we see if any action is taken. Having a public list would encourage players to actually report cheating players since they will be able to actually see their efforts having an effect. Currently, it’s common for us to “report” but never know if action was taken, which causes most players not to waste their time with the report features unless the offense is egregious.
Having a public ban list will deter players from engaging in cheating since they will realize it will not be as easy to simply make another account or return to their community without suspicion. Currently, players who simply make another account can simply say they are creating another character on another account and the playerbase doesn’t know the wiser. Or they lie about why they were banned to make it seem less egregious. (Past personal example is a high rated PvPer was actually banned for kick-botting and another cheat, but told everyone it was simply because Blizzard thought he engaged in RMT by being associated with another RMT player, so the players thought he was banned in error for being associated with someone else RMTing). These players basically return from the ban unscathed from a societal standpoint. A public ban list would make individuals more considerate about using cheats if they would be unable to return to their communities if they are caught.
Those are the three primary points that come to mind. I do not see this hurting the community in any way unless you’re actually a cheater who deserves to be banned.
(As a P.S. though, if a Ban List was public, I also think a side effect would be Blizzard being more conscientious about ensuring their bans are appropriate and that their line in the email about someone being banned after a “thorough investigation” is true. We all saw in Season 3’s ban wave that several popular Twitch streamers were banned, but then the ban was revoked. Whether it’s due to the free publicity they provide Blizzard or whether it’s because the “thorough investigation” wasn’t actually “thorough”, we’ll never know. But I believe having it public will also ensure Blizzard is more concrete in their decision-making regarding bans. We know non-streamers do not get afforded the same appeal process protection as the popular Twitch Streamers).
I appreciate you taking the time to explain, I had read your two points throughout the post but as I gathered there is more to this than you originally posted.
You want to use Public Ban Lists to represent an incentive to right click report another player and solve problems we face within the game.
I will not write a long reply fighting against your idea, because I think your idea has merit and it’s been made with the best of intentions. I do not believe that by itself a Public Ban List would make enough of an impact to solve the problems you’ve listed, I believe we have fundamental problems within the game’s systems that are the root cause of the problem.
Your example of people cheating Achievements, getting them even after being banned. Why is it not the case that achievements which were earned during a period where your account was banned are highlighted in red or disqualified? This way, we don’t ban the player and put anyone’s reputation on the line we simply state here are the expectations you must have met to earn this reward. One of the expectations would be that you were not banned throughout the course of a season.
Implementing more ingame systems or preventative measures if you like was the best I could do to make an idea which would solve the problems you put forth.
Thanks for your detailed reply Mornnah keep them coming I always find your posts interesting!
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