It makes COMPLETE sense.
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That specific account penalty was not from abuse of the reporting system.
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While investigating they did find people who were ATTEMPTING to abuse it though and punished them.
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Sounds VEEEERY fishy to me.
To anyone without a bias against Blizzard, it sounds perfectly reasonable.
oh you meant the ones that paid the most gold for that right?
you want another example of Blizzards turning of a blind eye when players caused massive zone disruption? remember the zombie invasion prelaunch event for Wrath?
100s of people in nearly every questing zone purposely killing any low level npcs players and whoever got in their way
new players couldnt quest they couldnt leave the zones and they couldnt even enjoy their game because the entire event was littered with bodies everywhere in fact it became so disruptive nearly 40% of active subs were dropped and several new players to game also quit on their first day
it got to the point the only thing Blizzard did was end the event a week early no blue comments no apologies for underestimating the immaturity of such players no just a simple early pulling of the plug in a once in a lifetime epic event that was ruined by giving the wrong people too much power and expecting them not to abuse it
It is not really fishy and we see it all the time.
TWO things can be true. People are mass reporting. Those people get caught and actioned.
The person did get suspended by a GM but the suspension was not from those reports.
During the investigation both issues get cleared up.
We see it a lot regarding PvP play. Someone gets into it in PvP then assumes they got a Silence or suspension from being reported in retaliation. Turns out that the penalty was from something else entirely, and the fact they got mass reported (while an issue of course), did not cause the account action.
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Well there you have it. Finally we can put this issue to rest. I understand everyone’s frustration regarding the AQ event-- which was meant to be frustrating mind you, but let’s not let that cloud our judgement.
If we work with Blizzard, they will work with us.
https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/12859-please-stop-the-zombie-in-towns/
https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/12851-awful-zombie-grief-fest-not-over/
Good one right here:
https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/4706-did-blizz-consider-the-zombie-event-success/
The event ran for exactly as long as they wanted it to:
https://blue.mmo-champion.com/topic/12844-proofzombie-infestation-was-suppose-to-end/
Am I going to have sit here correcting your misinformation all day?
That was based off an event from Vanilla where players were able to take a buff from ZG back to town and kill players. It ended up being a case study. Lancet article about one of those studies.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(07)70212-8/fulltext
I can’t comment about what happened after that with subsequent events and studies. I will leave you to speculate.
your talking bout the ZG troll disease im refering to the ghoul invasion prior to the launch of wrath of the lich king
the troll plague Blizzard admitted it was a glitch that was quickly hotfixed but its totally different incident
I know exactly what I am talking about. I know they are separate. I am telling you the second one was intentional. I even tried linking you to the Lancet article about using games to model plague/pandemic spread among a population.
yes i even read the CDC report on the ZG plague a doctor wrote an entire paper using it as a guidelines outlining the real world applications and response as a comparison to an actual outbreak
Good! Now, extrapolate. What was the second event for? It was not JUST part of the game story. So yes, it was pretty bad for new players, but the whole thing was set up as a test environment and it was not just Blizzard involved.
The first was an accident people wanted to study. From that they had more questions. Hence the second.
Use of games to model all sorts of things is a fascinating subject actually.
Or its a convenient way to action people without admitting the system itself is responsible, which they have incentive to do considering keeping it in place saves them $$$.
If the players had the power to actually BAN other players it would be wildly irresponsible of Blizzard, piss off the players, and COST them huge amounts in subs.
That does not seem likely.
For example, I have been a forum MVP since 2013 in three separate Blizzard programs. I have ZERO moderation powers at all - and I am considered trusted. Not even people they “trust”, have the ability to do more than flag other players for mod review. In game, or on the forums. The ONLY thing MVPs get is green text and TL3, nothing else.
This is really important. Only Blizz staff can remove someone from game or forums.
Blizzard staff has shown very recently how much they are to be trusted with the whole “lets ban a person because a streamer said so”, so that doesn’t mean much to me.
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people are human and make mistakes but lets not be naïve here i mean would Blizzard have rushed to rectify the matter so quickly if the GM hadnt been caught in a live stream doing the actions they did?
it all comes down to damage control a Blizz employee not only brought shame to his position but it reflected badly on the entire company and honestly Blizzard has enough sketchy moments on their reputation and this isnt helping
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Eh… I don’t know all the details of that, but looks like Blizz stepped in and fixed it.
I have seen individuals make VERY poor judgements before. I have had to contact senior folks before when I have witnessed very wrong answers given by Blizz staff in a public format. Stuff that was not just incorrect, but would cause a very negative outcome to the player if followed. Yes, it was dealt with and no, they did not give me the details. I suspect it was a new person giving answers who needed more guidance. It was all handled quietly so you don’t see it all over reddit, etc.
It happens. What I care about is that they review it, action staff, educate staff about policy or tool use, etc. Having seen them do that, over and over and over, I know they do try to make sure staff are up to date on policy and tool use. Nothing is perfect though.
P.S. They have an Internal Investigations/affairs division. For those who think they allow staff to run around granting favors or accessing accounts. That is a big no no.
mirasol, you’re a greentext - do you have any idea as to why my post criticizing the fact that the gm team is understaffed was just removed by a mod? Nothing in it was inappropriate or offensive.
Sure starting to feel like any criticism towards blizzard’s barebones support staff policy isnt allowed on these forums, or at the very least the flag system is being abused… which brings me to my original point, that automating these types of things is a VERY poor idea in a social game.
I have no idea. The only thing I can think of is that they don’t like misinformation. Stating something as a fact, that we don’t have proof of, can cause mods to remove the false information.
I can’t see the post obviously so I can’t say if that is what got it removed, or something else was viewed as inflammatory. Speculation about staff levels is not always a bad thing - but can cross lines. Sorry I don’t remember the rest of what you wrote. I was trying to cover the CS thread and this as well as some non game stuffs IRL 
Never worry about deleted posts though. Just take it as a gentle reminder that something in it was not what the mods wanted that day. Try to avoid doing whatever that is again. I get mine removed ALL THE TIME. Usually as part of a thread clean up when I try to calm someone down, but it just ends up all being removed in the end.
Again, the actual removal of a player from the forum or game is not automated. Saying that is considered misinformation. The most players can do is flag things for review which can get a post greyed out (can still be clicked), or a player muted in game (squelch). They can’t remove players.
Your later posts about the number of tickets, the speed they might be processed, etc, was valid and understandable. I even think I agree that right now a lot of workers are under a lot of pressure! Please drop the automated part unless we have real proof of that - which we don’t.
If they don’t even trust greens on the forums with ANY mod powers, what makes you think they would trust the masses in game to remove players? It would be bad business to do so.
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I’m referring to the flagging system on the forums.
And I’m honestly just… not really sure what it was that I need to avoid doing again in all honesty because there was no feedback given beyond “flagged by the community as inappropriate”. GM ticket response times were once within hours, now its 2-3 days or more - i dont think its a stretch to speculate staff levels are much less than they once were.