Is this really bannable??

[Spazzrella]

i have a friend multiboxer in my battle.net friendlist, and was talking to him just now, he claims he leveled 100 toons to level 80 across 5 accounts (idk, but i trust him, hes always logged in 5 accounts, every account with the expansion levels 71+) with the level 11 and queue dodging method, he did not get banned as i'm seeing he online right now, he always does private runs too

I'm not that friend, but I was doing the same exact thing. I've stopped (I leveled 14 toons to 80 on Monday, haven't touched it since) just to be safe. I have over 300 toons 70+, and managed to get 146 of them to 80 prior to the ban. I'm not banned, but going to dial it back a bit and see what eventually flushed out.

 

[thefatgoblin]

I'm not that friend, but I was doing the same exact thing. I've stopped (I leveled 14 toons to 80 on Monday, haven't touched it since) just to be safe. I have over 300 toons 70+, and managed to get 146 of them to 80 prior to the ban. I'm not banned, but going to dial it back a bit and see what eventually flushed out.

i strongly belive the bans are related to disruption in the game experience of other players, imagine if you're running dungeons all day and if you get reported 1 time each 3 dungeons, it wont take much time for it to reach a specific threshold, i also strongly belive the entire automated system bans are related to the increase of a specific type of report matching a specific type of criteria, every case i see of the bans, they were running "public runs"

 

[Etchy]

i have a friend multiboxer in my battle.net friendlist, and was talking to him just now, he claims he leveled 100 toons to level 80 across 5 accounts (idk, but i trust him, hes always logged in 5 accounts, every account with the expansion levels 71+) with the level 11 and queue dodging method, he did not get banned as i'm seeing he online right now, he always does private runs too

I've done the same spread over 7 accounts and got 240 of my chars from 70 to 80 since december. Sometimes 8, sometimes 12 a day with a day or two pause in between.

Never queued up my level 11 char with randoms only in groups with my own chars.

I wrote an addon on my own selecting the roles when queueing up for timewalking dungeons, auto accept group invites and inviting all online guild members.

Not banned, even if a lot of red lights should go on - according to the speculations.


There are lots of exploits out there for level boosting. I was curious how some boost a level 70 char to 80 within 20 minutes. One was to have a trial char within the group in MOP TW as you only got to Scholomance when queueing up and as a DH you were able to complete this dungeon within 40 seconds. I'm pretty sure those guys have been banned too as they moved through walls etc.

Edit: TBC also have some "wall hacks" as a DH completing a dungeon within one or two minutes or even shorter.

 

[Spazzrella]

i strongly belive the bans are related to disruption in the game experience of other players, imagine if you're running dungeons all day and if you get reported 1 time each 3 dungeons, it wont take much time for it to reach a specific threshold, i also strongly belive the entire automated system bans are related to the increase of a specific type of report matching a specific type of criteria, every case i see of the bans, they were running "public runs"

100% agree, it's why I never ran my 11 with any one other than myself. I saw the hatred early on in timewalking when I didn't even have my 11's yet.

 

[Zly]

These bans are nothing to do with any in game exploit, addon, macro or whatever. They clearly state what bans are for. Here is my example of a ban for in game exploits

Account Action: Suspended until 2024/09/13
Offense: Exploitation of game mechanics

Recent activity on this account has shown characters exploiting functionality to the detriment of the game environment or the intended player experience.

These bans are for botting. Here is the OP's reason given from Bliz.

"Offense: Exploitative Activity: Unauthorized Cheat Programs (Hacks)"

That is only using programs outside of wow to change game files or automate gameplay

Once again i feel bad for the innocent people caught up in this but you have been indentified as botting and is why its a perma ban

 

[wackytabaccy]

There are lots of exploits out there for level boosting. I was curious how some boost a level 70 char to 80 within 20 minutes. One was to have a trial char within the group in MOP TW as you only got to Scholomance when queueing up and as a DH you were able to complete this dungeon within 20 seconds. I'm pretty sure those guys have been banned too as they moved through walls etc.

People were publicly abusing wallhacking back into the boss, saw that countless times myself. On my non pimped out toons we can full clear a run in -10mins. I just don't see the fun in that at all.. phasing in, jumping on a wall and running straight to the boss.

 

[thefatgoblin]

i mean, if you're reported for cheating enough to get caugh by the automated system, isn't that after all the result for disrupting the game experience of others? Sure we can get technical but from the perspective of the player who is reporting, he clicks on "report > cheating > hacking / botting" there is only these 2 options, if you have lots of reports from "hacking", then probably the reason u get banned is for "hacking"

i know blizzard change they instance on bans for botting, as i said i took many 6 month bans, but after a while, they started to perma-ban insta, that's one of the reasons i stopped, it wasn't worth the risk, so i'm not surprised if it escalated to this

 

[BANKONE]

Can we get a tally of everyone who has been banned so far, the type of account action (perma vs suspension) and appeal status/outcome?

 

[Zly]

i mean, if you're reported for cheating enough to get caugh by the automated system, isn't that after all the result for disrupting the game experience of others? Sure we can get technical but from the perspective of the player who is reporting, he clicks on "report > cheating > hacking / botting" there is only these 2 options, if you have lots of reports from "hacking", then probably the reason u get banned is for "hacking"

i know blizzard change they instance on bans for botting, as i said i took many 6 month bans, but after a while, they started to perma-ban insta, that's one of the reasons i stopped, it wasn't worth the risk, so i'm not surprised if it escalated to this

yes, sort of. Wow is the same at any level. By that i mean a mythiced out toon can come in and disrupt a timewalking dungeon same as a twinked out 11. Timewalking isn't content for anyone that actually plays the game. The difference is if a mythiced out toon comes in and destroys a tw instance people can understand that. When it's a level 11 that has spent countless hours gearing they don't understand that. In their mind that has to be hacking.

Edit: But to be clear being able to destroy an instance on a level 11 is not hacking, botting, using third party software

 

[bigpappa]

I opened a second ticket, because a GM closed my first one.

And theyve closed it again.

Do I keep opening tickets or what? feels like I'm fighting a losing battle here

 

[Chops]

Do I keep opening tickets or what? feels like I'm fighting a losing battle here

normally i would counsel not opening any more because they do tend to get spicy with you and threaten action. But at this point, what are they going to do, ban you? Just stay polite, maybe say something like "I've reviewed the TOS and EULA and am confident that my behavior did not violate either the letter or the sprit of those agreements" and cross your fingers

 

[cletus]

People who don't wanna deal with twinks feel frustrated by the system and start reporting,

IME there are at least 20 people who appreciate the faster clears for every person who starts perl-clutching about the integrity of Timewalking.

But I really don't want to deal with that, which led me to 5-manning my own groups or, in the very least, 3-manning so I can't be vote-kicked.

because when you are the twink on the group you're just playing a single-player game and no one but yourself signed for it, so they report (and they can get salty about it). As soon as i realized this, i just queue with my accounts, i fill 5 slots of the group with a few starter edition accounts and do it all myself (basically private runs), if multiboxing was the issue i'd probably be banned by now (i hope i dont get banned at least, but it seems this wave didnt reached me yet)

The multiboxing policy at least is pretty clear. You can multibox. You can't input broadcast, meaning a single keystroke or mouse action can't be broadcast to 2 or more clients.

My theory is that is a combination of number of reports, speed of median timewalk runs and hotkey-pressing pattern

It may or may not be related to reports but I think the key issue was bypassing the XP debuff.

 

[Zly]

From my dealings with them i agree that you're fighting a losing battle. They just send out those generic responses without any kind of review or appeal process.
But, from their last quarterly review they said it's costs them $80 for every ticket, so i say get your monies worth. Maybe you can make them put another reskin mount in the store.

 

[Rahn]

I figure why not track what commonalities people have (for the ones that provide info anyways) across various threads.

Multiple Accounts	Add-Ons	Macros	PUG	XP Debuff Dodge	Boosting	Instance Reset
✓	weakaura	X		✓	✓
✓	X		✓
✓		X
	X	X	X	X	✓
✓	X	X		X		✓
X		X	✓
X			✓
			X	X	✓
			✓	X	✓

Clearly not enough information to figure anything too meaningful, outside that macros in of themselves probably isn't a flag, and that there's not much evidence for add-ons being the cause either (and I doubt anyone is going to admit to using third party software).

Perhaps the most important piece of information that none of us have access to is how many times any given account has been reported or flagged for botting/hacking/cheating. While we know other people can report others, we don't know how Blizzard itself goes about flagging accounts for such behaviors. It's probably automated, so even if you don't interact with other people in the slightest you still might be accumulating dings on your account without your knowledge.

 

[Spazzrella]

I figure why not track what commonalities people have (for the ones that provide info anyways) across various threads.

Multiple Accounts	Add-Ons	Macros	PUG	XP Debuff Dodge	Boosting	Instance Reset
✓	weakaura	X		✓	✓
✓	X		✓
✓		X
	X	X	X	X	✓
✓	X	X		X		✓
X		X	✓
X			✓
			X	X	✓
			✓	X	✓

Clearly not enough information to figure anything too meaningful, outside that macros in of themselves probably isn't a flag, and that there's not much evidence for add-ons being the cause either (and I doubt anyone is going to admit to using third party software).

Perhaps the most important piece of information that none of us have access to is how many times any given account has been reported or flagged for botting/hacking/cheating. While we know other people can report others, we don't know how Blizzard itself goes about flagging accounts for such behaviors. It's probably automated, so even if you don't interact with other people in the slightest you still might be accumulating dings on your account without your knowledge.

I think it's probably good to separate out boosting your own toons vs boosting others. There's some believe that boosting others for gold / cash (RMT) factored in as well.

 

[Rahn]

I think it's probably good to separate out boosting your own toons vs boosting others. There's some believe that boosting others for gold / cash (RMT) factored in as well.

The data point is there already: Multiple Accounts + Boosting vs Boosting.
Additionally if they're running with the XP debuff then the "Boosting" is basically speedrunning the dungeon for quests/items and not levels.

That said there's not enough data to make any real conclusions about the recent banwave and the flags it was looking for.

 

[drake178]

Now beat my 521% as Druid

Nah, man. I can't contest your title. Even if I would have had aspirations to, the level requirement disqualified my chars. Also, I only really care about sustained movement (all-out farming or boss-to-boss repeated), so anything with a cooldown on it is, strictly speaking, not within my game. There are outliers like Felfire Haste and Forestwalk, but I tend to find that I can't be bothered to fully utilise them. Anyway, I never intended to derail the thread, so I'll shut up now.

 

[thefatgoblin]

i'll personally boost myself in other means, probably with level 20 or 70 after the dust settles

 

[icehawk]

What happens if this is bigger than we think……

What if Trump signed an Executive Order and Musk is issuing rolling bans……

This one might go right to the top!!!!

 

[orcgazmatron]

What happens if this is bigger than we think……

What if Trump signed an Executive Order and Musk is issuing rolling bans……

This one might go right to the top!!!!

Have banned 11's been receiving kickbacks from USAID?!?
Are they boosting the toon of congress-critters, too stupid to play their own toons??!

aie, man... maybe this IS bigger than we've been thinking?!!