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Saturday, December 23, 2006
Blizzard bans 105,000 players in November
Another round of Blizzard bannings, quote:"In our continued efforts to combat cheating in World of Warcraft, more than 105,000 accounts were closed and over 12 million gold was removed from the game economies in Europe, Korea, and the US in the month of November. The closed accounts were associated with activities that violate World of Warcraft's Terms of Use, such as using third-party programs that allow cheating, and farming gold and items. These types of activities can severely impact the economy of a realm and the overall game enjoyment for all players."
Excuse me for being cynical, but if 105,000 gold farmers together have only 12 million gold, then each gold farmer has less than 120 gold inventory on average. So either these guys are selling the gold faster than they can make it; or more likely Blizzard only banned the bot accounts, and not the distributor account that holds all the gold.
I don't know what the current going rate for gold is, but it can't be far from $50 per 1,000 gold. So 12 million gold deleted sets the gold farmer back $600,000. And the 105,000 accounts at $20 the account cost them $2.1 million, money that goes directly to Blizzard. These bannings are quite profitable for Blizzard. The gold farmers will be back soon.
But through the law of unintended consequences, being banned is soon going to be a harsher penalty than before for a gold farmer. Because the maximum gold is earned at the maximum level. Raising the level cap to 70 means that each gold farming account needs to grind longer before reaching the cap and starting to earn good money. So every banned account is "out" for a longer time. Lets hope that this at least leads to gold farmers using less bots, as these are easier to detect than manual farming.
- posted by Tobold @ 12:50 PM Permanent Link
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Just because 12 million is what they were able to recover doesn't mean that's the amount these accounts farmed, but if so the number's more believable if you consider much of the farmed money probably went from farm customers to legitimate players in exchange for items which could not be recovered, or which if recovered would be too messy to reset & return (if such a thing is even possible).
It's more likely still that the majority of accounts banned were not the farmers themselves but their customers. (Let's hope so.)
The numbers start to make a little more sense.
But would you really rather have more manual gold farmers than bots? It won't be long before the people doing it realize they're creating a secondary product while they're farming: accounts they can sell with reputations attached. This is already a sub-industry of gold farming. It could get much worse.
It's more likely still that the majority of accounts banned were not the farmers themselves but their customers. (Let's hope so.)
The numbers start to make a little more sense.
But would you really rather have more manual gold farmers than bots? It won't be long before the people doing it realize they're creating a secondary product while they're farming: accounts they can sell with reputations attached. This is already a sub-industry of gold farming. It could get much worse.
Just because 12 million is what they were able to recover doesn't mean that's the amount these accounts farmed
I must have badly expressed myself. Of course the 12 million is not the total amount farmed, it is the total current inventory at the moment they were banned. I would expect every account having farmed many thousands of gold pieces. But if it was just straight business from farmer to customer, I would expect the farmer to have an inventory of over 1,000 gold. The fact that their inventory is so small suggests that many farmers work for one guy, and send all their gold at the end of the day to him. The one guy, the distributor, has a large gold inventory and sells to the customers. But if Blizzard is detecting bots and farming activity, the distributor never gets caught, because he never farms himself.
Nothing in the press release indicates that any gold buyers were banned. I have the impression that there are millions of them.
I must have badly expressed myself. Of course the 12 million is not the total amount farmed, it is the total current inventory at the moment they were banned. I would expect every account having farmed many thousands of gold pieces. But if it was just straight business from farmer to customer, I would expect the farmer to have an inventory of over 1,000 gold. The fact that their inventory is so small suggests that many farmers work for one guy, and send all their gold at the end of the day to him. The one guy, the distributor, has a large gold inventory and sells to the customers. But if Blizzard is detecting bots and farming activity, the distributor never gets caught, because he never farms himself.
Nothing in the press release indicates that any gold buyers were banned. I have the impression that there are millions of them.
These bans are for the use of bot scripts, wowglider, exploits, wall/teleport/speed hacks, etc. Farming gold is allowed. Normal non-cheating people do it everyday.
Normal, some would say "cheating", people buy gold every day too. People in your guild are doing it. That guy you walk buy in Orgrimmar is doing it. It's become the WoW-equivalent of smoking marijuana. It's technically illegal, but lots of people do it, and no one ever gets busted, except occasionally a dealer who doesn't care, see's it as nothing more than an operational cost, and is out there selling again the next day.
One could even make the leap that because no one gets banned for buying gold, they are implicitly allowing the selling of it, despite what their EULA might say.
Normal, some would say "cheating", people buy gold every day too. People in your guild are doing it. That guy you walk buy in Orgrimmar is doing it. It's become the WoW-equivalent of smoking marijuana. It's technically illegal, but lots of people do it, and no one ever gets busted, except occasionally a dealer who doesn't care, see's it as nothing more than an operational cost, and is out there selling again the next day.
One could even make the leap that because no one gets banned for buying gold, they are implicitly allowing the selling of it, despite what their EULA might say.
# posted by 
: 23/12/06 22:50
: 23/12/06 22:50
"Excuse me for being cynical, but if 105,000 gold farmers together have only 12 million gold, then each gold farmer has less than 120 gold inventory on average."
I'm just guessing, but I would think that in order to be efficient gold farmers, each gold farmer probably holds closer to 10 accounts, all being farmed in parallel. That would make it an average of 1142 gold per farmer. Still low, but more likely.
I'm just guessing, but I would think that in order to be efficient gold farmers, each gold farmer probably holds closer to 10 accounts, all being farmed in parallel. That would make it an average of 1142 gold per farmer. Still low, but more likely.
Gold is ALOT more expensive than that, approx $180 per 1000g
I couldn't believe that, so I went to a well-known gold seller site and looked up the gold prices for my old European server. Result: $38.75 for 1000 gold.
Of course if you are playing on a brand-new server, where there is few gold yet in the economy, the gold cost might be considerably higher. I wouldn't pay $180 though.
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I couldn't believe that, so I went to a well-known gold seller site and looked up the gold prices for my old European server. Result: $38.75 for 1000 gold.
Of course if you are playing on a brand-new server, where there is few gold yet in the economy, the gold cost might be considerably higher. I wouldn't pay $180 though.
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