Thou Shalt Not Cheat*
So by now you’ve all probably read about what happened to a guidie of ours, yes? He got slammed with the Blizz Ban Hammer for “cheating*”, getting caught in the same net as the Glider-folks. Our erstwhile, miniature, whirling dirvishette of awesomeness has pretty much covered the feelings of our guild, so we’re not going to repeat them here.
Succinctly, Lamaa is not a cheater*. Lama is Good People. Unfortunately, we think Lamaa cheated*.
“What’s the deal with the asterisks, BRK?”
The deal with the asterisks is: we’re very unsure of what Blizzard considers cheating*, we think the vast majority of warcraft-players don’t know what Blizzard considers cheating*, and we’re quite positive that Blizzard isn’t exactly forthcoming about what cheating* is.
“Cheating is doing stuff that Blizzard says you cannot do! Dummy!”
OK, what can’t you do?
“Well, everything that’s in the user’s agreement.”
Yes, and what are those things.
“You mean, like a list?”
Yes please, a list of all the stuff that’ll get you banned.
“Um… gold selling?”
Yup, that’s one.
“And… account selling.”
Two.
“Naughty named-toons?”
Not normally a bannable offense, but it could be, if Blizzard so chose, yes.
“Botting!”
Four, very good. And where in the user’s agreement do you see any of that stuff?
“Um… is it there?”
You bet it is. Have you ever read the user’s agreement? Probably not, right? Well, let’s dig right into the most juicy parts, shall we?
There ya go. Do not attempt to host the game yourself. Do not interfere with your client or the server’s communications. Don’t mess with the game files. Don’t mess with their servers, foshizzle.
Do not use any software designed to modify the WoW experience, or else.
Or else?
Yeah, or else; Ban Hammer-time.
And how does Blizzard know what you’re doing? Do they put cameras in your dorm room? Do they hire spies to infiltrate your home?
Nope. They bot you.
Their game, their rules, they’re watching you. Don’t like it, don’t play.
And not only are they watching what you’re doing, they’re reading and recording what you say.
So there ya go. Hope those private-chat conversations of yours that Blizzard has recorded don’t get subpoenaed by your ex-WoW-widow.
Now what is it that Lamaa did that was fell into the ban hammer-able category of, “…third-party software designed to interfere with the World of Warcraft experience”? Was Lamaa a Glider? Pfft, no. Was he a spammer, a leecher, a doofus, a power-leveler? No on all counts.
He did, however, own a G15 keyboard. And what comes with the G15 keyboard? Software. And what does that software do? It allows the user to make use of its macro keys to send in-game commands in much the same way as an in-game macro, but without having to write an in-game macro.
Was Lamaa writing G15-botting macros?! No, he wasn’t. He didn’t even use those keys.
But he did had the G15 software installed, and Blizzard knows the G15 software has been used to interfere with the World of Warcraft experience previously.
Our opinion: Blizzard banned Lamaa for owning a G15 keyboard and following its directions to install the keyboard’s software, regardless if he actually used the keyboard software’s ability to cheat*.
Is that right?! We sure don’t think so! According to Blizzard, just having that software on one’s computer is cheating*. Plug in the keyboard, the software and libraries load, and now you’re running illegally.
Is it within the scope of the user’s agreement that they can ban him for this? They most certainly think it is.
But is it Right.
Of course it isn’t right; it’s totally Wrong!
Look Blizzard, if you don’t want people to use the G15 software - we’ve noticed that the keyboard itself is perfectly fine - how about writing a little code that will disable the G15’s software and giving the user a little pop-up window telling them what’s going on.
“Hey guy, your G15 is spiffy, but people have abused the software it comes with in violation of the EULA. You want to use your G15, go for it, but we’re going to kill the G15 software right now, capice? Press OK to continue or Cancel to exit the game.”
Lamaa did not cheat* and he’s not a cheater*. However, he was using software that Blizzard considered cheating*. It sucks and blows and Blizzard should be ASHAMED at how it’s treating it customers! Nuking the Gliders is one thing, f-ing with people who didn’t have a clue they had inadvertently installed cheating* software is ignorant and rude.
What other software is out there that Blizzard could consider cheating*? A C++ compiler? A bandwidth monitor? Video-conferencing apps? Nobody has a clue, and Blizzard, to our knowledge, does not have a list of unapproved applications and utilities.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse, but Blizz, we need to see the laws before we can comply with them. A non-inclusive list of stuff we shouldn’t have running would’ve saved Lamaa, a bunch of other people, and your company’s reputation, a lot of flak.
Do we want Lamaa back in our guild? D@mn right we do. Are we only writing this screed because the massive ban hammer episode affected us personally? Most certainly. We’d much rather be discussing what the WotLK alpha has shown for us hunters and our pets.
But for us, this is a Big Deal and, since it’s Our Blog, we’re going to write about it. We’re probably not going to help Lamaa at all, but we certainly hope someone at Blizzard gets their head out and fixes this situation.
Blizzard, Warcraft is a game, but the people in it are not.
IMPORTANT EDIT: If it turns out the G15 sofware is not causing the ban, well then something else is amiss and we haven’t a clue what it is. And neither does Lamaa. And that stinks, too.
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61 Responses to “Thou Shalt Not Cheat*”
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AC has my sympathies, Totally stinks when someone who plays the game honestly, gets banned. Our whole guild, especially of BRK reading Hunters, hopes that he gets his account reinstated!!
Agreed. Excellent points.
He’s contesting the ban, right? If he never did anything wrong, then he should get the action overturned, end of story.
By the way, Blizz went after more than just Glider with this recent banwave. There are a few applications that people thought were a-okay and weren’t. It’s not so much ‘botting’ that’s the issue - it’s automation.
Uh, there’s no way that the G15 software is the culprit. WoW natively *supports* the G15 LCD. Blizzard spent actualy development time to make WoW *work* with the G15 keyboard. The only way you can get banned for using G15 software is if you do actually use macros in such a way that you’re not “present” (physically, mentally, emotionally, whatever) at the keyboard while they’re active.
I’ve been using a G15 for almost two years now, and I don’t use the G keys to fire off macros, only keystrokes. I have not been banned. Lamaa should pursue this to the best of his abilities, especially via phone. Escalate to supervisors immediately and find out the real reason he was banned.
I wish him luck getting his account reinstated.
BRK - FYI
The Logitech G15 keyboard ad is displayed your blog. I have considered buying it myself but now I am very glad I have not done so. I am curious how long it will be before Blizzard get sued for “promoting” repetitive stress disorders in their customers hands. I believe that some macro or repetitive key press start/stop (like the G15 allows) should be acceptable. If you are a hunter with a single spam key for your shot rotation, how many raids do you have to do before your finger(s) starts to pay for it?
Good luck in getting his account back, we wish him the best.
This is direct from Blizzards support site forum.
The Logitech G15 keyboard is perfectly fine to use, as long as you don’t program macros that allow you to play your character with a single keypress, or allow you to play your character without touching your keyboard.
Technical Support
So then that means programming my wiimote to let me raid without touching the keyboard is against the EULA.
I cry.
Just did a little asking around in the customer service Forum, here’s a link: http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=6762166783&sid=1
Soooo what does the “*” after each instance of the word “cheater” stand for? Is it like one of those “Free* money” things?
To bad Blizz doesnt give a s$%^ about who plays the game. One banned person is nothing when another five join the same day. Hopefully your friend gets this problem all figured out.
Something similar–where the reason was unknown–has happened to a guildie of mine. All they said was “incorrect billing information.” The guy uses game cards he buys at a major retailer. What the huh? He has no idea why his account’s been shut down, but it’s been almost a month, he’s gotten affadavits signed, forms notarized…total suckage. No word from Blizz.
Yeah… it’s not the G15. I’m on my third G15 now. I had two of the first generation. I wore the first one out, bought another. Now I’m on my first of the second generation. I’ve used the software, I’ve created macros with the software (nothing bot-like, just simple /emote target macros). I’ve seen it posted that Blizzard approves of the keyboard. In fact, if they didn’t they wouldn’t have programmed INTO WoW the ability to show your current stats in the LCD screen…
I hate to say it, but maybe you don’t know the guildie as well as you think you do? *shrug*
@Adreyu:
If your friend faxed the info and never heard from Blizz, he should try faxing again. The rule of thumb seems to be fax, wait two days, fax again if no response. He should make sure it’s very clear and legible as well, and that it’s being sent as one single fax. Separate faxes will not go through correctly.
Like others have pointed out, I seriously doubt he was banned SOLELY and ONLY for using the G15 board. Even though he may not want to admit it, he most likely used the G15 to run macros or automate key presses in some way. The G15 _is_ supported and will not get you banned. Good luck to him though. He should contest it and if they have no good reason to support the ban, hopefully he can get his account back.
Our guesses were that it was either the G15, WINE, or a combination of the two that showed up as a “hack” of some sort. Mostly because we found an earlier article from Slashdot, where in late 2006 someone else was banned for essentially the same setup.
Believe me, we know this guy. He wouldn’t WANT to bot. Not only that, but he’s not on for long stretches of time in random zones. And when we do see him on, there’s always a “Hi Lamaa!” in guild chat or something that he almost invariably responds to. The vast majority of the few times he hasn’t he’s been sitting in Shatt or IF.
Could his system (or account info) have been hacked by someone who did use a bot or buy glider etc ?
I mention this particularly because I seem to recall reading here that AC’s bank was cleaned out awhile back. Or some such security problem…
Hope he returns soon.
I have a G15 keyboard and I do use the macros from time to time (they are just like in-game macros, using one key for a list of strokes). So, I agree with posters above: it was not the keyboard.
His macros got him banned. The keyboard didnt.
You can only use wow style macros. Not the type that add pauses and pin multiple actions/casts to one keystroke as the G15 and some peripherals can do.
Not everyone realizes there is a difference, but to be legal the macros cannot do more than one action per keystroke.
Presumably if the ban is for G15 keyboard macros it would also apply for N52 macros.
Just wondering has anyone heard of bans for N52.
Will be making sure I delete the little macros I have set up using it anyway.
It is outright despotism for blizz to perform mass executions without offering anyone the chance to defend themselves first. That Warden of blizz is a silent assassin that is ready to strike any second. How can they be so sure of its programming for gods sake? Even top-notch corporate grade virus scanners etc show false positives now and then. Surely there must be difference between the sophistication of the macros that run a full-scale primal/honor farmer and one that spams a key 10 times a second in terms of detection.
But in the case of Blizz I guess honest players with sore fingers and chinese gold farmers are simply no different at all.
There is a great invisible cleaver waiting up there somewhere, ready to strike anyone who venture too close to blizz’s quite blurry borderline. All full fledged farmer-bot users of course know where they thread and have all accepted the consequences before they start. But most of the mass-bans are honest players who are having fun but do not know they are threading on deadly grounds. Becoz on BlizzLand there are no minor crimes and warnings etc., BANG ur stripped of years of your time that u stole from RL and I am sure you feel awful!! On Warden’s eyes ur the same shit with a chinese fully automated farming AI ffs.
The problem gets even worse with the hunter class becoz there is a stupid idea out there “even retards can play hunters”. Yes there is a chunk of truth in that but playing a hunter “good” is not easy and no raiding guild would accept a “mediocre” hunter. This means you have to:
*Top dps charts
*CC as precise/easily as a mage does. (and not lose dps also pls)
*Dont pull fking agro, bandage urself, heal ur stinky pet.
to do all these especially for a BM hunter u have a minimun of 3 standart key presses. At thight spots it goes up to 6-7 at every 2 seconds. Even I am tempted to get that freaking keyboard that spams my major dps macro 5 times per second. Curse you blizz for pushing certain classes into that border of yours that u draw in the first place. Just take “Steady Shot” and give us an aura like activated thing that makes our Auto Shots more damage. When I weave my shots for dps that is expected from me I simply dont have enough attention span to check the Threat Meter, CC breaks, or the mob that is banging my favorite healer. Check the dps analysis of Fire Mage and a BM hunter and you will understand what I mean!
Also not everyone has to have perfect timing etc to play this game for having fun. Latency, server load, or simple simple lack of kung-fu reflexes shouldnt hinder us from playing. There gotta be at least 1 second or so of queueing of commands or with the added haste gear/etc top raiders will all be 13-14 years old young and fresh First Person Shooter kidos.
Aye and moreso the TOCs say Blizzard can close your account for no reason whatsoever with no notice should they wish to. So this really isn’t like a justice system at all, we have no rights whatsoever.
Some bad publicity seems the only way to deal with this issue; if gamers know Blizzard’s policies are a little draconian and they could be banned unfairly, then they may be more drawn to another game, or consider carefully picking up WoW. Blizzard may be forced to improve their policies or just their communication if sufficient bad press is out there.
So let’s hope there is more publicity about Blizz’s poor customer service.
@rakhman
Most ToU’s include a clause that says the provider can close an account for any reason they want: Neopets, LiveJournal, etc…it’s all over the place. I’ve been trying to get my hands on a copy of the ToU for Age of Conan to compare, but it’s suspiciously absent - even from the people playing it. Very interesting indeed.
“if gamers know Blizzard’s policies are a little draconian”
How so? The agreement does state they could ban you for no reason, but I’m completely sure they don’t.
i got banned on tuesday, for “botting.” i use a standard keyboard, widely accepted addons, and macros i’ve either written myself or gotten from WoWWiki, all in blizz’s macro editor.
anyone who plays with me could tell you i’m not a botter. i’m not rich, don’t farm, don’t have much in the way of pvp gear… and yet down comes the banhammer.
sure, i’m contesting the ban, but from what i’ve heard it’s a no-go from the start if you get banned for botting. on top of that, it’ll be weeks before i’m even likely to hear back from blizzard, period.
sad. i’m leveling a Hunter on an alt account to 70 just so i can keep up with the guild at least somewhat, but my two main (well-geared, heavily-played, relied-upon) 70s are probably gone, and there’s probably nothing i can do about it. it’s a terrible thing.
warnings? investigation? nah. ban ‘em all. driving away cheaters is one thing… driving away cheaters and a whole helluva lot of loyal, honest players is quite another.
-Nick S, formerly of stayinfrosty.blogspot.com… i’ve lost my appetite for blogging about WoW since i became a reviled cheater and had months of work taken away without warning, explanation, or prior notice.
I wasnt banned, but know some people who where. They were absolutely not cheaters and did not deserve the hammer. They’re leaving for AoC. So am I, wow has become a bore~ it didnt even help joining a BT guild and killing new bosses.
The whole thing is just a cartoon made for kids. It’s time for a change, Blizzard cant keep their player mass forever with such an old and out dated game.
People don’t just get banned for nothing, otherwise there would be controversy among everyone who got falsely banned, which you people make it look like Blizzard banned a lot of people for nothing which I doubt they even banned 1 person that never did anything. Not only did they execute the mass ban for people who were caught botting, but they banned people in the category for using un-safe 3rd party programs while WoW was up. And to no extent can you actually know an online player enough not to do these things, Any body you meet online, you don’t know what they’ll do because everyone has secrets.
@geir
geir is a noob
@ Bubblebot
You may trouble comprehending this but there are real life friends and real life like friendships going on at WoW, though as hard as it may sound for you to believe.
heh, Im happy that Im using WoW through the emulator. and if blizz ever would like to spy on me they’d see that I the _only_ program I have installed is WoW.
Maybe ppl should consider doing the same? (I have ~5-10 fps less than on windoze and everything else runs smoother)
Wasn’t there a G15 display at BlizzCon last year where they were showing off the newest model you couldn’t even buy yet?
I recall getting to play around with the kb and some weighted mice.
It sucks that your friend got the banhammer, BRK, and if you’re right about him being a good guy I hope he gets it sorted out soon… but I have to say I’m glad to see Glider users go. Glaaaaad!
There was one guy on a forum I read frequently, boasting about how he used Glider to farm and battleground, how he could be out of the house or watching TV or whatever and the program would be playing for him. He talked about how he had it rigged to act like a real player, how it would log out if he was whispered too often or if someone started following him so he wouldn’t get found out and reported, how it would rez if the toon got killed, how it would join battleground queues, how it would fight back if attacked… and how he had insane amounts of gold, a full set of something-or-other hoopy PvP gear, epic mounts etc that he hadn’t had to work a second for. He was obviously, even offensively, proud of it. He said he considered it the only sensible way to play, and he didn’t understand why anyone could possibly object.
Gee, maybe because it’s cheating? Maybe because most players don’t do that and actually have to spend time working for their cool shiny pixels? Maybe because he talked about using his tons of gold to buy BoP epics that he didn’t really need, just so he could show them off, and I’m sitting there thinking “yeah, and people like you are the reason why practically nobody can afford that if they don’t buy gold”?
I haven’t seen him online since the banhammer hit. I am so, SO hoping that his account is gone… and if that’s mean of me, so be it, I’m happy to be EVIL about this.
not trying to be insensitive here, but I highly suspect theres more to the story than your guildy is telling you.
Like others have said, I am not sure that he could have been banned for the G15 keyboard. If you look for “G15 Keyboard WoW patch notes” you will see that Blizzard actively supports the keyboard for stats purposes on the LCD. The only way to have the LCD work is to have the G15 software running.
I own one and have been using it along with legit macros since last fall.
Ah, who knows! If you make the rules, it simply means that you can interpret them however you want.
It is not difficult for Warden to detect legit macro use and not-legit macro use. A legit macro will always have slight discrepancies in the duration between keypresses.
Logfiles will show G15 and peripheral macros (which automate gameplay by performing several functions with one keypress) as running functions with the exact same pause duration between each event, whereas a single keypress wow macro will show fluctuating pauses.
Use the wrong macro and buh bye.
Bans are great.. preventing people from cheating the system.
I have friends who used PvP bots.. don’t want them banned.
**But I do get pissed when they are in full PVP (honor gear), and have enough honor and tokens to cap out… ** And there I am struggling in a few hours of BG’s to complete the PVP sets. Yes, I do-do arena.. but hte filler pieces are nice to have.
We’ll see. because I hate BOTS.. not fair for those that do it fairly.
I know some of you want to believe that Blizzard only bans cheaters, never makes mistakes, and this could never happen to you. But that pretty little fantasy is not true.
The issue here isn’t even the automated ban. The issue is Blizzard’s lack of response, lack of explanation and lack of accountability.
If you don’t wish to consider the player’s characters as having some material value, then at least understand that Blizzard stole $40 in prepaid play time from the player as well.
I saw somebody suggest that they should call and speak with a CSR on the phone. It should be noted that there is not 1 single phone number you can call to discuss an ingame CSR related matter with a blizzard represenative. All communications with blizzard regarding matters such as bans, suspensions, player complaints, etc must go through email. The only phone lines are billing and tech support and if you call either department regarding any matter such at this they will tell you to submit an ingame ticket or an email if you are suspended.
There is absolutly no way to contact, directly through phone, any CSR capable of reinstating a banned account. None at all.
I know this because 3 of my guildies, including our GM, got the ban hammer unjustly in this last wave and they’ve been fighting in emails for the past few days without any progress. Meanwhile those who have been banned have convinced nearly half the guild to leave to try AoC, myself included. I’m tired of ‘taking blizzard’s word’ for everything. Unexpected downtime, server crashes at peak play(and raid), and now this wave of banning. Banning 385,000 accounts within days of the AoC launch was a completely bonehead move anyway. I hope AoC and WAR seriously take a nice chunk out of Blizz’s pocket.
FYI - From what i can figure out…
THERE WAS A MASSIVE BAN 360,000 BANNED ACCOUNTS
http://www.envy-gaming.com/2008/05/20/tuesday-may-20-2008-perhaps-the-biggest-blow-to-the-wow-botting-community-ever/
http://www.slopdog.com/forum/world-warcraft/104773-wow-ban-wave.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61VXg-SOITQ&feature=user
*Not for nothing, but good! I hate BOTS. Especially BG bots, Farming Bots, and Ro-bots.
Reminds me of a joke I just got in my email?
One morning, the husband returns the boat to their lakeside cottage
after several hours of fishing and decides to take a nap.
Although not familiar with the lake, the wife decides to take the boat out.
She motors out a short distance, anchors, puts her feet up, and begins to read her book.
The peace and solitude are magnificent.
Along comes a Fish and Game Warden in his boat.
He pulls up alongside the woman and says, ‘Good morning, Ma’am. What are you doing?’
‘Reading a book,’ she replies, (thinking, ‘Isn’t that obvious?’).
‘You’re in a Restricted Fishing Area,’ he informs her.
‘I’m sorry, officer, but I’m not fishing. I’m reading.’
‘Yes, but I see you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment. I’ll have to take you in and write you up.’
‘If you do that, I’ll have to charge you with sexual assault,’ says the woman.
‘But I haven’t even touched you,’ says the Game Warden.
‘That’s true, but you have all the equipment. For all I know you could start at any moment.’
‘Have a nice day ma’am,’ and he left. *
Nice joke!
350,000 banned (rough estimate)
150,000 re-purchase the game.
thats.. only about a 7.5 million dollar spike in profit and about a 1% spike in annual membership.
Woohoo!
I really hope your guildmate gets reinstated as a mistake BRK, but unless you know the person in real life, I’ve found from experience that even the best/coolest person met through a game succumbs to temptation like botting now and then..
Hopefully this isn’t the case though!
Also, does this strike anyone else as a genius move by Blizzard? Let’s see. Age of Conan comes out. Blizzard bans a ton of users, many of them cheaters. Said cheaters throw a fit, vow to switch over to AoC. In one move, Blizzard has cleansed their game of much filth and trash AND ensured that a possible competitor just got laden with a ton of cheaters, botters and exploiters. Just masterful, really.
It may not be on his main that he was botting on…Blizzard will ban all accounts and toons associated with cheating. So, while his behavior may have seemed normal, that does not mean he wasn’t illegally leveling 3 other toons while at work/school during the day.
Off on a tangent :
Are those adds for gold farmers on your side bar?
Sorry to all those who got banned. BUT technology makes it easy for Blizzard.
people are stupid..
The game loads..
You log in.. your addons get logged.
Blizzard KNOWS all your addond
Blizzard Knows the cheats.
Blizzard will not onsie or twosie the bans.
Blizzard will keep track and mass Ban..
That is what happend.. BOTS fail
/wave bye
the “EULA” is godlike
Keep the EULA goddess happy.
Feed her money
Make it Snappy
Do not make a joke
Dont use bots
And pretend to emote
Cause you get banned
go cry and whine
the password gate is slammed
LOL - @ all the botters. Oh’ and if you happen to play your account on another persons computer that had the Add-On or Bot loaded. Guess what, you are screwed. Since the game can detect what process you are running..
.
Hopefully it is just confusion where your guildie is concerned and they get their account back…
On to the larger issue, I couldn’t be happier that they are cracking down on these bots and cheaters. It drives me nuts, especially since horde (at least in my battlegroup) has been doing terrible in PvP. I’ve noticed in every AV I run there is one of two specific Taurens that is always in the same exact spot (outside Drek’s door) that does absolutely nothing (i.e. never fights back) but always ends up in the same spot again. I guess I’m naive, but never realized you could get that sophisticated with these illegal programs and it wasn’t until I started reading this AM that I figured out what was going on.
(just as an aside - DEATH to all AFKers. You are killing the Horde in PvP! We only get 40 people in an AV run and at least 5-7 a run seem to be AFK. I’m sick of reporting them and nothing happening, I wish Blizzard would crack down on that, too!)
This also brings up my question on what mods are considered illegal. I guess I’m the paranoid type and I am not the most tech-savvy guy in the world, but are things like Omen, Recount, Auctioneer, Atlasloot, etc. considered legal? I’d hate to think I have the potential to be banned just because I like trying to watch my dps.
With the way Lua works, it’s impossible (or nearly so) for an addon to be against the TOS. The code just doesn’t let you automate stuff that much anymore. You’d have to be using something outside of WoW entirely to be worried.
[...] rightly so, are certain he did nothing that would warrant having his account banned, even if he cheated*. I don’t know the fellow at all, but the Aetherial Circle people all seem very nice [...]
Unfortunatly innocent or guilty its most likely that your friends account is lost forever. Blizz is a business, end of. We sign there TOC, we are there bitch. If they ban a couple of 1000 people who are “innocent” they wont care as there still 300,000 bots account banned.
My main problem with all of this is I don’t like the idea of logging into my account one day and having it banned … without even having known I did something wrong. Your friend is not the only one, there are two of the people that I work with / raid with that also got their accounts banned.
Everyone can say what they want about people that you meet on the internet and not knowing them, but I know these people. One of them, sure it’s possible however unlikely that they botted/bought gold/who knows, the other on the other hand, not a chance. I have known her for several years, and honestly I am impressed that she tanks as well as she does. We had to explain to her what a bot was for crying out loud. She only picked up that term because of reading the CS forum … There is no telling at this point. We even had to explain to her at lvl 38 what the talents points are used for lol.
Hopefully our friends get their accounts back …
So…question (and deepest sympathy for those who got banned unjustly). You can’t use the G15 to spam the steadyshot macro, right? So, why in the heck would you buy this thing? (if the only thing you do on the computer is play WoW).
Your post is immature. Fine if you’re 12, no problem, but if you are, dont expect people to take you seriously. Is there anything wrong with blizzard monitoring every keystroke a gamer makes? So what if they install “bots” on your computer. Wouldn’t you rather they make tremendous effort to prevent cheaters, than to let cheaters ruin your experience of a multiplater game? You write as if Blizzard want to spy on you like some red army in the 50s. Are you comments in wow chat really that…. significant ???? You LOVE the game, you CHOOSE to play it, you would be SUPER-PISSED if you had to quit playing because dishonest people we’re not harshly tracked and banned…
I dont know if your friend is innocent or guilty, and I’m sure Blizzard make mistakes - they couldn’t be 100% accurate all the time. But the tone of your defence, emotionally immature and obviously taking your friend’s side just because he is your friend, lends nothing to your case.
@Rob:
“Spam” how? As in use the G15 software to write a script so that you just hold down the button and it always triggers? If so, yes that is disallowed and always has been. If you mean trying it to a key button and rapidly pressing it, though, that’s fine.
One would get and use the G15 because it has those extra (and handy) buttons that you can map to skills and macros you made using the in-game editor. That’s what I use mine for.
I’m glad i did’nt buy one of those keyboards last christmas. This whole thing sucks and hope dude gets unbanned. I totally agree with BRK’s POV on this issue.
Funny thing:
I was looking at the prizes for the WWI Dance contest Blizzard is holding in Paris.
One of the prizes is a G15.
I’ve been temporarily banned in the past. I did nothing wrong, and as soon as I got the attention of someone at Blizzard, they reinstated me. I couldn’t get a straight answer from them about what I had done to trigger the ban, but it must have been something subtle because I was a badly geared, poor level 30 that had only been playing for a couple of months.
The problem is that no matter how good your algorithm for identifying cheaters is, there will always be false positives or false negatives. Either you make it so tight that you ban a bunch of people who did nothing wrong but got flagged by the algorithm, or you make it so loose that only blatant cheaters get in trouble and smart cheaters can adapt to hide better.
The reason Blizz needs to ban cheaters is so I don’t feel like I’m working for nothing. The best answer is somewhere in the middle- they need an algorithm strong enough that it will catch lots of cheaters and probably a few innocents, but they need a way for people to quickly and efficiently claim their innocence, as well as get back the money they spent on subscription fees while banned.
@Fuinequendi,
You’re so naive to the world. Yo obviously have no relationship to anyone other then the neighborhood children probably, because otherwise you would know, best friend or not, people keep secrets from eachother.
And yeah, I did have trouble comprehending your message, your grammer and structure was almost impossible to read.
Blaming the G15 is scurrilous. Blizzard support it and have stated on their official forums that using it is perfectly fine. What IS against the EULA though is using the keyboard to create any kind of automated botting (ie - you’re not sitting at your character) - but then that’s the same as with any software.
This scaremongering is pretty pathetic, maybe get your facts right and do a little research before going on a rant?
How do you know that Lama hasn’t cheated/botted? Merely his own declaration of innocence… how many botters hold their hand up and say ‘yes, i cheated, your ban is perfectly justified’?
So I got suspended for 72 hours today. I have never botted. Dont even know how I would do that. It said I was suspended for 3rd party software. Yes i have addons but they are all from a reputable site.
The only way to commincate regarding this is through email…I havent gotten a response yet but its only been like 6 hours. My biggest problems are 1. I dont think I did anything wrong. 2. If I somehow did do something wrong I have no clue what it is and wont be able to fix it without knowing.
Blizzard has stated, on the record, that using a G15 is *not* bannable unless you’re using it to do something illegal (using it’s software to macro things that you’re not supposed to macro outside of the client):
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=28357794&pageNo=1&sid=1#6
I also have a G15, and I do use the keys and the supplied software, but I only use the software to map key combinations to the extra keys, then I make in-game WoW macros and map those to things like CTRL-ALT-4, etc. This way I can use the in-game macro capabilites of the WoW client, and also use my G15 to put those macros and other things close together, making them much easier to use.
“Not everyone realizes there is a difference, but to be legal the macros cannot do more than one action per keystroke.”
This isn’t correct, there are certain situations when the WoW client macro language lets you do multiple things with one keypress, such as druids shifting out of one form and into another with a single keypress, or for using non-GCD abilities like Nature’s Swiftness with a healing spell for an instacast heal:
/cast Nature’s Swiftness
/stopcasting
/cast [nostance, help] Healing Touch; [nostance, target=player] Healing Touch; [stance:5, help] Regrowth; [stance:5, target=player] Regrowth
The key to using a G15 is to make the macro’s in the WoW client using it’s builtin macro capabilites, then map those to keys and map those keys to the extra G15 keys so they’re all close together.
one thing to note, Logitech discontinued the 18 key version of the G15 for a 6 key version, which is nowhere nearly as usefull. Look for older G15’s or G11’s if you are interested in getting this keyboard.