WoW Forever: Blizzard acts on bot accounts, adds trade warning

Blizzard community manager Kaivax posted a statement titled Actions Taken Against Botting and RMT on the evening of 1 October, putting it on Blizzard's American and European forums within 3 minutes of each other. Since its previous note on real money transactions, or RMT, in WoW Forever, he wrote, Blizzard has been acting continuously on accounts found to be botting to amass gold in the Forever beta, as well as on the accounts of players found to have bought or knowingly received illicit gold. Blizzard will keep taking action against RMT in the beta and in the live game after Forever launches.

The new part is a change inside the game. Blizzard will soon add a warning that appears whenever you trade with strangers, and the post quotes its wording in full: players are told to be wary of accepting gold from unknown or suspicious sources, because if the provider is engaged in real money transactions, they could put their account at risk of closure. The warning then points to a Blizzard support article. Blizzard gives no date for it, and does not say whether it will show up in the beta first or only once Forever is live, or how the game will decide who counts as a stranger.

Kaivax set out the penalties more fully than the statement of 28 September did, which named losing the gold and further action that could include closing accounts. Blizzard's stance on RMT is crystal clear, he wrote this time: any account found to have taken part in generating, selling, buying or receiving illicit gold is subject to the gold being removed, to account suspensions, or to permanent account closures. That names 3 outcomes plainly, and it adds generating gold, which is what the botting accounts were doing, to the list of things that can cost a player their account. Blizzard first promised to punish gold buyers on 17 September, at a live question and answer session.

The post also thanks every player who has given feedback on the subject, and says that feedback has made the beta invaluable to Blizzard as it refines its processes on this and other issues. It names no accounts, no players and no figures: it does not say how many accounts have been suspended or closed, how Blizzard tells a botting account from an ordinary one, or how much gold has been taken back. The beta runs until 21 October, and WoW Forever launches at 23:00 UK time on 4 November, which is midnight on 5 November in Central Europe.