wow Funny Reactions to the Ban Wave (Possible NSFW)

[Starym 3,800]

 

While it's since been rescinded, the recent ban wave hit a whole lot of people who like to change their character's appearance client-side. Blizzard were dealing out 180 day bans but quickly realized that that was a bit excessive for people that were just tweaking their character looks, and that a warning would be more appropriate (since it's still in violation of the ToS).

Now, in the intervening hours while people thought they were truly banned, we had some interesting posts over on the WoW reddit, that revealed just what players get up to with these model changes. As you'd expect, the uproar over this created some impressive memes as well:

  
(Source 1)   (Source 2)

The hardest hit were the hard working folks over in Goldshire on RP servers, with the consequences possibly ruining the local economy and tourism, as you can see in this haunting presentation titled Goldshire Inn, post-Ban wave (2019, Colorized):

This next artist expressed their grief in a more verbal manner, hearkening back to another great tragedy that happened a long time ago, not that close to here:

(Source)

Others were focused more on the apparent imbalance, with other, greater injustices going unpunished:

(Source)

And finally, we have some old-timers that remember even worse times, like this old prospector WotLK player that got a permanent ban for these:

And so, tragedy was averted as Blizzard quickly gave these fine perverts players their accounts back and Goldshire returned to its rightful place on RP servers. A deeply disturbing, rightful place.

[Dejo93 1,023]

Blizz should just put hijabs on the females at this point :^)

[Badadada 184]

Wow, 3rd party appearance modifications came a long way. Last time I done it was in TBC so my paladin could wear the mighty (and then unobtainable) Ashbringer. And also a full epic tier set of course. Though after like a week it was not fun anymore, since it offered 0 gameplay experience and only I could see it, so also 0 bragging rights (other than posting a few pics about it on our guild forums).

[Arcling 898]

Don't see anything wrong with people modifying the looks of their characters or some other objects, as it doesn't affect anyone else. At least one of those things, as shown on first pic, should have been done by Blizzard, to fix some weird armor stretching.

[tkioz 229]

4 hours ago, Arcling said:

Don't see anything wrong with people modifying the looks of their characters or some other objects, as it doesn't affect anyone else. At least one of those things, as shown on first pic, should have been done by Blizzard, to fix some weird armor stretching.

The problem is that the same tools that modify personal items without negative effects on the game are also the same tools that are used by people who *do* harm the game though botting and exploiting.

Frankly what Blizzard needs to do is set up a submission system that players can use to submit content fixes to them, such as fixing armour and other things, and then bundle them into the game.

[Highfather 8]

Blizzard has finally made the full transformation to SJW/Snowflake. The whole reason to play a mmo is social interaction and character growth. I mean who cares if someone has bigger chesticles or smaller chesticles. Its all in fun anyways. Never did the saying "Fun detected incoming nerfs" fell so appropriate. Damn blizz get your act together bruh. If you hate your game that much just flip the switch so we can all move on to better things. 

[Seksi 208]

The bans for innocuous cosmetic change were overturned, the only bans remaining should be for people who used them to gain an unfair advantage in stuff like herbing  / mining / PvP.

[jinsu2301 273]

1 hour ago, Highfather said:

Blizzard has finally made the full transformation to SJW/Snowflake.

Pay attention, please. People weren't banned because they used tools for nude mods and stuff. People were banned because they used tools to modify game files. That's the issue here. If anything, the unbanning of people who used it just for some cosmetical shenanigans shows that Blizz are somewhat fine with it, but simply can't allow it because modifying game files, regardless of game impact, is against ToS.

The game is still chock full of slutmogs, and not just the old stuff. Have you seen some of the demonhunter armor sets?

[Yridaa 490]

11 hours ago, Starym said:

A deeply disturbing, rightful place.

Frightful

[Demonpuke 48]

Cheating is cheating. Exploiting is exploiting. Stop trying to arbitrarily choose which particular offense is ban worthy. It doesn't matter if you cheat to make your boobs bigger or if you cheat to stack xp potions or any other reason. Cheating is cheating and you have no excuse. Accept responsibility for doing what you KNOW BEYOND ANY DOUBT is against the rules. I've been playing wow since late classic, about 5 months before BC launched, I've played every expansion, and I have never once been banned. Stop cheating and stop crying when you get punished children. 

[Plergoth 277]

1 hour ago, Demonpuke said:

Cheating is cheating. Exploiting is exploiting. Stop trying to arbitrarily choose which particular offense is ban worthy. It doesn't matter if you cheat to make your boobs bigger or if you cheat to stack xp potions or any other reason. Cheating is cheating and you have no excuse. Accept responsibility for doing what you KNOW BEYOND ANY DOUBT is against the rules. I've been playing wow since late classic, about 5 months before BC launched, I've played every expansion, and I have never once been banned. Stop cheating and stop crying when you get punished children. 

Sorry, but whenever someone starts talking or explaining something like this, I immediately start to imagine them screaming "YOU CHEATING *filtered* CHEAP *filtered*!" when someone uses something like a Blue Shell against them. 

[Starym 3,800]

2 hours ago, Demonpuke said:

Cheating is cheating. Exploiting is exploiting. Stop trying to arbitrarily choose which particular offense is ban worthy. It doesn't matter if you cheat to make your boobs bigger or if you cheat to stack xp potions or any other reason. Cheating is cheating and you have no excuse. Accept responsibility for doing what you KNOW BEYOND ANY DOUBT is against the rules. I've been playing wow since late classic, about 5 months before BC launched, I've played every expansion, and I have never once been banned. Stop cheating and stop crying when you get punished children. 

Um, you do realize there's such as thing as levels of punishment right? Yea they cheated and it's not ok, but the punishment should not be the same as for people that ACTUALLY cheated, as in what the word means. They broke the ToS and Blizzard say that this level of infraction warrants a Warning and THEN a ban if it is repeated.

[Demonpuke 48]

16 minutes ago, Starym said:

Um, you do realize there's such as thing as levels of punishment right? Yea they cheated and it's not ok, but the punishment should not be the same as for people that ACTUALLY cheated, as in what the word means. They broke the ToS and Blizzard say that this level of infraction warrants a Warning and THEN a ban if it is repeated.

I agree that people doing the cosmetic fun hacks shouldn't be punished as much as the people doing the serious hacks. But in your scenario Blizzard has to waste resources going through each cheater's file individually one by one and decide who gets a big ban and who gets a love tap. If you people wouldn't cheat in the first place then Blizzard could spend those resources somewhere else, like making the game better.

For some strange reason you seem to think the rules don't apply to you and that people (like Blizzard) have to cater to you while you break them, but that's not how it works. There is no degree to which you break a rule, or a law. Either you did break it or you didn't. Stop breaking the rules and this entire thing goes away. 

Blizzard did rescind the bans when people made their individual case to them, so what are you all crying about? 

Edited April 28, 2019 by Demonpuke

[multiboxing 71]

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

[Badadada 184]

12 hours ago, Demonpuke said:

Cheating is cheating. Exploiting is exploiting. (...)

I'm not sure cheating or exploiting is the right word here, since it grants no benefits. Corporate lawyers don't like this behaviour since even though the game files are installed on your disk and you paid for limited access, those textures essentially still belong to Blizzard. It's their intellectual property, and since WoW is not an open source GNU software you are not allowed to fork or modify it without permission. In this context appearance changes are very much like trying to hack the database files of any Microsoft, Adobe or Apple software on your PC: the manufacturer may revoke your license for that even if you had no bad intents.

[Guest]

13 hours ago, Demonpuke said:

Cheating is cheating. Exploiting is exploiting. Stop trying to arbitrarily choose which particular offense is ban worthy. It doesn't matter if you cheat to make your boobs bigger or if you cheat to stack xp potions or any other reason. Cheating is cheating and you have no excuse. Accept responsibility for doing what you KNOW BEYOND ANY DOUBT is against the rules. I've been playing wow since late classic, about 5 months before BC launched, I've played every expansion, and I have never once been banned. Stop cheating and stop crying when you get punished children. 

Yeah, and you should definitly be punished the same, no matter if you murder someone or if you walk across the street if the traffic light is red.

Both is against the law and needs to be punished!

[lolblizzard 38]

breaking the rules is breaking the rules. people accept the ToS and so they know that they do wrong. so stop this "levels of punishment" *filtered*.. people that look for greyzones are the worst..

[Starym 3,800]

I find you people fascinating, truly.
1. I dont, never have and never will use these things so the whole "you people" thing is somewhat mistargeted.

2. Why does it anger you so much? It affects you literally not at all.

3. You keep saying "the rules" got broken, but Blizzard determine the rules and they said these actions were not ban worthy (after the automated system flagged these accounts).

4. No one is complaining, the above memes were in the period after the initial ban wave and before the unbanning. Also they're all just funny comments and everyone involved knew what they were risking when altering their files. No one whined or looked for greyzones, they just asked if Blizzard considered what they do aka character model changes and what ACTUAL cheaters and botters do the same. Blizzard did not.

5. No, seriously, why are you so upset over this? I wouldn't have minded if the people got the bans or if they didn't, it's Blizzard's call and you take your fate into your own hands if you break the ToS. But why are you so upset that they got unbanned or that they mentioned the difference between what they do and what more serious cheaters do?

[Teta 15]

wait, there was mods for wow? whit skimpy armors? I feeling bad now, i wanted this kind of thing so much, but i never searched because since its an online game i thought it woulndt have this kind of mod.

 

[ThomasC 65]

I am honestly shocked by how asinine these responses are. These players were breaking their terms of service and bypassing the anti-cheat service - these players were hacking the game. OF COURSE THEY SHOULD BE BANNED. Thats it, end of story. 

If you honestly think differently then you need a reality check and get some real world experience. 

[Thankmar 0]

I wrote a raging post last night because the mindset of the people who claim that the rules are absolute are actually frightening me, but I did not get the subscription process and it wasn't submitted. This morning I see that Starym wrote an answer along the same lines in a much more considered way, so I will not post it again because of pointlessness. Thanks, Starym, and yay for mannered discussion!

[Pandabuffel 184]

5 hours ago, ThomasC said:

I am honestly shocked by how asinine these responses are. These players were breaking their terms of service and bypassing the anti-cheat service - these players were hacking the game. OF COURSE THEY SHOULD BE BANNED. Thats it, end of story. 

If you honestly think differently then you need a reality check and get some real world experience. 

Hmmm I don't know, this mod has been around for multiple years. People also have been using it for multiple years for just the skimpy armour or other stuff. Blizzard already acknowleged years ago they knew this mod was being used and was still being used, but they didn't dole out any punishment nor any warning. I can imagine after using it for a couple of years it comes as quite a surprise if you suddenly now get banned for 1,5 years  without a warning. The people who were using it to gain an advantage are the ones to blame and should be punished with an immediate warning to others to not use it anymore. I do agree they shouldn't be surprised that they got caught in a banwave eventually and have to go through a bit of a hassle to recover their account, but they should definitely be let off with a warning.

[ThomasC 65]

55 minutes ago, Pandabuffel said:

Hmmm I don't know, this mod has been around for multiple years. People also have been using it for multiple years for just the skimpy armour or other stuff. Blizzard already acknowleged years ago they knew this mod was being used and was still being used, but they didn't dole out any punishment nor any warning. I can imagine after using it for a couple of years it comes as quite a surprise if you suddenly now get banned for 1,5 years  without a warning. The people who were using it to gain an advantage are the ones to blame and should be punished with an immediate warning to others to not use it anymore. I do agree they shouldn't be surprised that they got caught in a banwave eventually and have to go through a bit of a hassle to recover their account, but they should definitely be let off with a warning.

I just read on wowhead Blizz walked the ban back! now its just a warning.

Blizz is fully within their rights to ban people who break terms and conditions. Good on them for recognizing that this was innocent

 

 

[Plergoth 277]

On 4/28/2019 at 4:28 PM, lolblizzard said:

breaking the rules is breaking the rules. people accept the ToS and so they know that they do wrong. so stop this "levels of punishment" *filtered*.. people that look for greyzones are the worst..

I've seen this sort of argument inversed many times, with people arguing that what they do is technically allowed via clever use of game mechanics, but otherwise still griefing other players or gaining an advantage they never should have had, but changing the client side files to let you have greater customisation without affecting anything else in the game gets you sent up against the wall. Okay. 

[Badadada 184]

22 hours ago, Pandabuffel said:

Hmmm I don't know, this mod has been around for multiple years. People also have been using it for multiple years for just the skimpy armour or other stuff. Blizzard already acknowleged years ago they knew this mod was being used and was still being used, but they didn't dole out any punishment nor any warning. I can imagine after using it for a couple of years it comes as quite a surprise if you suddenly now get banned for 1,5 years  without a warning. The people who were using it to gain an advantage are the ones to blame and should be punished with an immediate warning to others to not use it anymore. I do agree they shouldn't be surprised that they got caught in a banwave eventually and have to go through a bit of a hassle to recover their account, but they should definitely be let off with a warning.

Well, the playerbase who uses model replacements includes many machinima creators and a bunch of other creative person who run the game in sandbox mode (also kind of grey zone in terms of ToS), so I'd even go as far to say the ban wasn't intentional at first place.
It's just that Blizzard probably ran a checksum validation (or other validation method) on the client-side of the game to ensure the installation is not corrupted and when they saw that it doesn't matches up with the current official version of the game they automatically assumed that person is into something fishy without checking what actual modifications that installation had.

On 4/29/2019 at 1:14 PM, Teta said:

wait, there was mods for wow? whit skimpy armors? I feeling bad now, i wanted this kind of thing so much, but i never searched because since its an online game i thought it woulndt have this kind of mod.

To be fair WoW uses a rather ancient database system to store the game files. With the help of appropriate software it takes very little time to modify or replace the 3D models or textures. For example: if your character wears a Poorly Balanced Warhammer but you want it to look like Sulfuras, Hand of Ragnaros you just simply swap up the models of the two item and voilá: your trash item will have the appearance of a legendary one. If you want, you can even replace all character models with penises, but all of these mods will only affect the graphical engine running on your PC, so not really worth the hassle for those who treat WoW as an MMO (mostly because as in this case, you may get a warn), the server-side experience of the game used to be rather bulletproof.