We’ve all heard about it. Some of us may have actually done it. Today I’m talking about MMORPG cheating and hacking and the steps being taken to prevent it. If you’ve put in some long hours and hard work on your online toon and are prone to practice a little TOS violation (Terms of Service) every now and them, you really want to pay close attention to this.
Purchasing MMORPG accounts, currency, and items is nothing new to gamers. It’s been going on for years and has only increased despite developers’ and owners’ threats and warnings. You see this awesome level 58 two-handed sword in the Auction house selling for 500 gold and you only have 150 gold which took you five months to get. What do you do? Do you go out into the beast-inhabited forest and kill for hours and hours and sell the loot for a total of 10 gold or do you take the easy route and jump on the fastest gold selling website and purchase you a little cabbage to obtain that kick-arse sword in a matter or minutes? It seems like a no-brainer, doesn’t it?
For a while now, a popular and very successful U.S. guild named Overrated in World of Warcraft has been clearing instances with ease and getting phat loot that would make almost any gamer bow down before their greatness. They are the only guild to have cleared Blizzard’s most recent dungeon, Naxxramas. One of the instances the guild successfull cleared was AQ40 (40 individuals in Ahn'Qiraj) and they were always walking out (or hearthing, if you will) with some great loot dropped by the final boss. The majority of their members were geared with some of the best items from the instance and fellow players sang songs of their exploits, yada yada yada.
Well it’s been all over the Internet that the guild Overrated has been, well, overrated. They have been exposed as using a hack that makes some of the walls in Ahn’Qiraj disappear allowing them to easily travel to the final boss without wasting time on the trash mobs and bosses in between. What was their punishment? Blizzard permabanned (permanently banned) the guild and it’s members. If this doesn’t seem like a big deal, then take it from someone who’s been playing the game for years. It takes A LOT of time and preparation to get into those instances and even more to successfully clear them including taking down the final boss. All of their efforts have been snatched up by Blizzard and put into permanent limbo.
On the official WoW forums, former Overrated member, Pantaloons offer this explanation:
It's true. A few minutes ago we went from having a near-raid online to having seven. I didn't clearly, but only because my raid attendance has been remiss lately. Let me explain.
We are the only US Horde guild that clears Naxx, been like that for a few weeks. People found that the pre-C'thun trash was so painful, that they decided to install some stupid thing that deletes walls or something, and you can just run there after Skeram.
I know, we had it coming, blah blah whatever, we know we deserve it. I actually think it's hilarious because I was calling them all idiots for doing it. I'm sure they'll try and get it rescinded because it's kind of a steep punishment with no recourse or whatever.
Ok I just got banned too. Whatever seeya!
With a little digging, I was able to find a post that was made by the guild leader saying basically the same thing but he added that they only began using the hack AFTER they had already cleared the instance numerous times. They did so because the instance became tedious and many of their members already had the loot that made the dungeon worth tackling and all they received from the place was a high repair bill. He went on to say that the hack made it possible to skip all of the boring parts and go straight to the boss, which dropped items they still wanted.
Although this is definitely understandable, it’s by no means acceptable according to the Blizzard’s TOS. The guild and it’s members’ accounts have been banned and they must now repurchase the game and start from scratch. That’s right. It’s back to level 1 for all of them. What makes the permabanning suck even more is that the highly anticipated Burning Crusade expansion comes out in about a month. They can’t enjoy the new additions to game at lower levels. My advice to all of the members is to watch the South Park WoW episode and copy Cartman’s idea. If you start now, then you only have 68,745,239 boars left to kill before reaching level 60 before the expansion release. “Mom! Bathroom! Mom?!”
Purchasing MMORPG accounts, currency, and items is nothing new to gamers. It’s been going on for years and has only increased despite developers’ and owners’ threats and warnings. You see this awesome level 58 two-handed sword in the Auction house selling for 500 gold and you only have 150 gold which took you five months to get. What do you do? Do you go out into the beast-inhabited forest and kill for hours and hours and sell the loot for a total of 10 gold or do you take the easy route and jump on the fastest gold selling website and purchase you a little cabbage to obtain that kick-arse sword in a matter or minutes? It seems like a no-brainer, doesn’t it?For a while now, a popular and very successful U.S. guild named Overrated in World of Warcraft has been clearing instances with ease and getting phat loot that would make almost any gamer bow down before their greatness. They are the only guild to have cleared Blizzard’s most recent dungeon, Naxxramas. One of the instances the guild successfull cleared was AQ40 (40 individuals in Ahn'Qiraj) and they were always walking out (or hearthing, if you will) with some great loot dropped by the final boss. The majority of their members were geared with some of the best items from the instance and fellow players sang songs of their exploits, yada yada yada.
Well it’s been all over the Internet that the guild Overrated has been, well, overrated. They have been exposed as using a hack that makes some of the walls in Ahn’Qiraj disappear allowing them to easily travel to the final boss without wasting time on the trash mobs and bosses in between. What was their punishment? Blizzard permabanned (permanently banned) the guild and it’s members. If this doesn’t seem like a big deal, then take it from someone who’s been playing the game for years. It takes A LOT of time and preparation to get into those instances and even more to successfully clear them including taking down the final boss. All of their efforts have been snatched up by Blizzard and put into permanent limbo.
On the official WoW forums, former Overrated member, Pantaloons offer this explanation:
It's true. A few minutes ago we went from having a near-raid online to having seven. I didn't clearly, but only because my raid attendance has been remiss lately. Let me explain.
We are the only US Horde guild that clears Naxx, been like that for a few weeks. People found that the pre-C'thun trash was so painful, that they decided to install some stupid thing that deletes walls or something, and you can just run there after Skeram.
I know, we had it coming, blah blah whatever, we know we deserve it. I actually think it's hilarious because I was calling them all idiots for doing it. I'm sure they'll try and get it rescinded because it's kind of a steep punishment with no recourse or whatever.
Ok I just got banned too. Whatever seeya!
With a little digging, I was able to find a post that was made by the guild leader saying basically the same thing but he added that they only began using the hack AFTER they had already cleared the instance numerous times. They did so because the instance became tedious and many of their members already had the loot that made the dungeon worth tackling and all they received from the place was a high repair bill. He went on to say that the hack made it possible to skip all of the boring parts and go straight to the boss, which dropped items they still wanted.
Although this is definitely understandable, it’s by no means acceptable according to the Blizzard’s TOS. The guild and it’s members’ accounts have been banned and they must now repurchase the game and start from scratch. That’s right. It’s back to level 1 for all of them. What makes the permabanning suck even more is that the highly anticipated Burning Crusade expansion comes out in about a month. They can’t enjoy the new additions to game at lower levels. My advice to all of the members is to watch the South Park WoW episode and copy Cartman’s idea. If you start now, then you only have 68,745,239 boars left to kill before reaching level 60 before the expansion release. “Mom! Bathroom! Mom?!”
Labels: Games, hacking, World-of-Warcraft
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