"This is a notification regarding your World of Warcraft account," the e-mail began. "Access to this account has been permanently disabled for exploitation of the World of Warcraft economy or for being associated to accounts which have been closed for intended exploitation." Zak, a 14-year-old WoW player from Georgia, asked that his last name not be used.
According to several players, Zak isn?t the only WoW participant who recently has received a ban with what they believed to be little or no justification. Critics claim WoW publisher Blizzard Entertainment been snaring innocent players in a dragnet for banned activities like account sharing and gold farming--a system in which players either directly or indirectly acquire large amounts of in-game currency or goods through repetitious actions, often achieved by operating automatic "bots" or macros that kill monsters or discover treasure.
"I think Blizzard is being too tough on their issues with exploitation and like many others, I have fallen (victim) to their harsh system of banning people like me." --WoW player Shoot201
Indeed, a look at any of the many public WoW forums reveals no shortage of postings from players complaining that they had been banned and asking for help. Usually, the players complain, they have had no luck getting through to Blizzard despite repeated e-mails and customer service phone calls.
To Zak, the notice didn?t make any sense. He believed he hadn?t done anything to break the game?s rules against an illegal process known as "power leveling," in which players gain points and levels in online games through banned exploits, such as those that take advantage of WoW software bugs to award gold or expedited advancement to new levels, or which use disallowed third-party software for the same purpose.
