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$10,000 WoW Character Banned?
AmazingAvery
Age of Conan AdvocateMember UncommonPosts: 7,188
As reported here: http://www.maximumpc.com/article/daily_news_brief_the_probably_mostly_typo_free_edition
$10,000 WoW Character Banned?
What does roughly $10K get you in the MMORPG aftermarket? For the online buyer under the pseudonym Shaks, his 7,000 Euros bought him a Level 70 Night Elf Rogue character from World of Warcraft, sometimes referred to as World of WarCrack for its highly addictive nature. The character also came with four out of five pieces of the Tier 6 armor set, and the Twin Blades of Azzinoth (for WoW virgins, the Twin Blades can be picked off Illidan's defeated corpse in The Black Temple. Bet you were just dying to ask!). Had that been the whole story, it'd still qualify for headline status, but the fact that the $10K account appears to have been banned by Blizzard propels it into 'must-post' status. Blizzard pooh-poohs selling accounts, stating that they do not "recognize the transfer of Accounts between individuals." Based on their policy regarding account transfers, and because the Level 70 Night Elf Rogue hasn't logged on since September 3, the real question appears to be who Shaks decides to sue, rather than whether or not his character has been banned.
Comments
Oh man, if true, that's the biggest PWN EVAR!!!
A big old "cry more n00b" to that guy.
Hmm, the seller agreed to WoW's terms every time he logged in, so allegedly he knew this could have been possible when he sold it. I wonder how the trial turns out (if it ever happens in the first place).
To quote Nelson Muntz: Ha ha!
People who buy characters deserve nothing more. I do hope he sues the guy who sold it to him, though. It might undermine the whole sordid business.
LOL, looks good on the moron who spent 10K on a game!
I'm glad I sold my account back in the day for $400 cdn. After this, it should be damn near impossible to find someone to buy an account.
(if it's true of course)
I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self.
--Aristotle
10,000 dollars. Just imagine the other shit you could've bought
Thats what you get for trying to cut corners.
A man dies daily, only to be reborn in the morning, bigger, better and wiser.
-Playing AoC
-Playing WoW
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Yea its too funny!
That someone would pay 10K for a playable cartoon just confirms that the world is close to the end. I'm taking my 10 k to spend on booze and cheap hookers.
I can hardly believe that.. I'm still skeptical..
And I thought the person who bought my WoW character for 650 USD was insane..
I only wish I had the 10k from someone willing to blow it away like that.. The original account holder hardly deserves a fraction of that, even for twin blades. I'm jealous.
It was a very good geared rogue. 4/5 Tier 6, 5/5 Merciless, both daggers from Illidan, some other crap...
I can just imagine him when he saw the "Your character has been banned" message. He was probably in such shock he just stared at his computer screen for an hour before finally going around smashing every chair and table in his house.
Serves him right though IMO, he broke the rules, his account gets banned, no exceptions. It's his own fault for paying ten grand for a game anyway.
I personally hope he does sue Blizzard so when he loses we can laugh at him.
What i want to know is, who is the moron who created a news article about selling his account...
Clearly doing so was sabatoging the sale, and he shouldve known that he wouldve fucked over his customer, im quite certain, if that account isnt banned, it will be.
SELLING ACCOUNTS ISNT LEGAL... not matter how much you make for it... god stupid people make the world go round.. its an irritating thought.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
I guess if someone is stupid enough to spend 10k on a toon, he deserve this and probably dont have money problem anyway. But in any case, i don't get why peoples still think they can buy other peoples accounts and get away with it. It's not hard to detect when an account is transfered, just look at credit card use on the account. If an account was played using John Doe from NY for a year than all the sudden it's Jim Smith from LA that's paying for it, it's pretty obvious.
Going about it that way is asking for trouble, most of the time it might be true, but on occasion your gonna ban someone that didn't deserve it. There are several scenarios that would involve changing credits cards that are legit.
The amount.. ya its a lot. The concept of doing it.. I guess your reaction might be based on when you started MMO's.
When I was playing UO in 1997 I never thought about selling/buying of virtual property. In fact when I joined ebay in 1998.. it was to buy old commodore computers (amiga's etc..).
One day I did a search and *blink* saw Towers selling for 2500$. Well I happened to own a tower... and yes I sold it. My view was if some moron had 2500 bucks to toss off... he needed a few pixels more than I did.
At that time it was just a few people that sold things. When it turned into a business/way or life.. I hated it.
I really don't see where the guy would even have grounds to file a lawsuit. He could claim he's obviously stupid by spending 10,000 on the account and thus didn't recognize the consequences that could happen.
I mean some companies don't have any issue with account sales.. others obviously don't support it at all. Blizzard in fact has no way to officially transfer account ownership (even IF they did support it).
I'm not sure how being banned for violating the terms of service.. can be applied in a lawsuit against the seller. If he wants to sue blizzard.. good luck with that. Just more money being tossed away in the end.
Only hope I'd even see him having is if he could prove the seller gave the info for the story. Thus basicly guaranteeing that the account would be banned. If the article was written with information from the auction listing its self (public info) again... good luck with that lawsuit.
Ive got to say this guy getting banned after spending this much money is very funny (if true) but the bottom line is that even though it is against the rules of the game that is not what his lawsuit would be about it would have to do with the fundamental question of intellectual property. Because even though blizzard came up with the concept, programed, and created the game that does not nessisarily give them a right too keep people from selling the time and energy that they have put into the game. Think about it, developers do the same thing all the time they sell a game half way through production put thier time and energy into it and then sell it to us... or the artist who buys paint and a canvas and paints a masterpiece of the Golden Gate Bridge, should he be kept from selling it because he used someone else's paint and portrayed another persons design for a bridge? Of course not, the fact is that this has been done for years so it is acceptable, and the bottom line is that developers will not be able to keep people from doing this for much longer because while the base material is theirs they did not put in the time to get or make the particular item you wish to sell. And it doesn't affect the rest of us anyway we all know when someone has good gear but still sucks, someone with much less in terms of gear will be superior every time. So honestly what is the big deal is you bought that epic mount or that lvl 70 toon or that new rockin breastplate someone put in the time for it if they have decided to move on let them get something for their time just like they would for spending time and energy on anything else. And nor here come the flaming trolls
Blizzard clearly state that all ingame items are the property of blizzard, this includes your toon, items & gold.. its all "data" held on blizzards servers, when you sell a toon, items or gold you effectivly sell data that is owned by blizzard. All MMO's work in this way.
Blizzard clearly state that all ingame items are the property of blizzard, this includes your toon, items & gold.. its all "data" held on blizzards servers, when you sell a toon, items or gold you effectivly sell data that is owned by blizzard. All MMO's work in this way.
First of all not all MMO's work in this way there are several where the selling of items is not only allowed but done through the game and secondly you might want to read the entire post before commenting my point was that DESPITE the fact that they say it is their property it might not be so, the intellectual property debate is still undecided and unresolved. So to say that the data which one person created, becasue that is what you are doing from the time you create your avatar, to the time you spend gearing him, till you want to sell him, the player creates the data not blizzard. Blizzard simply puts the random particles out there, it is up to the gamer to assemble them. And the bottom line is that blizzard is interested in the same thing as the guy who sold his account, money, they do not want someone to get a lvl 70 toon without having to pay THEM for it, it is no more than that, they do not really care about the in game economy or player balance, they are running a business and do not want competition its as simple as that. So terms of service are all well and good but the point is that you cannot make a rule that is illegal and it has not been decided where the boundries of intellectual property lie and until then no-one is in the right or the wrong for sure in this argument, it is still a shade of grey.
IF this is all fact then we will be hearing a story about a guy who killed himself after buying a WoW account and being banned because he lost $10k and can't get it back.
I hope he sues the crap out of Blizzard.
Time for game publishers to learn about consumer rights and stop trying to rip everybody off with the whole, you paid for it but it's still mine and I'm cutting my own throat....routine.
Five grand is a lot of money. And since it's none of Blizzards business what you do with your accounts, I hope he gets some serious damages and they get a benchmark ruling against them. Forcing them to change their evil ways forever.
Dont feel sorry for him at all , as long blizzard doesnt is ok with you buying account you will always take a risk and of course the price is jusr ridicoulus not worth 10k eod.
-Semper ubi sub ubi!
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Blizzard clearly state that all ingame items are the property of blizzard, this includes your toon, items & gold.. its all "data" held on blizzards servers, when you sell a toon, items or gold you effectivly sell data that is owned by blizzard. All MMO's work in this way.
First of all not all MMO's work in this way there are several where the selling of items is not only allowed but done through the game and secondly you might want to read the entire post before commenting my point was that DESPITE the fact that they say it is their property it might not be so, the intellectual property debate is still undecided and unresolved. So to say that the data which one person created, becasue that is what you are doing from the time you create your avatar, to the time you spend gearing him, till you want to sell him, the player creates the data not blizzard. Blizzard simply puts the random particles out there, it is up to the gamer to assemble them. And the bottom line is that blizzard is interested in the same thing as the guy who sold his account, money, they do not want someone to get a lvl 70 toon without having to pay THEM for it, it is no more than that, they do not really care about the in game economy or player balance, they are running a business and do not want competition its as simple as that. So terms of service are all well and good but the point is that you cannot make a rule that is illegal and it has not been decided where the boundries of intellectual property lie and until then no-one is in the right or the wrong for sure in this argument, it is still a shade of grey.
Well first off your sounding like a WoW/Blizz hater (see red) unless your ok to put the same comments to all MMO companies, cus they all put their bottom line b4 the players, so im not sure wether to continue this.When I say all MMO's I mean subscription MMOs, not the 1000's of F2P asian grind fests.
The data you say the player creates already exists, it was created by blizzard, a player simply takes a copy of that data.
Lets take a magazine, i go buy it and i photo copy some pictures from it, I didn't create those pictures I just took a copy and put them on my own peiece of A4 paper.. now I am going to sell it on the grounds im selling the time it took me to create my little masterpiece.. I'll forget It contains copies of property that dont belong to me.
Most EULAs and even internet contracts aren't completely bound by jurisdiction. This subject would most likely be determined by a personal jurisdiction of the court. That's why MMORPG companies are always weary about taking action against accounts. Blizzard, on the other hand, DOES let a lot of things slide, but can afford it either way. I believe it could go either way.
I don't care how good the character was; The value is already decreasing exponentially, and it will be relatively obsolete come the release of WotLC. What a fool.
How can it go either way? There have been few court rulings regarding farmers because despite popular belief its mutually benefitial to maintain the staus quo. Christ if you could win a case and sue a dev for banning I'd be a fucking rich man. Also every time a game closes can we sue them then too? Afterall they're stopping em playing the game, damn can I sue SOE for SWG?
Keep dreaming that you have some power, naive aint quite the word.
-----
The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
In reguards to the lawsuit. There was a previous case where a worker sued because he wrote out business ideas in a private email over the companies email service. The company fired the employee and while going through the email found these and used the ideas. The employee sued. The court ruled that while the business owned the software and had a statement saying that all data on that server was there's this was not true. Data manipulated by the employee was the employee's. So the person could sue on the same basis that Blizzard made the software and owns the server, but the data manipulation on that server belongs to the player.