Thousands of 'World of Warcraft' Accounts Banned For Cheating

Over 100,000 accounts of the massive multiplayer online role playing game "World of Warcraft" were banned after allegations of cheating surfaced.

TIME reported that game developer Blizzard Entertainment banned thousands of WOW accounts for six months after discovering that these players were using bots, described as third-party programs that automate gameplay.

Blizzard provided an explanation regarding the ban and advised other players to report accounts which they suspect are cheating.

Micah Whipple, community manager of WOW, further defined bots. He posted, "Botting is defined as automation of any action, not just character movement. If a program is pressing keys for you, you've violated the ToU."

Blizzard provided a company post on the game's official forum. It read, "We're committed to providing an equal and fair playing field for everyone in World of Warcraft, and will continue to take action against those found in violation of our Terms of Use. Cheating of any form will not be tolerated."

World of Warcraft is one of the biggest MMORPG in the world with around 7.1 million active subscribers.

Bossland, creator of the most notorious bot on WOW called Honorbuddy, said in a post on the Honorbuddy forum, "With Honorbuddy, you thought that we are unbeateable, we never thought that, we've succeeded since 2010 - Honorbuddy had not a single software detection. It seems there is one now. We are sorry for all your lost WOW Accounts, hopefully you can use them again after the 6 months ban is lifted. I have read here in the forums a bit, a lot of the accounts where 10 years old. This is a pity. We always say, do not use your valuable accounts as the risk is always there. You ask yourself what happens next? For now we closed our Honorbuddy Authentication, when we know any more details we will inform you."

PC Gamer explained that since Blizzard can already detect the presence of the bot, Honorbuddy, Bossland will shut down the authentication system. Honorbuddy is a bot that automates various actions in WOW. Players set it up then allow the bot to handle different tasks like gathering resources or handling mobs without supervision, PC Gamer noted. As a result, multiplayer matches are disrupted and players using the bot have more advantages even when they are not controlling their characters, because of the effortless setups.

Overall, the bot is gone in the meantime, unless it is shown that the big ban was not actually linked to Honorbuddy.