Blizzard has been hard at work with more than a few things across their multiple titles, and World of Warcraft is no exception. With Naxxramas dropping in World of Warcraft: Classic and the new expansion dropping for World of Warcraft: Shadowlands, there’s plenty to do.
To this end, they’ve altered a few rules and worked to fix some of the long-standing issues in the titles. Recently, for example, they announced that they were updating their terms of service to ban the use of input software.
They also have been working on fixing multiple different instances of terrain exploitation, which is a much more active exploit in Classic than in the retail servers of the title. After having to roll back some changes after they had unintended consequences, Blizzard remains hard at work.
It may be this recent work on rules and whatnot that has Blizzard making some moves that have left much of the fanbase confused at the moment. Earlier today, a sizeable ban wave swept across World of Warcraft: Classic.
At the moment, it’s unknown how many players were banned, but there’s a surprisingly large number of players on forums and social media accounts stating that they’ve been banned. While no tally is known, it seems as though thousands of players have been banned.
The reason for this ban wave is also unknown, as Blizzard hasn’t yet commented on the cause behind the wave. Many are assuming that this was due to terrain exploitation.
Specifically – and to reiterate, this is speculation and not confirmed – many believe that this was due to players being summoned on top of the Gates of Ahn’Qiraj, a well-known terrain exploit for griefing purposes, as well as to gather for a raid.
Much of the speculation is being caused by a statement from a Blizzard employee on the forums, which reads as follows:
“While I am not able to provide much in the way of details when large groups of guild members are all penalized around the same time it is because they have been found to have exploited the game terrain, such as going through walls, going underground, or otherwise circumventing the normal mechanics of the game.”
Whether this is the reason or not is unknown, but it wouldn’t be the first time something of this magnitude has been done. Players are being encouraged to submit an appeal to their suspensions if they feel like they were caught by this ban wave without any reason.
