Blizzard breaks their own ToU

[Xalmgrey]

To basically sum it up, a guy named "Swifty" who apparently works for Razer and makes some warrior videos for the game went on a server crashing spree with this buddies from the guild Dara Mactire from the Darkspear server. They managed to crash three servers before Swifty was banned under Blizzards own TOU.

Sounds simple so far right?

Swifty made a Youtube video with soap opera music to say he was banned.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-DFfBUA6vM

He claims server crashing wasn't his intention and that they were just trying to all have fun. Of course there's actually evidence to the contrary of his tear jerker video in the form of:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtGZiG-Z_SM

His legion of followers then held Darkspear server hostage by crashing it en mass by spamming up to 30,000 emotes per person in major cities. The forums were a mess of thread after thread of "unban swifty"

Blizzard ended up caving to either Razer or the legion crashing the servers.

A good portion of the WoW community feels that he should not have gotten any special treatment in regards to getting unbanned as he and his guildies crashed not one but three servers before being stopped by his being banned. You can clearly hear them gloating over it in the second youtube video link. Bashiok one of the Blizzard CM's stated that the Razer CM contacted him via text "just as they were undoing the ban". Here is the forum where as we speak it's still a raging discussion:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2842767666?page=1


I don't know about you and me, but if any one of us WoW players without corporate backing managed to crash not one, not two but three servers we wouldn't be getting our accounts back. Favoritism has got to stop. I'm posting this here rather than in the one contained neatly Blizzard forum to see what the public at large thinks.

 

[godofslack]

I have to agree with Blizzard's decision. Is it worth the bad blood with Razer and Darkspear being in a permanent riot Blizzard didn't have the power to stop the riots in Darkspear OR keep the server up. So they had a choice to either allow Darkspear to crash for days, ban thousands of players and potentially lose Razer backing, or you could unban Swifty and potentially be seen as soft on server crashing.

Right and wrong are irrelevant, the money says unban Swifty.

 

[Xalmgrey]

I have to agree with Blizzard's decision. Is it worth the bad blood with Razer and Darkspear being in a permanent riot Blizzard didn't have the power to stop the riots in Darkspear OR keep the server up. So they had a choice to either allow Darkspear to crash for days, ban thousands of players and potentially lose Razer backing, or you could unban Swifty and potentially be seen as soft on server crashing.

Right and wrong are irrelevant, the money says unban Swifty.

So those of us that pay the 15 bucks a month to keep that game running and click "I agree" to the very same ToU that is renewed every patch and in effect every time we log on should be treated with different regard? Really this kind of double standard is alright?

 

[Tentickles]

Sometimes having the love of your server is enough to force the ban-hammer to lift.

 

[Gxas]

I have to agree with Blizzard's decision. Is it worth the bad blood with Razer and Darkspear being in a permanent riot Blizzard didn't have the power to stop the riots in Darkspear OR keep the server up. So they had a choice to either allow Darkspear to crash for days, ban thousands of players and potentially lose Razer backing, or you could unban Swifty and potentially be seen as soft on server crashing.

Right and wrong are irrelevant, the money says unban Swifty.

So those of us that pay the 15 bucks a month to keep that game running and click "I agree" to the very same ToU that is renewed every patch and in effect every time we log on should be treated with different regard? Really this kind of double standard is alright?

Morally? No. However, losing the backing from Razer and having so many others quit because of what they're seeing as unfair and ridiculous could send the game into the ground.

Think about it this way, would you rather him banned and not be able to play the game at all anymore, or have him unbanned and be able to continue playing the game you love?

And by play the game you love, I mean

 

[Xalmgrey]

Sometimes having the love of your server is enough to force the ban-hammer to lift.

They weren't from his server, not all of them at any rate. They were from many. The spamming came from level 1 alts in the major cities of Darkspear.

 

[godofslack]

I have to agree with Blizzard's decision. Is it worth the bad blood with Razer and Darkspear being in a permanent riot Blizzard didn't have the power to stop the riots in Darkspear OR keep the server up. So they had a choice to either allow Darkspear to crash for days, ban thousands of players and potentially lose Razer backing, or you could unban Swifty and potentially be seen as soft on server crashing.

Right and wrong are irrelevant, the money says unban Swifty.

So those of us that pay the 15 bucks a month to keep that game running and click "I agree" to the very same ToU that is renewed every patch and in effect every time we log on should be treated with different regard? Really this kind of double standard is alright?

It's more than alright, it's mundane. Since there have been rules famous, rich and well-connected people have been getting off with breaking them. As much as you might think it's injustice it's just the way things work. You are, to Blizzard, a company, less important than the server of Darkspear, Razer and Swifty.

 

[Xalmgrey]

So those of us that pay the 15 bucks a month to keep that game running and click "I agree" to the very same ToU that is renewed every patch and in effect every time we log on should be treated with different regard? Really this kind of double standard is alright?

Blizzard made the ToU, I'm sure it's in there that they can do what they please and if not, it's their game, they can do what they want.

Hm i guess i expected people to actually look the evidence over here before posting. When you have the meek response of "uh well its their own TOU they can do what they want" you basically set the precedent of allowing those with resources you don't have the ability to do whatever they want. The whole idea of brining this here to the escapist ( a site that claims journalistic integrity ) was to see what people that actually look at the evidence think.

 

[Stall]

Someone who is well-connected and popular gets to play by different rules than the average joe?

It's almost like WOW is like real life!

 

[DaHero]

Boys will be boys, I guess cheating at FPS games got old or something.

 

[Xalmgrey]

So those of us that pay the 15 bucks a month to keep that game running and click "I agree" to the very same ToU that is renewed every patch and in effect every time we log on should be treated with different regard? Really this kind of double standard is alright?

Blizzard made the ToU, I'm sure it's in there that they can do what they please and if not, it's their game, they can do what they want.

Hm i guess i expected people to actually look the evidence over here before posting. When you have the meek response of "uh well its their own TOU they can do what they want" you basically set the precedent of allowing those with resources you don't have the ability to do whatever they want. The whole idea of brining this here to the escapist ( a site that claims journalistic integrity ) was to see what people that actually look at the evidence think.

"you basically set the precedent of allowing those with resources you don't have the ability to do whatever they want."

It happens all the time in real life, famous and super rich people can get away with many things that the average person can't.

And nothing can be done to change it? Amazing. We the general people have more power than we think when we actually work together to change things. But when you take the stance of "oh well they are rich and can do what they want" nothing changes and nothing will because people think its pointless to try. And the cycle keeps going on and on. That is one of the problems with society at large today is no one is willing to take any form of responsibility anymore and its starting to become apparent the the public at large is too apathetic to care about their own rights.

 

[Erana]

Anyone care to fill me in? I can't really say much without knowing who this Razer and slippy are.

 

[Gxas]

So those of us that pay the 15 bucks a month to keep that game running and click "I agree" to the very same ToU that is renewed every patch and in effect every time we log on should be treated with different regard? Really this kind of double standard is alright?

Blizzard made the ToU, I'm sure it's in there that they can do what they please and if not, it's their game, they can do what they want.

Hm i guess i expected people to actually look the evidence over here before posting. When you have the meek response of "uh well its their own TOU they can do what they want" you basically set the precedent of allowing those with resources you don't have the ability to do whatever they want. The whole idea of brining this here to the escapist ( a site that claims journalistic integrity ) was to see what people that actually look at the evidence think.

"you basically set the precedent of allowing those with resources you don't have the ability to do whatever they want."

It happens all the time in real life, famous and super rich people can get away with many things that the average person can't.

And nothing can be done to change it? Amazing. We the general people have more power than we think when we actually work together to change things. But when you take the stance of "oh well they are rich and can do what they want" nothing changes and nothing will because people think its pointless to try. And the cycle keeps going on and on. That is one of the problems with society at large today is no one is willing to take any form of responsibility anymore and its starting to become apparent the the public at large is too apathetic to care about their own rights.

One of the main problems that you're currently running into is just how little this site actually cares. It is well known here that a good majority of people hate WoW and hate hearing news about it. You'd do much better to take this to MMO-Champ forums or even the WoW forums themselves. At least then you'd get people who care enough to do something, and maybe even find people with the power to do something.

You're comparing WoW to society, but not all of society takes part in WoW. Just like trying to rally troops here for a march on Washington wouldn't do much good due to the high traffic of British users. You have to look for support in places where it can be found without scrounging. You want to make a difference and petition this? Go ahead and start it yourself. You've gotten our answers, we think that Blizzard deciding to keep their asses out of the fire is the right decision. I mean hell, if I ran the company I'd have done the exact same thing. Might not even have banned him to begin with.

 

[Tiger Sora]

I feel that this in some way had to do with things here. Cause in the end, it always comes down to cold hard cash or fisticuffs.
He really shouldn't be able t get away with things like that though. I don't play WoW anymore, but still.

 

[Xalmgrey]

So those of us that pay the 15 bucks a month to keep that game running and click "I agree" to the very same ToU that is renewed every patch and in effect every time we log on should be treated with different regard? Really this kind of double standard is alright?

Blizzard made the ToU, I'm sure it's in there that they can do what they please and if not, it's their game, they can do what they want.

Hm i guess i expected people to actually look the evidence over here before posting. When you have the meek response of "uh well its their own TOU they can do what they want" you basically set the precedent of allowing those with resources you don't have the ability to do whatever they want. The whole idea of brining this here to the escapist ( a site that claims journalistic integrity ) was to see what people that actually look at the evidence think.

"you basically set the precedent of allowing those with resources you don't have the ability to do whatever they want."

It happens all the time in real life, famous and super rich people can get away with many things that the average person can't.

And nothing can be done to change it? Amazing. We the general people have more power than we think when we actually work together to change things. But when you take the stance of "oh well they are rich and can do what they want" nothing changes and nothing will because people think its pointless to try. And the cycle keeps going on and on. That is one of the problems with society at large today is no one is willing to take any form of responsibility anymore and its starting to become apparent the the public at large is too apathetic to care about their own rights.

Yeah but in this case it's just a game and it's not real life. It's not like some huge crime went unpunished, he caused a bit of downtime, that's it.

Something as "harmless" as this is the perfect place to start making changes to holding people accountable for their actions. It's far easier to make changes to something like this than it is to start changing laws and civil actions in real life. He and his guild maliciously went around crashing two other servers after the first accident. Some people are calling it the same as a DDoS attack. If we can't hold someone accountable for their actions on something like this, which knocked out play for tens of thousands of people and in the case of the Darkspear server for whole days then what point is there in any rules at all?

Maybe they need to have a seperate agreement for the rich, famous be it internet or life and the "other" people like us who caught doing the same thing might face banning at the least and possible legal litigation for damages caused.

 

[skywalkerlion]

Darkspear US REPRESENT! (for the record I was on darkspear before I had any idea who swifty was, around 4 years ago)

Well, I think swifty's videos are pretty cool, and I was a little shocked to here he got banned. It was a jerk move to try and crash the server but I'm sure it won't happen again. And the server of Darkspear really doesn't care that much, I haven't heard any fuss about it on the Horde side but I didn't check the Alliance side.