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- I used to report AFK'ers but now I won't
Drysc: I can assure you that if someone is going to be suspended, and have other actions taken against their account/character, that they are definitive abusers.
If someone is going to the bathroom 30 times a game, 100 games in a row, they may want to cut down on the cranberry juice.
(Of course, those are numbers I made up. We obviously won't be announcing thresholds, etc.).
- We Want Player Housing!!!!!! Now!
Drysc: Heh, well skimming through it seems not everyone wants player housing at the moment. Not that we use the forums as a barometer for popular opinion, but anyway...
Player housing is still something that intrigues us. If the place and time are right, and we can add player housing and make it a meaningful addition to the game, make it cool, we'll do so.
Instead of making demands of what you want to see, why not discuss different features? The pros and cons of player housing, what it could add or detract from the game. It's far more pleasant to read.
- I used to report AFK'ers but now I won't
Drysc: In our continued efforts to support fair gameplay in World of Warcraft and to provide a positive experience for players, we are currently taking steps to ensure fair and enjoyable competition in the Battlegrounds. Starting immediately, we will be issuing warnings and penalties, including suspensions and the removal of Honor points and recently acquired Honor rewards, for non-participation in Battleground games.
We are taking action against thousands of accounts immediately, and will continue to monitor these situations and regularly take action against violators. If you encounter a player in a Battleground who is intentionally not participating in the battle for an extended period of time, please help us track the situation and report the player as AFK. For information on how to complete an in-game AFK report, please go here: (linkl). All reports will be thoroughly investigated, and corrective action will only be taken if the violation is confirmed.
Thank you for your support and best of luck to you in all of your games in the Battlegrounds!
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Welcome to the sixth issue of the WoW Weekly Report! This week we've got the battleground bannings, a new database, and a podcast from Blizzard to talk about.
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This last week has been abuzz with one major occurrence and that’s the announcement on Blizzard’s official forums that Blizzard will be taking action against people who AFK in the battlegrounds on purpose to gain honor. Within seconds of the posting (on the official forums) the community outrage flooded forth with zeal as the community both shouted their support and their anger at this decision. Following the announcement was a clarification that only people who were obviously AFKing to get honor (and to exploit the system) would be the ones suspended for their misconduct.
However, should players be suspended for abusing mechanics that are built into the game? I'm all for the punishment for the crime, but I think the game should do a better job of preventing it or discouraging it. Blizzard states that you’d need an obvious streak of joining games and getting booted for AFKing to get any action done against you. So you'd have to be trying to do it on purpose. However, there just has to be some other solution than suspending people who try to abuse the system. It’s gotten to the point that action has to be taken (and the punishment is well deserved) but there should be some mechanic to prevent it so that it never has to get to the point that Blizzard has to intervene and players are not tempted to AFK to gain honor.
Adding in the report AFKers option was great but it still requires additional effort for player’s to help police their own gaming world on a frequent basis. I don’t know about you but when I’m playing a game I much rather prefer to play it and not worry about who I need to report for idling about so I can play it on fair and even numbers. There has to be something that Blizzard could do that could fairly determine if someone was AFKing or if their participation just wasn’t as much as others. Perhaps there should be closer graveyards to the action and a 5 minute battle rule where you’re automatically removed from the game should you fail to enter into combat for 5 minutes. If you’re just trying to leech honor then you’re not going to get far if every 4 minutes you have to move to the battle, mark yourself in combat , and then go back to AFKing so you’re not booted at the 5 minute mark automatically by the game.
Let’s face it; if you’re AFK for 5 minutes in AV then you can simply just requeue. No harm, no foul. Better yet why not make the honor awards require a radius? If you’re in the battle and you’re fighting Drek’Thar then you’re obviously going to have to be there near Drek’Thar in order to win the game. If you’re nowhere near the battle then you’re not exactly helping now are you? Well you could be working on Galvangar at the same time, but if he’s engaged then maybe those people should get the rewards to. Someone who is say at the spawn point though isn’t exactly helping out. A simple solution that may inconvenience some but it outright rules out AFKing as a viable way to get honor quickly.
The whole situation seems like it could be handled better by players being more responsible and less people trying to cheat the system and cash in on everyone else’s effort. However, with a game of this size there is no way to rule out a few bad apples are going to ruin the bundle.
If you’d like, there is a thread on our forum to discuss this right here. Feel free to express your joy or outrage at this announcement.
With that out of the way it’s time to announce something exciting. The TenTonHammer Database has finally gotten an upgrade. You can read the news about it here or just head straight to the DB to see it. It’s really easy to use and to me it’s the best gold free database that exists on the Internet. While you’re at it, consider installing the TenTonHammer U.I. mod that allows you to submit data to us.
If you want to discuss the database upgrade feel free to talk about it on our forums.
The last thing to talk about this week is BlizzCast. It’s the new behind the scenes podcast created by the Blizzard developers. It’s loaded on to my Zune right now but I’ve yet to listen, although everyone I know who has listened has said it’s well worth the time if you’re ever interested in hearing from the developers and finding out some of the upcoming features of Wrath of the Lich King and StarCraft II.
Cool thing about BlizzCast is that they transcribe each episode so you don’t even have to listen to it and you can skip straight to the reading. If you’d like to download episode one, read episode one, or listen to episode one over the Internet then check out this page. While we’re talking podcasts our network runs a pretty excellent one called Game Over. If you’ve got the time give it a listen as well.
That’s about it for this week’s news and headlines. Check in next Tuesday morning for more here at WoW at TenTonHammer. |
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