Former EU Blizzard Employee on Reddit

[neosporin]

I don't know if anyone else is following the thread (IAMA former Blizzard customer service representative for WoW aka Gamemaster. AMAA : IAmA), but it is very interesting, especially for botters.

It provides a bit of information into their banning/monitoring.

Proof: imgur: the simple image sharer
Hey there guys. I've worked for Blizzard Europe from 2005 to 2010, exactly for five years. I can't talk about anything that happened since then, cause I'd have to speculate, also I cannot talk about any upcoming games, like titan.
Frontpage? Come on you guys.... you're making me blush.
So there it goes AMAA.
Edit: I'm having a blast you guys. This is really awesome.

Summary of questions answered: narwal_bot comments on IAMA former Blizzard customer service representative for WoW aka Gamemaster. AMAA

For example:

Question (DNAW):
I used to bot a lot, like 4-8 different accounts running all the time when I wasn't playing myself. Everyone that knew me, knew about this. I never hid it from anyone, we talked about it openly, even in the guild. The only rule was to never call it "botting", but "piping" (came from a long joke, w/e).
Anyway, this lasted for atleast 2 years where this word was so common and I made barely any attempts to hide my botting habits, yet I've never been caught, at all.
So my question: Do you actually read any of the chat of players you suspect to be botting?
Answer (Panigg):
No. This is all done by scripts. We never read chats unless it's about harassment.

Question (itscalledalance):
Do you guys keep files on "repeat offenders" who get reported? Most realms have a "clown" or two- the ones who are clever trolls, spam, wipe raids for laughs, things like that. Did you keep a record of things that have occurred and what the player was warned would happen? One of my friends has been temporarily banned for various offenses a good 20 or 30 times, and a GM used to joke about the file Blizz had on him when he would message my friend about another suspension. Always wondered if that actually happened to the worst of the worst.
Answer (Panigg):
Well yes, of course. We make a note in the offenders account everytime something happens so other GMs could see what kind of stuff that guy pulled.

Question (luckybone):
Can you really see from the players point of view?
Answer (Panigg):
We could hijack players characters if we wanted to, yes.

Question (cigarsquid):
How often were you faced with people who claimed they had been scammed and wanted items/etc. back?
Answer (Panigg):
Since I was a tier 2 GM... pretty much all day. I guess scams were about 30% of what I did... compromised accounts another 50% or so. The rest was bugs and some raid issues.

Question (hannaaeneas):
When I was last hacked and got my items restored, I also received a hefty amount of gold which I assumed was from the hacker. I've had this happen to friends as well. Are you just not able to tell that it's not technically ours, or are you just being nice?
Answer (Panigg):
Most of that stuff is done by a script now. Since the volume of compromised accounts is so high we didn't check all the characters for that kinda stuff. Also most of us didn't care if you got more back.

 

[CodenameG]

meh, its all stuff we knew already.

 

[neosporin]

meh, its all stuff we knew already.

by "we", I assume you mean "I", lol. I suspected as much, but I never knew for sure.

 

[Giwin]

US go by scripts, this has been known for years.

EU go by tickets, not so aggressive as US

 

[neosporin]

US go by scripts, this has been known for years.

EU go by tickets, not so aggressive as US

Then I guess we now know EU goes by scripts because this was an EU WoW Rep

 

[Battler624]

i was going to say what Giwin was saying..
i think the EU government banned this or something

 

[neosporin]

i was going to say what Giwin was saying..
i think the EU government banned this or something

Oh, how does that work? Isn't the EU like 30 different countries? I always thought it was more of a trade thing, like NAFTA in North America, as opposed to an actual governing body.

 

[Ryzon]

The truth is that at the end of the day it all comes down to the GM. If they want to ban your ass because they have an itch up their ass they will. If they want to take it easy and give you a warning than they will do that too.

 

[Johnnyp]

really cool that You share it.