Quick note… not much needs to be said, I’ll just let the blue do the talking:

“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: (http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/pvp/battlegrounds/info.html). 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!” -Bornakk

What do you guys think? Too harsh or something that had to be done?

Tags: News

15 Responses to “Battlegrounds: Hammer Comes Down on AFKers”

1. Deadx Says:
   January 11th, 2008 at 8:37 pm

   I think this is a little harsh punishment. Yes I AFK, but not as much as other people. And me and couple friends are about to speed lvl new alts, and this is our only way of getting gear since we don’t have enough time to grind 75K honor for a couple pieces of gear. But yes in a sense there should be something done, but not bans or suspensions. I mean, if I have to do something real quick and I get reported afk for the match, and get banned/suspend, not fair to me. They should just kick the AFKers from the BG when they hit Idle.

2. Winter Says:
   January 11th, 2008 at 8:45 pm

   Yes, I think this is great. I was getting sick of trying to win a battleground while others get a free ride and rewards from me and my (participating) team members hard work. What gutting is losing a game 1980-2000 when your team had 3 afk and the other faction had none.

3. milkyway Says:
   January 11th, 2008 at 10:09 pm

   This had to be done. Only complaining will come from afkers themselves.

4. johnrambo Says:
   January 11th, 2008 at 10:50 pm

   too harsh imo… but lets see how long AV ques get now that there are less bots/afk

5. Opportunist Says:
   January 12th, 2008 at 3:19 am

   The source of the problem is that people is honor and rewards. The only true way to remove intentional afking / botting is to remove external incentive to participate in BG.

   I’m talking tokenless, honorless, rewardless BGs who’s participants are there for the joy of pvp.

   That being said, I think blizzard’s choice to take action against those afkers, while not the best option, is definitely a display of the right intentions and a step in the right direction.

   You can’t really take pity on the afkers, either.

   “I worked SO HARD to..uh…not work hard!”

6. Gorey Says:
   January 13th, 2008 at 7:55 am

   I think that simply kicking people with the AFK tag would do, but the reason they’re not doing it is that it can eb abused to harass people.
   I can’t honestly say that I feel blizz is being to strict with this, at the end of the day those people who AFK know it’s “wrong” so I can’t really pity those who get punished.

7. Morsus Says:
   January 13th, 2008 at 8:18 pm

   I think it is great, Imagine if 3 or more people in a Kara raid etc just decided to stay at the start and roll on gear. Do you think they would get kicked and excluded from rewards, I think so!!

   Why should it be any different in BG’s, all I do is Bg and it shits me no end when we lose a really close game when we could of won it if we had 3 active players instead of afk spot jumpers.

8. Thomas Says:
   January 14th, 2008 at 12:23 am

   “And me and couple friends are about to speed lvl new alts, and this is our only way of getting gear since we don’t have enough time to grind 75K honor for a couple pieces of gear.”

   The only way AFKing saves you time is your team losing faster because your standing around and not fighting.

   “I mean, if I have to do something real quick and I get reported afk for the match, and get banned/suspend, not fair to me. ”

   If you have to do something that takes long enough for you to get afk marked then just /afk yourself out of the game and let someone else in. Why should the rest of the team have to suffer because you can’t bother to actually play the game. How is that fair to them.

9. Calibur Says:
   January 15th, 2008 at 8:30 am

   Maybe if they made some new maps for each BG, and actually stirred up some fun in them again, the user base wont look at the honor grind as a chore….

   I’m not saying it would stop afkers or anything, but we’ve been playing the same friggin maps for EVER now… Its so flippin’ boring!

   How about you make them fun again bliz!?

10. Hvid Says:
    January 15th, 2008 at 9:03 am

    Deadx: Worst bullsh*t I’ve ever read regarding bad excuse:
    “Yes I AFK, but not as much as other people. And me and couple friends are about to speed lvl new alts, and this is our only way of getting gear since we don’t have enough time to grind 75K honor for a couple pieces of gear.”
    Not as much as other ppl? I’ve killed someone, but not as many as Hitler, so I didn’t do anything wrong! (SARCASM! - To be on the safe side, I didn’t kill anybody irl…).
    Only chance of getting gear? You DO gain honor faster by participating in the BG - Killing Blows, Honorable Kills etc. all gives honor… So if you want gear fast, you really shouldn’t go AFK.
    Or let’s say it like this: “I don’t have time to raid and kill Illidan, so just give me the damn Warglaives!!” Or tell your boss at work: “I don’t have time to work, so just send the money to my address…”.
    Do you see where I’m going with this?

    I doubt Blizz will remove gear and/or Honorpoints if you are flagged AFK for 1 round of AV or something like that.. But if you stand in AV with anti-afk-bot for 2 weeks to grind honor while you wank to something else, it’s only fair that you are punished by Blizzard.

    I’ve never convinced myself to go afk - Worst thing I’ve done is to run WoW in windowed mode, and run around to cap flags in AV, while I watch Simpsons or something. Not doing 100% of what I can, but not giving the finger to the rest of the team. Besides - I don’t break the rules, and tbh I find myself with way more focus on WoW than on whatever else I’m trying to do at the same time…

11. toni Says:
    January 17th, 2008 at 5:56 am

    Believe or not..i joined Av with my warrior. and stood like 2 mins in the cave to make me a intercept /hamstring macro… and got the debuf. then ofc i went and played the whole AV , made like 12 kills. then I was in orgremar and had 2 of my items enchanted… then i droped . Couldn’t join and then realised that i had a 3 hour bann on my accound due to battleground exploatations….
    THIS SUX BIGTIME !!!

12. HandsOfFate Says:
    January 17th, 2008 at 4:09 pm

    I am very very please with this- assuming Blizzard has the backbone to follow through with their promises. I will be *restarting* my bliz account tomorrow BECAUSE of this crackdown on AFKERS- having quit months ago because of AFKERS. At the time AFKERS never game a damn about me and my ruined wow enjoyment yet now they complain about having to work for gear. GO BACK TO PVE you BG afkers, WORK for your gear, and let us earn OUR gear without leaches.

    HOF

13. Meh Says:
    January 20th, 2008 at 1:18 pm

    that is WAY too harsh. AFKing isn’t exploiting or disobeying the terms of use or anything like that. ITs just a way to get over the horrible grind aspect of everything WoW.

    Those who talk about some shitty crp about fun and whatnot then honestly if you still play BGs for “fun” you suck so much that you shouldn’t even have a say in anything.

    And no I’m not a AFKer, i haven’t played WoW for months. I just understand how boring and painful grinding can be and i don’t blame people for trying to skip it. All in all its Blizzards own fault for creating such boring content that people don’t want to play it like its meant to.

14. Dio Says:
    January 26th, 2008 at 7:27 am

    “honestly if you still play BGs for “fun” you suck so much that you shouldn’t even have a say in anything.”

    yet

    “And no I’m not a AFKer, i haven’t played WoW for months.”

    This doesn’t even remotely make sense, the way I see it you’re the one who doesn’t have a say in this. Getting decent gear to start doing arena is easy enough already. If you don’t even want to do a bit of work to get that set you might as well go play something else. AFK’ers and leechers are a real plague and can sometimes cost you a game, in my eyes this action is entirely justified. You can go afk between bg’s to have a wank and what not all you want but once it starts you participate in that game for 20-30m, end of.

15. HandOfFate Says:
    January 27th, 2008 at 3:37 am

    Quote: “AFKing isn’t exploiting or disobeying the terms of use or anything like that.”

    YES Afking is an exploit. If you afk you automatically get kicked from the game. Try it! /afk. If you are not kicked yet you are still in the game it is because you found an exploit.

    YES you are disobying the terms of use. In th terms you are not permitted to diminsh the game play experience of other players, and you clearly are by destroying Bgs for those of us who enjoy Bgs.

    PS: The honor grind is no more laboursome then the PVE armor grind- good luck justifying an immoral act (Afking).

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