Blizzard Drops Ban Hammer on Popular World of Warcraft Bot

Blizzard has issued temporary bans to a large number of World of Warcraft players for using bots.

In a post on the official World of Warcraft forums, community manager Josh Allen (AKA "Lore") confirmed the company had "recently taken action against a large number of accounts that were found to be using third-party programs that automate gameplay."

One of the popular bots that has been cracked down on is HonorBuddy, which runs around collecting honour in PvP without actually engaging anyone. This requires no input from the player.

HonorBuddy claims to have over 200,000 registered users. On its forum, multiple users have said they received an e-mail from Blizzard specifying the ban will last six months.

"We’re committed to providing an equal and fair playing field for everyone in World of Warcraft," said Blizzard.

"[We] will continue to take action against those found in violation of our Terms of Use. Cheating of any form will not be tolerated."

Bashiok, another World of Warcraft community manager, further clarified on Twitter that any program that automates the playing of WoW is considered to be breaking Blizzard's terms of use.

Blizzard previously won a lawsuit against a World of Warcraft bot company for $7 million.

Outside of World of Warcraft, Blizzard is gearing up to launch a new MOBA called Heroes of the Storm, which is pitched as a competitive online game in the same vein as League of Legends or DotA 2, but said to be more approachable.

It is also working on a team-based shooter called Overwatch, which it has described as a "pick-up-and-play" FPS. Find out more about the game in GameSpot's in-depth report on Overwatch's characters and gameplay.