From the Blizzard End User License Agreement:
ii. Cheating: Create, use, offer, promote, advertise, make available and/or distribute the following or assist therein:
- cheats; i.e. methods not expressly authorized by Blizzard (whether accomplished using hardware, software, a combination thereof, or otherwise), influencing and/or facilitating the gameplay, including exploits of any in-game bugs, intentionally benefitting from any of the prohibited actions set out in this section C, [whether commercial or otherwise] and thereby granting you and/or any other user an advantage over other players not using such methods;
- bots; i.e. any code and/or software, not expressly authorized by Blizzard, that allows the automated control of a Game or part of a Game, or any other feature of the Platform, e.g. the automated control of a character in a Game;
- hacks; i.e. accessing or modifying the software of the Platform in any manner not expressly authorized by Blizzard;
- any code and/or software, not expressly authorized by Blizzard, that can be used in connection with the Platform and/or any component or feature thereof which changes and/or facilitates the gameplay or other functionality;
The e-mail doesn’t say when the “cheating” was detected… it could be today, last week, last month… Bans are usually issued in waves, so what Blizzard detected might not have happened recently.
Blizzard doesn’t care who was using the account… as the owner of the account, you are responsible for anything that occurs on your account. See:
As you probably suspect, there are no Blizzard staff monitoring your game 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Although there is a lot of secrecy surrounding the process, one can assume that some anticheat module in the game continuously looks for known “signature” of cheating software, hacks, etc… If it is detected, your account gets flagged… Even if you aren’t using the “cheating” software at that moment, it might get detected.
The process is similar to how antivirus work – they use known signatures to detect possible viruses.
And, similarly to antivirus software, there might be false positives… cases where the antivirus detects a virus, but there is no virus… or, cases where the anticheat module detects cheating… but there is no cheating involved. That’s one of the reason for the appeal process.
In the case of cheating, the Game Masters probably can only check whether your account is flagged or not… they cannot check the logic of the anticheat, nor the signatures used to detect cheating… because they might not have access to these details, nor the knowledge to assess whether they are effective. They are Game Masters, not developpers specialized in anticheat.
So… the current situation is:
- you say you didn’t cheat
- Blizzard says your account was flagged for cheating
The next step is up to you… you could send one more ticket and request that your case be escalated for review… and specifically ask that the code in their anticheat software be verified since you believe that you didn’t cheat. Whether or not Blizzard agrees to escalate your case is up to them and, if they do, it might be a while before you hear back. This type of check can be lengthy. If the penalty is upheld… then, that’s it… there is nothing more you can do about it.
The alternative is to forget about appeals, buy yourself a new WoW account, and start from scratch… or stop playing WoW altogether.
Good luck !
