Do you know what server side means…?
If you could just climb into the client and set yourself to 0cd 0casttime, wow would be a wreck of hackers insta nuking everything everywhere everytime.
Besides, this question in itself is an offtopic strawman.
We are specifically talking about texture packs. So start a support for texture packs just like UI changes and voila there you go. Everyone’s happy.
It’s never out of question that someone using a mod is abusing the game, which is why being banned is a course of action. But how many do you think people have done it. All I have done was installing, having zero skill in programming (unless creating AI on mugen counts) about the game and so and so. But the redundant question being: Why would they ban that many people because it breaches the first line of the ToS, meaning editing file, without the intent to cheat? The answer is why they reverted it.
No, we talk about adjusting Blizzard’s software without permission. That it was a texturepack is irrelevant.
Do you think bots work serverside?
Banning people for texture edits is in my opinion pathetic, TOS or not. Yet another nail in the lead coffin of BFA…
Why not ban having fun while you’re on blizz?
Sure.
What’s the point of having rules in the first place?
Especially seeing as it doesn’t matter if you break them.
Maybe they realised that the initial bans highlighted a bigger issue with the overall dreadful character creation we have in this game. Sadly just shows how outdated this game really is. Sadly they are really penalising players that just want their Warcraft updated. Why they don’t just kick the game in to touch and create a new engine for it I will never know. Instead they are going back to their original game to save it. Game should have been updated years ago.
Those people should’ve gone to the forums and voiced their opinions of needed updates to texture pacs, instead of going our of their own way to edit parts of the very core of the game. How do you guys think the rest of the playerbase cope with these things? We play by the rules, applied to EVERYONE.
-Why should “special snowflakes” be allowed to break the game in unintended ways?
Oh, well Blizzard are breaking an absolute ton of local laws. Not that long ago Blizzard had to leave Denmark out of several promotion programmes because they were very obviously illegal here, but it goes much deeper.
Again, I have absolutely no intention of suing them whatsoever, but Denmark has some pretty strong consumer protection laws in regards to rights to refund, especially on orders made online, rights to backup copies for personal use, rights to use the product indefinitely if sold as a product, etc. etc.
As far as the subscription service is concerned, Blizzard is within their rights to deny you access to the servers, but they are not allowed to sell you a boxed copy of World of Warcraft and then proceed to make it impossible for you to play it at all.
This is the age-old Games as a Service concept. A lot of publishers are adopting it, most MMORPG’s adopted it very early on, and it’s illegal here. It’s also illegal in several other European countries. The only reason not much has happened is because the companies weren’t getting sued, because people are enjoying the game and nobody likes a killjoy, but that doesn’t change the legal status of it.
However, after all the debacles with games as a service with EA’s Anthem and adding in microtransactions after the fact and other nasty features like that, courts are starting to wake up. You do NOT want to get caught on the wrong side of this. It’s quite possible that games as a service, and therefore World of Warcraft as well, will be completely banned in Europe in the near future.
As for Danish courts and long-winded contracts, there is this very important law:
§ 38 b. Opstår der tvivl om forståelsen af en aftale, og har det pågældende aftalevilkår ikke været genstand for individuel forhandling, fortolkes vilkåret på den måde, som er mest gunstig for forbrugeren. Den erhvervsdrivende har bevisbyrden for, at et aftalevilkår har været genstand for individuel forhandling.
Stk. 2. En skriftlig aftale, der tilbydes forbrugeren, skal af den erhvervsdrivende være udarbejdet på en klar og forståelig måde.
Stk. 2. is what we’re going for here. I’ll quickly translate it:
Stk. 2. A written contract given to the consumer must be written in an understandable way by the company.
Furthermore, § 38 b. says that if there’s any doubt in the language, the contract must be understood in a way that is as favourable as possible for the consumer.
In other words, writing page up and page down of English legalese and trying to present it to a Danish judge will get your case thrown out so fast you won’t even know what hit you. The basic assumptions from consumer protection about what a product is and how it can be used must therefore be respected.
So if the company does not make it clear that WoW is a service and not a product at all times throughout the entire process, which they absolutely do not, then they’ve lost the case by default.
Again, not gonna sue Blizzard over this. I don’t want to be the killjoy. But some companies in the industry are going so far with GaaS now that WoW could very well end up being a casualty.
We can contrast the model of WoW with the model of previous Blizzard games, where there was the distinction of BattleNet as a service, which you could enter into from the game, and the game itself as a product. When you purchased, say, Diablo 2, there was no way for Blizzard to remove your ability to play it. They could kick your account offline or remove your CD key, which was printed on manual that said it was a service front and center, but you can still play the product Diablo 2. That is legal under Danish law. WoW doesn’t really work like that though. You can’t play it offline or reverse-engineer the game to make that work, which is also a legal issue in Denmark.
A strong implication it wasn’t done before. To be honest the game isn’t intented for adult audience, which is the reason they never made those change based on player’s feedbacks. They never truly (even to this day) went against it. As long as it remain a personal thing it doesn’t actually break any rule in the way most of you guys see it. Otherwise a lot of people would have been gone, and those ban weren’t going to be reverted.
Considering the vast majority of mods for games even online ones like LOL and DOTA 2 I think blizzard are really retrograde and out of touch on this one.
harmless texture editing is Leagues and leagues away from messing with scripts and code. Ive done enough modding of comparably simple mod friendly games like the early total war games and paradox GSG games to know that editing a texture and editing the base game so it does what you want are two entirely different things and a universe apart in difficulty and time needed to get it working as intended and that’s games that are designed to be modded in single player. WoW is a non mod friendly MMO that in of itself puts it in a world of pain well damn above anything the absolute majority of players to even conceive of let alone be capable of.
Texture modding and modding proper is an apples to oranges comparison.
To my understanding blizzard did not prevent this until legion, I believe.
After that they changed their minds or something and the way that was used before was removed.
Now to use this people have to bypass security systems in place. They are there for a reason. If blizz allowed stuff trough that, things such as bots would be allowed too.
Whether it is “just minor altering of models and textures!” matters very little in my opinion. You dont bypass security. You could be doing anything with it.
That wasn’t the point I was trying to make.
Players want something the game currently does not support. Nothing wrong with that, at all.
The game does not support it, so the players go out of their way changing the very behavior of the client and its files, breaching some very critical parts of the terms of use they agreed to confide within.
… and that is apparently ok. To me, it’s about the precedence this entire ordeal is setting, not necessarily the “seriousness of the crime”.
There’s stuff I want in the game too, stuff which I am not by any way entitled to get. Is it ok for me to heavily mod the game to get what I want? Just because it’s not an available option?
Thanks for your input and being civil about it though. I understand what you meant, even if I don’t necessarily agree.
I have now unsubbed wow because of bots, hackers and cheaters + Blizzard going back on bans of the same people.
We really had a good run and many joyful hours, too bad that are ruined by people who can’t follow the rules.
We might meet again, some day in the future, if things are different.
Untill then, best of luck.
The bans lifted were for people who whilst technically breaking the TOS did so in an entirely harmless way, editing textures of models does nothing to change the base games functions, what was done was entirely cosmetic. As opposed to hacking or botting.
Bots, hackers(gain unauthorized access to data in a system or computer) and cheaters, this has been going on too long already.
-No interest.
I just wondered, and this sounds silly, does Blizzard have to obey the strict Danish local laws?
I believe the EU wing of their company is mainly located and registered in Ireland, which makes them have to obey their local laws of course. Since they are located in an EU country they are allowed (or even obligated) to grant access of their services to all the EU member states without having to specifically notify/deal with the 26 other local authorities.
Again, I’m not sure - but mhm - pretty sure I read some interesting articles concerning this matter.
Yes, they certainly have to. Otherwise they can’t sell any products to danish customers.
Well, it is not as simple as that. Thát I know.
Wanna add to this:
I should point out that Blizzard are perfectly well aware of this fact, and they really, REALLY try to wiggle themselves out of it.
On the original WoW box it says:
IMPORTANT:
ONLY ONLINE MODE POSSIBLE
ADDITIONAL SUBSCRIPTION FEES APPLY
(FIRST FREE MONTH INCLUDED)
FURTHER RESTRICTIONS APPLY!
SEE BACK FOR IMPORTANT DETAILS!
On the back it says, in like 4pt font so it’s pretty much unreadable to anyone without a loup or 20/20 eyesight:
IMPORTANT: This game can only be played online. Internet connection (fees at player’s costs) and personal online registration required; online subscription fees at the maximum price of 12.99 e incl. VAT / month (subject to change) required. Currently, neither the game nor the online account can be transferred or sold. Only electronic payment methods and pre paid cards are available for payment. Pre paid card option commits you to a 60 days minimum subscription in order to take advantage of the first free month. First free month reqiored full completion of the online registration. Please refer to the web site
www.wow-europe.comfor more information.
This stuff is gonna look really bad to a Danish judge, because it reveals that Blizzard is trying to circumvent the law by writing a ton of unreadable English legalese on the box. Note also how the word service is not mentioned anywhere - so the consumer must assume they’ve bought a product that Blizzard can suddenly take away from you for any reason.
Blizzard would lose this case so hard it isn’t even funny. I genuinely hope nobody ever tries, because… yeah, that’d be bad. I love this game, I don’t want it to go away.
Yes. Denmark has something called Retsforbeholdet, which means Danish law is always superior to European law. Further, Danish consumer rights apply to all consumers in Denmark, regardless of where the product comes from.
If the supplier will not conform to Danish consumer protection regulation when selling to a customer in Denmark, a chargeback is usually the option that is taken.
What the people had to do to use these “entirely cosmetic” things was to bypass security systems. They were already wrong at that point. It doesnt matter what they did with it, since they already broke the rules.
No matter, if its harmless or not. Blizz cant know what people do with bypassed security. You could be using some hacks, bots even, if in reality you are just increasing your characters boob size or giving them huge fatass to RP better in goldshire.
It doesnt matter what you do when you already broke trough security.