A
forum post from
earlier this week explains Blizzard's approach to disciplining
Diablo III
players for exploiting a bug that granted extra blood shards from treasure
goblins. The exploit has been closed off via a hotfix, and they explain they are
dealing with three different levels of violation, and their response ranges from
banning the worst offenders to pardoning those at the other end of the spectrum:
From there, taking the complexity and impact of the exploit into
consideration, we also elected to action accounts on a case-by-case basis. In
general, one of three things occurred:
- Accounts which were found to have both used the
exploit excessively and publicly promoted its use were permanently banned.
- Accounts which were found to have used the exploit
excessively, but did not publicly promote it, were rolled back and their
associated heroes removed from active Leaderboards (both Seasonal and
non-Seasonal).
- Accounts which were found to have used the exploit
to a limited degree (or quickly stopped once realizing the scope of what was
happening) were effectively pardoned. We understand these situations can
inspire a certain level of curiosity and that it may not always be
immediately clear if you’re undermining intended game mechanics. Mistakes
happen, but we hope this leniency won’t be taken for granted in the future.