Starting to see a pattern here, folks? I know a lot of people don't like negative news about Diablo III and Blizzard, and most times when we report and investigate matters involving Linux users banned in Diablo III the common response from the outside is that all Linux users who get banned must be cheaters. Well, additional bans have gone out and this time a Linux web portal is getting involved since none of the Linux users are getting help from Blizzard.
We previously reported on the Linux bans when they first occurred back in July, we did follow-ups with some of the Linux users who talked openly and honestly about their accounts and they even offered Blizzard to take a look at their machines, something that happened once again when more Linux users came to us for help after claiming that they had been wrongly banned. We even went as far as talking to a Blizzard rep about the bans, requesting on behalf of the Linux users if they could at least look into the matter, but Blizzard never got back with us or the banned users.
Today, however, PlayOnLinux moderated a new thread to help collect and systematically breakdown some of the bans happening, and as you can see, the thread is growing quite large, quite fast.
Additionally, even more Linux users who were hit with the ban-hammer have taken to the WineHQ forums, where you can see a number of other people coming forward about being perma-banned.
Most of the Linux users haven't received a response or the response they did receive was an automated message or a purposed misdirection to keep them going in circles. None of them have reported any sort of resolve, just like the previous Linux cases we've covered here at Gaming Blend.
I'm sure there will be some Blizzard white knights commenting about how all those Linux users are cheaters and how tech support can't look into each case. Screw that! You paid $60 for a game that Blizzard forces you to play online, and they admitted that playing on Linux shouldn't get you banned, tech support better do something about it otherwise Blizzard could be held liable for fraud.
Blizzard's community manager, Bashiok, specifically stated on the forums...
We’ve extensively tested for false positive situations, including replicating system setups for those who have posted claiming they were banned unfairly. We’ve not found any situations that could produce a false positive, have found that the circumstances for which they were banned were clear and accurate, and we are extremely confident in our findings.Playing the game on Linux, although not officially supported, will not get you banned – cheating will.
This was later contradicted by another community tech representative, Zalmanarr, who recently told one of the banned Linux players that...
We cannot tell you specifically what is causing you what to get banned. I can give you an idea of why it is banned based on an educated guess. Since you are playing the game on an unsupported Operating system, the way it is communicating to the servers is throwing out "cues" similar to that of a hack program.If you bought another version of the game and played it on LINUX again, it would likely result in a ban again, since we do not test or support LINUX and would not be able to verify if you were using a bot or not.
After the article was published and the Linux user pressured for answers regarding his ban, Zalmanarr later retracted his statement, claiming that they found a specific bot attached to the user's account. Like in previous cases of perma-banned Linux accounts, the user actually offered Blizzard to take a look at his hard drive to prove he wasn't botting. However, Blizzard proceeded to halt all forms of progressive communication. Boy, doesn't that sound familiar?
This is the same trend that has been happening since the Linux bans originally occurred in July. Most botters who have been banned simply buy new accounts and keep going, as acknowledged by several different botters on different occasions including the infamous “Chinese” gold farmer (who actually isn't Chinese) and the Diablo III botter who was actually actively botting while the Linux bans were taking place. Irony much?
Some of the Linux users have reported to us that they have gone to the Better Business Bureau in an attempt to at least get a refund.
Thankfully, for Blizzard, since we don't have a real consumer protection agency to rely on in America and since gaming journalism isn't really journalism but is instead advertorialism, you can bet your bottom dollar this bit of news will continue to go ignored. You can also bet that Linux users will continue to be banned on a guilty-until-proven-innocent charge, Blizzard will continue to fraudulently take money while locking people out of their accounts and we'll all keep trucking towards a future where Corporatism replaces Consumerism.
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