Blizzard bans thousands of gold-buying and bot accounts in WoW: Forever beta

Blizzard says it has closed more than 2,100 gold-buying accounts and nearly 1,600 gold-selling or botting accounts in the WoW: Forever beta, as the studio continues its push against real-money trading before launch.

The update came during the third episode of Blizzard’s WoW: Forever podcast, which focused on dungeons. Josh Greenfield said the team plans to stay aggressive on RMT enforcement, including against players who knowingly receive illicit gold.

A future update will also add warnings to trade confirmations and mail, reminding players to be careful about where their gold is coming from. Greenfield said Blizzard doesn’t want normal trades to feel risky, like tipping for a portal or paying for a crafted item, and said the team has gotten better at separating legitimate player exchanges from RMT activity.

Dungeon leveling is also getting adjusted. Blizzard is raising base XP from dungeon mob kills by 20% after beta feedback, with the goal of making dungeons feel more worthwhile without turning them into the obvious best leveling path.

Developer Aggrend added on the official forums that Blizzard is fixing a separate dungeon XP bug. In earlier beta builds, XP per kill was being calculated around the highest-level player in the group. That meant a level 20 player running Deadmines with a level 25 could get far less XP than intended. After the fix, XP will be based on each player’s level relative to the dungeon mobs.

Aggrend said the bug fix and the 20% XP increase should make dungeon runs feel “significantly better,” though dungeon XP still won’t return to Classic Era levels. Blizzard’s target is for strong dungeon leveling to sit close to optimal questing, not clearly ahead of it.

Further reading: Official WoW: Forever Podcast Episode 3 forum post