Blizzard Banned WoW Players for Exploit; Fans Blame Devs
The ban for having fun with tailoring did not amuse the community focused around World of Warcraft, although Blizzard eventually relented and revoked the account blocks.
Debut of WoW: Dragonflight proved to be a minor success for Blizzard. After a relatively cold reception of Shadowlands players are almost unanimously delighted with Dragon Islands.
Unfortunately - and without much surprise - the release of the new expansion must have also brought with it some problems. We already had the lost Alliance ship, and now Azeroth has been ruined by... tailoring.
A wave of bans and fan anger
Last Tuesday Blizzard blocked the accounts of many World of Warcraft players. The bans were supposed to last from 1 to 4 weeks and were the effect of exploiting a loophole in the game that allows for "printing money."
The catch was that most of the affected people had no idea what exactly they had done to deserve being banned. The developers' message did not state what the glitch was about. Perhaps this was deliberate - giving the exact reason would have enabled other users to use the exploit, although a wave of bans would probably have deterred most potential "cheaters."
Nevertheless, it is hardly surprising that the banned players were frustrated by the punishment for an unnamed "offense." They also quickly found the source of the problem.
The disastrous effects of tailoring
The tailor profession is not a novelty introduced in Dragonflight. However, it has been significantly revamped in the expansion, and the ability to craft items always arouses the curiosity of players, even if it is limited to cosmetic elements.
All players banned by Blizzard in connection with the mysterious "exploit" had were tailors. So they were quick to associate that the problem could have been be a bug related to Azureweave and Chronocloth.
Both materials are valuable enough for WoW to limit their use by "freezing" them so that they can only be used once a day. At least in theory...
Invisible frostbite
As it turned out, the lock on the use of Azureweave and Chronocloth could be reset itself after performing trivial actions. Even entering a dungeon or joining an existing group enabled us to use these materials multiple times per day (via Icy Veins)
One might ask: why haven't many players noticed that the "freeze" on the use of these fabrics ends much earlier than it should? Well, Dragonflight brought another bug - the interface of WoW hasn't showed how often Azureweave and Chronocloth could be used.
Both glitches had been present since at least the expansion's release, but Blizzard seems to have forgotten to publicize the issue. As a result, many players were unaware of the vulnerability.
Blizzard apologizes and revokes bans
Bans for exploiting the invisible loophole were coldly received by the community around WoW. After all, according to fans, it was Blizzard that neglected the issue and now punished players for a bug overlooked by the developers, who also failed to inform about the existence of the "exploit."
Fortunately, today the studio published an announcement, in which it was reported that the bans for most users had been withdrawn. The studio admitted that most of the punished players may have unknowingly benefited from this tailoring bug.
The exceptions are, as they put it, "the most blatant cases," in which there can be considerable doubt about the innocence of those affected (read: people who earned a suspiciously high amount on tailoring). In addition, some players report that they have lost gold earned through the profession, although this applies to very few people.
