How To Play Safe In WOW

Play It Safe

World of Warcraft is a fun game to play however it does have some hidden dangers……! Some gamers who don’t want to do it for themselves and just want instant gold or high end characters have given rise to gold and high level character sellers. These sellers have invented a new in-game ‘door to door’ salesman. They try to sell you their products gold or powerlevelling and as you can imgaine they don’t hold back. They whisper you relentlessly moving you closer to that land of temptation. BUT!!!!! BE WARNED!!! Theses sellers have been known to hack players accounts by getting you to release some personal information.

In one of the guilds i’m part of we once had a member who logged on then filled the gchat with a number of verbal expletives. When we got to the bottom of why, he told us that his bank was empty, his gear gone and no gold left. The pain didn’t end there as all of his characters had been cleared out. The story continued to reveal a couple of days previous he had bought gold from a seller.

I’m sure there are sellers who don’t try to hack you, however personally I would never use any of them and I would recommend you don’t either.

Be safe not sorry!

Some of The Scams

The Cash On Delivery (C.O.D.) Scam: This one is probably the oldest and has more than likely been used by normal players as a joke. However in more serious cases, it’s no joke. How it works is someone sends you a poor item (grey) and selects the C.O.D. option on the in-game mailbox. What happens is the unsuspecting victim who is clicking through all their in-game mail doesn’t see it, and accepts it giving serious gold for a grey item.

The Product Scam:
This is where sellers will use something that is always wanted, like gold. When they sell their product to a ‘sucke…’ I mean buyer they ask you to sign up on their website which usually asks you to reveal some personal information which they can use to hack various things eg. your WOW account, bank account.

The Gift Scam:
This is where a message appears in chat offerening a free epic mount for your opinion on the game, however you have to enter your WOW account details to do it.

The Customer Service Scam:
Here they ask you to provide your game comments on upcoming releases, however not without entering your WOW account details first.

So remember, if it sounds to good to be true then it usually is. If someone is selling you something and needs you to go to their link, don’t just dive on in and do it just because you need it.

‘Think before you link before you dive!’

The Game Bots

Another form where hack attacks have been known is when players purchase and use bots. “I know I should remain impartial with these articles, however I detest those who would use bots and think if you get hacked then you only have yourself to blame.” You have probably seen them and not even realised it. Levelling and farming bots have been on the increase and are quite smart in their operation. However they have their flaws, here’s how to spot them: Bot driven players move in a zig zag fashion rather than a curved more random style of movement.

If you suspect a player, chat to them. Some will not reply however some have auto replies based on the question. Keep chatting asking the same question, if it’s a human player they will respond, people always do. A bot however with auto-replies will say the same thing word for word again and again.

Bots no matter how good work off the combat log which contains more information than some people realise. However objects are harder to deduce. If you see a player bouncing off objects constantly as it moves around then this is a bot using location coordinates defined in the log to move.

Players who sign up for bots are again usually asked for account information, whereby they eventually get hacked.

If you think you spot a bot then report it, you’ll be doing all of us true players of Warcraft a favour.

The Fight Against Scammers

There is plenty of information on the web about scammers and how to avoid them. The stance from Blizzard released in a statement is “players who buy gold are supporting spamming, botting, and keylogging.” Gold, powerlevel and bot buyers are basically part of the ongoing problem as through their purchase they inadvertantly support them. Take gold sellers for instance, a large portion of their gold has probably been acquired from a hacked account, so those that use these services are fuelling the ongoing misery for players.

You should also note that if you use these services you run the risk of having your account banned by Blizzard.

So game safe and have more fun by doing it yourself.
There’s plenty of information out there on how to make gold and level quick legitimately.

There are some guides you can purchase which are more advanced and concise with superb information. These walk you through the game however you still have to do all the work.

Whichever path you choose just don’t buy gold, a pre-paid levelled character or a bot.