Wildcopper

Rain's right... if you just ban them, they will just come back with another account. If you squelch them but make them believe they are still operational, they will stand there forever doing... nothing, because all their spam is stopped by the server.

It's easy to test... - Cast on a mob, look the log, note the damage values. - Unequip all your spell damage gear, cast on a mob, look the log, note the damage values. Make an average with the values, and if it's significantly lower when you don't have any spell damage gear, then yes, you are right. Otherwise, you're victim of a placebo effect.

My "I don't care" comment was about account security, not donations. I was meaning, I don't care if someone hacks the database, as my login/password are unique to this place. I don't mind making donations if I'm sure the receiver is ok. I'm not like the current generation which wants everything for free. Sorry for the suspicion then, but can't you then easily detect those /who spammers and ban them ?

Amusingly, they are spamming in game chat again for donations right now... Personally, I don't really care much. My login/password are unique to this game and not used anywhere else, so I'm safe on that part too. I just can't wait for Blizzard to release the official Classic servers...

I'm a bit suspicious about this gold issue myself. I have several alts that I created to get the name and which have never been online more that 1 minute at creation time. A few days ago, I logged one of those alts for the first time, and guess what? It had a gold seller advertisement in the mail!!! I immediately checked all the other similar alts, and same thing, from the same seller. Please tell me... how the HELL can a gold farmer know the names of characters which were only logged 1 minute or less into the game and never again? Definitely not with /who... so HOW? Inside job? Someone having access to the character database seems to give out info and possibly more, most likely for profit.

They should alternatively just offer the option to permanently shut off a character from world PvP. Those characters would never ever be able to attack the opposite faction (PCs and non offensive NPCs), and also never ever be able to be attacked by the other faction PCs in the game world. It's a one way trip too, no coming back from that decision. Those people could still PvP when they decide to in the BGs or in PvP areas like the arena of course. I for one know I would do that without thinking twice on my chars.

There's another problem: people leave for other places which have PvE servers because they get tired of the constant ganking during leveling by much higher level players.

The problem is you don't (or no longer) offer the PvE server alternative. Some days indeed, the ganking is so bad, with corpse/graveyard camping, that I simply log out and go do something else. And no, it's not worse on Blizzard servers. This server is free, meaning a lot of kids, immature people and trolls will play. And of course, Blizzard offers the PvE server alternative so it's a non issue.

The title says it all. The priest is controlled by a veteran WoW player who started on November 23., 2004.