To Be Or Not To Be Banned From World of Warcraft On Cedega (Linux)

Last week, a lot of players that used the Cedega platform in order to run World of Warcraft on Linux discovered that their accounts had been suspended out of the blue, and even as they were playing. Obviously, a torrent of complaints immediately flooded the TransGaming forums (Cedega's authors), accompanied by the notification e-mails sent by Blizzard, motivating that the accounts were closed as a result of using a "third party automation software" (or "bot") in their MMORPG. Us regular folks call such situations "bullshit" - unless Cedega itself was being identified as a "bot" by the Warden spyware anti-cheating application, that runs in parallel with World of Warcraft.

After days of tensed waiting for an official explanation, the guys at Blizzard Europe eventually offered a statement, reassuring in appearance, but utterly contrasting with the Cedega users' complaints:

"We have been testing our security software with Cedega. Cedega was used and tested before the security procedures and during the security procedures. From this testing we have yielded no hits, meaning Cedega, by itself, does not incur an account suspension.

We have accounts of several Cedega users who have been playing normally during the time that these processes are running. Again, these people are not being suspended simply because of using Cedega or Linux.

We are in contact with the people at Cedega and following up with them regarding individual accounts. It is not against the ToS to use Linux or Cedega. We continue to monitor the situation to prevent cases of false positives and to rectify them if they do occur."

Truth be told, there are also plenty of people who are still playing WoW on Cedega without having their accounts suspended (*cough* yet), so it's not that easy to point the finger exclusively at TransGaming, or at Blizzard... or at the players themselves. The investigations continue both on and off the record - the latter suggesting that the Warden software is to blame for producing dubious results when run under Linux / Cedega.

The banned players have no choice but to wait for Blizzard's own conclusion in this matter, hoping that their WoW accounts will be reactivated. And even if, in theory, running the game on Linux / Cedega is perfectly legal, those of you who use this combo might want to consider taking a brake for a few days, until the situation clears up.

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)