In an energetic "This is why you can't get the good stuff" post, the studio announced that it will ban 120,000 "bad accounts" for WoW Classic and make it harder to create Death Knight characters (opens in new tab). The changes will begin next week.

"During regional maintenance next week, we will revert the Death Knight character creation restrictions back to Wrath of the Lich King Classic," Blizzard said. This restriction was part of the original release of Wrath of the Lich King in 2008, but Blizzard lifted it in last year's WoW Classic release of the same expansion (opens in a new tab), allowing anyone to play immediately at level 55, allowing the massive amount of grinding work could be skipped.

Not surprisingly, the class was a huge draw for botters, who were eager to take whatever advantage they could get: 35 Death Knight bots (open in new tab) roamed the game, targeting players and generally reporting that no one had any fun at all.

Well, the game is now in the hands of the "Death Knight Bots.

Well, no more, as Blizzard "considered it very important [...] to make sure that anyone who wants to jump into this iconic expansion can do so with as few barriers as possible." While we thought that allowing "unlimited Death Knight creation with new accounts" proved to be "an attractive vector for malicious actors to enter the game and start exploiting it very quickly." After the initial hustle and bustle of the launch, Blizzard says its priorities have changed.

Players are not necessarily convinced, with some respondents to Blizzard's post noting that the change only means that botters will now buy character boosts (open in new tab) before rolling Death Knights. Blizzard will benefit enormously, and Firestar3689's (open in new tab) comment got the top vote in the r/ClassicWoW thread announcing this change! Blizzard forum user TippyTap (opens in new tab) also said that botters have been "ruining large parts of the game for months now" and asked why Blizzard "has taken so long to do anything."

In other words, Blizzard has some goodwill it needs to regain. Still, some players are optimistic: one Blizzard forum user named Holyseizure (opens in new tab) called it a "direct nerf to botters" and a "good decision." Another user, Septicflesh (open in new tab), said, "Thanks Blizzard Bay." However, the studio will probably need to reduce the botter population even more significantly before other players will buy into the idea.