A number of Diablo III players have been banned recently, but a small group is making claim that they were banned for using the Wine compatibility layer on Linux. The Wine community, distressed at the banning pattern, flooded onto Blizzard's forums in efforts to garner an official reply. Naturally, the entire process has stirred up more controversy for the already entrenched community.

Blizzard's community manager, Bashiok, eventually responded:

"We’ve extensively tested for false positive situations, including replicating system setups for those who have posted claiming they were banned unfairly. We’ve not found any situations that could produce a false positive, have found that the circumstances for which they were banned were clear and accurate, and we are extremely confident in our findings.

Playing the game on Linux, although not officially supported, will not get you banned – cheating will."

The resulting counter-response has ultimately been in Blizzard's favor. Fans are more willing to accept that a small number of cheaters managed to create the uproar, than Blizzard actually banning a subset of their audience for playing on Linux.

What this ultimately says about Diablo III's community is that they are wary and quick to anger due to the way Diablo III's launch has been handled and the state of the game. Blizzard, experienced in the nature of excitable fan-bases, continues to react in a good-natured and professional manner. Hopefully this event proves as they describe and we can all sit back and wait for the next firecracker to go off in the crowd.