But that elf-mage told me she was 18, officer!
World Of Warcraft is not widely thought to be the favored online game of perverts -- because it's not. Most perverts who enjoy virtual-sexual roleplaying situations subscribe flock to corners of Second Life, after all. However, a guild, composed of a couple of bad apples amongst the millions of World of Warcraft subscribers, was shutdown recently, for engaging in suspected questionable online activities involving minors.
The ex-WoW guild was called 'Abhorrent Taboo.' In a introductory forum post soliciting new members, the guild described themselves, and their interests, using the handy acronym ERP ('erotic roleplay'). Amongst a slew of extreme perversions that will not be mentioned out of decency, the guild promoted an activity they called 'extreme ageplay.'
'Ageplay' is an 'erotic roleplay' situation where participants pretend to be ages that they are not.
According to a post on the official World of Warcraft forums, a gamer (not a representative of Blizzard) stated that a member of 'Abhorrent Taboo' was 'caught' virtually-propositioning a underage gamer for erotic roleplay. The underage gamer took screenshots showing a member of 'Abhorrent Taboo' continuing to proposition the gamer for 'ERP' even after he/she stated she was only 12 years of age.
The posting of these screenshots is what prompted Blizzard to shutdown the guild, according to the theorizer on the forum.
However, it seems that the sex-guild has now reformed -- just with a different name. And while it is impossible for players of World of Warcraft to verify real-world age in-game, in order to prevent underage membership, the organizers of this freakish sex guild do not seem to mind.
Hopefully Blizzard will ban the reformed guild as well, while potential problems can still be prevented.
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If Blizzard can't be responsible enough to get rid of these types of subscribers, I'll be damned if I'm going to have my good name associated with a game that endorses these predators. And it *IS* endorsing it if you didn't get rid of them Blizzard.
Let this be a warning to that company. If Blizzard leaves them in the game and the media starts announcing that, where everyone will wonder what kind of perverts we ALL are for playing it, I'll find myself another hobby, thanks. This ain't worth the hassle but thanks for letting me know.
I cancelled my account and my familys already. I was on Ravenholtd and we have been complaining for 7 mths now about these sickos.
If these people used credit cards to pay for their membership, delete all accounts that use that credit card, blacklist said credit card numbers and call the police.
If they used pre-paid cards bought at a games store perhaps Blizzard should start requesting mailing information for those pre-paid cards sold. They could even give give out credits or some other bonus for frequent and loyal customers.
And couldn't they have some script that monitors all the dialog to catch keywords to lead them to the perps?
Maybe a bunch of people could just get together and ransack the villages where these miscreants live.
Still, Blizzard has to step up and do some work.
Opening a ticket never did anything. So yeah Blizzard did nothing till other sites were notified of the goings on and screenies of said actions were posted.
The disbanding of the guild has done nothing but given them a chance to close ranks under a new name and be secretive. Nothing has changed they still have minors in the guild and I doubt they will stop e-sexing minors outside of the guild.
I played wow for two years . Cancelled my account because of this. So yeah I can say Blizz is doing nothing.
Yeah Blizz is doing a bang up job of trying to keep them from the game.
Maybe clean thier own house first huh?