Over 320K Warcraft III, Diablo II Accounts Banned

Blizzard is slinging the mystical, magical Ban Hammer at cheating gamers.

Wednesday Blizzard announced on the Battle.Net forums that it whipped out the trusty Ban-Hammer and knocked out over 320,000 Warcraft III and Diablo II accounts. The company said that the banned gamers were found to be violating the service's holy Terms of Use. Those receiving a first offense will be suspended for a meager 30 days. Repeat offenders will see their CD keys banned for eternity.

"We would like all players to remember that abuse of unintended mechanics and/or use of third party programs is a violation of the agreement made when signing on to Battle.net, and can subject your account to disciplinary action up to and including a permanent ban of its access to the service," Blizzard stated.

Blizzard goes on to say that these types of activities can severely impact the stability of our servers. "We’ll continue to aggressively monitor Battle.net in order to protect the service and its players from the harmful effects of cheating," the company warned.

Blizzard asks that anyone with information related to cheating gamers to contact the company's "hacks team" at this email address, or through this online Hacks Report Form. The information can include sites responsible for distributing hacks, and replays of a newly available hack.

It's Hammer time!