16,000 banned from Aion in the West
Botters and gold traders turfed out.
NCsoft has executed a lightning raid on Aion servers and banned 16,000 accounts from the MMO in North America and Europe.
The targets of the bans were users of "bots" (automation software commonly used for power-levelling or gold farming), spammers, and people who'd bought or sold gold in the game. According to community manager Andrew Beegle, evidence for the bans was gathered over several weeks.
"We are taking a very hard stance on this issue," he said. An appeal process is in place for players who believe they've been wrongfully banned, but Beegle reminded them that "it is not what 'you' have done on your account, but what the account has done. If your account is shared, purchased, borrowed, or power leveled, it could be the actions of anyone who's ever used the account."