Blizzard bans 320,000 from Battle.net

While Blizzard has spent months prepping its newly revamped Battle.net service, it hasn't stopped paying attention to the original Battle.net. As evidence of this, the publisher yesterday announced a massive wave of account bans for the service that still operates Warcraft III, Diablo II, and Starcraft.

According to a post on the official Battle.net forums, Blizzard recently suspended or permanently banned 320,000 accounts for Warcraft III and Diablo II, citing terms of use violations. First offenders were slapped with a 30-day suspension, while accounts with prior problems had their CD keys banned permanently. The post didn't specify what the violated terms were but instead reminded players 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."

It's possible for players to inadvertently run afoul of Battle.net. Blizzard hands down temporary restrictions for creating or joining new games too frequently (the publisher suggests staying in new games for 10 minutes to avoid problems) or creating dummy characters just to store items and weapons. For more on what is and isn't allowed, check out the full Battle.net terms of use.