Multiboxers Caught In Recent Ban Wave

There was a recent wave of bans that Blizzard has sent out, for which a small, yet larger-than-usual group of multiboxers have been caught up in. Based on the information that is known, both Retail and Classic players have been affected, and the vast majority of multiboxers who were banned seem to have been using HotKeyNet, a free multiboxing program that's been around for over a decade and is discussed on this very forum. This does not look to be a widespread ban against HotKeyNet, since plenty of users were not affected, but at this time, it's not known what triggered the ban, although it's likely going to be a good bit of criteria that will never be revealed by Blizzard (it never is, and for good reason).

In addition, if you're a HotKeyNet user, then I would suggest brushing up on what the program is capable of, yet should not be used while multiboxing in World of Warcraft: http://www.hotkeynet.com/wow/wow-rules.html

Furthermore, throughout all of the "discussions" about this ban wave that I've read, so far, on social media sites, there are obviously those who dislike multiboxing and are looking to spread misinformation about the playstyle. So, I'd like to simply point out that Blizzard has always allowed both hardware and software-assisted multiboxing since 2004. Not only can you find a metric ton of evidence for this by simply Googling the information, we have our own "Blues on Boxing" sticky thread documenting what they've said over the years, and Blizzard has somewhat recently added an entry to their own knowledgebase, on the official site.

Finally, we're still not allowing individual "I've Been Banned!" threads on this forum and will continue to lock them when we see them appear, since they have never, in the history of this forum, proved to be useful, and just degrade into accusations and arguments. With that, the only thing you can do is to appeal the ban through the standard process that Blizzard provides to everyone who is banned, and then wait to hear back from them. As always, when a ban wave occurs, you can expect that the queue times rise as appeals flood in, and so it may take several days to hear back from Blizzard.

Any further updates will be posted in this thread, but it will remain locked.

As of earlier today, there are mixed reports from players who were affected by the aforementioned ban wave for using HotKeyNet.

Some HKN users have reported that their permanent ban(s) have been changed to 6-month ban(s), while others report that their ban(s) have been lifted entirely.