Question about accounts being banned for model editing.. is this a reality?

[MistressX]

Sorry if this has been posted elsewhere. I looked and did not see so I decided to ask.

Me and my hubby have been model editing for a couple of months now - changing the models displayed for certain weapons and armors to make them a little more pleasing to the eye you know? Doing more than that scares us, like the background edits and stuff. I was under the impression that if your changes did not affect what other people saw (Or the stats/etc of the items themselves) then it was something Blizzard more or less turned a blind eye to.

I recently stumbled upon an official forum post in which a player inquired about how 'ok' this practice really is, and a blue replied. In a nutshell he said that people who do this will face punishment against the account (I.E. get banned) if the changes are detected or discovered. He went so far as to quote a line from the TOS that specifically outlined that editing/changing WOW install files was a big no-no. This blue said that the only editing Blizz would not punish people for is that which is done on the UI level.

This of course made my heart go into my stomach as we have over 3 years playtime on our account (we started when WoW started) and even the thought of losing all of that is upsetting for obvious reasons.

Has Blizz decided to actively go after people for model editing? Or was that like all of the other 'rules' that often go ignored when broken? I'm sorry for this thread; I'm sure many of you will read it and laugh.. but if anyone can offer a legit insight into this, I would be most grateful.
Mys

[schlumpf]

No. As always, Blizzard only investigates accounts on reports. And since noone reports you, you wont be banned. Same thing as for botters that are not detected automatically. Just use only graphical mods. Not advantages giving edits.

[Pullefjun]

And a lil' tip is not running around yelling "LUK I HEF TIER9 WITH FULL EPIX LOL" when you actually are a lvl 19 rogue with full greys :>

Or the stats/etc of the items themselves

This however, is not possible. There are some "hack-sellers" that sells stat-changers etc.
They don't work seeing as stats on a weapon are serverside, any change you do will only make it LOOK like you are changing the bonus.

[MistressX]

And a lil' tip is not running around yelling "LUK I HEF TIER9 WITH FULL EPIX LOL" when you actually are a lvl 19 rogue with full greys :>

Well, lol, I'm glad to say I have just a wee bit more sense than that.. I've never done an edit on a toon lower than level 35, and even then I simply changed the sheath position of her weapon.

The main thing that we have done is try and make the utterly boring models of some of the Heroic/Rep epics a little nicer. Nothing is quite the killjoy as equipping your new epic only to see it has the same model as a level 48 blue you vendored years ago.

Other than that, I've made a few weapons sheath on the back (as mentioned above).. that's really about it. They are small changes that simply make what I look at a little nicer - I've never considered nor looked into trying to do more than that. I think the most 'extreme' thing I have done personally is trying out some of the 2H weapon models for 1H weapons. Its kind of scary to see a toon dual wielding 2 Warsong Howling axes...

But yeah, as I said.. reading that people can (and are) get banned for this was kind of scary.