WoW Forever player builds “IRS” add-on to audit gold buyers after Blizzard crackdown

A World of Warcraft: Forever fan built an IRS to audit suspicious gold after Blizzard’s promised crackdown stopped short of a ban.

Barely a week ago, Blizzard warned that gold buyers risked permanent bans, with senior game designer Josh Greenfield vowing to “very aggressively punish gold buyers.”

Then two level one characters handed streamer Ziqo 380 and 175 gold on stream, a haul that isn’t some small fry in a beta less than two weeks old, and Blizzard wiped his mage’s gold without touching his account, so players started doing the maths themselves.

The day after Ziqo lost his gold, a viewer told him they had built an addon called IRS, short for Illicit Riches Scanner, and because it hasn’t been published yet, they sent the streamer a beta file directly.

Ziqo could barely believe it and told chat there was no shot anyone had made “a f**king add-on that compares their gold income to see if it looks sus,” then promised it would make sure “all gold that we receive in the future is fully natty, boys.”

The addon weighs the most gold a character has ever held against the income its statistics recorded, from looted coins and quest rewards to vendor and auction house sales, and flags whatever it can’t account for. It also tallies quests, kills, and profession levels as proof of real gameplay, and whenever someone opens a trade, it pops up a check comparing their offer with their recorded income.

Ziqo then turned it on the players around him. A level 12 mage came back fully explained at 39 silver, another character registered as a likely bank alt with 4,186 auctions posted or bought, and a third had too little history to judge.