A several days ago, heated debates raged regarding account sharing during the Battle.Net Warcraft III Season IV qualification. There was no specific rule regarding this, and several players who participated did not deny the fact that they shared accounts. All three realms (for North America, Europe and Asia) had accounts that did this to acquire more wins and experience points on their ladder run.

The LAN Regional Finals for the North American Players was scheduled to be held in New York on November 11th, 2006. However, it was postponed as mentioned in an email was sent out by Blizzard Entertainment's Associate eSports Manager.

Hello,

Due to an ongoing investigation regarding players cheating for the qualifications of the North American regional, we will be postponing the date of the tournament to December 9th, 2006. I will be in contact via email in the next few days to provide an update on the situation, and on flight schedules and accommodations. I apologize for any inconvenience this will cause and for the abruptness of this matter. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

Associate eSports Manager
Blizzard Entertainment

Statement by Jonathan "hoorai.KiWiKaKi" Garneau, ranked 9th:
"I'm happy that this tournament is delayed since everything works out for me. I had another small LAN at the same time. Also, all the good players that deserve a spot will probably get another chance to get in, like my friend Axslav, who I think is the best all race player (by far)."

Statement by Cong "aG.Strifecro" Shu, ranked 4th:
"I hope this can be taken as a lesson to various people. As the Season IV ladder came to a close, a few people ruined the whole integrity of the ladder. Some accounts in the top 16 were not even close to being leveled by the person who was going to qualify. Hopefully many people will be disqualified from the regional tournament and be replaced with more deserving people. The qualification for the regionals should be based on whether the person made a certain rank, not how many talented friends they had to help them. How good the person is should not matter and should not be an excuse simply because they felt they deserved it. I'm happy that Blizzard will be taking action on this issue."

The event will still be held, but it's uncertain if participants will remain the same. This might be difficult for Blizzard, due to there being no rule about account sharing to directly consider it as "cheating". Despite this, a lot of players are now relieved that Blizzard finally decided to address this ongoing problem. A sizeable amount of players complained about the problem, which finally resulted in action by Blizzard.

UPDATE: Blizzard has released this statement on Battle.net's webpage:

Statement for Inquiries Regarding Cheating in Season 4

Blizzard has determined that some qualifiers for the Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne Season 4 regional finals used exploits to unfairly advance their position in the ladder during qualification rounds. Therefore, the highest ranked players who competed fairly during qualification rounds will be identified, contacted, and invited to the tournament. To give everyone time to prepare for the Americas regional final, we’ve postponed the event until December 9, 2006.

Blizzard is committed to promoting fair play in its games and will strive to ensure that all of its tournaments are conducted on a level playing field for all competitors.