Great news for Linux-using World of Warcraft players! If you heard about WoW's banning of Cedega users, then you can imagine how annoying the whole experience must have been for the Innocent gamers who were only meant to play the game through Linux. The good news is that they've unbanned the Cedega users and apologized for the error.

According to a WorldofWar.net post, Blizzard and TransGaming, Cedega's development team were able to figure out what was going on. Apparently, their anti-cheating software mistakenly read Cedega users as cheaters, causing their accounts to be flagged as third-party software users.

Blizzard has since apologized for the error and the trouble the ban has caused Cedega users, and have reinstated the banned accounts related to the fiasco. As a peace offering of sorts, Blizzard has also credited each unbanned Cedega account with 20 days' free play.

We've posted Blizzard's email for you so you can read the apology and the resolution. In the meantime, Cedega users who are still suffering a ban from WoW ought to check the TransGaming website (sourced below) in order to let your name and account be known by TransGaming and subsequently unbanned.

Interested in the apology letter? Click on "Full Article".

This does not bode well for Linux gamers, and it's a weird coincidence that we hear about this a few days after announcing Wine on the site. It seems that Linux-using World of Warcraft players are getting banned left and right.

Current speculation among the members of the WoW community, Linux and non-Linux alike, is an attempt to ban users of third party software who use said software to cheat the game. Unfortunately, users of Cedega, a Windows programs portability app for Linux, has been picked up as a cheating application by Blizzard, leading to the closing of many accounts of Linux users.

Discussion has been ongoing in the forum of TransGaming, Cedega's developer. Currently, Transgaming is working with Blizzard's engineers to resolve the problem and hopefully get the unjustly banned accounts back into a state of gaming readiness. Till then, however, all we can do is wait for TransGaming and Blizzard to do something about it.