Curse

Essence Snow · May 06, 2010, 04:50 PM // 16:50

Agreed...it feels as if you're leaving out some relavent details. Seems lucky all of your accounts didn't get the bans seeing that you ask for proof of wrong doing and they go to look and somehow the relating logs have been hacked.

An analogy would be if I were to buy a stereo out of a truck on 41st street. Do I know for a fact it is illegal? Not really. Should I know it is illegal? Yes. Even though I did not steal the stereos, am I guilty? Yes. If I get arrested do they have just cause to do so? Yes. Does my defense of not knowing it was illegal hold water? No. If I ask they to go find the stereo, and they find that it has been burned, does that make me look even more guilty? Yes. Are people going to feel sorry for me when I cry about false charges/arrest? No.

Long of the short...if something seems off/wrong/immoral, you probably shouldn't participate in it.

Arduin · May 06, 2010, 04:51 PM // 16:51

So when did you buy the tome. When did you get banned? That link to presearing.com describes events in 2007. Did you wait for 3 years to appeal a ban?

Mora · May 06, 2010, 05:01 PM // 17:01

Your timing seems a bit off.

Gaile posted on the pre-searing forums to clarify on November 15, 2007.
You posted here and wiki on May 06, 2010.
You claim you contacted support a few months ago.

"that I, who only bought 1 item, got permnanently banned a year after the facts"

So, you bought it in 2007, got banned in 2008, and contact/post in 2010?

If Gaile claims she remembers it, the report was recent. I doubt your case was so important that she remembers after 2-3 years.

Killed u man · May 06, 2010, 05:04 PM // 17:04

@Essence,

I could agree with your analogy, as long as you change it to this:

Quote:

An analogy would be if I were to buy a stereo out of a truck on 41st street. On the street corner, there is a police office with a sign saying that all the stuff out of the truck is tolerated *you wont go to jail for buying it*. Do I know for a fact it is illegal? Not really, but if the police themselves say it's ok to buy them... Should I know it is illegal? No, because the current policy made by the authority (the police) seems to tolerate it. Even though I did not steal the stereos, am I guilty? Yes, at the end of the day I did buy an exploited item. But I dind't do it knowingly. Even after checking the authorities for anwsers.

Gaile herself said they wouldn't ban for these items. Even after the policy, there was no mention of banning whatsoever (unless you were directly involved in the exploit obviously).

@ Arduin,

I think I got banned about a year and half ago (not exactly sure anymore). I bought the item 1-2 weeks BEFORE the policy change.

To give a quick, rough timeline:

7-14 days before the policy changes: Influx of new items into Pre-Searing. People wonder what the hell is going on, everyone is being very cautious.
Within the next days, the general consensus becomes: Either a new update, or the remnants of an old exploit (someone left his pre-searing character in the guild hall during the old glitch). When a new section on the offical fansite gets opened titled: 'Exotic Items', promoting the trade of these new items, everyone assumes they were safe. (People were still cautious, but in now way did people think they would get banned)
Hundreds of people buy and sell tomes, green NF items, etc...

Policy changes: Gaile releases the new info regarding these items. I move my character to post Searing straight away. (Could have been a few days before or after, don't remember exactly)

Over a year after the policy changes: I get banned for abusing an in-game exploit. Having completely forgotten about the Pre-Searing fiasco, I send an email requestion more information.

Then in the next months/years (So about 1.5 years now?) I've been sending emails to support requesting the unbanning of my acount.

So I appealed straight away when I was banned, but I got banned over a year after the commited 'crimes'... And that was been going on untill now...

I first contacted Gaile on the first of Oktober 2009 I think. (A few days before my birthday), this was already after a year of struggling with support...

SlipknotOFA · May 06, 2010, 05:04 PM // 17:04

Mama said there willl be days like thissss mama said mama said lol....

NerfHerder · May 06, 2010, 05:04 PM // 17:04

Well, now that I know it was a tome, thats not something everyone knows you cant get in pre. Changes things a bit. Even though thats common knowledge to me, I dont expect anyone else to know that. If thats the whole truth and nothing but the truth, then yeah you got the raw end of the deal. Im actually surpised it wasnt just a 3 day suspension. Thats one hell of a punishment.

Arduin · May 06, 2010, 05:10 PM // 17:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

I think I got banned about a year and half ago (not exactly sure anymore). I bought the item 1-2 weeks BEFORE the policy change.

----

So I appealed straight away when I was banned, but I got banned over a year after the commited 'crimes'... And that was been going on untill now...

I first contacted Gaile on the first of Oktober 2009 I think. (A few days before my birthday), this was already after a year of struggling with support...

If you are truthful in your story, Killed u man, I'd say Anet was too harsh in banning you.

However, it is not my place to be the judge on this

dsielschott · May 06, 2010, 05:10 PM // 17:10

As you have been told many times, we will not reinstate your account. There is nothing to "figure out." You used an exploit; the account is forever tainted and it will remain closed. -- Gaile 01:26, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

ok I don't care what the policy said... think about it... buying a tome in pre.... that right there should tell u that this is not a good idea...... you should have thought to yourself, "hey wait a min. they dont drop in pre, I wonder how they got it?"

and because you KNEW that tomes didnt drop in pre you bought it for a MUCH HIGHER price.... again that means that you knew something was up....

and if you want to say the rules didnt say anything about it again cause apparently thats all you have going for u... then look at it this way... ..... marijoana is illegal, however I can still get it, I know I am not allowed to but I still can and unless I get caught then I am alright.... before the stuff was illegal people had it everywhere and when the law changed and you still had it you still got in trouble for the purchase u made before the law changed.....

SOOOOOO basically what im sayin is: - you are mad that you knowing bought an item that you shouldn't have.... you got caught, you got in trouble, and now you want to appeal the decision because "the rules didnt say anything about it"......

my ONE response to that: you knew it wasnt supposed to be there and u knew they had to use an exploit to get it there.... so sorry bad judgment call on buyin the item but you did and you should get punished for it..... sorry just my feelings

@ Nerf Hearder

if he bought the item at 20k above post searing going rate then he KNEW WITHOUT A DOUBT that the item shouldnt be in pre.....

Killed u man · May 06, 2010, 05:12 PM // 17:12

If there's one last thing I should mention:

The reason I bought the tome in the first place, was to get a hard rez in pre in order to get Legendary survivor and LDoA. (Something which was sought after)

I admit that this was however unique, because noone else achieved this before.

BUT one of the first things I suggested to the support/Gaile was to delete the character in question (I didn't upload anything to HoM). On top of that, with HoM being acount-wide now, there shouldn't be any issues whatsoever.

Edit:

@ Upier:

Quote:

14. TERMINATION

(a) NC Interactive reserves the right to suspend or terminate this Agreement (including your Software license and your Account) immediately and without notice if you breach this Agreement or willfully infringe any third party intellectual property rights, or if we are unable to verify or authenticate any information you provide to us, or upon game play, chat or any player activity whatsoever which is, in our sole discretion, inappropriate and/or in violation of the spirit of the Game(s) as described in the Rules of Conduct.

Should NC Interactive decide to suspend or terminate this Agreement with a User under any circumstances, the User will lose access to your Account.

(b) You agree that if the Service or your Account is suspended, terminated or cancelled for any reason or length of time, you are not entitled to any reimbursement or refund of any fees or unused access time.

I never broke the rules. The rules changed, and I broke the new rules in the past. As someone said, it was a retro-active breach, and there was nothing I could have done to prevent it.

It's as much as saying people who got run from Beacons Perch to Drok's should get perm banned if anet changed their policy saying it was not allowed anymore. Can you imagine everyone getting banned now for getting run to Drok's weeks/years ago when it was still concidered legal at that time?

upier · May 06, 2010, 05:12 PM // 17:12

http://www.guildwars.com/support/leg...-agreement.php

Quote:

14. TERMINATION

(a) NC Interactive reserves the right to suspend or terminate this Agreement (including your Software license and your Account) immediately and without notice if you breach this Agreement or willfully infringe any third party intellectual property rights, or if we are unable to verify or authenticate any information you provide to us, or upon game play, chat or any player activity whatsoever which is, in our sole discretion, inappropriate and/or in violation of the spirit of the Game(s) as described in the Rules of Conduct.

Should NC Interactive decide to suspend or terminate this Agreement with a User under any circumstances, the User will lose access to your Account.

(b) You agree that if the Service or your Account is suspended, terminated or cancelled for any reason or length of time, you are not entitled to any reimbursement or refund of any fees or unused access time.

But since you are asking for OUR, completely irrelevant, opinion:
You sound like a RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO, so I'll side with A.Net on this.

snaek · May 06, 2010, 05:13 PM // 17:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by killed u man

Over a year after the policy changes: I get banned for abusing an in-game exploit. Having completely forgotten about the Pre-Searing fiasco, I send an email requestion more information.

i'm glad to hear that in 2011, all the 2010 gw botters will be banned. *sigh of relief* gw is saved.

fail moar anet.

**cosyfiep** · May 06, 2010, 05:23 PM // 17:23

I believe they waited too long to ban you, banning for something like this should be done in a timely fashion (dont care if you did what you did or not---waiting more than a few months to ban people is wrong). Should your account be terminated, no, and since you have been out for what over a year now, I believe that you have served your ban time.

only MY opinion.

Wicked Sweet · May 06, 2010, 05:25 PM // 17:25

I remember reading a post on presearing forums about another person that got a ban for having a tome on his account and gaile called him on the phone and he got his account back so it is not like they have never unbanned people. (I myself got a permaban for farming too much in bergen hotsprings because they thought i was a bot and after 2 weeks of looking at my account they relized that I just have no life and gave me my account back)

coil · May 06, 2010, 05:32 PM // 17:32

if the tome has been removed and the title/advancement removed and the char moved to post, where is the issue here?

you can't expect every player to know that tomes aren't allowed in presearing. that said anet shouldnt be biased on certain cases if its an assumed "veteran player". all players should be treated equally, be it a completely new player or an alpha beta tester. and since you can't expect a person who just installed to know that tomes aren't allowed in pre, you shouldn't hold anyone else to any higher a standard.

but that's all meaningless when you have ex-dupers that never got banned (including whatever they hoarded from duping) and characters still remaining in game that have both LDOA and Legendary survivor.

imo, anet can't justify a perma ban on a person who bought a tome until anet perma bans the above. as long as the above are still in game, who gives a shit if you bought a tome which was later destroyed and you're out of pre with no double title.

maybe if gaile weren't wasting her time with this support ticket she could get to all those tickets where people forgot their gw password and can't change it from their master account so they can't work on their accounts !! o wait.....

Tullzinski · May 06, 2010, 05:32 PM // 17:32

Killed, IMO the time delay involved is the issue.

However there was no timeline provided for in the policy, ANET is using its own discretion on it and therefore you are screwed.

Really do not see the harm in unbanning the account, since it was moved to post. Maybe ANET is just pissed at you for some other things? Campaign to flood GW1 with bots perhaps? Which is working very nicely by the way as evidenced by the other thread.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

If there's one last thing I should mention:

The reason I bought the tome in the first place, was to get a hard rez in pre in order to get Legendary survivor and LDoA. (Something which was sought after)

I believe this is never possible anyway. A hard res would not enable you to get survivor, since once you die survivor is done.

Martin Alvito · May 06, 2010, 05:37 PM // 17:37

The problem with ANet's policies on the banhammer has always been non-transparency.

If you read the EULA, it basically reserves to ANet the right to terminate your service for any reason whatsoever. From the player's perspective, this is problematic. I would like to spend my in-game time efficiently and adjust my behavior in response to changing conditions, but ANet reserves the right to determine that this week's "efficient" behavior is an exploit and ban me for it.

Some cases are obviously "exploits" and against the rules, but the obvious cases are not always enforced due to costs. Some cases are gray areas, and in those cases ANet's "common sense" test is no test at all. It posits some universal moral code that we all subscribe to, but I can't come up with such a code that covers anything other than murder. Even obvious items like theft, rape and adultery have been defined differently by various cultures.

It should not be surprising to you that arbitrary and capricious acts occur, given an arbitrary and capricious standard and the lack of an outside appeals process. This is likely to continue, as Legal is almost certainly behind the lack of transparency.

In your specific case, if the facts are as you have stated then this is a case of an ex post facto law specifically prohibited by Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution, and ANet's ethnocentric "common sense" test should therefore indicate that their action is unjust.

Since this is obvious, it does beg the question of whether the facts are in fact as you have stated. Hence the skepticism of some posters.

t00115577 · May 06, 2010, 05:41 PM // 17:41

Ignorance is not a valid defence, you knew that you shouldnt be able to get a tome in pre. Your an experienced player and pretending that you didnt know it was hacked is just stupid.

You broke the rules, you got punished, live with it.

majoho · May 06, 2010, 05:51 PM // 17:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by Killed u man

I never broke the rules.

But you did.

Also in these kinds of cases we usually aren't getting the full story.

Killed u man · May 06, 2010, 06:01 PM // 18:01

The thing is I don't believe I did. That's also the point of this thread.

I bought an exploited item which I dind't know was exploited. Sure, the item wasn't naturally in Pre-Searing, but neither were many other items, of which Anet specifically said they tolerate them (GH glitch).

The point here being that everything indicated that the item was fine, just like the next XX ectos you buy in ToA. There had been a policy before which clearly stated that Anet does not ban for these items, and frankly simply doesn't care. (Aka tolerate)

It was only after the policy changes it became clear these items were both hack and thus illegal. But even then there was no wording of banning people, which is completely fair, because why ban people for buying items they don't know were exploited?

I never broke any rule. The rules changes after I had bought the item.

On top of that, I thought I was in the clear. For one and a half year, things went fine. I got no emails from support, I obviously did not send in any emails myself, and I completely abided by Gaile's very own new policy.
Yet then I still got banned.

What should I have done then? Not having bought the item is not an option, because again, the item was not concidered illegal at that time. (Not by the EULA, not by Anet, not by Presearing.com and not by Gaile Gray herself)

I did my very best to do what Gaile told us to. I deleted the item, I moved the character to post-searing and thats it.

And was a perm ban the best and only option for this? Was deleting the character, or simply giving me a temp ban, or even a warning not good enough? (Remember, this was already a year after the facts)

untitled2005 · May 06, 2010, 06:18 PM // 18:18

If you just want some sympathy votes, you should find plenty here. However, as an average gamer, I am 100% for ANET to take a ZERO tolerance stance against any exploit including buying exploited items. No ifs, buts, maybes, a blanket policy is needed to ensure the integrity of the greater player community.

It also looks to me that you knowingly bought the exploited tome. You were more than an average game since you were after titles such as Legendary survivor and LDoA. If something looks too good to be true, it is usually another scam. You just made a bad judgment. Accept it and move over.