GW EULA Questions - Guild Wars Forums

rcelbrechter · Jan 03, 2011, 06:03 PM // 18:03

I am resolving a problem with the administration of Anet and was simply wondering a few thing for clarification.

*Does using Guild Wars Guru auction constitute a breach of EULA?

My take is that it does not since it deals with in-game gold and other considerations. In fact I have often noted that unless a reserve price is listed that the items being auctioned often sell for less than one could sometimes get on the open market. The only advantage is that it takes less time to auction and often the audiance is greater than sitting for days in some major outpost and spamming the trade channel simply to find a buyer.

I have sold and bought a few items in the past however I am not a power user of Guild Wars Guru auctions as I have never really had much to sell.

Bottom line is that this holiday I had my account banned. I had been doing the snowball fights in an effort to earn my 10th maxed title (vanguard). I had over the holiday accumulated some 11 stacks of wintersday presents and suddenly late last Thursday became aware that I could not log onto my account. In contacting Anet they informed me that it was shut down because of a breach in the EULA concerning the accumulation or selling of in game items for real world cash or items of real world value. Unless my account was hacked this is rubbish. I have never sold or aided in the marketing of in game items period.

The only question remains is if my infrequent use of Guild Wars Guru auctions constitutes a breach of EULA where no exchange of items of real world value ever occured. I look upon Guild Wars Guru auctions as an extension of the very limited in-game trade channel that frees one from sitting in a single outpost forever trying to sell an item.

Next Question. Why not incorporate an auction house in the game of Guild Wars. One is not always going to find a buyer of excess items sitting in LA or Kamadan for days on end.

I feel my account has been very unfairly banned and unfortunately the EULA also states that Anet can do any darn thing they want with regards to ones account without repercussion. I have presented my case and simply hope that justice prevails. I will say this incident will flavor my future feelings about a company I once felt a great loyalty to. This entire incident is simply sad.

Ronald C. Elbrechter
Spring, Texas

Star_Jewel · Jan 03, 2011, 07:22 PM // 19:22

I'm not much of an authority, but as far as I know, no GW Auctions does not breach the EULA; I don't think it would exist if it did. Hopefully a moderator here can state something official.

How much had you traded via the auctions prior to your ban? Did you have any in-game chat supporting the trades that were set up via the auctions? Did you have any lopsided trades?

If your nose is clean, I think you just got hit with an accidental flag. Thread after thread indicate that the flagging system is far from perfect. Open a ticket with support, supply as much information as you can to prove your ownership of the account and your auction activity. It may take some back-and-forth, but if you're transparent, persistent, and polite, you might get your account back.

Unfortunately, this thread might get closed. Best of luck!

Lordshonsu · Jan 03, 2011, 07:30 PM // 19:30

well i dont really know how well i can answer this but using a third party site dedicated to guild wars as a medium to sell items for ingame money shouldnt be a breach of EULA. it shouldnt be a breach unless they know u sold or acquired an item for rwm (real world money) or rwv (real world value).

also a quote from u "I have never sold or aided in the marketing of in game items period." this could apply to the use of a third party medium to buy and/or sell items. The only way players can avoid getting their account banned is if some1 from Anet makes a statement about using a third party medium to sell/buy items. as long as the only things in the trade is for ingame stuff and nothing else

otherwise the only other way i can see that ur account got banned was u did something during ur snowball farming sessions that they noticed was bot-like. The "Snowball Dominance" quest is the number one bot farming area during wintersday so a lot of Anet's attention was watching ppl doing that quest for bots.

mario910 · Jan 03, 2011, 07:32 PM // 19:32

In EULA we can read about trading GW items/account for IRL goods. No less, no more. They didn't write about external organising in-game trades, so actually what is not forbidden, this is allowed. Additionaly a lot of ppl from Anet stuff had been written on Guru forum and I didn't noticed any complaining about Auctions/Trade section.

Kosar The Cruel · Jan 03, 2011, 07:32 PM // 19:32

Most likely this thread will be closed but, oh well...

I don't see how using any auction site would be considered a breach of the EULA. Anet didn't provide us with any sort of 'auction house' so the players took it upon themselves to create their own. It's not like we're paying a fee to use these sites and we're certainly not using real world money.

rcelbrechter · Jan 03, 2011, 07:35 PM // 19:35

I hope the thread does not get prematurly deleted.

My hopes had been more to get illumination upon Guild Wars Guru auctions than the ban itself. I have disected the entire thing and my particpation in the auctions here is the only thing other than my accumulation of the stacks of presents. They were really the result of my push to earn my vanguard title at this oppertune moment in time.

To me it made more sense to simply not open them as it takes less space to store a single item than to open them and try to juggle my somewhat cramped storage area. I had planned to give a few to guildies and friends and maybe keep something like 5 or 6 stacks for a push to my own sweet tooth, party animal, and drunkard titles. As well I report drop rates and had hoped to do something like open then en-mass and simply make a single update to the Guild Wars Wiki site rather than several over a longer period of time.

This thread was really about EULA and Guild Wars Guru Auctions. As long as real world value is not traded then GWG auctions should not in the least be against EULA. I probably became a victom of their less than perfect flagging system. In any case it has cost me my ability to get this years holiday mask. I am less than happy about this.

If they are fair they will see the transparency of my account and my past actions. I leave this in God's hands and I am sure my future dealings will simply be a result of how fair they are to restoring an injustice that has occured.

Ronald C. Elbrechter
Spring, Texas

MisterB · Jan 03, 2011, 07:41 PM // 19:41

First question: No, neither GWGuru auctions nor Ventari's breach the EULA, and the mods will shut down any threads or auctions that are found to be in violation. You need to contact NCSoft support. They make mistakes.

Second question: ANet were planning to add more trade improvements as far back as 2006, but Party Search is as far as they got. There was also the Xunlai Market buried in the .dat, but that obviously never went live. I'm guessing that was for GW2.

Also, the Wintersday hat giver will be in LA and Kamadan for a while, so you should be able to get your Wintersday horns and halo from the CC shards in your gifts.

Kattar · Jan 03, 2011, 08:03 PM // 20:03

Quote:

*Does using Guild Wars Guru auction constitute a breach of EULA?

No, it certainly does not. Since this site is listed as an Elite Fansite for Guild Wars, we don't allow or condone anything here that's directly in violation of the EULA. Feel free to contact our auctions admininstrator, Wynthyst if you have further questions.

Quote:

Next Question. Why not incorporate an auction house in the game of Guild Wars. One is not always going to find a buyer of excess items sitting in LA or Kamadan for days on end.

It's too much of an investment for them. Most of their work is focused on Guild Wars 2.

Gill Halendt · Jan 03, 2011, 08:33 PM // 20:33

Check the reason for the ban, as stated in the error message at login.

FoxBat · Jan 03, 2011, 09:21 PM // 21:21

Anytime you trade a large number of items to another account without receiving compensation in that same trade, you are flagging an internal alert. If you do this to a large number of different accounts, your behavior looks alot like an RMT seller and can lead to a ban. Trading with accounts flagged for the above behavior can also result in a ban as a buyer. It's likely this happened as Anet does not have ESP nor much means for tracking RMT beyond what happens on their servers.

Snograt · Jan 03, 2011, 10:10 PM // 22:10

In all likelyhood you bought something from the Guru auctions that was being sold by an RMT trader. You got banned for dealing with an RMT trader - the fact that the trade was done via GWG auctions is irrelevant.

The main point is that you are not guilty of anything - srely it's only wrong to deal with an RMT trader if you know they're an RMT trader.

Long story short - keep on at support.

TheRaven · Jan 03, 2011, 10:54 PM // 22:54

As others have already said, there is nothing wrong with using Guru auctions. As long as you sell your ingame items for other ingame items or gold there is no breach of the EULA. Guru as well as other auction sites like gwauctions.org have been up and running with Arenanet's blessing for years.

Here's the most likely scenario that got you banned:

You've given a very valuable ingame gift to a friend or 2 ingame. Perhaps you had a guildmate that is struggling to get his obsidian armor and you decided to help him out at Christmas and gave him some ectos. This by itself won't trigger a flag, but let's say your friend has bought gold in the past and his account already suspicious. To Arenanet you appear to be just another gold seller giving money to your friend. Or lets say you decided to play Santa Claus and gave gifts to lots of friends. Many one-sided trades to many different people will also get you flagged as a gold seller.

If this is what happened then just open a ticket with support and explain what happened. They can review the logs and see that your gift recipients are people in your guild or friends that you are in regular contact with and they'll unban you.

Chrisworld · Jan 03, 2011, 11:55 PM // 23:55

They mentioned the word "accumilation" of items making you suspicious? El oh el, theyre getting desperate trying to ban gold sellers now. i wonder if they have an "accumilation" flag thats been going off causing most of these people to get banned for "no reason".

Lord Dagon · Jan 04, 2011, 12:13 AM // 00:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chrisworld

They mentioned the word "accumilation" of items making you suspicious? El oh el, theyre getting desperate trying to ban gold sellers now. i wonder if they have an "accumilation" flag thats been going off causing most of these people to get banned for "no reason".

i dont think it would be this. Over a few days i easily farmed and had in my storadge 30 wintersday gift stacks at one point. i was also tradeing with my alt(with which i was dual alting SD) having it simpley give em my items and gold that i won for nothing in return. I never received a ban so that makes the accumilation idea of only 11 wintersday stacks unlikely.

more probably was that he sold those stacks(or soemthign else) to someone and later on they got flagged as a RMT and got banned. then anet probably went through trades and flagged any suspicious ones and banned the people.

that's what i think anyway. support will likely clear you if you have done nothing wrong. but if you did you have a very poor chance of getting your account back.

Star_Jewel · Jan 04, 2011, 12:24 AM // 00:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chrisworld

They mentioned the word "accumilation" of items making you suspicious? El oh el, theyre getting desperate trying to ban gold sellers now. i wonder if they have an "accumilation" flag thats been going off causing most of these people to get banned for "no reason".

It would have to be a terribly recent addition, else we would have heard a lot of crying after Halloween. I'm personally sitting on over 25 stacks of ToT bags, and I think that pales in comparison to some of the serious farmers.

There had to have been something else that marked the account first.

Jan 03, 2011, 06:03 PM // 18:03	#1
rcelbrechter Ascalonian Squire Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: E. Texas Gulf Coast Guild: Forced By Death Profession: W/A	GW EULA Questions I am resolving a problem with the administration of Anet and was simply wondering a few thing for clarification. *Does using Guild Wars Guru auction constitute a breach of EULA? My take is that it does not since it deals with in-game gold and other considerations. In fact I have often noted that unless a reserve price is listed that the items being auctioned often sell for less than one could sometimes get on the open market. The only advantage is that it takes less time to auction and often the audiance is greater than sitting for days in some major outpost and spamming the trade channel simply to find a buyer. I have sold and bought a few items in the past however I am not a power user of Guild Wars Guru auctions as I have never really had much to sell. Bottom line is that this holiday I had my account banned. I had been doing the snowball fights in an effort to earn my 10th maxed title (vanguard). I had over the holiday accumulated some 11 stacks of wintersday presents and suddenly late last Thursday became aware that I could not log onto my account. In contacting Anet they informed me that it was shut down because of a breach in the EULA concerning the accumulation or selling of in game items for real world cash or items of real world value. Unless my account was hacked this is rubbish. I have never sold or aided in the marketing of in game items period. The only question remains is if my infrequent use of Guild Wars Guru auctions constitutes a breach of EULA where no exchange of items of real world value ever occured. I look upon Guild Wars Guru auctions as an extension of the very limited in-game trade channel that frees one from sitting in a single outpost forever trying to sell an item. Next Question. Why not incorporate an auction house in the game of Guild Wars. One is not always going to find a buyer of excess items sitting in LA or Kamadan for days on end. I feel my account has been very unfairly banned and unfortunately the EULA also states that Anet can do any darn thing they want with regards to ones account without repercussion. I have presented my case and simply hope that justice prevails. I will say this incident will flavor my future feelings about a company I once felt a great loyalty to. This entire incident is simply sad. Ronald C. Elbrechter Spring, Texas

Jan 03, 2011, 07:35 PM // 19:35	#6
rcelbrechter Ascalonian Squire Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: E. Texas Gulf Coast Guild: Forced By Death Profession: W/A	I hope the thread does not get prematurly deleted. My hopes had been more to get illumination upon Guild Wars Guru auctions than the ban itself. I have disected the entire thing and my particpation in the auctions here is the only thing other than my accumulation of the stacks of presents. They were really the result of my push to earn my vanguard title at this oppertune moment in time. To me it made more sense to simply not open them as it takes less space to store a single item than to open them and try to juggle my somewhat cramped storage area. I had planned to give a few to guildies and friends and maybe keep something like 5 or 6 stacks for a push to my own sweet tooth, party animal, and drunkard titles. As well I report drop rates and had hoped to do something like open then en-mass and simply make a single update to the Guild Wars Wiki site rather than several over a longer period of time. This thread was really about EULA and Guild Wars Guru Auctions. As long as real world value is not traded then GWG auctions should not in the least be against EULA. I probably became a victom of their less than perfect flagging system. In any case it has cost me my ability to get this years holiday mask. I am less than happy about this. If they are fair they will see the transparency of my account and my past actions. I leave this in God's hands and I am sure my future dealings will simply be a result of how fair they are to restoring an injustice that has occured. Ronald C. Elbrechter Spring, Texas Last edited by rcelbrechter; Jan 03, 2011 at 07:39 PM // 19:39..

Jan 03, 2011, 07:41 PM // 19:41	#7
MisterB Furnace Stoker Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Planet Earth, Sol system, Milky Way galaxy Guild: [ban] Profession: W/	First question: No, neither GWGuru auctions nor Ventari's breach the EULA, and the mods will shut down any threads or auctions that are found to be in violation. You need to contact NCSoft support. They make mistakes. Second question: ANet were planning to add more trade improvements as far back as 2006, but Party Search is as far as they got. There was also the Xunlai Market buried in the .dat, but that obviously never went live. I'm guessing that was for GW2. Also, the Wintersday hat giver will be in LA and Kamadan for a while, so you should be able to get your Wintersday horns and halo from the CC shards in your gifts. Last edited by MisterB; Jan 03, 2011 at 07:45 PM // 19:45..

Jan 03, 2011, 10:10 PM // 22:10	#11
Snograt rattus rattus Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: London, UK GMT??0 ??1hr DST Guild: [GURU]GW [wiki]GW2 Profession: R/	In all likelyhood you bought something from the Guru auctions that was being sold by an RMT trader. You got banned for dealing with an RMT trader - the fact that the trade was done via GWG auctions is irrelevant. The main point is that you are not guilty of anything - srely it's only wrong to deal with an RMT trader if you know they're an RMT trader. Long story short - keep on at support. __________________ Si non confectus, non reficiat

Jan 03, 2011, 07:22 PM // 19:22	#2
Star_Jewel Jungle Guide Join Date: Mar 2010 Location: Denizen of Tyria since Feb. 2009	I'm not much of an authority, but as far as I know, no GW Auctions does not breach the EULA; I don't think it would exist if it did. Hopefully a moderator here can state something official. How much had you traded via the auctions prior to your ban? Did you have any in-game chat supporting the trades that were set up via the auctions? Did you have any lopsided trades? If your nose is clean, I think you just got hit with an accidental flag. Thread after thread indicate that the flagging system is far from perfect. Open a ticket with support, supply as much information as you can to prove your ownership of the account and your auction activity. It may take some back-and-forth, but if you're transparent, persistent, and polite, you might get your account back. Unfortunately, this thread might get closed. Best of luck!

Jan 03, 2011, 07:30 PM // 19:30	#3
Lordshonsu Ascalonian Squire Join Date: Jan 2008 Profession: W/	well i dont really know how well i can answer this but using a third party site dedicated to guild wars as a medium to sell items for ingame money shouldnt be a breach of EULA. it shouldnt be a breach unless they know u sold or acquired an item for rwm (real world money) or rwv (real world value). also a quote from u "I have never sold or aided in the marketing of in game items period." this could apply to the use of a third party medium to buy and/or sell items. The only way players can avoid getting their account banned is if some1 from Anet makes a statement about using a third party medium to sell/buy items. as long as the only things in the trade is for ingame stuff and nothing else otherwise the only other way i can see that ur account got banned was u did something during ur snowball farming sessions that they noticed was bot-like. The "Snowball Dominance" quest is the number one bot farming area during wintersday so a lot of Anet's attention was watching ppl doing that quest for bots.

Jan 03, 2011, 07:32 PM // 19:32	#4
mario910 Ascalonian Squire Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Poland Guild: Wyzsza Szkola Robienia Halasu [WSRH]	In EULA we can read about trading GW items/account for IRL goods. No less, no more. They didn't write about external organising in-game trades, so actually what is not forbidden, this is allowed. Additionaly a lot of ppl from Anet stuff had been written on Guru forum and I didn't noticed any complaining about Auctions/Trade section.

Jan 03, 2011, 07:32 PM // 19:32	#5
Kosar The Cruel Krytan Explorer Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Ontario, Canada Profession: D/	Most likely this thread will be closed but, oh well... I don't see how using any auction site would be considered a breach of the EULA. Anet didn't provide us with any sort of 'auction house' so the players took it upon themselves to create their own. It's not like we're paying a fee to use these sites and we're certainly not using real world money.

Jan 03, 2011, 08:33 PM // 20:33	#9
Gill Halendt Desert Nomad Join Date: Mar 2008	Check the reason for the ban, as stated in the error message at login.

Jan 03, 2011, 09:21 PM // 21:21	#10
FoxBat Furnace Stoker Join Date: Apr 2006 Guild: Amazon Basin [AB] Profession: Mo/Me	Anytime you trade a large number of items to another account without receiving compensation in that same trade, you are flagging an internal alert. If you do this to a large number of different accounts, your behavior looks alot like an RMT seller and can lead to a ban. Trading with accounts flagged for the above behavior can also result in a ban as a buyer. It's likely this happened as Anet does not have ESP nor much means for tracking RMT beyond what happens on their servers.

Jan 03, 2011, 10:54 PM // 22:54	#12
TheRaven Desert Nomad Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Virginia Guild: Spirit of Elisha Profession: W/	As others have already said, there is nothing wrong with using Guru auctions. As long as you sell your ingame items for other ingame items or gold there is no breach of the EULA. Guru as well as other auction sites like gwauctions.org have been up and running with Arenanet's blessing for years. Here's the most likely scenario that got you banned: You've given a very valuable ingame gift to a friend or 2 ingame. Perhaps you had a guildmate that is struggling to get his obsidian armor and you decided to help him out at Christmas and gave him some ectos. This by itself won't trigger a flag, but let's say your friend has bought gold in the past and his account already suspicious. To Arenanet you appear to be just another gold seller giving money to your friend. Or lets say you decided to play Santa Claus and gave gifts to lots of friends. Many one-sided trades to many different people will also get you flagged as a gold seller. If this is what happened then just open a ticket with support and explain what happened. They can review the logs and see that your gift recipients are people in your guild or friends that you are in regular contact with and they'll unban you.

Jan 03, 2011, 11:55 PM // 23:55	#13
Chrisworld Krytan Explorer Join Date: Aug 2010 Guild: Gameamp Guides [AMP] Profession: W/	They mentioned the word "accumilation" of items making you suspicious? El oh el, theyre getting desperate trying to ban gold sellers now. i wonder if they have an "accumilation" flag thats been going off causing most of these people to get banned for "no reason".