ArenaNet, Ban Happy? What's the deal? - Guild Wars Forums

Cyan Savant · Nov 28, 2007, 12:07 AM // 00:07

I know that this is my first post, and so it probably won't come across as something that's easy to stomach, but just check this out. I say all of the following to at least warn people, and perhaps stop them from making any mistakes.

Guild Wars is a beautiful game, and their business model, in my opinion, is cutting edge. I give them full credit on these counts. But that's not all it takes to do good business.

My wife and I have been playing since 9 of '06 and we've abided by the rules. Especially my wife, considering I can be somewhat of an arrogant guy sometimes. Hey, I admit it. It's my first post and I'm already on a soapbox.

We became friends with a particular person over the past couple of weeks. The guy had a "I have many leatherbound books" Title and was very generous and helpful. Very knowledgeable as well. And I still consider him a friend.

However, as of this morning, the staff found that he apparently had a few other accounts that associates of his were using to farm GW gold and sell it. I agree, that's not kosher. But here's where the line gets drawn.

After the guy was banned, he made a ditch attempt to say goodbye to people from a seperate account of his. He logged in on this account and said goodbye to my wife, who was online at the time. He passed his regards to me as well since I was at work.

As far as I can tell, the only difference between my wife's account and mine is that very conversation, because she's now banned. I did not say "suspended", I said banned.

We have all three campaigns as well as GWEN, so that's $190 that I've spent and now it's for what? She did not know what he was doing, or what had happened until that point. Now she can't log on.

I just logged on and got a random "You should check your wife's account" whisper. That's how I found out she was banned. Think about it. According to their methods of deduction, I guess now I've "violated the EULA"?

Great product. It's a shame that you risk paying money for no service because they cannot supply the "manpower" to investigate stuff like this.

What do you people think of this? We're submitting support tickets, and if we can manage to get past the autoresponders, she'll probably get back up and running, but what if not?

And besides that, what kind of business is this anyway?

Like I said, great game, but if you have a high standard for what businesses you support, you might want to consider any purchases from these guys. This is atrocious.

mcsumo · Nov 28, 2007, 12:16 AM // 00:16

Yep that sucks. I sure hope that once Anet review the situation they realise your wife did nothing wrong. And they really should be a little less free with the ban stick. I mean banned for talking to a wrongdoer? Surely it wouldn't hurt to check these things more thoroughly before banning?

Jessica The Mesmer · Nov 28, 2007, 12:18 AM // 00:18

yea, for no reason at all,both of my accounts were luckily suspended,and the only thing I did was transfer money between accounts,and suspended for 150 hrs -_-

Cyan Savant · Nov 28, 2007, 12:20 AM // 00:20

Thanks for hearing it out man. Naturally, a guy's gonna be all up in arms about something like this. But you know, even if it does level off and everything turns out fine, this isn't the sort of thing you can just so "No harm, no foul."

There's a foul here. We're paying customers, get with it.

Here's the question. What do you do to make it change? Or do we just suck it up and deal with it?
Power of the consumer. I'm ready to do something about it.

Biostem · Nov 28, 2007, 12:29 AM // 00:29

There is more to this than you either are aware of or are telling us. If the other person you mentioned was selling gold, which is against the EULA, then it may have been tracked that some of that was given to your wife. Keep in mind that ANet cannot tell who paid for the gold this person was farming and who was given it for free. As such, they may have banned your wife's account thinking she received gold from this farmer...

Thargor · Nov 28, 2007, 12:31 AM // 00:31

As with any "I got banned" thread we really only have one side of the story here. Now I am not accusing you or your wife of any wrong-doing and just going from your story I would say that any ban was undeserved.
In the past it seems that Anet has been quick with the bans in order to stop any thing wrong from continuing to happen. If you report it and keep at them they will investigate and the account should be restored if it is cleared of any wrong-doing. This has been the case many times and I am pretty sure it isn't going to change.
Sucks to be banned when you did nothing wrong of course but at least Anet is being consistent in the way they handle these issues.
Wish you good luck in getting your wife back up and running soon!

Cyan Savant · Nov 28, 2007, 12:31 AM // 00:31

Alright, well the best I can think of is that a week ago the guy asked to buy an elemental sword that dropped for her. He gave her money for it.

Ok, so this raises a flag, cool. Investigate. Hey, even suspend it so that you can get a clean look, but a full on ban? What's the defense for this?

phoo slaya · Nov 28, 2007, 12:38 AM // 00:38

i think anet isn't too well off financially, consider that they don't even have their own support group. it makes sense considering that they have a full time staff "supporting(making weekends and such)" and people making new games. considering that other companies have monthly fees, it's not too much of a reach to say that anet is on a tight budget. i actually wouldn't be that surprised if anet went under before gw2 came out.

Vulkanyaz · Nov 28, 2007, 12:44 AM // 00:44

Send them an email about it via NCsoft support.
Then wait about a year to get a reply TT_TT

Biostem · Nov 28, 2007, 12:49 AM // 00:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by phoo slaya

i think anet isn't too well off financially, consider that they don't even have their own support group. it makes sense considering that they have a full time staff "supporting(making weekends and such)" and people making new games. considering that other companies have monthly fees, it's not too much of a reach to say that anet is on a tight budget. i actually wouldn't be that surprised if anet went under before gw2 came out.

DOOOooOOooOOoOOoooOOOOOOooOOOM!!!1111!!

Moonlit Azure · Nov 28, 2007, 01:12 AM // 01:12

If I were in your shoes, I would send a letter to Anet(or whatever company) saying that your wife had no affiliations with buying gold.

It might be also helpful to state that she has no offenses and that shes an honest player. And with some luck you just might get your account back.

Loviatar · Nov 28, 2007, 01:42 AM // 01:42

[QUOTE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cyan Savant

and was very generous and helpful.

that raises flags all over.

very generous maybe to the point something looked very fishy?

Quote:

I just logged on and got a random "You should check your wife's account" whisper. That's how I found out she was banned.

bad fish number 2 as a random player knows your wife how?
and that something was wrong with the account how?

maybe that random player was using the account without her knowledge or how would they even know something was wrong.

Loviatar · Nov 28, 2007, 01:48 AM // 01:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by phoo slaya

i think anet isn't too well off financially, consider that they don't even have their own support group. it makes sense considering that they have a full time staff "supporting(making weekends and such)" and people making new games. considering that other companies have monthly fees, it's not too much of a reach to say that anet is on a tight budget. i actually wouldn't be that surprised if anet went under before gw2 came out.

can you say that NCsoft is the complete owner of Anet and NCsoft is paying the bills?

Anet is one small part of NCsoft not independently owned and operated.

or how do you think they paid the bills for the 5 years of development plus worldwide server network before making a single sale?

sheeeeshhhh

fusa · Nov 28, 2007, 01:55 AM // 01:55

If you knew he was running bots you should have turned him in, otherwise you're just as much part of the conspiracy as he is. Agree with Loviatar there's definitely more going on with some "random" person knowing your wife's account is banned before you both know.

Antheus · Nov 28, 2007, 02:01 AM // 02:01

Quote:

I just logged on and got a random "You should check your wife's account" whisper.

Huh?

You cannot tell from in-game whether an account has been banned. Support tickets also do not say who was banned.

What exactly were you all involved in? Did the supposed farmer have access to your accounts? Did you launder the money for him through one of the accounts?

If the person was banned - why/how was he logged in? Why did he bother to tell you that?

Reading between the lines, you had, knowingly or unknowingly participated in these schemes, and it wasn't just a whisper difference. My strongest bet would be that your wife's account was somehow involved in all of this.

I have yet to see a banning out of the blue, and if it was, it was a fluke that was resolved with little to no effort. Same for stolen accounts. There's more to this than this "GW is such a great game".

Cats · Nov 28, 2007, 02:13 AM // 02:13

That whisper was indeed suspicious. Did you record the name of the person you got it from? Or was it a person you know?

Nightmare_Pwner · Nov 28, 2007, 02:38 AM // 02:38

Wow this thread is pointless and like a Game a Clue.
You were banned cuase someone pays 1 dollar an hour to 50 koreans farmin Gold for him then selling it. Be Wup. You obouisly took the Fall so your just a Fall guy for these people.

Too let everyone know Anet Is working with Gold selling sites now so watch out. Im suspended till Friday night cuase I bought 100k cuase I needed it at the time.
I know this becuase on a Support ticket asking why I was suspended they knew I bought gold and I told no one else and was careful of what I said to the sellers even.

Then when I asked about the Topic they threatend to Terminate my Account and closed the Topic.

So Yes your just a Fall Guy!
Nothing you can do.

nechronius · Nov 28, 2007, 02:39 AM // 02:39

... What everyone else has said.

The story you have told makes me think of a real life incident that happened to me.

A friend of a friend was a drug dealer. Super nice guy to hang out with, very friendly and helpful. However as soon as I found out what he did, I made sure to make myself scarce. Polite, to be sure, and not condemning him or preaching to him (being rather libertarian myself), but I made sure not to associate with him.

Several months later I found out that the dealer was arrested for murder. I'll spare the gory details.

It doesn't matter how friendly or helpful someone is if they're heavily involved in an illegal activity. By turning a blind eye, you are still putting yourself at risk of being caught in a bad situation.

Biostem · Nov 28, 2007, 02:41 AM // 02:41

The only way you can tell if an account is banned is to try and log in w/ it, only to get the banned message - someone had your wife's username & password and was using her account.

Maybe you allowed this, and perhaps the person who was using the account signed on their own account to notify you...

Loviatar · Nov 28, 2007, 02:53 AM // 02:53

[QUOTE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nightmare_Pwner

Too let everyone know Anet Is working with Gold selling sites now so watch out. Im suspended till Friday night cuase I bought 100k cuase I needed it at the time.
I know this becuase on a Support ticket asking why I was suspended they knew I bought gold and I told no one else and was careful of what I said to the sellers even.

you were lucky. it could have been perma bannrd

WHAT WAS WORTH YOUR ACCOUNT ANYWAY???

from Anet

Quote:

We are currently gathering data, and when we take action it will be to close entire networks of accounts at once: those used for farming, those used for storage, and those used for distribution. Buying in-game items for cash is also against the terms of service, so for those of you engaging in this practice, please understand that you're not only hurting the game in a way that makes it less fun for you and everyone else, but also risking getting your account permanently banned.

Nov 28, 2007, 12:07 AM // 00:07	#1
Cyan Savant Pre-Searing Cadet Join Date: Oct 2007 Guild: Relics of Orr Profession: E/	ArenaNet, Ban Happy? What's the deal? I know that this is my first post, and so it probably won't come across as something that's easy to stomach, but just check this out. I say all of the following to at least warn people, and perhaps stop them from making any mistakes. Guild Wars is a beautiful game, and their business model, in my opinion, is cutting edge. I give them full credit on these counts. But that's not all it takes to do good business. My wife and I have been playing since 9 of '06 and we've abided by the rules. Especially my wife, considering I can be somewhat of an arrogant guy sometimes. Hey, I admit it. It's my first post and I'm already on a soapbox. We became friends with a particular person over the past couple of weeks. The guy had a "I have many leatherbound books" Title and was very generous and helpful. Very knowledgeable as well. And I still consider him a friend. However, as of this morning, the staff found that he apparently had a few other accounts that associates of his were using to farm GW gold and sell it. I agree, that's not kosher. But here's where the line gets drawn. After the guy was banned, he made a ditch attempt to say goodbye to people from a seperate account of his. He logged in on this account and said goodbye to my wife, who was online at the time. He passed his regards to me as well since I was at work. As far as I can tell, the only difference between my wife's account and mine is that very conversation, because she's now banned. I did not say "suspended", I said banned. We have all three campaigns as well as GWEN, so that's $190 that I've spent and now it's for what? She did not know what he was doing, or what had happened until that point. Now she can't log on. I just logged on and got a random "You should check your wife's account" whisper. That's how I found out she was banned. Think about it. According to their methods of deduction, I guess now I've "violated the EULA"? Great product. It's a shame that you risk paying money for no service because they cannot supply the "manpower" to investigate stuff like this. What do you people think of this? We're submitting support tickets, and if we can manage to get past the autoresponders, she'll probably get back up and running, but what if not? And besides that, what kind of business is this anyway? Like I said, great game, but if you have a high standard for what businesses you support, you might want to consider any purchases from these guys. This is atrocious.

Nov 28, 2007, 12:20 AM // 00:20	#4
Cyan Savant Pre-Searing Cadet Join Date: Oct 2007 Guild: Relics of Orr Profession: E/	Thanks for hearing it out man. Naturally, a guy's gonna be all up in arms about something like this. But you know, even if it does level off and everything turns out fine, this isn't the sort of thing you can just so "No harm, no foul." There's a foul here. We're paying customers, get with it. Here's the question. What do you do to make it change? Or do we just suck it up and deal with it? Power of the consumer. I'm ready to do something about it. Last edited by Cyan Savant; Nov 28, 2007 at 12:24 AM // 00:24..

Nov 28, 2007, 12:16 AM // 00:16	#2
mcsumo Wilds Pathfinder Join Date: Jul 2006 Guild: SOS Profession: R/	Yep that sucks. I sure hope that once Anet review the situation they realise your wife did nothing wrong. And they really should be a little less free with the ban stick. I mean banned for talking to a wrongdoer? Surely it wouldn't hurt to check these things more thoroughly before banning?

Nov 28, 2007, 12:18 AM // 00:18	#3
Jessica The Mesmer Banned Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Kamadan d1 Guild: Team Everfrost [eF] Profession: Mo/	yea, for no reason at all,both of my accounts were luckily suspended,and the only thing I did was transfer money between accounts,and suspended for 150 hrs -_-

Nov 28, 2007, 12:29 AM // 00:29	#5
Biostem Jungle Guide Join Date: Oct 2007	There is more to this than you either are aware of or are telling us. If the other person you mentioned was selling gold, which is against the EULA, then it may have been tracked that some of that was given to your wife. Keep in mind that ANet cannot tell who paid for the gold this person was farming and who was given it for free. As such, they may have banned your wife's account thinking she received gold from this farmer...

Nov 28, 2007, 12:31 AM // 00:31	#6
Thargor Lion's Arch Merchant Join Date: Mar 2006	As with any "I got banned" thread we really only have one side of the story here. Now I am not accusing you or your wife of any wrong-doing and just going from your story I would say that any ban was undeserved. In the past it seems that Anet has been quick with the bans in order to stop any thing wrong from continuing to happen. If you report it and keep at them they will investigate and the account should be restored if it is cleared of any wrong-doing. This has been the case many times and I am pretty sure it isn't going to change. Sucks to be banned when you did nothing wrong of course but at least Anet is being consistent in the way they handle these issues. Wish you good luck in getting your wife back up and running soon!

Nov 28, 2007, 12:38 AM // 00:38	#8
phoo slaya Academy Page Join Date: Mar 2007 Guild: United Clans of Perfect Chaos Profession: R/N	i think anet isn't too well off financially, consider that they don't even have their own support group. it makes sense considering that they have a full time staff "supporting(making weekends and such)" and people making new games. considering that other companies have monthly fees, it's not too much of a reach to say that anet is on a tight budget. i actually wouldn't be that surprised if anet went under before gw2 came out.

Nov 28, 2007, 12:44 AM // 00:44	#9
Vulkanyaz Lion's Arch Merchant Join Date: Aug 2007	Send them an email about it via NCsoft support. Then wait about a year to get a reply TT_TT

Nov 28, 2007, 01:12 AM // 01:12	#11
Moonlit Azure Krytan Explorer Join Date: Nov 2007 Profession: R/	If I were in your shoes, I would send a letter to Anet(or whatever company) saying that your wife had no affiliations with buying gold. It might be also helpful to state that she has no offenses and that shes an honest player. And with some luck you just might get your account back.

Nov 28, 2007, 01:55 AM // 01:55	#14
fusa Krytan Explorer Join Date: Mar 2007	If you knew he was running bots you should have turned him in, otherwise you're just as much part of the conspiracy as he is. Agree with Loviatar there's definitely more going on with some "random" person knowing your wife's account is banned before you both know.

Nov 28, 2007, 02:13 AM // 02:13	#16
Cats Frost Gate Guardian Join Date: May 2005 Location: Singapore Guild: Charter Vanguard Profession: E/Mo	That whisper was indeed suspicious. Did you record the name of the person you got it from? Or was it a person you know?

Nov 28, 2007, 02:38 AM // 02:38	#17
Nightmare_Pwner Banned Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Anime FTW Guild: GUIlD [AMp] Profession: W/Mo	Wow this thread is pointless and like a Game a Clue. You were banned cuase someone pays 1 dollar an hour to 50 koreans farmin Gold for him then selling it. Be Wup. You obouisly took the Fall so your just a Fall guy for these people. Too let everyone know Anet Is working with Gold selling sites now so watch out. Im suspended till Friday night cuase I bought 100k cuase I needed it at the time. I know this becuase on a Support ticket asking why I was suspended they knew I bought gold and I told no one else and was careful of what I said to the sellers even. Then when I asked about the Topic they threatend to Terminate my Account and closed the Topic. So Yes your just a Fall Guy! Nothing you can do.

Nov 28, 2007, 02:39 AM // 02:39	#18
nechronius Krytan Explorer Join Date: May 2005 Location: Southern Cali Guild: Herald of the Storm Profession: W/R	... What everyone else has said. The story you have told makes me think of a real life incident that happened to me. A friend of a friend was a drug dealer. Super nice guy to hang out with, very friendly and helpful. However as soon as I found out what he did, I made sure to make myself scarce. Polite, to be sure, and not condemning him or preaching to him (being rather libertarian myself), but I made sure not to associate with him. Several months later I found out that the dealer was arrested for murder. I'll spare the gory details. It doesn't matter how friendly or helpful someone is if they're heavily involved in an illegal activity. By turning a blind eye, you are still putting yourself at risk of being caught in a bad situation.

Nov 28, 2007, 02:41 AM // 02:41	#19
Biostem Jungle Guide Join Date: Oct 2007	The only way you can tell if an account is banned is to try and log in w/ it, only to get the banned message - someone had your wife's username & password and was using her account. Maybe you allowed this, and perhaps the person who was using the account signed on their own account to notify you...