Curse

Lord Sojar · Jun 06, 2010, 07:54 PM // 19:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meridon

What Anet needs to do is make a specific, clear and easy to access list of which applications under which circumstances and ways they can be used are illegal and which are not. This list needs to be updated frequently, and players need to be notified in advance before the list gets updated with new applications, so they have the time and oppurtunity to stay legal under the latest regulations. If they won't, banning accounts for breaking the various vague sections of the EULA will always remain seemingly arbitraty.

They don't need to give a blueprint for cheating. Period.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tha walkin dude

Believing and knowing are very different things. Your assertions are for the most part completely reliant upon trusting you and believing whatever you say.

Right, because quoting Gaile/ANET is clearly trusting what I say and not what they say, and have said forever, right? LOL

Let me direct you here:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...&postcount=308

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meridon

Now, Gaile argues automated responses are justified as a result of 3700 accounts being banned. However, why invoke a mass-ban if you don't have enough resources at Support to give everyone a proper response?

No company that does mass bans gives individual responses... LOL. The vast (emphasis on vast) majority of these bans were legit, and the people know they are guilty.

How should ANET give them a response? "We know you botted. Sorry."? You are asking them to give 100% confirmed botters a personalized response... that's stupid.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meridon

Getting banned for 'Botting' may be more obvious to some than it has been to others. ArenaNET has had a history of being vague in EULA-related cases like these, such as the character naming debacle. While some applications are easy to identify as bots and therefore illegal under the EULA, without completely clear guidelines there is, and always will be a very big gray area. This, in turn, results in people finding themselves in this grey area and submitting tickets and appeals for clarification. The time Support spends on these tickets could have been completely avoided if ArenaNET had made proper, clear and easy to access rules and restrictions on what is allowed and what is not.

Don't use 3rd party applications. Gray area = gone. Well that was easy!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Terms of Service

You may not use any third-party program (such as a "bot") in order to automate gameplay functions, including playing, chatting, interacting, or gathering gold or items within Guild Wars. You may not assist, relay, or store gold or items for other players who are using these processes.

I'm sorry, I don't see the clarity issues with that. You signed the EULA, abide by it.

Meridon · Jun 06, 2010, 07:58 PM // 19:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Sojar

They don't need to give a blueprint for cheating. Period.

If by 'blueprint', you mean that people will only be encouraged to run one of these applications since they're on a list they released, then I don't see the problem, since I thought their 20+ algorithm of catching botters was so good.

If you mean they don't need to be clear about it, then you're wrong, for the reasons I stated.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Sojar

No company that does mass bans gives individual responses... LOL. The vast (emphasis on vast) majority of these bans were legit, and the people know they are guilty.

How should ANET give them a response? "We know you botted. Sorry."? You are asking them to give 100% confirmed botters a personalized response... that's stupid.

No company that can't give individual responses should do mass bans. Anet invoked the shitstorm on themselves by being vague and banning 3700+ players at the same time. People deserve to be helped in a decent manner at Customer Support, no matter what. They are the customers after all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Sojar

Don't use 3rd party applications. Gray area = gone. Well that was easy!

Too bad the EULA doesn't say that, regardless of what you quoted. Let's review an excerpt:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guild Wars EULA section 7

You agree not to use any hardware or software, including but not limited to third party tools, or any other method of support which may in any way influence or advantage your use of the Service which is not authorized by NC Interactive, including but not limited to the use of 'bots' and/or any other method by which the Service may be played automatically without human input.

As you can see, it says 'Don't use 3rd party apps that may influence/give you an advantage in GW which we haven't authorised', not 'Don't use 3rd party apps at all. Period.' What you are suggesting is one way to solve the grey area, but the point is that this is not the case right now, and something should happen to change that.

Regarding the section you quoted from the ToS, that section is not as vague (luckily) as the above section I mentioned. However, like I mentioned before, the above section gives room for the arbitrary banning of players for using any kind of software or hardware if there hasn't been an official statement about it. Heck, If some GM happens to have a bad day, he can practically ban you for having Windows Explorer on your PC just because it can locate GW.exe! I don't see what's not better about striving for more clear rules and guidelines.

Also, please don't insinuate I am a botter by telling me to abide by the EULA. I am doing so, and I am not a botter.

Lord Sojar · Jun 06, 2010, 08:02 PM // 20:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meridon

If by 'blueprint', you mean that people will only be encouraged to run one of these applications since they're on a list they released, then I don't see the problem, since I thought their 20+ algorithm of catching botters was so good.

If you mean they don't need to be clear about it, then you're wrong, for the reasons I stated.

They already provided a list of mods that won't get you banned. Anything else is at your own risk.

And, even the mods they "allow" are at your own risk. In their original, unaltered form, they are fine. Any changes from that might make them a violation.

And no, people will be encouraged to go "Oh, they allow this, so I can use that but manipulate it so it does this, and then use their list as a legit excuse after they ban me for automating things"

That's stupid.

Meridon · Jun 06, 2010, 08:16 PM // 20:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Sojar

They already provided a list of mods that won't get you banned. Anything else is at your own risk.

And, even the mods they "allow" are at your own risk. In their original, unaltered form, they are fine. Any changes from that might make them a violation.

And no, people will be encouraged to go "Oh, they allow this, so I can use that but manipulate it so it does this, and then use their list as a legit excuse after they ban me for automating things"

That's stupid.

My guessing was purely because your comments could be interpreted in different ways. What they have provided so far in terms of a blacklist and a whitelist is not enough. The 'Anything else is at your own risk' promotes arbitrary banning and results in proper people potentially being banned for something the EULA wasn't clear about. If ArenaNET extends their blacklist to more than just .dll injections, without people knowing or being told, they run into a minefield of where some people might be using an application to script bot-like behaviours, and others using the same application to make an innocent hotkey macro equal to the G15 keyboard macros. In the case of that event taking place, innocent victims will fall. We need to prevent that by having clear and proper guidelines to start out with, and by having information about updates and actions being supplied to the community in a proactive way.

Ka Tet · Jun 06, 2010, 08:24 PM // 20:24

Right, because quoting Gaile/ANET is clearly trusting what I say and not what they say, and have said forever, right? LOL
Let me direct you here:
http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...&postcount=308
That's a small amount of the large amount of things you've said, such as your statements regarding your intimate knowledge of Anet's detection process[es].
For example,

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Sojar

The program doesn't have a margin of error. It's 100% accurate.

Speculation.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meridon

No company that can't give individual responses should do mass bans. Anet invoked the shitstorm on themselves by being vague and banning 3700+ players at the same time. People deserve to be helped in a decent manner at Customer Support, no matter what. They are the customers after all.

Ah yes, the oft-ignored heart of the matter.

Lord Sojar · Jun 06, 2010, 08:37 PM // 20:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meridon

If ArenaNET extends their blacklist to more than just .dll injections, without people knowing or being told, they run into a minefield of where some people might be using an application to script bot-like behaviours, and others using the same application to make an innocent hotkey macro equal to the G15 keyboard macros. In the case of that event taking place, innocent victims will fall. We need to prevent that by having clear and proper guidelines to start out with, and by having information about updates and actions being supplied to the community in a proactive way.
Meridon is invisible Add Infraction for Meridon Report Post Reply With Quote

No, we don't. It's clear. If you use the mods that they have "approved" in their original form, you are fine. Anything else = risk of a ban. Beyond that, it needs to be common sense. If you lack the mental facilities to have enough common sense to make a judgment as easy as they are making this, god help you.

Specifically this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meridon

they run into a minefield of where some people might be using an application to script bot-like behaviours, and others using the same application to make an innocent hotkey macro equal to the G15 keyboard macros.

They shouldn't... any app that has that capability isn't approved. None of the approved mods/apps have the capability to do such things. If you are using an app that even has the capability of doing this, consider yourself a future victim of Dhuum.

You just want them to spell it out for you, and they don't need to. They aren't going to be that specific because that creates a list for people to use as excuses, and it would need to be updated all the time. It also suggests they support certain applications; they support no 3rd party apps or mods.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Meridon

No company that can't give individual responses should do mass bans. Anet invoked the shitstorm on themselves by being vague and banning 3700+ players at the same time. People deserve to be helped in a decent manner at Customer Support, no matter what. They are the customers after all.

Bullshit. If you break the rules that you sign, you are the fool. They can do as many mass bannings as they want to, because you signed the EULA. It isn't their fault that people don't read!

Quote:

Originally Posted by tha walkin dude

Speculation.

It's far from speculation. It detects a non normal parameter and reports it. Exactly how can it have a margin of error? Do you think computers randomly decide to get things wrong? No, they don't think, they work purely in the realm of mathematics.

No margin of error, computers are a bit more advanced than you take them for.

Ka Tet · Jun 06, 2010, 08:48 PM // 20:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Sojar

It's far from speculation. It detects a non normal parameter and reports it. Exactly how can it have a margin of error? Do you think computers randomly decide to get things wrong? No, they don't think, they work purely in the realm of mathematics.

No margin of error, computers are a bit more advanced than you take them for.

Unless you were part of the ban crew you cannot conclusively say what criteria or software they used.
Computers are reliant on programming, bad code is not non-existent.
We're back to faith.

Lord Sojar · Jun 06, 2010, 08:55 PM // 20:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by tha walkin dude

Unless you were part of the ban crew you cannot conclusively say what criteria or software they used.
Computers are reliant on programming, bad code is not non-existent.
We're back to faith.

They didn't code it wrong. It's obvious. All these people claiming innocence aren't telling the truth. Some people just fail to grasp the concept that when cornered, with no other options, people lie. In the words of Dr. House, "Everybody lies."

As to the idea that the code could be flawed, yes it's possible. However, if the code were flawed, we would be seeing a lot more people getting banned or complaining. The amount of people who have complained is huge, but the outcry would have been more substantial.

The fact we have so many people admitting they botted, and were caught, substantiates the idea that the process was very accurate.

When you have a simple process like the one they have for finding these people, it doesn't have a margin of error higher than the business accepted .9%, period. You just want to believe it does, so you and the others will have some hope that you will be unbanned. I'm afraid we live in a world where that isn't the case, and where multi billion dollar companies don't screw up extremely simple algorithms.

Trub · Jun 06, 2010, 08:58 PM // 20:58

I will take Rahja's explainations over a QQ'ers any day....sorry, it's a credibility thing...Rahja actually does have real world experience with computer shit..don't yanno?

Oh yeah:

Quote:

No company that can't give individual responses should do mass bans. Anet invoked the shitstorm on themselves by being vague and banning 3700+ players at the same time. People deserve to be helped in a decent manner at Customer Support, no matter what. They are the customers after all.

Correct ME if I am wrong, but once your perma banned...you ain't exactly a 'customer' for them to answer to?
Unless, of course...you follow the rules, and 'request' permission (In writing) to use THEIR servers again after purchasing a new game?

Ka Tet · Jun 06, 2010, 09:11 PM // 21:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Sojar

They didn't code it wrong. It's obvious. All these people claiming innocence aren't telling the truth. Some people just fail to grasp the concept that when cornered, with no other options, people lie. In the words of Dr. House, "Everybody lies."

It's not obvious, you're speculating. You have no way t know this. And, Dr. House is neither a real Dr. nor a real person.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Sojar

As to the idea that the code could be flawed, yes it's possible. However, if the code were flawed, we would be seeing a lot more people getting banned or complaining. The amount of people who have complained is huge, but the outcry would have been more substantial.

Uh huh.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Sojar

The fact we have so many people admitting they botted, and were caught, substantiates the idea that the process was very accurate.

Some of those were legit, some were anti-QQ QQ. Regardless, catching a few fish, doesn't mean a net is perfect.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Sojar

When you have a simple process like the one they have for finding these people, it doesn't have a margin of error higher than the business accepted .9%, period. You just want to believe it does, so you and the others will have some hope that you will be unbanned. I'm afraid we live in a world where that isn't the case, and where multi billion dollar companies don't screw up extremely simple algorithms.

I'm not banned. Companies, regardless of net worth, screw simple things up grandly on a regular basis.

Meridon · Jun 06, 2010, 09:28 PM // 21:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Sojar

No, we don't. It's clear. If you use the mods that they have "approved" in their original form, you are fine. Anything else = risk of a ban. Beyond that, it needs to be common sense. If you lack the mental facilities to have enough common sense to make a judgment as easy as they are making this, god help you.

They shouldn't... any app that has that capability isn't approved. None of the approved mods/apps have the capability to do such things. If you are using an app that even has the capability of doing this, consider yourself a future victim of Dhuum.

You just want them to spell it out for you, and they don't need to. They aren't going to be that specific because that creates a list for people to use as excuses, and it would need to be updated all the time. It also suggests they support certain applications; they support no 3rd party apps or mods.

Bullshit. If you break the rules that you sign, you are the fool. They can do as many mass bannings as they want to, because you signed the EULA. It isn't their fault that people don't read!

As I mentioned, the 'Use at your own risk' mentality facilitates vague arbitrary banning and results in proper people potentially being banned for something the EULA wasn't clear about. Also, if there's one thing we learned from the offensive player naming discussion, common sense varies between people. What one person might perceive as ok, another may not. Which is why we need specific regulations to sort out the differences. And don't insinuate I'm a retard.

Also, the problem is there are literally thousands of potential applications that can interact with the game in some way. This leaves the field open for an even bigger amount of people to be a potential victim of Dhuum, maybe even you! They can't (and won't) disprove all of those applications, but they can attempt to approve more applications that do fall within bounds. In the case of an application that is still considered vague, people should be able to check it at Support, that's not working now since Support is already working overtime for the reasons I mentioned earlier.

I do indeed want them to spell it out for me, because that's what I, along with yourself and all the other proper and honest players of the game deserve, proper service. We're worth it, being half of the customer-developer relationship after all. It's not excuses if it's legitimate and honest play. In addition, approving/disproving applications does not equal supporting them.

You are right when you say they can do mass bannings just because we signed the EULA. However, if they do so, they should expect people responding to it. If they can't deal with the responses, that's their fault, not ours. Yes, people getting banned deserve a proper answer, because although Anet can do mass bannings, according to the EULA they can't do it without a proper reason.

Gill Halendt · Jun 06, 2010, 09:33 PM // 21:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by tha walkin dude

[*snip*]

So, wait, let's make it clear, you'd rather assume that Anet are compete amateurs and are unable to implement even a simple algorithm right... than just believe that duh, we saw tons of bots around, so a lot of players used to bot and were caught? Is that it?

Is that what we're about now? Trying to defend the undefendable?

Deceitful human rationale vs Hexadecimal Comparison?

Alesa · Jun 06, 2010, 11:29 PM // 23:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lord Sojar

Unlike most peoples' guesses, mine are based on technical knowledge of this situation. To compare... my guesses are like firing a gun with staring into the sun and having an eye patch over one eye. The other guesses in this thread are akin to firing the same gun with both your eyes ripped out and the gun is pointed the wrong way.

Again, you have ZERO knowledge. Absolutely zilch. Unless you are willing to go on record and state that an ArenaNet developer (not a community manager, not support, but a developer who was directly involved with the methods they used to search out the botters) spoke with you, leaked the secrets they were using, were involved with the process than your arguments mean nothing. It's all guessing. You can't say with any type of knowledge or confidence that the system was infallible. That they didn't mess up. That it didn't detect things that were innocent.

The problem some of us are having with posters like you, and some of the others, isn't about "faith" in ArenaNet. But on very pure mathematics and statistics that say with almost certainty that their methods were flawed. That they grouped in people who shouldn't have been there. That they are offering no appeal process but STILL telling people to contact support when they know there is nothing they will do. It's deceptive and a waste of time but they continue to shove it down our throats. Which is what this topic is all about. Emailing Support - Why are we doing it?

Motoko · Jun 07, 2010, 03:39 AM // 03:39

ANet should have a specific set of links that they maintain that contain the programs that are permitted in the form which they can be downloaded.

Anything else outside of those specific links (modded versions of what is contained in the links etc etc) should be considered as "use at your own risk" content.

Insert disclaimers about the supported programs etc etc no help from ANet if they mess up something etc etc.

That would signify a specific line drawn on what can be used in a official statement.

The problem you have is that many of these programs have been out for years and are subject to modification of harmful material that new players might not know is containted within the modified program. Essentially without them knowing it they have violated the EULA and are using forbidden third party applications that are "supposedly" acceptable.

There is a lot of grey area in that regards and ANet dismisses any liability for the grey area with a "use at your own risk" clause. "You can use these programs and we approve of them... BUT you might get banned." No company should be like that.

Not everyone is a super nerd and knows everything contained in a program. ANet should be responsive and take care of their player base in regards to this.

Yeah.

Move Down · Jun 08, 2010, 04:31 AM // 04:31

Wel i got banned while i didnt do anything apperantly i got banned for raptor farming.
The only thing i have done is the red resign day a while back but evrybody did that.
But the GM's wont even share the information that they have why and how i got banned
it would compromise there bot detecting program they say.
And that was the only answer i got from them.
So this is my last ncsoft game i ever bought

tsupert · Jun 08, 2010, 10:10 PM // 22:10

"No company that can't give individual responses should do mass bans. Anet invoked the shitstorm on themselves by being vague and banning 3700+ players at the same time. People deserve to be helped in a decent manner at Customer Support, no matter what. They are the customers after all."

GET OUT NOW,
Alright, these ******'s ruin pvp for me, destroy all skillful play, and inflate the market. Now, you want ANET to take resources off of the game i have waited for multiple years for because these cheaters are whining they cheated and are sad anet took action.

Your idea is terrible.

kwkossick · Jun 08, 2010, 10:43 PM // 22:43

btw, think i got a human response for the first time

Life Bringing · Jun 08, 2010, 10:45 PM // 22:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by kwkossick

btw, think i got a human response for the first time

You didn't. That's the automated response for when you have two tickets with a similar purpose.

Motoko · Jun 09, 2010, 02:36 AM // 02:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Life Bringing

You didn't. That's the automated response for when you have two tickets with a similar purpose.

This.

Also they will never respond to you.

I've done tests and sent another "I've been banned" message to them on an unbanned account and they checked it and said they "are glad my problem is solved...good day" within 48 hours.

This occured while I have an outstanding support ticket a week and a half old.

PuppyEater · Jun 10, 2010, 04:30 AM // 04:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alesa

That they grouped in people who shouldn't have been there.

The problem with this argument is that there is no way to prove to us here on a forum that person banned didn't bot and was just a victim of crossfire.

If I were banned for botting from Jan-May '10 and then came here claiming I was just using some benign program that is supposedly ok, I can't go back in time and provide some kind of proof of that. The only proof is on Anet's end and they aren't going to share it with me or anyone else...