Emailing Support - Why are we doing it?

STAFF EDIT/STAFF EDIT (please do not confuse further sections of this post highlighted in red as a part of this edit; they are not)

The answer to that question is simple: because we have been told to do so. But in this post I will pose a pair of questions, with answers potentially more difficult to obtain.

Note that the following is solely related to the recent mass banning of Guild Wars accounts.

Before I begin, I'd just like to say how happy I am that ArenaNet has finally tightened their grip on botting in Guild Wars. It's wonderful to log in and know that no more will I be surrounded by characters who may or may not be controlled by an actual human being at any given time. I am extremely pleased with the majority of the staff at HQ right now! Also, I'd like to make it clear that my account was not banned, nor do I sympathize with anyone who was rightfully banned for violations of the EULA.

However, I am not so pleased with some things coming our way from NCSoft and ArenaNet, and I am sure many people agree with me on this. We are being told to waste our time on a hopeless matter by the people we have been trusting to steer us straight in matters related to Guild Wars. Allow me to elaborate.

Martin Kerstein and Regina Buenaobra have directed users feeling that they were erroneously banned to contact support on the matter.
(Please go to these posts and see the ones he was replying to; you will understand momentarily why I ask you to do this!)


Now, being told to seek help from Support is nothing new. We are told to do it by many members of ArenaNet and NCSoft staff, and it is good that they direct us to where we need to go to receive help. However, in this case, there is no help to be received - something they are surely fully aware of. Again, allow me to elaborate by quoting what seem to be the automated replies going out to every player emailing support regarding this issue.

Many people who have reportedly never engaged in any sort of illicit activities in Guild Wars (be it botting, match manipulation, or otherwise), have emailed support after getting caught in this massive wave of bans, and been greeted by these exact same responses, with no regard to the contents of their original ticket or any of their responses to support replies.

TO BE CLEAR: If you are asking about your account being banned, no matter what you put in your original ticket, or what you send as replies to the first pair of automated responses, you will always get the same fourth response that you see here. Support is using automated responses to completely shut down ANY tickets about the bans, appeals or otherwise. Tickets are NOT being reviewed, and support is NOT being given.


Now, there are two questions I have for the community, NCSoft, and ArenaNet:

1. Why are we being told by ArenaNet and NCSoft to email support, if support has no intention of even listening to what we have to say (as evidenced by the automated replies)?
2. How can ArenaNet and NCSoft be so absolutely sure (as evidenced by Martin Kerstein's responses quoted above, and again, the automated support replies) that, in a case of three thousand seven hundred bans, there can not be any margin of error?

As a final note, I humbly ask that all posters please remain civil, on topic, and contribute to the discussion in a constructive manner. We can discuss this like grown ups, I'm sure.

1. because that's what they're supposed to do, regardless of how good or bad support.
2. they're not, but they don't have the resources (read: can't be bothered) to double check.

I would hope someone from ANET would explain what is being done to correct any wrongful bannings. That would be the proper and rightful thing to do. This thread will most likely end up being troll bait for those who were banned or have an inherent dislike of ANET.

I also did get the same response, seems they are not even looking into our complaints.

I have a feeling it has to do with SO many people going to them right now about their accounts. They don't have the manpower to check all of them, and even that, I bet a lot of these people DID bot in the past or did some match manipulation, or whatever, but they are just doing it to prove to their friends they didn't (remember, GW is a show we put on for our online friends). I know a few people who were probably wrongfully banned, but I also know a few people who SAY they were wrongfully banned but have admitted to botting to at least one or more of my OTHER friends. You really can never tell, and only they can, as they can go back and look through your account records. Most people who complain about it to them, who have been botting, probably don't think about this.

Either way, once again I have a feeling right now these automated responses will continue until things die down a bit, where they won't have a FLOOD of tickets to go through from people who are faking, or people who thought they didn't do anything wrong but in all actuality, did.

It is quite interesting that everyone is getting exactly the same e-mails. seems that they just cannot deal with the massive influx of people filing support tickets. They probably had these e-mails pre-written before the bans were even issued, *sigh*.

It's quite interesting that "everyone" seems innocent.

GW support does suck. Don't let there be any doubt about that, but as someone said before, the Anet team can do nothing but redirect to them.

I myself have beef with the fact that even the support liason does not try to listen or understand to most of the issues. Though, I'll give that Gaile does try to help people out, though with a VERY superficial mindset. She's pretty much like a mom watching television while you try to explain her you got bullied at school. She'll give you the "aww, that's too bad" but she has no clue what you're talking about.

I don't agree. When my account was stolen in the past I contacted support to know how it happened and they were able to tell me where it was accessed from and how it happened.

There just happens to be thousands of people proclaiming to be innocent at the same time right now so it's impossible for them to deal with them individually.

Does anet work during weekends?

NCSoft stayed on a weekend when the bots in Aion were banned because of how many innocents got caught.

This has been going on since the middle of the week, doesn't really require them to miss out on there weekend.

Well we haven't heard of anyone getting unbanned yet, so who knows.

1st off: I dont buy that those people who claim innocence were innocent. It's within the realm of possibilty...maybe...but its SO unlikely that i think they'd have a better chance of two same-raced people popping up and spontaneously having a baby of another race. noone can say FOR SURE that it can't happen...but since the mom says she didnt have an affair she must not have, right? of course she didn't.
Now, they scan for DLL injections and guess what? they found some <gasp> and it's NOT a false positive. Don't buy it.

NOW to answer the other question: ANET has done the same thing I just did here. They say "its not OUTSIDE THE REALM OF POSSIBILITY that we were wrong, so if we were, tell us: write support"...but they KNOW what thier scans looked for and they know what they found. Its called a gesture, and it's polite. Nothing more.

So many banned accounts, some justified, some aren't, they are probably overwhelmed with QQ's and legit complaints about being banned.

I got banned (72) for having a dodgy name before, took them about 48 hours to reply*. Just be thankful you don't have to phone a call centre in India or something. I phoned Belkin once when I was having router problems, I eventually just gave up and hung up the phone. No offence to any Indian people but with the language barrier and the fact they were reading from a script made it almost impossible.

*Just wanted to know why they had waited a year, and of all times they banned me during when the Mad King was appearing, ouch!

Some of the banned accounts were never injecting, and some others, not yet banned, were injecting, mmkay?

They just don't give a crap about emails to support, and those messages were there long time ago. Auto-responder ftw.

Same responses...and even though I don't blame A-net/ncsoft... I see something ugly coming..

Anet.'s further incompetence is continuing proof buying GW2 is probably a waste of time. Innocent people did get swept and they are being responded to by a bot, (seriously ironic). I didn't, but guildies did, and they had not botted. In other posts we are seeing Anet jacking money from those who decided to buy another account and immediately banned them. If this is the garbage Anet produces I could care less if GW2 is a Monster cant miss game... Customer service means something even to casual gamers and without it I wont buy.

Alright, my very simple minded view on the matter:

If you commit a crime you should be notified about what you did wrong.
How else can you defend yourself/prove them wrong?
Anet has all the information why you got banned, the time when you were botting, how much and maybe even what the hell you (or actually the bot) was doing at those times.
If you send them your account information it shouldn't be to hard for them to send this, or a part, of this information to you.

BTW: Lag is the same as before and prices didn't fluctuate in play economy. Obviously this action was absolutely neccessary. If anyone is an attorney you should look at a class-action lawsuit. The beleagured class looks HUGE.

Well then if who got banned doesn't matter, doesn't it make sense that the replies would be very similar if not identical?

Because for once Anet is being fair. People are getting the same treatment. Don't you like equality?

You don't know how their new method works, but if they could round up this many I am very confident in it. If they were any more specific in their answers I believe they would give away how they caught these people.