WARNING: your never safe in an MMO ...

not even jokingly ... just heed this as a warning to all who have ever had a suspension, been banned prior, or are just acting of poor character when logged into guildwars.

A small story ... I was logged in a few nights ago ... only 2 other guildies on atm, one of them told in guild chat he is going to do FoW runs to farm his sephis axe. I was on for about 2 hours traversing the world of tyria, waiting for this euro to log on to purchase a staff head. I noticed in numerous tombs visits the plagued 'virgoods.com' bot spammer ... almost as humourous as the guild that was singing in D1 a few weeks ago. So this guildie said he was farming this impossible perfect axe ... which led our other guildie to respond ... Go to LA (Lions Arch) D1 ... our friend told us he hadn't enough gold to purchase the axe, and was too proud to accept the amount if offered.

Here is where I made the mistake ... I pm'd the guildie (not the one looking for the axe, the 3rd party) jokingly saying that the guy looking for the axe should just buy it from some guy spamming buy gold in tombs 5.99 virgoods.com so he didnt have to farm for months ...

BIG NO NO ... I realized after that even though I was joking with one guildie behind the other guildies back (who I appologize too, but speed was more important than farming imo), about saving time, I was breaking the EULA by even typing that in my pm. So heed my warning ...

communicate solely by voice chat ... cause now I face a 1 week suspension, for shooting the beer fueled breeze. it sucks but I deserve it, and they do a great job protecting us here. Just want others to be careful of what they say cause NC Interactive Support has no time or patience to hear you, they have a solid system, it not apealeable bottom line.

Hexin X

Are you saying that the guildie you whispered reported you or that Anet searched the logs looking for any mention of virgoods and banned you because of that?

That's ridiculous. You said you "face" a 1 week suspension, meaning it has yet to be decided whether you'll be suspended or not? Or are you suspended right now?

I can't believe that, just sounds crazy and way over the top. Surely they're intelligent enough to understand what context the message is in. Any chance you can quote us the exact message you sent the person?

I think there should be a distinction by the game masters between being jocular and being serious. I for one do not want my conversations policed to the point where whispers are considered serious business. If this is indeed what happened, and if you did get a suspension for one week because of it, maybe Anet needs to rethink its stand on such matters.

I would like to be able to joke in-game. If I need to be serious within-game and watch my speech in the whisper channel, I may rethink my position on Anet's policy.

Still giving them the benefit of the doubt, though

I wish they spent half the effort into actually trying to fix this problem instead of conducting witch hunts on innocent people.

sanji, nearly all my reports on the bots spamming virgoods have been handled within a reasonable timeperiod, the last few i reported were fixed in less than 15 mins.

In reality, you wont get caught for saying anything and banned unless a couple things happen, you say it publically while a GM is in the area. or two, you get reported by another player. Then the third way is that while reviewing chat logs of another incedent, the GMs happen upon the statement you wrote.

What happened here was likely #2, the dude you whispered that to reported ya.

That's some guild you have there...

I don't understand, are you suspended, been warned that you could be suspended, or just worried you actions are going to get you suspended?

If you are suspended let the week pass, the game's not going anywhere.
Just don't do it again.

<---slowly pushes GW a little further away...

your story is very weird.

*scratches head*

Well, if the guy reported you, I'm glad he wasn't biased, though he should probably have asked if you forgot the sarcasm tags :X

Seems that a lot of people need to learn to stop "joking" about illegal stuff.

If you go into a bank and say to the teller, "I have a gun, give me some money" and then say... "Oh don't worry, I was just kidding!", then you are gonna get put in jail just the same. Disclaimer: do not try this in real life, it is merely a hypothetical example.

OP is right that it's his own fault.

He said his comment was a private message to a guildmate about another guildmate.
It would be like going to a bank and saying privatly to your friend, "John ought to rob this place so he doesnt have to work for money"
Then some law enforcment at the bank reads your lips and they kick you out of the bank and all of its branches for a week until you learn how to talk in a bank.
The OP has a wonderful attutide in taking responsable for all his actions.
But as far as right or wrong, if I was in the OPs shoes, I wouldnt feel wrong by what I said (apparently neither does the OP. His solution, "communcate soley by voice chat") - just misunderstood by someone that wants to prove a point and make examples.

I am already starting to serve my 1 week suspension, and no my guildie did not report me. Anet searched the chat logs for virgoods.com

i am confused...

"I was breaking the EULA by even typing that in my pm"

So how exactly is typing in a private message breaking any rules again?

maybe it was just an intern that found your text while searching for virgoods and saw that you suggested to use their services...they probably didn't even read the whole conversation to get that it was a joke

sorry for your luck, but a week isn't that long...i hope to see you ingame again soon

Even if you were saying that and meaning it, now I know you are not, you are just small time. There are bots, or people that spam like that all day, and they take you out for a week because of some small time pm, I guess if you ever do this in game without realizing it, be sure to type jk in afterwords? If I were you I would email support about that, its absolutely outrageous.

Wow thats really stupit they just saw u said something about virgoods.com and didnt even take the time to atleast look at the conversation, before banning you? I guess now becuase of the stupit companies selling gold we cant even joke about it ingame... this is crazy

okay ... I received pm'd one of my guildies ... about another guildie who was farming his perfect sephis axe ... we said ... farm it in LA D1 like WTB pef sephis axe blah ablah blah ...

he said he didnt have enough cash, we said we'd give him ours, he said no (pride) ... I pm'd the guildie (not the farmer) saying some guy is spamming 100K in tombs on virgoods.com for like 6 bucks ... said why waste 3 months trying to get the axe, he should just go buy it (<<<---- bam ... thats where I get banned, it breaks the eula) sorry if that was not so clear in my original post but point is, they caught it by searching there logs for virgoods.com and checked my chat (not public chat, a pm) even though it is within my guild, I clearly break the eula.