Banned for using a bot: BUT I haven't!!

Today I tried to log in, and could not. Why?

If you recall, I had posted here asking what the best way to get all the skills. The reason I asked is because I am tired of leveling to get skills.

About a month ago, my husband got this crazy idea that he wanted to get Legendary Survivor on one of his characters (1,337,500 exp without dying) and he wanted all the skill points anyway. So we set off to Elona Reach, I made a 55 monk, he bought a ton of exp scrolls, and we did the first 10-15 minotaurs over and over, and over, and over (about 30 hours worth). It's not bad, even though it's monumentally boring, because I got all the skills I needed on my monk/necro, and my husband was that much closer to the title he wanted (I've never seen anyone with it).

We've been doing this for the last month or so, off and on in the evenings and on weekends (between 1 and 5 hours in a sitting). Today I tried to log in to continue leveling (at our current pace, we have about 6 hours left) when, lo and behold, I got the above message. I have a real job, I work 40 hours a week. I don't play all day and night, only for 1 to 5 hours at a sitting (5 hours is very rare).

I am so upset. I don't even know what the heck a bot is (I presume a program that plays for you?), nor where to get one, nor even the DESIRE to get one! I submitted a question request via the Guild Wars web site. I don't know what to do. Maybe they underestimated some people's tolerance for boredom in doing the same thing over and over? (My husband's account was not banned ... yet)

Does anyone here have any experience at all with this type of occurance? Are the bot bans negotiable at all? I sent an email to their customer support via the form on the website. If anyone else has advice please let me know. My husband read over the Code of Conduct to make sure we weren't breaking any rules, and we haven't.

Thank you for any intelligent response to this thread.

Bots are script that makes a character perform a set of actions again and again and again - often used by people who want to farm a boatload of cash/items/xp without effort.

It appears that your behaviour matches the parameters of ANet's detection algorithm for bot behaviour.

There have been a number of people mistakenly banned recently due to this detection algorithm, and many (if not all) of the legitimate users have had the ban removed.

Dealing with [email protected] is the best way to get your account back. It may take a while, and it may need to go through a few people and an investigation process, but if you legitimately haven't broken any rules, you should be fine.

Good luck!

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s....php?t=3071152

^ link to the thread about a recent rash of bannings and some stories about being reinstated FYI.

Well from the past posts about this topic they say that what you should do is contact ANet support from the main guildwars.com site and send them a letter explaining yourself sort of like you explained yourself here. If they don't unban you the first time send them another support letter asking to be unbanned. Rinse and repeat. The only thing you shouildn't do, out of courtesy, is send those repeated requests all at once. Send them as many requests as you need to get unbanned, but don't spam support.

EDIT: Aha! I had thought you had gone two hours without a response to your question here but just realized I'm in a different time zone on vacation. Good luck, and hope your unban happens swiftly.

Create a support ticket, and basically tell them what you have posted here. Most importanty, DO NOT let the support ticket die. there is a little thing on them like "if you have not responded after 48 hours we will consider the issue resolved" <---write before then, dont let it get pushed back into the gloom. Annoy them. Bug them. And dont let it die

Thank you all for your advice. I will post what happens next. I went on a 3 mile walk, and right now I am drinking wine, eating popcorn and watching Jurrasic Park (hey had to take a break to make popcorn, which is why I am posting). Needless to say I am in a rather good mood

I really like this game so far, so I hope they can resolve this! I am also glad they ban people for using bots. I understand if a few innocent people (like me) get caught in the process. At least it shows they are attempting to do something.

Xorena-you got caught in a bad time... Did you notice all of the Mo/W in elona Reach? Practically of them were banned, in fact, almost all Mo/Ws in that area were banned. 4,000 bots (or would be?) were banned starting last week and apparantly up until now and forever on.

If you annoy Anet they'll give the account back...Simple.

Now whats to stop the people who own the 4000 accounts that do use bots on their accounts to do the same thing and try and get their account back?

Maybe they could have had an admin chat to some of these chars and maybe this wouldnt have happened because u could have simply said im no bot im going after a title much the same as the AFK during the fesitval going for hapless etc.

God I empathise! I really hope they sort you out, I used to farm this area while I was practising my 55 build on my nec, Id be gutted if they banned me for something similar!

The funny thing is, I am a 55 monk/necro. I just bought the equipment, runes and such and only use monk spells. My husband's character also buffs me with monk buffs, and heals etc. Really works well. I haven't gotten a message yet from Anet

good bots can do that too =D

call them, i find calling a lot more effective and faster than email and their support program because it is easier to explain to someone on the phone and they'll believe you more rather than an email that couldve came from anyone

Yay! I got an email where they said they banned me in error! Now time to appeal my husband's banning before it happens...

Very nice. good to hear you're fixed.

On one hand I'm glad to hear you got unbanned, but on the other hand I'm not overly ecstatic to hear that they are STILL banning non-bots. There was a significant rash of this about a week ago, and even though they've unbanned most of those, they are still making f-ups.

Back then someone made a rather amusing observation: the irony that they use bots to ban real people, when they should be real people banning bots.

This whole, we'll use some re-determined parameters to auto-ban people, then it's up to you to plead your case and we'll act if we decide to, is a pretty fascist way to treat good, honest customers.

gg anet!

Is it me or using algorithm to detect bot behaviour is a bad idea? I mean sure it will catch those bots but half the time those who like to farm in certain areas or do things similar to bots get accounted as one of them. I used to do ton of chests farming and ettins farming. If i keep on doing these farming runs, i might be mistaken as bot and got banned by now.

Apparently it is a bad idea. You'd think they'd have learned that from the recent mass banning. Wish they'd conduct themselves more professionally.

First and primarily, bots have not and will not ever be stopped. I've seen more non-bot accounts banned in the last month than bot accounts banned. It's sad that people bot and sell itmes/gold on ebay true, but why put everyone at risk by BANNING people's accounts that have all this stuff they worked for ect, and they don't really even know if its truely a scam or not. I knew a guy that played all the time, had a ton of cash ecto ect, 3 FoW sets, 2 15k sets, and 2 Vabbian sets of armor for his different characters and what not, never botted, and has been playing since the game came out, and they banned him for botting, he was r8, and worked for it 100%. Now Anet flat out won't answer his calls, ignors his emails, and he flat out just hates the game, and worst off, he reviews on IGN, and gave the game terrible reviews cause he was so mad. He started playing WoW around the same time, and now he says its all he plays because GW's is just another garbage support setup that Diablo/WoW/TQ dwarfs. Kinda sad IMO seeing as i played with him and knew how good he was and how much he liked to play. :/

I don't agree with the implied ineffectiveness "I've seen more non-bot accounts banned in the last month than bot accounts banned. ", But I will say that having a test like this for determining Bot activity is open for catching alot of innocent people.

Guildwars suffers from not being able to employ hordes of GM's to watch over places - Thats one of the drawbacks to not having a $15 a month fee to fall back on for staff payment.

This thread is like....5 months old, why bumping it....
Although I've seen worse....(bidding on a Rago's Flame Staff, which the thread is over 1 year old)

Good job, Mekkakat and FR. You two win the prestigious Thread Necromancer Of The Year Award.

/clap