Perma Banned, Third Party?

Question: WTF?

Was farming in Zen Dajun mission when I'm kicked to the log in screen. I typed in my password and then I see that I'm banned perma style because of using a "third party" program.

Could this be because of me grinding to much?
My character is 5 months old, I've got the People Know me title:
1.) 3 Protector titles
2.) 3 Cartographer titles
3.) Max Lightbringer (before double weekend)
4.) Max Sunspear
5.) Incorrigble Ale-hound
6.) The Silly Legendary Cartographer

Now, I'm halfway done with the elite caps and 2,500 towards sweet tooth...

Could it be that I went AFK during the Birthday festival? I did do that on the nine rings.

Man, I bought all three campaigns and then I bought Nightfalls CE for the hell of it.

I sent in a support ticket and hope this gets resolved soon...

Just be sure to keep on them about it, respond to every e-mail they send you. And be polite and courteous. If you're innocent, they'll get you going again soon.

Agreed with Kook. They have made mistakes in the past, and have corrected said mistakes.

"Third party program" suggests they detected a hack or helper program.

Yeah they have been making these mistakes alot over the past few months and the peopel they have banned by mistake have managed to get unbanned. Keep communicating with them as Kook said and you should get through.

And please keep us posted

I hope you get your account back.

How could you prove that you don't have a third party person program on your system?It wouldn't say it on your dxdiag.

unless u r a prominent member of the community i doubt u will get ur account back. There were a few times ANet unbanned ppl but that was during massive bans. Unless you create enough noise + get the community involved u can start saving to buy GW all over again.

Nobody here can help you really, weather or not you used or did not use 3rd party program. If you are really innocent then go ahead and keep in touch with them on the matter. The thing is, there are some ass hat out there who hated farmers and will report anyone, be it bots or real people. So if you were right then I do hope thing will work out for you.

I'm wondering why anet doesn't check these things out more carefully before they go banning people. Why do they get the idea that someone is cheating? Is it from a report from someone or do they have some kind of program in place to detect these things? If it is, why are innocent people getting banned and all those farming bots still running around. I saw some for the first time a couple of weeks ago and you can tell just by watching them that they are bots.

I would hate to think it's just to sell more games.

It isn't uncommon on other ncsoft games to get banned by mistake or by petition-bombing. But I don't know how independent anet is from them.

@Ryker: How do you know how ANet check these things before acting in general, or in this case in particular?

For ANet to at all detect a third-party program (bot, macro, cheat, whatever) it has to be sending data to ANet, and do so in a way which triggers the traps ANet has set to monitor the data stream.

There is a possibility that this user has accidentally triggered some heuristic cheat-detection - false positives do, rarely, happen - but odds are he's really running some "helper" program, or some program which in itself might be legitimate but which when used with Guildwars violates the terms of agreement, e.g. Ghostmouse.


I will also note that my experience in e.g. the Steam fora has taught me that not all who claim to be innocent and to have been banned by mistake are telling the truth. So, since I don't know the details of this particular case, I'm reserving judgment, BUT If he's innocent, then he should contact ANet customer support, because they can help him. If he's not innocent... well, tough cookies.

A few things are, it is illegal for ANet to do such checks and do send such information back to them, unless it is mentioned in a license on the box or in the manual, and before the application is installed. At least, it is illegal in some states are most non-us/uk countries. The reason why Blizzard got away with it with WOW, is because it is mentioned in the license on install.

The 2nd thing is, if you are innocent, ANet must, my law, unban you or completely refund your money. Again, this is only if your innocent

No, it is not illegal for ANet to _monitor the data streams_. The stuff you send to the server.

The things you think of are more iffy - if they were to install software on your computer to scan for known threats and report that, but frankly there are DRM software today which does exactly that - e.g. Steam and the WoW DRM software - and many others which install on your machine and scan for threats (e.g. Starforce does that).

But to just have traps checking what you send to the server and which analyze that for irregularities (such as, say, repeating a sequence of actions over and over with millisecond precision, indicating scripting/botting) is completly legal and uncontroversial.

Anet can check anything that happens in the game. They can check where you go and what you do if they realy wanted to. Checking any data stream is completely legal for Anet to do, considering they make the rules. They don't have to announce that they are checking or that they are going to ban you.

[QUOTE]IT IS MENTIONED

ACTUALLY READ THE EULA AND TERMS OF USAGE/AGREEMENT

it wont install unless you click the *i have read*

either you were in a hurry and lied about reading them or you read that they have every right in the book spelled out that they can and will do whatever monitoring for illegal third party programs they deem necessary.

YOU ARE PROTECTED BY THEIR PRIVACY POLICY WHICH YOU ALSO AGREED TO BY CLICKING *I ACCEPT* BEFORE YOU CAN INSTALL.

Anet wont unban a person who is innocent because they have to they will do it because the unban is the right thing to do

It is mentioned in the EULA.

Also, the servers are Anet's. They can ban people if they want to and there is no law that says they have to unban you if you're innocent.As Loviatar mentioned, they'll do it because its the right thing to do. All characters, items, gold, etc on the GW servers are the property of Anet.

To the OP, keep sending in and replying those emails until they bring your account back (if you are indeed innocent)

didnt macro your drunk or sweet tooth title ehh?

I played for 2 years and still haven't got those titles. You must really grind a lot.

BTW, from where do you connect? I know that Anet are very strict on banning people that connect from Asia IP.

Yea...that's kinda doubtful >.>

why the heck would you need to macro the sweet tooth title . .. just click them all. don't have to wait like the drunkard title.

Ok, we're talking about two different things here, in the beginning. ANet have every right to monitor their data streams between the client and server. However, they have no right to try to scan the computer for other programs unless stated in the license before/during install.

And yes, they have the right to ban people, but if the person is innocent, and ANet refuse to unban them. Aka, they wrongfully banned the person, then they own the player a complete refund.

OMG, you don't read EULA's do you? Please go and read the GW's licensing agreement before you start to talk law and what not. I'll even provide a link for you... here.

I would like to point out Section 4, Sub-section (c)...
You don't own the account that you play with, A.net does. That means they can do whatever they want to it, even disable it.

You make me laugh...
Read Section 14 of the agreement...
Do I need to go on? It doesn't matter if the OP did something wrong or not, as long as A.net believes that a player has done something wrong they have the right to terminate service. And by acknowledging the user agreement, read or not, you agree to this, and everything else, when you create an account.

Edit: Added in another Tannim quote... you make me laugh! :P

Please read the posts you are replying to, thanks As mentioned previously, in some states and countries, that clause you quoted at the bottom, is not legal, and the player IS entitled to a full refund.

So let me know when you choose to read ... you make me laugh! :P

You may be correct about people being entitled to a full refund in certain locations, however to do so, you would need to employ the services of a lawyer, lawyers don't come cheap. Do you really think it's a sound investment in time and money to spend $100+ / hour on a lawyer so that you can get your $49.95 back? Not to mention that most judges would consider that an ENORMOUS waste of the courts time.

Now we're talking, and your entirely correct although, it would be a small claims court issue (thus no lawyer, only filing fees), and from there the Attorney General due to the business practice in those states/countries.

I'd say, the only people who would attempt such an endeavor would be those who wish to set a precedent and a point.

If anything, the player can return the game to the store for a refund or a swap. Anyhow, you do make a great point.

you really need to brush up on your law. by clicking the agree button you agreed to the EULA which is basically a contract. if it can be found to be illegal in whatever state or country you're in, it doesn't matter as Anet is based in California and that's where the case would be fought.

the filing fee for small claims court is $50 (at least in CA). No one in their right mind would spend $50 to get a $30 refund (in which they would lose the case anyways). the only chance you would have is getting everyone who has been banned who was innocent and going in with a class action suit. Good luck finding a large enough number of people who were innocent and banned that will want to do this.

Again, to the OP, if you are innocent, just keep on contacting them about it. They'll look into your case and go from there.

Ok, I'll have to repeat and clarify my previous posts for you ...

The case can be fought in the home town of the person who have been violated. This means, it does not need to be fought in California.

As mentioned previously in this thread .... It can be taken to case to make a precedent and on principle. Can topple that with various damages in small claims court, depending on your fancy and the laws in your state/country. So the end result can be much higher then $30. With the messed up laws in the US, it wouldn't be surprising.

Class action lawsuit isnt the only chance, but let's pretend there is. With the nice thing called the Internet, petitions, and the like. It wouldn't be hard to find much like minded people ... providing there are innocents to begin with.

All and all, we're talking about IF he is innocent, and IF ANet was wrong ... We still don't know for sure either way

either way, you're not going to get by the contract you digitally signed when signing up to play the game. Contrary to common belief, Guild Wars is Anet's game and they can do whatever they want on their servers. The only way you can affect them if you disagree with them is with your wallet and choosing not to buy future products.

do you seriously think that Anet didn't have their company lawyers go over the EULA for any holes especially for a common problem such as this in MMORPGs?

If I post an ad to sell a car "AS IS" and state everything that's wrong with the car, the buyer cannot come back and sue me if the car breaks down after he signed the contract. It won't matter where the buyer and seller is. You have a written contract that states the stipulations. As long as nothing new is found out like I didn't report all the damages (which would be fraud), the seller is SOL.

In the same way, Anet has nothing to worry about your claims that you could sue them. They state that everything on the servers, including your account, is their property. As such, how can you sue for compensation for something that isn't even your's? Sure you could sue them but it would be an enormous waste of time and money on your part because you'll just be laughed out of court the second Anet produces the EULA to show that you have no leg to stand on.

Yes it says that they will suspend or terminate the account "if you breach this Agreement". This is your defense for wrongful banning as you can just tell them you didn't breach it. They are under no obligation to reverse the banning as stated "Should NC Interactive decide to suspend or terminate this Agreement with a User under any circumstances, the User will lose access to your Account."

As for your demand for reimbursement, that's covered here "You agree that if the Service or your Account is suspended, terminated or cancelled for any reason or length of time, you are not entitled to any reimbursement or refund of any fees or unused access time."

Tannim, technically, they could ban your account since you said you agreed to all of this in the EULA when you signed up and that's one of the stipulations of being able to play. Since you obviously don't agree with the EULA, you've already broken it. But Anet won't do it since there's really no point to banning you.

As you can see, these threads quickly degenerate into various people "discussing" their opinions on the matter.

No one on Guild Wars Guru can assist you in getting your account back. You need to contact www.guildwars.com/support and go through the proper process with the support staff.

Everyone here is trying to help you, but in the end only you can change your account's status through actions rather than words.

Best of luck.
Closed.