ArenaNet, Ban Happy? What's the deal?

I know that this is my first post, and so it probably won't come across as something that's easy to stomach, but just check this out. I say all of the following to at least warn people, and perhaps stop them from making any mistakes.

Guild Wars is a beautiful game, and their business model, in my opinion, is cutting edge. I give them full credit on these counts. But that's not all it takes to do good business.

My wife and I have been playing since 9 of '06 and we've abided by the rules. Especially my wife, considering I can be somewhat of an arrogant guy sometimes. Hey, I admit it. It's my first post and I'm already on a soapbox.

We became friends with a particular person over the past couple of weeks. The guy had a "I have many leatherbound books" Title and was very generous and helpful. Very knowledgeable as well. And I still consider him a friend.

However, as of this morning, the staff found that he apparently had a few other accounts that associates of his were using to farm GW gold and sell it. I agree, that's not kosher. But here's where the line gets drawn.

After the guy was banned, he made a ditch attempt to say goodbye to people from a seperate account of his. He logged in on this account and said goodbye to my wife, who was online at the time. He passed his regards to me as well since I was at work.

As far as I can tell, the only difference between my wife's account and mine is that very conversation, because she's now banned. I did not say "suspended", I said banned.

We have all three campaigns as well as GWEN, so that's $190 that I've spent and now it's for what? She did not know what he was doing, or what had happened until that point. Now she can't log on.

I just logged on and got a random "You should check your wife's account" whisper. That's how I found out she was banned. Think about it. According to their methods of deduction, I guess now I've "violated the EULA"?

Great product. It's a shame that you risk paying money for no service because they cannot supply the "manpower" to investigate stuff like this.

What do you people think of this? We're submitting support tickets, and if we can manage to get past the autoresponders, she'll probably get back up and running, but what if not?

And besides that, what kind of business is this anyway?

Like I said, great game, but if you have a high standard for what businesses you support, you might want to consider any purchases from these guys. This is atrocious.

Yep that sucks. I sure hope that once Anet review the situation they realise your wife did nothing wrong. And they really should be a little less free with the ban stick. I mean banned for talking to a wrongdoer? Surely it wouldn't hurt to check these things more thoroughly before banning?

yea, for no reason at all,both of my accounts were luckily suspended,and the only thing I did was transfer money between accounts,and suspended for 150 hrs -_-

Thanks for hearing it out man. Naturally, a guy's gonna be all up in arms about something like this. But you know, even if it does level off and everything turns out fine, this isn't the sort of thing you can just so "No harm, no foul."

There's a foul here. We're paying customers, get with it.

Here's the question. What do you do to make it change? Or do we just suck it up and deal with it?
Power of the consumer. I'm ready to do something about it.

There is more to this than you either are aware of or are telling us. If the other person you mentioned was selling gold, which is against the EULA, then it may have been tracked that some of that was given to your wife. Keep in mind that ANet cannot tell who paid for the gold this person was farming and who was given it for free. As such, they may have banned your wife's account thinking she received gold from this farmer...

As with any "I got banned" thread we really only have one side of the story here. Now I am not accusing you or your wife of any wrong-doing and just going from your story I would say that any ban was undeserved.
In the past it seems that Anet has been quick with the bans in order to stop any thing wrong from continuing to happen. If you report it and keep at them they will investigate and the account should be restored if it is cleared of any wrong-doing. This has been the case many times and I am pretty sure it isn't going to change.
Sucks to be banned when you did nothing wrong of course but at least Anet is being consistent in the way they handle these issues.
Wish you good luck in getting your wife back up and running soon!

Alright, well the best I can think of is that a week ago the guy asked to buy an elemental sword that dropped for her. He gave her money for it.

Ok, so this raises a flag, cool. Investigate. Hey, even suspend it so that you can get a clean look, but a full on ban? What's the defense for this?

i think anet isn't too well off financially, consider that they don't even have their own support group. it makes sense considering that they have a full time staff "supporting(making weekends and such)" and people making new games. considering that other companies have monthly fees, it's not too much of a reach to say that anet is on a tight budget. i actually wouldn't be that surprised if anet went under before gw2 came out.

Send them an email about it via NCsoft support.
Then wait about a year to get a reply TT_TT

DOOOooOOooOOoOOoooOOOOOOooOOOM!!!1111!!

If I were in your shoes, I would send a letter to Anet(or whatever company) saying that your wife had no affiliations with buying gold.

It might be also helpful to state that she has no offenses and that shes an honest player. And with some luck you just might get your account back.

[QUOTE]that raises flags all over.

very generous maybe to the point something looked very fishy?

bad fish number 2 as a random player knows your wife how?
and that something was wrong with the account how?

maybe that random player was using the account without her knowledge or how would they even know something was wrong.

can you say that NCsoft is the complete owner of Anet and NCsoft is paying the bills?

Anet is one small part of NCsoft not independently owned and operated.

or how do you think they paid the bills for the 5 years of development plus worldwide server network before making a single sale?

sheeeeshhhh

If you knew he was running bots you should have turned him in, otherwise you're just as much part of the conspiracy as he is. Agree with Loviatar there's definitely more going on with some "random" person knowing your wife's account is banned before you both know.

Huh?

You cannot tell from in-game whether an account has been banned. Support tickets also do not say who was banned.

What exactly were you all involved in? Did the supposed farmer have access to your accounts? Did you launder the money for him through one of the accounts?

If the person was banned - why/how was he logged in? Why did he bother to tell you that?

Reading between the lines, you had, knowingly or unknowingly participated in these schemes, and it wasn't just a whisper difference. My strongest bet would be that your wife's account was somehow involved in all of this.

I have yet to see a banning out of the blue, and if it was, it was a fluke that was resolved with little to no effort. Same for stolen accounts. There's more to this than this "GW is such a great game".

That whisper was indeed suspicious. Did you record the name of the person you got it from? Or was it a person you know?

Wow this thread is pointless and like a Game a Clue.
You were banned cuase someone pays 1 dollar an hour to 50 koreans farmin Gold for him then selling it. Be Wup. You obouisly took the Fall so your just a Fall guy for these people.

Too let everyone know Anet Is working with Gold selling sites now so watch out. Im suspended till Friday night cuase I bought 100k cuase I needed it at the time.
I know this becuase on a Support ticket asking why I was suspended they knew I bought gold and I told no one else and was careful of what I said to the sellers even.

Then when I asked about the Topic they threatend to Terminate my Account and closed the Topic.

So Yes your just a Fall Guy!
Nothing you can do.

... What everyone else has said.

The story you have told makes me think of a real life incident that happened to me.

A friend of a friend was a drug dealer. Super nice guy to hang out with, very friendly and helpful. However as soon as I found out what he did, I made sure to make myself scarce. Polite, to be sure, and not condemning him or preaching to him (being rather libertarian myself), but I made sure not to associate with him.

Several months later I found out that the dealer was arrested for murder. I'll spare the gory details.

It doesn't matter how friendly or helpful someone is if they're heavily involved in an illegal activity. By turning a blind eye, you are still putting yourself at risk of being caught in a bad situation.

The only way you can tell if an account is banned is to try and log in w/ it, only to get the banned message - someone had your wife's username & password and was using her account.

Maybe you allowed this, and perhaps the person who was using the account signed on their own account to notify you...

[QUOTE]you were lucky. it could have been perma bannrd

WHAT WAS WORTH YOUR ACCOUNT ANYWAY???

from Anet

Or just the username.

Look mate, I'm all for pity and everything, and I'm sorry the account was banned...but..

How the hell would this random person know your wife was banned...?

I personally am inclined to think that the person was helping your wife's account out more than you know. Why the hell would anyone but your wife know that she was banned? It really doesn't make sense.

Just a thought.

EDIT: Nightmare Pwner, please make your posts easier to read, that just hurt my eyes.
ANET DOES NOT WORK WITH GOLD FARMING COMPANIES. I remember Gaile in a post here saying they keep track of every transaction ingame. I know people that have bought gold, and it all goes down the same way, and thus, when you make a 100k transaction with you giving them nothing, and you make it in a suspicious place with a flagged account, of course they're going to know what the hell's going on. Please think before you post.

......ouch .....sucks ftl

[QUOTE=Loviatar]Alright, I've got a lot to respond to, so here goes. "Bad fish number 2" isn't too hard to figure out. The same guy had one last account, apparently, and was logging in to see if I was able to get on because he felt bad. That's hardly a game of clue, it was an obvious statement.

Did I say that I knew he was running bots? Reread, and understand this time. This wasn't some "random" person and if you all would stop turning this into a mystery and just read what I say, you'd know that I meant the same guy. And I would report his other IGN, but I moved on to check my wife's account after the fact. I only remember "mule" being in the IGN. Why do you have to be so suspicious?

Did I say that I could see he was banned?
What was I involved in? Chatting with whom I thought to be a normal gamer. What kind of a question is that and what prompted it? Seriously?
He bothered to tell me he was logged in because he was concerned since some other people on his friends list got banned as well for "guilt by association".
Reading between the lines isn't really a good idea here, considering I said everything plain and clear in the original post. If you try hard enough, I'm sure you can see beauty in Danny Devito, but that doesn't mean it's there. Quit, that's just absurd.
You people must get a lot of these ban threads, but something tells me that more of them are legitimate than you allow yourselves to think. The weird insinuations that you come up with.

Uh.. we played with the guy. We didn't buy any money from it. Congrats to you though!

Do you people freaking read? I was told to steer clear of this place, I see why now.
Turn a blind eye to something I didn't know about. Go back. Read it. I said this much. I meant it.

She was away so I was checking her account for her real fast. Through email, the guy that caused all this kindly warned me of the trend he'd seen on his friends list.
Nobody signed into her account, I was the only one that tried and just to see if it'd work.

Like I said, he didn't know she was banned. He suspected it would happen as it did to other people he knew.
Who was that last part geared toward? Are you also in the camp that assumes we bought the guy's gold.
We. Played. With. The. Guy. Regularly.
End of association.


In summary, I'd sure like to hear from somebody that read the post and bothered to understand instead of drawing conclusions halfway through the read, thus formulating their response through the remainder of the read, and proceeding to sound like a bunch of people that just like to play devil's advocate.

The guy was an in game friend, so we played alongside the guy. After talking to her, she believes it has more to do with the fact that a gold elemental sword dropped in Magus Stone while farming Asura points with the guy. He offered the 40k, she accepted.
They tracked the gold, banned her on this count.
Nonsense. PlayNC support ticket submitted.

Only staff with ANet/PlayNC/NCSoft know who were banned. The only way a "random" person as you originally stated would know if they were involved with illegal activities with your wife or used your wife's account to do illegal activities. I highly doubt they were using your wife's account without either of you knowing something strange is going on. Only you have said he was running bots. Also a one time trade for 40k isn't enough to set off flags else every person that buys unid's would be now posting they were banned too.

that was just rude and ignorant.

^ Agree...

From what I know, just plead your case to ANet, and hope that they will have good enough customer service to help you out, maybe try to stick in the fact that you like the game, every business likes repeat customers.

Okay, you're not even making any sense. Have you been reading another thread and accidentally responding in this one? Or do you have a native tongue other than English? I don't mean to be rude, but I don't even know how to respond to you at this point.

Jessica, thanks. I believe Nightmare's a little young, so I'm just going to leave that one alone.

Rothaga, good points. Until today, my plan was to get Guild Wars 2. No matter how good it is, it doesn't matter if you can't play. So I won't be a repeat customer. This is sad, because I would like to support the artists and the writers behind the original.

Even if the account is restored.

It seems to me like the GWguru mods have started moderating Guild Wars itself. that would explain randomly banning everyone on the server.

I would just like to put in a quick two cents seems how this has gotten way out of hand. First off, I am said wife that got banned... Second, my husband was only trying to bring this to awareness because he doesn't feel like banning everyone in association with an offender is the solution to a problem.

Basically, this person was a friend in which I would grind reputation with. We played together, and I had no idea he was involved with anything more. This morning he whispered me from an account that I didn't recognize, but seems how I don't talk to anyone else on the game I didn't have to guess as to who it was. We got talking about why his account got suspended, and I was told it was because he did a money transfer from an account that he was given by a friend to his personal account. So yes, I agreed that the illegitimate account probably should have been banned.

Later my husband was on and got a whisper saying that I should check my account. This is because many of the people on his friend's list were getting banned, and since he talked to me this morning he figured my account may be in jeopardy. Good assumption.

While grinding in Magus Stone with him one day I was dropped an ele sword. I rarely sell or trade so I didn't even know it was worth a whole lot. He offered to buy it, and sure, why not. So I figure that was a possible reason why I was banned. The only other reason I can think of is banned by association. Either way, neither of those actions are against the user agreement.

I will say this once... NO ONE absolutely no one other than my husband has my password. If they want to ban me for that then so be it. At least then there is a reason even if it is trivial. But no one else has logged on to my account.

I HAVE NOT used anyone else's account to farm or sell gold.

I HAVE NOT bought gold from anyone or anything.

And yes I have submitted a ticket.

This thread was not started to have it debated whether I had it coming or not. I know the answer to that question and I really don't care if some of you don't believe it. My husband was looking for advice on how to handle it, and wanted to know if there was a way to possibly change the system so they are not banning people only with suspicion. Personally I understand that there will be a small amount of that. However, what I do think is required on ANET's part is, if a ticket is placed they need to actually look into it and not cause a problem with auto responses. And this needs to be done within a reasonable amount of time.

In response to "We should have reported him". Well if you didn't understand from what I said before... you can't report someone if you don't even know they are an offender. Even if I did know about the other accounts, I suppose I would have just stayed away from the business. Yeah I know, that's not really good for the game, but let's face it, I'm generally very non-confrontational, and I leave people to their own business so long as they don't drag me into it WHICH HE DID NOT DO. This was a ban by association. If you can't believe or accept that then so be it.

I can understand that this is very upsetting and I would be screaming mad if it happened to me. Your best bet is to continue with support and be a little patient. Since you have done nothing wrong they will sort it out and reinstate your account. Sounds like your friend was pretty involved and it is a shame that you got caught up in it but give it the chance to work through their system.

Good luck!

Umeko, as you said, I really hope that the Anet support will actually have a look at this matter closer and restore your account. So Anet banned your account after realising there was an evidence of gold transaction between you and the guy. But of course if they had time to look into it they should realise that it was a mere trade of 40k gold and an ele sword , it is not like you were aware that he was a farmer then and you were buying gold from him... Plus banning is just way too harsh for something like this.

The trade was actually for 100k, but then I actually looked for a price check guide, and since it was requirement 12, I turned around and gave him 60k back.

Ooh I see...hmm 100k.

That's a very common amount of gold that people buy off gold sellers isn't it? (As far as I understood... I am still kinda new to GW)

Maybe that's how Anet made a too quick decision about this matter...

Possibly. That is the max amount of money a person can trade in one trade window without including ectos. The fact is if they look back on that trade, we argued about the price on the sword because I didn't think a gold sword that happened to drop for me would/should ever be worth that much. And afterward I insisted that he get some of his money back when I found out that it really wasn't worth that much being that it wasn't requirement 9.

I appreciate your support. It really is a fun game, and I will be sad if all my time, effort, and money is wasted. And by money I mean the money I spent purchasing all 3 campaigns and GWEN for both my husband and myself. I know how people like jumping to conclusions

And from here I will wait to find out how support handles my ticket...

It looks like the only thing you can do is contact support and hope they give you the account back....this happens more than we are lead to believe.

The answer about the excessive banning is (in anets eyes): its better to ban everyone and then the innocent will come forward and plead away while the guilty will usually just take it (which is not usually the case, but THEY seem to think guilty until proven innocent at anet).....its not a democracy and we dont have much say since we all agreed to EULA.

good luck!

So far you still haven't sent a ticket to support, only come here and complain about Anet being unfair. We do not know if they are unfair and neither do you as you are only speculating as to why she got banned.

You, and your wife, *still* do not understand how wrong a whisper of "check your wifes account" is and are getting angry at the people who are (accurately I may add) trying to help you. They do not and never have simply banned by being in someone "friends" list - heck even the fairly wide swing of the Ban Stick against the people duping a while back didn't hit many in the guild that was mainly responsible for it. Those that only got duped items mostly got their accounts back later - only those that either duped or those that got a deal WAY too good to be true (Hey bob - here is three stack of Armbraces for free - have fun!!!).

Even in your description that friend comes off as someone who shouldn't be a friend. You may not have known it, but your "defense" of him is that he did quite a few illegal (in game illegal) bannable offenses across multiple accounts - nice people who try and play the game *do not* engage in those activities. You friend is not a friend, he is a cheat and you got caught up in it (and that is assuming you truly didn't know).

Send a polite ticket to Anet's support, ask why the ban - they usually tend to answer the question. However, if you send your original post to them then I can't blame them if it is immediately drug off to the trash (however, they seem to respond to those also). Be nice and cooperative and most people have gotten at least one "get out of a ban free" card. After that no longer be this persons friend as they weren't yours and find others.

Feel free to ignore this and flame away - however when your ban through this "friend" comes along just remember how many of us informed you of it. Unfortunately it sometimes take getting bit more than once to figure these things out an even then some never do.

I just want to point the obvious: we are not Anet, we do not know why they took this decision and we certainly have no reason to believe you more than Anet. In the context of GWG, it's your word against theirs (until hopefully they unban your wife's account!). Bear in mind that scammers, gold-sellers and other scum also come to GWG to troll and change the opinion that people have on GW (at least, you were clear on the game's quality).

And here I thought I cleared this up. A ticket has been sent to nc support, and I was very diplomatic. Of course cyan didn't send in a ticket as it was not his account that was banned. And as I've said, we'll see what happens. I am neither ignorant nor stupid. I know my friends and I know when something has happened by mistake.

Cyan was irate and therefore ended up venting on the forums. I'm sorry if you took offense to that because honestly none was meant. However, is it so bad to wish that accounts would be reviewed more thoroughly before judgment is passed? I can promise you the only suspicious act on my account was selling an ele req 12 sword for 100k. Which in the end was actually only 40k.

My one question is, how do you figure a ticket hasn't been sent to support unless you yourself work for support? Would that not be jumping to conclusions?

Well, I read about one paragraph in, found the same rant, and went on. As such, I am sorry as a ticket has been sent. Sometimes that comes back and bites me as I miss things. Though in the long run I save myself more time than not.

However, you chose friends badly and still do not seem to see that at all. Everyone has chosen friends badly at one point (few con artists actually look/act like cons), however most of us notice those bad choices, accept it when we have too, and move on. Others defend the con artists until the end. Obviously it was a mistake, all that shady dealings you admit he did actually didn't really occur, even though it was admitted too. Interesting idea, one can both have done a thing and not done a thing - have you been reading the thread on the mini-pet random number generator and decided Schroedinger's Cat was a heck of an idea (if so then realize that the moment of observation has occurred and the waveform is no longer in a superposition)?

I have never taken offense at anything so no apology needed. I have only stated the world as I have seen it and continue to see it - were I to take offense at such things the only way to resolve that is to fling myself off a cliff (I've always figured that to be the most interesting way to die). Since I am still here that has not occurred.

Ok, good for you - want a cookie? I'll wait until (or if) you report what Support sends back. So far I can count the number of times more review would have resulted in something different on one hand. Most of the time they figure if you bother that far then a one time reprieve is usually enough - in other similar circumstances I find that to generally be true. If what you say is 100% true and you continue with such bad choices you will get the ban stick again and probably not get it removed.

Yep that was jumping to conclusions, based on what I had read and what I was willing to read I had seen none sent - in fact I had seen much argument against it just ranting at Anet (and, thus, was why I figured there hadn't been outside of reading an explicit one had been sent). I was wrong. We will hopefully see what the reason was and why it was done. Maybe I can move on to that second hand to count the number of times. Though given the responses from the individuals in question I rather suspect not. So far not a single one of the belligerent ones have ever been even slightly in the right let alone mostly correct - but there is always a first time.