Banning Bonanza : Plz Gaile Comment = NO QQ PLS

So this is only a constructive criticism about the recent banning franzy from anet. It's only a proposition to get a little more work then to accept tickets and banning withouth any further inquiries. All for the comunity and respect for the good players there are still around.

First of all NO FLAMING, NO QQ, WHINING ETC.....this is only an observation, nothing else. Nice comments only are welcomed.

So here the thing, why for so long periods of time no one get banned then boom, out of the blue, tons of players get banned for offensive names and weird trading sessions.

I mean, it's completly acceptable to ban some names that where mentioned here but 2 players I know where wrongly banned for the following and it would be nice from Anet to make further investigations on some cases :

First case : A friend and his guildie traded 600k from his accont to the other so he does not have to buy ectos where the market is fishy. * never in the past they came and go from 4.9 to 5.5 stable and not changing at all from those numbers.

First thing he know, both are banned. Question to ask ? Would is be possible that 2 trustable friend do that especialy from the Guild Hall with same guild tag after the name ? I would think that if you sell Gold or buy it you dont invite the Farmer to your Hall.

Second case : An alliance Leader has this name ( yes he agreed to let me post it here ) " Faq Quebec " Which is a french Canadian province. Clearly, some one could had though " Ho this guys hate that province and is trying to say the F... word about it "

Well, the guilde name is Frere D'Armes du Quebec : FAQ, they don't accept any other players then French Canadians from that Province and are realy into that French thing and a but stuborn about it if you ask me.

He did got banned and had to change it.

His Character is verry well known around with 28 titles already among them wisdom.

So again, Pls, this is not the place to whine about how unfair this ban season has been, no. It's only to propose to the great Company Anet is, to make sure the bans are legit and deserved.

After all, an angry customer is not what any buisness need.

For evrything Anet, thanks of pulling a monthly free game that is after all the second most successfull game today and most of all, unique to his genre.

P.S. Pls don't flame if I make typos, I am french Canadian and kind of bad in english.

Boby Gore

This is inappropriate name, and name filter evasion.

Of course it is. Unfortunately, pronounced in English, which is the dominant language in GW, it becomes an insult.

This is what gold farmers do. They have guilds too.

This might be an error, but large money transactions may raise an eyebrow.

That would be Canadian, for the same reason why speaking in English doesn't make you British.

All of the things you mentioned seemed like plausible reasons for Anet to take action since they didn't know the extenuating circumstances you mentioned. Did your friends contact support and try to repeal these changes?

anet's policies have always been ban first, consider lifting later. Gaile has been the middle person in these many times, and I know she's aware of the generally intolerant and uninformed way that they go about doing this things. A rather peculiar aspect of this is that anet uses bots (ok filters.....but still automated scripts) to auto-ban, without actual real-person observations or input.

Would be nice to see Gaile address the issue of this ongoing trend, and see her either say they need to change the way they blindly ban people, or admit that their system is ban first, consider appeals later (guilty until proven innocent). That response would basically reveal their opinions of the fanbase: money already received, or future customers?

If FAQ is acceptable as a guild tag it should be allowed as a name.

As for the gold trade, its hard to prove one way or another when that much gold changes hands with no collateral trade.


While I would like to think Anet would back track to see where the gold came from if its been in your storage for 6months then they cant go back and see if the gold is legit.

I think that any banning activity, Anet should start giving out warnings, and you should have 24 hours to respond giving plausible reasons for whatever it is you have done. Getting banned for Faq Quebec is just ridiculous, and the person who defended Anet's actions on this is equally as stupid. Everytime you go to an FAQ on a website (different meaning, but same spelling) do you assume they are swearing at you? No, I don't think so...

I'm a German Australian and have a sister who played a game a while back online in which she created the character Schweinchen Dick. She and I didn't even think twice about making that name, since it's the name of Porky Pig in German, and we'd been watching the cartoons on that day, but she got banned from that game for a name being inappropriate.

If this is going to be an international game, which it IS, then they need to be respectful of other people's languages. Yes is may offend the prudish American conservative's on the servers, but you know what, they're not the only people in the world, nor even the only people in the GW world.

Think about it: [FAQ] Normal, seen it as guild tags before. Now try: Faq Quebec. Naturally, It sounds wrong.

But used in a certain context? No.

Edit: Damn Brianna you beat me too it

You must be ESL too. FAQ is the abbreviation of "Frequently Asked Questions" in "American English." No other known meanings. The word you are thinking of ends with a G, not a Q. Areanet either mistook the Q for a G, or they are realllllllllly stretching for reasons to ban. And its not the best time to start kicking your player base in the shins.

And this is the same reason why they shouldn't have banned: they don't know the whole damn story. They need to get their shit together and stop banning people without knowing all of the facts.

/agree

I lead a medium size alliance, and have same concern. Iam aware of around 6suspentions in the last week with in our alliance alone.

Only 1 was legit, he bought gold from a website, ok I agree.

3 others were debateable, suspened for names they used. Our alliance is pretty strict on profanity and racist remarks and such, but the names they used while maybe pushing it a little, were not that big of a deal.

The remaining 3 were totally WRONG! Suspened after transfering gold from their own account to their own second account. Many of our group have played since orginal beta, and have money we move around. Not only to our own accounts, but many real life firends has they begin playing GW, not unusal for us to give them a 100k.

Lastly, last week I was in AB. Three of us from our guild, and 1 pug. Upon entering battle I moved forward to center waiting for count down til gates openned. Pug began ranting he was gonna report me for leetching. I was lagging on my screen I was with them, when fight began, I stopped lagging and realized I wasn't with them.

I wasn't suspened, but I'm not interested in playing with PUGZ any more, I have zero interested in being threated or someone trying to intimidate me.

In conclusion, when report system was fist introduced, I thought it was a good thing, but after a few weeks now, I believe it needs to be removed or seriously overhauled.

OMFGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG I JUST UNBANNED!!!! OMFG, 2 DAYS!!TY,TYVM!
Hello,

Thank you for contact Guild Wars Support. After reviewing the issue, it appears that your account was blocked in error. Your account is now released and you should be able to log in to Guild Wars. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Take care,
GM Phields
The Guild Wars Support Team

Think about it: 1) This is the internet, ''Sounds'' can make out words, Faq > Fack? > F*ck. I'm using ''You're all alone!".

Or if you speak in a welsh accent it sounds exactly like ...

Edit: Damn you again Brianna <_< your too fast

Now, if you are wrongfully banned, can you use the two days as a "ban credit," if you were banned later, like for an "inappropriate" name? That would be nice.
Text doesn't have an accent. (unless you pop up character map)
"Wax the car" can "sound" dirty too, but I'm sure it wouldn't get you banned. Again, they are stretching for these bans, for reasons unknown.

A common pronunciation of FAQ is not ef ey que, but as fahk. In other words: "perform sexual intercourse with quebec".

Again, welcome to the Internet.

Fixed it for you.

KANE

Well "Faq Quebec", as a name, is open to interpretation. I only wish that there was a warning before the ban (which I think is a highly plausible move). I don't see them going around banning people for names without a warning of some sort, in a way, that would make for more paper work in the long run.

If your friend did get a warning, then I guess changing the name would be the best thing to do. You don't want to piss off the people that made the game

so fahk means sexual intercourse with quebec? you see we learn alot of things here at Guru, like how you can have sex with a province. neat stuff!

They don't perma ban they just give you a slap on the wrist and tell you to change the name.

If you think a "slap on the wrist" is missing the overhyped BMP release due to a temp-ban for 3 days because some moderater has a dirty mind, more power to you. Obviously the OP disagrees.

Would you rather have an answer involving a lot of RED ENGINEs?

Am I the only one who doesn't appreciate you denigrating French?

What's the BMP got to do with the OP lol?
Are you out to disagree with everyone tonight?

I've always like RED ENGINEs, they are entertaining. It's like the ________ where you get to put in a word to complete the phrase. Kind of like elementary!

Don't forget this classic. The scary thing is, it's totally real and not made up.

Along the lines of:
1. random person who farms a lot gets banned, sends in tag.
2. receives response along the lines of: while you were banned in error because our bot thought you were a bot, but you are not a bot, you displayed bot-like behavior. We'll un-perma ban you this time, but if you again display bot-like behavior even though you aren't a bot, we'll re-perma ban you

I agree with the OP, this banning frenzy is getting out of hand. You think someone at Areanet would have at least seen one of the many threads about being mis-banned plaguing many of the boards here, and said to themselves, "Hey, maybe we should slow down on these bans and work out a few kinks before we piss off more customers, causing them to flood Support." Not to mention these threads could possibly be popping up on other forums too. But no, the banning frenzy has been going on for about a week now, and two new threads per board daily, at least.
What does the BMP have to do with it? Its like rubbing salt on a wound. Its one thing to get banned for a stupid reason, but missing a(n) event/release/guild-event because of this ban sucks worse.
EDIT: The manpower to update the bot/goldseller-detection has to be less than having to deal with all the extra support tickets NCSoft is getting. I'm sure NCSoft could toss Anet a temp-dev to fix the problem, instead of having to overtime on surplus of Support tickets they have been getting because of these mis-bans.

Know of two people baned resently, one for a grey area, he named his assassin with "a s s" in it. I understand how that would look.
The other makes me think NCsoft Customer Service is horrible. He was 3 day banned at 5 pm on a Friday, never got email notivation why he was, most other game at least email that you have been and for what reason. Also he instantly emailed them asking why he was banned, got a run around until monday morning when they finally said he was banned because he "traded with a known gold seller". So he then asked when it happened, what was traded, was it one sided, and whom was the gold seller. Then the gm hide behind the privacy policy for everything, and closed his ticket.
I understand not giving them players name because of privacy, but giving PROOF of something like: On oct 32 at 13:00 you recieved 300,000 gold, 25 globs of ectoplasm and nagas right hand finger from a one sided trade.
This makes me weary of how much I can trust the GMs.

That name translates as Pig P***s for anyone who speaks German and knows American, and I believe British and Australian, slang. I'll restate something that someone said before that sums it up nicely -"If this is going to be an international game, which it IS, then they need to be respectful of other people's languages. " It works both ways you know. If someone made a name in English that was offensive in German and they played in the German districts, I would hope that person would be cuaght. I'm sure you had nothing but the most benign of intentions, but it does appear, and translate under some circumstances, to something that is quite offensive.

If she was banned from the game that is surprising becuase I think it's only supposed to be banned until the name is changed.

I would have to agree with you. However, it's much more effective to ban people, then ask them to explain themselves than to let a lot of offenders go free.

Let's see how the report system has changed my game play.

1. Don't do PUGS ever now. To much chance of someone getting pissed off and sending fake reports in. Has already happened to friends. No sense in risking it.

2. Don't farm same area to long otherwise might be considered a bot. Would be nice if someone asked first, as you are being punished for being effiecient.

3. Don't under any circumstances do any type of PVP. If, god forbid, something goes wrong, like internet connection, piss off someone, ect, never know where that will go.

4. Don't trade with a second account. It is considered a bannable offense.

5. Don't help anyone you know for G-D's sake as if you give them something, see rule 4.

6. Don't recommend GW to anyone new for fear that they would expect help, and you can't give it due to rule 4.

7. Don't talk in all chat ever. You may offend someone on a typo. (This was a 3 day ban on a friend and no it was not a curse by any means)

8. Don't try to trade anymore, with all the restrictions, not worth it.

9. Don't respond to a whisper, you never know how the person will take the response.

10. Make sure, no matter what, you find a way to have fun!

Still working on 10, haven't really had it since they killed the pug with this.

10. Make sure your character name doesn't have any of the following words from this website: http://dictionary.reference.com/

The fact is that Anet just doesn't have enough staff to properly implement a completely fair system when it comes to policing the game. That's the downside of not paying a monthly fee. Anet can't afford to assign staff to constantly watch us in game, which is why they have an automatic ban process set up. To me, it's always seemed that if you have been banned unjustly, and you just take the time to talk to support in a polite manner, they'll look into it and you will more likely than not get unbanned.

No automatic system is perfect. There will always be people being banned by mistake. There's just no way to prevent it. That suggestion that there should be a warning process where you need to contact support with evidence within 1 day before you get banned is a pretty good idea. It would certaintly prevent a lot of unfair bans. However, a lot of damage can be done within a day. If someone is aware they are about to get banned, they will try to create as much havoc as possible.

That's not strictly true. It's a lot easier to pay a dozen or so employees for support purposes than it is to allocate a team to spent months trying to update an automatic system that will, no matter what, always get it wrong a certain percentage of the time.

Text does have an accent, depending on who is reading it. Text is an interpretive thing. A piece of text may mean something different for each individual person.

I often pronouce FAQ as fak. So do a number of people I know. And there is a large discrepency between FAQ and Faq. One is obviously an abbreviation (hence the capitalisation), and one is a word that can be interpreted as a number of things. Someone obviously saw the name Faq Quebec, and thought that that person was making a slur against that province.

Yeah... I'm French-Canadian and I've seen the guy quite a few times. I assumed he was also a Quebecer and as much as I know Faq sounds close to the F-word in English (so does the word "phoque", pronounced "fok", meaning "seal"...), figured it must have meant FAQ (as in Frequently Asked Questions, who knows O_o) or some kinda guild/organization of some kind people sometimes add into their names. Never took any offense from it even though I AM from Quebec AND speak both languages... people assume too fast I guess.

So yeah, hopefully he'll eventually get his account un-banned, as it's NOT a bypass through the filter so to speak. >_>.

The thing is that, I'll agree, English is the main language used here. I use English online and I speak French everywhere outside my apartment. I try to ply to the rules, but people sometimes don't understand cultural differences or pay too much attention to them. GUessing GW has to become a tad bit lenient if they want to keep their international appeal...

Or, have common sense and courtesy. You know, the way you hopefully behave in real life.

Anet's rules and reasons for bans are veeeery mild. It's not easy to get banned in GW. This is why, once they started enforcing bans (they haven't for first 2 years), some found themselves punished.

Apart from bot related activites (sorry, playing non-stop for 18 hours for 5 days a week is not normal) and unusual trades, I have yet to see someone get mistakenly banned for making a mistake.

The typos or polite responses are usually STFU NUB GO RED ENGINE YOURSELF. But hey, it happens. You mean to type: Hi!, and something like that comes out. It's happened to all of us. Right?

This doesn't mean they don't have the manpower to simply warn players before dropping a ban-hammer out of nowhere. They have our e-mail addresses. Give us a chance to explain ourselves before tossing us in jail.

As far as I can tell, the past week or so has spawned quite a few more "I've been banned, halp" threads. They have changed the automatic system, when it appears it was functioning better two weeks ago. I can't say I know how many bots and goldsellers it has caught, but once a few goldsellers get banned, I'm sure they warn the rest on how to avoid it, whereas regular, non-forum go-ers get shafted.


Again, they must already had a team working on it, because this wasn't as vocal of a problem two weeks ago. Sure, we saw the odd "been banned" thread months ago, but now I'm seeing them daily, and I don't visit 24/7.


Does this make a good enough reason to drop a ban-hammer on someone, instead of asking them to change their names first, with an e-mail, in-game message, anything? How is a player suppose to know all the accent these words are said in, and which ones sound dirty in a different country?

And most likely, a moderator had to look over the report. If they looked at the character name, then looked at the Guild name, you think they would have put 2 and 2 together and realized its not a dirty name. They are really stretching for these bans. They are just names for God's sake. Better they spend time picking through bot-reports and leecher-reports then name-reports, if they do indeed lack the manpower they so often cite.

The bottom line though is that they system they put together and we paid for is supposed to work. It is not. It is worse then it has ever been.

Now, with that said, what is anet gonna do to fix it. My suggestion is to hire 1 person to go over all the ban issues before they are allowed to become a ban. Read each issue and ensure it is correct before banning. Reason I say 1 person is this. If you ban good people for things they did not do, they leave. Your are left with the whinners. If we have a few bad apples hanging around, I can ignore them.

Question I have is if you didn't violate the EULA in any way, and enough people get banned that didn't, would that consitute a class action? Just curious. That has me much more worried then anything else as this would shut down GW in the end because of the cost associated with it.

You must play with a lot of H/H. I have seen people banned for eveything we are talking about and in the top 10. I do play sometimes for 12 hours when I want. I do believe I payed the money to do that.

As for being polite, I am in a guild that is Family Friendly. That means, no cursing, no harrassing, no jokes that are even a bit off color. I prefer to do it that way.

If someone bothers me, I just put them on ignore. It is my perogative.

What has happened here is the moral majority is infringing on the rest of the world. I am american. I just don't like where this is going.

I disagree. Only when spoken does it sound questionable.


And why would "this being the internet" change the way words are audibly pronounced?

gees big over statment, the name could be a mistake but the matter of people being offended is relevant.

The 600k trade, might just be a bit fishy.


More importantly GURU is not your personal advocate connection to Anet.
Tell your "friends" to contact support, and quick attempting to create a moral panic.. Banning bonanza, my butt. Two legit banning isn't excessive.

I don't believe your first case, well I should say I feel your neglecting to mention all the details.

The only time I've used H/H recently was for skill capping.

The rest is guild groups for HM and PvP, and PUGs for various dungeons, slavers, UW, FoW, ....

I have a rare commodity of common sense and etiquette.

And I'm sure they were charming people all around, who've had an injustice done. I've seen people banned too. But never someone for offensive language when they didn't deserve it.

This statement is so very wrong.