Account Banned Theory...

greengoblin

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Apr 2008

Im just gonna write down here a theory for people getting banned. One way I think that guild wars is banning people is because they didnt follow the user agreement, but how whould anet know who to ban? All they have a list of ip address and what was traded or the amount. No hard evidence of trading real money for in game gold (using that as an example because mostly everyone falls into that category) or they can have evidence if you blabberd in chats saying you bought gold, lol. So why do they ban people? Because they want to make money. Yes, I think it does hurt the economy of guild wars when you have real botters, but they shouldnt just ban anybody even if they did purchase the gold from them, they should have real hard evidence presented to the actual customers that purchased their game. without us Guild wars wouldnt be nothing. We all payed our money for the game like $150 worth and then to just getting banned would be devastating and put a whole in your pocket. But thats how anet is gonna make money they know people will buy another set. What I think is that Guild wars should have an investigative team that presents a hard evidence why people get banned, from people who are innocent and didnt know they couldnt buy gold for real money. If I got banned an didnt get no good reason or hard evidence from them I would never play guild wars or any other anet games and would not support them ever again. They could just be banning people for the heck of it too. Just give me your thoughts. If they can just ban someone for no reason and just say they have recorded the actions on a log file, how can they prove it and the real cash exchange. There really is no way of proving just by their word. If you got banned just email the support page of anet a millions of times. No way of them proving you did anything worng unless is was in a chat.

I pwnd U

I pwnd U

God of Spammers

Join Date: Oct 2005

in the middle of a burning cornfield...

Scars Meadows [SMS] (Officer)

Quote:
Originally Posted by greengoblin
Im just gonna write down here a theory for people getting banned. One way I think that guild wars is banning people is because they didnt follow the user agreement, but how whould anet know who to ban? All they have a list of ip address and what was traded or the amount. No hard evidence of trading real money for in game gold (using that as an example because mostly everyone falls into that category) or they can have evidence if you blabberd in chats saying you bought gold, lol.

So why do they ban people? Because they want to make money.

Yes, I think it does hurt the economy of guild wars when you have real botters, but they shouldnt just ban anybody even if they did purchase the gold from them, they should have real hard evidence presented to the actual customers that purchased their game. without us Guild wars wouldnt be nothing. We all payed our money for the game like $150 worth and then to just getting banned would be devastating and put a whole in your pocket. But thats how anet is gonna make money they know people will buy another set.

What I think is that Guild wars should have an investigative team that presents a hard evidence why people get banned, from people who are innocent and didnt know they couldnt buy gold for real money. If I got banned an didnt get no good reason or hard evidence from them I would never play guild wars or any other anet games and would not support them ever again. They could just be banning people for the heck of it too.

Just give me your thoughts. If they can just ban someone for no reason and just say they have recorded the actions on a log file, how can they prove it and the real cash exchange. There really is no way of proving just by their word. If you got banned just email the support page of anet a millions of times. No way of them proving you did anything worng unless is was in a chat.

Ahhhhh text wall is bad. Learn to use paragraphs!

ANet does not ban people for no reason. If they have banned them and not given a reason the offender can contact ANet Support and they will usually respond after some prompting with the reason. If the reason is false or not believed to be true then the offender can appeal the ban to support. Many times people have gotten unbanned because ANet is staffed by humans and someone made a mistake. It happens. Just contact support and talk to them about it.

Taisayacho

Taisayacho

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Jan 2007

England (GMT)

The Imperial Guards of Istan [TIGI]

R/

/notsigned
this is somewhat rediculous, sorry, but it's not a conspiracy. sure, they do make mistakes, but they aren't out to get anyone. if they really banned people that much and unfairly, news would spread, people wouldn't buy the game, thus no making money.

oldsmar ftw

oldsmar ftw

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Mar 2008

Florida

Legion of Blood Shadows[LoBs]

Mo/A

anet will only ban your account if they do have evidence.They don't randomly ban pople.Anet doesnt care if you dont buy their games after you get banned because they dont want that type of person playing anyways.

greengoblin

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Apr 2008

I think any business does care if we buy their games. After all its a business. I havnt got banned yet. I was just posting this to get feedback and see opinions of others.

oldsmar ftw

oldsmar ftw

Pre-Searing Cadet

Join Date: Mar 2008

Florida

Legion of Blood Shadows[LoBs]

Mo/A

They care if you buy it ,but if someone that buys it is making the game less enjoyable for others they would care more about that.

wilderness

wilderness

tinyurl.com/6hqar7a

Join Date: Mar 2006

We Couldn't Figure Out A Name [LMAO]

W/N

Quote:
Originally Posted by oldsmar ftw
anet will only ban your account if they do have evidence..
My account was banned for using a 'Third Party Program'.

After almost two months of automated responses, I received this reply:

"A game moderator did witness automated behaviour in game while observing your character, this indicated the use of an automated third-party program, which is why we closed the account. In this case, as you are a one-time offender, we will remove the ban."

Now, I know I've never used any kind of bot or TPP so I know for a fact whatever 'evidence' they thought they had was misinterpreted. When I asked for details of the so called 'evidence' (so I could avoid doing whatever I was doing in game to make it seem like I was automated), they ignored the request entirely.

I don't really mind, it must be an awful job policing a game like this, but please don't assume that Anet are completely flawless at it. If they made a mistake with me there's a good chance that with a substantial percentage of these bans are founded on similar misinterpretations.

greengoblin

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Apr 2008

misinterpretation = human = mistakes 99% of the time. Having account banned.

I mean its anets game they created it. They should have a program written to ban someone if a script got changed or added like the botters do. Not just "assuming".

AshenX

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Jan 2008

Orange County, CA.

Black Flag

R/

GW is A-Net's house. You go into their house to have fun with other guests. If A-Net witnesses you breaking their established and POSTED rules for behavior in their house (rules created so that all of their guests can enjoy the visit) then they have every right to ask you to leave (either temporarily or permanently). The fact that they charge admission to their house does not change this basic fact of property ownership.

wilderness

wilderness

tinyurl.com/6hqar7a

Join Date: Mar 2006

We Couldn't Figure Out A Name [LMAO]

W/N

Quote:
Originally Posted by AshenX
GW is A-Net's house. You go into their house to have fun with other guests. If A-Net witnesses you breaking their established and POSTED rules for behavior in their house (rules created so that all of their guests can enjoy the visit) then they have every right to ask you to leave (either temporarily or permanently). The fact that they charge admission to their house does not change this basic fact of property ownership.
IN regards to the Op, I agree entirely. You sign the contract at install and ignorance is no excuse.

The issue being that the ban sweeps are too broad; it's like dolphins caught in tuna nets. It's the only way to be close to effective?

greengoblin

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Apr 2008

But its a hefty price to pay knowing they can just ban you.

wilderness

wilderness

tinyurl.com/6hqar7a

Join Date: Mar 2006

We Couldn't Figure Out A Name [LMAO]

W/N

Quote:
Originally Posted by greengoblin
But its a hefty price to pay knowing they can just ban you.
I wouldn't phrase it like that, it's more an annoyance. Innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire are (eventually) administered cpr.

Siirius Black

Siirius Black

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Aug 2007

The Dragon's Lair

La Legion Del Dragon

E/

I guess the best solution would be for anet to develop tools for monitoring in game activities. That is like a replay of gvg's. That way, if you made something that seemed odd or breaking the rules, all they have to do is to recreate the activity and see what actually happened.

This might be hard because of the amount of storage space probably needed to store that infomration.

But I'm hoping they develop better tools for this task. I dont want to be banned just because I was transfering stuff from one of my accounts to the other. Since I have an account that I use as a mule.

makosi

makosi

Grotto Attendant

Join Date: Mar 2006

"Pre-nerf" is incorrect. It's pre-buff.

Requirement Begins With R [notQ]

Me/

Quote:
Originally Posted by AshenX
GW is A-Net's house. You go into their house to have fun with other guests. If A-Net witnesses you breaking their established and POSTED rules for behavior in their house (rules created so that all of their guests can enjoy the visit) then they have every right to ask you to leave (either temporarily or permanently). The fact that they charge admission to their house does not change this basic fact of property ownership.
The admission fee means a lot more than you think. If it was a free game then ANet could do whatever they please, whenever they please.

Players pay for accounts though. If they terminate accounts without valid justification then the players may be entitled to reimbursement should they take it to court in the UK. The EULA's exclusion clauses are not all valid as far as UK law is concerned.

Take two cloakrooms, for example - one cloakroom has a £1 fee and the other is free. If both cloakrooms had an exclusion clause notice, (i.e. "We take no responsibility for any loss or damage caused to your goods.") the £1 cloakroom have assumed a duty of care by aking your money and the exclusion clause is not valid. The free cloakroom's notice is valid.

Long story short, they can't permanently terminate your account if they have no valid reasons for doing so - which occassionally happens. Those who have not breached the rules of conduct and have recieved a permanent ban are entitled to have their service restored or financial reimbursement.

Mini Masher

Mini Masher

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Oct 2006

[pink]

W/

Anet is not out to make us purchase more games. I'm saying they wouldn't appreciate it if we did but...

My experience with this matter is as follows:

My mother (yes mother, she's 66) plays guild wars and my son (who also plays) downloaded some keylogging software to her PC. Her accounts were hacked, all her stuff stolen and characters stripped, then her account was banned (presumably b/c whoever hacked it used it for some nerfarious purpose).

She contacted arena net and explained that she had been hacked. They asked a series of questions to confirm her identity and gave her her accounts back. Given that all four of her accounts (all with prophecies, factions, nightfall, and eotn), were unbanned and returned to her control with relative ease, I find your conspiracy theory lacking any foundation.

That's my two cents anyway.

Commander Ryker

Site Contributor

Join Date: Jun 2005

R/

Conspiracy theories go in Riverside, so I moved it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by makosi
Long story short, they can't permanently terminate your account if they have no valid reasons for doing so - which occassionally happens. Those who have not breached the rules of conduct and have recieved a permanent ban are entitled to have their service restored or financial reimbursement.
Yes they can.

Fried Tech

Krytan Explorer

Join Date: Sep 2007

[Yeti]

E/

ROFL. Who would go spend another 150 bucks on a game that they were wrongly banned from. If that happened to me, and I was never given my account back, I would shout from the mountain tops that ANet = bad voodoo.

This would cause them to lose business, not gain business

Deathly_Overlord

Deathly_Overlord

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Oct 2006

A house :)

LaZy!

Mo/

Anet is not an evil organisation out to steal those hard earned £ from your pocket.

End of.

And btw,

I'loled.

greengoblin

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Apr 2008

Quote:
Originally Posted by makosi
The admission fee means a lot more than you think. If it was a free game then ANet could do whatever they please, whenever they please.

Players pay for accounts though. If they terminate accounts without valid justification then the players may be entitled to reimbursement should they take it to court in the UK. The EULA's exclusion clauses are not all valid as far as UK law is concerned.

Take two cloakrooms, for example - one cloakroom has a £1 fee and the other is free. If both cloakrooms had an exclusion clause notice, (i.e. "We take no responsibility for any loss or damage caused to your goods.") the £1 cloakroom have assumed a duty of care by aking your money and the exclusion clause is not valid. The free cloakroom's notice is valid.

Long story short, they can't permanently terminate your account if they have no valid reasons for doing so - which occassionally happens. Those who have not breached the rules of conduct and have recieved a permanent ban are entitled to have their service restored or financial reimbursement.
I agree also with your statement. We should be entitled to reimbursement if our account been banned for no reason since we have to pay for the game.

greengoblin

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Apr 2008

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mini Masher
Anet is not out to make us purchase more games. I'm saying they wouldn't appreciate it if we did but...

My experience with this matter is as follows:

My mother (yes mother, she's 66) plays guild wars and my son (who also plays) downloaded some keylogging software to her PC. Her accounts were hacked, all her stuff stolen and characters stripped, then her account was banned (presumably b/c whoever hacked it used it for some nerfarious purpose).

She contacted arena net and explained that she had been hacked. They asked a series of questions to confirm her identity and gave her her accounts back. Given that all four of her accounts (all with prophecies, factions, nightfall, and eotn), were unbanned and returned to her control with relative ease, I find your conspiracy theory lacking any foundation.

That's my two cents anyway.
We are not talking about hacked accounts. And the theory is about possibilities of being banned for no reason. No conspiracy.

Master Knightfall

Banned

Join Date: Dec 2007

Quote:
Originally Posted by greengoblin
Im just gonna write down here a theory for people getting banned. One way I think that guild wars is banning people is because they didnt follow the user agreement, but how whould anet know who to ban? All they have a list of ip address and what was traded or the amount. No hard evidence of trading real money for in game gold (using that as an example because mostly everyone falls into that category) or they can have evidence if you blabberd in chats saying you bought gold, lol. So why do they ban people? Because they want to make money. Yes, I think it does hurt the economy of guild wars when you have real botters, but they shouldnt just ban anybody even if they did purchase the gold from them, they should have real hard evidence presented to the actual customers that purchased their game. without us Guild wars wouldnt be nothing. We all payed our money for the game like $150 worth and then to just getting banned would be devastating and put a whole in your pocket. But thats how anet is gonna make money they know people will buy another set. What I think is that Guild wars should have an investigative team that presents a hard evidence why people get banned, from people who are innocent and didnt know they couldnt buy gold for real money. If I got banned an didnt get no good reason or hard evidence from them I would never play guild wars or any other anet games and would not support them ever again. They could just be banning people for the heck of it too. Just give me your thoughts. If they can just ban someone for no reason and just say they have recorded the actions on a log file, how can they prove it and the real cash exchange. There really is no way of proving just by their word. If you got banned just email the support page of anet a millions of times. No way of them proving you did anything worng unless is was in a chat.
This sounds to me like one of those PRO-bot or PRO-gold sellers to me trying to present his cause and reason it should be allowed and not illegal so he can make money without worry. lol Just a THEORY of mine, nothing meant as fact of course. <grin>

wilderness

wilderness

tinyurl.com/6hqar7a

Join Date: Mar 2006

We Couldn't Figure Out A Name [LMAO]

W/N

Quote:
Originally Posted by greengoblin
And the theory is about possibilities of being banned for no reason.
Problem is, your OP is muddy. It's main focus reads: "why not let off the people who broke the rules but didn't know?"

Ignorance isn't an excuse, the contract is there to be read (or be read to) on install.

Master Knightfall

Banned

Join Date: Dec 2007

Plus if you'll read futher in the EULA you don't own the game you merely purchased a LICENSE to play by the RULES that ANET/NCsoft set forth. Thus hell if they don't like you they can kick you if they wanted to. It's like this you bought a PASS into THEIR HOUSE, if you do something in their HOUSE that they don't like or are even suspicious of they can kick you out just like that. Just like I would if you came into my house doing what I told you not to do. Or if I even became suspicious that you were drinking my bud weiser when I told you that you could only have the coors lite. <grin>

Plus I agree with Dan-the-Noob why would some "legitimate" player even think or care about these situations. I know it never crossed my mind either logically or hypothetically. Usually only the guilty want to use the system for their behalf when it suits their own agenda's. First to cry innocense last to accept responsibility.

wilderness

wilderness

tinyurl.com/6hqar7a

Join Date: Mar 2006

We Couldn't Figure Out A Name [LMAO]

W/N

Quote:
Originally Posted by greengoblin
they shouldnt just ban anybody even if they did purchase the gold from them, they should have real hard evidence presented to the actual customers that purchased their game.
Quote:
Originally Posted by greengoblin
What I think is that Guild wars should have an investigative team that presents a hard evidence why people get banned, from people who are innocent and didnt know they couldnt buy gold for real money.
Being the parts that people are retaliating to. The wording on the first part is off and the second actually suggests that ignorance is an excuse.

Quote:
Originally Posted by greengoblin
They could just be banning people for the heck of it too..
Being the idea of conspiracy.

Deathly_Overlord

Deathly_Overlord

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Oct 2006

A house :)

LaZy!

Mo/

To the OP :

In future, try to make your posts a bit more readable and better layed out, so you dont get the crap ripped out of you. AND if you lost your account, why not contact GW support?

KTHNXBAI

(+1? )

Mini Masher

Mini Masher

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Oct 2006

[pink]

W/

Yes but my point was that from her point of view her account had been banned seemingly for no reason. It wasn't until she investigated it with Anet support and got her accounts back that she discovered the hack and what had happened.

I was simply stating that just because one doesn't immediately know why their account has been banned, doesn't mean that there wasn't a legitimate reason for the ban, even if that reason was out of the account holders control.

Ctb

Desert Nomad

Join Date: Apr 2006

W/

You can stretch the word "theory" in non-academic contexts pretty thin, but I think you just snapped it pretty decisively.

Of course, I can't help but savor the irony of a post that simultaneously knocks someone for not having "hard evidence" to ban users while replacing the notion of circumstantial evidence (which is still evidence) behind those bans with a cockeyed conspiracy theory.

Deathly_Overlord

Deathly_Overlord

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Oct 2006

A house :)

LaZy!

Mo/

Quote:
Originally Posted by Ctb
You can stretch the word "theory" in non-academic contexts pretty thin, but I think you just snapped it pretty decisively.

Of course, I can't help but savor the irony of a post that simultaneously knocks someone for not having "hard evidence" to ban users while replacing the notion of circumstantial evidence (which is still evidence) behind those bans with a cockeyed conspiracy theory.
i do belive....

You are on to something.

greengoblin

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Apr 2008

Like i said before in my earlier post I havent been banned. Just getting opinions and feedbacks. lol

Deathly_Overlord

Deathly_Overlord

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Oct 2006

A house :)

LaZy!

Mo/

The simple answer to your question is:

The larger part of the community does not agree with you.

Shiney

Academy Page

Join Date: Jun 2007

Ireland

E/

I'm sorry. I stopped reading when I saw the thread title. "account banned theory" that really says it all, doesn't it? You had a "theory" about how Anet ban accounts... And you felt you had to share it with us... And it's a bunch of balony...
Did it ever occur to you that Anet actually know what they are doing? They don't just pick random accounts to ban.

In fact, why did you post this on a fan site at all? Correct me if I'm wrong, but this isn't the 'conspiracy about everything that happens to go wrong and anet hates me" site.

greengoblin

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Apr 2008

You mean the little part of the community. If it was a larger community it wouldnt just be in this sites forum.

greengoblin

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Apr 2008

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shiney
I'm sorry. I stopped reading when I saw the thread title. "account banned theory" that really says it all, doesn't it? You had a "theory" about how Anet ban accounts... And you felt you had to share it with us... And it's a bunch of balony...
Did it ever occur to you that Anet actually know what they are doing? They don't just pick random accounts to ban.
All in all its a business they have to make money somehow. The programmers are smart I agree. If they were really smart they would have written a program to stop anymore script entrances from the botters and hackers.

Grunntar

Grunntar

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Apr 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by greengoblin
And the theory is about possibilities of being banned for no reason.
I think the flaw in your argument is that they ban for no reason. Just because *you* don't know the reason does not mean there isn't a reason.

I'm sure that they always ban with a reason. (You may not like the reason, nor agree with it, or it may even be silly, but there's got to be a reason...)

Deathly_Overlord

Deathly_Overlord

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Oct 2006

A house :)

LaZy!

Mo/

Quote:
Originally Posted by greengoblin
You mean the little part of the community. If it was a larger community it wouldnt just be in this sites forum.
That made no sense...

Elaborate please....



Edit:

And btw, I dont mean the entire GW community, I mean the GWGuru community .

wilderness

wilderness

tinyurl.com/6hqar7a

Join Date: Mar 2006

We Couldn't Figure Out A Name [LMAO]

W/N

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shiney
Did it ever occur to you that Anet actually know what they are doing? They don't just pick random accounts to ban.
No, but it does seem their methods of collecting and identifying the proper evidence are quite flawed.

greengoblin

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Apr 2008

Quote:
Originally Posted by Master Knightfall
This sounds to me like one of those PRO-bot or PRO-gold sellers to me trying to present his cause and reason it should be allowed and not illegal so he can make money without worry. lol Just a THEORY of mine, nothing meant as fact of course. <grin>
Lol. I dont sell gold or anything just posting this theory so everyone can shout out their opinions.

Lets say what if you were in an alliance and wanted to hand over about 300k to your other guild members. A-net would put a flag on you and then ban you for a "suspicious" cash buying gold. Then what? You would email it to their support page and wait for months with out interaction with guild mates that are counting on you. What are you gonna do? Start all over from spending countless hours playing?

Chrono Re delle Ere

Chrono Re delle Ere

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jul 2006

The Land of Hyrule

[GoE]

W/

We need more Robocops in Anet...

greengoblin

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Apr 2008

YOU UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT ANY ATTEMPT TO MAKE ANY CHARGE BACK OR OTHERWISE RECLAIM OR OBTAIN A REFUND OF OR A CREDIT AGAINST ANY FEES PAID WITHOUT FIRST CLOSING YOUR GAME ACCOUNT OR HAVING OBTAINED NC INTERACTIVE’S PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENT TO SUCH REFUND SHALL ENTITLE NC INTERACTIVE TO DEACTIVATE YOUR GAME ACCOUNT AND OTHER ACCOUNTS ASSOCIATED WITH SUCH METHOD OF PAYMENT UNLESS AND/OR UNTIL SUCH TIME AS THE FEES ARE REPAID OR A CREDIT OR REFUND IS AGREED WITH NC INTERACTIVE.

I guess you can get your money back.

Taurus

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: Oct 2005

Mexico

Go for the eyes [jizz]

W/Mo

Here's Wilderness before the ban :

After the ban :