A word of warning to Logitech G15 users.

Oh, interesting. Thanks for the information!


I had the same impression as you... I thought what was illegal was an "afk-process."
On your 2nd point, though, I think it would be good to get clarification. G15 keyboards seem to open up a lot of possibilities, and I think because they can be bought in stores, people seem to think that all their functions are acceptable by gaming corporations.

In no way does the existence of an online document bypass the requirements that (a) any agreement should be presented on paper before the sale and (b) any agreement should be presented in my native language.

No, you are missing the crucial point that we have already paid them to provide that service. We've paid, they're expected to provide the service. It's not something they give to us out of kindness, the access to their game servers is something we are entitled to, using that property is our right. It is not in their sole discretion to discontinue the service and should they stop the service, they would in fact violate the law.

So every time you buy a vegetable or cookie you get a paper signed agreement? WTF? I am sure there is a looooooong list of exceptions to this rule.

Your other arguments about the general idea of law applicability I will support:

In principle if you want to sue them you will need to do this in US where Anet is based probably even in the specific state. If they wanted to sue you then they would need to go to your country and use your language. The exceptions of the rule are where a judge in a given country accepts the case without it being transferred to a place where the sued side of the agreement is registered.

I am working in an international company selling as well "digital products" (domain names) we had numerous cases where we sued or have been sued. In on all the cases where we were the sued party the case even if initiated abroad had to be moved to our country of registration and in front of our local court. Since our agreements and EULAs etc were based on our local law we won all the cases easily. On the other hand we sued some of the "clients" in our local court and judges accepted some of those cases (which means that again our local law was the one applied). However a few times our initiated case was transferred to the judge in a foreign country which made some of our rules which we applied useless (the ones contradicting local laws) etc and made it hard to win the case.

So even if you have local rights which do not support the idea of digital EULA:

1. If they revoke your account to get it back you will rather need to sue them in the place they are registered and apply laws applicable there unless your local judge decides otherwise which is an exception to the general principle.
2. They do not need to sue you to get your account revoked, they do not even have to provide the reason (their Terms and Conditions).

So even if I agree with the fact that that your local rights might be probably applicable in your case I have to say that I do not give them any chance of being successfully executed while on the other hand Anet can easily execute theirs.

Last remark. If the agreement Anet offers to their customers was illegal in your country it will be not possible for them to sell anything in the local stores. In my GW box I had "agreement" and a set of rules included. EULA online was just a repetition.

Are you sure you paid them to provide an infinite service which they cannot terminate? I think under some of the circumstances they can safely just stop their service (boting etc) at least according to their agreement. Interesting thing is if the person who gets banned actually does not have a right to financial compensation. Since initiating the case would cost more (mostly time and effort) than GW account is worth I guess nobody will bother suing them for that.

Thousands of court cases state otherwise. Remember the Texas vs Microsoft lawsuit? Or more importantly, what happened to Jack Thompson?

You don't need paper when normal rules apply, and similarly when there's no paper to define special rules of an agreement the normal rules apply. If I buy a fridge and it breaks down (within some time from purchase), it's repaired or replaced.

No, not normally, if there is a problem with the product, I turn to the dealer that sold the product. They'll have to sort it out, or if the product is 'beyond repair' get me either a replacement or refund the money.

They sell their product in my country through some legal representative for my country who can be held accountable. Ultimately it is about our local (consumer) laws and how they apply to that local representative.

Thousands? You're making up numbers, even in the US there haven't been thousands of cases (probably not even hundreds or even dozens) and those that were are largely irrelevant to me, since I don't live in the US. What case is that btw (plain interest)?

Lol, Jack Thompson was after MS for 'facilitating video game addiction'. How is it related to this issue?

Actually, Jack Thompson was trying to make a link between serial killers and games. He had a habit of making rules up on the spot, too.

The Texas vs Microsoft lawsuit was that the XBox live servers were down for a weekend. To redeem this mistake, they offered a free game. That wasn't enough for a couple of teenagers, who wanted to sue Microsoft for $5 million, on the grounds of "Misrepresentation", which is also similar to what you're trying to prove.

That makes sense. I did not think about this and now when I read this it is plain obvious.

In this case they will be even less accountable since they will have an agreement with the dealer and the dealer with you. I can bet they have a "limitation of liability" clause forcing all their dealers to keep Anet unaccountable for all dealers selling activity. So in fact it will be the sued dealer who in turn will have to sue them in the end in case there will be any legal problems with their product in some of the countries.

There was a saying about Microsoft that it is not a company selling software but a company selling licenses to use software. I think it applies here as well, at least partially.

@OP I am afraid there will be never a general rule which could be applied. They will do their judgments on the case by case basis which are far from being consistent. I would not be surprised if one day they suddenly ban the guy who posted door exploit for beating Mallyx or the one who published in Wiki wall warping glitch for dunes of despair bonus.

I agree in part, there is a code in the background that is always there. It doesn't matter if it's a macro captured using just the keyboard or a macro produced using the UI or writing one yourself in a text document. The code is always there, as that is what the keyboard uses to store the macro for further use. It's a different language to the script language so i would have to say it's not a script, which was the point i was trying to get across.

I disagree, for starters the mouse move event never made it into the UI, you have to write it yourself. Secondly again, the code language used is exactly the same for a macro captured using the keyboard and one that you write yourself without using any logitech software. They are all event types, it doesn't matter if it's "keyup", "keydown", "delay", "mouseup" or "mousedown" hence the reason i said it's a built in function of the keyboard (drivers).

Using that logic, everything you do on a computer is code. When you press the 'a' key on your keyboard it tells the computer 01000001. When you click to move in guildwars it still responds in code. It sends a collection of variables back to the server which then interprets it. It's all still code.

I beleive your ban was probably caused by doin the quest over and over agian for 30 hours straight. Just admitting to using the g15 macro just sealed your fate.
A-net is not blizzard with warden. They don't deep scan your memory. They ban for bot-like activity, so it usually hits hard core title farmers. People who go on hard core streaks have been banned before, told that they showed bot like activity, then unbanned when they protested (usually saying that it the players fault for being wrongfully banned the first time, and any further bot-like activity will lead to perma ban). Unfortunately you cemented your ban by admiting to using a 3rd party program.
Generally GM don't know anything about the game, look at the last ban scare, over people tranfering money between accounts. GM does something stupid and short sighted, and the game community freak out. I doubt this one knew that macro function on the g15 was asked about multiple times, with multiple its ok responces.

Amy, we haven't paid them to provide that service. The provision of service existed prior to the sale. We've purchased the proper tools (Code Keys) to access a service already being provided to the public.

To provide an old example I've used before; when you purchased GuildWars, or for that matter, any online game, all you've purchased is the right to access that service, much like purchasing the right to access HBO. HBO already exists. You are paying to access it.

When you purchase a subscription to HBO, all you have is the right to access the service as is. You do not have rights to anything else. You can't steal additional channels of theirs (GW-Relation: see hacking of accounts). You can't copy and sell their programming (GW-Relation: See Ebay trading of weapons and gold which can fall under copyrights and piracy). You can't give your cable information to your neighbor so he/she an watch HBO too (GW-Relation: See buying/selling and sharing of accounts). It is nothing more than a service and that service can be cut if GuildWars, or HBO chooses to cut it under the agreements.

GuildWars is no different in this than WoW, or WAR, or Flyff, or Runescape, or EQ, or Ultima. Even your ISP has a very similar service agreement. The part where they say they can terminate it if you're using their service for something they don't approve of as written in the service agreements.

It says right on the guildwars box; "Acceptance of certain agreements is required". This means before you bring that box to the cashier, unless you're a tl:dr 24/7, you know you're required to accept some sort of agreement of using the service you're about to buy. If you're so curious as to the exact wording of that agreement, the box also lists the website in which you can research that document (www.guildwars.com).

Knowing you'll be presented with agreements; the action of clicking "I agree" is the action of saying, "Yes, Anet has presented me with the service contract and what I'm allowed to do and what I am not allowed to do while using this service. I have read, or had the opportunity to read, but tl:dr so I skipped it!!...nonetheless agree to follow the rules to access this service."

You don't get refunds if the service terms are voided by the customer. You are, however, entitled if the physical tools to access the service are defective. Ie- You open the box and god know how the CD got snapped in half. The Code provided in the box, once entered upon registration, is invalid. There is no code in the box. The CD install files are incomplete, or corrupt. These are all errors in the tools to access the service from the provider and as such, the provider is responsible to replace, or refund the purchase of only those tools. To use HBO again; if my cable box, which they provide, to view HBO breaks, they can refund my purchase price, or replace it of equal value for free.


To OP:: If you've truly done nothing wrong to break the EULA, I wish you the best and hopefully a restored account. I, for one, hate to see truly innocent players get banned in a mix up, or false accusation.

It's funny how all this turned into a "legal" discussion.

IMO if OP takes ANet to court, ANet does not stand a chance. Not only that but he may even get money out of them.

What people seem to not understand is that the OP was playing for 6 thousand hours during the last 3 years (as the OP). To ban an account like that is more or less equal to someone breaking into your house and stealing all your family photos and videos for the past 3 years.

ANet staff needs to realize that their game becomes a big part of some players' lives and they can't just decide to take that away whenever they feel like. I would dare say they can't do that ever, once they sold their product (game) it is not legal for them to "come to your house" and take it back (with no refunds as well).

Call me crazy but I find it very weird when a company is able to take away a product it sold you at any time with no excuse and without any refund. And as Amy is saying, this is obviously illegal.

I think that any arguement using 6,000 hours and 3 years entertainment for approx $300 payment would probably fail on "reasonable expectations" grounds but... we are getting drawn away on several tangents on this thread.

One thing this thread has given me though, is the feeling to finally get the G15 I bought 4 months ago out of its box!

That is an extremely poor piece of legal advice and your analog is topsy-turvy inaccurate. If anything, the fact that the OP has been provided 6000 hours of solid entertainment after paying an essentially one-time fee of about $200 and still feels entitled for more will get him laughed out of the court with prejudice.

You don't have to take my word on it, ask your lawyer and he'll enlighten you.

Of course not. Any contract between a consumer and a business falls under the local jurisdiction of the consumer in Europe.
I have no idea if this contract clause can hold, as it's already not determined enough - anything on a computer is being enhanced and controlled by software, any keystroke or mouse move... As in the result this clause terminates the whole contract without refund I think that the chances that this clause is considered to be fair by a continental European court are very low.

But here's the thing. They haven't sold you their game. They sold you the access rights to use their game. Guild Wars is not owned by the players. Guild Wars is owned by the creators, developers, and publisher. It's not an offline game. You're required to access a service to play Guild Wars and that service does not, under any circumstance, belong to the players. It's only the service that Guild Wars can deny you and it's within their right because they own that service. They are not asking and have never asked for the physical tools back.

If you bought a cell phone, you also purchase a service contract. If you break the service contract of your cell phone they don't come and take your cell phone away. They cut your service because that's what you paid for. It's the same deal here. You break the service agreement, they deny you the service. It's the same deal in WoW. Break the service agreement, they cut you off. Blizzard won't knock on your door and say, "We'd like your CD's please".

And to state again, they have not taken your product. Players seem to believe that because you have some CD's in your hand that you're entitled to do what you want. This is not an offline game. GW is fully online and the schematics are different. You didn't pay for the physical, the client can be downloaded free online. You paid for the code; the access rights, a Key, to property you do not have any ownership of.

I'm not giving legal advice here at all, I'm no expert in the field and I doubt most of us are. So why are we talking about this?

Of course there is emotional distress when you "ban" 6,000 hours of someone's life and of course that may very well lead to legal implications.

IMO I paid for a product (if u think the product is a key, whatever), not for a monthly fee of a service.

BUT according to you they could turn off all their servers and ban all accounts with no specified reason today if they so choose to do. AND you think that is normal. Need I say more?

Hmmm.

That's obviously true, but missing the point I was trying to make (perhaps I wasn't clear enough?).

The point still stands that whether you use the "script" generator, or just type it out yourself, it can still give a person an advantage over others. So the method in which someone chooses to "macro" or "script/bot" something can have the exact same results, just a different method of getting there.

Which I guess boils down to, "Just because you can buy it in stores doesn't mean that NCSoft will like it."

Which I guess boils down to "because you can buy it in stores it means it is legal, it is useful and there is a demand for it, and NCSoft would better like it."

You can have a better internet connection and that gives you a far bigger advantage than keyboard/mouse macros. Players will never be "equal". Unless you want to put limits on everybody's bandwidth, graphics card, keyboard, monitor, etc etc.

Off all the items that come in the box, what's the 1 thing that is of greatest importance that can't be obtained free of charge? The CD's? No. You can download the client free of charge already. The instruction manual? No. PDF formats on the official site. That leaves the small, square, piece of paper that says, "Access Key". The "Access Key" is the one, absolute, without a doubt, necessity to get into Guild Wars and is what you paid for.

Turning off servers and banning accounts are two different things and unrelated to each other. If you turn off your servers, why would you go through the accounts to ban them if there's no possible way for an account to connect?

Nonetheless, let's just go with turning things off. Yes, tomorrow the owners of Guild Wars could decide to turn everything off and say, "Wait until GW2". They wouldn't, obviously. Guild Wars generates a lot of money still and has a high capacity playerbase. But if they were feeling "emo" they could.

Games can and do close off service. Especially when they don't bring in enough revenue. Need examples? Here's 4 off the top of my head:

NcSoft's very own "Auto Assault".
Gpotato's former Space Cowboy
GamesCampus' Fishing Champ (Which was dumb to begin with).
Fury.

Each one was either P2P, F2P, or F2P with Premiem shops. Everyone who played/purchased the rights to play, or pumped money into the prem. shops didn't get refunds.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least that within a year, the next defunct MMO to run across the news wire will be Hellgate.

Is it right, as in "Fair"? No, but fairness has nothing to do with it. I don't think it's fair that my old Madden can't be played online anymore and I need the newest version. But so goes life.

Is it right, as in the owners and operators of our MMO's have the right to turn things off? Yes. It's their property. If in a few years after GW2 is released and Anet decides keeping GW1 open is costing too much money, they have the right to shut it down. We don't own it no matter how much players cry out that they're entitled.

Actually, they could. The game doesn't belong to anyone who has bought it. All you buy is the ability to use their software, at their discretion.

Best example of this is Windows. Technically, according to the MS EULA, MS can demand you uninstall Windows at any time and you have to comply. Quite why software houses are allowed to get away with dodgy stuff like this, I don't know, but they are.


Anet really need to clarify their policy on this, since it's pathetic that this could get someone a ban for a simple keyboard macro, yet it's fine to use it to effectively cheat in high-end PVP. Cheating, because your hardware is providing a significant shortcut, giving a major battlefield advantage. Brilliant policy Anet, truly astounding how intelligent you aren't...

Yes, I have a G15. Yes, I have used macros to make HFFF more bearable. Yes, I have to be behind the keyboard while doing HFFF. Awaiting perma-ban in anticipation...

It's also clearly stated in the EULA that you do not "own" your character.

Cheating? What exactly would be cheating? If you're referring to the drop -> shadow step -> pick up bug, people have actually been banned for that, because it was a bug.
If you're referring to things like allowing people to swap weapon sets to cast a spell or something, that's not really cheating considering people that know what they're doing do it on instinct anyway. It just lets lazy people be better than they actually are... kinda like Nightfall and GWEN. So, ban people for using a G15 macro, and ban them for using GWEN/NF skills too imo.

Sorry to hear that my next keyboard is going to be left handed like I posted in Hardware Forum.

Kinda like the HFFF thing then...

Regarding cheating, I'm referring specifically to wep swap / cast /wep swap macros. I'm not saying it is actually cheating, but it does reduce the time taken to wep swap. Surely you can see how it's illogical to allow that and ban people for using a few macros to HFFF. Hence, they need to clarify.

Cheating or not, it is not against the terms of this 'eula' document as (1) it requires human input and (2) the macros are user written and thus not a third party (the user being one of the two parties that enter the agreement)

Same applies to phone, or internet, the service already present and being provided to others isn't relevant. If you pay for a service, you can expect them to deliver it.

But is it even a service? We pay them for a game, the entertainment we expect from it. Whether they implement that as an online 'service', a TCP/IP client/server application, is not really relevant.

What's HBO? Cable? I strongly doubt your analogy with the terms of use of a foreign cable company have any relevance. One could use a 'book analogy' and it would be just as relevant. It would be more relevant to compare it with another game, like Neverwinter Nights, and then we have bought a game, and not a service.

That whole part rather fails when the special claims (or all claims) of their agreement become invalid and the terms of agreement are actually those determined by consumer laws. And I strongly doubt these forbid the use of 'third party programs'.

That is not enough by law, even if it would seem to you that is is. What it apparently succeeds in doing is making you believe that is enough.

Pointing out that there' is an eula somewhere is not enough. The agreement has to be presented on paper before the sale. Any special terms have to be presented before the sale, in my native language. There's no valid reason to 'skip' that part, it's not particularly hard to implement.

No indeed, if the customer ends the agreement they'll probably not be entitled to a refund. As for breaking rules, violating an invalid eula is rather difficult ...
But consumers are entitled to refunds when a product is defective or when a service provider does not adequately provide a service.

So apparently they did feel their failure to deliver the service for a weekend was a fault (mistake) on their part?

Support has always sucked I am waiting for the point when Sony's support is better then plaync's which wont be long.

Anyway isn't it possible to have it to automated on a macro?

EULAs (The E is for End not electronic FYI) rarely stand up in court. Several courts most recently one in Washington State (Arena Nets Home State) Rules that AT & T's EULA was not binding because it contained Clauses that no Consumer would ever agree to if they knew what they were agreeing too. It also stated that since in the vast majority of cases money exchanged hands before the agreement was presented and no refund was offered to those who refused to except its terms that in this Case AT & T had to refund this customer a some fo money they ahd been chargeing him. Being that Washington state is the Home to MANY majot software firms this seems to be a very good sign for many software buyers.

Eight pages of whether its legally reprehensible for them to ban someone? Good lord...

The second you hit that nice little "I agree" button at the end of the ever growing EULA you decided that you were fine with whatever it said even if it had a clause about them coming into your house each morning to fart in your breakfast...

Feel free to take them to court about anything, but I can guarantee that if its fighting something you said was ok in the EULA the only thing you're likely to walk away with is a hefty court bill....

I'd like to point out the flaw in this argument. While it is the script itself is user written, it is executed using Third-Party software, the third party being Logitech. Also, that part of the EULA states "including, but not limited to" meaning it's not an exhaustive list.

I think you either work for ANet or you have been brainwashed by them to believe what you just said. I can play games I bought 20 years ago still, I should be able to play the game GuildWars I bought 20 years from now.

The act of me paying for something called "buying" is done so that I receive ownership of the product I pay for. I am giving up ownership of part of my property (money) to receive ownership of a product the seller is selling.

If I give my money away for nothing in return it is called either charity or a scam. For charity I get a tax deduction and for scams I can go to court and get my money back.

It is said that software companies made you believe that they can take money away from you and you have absolutely no rights on their software product. They sell a product like any other product and nothing more.

With that in mind, when I've bought GuildWars I didn't buy a key or any access to a server or anything. I bought a GAME. I went to the game stand of the shop I bought it from and from next to all the other game titles I picked a game box with the name GuildWars on it. I highly doubt you can ask end users to understand and accept that GuildWars is any different from any other software game. And it's not, the only thing different is that it plays over TCP/IP. But so do some of my 5 years old games that I still play with friends in a network.

Unfortunately, reality disagrees with your concept of 'should'.

When you pay an entrance fee to a night club, you are not buying the night club. You are paying for a limited access to the property of somebody else, and that access can be revoked at the discretion of the owner of that property. In particular, you are not buying a product. It is fundamentally different from buying a minibar and a mirror ball and furnishing your room with them. No matter which way you try to twist and turn the argument, you are just plainly wrong.

When you buy a book you can read it while sitting on the couch, or when sitting behind a table, mornings or evenings. Now and ten years from now. Test Me is right, you buy a product, the game, not some one time entrance to a nightclub. You are the one who is actually trying to twist and turn the argument.

In most of the world, including most of the US, the EULA has all the legal power of a readme.txt.
You do not read it before purchase, you do not sign anything, you do not even indicate your identity, and EULAs typically contain provisions which are patently ridiculous (e.g. that all disputes must be handled by the home court of the company, or that the company can not be sued over any damages the software causes, ever) so in most parts of the world EULAs and shrinkwraps are not considered contracts.

Companies are of course perfectly aware of this, and nowadays studiously avoid appealing to the terms of the EULA if matters are taken to court, but they also lobby heavily to get legislators to recognize EULAs as binding contracts (a day we should all dread!), and always try to make their users think EULAs are binding contracts.

EDIT: I was going to link to Sonys music CD EULA here to show exactly why it would be bad if EULA really were binding contracts, but it seems Sony may have issued a DMCA takedown order for it - it's completely gone from the net, and all links referencing it are dead. All that's left are articles talking about it, e.g. this one:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2005/11...sony-bmgs-eula
but they only scratch the surface of the multi-kilobyte insanity that was the Sony EULA.

End User License Agreement
Anyways how did go so offtopic?

Look, why is it so hard for you to understand simple facts? You are not buying a game. Look at the contents of the box. There is a user manual, that is not a game and you can download one for free. There's an install CD for a game client but that is not the game and you can download one for free. The only thing that you are paying for besides deadwood and pieces of plastic is the string of letters and numbers on a piece of paper called access key. Everything else is just convenience. For all practical purposes the retailer could dump everything else and sell just the keys (and that's what happens if you purchase the access from an online shop).

And the thing about EULA is that it grants you rights beyond what you would have by default. If you declare the EULA null and void and still keep playing GW you are essentially trespassing on somebody else's property with all the legal ramifications that follow. I wouldn't call it a smart move to try to fight from that angle.

its not off topic in my opinion,

1) players use a keyboard that can help them play a game without them playing the game.
2) other players say its bot
3) so, out come the EULA

and

IMO, i am bored and this is the only place that will connect besides Guild Wars, so here i am arguing with strangers over the internet again.

it is a bot, but arena net cannot say its a bot, why? because they are sponsors of gifts for competition. Cant give your player something they cannot use on your game now , so they have to say using that is okay, but the fact still remain if you use a script to run your game without you actually playing it. then its a bot. and according to the eula your doomed!

imho. anyway.

Why is so hard for you to understand the simple facts. You buy a product, a game, and how it's delivered or implemented is irrelevant. If there was no game, there would be no sale.

Every software EULA in existence attempts to take away rights from consumers they normally have. Every single one of them.

QFT.

Well... You're buying a game, but you're not buying the intellectual property, aka the rights.
Software companies always conflate buying the game and buying the rights to the game because they use that as an argument in the fight against piracy, but it's not (AFAI understand it) really the same thing.

In the case of MMO's it gets more complicated because while you own your box and your game, you can't use them without an additional service provided by the company. And you do not own the service, and in the case of GW you've never signed any contract entitling you to that service.

Now, one might argue that when you buy a game you do so with the reasonable expectation that you'll be able to play it, but I don't think that will trump the companys right to decide who gets to access their servers.

That would be beautiful, but I have never seen an EULA which granted rights beyond what you'd otherwise have by default. Every last one I've seen has tried to impose restrictions beyond consumer legislation, in e.g. Sonys case so far beyond that it entered some sort of hilarious, kafkaesque, twilight zone.

It sounds like you think not accepting EULA as a binding contract somehow makes me, and the company, exempt from normal consumer law.