Recent Account Bans

Hell, this usually applies to any form of cheating in college, including on small stuff like homework assignments, if they can prove you've done it.

almost 1000 posts in this mother, keep up the "constructive debate" ya'll

Once you get out of elementary school the rules change.

Welcome back. We missed your frank and caustic posts.

Okey dokey.

Idk about pve bots...someone out there must have something...maybe if you start gw with a bot/injection you can't trade or sell anything... and any gold you gained just disappears/given to poor and needy(lol) the next time you start xD...imagine the look on peoples faces...

Yea there's no final exam in gw...I can't make a comparison...maybe tournament finals in gvg...you cheat you get perma ban...you cheat in RA...temporary ban...why does no one get it...???? People who got into top 100 with bots should be perma banned. A botter in RA is no different from a bsurge or touchers spamming shit in RA.

Idk what colleges/universities Essencse is talking about but that's harsh...and i'm guessing that people still cheat on finals. Academic felony...xD

What's the point of all this rationalizing crap?

All this 'I only cheated once, or maybe six times and then i stopped' or 'It's anets fault cause they let people get away with it for so long', or 'I did not really gain anything from it'...

It's all just more QQ'ing disguised as trying to justify *insert banned knucklehead here* actions.

Bottom line, those banned broke the rules. Nowhere in the agreement does it say anything about Anet having to act on any rule infraction within a certain amount of time.

What I'm trying to wrap my head around is why someone would bother botting in a Free to Play game? What are you going to get out of it?? I'm fairly sure I'm going to get chopped at the knees, but it seems to me that the 3.7k accounts that got banned were kids that stole mom or dad's credit card. (And I hope I get chopped at the knees because paying for the ability to bot in a F2P game is the epitome of sadness and reiterates why I've lost faith in society).

Pretty sure botters got their bots for free they weren't payin real life money for them.

many of them were people who downloaded free bots or they were the creators of the bots.

I don't really understand what's the big deal about botting in solo PvE, as a smarter alternative to mindlessly grinding/farming for gold/items or silly titles that don't really affect other players in the game or the fairness of PvP interaction.
Let's be honest, unless you're retarded or have no life, nobody really likes to kill the same NPCs over and over again, for hours. Or to be stuck in front of the computer just to double-click on your virtual booze every minute or so (how dumb is this, really?). I really think Anet should revise their EULA and allow at least some sort of automation (macros?) for the mindlessly repetitive PvE actions they designed -- like getting the drunkard title, or even for automatic farming of a specific PvE spot for reputation points or "event" drops, if one is so determined..

I would say it's also a matter of basic player rights - as long as I am not causing any harm to other players, or getting any significant, game breaking advantage over other players (read: PvP) I don't think they should police the way I choose to play (or not play ) the game in the privacy of our own PvE instance.

Obviously, botting in PvP is a completely different deal -- we can all agree that cheaters/exploiters/botters in PvP should be hunted down and perma-banned. They are clearly violating fair play. But PvE farming ?!

That's the main thing I don't like about this recent ban-fest by Anet: that they perma-banned all PvE and PvP botters just the same, even though the two EULA violations are very, very different from a "fair play" point of view.
I know the "slippery slope" argument is what made them treat the two EULA violations the same way, but come on, if they really cared about their player base they could probably show some fairness and give only temporary bans to the PvE botters (with some sort of 2-strikes warning). Especially to those who played fairly for 5 years, didn't accumulate enormous wealth etc.

This kind of hypocrisy ('cause it looks like in fact they really wanted to brag about banning a lot of players at once, indiscriminately) reminds me of one of the most hypocritical messages one could see in a grind game like GW had become:

You have been playing for two hours, please take a break.

Seriously? Why not let me write a script that can do all that boring, repetitive and time-consuming stuff in the game while I take a break?

You're an ignorant fool if you can't see how botting in PVE is as deserving of a perma ban.

Why should you be allowed to automate the collection of in game wealth? By that same brush stroke, you'd be permitted to compete against honest players trying to purchase an item with that ill gained money. Just like cheating a player in PvP, you're cheating real players through PvE gains.

Bot PvE, Bot PvP = GTFO of my game.

If you don't want to play the game, don't play it. Quit trying to hide your desire to have an advantage over others behind this "No one wants to do this grind" argument. If you don't like GW, then why do you play it? If you've played GW to the point where everything is pointless grind, go play another game.

Maybe because your envy for other's in-game wealth should not really get in the way of enjoying the game?
There is always going to be people with way more wealth than you in this game. That might very well be because some of them are like sick puppies with no life who can spend hours grinding for that kind of wealth. So they can show to their virtual friends what a great armor or weapon only they could buy.. I don't think we should be encouraging this attitude that much.

I didn't realize that "wealth competition" is such an essential aspect of this game. That must be because I don't play games like these just to show off elite armors or weapons, or silly PvE titles or whatever else I might have accumulated through my oh-so-glorious mindless farming.. I am very well aware that some people have the time to make that kind of wealth, but they sacrificed something else for it (real life or, some of them, real money), so I don't envy their virtual wealth in the game. I think it's rather sad.
Also, have you noticed that being recognized as a "top guild" or a "top player" in Guild Wars has in fact no relationship with in game wealth?

I still can't figure out where is this "feeling cheated" attitude comes from -- unless your anger is just fueled by the good old money envy here. I thought Guild Wars - at least the social aspect of it - was supposed to be a game of skill, not of wealth (accumulated through zombification of twitchy asocial players with their pale faces glued to to their computer screens; now that is "ill gained" too, IMO ). Maybe you should get a clue from the fact that in game wealth doesn't give you any advantage in PvP (which is a great design decision, of course). Frankly, for this reason I don't really see any logical explanation as for why Anet is against RMT (which they cannot really stop anyway -- and why should they? if someone is stupid enough to spend real money for virtual wealth.. it's their choice. And how is that different from buying some silly vanity "costume" that Anet sells?)

Besides, Anet could impose more limitations on the amount of wealth that can be obtained through repetitive solo PvE farming -- and guess what, they've already done that in fact (remember the various farming nerfs?). They could also make the most "profitable" areas to be un-bottable -- and they've already done that too (e.g. DoA). They could even pile up some more limitations to repetitive solo-PvE farming to discourage abnormal wealth accumulation by these means (like disconnect a player after several hours if all that player did was farming the same mob repeatedly without partying with other people etc.).

You know what else they can do to limit the amount of wealth that can be obtained through repetitive solo PvE farming?

Ban botters.

Apparently not everyone has that kind of time because many have used bots or whatever to acquire their wealth. That's part of the problem.

if it is a game of skill and not wealth, why acquire the wealth that is not needed through the least skillfull means possible? sounds a little contradictory.

Actually I still like the game but the introduction of time-consuming PvE titles really weakened my appetite for it, and the repetitive aspect of working for those titles (aka "grind") is basically begging for automation/scripting (well, I am a programmer, automation is my profession ), so I am not quite sure why at least some mild macroing/scripting of tedious tasks shouldn't be allowed (with some limitations, of course). Luckily I don't really care much for these in game titles (I don't have time for filling my HoM for GW2), but some of them can actually hurt the gameplay - for example, when I would not be accepted in a PUG because I lack a high rank in some useful PvE title (this used to be the case with Ursan groups and it still is for DoA).
Of course. I admit it's not "everything" pointless grind, overall GW still remains a beautiful and innovative game (and it has the most ergonomic UI I have ever used in this kind of game) and I am truly impressed that Anet is still adding some tidbits of content so late in the game's life cycle. I just wanted to point out what I think it was a bit of inconsistency in Anet's (and some players') gameplay philosophy here: they think it's OK to punish the people who found a way around the PvE grind just the same with real PvP cheaters. If Anet indeed had the means to make the distinction between the two types of botters (PvE-only vs. any PvP) I would say it was quite unfair for them not to reflect that moral distinction into the penalties they applied. It just made me question their whole policy against botting in PvE -- especially now that simple [bottable] farms are not that profitable in terms of wealth accumulation (and they could easily limit it further).

Even odder is allowing the banned to buy new accounts.

Anet: You are entirely unfit to play this game. You are banned for life, you will never play again.
Player1: I soz. I can haz cheezburger?
Anet: No you are vile filthy scum and we don't want you in our game.
Player1: I haz moneyz.
Anet: Ok second chance.
Player2: I haz no moneyz? I can haz cheezburger 2?
Anet: No you are vile filthy scum and we don't want you in our game.

Hypocrisy? A mild form of extortion? Or just the new no-monthly fee mmo business model?

Because accumulating wealth in solo PvE doesn't quite require skill, but mostly time (grind).
This issue is also related to the fact that GW provides rather poor rewards for completing various areas or missions (I suppose most people wouldn't even bother to farm if the rewards for going through a dungeon or vanquishing an area, or replaying a [elite] mission, were much better)

Actually I think this makes sense -- to give a 2nd chance and a clean slate to a player after Anet firmly showed that they could catch him/her. It looks very forgiving, and it just happens to help the business, so why not?

Did you notice that the GWCA project was essentially shut down by this mass ban? Mission accomplished, gg Anet. I am pretty sure that many, if not most of those who used GWCA and got banned for it will not try to use it again with their new accounts, exactly because they just learned that they could get banned for it, the hard way. So why not allow them to start fresh?

I am also pretty sure that the same "corrective" effect would have been obtained if they just suspended those accounts for a while instead of permanently banning them. But in that case there would be no profit for Anet, of course..

Not a case of envy at all. I do just fine. I also have the protections under the TOS and player agreement to help maintain the worth of my efforts. Plain and simple, you don't have the right to automate tasks that others must manually perform.


I feel sad for you. Seeing that rare drop or playing for that hard earned elite gear is the lifeblood of online RPGs/MMOs. "Wealth Competition" does matter. How could you think that "Joe botter" that automated his way to money and title deserves to have that recognized with anything more that a ban hammer in the face?

More directly, those botters could afford to hurt in game economy by outbidding and underselling legitimate players. Real people that don't have the resources in time to compete, yet are forced to share gamespace with those that didn't either but had many times their resources to spend.


Personally, my outrage is not envy driven. It's about not having a level playing field. It's about equal reward for equal effort. PvE dwarfs PvP in terms of playerbase. Much of that reason is because of the rewards of in game wealth. It might not be your cup of tea, but what's good for the goose is good for the gander.


You must have missed the loot scaling, and it's removal then. Anet knows what really drives RPG players. They are going to cater to the biggest gamer population. You are not it. This is also why they will ban your ass for botting PvE content. End of story.

I don't see any distinction between PvE botters and PvP botters, and here is why. PvP botters do so as a means to compete with actual players of skill, either to gain titles or to grief or to simply win WITHOUT using said skill. PvE botters do so as a means to compete with actual players, either to acquire titles, to gain wealth that competes with or exceeds people who worked for it, or to gain items that are statistically the same as non "Rare" items WITHOUT using said skill or the needed time.

Both types of botter share a few common traits. One that stands out most prominently is the desire to compete with other players who attained these desired end effects legitimately. As you so accurately stated, not having certain titles can effect your ability to get into certain groups.

My solution is exactly the same as the basis for the game, its called Guild Wars, not Set Groups That Dictate What Build I Should Run Wars. If you feel you cannot get into DoA with these elitist groups, try a GUILD. If you still feel that getting a title is important try gaining it with a GUILD. To grindy for you? Try a NEW GAME.

But lets not transpose your desire to cheat as some noble desire to remain in the status quo. Its a desire to compete with people who posses the skill and time to achieve those things, without putting in the time or effort(PvP botters anyone?). We call that cheating my friend, Arenanet calls it that too. How do you deal with a cheater, you don't allow them to cheat. Right now, bans are an effective way to do that, simple, clean, and effective.

I'm not saying I'm against second chances. I'm also not saying I'm for bans. But, if you say someones behavior deserved a lifetime ban, and you enforce that against everyone. Then say oh but if you throw us some money all is well, you basically just ripped off all of the parties involved.

Nothing anyone does in PVE has an effect on anyone else's ability to play the game. I can't believe I saw someone make reference to the competitive nature of PVE.

PvE has an economy and if you're aware of that it should answer your concern.

You think the server rollbacks have been for funz?

When a botter and a regular player want to buy the same item that's up for trade, who do you think has the advantage?

When a botter has 14 stacks of cupcakes for sale, and regular player has 2....who do you think can afford to drop the price first?

The economy is part of the game.

Do everyone a favour, and think outside of your self justification, and you might start to see why you're so wrong.

2 stacks, christ, thats a lot to me, I got 184-ish and thought I was doing well (boring method of just playing), guess I shoulda worn a tartan shirt, dungarees, and said "Ooo-ar" more. Not having a license to drive a tractor also sucks.

Funny thing is, some guildies whinged about how bored they were of farming, thats just a big old scratch of the noggin' for me. If it bores you, don't do it!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Firebaall When a botter and a regular player want to buy the same item that's up for trade, who do you think has the advantage? When a botter has 14 stacks of cupcakes for sale, and regular player has 2....who do you think can afford to drop the price first? The economy is part of the game. Do everyone a favour, and think outside of your self justification, and you might start to see why you're so wrong.

14 stacks is really not much for ppl whos been in GW for many years - most of the ppl i know goes back form 3-5 years and can buy a stack of cupcake for 6-7 ectos when in season - to have MONEY in GW doesnt mean you have to been botting , some have played a long time and had thier drops fair and square and traded back and forth - bad example - yes of course the ones who got 14 stacks but 14 stacks for a serious player in fow uw and doa doesnt last long - 6 months max if you play every day a few h -so if you have 14 stacks or more you must been botting - or could it be you have played gw a long time and have perhaps also been given some over the years so you got so much money you can actually afford to give stacks of ectos away in gifts to others you like or want to help in the game - 14 stacks of cupcakes is peanuts for older gw ppl its 2 armbaces which u can make in 4-5 doa runs. economy is part of the game yes, but its not essential for the game play to have - but as in real life as in a game ppl like to have the new trend and have enough to "survive the winter" buying up cupcakes

No one is saying that all the wealthy players are botters. There are the in-game traders who spend their time buying and selling items and amassing wealth in the meantime (the original multi-account players) and the people who have gotten very lucky with chest drops (end chests and zaishen) to name two types. With close to 7 million accounts activated, 3,700 blocked is a drop in the bucket.

Taking those accounts away won't have a large effect on the GW economy, but it has had a great effect on player morale.

Instead of reposting this here, I'll just give you all a link to read it.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...&postcount=308

If I came across as self-righteous before, it was only in satire. The facts are simple, and straightforward. Those that refuse to accept them are just going to writhe in their own denial and not get anywhere.

If you honestly believe you were banned wrongly, contact support. They will either review your case again, a few times, and determine that you didn't really violate the rules, or they will uphold the ban, and you will be in no different a position than you were before you sent the ticket.

However, if you botted, you did cheat. You will not find sympathy here, or with support. You have lost the respect of Arena Net and of the community. You are the very definition of a cheater.

And just for those cheaters wondering about your Hall of Monuments and names in Guild Wars 2...

O lol they caught me too. 4 years of legit gameplay, not even 2 months of botting (pve, just some raptor farming and such) and I receive a litetime ban. But I'm not going to QQ as I knew and accepted the dangers behind breaking rules.

gg Aciid Bustor, 29 max titles and a 1000 platinum storage. It sure was a fun ride, but every good song has an end.

Nice bow out, Aciid.

I don't agree with what you did, but my hat's off to you for being a man about it. That can't be said for many here trying to justify what they did.

Good job manning up Aciid! Not an easy thing to do, but at least you know when you were in the wrong. On the positive side, you could try a new account and get something started for GW2.

it warms the cockles of my icy heart to see all of the botters hit with a ban. that'll show those hooligans who's boss! *shakes fist*

the way i see it, i'm dirt poor because i'm lazy. i'm not gonna farm. if someone wants to farm, good for them, they deserve (obviously) all the rewards + titles. the correlation between rewards and personal time is what drives the pve aspect. as personal time is put in, more rewards are given. you can't put in half the time with a bot and expect to get as much as people who are putting in that time honestly, hate to burst your troll bubble.

It is quite special that there are still people who are mature enough to admit they did wrong and go over their mistake. I think it is admirable and it is quite uncommon - threads are really full of lame excuses and lies and probably still a lot of posts were removed by mods. I am happy that people unable to take responsibility for their actions were removed from the game I hope I will never meet them again in gw or any other. I hope more like those will meet Dhuum. I actually feel pity only for those who did wrong and are able to admit it and learned their lesson. Those I would actually like to see again in game.

On a side note quite a lot of guru trolls got hit by a ban. Some of them I saw writing in their posts stuff like "learn to play the game or stop to fail etc" (no to me but mostly to a new players) usually worded in a less appreciated way. I am happy I was never good at gw and thus all my accounts remain not banned.

I am quite surprised that there are so many apologets for the people who did botting. What is even more surprising they have no problems at writing crap about Anet and people who did not bot including insults and personal attacks. On the other hand any word against botters is for them a sign of immaturity etc. I think botting should be banned and stigmatized (not sure if this is the right word) and not excused. The more flaming on botters the less people will be inclined to bot. I hope people got a clear signal from Anet and will not try to bot in any of the gw.

Last remark regarding comments like "I got banned I will not buy gw2 etc" - I certainly hope you keep your word. I am not going for gw2 due to a lack of time but I hope all my guildies who do will not have to deal with botters there.

EDIT: changed unbanned to not-banned since I was never banned nor there was a reason for it.

In fairness, we didn't see players like Tommy getting banned. If you were falsely banned, I hope that ANet reconsiders their stance. If not, you deserve what you got for using a crutch.

You have to admit for people who were unjustly banned, it is quite frustrating to have all of your hard work go "up in smoke." Especially when you can't even get in contact with Arenanet support to discuss the ban. That in and of itself would make any reasonable player less likely to purchase GW2, right?

Right. Sure I do agree.

I was locked out of GW for weeks due to my ISP having its IP range blacklisted as an open proxy. I was one of those temporarily blocked for the credit card error on the NCsoft side. Being perma-banned unjustly must be extremely frustrating. That I understand. However I am not aware of any case of those 3700 as a unjust ban so far. We have peoples perception of their own actions against quite clear EULA. If someone thinks he was banned unjustly it does not mean it was really like that. Quite a lot of cases were proven guilty by Gaile while here those people wrote peans about their innocence. If someone is innocent I believe he/she will get his/hers account(s) back. I am afraid it will just take a lot of time due to support being swamped with requests and sending automated responses all the time. Till I see someone stating that he had his/hers account unbanned then I will tend to believe people claiming unjust ban. So far we have testimonials of people against a script working on a selected and quite broad list of symptoms. At the moment I tend to believe script accuracy more.

I also think that this is just the beginning. When we were revoking domain names at my company we did it in badges. Meaning similar cases at one go. Then after support load went back to normal, another round of revocations of similar magnitude. If ANET anticipated the possible support load after those bans (it seems they did since they had templates ready for example) we might see another round of bans coming soon.

I did not mean to offend anyone but I have to admit I stopped pvp due to botting and now I am back there again.

EDIT: Actually there is one case I would consider an unjust ban - 2 people playing at the same pc. One of them uses bot - both get banned. However such case could be used as an excuse for people botting on alt non-linked account. In such case I would unban the non-botting person providing there were no one way transfers of loot stuff between accounts.

I did not read over 49 pages of this thread but I considered posting my experience.
I've been coming to GW ocasionally to check on gifts and today I found out I've been banned.

I've never done anything wrong, I don't have multiple accounts, I don't bot, I don't buy or sell gold... and I'm waiting for support to respond to my ticket.

Regards

If you've never botted and this is all you've done, chances are it was a rare mistake that you were banned or you were hacked and then banned as a result to "protect your account".

They should come through for you.

GOOD JOB to the admin for addressing and executing rightful actions towards the PVP manipulation or botting incidents by these players.

In order to uphold the essence of the game we need to have a playing environment that does not tolerate cheating or any other actions that show unfairness to honest players.

Thank you for everything.