First minor offence..

And I get a permanent ban, and unable to use the appeal system?

I'll just explain what I did. In a single day lapse of judgement, I got talked into using a bot from a mate. I left it running while I went to college, came back, thought 'cool, got myself 100k'. Went to kamadan to buy stuff for heroes, and instantly noticed something - THAT WAS NOT WORTH IT. Sense of achievement was completely removed, and as such, the bot was removed from my computer.


Anyway, that was about a month or two ago when I botted for about 6 hours. It's THE ONLY offence I have EVER made in almost five years of playing.

Anyway, my question, is it REALLY fair that for a single day lapse in judgement puts 5 years of hard work to waste, when I had, quite blatantly, been a honest player if they actually reviewed the case, for over 50 months.

So much for taking previous offences/lapses into consideration, as stated on their website...

Yes, it's against the rules, you broke the rules. End of.

Yes.

There are thousands of players who never violate the EULA. You were not one of them. Maybe you should find better friends if the ones you are hanging around can convince you to cheat so easily.

Someone obviously didn't read the whole thread. It says on their very own website they take previous (or lack of) offences and lapses of judgement into consideration. Obviously they don't, and ironically this has all been done by a bot.

The only responses you will get here are:
- people who botted and were banned who agree with you.
- people who did not bot and do not agree with you.

I belong to the latter category.

If you robbed a Bank 6 month ago, would that now make you innocent, even if it was your first offence?

The bot crackdown is in effect and you've been selected. Send a ticket to support, but I don't think there's anything in your case you can do to get your account back.

Think even you know they are very different scenarios.

Didn't read, but I doubt it says you get to cheat a couple of times if you've played for a long time.

Yeah maybe an extreme comparison lol, but isn't botting in rules considered one strike and out? I can see you're point though.

Hm, I don't know anyone who has been banned or has botted recently, but some of these bans seems... kinda harsh. I know Anet has to be clear in their judgments. On the one hand there's the people who used bots to actively disrupt another players game in PvP time after time by using any kind of bot and there are the farmers who spent weeks using a bot to rake in ecto's. On the other hand there are the players like OP who only used a bot out of curiosity, and decided to not use it after their curiosity had been satisfied... There seems to be a degree in how much a player abused the game by using a bot.

However, I'm not Anet, and I'm glad I'm not the one who decided if a player gets banned or not.

Sorry to hear about your ban. In all fairness, you did knowingly download and use a bot. That can't really be called a lapse in judgement. Only a lapse in foresight. On the birghtside, the GW boxset is selling pretty cheap nowadays

I love how self-righteous everyone's getting about this

Cheating is cheating. Enjoy your ban.

Didn't you get banned for botting as well? heh. Even if not, it's not a case of people being self-righteous, it's the simple truth. You cheated, you got banned. So I don't see why people are coming here looking for what? Sympathy? an outlet for frustration at having been caught out for cheating?

Dies it come with titles now? ^^

I doubt the Anet staff is going to review all 3700+ accounts banned. Only in the case that you never botted, will they make it undone. I'm not Anet and if i were you id try to get it back.

Good luck.

So much for thoroughly reading what they state. It's easy to only read/remember the part that suits you best. Cause at the same page they also mention that you also can get an outright account termination depending on the severity. And apparently the type of bot you used is severe enough in their opinion to warrant a full termination. So you might consider this only a minor offense because you used it only once for 6 hours, but apparently A-Net considers this type of bot as a major offense. Don't forget, it is not us players who determine how severe certain offenses are, that's at the sole discretion of A-Net.

You can always send in a report and see if they show some mercy.

But don't count on mercy from the people in this community who did withstand the greedy and lazy temptation of using bots.

I am in pretty much the same boat as you, OP. I feel that these permabans are too harsh for simply "botting". Sure, I broke the terms of service but seriously, where is the empathetical part of all of this? Nowhere. I feel like I have been backstabbed by Anet.

Wouldn't a warning be more than enough to serve justice? If anyone continued "botting" or whatever it is that is so wrong after the warning then yes that should warrant a ban. It's not like I committed some serious crime because when all is said and done, this is just a game meant for entertainment.

It is Anet's fault for not acting sooner. If they cared enough about their original game I wouldn't have even considered trying a bot out. I really did like this game a lot before it started to sink into what it was and yet some faithful player here lost faith and went a little sour. So this is my punishment? Good job, Anet. I will not be buying any of your future products if this is how you treat your customers.

Good Bye

be persistant with support. you may get lucky. good luck to you. do not need a thread.

I love how botters are coming out of the wood work making excuses for their actions, trying to justify their mistakes and generally blaming everybody but themselves for a decision that they made.

Anet did make it very clear that botting was a serious offense, one that resulted in permanent bans... long ago they even seemed to enforce this stance with a little more vigor. Then they got soft, followed by a long period of seemingly laxness towards bot banning... and now they're back to smacking bots.

Long story short... you know that botting was a bannable offense, you CHOSE to bot anyway, you got caught... whine,cry or rage to someone that cares... namely certain bot site forums, not here.

As to the OP, if you didn't bot then you certainly could appeal to Anet, if you did bot then you got what you deserved. Consider it a dose of tough love, learn a lesson from it.

A warning, you wanted a warning? Read the RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing USER AGREEMENT, there was your warning, it couldn't have been clearer, not that you needed a warning, you knew that you were cheating... your mistake was thinking you wouldn't get caught.

You're blaming Anet for not acting sooner? They were seemingly lax on banning bots, so that makes it okay for you to bot? Fail.

As for feeling betrayed by ArenaNet, the truth is you betrayed your agreement to ArenaNet, you betrayed every honest and decent gamer that doesn't bot, cheat or scam... it's people like you that ruin the game.

You say good bye, I say good riddance.

No, it's yours.

Bye.

Precisely this. Unfortunately I too am one who got scythed but am in discussions with support re. my ban and what exactly I have "allegedly" done.

Thanks. Pretty sure I WILL get my account back. Had experience with their (terrible) support system, and will be on the phone if they refuse to reason in E-mails

But the main point of the thread, which may not of been clear, is not about myself personally being banned, it's that they seem to of just swiped everyones accounts, without the slightest sign of consideration.

Someone obviously doesn't know what zero tolerance means

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_tolerance

You're like the 20th person i've told this to, but you botted and got caught, you're banned forever and there isn't one single goddamn thing you can do about it.

You play with fire eventually you get burned, it just so happens some get burned the first time. It is really pathetic to see all the people here that botted and got caught trying to justify it.

No, they swiped cheaters accounts, you cheated therefore you got swiped.
Which part of this do you find difficult to understand?

Agree with you and OP but not because I'm looking for sympathy...it's really harsh treatment...I'll say it again, the bans should have been based on bot activity meaning if you constantly use bots your out of the game but if you have, out of curiosity, tried it a few time as in my case and maybe many others then you get temp ban...wouldn't mind that and a good lesson too!

This is an issue for you to take up with NCSoft support, if you feel you have a case. Nothing can be done here.