Emailing Support - Why are we doing it?

I believe they did. they are banned from a game they may have loved for their actions. If they didn't learn a lesson from that, guess the next game they play will get them banned too. What other lesson do you need when you walk into GW2 without all your ill gotten HoM stuff?

And LOL man, at least you have developed a sense of humor about it

I was just mad and irritated...it ain't that rare :S

I just knew he/some other people would'v quoted me and said "Zarion,you are not innocent." unless I put that

Many of my previous posts have stupidity in them,I was just mad. period.

I still mantain my basic belief though,I should be unbanned...but now,as you said, I'm not as serious...I'l keep trying but if I don't get it back...whatever,they said HoM will only give you visual stuff...so even though 110% of my HoM was obtained legitimaly,what matters is that I had fun with the game.

I'm not as humorous about the responses though :\

I've never posted here before, but after reading some of these responses to those automated responses, I feel I should. Defile me as you will. Did I bot, the simple answer is yes, I tried it for a few days, grew bored with it, just as many people did with the game in general. If the ban is for third party stuff, then anyone that used textmod should also be banned. Sorry, but if you're going to ban people for using bots, ban those that alter it in anyway. Then it's fair. If I can't get my account back then I will never buy GW2. Heck, I won't even be going as far as to buy any of the stuff that was going to be release to bridge the two games. 5 years I spent on a game that I used to enjoy. Now I'm just completely frustrated. I agree that something should have been done before this, but what's done is done and I have a few people to be upset with, myself included. Did they need to use automated replies? No. Does it make it easier for them to say "Hey we're looking into it but we're flooded." Sure. But telling me that all further inquiries will be disregarded is just plain rude. You could have told me that I should crap in one hand and wish with the other and figure out which will happen first. I would have arrived at the decision to permanently boycott all NcSoft and A-Net software sooner. I have no doubt I won't get my account back and it does bother me, but oh well. They won't get another cent from me.

Why are you so frustrated? You botted, even for just a little bit, and that little bit of botting gave you the punishment that any other botter recieved. The only people who have a right to be frustrated with support are those who actually were wrongfully banned and who actually do need to contact support to launch an investigation into the situation surrounding their ban. If you botted and were banned for it, then there really is no reason for you to be contacting support anyway, so why does it matter if your request is going to be disregarded?

Ok, then stop emailing support and wasting their time. You're guilty, anything after that is superfluous. They won't and shouldn't reverse your ban. Stop flooding them so they can get to the people who are actually innocent of any wrongdoing.

^^^

Hence the need for auto replies.
Why waste a real persons time reading through and responding to support requests that should never have been made, "I only CHEATED a little bit" hardly gives you reason to get your account unbanned.

Someone who was unjustly banned can get through the auto portion of support with a little effort but the main reason they are forced to in the first place is from the morons who have NO cause to be contacting support.

This is just ridiculous... Complaining to the BBB about a company punishing you for something you did wrong? There are way too many lawers out there...

I for one am glad Anet did what they did. Botters should be banned, end of story.

That is not why he was suggesting people contact the Better Business Bureau.

I wonder if people realize they're using the term botter in the way a zealot would use the word infidel or blasphemer. Really scary part is some are quoting EULA like its the bible.

I completely agree with Gladiator Motoko.

Proof of their innocence? Have you read the emails "support" sends out? What "proof" do you think they would accept, especially since NO evidence is ever shown to the accused? How can you refute evidence of your "botting" you have never seen?

Do I have to keep a logfile of what I did when and how in GW?

ANet's support refuses them their right to appeal. That is exactly what this thread is about.

And anyone who believes that innocent people will not stop responding after the last quoted part has to be extremely naive and stupid. Players that did nothing wrong will stop responding and they will loose real money because of "supports" arrogant and unhelpful treatment of "appeals".

I think it is worse that some are happy with ANet being accuser, defense lawyer, judge and executioner in a non-public trial without presence of the accused.

Lets look at this shall we?
"(Reset indent) First, no one is getting an automated response (after the first, which is clearly labeled as automated). Each ticket is reviewed by a real live human being who then sends the petitioner a carefully worded and detailed response to his appeal. The reply is seldom customized to say "I read this sentence and here is my response." After all, we want to be both consistent in our messaging and speedy in our responses; therefore, the response will often read the same to all who fall into a specific category, such as this week's botters.
Let me be clear that there is a tremendous difference between "automated response" and "uniform response." We are using a uniform response because it has been written to include a lot of detailed information, it has been reviewed by the Live Team to ensure it meets with their standards, and it provides everyone with the same high level of detailed information, which is the fair and appropriate thing to do. (Otherwise, someone could be missing details, or might get a shorter letter than leaves them dissatisfied with another player's expanded response.) That uniform response is sent after human review and is not triggered automatically.
. -- Gaile 19:04, 29 May 2010 (UTC)"

To say that the responses here are "unfair" or selective is a bit silly, folks I've said it before, I'll say it again, ITS A HOLIDAY WEEKEND. relax already. right there should be a thread closing answer. Gaile's response to several of the sillier ban questions can also be found here http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/User_...Hello.2C_Gaile.

Also i believe there is mention of a few Responses that can come back, lets look shall we?

"All cases are being reviewed. Every single one. Not every account holder is getting that response. Those who have a legitimate appeal are being handled individually and would get a different response. However, those people are very, very few in number. Consider that more than 3,700 accounts were closed. Many of those people will appeal, although they know full well they are guilty. Many others will appeal because they don't feel they were guilty, but they were. The appeals of people who were caught dead-to-rights fill up the queues and delay responses to people who have other issues or who may have a legitimate reason for an appeal. It is not reasonable to expect that support agents will sit down and pen a personal response to each person. The response that you've seen contains all the pertinent information in a clear, concise, and informative form. Trying to write a different letter to hundreds of people is an unnecessary waste of time and it risks possibly leaving out some information, as well, or opening the door to the sorts of strange fan forum speculations we're familiar with, like "Why did that say 'definitely' and that other one say 'positively'? I suspect a conspiracy of some sort!"
So, if someone gets that response, then that response is appropriate to the situation. It is not a brush off. It does not indicate that the team is not reading the tickets. It does not mean that a single appeal has been ignored, or that the circumstances that lead to the block were not carefully reviewed. The detailed and informative response is sent after a review, after verification of the block, and after the decision that the particular response is the best way to give each person the most accurate and complete representation of the situation. It is only sent to those to whom it applies; it is only sent when it is appropriate.
As to the "My dog ate my homework" errr... sorry... let's call it the "My roommate downloaded a bad program that somehow I used 10,000 times on my account" excuse. Each of us is responsible for our account. For keeping it safe. For not using cheat programs. We're similarly responsible for the integrity of our computer. It's just nearly unbelievable that someone was banned because "some other evil person" downloaded and used an unacceptable program on his or her computer. I doubt that such a situation applies to even one of the people with a terminated account, but we included that information to make it clear that "I didn't know it was on my system" is not an acceptable excuse. And I'm sure it's crystal clear why that can't be accepted as an adequate defense. -- Gaile 05:19, 29 May 2010 (UTC)"


I think her answers sum things up rather nicely. Now lets let the poor overworked staff enjoy the Holiday, and i suggest everyone here do the same.

Sorry to disagree with you here, but I personally think that the universal perma-ban response by A-net was a bit harsh. It would be reasonable to say that the largest portion of those banned were people who have probably only tried these third-party programs out of curiosity, and that only a small percentage of those banned were actually the hardcore bot abusers who gained a significant advantage from this.

If the aim of A-net was to eliminate these serious offenders, then I suggest that this was not met. These serious offenders are likely to have numerous accounts where their wealth is stored, and if they were actually considering selling this gold, they would have resources in place to prevent the loss of their assets. Like I previously stated, they would have numerous accounts, and as it is possible to have an alternating IP address, it is likely that these accounts were not detected. These types of botters have no regard for the game, they use it as a source of revenue and it really doesn't matter to them whether they get one or even a few of their accounts banned. They will still find a way to access Guild Wars, and abuse it as there is never a surefire way to prevent bots in any MMO.

These bans haven't really addressed the real issue at stake, which is the serious abusers of these bots. What they have done is heaped the minor offenders, who like I said probably tried these bots out of curiousity rather than as a way to gain an unfair advantage, with the serious offenders and issued the same punishment. And this has only really affected those minor offenders, as they would probably still value the game for its gameplay and are likely upset. This is not an issue for the serious botters.

I believe the punishment should suit the crime, and that each account should have been reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Instead, those minor offenders have suffered the same fate as those who were serious offenders. As it seems that the GW Guru community seems to like their real-life metaphors, I'd like to compare this to a petty criminal who suffers the same fate as a leader of a major crime organisation. This shouldn't happen in any case, so why let it happen on Guild Wars?

P.S... I wasn't one of those who were banned, I have just been thinking about this since the announcement of the bans, and I think it raises some valid points.

Sorry for the long read ^^

Agreed.

I bet a lot of the people who were banned for botting when they only botted once out of curiousity won't touch an A-Net product again. There was no lesson learned by these people, they were not reformed, they are just no longer a part of the commmunity that they could have been positive members of.

The bots who botted for hours, weeks or even years will buy new accounts and still be a problem for the Guild Wars community. The asian botters will certainly not go away, they will just hack more honest people's accounts and make many honest players experience in GW a miserable one.

So they threw out the net, killed off some honest people, killed off some people who gave into temptation (after an extended period of no action on botting) and didn't even cause a blip in the activities of hard core botters.

I totaly agree with OP, even Martin Kerstein and Regina Buenaobra or any other guy from anet didn't even know how "their uber pro leet anti bot system" was working, proof: just read the Recent Bot Bans topic and find some ppl reply on asking if they get ban for multi client or that graphic thingie for the map.
None of them had a clue if those ppl will be banned but they said its legit.

EDIT: also agree with Ashius and dancing gnome.
Moreover some ncsoft accounts have been stolen and this is NOT the first stealing of those acc, therefore I will never touch NCsoft products ever it's not only because of GW but this mass account hacking stuff and bad bot protection in ANY of their games. Srsly just check out any of their products u will find 63942315 working public bots (if u know those forums).

But an announcement saying that 3700 accounts have been banned does wonders for PR, just look at some of the responses here

EDIT: I'm not trying to take credit away from A-Net here, I'm sure that they did have good intentions in mind. But it is disappointing that those minor offenders suffered the same fate as those who have been offending for a long time, and this punishment only hurts those minor offenders. I hope in the next few days A-Net does consider the case-by-case analysis, if they are looking for positive PR this would be a great move.

While action does grant great PR, being able to see the flaws in this and improve is what separates a mediocre customer support system from a great one.

Just quoting you so you know I'm reffering to you...

Anyways,I don't care if they are in a 5 month vacation to a continent they made with a super blast gun were they can play GW IRL.

The automated responses,whether a human looks at it or not,are not appropiate.

The problem is not that they are automated,its whats written in them. And some people will just feel so underpowered they will do nothing.


And that part about not everyone gets the same response,its a lie.

Remember that guy that sent a mail with his unbanned account?Yea got same response

I asked my cousin to mail them,same response eventually (the "f*ck off"one isn't the first response)

Just a suggestion to everyone else with my problem; (out of topic)

Since I know I boted,even though I take a stance we all know already,I will send them mails,but not until 1 1/2 month or so,so all the ones that didn't do 1 single bit,and have to heart to say it,get unbanned,then I'l present my case again.

Totaly agree whats stated above, I sent them a letter and the same responses from the same "GMs" were sent to me. Anet trolling again =D

Would you feel better if you had recieved the same response from a different GM?

This is a pretty clear statement from Gaile explaining this issue and unless you are under the same impression as Zarion Silverarrow, that "its a lie" it should be easily understandable.

Seeing that you made a guru acount today makes it far more likely that you are the one here to "troll" rather then Anet imo, but thats just a guess.

Given the amount of time they waited to do this, they should have been better prepared on the support side. Dropping it right before a holiday weekend just provides them an excuse for poor support service.

I feel bad for those who botted a few times and gained nothing from it and didn't grief others. However, I'm willing to bet that they compose a very tiny minority of those banned.

If one honestly wanted to find out how bots worked one could read what others have written about them and watched videos of the bots in action. I suspect that people already knew these things before implementing a bot... which makes the claim of 'curiosity' a canard.

Let's not forget that many of those banned were ruining the game already. So if you're concerned about the 'honest player's experience' you should be applauding ANet for the bans.

It's a stretch to say that botters, no matter how many times they tried it, are 'honest.' Sounds like you have friends who were banned and are appealing on their behalf. Just a guess.

This sounds like speculation on your part. No offense, but none of us knows all the facts in this case.

And cops should be busy solving murders instead of ticketing 'honest' drivers.

Speculation. None of us know the facts.

The appeal to 'curiosity' is the last resort of all those who got banned. Curiosity can be satisfied through other means instead of using a bot.

If you're caught cheating on an exam you get the same penalty as everybody else. It doesn't matter if you copied 20 answers or 1 or were merely 'curious.'