Anyone else just got a perma ban?

@Cosy
I know exactly what you mean. My husband works for an electronic medical records company as a software dev. If he ever put out a single tweet similar to what Chris put out, hed be out on the street with a lawsuit right behind him in less than an hour. Its a completely wrong way to interact with your PAYING CUSTOMERS, even if only guilty accounts were banned, it'd still not be something to tweet out like that. Let alone now, while hundreds of innocent accounts got banned. Its just so wrong!
Lets not forget, Anet has banned one of their GW2 devs from their own forums (all his posts need to be pre-approved) because he said things that were BENEFICIAL to the players. Like, he was COMMUNICATING with us and answering our questions. He just said some things he wasnt allowed to yet because they werent said in stone. That was enough to get him openly reprimanded. Where's Chris' scolding? Where's his regret? Where is our justice when something that negatively impacts us happens?

@WISH
I get exactly what you mean, adding my 2 cents to the discussion..
I may only be 22, but I've never been able to really have that school or work life. I was abused all throughout my childhood, until I turned 16 years old. During all this, I lost a lot of things and felt like there was no place for me in this world. It got to the point where it'll affect me for the rest of my life not only mentaly, but physically - I'll never be able to have a normal job. Abused at home, bullied and beat up at school, Guild Wars was my only resort. I played, I met people that didnt want to hurt me, I accomplished things, and I even found a guild to call "home". Guild Wars was my safe place, my safe haven. In the end, I even met my husband on Guild Wars. I had an amazing time in this game, and it really felt like my place, like Tyria was where I had a place to be myself.
I've never bought someone else an account, all I've ever used is Texmod (very rarely) and multilaunch (frequently, to move things from account to account for storage). Because of my past, I've always been very paranoid. Too paranoid to ever even entertain the idea of looking up botting. I've always been scared of getting unjustly removed from my one safe spot, and that is exactly what they did. They've put me back there now, but it doesn't feel safe at all anymore.
I know 100% sure my husband hasnt botted on our IP either, or yknow, EVER. He's always been an honest MMO player that takes great care to curse at and report every botter he sees. His account is nearing 10 years old and never before has he had a problem. He doesnt feel safe anymore, either.

If you look at it tho Cleave is right to a degree. Non of this would have taken place if the people weren't crying about it. Was a 1/2 n 1/2 mix of jealous & proper players. BUT Had Anet taken the right actions & just implemented their new decreases first then went bot hunting this would never have taken place.

@Melanie
Sorry to hear about the abuse :/. I don't really feel safe while playing anymore. I just can't relax because it feels like it could happen again...

Does anyone have any thoughts about if we can safely play again? Maybe we could try asking Gaile or something?

Hello again,
I'm gonna take a chance and put my head out on the chopping block here.I don't pretend to know alot about computers and complicated stuff, but, I did read it in one of the posts that one of the staff questioned about vmware and, somewhere else i read about disrupted packets, and I assumed it had something to do with clint server interchange.
I have been having problems lately with my router, in short something sends random
ip numbers to it. So I installed a router client that tells me in a pop up window when the amount of them reaches a high enough number, I have to delete them out. Anyway I thought could this maybe be associated with vmware and, is it possible this triggered the ban for me. I put my mind to rest and said "my request is in, and the team will recognize it if this is the case....The point is I was comforted in a false beliefe that they even have the time for this, not to mention that, even if it was true they couldnt tell me because they would reveal an exploit. (EULA) So I left it go and went to do some research. Since I can't play, I did some Wiki checking on GW and ANET for some history and statistics. And what I found literally blew my mind. We see 3000 bans and 14000 bans and we say omg thats incredible amount especially along with innocent people as well. The game is gonna die out. Well then I got my eyes opened up, when I learned that the initial Guild Wars Prophecies sold over 2 million copies were sold, and maybe I misunderstood but I thought I read that Factions and Nightfall, either add another million to it, or it was 3 million on top of it. Either way when I got to GW2 I read that it sold 6 million copies.
Then to my astonishment, I read that the staff of ANET, who created and developed this, in my opinion, extreamly complex and intricate product are a staff of only 300 people.....300 to maintain and police a 6 million user population, not to mention these people
achieved this incredible product, that we only see and recognize from a players point of view, in a limited time frame. Is it any wonder why the process may move slowly? We are probably darn lucky its moving as fast as it is. We tend to single out people and place blame, because we see and hear certain things, that may or may not be. Some are and
some not. But these people have deffinately got to be some of the best in the industry. Just sit back and imagine what it has to take to maintain and keep something this huge in operation. I'm suprised these people can sleep at night without nightmares. Now, I ask myself "are these people entitled to make a mistake once in a while"?... Needless to say, I'm convinced, I need to be much more patient.... Just my opinion..
I apoligize if I offended anyone............................................ .....................WISH

They used to be. But the team that created guildwars has long been split up, and those that are left seem not to care as much. Hence this mess.

If the original team (who hit the sweet spot with this game) was still in place, we would not be having this discussion.

The company these days is a very different animal from the genius which spawned this masterpiece. And that is the problem.

Max

you must remember that those 2 million copies were sold over the last 10 years--LOADS of those folks are no longer playing (as for the factions and nightfall copies, many were sold to those already owning the original release and added to that account). I have a friends list full of people I havent seen log in in years Many people have moved on for one reason or another, not to mention those of us with multiple copies (wont even go into the amount of people who were removed from the game long ago for rmt and such as well as the 3700 that were banned a bunch of years ago---)
so the amount of copies that are still active is plenty smaller than the amount sold. This is the same case for the other game too---there were loads of people who waited anxiously for its release and well, had their hopes dashed, those that played, got bored and left, and still quite a few that are still playing (and yes, there are those who have multiple copies of that game as well ) so 6 million is copies sold--not the current player base by a long shot.

and yes I fell in love with this game, it has been around for some of the tough times of my life and my respite from crap going on in it. I am sorry that it now, too, has become more of a sore spot than a happy place for not only me, but many others who have had their faith spurned by a company that should know better.

• We don't like bots
  
• We would rather have bots than have a single innocent account banned
  
• If ArenaNet can't tell the difference between a bot and a human then they shouldn't ban anyone at all

Sorry about the wall of text screenshot at the bottom. But considering how Shazbawt has locked threads and deleted his own twitter tweet's, I figured it was only a matter of time before the TexMod approval was deleted from the official wiki. I thought a hard copy should be available, just in case.

The message below was posted on the official Guild Wars boards. It was deleted by a moderator immediately.


TexMod - Friendly Reminder

For those that don't know, on Feb 17th ArenaNet mass-banned a bunch of legitimate accounts (which is bad) but then restored them a few days later (which is good).

But there has been no feedback on what caused these bans in the first place. The top two guess's are - using two or more accounts on the same IP Address (which is legit) or using TexMod (which is legit).

In case it was TexMod, I wanted to point out to the powers that be that this program was officially approved for use many years ago. It's not supported, but it is approved. It was stated that ArenaNet was interested in what the community would come up with using TextMod, and would not ban people for using it.

So, I'm just stopping in to give you a friendly reminder.
In case you forgot.

TexMod response from ArenaNet - Official Wiki

I was wondering how long are you playing for more than 3 hrs say.I know in order not to fell like a bot just say something in world chat even if you are h/hing by yourself so you pose a real person.

this is what I was doing on my last 2 accounts before I was clocked out---I would say 'oh I am picking up 104 gold, dunky dont spend it on shoes' or something like 'sosucky, a meteor shower on a spirit, really?'
and then stop and dance or jump or some other emote, or open inventory, or change my armor, open L or H and look up stuff---just different stuff each time I played.... didnt seem to work for me.

and they didnt really say that texmod was ok'd, just that they wouldnt do anything to you if you used it. and seeing as they are changing the rules on us without letting us know, who can say what is ok now?

So because of what I did on other accounts and not newer ones I should be banned. I was banned on the older ones and paid to play again, but was banned because of what I did in the past. They say you can continue playing again if that is the case. Which is why I was unbanned on 3 accounts. If you're not guilty you'll be unbanned, if you're not then RIP salt lord. You must not be telling the whole truth and just complaining to see if something works for you.

I've been playing the game normally since the great banning/unbanning of 2015. I'm not going to be scared to play it, if they confuse me for a bot then so be it. They might even consider it more suspicious if you break your patterns. Like if you played the game everyday for 5 years then suddenly stopped when bans started happening, they might think it's suspicious. I don't know, just something to consider.

I mostly want to see if anything is in store for the 10th year anniversary before everyone is banned or the game is closed. Wouldn't that be a hell of a 10th year present? Everyone is banned, you all lose, good day!

Guys, before running yourself straight into paranoia land... remember that excessive logging of packets means excessive server performance and server space

and then GW2 would be damaged alot, too..... maybe an idea, just not a smart one
we'll see what GW gets, i'll ignore anet completely if GW shuts down, especially at an anniversary

for now, i enjoy GW at my best

Hello, I was wondering if there are any people unbanned from the first banwave from 17 january or something like that. I've read this forum with much interest and finally decided to react. Since the account from my girlfriend and me are banned since this date. Myself I play since I was 11 years old, and am 21 now. I basicly grew up with GW. So I cannot deny it still hurts that I cannot login at this moment. We used multilaunch and texmod on regular base. We've sent in 3 tickets each at support but no answers. Wondering for reactions or more stories. And I was pretty shocked by the reactions from that named Chris? from Anet. Is this really the reason we are banned? Losing all our work without a warning or anything.. I wonder

You are among many i'm afraid. Alot have been unbanned not sure how they determined who got unban but it seemed pretty willy nilly. I'd say half got their acc's back so far.

Half ? I don't think so. Looks like some banned from first wave got debanned thanks to the third wave but that's it. Since thursday/friday i didn't hear about any more debanned and they were quite a few btw ( from the first or second wave )

having troubles understanding you lol. ALot more than what you think were unbanned. Just sayin. Yes some were unbanned since according to this thread alone & some were newly banned lol w/e if I get mine back i'll be happy.

I'll start again then. The third banwave ( 17th february one ) was horrible and therefore lots of ppl banned during it were unbanned but ppl from first or second aswell. But the unbanned ppl from first or second wave don't seem to be a significative part of it, i'll even say they are a little part of it.
So my question is now : why are they unbanned and are ppl still getting unbanned right now ?

ISSUE:
Your Guild Wars account has been terminated for using a bot or other

third-party program,which is a breach of the User Agreement and rules

of conduct. This action is permanent. (code=045)

This is a comprimised issue if it said specifically botting and

nothing else, we would know where we stand but it doesnt.

Facts:

EULA:
1- The right to ban ANYONE for ANY reason without explination.
2- Section 4(i) shows the connections to other accounts: Member Name,
Phone, Email, Postal, IP, Credit Card

As far as Tex mod and Multi launch is concerned maybe it was approved

and not supported but again thats at their discression:

To all modders: It's important to note that the parameters concerning

the use of THIRD-PARTY programs DO STILL APPLY. Gaile Grey

gw1 support severely comprimised compared to gw2.

GW1 Forums shut down (comunication with strictly gw1 users outside

the game eliminated)

GW2 new expansion released.

Speculation:
(Are they thinning the herd? might they want gw1 shut down?)
Since the banning and the unbanning and then the rebanning is full of

confusion as to what the causes are,there are some topics that come

to mind. several users had different stories:
all my accounts were banned and then all were unbanned;
all my accounts were banned and some were unbanned;
all my accounts were banned and unbanned and rebanned;
ect. ect. ect.


Ignoring botters for a period and and collecting from multipul added

accounts knowing their commited botters as for a time they assumed

they were safe. Plus at the time im guessing it was easier to replace

them im assuming they wern't imediatly banned after purchase.

Next thing is people who have tried gw2 demo and didn't like it

stayed devoted gw1 users. Most have already maxed out all there going

to spend on the game and now just play for fun. This doesnt help them

at all, since their income is revolved around GW2 now.

So could it be that:


1- If you were botting in both gw1 and gw2 you will not be unbanned

period.
2- If you have gw1 and gw2 and got banned in gw1 for botting GW1 is

terminated but gw2 is fine.
3- If you have gw1 and gw2 and used tex mod or multi launch but didnt

bot and are innocent chances are you will be unbanned. (their

discretion)
4- If you have gw1 and not gw2 and used tex mod or multilaunch

chances are you will not be unbanned.

Once the gw1 population gets low enough it will justify shutting it

down.

Again purely speculation.

I would love to know if any strictly gw1 users who didnt bot and only

used tex mod or multi got unbanned.

In my opinion if your not moving on to gw2 and stagnent in gw1 not

spending money they dont want you.

I doubt the plan is to shut the game down as the reason to all the banning is they are running a program that check for botters and auto bans.I do believe they and not the financially sounds unlike few years back.NCSoft is cutting corners where they can and that includes Anet.

wishbone. I do not own gw2 and never will (I will not buy a new computer(s) for the sole purpose of playing a video game as my current computer is incapable of playing 2).
Over the course of 3 waves all 6 of my accounts were banned, and then unbanned. So your hypothesis of them trying to push gw only people over by not unbanning is disproven.

Your final question: ME, I have used texmod (cant use multi--computer can barely play gw with a browser open let alone another copy of gw--but I do have 2 computers I play on), I have no reason to bot either (and have never done so) I have gotten all of my accounts back and do not and never will own gw2.

@ Cozy

Hello Cozy,

Thank you for the reply, that's exactly what I was hoping to hear.
Now I must take a giant step back and stand corrected.
I am ecstatic that my theory has a hole in it.
And once again I have hope. I have been trying to approach this from many angles
and over the last 4 days my head is totally absorbed in it, trying to connect the dots and
trying to make sense of it. Part of me feels that something that happened 2 years ago could come back and bite me in the ass is ludicrous. I figured it would have decided me in the first ban. From what you've told me if I could eliminate multi launch from the equation I would be secure. The not knowing weather I am legitimately guilty or innocent
is driving me a little nuts. If you don't mind me asking how long between bans did it take for them to actually respond to it and did they ever give you any reasons for it. Or was it totally just a mistake. I got a request ticket and sent them an email from the ticket. again its only 4 days. But some from 4 days ago are already back unbanned. This is what makes me wonder. were their tickets sent the same time as mine?
anyway thanks and looking forward to your reply......................................WISH

my first 4 went on the 29th/30th, 2nd 2 on the 17th...all unbanned on the 19th..sent in ticket wee hours of 30th---NEVER got a response from CS. Never used multi-launch, only texmod. They dont seem to respond to tickets in anything closely resembling a timely fashion.
I doubt you would have been flagged for trading with someone unless you did it multiple times. People have been expressing theories about multiple accounts at the same ip (and if you read the thread you will notice folks have found the kid who was doing the banning expressing confusion at folks having more than one account let alone more than one account at the same ip, guess gw2 isnt family friendly?) and such....tons of theories, no good conclusions (other than it happened and some have been unbanned, and that there is botting activity again in jq).
(not to mention said banner has also ADMITTED to being a botter himself!).
Think there were lots of reasons for the bans, and the timing was possible either on purpose (with the announcement of the gw2 expansion so the wouldnt have to respond), or just really piss poor timing (and bad business practices).

I'm still banned. Nothing from ANet.

I'm seriously tempted to buy another account so I can start playing again, but I don't have the money to waste if it's only going to get banned as soon as I login. Has anyone with banned accounts tried this?

I dont think the timing has anything to do with gw2. Thats just pure speculation.

Why does everybody think its an automated banning process at all? I mean, aside from re-banning newly created accounts of banned people.

And I really dont think, IP address is used as a way to determine if someone already has a banned account.
a) IP addresses arent permanent and
b) every developer nowadays is aware of that.

There never was an official Guild Wars forum. Which is why guildwarsguru.com and a few others grew to be so big. ArenaNet employees were required to read the larger non-official forums daily to keep track of the community. I don't believe they do that anymore.

Did you do anything illegal (like botting, calling people names etc) this time?

Multilaunch and texmod have been used and are being used by people not getting banned (including me). I use Multilaunch because I like the autologin and having all my accounts neatly sorted. I dont use it with two accounts at once atm, and I never used the force gw.dat unlock option. If that helps you guys.

Texmod is semi approved (along the lines of: if you kill your pc and cat while running it, anet isnt responsible) and as it only changes textures in an environment that isnt competitive, I cant imagine why it would be forbidden now suddenly.
Multilaunch is a mini-desktop that starts gw1 as a new instance each time you run the game from inside (probably just hiding the old instances). Cant imagine that being forbidden, as long as you dont use your multiple game instances for botting or syncing.

It's Monday any new unbans?

@Yllena

Well I'm for sure and definitely never any botting ever ........and I'm also for sure never obscene or unethical with anyone my hearts too big and I just don't have that in me to be that way.
Me and my wife run 2 computers both Acer Aspire m3470g sets both have win 7 ultimate
64 bit sp1 we have 3 accounts that we use her main my main and a storage.
when we upgraded to new sets from the old we switched from xp pro 32 bit to win 7 64 bit I didn't realize the multi launch was 32bit but it still worked fine and I left it go.
anyway she runs her account on her set and I run mine on my set and use the multi after she goes to bed to do inventory and weapon transfers and merching from the days events and charr running between all 3 accounts. We bought full mercenary packs for all accounts
and all charrs now have full discord teams in them so i'm constantly doing armors and weapons and runes and transferring gold between them to complete the teams 40 in all.
Might sound absurd but this is what we do. we are trying to get each charr through each campaign so they all have access to stuff such as green end game weapons that we put together as weapon sets for the teams to use. Also we utilize the charrs for zaishen bounties and ziashen missions and we hold on to then and cash them in on the double coin weeks as we would like to get heavy packs for them all again maybe absurd but a goal for us none the less. on the 17th early am I cashed in the bounties on all accounts using multi launch since she was asleep and transferred all the coins to one charr and all the gold to the same charr and quit for the night. next day when I tried to log in all were banned. now I don't know but I woulden't think any of this would be that far out of line to get me banned. oh and sometimes I use tex mod mission map its the same principal as cart except it shows on the mini map where to go........but that's it that's all we do. once in a while we break our schedule for events like wintersday which my wife got lucky and got a mini polar which she's hoping she still has ...if we get them back. we don't sell to people and we very seldom buy from people unless its something specific....oh I forgot I bought a bramble blade in kama to complete a weapon set just after I cashed in the bounties. now if multi launch is VMware which i still don't know ,then that's what else ya would use it for other than botting. so am I out of line here or not because I really don't know for sure at this point............................................. .................WISH

@WISH:
VMware is something that allows you to run windows in windows, among other things. It basically emulates another computer on your computer, you wont be accidentally setting that up, so no worries there

@ Melanie

Do you mean kinda like the old dos box system where ya could run older games in newer versions of windows?....................sorry I'm so old...........................................WISH

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Oh duh never mind..........emulation...........im not thinking clearly sorry

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Thank You much. That helps a lot and I feel a little better.

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Now I'm pretty sure I can relax and just be patient............Thanks to everyone for your input and your help...........I wont be posting anything more here..........at least I don't think so.........................Sincerely.............. ............................................WISH

PS. I WAS A PLEASURE MEETING YOU ALL

I originally got 11 accounts banned,then bought 11 more and they got banned a week later all at once. I even bought another single account and it got banned. ALL of these for no reason. I only use my accounts for storage and guilds, not for botting and they haven't ever emailed me back from my tickets. I'm very aggitated because I have 23 accounts sitting banned when I've never done any form of botting or third party. I use Multilaunch daily and play 2 accounts at once, but never used anything to cheat or anything. Now I sit with a new account againand its been 3 weeks no ban yet, but i Dont know why all my multiple accounts got banned but not now with a single... doesn't make sense when I am doing exact same now as before just single account over multiple. Suggestions?

They most likely look for multiple active accounts on the same computer. Ive been running a solo account and have been fine

You're forgetting the GW support forums.

Cosy.How long did it take to get unbanned on all accounts?How long does it take to get ticket processed?GW2 shouldn't have support forums if you ask me since GW didn't have any.They should be using fansites still.

Just an update- Been playing a week and a half with Multi Launch and Texmod running cartography made easy and igmm, have not been rebanned, although I'm probably jinxing myself typing this...

I can almost guarantee you texmod wont get you banned...

Are you actually running multiple accounts at once? or just launching GW through multilaunch?

I got a reply back on my ticket. I was banned on the first wave for selling gold and item for real money. I guess I am unbanned/ havent checked yet. Here is part of their reply:
While we appreciate your concern regarding the status of your account, unfortunately we are unable to provide additional information in response to your inquiry.

While our investigation points to the fact that your account was involved in a violation, we are going to extend leniency to you on a one-time basis. We have reinstated your account and you may rejoin the game now.

Load a crap lol That's says "while were not sure why you were banned we'll unban you this time so it looks like we actually know"