Big Disappointment on GuildWars' System Admins

Just a few days back, my Guildwars account which i worked so hard with for almost a year now, was banned! and the reason the support team gave me was this:

Response (GM Mollusk) 04/15/2006 01:02 PM
Hello,

Thank you for contacting us about your Guild Wars game account.

Your account was permanently closed because you engaged in the sale of in-game items for cash or other items with real world value, or you engaged in gathering items to be sold for cash or other items with real world value. Both actions are against our User Agreement, where Section 7 states, "You may not sell or auction any Guild Wars accounts, characters, items, coin or copyrighted material, nor may you assist others in doing so."

Protests regarding the termination of your Guild Wars game account will not be addressed or entertained. We will not accept appeals in cases such as this because of the depth of the analysis prior to the block. We regret the necessity of terminating any game account, but we will continue to take all necessary actions to protect the Guild Wars community and to assure that players are abiding by our User Agreement.

Please keep in mind that Guild Wars is a global game with hundreds of thousands of players. This means that standards of behavior must be upheld. For your convenience, you can obtain more information about our rules at the addresses listed below.

- User Agreement: http://www.guildwars.com/legal/users-agreement.php

- Rules of Conduct: http://www.guildwars.com/legal/rulesofconduct.php

- Conduct Breaches & Outcomes: http://www.guildwars.com/legal/condu...d_outcomes.php

Regards,

The Guild Wars Support Team

================================================== ====
Their next response was:

Hello,

Thanks for contacting the Guild Wars Support Team.

Your account was closed as you were found to be assisting in the gathering of items to be sold for cash or other items with real world value.

Regards,
GM Dynamite
Senior GM
Guild Wars Support Team

================================================== ====

This responses were based on my messages trying to prove my innocence that I WAS NEVER PART of the said incident. I NEVER ASSISTED in gathering items to be sold for cash or items with real world Values.

How many here, think that it is only right that we customers who are accused of such acts should be provided with concrete evidences to support such accusations?

I've tried asking them sorts of questions like who was i assisting? who was i working with? could they provide concrete evidence that i really did commit such acts?

None or not all of you may care about this, but think of it happening to you? what would you do? How would you feel of something that you worked soooooo hard and gave your full dedication and effort, just to be stripped away from you for a reason that you are completely NOT guilty of?

I Would like to ask my fellow guild wars gamers and the whole Guild Wars and Guildwarsguru community to help me on this problem. Suggestions and OPinions will be much appreciated. For example, suggestions on what else i could do to prove my innocence!

thanks in advance!

since they have the logs of everything you have said, done,transfered, or stored.

from an interview.

they warned people to stop also they do give benefit of doubt.

dont expect much sympathy here

Well i am not asking for sympathy! im asking for justice! I farm alot, i farm Gold items, Shards, Green Items, Ectos and etc, and i use them for in-game activities! If i sell them, i sell them in exchange for another in-game item, such as gold coins, platinums, ectos or another item of the same value!

If it so happens that i sold an in-game (e.g. Green Weapon) item in exchange for another in-game item (e.g. Platinum) to another player, and this player later on sells the in-game item(Green Weapon) i sold to him in exchange for cash. Then it should not be my problem anymore! THey can't just accuse me that i was assisting this other player! All i did was play the game like how it is intended to be played!

Who has the more credibility in this case? A-net or you?

I choose to believe A-net that they did the right thing upon your action in game.

Well I can't blame you if you choose to believe them! Well as long as God Knows and that my conscience is perfectly clean! I live outside of the US, which makes, proving my innocence much harder!

We will not accept appeals in cases such as this because of the depth of the analysis prior to the block.

Sounds like they did alot of research before banning you.

You were probably linked into a farmning network, e.g. sold items on ebay, used a bot to farm 5 days strait.

If by some chance you are innocent try think what you could of done to make them suspect you ?


Maybe transfering thousands of plat to a botter ? did you just buy a hod sword ?.

Did you just buy 1000s of gold from ebay with real cash off most likely a botter.

If you did buy gold off ebay its your own fault you shouldnt CHEAT.

Sorry but i am completely clean, i never bought anything on Ebay, I was always the seller type, Highest amount of Plat i transfered to purchase an in-game item was around 50k. I never purchased an HoD sword! I never bought Gold coins or Platinums from ebay or other sites that sell Guildwars Plats and Golds! And of course, I farm Manually!!

i really hope this is true.

Everone know when you have many thing to do (like checking tons of log and account) people begin to make the things fast and check who should made with slowly and carefull attention begin be a joke. Im not saying i dont trust a.net employes im saying i dont trust humanity

Maybe you've sold allot of stuff, you farmed, to sweatshop players, and that way got connected to them.

Anyway, speculation will not help much here.

You could be lying through your teeth, or anet could have made a mistake. In either case its resonable they should tell you what you did (specificly), if they have done in depth analysis like they said, that wont prove difficult.

In both cases those e-mails look to be auto-generated, if your innocent then persist, if not then give up.

If you are 100% sure you can sue them. In that case they will have to prove that you violated the user agreement. If you win it won't cost you anything, and you will have your account back. If you loose however... Also you can contact a customer organization. No need to say its useless to try further if you're not 100% sure you are not to be blamed for violating the user agreement.

Anet isnt legally bound, they can turn your account access on and off at whim, and not be breaking any laws

That sucks that you got banned. I agree with you that Anet should send a couple examples of specifically what you did wrong. "You bought or sold stuff on eBay" is too general IMO.

if I have 2 accounts I use purely for personal storage, can I get teh ban't?

yeah no matter how deep your analysis is, you can still create errors!!! I just hope A.net hasn't given up on this! i hope their still checking this incident much further and deeper!

do you think it would help if a.net would post my suspicious logs publicly and allow the community to vote whether those logs prove me guilty or innocent?

this isnt a public matter. its between you and Anet.

Well ... Anet does make mistakes and they do it pretty often. About 2 weeks ago I bought a shield IN GAME less than 10 seconds later I was kicked from the game. After trying to log back on ... error code 045 permanent ban. Took SEVERAL emails to "support" to get them to remove the ban. No reason given on the ban or what prompted the error on their part. For those not feeling sympathetic it is because you have not been a victim of the ban stick yet.

To the OP ... KEEP BLOWING UP SUPPORT EMAIL. With Anet it is all about the squeaky wheel.

YES EXACTLY! This is what i'm asking from A.net, a decent and specific piece of evidence! If they really have done an in-depth analysis it wont be hard for them to provide this to customers!

NO ILL NEVER GIVE UP coz i know im completely innocent!

I agree with to OP and leprekan, A-Net can make mistakes there needs to be an appeal process, and if a perment ban is the punsiment the person should have a chance to defend themself.

In cases like these, I could really care less whether or not you are guilty or not. Here's my take: If you truly have done nothing that violates any of their terms of service or license agreements then I can think of only one reason that you could've been accussed of this. You farm waaaayy too damn much! Extremely too much!

If this is the case then I'd rather prefer that you stay banned. Why? Not because it really affects me, but it sure must affect you. Do you know why they refer to the chinese farming companies as sweatshops? Because all those Chinese sit around at the PC for extrenuous ammounts of time each day, and not only get underpaid, but get their bodies wracked with physical and mental stress and weakness because a human being is not meant to sit in a chair and stare at a cube of light all day long! Whether they're in a dim lit, dank and dark shack sewing together Nikes or sitting in a flourescent lit room stairing at millions of LCDs, it's an extremely unnatural and extremely unhealthy environment.

The underpriveleged Chinese are being forced into these unhealthy environments by their own poverty and desparation, yet you're choosing to subject yourself to that kind of lifestyle on your own free will. So much so that your in-game activities seem, to Anet, to be no different from a Chinese sweatshop farmer.

Well no longer. You've got a choice now. You can either buy the game again and start from scratch, working twice as hard now to regain all you lost, or you can take this as a life lesson, and make an effort to discover everything else life has to offer; the real life, not the game life.

Or maybe none of the above applies to you and you just got unlucky . Who knows...I sure don't. Anyway. This is the way things work. If Anet has to kick a couple innocent people in the pants accidentally while trying to catch the real culprits, then so be it. It's too bad if you're one of those innocents, but it's good to know Anet is actually taking action to preserve the game.

Anet knows that many people have two accounts, and transfer items between the two frequently. If your transfer history shows that you tend to make one sided trades back and forth between just two accounts, it's easy to tell that you're just muling on some characters. I mean they probably do a lot of checking, and amidst many other things they're probably looking at your character's inventory. It's pretty obvious from looking at the inventory that a character is a mule char. I don't think there is any chance that you'll get banned because of your mules.

cmon dont be so rude! IT may or may not be a public matter, depends if you're a victim or not, it also depends if you have concerns for other players... These typical errors may happen to among any of us, including you!

This thread does not only seek for help but also informs other players that Anet can make mistakes such as this! However it is up to you whether to believe or not! OR Who to believe in!!

Unless you stopped playing the game already ... I highly doubt you would feel this way it it was YOU that got banned for no reason.

its pretty hard to get banned, you'd almost have to try to get ban. Stay by the rules and hopefully it doesnt happen. I'm not saying A-net is always right but i'm saying they aren't always wrong either. Would you mind telling us what you did?

Haha! Wrong again! I farm alot, but not too much! Sometimes i dont login for a day! and when i do, i mostly do PvP! and when i farm, i get satisfied if i can make around 20k a day! And i could do that mostly in two hours! and i stop playing! then login again after a few hours and do some more pvp or help my guildies! i have 4 characters all level 20s, and i use them for Gvg, farming, most of the time for pvp and PVE of course!

Just for the heck of it, im no chinese if that's what you have in mind!

I just played the game like how it is intended to be played! I dont mean to brag or anything, but im really a decent, courteous and friendly player! i help newbies and old gamers! I farm, i do missions, i do skill capping, Trading, all those regular MMOG stuffs!But i never, never ever SOLD in-game items for cash! nor assisted anyone for that matter!

Sorry, but speaking from experience ... it is EASY to get banned when they do it in ERROR. I was banned in ERROR by Anet I am sure it has happened to many others as well.

Ive received a 24 hour ban before, without warning. And when i inquired what i did wrong, i never got a response. I eventually gave up and decided it was because of a certain conversation that probably got taken out of context.

Mistakes do happen. People do report other people to spite other players.

However, this is a public forum. We dont know what really happened. So really this forum will only get you flamed and such. Im not being rude, im being apathetic.

Thanks for the concern man! BTW do you mind if i ask you how you contacted Anet and where exactly did you blow up all those support emails? What is the email add you used to contact their support team?

Because as for me, I went to PlayNC's site, and used their support system. The one where you'll ask questions and GM's will send you response from there! That is basically what i posted in the beginning of this thread!

One more thing, i tried sending Anet an Email through [email protected], i keep getting mailer daemons tho!

I would be pissed yes. Very much yes. I would be dissapointed yes. Very much yes. But I can't do anything about it. The policy is clearly written in that email that they won't even humor repeals and I understand why this is. They don't have time to deal with all the sob stories and explanations, and they couldn't even if they had the time. All they have to go on is how they're seeing you react and interact in the game. Since they have no legal way of monitoring your outside transactions such as the purchases on ebay, then it would have to be purely them taking your word on it if you tell them that you weren't selling gold/items. What do you think? Should Anet be letting anyone have their account back that "pinky swears" that they weren't really exploiting the game?

This is just the best way for ANet to make sure their business doesn't fall into chaos. So ya, I'd be pissed and dissapointed, but I wouldn't waste my time throwing out a sob story or trying to ask ppl to help them get their account back.

Well they can flame me all they want! But if something like this happens to them, they'll know what im talking about! Also i dont care if i get flamed, that is not my concern, Im here trying to get positive feedbacks, suggestions and opinions on how to resolve this matter and prove my innocence!

Keep sending them emails. When they close it REopen it (they kept autoreplying me and closing my ticket too). You will eventually be moved up the food chain at Anet. They HAVE to close service tickets so the squeaky wheel does get addressed. Best of luck.

Hmmm... It concerns me that ANet is judge, jury, and executioner. They are human, and humans are capable of mistakes. A player should be allowed the opportunity to defend themselves, and be presented with the evidence, upon which, such a decision was made.

Maybe i'm just naturally trusting of people, but regardless I also think Anet should give you adequate feedback as to why your account was banned. I probably would just keep at the support button and hope you finally get through to a "real" person rather than an automated machine. Good Luck.

That is exactly why i am asking for a concrete and specific evidence! if their analysis is so in-depth, then it wouldn't be hard for them!

easy for you to say!

one more thing, I am only asking for suggestions and opinions on how i could get my account back! And this thread could help inform other users in the future! Like what to do and not what to do, in case your account got banned for no reason! or a reason you're not guilty of!

The point, though, is that you can't. Anet clearly stated in the email you recieved:

Protests regarding the termination of your Guild Wars game account will not be addressed or entertained. We will not accept appeals in cases such as this because of the depth of the analysis prior to the block. We regret the necessity of terminating any game account, but we will continue to take all necessary actions to protect the Guild Wars community and to assure that players are abiding by our User Agreement.

There is no way at all to get your account back even if you paid Anet a million bucks. They've "terminated" your account. They've deleted it. They didn't just temporarily ban it, they completed removed it.

I got my account banned 3 days ago, I have no clue why I was banned (I get a code 045 when I try to log in) and I've never done anything to violate EULA nor the Conduct thing, (I actually read the damn thing just to see if I had violated anything) after some hasseling nothing has been done and I can only say that I'm extremly dissapointed with Arenanet sofar.
I guess I could buy a new account but what's the point if they're gonna ban me again for no reason at all? It seems to me that the banning has gone out of hand, and I do hope I get my account back since I was looking forward to Factions, which I certainly won't get if they don't give me my account back

If that indeed was part of the notice sent to you I see one major problem in that. If I was playing the game and found a really nice gold weapon and decided to sell it to someone, I shouldn't be the one to get perma banned or punished at all if the person I sold said weapon to decided to sell it for real money on ebay. If that is what happened to you then sue. You didn't violate any agreement and for them to take/ban your a account is theft on their part. You spent real money to play a game and then keep you from playing it then they took your money and that is theft.

Also from what I have read of the Rules and Agreements it is a joke. According to a few of the rules you can't swear, type anything vulger, racial or sexual in any way shape or form. If that was the case then almost everyone should have had their account banned. You also can't spam with repeated messages. So if we as users can't pick or choose what rules to follow who are they to choose which rules to enforce. They are just as bound as we are to the same agreement. I believe there was also a rule that stated that noone can do anything if it were to impede on anyone else gameplay. Well lets see here, due to farming and running anet has made changes to the game making certain areas harder to farm and run and therefore harder to play. So due to others running and farming my game play became impeded (impede means difficult or slow by definition). Therefore should the farmers and runners go unbanned?

Guys let's get some perspective here, can anyone be banned just for buying from a bot?? I almost bought a bow from a FFX character name, then when I had difficulty locating said seller all I got was "I'm in Lions Arch Dist 1". Which at that point I didn't buy it.

Would I have been guilty of contributing to a bot farm?

Prime example how some people will express their opinion even if they have no knowledge on the topic. If you aren't part of the solution then ...

You are incorrect. I was PERMANENTLY BANNED (error code 045) and managed to get my account UNBANNED. It took MANY emails to support before they figured out THEY OOPSD.

For those saying why post here ... where else can they post looking for help on this topic? Anet is not a roadmap of help ... Anet sends people to sites like this one for help.

I dont think Anet should disclose why you were banned, as you or anybody else could easily post the information on a public forum alerting thousands of botters as to how ANET goes about hunting them down.