Guild Wars News: Bots Banned

I've played Asheron's Call 1 in the past which had NO STANCE with bots at all (Nearing the end of my play they eventually outlawed hunting/XP farming bots)

What eventually happened was bots were everywhere from Portal bots, hunting bots, trade bots, crafting bots, bots to look when a house came on the market to buy it...anything a real player could do a bot program was released to the public by 3rd party developers to do it.

It got out of hand in that game that Bots eventually outnumbered real people playing the game and it made me sick to my stomach so i ended up quitting the game i played for 3-4 years.

So I can't stand when i see the argument about bots will always be here no matter what so just let them be if no stance is taken it will only get prodominatly worse.

I'm happy with what A.NET has done so far and I hope they continue to try to stop the bots, they can't stop them all their stance against them will at least stop the next person who might think its something you can easily get away with.

Two things: It's important to note that the first response is always a "form letter." That's just to let you know the ticket has been received and to give you your ticket number, too, I believe.

I have to admit, it would be super nice to be able to have a real human respond even at the first level, but it's really not practical. I bet you're like me, and you see the email address and think, "Oh, great a response!" and find out it's "Thanks for the letter. We'll get back to you." But we do get back to folks, and if you have difficulties, it really is ok to follow up, if you give a bit of time for the process to move along normally. I've seen tickets where someone wrote and was "re-pinging" within the hour. Errr, that's not quite realistic.

And I agree that we should remember that there are a lot of people using the programs, and everything takes time. We won't give up the good fight, though!

I would like to say that by banning 1000 accounts, guild wars wont make enough money back to pay for the guild that wins the ladder. 1,000 x $50/account = $50,000. No company as large and as profitable as Anet is going to ban accounts for an extra $50,000. Its not that much money. They're doing it because the bots need to be banned like everyone else has said.

gaile was up late...

would it be too much of a task to have an in-game way of reporting something?
i realize it would be abused if a live GM responded to player interaction issues (i.e. scamming) but i would like to see a system implemented for ingame ticketing. (the support site is too slow for me, i lose interest if i have to alt-tab out to write up a bug report/ticket for something minor.)

as for the bot issue, i've noticed a decreased number of botters in elona's (among others) and i appreciate a-net's efforts to take care of them.

Day two of Guild Wars withdrawl is beginning. It would appear my reply yesterday was only half read..

Response (GM Lor)
Hello JT,

Thank you for writing us to ask about your suspended or blocked Guild Wars account.

While I cannot answer specifically why you experienced a temporary suspension, the most common reasons would be:

- Unacceptable in game behavior, such as crude language, harassment, racism, or other actions that offend other players
- Advertising of hacks/cheats/bots/macros, game accounts for sale, or of the web sites that promote such things
- Spamming, that is, repeating chat lines frequently over a substantial period of time
- Defrauding, harassing, threatening, or causing distress or unwanted attention to other players.
- Breaches of the User Agreement or the Rules of Conduct
- The use of an inappropriate name

The last one -- use of an inappropriate name -- has two consequences: The account receives a temporary suspension and the questionably-named character is blocked from future play. Once the temporary suspension on the account expires, you will be able to log into the account and you will be prompted to change the character name to something more appropriate. In order to regain access to this character -- with levels, items, skills, etc. -- you must change the character name. Alternatively, you may also elect to delete the character, in which case all acquisitions and achievements on that particularly character would be forfeited.

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 in our "Rules of Conduct" and "Conduct Breaches & Outcomes" pages, which are listed below.

- Rules of Conduct: http://www.guildwars.com/support/leg...sofconduct.php

- Conduct Breaches & Outcomes: http://www.guildwars.com/support/leg...d_outcomes.php

We hope that you will understand why the account block was necessary, and we look forward to seeing you in Guild Wars soon.

Regards,
The Guild Wars Support Team

Yes, and I look forward to seeing you in Guild Wars with my BANNED account. I replied nicely in kind, further explaining that the message I'm recieving says this is permanent. Perhaps the third responder will have a pulse...

There have been several post about people getting banned by accident, all the ones that were restored had one thing in common.....They responded immedeatly.

Don't wait to get back to them, the sooner you respond, the sooner you get your account back.

Well I've gotten another reply :

Hello JT,

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/support//le...-agreement.php
- Rules of Conduct: http://www.guildwars.com/support/leg...sofconduct.php
- Conduct Breaches & Outcomes: http://www.guildwars.com/support/leg...d_outcomes.php

Regards,
The Guild Wars Support Team

Once again, I can read/type simplified chinese and have had no problem communicating and making deals with chinese players. My trading was IN GAME. I purchased many thousands of items from those players, but the gold stayed in the game. There was no real world cash, nor was there any real world value. I do not understand how that is a violation. Because I may have traded gold for items from users that use bots, am I guilty of what they're doing? Is there any way to know that items you are receiving were from a bot farmer? I need some clarity, as this appears to be the end of the road. "Protests regarding the termination of your Guild Wars game account will not be addressed or entertained."

Help me

Another reply from Support.. Perhaps this isn't falling on deaf ears.

Response (GM Jabberwocky) 06/04/2006 01:15 PM
Hello JT,

Thanks for contacting the Guild Wars Support Team.

I am escalating your ticket to our senior staff members to assist you further. Once they have reviewed your question, one of them will contact you again shortly thereafter.

Regards,
The Guild Wars Support Team

Try a 2 week guild wars withdrawel (Unfair mother :P )

I also have a question for Gaile or anyone else that can answer:
Would letting my brother hold the keys to my account so that he and I can play on the un-used 4th character slot be against the rules ? I just wanted to play the game and get around my punishment for getting a 79% in English.

I'm scared to farm elona be be mistaken for a bot now :\

I really think it was the amount of volume that I was moving. Unless you're pulling a million gold a week and around 400 unidentified gold items, the 'extensive analysis' probably won't pick you up.

I feel sorry for the poor people who were banned on accident, but hey, s*** happens, and we can't change that.

But we can make it better, just have gaile gray take a list of people and have them un-banned.

Absolut Monk, at least you got a reply.. I've been waiting for what seems like forever.

Man, I hope my Monk doesn't get mistaken for a bot.... and since i've already beat Elona, I won't be headin back there again, to scary.

On a side note, I do Queen farm alot, but mainly I do it because its hard, fun, and the people I do it with are more than happy to help me ascend if I help them farm. Even if it isn't that rewarding to get the Greenie.

Hey.. are you the Absolut Monk that singled handledly topped Zos Shirvos Channel? Could that have been the reason why?

Yes, I am the same Absolut Monk that topped Zos Shivros. If you'll read the previous posts, the reason my account was banned was "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", which I have not done. Zos Shivros was done by me once, and afterwards reported to ANet, which they corrected in a weekly update.

4. ACCOUNT

(a) Eligibility. Accounts are available only to adult individuals 18 years of age or older. If you are less than 18 years of age and wish to use the Service, your parent(s) or guardian(s) must complete the registration process, open an Account in their name(s) and accept full responsibility for all obligations under this Agreement. Those who have completed these steps and who maintain their Account in good standing are sometimes referred to in this Agreement as "Members."

By accepting the terms of use in the Agreement, Members represent that you are an adult 18 years of age or older. Only one person may use an Account. The registered user of an Account may use the Account or may choose instead to permit a minor child of the registered user to use the Account. You are liable for all activities conducted through your Account, and parents or guardians are liable for all activities of their minor child conducted through the Account.

The essence of the this particular statement... Only one person may use an Account.

And to Absolut Monk and the other folks who have had their accounts banned, I hope, if there was an error, that your accounts on restored. If there was not an error, you got your just desserts.

I've filed my issue through NCSCOFT GW Taiwan.. (since my account is Taiwanese), hopefully they can get to GW GMs faster than using support ticket.

Absolut Monk was banned possibly for in-game trading of ebay items.

But my account don't even trade other people, so the obvious reason will be botting which I don't do. My account is so poor, never accumulated more than 20k gold at anytime on myself.. maybe I have made around 40~50k since my account started in February.

Ok, easy enough I'll just change the password. Thanks for doing that, much appreciated

EDIT: IIRC The minimum age was 13 for online games (considering they are not of M rating or above), not 18.

the bots seem to be mainly chinese and you deal with them for a flag.

you deal in huge volume for another flag.

i highlited the important part as you have no actual knowledge of what happens to that gold.

this might apply

if you sold to a proven ebay account(s) and had huge volume i can see flags going up

not saying you are guilty just saying there could be the appearance of participating.

I agree entirely Loviatar. I can only guess at the number of good and bad accounts that I've bought and sold to in the past year. I would imagine the spirit of the second quote above would be directed to those persons who received real world value from farming gold or items for someone who sells for cash. All of my dealings with potential bot users were a transaction. Gold was given and items received, much like the buying and selling that goes on in Ascalon or LA.

The minimum age is normally 13 for online games or chat rooms, however these are constraints imposed primarily by the manufacturer of the product. In this case, for Guild Wars, the EULA says you must be 18 to be registered as a user. Probably, part of this is give to be able to enforce the EULA for more than just, banning. Basically, to enter into a binding legal contract, i.e. an EULA you have to be 18. If you are under 18, you cannot enter a legally binding agreement, for general purposes. I imagine that is the reason that most of the online games are going to 18 as the age, so they can enforce the EULA as a contract.

Shouldn't have clicked I Accept so fast.

I'm afraid Monk, this might be a permanent ban for you. If you were moving that large of an amount of gold and items, ANet might see you as a middle man.

If you live in Japan there is a new legal precedent that might help you out. A woman was sued for damages for selling items on her husbands MMORPG account and additionally, she was charged with criminal theft, if you're account was worth millions of gold, maybe you can go after ANet in the same manner; call it illegal seizure of assets. But if you're not, you might have to wait for awhile.

I'll know more when the next tier of support emails me tomorrow. While it would be wonderful, my purpose for posting to this thread isn't to get my account back. I don't have any conspiracy theories, nor do I believe ANet is out to get us all. Quite simply, my goal is to educate other players on the situation I've found myself in.

As a user, no one knows who has been using a bot to farm for items and gold. Some turn a blind eye, while others are genuinely naiive. Boil it down, I am banned for using the existing trade system to expand the in game wealth of my character, it's guild, and it's alliance. I trust in the system that upon further review, this will be plainly seen by those who can right the wrong.

@Monk: Thats very mature of you, best wishes.

@Argen: Should've printed it to read when i'm so bored, but I'm sure I can find it online

Let's make it simple in baby talk:

Bots are bad. Me no want robots.

Banning is good, weeeeeee.

Even with precedent, the EULA gives Anet practical immunity to these kind of charges, as it states that the player owns nothing in the account and has purchased the right to access the game servers, all items/characters in your account are property of ArenaNet.

Only way someone could try to get anything out of that method would be try to and go after them for blocking your purchased access, assuming they can prove they did not violate the EULA and thus void the legality of holding an account, in which case Anet would likely have already restored access :/

Yet, if you go to Elona, it is full of Mino farming bots still. Hmm... When will they consider 55 Monking an Exploit and fix it??? Never?

I await the day when Elona is fully purged on Mo/W's and I can finally go -

/cheer

This has been bought up before. They can't do anything as they are afraid of offending a huge segment of GW players that rely on Protective Spirit in its current state.

All they have to do to destroy the 55 monk is modify how Protective Spirit works. Currently Protective Spirits gets more powerful the less life a character has. So instead of getting penalised for having less life, it becomes advantageous.

They have added enchantment removers to many areas, but griffins/trolls and other warrior types can't strip enchantments so they are farmed ad nauseum by 55 monks.

Because it's not an exploit, and it's one of the few things that allows the farming capability of a caster to parallel that of a warrior. Not going into a discussion of 55hate now though...

The elona monks should be shot down for botting, not for their builds

A possible reason the bots are still around is that anet is trying to ban the people the bot money is going through. The bots are extremely plentiful but if the more important points get shut down it harms bot farming somewhat more. A new monk wouldn't take that long to set up, but a bot-ring mule account with 1000k + rares does. This is probably why most of the accidental bannings are of people with a large amount of in-game money flowing through them.

This is partly true. How many characters are running around with names from books, movies, and the like? Because they are protected by copyright and trademark law, ANet does not own them, neither does the player using them (in most cases). Hasbro, Sony, MGM, and dozens of other companies are quite a bit a larger than NCSoft, in fact Sony's legal department has a larger budget than NCSoft's net income last year. EULAs are being targeted in courts in the US, finally, and in congress as well. Microsoft, Comp-USA, and Symantec have recently come under a couple of class action lawsuits that have shredded the iron-clad security corporations had original thought possible in EULAs.

In civil damages court the burden of proof does go both ways. The suit would involve the ANet having to prove that the banned party was in violation of the contract; while the banned party only has to bring up that question, and can even rely on character witnesses. I doubt it could ever go to a criminal court... though I'd like to see the court files and transcripts.

Anyways, my degree is in business ethics, not business law...

Best of luck to those involved personally in the ban, if you deserved being banned hope you stay banned; and if you are not, I hope you get your accounts back. Ban more bots ANet!

24 hours have passed with no reply from the second tier. Thankfully, I understand that patience is a virtue and shall keep a candle lit. Just to let them know I'm still alive, I added a "Thank you for your perseverance" message to the existing ticket as I continue hoping for the best.

Six days past and Anet still haven't replied.. I have made a ticket (yes 6 days ago) and added comments to the ticket basically every day, getting to the point where I'm on the verge of throwing my GW and CE games in the bin. Very frustrating as all I have asked of anet is "WHY?" perhaps in a perfect world I would of got a reply but we all know the world is less than perfect. I just hope that in future anet bans the correct people and leaves the innocents alone.
,.|.. °¿° ..|.,
You deserve it..

Guess who's back? Thanks for all the support!

Response (GM Phields) 06/05/2006 05:04 PM
Hello,

Thank you for contact Guild Wars Support. After reviewing the issue, it appears that your account was blocked in error. Your account is now released and you should be able to log in to Guild Wars. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Take care,
GM Phields
The Guild Wars Support Team

Congratulations, rather good for you !

Maybe Gaile saw your post and put in an extra word for you :P

EDIT: Maybe they should've given you a rare crystalline sword for your troubles

Zealous Crystalline Sword of Fortitude
15-22 (req 7)
+15% (uncond.)
1e on hit
-1e regen
+30 health

That would be the only way they could make it up to me if they banned me on accident.

OMG congrats!

Absolut Monk, my account was accused of the same thing as you were. But the thing is, I don't trade with other players and they have given me a time of such transaction: 17/5 5:31pm PST, which is 8:31am (18/5) my time in Taiwan and at that time, I am on my way to work! Unless my account is hacked, but I highly doubt it, because I believed I was playing a few days after 17/5 and didn't see anything abnormal.

What did you say to them?? I want to say the same thing! Pity I'm doing this through NCsoft Taiwan, and then they talk to GW America.. not sure if they are doing the translating well or not, since I talk to NCsoft Taiwan in Chinese...

My only advice SAQ is to be honest and upfront with the support team. If they have an actual time of an infraction, then it seems your account is guilty regardless of your or someone elses actions.

As for "playing a few days after 17/5", that's not an indication of when you were marked for banning. The last massive trade I had made was a week ago, and I wasn't banned until June 3rd.

I look forward to the date when you get the ban stick. Absolut Monk is an innocent who got banned, just because he is rich?

What kind of BS is that?!

@generik - I appreciate the support, but no one should blame the support team for accidently banning me. I look like a duck, I quack like a duck, and the bot sweeper is an automated process that does a really good job finding ducks.