Yet another way for Blizzard remove players from their over populated bogged down servers. It's time to free up some resources! Start Banning people! w00t!
Originally posted by Onijin Dunno about you all but I think that's a crock of horse-covered bull crap. 1) No other MMO states only you or a under 18 trustee or child can access your account. 2) You are paying their monthly fee for their services and mainteance of the server. 3) Your account to access the game is your own property.
SWG's EULA also states that you cannot share your account. I had a few guildmates in the past in SWG who were banned for sharing their account.
Also, you are paying a monthly fee, but your account is not your property. You are paying fee for being able to access and play the game, so actually you are paying some sort of license fee. Just like software... you are not buying it, you are buying a license to use it.
Originally posted by Jd1680a This is sounding alot like a witch hunt for Blizzard. Anyone who they think is a bot is automaticly banned without question. That is not a good thing if the customer is legitmate. I just hope alot of these wrongly banned players were to get together to do a class action lawsuit. Since they are paying customers and is following the rules, there is no reason for blizzard to kick them off. It is Blizzards problem and something the need to fix. EULA is pretty paper thin when it comes between a few hundred people and a good lawyer to sue Blizzard for falsely banning people from a service they paid for.
That's not true. They are too slow to ban even the most obvious botters. Sometimes they ban a lot of botters at the same time and post an article on their website as a publicity stunt, but as far as I know from various sources on the net, if they don't ban a botter within 9 days, the botter is making profit, so they should do it continuously, and not as a monthly campaign. These gold farming bots are ridiculously easy to spot in WoW, and still some of them are still happily farming even though I reported them almost a month ago. I'm beginning to suspect, too, that Blizzard may have a vested interest in some of those gold farming companies as an extra - and covert - source of income.
Botters do not hurt anybody? Not true. Try to do a quest when four or five bots are farming the quest mobs!! Try to mine resources when automated bot miners mine them 3 seconds after they spawn.
Also, I think, any legal action against Blizzard would be useless, and the reason why there has been none so far is that any lawyer will tell you the same. Blizzard owns the game and makes you accept their terms for gaining access to their property. If they see it OK, they can ban you without giving any reason, they can suspend your forum rights... remember you are accessing their private property where they are entirely within their rights to set the rules.
As a long time player of MMOs(only one of which is WoW), there is always more going on behind the scenes then what is portrayed by the players and the companies side.
Using WoW as an example
Known hackers using the same exact hack for 9 straight months check
Known Gold farmers making it through 3 waves of account bans even thou they were reported by 30 people every day for 90 days straight check
Working with gold farmers to get their cut of the 'virtual market' check
HAving every informative site about the game have links to virtual gold farmers check
Having GMs in game think their shait dont stink and that their game is perfect check
Training 20 disease ridden mods onto the Night elf hunter making it die over and over again priceless...
I will not read any posts on this topic as the issues brought up in the editorial are more or less set issues, when i say set i mean that they have been so much discussed the last years that people like me have come to a conclusion and nothing said can change our mind, as nothing new can be said anyway.
so purely for statistical reasons, if anyone is actually noting peoples oppinion about these matter i will quickly state my oppinion.
1) Yes the company has every right to ban your account whenever they feel like, but giving you a reason why a ban happened is in every respect good bussiness and it also gives a chance to wrongfully banned accounts to be reinstated, as we must assume that the various companies actually bann for a real offence and not for pleasure they should also desire not to wrongfully bann someone but in the event it happens, and everyone can do mistakes, they should desire to right their wrong.
2) At the moment too much power over the various accounts is withheld by the companies, i bet that if the various EULAS and TOS's were to be brought to courts over the wolrd over half of the documents we agree to in order to play their game will be deemed illegal, unfortunately this must happen by someone who will have the power and the money to do so, as they protect their "legal" documents vigorously, still in a purely academical point of view when you agree to follow some rules you should stay true to your word, but people must remember that there are laws out there that protect you from your own stupidity, someone can convince you to sign a paper stating that you are his slave but this paper will never have any legal weight, and in this particular example it is also illegal, at least in the civilized countries.
3) Gold farming is the companies problem, i don't care one bit if someone else is making money from their product i am not here to protect or do free work for them hunting down the offenders, what i do care though is that my gametime is not objectively ruined by them, and i say objectively because the pure ideological problems people have against gold farmers i do not consider objective, i may have a million subjective reasons to hate someone but the companies can't operate on the various whims i might have, so all in all in the end i play the game and if the gold farmers don't bother me, and if the companiy has a well designed game in which their activities have beed forseen and the game adjusts fast to them i will be happy, as in the end the reasons why someone plays the game are non of my concern.
4) Hackers and cheaters, i understand and agree that a cheating free game is essential, i have seen games, good games be destroyed because they underestimated the destruction cheaters can bring in a game, i demand from the companies to do their best to keep their game cheat free, i demand they protect their game and the time and money i have put in game and in the end i don't care one bit how they do, unless they decide to bring their fight to my home, my PC is my PC what i run on it is my bussiness if i catch you snooping me i will bring this to court and i will demand my private life to be protected, it is as simple as this, in a nutshell i might have installed on my PC every single hacking and cheating program in the world, untill that time that you can prove i actually used them against you you don't have the right to know i have them installed or not, simple isn't it?
In the end i never forget i am a customer buying a product, i have absolutely no obligation to protect the seller and definately no kind of lawyalty towards them, for many reasons i believe i am getting the short end of the deal, spending alot of time and money on a product which for some obscure reason i have agreed not to own, ever. I demand a clean and good game, and i demand it without offering anything from my part except my money, and the companies should not ask for anything more from me. I know i have limited power but this litle power i have to decide freely who gets my money or not i exercise when nescessary.
I freqently Go to viset my brother in Calgary Alberta ( he plays WoW as well ) and i live in Vernon B.C. when i go there i play my acount on his sons pc so we get to play together there . So now i could lose my acount for this GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR I have 5 lvl 60s and i have played from bata . and now i could lose my acount for playing with my brother at his house . I got him into the game and his son and my cusin and my girl friend , Wow neads to find another way to fix the trouble they are haveing with hackers . and i Hait Farmers they ruin the in game market for all of us
In defense of Blizzard on this last point, my understanding is that simply playing from multiple PC's/locations is not a trigger. Simultaneous attempts to play the same account from multiple PC's/locations is a trigger, and should be.
i got banned for botting for 2 hours, so Blizzard is doing a good job obviously no hard feelings on my side since i knew it would happen, but i've heard a lot of complaints from friends of them losing their accounts accidentally, if anyone read the pc gamer article you would understand what i mean, and i think blizzard should allow you to argue your side.
Originally posted by DragonSpell I freqently Go to viset my brother in Calgary Alberta ( he plays WoW as well ) and i live in Vernon B.C. when i go there i play my acount on his sons pc so we get to play together there . So now i could lose my acount for this GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR I have 5 lvl 60s and i have played from bata . and now i could lose my acount for playing with my brother at his house . I got him into the game and his son and my cusin and my girl friend , Wow neads to find another way to fix the trouble they are haveing with hackers . and i Hait Farmers they ruin the in game market for all of us
Stop with this nonsense. There was only a he said she said thing in the editorial about them banning different IPs, and I'll bet money there's much more to the story just like there was with the Linux portion. I think it was very irresponsible of the author to even post this.
Although it would be great if i can read this 6 page thread thoroughly, but i don't have the couple of hours to lay down for that time sink.
I also feel that if you are doing something that goes against that company's policy you should be punished and have your account banned. Whether or not that company owes you an explanation is up to them. ---Garrett Fuller.
In a games entertainment industry that is beating movie box office sales for many years now in the US for billions of dollars. I'm still befuddled that no grass roots "game consumer protection groups" have formed up. If one has please share the linkage with moi, i'll appreciate it.
I wonder if a MMO game developer publisher that bans an account without "due reason". Is not breaking some sort of national or US State consumer protection rights? Perhaps something along the lines that a Internet Provider falls under since that is a subscription based business model likewise.
As consumers many of us don't know our full rights (whether by US State or National) and thus fail to exercise them appropiately.
Originally posted by Paks Stop with this nonsense. There was only a he said she said thing in the editorial about them banning different IPs, and I'll bet money there's much more to the story just like there was with the Linux portion. I think it was very irresponsible of the author to even post this.
If you mean for Garrett Fuller to write his editorial, I totally disagree.
The game companies already have ridiculously far-reaching and lopsided User Agreements that allow them to do anything they want at any time, with or without reason or warning, with no recourse on the part of the user. The only shred of accountability for game company behavior is the gaming press and its associated communities. Sites like this one need to hold Blizzard/SOE/etc's feet to the fire on mass bannings, reliability problems and other stuff. They are usually justified, but the game companies should NEVER be allowed to feel immune to criticism or justification.
I hope they continue to ban every gold farmer or buyer, power leveler and anyone using any program that may give them unfair advantages ie. cheating.
These alleged bannings of acounts simply for running on a different computer are exactly what it would look like to have a character power leveled.
The terms of service are clear and although it may be inconvenient to not be able to play on your laptop from your hotel, it's the only way to get rid of this garbage.
There's one easy solution to stop all the gold farmers is for Blizzard to sell gold themself or lower prices for vendor items like epic mount training & faction rep rewards. Both these ideas would end or decrease gold farmers.
Originally posted by dragon88 There's one easy solution to stop all the gold farmers is for Blizzard to sell gold themself or lower prices for vendor items like epic mount training & faction rep rewards. Both these ideas would end or decrease gold farmers.
I don't really think you can do something about these damn spammers/farmers/assholes. Even if they get banned they get back every single time, they just earn too much out of it. They should confront these abusers irl.
The only reason there are bots and farmers is that the game is booring to play. The GMs haven't paid enough time making content interesting. In WoW it is just grind grind grind... day after day. Playing that kind of grind is like being the bot yourself. And don't say there are quests... The quests are just a facade for grind and even worse, running around the world for nothing. So I'd blame blizzard for the need for botting, gold buying etc.
There are things that could've been made when the game was made like: 1. Limited ammount of money as a whole (per server) That would totally destroy money farming since it'd get useless after a while since they would soon have no money to grind from. This is the case IRL
2. Making the best gear crafter made. A lot of less booring grind.
3. Making quests interesting. Quest should be something that would be emotionally rewarding rather than worth some stinky 2000exp points and some lousy ammount of money so people would do them for pleasure, not because its work to get to an instance, BG etc. Gaming should be about fun, it is not very fun to exp to get better gear to better exp to get better gear...
4. Maybe even allowing players to make a character of the level of their choice, no needs for bots when you don't have to game the booring parts... you could skip any unpleasing content, making it more suitable for even casual players.
I'm not a botter and I wasn't banned. But I think Blizzard is going at it all wrong.
Originally posted by Darraess I will not read any posts on this topic as the issues brought up in the editorial are more or less set issues, when i say set i mean that they have been so much discussed the last years that people like me have come to a conclusion and nothing said can change our mind, as nothing new can be said anyway.
I didn't bother to read your post. But I did slog my way though most of the other ones (sorry folks, once you go past 3 paragraphs, I move on)
My son and his friends routinely log on their accounts both at my house and others, and never have been banned. They playe each others characters at times (which is against the rules) and I think that reports of bannings over account sharing are more legend than fact. (but, yes, they do happens sometimes, I'm sure)
As to banning Linux users.. why the heck not... I don't use it... could care less.... (just kidding guys)
As was mentioned by others, Blizz has a right to ban thoses they wish too.... if it happens to you... go play another game... its not the only fun one on the block.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
So gaming sites posting lopsided and unsubstantiated he said she said rumors is OK because they keep gaming companies in check... I get it now...
Sure gaming companies should be held accountable, but so should gaming sites such as this one.
Originally posted by Clattuc Originally posted by Paks Stop with this nonsense. There was only a he said she said thing in the editorial about them banning different IPs, and I'll bet money there's much more to the story just like there was with the Linux portion. I think it was very irresponsible of the author to even post this.
If you mean for Garrett Fuller to write his editorial, I totally disagree.
The game companies already have ridiculously far-reaching and lopsided User Agreements that allow them to do anything they want at any time, with or without reason or warning, with no recourse on the part of the user. The only shred of accountability for game company behavior is the gaming press and its associated communities. Sites like this one need to hold Blizzard/SOE/etc's feet to the fire on mass bannings, reliability problems and other stuff. They are usually justified, but the game companies should NEVER be allowed to feel immune to criticism or justification.
Im sure Blizzard isnt dumb enough to ban people simply becuase their IP changed. You gotta think HOW do they identify when you are playing from a different location? Not by IP, since a lot of times it can be changed (no1's IP is trully static). And what about unfortunate AOL users who HAVE to go through their proxies? (basicaly means all AOL users have similar IPs, regardless what state they are physicaly located in, so even if they move to a dif state, their IP wont change to the outside world).
Im sure there are additional means to checking that info. I doubt they can get access to your private info from your provider. But what they CAN do is check for a combination of changes that occured on the account: IP, radical hardware change but most importantly (i think) subscribtion method change. You CANT pay by cash, so you gotta subscribe by CC or gamecard. That info is easily identified and if for any reason an account that had one IP and one hardware change suddenly has a CC with a completely name (and possibly address) assigned to it IS a sign that that account was sold or transfered to a dif person. I think gamecards can be traced like that as well.
Still, even with that info it IS possible to get an innocent person. You CANT please everyone. What they CAN do, is warn everyone of things not to do. And if an innocent person somehow falls into a pattern of cheaters/hackers/eploiters/account sellers, well, thats tough. Maybe for those that move to a dif place and had a name change, maybe send them documents proving that it is still you who has possession of the game. Yeah it sux and takes an effort to resolve those kinda issues, but I believe they are doing it in order to protect their paying customers. Thats why I never saw any botters in WoW. Im sure they exist, but not as bad as in L2 (or so I hear).
All in all I think Blizz is doing a good job. They could definitely improve communications and maybe design some kind of way for those innocent people who got banned to prove that that ban was not deserved. Its hard to say what exactly can be done becuase I dont know what criteria Blizz goes by to ban accounts.
Originally posted by Sinitassu The only reason there are bots and farmers is that the game is booring to play. The GMs haven't paid enough time making content interesting. In WoW it is just grind grind grind... day after day. Playing that kind of grind is like being the bot yourself. And don't say there are quests... The quests are just a facade for grind and even worse, running around the world for nothing. So I'd blame blizzard for the need for botting, gold buying etc.
There are things that could've been made when the game was made like: 1. Limited ammount of money as a whole (per server) That would totally destroy money farming since it'd get useless after a while since they would soon have no money to grind from. This is the case IRL
2. Making the best gear crafter made. A lot of less booring grind.
3. Making quests interesting. Quest should be something that would be emotionally rewarding rather than worth some stinky 2000exp points and some lousy ammount of money so people would do them for pleasure, not because its work to get to an instance, BG etc. Gaming should be about fun, it is not very fun to exp to get better gear to better exp to get better gear...
4. Maybe even allowing players to make a character of the level of their choice, no needs for bots when you don't have to game the booring parts... you could skip any unpleasing content, making it more suitable for even casual players.
I'm not a botter and I wasn't banned. But I think Blizzard is going at it all wrong.
- Tassu It seems that you have problems with the whole concept of MMORPGs. In answer of your points:
1) not sure a good idea. If the server reaches its money capacity, then there is no point of doing anything becuase u cannot get a reward from your actions. The whole idea of MMORPGs is to gain reward for your efforts, whether it be solo questing, group questing, mob hunting, raiding or PvPing. You gotta put a juicy reward for all that, or else there is no point in doing that.
2) I agree, crafting SHOULD be equaly rewarding (and challenging) as adventuring rewards. I make an even bolder idea, it would be great to have not only crafting and adventuring types of games, but would be great to have diplomacy type of gameplay (Vanguard is experimenting with this), exploration (Elements of this used to be fairly interesting in Earth and Beyond), guild management, global kingdom strategy (sort of become a king and dictate where NPC armies should concentrate their attacks/defences, what trade routes/trade items NPC merchants should concentrate one, what crafting materials should be prioritized. makes this NOT too influence global economy too much so that one bad king does screw up everyone.). Still, reward should come from effort, and often effort means... yes, it means grind, whether a well hidden grind like in WoW, or obvious in-your-face grind like EQ1 or low level L2.
3) Afree 100% with u. Unfortunately, this requires a HUGE amount of man-power and even greater amount of creativity. This is pretty much impossible with a limited amount of people controlling this aspect of the game. What COULD fix this, theoreticaly, is player added content. If Blizzard cannot afford to hire 1000 content designers, why not let millions of players create one for them like in Ryzom? There is a bad side to that though, most of that content will be, well, amature. So then they need to either hire another 100 people to review those player made mods for bugs, balance, etc and put an official stamp of approval on that mod, then streamline it into official game module.
4) Thats just silly. Why make a max level char? What to do next? Just buy the game, create a max level char and then unsubscribe becuase there is nothing left to do.
You have some great ideas, but also one or two .. weird ones, hehe. I think you, just like I, outgrew the whole concept of MMORPG. I no longer enjoy any kind of "invest 5 hours - get some reward" type of gameplay. Seems that you would preffer "play 5 mins, get instant gratification" type over the first one. Unfortunately, that means no current MMORPG will satisfy u. Right now, GW is the only game that would hold my attention for longer then a few hours, becuase its fresh for me and I can hire NPC henchman when I cant find a group of real players (surprisingly, NPCs often fight better then PCs, thus eliminating the "bad community" factor from the game).
Id recommend FPS games like Counterstrike, Planetside or Battlefield for instant gratification, or if you insist on RPGs, then single player RPGs like Oblivion. Or just wait till they release a "perfect", or close to that, MMORPG. But I doubt that one will ever be released becuase our tastes change too fast for games to catch up.
Originally posted by boognish75 well the time thing i see from a buisnees oint of view, to be playing more than 100 hours a week means more than one person is playing that account, and thats a big nono, one person to one account and thats a rule for almost all moo's and it also means more money for the mmo maker as that would require 2 people to have 1 account each, and blizz is all about making money, if yer having 2 people play an account then thats not making them money.
I don't play WoW, dont even like it but this statement is so untrue.....there are people like me that can literally stay up for 3-5 days straight playing and only need a few hours to recoup. If you have ever been in the military in any kind of combat situation you know you sleep very little if any at all with ongoing operations. I play my games with the same mentality....I actually camped the FBss and SMR in one session on EQ took almost 7 days and went through 3 server down times that week. I was the first person back online everytime so I ran the groups for those camps.
As for everyone elses statements.....like others have stated from a business stand point its good to let the gold farmers work for a while and then ban their accts. It makes them more money because they will buy more accts as stated and thus have another account raking in money while they get to keep whatever was left on the previous account. Its all about money, its not about your fun or even what you want, thats not what a business is interested in. Anyone who thinks Blizzard is different than any other big company is just plain dumb.
Originally posted by happilpie Originally posted by boognish75 well the time thing i see from a buisnees oint of view, to be playing more than 100 hours a week means more than one person is playing that account, and thats a big nono, one person to one account and thats a rule for almost all moo's and it also means more money for the mmo maker as that would require 2 people to have 1 account each, and blizz is all about making money, if yer having 2 people play an account then thats not making them money.
I don't play WoW, dont even like it but this statement is so untrue.....there are people like me that can literally stay up for 3-5 days straight playing and only need a few hours to recoup. If you have ever been in the military in any kind of combat situation you know you sleep very little if any at all with ongoing operations. I play my games with the same mentality....I actually camped the FBss and SMR in one session on EQ took almost 7 days and went through 3 server down times that week. I was the first person back online everytime so I ran the groups for those camps.
As for everyone elses statements.....like others have stated from a business stand point its good to let the gold farmers work for a while and then ban their accts. It makes them more money because they will buy more accts as stated and thus have another account raking in money while they get to keep whatever was left on the previous account. Its all about money, its not about your fun or even what you want, thats not what a business is interested in. Anyone who thinks Blizzard is different than any other big company is just plain dumb.
The thing is, botters dont actualy BUY this game. They use trials to get free access for a few days, farm a bit money, transfer gold to their main account, or to someone who paid. So in reality, the only one who is in serious danger is the buyer itself and the community in general. I dont know how far a botter can level itself in 7 days of non-stop botting, or how much money they can grind, but it is a fact that at least some of those botters work through trials becuase there was a big issue here in MMORPG.COM where a LOT of new accounts were created with these weird names like "aigsngdslk" and obtained a trial key for WoW. Needless to say that account was never heard of nor was it ever involved in forum activities. So I believe this activity is indeed hurting Bliz business, so they are doing some fairly drastic (dare say radical?) things in order to protect their playerbase a.k.a. incomebase.
Originally posted by boognish75 well the time thing i see from a buisnees oint of view, to be playing more than 100 hours a week means more than one person is playing that account, and thats a big nono, one person to one account and thats a rule for almost all moo's and it also means more money for the mmo maker as that would require 2 people to have 1 account each, and blizz is all about making money, if yer having 2 people play an account then thats not making them money.
I don't play WoW, dont even like it but this statement is so untrue.....there are people like me that can literally stay up for 3-5 days straight playing and only need a few hours to recoup. If you have ever been in the military in any kind of combat situation you know you sleep very little if any at all with ongoing operations. I play my games with the same mentality....I actually camped the FBss and SMR in one session on EQ took almost 7 days and went through 3 server down times that week. I was the first person back online everytime so I ran the groups for those camps.
As for everyone elses statements.....like others have stated from a business stand point its good to let the gold farmers work for a while and then ban their accts. It makes them more money because they will buy more accts as stated and thus have another account raking in money while they get to keep whatever was left on the previous account. Its all about money, its not about your fun or even what you want, thats not what a business is interested in. Anyone who thinks Blizzard is different than any other big company is just plain dumb.
The thing is, botters dont actualy BUY this game. They use trials to get free access for a few days, farm a bit money, transfer gold to their main account, or to someone who paid. So in reality, the only one who is in serious danger is the buyer itself and the community in general. I dont know how far a botter can level itself in 7 days of non-stop botting, or how much money they can grind, but it is a fact that at least some of those botters work through trials becuase there was a big issue here in MMORPG.COM where a LOT of new accounts were created with these weird names like "aigsngdslk" and obtained a trial key for WoW. Needless to say that account was never heard of nor was it ever involved in forum activities. So I believe this activity is indeed hurting Bliz business, so they are doing some fairly drastic (dare say radical?) things in order to protect their playerbase a.k.a. incomebase.
how far could they get in 7 days? They can get to level 20, and they can transfer no more than 20 gold. Free trial accounts are capped in this manner.
Ok well I'm not retarded but i AM for....both sides of this artical. Allthough I hate how it ruins the economy of a server, (i was on my server and a lvl 8 green was for 65s,) I think it is fine for people to buy money. It IS their money, after all. However, I am NOT happy with powerleveling services. Why should people get to pay to have a level 60 with epic gear and epic mount when they did not WORK for it?!?!?! to me that is lazyness and ruins the point of the game, and Blizz has good reason to ban people for it. I say this and i am very lazy lol. Horde ftw.
Comments
SWG's EULA also states that you cannot share your account. I had a few guildmates in the past in SWG who were banned for sharing their account.
Also, you are paying a monthly fee, but your account is not your property. You are paying fee for being able to access and play the game, so actually you are paying some sort of license fee. Just like software... you are not buying it, you are buying a license to use it.
That's not true. They are too slow to ban even the most obvious botters. Sometimes they ban a lot of botters at the same time and post an article on their website as a publicity stunt, but as far as I know from various sources on the net, if they don't ban a botter within 9 days, the botter is making profit, so they should do it continuously, and not as a monthly campaign. These gold farming bots are ridiculously easy to spot in WoW, and still some of them are still happily farming even though I reported them almost a month ago. I'm beginning to suspect, too, that Blizzard may have a vested interest in some of those gold farming companies as an extra - and covert - source of income.
Botters do not hurt anybody? Not true. Try to do a quest when four or five bots are farming the quest mobs!! Try to mine resources when automated bot miners mine them 3 seconds after they spawn.
Also, I think, any legal action against Blizzard would be useless, and the reason why there has been none so far is that any lawyer will tell you the same. Blizzard owns the game and makes you accept their terms for gaining access to their property. If they see it OK, they can ban you without giving any reason, they can suspend your forum rights... remember you are accessing their private property where they are entirely within their rights to set the rules.
As a long time player of MMOs(only one of which is WoW), there is always more going on behind the scenes then what is portrayed by the players and the companies side.
Using WoW as an example
Known hackers using the same exact hack for 9 straight months check
Known Gold farmers making it through 3 waves of account bans even thou they were reported by 30 people every day for 90 days straight check
Working with gold farmers to get their cut of the 'virtual market' check
HAving every informative site about the game have links to virtual gold farmers check
Having GMs in game think their shait dont stink and that their game is perfect check
Training 20 disease ridden mods onto the Night elf hunter making it die over and over again priceless...
It's better be hated for who you are, than loved for who you aren't.
so purely for statistical reasons, if anyone is actually noting peoples oppinion about these matter i will quickly state my oppinion.
1) Yes the company has every right to ban your account whenever they feel like, but giving you a reason why a ban happened is in every respect good bussiness and it also gives a chance to wrongfully banned accounts to be reinstated, as we must assume that the various companies actually bann for a real offence and not for pleasure they should also desire not to wrongfully bann someone but in the event it happens, and everyone can do mistakes, they should desire to right their wrong.
2) At the moment too much power over the various accounts is withheld by the companies, i bet that if the various EULAS and TOS's were to be brought to courts over the wolrd over half of the documents we agree to in order to play their game will be deemed illegal, unfortunately this must happen by someone who will have the power and the money to do so, as they protect their "legal" documents vigorously, still in a purely academical point of view when you agree to follow some rules you should stay true to your word, but people must remember that there are laws out there that protect you from your own stupidity, someone can convince you to sign a paper stating that you are his slave but this paper will never have any legal weight, and in this particular example it is also illegal, at least in the civilized countries.
3) Gold farming is the companies problem, i don't care one bit if someone else is making money from their product i am not here to protect or do free work for them hunting down the offenders, what i do care though is that my gametime is not objectively ruined by them, and i say objectively because the pure ideological problems people have against gold farmers i do not consider objective, i may have a million subjective reasons to hate someone but the companies can't operate on the various whims i might have, so all in all in the end i play the game and if the gold farmers don't bother me, and if the companiy has a well designed game in which their activities have beed forseen and the game adjusts fast to them i will be happy, as in the end the reasons why someone plays the game are non of my concern.
4) Hackers and cheaters, i understand and agree that a cheating free game is essential, i have seen games, good games be destroyed because they underestimated the destruction cheaters can bring in a game, i demand from the companies to do their best to keep their game cheat free, i demand they protect their game and the time and money i have put in game and in the end i don't care one bit how they do, unless they decide to bring their fight to my home, my PC is my PC what i run on it is my bussiness if i catch you snooping me i will bring this to court and i will demand my private life to be protected, it is as simple as this, in a nutshell i might have installed on my PC every single hacking and cheating program in the world, untill that time that you can prove i actually used them against you you don't have the right to know i have them installed or not, simple isn't it?
In the end i never forget i am a customer buying a product, i have absolutely no obligation to protect the seller and definately no kind of lawyalty towards them, for many reasons i believe i am getting the short end of the deal, spending alot of time and money on a product which for some obscure reason i have agreed not to own, ever. I demand a clean and good game, and i demand it without offering anything from my part except my money, and the companies should not ask for anything more from me. I know i have limited power but this litle power i have to decide freely who gets my money or not i exercise when nescessary.
In defense of Blizzard on this last point, my understanding is that simply playing from multiple PC's/locations is not a trigger. Simultaneous attempts to play the same account from multiple PC's/locations is a trigger, and should be.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y239/Tabatron/Fading-SWGEMU.gif
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y239/Tabatron/Fading-SWGEMU.gif
Hi All,
Although it would be great if i can read this 6 page thread thoroughly, but i don't have the couple of hours to lay down for that time sink.
In a games entertainment industry that is beating movie box office sales for many years now in the US for billions of dollars. I'm still befuddled that no grass roots "game consumer protection groups" have formed up. If one has please share the linkage with moi, i'll appreciate it.
I wonder if a MMO game developer publisher that bans an account without "due reason". Is not breaking some sort of national or US State consumer protection rights? Perhaps something along the lines that a Internet Provider falls under since that is a subscription based business model likewise.
As consumers many of us don't know our full rights (whether by US State or National) and thus fail to exercise them appropiately.
----------------------
The Older Gamers
The game companies already have ridiculously far-reaching and lopsided User Agreements that allow them to do anything they want at any time, with or without reason or warning, with no recourse on the part of the user. The only shred of accountability for game company behavior is the gaming press and its associated communities. Sites like this one need to hold Blizzard/SOE/etc's feet to the fire on mass bannings, reliability problems and other stuff. They are usually justified, but the game companies should NEVER be allowed to feel immune to criticism or justification.
I hope they continue to ban every gold farmer or buyer, power leveler and anyone using any program that may give them unfair advantages ie. cheating.
These alleged bannings of acounts simply for running on a different computer are exactly what it would look like to have a character power leveled.
The terms of service are clear and although it may be inconvenient to not be able to play on your laptop from your hotel, it's the only way to get rid of this garbage.
Well done Blizzard, keep up the good work.
There are things that could've been made when the game was made like:
1. Limited ammount of money as a whole (per server) That would totally destroy money farming since it'd get useless after a while since they would soon have no money to grind from. This is the case IRL
2. Making the best gear crafter made. A lot of less booring grind.
3. Making quests interesting. Quest should be something that would be emotionally rewarding rather than worth some stinky 2000exp points and some lousy ammount of money so people would do them for pleasure, not because its work to get to an instance, BG etc. Gaming should be about fun, it is not very fun to exp to get better gear to better exp to get better gear...
4. Maybe even allowing players to make a character of the level of their choice, no needs for bots when you don't have to game the booring parts... you could skip any unpleasing content, making it more suitable for even casual players.
I'm not a botter and I wasn't banned. But I think Blizzard is going at it all wrong.
- Tassu
"Lick My Weapons"
I didn't bother to read your post.
But I did slog my way though most of the other ones (sorry folks, once you go past 3 paragraphs, I move on)
My son and his friends routinely log on their accounts both at my house and others, and never have been banned. They playe each others characters at times (which is against the rules) and I think that reports of bannings over account sharing are more legend than fact. (but, yes, they do happens sometimes, I'm sure)
As to banning Linux users.. why the heck not... I don't use it... could care less....
(just kidding guys)
As was mentioned by others, Blizz has a right to ban thoses they wish too.... if it happens to you... go play another game... its not the only fun one on the block.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
So gaming sites posting lopsided and unsubstantiated he said she said rumors is OK because they keep gaming companies in check... I get it now...
Sure gaming companies should be held accountable, but so should gaming sites such as this one.
If you mean for Garrett Fuller to write his editorial, I totally disagree.
The game companies already have ridiculously far-reaching and lopsided User Agreements that allow them to do anything they want at any time, with or without reason or warning, with no recourse on the part of the user. The only shred of accountability for game company behavior is the gaming press and its associated communities. Sites like this one need to hold Blizzard/SOE/etc's feet to the fire on mass bannings, reliability problems and other stuff. They are usually justified, but the game companies should NEVER be allowed to feel immune to criticism or justification.
Im sure Blizzard isnt dumb enough to ban people simply becuase their IP
changed. You gotta think HOW do they identify when you are playing from
a different location? Not by IP, since a lot of times it can be changed
(no1's IP is trully static). And what about unfortunate AOL users who
HAVE to go through their proxies? (basicaly means all AOL users have
similar IPs, regardless what state they are physicaly located in, so
even if they move to a dif state, their IP wont change to the outside
world).
Im sure there are additional means to checking that info. I doubt they
can get access to your private info from your provider. But what they
CAN do is check for a combination of changes that occured on the
account: IP, radical hardware change but most importantly (i think)
subscribtion method change. You CANT pay by cash, so you gotta
subscribe by CC or gamecard. That info is easily identified and if for
any reason an account that had one IP and one hardware change suddenly
has a CC with a completely name (and possibly address) assigned to it
IS a sign that that account was sold or transfered to a dif person. I
think gamecards can be traced like that as well.
Still, even with that info it IS possible to get an innocent person.
You CANT please everyone. What they CAN do, is warn everyone of things
not to do. And if an innocent person somehow falls into a pattern of
cheaters/hackers/eploiters/account sellers, well, thats tough. Maybe
for those that move to a dif place and had a name change, maybe send
them documents proving that it is still you who has possession of the
game. Yeah it sux and takes an effort to resolve those kinda issues,
but I believe they are doing it in order to protect their paying
customers. Thats why I never saw any botters in WoW. Im sure they
exist, but not as bad as in L2 (or so I hear).
All in all I think Blizz is doing a good job. They could definitely
improve communications and maybe design some kind of way for those
innocent people who got banned to prove that that ban was not deserved.
Its hard to say what exactly can be done becuase I dont know what
criteria Blizz goes by to ban accounts.
I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
I don't play WoW, dont even like it but this statement is so untrue.....there are people like me that can literally stay up for 3-5 days straight playing and only need a few hours to recoup. If you have ever been in the military in any kind of combat situation you know you sleep very little if any at all with ongoing operations. I play my games with the same mentality....I actually camped the FBss and SMR in one session on EQ took almost 7 days and went through 3 server down times that week. I was the first person back online everytime so I ran the groups for those camps.
As for everyone elses statements.....like others have stated from a business stand point its good to let the gold farmers work for a while and then ban their accts. It makes them more money because they will buy more accts as stated and thus have another account raking in money while they get to keep whatever was left on the previous account. Its all about money, its not about your fun or even what you want, thats not what a business is interested in. Anyone who thinks Blizzard is different than any other big company is just plain dumb.
I
don't play WoW, dont even like it but this statement is so
untrue.....there are people like me that can literally stay up for 3-5
days straight playing and only need a few hours to recoup. If you
have ever been in the military in any kind of combat situation you know
you sleep very little if any at all with ongoing operations. I
play my games with the same mentality....I actually camped the FBss and
SMR in one session on EQ took almost 7 days and went through 3
server down times that week. I was the first person back online
everytime so I ran the groups for those camps.
As
for everyone elses statements.....like others have stated from a
business stand point its good to let the gold farmers work for a while
and then ban their accts. It makes them more money because
they will buy more accts as stated and thus have another account raking
in money while they get to keep whatever was left on the previous
account. Its all about money, its not about your fun or even what
you want, thats not what a business is interested in. Anyone who
thinks Blizzard is different than any other big company is just plain
dumb.
The thing is, botters dont actualy
BUY this game. They use trials to get free access for a few days, farm
a bit money, transfer gold to their main account, or to someone who
paid. So in reality, the only one who is in serious danger is the buyer
itself and the community in general. I dont know how far a botter can
level itself in 7 days of non-stop botting, or how much money they can
grind, but it is a fact that at least some of those botters work
through trials becuase there was a big issue here in MMORPG.COM where a
LOT of new accounts were created with these weird names like
"aigsngdslk" and obtained a trial key for WoW. Needless to say that
account was never heard of nor was it ever involved in forum
activities. So I believe this activity is indeed hurting Bliz business,
so they are doing some fairly drastic (dare say radical?) things in
order to protect their playerbase a.k.a. incomebase.
I am the type of player where I like to do everything and anything from time to time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor - pre-WW2 genocide.
I don't play WoW, dont even like it but this statement is so untrue.....there are people like me that can literally stay up for 3-5 days straight playing and only need a few hours to recoup. If you have ever been in the military in any kind of combat situation you know you sleep very little if any at all with ongoing operations. I play my games with the same mentality....I actually camped the FBss and SMR in one session on EQ took almost 7 days and went through 3 server down times that week. I was the first person back online everytime so I ran the groups for those camps.
As for everyone elses statements.....like others have stated from a business stand point its good to let the gold farmers work for a while and then ban their accts. It makes them more money because they will buy more accts as stated and thus have another account raking in money while they get to keep whatever was left on the previous account. Its all about money, its not about your fun or even what you want, thats not what a business is interested in. Anyone who thinks Blizzard is different than any other big company is just plain dumb.
The thing is, botters dont actualy BUY this game. They use trials to get free access for a few days, farm a bit money, transfer gold to their main account, or to someone who paid. So in reality, the only one who is in serious danger is the buyer itself and the community in general. I dont know how far a botter can level itself in 7 days of non-stop botting, or how much money they can grind, but it is a fact that at least some of those botters work through trials becuase there was a big issue here in MMORPG.COM where a LOT of new accounts were created with these weird names like "aigsngdslk" and obtained a trial key for WoW. Needless to say that account was never heard of nor was it ever involved in forum activities. So I believe this activity is indeed hurting Bliz business, so they are doing some fairly drastic (dare say radical?) things in order to protect their playerbase a.k.a. incomebase.
how far could they get in 7 days? They can get to level 20, and they can transfer no more than 20 gold. Free trial accounts are capped in this manner.