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Criticising EA on ToR forums
tabarjack
Member UncommonPosts: 249
This thread is just to mention people reluctant to buy ToR (or look into the game, as I was before) to perhaps reconsider their stance. Obviously, titles must be short or it would look like this:
Criticising EA on ToR forums, acceptable, if no rules are broken through strict application of the rules and twisting of words to try and break the rules. Just keep your posts short and to the point.
Well I did a few "threads" (ok they were trolls) on a few of my accounts on those forums.
After reporting them with my whitehat account I come to the following conclusions.
Criticising EA is going to be taken out if there is a chance (ie: a valid reason) while other threads which are "against the rules" of a particular forum will be moved.
However, my understanding is that saying EA are like the Sith is valid, while saying EA are run by a bunch of republican warmongers is not. Either way, the way Bioware runs their forums is still better than say.... most forums. As they delete the thread, and explain WHY they deleted the thread (which in turn made answer getting faster).
Example is this: A thread that says "do yo u fear EA will ruin SW:ToR" has been going around for a while, and has much more negativity in that thread than a few other threads that get deleted quickly such as saying EA run their business like republicans. Saying EA run their business like a Sith Emperor would have been valid.
The 2 reasons I see for this is: CEO probably said "Do not scare customers away!" and "Who cares, we'll wipe the forums when the game gets released."
Conclusions: As it stands now, it seems they:
1. Firmly believe they have a success on their hands, as there are not over-reactive efforts to block all negativity (unlike several other games, including WoW:Cata forums, AoC, WAR-which point to "bioware" forums, but those are completely EA controlled, and a few others very recently released). IE: The forums do not give this eerie sense of positivism.
2. Care about people's fears and are taking the steps to ensure these do not happens. For that to be the case, people must be able to list their fears.
3. Do no accept anything mentionning Gods or Ideologies other than Jedi vs Sith. (I'll try later today to make one about God being a Jedi and seeing how that one goes and nature being more like the Sith) Technically, my expectance is that Bioware being based in a fanatic country, there will be a thread deletion but no suspension as it is 1/2 on topic.
4. Full trust from EA as EA seems to have no interference in these forums. The mods actually write in comprehensible English, which is definately not in EA's ways.
Comments
It is refreshing that some people get banned for their actions; The number of faceless posters which haunt all forumns and contribute nothing is incredible.
People normally get what they deserve at the end of the day.... one person getts himself/herself banned is it really note worthy.
The fact forumns and game accounts are linked is a little more interesting of a subject.
________________________________________________________
Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
A rare glimpse of SWTOR forum mod behavior in their natural habitat. Now back to your laboratory and run some tests on your captured specimens ;-)
My brand new bloggity blog.
first off i need to get something straight... you created bogus accounts to spam crap then reported your own bogus accounts with your primary? your a very strange person lol
the only thing i have to say is this though, chances are the reasons regarding the posts you mentioned containing "saying EA are run by a bunch of republican warmongers is not" were removed or not allowed or whichever, is most liekly because they contain political references outside of the game in question which from my experience with BioWare is somethign they won't tolerate and to be honest is a good thing as games are supposed to be a fun community rather than political arguments.
I am confused by what you did, but even more by the reasons why...........
I might be stupid but what were you trying to prove?
If you report threads that you yourself made then I don't think that shows anything about how other people think and how they will word their own critiques.
Heh, nice. I like your style of testing, very thorough.
@cdstephens: he used different accounts, a few different ones to post the threads and another one to report.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
I'm sorry, but this is just immature, stupid, and pathetic. Don't you have anything better to do than troll EA and yourself? I have no idea what your actually trying to prove, but hopefully some Moderator will come along and turn the kill switch on this particular thread.
"If half of what you tell me is a lie, how can I believe any of it?"
I think he's trying to see whether that other talked about example, where a guy commented that people had sold their souls to the EA devil led to him getting a ban and bc of that not being able to play BW games, was a unique incident and prove that it indeed was.
In other threads people were using that case as an example how EA has converted BW 'to the Dark side' and that it was a sign of BW's road to decline.
BW representative had already stated that that case was a mistake and human error, and that he never should've been banned like that for saying something bad about EA or BW or such; everyone should always be able to play their BW games.
The OP merely added the proof by testing out this statement, and see if/when he'd get banned and if he still would be able to play his games.
Apparently from his investigations BW is a lot more tolerant and forgiving towards criticisms and anti EA/BW posts than the doomsayers and EA/BW haters would give them credit for.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Threads about EA= "Sith" and EA = The Devil should be rightly removed, because they're troll posts and in the case of the devil argument, could even spark religious debate.
Threads about EA's history, "I don't trust EA" etc, should be moved to OT imo and they usually are in my opinion, although those threads often derail into people calling others names fairly quickly.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
I would be very, very careful about criticising Bioware or EA on their forums if you are using your EA/Bioware social login because EA are now handing out bans on the forums that also ban you from using that login on any of their recent games so you can lose all your DLC for Dragon age or Mass Effect 2 and be unable to play until you make a new EA account.
Here's a relevant source:- http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/03/11/ea-forum-bans-can-lock-you-out-of-games/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20RockPaperShotgun%20%28Rock%2C%20Paper%2C%20Shotgun%29
EA are back peddling and claiming it was a mistake but the clause is still in the EULA so be very careful about giving any negative feedback about ToR on official forums.
Currently playing:
EVE online (Ruining low sec one hotdrop at a time)
Gravity Rush,
Dishonoured: The Knife of Dunwall.
(Waiting for) Metro: Last Light,
Company of Heroes II.
There have been truckloads of negative posts about EA on the forums, nobody got banned for it (unless they were really doing unacceptable stuff like foul language and harassing people) in my experience.
I'd be careful just digging the stories of some guy who got his ass banned, internet drama isn't always truthful. Although yes, they shouldn't have banned him from playing the game.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
EA really shot itself in the foot with it's Authoritarian attitude to complaints. You ban me EA I ban you from my shopping list. Simples. Complain with your wallets. Or purses. If you have one.
Its not like its a random story either because both Bioware and EA have confirmed it, its not like EA have never banned anyone for criticising their games and the huge amount of damage control they are doing over DA II is just a taste of things to come if ToR isn't well received.
It is no stretch to imagine somebody getting locked out of all their EA products if they criticise ToR on the official forums, sure they claim this incident was a mistake but they have not revised the EULA and removed that clause and in correspondence with the guy they banned Bioware told him,
“It’s not like you get to pick and choose your own punishment when you break the rules. The various punishments, up to and including permanent bans, EA account termination, and loss of access to entitlements, is very clearly laid out and is part of the rules you agreed to follow and be governed by.”
So any ToR should be very careful about what they say on EA/Bioware forums about the game.
Currently playing:
EVE online (Ruining low sec one hotdrop at a time)
Gravity Rush,
Dishonoured: The Knife of Dunwall.
(Waiting for) Metro: Last Light,
Company of Heroes II.
Like I said, that was exactly the case I was talking about and what the OP was investigating and testing out, me, despite what others may think about 'going too far' or 'don't play with fire', I liked his objective methods he used in his quest. Because not only did he do some active tests, he also looked up how negative posts and threads in general are being treated on those forums.
So far his conclusion negates the doomsayings of other people who didn't do their research: BW forums even seemed to be more tolerant than the forums from other games and game companies.
As for the special incident, I'm going to post what I posted elsewhere in another thread. I found this in a Bioware forumthread about this case (source here) from Bioware rep Fernando Melo:
I agree, and I'll cover what I can below.
For some of the other posters - believe what you will.
This was a genuine mistake made by an individual. And clearly there was a failing in the system that actually allowed them to escalate this directly to a full lockdown of the account contrary to how it should flow.
This was never an issue that warranted an account level ban (which, I have to call out is incredibly rare in any case), but normally this would never go beyond a temp ban of the forums with zero impact to games. Trying to portray this as a purposeful or vengeful act 'just because' is immature, not to mention inconsistent with how we actually operate if you care to observe.
As I mentioned before this is a serious issue that we need to fix - as in properly fix, as you suggest. It is not acceptable that something like this happens accidentally, even once.
The purpose of this system is not to feed our egos and dangle axes over player's heads in some sort of power trip - it is there specifically to protect players. To maintain some structure and order to our communities so they don't degenerate into what many other forums look like, and allow you to have a place where you can have a reasonable discussion, or ask a game related question without a some kind of explicit picture being thrust in your face, and yes - in very extreme cases to distance persistent, deliberately malicious individuals from other players IF necessary as a last resort (or at least until they realize it, cool off and get their act together).
Still, that person is supposed to be able to continue to play offline. The goal is to close off the online features where this extreme measure is needed (again, this should be extremely rare). But what we realized with this incident is that while you can completely keep playing offline with an existing game, you can't register a new game since when you login to register the account comes back as invalid. This is new for us, and not intended.
Anyways, long story short (as its late here) - before we rush in with our torches and pitchforks, we need to properly figure out what happened. That will take some time to sort out.
In the meantime, what I've already heard is that the EADM team is going to start working on a fix for game clients to ensure that players will at least be able to register and play offline, even in these rare extreme scenarios. That won't be an overnight fix, but it's a start.
Again, believe what you will.
F.
So while I think this shouldn't have happened in the first place, from what I read it looks like it was an isolated incident and human error and not general policy, and that you always should be able to play the BW games you bought even if you're banned. But like he said, everyone should believe what he/she wants to believe.
For me, if this'll be the only reported case of a situation like this happening and bans in future won't result in people not being able to play their games anymore, then I think the situation was exactly as this BW guy stated.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
In regards to the topic, Bioware is now part of EA and therefore is now subject to criticisms directed toward EA, whether earned or not.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
They claim it was an accident but why did community reps and mods basically tell the guy "you broke the rules you agreed to so deal with it" they only back peddled and said it was a mistake after the word spread and caused outrage.
I wonder if they would have done anything if Arno had just sucked up the ban and didn't go to websites like RPS and the threadnaughts on the BW forums never happened, would they still claim it was a mistake or would it have reinforced the policy?
This topic first seemed to have come up in 2008 when the new policy was made public on slashdot after a post on the EA forums outlined that people who get banned on the forums will be locked out of any registered game content as well and the policy caused a flood of complaints forcing EA to backpedal and made the community rep who posted the details of the policy retract the statement by saying it was a mistake as he misunderstood the policy.
Slashdot link:- http://games.slashdot.org/story/08/10/31/004213/EA-Forum-Ban-Will-Now-Mean-EA-Game-Ban
So this is not a new policy or a one off as the poo doo hit the fan before, I wonder how many people have got banned but never made a fuss.
So EA have now had to backpedal twice over this issue and people still think its a genuine mistake instead of EA getting blueballs when they saw how much bad PR the policy caused? If it was such a terrible mistake why did they leave that clause in the EULA for nearly three years? Its a remarkable coincidence this "mistake" happened to rear its head during a bought of heavy damage control after a game was badly received.
Currently playing:
EVE online (Ruining low sec one hotdrop at a time)
Gravity Rush,
Dishonoured: The Knife of Dunwall.
(Waiting for) Metro: Last Light,
Company of Heroes II.
As the guy says, believe what you want to believe.
You apparently want (need?) to believe that this is some part of a new Big Brother policy of EA in their 'police state'-like quest for control over your games.
If what you're saying that it's all a plan is true, then we'll automatically see more cases than the few incidents so far in the future.
If what the guy said is true, then we won't see such cases, there'll be no more gamers that can't play their games anymore after a ban, and the BW forums will be as tolerant in its allowance of criticism posts and threads as other game company forums, and maybe even more tolerant.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Belief in the face of fact is pointless, the OP posted some anecdotes but EA hanging this policy over the heads of their customers for nearly three years and that they have both supported this policy and then immediately back peddling more than once after it cause bad PR is a fact.
If it really was a mistake why didn't they say "hey something isn't right here we are looking into it" instead of telling him to suck it up because he broke the rules?
I am all for forum moderation but these kinds of policy are way out of order.
Currently playing:
EVE online (Ruining low sec one hotdrop at a time)
Gravity Rush,
Dishonoured: The Knife of Dunwall.
(Waiting for) Metro: Last Light,
Company of Heroes II.
That's because free speech is only ok when you like what they have to say.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect_%28law%29
^this site has so much of this it's not funny. Try making any logical connections between them and any game corporation. yea...
In fact, I'm sure this post will get removed.
You chose to ignore the far more detailed statement with their policy and actions they were taking that I posted in this thread. Your call. When I read first about that case, I was furious about it, and posted such. Then I looked deeper into it to find out what was going on. Now I see it as nothing but an unfortunate incident that won't be happening like that again, the games people play, they'll be able to keep playing no matter what.
You clearly don't see it like that. Whatever. Opinions differ, you've stated your antipathy regarding EA/BW and idea about the case, I've stated mine. I'm not going to continue in pointless pingpong debates with you about it, repeating the same arguments over and over again. It's futile.
I'll see what the OP has to say about his ongoing report, because that's what got me interested in this thread in the 1st place.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
It'll be funny when this post is still around after 10 days or so and is quoted back at you.
In any case, this site's Rules of Conduct are very clear, break them and yes, don't be surprised when it's followed by action.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Comparing God to Jedi... no thread delete. Not even a warning. Talking about God only for no reason, thread delete plus warning
Which means, they really accept all valid Sith vs Jedi discussion.
The point of this was indeed to see who was in control of everything. Was it Bioware, was it EA? After playing around in those forums, it clearly is not EA. Bioware does not answer directly to criticism, does not even delete it, except if it goes around the lines of "EA are a bunch of ********* **********" (they have a filter that replaces swears by *****, even WTF is replaced by ***).
However they will delete the thread because it is "Abusive and inflammatory in nature" which is clearly stated as their own definition of trolling. (at least they gave their own definition, unlike other sites. This site took the definition of spamming and decided it was trolling, should you care where mmorpg.com fits in with this statement.)
I must say, I am surprised at how they manage their forums. I am very surprised EA is not in there trying to impose their own "Sith-like" mentality. The confidence displayed on there by them to tolerate "cause for worry" threads means that they at the very least believe in their product.
The lack of release date however getting so close to their spring 2011 window, and them trying to divert it to a 2011 yearly window shows that they at least see what people are saying, and well when even investors are betting against your game, it means you have to find that one thing to make it "unique" and will make people stay.
Will their stance change when it comes out? MAYBE. But rest assured I will gather a guild of like-minded players and orchestrate some kind of test. I shall be Sith, unless GW2 comes out prior to TOR. I found a few mistakes in their forums, to which the reply was, "our other alternative is to shut down the forums while we get new ones ready, which is something we really do not want to do". <-- PROOF THEY CARE ABOUT WHAT IS SAID!!!!, which means, when the game comes out, there will be new forums
. There will most likely be less "permissions" given to the members, and we shall see if EA pokes their head where it doesn't belong or just sit back and count the cash, like they should.
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Was the incident on the ban an accident? I think not. Was it a system mistake, very possible. However, I am pretty sure they were aware of the bug in the system and let it there, figuring they would double punish a poster who makes them mad. That was until it blew up over the internet which, in turn, made them fix it. (Their site is over 10yo and still has a ton of errors in it). I will say that it is very unlikely that when that person clicked the BAN button, he did not know what would happen. Maybe he had to ban due to what was said, and figured the user can deal with the aftermath. That is also possible. It still does not make it an accident, it makes it a consequence.
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To those who find it immature and blablabla... just know people go through the trouble of reading hundreds of threads every day and look for the smallest infraction in the hopes to report it and get someone banned is a much bigger problem than people taking 15minutes to post 6 threads on 4 different accounts to test the says of a company. I don't get how this would count as "trolling myself" however... because trolling posts, well real trolling, are very valid posts and often lead to very interesting discussions. Perhaps you should look up what trolling is before using the term for every post you don't like in your crusade to have the whole world worship & think like yourself.
Hell, replying to this whole thread took more time than doing the actual accounts and test posts.
This is boring. It is a sad state of affairs when people feel the need to test the infraction process of said developers.
A lot of wasted energy there must be better things to do.
________________________________________________________
Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
If you came into my home and started calling me an idiot I'd throw you out, did you for some reason think EA would be any different while calling them out on their own website??