Thorough Ivestigation of Banning? -let's do the math

I guess you could do as Wizzard did on eBay, create lawyerbots
http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/396

(be carefull or you'll soon be replaced by a community-relation-bot for the virtual bot community )

How about bad publicity then?
How about if a player who gets banned decides to rally up some ppl and starts a campaign in which players showcase their stories of getting banned for being bots? How about bringing up the fact that players got banned for botting - turned out that they weren't and the same mistakes kept happening over and over again?
How about if we - the users - start saying to other POSSIBLE users NOT to buy GW because of the whole unjust-banning-issues?

Who needs legal action - when all it takes is a few links on these forums to the right people?

Oh i can make up stories of being unjustly banned too. Can i join?

Or i can be justly banned and pretend i was unjustly banned by editing out certain content of the emails from Anet.

Yes. Lets do that.

Then we can make a campaign of stories of people who have never ever gotten banned.

The thing is, without any evident to show that the banned person is indeed innocent. How can we tell if that person is lying or not, word of mouth alone is not enough, nor word from a friend/guildy etc. As for the reason for them to get banned in the first place, that reason could be anything that go against the EULA, not just botting.

A couple of months ago maybe more, one ex-guru member posted in Q&A, saying he was banned and how did this happen? In the end it turned out that member was spamming gold selling site in game. His reason was he didn't know it was against EULA. Believe it or not a lot of GW players don't know what EULA is, and many have broken it, got banned without knowing why.

Anet is also far from perfect in this matter, as they themselves admitted. They banned the innocent players by mistake, but in most cases the account have been unlock and the players rejoined the game. And some left the game altogether in disgust.

I think, what we need is some kind of proof from Anet, that when they’re banning someone, it is a just cause. To show exactly where, when and how the breach of EULA was committed. Because those are the details that one must file together with a screen shot in order to report someone.

I still say bot-traps in towns would be a great way to isolate purely bot-driven accounts from human driven. Have a couple NPCs spawn (like the reward guys for the Boardwalk events) that create a wall in the path the bots take. Anyone that gets stuck and can't get out... bannage.

C'mon Gaile... it isn't a bad idea, no?

Could be fun to watch too. Piles of bots build up and slowly disappear as they get banned...

And i still say you have the right idea.

Yep.. bot trap..

Hell even name it "Bot Trap npc"
Theres nothing wrong with that..

It would save a.net MONEY and they could lay off a few people who study acconts. ... cause its so much simpler to see who the bots are then.

Call them "Zombie Hunters"... looking for mindless bodies running around.

OK, expanding on my self-perceived brilliance, they could be Asura or Norn and start the sales pitch in-game for GW:EN and GW2 as well.

First of all, Lyra, you're an intelligent person who can make your point without cynical sarcasm or degrading the opinions of others. When you make that type of sarcastic reply, it only degrades your own words in my eyes, and I'm guessing I'm not alone. Try to make your points in an intelligent manner like you've shown that you can.

I'd like a bit more clarification on why things can't be done without getting into alot of technical jargon. I'm no lawyer, and I understand that setting up a website in a foreign country can make it difficult to pursue these things, but I don't think it's impossible. I thought copyrights were international rights. Aren't they subject to some sort of international court? Can't these people be extradited if necessary? The vibe that I get is that Anet will persecute these people to the fullest extent of the law.. until it becomes a financial burden, at which point it becomes something the players must learn to live with. That's disheartening and I hope you can provide some information to change my view on that.

I will say this for Anet - I have more hope for them than any other game I've played. Many of these games know exactly what's going on, and completely ignore it. I've even played games where the staff condones cheating because they were able to solicit bribes from cheaters, and then they'd completely lie to anyone who pressed the issue about it. I know with the mass number of players, a game like this cannot be 100% clean, it's just not reasonable. I'm just hoping for the day when I no longer see statements such as "I'm afraid to bring my monk to Granite Citadel because I fear being unjustly banned".

[QUOTE]hi.

i can actually answer that with fact instead of just an opinion.

1. if Anet/NCsoft gave those details they would be in clear breech of their privacy policy and open themselves for possibly staggering punitive lawsuit damages as they would be clearly, legally wrong.

2. the exact where and when to report someone is needed so they can find that moment and area where the incident happened as the entire game is logged and without knowing where to look it is impossible to find.

the screenshot and the breech being reported allows the person investigating that incident to decide this is a serious breech or this report is something that should never have been reported to begin with whch saves time.

i think u misunderstood my post. i said that my friend just wanted to change his pass. he didn't forget it or anything. normally u just change it from ur gw client anytime you want. but since he got linked with plaync, they ask for the birthday. as mentioned in my post, he finally remember it and everything was ok. but if he wouldn't, he would of been stuck with that pass forever.

all i requested was for anet to write a simple message on that form you complete when u go to the gw store for the first time. because if ppl don't know that they have to remeber something, they won't.

[QUOTE]and this is something i can answer with facts you can google yourself
it is impssible if the local government is literally getting its cut .

examples are the island nations that are the banking and money transfer points for all illegal funds from drugs to whatever which have no extridition treaties.

just check your local news for china and other countries who have a ton of pirating and very little enforcement.

the chinese gold farming firms that are in some cases the biggest employer and growth industry in a village. i read a recent article on those and no the chinese govt is not closing them down

very simply put NO

consider over the years how many times you hear in the news that a fugitive has been located but there is no extridition treaty or that even with an extridition treaty the local government is refusing to extridite.

correction:
you no longer need the cd key after u sign it up w/a email...
so its like a plain ticket that u threw away after you have arrived at your destination

Thanks, but really, im the moody type. Each post is under different levels of sleep, hunger, aggravation, boredom, depression, and medication.

As such...
When i have a point to make, I will post intelligently.
When i feel like being a sarcastic ass, I will post likewise.

Why arent I allowed to make a stupid post just because ive made a smart one? :P

my advice to you, take each post as its own. i say smart things, i say stupid things.

It certainly isnt impossible, and it would a HUGE financial burden indeed. Conviction of copyright infringement is hard enough even in countries which are cooperative and have local authorities working on it (see Piratebay).

One question that arises is, is it worth it? Cant that time and money be better spent making the game better and just banning bots on the spots?

Theres multiple ways to have game economies that make it DIFFICULT to trade money for gold, but for everyway, you can take advantage of it to make money.

Its a war you cant win. Goldsellers exist and will continue to exist because theres Goldbuyers. Bots will continue to exist.

Guild Wars is at a good place where these things do not impact players very much directly.

We dont need to deal with spawn camping bots who kill you at first sight....X_X

At least we dont have hackers and bribers in this game. Maybe brown nosers...lol.

Dont play Maplestory. The game is full of botters and hackers, and they being the ones that pay the most real money never get in trouble.

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Ive been unjustly banned before, but it was for something i said....that was taken out of context.

I have confidence, but i know there will be innocent casualties. Its inevitable.

IANAL, but I do not think there would be any basis for a claim, at least not an obvious one, there is nothing illegal or unlawful in what the goldsellers do. Essentially they provide a service and are payed for that service.

But it is only about the ToS and copyright laws are not involved. How do you think (a) the DMCA would be involved and (b) how to get it involved outside the US of A?

This could be an interesting point of view. Selling in-game gold and items for real-world money is prohibited by the Rules of Conduct. Gold Selling could be considered unauthorized use of resources.

Goldsellers do none of these things, they do not sell the client, manipulate it otherwise do anything illegal with it. They provide a service and get payed for it.

Explain how you think that Gold Selling is a violation of copyright.

Copyright has nothing to do with something being commercial, non-profit or educational in nature. Copyright is about creating (and distributing) a work which is based on, or contains part (or whole) of another work. Publishing screenshots (as is done here) on the web would sooner violate copyrights then selling in-game gold on ebay.

They're not paying sales tax.

[QUOTE]ebay seller

since they are providing a service they are using the client for commercial purposes which is prohibited.

that seems clear

service for personal real life dollars

using ANETS game client as a business either full or part time

you said it yourself *providing a service*

which they make money on and do not pay taxes or a business licence on.

i would like to get the IRS to go after the records of these sellers to tag them with back tax penalties/penalties for not reported income/etc

The support system is difficult to navigate. I attempted to contact support but got lost in the questions and the directions support pointed me in. I know I hastily submitted information to enter one of the tourneyments and was asked later what I entered.....hmmmm. To get that answer I have to contact support. I gave up as this was not worth the effort.
If I lost my 4000 hour account (all collectors) to a false banishment, I dont think I would try to get it back.

If everyone is all upset about bots and goldsellers - Who is buying the gold?????????????????

By the agreement between user and ANet, not by law.


You do not know that, or that the sales exceed whatever is allowed. If, and when evasion of taxes is an issue then that is the law-breaking part, not the use of the GW-account. They might evade tax, but it is as relevant to this discussion as people cleaning cars without telling the IRS.