'Message From The Neverwinter Management Team' - Questions.

hadestemplar · May 2017

asterotg said:

You have to do something, to get banned, slow clap. Thats obvious. But you dont have to do something, that is against the TOS, to get banned. That is the problem.

You might think, that this is irrelevant, but my questions are very real and I am quite sure, that many long time players feel the same. Here are some scenarios:

You have 20-50 chars with LS maxed. You invoke and reset professions manually. Do you have to fear, to get banned for doing so, bc they think you are a bot?

You have quartermaster enchants and you use the bound RP, to upgrade stuff, selling the unbound stuff. Waiting for a good price you stockpiled stacks. 2xRP, for some reason the price goes up. You sell 50 stacks of R5s and R4s. This one time. Will you get banned, bc you sell XY stacks, bc only bots can have this amount of RP, ignoring the fact, that you farmed for 6 month.

How can u be sure that x player got banned due RP

Do have access to game logs? Nop, So how can u be sure that they didn't use bot?. You so confident, yet don't have game logs..

Next, do u think staff don't and didn't count in possible ways to farm stuffs... Don't think that you are only one who know stuffs how game goes..

And now most important thing, being famous, don't give u any special privilege to use bot, and get away without ban.

As for other part,, well it's kinda tradition, that some players try defend bots. It's always fun to read their philosophical post how they try think, do bot using is cheating XD

jaegernl · May 2017

bloodyspamer said:
As for other part,, well it's kinda tradition, that some players try defend bots. It's always fun to read their philosophical post how they try think, do bot using is cheating XD

Absolutely no one is doing this. What we are seeing a lot of, however, is people turning to strawmen.

micky1p00 · May 2017

1. Resonators: you had one on AH, you must have been duplicating regardless of your AD balance or income.

2. CN split runs: You post 4 potions for few hundred thousands each, the party buys, you must be a gold seller, irrelevant that you are geared, running CN, doing campaigns. Yup, it's the new thing for goldsellers to not use throwaway account for transactions.

3. Gifts: You gather parcels, over 20 and it's must be an exploit. The script said so. It doesn't matter that it should count per char and not per account. And the script should have passed minimal QA before clicking the ban button. But happens, we learn from mistakes...

4. Ahh right... we didn't... we just clicked the script button again.

jumpingmorks · May 2017

bloodyspamer said:

And your post, well it's kinda tradition. In all my played mmorpg games, after mass cheaters/bot bans, somekind player try defend bots.. So I was just wondered when such posts start to appear... It's always fun to read how players try defend bots with total nonsense excuses.

This is a non issue.

You have absolutely no idea, no evidence and no proof, how many were banned, and out of how many, if any were legitimate users were banned. Bring me some proof for your arguments and then we can have this conversation. All you have is assumptions, as some of us believe, assumptions are the mother of all HAMSTERS.

From my point of view, I also have no proof, but I am unhappy for several reasons which I have posted most clearly most recently in this thread. Address that unhappiness and we can have a conversation.

Right now you bring empty arguments and assumptions to the wrong argument. We are not addressing botting directly, we are expressing our unhappiness as customers.

I have not been banned (yet at least), but I am an unhappy paying customer (or I was). Even if it turns out that 100% of all bans applied from a simple filter on all 15 million accounts (a fact given from Cryptic directly) I am not happy.

If your assumption now is I am unhappy because bots have been banned, you are wrong, you will continue to be wrong, because you cannot understand the simple concept that I am not happy because this process was handled poorly, it's execution was poor, customer satisfaction post ban was poor, official information given has been poor, I am unhappy with how some of my feedback has been treated, leading to people giving poor arguments and false assumptions.

Until my unhappiness as a customer is addressed, I will remain unhappy.

My unhappiness feels more real than any number you care to pluck out of thin air.

So address my unhappiness and we can have a conversation.

kreatyve · May 2017

Let's stop the arguing or us moderators will be forced to close the thread. We do not want that. Agree to disagree if you must, but the circular arguing needs to end.

fluffy6977 · May 2017

Both the ban wave algorithm and the customer service response where handled extremely poorly. And roughly six months since the last extremely poorly handled ban wave (although the response to that one was much, much better handled). And it will cost Cryptic a lot of money from disgruntled customers.

Julia, please convey to management that not only is this a colossal FUBAR situation, but even though (at least to my knowledge, taking 19 credits and working 30 hours a week I haven't had much time to do more than invoke and reset leadership/grab keys lately) this didn't directly affect Xbox or PlayStation players you can bet your bottom dollar we are watching this. And you can also bet that a lot of us do not feel comfortable buying Zen anymore given your customer service.

Fix this. It's already gone on far too long, and feels just like all the other "let it run its course after two weeks they'll move on and nothing will have to be done" customer service responses I have seen from Cryptic in the past. Believe it or not, that makes a huge difference in where I spend my time and money.

Moderator edited out flaming.

mynaam · May 2017

we implemented additional data collection features within the game

This is something that just came to me they started collecting data about us ... what data ... I am obsessed with privacy, dont even facebook due to their crazy lack of privacy. Now i am told they are gathering information about me ... is this about my pc build, contacts on my pc, passwords stored on my pc (yes you can gain access to it), what else. I don't mind it if it is just game activities etc, but i would like a bit of clarity on what excactly they are gathering.

I know it is unlikely but they can intercept skype messages, emails that i am receiving while playing or even do keylogging . Again I do not think they are doing this but it would be nice to know that they are only gathering in game data(especially with their history of using being vague to do things they know the users will not like).

Unknown · May 2017

This content has been removed.

ambisinisterr · May 2017

Woah there, you went a few steps too far. That's Wiindows 10 level nonsense. Not even Google can do half the things you fear.

The data collection systems they use would be in game behavior data. They won't disclose specifics but it would include data such as how many hours the account is logged in and possibly even pattern recognition between mouse clicks.

There would be legal ramifications for half of your concerns. Every game company tracks what you do in game to some extent but they can not spy on your personal activity outside of the game without breaking laws and being open to lawsuits.

Unknown · May 2017

This content has been removed.

mynaam · May 2017

ambisinisterr said:
Woah there, you went a few steps too far. That's Wiindows 10 level nonsense. Not even Google can do half the things you fear.

The data collection systems they use would be in game behavior data. They won't disclose specifics but it would include data such as how many hours the account is logged in and possibly even pattern recognition between mouse clicks.

There would be legal ramifications for half of your concerns. Every game company tracks what you do in game to some extent but they can not spy on your personal activity outside of the game without breaking laws and being open to lawsuits.

With an app running in admin mode it is really easy to do that(especially if the user run the application). I did it as one of my security projects back at university. Key logging is very easy.
and getting all passwords you just need the pc password .... see keylogging

again i don not think they are doing it but when you logg info about someone it is just ethical to tell them what you are logging

ambisinisterr · May 2017

I'll clarify, they can not legally do that. Anybody with the know-how can take whatever they want off any computer but it is not legal to do so.

hadestemplar · May 2017

@jumpingmorks.

You want me to bring proofs that x players where guilt,?
But I can ask you to provide proofs/facts/data that these players where innocent<

So I can write my assumptions, and you can do also write assumption,.< And neither you, neither me have access to game logs..

Next, when comes baning, there are 2 type players.

1) guilt<(bot users, game logs prove guilty).
2) innocent< Game logs prove that they didn't use bots.

And there is no middle ground.

Now funny party, how you defy which player is legitimate and which player is not.
Also do u think that when player reach x GS do not use bot, then u are wrong.

<blockquote class="UserQuote">

kreatyve said:

Let's stop the arguing or us moderators will be forced to close the thread. We do not want that. Agree to disagree if you must, but the circular arguing needs to end.

Its-inevitable.

kzone · May 2017

bloodyspamer said:

Do have access to game logs? Nop, So how can u be sure that they didn't use bot?. You so confident, yet don't have game logs..

Next, do u think staff don't and didn't count in possible ways to farm stuffs... Don't think that you are only one who know stuffs how game goes..

And now most important thing, being famous, don't give u any special privilege to use bot, and get away without ban.

As for other part,, well it's kinda tradition, that some players try defend bots. It's always fun to read their philosophical post how they try think, do bot using is cheating XD

There lies the problem. You can't prove you didn't bot, likewise, they currently can't prove you did. If they could, there would be no shroud of secrecy around their methodology. They would simply say we detected the following process: xxxxx interacted with the game client on xx/xx/xxxx at xx:xxxx therefore we are banning your account. Simple, straightforward and you would not be able to escape detection if you were botting. Well unless you built a real robot to actually push the keys for you but that's besides the point.

Clearly, what they are doing is using some statistical analysis of your actions and interactions to lump you into a category. If 100% of goldsellers do xy & z then anyone doing xy & z must be a goldseller. The problem is this methodology is guaranteed to catch some (maybe even a lot) of innocents.

Even if they used appropriately steep requirements, like truly playing 18 hours at least 5 days a week, they would still get some innocents.

There lies the problem with using analysis to try to detect bots, instead of actually detecting bots. The wider you cast your net, the more actual goldsellers you catch, but the more innocents as well.

It is safe to assume they used the data analysis methodology and yes truly innocent people had their accounts banned.

beckylunatic · May 2017

asterotg said:
You sell 50 stacks of R5s and R4s. This one time. Will you get banned, bc you sell XY stacks, bc only bots can have this amount of RP, ignoring the fact, that you farmed for 6 month.

That's an unnerving one, a "what if it happens to me?" scenario.

I still run the old Leadership farm, consisting of many characters (22/53) who are headcanoned and competently geared and have the early alt-friendly boons and are still played at least a little bit each week. Lots of days I only reset tasks once, because it's hugely time-consuming to do it all manually. If I'm home all day, I run a lot of Guard Young Noble - which is a big commitment from me to pay attention to Neverwinter constantly because it's a short task (one might say, it's designed to be optimal for bots and not for humans). I produce resources to dump into my guild's stronghold. I produce stuff I can use to either gear my characters, or sell to fund other endeavors either for the guild or to gear my characters... mostly so they can be more efficient at gathering more resources to dump into the stronghold or back into themselves to becomes more efficient to....

Sounds Sisyphean, doesn't it? (But I keep getting access to bigger rocks to push.)

So I let the boxes pile up, and then I likely let them pile up and pile up some more. Opening boxes is time-consuming too, and wearing on tendons and hardware... because we're assuming that I, a human, am doubleclicking each box to open it - and holy hannah, I have f'n thousands of them. It gobbles inventory because RP items only stack to 99 but boxes stack to 999. To be most efficient, you need to time your opening around when you either want to use items, or sell them. I might let containers with enchants pile up for many months, waiting for that ever-so-rare confluence of 2xGems and 2xRP so that I can eliminate clutter immediately on creating it.

I am in need of opening a bunch of boxes, and I'm probably wanting to sell the contents rather than use them. But now I'm feeling like I should be scared to do this because my months of production could look like the output of automated processes rather than one sleep-deprived human with terrible habits.

kreatyve · May 2017

kzone#2148 said:

bloodyspamer said:

Do have access to game logs? Nop, So how can u be sure that they didn't use bot?. You so confident, yet don't have game logs..

Next, do u think staff don't and didn't count in possible ways to farm stuffs... Don't think that you are only one who know stuffs how game goes..

And now most important thing, being famous, don't give u any special privilege to use bot, and get away without ban.

As for other part,, well it's kinda tradition, that some players try defend bots. It's always fun to read their philosophical post how they try think, do bot using is cheating XD
There lies the problem. You can't prove you didn't bot, likewise, they currently can't prove you did. If they could, there would be no shroud of secrecy around their methodology. They would simply say we detected the following process: xxxxx interacted with the game client on xx/xx/xxxx at xx:xxxx therefore we are banning your account. Simple, straightforward and you would not be able to escape detection if you were botting. Well unless you built a real robot to actually push the keys for you but that's besides the point.

Clearly, what they are doing is using some statistical analysis of your actions and interactions to lump you into a category. If 100% of goldsellers do xy & z then anyone doing xy & z must be a goldseller. The problem is this methodology is guaranteed to catch some (maybe even a lot) of innocents.

Even if they used appropriately steep requirements, like truly playing 18 hours at least 5 days a week, they would still get some innocents.

There lies the problem with using analysis to try to detect bots, instead of actually detecting bots. The wider you cast your net, the more actual goldsellers you catch, but the more innocents as well.

It is safe to assume they used the data analysis methodology and yes truly innocent people had their accounts banned.

Except that they have to be able to prove it. They just don't have to be able to prove it to THE PLAYERS. The simple and straight forward explanation is that it was for botting. No MMO company will provide actual evidence of how they figure it out, but they do have to have evidence. This is a business, afterall. If their backers thought they were banning people without evidence, and they are unable to provide that evidence to the backers, then there will be an issue. So I do believe that they do have evidence for the bans. They just do not have to provide it to us, nor should they, as it would be too easy to get around.

kzone · May 2017

kreatyve said:

kzone#2148 said:

bloodyspamer said:

Do have access to game logs? Nop, So how can u be sure that they didn't use bot?. You so confident, yet don't have game logs..

Next, do u think staff don't and didn't count in possible ways to farm stuffs... Don't think that you are only one who know stuffs how game goes..

And now most important thing, being famous, don't give u any special privilege to use bot, and get away without ban.

As for other part,, well it's kinda tradition, that some players try defend bots. It's always fun to read their philosophical post how they try think, do bot using is cheating XD
There lies the problem. You can't prove you didn't bot, likewise, they currently can't prove you did. If they could, there would be no shroud of secrecy around their methodology. They would simply say we detected the following process: xxxxx interacted with the game client on xx/xx/xxxx at xx:xxxx therefore we are banning your account. Simple, straightforward and you would not be able to escape detection if you were botting. Well unless you built a real robot to actually push the keys for you but that's besides the point.

Clearly, what they are doing is using some statistical analysis of your actions and interactions to lump you into a category. If 100% of goldsellers do xy & z then anyone doing xy & z must be a goldseller. The problem is this methodology is guaranteed to catch some (maybe even a lot) of innocents.

Even if they used appropriately steep requirements, like truly playing 18 hours at least 5 days a week, they would still get some innocents.

There lies the problem with using analysis to try to detect bots, instead of actually detecting bots. The wider you cast your net, the more actual goldsellers you catch, but the more innocents as well.

It is safe to assume they used the data analysis methodology and yes truly innocent people had their accounts banned.
Except that they have to be able to prove it. They just don't have to be able to prove it to THE PLAYERS. The simple and straight forward explanation is that it was for botting. No MMO company will provide actual evidence of how they figure it out, but they do have to have evidence. This is a business, afterall. If their backers thought they were banning people without evidence, and they are unable to provide that evidence to the backers, then there will be an issue. So I do believe that they do have evidence for the bans. They just do not have to provide it to us, nor should they, as it would be too easy to get around.

But they don't provide proof to players they ban and as such I don't believe they do have "proof" and as far as we are concerned they don't have said proof (pictures or it didn't happen). Sadly, the reason they can do this is that it's not worth the effort to take them to court and get a judge to order them to actually prove something.

Lets be real, if they truly detected bots, they wouldn't need to do ban waves, they would detect it and ban you within hours or the next day.

kreatyve · May 2017

kzone#2148 said:

kreatyve said:

kzone#2148 said:

bloodyspamer said:

Do have access to game logs? Nop, So how can u be sure that they didn't use bot?. You so confident, yet don't have game logs..

Next, do u think staff don't and didn't count in possible ways to farm stuffs... Don't think that you are only one who know stuffs how game goes..

And now most important thing, being famous, don't give u any special privilege to use bot, and get away without ban.

As for other part,, well it's kinda tradition, that some players try defend bots. It's always fun to read their philosophical post how they try think, do bot using is cheating XD
There lies the problem. You can't prove you didn't bot, likewise, they currently can't prove you did. If they could, there would be no shroud of secrecy around their methodology. They would simply say we detected the following process: xxxxx interacted with the game client on xx/xx/xxxx at xx:xxxx therefore we are banning your account. Simple, straightforward and you would not be able to escape detection if you were botting. Well unless you built a real robot to actually push the keys for you but that's besides the point.

Clearly, what they are doing is using some statistical analysis of your actions and interactions to lump you into a category. If 100% of goldsellers do xy & z then anyone doing xy & z must be a goldseller. The problem is this methodology is guaranteed to catch some (maybe even a lot) of innocents.

Even if they used appropriately steep requirements, like truly playing 18 hours at least 5 days a week, they would still get some innocents.

There lies the problem with using analysis to try to detect bots, instead of actually detecting bots. The wider you cast your net, the more actual goldsellers you catch, but the more innocents as well.

It is safe to assume they used the data analysis methodology and yes truly innocent people had their accounts banned.
Except that they have to be able to prove it. They just don't have to be able to prove it to THE PLAYERS. The simple and straight forward explanation is that it was for botting. No MMO company will provide actual evidence of how they figure it out, but they do have to have evidence. This is a business, afterall. If their backers thought they were banning people without evidence, and they are unable to provide that evidence to the backers, then there will be an issue. So I do believe that they do have evidence for the bans. They just do not have to provide it to us, nor should they, as it would be too easy to get around.
But they don't provide proof to players they ban and as such I don't believe they do have "proof" and as far as we are concerned they don't have said proof (pictures or it didn't happen). Sadly, the reason they can do this is that it's not worth the effort to take them to court and get a judge to order them to actually prove something.

Lets be real, if they truly detected bots, they wouldn't need to do ban waves, they would detect it and ban you within hours or the next day.

Except that every MMO does ban waves. You think they have the time to just sit and individually ban people, while dealing with the thousands of other issues that CS deals with on a daily basis? This is why 99% of the time, when someone gets banned, it's not for something they were doing that day, maybe even not that week. This is true of pretty much every MMO, including ones that are much larger than Neverwinter.

jaegernl · May 2017

It's not just about the backers. Remember, an MMO thrives or dies with it's community, and that is even more important for a F2P MMO with mini-transactions. If no one has trust in the game or it's kulturkammer, no one will spend, and everyone will be out of a job.

And the credibility of their evidence went out the window the moment they unbanned people. Even if they did have solid evidence, the moment they unbanned botters because they are 'dedicated players' - per the official announcement - their credibility was completely lost.

greywynd · May 2017

kzone#2148 said:

Are you serious? When you accept payment for services and such, you are under an obligation to provide it. If that were not the case, there would be nothing to stop a company from selling you something, taking your money and never providing what you paid for. Call it at 100% profit scenario. Despite what you think they do have an obligation to their customers.

Having an obligation to paying customers is not the same thing as being obligated to disclose the nature of the criteria they used to reach in their decision. Their obligation as such requires them to review those accounts brought to their attention that may have been wrongfully banned. Which they have done and are doing.

kzone · May 2017

kreatyve said:

Except that every MMO does ban waves. You think they have the time to just sit and individually ban people, while dealing with the thousands of other issues that CS deals with on a daily basis? This is why 99% of the time, when someone gets banned, it's not for something they were doing that day, maybe even not that week. This is true of pretty much every MMO, including ones that are much larger than Neverwinter.

That is not always true. Some use automated techniques and ban on demand. No need for CS to sit around and individually ban and no need for mistakes either.

micky1p00 · May 2017

kreatyve said:

kzone#2148 said:

bloodyspamer said:

Do have access to game logs? Nop, So how can u be sure that they didn't use bot?. You so confident, yet don't have game logs..

Next, do u think staff don't and didn't count in possible ways to farm stuffs... Don't think that you are only one who know stuffs how game goes..

And now most important thing, being famous, don't give u any special privilege to use bot, and get away without ban.

As for other part,, well it's kinda tradition, that some players try defend bots. It's always fun to read their philosophical post how they try think, do bot using is cheating XD
There lies the problem. You can't prove you didn't bot, likewise, they currently can't prove you did. If they could, there would be no shroud of secrecy around their methodology. They would simply say we detected the following process: xxxxx interacted with the game client on xx/xx/xxxx at xx:xxxx therefore we are banning your account. Simple, straightforward and you would not be able to escape detection if you were botting. Well unless you built a real robot to actually push the keys for you but that's besides the point.

Clearly, what they are doing is using some statistical analysis of your actions and interactions to lump you into a category. If 100% of goldsellers do xy & z then anyone doing xy & z must be a goldseller. The problem is this methodology is guaranteed to catch some (maybe even a lot) of innocents.

Even if they used appropriately steep requirements, like truly playing 18 hours at least 5 days a week, they would still get some innocents.

There lies the problem with using analysis to try to detect bots, instead of actually detecting bots. The wider you cast your net, the more actual goldsellers you catch, but the more innocents as well.

It is safe to assume they used the data analysis methodology and yes truly innocent people had their accounts banned.
Except that they have to be able to prove it. They just don't have to be able to prove it to THE PLAYERS. The simple and straight forward explanation is that it was for botting. No MMO company will provide actual evidence of how they figure it out, but they do have to have evidence. This is a business, afterall. If their backers thought they were banning people without evidence, and they are unable to provide that evidence to the backers, then there will be an issue. So I do believe that they do have evidence for the bans. They just do not have to provide it to us, nor should they, as it would be too easy to get around.

There are no backers, or process.
You think someone at management asks "Oh you banned N people, please show me the proof I want to verify", or "Lets pick a sample and check". Their job is to look at quarterly revenue and change the technical leadership if those reports are failing.

The whole point there is no such process. There is a person who hopefully finished B.SC in computer science. Who got a task from a team manager to write something that checks the logs.
If we are lucky, someone will do a code review, if we are not, we can get banned (we can also get that after the code review too). Simple as that. You can see from my post above, there is no verification, there are simple mistakes a student does and they are not caught in time. The parcels are the easiest example to explain, they did a simple aggregated count over the account, instead of checking the maximum number of parcels on a char on an account.
But the problem is not in the mistake itself, those happen. The problem is how you prevent the next, and how you minimize the impact of the next. And most importantly what certainty you put in it, meaning what you do if you are not sure, and in any situation like this we talk in terms of certainty.

kzone · May 2017

jaegernl said:
It's not just about the backers. Remember, an MMO thrives or dies with it's community, and that is even more important for a F2P MMO with mini-transactions. If no one has trust in the game or it's kulturkammer, no one will spend, and everyone will be out of a job.

And the credibility of their evidence went out the window the moment they unbanned people. Even if they did have solid evidence, the moment they unbanned botters because they are 'dedicated players' - per the official announcement - their credibility was completely lost.

Stop implying everyone that was banned and unbanned was a botter. I know several people that had been banned and unbanned that were not botters. If anyone had take the time to even remotely look at their accounts before the ban it would have been clear.

The reason for their usage of the term dedicated players is due to the amount of time and rote activities some folks performed farming or otherwise. They made the incorrect assumption that only a bot would do those things.

Again, they threw out a net, they didn't detect.

jaegernl · May 2017

kzone#2148 said:

jaegernl said:
It's not just about the backers. Remember, an MMO thrives or dies with it's community, and that is even more important for a F2P MMO with mini-transactions. If no one has trust in the game or it's kulturkammer, no one will spend, and everyone will be out of a job.

And the credibility of their evidence went out the window the moment they unbanned people. Even if they did have solid evidence, the moment they unbanned botters because they are 'dedicated players' - per the official announcement - their credibility was completely lost.
Stop implying everyone that was banned and unbanned was a botter. I know several people that had been banned and unbanned that were not botters. If anyone had take the time to even remotely look at their accounts before the ban it would have been clear.

The reason for their usage of the term dedicated players is due to the amount of time and rote activities some folks performed farming or otherwise. They made the incorrect assumption that only a bot would do those things.

Again, they threw out a net, they didn't detect.

You completely misread my post. I suggest you try again and see if you get a better result. You might want to see who started this thread in the first place, while you're at it.

jumpingmorks · May 2017

kreatyve said:

kzone#2148 said:

bloodyspamer said:

Do have access to game logs? Nop, So how can u be sure that they didn't use bot?. You so confident, yet don't have game logs..

Next, do u think staff don't and didn't count in possible ways to farm stuffs... Don't think that you are only one who know stuffs how game goes..

And now most important thing, being famous, don't give u any special privilege to use bot, and get away without ban.

As for other part,, well it's kinda tradition, that some players try defend bots. It's always fun to read their philosophical post how they try think, do bot using is cheating XD
There lies the problem. You can't prove you didn't bot, likewise, they currently can't prove you did. If they could, there would be no shroud of secrecy around their methodology. They would simply say we detected the following process: xxxxx interacted with the game client on xx/xx/xxxx at xx:xxxx therefore we are banning your account. Simple, straightforward and you would not be able to escape detection if you were botting. Well unless you built a real robot to actually push the keys for you but that's besides the point.

Clearly, what they are doing is using some statistical analysis of your actions and interactions to lump you into a category. If 100% of goldsellers do xy & z then anyone doing xy & z must be a goldseller. The problem is this methodology is guaranteed to catch some (maybe even a lot) of innocents.

Even if they used appropriately steep requirements, like truly playing 18 hours at least 5 days a week, they would still get some innocents.

There lies the problem with using analysis to try to detect bots, instead of actually detecting bots. The wider you cast your net, the more actual goldsellers you catch, but the more innocents as well.

It is safe to assume they used the data analysis methodology and yes truly innocent people had their accounts banned.
Except that they have to be able to prove it. They just don't have to be able to prove it to THE PLAYERS. The simple and straight forward explanation is that it was for botting. No MMO company will provide actual evidence of how they figure it out, but they do have to have evidence. This is a business, afterall. If their backers thought they were banning people without evidence, and they are unable to provide that evidence to the backers, then there will be an issue. So I do believe that they do have evidence for the bans. They just do not have to provide it to us, nor should they, as it would be too easy to get around.

I don't need or want their proof, I want them to have every fair tool at their disposal to deal with cheaters and those with more criminal activities in mind.

At the same time I want to know what they constitute fair gaming.

Just an Example.
An example of this is the Decline button we used to have on chests. I do not know of a single person who did not at some point use that button. But one day we find out that the button was there unintentionally. Ok I can deal with that, but what we were then told afterwards was that anyone who used that button in the past had exploited whatever it was they exploited.

We had reasonable evidence to assume that the button was there, therefore it was ok to use it. It was not made clear during the several mods that it was there that it was not ok to use it, instead, anyone who had used it, who thought they had played by the rules up until that point were told afterwards that if you used it then you had cheated but it was ok because at the time the announcement was made, they had decided that no further action would be taken.

End of Example

Most of us want to play fair and by the rules. We don't need to know the inner workings of the business or the details of any methods Cryptic uses to identify those clearly out to abuse the system, the game and other players.

I don't need to know how you calculated what constitutes a bot or a legitimate player.

But if players are adopting a playstyle that was not previously foreseen and is having a negative impact on how Cryptic runs it's business, make it clear to us. Let us know.

If at Cryptic you are unhappy with how the filter worked, then I hope discussions are being held on what went wrong and how those filters can be improved upon. If these discussions are not being held, this exact same scenario is going to happen next time you run a ban wave.

But most of all, I want discussions to identify if and how many legitimate players were affected. And if they were is there any process that can make their customer experience better should this happen again.

Customers are unhappy, whether they were never banned or banned and unbanned, it's up to Cryptic to identify why they are unhappy and how they can improve their process to be fairer and easier to use for legitimate players and harder to abuse.

kzone · May 2017

jaegernl said:

kzone#2148 said:

jaegernl said:
It's not just about the backers. Remember, an MMO thrives or dies with it's community, and that is even more important for a F2P MMO with mini-transactions. If no one has trust in the game or it's kulturkammer, no one will spend, and everyone will be out of a job.

And the credibility of their evidence went out the window the moment they unbanned people. Even if they did have solid evidence, the moment they unbanned botters because they are 'dedicated players' - per the official announcement - their credibility was completely lost.
Stop implying everyone that was banned and unbanned was a botter. I know several people that had been banned and unbanned that were not botters. If anyone had take the time to even remotely look at their accounts before the ban it would have been clear.

The reason for their usage of the term dedicated players is due to the amount of time and rote activities some folks performed farming or otherwise. They made the incorrect assumption that only a bot would do those things.

Again, they threw out a net, they didn't detect.
You completely misread my post. I suggest you try again and see if you get a better result. You might want to see who started this thread in the first place, while you're at it.

I didn't misread your post. I agree with most of it. I did not like the verbiage of the one sentence as it implies that they unbanned botters because they were dedicated players. There were several ways to interpret what they meant by dedicated players and I choose (because I know it to be true in at least some instances) the one where it implies their statistical net was too wide.

kzone · May 2017

dupe

checkmatein3 · May 2017

So, two guys are walking along a sidewalk, when one guys warns his friend, "Hey watch out! That is dog poo."
The first guy disagrees, "No, its not. That isn't dog poo."

The first guy replies, "Sure it is. Go smell it."
"What? you have got to be kidding me!" the second guy objects.
"No really, go smell it."
"Well, it smells like dog *poo*. But it could just be that I am smelling other piles of dog poo nearby." The second man quips.

"Well then, touch it." the first man insists.
"What? No way!"
"Yes, touch it, if you want to know its dog poo."
"Well, it certainly feels like dog poo. But, it could be that someone dropped some chocolate pudding." The second man replies.

"Well then, taste it." The first man demands.
"No! I absolutely will not taste it." The second man indignantly says.
"NO, go taste it. That will tell you for sure if its dog poo." The first man answers.
*Smack smack smack* "Well, it certainly tastes like dog poo!" The second man sneers.

"Ah well then," the first man smiles, "I was right then. Good thing we didn't step in it."
"Yeah," the second man replies.

End of story

jaegernl · May 2017

kzone#2148 said:
I didn't misread your post. I agree with most of it. I did not like the verbiage of the one sentence as it implies that they unbanned botters because they were dedicated players. There were several ways to interpret what they meant by dedicated players and I choose (because I know it to be true in at least some instances) the one where it implies their statistical net was too wide.

But that's not at all what you did. You literally said 'Stop implying everyone that was banned and unbanned was a botter'. I didn't, and I'd like for you to stop EXPLICITILY saying that I did.

niadan · May 2017

@checkmatein3

And by HIS own previous experience, the second man already knew what Dog Poo tasted like....lol

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