Players are given a detailed warning stating what they did wrong, and to not do it again, before being banned -- continuing to do it past the warning will cause the ban
There was NO warning of any kind visible in chat window, no fly-in notification. I also did not receive any email from PWE/Cryptic on the mailbox associated with my game account. Only emails I received from PWE/Cryptic are automated confirmations of tickets I submitted.
May 2013, automatic permanent ban for mentioning gold-seller sites pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should. moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
To note: Players are given a detailed warning stating what they did wrong, and to not do it again, before being banned -- continuing to do it past the warning will cause the ban.
How is this warning being transmitted to the players? A chat message that might not show up because of channel settings? An ingame mail that nobody checks every second? An actual email that also nobody checks soon enough?
A system that is working "as it should" does not necessarily imply that it is working in the best interests of the players. Being spammed with mail from "gold seller" websites is far less annoying than being banned for talking to someone about said site's spam. Ask any player in the game; I think they'd agree with me on this one.
Has no one thought to contact this company or drop a C&D in their lap? After all, they are trying to make money off of the game, and getting free advertising in the meantime. There has to be some kind of work-around. Even if they're Chinese; so is Perfect World, no?
In the meantime, I have surreptitiously warned my fleet to Fight Club this company.
Rule Number One of Gold Spammers: Do NOT talk about gold spammers.
Hopefully a more reasonable solution to this problem can be found before paying players start asking for their money back.
warning stating what they did wrong, and to not do it again, before being banned
Maybe you should send them as Admin (like shard going offline in x minutes) instead of System (which spams all the time and is either turned off or relegated to a separate chat window tab). I repeat, NO message of ANY KIND popped up - all I saw was my text didn't show up in chat window, as it often is at laggy hours. I pressed arrow up and enter to repeat the last message and I was insta-banned.
I suggest you check chat logs on this one.
May 2013, automatic permanent ban for mentioning gold-seller sites pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should. moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
I didn't receive any sort of warning, I have not received any email or messages besides the ticket confirmation warning. there was no detailed or ANY explanation of any kind. go into my account and look at the messages and youll see 2 of them from that company right at the top.
I will pass along your feedback, but this system is currently in place and working the way it should. If you see anyone trying to trick others, please report them to a GM immediately so an investigation take place and appropriate action taken.
To note: Players are given a detailed warning stating what they did wrong, and to not do it again, before being banned -- continuing to do it past the warning will cause the ban. The warning is there for a reason
If the reports are true then, like many things as of late, the warning system is not working correctly. There is a right way and a wrong way to deal with spam issues, you guys seem to have chosen the wrong way. Your way is going to end up with a bunch of pissed off players because they are being auto banned without even a warning. The proper way to deal with something like this is to have your chat system's keyword monitoring send the suspected chat to a customer service rep who reviews it to see if a ban is needed or not. An auto ban system that gets rid of the spammer and everyday users alike is exactly the kind of system that has destroyed many companies, and not just in the mmo world.
Really? Just..really? What can one say to this other than state that it is wrong and the sort of thing that should be resolved asap, not responded to with a literal 'working as intended'?
"As instructed by BranFlakes I am adding the following:
I was fooled into typing Egpal twice by [censored for forum discretion]. Also Branflakes mentioned there was meant to be a warning after the first time, which I did not receive."
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan
Thank you Brandon for your quick response, however it appears that the warning is not being given or is not being noticed. In the light of this new information it would appear fair to reinstate those banned accounts as soon as possible whilst the mechanics of the process are tested fully.
What mechanics need to be tested? They're gonna start banning people for saying the name of a gold selling site? Its crazy. Ban the gold sellers, not the innocent people. And some of you, who pay to play this are going DAYS without being able to play? This is just crazy to me, but so is almost everything else Cryptic/PWE does so it doesn't surprise me.
I was playing but since it crashes every 15 minutes, I'm taking a break and figured I'd come here to report the crashes( lol like it does any good), but then I saw this thread and I'm just amazed at this company. Things like more/actual gm's are too much to ask for from crytpic. You can't have those, and real customer service, never mind better servers or even a working game. You can't have any of this because they don't wanna pay for it, and do what a real developer of a MMORPG has to do. Its real simple Cryptic.
I just started a 21 day trial of another pretty famous MMo.(wont advertise the game, everyone knows it). I got stuck on the scanning tutorial for about a half hour or so. You know what happened? A GM msg'd me to ask how I was doing and what help I needed. He took about a half hour to sit there and let me ask questions and we just talked for a bit. I understand they want new players, and with experiences like that, they will continue to get more. That doesn't exist here. Not at all. Here you submit tickets, they get marked as resolved when nothing is. I'm not gonna go on and on about it, cause everyone already knows how it is. Why have gm's in game to do a job when you can write in some code to auto ban people, even if its the wrong people....
They'll realize how stupid this was after the paying customers get mad and quit after dealing with this nonsense. And you know what the gold sellers who get banned will do? They'll make a new account 2 seconds later because its a f2p game and they prob have thousands of account already. I feel sorry for you guys this has happened too, and now I know to never say any of those names,but im sure alot of other people will get screwed over for this too. Hopefully they're all paying customers, because thats the only way Cryptic will do something about it.
I got stuck on the scanning tutorial for about a half hour or so. You know what happened? A GM msg'd me to ask how I was doing and what help I needed. He took about a half hour to sit there and let me ask questions and we just talked for a bit. I understand they want new players, and with experiences like that, they will continue to get more.
Now you mention it that's basically what we do in the fleet a lot of the time, help get new people used to the game, warn people of potential bugs etc, I'd have warned everyone about this one too, had I known. But I do find it odd that there is no real in-game GMs to assist people, it's a job I personally would enjoy, as I said, it's pretty much what I do anyway!
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan
As if getting banned for nothing was not enough, I can't reach/check my tickets due to cookies problem. Just great.
May 2013, automatic permanent ban for mentioning gold-seller sites pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should. moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
I'm sure that Bran is going to have this corrected, it just a matter of time before someone get wind of this and use it to destroy a system that already in chaos, but they are going to have to move fast on it before it to late.
As if getting banned for nothing was not enough, I can't reach/check my tickets due to cookies problem. Just great.
I'd suggest clearing your history etc in your browser settings, not ideal but will probably solve it, otherwise I can (and will anyway) update everyone in this thread if/when I get a response on my ticket.
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan
I'm sure that Bran is going to have this corrected
Bran already stated its working as intended. Which means they actually want to get people banned without warning for typing a single word twice.
May 2013, automatic permanent ban for mentioning gold-seller sites pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should. moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
Bran already stated its working as intended. Which means they actually want to get people banned without warning for typing a single word twice.
Yeah 'working as intended' was not a great choice of words really, as from my point of view (as well as many others posting in this thread it seems) the intention is to ban people simply using a certain word, taken way out of context, as I said I commented saying "it's probably because you visited a 'site like [word that got me banned]" and not "You should try [word that got me banned] as they sell EC for real money" as I'm sure we're all aware these 'sites are against STO policy, understandably, I'm sure none of us were out to promote this 'site and in fact from what I've read we were all demoting it or complaining about the constant spam off them.
On a side note when are the support staff in the office 'til? Is there any point me checking my tickets after 5pm PDT? Or should I just wait until tomorrow?
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan
Good to see so many of my fleet mates are responding in Irwin's defense. We know him and we know he is the absolute last person ever that would be involved in any kind of spamming, a real model player who is extremely helpful and a terrific asset to both the fleet and the game, hence the responses from so many SRS members. The fact that even Irwin would receive a ban for anything in game is almost beyond belief, in fact when I first heard today I thought it was a joke. But indeed, it is no joke. Our entire fleet of nearly 400 people have now been warned, I hope they read the mail before they fall into the trap.
I am sure that the majority of players who have been banned are just as innocent as our Irwin and just as committed to STO. How this event will affect their rationale for continuing to play the game is yet to be realised, I know that if it had happened to me after having spent at least 3000 pounds ($5000) on this game since setting up SRS, I for one would either leave or consider taking the matter very much further if it wasn't resolved quickly.
Cryptic you have an opportunity here to put right a serious wrong before it's too late and the goodwill from good people is pushed too far. Let us not sour this marvellous expansion you have so diligently worked for with ill feeling and regret.
We await the outcome with great interest.
Again Matt, thanks for the ongoing support and of course, flattery will get you everywhere! :P
But yes I do try to promote the game as much as possible and would never consider promoting or using [insert ban word here] as, as I said earlier, it would be detrimental to such a fantastic game, in fact since starting STO I haven't played anything else, it has become my only game, I would hate to lose it over something as silly as this.
It seems to me while this was a noble idea banning a certain word it is clearly flawed at present as it's effecting innocent players and will probably not affect those you are wishing to get banned as their keywords will no doubt change to get around the ban. While I applaud the effort to get rid of these EC merchants I think the process needs to be looked at again, I could accept it with the warning but as we've all said, none of us got the warning so we were not to know not to do it again, we all thought there was some kind of chat bug as we are used to lag/typing in wrong channels/correct channels not working sometimes etc etc, please guys, get back to us, let us know you're investigating it and looking to get us innocents reinstated.
EDIT: I mean heck, you can check my account, the only large sums of EC I receive are from sales on the exchange and they're only 1mil, 2mil tops, I don't think I've ever sold anything over that, other than that I get the occasional ship of good friends who are luckier with lockboxes than I am and are generous enough to gift me ships, which I would of course payback in kind by giving them first dibs on any ships I get from lockboxes (so far being none apart from the odd mirror ship),
EDIT #2: Please don't leave us all hanging over the weekend....
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan
Please don't leave us all hanging over the weekend....
From the looks of it, they already did.
May 2013, automatic permanent ban for mentioning gold-seller sites pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should. moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
It's certainly looking that way I was hoping this would be resolved by now or at least more updates from Brandon, "message passed on the support team are now aware and looking into it" even that would put me at ease a bit more...
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan
What doesn't sit right with me is that the first official response we get from them isn't "Oh wow, we didn't mean for that to happen, we'll look into it right away." In fact it was pretty much the opposite - "Yeah, it's doing exactly what we want it to"
I don't personally know anyone who has been affected by this, but it should be obvious that they are going about it the wrong way. Wouldn't be surprised to find out that more innocent people have been banned than actual spammers. And here's the thing: the spammers don't care. They'll just make more accounts or find other ways around it. Not saying nothing should be done to try and stop it, but this isn't the answer.
Well here's the update: my account has been unbanned it seems, however according to the chat box I have been silenced for 1075613 hours 55 minutes and 20 seconds... Will submit a ticket shortly.
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan
Well here's the update: my account has been unbanned it seems, however according to the chat box I have been silenced for 1075613 hours 55 minutes and 20 seconds... Will submit a ticket shortly.
Were you contacted about it in support/ticket section or was it just activated at some point?
No changes for me.
May 2013, automatic permanent ban for mentioning gold-seller sites pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should. moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
Comments
This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen... people WILL take advantage of this to the point where single tickets or GM reports wont help.
ROFL
There was NO warning of any kind visible in chat window, no fly-in notification. I also did not receive any email from PWE/Cryptic on the mailbox associated with my game account. Only emails I received from PWE/Cryptic are automated confirmations of tickets I submitted.
pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should.
moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
A system that is working "as it should" does not necessarily imply that it is working in the best interests of the players. Being spammed with mail from "gold seller" websites is far less annoying than being banned for talking to someone about said site's spam. Ask any player in the game; I think they'd agree with me on this one.
Has no one thought to contact this company or drop a C&D in their lap? After all, they are trying to make money off of the game, and getting free advertising in the meantime. There has to be some kind of work-around. Even if they're Chinese; so is Perfect World, no?
In the meantime, I have surreptitiously warned my fleet to Fight Club this company.
Rule Number One of Gold Spammers: Do NOT talk about gold spammers.
Hopefully a more reasonable solution to this problem can be found before paying players start asking for their money back.
Sincerely,
@gibsonunderscore
Maybe you should send them as Admin (like shard going offline in x minutes) instead of System (which spams all the time and is either turned off or relegated to a separate chat window tab). I repeat, NO message of ANY KIND popped up - all I saw was my text didn't show up in chat window, as it often is at laggy hours. I pressed arrow up and enter to repeat the last message and I was insta-banned.
I suggest you check chat logs on this one.
pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should.
moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
If the reports are true then, like many things as of late, the warning system is not working correctly. There is a right way and a wrong way to deal with spam issues, you guys seem to have chosen the wrong way. Your way is going to end up with a bunch of pissed off players because they are being auto banned without even a warning. The proper way to deal with something like this is to have your chat system's keyword monitoring send the suspected chat to a customer service rep who reviews it to see if a ban is needed or not. An auto ban system that gets rid of the spammer and everyday users alike is exactly the kind of system that has destroyed many companies, and not just in the mmo world.
Really? Just..really? What can one say to this other than state that it is wrong and the sort of thing that should be resolved asap, not responded to with a literal 'working as intended'?
"As instructed by BranFlakes I am adding the following:
I was fooled into typing Egpal twice by [censored for forum discretion]. Also Branflakes mentioned there was meant to be a warning after the first time, which I did not receive."
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan
What mechanics need to be tested? They're gonna start banning people for saying the name of a gold selling site? Its crazy. Ban the gold sellers, not the innocent people. And some of you, who pay to play this are going DAYS without being able to play? This is just crazy to me, but so is almost everything else Cryptic/PWE does so it doesn't surprise me.
I was playing but since it crashes every 15 minutes, I'm taking a break and figured I'd come here to report the crashes( lol like it does any good), but then I saw this thread and I'm just amazed at this company. Things like more/actual gm's are too much to ask for from crytpic. You can't have those, and real customer service, never mind better servers or even a working game. You can't have any of this because they don't wanna pay for it, and do what a real developer of a MMORPG has to do. Its real simple Cryptic.
I just started a 21 day trial of another pretty famous MMo.(wont advertise the game, everyone knows it). I got stuck on the scanning tutorial for about a half hour or so. You know what happened? A GM msg'd me to ask how I was doing and what help I needed. He took about a half hour to sit there and let me ask questions and we just talked for a bit. I understand they want new players, and with experiences like that, they will continue to get more. That doesn't exist here. Not at all. Here you submit tickets, they get marked as resolved when nothing is. I'm not gonna go on and on about it, cause everyone already knows how it is. Why have gm's in game to do a job when you can write in some code to auto ban people, even if its the wrong people....
They'll realize how stupid this was after the paying customers get mad and quit after dealing with this nonsense. And you know what the gold sellers who get banned will do? They'll make a new account 2 seconds later because its a f2p game and they prob have thousands of account already. I feel sorry for you guys this has happened too, and now I know to never say any of those names,but im sure alot of other people will get screwed over for this too. Hopefully they're all paying customers, because thats the only way Cryptic will do something about it.
Now you mention it that's basically what we do in the fleet a lot of the time, help get new people used to the game, warn people of potential bugs etc, I'd have warned everyone about this one too, had I known. But I do find it odd that there is no real in-game GMs to assist people, it's a job I personally would enjoy, as I said, it's pretty much what I do anyway!
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan
pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should.
moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
Zab
I'd suggest clearing your history etc in your browser settings, not ideal but will probably solve it, otherwise I can (and will anyway) update everyone in this thread if/when I get a response on my ticket.
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan
Bran already stated its working as intended. Which means they actually want to get people banned without warning for typing a single word twice.
pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should.
moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
Yeah 'working as intended' was not a great choice of words really, as from my point of view (as well as many others posting in this thread it seems) the intention is to ban people simply using a certain word, taken way out of context, as I said I commented saying "it's probably because you visited a 'site like [word that got me banned]" and not "You should try [word that got me banned] as they sell EC for real money" as I'm sure we're all aware these 'sites are against STO policy, understandably, I'm sure none of us were out to promote this 'site and in fact from what I've read we were all demoting it or complaining about the constant spam off them.
On a side note when are the support staff in the office 'til? Is there any point me checking my tickets after 5pm PDT? Or should I just wait until tomorrow?
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan
Again Matt, thanks for the ongoing support and of course, flattery will get you everywhere! :P
But yes I do try to promote the game as much as possible and would never consider promoting or using [insert ban word here] as, as I said earlier, it would be detrimental to such a fantastic game, in fact since starting STO I haven't played anything else, it has become my only game, I would hate to lose it over something as silly as this.
It seems to me while this was a noble idea banning a certain word it is clearly flawed at present as it's effecting innocent players and will probably not affect those you are wishing to get banned as their keywords will no doubt change to get around the ban. While I applaud the effort to get rid of these EC merchants I think the process needs to be looked at again, I could accept it with the warning but as we've all said, none of us got the warning so we were not to know not to do it again, we all thought there was some kind of chat bug as we are used to lag/typing in wrong channels/correct channels not working sometimes etc etc, please guys, get back to us, let us know you're investigating it and looking to get us innocents reinstated.
EDIT: I mean heck, you can check my account, the only large sums of EC I receive are from sales on the exchange and they're only 1mil, 2mil tops, I don't think I've ever sold anything over that, other than that I get the occasional ship of good friends who are luckier with lockboxes than I am and are generous enough to gift me ships, which I would of course payback in kind by giving them first dibs on any ships I get from lockboxes (so far being none apart from the odd mirror ship),
EDIT #2: Please don't leave us all hanging over the weekend....
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan
From the looks of it, they already did.
pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should.
moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"
It's certainly looking that way
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan
I had people ask me about paypal 'n I didn't even respond?
What did I do and why is my account banned?
I don't personally know anyone who has been affected by this, but it should be obvious that they are going about it the wrong way. Wouldn't be surprised to find out that more innocent people have been banned than actual spammers. And here's the thing: the spammers don't care. They'll just make more accounts or find other ways around it. Not saying nothing should be done to try and stop it, but this isn't the answer.
Join the Vulcan Kolinahr Fleet
http://www.vulcankolinahrfleet.com/
and good luck getting anything done about it until Monday, because support don't seem bothered...
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan
Glad to see it looks like progress is being made.
Join the Vulcan Kolinahr Fleet
http://www.vulcankolinahrfleet.com/
It's good to be back, even if everyone's talking at me and I can't talk back XD
"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." - Carl Sagan
Were you contacted about it in support/ticket section or was it just activated at some point?
No changes for me.
pwebranflakes: this system is currently in place and working the way it should.
moradum: I got banned for saying "I started my day with cutting off 3 MM off of the bottom of my cabinet"