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Got a warning for purchasing master keys ...
dragonheart54
Member Posts: 9 Arc User
So earlier this afternoon, I got this strange warning coming from the C-store when I try to purchase master keys, that says WARNING: Due to the recent purchase activity on your account, all items purchased from the Zen Store will be permanently bound to your account and may not be transferred.
So does anyone know what's this about and how long this is going to take, It says this is a temporary restriction while we verify your payment details, I did not get anything in my e-mail, and It's been quite a few hours this warning has been up for.
So does anyone know what's this about and how long this is going to take, It says this is a temporary restriction while we verify your payment details, I did not get anything in my e-mail, and It's been quite a few hours this warning has been up for.
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File a report as it doesn't sound right to me
How many keys did you buy before you started getting this message? You may have tripped an automated fraud alert of some kind.
About 20 keys total.
After I sent a ticket, this was their first response
"Thank you for contacting us! Due to your recent Zen purchase from Steam, your account has been placed on a temporary probation period, and you will be unable to use the Dilithium exchange, or purchase unbound Zen Market items until the probation ends. We apologize for the inconvenience, but Customer Service cannot remove or alter the duration of this probation.
Thank you for your understanding. Should you have any other questions or concerns, please let us know."
I replied asking how long this lasts and what I did to deserve this "probation".
Their response -
"Thank you for replying to us, for any updates on the duration and conditions. Please refer to our official forums.
Our Star Trek Online forums: http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/"
I feel like I just bought a gun and I'm on my 3 day waiting period..
How long does the probation last?
I have no idea. Support won't tell me how long it will last. They just said to look on the forums for info and I have yet to find it.
And I'm NOT a big spender, but I spend enough sense I love the game.
Someone in my fleet said they just bought two 10 key packs from the c-store and the keys are all bound to their account.
Let's look at recent events.
Lots of players found they had specialization points removed from their characters and the forums lit up demanding answers. Cryptic finally stated there was an "exploit" where players were power leveling in the Tau Dewa section and removed spec points as punishment (my highest character at the time was only around level 53 so I was unaffected and didn't participate in the power leveling).
Players weren't happy about the "punishment" of having their spec points removed and the forums lit up and went to hell. A lot claimed they didn't power level in Tau Dewa and had spec points wrongfully removed.
Because of the hostility on the forums there is apparently a 5 minute wait now after making a new post on the forums before you can make another new post.
Cryptic admitted they made a mistake and that some players really didn't deserve to have spec points removed so they gave the spec points back to everybody, even the "exploiters".
Now we have reports of players being put on a "probation" period after buying zen and getting some items from the c-store, which also apparently prevents players from trading dilithium for zen as well as tradeable items in the exchange (such as master keys) being account bound when you purchase them. And customer support apparently won't give much information, if any, much less say how long the probation period is. (Did any of you actually expect their ****ty customer support to be helpful in any way at all? Seriously, I've been playing the game for over 2 years now and seen lots of complaints as well as having their responses seem nothing more then automated when I file a ticket.)
Hmm.......Theory?
http://sto-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?p=20336131#post20336131
Three words: Dilithium Mining Claims.
Before this path patch, the day when *new* mining claims were made account bound, I received mail from someone in my fleet that sent the mail to everybody. Mentioned in the mail was that you could separate a stack of character bound mining claims to make them account bound and/or combine account bound claims with character bound to make them all account bound. For that patch Cryptic said old mining claims that were character bound were going to stay character bound.
Because of this (possible "exploit), there may be some players who had 100, or even hundreds, of character bound mining claims that took advantage of the situation and made them account bound. Meaning there is a large amount of dilithium being generated in the game and they may be trying to slow down the rate of dil.
The reason I suspect this has to do with dil mining claims is because it seems the reports pertain mainly to master keys, which are used to get mining claims.
Will Cryptic give a transparent response on this new issue? Probably not, since the forums can't "light on fire" anymore due to the 5 minute wait to make new posts.
Who ****ing knows? For all we know it was aliens. Not that I'm saying it was. :rolleyes:
Rather than pointing the finger at the QA guys -whom I understand burned the candle at both ends to get this out - maybe we should take another look at the management.
Clearly the decision makers neither play game, nor want to.
And why would they? It's not fun anymore.
Why, why, why on this little planet oh why are they punishing you for buying zen!? Is it their vendetta against Steam or something. Whatever the excuse is, I feel this falls short on acceptability.
If it is their vendetta against Steam, then these PWE crybabies should either suck it up, or wipe themselves off of Steam.
Perhaps this is the problem? I don't suppose anyone ever stopped to think that selling keys bought from the Cstore on the exchange for ludicrously high prices would eventually be shut down by cryptic? Of course not. Not all that surprising, considering that this inherently subverts the whole point of the Cstore, so cryptic can have an income from the players.
See, when 1 player buys a set of keys from the Cstore, that's money in cryptics pocket. When you put those keys on the exchange, and make them available to other players for energy credits, those players are paying you, not cryptic. Thats money out of cryptics pocket, money that they use to develop the game and mechanics that you're so obviously abusing. Sure, when a few players were doing it, that was fine. No big loss. But the more players that do it, and especially the more players who just grind dilithium for zen, the more money cryptic loses. Personally, I can't believe that it took them this long to pit a stop to it. And I always thought it odd that keys were the only thing thing that could be sold from the store.
So, to the greedy, overpricing players who play the exchange stock market more than the actual game, thank you for making yet another restriction necessary. You can blame yourselves when cryptic removes the dithium exchange and makes zen a cash only currency.
All key, sold on exchange or not, are bought from Cryptic. So its always money in their wallets.
Also, all zen that makes it into the game have been bought by a player with money.
All zen and zen products ingame are backed by real money. It can be someone else's money, but it is all money in Cryptic's wallet.
There is no way they will remove the dilithium exchange. Why? Because how else will they charge real money for everything that costs dilithium. The exchange has been the heart of this whole cash grab.
As for preventing players from selling zen products on exchange: why? Cryptic generates a large sum of income from players who buy their stuff only for converting it into ECs.
This post has been edited to remove content which violates the Perfect World Entertainment Community Rules and Policies .
Sorry, private correspondence is not allowed to be posted on the forums ~Bluegeek
I have spent tons of money on this game and this will end any support for CRYPTIC/ARC. I will continue to play the game, but will not spend money on a game in which the players are punished for developer screwups.
Bound to Account on pickup.
Fleet leader Nova Elite
Fleet Leader House of Nova elite
@ren_larreck
How could one get the attention of captainsmirk or laughingtrendy or someone else on the forum team? If the support is constaintly referring to the forums but there is no information here, then the communication between support and community team on this issue is obviously broken.
Odan Brota (Science Officer): Captain of a 28k DPS Scryer Intel Science Vessel, U.S.S. Kepler
Patiently waiting for a Romulan Science Vessel
Just PM them, surely? That's worked before for me. (I won't do it myself since I'm not involved.) I can understand how Cryptic might find it necessary to do this if they were having a particularly bad hacking problem; it's the way it's been handled that makes me boggle slightly. 1) not warning players beforehand that buying Zen through Steam will have this result; 2) sending such utterly robotic answers to any complaints, and not even saying how long the bans will last!
Yea, would have been nice had i known about this days ago....notice they didn't say anything until now.
Agreed. I bought LTS on 30 October and am still in probation
Did nothing wrong... Played the game as Free2Play and played so long that I said "What the hell and why not pay some when its on sale and I have spent so much time on it already anyway". And then this.
Wonder if the 10 days timeframe will stand or if it will be longer...
Be forewarned though, doing this will probably get all account purchase shut down for good though, so make sure you're really angry enough for that to be worth it. Personally, while I'd like my ten keys back I play this game knowing full well the customer service is abysmal, so I expect to just let it slide.