Leaving it as it is, would be yet another invitation for disaster.
For me it has been a disaster already. I got banned for asking what flavor of spam my fleetmate has received. Simple check of chat log would prove I'm innocent of "posting links to prohibited pages". Simple login to my account will prove that I could not see the supposed warning.
Furthermore, sending a warning in system channel is a failed idea, since its either sent to a different, inactive chat tab (as in my case) or sending it after the "infraction" was committed a second time, since the issue of text not appearing in chat window can attributed to chat system hiccup (which is common when servers are crowded).
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"
For me it has been a disaster already. I got banned for asking what flavor of spam my fleetmate has received. Simple check of chat log would prove I'm innocent of "posting links to prohibited pages". Simple login to my account will prove that I could not see the supposed warning.
I was referring to a disaster for them, i.e. players leaving en masse, bad press and negative buzz being generated. Ultimately, it would end the game and muddy their reputation even more.
Hopefully this is all sorted out, wrongful bans overturned and system corrected!
Furthermore, sending a warning in system channel is a failed idea, since its either sent to a different, inactive chat tab (as in my case) or sending it after the "infraction" was committed a second time, since the issue of text not appearing in chat window can attributed to chat system hiccup (which is common when servers are crowded).
Im starting to guess there is no Weekend customer support via Cryptic/PWE?
that wouldn't surprise me seeing how my issue is being handled. Which started Thursday afternoon.
I also saw that BOTH Cryptic AND Perfect World has an "F" rating from the BBB (Better Business Bureau). I guess it comes with the territory of caring more about profits then Customer Support. Which in my experience with running a business is top priority, without customers there is no profits. In their case who cares right? As long as people keep spam buying lockboxes and duty packs and not putting their feet down about the numerous long living bugs in this game as well as Customer Support issues going days on end without resolve then it will keep going that way.
My sympathy to anyone banned. This is ridiculous. To have a warning in system chat is utter fail.
I had a chat moment. I typed something that didn't go through. I almost did the up-arrow and return. Decided to wait, but it never came through. I might have been 1 keystroke away from the same problem.
The solution to gold farmers is easy. Either remove ALL player trading, or sell anything that could be traded for LESS than it can be farmed. Why not a Zen to EC store? They could sell an EC reward pack that has a chance for some extra goodies. Put in some exclusive items and it could even be a moneymaker. The next time someone reports spam, simply go check their prices and undercut them.
Brandon and I spoke on twitter I'm really starting to get worried now. I've been playing since the game first went live. I've been playing since you could only be lvl 40. I still have my defiant for hitting lvl 50 from back when you got a free ship for hitting 50. You would think they would see that. Youd have to imagine the gold spammers are on new accounts. not accounts that have never seen over 10 million ec.
this is the conversation I had with Brandon about it.
[5:25] [System] Please refrain from posting links to prohibited sites for any reason. Further violations will result in a permanent ban from the game.
So let's see, they put a 'stop or we'll ban you' message in a chat type that can be turned off and that's full of constant messages that could make it hard to notice if the constant spam hadn't already caused most people to turn it off?
This is what we call an 'epic fail'.
I would also question the accuracy of it, but I don't have enough data to do so. People here have said they were banned for 'using the name' of the seller, not for posting a link, although the difference is as subtle in this case: <evil people>.com is technically a link, whereas <evilpeople> would not be... but frequently the ".com" or whatever is treated as part of the name of it...
So the question I have is, for ye that have been banned, did you use the Top-Level-Domain as part of the name when you were talking about it, or not? (EG: .com, .net, .org, including country ones such as .ru, .co.uk, or .to, in short, whatever comes after the dot in the site's address).
So the question I have is, for ye that have been banned, did you use the Top-Level-Domain as part of the name when you were talking about it, or not? (EG: .com, .net, .org, including country ones such as .ru, .co.uk, or .to, in short, whatever comes after the dot in the site's address).
No I just called it by its 5 lettered name. nothing more nothing less.
thought it was a server glitch that kept it from being posted to fleet channel so I typed it again. Server Anomaly's in STO are very common...
BranFlakes clearly stated that the filter/auto ban was working as intended. I dont think i need to point out the obvious flaw in that comment or the fact he is utterly oblivious to whats going on.
So the question I have is, for ye that have been banned, did you use the Top-Level-Domain as part of the name when you were talking about it, or not? (EG: .com, .net, .org, including country ones such as .ru, .co.uk, or .to, in short, whatever comes after the dot in the site's address).
I didn't use any www, nor .com, not anything else. In my case, I asked my fleetmate something along the lines of "was that the usual one?", and immediately after, "xxxxx?". This one did not went through. Since my system notifications show up in totally different tab along with combat log, no warning was displayed for me. I just thought it was a server hiccup, so I just up-arrowed and pressed enter. This one didn't go through too, and a second later I was disconnected and banned.
In short, it looks like I was banned because I re-configured my chat window.
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 use any www, nor .com, not anything else. In my case, I asked my fleetmate something along the lines of "was that the usual one?", and immediately after, "xxxxx?". This one did not went through. Since my system notifications show up in totally different tab along with combat log, no warning was displayed for me. I just thought it was a server hiccup, so I just up-arrowed and pressed enter. This one didn't go through too, and a second later I was disconnected and banned.
In short, it looks like I was banned because I re-configured my chat window.
Looks like we are going to be waiting till Tuesday at the very least. A guy posted on another thread that he has been waiting 11 days already...
So let's see, they put a 'stop or we'll ban you' message in a chat type that can be turned off and that's full of constant messages that could make it hard to notice if the constant spam hadn't already caused most people to turn it off?
This is what we call an 'epic fail'.
I would also question the accuracy of it, but I don't have enough data to do so. People here have said they were banned for 'using the name' of the seller, not for posting a link, although the difference is as subtle in this case: <evil people>.com is technically a link, whereas <evilpeople> would not be... but frequently the ".com" or whatever is treated as part of the name of it...
So the question I have is, for ye that have been banned, did you use the Top-Level-Domain as part of the name when you were talking about it, or not? (EG: .com, .net, .org, including country ones such as .ru, .co.uk, or .to, in short, whatever comes after the dot in the site's address).
No, you only have to use the name itself. It does not need to be a full link or url. Just using the name on its own.
I used it, and got that warning (I only checked as I thought I'd been silenced again, and looked for the "you have been silenced" message).
No, you only have to use the name itself. It does not need to be a full link or url. Just using the name on its own.
I used it, and got that warning (I only checked as I thought I'd been silenced again, and looked for the "you have been silenced" message).
So the "detailed" message is inaccurate as well as badly implemented. Lovely.
I think it would be fair to post a blog about this "feature" so more people are made aware. I saw this post a few days ago and made my fleet and friends aware. But, something in an official capacity needs to be done. They should of also implemented a way to verify accounts are indeed spam/gold farmer accounts.
When I was heavy into City of Heroes, all gold bans were investigated by an actual GM. Automated systems have a way of being abused and wrong. This only proves another reason why our ingame chat is an archaic system. I've already advised my fleet to mainly chat in Teamspeak to avoid any risk.
When I was heavy into City of Heroes, all gold bans were investigated by an actual GM.
Sounds like a beautiful dream.
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"
1, Block the website address and such from being sent through mail. (People don't really care about pm's..)
2, Ban IP's/subnet-IP's from where the accounts are made.
Those are 2 simple/standard things.. but I'm curious, who, how, or what is the staff (thinking)? I mean how can you not know that innocent players would type the company name? Those are general things you should be thinking about.. it's like building something, you can't go slacking or it's bye bye job.
You guys add nice content, characters, clothing, ships.. so why is a simple ban program so hard? And you really should notify players on the forums about it in release notes or such, and yet you may reply "but that will alert the spam idiots".. who cares? They will find out sooner or later.. and I think they already have as tons have posted about being banned already.
Oh and the staff needs fresh coffee or something and start unbanning innocent players, this should not take days/weeks! It's like "Oh I'm still not unbanned? Ok then no more money for Cryptic untill the ban is removed." for those who'd be paying.
Ok I've had my laugh.. time to see the fun replies or the hate replies by Cryptic-lovers.
Ok I've had my laugh.. time to see the fun replies or the hate replies by Cryptic-lovers.
You may be disappointed. 100 replies and noone supported Cryptic/PWE on this one. This speaks volumes about the size of this blunder.
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 think im the closest thing to a defender here, like I said a few posts ago, I kinda gotta believe had this not happened during the LOR launch it would've been taken care of within hours if not minutes.
I just got banned about an hour ago.
The exact same reasons as the thread creator.
I put a post into a channel as we were having a discussion on not being able to delete mail and I mentioned that my inbox is full of exchange sales and spam from that certain company. Curious when my message did not appear, I posted it again to receive a message saying I had been forcefully disconnected from the server and when I tried to log back in, I was banned.
I have submitted a ticket and sent an e-mail as was suggested in page 1 of this post.
Now, I received no warning message. I was on a chat tab that I set up, in which I have deactivated all other channels except the specific one for that channel. This is very common.
I have poured a lot of time, effort and money over the years into STO. I am a lifetime member and have been around for years.
Is this how you treat your customers? Don't tell me the warnings are clear and punishment it just, because it isn't.
If they were this thread wouldn't be 11 pages long of angry customers.
The fact that they are not doing anything about it, tied with the fact they used the "Warning" apart of the System Chat, goes to show just how out of touch Cryptic/PWE is with their player base. As almost everyone has System Chat disabled. Surely a fool would of foresaw this being an issue.
I am now well into 60hours of a ban, that has yet to be resolved..
I would also like to point out that this thread is in the "GAMEPLAY BUGS" section of the forum..which is receiving NO attention from Cryptic/PWE whatsoever. yet they wonder why their companies both have "F" ratings with the Better Business Bureau.
I'm reading this thread and I just send a mail to my fleet. I am utterly shocked at this. this is both disgusting AN embarassing and I think that PW need to stop using a mallet to crack a walnut. Just use the swear filter to filter the word out instead of banning people!
Take this matter up with your credit card company if you are losing money having paid PWE because of this. PWE will NOT refund you but the terms and conditions covering this are unfair especially in these circumstances, and as such, your credit card company may be able to fight this on your behalf if you can prove that you unwittingly fell for this...
If this company were based in the UK, then Trading Standards would suspend their licence and they would be torn down.
Not only are people punished because of one or 2 people in the ENTIRE COMMUNITY but the ones who felll for it are propbably reeling from the loss. And now if they on the offchance warn someone then they get their account banned??
Come on Brandon... time to convey that this decision was made hastily, reinstate these players, and tell the bosses to calm down, and make an OFFICIAL PWE response.
The fact that they are not doing anything about it, tied with the fact they used the "Warning" apart of the System Chat, goes to show just how out of touch Cryptic/PWE is with their player base. As almost everyone has System Chat disabled. Surely a fool would of foresaw this being an issue.
I am now well into 60hours of a ban, that has yet to be resolved..
I would also like to point out that this thread is in the "GAMEPLAY BUGS" section of the forum..which is receiving NO attention from Cryptic/PWE whatsoever. yet they wonder why their companies both have "F" ratings with the Better Business Bureau.
The excuse ofcourse, is that it's a Holiday Weekend in the United States. As such, most of the Cryptic staff apparently have all gone on holiday at the same time, resulting in fewer (if any) staff members at the office. I doubt there will be any resolution to this problem until sometime late next week.
The excuse ofcourse, is that it's a Holiday Weekend in the United States. As such, most of the Cryptic staff apparently have all gone on holiday at the same time, resulting in fewer (if any) staff members at the office. I doubt there will be any resolution to this problem until sometime late next week.
In which case I would remind people that you would have to show considerate loss... if you are stilll banned after 5 days then you will likely have a valid compaint.
Be ashamed PWE... be VERY ashamed... I think an apology is in order to these loyal fans that you have treated with such contempt.
I do wonder if we will ever get our accounts back. Sometimes I think we will all just be ignored until we give up, or get the response of too bad so sad.
For some reason I have this feeling I am going to be fed to the wolves.
This is one of those things that you read and just have to wonder...who was dumb enough to think this was a good idea? I mean, really. This could not possibly have been thought through.
Comments
For me it has been a disaster already. I got banned for asking what flavor of spam my fleetmate has received. Simple check of chat log would prove I'm innocent of "posting links to prohibited pages". Simple login to my account will prove that I could not see the supposed warning.
Furthermore, sending a warning in system channel is a failed idea, since its either sent to a different, inactive chat tab (as in my case) or sending it after the "infraction" was committed a second time, since the issue of text not appearing in chat window can attributed to chat system hiccup (which is common when servers are crowded).
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 was referring to a disaster for them, i.e. players leaving en masse, bad press and negative buzz being generated. Ultimately, it would end the game and muddy their reputation even more.
Hopefully this is all sorted out, wrongful bans overturned and system corrected!
That, my friend, was the point I was making
Played a number of MMO's starting with Pre-CU SWG, never heard of an instaban like this are there others I should know about?
Im starting to guess there is no Weekend customer support via Cryptic/PWE?
that wouldn't surprise me seeing how my issue is being handled. Which started Thursday afternoon.
I also saw that BOTH Cryptic AND Perfect World has an "F" rating from the BBB (Better Business Bureau). I guess it comes with the territory of caring more about profits then Customer Support. Which in my experience with running a business is top priority, without customers there is no profits. In their case who cares right? As long as people keep spam buying lockboxes and duty packs and not putting their feet down about the numerous long living bugs in this game as well as Customer Support issues going days on end without resolve then it will keep going that way.
I had a chat moment. I typed something that didn't go through. I almost did the up-arrow and return. Decided to wait, but it never came through. I might have been 1 keystroke away from the same problem.
The solution to gold farmers is easy. Either remove ALL player trading, or sell anything that could be traded for LESS than it can be farmed. Why not a Zen to EC store? They could sell an EC reward pack that has a chance for some extra goodies. Put in some exclusive items and it could even be a moneymaker. The next time someone reports spam, simply go check their prices and undercut them.
He's obviously oblivious to the problem.
I laughed when he stated to report a GM ticket on an account that is banned to begin with. I mean HELLO!?
So let's see, they put a 'stop or we'll ban you' message in a chat type that can be turned off and that's full of constant messages that could make it hard to notice if the constant spam hadn't already caused most people to turn it off?
This is what we call an 'epic fail'.
I would also question the accuracy of it, but I don't have enough data to do so. People here have said they were banned for 'using the name' of the seller, not for posting a link, although the difference is as subtle in this case: <evil people>.com is technically a link, whereas <evilpeople> would not be... but frequently the ".com" or whatever is treated as part of the name of it...
So the question I have is, for ye that have been banned, did you use the Top-Level-Domain as part of the name when you were talking about it, or not? (EG: .com, .net, .org, including country ones such as .ru, .co.uk, or .to, in short, whatever comes after the dot in the site's address).
No I just called it by its 5 lettered name. nothing more nothing less.
thought it was a server glitch that kept it from being posted to fleet channel so I typed it again. Server Anomaly's in STO are very common...
BranFlakes clearly stated that the filter/auto ban was working as intended. I dont think i need to point out the obvious flaw in that comment or the fact he is utterly oblivious to whats going on.
I didn't use any www, nor .com, not anything else. In my case, I asked my fleetmate something along the lines of "was that the usual one?", and immediately after, "xxxxx?". This one did not went through. Since my system notifications show up in totally different tab along with combat log, no warning was displayed for me. I just thought it was a server hiccup, so I just up-arrowed and pressed enter. This one didn't go through too, and a second later I was disconnected and banned.
In short, it looks like I was banned because I re-configured my chat window.
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"
Looks like we are going to be waiting till Tuesday at the very least. A guy posted on another thread that he has been waiting 11 days already...
So the system being a total cluster**** was done by design then?
No, you only have to use the name itself. It does not need to be a full link or url. Just using the name on its own.
I used it, and got that warning (I only checked as I thought I'd been silenced again, and looked for the "you have been silenced" message).
So the "detailed" message is inaccurate as well as badly implemented. Lovely.
Do you even Science Bro?
When I was heavy into City of Heroes, all gold bans were investigated by an actual GM. Automated systems have a way of being abused and wrong. This only proves another reason why our ingame chat is an archaic system. I've already advised my fleet to mainly chat in Teamspeak to avoid any risk.
Sounds like a beautiful dream.
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"
"new bot system by cryptic/pwe auto-bans innocent players for just typing the 5 letter name of the money scamming company" :eek:
Seriously that's just epic.. finally after 4-5 years they get off their lazy butts and listen to all the complaints to make a fix, and it turns out a complete failure..
http://emoticoner.com/files/emoticons/crazy-monkey/crazy-monkey-emoticon-154.gif?1292792419
1, Block the website address and such from being sent through mail. (People don't really care about pm's..)
2, Ban IP's/subnet-IP's from where the accounts are made.
Those are 2 simple/standard things.. but I'm curious, who, how, or what is the staff (thinking)? I mean how can you not know that innocent players would type the company name? Those are general things you should be thinking about.. it's like building something, you can't go slacking or it's bye bye job.
You guys add nice content, characters, clothing, ships.. so why is a simple ban program so hard? And you really should notify players on the forums about it in release notes or such, and yet you may reply "but that will alert the spam idiots".. who cares? They will find out sooner or later.. and I think they already have as tons have posted about being banned already.
Oh and the staff needs fresh coffee or something and start unbanning innocent players, this should not take days/weeks! It's like "Oh I'm still not unbanned? Ok then no more money for Cryptic untill the ban is removed." for those who'd be paying.
Ok I've had my laugh.. time to see the fun replies or the hate replies by Cryptic-lovers.
Oray eway ancay allay earnlay otay eakspay igpay atinlay. :P
Seriously, though...seriously?!? Makes me glad the first thing I usually do when starting STO is close the chat box.
Command Officers of the USS Wyvern (from left to right):
Aurellia Eshkah (Tactical); Indigo Shae (Engineering); Nysiay Chysiayki (VA, Ship Captain)
Jeclia Sek (Science); Vally Mantivour (Security)
You may be disappointed. 100 replies and noone supported Cryptic/PWE on this one. This speaks volumes about the size of this blunder.
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"
Also, I don't belive this is a good way for stopping spam, so i'm against it. :mad:
In every place,
The deeds of men remain the same..."
The exact same reasons as the thread creator.
I put a post into a channel as we were having a discussion on not being able to delete mail and I mentioned that my inbox is full of exchange sales and spam from that certain company. Curious when my message did not appear, I posted it again to receive a message saying I had been forcefully disconnected from the server and when I tried to log back in, I was banned.
I have submitted a ticket and sent an e-mail as was suggested in page 1 of this post.
Now, I received no warning message. I was on a chat tab that I set up, in which I have deactivated all other channels except the specific one for that channel. This is very common.
I have poured a lot of time, effort and money over the years into STO. I am a lifetime member and have been around for years.
Is this how you treat your customers? Don't tell me the warnings are clear and punishment it just, because it isn't.
If they were this thread wouldn't be 11 pages long of angry customers.
Answer: Only those who haven't figured out how to switch it off.
I am now well into 60hours of a ban, that has yet to be resolved..
I would also like to point out that this thread is in the "GAMEPLAY BUGS" section of the forum..which is receiving NO attention from Cryptic/PWE whatsoever. yet they wonder why their companies both have "F" ratings with the Better Business Bureau.
Take this matter up with your credit card company if you are losing money having paid PWE because of this. PWE will NOT refund you but the terms and conditions covering this are unfair especially in these circumstances, and as such, your credit card company may be able to fight this on your behalf if you can prove that you unwittingly fell for this...
If this company were based in the UK, then Trading Standards would suspend their licence and they would be torn down.
Not only are people punished because of one or 2 people in the ENTIRE COMMUNITY but the ones who felll for it are propbably reeling from the loss. And now if they on the offchance warn someone then they get their account banned??
Come on Brandon... time to convey that this decision was made hastily, reinstate these players, and tell the bosses to calm down, and make an OFFICIAL PWE response.
The excuse ofcourse, is that it's a Holiday Weekend in the United States. As such, most of the Cryptic staff apparently have all gone on holiday at the same time, resulting in fewer (if any) staff members at the office. I doubt there will be any resolution to this problem until sometime late next week.
In which case I would remind people that you would have to show considerate loss... if you are stilll banned after 5 days then you will likely have a valid compaint.
Be ashamed PWE... be VERY ashamed... I think an apology is in order to these loyal fans that you have treated with such contempt.
For some reason I have this feeling I am going to be fed to the wolves.