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Anti-Aliased: Don't make roleplaying servers if you can't handle it pt. 2
...and totally doesn't want to enforce the rules. The roleplayers are roleplaying in the streets, until a naked guy runs by and starts dancing suggestively in front of the guild's princess, singing the latest song by Kanye West. The guild begins to furiously slam the GM button, still trying to go on with their improvisational acting scene, but finding it extremely difficult to do so when something is so obviously breaking the scene into 10,000,000 pieces. The GM comes down on his magical wings, looks at the situation and says, "Sorry, he's not saying anything that's covered in our harassment section. He's not saying anything that is considered offensive. He can dance naked all he wants," and then leaves with fair wishes to all while the roleplaying guild stands there, slack jawed and completely confused as to what just happened, while Kanye West is sung loudly in the background. Yet the solution isn't hard, and ultimately benefits you, the developer, in the end Roleplayers get frustrated by this seemingly simple stuff. It makes us wonder why you even bother to make these servers, when they are completely the same as the normal servers. We get it, your support team doesn't want to ban anyone because that's "bad business." That guy who's griefing everyone is still paying the 15 dollars that you want, so you'd rather keep your mitts off of the paying customer. "But no one wants to hear that. No one wants to push the ban button. Yet the solution isn't some magical means, and it's something that would work wonderfully when implemented -- localized bans." Here's a loud wake up call guys -- MMOs are a service, not a one-time purchase. We keep saying that, yet somehow no one seems to realize it on a business level. By letting this guy go, you're angering about 20 other customers, and potentially losing more money in the process. You let this one guy go, you lose 5 other subscriptions. What's better, 1 person being forcibly asked to leave, or 5 people leaving of their own accord and spreading a unsatisfied opinion to their friends? But no one wants to hear that. No one wants to push the ban button. Yet the solution isn't some magical means, and it's something that would work wonderfully when implemented -- localized bans. If you have a guy who is seriously griefing a roleplaying server and violating the rules of that world, then ban him from just that server. If he complains, tell him he's got 20+ servers to choose from. If he complains that he lost his character, then transfer his character to a new server. Your roleplayers don't have to deal with him, they stay happy in their own little world, the griefer gets to keep his stuff, you get to keep your money, and literally everybody wins. If that's the way things swung, roleplaying worlds would probably much more tolerable. Support people will probably feel that pulling a ban on someone being a jerk is more justified, as they're not removing them from the system entirely. All of the people interested in roleplaying now have an environment to do so, and they start spreading word to their friends that finally, a support staff has stood up for roleplaying. Maybe roleplaying wouldn't be waning if the players who did it felt supported in their endeavors? Now if only I could do something about people who roleplay vampires... Colin Brennan is the weekly writer of Anti-Aliased who does "teh arpeez." When he's not writing here for Massively, he's rambling on his personal blog, The Experience Curve. If you want to message him, send him an e-mail at colin.brennan AT weblogsinc DOT com. You can also follow him on Twitter through Massively, or through his personal feed.
Did Square-Enix do the right thing?
The Square-Enix bahnammer recently came down onto the Final Fantasy XI community, permanently banning 550 non-RMT accounts that were involved in performing an exploit that has occurred over a two year time period -- an exploit that some say SE was aware of, but never took steps to correct.The exploit in question was only available to linkshells involved several endgame activities. The basic premise was finish the activity and then before the item drops from a treasure chest or monster the alliance of parties would break into their separate groups. For you Warcraft players, a raid would cease to be a raid and break down to the parties involved. Then each of the 3 parties in the alliance would get a copy of whatever items would drop. So, instead of 1 set of loot, you would grab 3 sets of loot -- including some items that could be sold for millions on the auction house.
Anti-Aliased: See the griefing, taste the griefing pt. 2
Problem number two is Sony's lack of action. Moderators are few and far between, the automated system in place doesn't work too well, and people feel that they can get away with whatever they want. There's no sense of authority or control in Home, and that's a detriment. Now, I'm not pushing for everyone to be horribly oppressed, but there needs to be some sense of order and control that's apparent to the players. When word spreads that you can't get away with certain behaviors, the behavior begins to diminish over time.And, finally, problem number three -- there are avatars involved. Even if your turn off their voice chat and visual text chat, you still have a crazy annoying avatar chasing after you, clipping your torso when you go to bowl that next frame. The answer to this problem is to simply ignore him, as he will probably go away, but this phenomenon is still annoying and not fun for any user. You just want to play your game sans problems, right?Xbox Live seems to have have found the solution to these problems by sheer accident. Then answer is simply to avoid these problems by not doing them. It doesn't over-promise content, it does provide control for the users, and it avoids visual avatars in most games. (Except in the case of the Xbox Live vision camera; we're just going to temporarily forget about that. Especially as it only works with a few games.)The success comes from the fact that if you mute someone and report them for harassment, Xbox Live makes sure you avoid that player in your online play. If the automatic matchmaking has a choice between game A and game B, and game A has a person you hate in it, you'll be placed in game B without noticing it. Home does not have that luxury because the entire world is linked together. You mute someone and there's no guarantee that you'll never see him again.So what can Home do? I say introduce the ultimate ban -- avatar removal. You mute someone and it removes their avatar from on screen for you. You don't see them, you don't hear them, you don't worry about them. Sure, you might end up banning half of the Home community, but now you have control over what you see and do in Home.In the end, that's what it all comes down to -- user control. Let the user determine their own experience; don't force it on them. Colin Brennan is the weekly writer of Anti-Aliased who really likes all of the controls that Xbox Live provides, even if he can't buy a virtual couch for his Xbox Dashboard. When he's not writing here for Massively, he's over running Epic Loot For All! with his insane friends. If you want to message him, send him an e-mail at colin.brennan AT weblogsinc DOT com.
Lame scams still profitable in Guild Wars, over 1000 bans every week
Would you fall for this? (Please say 'no'...): A complete stranger approaches you on the sidewalk outside of your bank and shows you a rare coin he says is worth twenty thousand dollars. "I want to just give this coin to you," he says, "but I don't want anyone to know we did this... tax issues, you see." The stranger suggests putting it in your safe deposit box, but because he's so concerned about privacy, he wants access to your safe deposit box to be sure the rare coin gets there, with no one the wiser. The problem is that he can only get in there with your express permission...We're guessing 99.99% of you would never get suckered by something asinine like this, but why then do people fall for the exact same thing in the virtual realm? Specifically, it seems that Guild Wars players regularly turn over their login info to account thieves in hopes of getting something for nothing, as mentioned by Ravious over at Kill Ten Rats. This ultimately leads to a continuous deluge of stolen accounts, tears, and rage.
178 starbases involved in EVE Online's multi-trillion ISK exploit
The last several days have brought us some news of a rather significant exploit in the sci-fi MMO EVE Online. The game boasts a dynamic virtual economy which is in many ways integral to the game itself. (Inter Stellar Kredits, or ISK, is the currency upon which EVE Online's economy is based.) When rumor broke of a multi-trillion ISK exploit in the game, it raised a few eyebrows. However, when CCP Games themselves confirmed it and announced they would launch an investigation into the matter, it became more serious, as reflected by the economic impact on the market in the game. (Remember kids, internet spaceships are serious business... EVE tends to have more drama than the average massively multiplayer online game.)CCP Games provided an update on the investigation today, stating that 178 starbases were discovered exploiting the issue and have been destroyed. This is the first time they've been willing or able to put a solid number on how extensive the exploit was, in terms of the scope of the operation. CCP stated: "We have also banned all those we have found directly involved and all accounts we have found to be connected to those players. The investigation is still under way and will take a while to conclude." Also part of the investigation is the Internal Affairs aspect, which some players have been following. CCP Games reports that they haven't found links between any of their own staff (or the Council of Stellar Management, for that matter) and the starbase exploit. See the official announcement from the EVE developers for more details on how the investigation is progressing.
CCP Games on the extent and impact of EVE's starbase exploit
Massively has been watching the issue of a significant starbase exploit in EVE Online, through which some players reaped vast financial rewards, as it went from rumor to confirmation from the developers themselves. Unlike your average run-of-the-mill exploit in most massively multiplayer online games, the exploit in question has had a significant impact on EVE's virtual economy -- the backbone of the game itself. All players in EVE interact in one vast galaxy, and their actions in the sandbox can create ripples felt by their fellow players, which has certainly been the case in this past week.EVE Online's developer CCP Games has opted to hold off on responding to most press inquiries for comment on the issue, having issued a statement on the matter and then focusing on the investigation and a weekend meeting with EVE's player-elected community representatives, the Council of Stellar Management (CSM). The minutes from that meeting are now available, and several of EVE's developers took part in the discussion: namely CCP's Lead Economist Dr. EyjoG (Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson) and CCP Arkanon -- who heads up the company's Internal Affairs division, which investigates the CCP Games staff themselves, hopefully ensuring that no CCP employee can abuse their influence over the game. Read on for Massively's highlights of the state of affairs in EVE Online, in the wake of the starbase exploit.
An update on the EVE Online starbase exploit
In the wake of last week's revelation of a market disrupting exploit in EVE Online, a growing number of players have been calling for increased transparency on the situation. EVE's developer CCP Games has stated they've discovered seven player-run corporations taking advantage of the player owned station (POS) exploit, which yielded a vast amount of materials used in the EVE Online's manufacturing (crafting) system. Three of those corporations were in two alliances, and over 70 accounts have been banned thus far in connection with the exploit. The starbases used in the exploit have been destroyed by CCP, and they've stated that the corporations in question are now effectively inactive following the bans. CCP Games has not released the names of characters, corporations, or alliances linked to the exploit, but a player named "moppinator" of the AMT. corporation (part of Ev0ke alliance) stepped forward and issued the following statement on the extent of his alliance's involvement:
Rumored four-year, multi-trillion ISK exploit in EVE Online
An exploit in EVE Online has come to light that may have some major repercussions for the game. Massively does not have solid confirmation on the details (and allegations as the case may be), as this has just come to light. The exploit was publicized on a third party EVE forum called Scrapheap Challenge, on Wednesday, December 10th. If this isn't a hoax or an exaggerated account of events, how serious an exploit might this be? Very serious, if the details listed prove to be accurate... The exploit was really a bug related to a network of player owned stations (POS) paired with a moon mining operation, which yielded far too much valuable material far too quickly. Four years and an estimated 2.5 to 3 trillion ISK later, the exploit was found and patched, and the offender(s) banned. Given the claimed amount of ISK involved, it's serious enough to potentially have an impact on the game's economy. The individual who posted the details of this exploit remains anonymous, and has only identified him or herself as "anotherone", but tells a story of how the exploit came to be: "I would like to tell you a short EVE story. Today all of my EVE Online accounts were banned. I was sure this day would come. What surprises me is that it took CCP this long to catch up with me. Even though they knew about it." It's that last sentence that is sparking so much response from the playerbase -- anotherone asserts that this issue was actually petitioned to CCP Games back in 2004, and subsequently ignored.Read on for more details on this economic drama.
EA update: Forum bans do not equal in-game bans
Hey, remember last week when an Electronic Arts community manager announced that being banned from an EA forum would simultaneously ban users from playing their EA games online? Well, it's okay. All of you naughty forum dwellers can turn on the lights and open the shades, because it turns out that the community manager in question, known as eaapoc on the forums, was mistaken. Said eeapoc on the forums, "I had a misunderstanding with regards to our new upcoming forums and website and never meant to infer that if we ban or suspend you on the forums, you would be banned in-game as well. This is not correct, my mistake, my bad." He elaborates that being banned from the forums or from a game are separate process, so those banned from one need not fear being banned from the other.So there you have it. You'll have to be some sort of super-jerk in order to be banned from both the forums and a game. Don't worry, internets, we know you're up to the task.
Banned for no reason at all
GuamPDN.com ("Guam's complete source!") has an article up by Duane George, who tells his story of woe: he got banned from the game for suspected Arena win trading, and had to deal with 72 hours without the game. Blizzard, obviously, doesn't provide any information on how many players get banned from the game, and it would be even harder to determine the number of false positives out there like Duane: people who didn't do anything wrong but end up getting banned anyway. We've heard stories here of course, but this is a tough area to investigate by its very nature.For Duane's part, he does say that he plans to stay out of Arenas and stick to battlegrounds, so you'd think that if there were a ton of false positives like him who were turned off from the Arena experience because it wrongly got them in trouble, Arenas wouldn't be nearly as popular as they are. But of course we don't know -- there's no oversight on Blizzard's part (and you could argue that there shouldn't be anyway, since it's their game), not to mention that they've got the right, according to the Terms of Use, to ban anyone at any time for any reason without notice anyway. If they were really going overboard, you'd expect them to be losing customers, and that's not the case yet.Fortunately, this wasn't a permanent ban, and while he did apparently lose some Arena rating and the gear that came with it, his character wasn't too much the worse for wear. A 72-hour ban isn't too big a deal, so Blizzard probably hands those out with much less consideration than a permanent ban anyway. But we're sure Duane isn't the only case out there -- as small as the number may be, there's almost definitely other players like him, banned for doing nothing wrong at all.
Season three: The reckoning
We have now experienced three full seasons of Arenas in World of Warcraft. The numbers are being crunched and we shall see the winners of end of season rewards shortly. Most of this season has been plagued, like others with dishonesty among some of the players. Blizzard took action a few weeks ago to combat win-trading and point selling with temporary account bans, personal rating requirements for match-ups, and penalties for queue dodging. It seems Blizzard is not quite done meeting out their punishment. On an alt named Wtfkalgan, a player noted:A team recently got reset to 1500 (questioning the judgment of the GM involved isn't the purpose of this thread). The email states, "Note: This also disqualifies the above player from any end of season rewards." Does this mean the player involved is completely ineligible for any end of season rewards, or just from the end of season rewards for the team that received the action? Belfaire, a CM , clarified that this does exclude the character from receiving all end-of-season rewards. This may be an isolated incident, or it may be the beginning of another wide-spread crackdown on arena cheating. This may also include stripping honor from battleground afkers. I can't wait to see how this plays out tomorrow and when rewards are handed out. I'm thinking it's going to be epic. Thanks for the tip, Feller.
WoW Insider Show live tomorrow (with guest Veronica Belmont)
Our weekly podcast goes back on the virtual airwaves tomorrow over on WoW Radio, and it's going to be a good one. I'm back from my vacation last week (thanks to John "BBB" Patricelli for hosting last week), and we've got a special guest on: Veronica Belmont, uber hip tech blogger, podcaster, and generally all around cool chick (you may remember her from her interviews with Leeroy Jenkins and The Guild) will be on to chat about the biggest stories in the past week of WoW with us. Of course, we'll be talking about the Wrath leaks, and since Veronica has been dealing with gadgets and tech journalism for quite a while, hopefully she'll help us provide some insight on that.Turpster will be on as well, and we'll probably have one or two other familiar voices on from this site, too. Also, we'll chat about exactly who Karazhan is for, all those Glider bans that Blizzard laid down, Death & Taxes meeting its death, and what effect, if any, the Age of Conan launch had on our favorite game. And of course we'll be answering emails -- send yours to theshow@wow.com -- and we'll be on IRC at irc.mmoirc.com in the #wowradio channel.Should be a great time. See (or hear, as the case may be) us tomorrow afternoon live over on WoW Radio starting at 3:30pm EST!
Mass bannings strike Glider users
We've gotten more tips on this than any other topic in recent memory: apparently many users of the popular WoW botting program Glider have been hit with the ban hammer, including some of our very own readers. You may recall Glider as the company with whom Blizzard is currently embroiled in a lawsuit (does the word "embroil" have any use other than lawsuits?). The Glider forums are abuzz with comments and complaints, to which I can only reply "QQ." Botting is clearly against the EULA, the spirit of the game, and the best interests of the other players. Yes, I would be sad if I got banned, but honestly, anyone who was botting had it coming. There are various objections to be made to this stance. Most of the people who wrote in claim to have been botting in order to bypass the tedious leveling process. I agree that it can be boring to level 1–70 multiple times, even with the new, faster 20–60 process. However, that doesn't make it OK to cheat. Others claim that with fewer bots in the system, the supply of primals will be reduced and therefore the price will go up; I'm not much of a WoW economist, so I'll leave that to others. But to this blogger, banning botters can only be interpreted as a good thing: some cheaters got what they deserved. Whether you agree or disagree, please feel free to sound off in the comments. And if you are a botter yourself, and haven't gotten banned yet, I'd advise you to stop -- they're clearly getting serious about this.
Blizzard cracks down on arena win trading
We already know that Blizzard is tweaking arena rules to make it much tougher to artificially inflate your rating by win trading or buying high ranked teams in Season 4, but it looks like they're starting to take it one step further, by cracking down on people who indulge in it. Reports are coming in from the official forums and from other spots around the web of people getting bans or suspensions (generally 72 hours in length) and having their Season 3 arena gear stripped. The bans are even permanent in some cases, such as that of Sinther of Stormscale, whose account was permanently banned when his friend used it to do some win-trading, with the win trading given as the specific reason for his banning. You can read many of these stories and reports in this forum thread.
Flying Lab banning for RMT already
In an almost "news of the weird" situation, word came out yesterday evening that the fine folks at Flying Lab are already seeing grey-market gold selling in their still-in-pre-launch game Pirates of the Burning Sea. While any MMO veteran knows just how pervasive gold selling is in any game, this is perhaps the first time we've heard of them opening up shop quite so openly before a game is even officially launched. As Aether states, "we will [be] following up with the appropriate disciplinary actions, which could include confiscation of the resources in question, and ultimately banning accounts that sell or buy these illicit resources." We certainly wish Flying Lab the absolute best of luck with stamping it out -- and hopefully keeping chat channels clear of the spam that seems to be everywhere these days. But you have to admit, the fact that the gold-selling companies are getting this brazen before official launch isn't exactly a good sign.
FFXI "Special Task Force" takes on cheaters
Square Enix proves once again that they are willing to bring the hurt on people who use hacks or exploits to gain an unfair advantage over other players or destabilize the economy of Final Fantasy XI. In a Special Task Force Report, they break down the approximately 8000 bans and suspensions that they've doled out since this time last month. Among the groups most actively targeted are people using illegal fishing bots, Chinese gil farmers, and people abusing the auction house system for use in real money trading schemes. In so doing, Square plucked a staggering 2.3 billion gil from the hands of cheaters and money traders.It makes you wonder why more companies aren't actively reporting the numbers of exploiters and gold farmers that they're busting every month. It's not like we don't know the practice exists, just tell us what you're going to do to stop it!
Are gold sellers the key to WoW's continued success?
On Monday, Blizzard banned several thousand accounts found using third party programs to fully automate killing and looting, aka botting. These programs are largely used by gold selling companies employing farmers to speed up the rate at which they can supply gold to the many buyers out there. But a columnist at the Lightspeed Ventures site has a different take: he proposes that gold sellers are actually the independent application developers that are integral to the success of any online venture.No matter where you fall on the gold farmer debate ("they ruin the game" vs "they fill a need the developers refuse to acknowledge"), you have to stop and think about this particular premise. Lightspeed, a venture capital company that funds technology companies, asserts that any platform needs three critical elements to succeed.
Texas Legislature bans speed cameras, requires warning signs for red light snappers
Ah, Texas. Home to internet hunting, overhead bananas, and WiFi'ed rest stops, the Lonestar State will set yet another precedent by passing a bill onto the governor that would ban speeding cameras and require warning signs to be posted around red-light cameras. Yes, the same state that wanted transponders in every single car registered in the state is now just one signature away from giving heavy-footed drivers something to cheer about. Both measures "were adopted in the state House by unanimous votes," and along with the speed camera ban comes legislation that will put an end to the ticketing programs run by the cities of Rhome and Marble Falls while prohibiting any other cities from enacting such practices in the future. Of course, it should be noted that the bills wouldn't go into effect until September 1st of this year, so you should probably still utilize your cruise control whilst traveling over this long weekend.[Via Autoblog]
FCC declares in-flight cellphones a dead issue for now
Not that there was ever really much doubt that the rest of the commission would take Chairman Kevin Martin's lead, but now it's official: in-flight cellphones are a dead issue for the time being, as far as the FCC is concerned at least. The masters of the airwaves issued a statement today saying that they would not move forward with the proceedings which had been underway to revisit the current ban, citing "insufficient technical information on whether the use of cellular phones onboard aircraft may cause harmful interference to terrestrial networks." Of course the fact that thousands of people called the agency bitching and moaning about the likely cacophony of flying chatterboxes probably didn't help matters much, nor did the blasé attitude most of the major airlines seem to have about this. Hopeful sky talkers can take some solace in the commission's claim that it could reconsider its decision in the future pending "appropriate technical data," and if nothing else, AirCell's impending in-flight WiFi will likely enable VoIP sooner rather than later -- although voice services will initially be locked out. So, no gabbing on the plane quite yet, which is just fine with us, because we prefer to be knocked out cold the whole flight anyway.
Smacked with the banhammer, or: It came from the Customer Service Forum
Like most online games, Blizzard has the power to suspend or ban people from WOW, and they're not shy about using it. Half of the Customer Service Forum is full of people complaining about their banninations. Bannations? Bans. Of course, no one in the CSF has ever, ever done anything wrong with their account, and tend to go to ludicrous extremes to deny they've ever cursed, shared accounts, or gone AFK in the battlegrounds. The simple 3-hour or 3-day suspension is probably the most common form of ban. So you swore at someone, discussed the uses of a [Huge Brown Sack] in trade channel, or threatened to sic your homophobic congressman dad on them -- you get three hours or days to think about what you did wrong, and probably plot some revenge. There's also the "temporary permanent ban," which is what Blizzard uses when someone's account is hacked. You're "permanently banned" until they can figure out who really owns the account and how it was accessed. Then the ban is usually reversed, and stolen items are restored. The latter has happened to a couple guildmates of mine, and most were just happy to get their stuff back. The true permabans are usually reserved for the worst of the worst offenders -- although theoretically, any number of common activities (like account-sharing) can result in a permaban. Speedhacking, botting, gold farming, powerleveling, and of course removing walls in dungeons can get your account banned forever. Note: screaming, threatening, quoting the Bill of Rights, or being hideously rude to Blizzard will not get you your account back. Have you ever been banned, suspended, or warned for your in-game behavior? Do you have any funny or sad banning stories from your realm? Do you think Blizzard is too tough or too lenient with their banhammer?
