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GM vendetta against me on AO
doomsent27
Member Posts: 6
I'm the person responsible for the IM Boycott thread and for those who know me (Eme) and avid player in calling out GMs and nDoors for their behavior in past months and calling shams when I see them. Yesterday the 23rd of June I was banned from not only the forums but all AO accounts linked to my IP were banned, I even created an account so I could talk to an FM in game and that was subsequently banned in 30 min. This is a copy of the ticket I submitted and the response I've gotten:
"Sent: Wed, 23 Jun 2010 15:36:33 -0700
To: Atlantica Online
Subject: Account Banned
I'm inquiring as to why my account has been banned, the reason states I made derogatory remarks about people or there culture. I would like to see proof of said statement, else immediate release of my account or legal action will be taken."
response
"Subject: [3CA-13B548F1-0F87] Account Banned
From: [email protected]
CC:
Good Day,
Thank you for writing to Atlantica Online Customer Support. This is GM Chaplin and I have read your ticket. Please be informed that this account has been suspended due repeated use of derogatory and racist remarks as well as hostility towards GMs. Please be advised that this is against our game policy and as such we will not lift the suspension on this account. This ticket will now be closed. Any further requests to lift the account suspension will not be entertained and will be marked as spam. If you have any other inquiries, please do not hesitate to contact us again.
Best regards,
GM Chaplin
Atlantica Support Team"
replay
"Wed 6/23/10 9:17 PM
I have made no such remarks toward any player or GM, and if flaming a thread is hostility then everyone the forums should be banned. Even if I broke the rules on the forum it does not give any grounds for you to ban my game accounts since I have not broken any game rules. What you are trying to do is show hostility towards me for my views and that is against the law. If you guys want me off the forum that's fine, but release my game accounts, I have bought items with real money and restricting me from using those items which belong to me without just cause is against the law. Also please show proof of the derogatory and racist remarks that were made."
They have yet to show proof of the accusations against me, and have not replyed to my response, I've sent a ticket and am awaiting response from that. I've broken no game rules that require my account to be banned, so the GMs are carrying out their own personal vendetta against me.
Comments
I don't think that you can take any legal action against them though. From their terms of agreement:
(d) Account. By agreeing to the User Agreement you agree that you do not own the account you use to access the service, the characters NDOORS stores on NDOORS servers, the items stored on these servers, or any other data which the servers and accounts are comprised of. The account you create is needed to login to the service.
I think 'AO' will forever stand for Anarchy Online for me.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
This ticket will now be closed. Any further requests to lift the account suspension will not be entertained and will be marked as spam. If you have any other inquiries, please do not hesitate to contact us again.
Hahaha!
Sorry but I had to laugh at that.
Well I mean, it kind of makes sense that they ban you. If you are purposely spending your time trying to find things they are doing wrong, and calling them out every time, then they may as well just stamp out that person. It isn't like that one person being banned is going to lead to everyone quitting. They just probably don't want to deal with you.
I'd move on. Most developers can only take so many doses of reality so often.
Even thought you think you have not said anything offensive, someone might have done. I'm sure GM's wouldn't ban you for reason.
If I had a dollar for everyone that threatend to sue a MMO company in a fit of rage, I could buy Bill Gates.
Like it or not, 'we can do what we please, to whoever we please, for whatever reason we please' is in every MMO's EULA and we all agree to it when we play. MMO's have more power over their game then god does in heaven.
According to the FM I spoke with, I wasn't banned for the reason they gave. So yea even if they had reason to ban me from the forum, they had no reason to ban me from the game, and they still have not giving any piece of evidence to backup their claim, so don't assume they won't ban for no reason.
Friend,
Ironically, this thread is probably causing them to lose more money than your 'negative remarks.' I was going to try the game, but I dont like hearing the horror stories of big business making money instead of providing service . . . *long thoughtful pause*
I would cry conspiracy, but I would get banned from leaving my room and wake up one morning on a desert island with a crazy headache, a strange taste in my mouth, and wearing nothing but a pair of cowboy boots.
I know micromanaging a game forum and complaints takes many man hours, etc, but I wonder what percentage of product quality flame threads are directly connected to the issue at hand? In other words . . .
How many companies will ignore the production of a quality game and focus on marketing in-so-far as to where they will be content to make money on the bulk or initial purchase of customers and when customer retention hits an all time low, close shop or release an expansion/upgrade?
Conspiracy or 'good' business? Sucking up money and then retiring to sail the world on a gold-plated yacht . . . good business?
I wonder what happened to the mentality of 'Baker's Dozen?' If a baker put less than twelve units of merchandise in the bag, he would be severely punished. So he put thirteen, just to be safe.
What are the consequences for not delivering quality goods? Angry customers.
What are the consequences for having angry customers?
*Squelch*
---Conspiracy? I leave that to you to decide.---
It seems to be a norm with Asian MMOs, they start off great and attract a very good player base with the enticement real free-to-play, but after a while they start to gradually move the game to pay-to-play, forcing customers by any means necessary to spend money on the game and try to suck those customers dry. Its really depressing to see how great games can become nothing more than a passing fancy under bad management. A game would stand to earn much more if you keep the player base happy, and much less if you continually try to drive your player base away.
Quite a few days without a reply from any GM, seems they'd rather not justify their decision and quickly forget about me. Just shows how much AO GMs care, they have time to carryout their own personal vendettas but have no time to participate in actual constructive posts for the improvement of AO or to respond to player's concerns, how great the game has become.
They very well might be able to ban you from the game if they don't see a separaton from the forums and in game play. They might view it as all of a one.
What I find interesting are the two bits I highlighted.
So. What exactly DID you say on their forums and what are these "views" you are talking about?
Are they considered racist or derogatory? And using the argument "if I get punished for this then everyone should" smacks a bit like kids getting punished and then pointing the fingers saying "but he did it too".
I refuse to take sides because I'm not convinced that all info is being shown. What exactly is it that you are saying on these forums?
Incidentally, game companies never list proof when they ban you. They just say you did something and ban you.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
My views are that they are pushing more IM goods and not doing enough for the game, the game still has bugs since OB, high lv players(i was lv122) have been begging for more content for months, and all they say is "we'll do it soon" and keep pushing IM stuff almost every week. Many ppl have been angered by the total neglect they have towards player, including the appointment of their so call "Community Coordinator". Unless you play AO and participate on the forums you won't understand the concerns that players have been voicing in the past few months. What I use to voice was pointing out what they were doing is wrong, you can search the forum for any post by me and judge for yourself if there was any racial or degrading comments in them.
i hate to say i told u so, but i warned u of these kind of posts in the atlantica forum. it seems they gave you wanted, a ban....
there is a right way and a wrong way to deal with mmo support. the right way only helps when it is an obvious issue. sch as item mall item not appearing in your inventory or w/e. these kinds of things most, if not all tech suport can deall with efficiently. all other catagories of support, from tech support, to "suggestions....well the right way is the equivelant to no way. and the wrong way gets you banned.
why is this...? ofc u may ask that. bcz in every tos i have ever read, and yes, i am the dork who reads them, there are non specific, arbitrary even, rules of conduct that are interpreted subjectively leading to the ban hammer coming donw heavy on those with gripes, valid or not.
this game makes money. as long as it does, nothing anyone says will change the status quo. im sorry you got banned. im ev en more sorry that you dont have an ice cubes chance in hell of getting your accounts back. i hope im wrong but i can count on one hand missing sum fingers, how many times ive seen a ban overturned. but you dont have a legal leg to stand on. and if you have the money to hire attorneys for trivial matters like this, you have the money to find another game. there are loads out there ready to take your cc info.
for strategy gaming while you search out a new mmo, might i suggest civ4 [or 5 is around the corner]. its where i always end up during my game transition stages, and it never lets me down.
This isn't uncommon though. Another game I used to play did that, you got banned from the forums you got banned in the game.
Never happened to me, but probably close (I've been banned from probably a dozen forums, plus half a dozen newspapers - they don't like you making fun of their reporters)
R.I.P. City of Heroes and my 17 characters there
Dude, you were using their forums to try to organize a boycott of their product. I would have banned you too. And you should be glad that you got banned, it's not healthy to be as frothing-at-the-mouth obsessive about a game as you were: just stop playing if you hate it that much. They did you a favour by helping you to stop playing.
the forum mods for ao are players(one of which was trying to organize a boycott which they apparently forgot about 9 months ago([FM] Joker)) and they seem to be incredibly biased(changing some people's signatures but not others, deleting certain posts trolling their lame friends but not their lame friends' troll posts in the exact same thread, etc).
This game was developed till lvl 120 and from that point they were suppose to continue improving it after release, which they did - but mostly aiming for enhancing the "item mall" being in F2P game - as in "that's where their profit comes from". beyond release - lvl 120 was end game, than they improved the PVP competionin making it available for all servers to compete, added new heroes, items and so on. But beyond this point - it's realy hard to improve... Blizzard keeps releasing expansions every year to keep the game alive but being a PVP for them it's not working in the same way - expansions are always welcomed but won't solve the "END GAME Problem". Only if they organize more PvP events they could improve something, yet for those that don't like PVP or aren't really capable of it, they would have to relase expansion more offten to keep them happy but on the other hand "those are few in numbers" wile the majority of big spenders are still the midle of the game - which they conside priotary. So from a busines point of view - it's normal what their doing. Most as in 90% of all F2P MMO's don't offer so much till lvl 120....
So hey, if you know how things or going you shouldn't expect more - crying, spaming or flameing on forums won't change that. If you read the EULA you'd find that their covered with any aspects same as any other company behind a MMO. Blizzard Banned customers that suported their game with payed subscription for 4 - 6 years for less... and based on their EULA they have the right to do so, same goes for AO... You aked for it with your actions, by trying to get angry the administrator behind AO (which is a private propriety). They're duty is related to keeping things in order and presenting the news... "THEY CAN'T IMPROVE AO in any way, exept being a good police". So you were shouting at the wrong door, wile the right one is never open for public debating....
You claim that legal action will be taken against them "if" they do not meet your demands (to free your accounts). So why don't you take legal action? They clearly didn't meet your demands.... LOL. The fact that you even threaten them that you will take legal action against them AND that you keep saying in your reply this or that isn't legal, makes you look bad. LOL. Seriously, if you wanted your account back, you would of sucked it up, confessed that you did act like a douche and apologize and demand a second chance of some sort. Something along those lines and maybe, MAYBE if you were nice enough and they felt truly that you are being sincere, they would lift the ban. Instead, you decide to act smart and threaten legal actions and tell them it's against the law what their doing to you..... There is no personal vendetta against you.... its just your a smartass who Im guessing likes to call people out and be extremely vocal (and rude/offensive) which lead to this.
I feel zero pity for you. You probably deserve what you got.
Enjoy your ban!
In my opinion, neither side was at fault. Simply put, you were hacked. That's the only logical conclusion, as the integrity of a professional organization is quite likely, and assuming that you were not in the wrong, as per the subject of this thread, the only conclusion left is that someone hacked into your account and insulted the GMs in-game. As cited earlier, you are held responsible for your account, regardless of whether you actually performed a certain action or not. Sorry, but rules are rules, and it seems like someone exploited that in a rather petty manner.
Your wondering why you get banned when you organized an Item Mall boycutts on their forum, which could potentially make them loss money in the thousands.
Don't take a genious to figure out why you got banned. I'd do the same if I run the company.
You.... seriously couldn't figure out why you got banned? Reading your tyriads in this thread and the other one you started up is explanation enough. Really though, I fail to see how they're picking on you when your the one in the wrong. On top of that, threatening legal action against them? Yeah, you pretty much sealed your fate with that.
How is this guy the one wrong? Maybe he used a little too many insults, but I didn't see any racist remarks. Also, those insults were not unfounded. The GMs in Atlantica always push new item mall items, but never new content.
I know the GMs aren't the developers, but unlike good companies, the nDoors developers do not want to speak with the public, so the only people to talk to are the GMs, who should have direct communication with the developers.
Also, what he says on the forums really aren't supposed to get him banned in game. Furthermore, what he says on THIS forum should not even be taken into consideration with his actions on nDoors.
And, to top it off, Atlantica seriously DOES have an item mall problem. There's a lot of fine print crap that makes items you buy seem mysteriously generous until that fine print kicks in and you get destroyed. Players have complained continually about crap happening in the item mall that is either purposely or accidentally unfair, but nothing is being done about it.
That being said, the item mall boycott is still pretty strong in the middle to high level community.
Considering how he's acting and trying to play himself off as the victim is no surprise. Your defence of him isn't any better either. Read the rest of the thread, with him attacking the GMs, is it any wonder he's treated this way? If I was one of the GMs, I would do everything possible to keep this guy out as well. You reap what you sow.
Yes... I already acknowledged he attacked the GMs. If you actually read my post, you'd realize that I'm saying that the GMs deserve to be attacked. The GM's job is to communicate with the developers and the players. They're not really doing that, and the developers aren't really pushing any new content, so who else can we complain to but the GMs?
Also, when you say my defence of him isn't any better, but you don't comment on any of the points I make, you make yourself look like an outright fool WHO DIDN'T READ THE POST HE QUOTED. Which you probably didn't, since you restated MY CONCESSION and said nothing else. Also, saying, "isn't much better" without stating what it's comparing to is a fail parallelism.