Guild Wars 2

Thorin and Company [TAC] welcomes you to come along to our in-game event in celebration of the Easter holidays! Based in Gandara, Saturday the 6th and Sunday the 7th of April 2013 will be full of fun and gold give-aways of 100g! There is nothing to lose and no requirements; we welcome everybody across the game.

What is it?

The Easter Hunt will ask players to try and track down a [TAC] easter bunny. Players will get a sneak clue in Divinity’s Reach say chat, and then a riddle will be published on this website, which they will need to solve to win a prize. The riddle will ask the players to bring a certain item to a certain location where an easter bunny hides. The first players to complete this will win prizes. There will be two riddles across the weekend, released at different times.

When is it?

The event will take place on Saturday 6th and Sunday 7th of April (one week after Easter Sunday). The first riddle will be released on Saturday at 5pm BST (6pm CET), with the second being released at 5pm BST on Sunday.

Do you need to be in [TAC]?

No. We welcome all players of the game even if they are not in the guild!

What can I win?

The fastest players to the [TAC] bunny will win money prizes of 100g! Per riddle: 1st Place – 35g, 2nd Place – 10g, 3rd Place – 5g.

For more info and more detail explanation visit http://thorinandcompanyeaster.shivtr.com/

We are looking forward to seeing you this weekend!

Very cool idea, I like it!

Just bumping so it doesn’t get missed! ^^

Sorry guys but this event has now been cancelled. One of our officers was banned permanently last night for “gold selling” after she advertised the event in map chat. We were only trying to bring the community together and are trying to appeal the ban for it is completely incorrect, we are not trying to sell gold but only give it away. People need to look more closely at messages before reporting. We are all devastated and feel that it’s not right for us to host this event right now. It may be back up in the future and I will revive this thread if it is.

Man, that would pretty screwed up if Arenanet did not un-ban your officer. How ridiculous is that? A nice guild only trying to host a fun community event gets punished due to the flaws of Arenanet’s reporting/banning system? They better fix this soon.

Permanent ban? Wow, they dont give those out for nothing, I dont even think spammers get that kind of ban, more like a temporary one. Whatever your guild member did to deserve a perma ban must of been something you guys arent aware of. I suspect they’re gold selling and obviously wouldnt let everyone in on it but instead setup these bogus giveaway events to move the money around. Seems like Anet got a hint of their activities through all the reports, most likely investigated, then found something that deserved a perma ban. If its a mistake, they’ll check their records and correct it. But Im assuming theres more to it then just putting up a few ads that got reported that resulted in a ban.

bigtime.7410:

Permanent ban? Wow, they dont give those out for nothing, I dont even think spammers get that kind of ban, more like a temporary one. Whatever your guild member did to deserve a perma ban must of been something you guys arent aware of. I suspect they’re gold selling and obviously wouldnt let everyone in on it but instead setup these bogus giveaway events to move the money around. Seems like Anet got a hint of their activities through all the reports, most likely investigated, then found something that deserved a perma ban. If its a mistake, they’ll check their records and correct it. But Im assuming theres more to it then just putting up a few ads that got reported that resulted in a ban.

Another guild did this kind of giveaway a few months ago and it also resulted in a ban. That one was reversed eventually but it was proven the people giving away the gold had done exactly as their contest had stipulated. If I get the chance I’ll try to find a link.

It may be a case where people that got PM’ed simply assumed that the people were selling gold and reported without knowing for sure. In that case even using map chat could have been seen as spamming. PM’ing was probably a bad idea though.

Maybe Anet could specify a proper way for a guild to hold a contest in the future. Especially if it involves a giveaway of gold. That way all those in game trying to do something positive for the community, can be assured they follow proper procedure and won’t have to face a ban hammer for good deeds.

EDIT: I found 1 link but not the specific one I was looking for. I’ll keep searching.
Banned for being kind:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Getting-banned-for-being-kind/first#post1157519
if it’s any consolation Dulfy was banned for receiving gifts in appreciation of her website:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Dulfy-Banned-for-RMT-Activities/first#post738401

Thanks please do try link it, we’re very worried about her account

Doesn’t ANET check before they ban someone? This is really bad if true, I hope she can get her account back.

Lifeson.4352:

Doesn’t ANET check before they ban someone? This is really bad if true, I hope she can get her account back.

Unfortunately, they probably don’t have to. From their POV it is cheaper and easier to just ban anyone who may fall into a grey area than to spend the time sorting through each case individually. If worst comes to worst, the banned player may well end up buying another account if they are still keen to play, so that’s more money for them.

I know this was the philosophy at Blizzard at least, and they even had subscription fees to consider (although they also had larger numbers in terms of scale to balance out.) I would imagine it is the same way here, particularly since there are no dedicated community managers or in-game support. As long as there is more wheat than chaff at the end of it the shareholders will not mind overmuch if some of the wheat gets burned as well.

That said, I hope the person in question is able to resolve the situation. Best of luck!

Sorry I couldn’t find the specific link I was searching for. But from my searches I have found many cases of legitimate players being temporarily banned/permanently banned; then having a reversal.
Reasons:
1-having multiple accounts and giving gold from one to the other
2-giving friends/significant others/their relatives/guild members gold or expensive items
3-holding contest giveaways with gold/item prizes

Again Anet would benefit greatly from having a clear policy regarding guild contests and giveaways.

I suggest your guild member takes this into support and the guild members can give proper evidence & support to the Anet support team. This thread will be transferred there or closed if the discussion continues on this path.
I follow the forums a lot when I can’t be in game and I was really happy to see your guild start the contest. I’m sorry it turned out this way.
Hopefully some light can be shed by the powers that be to avoid this outcome in the future.

Anet, fix this bullkitten.. We were only trying to host an event. You say its all about the community and then when we try to act like one, you ban people. I know it might have looked suspicious, but you should have checked it before banning. This is just sad…

I hosted a WvW contest for my server some time ago, i got donations towards prizes sent to me from various players and then i resent all those donations, including my own bit, to the winners. Was almost 100g total.
I spammed and advertised the contest quite a lot, in LA and WvW maps, as well as during world boss events.

What i did do earlier, tho, was writing a ticket to the support via the support helpdesk, asking if doing such a thing is fine with them and warning them before i started collecting donations that i will have some bits of gold incoming and then going out after a month, and that it will be advertised across my server. No one got banned.

I am not saying it’s your fault for what happened, but on the other hand, ANet does have to be careful with things like that – goldsellers and thieves might use the cover of a community contest to slip their shady business unnoticed. I hope you get it resolved really soon, as ANet support really has been helpful with all GW2-related stuff (i got my green light for the WvW thingie within a few hours, not even days), and that some people would remember to just write a short message to support, letting them know something like that is coming up. Remember: support != forums.

Well I would work with support and try to get it resolved. It could be with all the actual gold spammers that the issue was just gone over too quickly. Also there are some people who will report almost anything in chat with the word gold in the sentence.

It seems unlikely she was banned for the event hosting. Anet posted about your event on their official facebook page.