Guild Wars 2

Hello Forum,
I want to talk about the Disciplinary Process and its possible flaws.

Earlier today I was banned for botting. Game closed instantly and I was gone.
Mind you, I was not botting at all whatsoever.
It was probably just some random dude that thought it would be a nice idea to report someone for botting just for the sake of reporting him.

After contacting the Support with a very fast response (Thank you) I was able to get my account back.
But thats not it, they told me my account had indeed been part of some suspicious behaviour and that it is an exceptional case that my account got reactived today.
Appareantly my account also got further flagged and is under observation of some sort.
Now I am sitting here, clueless of whats going.

I tried to politely re-contact the Support to ask whats going on and what the exact reason was I got banned. They were not able to tell me, because:

Guild Wars 2 Conduct Breaches & Outcomes:

It is particularly not in our best interest to engage in debate about suspensions with those who frequently are in breach of the Rules of Conduct.

Alright. I throughoutly understand that, I guess…

The Reason my account was probably already flagged which lead to an instant-ban todady:

A little bit of a history for everyone to understand.
I bought the game on release, played a bit and dropped it.

This year in May I wanted to pick it up again but was banned because of gold selling.
I figured I probably got hacked in the meantine and someone had used my account for gold-selling purposes.

Since I really did not have anything worthy on my account, let alone a single level 80 character from that little time-frame I was playing back at release, I requested to wipe my account to get rid of its gold selling history.
Yay, everything went well, been playing every since.

I figured since nothing of this was my fault back then, my account was fresh and ready for a new beginning.

Seeing now, that this system marks accounts as ‘suspicious’ or something I probably never got rid of the bad history of my account until today.

Other possible occurrences that might caused my account to get flagged are the following:

Guild Wars 2 Conduct Breaches & Outcomes:

Repeating in-game chat to an excessive degree (“spamming”).

During the cheast farm in the silverwastes, many people including me have been spamming Essence of Luck in map-chat multiple times. Binding the same key to ‘Display names of items on the ground’ and ‘Insta-post items in chat’ was probably not the wisest decision.
Its possbile that many people got flagged during these days.

…or…

Guild Wars 2 Conduct Breaches & Outcomes:

Engaging in PvP match manipulation, disrupting a PvP match by not actively playing in good faith, or any other form of PvP griefing, exploitation, or abuse.

Does leaving Custom Broweser games count, too? I dont know. I sure did that a few times. Usually at times where I am sure I cannot play a full round and just want to hop in for some quick fun.
Then again, its a common thing to leave custom games for many people. Many even try to push their win:loss ratio it seems… (?)
Maybe this got me flagged aswell, maybe not.

Other than the mentioned I have never done anything even remotely against the terms of service or rules of the game.

• No Botting, bug-using etc.
• Never annoyed any people online or insulted them.
• Never took any advantage of broken game-mechanics.

You name it.

TL:DR My account got flagged numerous times and today I got told that on any futher miss-behaviour I am not going to be able to get my account back and that this is a last warning…

That basically means, that whenever some random dude decides to report me again just for the fun of it, it means goodbye.

This is ridiculous!

Final words:
I wish for some clarification. I also wish for some dev to contanct me if thats possible and shed some light on what is going on with my account and its current status.

I am a very honest person and I’ve always been against the abuse of a system or rude behaviour within a community. I am the last person to break any rules of this game, since I love and value it.
It is unaccaptable that my efforts of clarifaction get refused and I get accused for something I have never done.

Thank you and please share your thoughts.

Edit: Of course I understand why a, in my opinion, rudimentary system like this exists. In a game with so many people playing everyday it is impossible for a handful of devs to watch over so many players and of course just to reinsure, I blame no-one personally for what has happend today.

First of all: accounts don’t get automatic suspensions just because someone reports them.

One thing that might have lead to the suspension is that your account is in-fact being used by someone other than you, especially since you have been “hacked” before.

I doubt someone else is using my account. It might be very well possible. Ill change my PW immediatly.
Then again, why would the support not notify me if that is the case.

I do however have to identify my login everyday, everytime, no matter when. So its really difficult to tell if someone else had used it.

Well you have been “hacked” before, so it isn’t that unlikely that it could happen again.

They could only really notify (which I don’t really think they do actually) you if they could prove that it was access by someone other than you.

I like how you keep writing “hacked” in quotation marks
I have no idea who gained access to my account during my absence but I am pretty sure I was not a victim of some phising sites.
I am always very carefully wachting out for those. And during the time I left just after release I still had access to the game.
Taking into consideration that during that time many accounts got hacked it might just have been happened to me, too.

I also change my PW’s regularly, so yea.

I should probably add that today during the time I was banned I was farming open world mobs for materials.
I do that quite regularly. I am used to grinding from other games, and sometimes its a good waking-up activity for me.
It has happened before that I was observed and whispered questions if I was botting.
I wasn’t, ever.

I do however doubt that this was the reason of todays ban, because if the system does not take over automatically it means, some dev must have been observing me for a while and had decided I was botting(?)
To my knowledge you can tell quite well if someone is botting just by their movement and I certainly do not move like around like that.

Several things to keep in mind.

• Hackers can easily hide that they have access to an email account and could be in contact with GW2 support (posing as you from that email account) without you even being aware. Check your email login records for any suspicious activity.
• If you have used the email (GW2 login name) and password at other internet websites, the combination could be known by many hackers if those sites data is compromised. Best practice after having GW2 hacked is to change the email to another account (that is ONLY used for GW2) and of course, change the password to something you have NEVER used elsewhere on the internet (and something at least 10 characters long so it can’t be brute forced as easily).

The fact that your PW was not changed (at least you did not mention that), does not point toward continued account access, but if you didn’t change the PW, it could certainly still be accessed. Check the AUTHORIZED NETWORKS under your MY ACCOUNT > SECURITY on this site to see if any suspicious logins have happened (keep in mind that hackers can opt NOT to remember the location when logging in and they can then erase the emails required to log in if they have access to the email account).

Well, now that is interesting Grimm.
I am certainly not new to this whole scene but the Authorized Networks have always puzzled me.

As mentioned, I have to verify my login every time. Wether it be the forums or the game.
The authorized networks have always shown multiple IPs with different locations.
I never really bothered since my Ip changes constantly and thus its hard to track any log ins that are not mine.

Edit: I’ll contact the support to change my email. I’ve meant to do that for a long time now.

That could possibly be one of the reasons why they reacted as well.

When an account changes IPs all the time it might suggest that multiple different people are using it, especially if the account have been used by others than the owner before.

Ugh really? See, this is the kind of thing I’d like to get some clarifcation on.
I really appreciate the great security systems of this game but if things like constantly changing IPS is only hurting me instead of helping I might aswell stop it, or else I’ll loose my account.

This is really frustrating.

Well it could look rather suspicious from their point of view when the account in question does have a history of multiple people using it.

Of course won’t lead directly to a suspension or ban if they can’t prove it, but it might flag it. Especially if you are behaving somewhat similar to a bot (such as just walking around farming mobs for long stretches of time).

lordkrall.7241:

Especially if you are behaving somewhat similar to a bot (such as just walking around farming mobs for long stretches of time).

We’ll I’d say its quite easy to distinguish an actual bot farming from a player farming an area. I already said, I doubt that was the cause of todays ban.

It would be easy, if you actively talked and such. If not it could be rather hard, seeing as bots are getting more and more advanced.

And indeed, it is rather unlikely (in-fact I would say impossible) that todays suspension was based on your activities today. But I am guessing you have been doing more or less the same earlier as well?

Well of course I was doing that earlier, too.
I am not really a fan of champion-trains, dungeons or anything else really when its about getting gold.
If I need some cash, I farm my materials.
It a great activity to do that does not really require me to pay much attention. That way I can fcous on the more important things like some great discussion with my friends in Teamspeak.

For exmaple:
Yesterday I was making my first sets of christmas cookies. Those 20-30 minutes each load was baking in the oven I spent farming T6 until the cookies were ready. Been doing that the entire day pretty much. 30 min kitchen – 20 minute farming.
Hell I made almost 80 gold casually just like that.

If this kinda stuff gets me banned… wow.
Its a usual routine around christmas for me every year and I’ve been doing that in so many other MMOs over the years.

Had a co-worker, nice guy, thought he was being harassed by the police because he kept getting pulled over. Didn’t make sense until we rode with him. He tailgated, sped, never signaled, never yielded, rolled through stop signs. Scared all of us when he’d be the 3rd car through a red light at full speed. If he was driving he was getting in trouble. Nothing we could do to help him. Hopefully he finally read that driver’s handbook before he went broke.

Have a suburban neighbor who thinks the HOA is out to get him because he keeps getting tickets. A photo of his property would explain everything. Every time he walks out his front door a deed restriction is about to happen. Hopefully he’ll finally read the HOA Deed Restrictions before he goes broke.

Just saying, if you’re getting flagged for discipline no matter what you’re doing then you might want to read (or reread) the ToS before you have to buy another game key and start over.

Haha, I see where you are comming from.
I did read the ToS multiple times. I would not make the decicsion to post this public in the forums if I were not 100% sure I am not at fault.

Look at activity that you do that may be perceived as using bots. If you do the same route for extended periods, it may be worth varying it. Someone is likely reporting you which means someone thought your behaviour was bot like. So while you may not be using them, make sure you aren’t looking like you’re a bot.

Yup. The only activity that comes to mind is my extensive mob grinding.
The only things I do in this game:
- T6 farming
- PvP with friends
- Solo roaming WvW

I found LeCreaux’s comment really amusing since there is alomst no room for me to do anything against the ToS. I am not even using the chat.

And I always try to not look like a bot, anyway. If someone of Anet is oberving me and feels like I am botting the first obvious thing would be whispering me and see if I answer.
Its infact the first thing every player should do before reporting a bot.
Its common sense in my opinion.

See, the major problem I have right now is that I am left in the dark. A simple “Yes you were looking like a bot” would be enough. I could convince anyone I was not botting. Infact you’d see it in the game logs. Since a bot does not doge attacks (?) and I’d get rid of the flagged status.

It’s really bothering me playing on a last-warning. Because the simplest thing, like that of today could mean the end without me being at fault.

You not using the chat would simply strengthen the suspicion that you were a bot though.

The problem with them sending a PM to ask if you are a bot is that it would technically be fully possible to actually program something that would react to that.

And yes, bots can indeed dodge attacks.

They also rather seldom outright state what you get suspended for, simply because that information can be used in order for botters and such to avoid detection.

Right now you have to go up against other players who may not know what bots can and can’t do.

Vary your rotations more if you stick to a set rotation. Try not to go over the same general route every time (bots go in circles, players aren’t good enough at remember the exact path taken).

Something you are doing is registering as bot behavior by other players. And not all players will do the chat test. I would not assume players will do the chat test before reporting you.

lordkrall.7241:

They also rather seldom outright state what you get suspended for, simply because that information can be used in order for botters and such to avoid detection.

Yes, that true. That why I said I understand that they cant give me any clarification via email.
I’ll probably stay away from t6 farming if its that of a hassle to not look like a bot.

You know, often, when accounts are re-instated they get the ‘we will overturn it this time, but…’ response. Whether it is the first time or not.

I don’t think your account was flagged before this incident. Just go about your business, and, perhaps, try to interact with others you see near you once in a while. Say something in Map chat, or whatever. I doubt any GM is ‘watching’ you.

Oh, and if you have perused the rules, you might remember that posting threads discussing actions taken against your account could be moderated.

Good luck.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

You know, often, when accounts are re-instated they get the ‘we will overturn it this time, but…’ response. Whether it is the first time or not.

Maybe, I hope so.

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Oh, and if you have perused the rules, you might remember that posting threads discussing actions taken against your account could be moderated.

Yes, even if they might take this one down. Its not only just about myself.
I think this is an important issue in general.
It’d just be sad if someone got banned/accused for something that they were not involved in. I dont want that to happen to myself nor to someone else.

The problem is, no system is perfect, thats just the way it is. Its normal.
And thus possible problems should maybe be addressed.
That is the way I think.

Many of us here that call Account Issues our home have been ‘banned’, and re-instated. We move on, as mistakes or things not as they seem can happen. No real need to discuss it on the forums, you can update your ticket and discuss it with the Team, if you so desire.

Good luck.