Guild Wars 2

Thanks everyone for the kind words. And thanks Gaile for staying on top of this. I just called home and dad was cleaning his aquarium – you have to be super bored to do that chore! So does that mean he doesn’t have a problem with his computer or got hacked?

And Desova, I thought about botting false alarms too. I know that dad has a daily routine of collecting mats after he eats his breakfast and then he likes to craft after lunch. He was so excited that he just sold something on the TP for 4 gold that he crafted.

And just an FYI: despite linking this thread to our tickets, the GMs didn’t acknowledge that I’ll be signing into his account from another location. They just send the usual canned message, which I was already prepared for. So I really hope the log-ins don’t cause a second problem.

Response Via Email (GM Roland) 02/22/2013 03:51 PM
Hello,

Thank you for updating us on this issue. I understand your concern about your father’s account. I am still not able to discuss details about it with you, but I will request that the issue is reviewed again for accuracy.

Regards,
GM Roland
NCsoft Account Admin Team

Cogadh.1845:

Is he on a EU server? If so, I’d be more that happy to guest and help with PvE stuff, I mostly WvW but would love to play with someone like your Dad. One thing I’ve learned in life is you can learn a lot from your elders!

Cogadh – you’re very sweet. We’re on a NA server though.

But you are right about learning from your elders. One of my guildmates lacks a father-figure and he has spent a lot of time with my dad. Plus we all get great entertainment out of his RP-ing. He is an army veteran so he yells “MEDIC” when he needs a revive. That happens a lot.

Unfortunately, not a quick update.

After I sent in my ticket, I received:
Response Via Email (Julio S.) 02/20/2013 05:42 AM
Hello <Eosin>,

Thank you for contacting the Guild Wars 2 Support Team.

Reviewing the ticket number 130220-000003 we found that the issue was escalated to the right department to further assistance, we are going to send a response as soon as possible to your father’s e-mail address.

For security purposes we can only discuss the status of the issue with the account owner.

If you have any other doubt or concern please let us know.

Regards,
Guild Wars 2 Support Team.

Today my parents received this email:

Response Via Email(Peter) – 02/21/2013 07:14 PM
Hello,

Your Guild Wars 2 account has been closed for modifying or tampering with the game, which is a breach of the User Agreement and Rules of Conduct

I want you to know that we take great care when analyzing accounts prior to termination. NCsoft support staff is both diligent and conservative in determining which accounts are using these programs, and we only terminate an account only after we are able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that such use has occurred.

For additional information, please visit the following links for the Rules of Conduct, the User Agreement, and the Conduct Breaches & Outcomes:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-rules-of-conduct/
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-user-agreement/
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-conduct-breaches-outcomes/

Regards,

Guild Wars Support Team
http://support.guildwars2.com

So I will reply to the email from Julio. In the meantime I need some direction. If my parent’s computer was infected with some type of virus/malware/etc. would this be the reason ANet thinks he’s modifying/tampering the game? If so I would need to hire someone to work on their computer (although plane tickets home might be cheaper).

I receive the error that his account has been closed when I try to log into the GW2 website, so I can’t see if there were log-ins from hackers. I would think this is the most reasonable explanation.

Mom says Dad was moping around all day, and my guildies say they’ve seen him try to log in several times. This is really hard to see your parent hurting. I’ve never been in this reversed-role, where I’m feeling overprotective of my parent.

Thanks in advance for any guidance to remedy this.

Nefera – Yes I think that would be helpful. Thanks!

I submitted my ticket.

Ashlar, I can imagine it is even more frustrating.

For anyone else out there, I highly encourage getting your parents involved with games. If GW2 is too much for them, try a tablet and some online games. I think it helps keep their mind alert and gives them confidence.

And (completely off topic), please pass on my thanks to the developers for making the individual crafting node system. My dad got frustrated at the last MMORPG we played because other players would steal his resource node while he was fighting off a mob. With GW2, I’ve never had to PM a player and say “you should be ashamed of yourself, stealing copper ore from a senior.”

Sounds like a plan!

And if anyone sees a lost/confused Norn named Cortez Peters, be nice to him! I have already been overwhelmed by the kind players in game – mesmers helping my dad get to places he can’t jump, fractal parties carrying him through, and guildies sending him materials (as a former metal worker, he loves crafting above all else).

My question: Is it ok to help my 64-year-old father manage his account (password changes, submitting tickets, etc.) from another part of the country?

tl;dr version:
On Thursday I helped my dad change his password over the phone. It took 28 minutes. It was exhausting.

Dad has played several times since the password change. Today he received the message that his account was terminated due to modifying/tampering. I know this is not true so I walked him through submitting a ticket. This was another 30 minutes of my mom and dad yelling at each other “I can’t find the email with the serial number”, “how do you spell ‘hacked’”, etc. It is their 36th wedding anniversary today so he could use a day off from the game to spend with mom.

I believe my dad’s account was hacked so I anticipate having to submit for a roll-back and change his password again. Unfortunately I live 1,000 miles away. The reason I bought him GW2 is so that we can spend time together. So I can’t just go to his house and help him with all that. It will be so much easier if I just do it for him. Will it cause more problems if I take care of things from my end?

Does GW2 have some sort of proxy access for people helping their children/parents with their accounts? If not I would like to suggest that. I have other friends also playing with a senior parent facing similar challenges.

For all I know, mom is approving emails for access in Asia. It is so hard to explain these things to them. When I told my dad to check if his gold and armor is missing once he gets back in the game because he may have been hacked, he told my mom to check the bank account. Thankfully I have them using different passwords for every account. Hopefully the damage is minimal.

Thanks!

It took me 20+ tries to patch this – I was also getting those types of errors.

ABrooke – you are not the first to be inappropriately banned, and you’re probably not the last. You have to appeal your ticket. Keep fighting and eventually you’ll reach someone that knows how to do their job and fix it. If you want a refund, there’s another thread that can help you do that. Good luck!

FYI: I’m pretty sure it’s against the TOA to share your account.

Soulfist – I feel your frustration and disappointment. I’ve watched the same thing happen to numerous people. When I spoke up about it my post was removed and I was given an infarction. I also decided to give other games a try. It makes that Volcanus bittersweet, huh?

Speaking of gems……Some of the banned players purchased gems, converted to gold, and shared with friends/family. Why would an RMT use their credit card to sell gold at a loss? These are obviously real people that didn’t need to be banned.

Direwulff.2396:

someone has to pay the folks answering the phones

There are other games without a subscription that have phone support. Arenanet chooses not to have it.

Yzzami, I’ve seen others post here with similar problems. They eventually got their account fixed through the ticket system. It just takes a while.

Gaile Gray.6028:

1. You cannot extrapolate 1 post, or 10, or even 100 to assume that it is representative of a major issue. 100 posts represents 0.00005% of our player base.

First off, 100 posts would be 0.005%.

I do drug development and clinical trials for a living so statistics on false positives is my specialty. It is absolutely improper to evaluate false positives by whole number alone. It must be evaluated in conjunction with the number of true positives and the total population. Please provide the number of active players, permanently banned players, and mistakenly banned events (we have to count events as some players have been banned multiple times) and I can run the statistics to show if this is a real problem or not.

Welcome to GW2 – If you were in a big guild with dozens of friends to spam ANet, your ban would be reversed by now. Since you’re just a normal player, find something else to do for a few days while you wait for your friend’s ticket to be evaluated. When one of my friends gets inappropriately banned, we go play swtor or lotro for a few days.

DivineBeing, I’m very concerned by the number of people being falsely banned. If you go through the past 3 months worth of posts you will see it is a lot.

These people are getting banned from receiving illegal gold, they are just playing the game in a normal way. Regardless, make sure your friends and family know not to purchase the illegal stuff.

Michael, your post makes no sense. When someone posts in Lion’s Arch, over and over again, “www.goldwalmart cheap golds”, and numerous players report this IT TAKES HOURS for the player to be removed. Other MMO’s I’ve played are immediate because they have real employees ready and able to ban those accounts. Same with botters – I can report them and come back hours later and they are still botting. It’s not like ANet has to send GMs all over the map – they just have to respond to the reporting system already in place.

Chris.5024:

Cake will be available at the conclusion of the transfer

The cake is a lie!

My video card.

That is all.

I would rather see resources put into punishing these types of players (which we have no control over) than people swearing (which we have in our control an ignore function).

The salt in the wound: While your friend/family member is wrongfully banned, you can continue to report bots and gold spammers AND NOTHING HAPPENS TO THEM. Hours go by and I still see the same illegal players.

It seems as though the current system runs like this:
Software identifies possible illegal activity —> player is banned regardless if activity was legal —> player must appeal ban (most of the ArenaNet worker’s time is taken up by reviewing these tickets)

Why not reverse the system and put all those employees where the action is? If the system utilized the in-game reporting system, it would look like this:
Players report gold-spammers/botters —> AN employees immediately review account and take action —> gold-spammers/botters become discouraged as their attempts become futile —> 99.9% of innocent players are not improperly banned (and therefore the number of tickets are significantly reduced)

I can’t tell if this is limited to NPCs only, but…

This is a great opportunity to teach your son the value of a strong password. Also, do forget to check his compute for worms/keystroke programs.

And tell him not to worry. It takes a long time but they can fix his account.

My friend just got his 3rd ban. The only reason we can think of is that he sent me 6g so I could get my last armor piece. Then we couldn’t play for a week, which really took the fun out of my new threads. And he missed all the Tixx stops because of it. :0(

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

Eosin.2078:

When you talk to someone on the phone, it puts them in the position of having to answer your questions on the spot. It requires them to know how to do their job, which encompasses organization and employee training. That all costs money and given my experiences so far with Arenanet, money is more important to them than their customers.

With the electronic ticket system, it allows ArenaNet to have all the power. They can ignore your ticket for days on end. If an employee messes up when evaluating your ticket, you have no way to contact a supervisor for help. They already have the money you spent to purchase the game so there is no incentive to invest in a support system that helps the customers in a timely or accurate manner.

Live phone support is a premium item. This is a game with no monthly subscriptions, do you really expect them to have dozens of techs standing by to answer the phone for support? Do you have any idea how much that costs?
Honestly think about it. How many phone support people would they need? They could not very well out source it now could they?
Look at Facebook, a multi BILLION dollar company with far more resources then anet, and you would be lucky to even get a response to an email, and a phone call? not going to happen.
Microsoft, another finacial giant. You call them after your 1 free call, and your going to pay for it to the tune of several hundred dollars for a single support call.
I deal with support at many different companies and very few of them have any phone support at all, and these are companies where we actually PAY thousands of dollars for a support contract every year, and you expect a game company like anet to offer live phone support for a game you spent a measly $60.00 for?

I can call 855-WBGAMES right now and get support for The Lord of the Rings Online and I don’t have a subscription (it costs a lot less than $60 too). Your argument is from the point of view of the corporation. Companies that value their customers take a lower profit in order to provide their customers with satisfaction. Companies that put their profits before their customers, such as Microsoft, Facebook, and ArenaNet, do exactly what they are doing.

When you talk to someone on the phone, it puts them in the position of having to answer your questions on the spot. It requires them to know how to do their job, which encompasses organization and employee training. That all costs money and given my experiences so far with Arenanet, money is more important to them than their customers.

With the electronic ticket system, it allows ArenaNet to have all the power. They can ignore your ticket for days on end. If an employee messes up when evaluating your ticket, you have no way to contact a supervisor for help. They already have the money you spent to purchase the game so there is no incentive to invest in a support system that helps the customers in a timely or accurate manner.

Maybe you can explain to us how someone who’s account has been mistakenly banned by ArenaNet is supposed to post in the 3-day thread?

Smooth Penguin.5294:

Mr White.4901:

Im in the same situation and ive found like 8 other people so far who also have the same story.

8 people out of hundreds of thousands of players worldwide. This doesn’t seem like a wide spread problem to me.

Your reasoning is like saying only a few people die of rabies every year so it’s not a problem. I guess it only becomes a problem when it affects you? In that case, I hope it happens to you so you can feel the frustration and lack of help from ArenaNet. Imagine not being able to post on these forums (except through a friend) and when you send in tickets you don’t get helped.

Satsujin – was anything ever missing in your brother’s account? If not, the same thing is happening to my best friend (3 times so far). Each time ArenaNet cannot tell him why it happened and this ticket no one will help him. If the account was hacked, obviously gold and/or items would be missing.

Gaile,

Other staff have been very unhelpful with a ticket so I sent you a PM. It’s not fair for someone to say “no help, case closed”. After using the proper channels, what other choices are left to get help?