Mabar Ban Problems

[grodon9999]

It sure does get the message accross.

The message of course being that they can peeve people as much as they want, and those people will riot on the forums, but they will not stop paying into the system.

If the message was that if you treat us like this, we will play something else, then they would actually have to evaluate how they do things. As it stands now, be prepared for more of the same.

Oh wait, didnt mass bannings where people claimed to not know why they were banned already happen like three or four other times in DDO history? :p

They corrected the issue, my statement was they would have done NOTHING if people hadn't reacted how they did. You post doesn't make any sense.

I wasn't here for any of the mass-banning of the past. There is something different this time that you need to get through that thick arrogant skull of yours: MOST OF THE PEOPLE BANNED IN THIS INCIDENT ARE INDEED INNOCENT.

[khaldan]

If mistakenly being called a cheat is that offensive


You really, really believe that people were banned by an automated process NINE days after the event? Really? You really, really believe that? Come on? Really?

blacktext to post

[HernandoCortez]

You really, really believe that people were banned by an automated process NINE days after the event? Really? You really, really believe that? Come on? Really?



I have my doubts too.

[Quikster]

You seriously care if a game company questions your "integrity"?

Turbine screwed up big-time, yes...

But it's just a game...



But it was obviously a mass-mailer... If you knew you didn't cheat, you knew it was a mistake... You threw a tantrum over a IT error, and you gave the company very little time to respond...

I'm sorry no one was up at 3:00 am who knew anything about the problem...

Yes, whoever was deleting threads (correctly), maybe should have called and woken up a big dog... That's a tough call to make.

What I care about is getting what I pay for. I spend some of my entertainment dollar with Turbine. When I decide to use that entertainment dollar after my wife goes to bed at night, I expect it to be there.

When I attempt to log on and am told i am instead facing a 30 day ban, I get a little miffed. It would be similar to me trying to turn on my tv and being told by my cable company that I can resume watching tv in 30 days, because I used their service in a improper manner.

Then I log into the forums and start reading garbage about how us exploiters deserved what we got. So now im being trashed in a community of my peers.

Very similar to reading in the paper that a bunch of cable customers were using their service improperly and are now on thirty day suspension.

Are you people my neighbors? No. But weather you like it or not we are peers and part of a community. One I chose to interact with on a daily basis. It does not feel good to be wrongfully accused of something in public, then told you are a liar if you deny it. Oh by the way, all this is going on with no proof of any wrong doing.

Finally, the form I submit to appeal takes 3-5 days to get a response from, and there is nobody I can call on the phone to make it right.


Am I saying that everyone should go cancel their sub now? No. I am saying that this is yet another factor that people should consider before handing their money over.

Maybe next time this happens it happens to .1 % and there isnt such an uproar. Maybe its you who are effected. I would think you want advocates here to defend you rather than spouting off how you deserve what you got, since you must be a cheater.

Does everyone know how to communicate displeasure in an appropriate manner? No. Is it Toleros fault anyone got banned? I seriously doubt it. But it is her job to moderate the forums, and the forums do operate 24/7. That would seem to indicate that occasionally she might have to work late. While I dont think Tolero got what she deserved with the forum backlash, I do think that its her job to deal with it, and Im not sorry she lost some off time, I mean stuff happens we all deal with it, and move on. Ive had to work late at inconvenient times, its not fun, but its part of life.

So all I ask is you stop for a minute, and realize that while you may think it would be no big deal to you at all if any of this happened to you, and it certainly isnt being a criminal in a third world country, it is somewhere in the middle on a spectrum that effects everyone a little differently.


@ Chai. I feel a public admittance of error is enough. I like all the fanbois that said I got what i deserved to have to eat a little crow :)

[stoolcannon]

MOST OF THE PEOPLE BANNED IN THIS INCIDENT ARE INDEED INNOCENT.

this

[grodon9999]

I think groundswell of nerdrage prompted a half assed apology otherwise we would have gotten none at all.

Exactly.

[Chai]

Shame on you. I understand that you like pvp on the forums but you go to far. Some hold honour close at all times, in a game and in real life. Yes, it is just a game. Why do YOU care if someone is upset? Why are YOU trolling this and egging others on. Who are you to decide how others should feel. Reported for trolling a sensitive subject just to get your jollies.

I'll say it again. The people who hold honor close and were really offended by this are currently figuring out what they are going to do with all of their free time they now have access to due to no longer playing DDO. Shame on the rest of us who pee and moan about it, and then continue to log in daily hoping more of the same wont occur each time we are super offended but continue to pay into the system.

Is there a problem officer?

[rimble]

Yes, I believe that it took 9 days for someone to come up with a broken data comber.

Yup, they certainly wanted SOME bans to happen. Their algorithm logic was just flawed in identifying who constituted an exploiter. I bet if JUST the 'real' exploiters got hit there would have been some clearer inferences of what the reason was, but since so many 'innocents' got hit it made deciphering any sort of pattern/reason impossible.

Even if not detailing exploits, they could at least detail the benefit you exploited towards.

"You are banned for exploiting the game to unfairly earn xp without risk."

"You are banned for exploiting the game to acquire items without risk."

"You are banned for exploiting the game to acquire rare encounter items without having participated in the encounter."

"You are banned for exploiting" just stinks any way you look at it.

[Quikster]

It sure does get the message accross.

The message of course being that they can peeve people as much as they want, and those people will riot on the forums, but they will not stop paying into the system.

If the message was that if you treat us like this, we will play something else, then they would actually have to evaluate how they do things. As it stands now, be prepared for more of the same.

Oh wait, didnt mass bannings where people claimed to not know why they were banned already happen like three or four other times in DDO history? :p

Canceled. So no I wont continue to pay for a service that may or may not be there when I intend to use it.

Oh and the three of the four times its happened before, were a lot different, as um there was actual exploiting happening on a mass basis. Not a lot of people being lumped into the cheater category that didnt do anything. Yes a few people may have, but not nearly as many as here.

[lifestaker]

Last night, it became aware to us as a company that our guidelines regarding banning was borked, and rather then listening to people who said that something wasn't right we acted harshly to them. In doing so we realize that you all hate us a little bit more and some lost faith in us as a company as a whole.

To make up for this blatant 'I don't care about you as a player of our game' mentality we are awarding all those immediately effected with the issue 100TP. Effectively saving you the time of farming out 100 favor on your regular server, reaching 50 favor on an off server, or paying $1.55 ($0.72 if you buy points on sale). This is to be used as a way of making you feel like we support you as a player base and to make up for all the wrongdoings we did last night. If per chance you were effected by this and didn't receive a ban then you will have to eat it because we really don't care about you.

If you feel this does not make up for the night of missing out on the game, being kicked out of a guild/pug run, or being forced to short man something due to members of your party being banned off the server for doing nothing wrong, then by all means do nothing. We as a company think this is a reasonable action and don't really care about you in the game, but keep playing as we can do it again at some later time for no reason and then again later when ever we hit the wrong button now that we know we have one.

Thanks for your time, and hope to see you complaining on the forums for being treated unjustly again soon (i need more threads to delete without cause or consideration).

Fixed that for you.

[Thrudh]

What I care about is getting what I pay for. I spend some of my entertainment dollar with Turbine. When I decide to use that entertainment dollar after my wife goes to bed at night, I expect it to be there.

When I attempt to log on and am told i am instead facing a 30 day ban, I get a little miffed. It would be similar to me trying to turn on my tv and being told by my cable company that I can resume watching tv in 30 days, because I used their service in a improper manner.

Then I log into the forums and start reading garbage about how us exploiters deserved what we got. So now im being trashed in a community of my peers.

Very similar to reading in the paper that a bunch of cable customers were using their service improperly and are now on thirty day suspension.

Are you people my neighbors? No. But weather you like it or not we are peers and part of a community. One I chose to interact with on a daily basis. It does not feel good to be wrongfully accused of something in public, then told you are a liar if you deny it. Oh by the way, all this is going on with no proof of any wrong doing.

Finally, the form I submit to appeal takes 3-5 days to get a response from, and there is nobody I can call on the phone to make it right.


Am I saying that everyone should go cancel their sub now? No. I am saying that this is yet another factor that people should consider before handing their money over.

Maybe next time this happens it happens to .1 % and there isnt such an uproar. Maybe its you who are effected. I would think you want advocates here to defend you rather than spouting off how you deserve what you got, since you must be a cheater.

Does everyone know how to communicate displeasure in an appropriate manner? No. Is it Toleros fault anyone got banned? I seriously doubt it. But it is her job to moderate the forums, and the forums do operate 24/7. That would seem to indicate that occasionally she might have to work late. While I dont think Tolero got what she deserved with the forum backlash, I do think that its her job to deal with it, and Im not sorry she lost some off time, I mean stuff happens we all deal with it, and move on. Ive had to work late at inconvenient times, its not fun, but its part of life.

So all I ask is you stop for a minute, and realize that while you may think it would be no big deal to you at all if any of this happened to you, and it certainly isnt being a criminal in a third world country, it is somewhere in the middle on a spectrum that effects everyone a little differently.


@ Chai. I feel a public admittance of error is enough. I like all the fanbois that said I got what i deserved to have to eat a little crow :)

Good post Quik... Point taken.

[HernandoCortez]

No one will ever know apparently since the policy is to not disclose any information to the community or banned players.

Bad, bad policy. What I fell on DDO is if you have a problem, talk to the robot. They don't seem to care or treat us as real persons instead of number$.

I have appealed against a wrong ban before and I'm still waiting for them to answer. I think it was a month ago...

[stoolcannon]

What I care about is getting what I pay for. I spend some of my entertainment dollar with Turbine. When I decide to use that entertainment dollar after my wife goes to bed at night, I expect it to be there.


Abso-effing-lutely.

I am one of the most gracious tippers you will ever see enter a restaurant. But I DEMAND good service. I'm super nice, courteous, tip extremely well and always thank my server. A server would **** near have to spit in my food to get less than 20% because I am generous and know how hard the job is from experience.

But I DEMAND good service.

Why? Because I am there paying a PREMIUM for the service.

You can take that example and apply it to anything I pay for whether it's cable TV, cellular service or my internet provider. If I am paying you I expect to receive the service I am paying for as well as common courtesy.

I pay Turbine a premium for their VIP service and I expect to be provided that service and treated with respect. I was prepared to cancel my subscription this evening pending their response.

They responded and it was enough but just by a hair.

That's 2 strikes for me.

I've already had to go the BBB to get my points, now I've been called a cheat and threatened with banning. This system can't sustain itself and I'll be taking advantage of Turbine's FTP offering sooner rather than later methinks.

[Thrudh]

You called me a cheat. Then a person I will not forgive came on the forums with all capital letters and called me and others a liar and a cheat. I am a 58 year old MAN. I do not lie. I do not cheat. I have watched and guarded my behaviour all my adult life as to not be a liar and a cheat.

You called me a cheat. I am an honest player. Casual, but I am here everyday.

You called me a cheat. There is no amount of tp that can compensate me for the harm you did.

You called me a cheat. I do not sense any real emotion in your apology Tolero. I do believe you need to get somebody up here who can.

It was an automated letter. If you got a letter from the cable company saying you hadn't paid your bill, but you knew you had, would you take it personally? Or would you call them and clear it up?

After the person on the phone said, "I'm sorry, sir... we made a mistake... You DID pay your bill", would you REALLY say "Not good enough! You've offended my HONOR! I want an apology with some emotion in it!!!"

[DrakeValos]

Thanks!

Can I get 100 TP compensation for this wall of text I wrote while this thread got posted?

*Note: GJ taking my advice in advance. :P


--------

Dear Turbine,

Some background: I've spent the past 13 years working for various Fortune 100 companies including some of the most high profile technology and software companies in the world. I've got a wealth of experience dealing with PR and I've seen many times just how badly a poor customer satisfaction rating can impact a company's bottom line.

You have a golden opportunity to prevent that from happening to you or at the very least dampen the blow. Mistakes happen, and you've clearly made one but most people are reasonable and forgiving enough to let it go as long as they are communicated to quickly and clearly. It's time to get out in front of this issue before it snowballs and you lose hundreds of paying subscribers if not more.

Here's my advice. RELEASE A STATEMENT! Even a short, succinct statement indicating that you are conducting further investigations and will prepare a formal response shortly. It will go a long way towards buying you some time to determine just how you managed to dig a hole this deep and come up with a formal plan to address it. A single forum post from Tolero saying "We hear you, we are looking into it, please give us a bit of time to respond" would be enough to prevent me from hastily canceling my subscription.

I personally have about 3000 TP at the moment and will begin using those to buy my favorite packs this evening whereupon I plan to cancel my VIP subscription.

I won't be quitting the game as I enjoy the gameplay and most especially enjoy playing with my friends and my guild but I'm having a hard time justifying laying out $15 per month to a company that accuses me of being a cheater when I did absolutely nothing wrong and bans many other people for the same 'offense'.

If you take this opportunity to make some sort of formal response, even if it's something so slight as to say "we are conducting further investigations and preparing a more thorough response" then I won't pull the trigger until I've given you a chance to reply. However, should you choose to ignore the opportunity to provide the community with some sort of assurance that your paying customers actually mean something to you then I will be left with no choice but to discontinue my minimal financing of your future endeavors.

I may be just one person but I've spent $150 on points in the past 3 months on top of being a VIP and I know for a fact that a game with as small of a player base as DDO cannot afford to lose even one loyal customer.

Overall though I am not particularly surprised by this turn of events. While you do offer a fantastic gameplay experience you have one of the worst customer service records (with me) in recent memory.

1. I have not received my bonus points for being a VIP since the first month I subscribed 5-6 months ago. After 3 unanswered emails to support I finally contacted the better Business Bureau. My claim was responded to within 24 hours and I received my points. I should not have to resort to using a 3rd party to motivate you to meet your commitments. Most especially given how you respond to my supposed violations of my own commitment to the EULA.

2. The majority of my in game tickets have either taken so long to get a response that I had already moved on or simply been rejected. There have been a few shining moments and I thank those DM's for their effort but for the most part I and utterly dissatisfied. My favorite was when I turned in 3 medium dragonshards with my bank toon to get a mem trinket (and received no warning that it was BTC) and was told by the DM that I should make sure I read the descriptions to be certain I understand the consequences of my actions. I will say outright that I am a fantastic reader and can maintain a good 6-700 wpm pace while still retaining the majority of what I read but I struggle mightily with reading things that don't actually exist.

3. Premium accounts cannot enter help tickets. I'm not sure how restricting a paying customer from entering help tickets is benefiting anyone.

4. This Mabar fiasco. Hundreds (thousands?) of people accused of cheating with nary a clue as to what they may have done wrong with who knows how many banned from the game. No warning, no explanation, just one and done. I know at least 10 in my guild who were banned.

Please Turbine, take this obstacle and turn it into an opportunity to provide me and the other loyal customers with some assurance that we actually matter. I know my money matters, you want it and you need it. But I'd like to know that you have some sort of motivation to keep the player base happy.

Yours truly,

Loyal Customer (pending)

This

[stoolcannon]

What I care about is getting what I pay for....

Hmmm apparently I've been +1'ing you too much despite our disagreements in other threads as I must spread rep around.

:)

[Thrudh]

I'll be taking advantage of Turbine's FTP offering sooner rather than later methinks.

Heh, and then you'll STILL complain you're not being treated well, after all the money you've spent in the Store on character slots and adventure packs...

Going to FTP isn't much of a threat... If you guys hate the company, just quit.

[stoolcannon]

This

Yay that makes 2 people that read my wall-o-text. My daily fulfillment-and-affirmation-o-meter is now at 100%.

[HernandoCortez]

Yup, they certainly wanted SOME bans to happen. Their algorithm logic was just flawed in identifying who constituted an exploiter. I bet if JUST the 'real' exploiters got hit there would have been some clearer inferences of what the reason was, but since so many 'innocents' got hit it made deciphering any sort of pattern/reason impossible.

Even if not detailing exploits, they could at least detail the benefit you exploited towards.

"You are banned for exploiting the game to unfairly earn xp without risk."

"You are banned for exploiting the game to acquire items without risk."

"You are banned for exploiting the game to acquire rare encounter items without having participated in the encounter."

"You are banned for exploiting" just stinks any way you look at it.

Perfect. +1

[stoolcannon]

Heh, and then you'll STILL complain you're not being treated well, after all the money you've spent in the Store on character slots and adventure packs...

Going to FTP isn't much of a threat... If you guys hate the company, just quit.

Ah but I've already spent the money on TP my man so why just leave it on the table?

[fabhpk]

I've never been called anything at 10pm in the morning and I am gravely concerned that if I were to be called something at such a time the universe might fold in upon itself.



Oooops!!! Post edited.

LOL for this post. Irresistible +1...

[Thargnar]

I know that <1% seems small, but that is a huge number of players to be affected for an event that only a portion participated in to begin with. DDO boasted 1 million new players since free to play (http://www.massiveonlinegamer.com/news/announcements/488-ddo-boasts-one-million-f2p-players), not to mention paid subscribers. Are we are really talking about tens of thousands of people?

The sub 1% is probably accurate, but it's PR Weasel Math. You're right that they have a BUTTLOAD of signups, which counts not only regular subs but freeps who signed up and promptly forgot about it, plus mule accounts etc, so the sub 1% sounds small until you realize as you pointed out that even 1 percent of a million is a ton of subs, and those affected were only among the active accounts, so 1 percent total yes, but multiply that percentage by 5 or 10 for actual active player impact. Our guild of 4, one guy got the ban, in a private channel with 50 or so users at least half a dozen or so people were on alt accounts or had a friend unable to log in. I'd say the actual player impact was closer to 10-20% just from personal experience.

[Eladiun]

It was an automated letter. If you got a letter from the cable company saying you hadn't paid your bill, but you knew you had, would you take it personally? Or would you call them and clear it up?

After the person on the phone said, "I'm sorry, sir... we made a mistake... You DID pay your bill", would you REALLY say "Not good enough! You've offended my HONOR! I want an apology with some emotion in it!!!"


If they wrong fully disconnected my service because the accused me of stealing cable then were inaccessible for hours, ignored my request, told me when I called them they couldn't help me...

Yes I would look for compensation.

[Chai]

They corrected the issue, my statement was they would have done NOTHING if people hadn't reacted how they did. You post doesn't make any sense.

I wasn't here for any of the mass-banning of the past. There is something different this time that you need to get through that thick arrogant skull of yours: MOST OF THE PEOPLE BANNED IN THIS INCIDENT ARE INDEED INNOCENT.

How do we know they werent mostly innocent the other times as well? There have been more than a few mass bannings where many people *claimed to not know what they did to deserve it. How exactly do we know that those incidents are different than this one again?

The fact that people around these parts riot on the forums alot but continue to play shows the company exactly what the threshold of customer pain is for this game. I have seen quite a few mass exodus in other games for lesser offenses than this. This type of customer loyalty couldnt be had anywhere else.

I think they would have done something if their email system was flooded with support requests to the point that couldnt be ignored. Mass nerdrage, while hilarious, isnt the way to get the best, or most expedious answer. Its a GREAT way to watch a bunch of threads be removed from the forums and seemingly nothing done about an issue for several hours.

[khaldan]

How do we know they werent mostly innocent the other times as well? There have been more than a few mass bannings where many people *claimed to not know what they did to deserve it. How exactly do we know that those incidents are different than this one again?

The fact that people around these parts riot on the forums alot but continue to play shows the company exactly what the threshold of customer pain is for this game. I have seen quite a few mass exodus in other games for lesser offenses than this. This type of customer loyalty couldnt be had anywhere else.

I think they would have done something if their email system was flooded with support requests to the point that couldnt be ignored. Mass nerdrage, while hilarious, isnt the way to get the best, or most expedious answer. Its a GREAT way to watch a bunch of threads be removed from the forums and seemingly nothing done about an issue for several hours.

Because every person I know who got banned for super leveling(can't think of the real/better name) actually did it. That's not the case here.

[Chai]

If they wrong fully disconnected my service because the accused me of stealing cable then were inaccessible for hours, ignored my request, told me when I called them they couldn't help me...

Yes I would look for compensation.

And when they gave you a pathetic amount of compensation and told you to have a nice day, you would order up a different service and cancel theirs. Since youre still here, I can only imagine how offended you must be from all this.

Not.

[Yeric]

It was an automated letter. If you got a letter from the cable company saying you hadn't paid your bill, but you knew you had, would you take it personally? Or would you call them and clear it up?

After the person on the phone said, "I'm sorry, sir... we made a mistake... You DID pay your bill", would you REALLY say "Not good enough! You've offended my HONOR! I want an apology with some emotion in it!!!"

I already stated what I am. You sir are a troll.

[stoolcannon]

It was an automated letter. If you got a letter from the cable company saying you hadn't paid your bill, but you knew you had, would you take it personally? Or would you call them and clear it up?

After the person on the phone said, "I'm sorry, sir... we made a mistake... You DID pay your bill", would you REALLY say "Not good enough! You've offended my HONOR! I want an apology with some emotion in it!!!"

You're making an inappropriate comparison.

A letter telling me I am being warned for cheating is akin to a letter from my cable company telling me I was stealing cable from the neighbor. And yes, that would **** me off, bad. It would be further exacerbated if my cable was canceled for said offense with no prior communication or warning.

[DallasXXIII]

It was an automated letter. If you got a letter from the cable company saying you hadn't paid your bill, but you knew you had, would you take it personally? Or would you call them and clear it up?

After the person on the phone said, "I'm sorry, sir... we made a mistake... You DID pay your bill", would you REALLY say "Not good enough! You've offended my HONOR! I want an apology with some emotion in it!!!"

Not only would my cable company do exactly that but they would also provide the support over the phone to clear that up and add 1 month of free subscription for compensation.

If received an abuse letter from my internet service provider saying my account was supsended, it would include a clear reason and also contact information to the person who was handling the case.


All I am asking for is that Tubine state they remove a program or script that automaticly bans people with no human interaction publicly.

[Sirea]

The sub 1% is probably accurate, but it's PR Weasel Math. You're right that they have a BUTTLOAD of signups, which counts not only regular subs but freeps who signed up and promptly forgot about it, plus mule accounts etc, so the sub 1% sounds small until you realize as you pointed out that even 1 percent of a million is a ton of subs, and those affected were only among the active accounts, so 1 percent total yes, but multiply that percentage by 5 or 10 for actual active player impact. Our guild of 4, one guy got the ban, in a private channel with 50 or so users at least half a dozen or so people were on alt accounts or had a friend unable to log in. I'd say the actual player impact was closer to 10-20% just from personal experience.

You make an excellent point. Maybe only 1% actually got the ban, but if you were friends/guildies with an affected person, or an effected person was performing a vital role in a quest and suddenly disappeared, or you are a forum reader and was there when **** started hitting the fan, then a lot more than 1% were actually effected. Gotta love Ripple Effect.

[Thrudh]

I think Chai's point is that because the forums have cried wolf so many times before ("Turbine just banned me and I didn't do anything!!" - but it turns out they did), that when THIS happened, most of us just assumed it was the same as the last 3-4 times...

Where people really did exploit, and the right people were banned, and we saw the same amount of rage on the forums over the injustice of it all.

Very very stupid to kick off that program at night, but if I was the 3am moderator, I doubt I would have woken anyone up either; I would have just assumed it was the same forum rage as the last 3-4 times.

[khaldan]

And when they gave you a pathetic amount of compensation and told you to have a nice day, you would order up a different service and cancel theirs. Since youre still here, I can only imagine how offended you must be from all this.

Not.

I'll be cancelling my account and switching to another MMO because of this. That doesn't keep me from stating that this was terrible and should never have happened.

Quitting isn't a magic button that keeps me from ever talking about this game again.

[stoolcannon]

If they wrong fully disconnected my service because the accused me of stealing cable then were inaccessible for hours, ignored my request, told me when I called them they couldn't help me...

Yes I would look for compensation.

Glad to see I'm not the only person that recognizes a poor analogy.

[Hendrik]

Tolero;

As one that was hit with the unwarranted ban I DO appreciate the apology and the gift of 100TP. I will honestly tell you, my faith was shaken as well - I was fearing a SWG NGE with DDO. While some of my faith has been restored, I will have some very serious second thoughts about participating in ANY Turbine sponsored Event. Sad really, because you at Turbine have been improving the Events and making them quite enjoyable.

Thank you for removing the false ban and warning from my record - I appreciate it and am glad it was fixed/resolved rather quickly.

For everyone's sake, let's make sure something like this NEVER happens again.

Thank you for the resolution.

-Hen

[Chai]

Because every person I know who got banned for super leveling(can't think of the real/better name) actually did it. That's not the case here.

The only reason why we *know* (believe) this is because no one came out and stated otherwise.

There were quite a few people in that era who said they didnt know why they were involuntarily vacationed as well. We know that was different how again?

Do we really have to bring the conjecture paddle out of retirement again? :D

[tripwire11]

just because the man who sells the best pies does some weird stuff, and makes it so large quantities of ppl cant buy the pies for a short amount of time, dosn't mean we wont still buy the best pies.

I hope that analogy is easy to understand. Its the best mmo out there imo, and even if its run poorly im gunna keep playing

i think quitting all together is an over reaction

yeah I'm still kinda angry (i missed our titan ><), but im mostly over it, the apology was enough for me.

But this should never happen again.

[Ranmaru2]

Nah, I'm sure Turbine is capable of even grander stupidity!

They already ascended prior to this...Dungeon Alert and Grazing Hits.

[Thrudh]

You're making an inappropriate comparison.

A letter telling me I am being warned for cheating is akin to a letter from my cable company telling me I was stealing cable from the neighbor. And yes, that would **** me off, bad. It would be further exacerbated if my cable was canceled for said offense with no prior communication or warning.



You're right... that's a better analogy... It's still just a company calling you a cheater though... If you called the next morning, and they said "Yes, you're right.. we're wrong... we'll turn it back on immediately", would you really require a more sincere apology with emotion to assuage your honor?

[Thrudh]

All I am asking for is that Tubine state they remove a program or script that automaticly bans people with no human interaction publicly.

I agree with that.

[LittleM]

You can't buy the kind of FAIL Turbine can produce. It's not the first time and it's not the last. The 100 TP compensation clearly means they expect something like this to happen again. It is small enough, they can afford to give it again and does satisfy some of those affected. But why would anyone want to subscribe to this circus, other than enjoy the FAIL show.

I am free to play and got only an infraction, so I can laugh over this. I was upset when I got the mail. Accusing someone of being a thief is personal, nothing to do with the game. But now, it's nothing but a crazy story to spread over the net.

But DDO shouldn't be a joke to the Turbine and it's employes. I thought they are trying to make money out of it. Maybe it's just a fact that I work for a small company, where every screwed project, could potentialy force the closure of the company and it's simply a very different world.

I have learned my lesson and any remains of the idea, DDO being a serious hobby, were just eliminated. I will take it, as it clearly wants to be, low grade entertainment with no strings attached.

[Chai]

Tolero;

As one that was hit with the unwarranted ban I DO appreciate the apology and the gift of 100TP. I will honestly tell you, my faith was shaken as well - I was fearing a SWG NGE with DDO.

See heres a good example of what I stated before. SWG is a perfect example of where customers not only claimed they were really REALLY offended, but hundreds of thousands of them left due to that fact.

[Tirkan]

I am not satisfied by the form letter sent out, which I have just received.

[grodon9999]

How do we know they werent mostly innocent the other times as well? There have been more than a few mass bannings where many people *claimed to not know what they did to deserve it. How exactly do we know that those incidents are different than this one again?

The fact that people around these parts riot on the forums alot but continue to play shows the company exactly what the threshold of customer pain is for this game. I have seen quite a few mass exodus in other games for lesser offenses than this. This type of customer loyalty couldnt be had anywhere else.

I think they would have done something if their email system was flooded with support requests to the point that couldnt be ignored. Mass nerdrage, while hilarious, isnt the way to get the best, or most expedious answer. Its a GREAT way to watch a bunch of threads be removed from the forums and seemingly nothing done about an issue for several hours.


Are you really this dense or just trying to perfect the artform that is trolling?

[mephistos2]

30 days for thrudh, 7 days for me, 3 days for others and some just got a warning. Apparently we're all living on borrowed time and it's just a matter of how long it takes to get to a 30 day autoban. Has one of my nine lives been forever used up w/ DDO or do I get that back too?

I can tell you right now if I'm going to get banned 30 days next time there's a misunderstanding or some idiot reports me for colorful language, I'll just quit now :)

[grodon9999]

See heres a good example of what I stated before. SWG is a perfect example of where customers not only claimed they were really REALLY offended, but hundreds of thousands of them left due to that fact.

So according to your brilliant analysis the only thing people should do if they have an issue is quit?

[Trillea]

just because the man who sells the best pies does some weird stuff, and makes it so large quantities of ppl cant buy the pies for a short amount of time, dosn't mean we wont still buy the best pies.

I hope that analogy is easy to understand. Its the best mmo out there imo, and even if its run poorly im gunna keep paying and playing for it

yeah I'm still kinda angry (i missed our titan ><), but im mostly over it, the apology was enough for me.

But this should never happen again.

http://www.teesforall.com/images/Seinfeld_Soup_Nazi_Blue_Shirt.jpg

[Quikster]

And when they gave you a pathetic amount of compensation and told you to have a nice day, you would order up a different service and cancel theirs. Since youre still here, I can only imagine how offended you must be from all this.

Not.

Maybe, but cable service isnt interactive. I have several friends in game that I communicate with outside the game very often, several on the phone once a week or more.

I have always felt a part of community forums I join and participate in.

In my view it isnt Turbine that makes the game so great for me, Turbine simply provides the platform, the environment if you will, its the people in game that make it for me.

I understand what youre saying, but I think you are taking this a little lightly. People were upset, and this is simply their frustrations venting. You are exasperating the issue with your comments.

[Chai]

Are you really this dense or just trying to perfect the artform that is trolling?

If insults, which are the internet calling card of someone who has no ammo left to banter their point with, are all you have left here, I see that my point is sinking in quite nicely.

Now answer the question please. I dont think you can without contradicting at least two of your previous posts, and I think you realize this.

Toodles.

[Quikster]

http://www.teesforall.com/images/Seinfeld_Soup_Nazi_Blue_Shirt.jpg

I spent the day making an old family recipe for a soup. After I couldnt log in last night, I had my fourth bowl of the evening :)

Three so far today :D

[Zzevel]

Yeah I've got to agree here. I had 10 in my guild alone. We do not have 1000 members, or even 100.


It's probably < 1% of all accounts (qactive and inactive). I would like to know the % of bans of accounts that attended the event. We had several in our guild as well, closer to the 10% than the 1%...

[stoolcannon]

You're right... that's a better analogy... It's still just a company calling you a cheater though... If you called the next morning, and they said "Yes, you're right.. we're wrong... we'll turn it back on immediately", would you really require a more sincere apology with emotion to assuage your honor?

Yes, I would demand and receive free service for a certain amount of time. I've had my internet go down for a day and been compensated with a week of free service for instance.

And guess what, Comcast didn't even call me and accuse me of of peeing on the power lines to cause the internet to go out. They just fessed up, compensated me and we were all happy.

If they had done that I would have just switched to Fios. Oh wait that's right I did because Comcast customer service eat's duke.

[HernandoCortez]

I can tell you right now if I'm going to get banned 30 days next time there's a misunderstanding or some idiot reports me for colorful language, I'll just quit now :)

Thats why I'm worried too. With no answer from ban appealing I'm not sure if DDO is worth playing anymore. Moody GMs + misunderstanding or a bad tell can lead to lost money and time. I'm in a dilemma now.

[stoolcannon]

4. Stoolcannon lives up to his internet name, which is why he fails at being taken seriously in threads where he tries to be serious.

My recommendation is to read the "actionable feedback" thread posted a while ago, and use it as a guide to best practice posting.

Bbbbrbraaaappppffttttt. Whoa was that me?

[stoolcannon]

You haven't been paying attention if you just learned that today in this thread...

:)

:)

[grodon9999]

If insults, which are the internet calling card of someone who has no ammo left to banter their point with, are all you have left here, I see that my point is sinking in quite nicely.

Now answer the question please. I dont think you can without contradicting at least two of your previous posts, and I think you realize this.

Toodles.

You had a question?

[Lorien_the_First_One]

It was an automated letter. If you got a letter from the cable company saying you hadn't paid your bill, but you knew you had, would you take it personally? Or would you call them and clear it up?

After the person on the phone said, "I'm sorry, sir... we made a mistake... You DID pay your bill", would you REALLY say "Not good enough! You've offended my HONOR! I want an apology with some emotion in it!!!"

No, to keep the analogy correct it would have to be "you got a letter from the cable company saying that you had defrauded them and that they had cancelled your service".

I'd expect more than "I'm sorry" if they ever wanted me as a customer again.

[mephistos2]

I'm still trying to figure out If being banned was a good thing or a bad thing :)

[Chai]

So according to your brilliant analysis the only thing people should do if they have an issue is quit?

This is actually stated in the TOS as your only recourse. If people are hugely offended and want to make a statement that has any impact whatsoever, then not paying into the system is that statement.

Or, we can continue to send the message we always send when the forum riots occur. You can spank us as much as you want, and we will continue to show up for more of the same.

SWG literally failed after the customer response it received when people were hugely offended. Its a decent example, to say the least.

[stoolcannon]

I'm still trying to figure out If being banned was a good thing or a bad thing :)

Dude after you hit the town with those 100 shiny turbine points and buy yourself a nice.....wait what exactly can you buy with 100 points?

I'd save it up for 2 shiny new ethereal keys if I were you. ;)

[khaldan]

I'm still trying to figure out If being banned was a good thing or a bad thing :)

Either way, it's $15 a month saved.

[grodon9999]

Or, we can continue to send the message we always send when the forum riots occur. You can spank us as much as you want, and we will continue to show up for more of the same.



What part of them actually reversing this do you not get? I do not believe this would have happened if people didn't freak out.

[Thrudh]

No, to keep the analogy correct it would have to be "you got a letter from the cable company saying that you had defrauded them and that they had cancelled your service".

I'd expect more than "I'm sorry" if they ever wanted me as a customer again.

If that's true, then are you qutting DDO? Because all they are handing out is a "I'm sorry"...

[Thrudh]

Hmmmm I insulted 2 people with this post and received exactly 2 negs.

http://i56.tinypic.com/23m8vvk.jpg

Wasn't me... Someone was defending my honor! (or more likely Chai's)

[stoolcannon]

Wasn't me... Someone was defending my honor! (or more likely Chai's)

Yours maybe, you've actually skirted the edges of a few valid points now and again :)

If it was Chai's it must have been someone on the Turbine staff.

[Catiriona]

All I can say is the <1% is pretty misleading. Personally over 1/3 of the people I know participating in the event were effected. Granted I have played a long time and know alot of people but we are talking well over 100 people that I can confirm were banned or warned. If we start looking at various forums and your facebook pages we can immediately bump that into hundreds if not thousands and we all know that the majority of players don't frequent forums et al so we are not just talking about a few people. To imply that is simply wrong.

All that being said I am still not sure what I will be doing about this. I know that if I do not receive written notice that the warning is off my account I will be cancelling my VIP account and using up the TP I have accumilated to set myself up as FTP. So I sincerely hope they are planning on giving written notice that warnings are removed, forgive me if I don't take the apology of someone that oversees the Forums as proof it is no longer there. I am pleased there was some sort of response and apology but this feels underwhelming at the very least. Especially after the hours of defending people I know were not exploiters and personally wracking my brains as to what I could have possibly have done wrong to warrant a warning.

To those who jumped on the " of course you claim innocence you dirty exploiter" bandwagon all I can say is what comes around goes around and karma is (well to put it politely) Xy'zzy, we all know what she is.

[HernandoCortez]

dude After You Hit The Town With Those 100 Shiny Turbine Points And Buy Yourself A Nice.....wait What Exactly Can You Buy With 100 Points?

I'd Save It Up For 2 Shiny New Ethereal Keys If I Were You. ;)

Lol

[Rumbaar]

The nature of two different and incorrectly worded e-mails would indicate to me more than an automated system is at fault here. There was some human/s involved in this, and this 'apology' does not sit right.

I hope, but doubt, the truth will ever come out. Who was/is actually at fault at Turbine. The 100TP are a joke, but truthfully I don't have high expectations from Turbine in the apology department. But the fact they have must mean there was a real human/exploit error within Turbine itself.

Did we get any compensation from the 1,000's of accounts that were affected by the Offer Wall? No Did we get compensation from the 1,000's of accounts that were reduced from Premium to FREE for weeks? No Did those wrongly accused and banned for Guild renown related issues? No.

But for this supposedly 'automated' error we do. I've got my Tin Foil hat on.


Less than a percent of users were impacted by the issue, but we will be contacting all of the impacted accounts. Note that if your contact info in your account is incorrect that you may not receive the email, but the lifting of the suspension will still happen.Well if they can contact you with the ban e-mail I'll assume they can contact with the lifting e-mail?!


Thanks for the apology.
I'm not sure how I feel about all this. I still have a hard time believing you started issuing mass bans at peak time and it took you 12+ hours to acknowledge the mistake. It hints at some serious internal issues I'm hoping will be promptly resolved.
100 TP's are kind of a joke but I didn't really expect anything, so why not.. I would have just appreciated a faster reaction from the dev team.I have to agree the heavy handed and the nature of this apology screams of some internal issues.


Still reading, but did want to clarify: there was an exploit in the summoning chamber, but it has been fixed with today's patch. We are also reviewing our exploit suspension process in detail. Thanks for your patience and very sorry for the inconvenience!I hope the 9999 Motes stacks is fixed too! You can have 16+ people that you don't even choose, or know are in your instance. But feel that the actions by one or more of those individuals has an affect or baring on all of those in the same instance. Once again your poor coding and implementation of a flawed systems has put the player base and community at risk.


Indeed! Emails are being sent directly to those players, should be arriving very soon. In some cases some folks may find that their account is reactivated even though they didn't yet get the email.I doubt the small numbers your profess to be affected would warrant such speedy action.

Turbine seems to try and drain more and more of my desire to play this, at times, wonderful game.

[Qyre_DeHon]

Still reading, but did want to clarify: there was an exploit in the summoning chamber, but it has been fixed with today's patch. We are also reviewing our exploit suspension process in detail. Thanks for your patience and very sorry for the inconvenience!

THANK YOU!!!!!!!! 161 posts later... but *finally*.

You might include this into your original post FWIW.
Also, Please don't make it a 3 day ban for people that intentionally did this.
Make it at LEAST 30 days. Permanent if they've done ANY intentional exploit before.

If you keep punishing the masses for a select few's actions, you will not have any masses.

[Barrelhouse]

If that's true, then are you qutting DDO? Because all they are handing out is a "I'm sorry"...

Personally, I quit because I refuse to support a company with such arrogance/indifference and unscrupulous business practices, and which does not value me as a paying customer. As much as I enjoyed the game, my conscience just will not allow it.

[systemstate]

No, to keep the analogy correct it would have to be "you got a letter from the cable company saying that you had defrauded them and that they had cancelled your service".

I'd expect more than "I'm sorry" if they ever wanted me as a customer again.

Actually this exact thing did happen to me three years ago. They never made good, never apologized, and merely waived the $312 they said I owed them.

I ended up cancelling my account and haven't had cable since. Turns out, I can actually survive just fine without 200 channels I didn't really watch anyway. I got out, exercised, found some hobbies... Then came DDO.

Now my butt's getting fat again, and my wife recently informed me that I am showing signs of "turkey neck". *sigh*

[stoolcannon]

Personally, I quit because I refuse to support a company with such arrogance/indifference and unscrupulous business practices, and which does not value me as a paying customer. As much as I enjoyed the game, my conscience just will not allow it.

I'm not quite that deeply offended. I might quit but my greensteel and epic items just will not allow it.

I am what you might sometimes hear referred to as a "sucker".

[Grecan]

I'd like to know how could you possibly say this in those e-mails: "Note that all account actions are taken only after a significant amount of research and verification is performed to ensure proper Code of Conduct enforcement."


(ps: i read only the first 3 pages of posts)

[Trillea]

I'm not quite that deeply offended. I might quit but my greensteel and epic items just will not allow it.

I am what you might sometimes hear referred to as a "sucker".

This, I will believe. I am in the same boat.

[Qyre_DeHon]

Still at least we got a response, though I would really like to receive a "sorry, you´re not a cheater" email.

And I hope some heads are rolling right now on Tunbine.

I don't wish for heads rolling...but they should definately have the same hammer applied to them that was mistakenly applied to us. ;)

[wingmaker]

Tyvm!

[Raiderone]

http://my.ddo.com/raiderone/wp-content/blogs.dir/8512/files/my-gallery/protest.jpg

[stoolcannon]

this, I Will Believe. I Am In The Same Boat.

Who You Callin A Sucka?!!!

[suitepotato]

Scrap the automated/semiautomated in-game infraction system, if there is one. Automated imposition of causal negatives (warnings constitute an allegation of wrongdoing, bannings are an outright claim) is a good way to end up in court facing a legion of lawsuits. When Comcast took over their newly-bought AT&T Broadband holdings, they were very careful to have their teams put doortags on homes cut off during the initial audit that specified the action as rectification of mistakes on their end, and invited these people to contact them for immediate restoral if the cutoff was wrong. NO allegations, NO inferences of piracy, even if it was obvious piracy. Consider for a moment that we are talking Comcast, industry gorilla that otherwise does pretty much whatever they want to.
If you must have an automation system, use it for nothing more than alarm compilations for humans to go over later. Prepare to ignore most of them. Your game is still constantly in BETA level, with new bugs constantly being introduced, knocking back quality over and over. You still have a legion of stuck spots, bad geometry, and the like that make it entirely possible for people to commit infractions without consciously trying. Most of your detections will be along those lines. I worked for a business provider which never cut off people for abuse without first checking the protocols of the traffic, identifying whether the traffic was from known viral infections, or from compromised email servers. No one was cut off without solid documentation first.
Eliminate the Kafkaesque attitudes and rules. You accuse people of unspecified infractions and punish them for them, refuse to clarify what those infractions were or even might have been, and threaten further punishment if they tell someone what you did to them. It's not for nothing that parallels were drawn to the Stalinist years of the USSR and its satellites. I'm sure many of these assembled geeks felt like Picard being worked over and wanting to scream that there are four lights. Who came up with this system, Colonel Flagg? In the future, make NO allegations without a specific charge of what, when, where, and how.
Staff your call center 24 hours. It's inexcusable that you gleefully take money from Aussies, Kiwis, Germans, Brits, etc. but leave them unable to talk to you live when they need you because you want to run your office on US East Coast part-time hours. It really would not hurt your bottom line to have at least three people manning phones overnight. Also, DO NOT OUTSOURCE THEM TO INDIA, WEST VIRGINIA, OR SOME OTHER PLACE WITHOUT DIRECT WALK OVER TO THE MANAGER'S DESK ACCESS. Seriously, that sort of thing just ticks off customers to absolutely no end. The LAST thing the customers want is to talk to contract flunkies without access to the people with power to do something.

Turbine, you're no Comcast, never mind Microsoft. You can't get away with this lackadaisical attitude forever, and now you have WB watching you. Before they pull the plug and take this game away from all of us in the process of coming down on you like a ton of bricks, wake up. If you think I'm being melodramatic, consider that WB shut down all the WB boutique stores at the drop of a hat and have practically mothballed their cartoon properties. They have no problem nickel and diming powerful Hollywood people who probably could buy your company at a yard sale if they wished. They swat flies with howitzers over there at WB. You don't want to make a buzzing sound that draws attention from their board of directors.

Not that anyone in charge at Turbine will ever pay attention to anything said on these forums... More's the pity...

[HernandoCortez]

I don't wish for heads rolling...but they should definately have the same hammer applied to them that was mistakenly applied to us. ;)

Indeed. +1

[mephistos2]

I'm not quite that deeply offended. I might quit but my greensteel and epic items just will not allow it.



Yeah my moral indignation basically reduces me to laughter at this point ...

Owner kicks dog then says "here's a cookie" :)
Owner kicks dog then says "here's another cookie" :)
Owner kicks dog then Dog bites Owner's balls off !!!

Moral of the story: Don't feed dogs cookies when everyone knows they eat raw meat.

[Trillea]

Not that anyone in charge at Turbine will ever pay attention to anything said on these forums... More's the pity...

This is correct, which is why I took my complaints to higher powers, and many of them.

[sinohptik]

I agree that people are over-reacting a bit to this.

However, what are you trying to accomplish Thrudh and Chai?

If its to soothe the masses, you are obviously going about it in a completely wrong way. If you are just putting your .02c in, thats commendable, but you are obviously making the situation worse. If you are trolling, then you are being extremely successful, and forget i said anything :)

While the actual banning didnt affect me, i was certainly not very impressed with how it was handled last night. Some can say that others have "cried wolf" in the past, and that is why the threads all over the internet lost their legitimacy, but i dont really feel thats all that good of an explanation (due to the sheer volume of people affected). I also think the 100tp really is a bit insulting, if only for the complete lack of thought that went into it. I dont think an extra day on VIPs subscription is that out of line, and it shows thought on turbines part on how to properly compensate for lost playtime. Would everyone be happy? obviously not! But it would show that turbine were actually thinking about the problem from the players perspective, and not a business perspective (dont hold your breath :P).

also note, that the quote was "less than a percent." no actual number was given (please correct me if im wrong), and it could be anywhere from less than 1% to less than 100%. It is *extremely* doubtful they will ever release actual numbers, due to their policy surrounding bans and, of course, the PR involved.

Also, as a note to turbine, trivializing upset customers by telling them they are simply part of a small percent is bound to get a negative reaction.

TOS or not, i think we have shown quite clearly there are other things to do when unhappy than simply quit ;)

It IS just a game, but its also a paid service, that has to be taken into account too.

[Drakos]

So how many days will it take the wrongly accused/sanctioned to get their accounts reactivated?
3 to 7 days depending on the length of the inapproprite ban :).

[Thrudh]

Personally, I quit because I refuse to support a company with such arrogance/indifference and unscrupulous business practices, and which does not value me as a paying customer. As much as I enjoyed the game, my conscience just will not allow it.

I can respect that...

[Thrudh]

I'm not quite that deeply offended. I might quit but my greensteel and epic items just will not allow it.

I am what you might sometimes hear referred to as a "sucker".

Heh, I can respect that too... Honest is always good... :)

[grodon9999]

This is correct, which is why I took my complaints to higher powers, and many of them.

Do tell?

[Ranmaru2]

Personally, I quit because I refuse to support a company with such arrogance/indifference and unscrupulous business practices, and which does not value me as a paying customer. As much as I enjoyed the game, my conscience just will not allow it.

Well it looks like you won't be playing any modern video games (ones made after ~2000) then, considering most games today are made for a quick buck and not made from day 1 with catering to the consumer on top of their list of priorities.

[Tholar]

I had a DM in game, accuse me of using an exploit after I turned in a ticket to fix a problem I was having.

Had I used an exploit? No. Was I upset at being wrongfully accused? Yes.

Did I take my ball and go home? No.

I got over it. I didn't get any DDO points. Not a single one. I didn't move into a Turbine sponsored FEMA trailer.

If you really are that upset over a computer error. Take a deep breath, step back, and examine your life.

100TP is too little. Let's look at this.

$15/month maximum payment for VIP. 30 day average month. That is $.50 per day.

100TP = $.72

Therefore, they still have time before this really cost anybody any real money.

[flynnjsw]

Well it looks like you won't be playing any modern video games (ones made after ~2000) then, considering most games today are made for a quick buck and not made from day 1 with catering to the consumer on top of their list of priorities.

For an example of this, just look at the console vs PC wars. Look who was the loser on that end, and can anyone guess why? The CoD series after CoD4 is the perfect example.

[Wren666]

Turbine, you're no Comcast, never mind Microsoft. You can't get away with this lackadaisical attitude forever, and now you have WB watching you. Before they pull the plug and take this game away from all of us in the process of coming down on you like a ton of bricks, wake up. If you think I'm being melodramatic, consider that WB shut down all the WB boutique stores at the drop of a hat and have practically mothballed their cartoon properties. They have no problem nickel and diming powerful Hollywood people who probably could buy your company at a yard sale if they wished. They swat flies with howitzers over there at WB. You don't want to make a buzzing sound that draws attention from their board of directors.

Not that anyone in charge at Turbine will ever pay attention to anything said on these forums... More's the pity...
Hear hear.

[Bobthesponge]

Gotta say, Turbine stepped up. The question is do they use a policy similar to "it's better to ask forgiveness then ask for permission"? I think it would be better if more time and effort were to be invested in the QA/Testing process rather than apologising and giving out TP, which is the equivilant of printing your own money because TP are worthless outside of this game.

I offer to head up the programming department and get things in order. I have a BS in computer science from UCSB and 16 years of experience, including managing some rather large projects. We can discuss salary during the interview.

[Barrelhouse]

Well it looks like you won't be playing any modern video games (ones made after ~2000) then, considering most games today are made for a quick buck and not made from day 1 with catering to the consumer on top of their list of priorities.

An excellent point, which is why I have decided to use my newfound freedom to embark on a long overdue creative project. This is actually probably a good thing... sort of a reality check.

[stoolcannon]

Well, I've rather enjoyed having the opportunity to gripe, argue and troll today. So for that, Turbine, I commend you. This was worth more than 100tp.

This thread was a good one.

Thrud, thank you for the sporting arguments.

Chai, seek help.

[mephistos2]

Are you really this dense or just trying to perfect the artform that is trolling?

Is this some kind of trick question and why can't I be both? :)

[stainer]

Last night, some DDO players received erroneous temporary suspensions or warnings regarding an exploit. Due to a technical issue in our exploit suspension process some players participating in the Mabar festival event were incorrectly notified of a rules violation.


Suspension email - Specifically, a Game Master determined that you Recently we conducted an investigation into an exploit that was being utilized in Dungeons and Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited, involving our recent Mabar, The Endless Night Festival. As a result of that investigation, your account has been identified in utilizing this exploit.

It doesn't make any sense. No sense at all.

[Trillea]

It doesn't make any sense. No sense at all.

Their robotic game masters shorted out? (kidding..)

[stoolcannon]

It doesn't make any sense. No sense at all.

You're right they left out bator!

[Hendrik]

Their robotic game masters shorted out? (kidding..)

Hehe

Funny you should say that, just saw Westworld over the weekend....

[Dagone]

Break out the foil boys and girls

Dag

[grodon9999]

I find the below to be an acceptable "form letter" apology:



Greetings,

We apologize that you were erroneously suspended or sent a warning notification in regards to an exploit last night. Due to a technical issue in our exploit suspension process some players participating in the Mabar festival event were incorrectly notified of a rules violation. If your account was temporarily banned as a result of this issue your account access has been restored and you have been credited 100 Turbine Points. If you received a warning about your account, this warning has been removed from your record.

This error was an isolated incident and should have no further impact for any DDO players. As always, we welcome player feedback on all aspects of DDO and continually seek to improve the quality of the service we provide to players.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience or confusion and thank you for your patience while we worked to resolve the issue.

Thank you,

Turbine In-Game Support

[tgun]

Last night, some DDO players received erroneous temporary suspensions or warnings regarding an exploit. Due to a technical issue in our exploit suspension process some players participating in the Mabar festival event were incorrectly notified of a rules violation. Any accounts that were temporarily banned as a result of this issue will have their account access restored and will be credited 100 Turbine Points. Any accounts that received warnings will have those warnings removed from their record.

This error was an isolated incident and should have no further impact for any DDO players. As always, we welcome player feedback on all aspects of DDO and continually seek to improve the quality of the service we provide to players.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience or confusion and thank you for your patience while we worked to resolve the issue.


...so where's Tarrant?

[Aussielegend]

It doesn't make any sense. No sense at all.

INFACT my initial response to getting the email that was worded so poorly was oh great another phis email in the trash it goes.

[Qyre_DeHon]

i'm Very Happy To See That This Is Being Reviewed. Is There Any Chance That The Policies Of Posting On The Forums And Questioning Why Someone Was Banned Will Also Be Reviewed? I Think Much Of The Animosity That Was Created Over This Unfortunate Situation Could Have Been Avoided If People Felt Like They Could At Least Ask Questions Without Having Their Posts Deleted.

Qft +1

[MyfSeran]

I'm not quite sure going right to "cheating on your husband" is an appropriate comparison but the relative responses are about right in comparison :)

Being accused of cheating on a test and cheating on the game is just as insulting and demeaning as being accused of cheating on a spouse, to someone who's not only innocent of the charges, but is in all realities a truthsome and honest a person. Having been accused, now, of cheating on the game as well as a spouse (who it turns out was cheating on me instead), I initially felt just as wounded and just as shocked when my now ex-husband accused me of cheating as when I got that email. And there was just as little explanation forthcoming from both accusatory parties as to why they think I was cheating.

However, my ex had the good sense to use more than a Hershey Bar to try to get back into my good graces. Granted, it took a lot longer for him to get round to it than Turbine did.

And yes, this is a totally flawed article in the Terms of Use agreement, it needs to get fixed. I'm not going to spend hours a day looking through bug reports to avoid something. Rather I'll just avoid future events so I don't have this issue again. But knowing what is considered a cheat so that I can avoid doing it would go a long to help keep me from being this hacked off again. I'm not, after all a mind reader, so I don't know what the devs intended when they make a new area. But I'm also an honest person and don't go looking for cheats and ways to circumvent the spirit of the game.

It sounds like to me, they may need a dedicated team of hakzorz to go and try to 'break' the quests and festivals in the ways that some Gamers are uniquely qualified, to help troubleshoot such raids and quests before they come out for general consumption.

In any case, there needs to be some kind of change. Something worth way more than just 100 TP and an apology.

The Maundering Sesquepedllian....
MyfSeran

[stoolcannon]

I find the below to be an acceptable "form letter" apology:



Greetings,

We apologize that you were erroneously suspended or sent a warning notification in regards to an exploit last night. Due to a technical issue in our exploit suspension process some players participating in the Mabar festival event were incorrectly notified of a rules violation. If your account was temporarily banned as a result of this issue your account access has been restored and you have been credited 100 Turbine Points. If you received a warning about your account, this warning has been removed from your record.

This error was an isolated incident and should have no further impact for any DDO players. As always, we welcome player feedback on all aspects of DDO and continually seek to improve the quality of the service we provide to players.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience or confusion and thank you for your patience while we worked to resolve the issue.

Thank you,

Turbine In-Game Support

I got mine too. That's all she wrote.

[Tirkan]

I find the below to be an acceptable "form letter" apology:



Greetings,

We apologize that you were erroneously suspended or sent a warning notification in regards to an exploit last night. Due to a technical issue in our exploit suspension process some players participating in the Mabar festival event were incorrectly notified of a rules violation. If your account was temporarily banned as a result of this issue your account access has been restored and you have been credited 100 Turbine Points. If you received a warning about your account, this warning has been removed from your record.

This error was an isolated incident and should have no further impact for any DDO players. As always, we welcome player feedback on all aspects of DDO and continually seek to improve the quality of the service we provide to players.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience or confusion and thank you for your patience while we worked to resolve the issue.

Thank you,

Turbine In-Game Support

You might, I certainly don't.

For one thing, I find any and all forms of mass mail and form letters to be lacking in sincerity. If 'only a few' accounts were negatively impacted by this, then certainly they can take the time to personally type out an apology letter. I mean, after all, it -was- 'less than a percent' of the active accounts, surely it's not -that- many letters to type.

In addition, I'd certainly like to know -why- I was negatively impacted by the event, and, in addition, -what- Turbine is going to do to prevent it from happening in the future...not just a bland assurance that all is now well and it won't happen again.

[mephistos2]

Owner kicks dog then says "here's a cookie" :)
Owner kicks dog then says "here's another cookie" :)
Owner kicks dog then Dog bites Owner's balls off !!!

Moral of the story: Don't feed dogs cookies when everyone knows they eat raw meat.

Don't feed a dog lame apologies either if you value your balls.

[rimble]

You might, I certainly don't.

For one thing, I find any and all forms of mass mail and form letters to be lacking in sincerity. If 'only a few' accounts were negatively impacted by this, then certainly they can take the time to personally type out an apology letter. I mean, after all, it -was- 'less than a percent' of the active accounts, surely it's not -that- many letters to type.

laugh, they did type it, how do you think the email got created?

Or do you mean typed, like on a typewriter? Yaknow, my wifes 7th grade students don't even know what a typewriter is. Seriously.

[DaggomaticDwarf]

Dag

How dare you. I'm the real Dag! you sir are an imposter !! :)

[flynnjsw]

Big Snip...
MyfSeran

Ok, you may be an honest person (I only say may because I don't know you), but anyone who would get just as offended over being accused of cheating in a game as they would be being accused of cheating on a spouse really needs to look at their priorities IMO. One is a game, and the other is your marriage. I'm not sure but one certainly seems like it would have a much bigger impact on your life than the other.

[Rumbaar]

I agree that people are over-reacting a bit to this.Some are, but I think the underlying and missing details from this 'apology' warrant some reaction. They aren't being 100% truthful to the nature of this incident.


It doesn't make any sense. No sense at all.Yes I have to agree and made the point in my response. The fact there were at least 2 humanly wrong written messages indicate human error or in fact a human is never involved and I'm sure a lot of people are affected by these automated process than previously known.

I think a human/s was involved in this one


...so where's Tarrant?Retracting all those e-mails he sent? Maybe a Games Master determined recently he loaded the DDO client and thus was banned.


Oh and the fact they can't even fix the incorrect forum posting policies after months of acknowledgment, certainty doesn't bode well for a timely and thorough internal investigation and fix.

[stoolcannon]

Ok, you may be an honest person (I only say may because I don't know you), but anyone who would get just as offended over being accused of cheating in a game as they would be being accused of cheating on a spouse really needs to look at their priorities IMO. One is a game, and the other is your marriage. I'm not sure but one certainly seems like it would have a much bigger impact on your life than the other.

That reminded me of a couple months back when I had gotten my truck towed. I called a buddy so I'd have someone to rage to while dropping a torrent of f-bombs. He responded, completely straight faced that he puts tow truck drivers in the same class of people as child molesters.

Instantly my rage was gone and I laughed until I had tears in my eyes.

[sinohptik]

Some are, but I think the underlying and missing details from this 'apology' warrant some reaction. They aren't being 100% truthful to the nature of this incident.


You, my good sir, didnt read the rest of my post :)

[Robi3.0]

laugh, they did type it, how do you think the email got created?

Or do you mean typed, like on a typewriter? Yaknow, my wifes 7th grade students don't even know what a typewriter is. Seriously.


He means, that He wants some poor SOB of a Turbine intern sitting in front a a computer going:

Dear Account #1

Sorry about the mix up. My bad........ send

Dear Account #2

Sorry about the mix up. My Bad......Send

4 days later.

Dear Account #14526

Sorry about the mix up. My bad.......Send.

I think that is a completely selfish thing to ask for as the person that would be doing that **** isn't even standing in the same ball park as the people responsible for the mistake.

[Tirkan]

laugh, they did type it, how do you think the email got created?

Or do you mean typed, like on a typewriter? Yaknow, my wifes 7th grade students don't even know what a typewriter is. Seriously.

Someone sat down and created an email.

They sent that email out to every applicable account.

I find this unacceptable.

Each account should have received its own, individual and unique, email. At the absolute least, they could have created -2- emails and send them out - one to people who received warnings and one to people who were banned.

[flynnjsw]

That reminded me of a couple months back when I had gotten my truck towed. I called a buddy so I'd have someone to rage to while dropping a torrent of f-bombs. He responded, completely straight faced that he puts tow truck drivers in the same class of people as child molesters.

Instantly my rage was gone and I laughed until I had tears in my eyes.

I have a buddy that can do the same type of thing;

Kind of like the time he called me to tell me that he got one of those Internet Church certificates, where he paid like 15 bucks to become a "pastor" (to say this guy is not religious is an understatement), then went on to make a website for online confessions.

I have not laughed so hard in a long time.

Yes I know, derail; I am no DWF, and no, there are no cookies.

[johnyBgood]

only one thing left to be said....

"BAILIF! Whack His Pee Pee"!

[stoolcannon]

He means, that He wants some poor SOB of a Turbine intern sitting in front a a computer going:

Dear Account #1

Sorry about the mix up. My bad........ send

Dear Account #2

Sorry about the mix up. My Bad......Send

4 days later.

Dear Account #14526

Sorry about the mix up. My bad.......Send.

I think that is a completely selfish thing to ask for as the person that would be doing that **** isn't even standing in the same ball park as the people responsible for the mistake.

It's probably better than peeling potatoes or shucking corn.

But yeah that's not a reasonable request.

Free points? Sure. XP weekend? absolutely. Individually hand written letters? WAY too much to ask.

[mephistos2]

That reminded me of a couple months back when I had gotten my truck towed. I called a buddy so I'd have someone to rage to while dropping a torrent of f-bombs. He responded, completely straight faced that he puts tow truck drivers in the same class of people as child molesters.

Instantly my rage was gone and I laughed until I had tears in my eyes.

This deserves a +1 .. unfortunately I've been neg repped into oblivion, so you're out of luck :)

[Tirkan]

He means, that He wants some poor SOB of a Turbine intern sitting in front a a computer going:

Dear Account #1

Sorry about the mix up. My bad........ send

Dear Account #2

Sorry about the mix up. My Bad......Send

4 days later.

Dear Account #14526

Sorry about the mix up. My bad.......Send.

I think that is a completely selfish thing to ask for as the person that would be doing that **** isn't even standing in the same ball park as the people responsible for the mistake.

Actually, I'd rather have the person or persons directly responsible typing it. And, as they said, it wasn't -that- many accounts...right?

[ArkoHighStar]

You might, I certainly don't.

For one thing, I find any and all forms of mass mail and form letters to be lacking in sincerity. If 'only a few' accounts were negatively impacted by this, then certainly they can take the time to personally type out an apology letter. I mean, after all, it -was- 'less than a percent' of the active accounts, surely it's not -that- many letters to type.

In addition, I'd certainly like to know -why- I was negatively impacted by the event, and, in addition, -what- Turbine is going to do to prevent it from happening in the future...not just a bland assurance that all is now well and it won't happen again.

she stated less than 1%, if you have say 500 000 actve players that is about 5000 letters, and I bet we have more than that these days. So in comparision to the overall amount you have a small number, but 5000 people is a large amount on its own. So no they won't be writing individual letters.

[sigtrent]

It doesn't make any sense. No sense at all.

Sure it does... if you work with databases as I do.

Gamemasters are folks with the power to get in and muck about with the database in one way or another since that is the heart and soul of this game in many ways.

An investigation is likely going to involve a game master querying the database looking for evidence of things players did that are recorded in the games audit logs. This means they are writing code to analyze the data and return a set of players that performed certain actions.

Its possible that said game master made an error in their programing, or there was an error in how the data was recorded that resulted in returning a great many more players than they had intended to. Thus it is an error in the technical side of the process rather than an error in judgement.

So a game master picked you out, but you were not hand picked, you were picked by code the game master put together.

[flynnjsw]

Someone sat down and created an email.

They sent that email out to every applicable account.

I find this unacceptable.

Each account should have received its own, individual and unique, email. At the absolute least, they could have created -2- emails and send them out - one to people who received warnings and one to people who were banned.

Ok, lets assume they do that. Lets also assume that the number that was thrown out a while ago of 2 million accounts being accurate. Lets also assume that the 1% number is accurate. You are expecting someone to type out twenty thousand appology emails?

Ha

[sinohptik]

Someone sat down and created an email.

They sent that email out to every applicable account.

I find this unacceptable.

Each account should have received its own, individual and unique, email. At the absolute least, they could have created -2- emails and send them out - one to people who received warnings and one to people who were banned.

On one hand, if its such a small percentage, such a thing should be easy, right? :D

On the other hand, we really are talking about a request that would require so many hours that it isnt worth it in any way, shape, or form. To create two emails, isnt so difficult. I still dont see that as a solution though, honestly. To expect anything other than mass email is setting yourself up for dissapointment.

[dTarkanan]

I wish I'd been banned, I could have used the extra points.

Honestly, the 50% end-game packs sale PLUS points sale is more apology than enough for me.

[Cyr]

So honestly I'm still trying to figure out the actual reasoning behind what went on here...

Turbine claims to have instituited an autoban procedure that errronously banned some people for something they considered an exploit related to the Mabar dragon instance.

What I can't figure out is why?

Why ban for something that is over, why cover up if it was a mistake, why make an autoscript to ban people when this could clearly not determine intent which is the most important factor when evaluating an exploits use, why have it run when no one is around, why wait until gaming sites layed into you to admit your mistake (just like the only other time Turbine has backtracked ie the offer wall), and why the mimimization effort after making an apology (its like saying "Sorry I ran over your dog, but he was getting old anyways right?")???

[Angelus_dead]

Out of curiosity, is the metric of 'less than a percent' within six sigma range? Should we have such faith?

Whatever the 'less than a percent' amount is, I am honestly amazed at the vocal proficiency of such a reportedly small number of people. That is impressive that so few people could raise such a fuss.
It must be less than 1% of all users, or all active users, which is a different from the set of users that were actively involved in the Mabar thing. The people who did Mabar enough to be falsely accused of this offense are naturally people who are more vigorously involved in the game, meaning a lot more likely to post on the forums (or to be friends with people who do post)

[sinohptik]

she stated less than 1%

Can i get confirmation of that? all ive seen is "less than a percent" which is ambiguous at best.

[Rumbaar]

laugh, they did type it, how do you think the email got created?

Or do you mean typed, like on a typewriter? Yaknow, my wifes 7th grade students don't even know what a typewriter is. Seriously.No he was being facetious, to the fact that Tolero/Turbine are claiming it has 'only' affected less than a percent.

It was to call them out on the fact that this is in fact a large number and not as small at they are making it out to be. Just like a small percent was affected when a 'large' number of accounts were reduced to FREE status for a 7+ days.

We as players know it's more, but the marketing and PR machine has to ensure the outside masses do not know it's a large number of the actual player base. With a million inactive accounts, these percentages can be thrown out and be technically correct. But practically incorrect based on actual active player base.


You, my good sir, didnt read the rest of my post :)No I didn't, read it now. Maybe not lead with the negative like that in future :D I agree with your body of post.

[stoolcannon]

I have a buddy that can do the same type of thing;

Kind of like the time he called me to tell me that he got one of those Internet Church certificates, where he paid like 15 bucks to become a "pastor" (to say this guy is not religious is an understatement), then went on to make a website for online confessions.

I have not laughed so hard in a long time.

Yes I know, derail; I am no DWF, and no, there are no cookies.

lol, that's both funny and terrible at the same time.

[Jawny_Carcinogen]

Heh, really?? Not being able to play a video game for one night equals "being treated like a criminal in a third world country"???

I was referring to the manner in wich it was gone about. Executing sentence instantly with no trial, being repeatedly silenced with the threat of infractions if the forbidden subject was brought up. The only available appeal system taking long enough that by the time anyone even thought to look into it the sentence would have run it's natural course anyways.

It was handled like pre-wall east berlin.

[Ciaran]

Actually, I'd rather have the person or persons directly responsible typing it. And, as they said, it wasn't -that- many accounts...right?

I'm going to quote something somebody else (http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=3400939&postcount=139) said that addresses why your expectation is out of touch with reality.


Well, think about it. There are at least a million free to play DDO accounts alone. From the most conservative vantage point, we are talking about 10,000 bans.

But I'm sure that's including the half dozen friends I have gotten into the game that barely log in. How many are active in a given 4-day span? How many are high enough level to do the Mabar event? How many care?

I would venture to guess that this is but a small portion of the total playerbase if you think on a large scale, even with the publicity. Of this smaller pool, tens of thousands of bans feels like a huge shock and a much larger percentage than 1.

And of course, with thousands of people wronged, the forum activity is going to spike with those affected. Statistically, it may only be 1% of the total playerbase... but for most of us, it hit very close to home.

So yeah, expecting a person to send out ~10k personal e-mails to the effected people is indescribably ridiculous.

[sinohptik]

No I didn't, read it now. Maybe not lead with the negative like that in future :D I agree with your body of post.

Its like a test rum, and you FAILED :D

[stoolcannon]

This deserves a +1 .. unfortunately I've been neg repped into oblivion, so you're out of luck :)

lol I haven't quite been negged to bolivia yet but every time I start to gain some ground I hurt some butts and down I go again :)

[PopeJual]

I have a buddy that can do the same type of thing;

Kind of like the time he called me to tell me that he got one of those Internet Church certificates, where he paid like 15 bucks to become a "pastor" (to say this guy is not religious is an understatement), then went on to make a website for online confessions.

I have not laughed so hard in a long time.

Yes I know, derail; I am no DWF, and no, there are no cookies.

That is shameful.

No one should pay money to become a pastor (recognised by the U.S. federal government) when a free online application is available. PM for details if you want them, and yes, I am an ordained minister, mostly to **** off an acquaintance who proclaimed his righteousness and authority loudly while constantly acting in a manner that would make the baby Jesus cry.

[/derail]

[flynnjsw]

lol, that's both funny and terrible at the same time.

I told him that he was going straight to hell for the ordeal; then I proceeded to secure my own eternal damnation by giving him advice on how to set up the webiste and how to actually make the money that he spent on it back once the site was established.

:D

[Angelus_dead]

Turbine claims to have instituited an autoban procedure that errronously banned some people for something they considered an exploit related to the Mabar dragon instance.
Probably wasn't really an "autoban", and more like one of their technicians poking at their logs to see what the exploit shows up as, then running a query script to collect the account names of everyone matching that pattern. But he screwed up, and the pattern showed up on many more people than had actually exploited.

So then he had this data file of hundreds of names, which he popped open and read through the first few entries to see that they're formatted correctly and such. Probably he didn't look at the file size to see how long it was, or if he did then he wasn't thinking about the subscriber base to have a good comparison. Then he fed that file into the warning/banning punisher script and here come all the emails.


Why ban for something that is over, why cover up if it was a mistake, why make an autoscript to ban people when this could clearly not determine intent which is the most important factor when evaluating an exploits use
They must have thought they could evaluate intent: probably they thought their logs revealed something that people could not have been doing without really trying. But they were wrong about that: they weren't as good at data analysis as they thought they were.



why have it run when no one is around
I'm sure someone was around, but he was just clicking "OK" instead of paying a lot of attention. And he might not have had the authority to stop and make a choice about what was going on. Kinda like how USA mortgage foreclosures are being processed 100/hour by employees who are barely qualified to work at Burger King.

[stoolcannon]

That is shameful.

No one should pay money to become a pastor (recognised by the U.S. federal government) when a free online application is available. PM for details if you want them, and yes, I am an ordained minister, mostly to **** off an acquaintance who proclaimed his righteousness and authority loudly while constantly acting in a manner that would make the baby Jesus cry.

[/derail]

Well I for one am a huge fan of Baby Jesus and don't approve of such things but 1. I'm not the judge, that isn't my job and 2. I can still laugh at a good prank even when I probably shouldn't. :)

[stoolcannon]

I told him that he was going straight to hell for the ordeal; then I proceeded to secure my own eternal damnation by giving him advice on how to set up the webiste and how to actually make the money that he spent on it back once the site was established.

:D

lol, terrible. Just terrible. But funny.

[flynnjsw]

That is shameful.

No one should pay money to become a pastor (recognised by the U.S. federal government) when a free online application is available. PM for details if you want them, and yes, I am an ordained minister, mostly to **** off an acquaintance who proclaimed his righteousness and authority loudly while constantly acting in a manner that would make the baby Jesus cry.

[/derail]

I agree that its a major scam, the scary reason that he did it in the first place was so that he could add "reverend" to his work business cards. It kind of gives you an idea of his way of thinking. It's kind of scary at times that said person is actually my best friend.

[Tirkan]

I acknowledge the fact that actually receiving a personally crafted apology is unlikely, to say the least.

This does not change the fact that I would appreciate receiving one.

It also doesn't change my other points, spec: That I would like to know why I was negatively impacted by the event in question; and -what- Turbine is going to do to prevent it from happening in the future.


A bland assurance that all is now well and it won't happen again does not fill me with confidence.

[stoolcannon]

Turbine once assured me that I would no longer be able to swing my axe while climbing a ladder so I wouldn't look so silly in the future.

Yet there I was last night on the way to eVoN6 climbing a ladder and beating the hell out of the air with my axe.

There's no way they can "assure" me that they won't make the mistake again in the future. Mistakes happen, that's life.

What they can do is provide better disclosure as to what the error was and what the exploit was that caused it so I can at least feel better having been filled to the brim with tasty knowledge.

[mephistos2]

I'm pretty sure the Turbine employee responsible for this entire mess was just in a dazed stupor last night watching the shiney red flashing self-destruct button, and out of sheer boredom he flew Turbine straight into the ground to see what would happen.

The e-mails were sent by the same guy before anyone else came into work to figure it out.

[PopeJual]

Ok, you may be an honest person (I only say may because I don't know you), but anyone who would get just as offended over being accused of cheating in a game as they would be being accused of cheating on a spouse really needs to look at their priorities IMO. One is a game, and the other is your marriage. I'm not sure but one certainly seems like it would have a much bigger impact on your life than the other.

I would be MUCH more offended if Turbine had sent an email to my wife, saying that I had cheated on her.

I am STILL very offended by the wording of Turbine's email, though. Any accusations of cheating are serious and should only be levied with real evidence and not just because Mr. Autoban told them so. Especially since they said "Specifically, a Game Master determined that you..." as if someone had actively researched it.

And additionally because of their reaction the last time that something similar happened

http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=3136872&postcount=3

I can't be more clear on this issue.

Anyone banned [I]knows why they were banned. We don't arbitrarily ban people for an exploit they have accidentally stumbled upon. We see a clear intent to exploit a game system, and we respond.

If, somehow, a player does not know why they received a ban, they can contact the in-game support team using the contact options in my signature.


The fact that people who received a 3 or 7 day ban should expect that the only allowed method of appeal will not even answer them before the ban is over is just additonal fuel for the fire.


Edit - Also, Tarrant hasn't posted anything at all during this entire episode. His last post was October 29th, 2010. Is Tarrant on a long vacation? Did he change departments? Was he fired into the upper atmostphere on a missile from Califoria and then filmed on the KCBS traffic chopper?

[rimble]

I acknowledge the fact that actually receiving a personally crafted apology is unlikely, to say the least.

This does not change the fact that I would appreciate receiving one.

Tirkan, they're sorry. Very very sorry. An appropriate number of their beloved pets (less than 1% of active beloved pets) have been euthanized, so that they can feel the same horror and misery as we have felt being accused of lying, cheating, and being unable to play DDO for 13 hours.

[flynnjsw]

I would be MUCH more offended if Turbine had sent an email to my wife, saying that I had cheated on her.

I am STILL very offended by the wording of Turbine's email, though. Any accusations of cheating are serious and should only be levied with real evidence and not just because Mr. Autoban told them so. Especially since they said "Specifically, a Game Master determined that you...[insert bad grammar here]" as if someone had actively researched it.



By no means am I saying that someone shouldn't be offended, even personally offended at basically being called a cheater. Far from it, I would be angry and offended too. I am just saying that there is a big gap between the two situations.

[Mobeius]

Well I for one am a huge fan of Baby Jesus and don't approve of such things but 1. I'm not the judge, that isn't my job and 2. I can still laugh at a good prank even when I probably shouldn't. :)

I am actually a fan of rocker Jesus, with torn jeans, sleevless t-shirt with a tuxedo print.

[PopeJual]

I agree that its a major scam, the scary reason that he did it in the first place was so that he could add "reverend" to his work business cards. It kind of gives you an idea of his way of thinking. It's kind of scary at times that said person is actually my best friend.

Just to be clear, I'm not opposed to his plan. I'm just ashamed of him for paying good money for that when it should be free! ;)

[stoolcannon]

I am actually a fan of rocker Jesus, with torn jeans, sleevless t-shirt with a tuxedo print.

I like him in all his forms with the exception of Raptor Jesus. I'm relatively certain he was not at any time a raptor.

[flynnjsw]

I am actually a fan of rocker Jesus, with torn jeans, sleevless t-shirt with a tuxedo print.

Personaly I prefer THIS (http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=buddy+christ&form=QBIR&qs=n&sk=&sc=8-11#focal=d8b0d3a8dc6ffec96087709a1dec5e63&furl=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.ebaumsworld.com%2Fpicture% 2FChiggaXanzabar%2FBuddyChrist.png)

:D

[flynnjsw]

Just to be clear, I'm not opposed to his plan. I'm just ashamed of him for paying good money for that when it should be free! ;)

I'll actually need to let him know that. It will make for another good laugh when he starts spewing profanities. Go ahead and throw me that PM so I can forward it to him.

[Cauthey]

Indeed! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDzdM53j41E) Emails are being sent directly to those players, should be arriving very soon. In some cases some folks may find that their account is reactivated even though they didn't yet get the email.

Indeed! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDzdM53j41E)

[Mobeius]

Personaly I prefer THIS (http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=buddy+christ&form=QBIR&qs=n&sk=&sc=8-11#focal=d8b0d3a8dc6ffec96087709a1dec5e63&furl=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.ebaumsworld.com%2Fpicture% 2FChiggaXanzabar%2FBuddyChrist.png)

:D

Thats great too! But still rocker Jesus! well he rocks!

[NancyD]

I am actually a fan of rocker Jesus, with torn jeans, sleevless t-shirt with a tuxedo print.

You are too cool, sir. Too cool!

[Mobeius]

You are too cool, sir. Too cool!

TYVM sir *tips hat*

[Rumbaar]

Tirkan, they're sorry. Very very sorry. An appropriate number of their beloved pets (less than 1% of active beloved pets) have been euthanized, so that they can feel the same horror and misery as we have felt being accused of lying, cheating, and being unable to play DDO for 13 hours.No they didn't quantify it to active 'beloved pets' and to assume that is to play into their deception.

With a million accounts, and you have too assume a lot of inactive free accounts or duplicates. 0.5% can equal a very large number of the actual player base.

So technically could be correct, but in fact affected more active players than they are willing to admit.

I am concerned that previous mass 'automated' bans based on these thorough Games Master investigations should be once again called into play. I still stand by the fact that the Guild Renown issue was in fact another instance of this heavy handed and incorrectly automated process.

Can Turbine confirm 100% that this hasn't been the case in the past? They never responded to in game support request in the past, which Tolero just directed people to yesterday.

[Frelorn]

On the comments about removed threads and such...

Any threads that are locked or removed are because the threads contained inappropriate content and/or violated the Forum Guidelines in some manner (discussing discipline, name-calling or insults, and so on). The Community Guidelines have long indicated that these types of threads are against the guidelines, and the Community Team has not changed how the rules are enforced. We will continue to enforce the Community Guidelines as they are explained – the forum rules are always in play.

[Rickpa]

Turbine was hurt.

Whether faulty programming, hacker, disgruntled employee, or whatever... the victim is Turbine and DDO.

While I am sorry that I had to go through this, I am also sorry that people who make this great past time of mine work, also got hurt.

[Rumbaar]

On the comments about removed threads and such...

Any threads that are locked or removed are because the threads contained inappropriate content and/or violated the Forum Guidelines in some manner (discussing discipline, name-calling or insults, and so on). The Community Guidelines have long indicated that these types of threads are against the guidelines, and the Community Team has not changed how the rules are enforced. We will continue to enforce the Community Guidelines as they are explained – the forum rules are always in play.How about correct those guidelines? The incorrect nature of them has been this way for months, with correction.

If one is wrong, we have to assume all are wrong. Fix your mistakes, maybe talk to Patience. It's been months now since she said it was a mistake and it would be fixed.

But like everything at Turbine, it doesn't get fixed in a timely fashion.

[k1ngp1n]

On the comments about removed threads and such...

Any threads that are locked or removed are because the threads contained inappropriate content and/or violated the Forum Guidelines in some manner (discussing discipline, name-calling or insults, and so on). The Community Guidelines have long indicated that these types of threads are against the guidelines, and the Community Team has not changed how the rules are enforced. We will continue to enforce the Community Guidelines as they are explained – the forum rules are always in play.

Just because they are the guidelines in effect does not mean that they are the proper response to a given situation. Rigid structures like this rarely give good customer service - hence today.

[Ganak]

Positive response by Turbine! Cool!

[stainer]

On the comments about removed threads and such...

Any threads that are locked or removed are because the threads contained inappropriate content and/or violated the Forum Guidelines in some manner (discussing discipline, name-calling or insults, and so on). The Community Guidelines have long indicated that these types of threads are against the guidelines, and the Community Team has not changed how the rules are enforced. We will continue to enforce the Community Guidelines as they are explained – the forum rules are always in play.

Surely you can see how frustrating that rule can be when your company made such a colossal mistake. Forum two seconds. Customer support 4 weeks.

[HernandoCortez]

The Big Brother is watching us.

[rest]

On the comments about removed threads and such...

Any threads that are locked or removed are because the threads contained inappropriate content and/or violated the Forum Guidelines in some manner (discussing discipline, name-calling or insults, and so on). The Community Guidelines have long indicated that these types of threads are against the guidelines, and the Community Team has not changed how the rules are enforced. We will continue to enforce the Community Guidelines as they are explained – the forum rules are always in play.

Are you coming back now that Tarrant was canned? that's what i heard, anyway

[Aeolwind]

Just because they are the guidelines in effect does not mean that they are the proper response to a given situation. Rigid structures like this rarely give good customer service - hence today.

Yeah, having someone show up like Ving Rhames & say "I'm on the mother******. Go back in there, chill them out and wait for the Wolf, who should be coming directly." goes a very long way.

[Robi3.0]

Tirkan, they're sorry. Very very sorry. An appropriate number of their beloved pets (less than 1% of active beloved pets) have been euthanized, so that they can feel the same horror and misery as we have felt being accused of lying, cheating, and being unable to play DDO for 13 hours.


No they didn't quantify it to active 'beloved pets' and to assume that is to play into their deception.



SWEET, does that mean we can start offing inactive pets as well, cause the cocky punk Conway from the mail room has a pet rock. Susie from accounting has has a two legged Golden Retriever she seems quite fond of, and I have never liked Susie she smells like soup. :(

[Kulothar]

How about those of us who weren't banned, but had no one to group with last night due to everyone getting banned? Do we get 100 points too?

No, you got a night with less lag. Tell me you wouldn't pay 100 pts for that...

[Wren666]

On the comments about removed threads and such...

...discussing discipline...Right. So are we to assume that any "discipline" that is ever handed out by Mister Turbine will be without error or room for discussion?

Meanwhile, this thread...


What if just 1 or 2 people were affected by that wrongful ban, instead of the masses that prompted this apology in the first place? Were they to have their threads deleted right away and just bear out their 7 days of suspension or so in silence?


It's a wonder how Turbine even got an A on the BBB, considering what we've seen over the year that I've been experiencing their service for :rolleyes:

[khaldan]

No, you got a night with less lag. Tell me you wouldn't pay 100 pts for that...

Or a night full of running with people in epics, when suddenly they get banned during a fight.

[rest]

No, you got a night with less lag. Tell me you wouldn't pay 100 pts for that...

I actually didn't run anything. Several of my friends got banned so what's the fun in playing if it's not with people you enjoy playing with?

[Chai]

Well, I've rather enjoyed having the opportunity to gripe, argue and troll today. So for that, Turbine, I commend you. This was worth more than 100tp.

This thread was a good one.

Thrud, thank you for the sporting arguments.

Chai, seek help.

Yeap, I dont agree with the masses on this one.

I dont need any help though. Hilarity ensued on this topic regardless of any contribution I or anyone else who agrees with my stance may have made, simply due to mass knee jerk style undertimed over-reaction. Heres a good tip. React to the situation at hand accordingly, but wait 24 hours before inciting NerdRiots®. It took a few hours to find out what happened. In many RPGs it would have taken a week, and there likely wouldnt be much of an admission of guilt that followed. Many of the sentences would have been served by then, regardless of right, wrong, or recourse.

[Tholar]

Or a night full of running with people in epics, when suddenly they get banned during a fight.

Actually, I would pay 100TP to have seen the look on their faces when half the group dropped out.

[Kulothar]

I was so mad last night my wife wouldn't let me use her acct. to post. If it was a exploit detection problem any human staff should have noticed when a large chunk of accounts trigger it and investigated before action was taken. If it was a mass banning because of an unknown exploit then it should have been further investigated and mitigated. This big of a banning should have been either defered for action or handled faster. You don't shoot first and ask questions later when dealing with your income like this. I have two guildies that are now playing another turbine game because of this (I got up to lv 6 last night) after playing this game for years and they don't plan to come back unless it is F2P. I am glad it is settled but Toledo's message stating that people knew why they were banned just set me off last night. I think the world of the work he has done but that is one time a comment didn't help. Now maybe I can get back to working on my latest TR. Best wishes, Happy Holidays and lets play ball.

[Olaff]

Well I figure my post will be just another, lost in the jumble of posts, but I want to say "Thanks, Turbine." I appreciate that you guys figured out what went wrong and acted to correct it quickly. Even though I only got a warning, and not a ban, I appreciate that my record is clean again.

I'm still curious to know what event(s) were erroneously triggering the banhammer, though.

[Chai]

Right. So are we to assume that any "discipline" that is ever handed out by Mister Turbine will be without error or room for discussion?

Meanwhile, this thread...


What if just 1 or 2 people were affected by that wrongful ban, instead of the masses that prompted this apology in the first place? Were they to have their threads deleted right away and just bear out their 7 days of suspension or so in silence?


It's a wonder how Turbine even got an A on the BBB, considering what we've seen over the year that I've been experiencing their service for :rolleyes:

Yet many of the people who do the complaining are still here...

I bet the grade for CS they get is in part due to the lack of attrition loss this type of thing would cause in other games, or any other business remotely related to CS for that matter. I know where I work if this happened, accident or not, excuse or not, there would be alot more customers leaving for the competition. Show them you can be kicked, hang around, and expect not to be kicked again, fails.

Doesnt surprise me one bit they got an A.

[Wren666]

Yet many of the people who do the complaining are still here...

I bet the grade for CS they get is in part due to the lack of attrition loss this type of thing would cause in other games, or any other business remotely related to CS for that matter. I know where I work if this happened, accident or not, excuse or not, there would be alot more customers leaving for the competition. Show them you can be kicked, hang around, and expect not to be kicked again, fails.

Doesnt surprise me one bit they got an A.hah point.

Although, I'm not sure if most of the people who hang around DESPITE Turbine, do not do so because this game is our only Dungeons & Dragons fix on the internet anymore.

I'm afraid that Neverwinter (http://www.playneverwinter.com) may be our only salvation.. :(

[kitsune_ko]

Last night, some DDO players received erroneous temporary suspensions or warnings regarding an exploit. Due to a technical issue in our exploit suspension process some players participating in the Mabar festival event were incorrectly notified of a rules violation. Any accounts that were temporarily banned as a result of this issue will have their account access restored and will be credited 100 Turbine Points. Any accounts that received warnings will have those warnings removed from their record.

This error was an isolated incident and should have no further impact for any DDO players. As always, we welcome player feedback on all aspects of DDO and continually seek to improve the quality of the service we provide to players.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience or confusion and thank you for your patience while we worked to resolve the issue.



And this is why banning should not be the completely and fully automated process Turbine has it as currently. One wonders how much this "Technical issue" cost them in terms of rage-quit VIPs, "Straw that broke the camels back" premium/f2p quits and probably more importantly to them, in just plain bad press/publicity.

I am sure the total cost of this so-called issue will probably be a substantial bit more then the 25$ an hour or so it would have cost Turbine to have at least one real person involved at some point in the banning process, who could see such a mass ban rolling though the works and say "That ain't right" and stop the process before it even begins.

It is Karma-rific to see Turbine after being so devoted to cost-cutting, that it yet again came around and bit them right square in the ass, with a hearty mule kick to the pocket book on the side.

One hopes they learn this time, there are some corners you just should not cut.


Kit

[Film]

Yeap, I dont agree with the masses on this one.

I dont need any help though. Hilarity ensued on this topic regardless of any contribution I or anyone else who agrees with my stance may have made, simply due to mass knee jerk style undertimed over-reaction. Heres a good tip. React to the situation at hand accordingly, but wait 24 hours before inciting NerdRiots®. It took a few hours to find out what happened. In many RPGs it would have taken a week, and there likely wouldnt be much of an admission of guilt that followed. Many of the sentences would have been served by then, regardless of right, wrong, or recourse.

It is fine to disagree with the masses. Just as it is fine for people to seek answers when matters occur against their ability to determine the cause. What is not fine? Deleting posts because someone asked why they were banned without cause or notice. Policies that are built to deter customer service to those who were wrongfully punished. Only admitting that there was an issue once BBB, Massively, Ten Ton Hammer, and WB online gaming were contacted due to poor customer service. These cases are justifiable issues that happened.

To the Turbine staff:

I truly feel for those that have to try and spin this PR nightmare.

Three faults I found in their weak attempt.

1. Stating we appreciate and encourage your questions and concerns while deleting substantiating information never looks good in a cover up. Watergate anyone? (not on scale, but principle of course)

2. Using generalized statistics to make it seem less damaging. Provide hard numbers, not 1% of the entire playing community which could be based on people with multiple accounts, those that have not logged in since start up, people who have been deceased for many decades that may have logged in if they were in fact, not dead.

3. Using Tolero to deliver the message. This should have come from someone further up the food chain before outside entities were involved and posts were deleted.

May I suggest using something larger than a band aid to cover an arterial bleed next time?

[PwnHammer40K]

To the Turbine staff:

I truly feel for those that have to try and spin this PR nightmare.

Three faults I found in their weak attempt.

1. Stating we appreciate and encourage your questions and concerns while deleting substantiating information never looks good in a cover up. Watergate anyone? (not on scale, but principle of course)

2. Using generalized statistics to make it seem less damaging. Provide hard numbers, not 1% of the entire playing community which could be based on people with multiple accounts, those that have not logged in since start up, people who have been deceased for many decades that may have logged in if they were in fact, not dead.

3. Using Tolero to deliver the message. This should have come from someone further up the food chain before outside entities were involved and posts were deleted.
"Turbine: S**t Hits Fan"

[Geodude07]

Instead of 100tp or in my case just getting a false accusation can I get a T-shirt that says "I survived the mabar events raging banhammer"

I think that would make me happier, maybe give us an ingame armor, better yet make it a cosmetic item overall for 100tp, that would make me happy

[stoolcannon]

Hilarity ensued on this topic....


Congratulations, you are still in stage 1.

-------------
STAGE ONE: Amusement
Stage one of butthurt is mild. You pretend to be amused by all the comments you are getting. You keep up a facade of "LOL HATERS GONNA HATE" or the even more bratty "HATERS MAKE ME FAMOUS."

STAGE TWO: Indifference
Claim you don't care what people say about you. Of course, both you and I know the comments bother you to no end, but your haters will totally get that they aren't bothering you in the slightest when you create journal after journal claiming you don't care. They'll REALLY get you don't care when you graduate to passive aggressive jabs on your art descriptions!

STAGE THREE: Socialization
While you don't care what haters think because they make you famous, you still need a healthy dose of friends to tell you to ignore the trolls! Which you have been doing if replying to them with tears of rage counts as "ignoring."

STAGE FOUR: Retaliation
While STILL claiming you don't care, make hate art and continue to pump out those "I DON'T CARE" journals! That'll show them who's REALLY unaffected! Take that, trolls!

STAGE FIVE: Rage
Let it all out! Tell those trolls where to stick their comments in nauseating detail! (Note for trolls: Stage five is when you know you have broken their spirit.)

STAGE SIX: Ragequit
Get the hell outta dodge! Make a big deal out of you leaving either because you're above the trolls or the trolls have won. Either way you phrase it, be sure to word it for maximum victim points!

ADDENDUM: BAWWWW
The "BAWWWW" phase can be doubled up with any stage. "BAWWWW" is only a symptom of butthurt, not a seperate stage as "BAWWWW" is present in most if not all stages of butthurt. (Added as it was a popular question)

[DelverRootnose]

...night I didn't notice. I did see the note in my inbox about being banned and am a little upset as I am not the type to intentionally exploit the game. If summoning a hireling is an exploit then you need to be clearer as to what is an exploit. If attempting to use a spirit cake is an exploit then you need to be clearer about if the quest is a raid or not. If killing monsters quickly with meteor swarm is an exploit then, well then I don't know what to say, that is just stupid.

The thing that upsets me the most is the whole silent treatment around violations. How are we to know what you expect as good behavior if you don't talk about what is and isn't good behavior in public except in the vaguest of terms. Heck in the US even sex crimes are in public court and no one seems to get hurt by that due process. If said violator wants to be heard in public then talk about it in public, unless of course you are not confident that you handled the situation properly, or with due fairness and process, then I could understand why you would want to keep it quiet. (It is usually the guilty party that wants to hush things up BTW)

Well I’m off to see if I can sign on. Oh and by the way the 100 points are really an insult if you want to really make an apology then make a personal apology, not just a form letter. Oh and BTW the ban letter looked like it was written by a plat farmer. Whatever happened to grammar?

[Narmolanya]

I was not affected in any way by this but I wanted to thank Turbine for doing the right thing and admitting your mistake as well as providing compensation to those affected.

[Strakeln]

As always, we welcome player feedback on all aspects of DDO and continually seek to improve the quality of the service we provide to players.
Well, since you asked, I politely suggest that Turbine should consider adjusting their immediate response protocol for problems like this.

The actions you (Tolero) took on the forums last night may be standard operating procedure, but this was not a standard incident. Said actions severely exacerbated the problem. A more appropriate response would be to acknowledge what seemed obvious to many players: that something had gone haywire, and that the team would be looking into it ASAP.

[Triepod]

... is a joke, a scam, a rip-off. It's a not-for-profit organization subsidized by the feds that it's members pay to join... it means nothing. They can only take action against member companies...i.e. those that have paid the BBB to give them a rating.... ; /

[Chai]

It is fine to disagree with the masses. Just as it is fine for people to seek answers when matters occur against their ability to determine the cause.

Correct. HOW they seek those answers is the issue here.


What is not fine? Deleting posts because someone asked why they were banned without cause or notice.

This is a grey area here. When I woke up this morning, there were already threads threatening legal action, people bickering back and forth, troll accusations,


Policies that are built to deter customer service to those who were wrongfully punished. Only admitting that there was an issue once BBB, Massively, Ten Ton Hammer, and WB online gaming were contacted due to poor customer service. These cases are justifiable issues that happened.

No. Like I stated before, waiting 24 hours after contacting Turbine in the PROPER MANNER (very important) may have been all that was needed. Instead, the minute something happens like this, before the majority of Turbine employees were even logged in for the day, all hardware stores are out of duct tape and pitch forks and we have a NerdRiot® on our hands.


To the Turbine staff:

I truly feel for those that have to try and spin this PR nightmare.

Three faults I found in their weak attempt.

1. Stating we appreciate and encourage your questions and concerns while deleting substantiating information never looks good in a cover up. Watergate anyone? (not on scale, but principle of course)

Did you just compare a video game to a President being forced out of office. Ill give you a C- on this one. (F would have been a Hitler comparison :p)

Substantiating information deleted? Removed from the forums yes. Deleted, no. And further more what you are calling substantiating information, I call legal accusations, troll baiting, misuse of the rep system, and undertimed over-reaction.


2. Using generalized statistics to make it seem less damaging. Provide hard numbers, not 1% of the entire playing community which could be based on people with multiple accounts, those that have not logged in since start up, people who have been deceased for many decades that may have logged in if they were in fact, not dead.

I see we are going to continue to assume the worse case scenario on their stats until being proven otherwise. Its not 1% of current players, its 1% of the current world population, including mammals, sea creatures, plants, and insects, not to mention the entire bacteria population. Thats alot of players affected Turbine!!! ZOMG!!!


3. Using Tolero to deliver the message. This should have come from someone further up the food chain before outside entities were involved and posts were deleted.

She is doing her job. When you call CS you dont talk to the president of the company. You talk to a CS rep. If I call Microsoft right now for support, I dont get to talk to Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer.


May I suggest using something larger than a band aid to cover an arterial bleed next time?

A couple hours of screw up isnt an arterial bleed. In all the posts moaning about how pathetic 100 TP is, I cancount on one hand how many actually afforded a resonable solution. Remember complaint letter writing in school. Tell them what you want for compensationfor this screw up. Or we can just continue to /barf up rants onthe forums, which will continue to get ignored. This has been proven time and again.

[Ciaran]

On the comments about removed threads and such...

Any threads that are locked or removed are because the threads contained inappropriate content and/or violated the Forum Guidelines in some manner (discussing discipline, name-calling or insults, and so on). The Community Guidelines have long indicated that these types of threads are against the guidelines, and the Community Team has not changed how the rules are enforced. We will continue to enforce the Community Guidelines as they are explained – the forum rules are always in play.

Except in this situation the so-called "disciplinary action" wasn't actually a disciplinary action but rather a serious error on Turbine's part. When you make an error that effects this many people, how can you not expect there to be feedback. Some of these rules seriously need to be re-evaluated.

I understand it is against the forum rules to discuss disciplinary actions and that makes sense and should be enforced. What doesn't make any sense however is threads being closed for the sole reason of they were discussing a situation that came about due to an error Turbine caused. By disallowing communication on this on your own forums, you force your customers to seek other avenues of expressing their frustration and confusion, such as TTH and Massively. On top of that being really bad PR for Turbine, it's also really bad customer service and makes it much harder for Turbine to effectively handle the situation.

I can understand if the people tasked with moderating the forums and enforcing the Community Guidelines were unaware that there was an issue in the first place (even though that bespeaks of a failure to communicate internally), but infraction points and forum bans were threatened and in some cases, probably delivered. Those should be removed from anybody given infractions or a forum ban for discussing this particular issue since it wasn't a disciplinary action or, at least, not a legitimate one.

Perhaps if those threads had been left open Turbine might have been aware of the situation sooner and been able to effectively communicate with their playerbase; something along the lines of "We are aware that an inordinate amount of people have received e-mails pertaining to account suspension for exploiting during the Mabar Event. We are looking into this matter and will update you as soon as we are able. We apologize for the inconvenience". That would've severely de-fanged the outrage you saw here and would have made it less likely for people to start copious threads on other websites decrying this horrible debacle. Turbine has been in the MMO business for how long? And you still don't realize that there's a very small window of time to address serious issues before the community at large whips itself into a frenzy?

In business, the quality of your processes determine the quality of your workflow, your product and your services. I highly suggest you, Turbine, get on the ball!

[stoolcannon]

... is a joke, a scam, a rip-off. It's a not-for-profit organization subsidized by the feds that it's members pay to join... it means nothing. They can only take action against member companies...i.e. those that have paid the BBB to give them a rating.... ; /

I'm sure you may have had a bad experience with the BBB but you're off base.

I filed a complaint with the BBB last month and it received a response to the complaint from Turbine within 24 hours and received my points (that I had not received for several months) within 24 hours.

This after 3 separate inquiries to customer service and at least 2 hours on hold over 2 calls.

The BBB is a very effective organization for any company that cares about their standing, which in my experience is any company that plans on staying in business for long.

I've also filed a complaint with the BBB after receiving poor responses on credit card disputes two different times. In both cases the response came within 48 hours and my money was refunded.

The BBB works. Very well.

[Rumbaar]

I see we are going to continue to assume the worse case scenario on their stats until being proven otherwise. Its not 1% of current players, its 1% of the current world population, including mammals, sea creatures, plants, and insects, not to mention the entire bacteria population. Thats alot of players affected Turbine!!! ZOMG!!!That works both ways and more in their favor. You think they really have a million active accounts? They have 'successfully' used creative account to placate the actual number of affected active users.



She is doing her job. When you call CS you dont talk to the president of the company. You talk to a CS rep. If I call Microsoft right now for support, I dont get to talk to Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer.But a mistake on this behalf would see a Bill Gates [he no longer works at Microsoft] or a Steve Jobs handle the press. Just like he did with the antenna issue with iPhone 4

Turbine DUNGEONS & DRAGONS ONLINE®: Eberron Unlimited™ has a person for this, Patience, Senior Manager Online Community Relations. When it was found the current community Guidelines were incorrect, and still are, Patience posted in that related thread. You think this current actions would warrant her attention?

[Mackem]

A couple hours of screw up isnt an arterial bleed. In all the posts moaning about how pathetic 100 TP is, I cancount on one hand how many actually afforded a resonable solution. Remember complaint letter writing in school. Tell them what you want for compensationfor this screw up. Or we can just continue to /barf up rants onthe forums, which will continue to get ignored. This has been proven time and again.

Okay, here's a "reasonable" solution (suggested by a guild member). In adition to the 100 TP they should give out a new in-game item:

"Malfunctioning Banhammer", ml 1, random effect on hit, minus 10 to-hit

I'd be happy to get that one.

[wutangdragon]

I was banned yesterday for 7 days. I DID NOT exploit the event at ANY stage. Infact I DID NOT EVEN KNOW it was possible. I am ANGRY!! You can stick your 100 points where it fits. I do not forgive you and from the reports of hundreds of players cancelling their accounts, the backlash from this is going to be epic.

AND!!

Why does turbine not even have the decency to tell the players why they were banned. A blanket statement email with no details at all is a complete joke.

AND!!

The wholly inadequite apology email stated that this was an islolated incident. I doubt the hundred of people wrongly accused that have now cancelled their accounts along with the thousands more across the game that have....feel that this was and isolated incident.

AND!!

The statement that support went off when this happened.....Well the darn forum police were sure around when forum threads complaining went up and were deleted. Last time I looked they are SUPPORT STAFF and people empowered with support staff privelages and responsibilities.


This whole fiasco is absolutely disgusting. The negative publicity from this is allready a tsunami from what I've all ready seen on different websites. This is going to hurt where Turbine trully cares most...its wallet.

You have disgraced turbine and DDO's good name. I hope this makes you think before wrongly accusing people in future.

I busted my butt for around 15-20 hours in the event to get my items. I did not at any stage do anything wrong or exploit a single thing. I did it legit from start to end and I repeat I do not accept your apology!!

[xman26]

Last night, some DDO players received erroneous temporary suspensions or warnings regarding an exploit. Due to a technical issue in our exploit suspension process some players participating in the Mabar festival event were incorrectly notified of a rules violation. Any accounts that were temporarily banned as a result of this issue will have their account access restored and will be credited 100 Turbine Points. Any accounts that received warnings will have those warnings removed from their record.

This error was an isolated incident and should have no further impact for any DDO players. As always, we welcome player feedback on all aspects of DDO and continually seek to improve the quality of the service we provide to players.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience or confusion and thank you for your patience while we worked to resolve the issue.

While I appreciate the jesture of 100TPs, it doesn't give me back the time lost from playing with my son last night or today who at 4yr old is fairly decent player and enjoys playing the game with daddy. To which we were unable to do last or today like we had wanted to.

[mystafyi]

...so where's Tarrant?


tarrants last posting was the last friday of last month... typically a great day for terminations ;)

[Antheal]

On the comments about removed threads and such...

Any threads that are locked or removed are because the threads contained inappropriate content and/or violated the Forum Guidelines in some manner (discussing discipline, name-calling or insults, and so on). The Community Guidelines have long indicated that these types of threads are against the guidelines, and the Community Team has not changed how the rules are enforced. We will continue to enforce the Community Guidelines as they are explained – the forum rules are always in play.

Nope.

I made a thread asking WHY another thread got deleted.

No mention of "discipline, name-calling or insults" or anything.

However, a response of "this thread was deleted due to X" was all that was required in answer to my (and probably every one else's) QUESTION about why that other thread was deleted.

[Rumbaar]

Why does turbine not even have the decency to tell the players why they were banned. A blanket statement email with no details at all is a complete joke.Firstly don't talk about direct ban, as that will result in infractions on your behalf. Sadly.

But this question has always perplexed me. If a person is being banned for an exploit they've done. Then they should clearly know, so stating clearly what they did in any ban e-mail should be straight forward.

The only reason they wouldn't put it in there is the fact they aren't ever 100% sure who they are banning and if all that are being banned are in fact guilty. So to safe guard the actual exploit being found out by those that really don't know, they just don't tell.

Another indicator of a flawed system.

[Rumbaar]

tarrants last posting was the last friday of last month... typically a great day for terminations ;)Tarrant's account has posted about 15 mins ago.

[mystafyi]

im not so sure that posting is by tarrent or just by another mod. No matter really...

[Andora]

Correct. HOW they seek those answers is the issue here.

How is that a matter for you to deal with? Turbine has a staff to deal with this. That is not your job. What you and others did was taunt others into a more over the top response. Cry innocent, but that is what you did. You took irritation and poured gasoline



This is a grey area here. When I woke up this morning, there were already threads threatening legal action, people bickering back and forth, troll accusations,



No. Like I stated before, waiting 24 hours after contacting Turbine in the PROPER MANNER (very important) may have been all that was needed. Instead, the minute something happens like this, before the majority of Turbine employees were even logged in for the day, all hardware stores are out of duct tape and pitch forks and we have a NerdRiot® on our hands.

For many of us older players it was a matter of honor. Maybe to you younger kids honor is an old fashion idea. For us it is important. Yeric, my husband and my self did not call anyone names, we did not demand anyone's job nor did we say we where going to lawyer up. Yet we got **** over our posts. Do you think you are some knight on a white horse to save Trubine?



Did you just compare a video game to a President being forced out of office. Ill give you a C- on this one. (F would have been a Hitler comparison :p)

Substantiating information deleted? Removed from the forums yes. Deleted, no. And further more what you are calling substantiating information, I call legal accusations, troll baiting, misuse of the rep system, and undertimed over-reaction.

Much of the trolling was done by those not involved, this matter would have been water under the bridge, yet some troll who lives under said bridge with not let it go.


I see we are going to continue to assume the worse case scenario on their stats until being proven otherwise. Its not 1% of current players, its 1% of the current world population, including mammals, sea creatures, plants, and insects, not to mention the entire bacteria population. Thats alot of players affected Turbine!!! ZOMG!!!



She is doing her job. When you call CS you dont talk to the president of the company. You talk to a CS rep. If I call Microsoft right now for support, I dont get to talk to Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer.

We are getting a company saying they messed up. That's fine, they should have a senior Rep now to deal with it. In the real world up the ladder of command is how it is done.



A couple hours of screw up isnt an arterial bleed. In all the posts moaning about how pathetic 100 TP is, I cancount on one hand how many actually afforded a resonable solution. Remember complaint letter writing in school. Tell them what you want for compensationfor this screw up. Or we can just continue to /barf up rants onthe forums, which will continue to get ignored. This has been proven time and again.


Not sure why you have such a need to justify your actions today. Maybe you are not sure that your stance is as on firm ground as you think. I do not want tp, I do not want xp weekend. I wanted an apology and explanation. I have that now. Why are you not letting this die? What are you getting out of it?

[Trillea]

im not so sure that posting is by tarrent or just by another mod. No matter really...

My guess would be that it really is Tarrant. If the other mods had his login/PW then Turbine's cyber-security staff would be hunting some heads.

[wolflordnexus]

Last night, some DDO players received erroneous temporary suspensions or warnings regarding an exploit. Due to a technical issue in our exploit suspension process some players participating in the Mabar festival event were incorrectly notified of a rules violation. Any accounts that were temporarily banned as a result of this issue will have their account access restored and will be credited 100 Turbine Points. Any accounts that received warnings will have those warnings removed from their record.

This error was an isolated incident and should have no further impact for any DDO players. As always, we welcome player feedback on all aspects of DDO and continually seek to improve the quality of the service we provide to players.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience or confusion and thank you for your patience while we worked to resolve the issue.

While I appreciate the difficult situation you are in I have to make clear that we were informed that there was no automated ban system in place the last mass banning that every ban was in fact overseen by a person and that it was impossible for something like this to happen. Your assurances that this is an Isolated event and your re compensations are appreciated but hollow. To address this situation I suggest the following.

1) In the future give people receiving a ban a reason apparently your automated system can and will hit people who don't know what they are doing wrong.

2) Have an actual living breathing qualified person administer your bans.

[cyricjr]

Thank you for remedying the ban problem. I was sincerely hoping it was an error, but fairly fumed all night over it. I'm glad I'll be able to play with my guild group tonight. And thank you for the formal apology, much appreciated. I'm not particularly interested in the store points, but since I can't give them to someone else, I'm sure I'll find a use for them.

[PopeJual]

While I appreciate the difficult situation you are in I have to make clear that we were informed that there was no automated ban system in place the last mass banning that every ban was in fact overseen by a person and that it was impossible for something like this to happen. Your assurances that this is an Isolated event and your re compensations are appreciated but hollow. To address this situation I suggest the following.

1) In the future give people receiving a ban a reason apparently your automated system can and will hit people who don't know what they are doing wrong.

2) Have an actual living breathing qualified person administer your bans.

Especially since (in spite of the "unorthodox" grammar) the email that notified people of the ban implied that their case had been actively overseen by a living, breathing, qualified person.

[Clay]

/CYNIC ON

I wonder if the apology, rectification would have come without the Massively article...

/cynic off

[Ybbald]

Any accounts that were temporarily banned as a result of this issue will have their account access restored and will be credited 100 Turbine Points.

Next time, acci-ban me, please

[Memnir]

/CYNIC ON

I wonder if the apology, rectification would have come without the Massively article...

/cynic offI doubt it.
Just like with OfferWall - they didn't listen to us... not until they started to get bad press over it, that is.

[Winter_storm]

how about 100 TP and Maybar for a week, exploit free skelli smashing time :-)

[KuRRuPT]

Thanks Devs, I to would like to say i am sorry as well because this did upset me...I am very glad that you guys were able to fix this and very fast I might add....

[Twerpp]

Last night, some DDO players received erroneous temporary suspensions or warnings regarding an exploit. Due to a technical issue in our exploit suspension process some players participating in the Mabar festival event were incorrectly notified of a rules violation. Any accounts that were temporarily banned as a result of this issue will have their account access restored and will be credited 100 Turbine Points. Any accounts that received warnings will have those warnings removed from their record.

This error was an isolated incident and should have no further impact for any DDO players. As always, we welcome player feedback on all aspects of DDO and continually seek to improve the quality of the service we provide to players.

We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience or confusion and thank you for your patience while we worked to resolve the issue.


The cause of this issue was completely apparent while you were eating up threads.

So nobody was actually violating forum rules by "creating threads discussing disciplinary action". (http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=3398078&postcount=2) They were creating threads discussing Turbines screwup.

[Kulothar]

Instead of 100tp or in my case just getting a false accusation can I get a T-shirt that says "I survived the mabar events raging banhammer"

I think that would make me happier, maybe give us an ingame armor, better yet make it a cosmetic item overall for 100tp, that would make me happy

Make that an in game T-Shirt that shows any time you take off your armor and I would trade my 100pts for one.

[Faent]

congratulations, You Are Still In Stage 1.

+1,000,000

[Film]

Correct. HOW they seek those answers is the issue here.


This is a grey area here. When I woke up this morning, there were already threads threatening legal action, people bickering back and forth, troll accusations,

No. Like I stated before, waiting 24 hours after contacting Turbine in the PROPER MANNER (very important) may have been all that was needed. Instead, the minute something happens like this, before the majority of Turbine employees were even logged in for the day, all hardware stores are out of duct tape and pitch forks and we have a NerdRiot® on our hands.

Did you just compare a video game to a President being forced out of office. Ill give you a C- on this one. (F would have been a Hitler comparison :p)

Substantiating information deleted? Removed from the forums yes. Deleted, no. And further more what you are calling substantiating information, I call legal accusations, troll baiting, misuse of the rep system, and undertimed over-reaction.

I see we are going to continue to assume the worse case scenario on their stats until being proven otherwise. Its not 1% of current players, its 1% of the current world population, including mammals, sea creatures, plants, and insects, not to mention the entire bacteria population. Thats alot of players affected Turbine!!! ZOMG!!!

She is doing her job. When you call CS you dont talk to the president of the company. You talk to a CS rep. If I call Microsoft right now for support, I dont get to talk to Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer.

A couple hours of screw up isnt an arterial bleed. In all the posts moaning about how pathetic 100 TP is, I cancount on one hand how many actually afforded a resonable solution. Remember complaint letter writing in school. Tell them what you want for compensationfor this screw up. Or we can just continue to /barf up rants onthe forums, which will continue to get ignored. This has been proven time and again.

I tried to provide another view point and you decided to drink Turbine's Kool-Aid(TM). Some people live by intregrity, honor, and morals. People with this type of inner compass take offense when some one or some thing decides to spit on these ideals and tell you to lick it off. The hypocrisy in your own answers show that you are just trying to get a rise out of others for your personal enjoyment. Enjoy your tasty beverage because Kharma is a very large wheel that turns slowly. But, it does turn.

[Riorik]

On the comments about removed threads and such...

Any threads that are locked or removed are because the threads contained inappropriate content and/or violated the Forum Guidelines in some manner (discussing discipline, name-calling or insults, and so on). The Community Guidelines have long indicated that these types of threads are against the guidelines, and the Community Team has not changed how the rules are enforced. We will continue to enforce the Community Guidelines as they are explained – the forum rules are always in play.

I understand. You have to be consistent or players being players, they nibble at the deal (rules). However, yesterday, Turbine implemented an enforcement action erroneously. Turbine owns this show. And, it's rather obvious that the overwhelming majority of the concerned posts would never have occurred if not for this error by Turbine.

I'd suggest fixing this and just mass wiping all disciplinary action for the entire 24 hour period.

[Chai]

I'm sure you may have had a bad experience with the BBB but you're off base.

I filed a complaint with the BBB last month and it received a response to the complaint from Turbine within 24 hours and received my points (that I had not received for several months) within 24 hours.

This after 3 separate inquiries to customer service and at least 2 hours on hold over 2 calls.

The BBB is a very effective organization for any company that cares about their standing, which in my experience is any company that plans on staying in business for long.

I've also filed a complaint with the BBB after receiving poor responses on credit card disputes two different times. In both cases the response came within 48 hours and my money was refunded.

The BBB works. Very well.

And on both counts it took the BBB more time than it took Turbine themselves to admit they effed up and reverse their poor decisions.

Good think I bought all those shares in pitchfork manufacturing companies when they were nice and low last week . SELL SELL SELL SELL SELL. BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

[Chai]

I understand. You have to be consistent or players being players, they nibble at the deal (rules). However, yesterday, Turbine implemented an enforcement action erroneously. Turbine owns this show. And, it's rather obvious that the overwhelming majority of the concerned posts would never have occurred if not for this error by Turbine.

I'd suggest fixing this and just mass wiping all disciplinary action for the entire 24 hour period.

Id love to see that used in court.

Well you see here your honor, had my client not been out of bubble gum, he would not have to kick so much arse, when clearly these were the only two options available at the time. All this knowing rulebreaking is therefore excusable due to lack of foresight on the part of the gum distributor.

You do realize its not the first idiot that gets penalized, but the second idiot who starts throwing punches because the first one got away with being idiotic. Especially if the first one "owns the show," as it were.

[gott_ist_tot]

Less than a percent of users were impacted by the issue, but we will be contacting all of the impacted accounts. Note that if your contact info in your account is incorrect that you may not receive the email, but the lifting of the suspension will still happen.

Do people with 'just warnings' have any means to check if their accounts have in fact been 'cleansed'?

[Malidiction]

Toss is another week of 25% XP and people will even be thankful :)

Why is this concept so difficult for Turbine to grasp?

[Lorien_the_First_One]

I was so mad last night my wife wouldn't let me use her acct. to post.

People who used an alternate account found the alternate account forum-banned quickly.

[Stormanne]

Id love to see that used in court.

Well you see here your honor, had my client not been out of bubble gum, he would not have to kick so much arse, when clearly these were the only two options available at the time. All this knowing rulebreaking is therefore excusable due to lack of foresight on the part of the gum distributor.

You do realize its not the first idiot that gets penalized, but the second idiot who starts throwing punches because the first one got away with being idiotic. Especially if the first one "owns the show," as it were.

To play devil's advocate here...

The post you're quoting, Chai, only has two parties; Turbine and the DDO playerbase (representing the players en masse for simplicities sake). Your post adds a third party, the gum manufacturer. As so far as we know, Turbine created the programming that malfunctioned. So, in order for your argument that I quoted to be relevant, the person who got their rear end kicked by the person who ran out of gum, would have to be the person who made the gum as well.

[Chai]

I tried to provide another view point and you decided to drink Turbine's Kool-Aid(TM). Some people live by intregrity, honor, and morals. People with this type of inner compass take offense when some one or some thing decides to spit on these ideals and tell you to lick it off. The hypocrisy in your own answers show that you are just trying to get a rise out of others for your personal enjoyment. Enjoy your tasty beverage because Kharma is a very large wheel that turns slowly. But, it does turn.

Oh god, book 2. Its the obligatory karma post. There is no personal enjoyment in my answers. There is but reality. Let me explain something to you about karma. People dont get to rant about how crappy something is and then keep using it while turning a blind eye. Karma doesnt allow this to work. This is like meth heads talking about how crack heads suck. This is like talking about how its wack that Walmart uses sweatshops and then buying their cheap clothing afterwards. Complaining up a storm and then staying around is telling me that mountains are being made of molehills.

The people who were REALLY offended by this, the ones who REALLY believe its a mountain and NOT a molehill, are gone. Sucks that it had to happen, but they are finding better things to do with their money than paying it to a company they feel treats them like ****. The rest of the moaners are over acting, plain and simple. This happens every_single_time Turbine makes a decision they dont agree with. Nerfs? - threaten to leave but stay. Offer Wall? - threaten to leave but stay. Now this happens, and not even 24 hours into it, we got threats of class action lawsuits, and lots of people threatening to leave, most of who will be here to complain about the next epic issue. This just sends the message that those individuals can be kicked around repeatedly, and will stay anyhow. Whats that going to change? Nothing. Theres your karma. Like you said, its a wheel, and it does turn, but what you didnt say is: if you dont stop the circle, you will end up right back where you started all over again. Sound familiar? We have completed this circle many times in DDO. Many of the people who threaten to leave every time are still around to complain about this issue, because that complaining has_no_impact. Class dismissed.

I applaud those who voted with their wallets. If you feel it is too stressful to continue playing under these circumstances, then you made the right decision by leaving.

[Chai]

To play devil's advocate here...

The post you're quoting, Chai, only has two parties; Turbine and the DDO playerbase (representing the players en masse for simplicities sake). Your post adds a third party, the gum manufacturer. As so far as we know, Turbine created the programming that malfunctioned. So, in order for your argument that I quoted to be relevant, the person who got their rear end kicked by the person who ran out of gum, would have to be the person who made the gum as well.

That may be, but I still dont believe that the masses will be able to justify breaking the forum rules by saying that it wouldnt have happened had they not been wronged in the first place. I think many of the people who found out they werent banned due to mabar might suffer consequences due to the nature of their response over the issue. That would certainly be ironic, and suck, at the same time.

One well placed shot is better than a machine gun emptied blindly in the dark, when providing feedback - positive or negative. I bet if the 1% of all players who it was claimed were affected each sent in one email, their queues would be backed up for at least a few weeks. But instead, many people strived to see how much damage they could do, but the only ones they are damaging are themselves.

Sorry folks - no refunds on the pitchforks. You bought em, you own em.

[Memnir]

Sorry folks - no refunds on the pitchforks. You bought em, you own em.That's okay - knowing Turbine, we'll have use for em again soon enough. :D

[Lightsblade]

So, maybe I'm just bored. Maybe I am taking this too seriously. Maybe I don't want to cut off my nose to spite my face and rage quit because Turbines response shows at least some embarrassment for their actions. Either way, I believe that the TOS as Turbine is attempting to enforce them are not my interpretation of the bounds of the contract that I have entered into with Turbine. I certainly didn't sign up to get banned spuriously due to errors that are not my own, nor read the TOS to provide for that.

I further believe that we hold some power to determine the course of our community, because it is just that, our community which, without the people here, Turbine would fail to exist. To that point I have created a petition. Please keep the flaming to a minimum. I am attempting to put forth a list of requests which I believe incorporated the frustration that has been expressed over the last day and a half. If you want to sign it, sign it. If you don't, then don't. Either way, I am planning on sending the petition to Turbine, if they don't keep track of it themselves, at the end of the month.

Maybe, just maybe, Turbine will realize that they have a chance to do some good here and as quoted before make some lemonade instead of just trying to feed us more kool-aid.

http://www.petitiononline.com/GMB2010/petition.html

[Mudcnd]

Toss is another week of 25% XP and people will even be thankful :)

Pls


Turbine thats lame that you ban accounts without a person ok'ing it

[Stormanne]

That may be, but I still dont believe that the masses will be able to justify breaking the forum rules by saying that it wouldnt have happened had they not been wronged in the first place. I think many of the people who found out they werent banned due to mabar might suffer consequences due to the nature of their response over the issue. That would certainly be ironic, and suck, at the same time.

One well placed shot is better than a machine gun emptied blindly in the dark, when providing feedback - positive or negative. I bet if the 1% of all players who it was claimed were affected each sent in one email, their queues would be backed up for at least a few weeks. But instead, many people strived to see how much damage they could do, but the only ones they are damaging are themselves.

Sorry folks - no refunds on the pitchforks. You bought em, you own em.

I believe the simple thing you are trying to say is "Two wrongs don't make a right." And I agree. But, a lot of the venom, right or wrong, could have been avoided if Turbine would have said something along the lines of "We don't know what's going on. We don't know why. We are looking into it, please be patient," instead of the thread deletions (again, I know that the rules dictated that they should be deleted) and the wall of silence that "we" got instead.

Edit- True, I was never "in danger" of being banned since I never participated in the event. And I was never one to claim my indignation was leading me out the door with my wallet. They apologized for what happened and I think most of the people are happy with that. What they seem to be mad about now is the lack of an apology over how the time from the beginning of the event and the admission and rectification of the event was handled.

[QuantumFX]

I believe the simple thing you are trying to say is "Two wrongs don't make a right." And I agree. But, a lot of the venom, right or wrong, could have been avoided if Turbine would have said something along the lines of "We don't know what's going on. We don't know why. We are looking into it, please be patient," instead of the thread deletions (again, I know that the rules dictated that they should be deleted) and the wall of silence that "we" got instead.

Neither one of those options is mutually exclusive.

[Film]

Oh god, book 2. Its the obligatory karma post. There is no personal enjoyment in my answers. There is but reality. Let me explain something to you about karma. People dont get to rant about how crappy something is and then keep using it while turning a blind eye. Karma doesnt allow this to work. This is like meth heads talking about how crack heads suck. This is like talking about how its wack that Walmart uses sweatshops and then buying their cheap clothing afterwards. Complaining up a storm and then staying around is telling me that mountains are being made of molehills.

The people who were REALLY offended by this, the ones who REALLY believe its a mountain and NOT a molehill, are gone. Sucks that it had to happen, but they are finding better things to do with their money than paying it to a company they feel treats them like ****. The rest of the moaners are over acting, plain and simple. This happens every_single_time Turbine makes a decision they dont agree with. Nerfs? - threaten to leave but stay. Offer Wall? - threaten to leave but stay. Now this happens, and not even 24 hours into it, we got threats of class action lawsuits, and lots of people threatening to leave, most of who will be here to complain about the next epic issue. This just sends the message that those individuals can be kicked around repeatedly, and will stay anyhow. Whats that going to change? Nothing. Theres your karma. Like you said, its a wheel, and it does turn, but what you didnt say is: if you dont stop the circle, you will end up right back where you started all over again. Sound familiar? We have completed this circle many times in DDO. Many of the people who threaten to leave every time are still around to complain about this issue, because that complaining has_no_impact. Class dismissed.

I applaud those who voted with their wallets. If you feel it is too stressful to continue playing under these circumstances, then you made the right decision by leaving.

For someone pointing fingers about overreactions you are doing quite well with it. I see your viewpoint that if you want to hurt them back do it with your wallet. I see that people have reacted in a non-professional manner. I see that people are genuinely disgusted at Turbine for their actions. The problem is there are people in this game that have friends in this game. There are people that have invested a lot of time. It is hard to walk away. So instead, they vent. They rage against those that are taking something enjoyable and making it not so. Turbine has a really good product and they know it. It is not the game that they are upset at, it is the company running it.

You chastise those that make mountains out of molehills, yet do the same in your rebuttals. You chastise those that complain, while complaining yourself.

My question is this, do you see the hypocrisy in telling people they should not complain, while you complain about their complaints?

[Stormanne]

Neither one of those options is mutually exclusive.

No, they aren't. Venom would have been dripping with each additional post. So, even if they didn't delete posts, due to the "Wall of Silence," the posts would have become more and more infraction worthy. And, post deletions, even with the type of announcement I exampled, would have added fuel to the fire.

In all reality, this fiasco was a no-win situation for Turbine. I'd just like to see someone other than Turbine's sacrificial lamb (Tolero) come out and acknowledge that this was a perfect storm and exposed some flaws in a few of their policies and guidelines.

[Chai]

I believe the simple thing you are trying to say is "Two wrongs don't make a right." And I agree. But, a lot of the venom, right or wrong, could have been avoided if Turbine would have said something along the lines of "We don't know what's going on. We don't know why. We are looking into it, please be patient," instead of the thread deletions (again, I know that the rules dictated that they should be deleted) and the wall of silence that "we" got instead.

Wall of silence that lasted a few hours, and wasnt even 1/3 of a day when they finally did respond. We arent even at the 24 hour point as of yet. If people held off the NerdRiots® for 24 hours, this hilarity, for good or ill, would have never ensued. Knee jerk reactions are almost never interpreted well. I am not a forum cop, but I bet Turbine wont let possible posting infractions be justified by the fact that their own actions caused the posts.


Edit- True, I was never "in danger" of being banned since I never participated in the event. And I was never one to claim my indignation was leading me out the door with my wallet. They apologized for what happened and I think most of the people are happy with that. What they seem to be mad about now is the lack of an apology over how the time from the beginning of the event and the admission and rectification of the event was handled.

Sucks to say this but its true. Unfortunately, being visably mad doesnt solve much in this situation. A lighter cash flow might make the company think about retooling or re-humanizing their discipline system, which is why I continue to say that I applaud anyone who complains once, waits a few days, then leaves if nothing changes. As it stands, Mabar is going to be another item on the list that people who complain alot but never leave have to banter with, when the next epic breakdown of the system happens which takes less than 12 hours to solve. :p

[Chai]

In all reality, this fiasco was a no-win situation for Turbine. I'd just like to see someone other than Turbine's sacrificial lamb (Tolero) come out and acknowledge that this was a perfect storm and exposed some flaws in a few of their policies and guidelines.

This doesnt happen too often in business. Its Tolero's job to communicate with the forumites. When I call Microsoft for support, I dont get Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer on the line to admit their screw up that resulted in a bug laden OS. I get someone whose job description is to communicate with customers.

[Chai]

For someone pointing fingers about overreactions you are doing quite well with it. I see your viewpoint that if you want to hurt them back do it with your wallet.

I could care less about hurting them back. sending a message is what matters. The message we send by over reacting to every decision they make that we dont agree with, and then staying, is that they can continue to do it.


I see that people have reacted in a non-professional manner. I see that people are genuinely disgusted at Turbine for their actions. The problem is there are people in this game that have friends in this game. There are people that have invested a lot of time. It is hard to walk away. So instead, they vent. They rage against those that are taking something enjoyable and making it not so. Turbine has a really good product and they know it. It is not the game that they are upset at, it is the company running it.

So they continue to commit infractionable offenses hoping this will do what again?


You chastise those that make mountains out of molehills, yet do the same in your rebuttals. You chastise those that complain, while complaining yourself.

I am not chastizing. I am stating the fact that quantity based moaning doesnt get the job done nearly as well as quality based feedback. Like I stated before, a well placed shot gets the job better than an emptied machine gun in the dark. The early bird might get the worm, but the early worm is the one that gets eaten first.


My question is this, do you see the hypocrisy in telling people they should not complain, while you complain about their complaints?

Do you see the failure in interpreting someone disagreeing with you as complaining just to have something left to banter with?

Yo dawg, I heard you like complaining.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_7G6ciJUMuAk/TGOJCxnXBYI/AAAAAAAABY8/drhyu0NLBdY/s1600/yo+dawg+1.jpg

[Film]

snip

It is not a fact it is an opinion. It is your opinion. Can you confirm by fact that the complaining/reporting today did not speed up the reply. Can you confirm by fact that the response provided was not based off of bad publicity to gaming sites. Can you confirm that if nothing was said, and crickets rejoiced in song, that those affected would have been rectified so quickly.

Unless you are a Turbine employee you can not confirm these questions without violating company privacy agreements. So either you are an employee in violation, someone leaked info to you which puts them in violation, or you are stating an opinion based off of information provided as others have.

You are using the same techniques as those that you chastise.

Where as you think I am upset and complaining, I see you as doing the same. The only difference at this point is I admit that I am complaining about the situation. I tried to do it in a humerous manner. You feel you are unequivocally correct, and therefore unapproachable on other "tin foil hat" theories.

So far you have complained about forum rep, yet you have a mighty huge greenis there!

You have complained about how others get their point acrossed while utilizing the same methods.

You try to infuse humor into a situation that you said you do not get a kick out of.

And finally you are only replying to portions of posts to try and support your 'facts."

I am at a loss for why I attempted what so many before me have tried to do. Reason with a Troll.

Good Day, Happy Looting, and may the oops-ban never find your account!

[Shankd_Dream]

November 10th, 2010

Faced with internal pressure of cutting IT cost and overwhelmed game servers, Turbine Inc. came up with another innovative method to increase their profit margin and reduce server loads at the same time.

This time, through an "live event" with promising in-game rewards, Turbine was able to gather information on which account was most active during the event, and thus contributing to the most server loads. Combined with information regarding the account's financial transaction history, Turbine was able to "eliminate" accounts with least contribution to Turbine's revenue and most contribution to game server's load.

The elimination of these accounts will no doubt greatly reduce the lag in game and make no significant reduction in Turbine's revenue. This is a quite innovative approach and should be studied within the Micro-Transaction MMO industry.

Of course, as with all software bugs, gathering of these account may introduce unintended effects. Some very small amount of accounts which were actually actively contributing to Turbine's revenue were also marked for elimination. Turbine will surely be able to identify these very isolated incidents and compensate individually.

In Turbine's view, the most profitable accounts are players who are new, and is willing to spend the equivalent of $3 to get through a 15-minute quest via the purchase of consumable such as spirit cakes, potions, hirelings, anti-beholder crystal, etc. Turbine will no doubt continue to increase the player base of this high profit margin category.

Through this event, it can be seen Turbine's DDO is wildly popular. We highly encourage new players to try this GREAT game.

nice

[Malidiction]

i Would Be Much More Offended If Turbine Had Sent An Email To My Wife, Saying That I Had Cheated On Her.

I Am Still Very Offended By The Wording Of Turbine's Email, Though. Any Accusations Of Cheating Are Serious And Should Only Be Levied With Real Evidence And Not Just Because Mr. Autoban Told Them So. Especially Since They Said "specifically, A Game Master Determined That You...[insert Bad Grammar Here]" As If Someone Had Actively Researched It.

And Additionally Because Of Their Reaction The Last Time That Something Similar Happened

http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=3136872&postcount=3


The Fact That People Who Received A 3 Or 7 Day Ban Should Expect That The Only Allowed Method Of Appeal Will Not Even Answer Them Before The Ban Is Over Is Just Additonal Fuel For The Fire.

+1

[Malidiction]

What if just 1 or 2 people were affected by that wrongful ban, instead of the masses that prompted this apology in the first place? Were they to have their threads deleted right away and just bear out their 7 days of suspension or so in silence?

Also +1

[Zippo]

I applaud those who voted with their wallets. If you feel it is too stressful to continue playing under these circumstances, then you made the right decision by leaving.

Your problem is you are trying to over simplify as you all too often do. This isn't an issue of being to stressful for the majority of the people involved. This is an issue of outrageous and egregious actions (and no I'm not one of the people that was affected by this mass banning) taken by a company, first by the en mass banning and then by the quelling of any questioning and dissent by en mass deletion, and the people voicing their distaste of the events and how they were handled.

With that some people decided to respond back in kind with their wallets, with P/F2P some of that effect won't be felt right now with an exit survey and a loss in immediate revenue but in time when revenues fall from a decline in player base because of such mishandling of situations of this magnitude.

[stoolcannon]

And on both counts it took the BBB more time than it took Turbine themselves to admit they effed up and reverse their poor decisions.

Good think I bought all those shares in pitchfork manufacturing companies when they were nice and low last week . SELL SELL SELL SELL SELL. BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!

Hmmm....

Turbine - 3 weeks no response
BBB - 24 hours full resolution

BBB 1 - Turbine 0

Stoolcannon 1,334 - Chai - 0

HAHAHAHAHAHHAHHABbbbrbraaaafffttppp excuse me.

[toaf]

100 TP really? sad just sad, at least give them a nice stack of rescakes. shame on you turbine

[Thorzian]

I'd just like to see someone other than Turbine's sacrificial lamb (Tolero) come out and acknowledge that this was a perfect storm and exposed some flaws in a few of their policies and guidelines.

sacrificial lamb my ass! she came in and instantly locked 2 threads and started deleting. the threat of a larger banhammer came out as soon as possible. turbine STILL hasnt released what it is thet everybody is supposed to have done.

As always, we welcome player feedback on all aspects of DDO and continually seek to improve the quality of the service we provide to players.

no you don't. you hide behind forum rules. when people are being banned en masse its a dicipline issue. you came out last night and swung the nighty forum police riot gear siting that "dicipline" was off limits. you want all aspect to be discussed then allow it!

on a positive note, i now know where i can get a job if i'm ever in an accident and get brain damage. is there an on-line resume turbine?

[mehlinda]

Still reading, but did want to clarify: there was an exploit in the summoning chamber, but it has been fixed with today's patch. We are also reviewing our exploit suspension process in detail. Thanks for your patience and very sorry for the inconvenience!

In my opinion, the way Turbine addresses and handles exploits does little to eliminate them or discourage them. The first mistake IMO is that they are not allowed to be discussed on the forums. Look at how many people who received emails were completely baffled and outraged by it. Hiding them behind a cloak of secrecy does little to nothing to keep it from happening by the small percentage of people who continuously do it. If you are worried that there will be more because more people know how to do it, then I think you incorrectly judge a great deal of your player base. Most players are not interested in it.

On Thelanis it has always been a small group of people and in this particular case they were surely not advertising what they were doing or how. There is a circle of people who do and they keep it to themselves. This will not be their first or last time. Since your punishments are not permanent for people who repeat these EULA infringements over and over you turn your EULA into a joke. The manner in which they did this has been around in some form since Velah was the only raid with a timer. Lots of the folks doing this were the same ones who had 20 of each tome page and were able to ransack part 5 Shroud chests and level characters to 20 in a day. If your punishments were correct these practices would cease because the people who do it would be gone. How about three strikes and you're out ? Do you really need them as customers ?

I appreciate the quick response by Turbine to the letters and suspensions that were meted out. I think they did the best they could with that. I am not put off towards the event because of it or particularly upset with Turbine other than I think their policy perpetuates the problem. The problem is not the bugs in the software, the problems is how they handle those who abuse the system. Bugs are to be expected. If the player base was better educated as to what constituted an exploit instead of so many grey areas, inadvertant abuses would be lessened and true abusers more readily identified.

Have a nice day !!!

[Zippo]

on a positive note, i now know where i can get a job if i'm ever in an accident and get brain damage. is there an on-line resume turbine?

Yes here (http://www.wbgamesjobs.com/)

[Stormanne]

sacrificial lamb my ass! she came in and instantly locked 2 threads and started deleting. the threat of a larger banhammer came out as soon as possible. turbine STILL hasnt released what it is thet everybody is supposed to have done.

no you don't. you hide behind forum rules. when people are being banned en masse its a dicipline issue. you came out last night and swung the nighty forum police riot gear siting that "dicipline" was off limits. you want all aspect to be discussed then allow it!



You are taking my words out of context. Yes, she came in and locked down or deleted about 12-15 threads in a matter of the first hour that I saw. Including two or three of my own threads. Whether you liked her actions or not, she has a very clear and specific set of guidelines she has to follow in order to keep her job. So, whether she agrees with what she has to do or not is of no importance here.

And I believe, and a few others my agree with me while quite a few disagree, that sacrificial lamb is a quite appropriate term. She's the one they march out in front of the teeming masses and delivers the news of the day; be it good, bad, or in between. She's the one that is getting the heat for the deleted and locked threads, even though they did clearly violate the rules for the forums. Whether the forum rules are too strict or not is not up for debate right now (I think they are, it should not be against the rules to talk about disciplinary actions when said actions are the result of a "technical malfunction"). She is not the end-all-be-all of the forums. She has her bosses she has to answer to, and if she doesn't follow the guidelines that they set out, it's her a$$ on the line. Would you put your job in jeopardy for your companies customers? While what she did is unpopular, she didn't have much of a choice but to do it. If you think you can do a better job without violating the guidelines, go right ahead and apply.

I don't condone deleting the threads in that manner. I don't agree with not admitting there is a problem, even if you're not sure what the problem is. I don't agree with trying keep things as quiet as possible and trying to make it seem that all is well. I think it's an insult to the player base. But, I know it's not her decision to do those things. The guidelines were in place long before she was the local forum-monger.

[fco-karatekid]

Exactly. Stigma of being called a cheater is hard to swallow.

Bad time to come out with a DDO Point Bargain email. Not gonna happen.

They will feel the pinch from me. No more DDO Points bought on my free account!
CC Information removed.

Wow, talk about excessive force on this and other posts. I was one who was erroneously accused of cheating - less than 24 hours of having a blemish on my account (I didn't get banned, NOR did everyone, BTW), the error was reversed. People, after 17 years of working in technology, these things happen. 30 days @15$ per month is about 50 cents per day, no? a little under a dollar in recompense seems to be appropriate for those who had less than a day downtime.

[zztophat]

..I'm just glad to be back in the game.

[wolflordnexus]

Wow, talk about excessive force on this and other posts. I was one who was erroneously accused of cheating - less than 24 hours of having a blemish on my account (I didn't get banned, NOR did everyone, BTW), the error was reversed. People, after 17 years of working in technology, these things happen. 30 days @15$ per month is about 50 cents per day, no? a little under a dollar in recompense seems to be appropriate for those who had less than a day downtime.

I find it humorous you think you get to decide what is excessive and what is appropriate. These things don't just happen. Someone in the chain made the decision to Put in an automated system to handle banning and warnings which we were told was not the way things worked not long ago. What if someone only plays once a week that means the time lost is worth far more. Regardless each person will make the decision on what the time they were banned or blemish on their record was worth. If these things were properly investigated as they would have us believe this would not happen until I see policy changes I'm sorry and 100 TP is just an empty gesture.

[Junts]

You are taking my words out of context. Yes, she came in and locked down or deleted about 12-15 threads in a matter of the first hour that I saw. Including two or three of my own threads. Whether you liked her actions or not, she has a very clear and specific set of guidelines she has to follow in order to keep her job. So, whether she agrees with what she has to do or not is of no importance here.

And I believe, and a few others my agree with me while quite a few disagree, that sacrificial lamb is a quite appropriate term. She's the one they march out in front of the teeming masses and delivers the news of the day; be it good, bad, or in between. She's the one that is getting the heat for the deleted and locked threads, even though they did clearly violate the rules for the forums. Whether the forum rules are too strict or not is not up for debate right now (I think they are, it should not be against the rules to talk about disciplinary actions when said actions are the result of a "technical malfunction"). She is not the end-all-be-all of the forums. She has her bosses she has to answer to, and if she doesn't follow the guidelines that they set out, it's her a$$ on the line. Would you put your job in jeopardy for your companies customers? While what she did is unpopular, she didn't have much of a choice but to do it. If you think you can do a better job without violating the guidelines, go right ahead and apply.

I don't condone deleting the threads in that manner. I don't agree with not admitting there is a problem, even if you're not sure what the problem is. I don't agree with trying keep things as quiet as possible and trying to make it seem that all is well. I think it's an insult to the player base. But, I know it's not her decision to do those things. The guidelines were in place long before she was the local forum-monger.

I suspect that last night Tolero noticed these threads while at home gaming and didn't even have knowledge of why this occured when she had to start deleting threads.

Notice that now that it's known it was a technical error, this thread, and all its invective, aren't locked. Last night, that wasn't clear, and the opoprtunity for people to speculate (and hence reveal -real- exploits about the event) was ripe.

[Ranmaru2]

Were such rash actions justified if the activity in question was just going to be fixed today anyway? That's the big question here Jaer.

[Junts]

Were such rash actions justified if the activity in question was just going to be fixed today anyway? That's the big question here Jaer.

It seems completely obvious to me that Turbine isn't lying: They're not rescinding bans, their automated script malfunctioned. Yes, they do ban people for notable exploits when fixing them (Ask Sohryu!). However, in this case there was not an exploit for which people were banned. It was almost completely arbitrary. It isn't a question of them assuming people were guilty or being quick with the trigger finger or msiflagging anyone in a gorup or instance with someone who did one of the exploits that did exist - people who were banned where basically a random cross-section of event users, and the only thing most of them had in common was that they spent time there.

There are no common denominators, common actions, or anything else.

However, there's simply no way that, last night, Tolero knew that. And even if she did, people were actively speculating on what exploits it might be, which included things that actually were (and actually were not) mabar event exploits. They simply cannot permit those kind of discussions.

[ValenGodspeed]

It seems completely obvious to me that Turbine isn't lying: They're not rescinding bans, their automated script malfunctioned. Yes, they do ban people for notable exploits when fixing them (Ask Sohryu!). However, in this case there was not an exploit for which people were banned. It was almost completely arbitrary. It isn't a question of them assuming people were guilty or being quick with the trigger finger or msiflagging anyone in a gorup or instance with someone who did one of the exploits that did exist - people who were banned where basically a random cross-section of event users, and the only thing most of them had in common was that they spent time there.

There are no common denominators, common actions, or anything else.

However, there's simply no way that, last night, Tolero knew that. And even if she did, people were actively speculating on what exploits it might be, which included things that actually were (and actually were not) mabar event exploits. They simply cannot permit those kind of discussions.

I haven't read all 26 pages so I dont know if the subject have been touched. If so i appologise.

You assume rightly that its an automated script that have failed, and it failed badly, but having such a mechanism in place and still using this phrase in the ban e-mail, is borderline lying in my view: "Note that all account actions are taken only after a significant amount of research and verification is performed to ensure proper Code of Conduct enforcement.". They have done zero research before banning people, and even if were only compensated 1$ worth of TP the total amount of potential DDO store loss may be a significant amount - someone may be very embarrased somewhere, and in my opinion rightly so.

[Junts]

I haven't read all 26 pages so I dont know if the subject have been touched. If so i appologise.

You assume rightly that its an automated script that have failed, and it failed badly, but having such a mechanism in place and still using this phrase in the ban e-mail, is borderline lying in my view: "Note that all account actions are taken only after a significant amount of research and verification is performed to ensure proper Code of Conduct enforcement.". They have done zero research before banning people, and even if were only compensated 1$ worth of TP the total amount of potential DDO store loss may be a significant amount - someone may be very embarrased somewhere, and in my opinion rightly so.

The thing is we don't really know what happened.

Here's an example:

Turbine dumps their database of actions and finds one group of people who have some sort of casual inference to an exploit (they were once in the same instance as someone who cheated, for example). They then refine their searches throug hthat group to find the people who did cheat.

Then, someone loads the wrong database dump int othe automated mailer, and its sent to the first group instead of the final result group.

It can really be that simple: loading the wrong file and not noticing.

And then voila, 20,000 people get in trouble instead of 20.

[ValenGodspeed]

The thing is we don't really know what happened.

Here's an example:

Turbine dumps their database of actions and finds one group of people who have some sort of casual inference to an exploit (they were once in the same instance as someone who cheated, for example). They then refine their searches throug hthat group to find the people who did cheat.

Then, someone loads the wrong database dump int othe automated mailer, and its sent to the first group instead of the final result group.

It can really be that simple: loading the wrong file and not noticing.

And then voila, 20,000 people get in trouble instead of 20.

I am not saying thats not the case I am saying that where I work, that does not qualify as "significant amount of research and verification", we have a different name for a mess up like that.