I won the vague "you have been banned" e-mail contest!

[tebuddy]

Note: This is not a customer support ticket or a rant, I am simply using a ban that I recently served (which is now expired) as an example to base my suggestion off of.

Recently I served banned for three days for using hate speech as determined by a GM.

My grievances with the situation and suggestions for change:

1. There is no followup.
When I was banned, I got pmed by a GM in game who vaguely informed me I am being banned and then forcibly disconnected my game while I was typing a response to him (while mid dungeon) to get more information. I followed up with a ticket to customer support (on Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 8:02 PM), and still have yet to receive any type of response from ingame or customer support. Any further ingame tickets to gms result in being directed to the customer support website.

2. No clarification.
Hate speech to me is racism, or extreme verbal harassment based on menial things like race or sexual orientation. The code of conduct says the same thing. I swear constantly in most games for whatever reason, usually due to circumstance, and rarely directed at anyone. But I am absolutely 100% positive I never focused any verbiage toward another person in a way that should warrant a 3 day suspension. I believe there is a content filter in game that blocks nearly all swears anyway, so unless you go out of your way to be hugely offensive and also circumvent the filter why should this be bannable? Questions like this need to be answered before you get banned, not after.

3. No evidence.
This plays more on number one, but if you are going to give GMs the power to regulate the game with bans based on their personal (possibly bias) judgement, it should be required that every exchange along with a specific summary of the situation and any related background information is thoroughly documented with copies sent to both turbine and the customers e-mail.

4. No warning.
For a first time offender for something of this caliber, why did I not receive a warning?

5. Delayed unban:
My ban expired four hours later than the time listed on the website for my account. Why not take into account the delay for account changes to propagate and simply add that to the initial unban time. Really inconvenient.

Basically I would like to suggest a portion of the website, or even the game client be remade/added to giving information on and managing bans, warning, and suspensions.

An example



Thanks

[Pagan420]

actualy ive gotten warning for that sorta thing in alot of mmo's for arguing with religious types abbout history and science, apearently religious fundementalisim is protected over hard evidence in most mmos and contradicting a faith with proven evidence is considerd hate speach or trolling, go figgure. but it happens and thanks to the bs waver or whatever its called we all have to sighn if we want to play there is absolutly nothing, legaly we can do abbout it.

[flynnjsw]

Just so you know, talking about bans or infractions can, surprise surprise, get you infractions or a ban.

[tebuddy]

Clarified my original post to remind people that the focus should be less on my ban, and more on the entire offense/suspension system.

[Xenus_Paradox]

actualy ive gotten warning for that sorta thing in alot of mmo's for arguing with religious types abbout history and science, apearently religious fundementalisim is protected over hard evidence in most mmos and contradicting a faith with proven evidence is considerd hate speach or trolling, go figgure. but it happens and thanks to the bs waver or whatever its called we all have to sighn if we want to play there is absolutly nothing, legaly we can do abbout it.

Gee, you mean people didn't take kindly to you belittling their personal beliefs? Go figure.

I need to post more funny stuff so I can hand out -rep.

[Veln]

The ban is a phenomona that can best be described by the following statements.

"What happens at Turbine, stays at Turbine."

Due to the laws of a country that can best be described as "America" - Turbine has every right to plead the fifth.