Survarium developer Vostok Games has announced a new ban wave of 139 players over the past week for the use of prohibited software. For those unaware, Vostok Games is one of the few developers willing to name and shame the players who are punished in their public announcements. You can find the entire list below, however many of the names will be illegible if you don’t happen to read Cyrillic.
For more coverage of Survarium, check out our first impressions.
(Source: Survarium)
Blizzard recently introduced a new moderation system to World of Warcraft, one that promised to implement account-wide punishment for abusive chat once a player was reported by a sufficient number of people. The description of silencing, as shown below, states that punishment is inflicted “after investigation,” presumably by a live customer support staffer.
“Following the Legion pre-expansion, any player who is reported multiple times under the Spam or Abusive Chat categories will, after investigation, receive an account-wide silence penalty. While this penalty is active, the silenced player will find that their ability to chat with others is greatly limited.”
Twitch streamer Zach “Asmongold” recently decided to test Blizzard’s new silence system in World of Warcraft by typing one (emphasis on one) innocuous chat message (I love World of Warcraft) and having his raid group mass-report the comment as abusive. The account is muted within a minute. The accompanying email notes that the punishment will only be overturned if there is evidence that the account was compromised or for “other extenuating circumstances.”
A system where players can be muted (with each subsequent punishment lasting twice as long as the last) due to reports sounds ripe for brigading against unpopular opinions or merely mass trolling, leading to concern that the tool could wind up with players becoming victims of mob rule. Blizzard, in response, has assured that game masters will review each case:
This isn’t just an automated system, our Game Masters will review under the same rules they always have.
Only it is very clear that silences, at least in this case, are not being reviewed by a human. Asmongold’s email explicitly states that he has been punished with a full 24 hour silence. The account was not, as some people are stating, “squelched,” as the mute for squelching only lasts a few hours and Asmongold was silenced for the full 24 hours.
Blizzard has yet to make a statement either on their forums or otherwise.
IMCGames has announced another mass ban in Tree of Savior. As posted on its official website, the ban targeted players using a third party program to allow themselves access to the game’s market, repair, and other interfaces outside of the game’s cities.
As part of the announcement, IMCGames also broke down exactly how these players will be punished:
– 1151 had already been permanently banned and therefore their status has not been altered
– 3462 had been previously restricted and will now be banned permanently, as this is their second known offense
– 994 will be banned for a total of 30 days, as this is their first known offense
Also worth a note is that IMCGames is now restricting access from Steam accounts that have been sanctioned by Valve. One player who had his account restricted due to chargebacks noted that he is not allowed to play Tree of Savior, receiving the message below. An IMC employee confirmed the rule in the same thread.
Yesterday we reported a backlash forming on the Old School RuneScape subreddit by players angry over multiple account bans that been instated over the previous night. Several accounts were allegedly banned for harassing a streamer, with players brigading the subreddit demanding proof in the form of chat logs that the players were legitimately punished.
While Jagex initially refused to release the chat logs, product manager Matthew Kemp has posted several redacted chat logs of the guilty parties.
The harassing streamers/players comment was used as that was why these accounts were initially looked into. The bug abuse rule was used as it was an appropriate length of punishment for the offence. Our systems do not work by applying a mute or ban and then deciding the time, but by choosing a rule which has been broken and applying a predetermined punishement. This system is not the best for all circumstances but we have to work with what we have.
Unsurprisingly, people who break rules and act toxic in games still lie and pass the blame when they are eventually punished. Even less surprising is that other toxic players on the subreddit have moved the goal posts as an excuse to ignore the proof that they demanded just yesterday.
(Source: Reddit)
From Software is putting the kibosh on bad gameplay in Dark Souls III and you’d better watch out, especially if you’re not cheating, because the developer doesn’t understand how to protect its own customers from exploits in its game design. The premise is simple, the system detects anomalies and “invalid data,” such as equipment modded outside of its capabilities or players absorbing more souls than can be feasibly obtained, and restricts online play to those players. Again, simple, right?
“The warning message will continue to be displayed until the Dark Souls III server team has determined whether or not a violation of the End User License Agreement (EULA) occurred. At that point the account/profile will either have restrictions placed on it (to limit the online interactions during multiplayer sessions and a further penalty message of ‘You have been Penalized’ issued) or the ‘Invalid Game Data’ warning message removed.
Here’s the problem: A major part of Dark Souls III involves being invaded and summoning other players. What happens if a player drops you an item and that item has been hacked? Good luck, you’ll be banned. If a player invades your world and is using a cheat that grants you massive amounts of souls? Too late to turn back now, you’re getting banned. Get invaded by a player using a hack to give himself invincibility or infinite Estus Flasks? Your next invasion is by the ban hammer.
Now From Software has a workaround for this that is very easy to follow. You simply need to constantly back up your save data onto a third party (they recommend a USB drive or a cloud service) and just use that backup if your data gets corrupted because someone ruined your file because From Software allowed them to and subsequently punished you for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
To make matters worse, the anti-cheat system is obscure by design. You’ll never really know when and where your file got corrupted, who corrupted you, and what was corrupt. Did the system flag your account two days ago or two hours ago? Is your backup safe or are you royally screwed? Why doesn’t Bandai Namco have a cloud system that saves your last non-corrupted file? It also doesn’t help that, by Bando Namcai’s own admission, the system is falsely flagging some users.
It also begs the question of, if the anti-cheat system is worth anything, why cheating is still rampant in the game? Forget the guy who gets banned because someone entered his world with infinite Estus Flasks, what about the guy invading other players worlds with his infinite Estus Flasks? What about the guy using the hacked dagger to modify the save game files of others?
All of this screams of a developer that has no idea what it is doing when it comes to online gameplay, stepping into pitfalls that other, more competent developers, figured out how to avoid years ago. Cheats like aimbots and wall hacks will never go away. Allowing players in an online environment to dupe and hack items, not to mention allowing them to trade those items over your servers, is basic protection 101. It’s the same sort of incompetence and inexperience that led to Grand Theft Auto Online becoming a cheater’s paradise while Blizzard figured it out back in the days of early Battle.net.
The Dark Souls series is one of a kind and deserving of all of the praise it gets, but protecting your online game from cheaters and preventing legitimate players from getting caught in the net is an entirely different understanding. From Software should be baking sanity checks in at more than one avenue to ensure that players aren’t bringing their hacked items into other’s worlds. It’s a simple checksum that exists server-side and that compares equipment and items to pre-defined limitations. If those limits are breached, the offender is booted. Again, so simple it makes you wonder why neither From Software nor Namco Bandai ever thought to put it in. It allows people to do whatever they want on their own game without infecting the gameplay of others.
Other than that, I have no opinion on the matter.
(Editor’s Note: The article incorrectly stated incorrectly that the ban on associated accounts lasted three months. The ban on the phone number itself lasts three months, the ban on accounts is permanent. Thank you to Matt in the comments for correcting our mistake.)
Imagine a world where cheaters use burner phones to mask the identities of their individual Steam accounts, not unlike drug dealers, because just such a scenario could become more prevalent with a recent policy change at Valve.
Presently, if you are caught cheating in a VAC-protected game you are banned from VAC-enabled servers on that game. But what is stopping a person from buying Counter Strike: Global Offensive when it goes on sale for fifty cents (or whatever low price it hits during seasonal sales) and stocking up on 10+ accounts? Or Team Fortress 2 which is free to play? Nothing, and it is a noticeable problem in both titles.
Valve is taking on the issue two-fold: The first is to institute a matchmaking system for Counter Strike: GO that only links players whose accounts have phone numbers attached for two-factor authentication. The second is to ban any Steam account associated with that phone number if one of the accounts cheats. The bans on associated phone numbers lasts for three months, during which the number cannot be applied to any other account.
The benefit is that it is effectively impossible to buy a new phone only to find out too late that the guy who held the number before you was VAC-banned and still on probation.
(Source: Engadget)
Trion Worlds has spent the better part of the past six or so months attempting to slowly detoxify the very virulent community whose actions they have actively coddled and defended as ‘in the spirit of the game,’ and that shift in management has come to a head once again with Trion reversing a trade scam against a high profile streamer during a charity event. The streamer was duped into trading expensive equipment to an imposter account during a charity stream for Doctors Without Borders, after which Trion reversed the trade and banned the imposter account.
Impersonating someone else, even if it’s by name, to separate someone from their hard earned goods is not allowed and has not been allowed in ArcheAge. In the past, there have been situations where a player impersonated another player and, in those situations, our Customer Service team has reversed the outcome of the scam no matter if it was items or gold.
Some of the anger seems to stem from the fact that the impersonation rule, while it has always existed, has admittedly not been publicized and may not even have been properly enforced until this recent incident. The majority of it, however, is coming from the ‘hardcore’ end of the community who view the idea of impersonating another player to defraud someone as fair game, with the usual attitude of ‘the victim deserved it for being stupid.’
We realize that this policy has not been made public in the past, but this high profile incident has made us realize that we need to publicly acknowledge and reinforce our stance on name impersonation within the game. This is not a new policy that was made simply for this stream — this is a policy that we as a company have had for the past year and beyond, and it is a policy that is referenced within our Terms of Use (11. Code of Conduct, Rule A.)
There are numerous false reports circulating that the rule did not exist before this event, and MMO Fallout has been able to confirm via archives of the terms of service that the rule has always been in place. Regardless of certain members of the community using wordplay, unaffiliated rules, and technical trickery as justification, it objectively was not allowed, even with ArcheAge’s lax stance on scams. The rule explicitly forbids creating a character with a name “belonging to another person with the intent to impersonate that person, including without limitation a “Game Master” or any other employee or agent of Trion.”
Still, there is plenty of valid criticism towards Trion Worlds for not bringing this rule to light until it happened to a high profile player, regardless of the fact that it existed prior to this incident.
(Source: ArcheAge)
Survarium developer Vostok Games has announced another wave of bans, removing one hundred accounts for violating the game’s rules on using cheats. All of the accounts can be found, by name, on the Steam announcement page. Vostok regularly posts the names of accounts banned for cheating, and recommends that players use the report tool at the end of the match to report any suspicious players.
We remind everyone that use of prohibited software is a serious violation and it is punished with a permanent ban. 101 accounts were permanently banned from March the 14th to March the 21st because their owners have used prohibited software to gain an advantage in the game.
If you follow the link below, you can also find a comprehensive list of accounts that have been previously banned in Survarium.
(Source: Survarium)
(Editor’s Note: Trion World’s PR reps got in touch to clarify a few points to the story which have been noted below. A total of 983 accounts have been banned right away. In addition, they have stated that while money spent is taken into account to discern real players from throwaway/bot accounts, that it is only one factor and that time invested into the account also goes a long way to proving that the player is invested in the game. We thank them for getting in touch to clarify these points.)
ArcheAge’s new bot detection program has been enabled for a few weeks, with 983 accounts banned right off the bat and a number of other accounts put on notice. Trion Worlds has taken to the forums once again to claim that it will not tolerate anyone who cheats in ArcheAge…providing you don’t stop after this last warning. In addition, Trion Worlds will no longer take tenure (how much time and money has been invested) into account when banning for bots and hacks:
After this warning, anyone who continues to run the detected hack or bot programs will be subject to a permanent ban, regardless of their tenure in ArcheAge. Please note that we can also see when alternate accounts are associated with other main accounts, so making use of these tools on a throwaway account will lead to disciplinary action on your main.
Users who are casual botters will receive a warning by email.
Those players who appear to be mostly legitimate community members will receive an email warning them about this policy and informing them to stop immediately.
Trion’s previously light stance on casual bot usage stands in stark contrast to the company’s heavy handed punishment just a month ago when the company banned an entire raid of 53 accounts for using a glitch to defeat a world boss. It also contradicts the numerous times that the company has claimed to be taking a zero tolerance policy on botting in ArcheAge.
The good news is that the new software aims to increase the rate at which cheaters are caught and banned while simultaneously reducing the number of false positives.
(Source: ArcheAge)
In a rather interesting turn of events, Trion Worlds has taken to the forums to discuss a recent high profile incident of a guild using exploits to kill a boss monster in ArcheAge. The Leviathan is a massive world boss in ArcheAge that is so powerful that it has yet to be defeated in combat in North America. Legitimately, at least. Videos began surfacing on the ArcheAge forums of the guild Rage Quit obtaining the first kill on a very clearly bugged boss, the Leviathan can be seen floating above water and stops attacking, not unlike a giant pinata. As one might expect from such a high profile kill, it didn’t take long to attract Trion Worlds’ attention.
According to senior community manager Seraphina “Celestrata” Brennan, all participating members of Rage Quit have been banned with no chance for appeal, a grand total of 53 players, while the guild as a whole has been disbanded. Accounts that participated in the event and were members of the council have had their membership revoked, while those who were found to be contesting the kill will not be punished. In addition, all loot generated from the kill has been removed from the game world.
First of all, our new policy on exploits is well-known at this point. We do not tolerate exploits or those who abuse them in our game. Any individual taking advantage of an exploit will receive a permanent ban. This is a non-negotiable stance. The Leviathan kill in question was clearly broken and floating to all bystanders in the videos captured, so the guild involved had full knowledge that something was wrong. They made the active decision to proceed forward with the kill regardless.
According to Trion Worlds, only one member of the guild contacted the studio to report the kill, and even then demanded compensation in return for the details. XLGames has been notified of the exploit and should be working on a fix.
(Source: Trion Worlds)
MMO Fallout 