Lost Ark hits hard times on Steam.
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Tag: Mass Ban
Lessons From 2013 #1: Not Mass Bans
There is an old phrase that says “I can’t define obscenity, but I know it when I see it,” a paraphrase of a quote originally stated by Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart. The gaming media, as with any other media, loves to use sensationalist headlines, and nothing makes bank in this industry quite like a rolling ban for some exploit. The question is how do you define a “mass ban?” Hundreds? Thousands? I can’t define a mass ban, but I know one when I see it.
Some of you may remember an exploit that popped up in last year’s winter event for Guild Wars 2 resulting in what some referred to as a mass ban. The announcement drew a lot of flak, partially from people not fully understanding just how many were banned at the end of the day. Turns out, according to Arenanet, that the total ban figure came out to less than two hundred. Bans were reserved only for the worst offenders who used the exploit hundreds if not thousands of times and knew exactly what they were doing. I still believe that calling it a mass ban was a poor choice of words, misleading, and probably paints ArenaNet in a poor light.
If you want to see a real mass ban, watch Jagex run a sweep of bots.
Jagex Bans 20,000 In Botwatch Update
Last year RuneScape saw the first stages of Botwatch, a new system designed to end the constant game of cat and mouse between Jagex and gold farmers, and put an end to the rampant cheating, spam, and gold sales once and for all. Instead of altering the game’s code, Botwatch was designed to learn over time how bots behave, and learn the difference between human behavior and those dictated by machine. Botwatch is capable of banning on its own volition, and thus must be tuned to ensure no false positives are detected.
In a recent update to Botwatch, the program banned over twenty thousand accounts accused of gold farming:
We recently introduced the next phase of our anti-bot technology Botwatch, and it’s already showing its teeth in the battle against botting activity in RuneScape. Last night alone, we conducted a mass ban of no less than 20,000 gold farming accounts. This is a huge blow against gold farming, and you should see the difference in game right away. These new anti-bot systems aren’t limited to gold farmers, however – users of 3rd party clients and botting software are also being aggressively targeted by the newly updated Botwatch.
Last year Jagex introduced Botany Bay, where players can watch first hand as bots are executed and banned.
(Source: RuneScape)
Guild Wars Mass Ban, Disbanding
This is Dhuum, he doesn’t like cheaters, hackers, botters, and exploiters. If you cheat, hack, bot, or exploit bugs, Dhuum will find you, and Dhuum will murder you in cold blood. As the God of death, when Dhuum takes your soul, there is no coming back, you are banished from the world of Guild Wars forever.
ArenaNet has announced that they have banned over 3,700 accounts, not to mention disbanding over a dozen guilds, with more on the way. Not only are players being banned, but they are being smitten in-game by the God of Death. See the video.
This isn’t the first NCsoft title to have flashy public executions of botters. Aion is well known to have GM’s personally firebomb chat spammers out of existence.
More on Guild Wars as it appears.
NCsoft Nukes Aion, Bans 16,000: I Offer My Services
Segueing to our next topic, look it’s Aion again! Barely a day after announcing the introduction of G-Unit (Not the rappers, as I discovered) to fight bots in Aion, NCsoft has announced a mass ban following the maintenance reboot earlier this morning. Nearly sixteen thousand accounts, too. The bans are anything from gold farming, botting, buying gold, to spamming and advertising.
So is there any recourse for players who feel they were wrongly banned? Unlikely, as NCsoft feels quite sure of themselves, using multiple instances as evidence rather than just one. If you do feel that you were banned improperly, you can always create a support ticket to have it looked at.
I wrote this knowing that I’m going to get a lot of emails asking “Why are you pushing NCsoft’s propaganda?” Two years ago, I would have picked Jagex for the most dramatic mass bans with the trade restrictions and other massive game mechanic changes. This year, however, the prize definitely goes to NCsoft and Aion for the most dramatic showmanship. The sixteen thousand on paper sounds great, until you go in-game on the same day to realize that the bots are back in full force.
More after the break…
Continue reading “NCsoft Nukes Aion, Bans 16,000: I Offer My Services”
MMO Fallout 