User:Light and Peace

Unbanned after ordeal, I have received a one time exception due to their error.

I will leave the following for anyone who has been wrongfully banned for being mistaken for a bot.

Do not despair. If you have enough POSITIVE evidence that you are not a bot, it should be easily proven that you did not do anything wrong. The issue is getting ANET to actually review your account instead of just checking to see if it had hit their screening criteria for a bot, whatever that may be.

Was banned for third party program that was considered illegal during the ToPK bot cleanup. Several innocent people were swept up with the bots at ToPK and banned wrongfully.

Final Email from Support

Hello xxxx,

Following a review of your case, we’re making a one-time exception and are reinstating your GW account. The review showed that your account was indeed blocked in error and we would like to ask you to accept our apologies for this. We take steps to ensure that we do not accidentally block accounts that have not violated our rules, but in your case this has '''unfortunately happened despite our best efforts. ''' You should now be able to play again as usual and we are sorry for any inconvenience that this issue may have caused.

Thank you for your patience and understanding in this matter.

Regards,

GM Amaury Guild Wars Customer Support

3rd party programs that are "approved" in unaltered state:

1) Tex Mod

2) Multi-launch

Link here: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showpost.php?p=5152576&postcount=136

Banned on 8/23/2010 -> same day as my wedding anniversary strangely.

When out to eat lunch with my wife after I farmed a little bit of ToPK, I didn't log off. I came back and was disconnected for unacceptable behavior. Later to find out that I had a code 45, permanent ban for 3rd party program.

My Account: 1st character: ranger - no titles 2nd character: elementalist - 8 titles. Other characters: Derv (2 titles), monk, sin, warrior, ritualist, paragon Probably around 1500-2000 hours total. Age of account 8 months total. Ectos at time of banishment: 9 or 10. Plat at time of banishment: around 200k in bank, none on players.

Hardware:

Razer Mouse Copperhead - 1 macro

Logitech G13 - no active macros

Razer Lycosa - no active macro

Other issues: Macro: however, used in PVE, for running purposes, short lived, less than 1 second, required presence to decide to utilize it, non-repeating, and thusly compliant with the EULA.

Positive evidence that supports me _NOT_ botting:

1) I was actually LEARNING ToPK farm with A/me and had been there for a total of 2-3 days. (Length of time there)

2) Being that I was learning, my builds were changing between recommended PVX vs what they had in discussion (Changing builds)

3) Being that I was learning, I was making constant mistakes. (Different mistakes re-occurring).          A) Trying to shadowstep too early, mob too far, causes you to RUN away from the ledge. (Failure to target correctly each time and in appropriate distance) B) Trying to get the mobs to ball up correctly (I had to run around different ways to get them to ball up correctly and sometimes I just gave up)          C) Attempting to kill 1 or 2 mobs still left standing. D) Resigning early when I made a mistake

4) Had farming breaks of different lengths of time. (Again different interval rest periods).

5) While I was farming, I would actually ID some golds!

6) While I was farming, if I was full of stuff, I would drop stuff, salvage, and pick it back up.

7) Sometimes, I died while trying to kill the 1 or 2 mobs left standing in light of getting a drop, because I was hoping for an ecto from those 1 or 2 mobs left.

Guildwars guru link: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/danger-topk-and-farming-t10449477.html

These are all scripted replies. They are exact replies other have gotten for this same this.

Support says: 1) Hello xxx,

We understand your situation, we have reviewed the logs and records on the account and we can confirm that has been closed for using an illegal third party program. We want you to know that we use great care when analyzing accounts prior to termination. We are both diligent and conservative in determining which accounts are using these programs, and we only take action after we are able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that such use has occurred.

Furthermore, I'll try to give you an understanding of what we might consider "right" and "wrong" when interacting with our service as it related to your keyboards.

Using your programmable keyboard as a normal keyboard would certainly be fine. A keyboard is a basic tool that is virtually required to operate a computer and use our service. Each time you press a key, one character is typed or one action is made to happen and, in general, that is acceptable.

If you were somehow able to use your programmable keyboard to fully automate your gameplay experience, especially to the point where you did not have to attend your computer while your keyboard software "played" the game for you, then that would be considered against our User Agreement and subject to disciplinary action. ("You agree not to use any hardware or software, including but not limited to third party tools, or any other method of support which may in any way influence or advantage your use of the Service which is not authorized by NCsoft, including but not limited to the use of ‘bots’ and/or any other method by which the Service may be played automatically without human input.")

Somewhere in between those two scenarios is a grey area. We can't make any "final judgments" on any grey area actions that have not yet occurred, and we will not speculate on all possible grey area scenarios and their outcomes. In general, please make sure that you are at your computer and playing your game. Ultimately, it is of utmost important to us that each character being played in Guild Wars is being operated by an actual person.

I know I wasn't able to provide a definitive rule that covered all possible scenarios, but I hope this helps your understanding of "helping one play" versus "playing for you" and what we would consider acceptable.

For additional information on the User Agreement and Rules of Conduct, please visit the below links:

http://eu.guildwars.com/support/article/guild_wars_rules_of_conduct/ http://eu.guildwars.com/support/article/guild_wars_user_agreement/

Regards,

GM Amaury Guild Wars Customer Support

2) Hello xxxx,

We understand your concern, but I'm afraid that we cannot disclose the information we have on record about this case to detect the use of third-party programs to automate the behaviour of the characters. We need to keep some of this information to preserve the efficiency of the bot detecting system.

I am afraid that your account will stay banned and we will not be reversing the decision in this case.

Thank you for your understanding.

GM Amaury Guild Wars Customer Support

Log of my emails:

1) I do not have any third party programs installed in my computer. I have not used any bots of any sort. I have used a macro, which from my understanding was not against the EULA, since I am present when using it.

2) On my computer, I have razer mouse and a logitech g13. My razer mouse has a macro for shadowstepping if I need it, which obviously requires me to assess the situation to push the button. The macro is a simple dash and heart of shadow jump. My logitech g13, which is like the g15 keyboard, which doesn't have any macros that I have used on it recently, which had some buffing macros from heroes, but I haven't used it in a long time. I really do feel that I have been wrongfully banned. I have not used _ANY_ bot whatsoever. The macro's that I have used require active imput from me and last less then a few seconds at most. I do not understand why I got banned. The account you banned was farming ectos in Tombs of the primeval kings. I am sure there are bots there, but I am not one of them. I JUST started farming there 2 days ago. Look at my account, my items, I am a rule-following player. Please do not ban me for something that appears to be completely off base. Out of all the things I can think about, would be macro's and I have read the forums about them on multiple sites and the understanding is that simple macros that are require presence to start is permitted. The one macro I actively use is 3 keystrokes. Lasting less than a second.

3) I'd like to mention that there have been more people than myself that appear to have been inappropriately banned for third party programs/bots that we just do not have or have not run.

Since my macro that I use on my razer mouse is for running, I never used it in TOPK farming. So there was nothing that I had on my system active that was a 3rd party program other than mouse drivers and hardware drivers, which I really can't uninstall just for guildwars. I use my g13 for spreadsheet macro's for work related stuff as well.

I have had a lengthy discussion with several players and I applaud your aggressive stance against finding and removing bots, but I can assure you that you are banning legitimate players in the process. Your net or criteria for TOPK is too broad and getting innocent players.

4) I'd just like to add that there is community level discussion occurring about several issues. 1) ToPK - whether or not it's safe to even farm ectos because of the recent banning of players that claim to have no botting/third party programs (like myself). 2) The use of simple macros, which has been seen to be condoned by various GM's in responses about the g15 logitech keyboard and one such response from a GM on wiki.guildwars.com. (also since the g15 keyboard was given away as an award in the past it seems) There is obviously a serious and big problem if players like myself do not feel safe with their accounts to play anywhere in the game. I really don't feel that it's safe for me to farm anywhere. Be it vaettirs, raptors, topk, underworld, all these areas have been infested with bots and it's unfortunate that myself and a several other players get banned in the process for not doing anything wrong. It sends a message to other players that it's not safe to play. I have encouraged my friends to stay away from TOPK due to the banning. My wife and daughter share a second account and we do play together often. We often do play together on weekends and I can not explain how upsetting this is for us.

5) I need to know what that third party program is so I can remove it. I really don't know what third party program you think I have been using. In all honesty, my macros again fall under your EULA explanation as I have not fully automated any of my play. As I said, I have my wife and daughter also play this game. We all have similar computer equipment. They all have razer mice but do not have g13, my wife has a g15 keyboard. I _NEED_ to know what the program is so 1) I feel that I was appropriately banned. 2) That the permanent aspect of the ban offense makes sense. I do not understand how I can be permanently banned for a 3rd party program that you state I have. I have no BOT. I have no 3rd party program that's installed that interacts with Guildwars directly. There is no such program on my computer. Futhermore, this computer is brand new as of april/may of this year. My daughter has my old computer. So I need to know what program we're talking about here because, quite frankly, I have no clue what it could be. If at least, I had an idea of what you had banned me for in regards to the 3rd party program, I could remove it. Although, I have to admit I am dumbfounded because I don't have a 3rd party program installed. I respectfully request the following: 1) Education about what program was involved. 2) Proof of such program 3) Re-evaluation of my ban from being permanent to temporary. Look, I'm sure you've seen my account. I have what? 1600 hours playing? I'm relatively new. 8 months into the game. I don't have a lot of stuff. I don't have many titles. I have friends on there and I like to run more than anything else now. I've only completed the game fully once. My account isn't the profile for a botter or 3rd program user. It makes no sense. The evidence I have, says otherwise. Even if you banned me permanently, if I decided to buy another account for myself and restart. What do I uninstall? I don't know because I have NOTHING that is inappropriate. Please educate me and don't punish me harshly (permanent ban) for something that I really don't understand. That isn't professional, courteous, or respectly. If I decide to continue playing this game with my wife and daughter, I need to protect them and myself from having this happen again. I can't do that without your help. Thanks, xxxx

6) If you are unable to give me support on this issue, then I need someone to talk to on the phone and get both customer service and tech support. I do not have any 3rd party programs that could be illegal. Obviously, there is a serious problem if you have logs of me using a 3rd party program when I do not have one installed that could do anything that violates the EULA. You have measured responses on Guildwar guru with the following 3rd party programs if unaltered would be okay 1) texmod (which I don't have) 2) multi launch, which I have an earlier version of. Clearly, if this is a technical support issue, a permanent ban or any ban whatsoever is inappropriate. http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showpost.php?p=5152576&postcount=136 (http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showpost.php?p=5152576&postcount=136) "You use third party programs at your own risk. We are not responsible if the programs you download contain content that changes the original code of that program, which may incur a ban. In its original state, programs like Multi Launch or Texmod, will not fall afoul of the banhammer, however changes to those programs, instances where people have modified the original code--there are no guarantees. We do not provide any support whatsoever for third party programs. " So work with me, instead of against me. You have a player that doesn't want to get permanently banned and is willing to try to figure out what the issue is and educate not only himself, his family, and the community. I have an active thread in guildwars guru about this situation. And, again, it's more than just me. Thanks, xxxx

7) "I gave an official response on the Support Issues page, but here it is, as well:


 * PvE Gamplay: As long as you are at your computer and are actively playing the game, we’re ok with what you’re doing. As soon as the game plays itself – as soon as you can walk away and the computer continues to play – you’re in breach of the Rules of Conduct and you are subject to account sanctions, which can involve an account suspension or an account termination.


 * PvP Gameplay: The use of macros that give an advantage in competitive play is strictly prohibited and if it is reported and/or detected, we will research the activity and take the appropriate action on the account, which can affect both tournament eligibility and the account holder’s ability to continue to play Guild Wars, either with a temporary suspension or an account termination.

Hope that helps! -- Gaile 23:25, 2 June 2009 (UTC) " I have no breached this in regards to my macro/s. If it is the macro's and this is a grey area issue, I do not feel that a permanent ban is warranted for it. But none-the-less, I am still guessing as you can tell. I have no idea what you are referring to in regards to 3rd party program.

8) Actually, you are absolutely incorrect in the assumption that I have a 3rd party program. I have been discussing this on the forums on guildwars guru.  Your banning method has been proven to be inaccurate in the past.  You have banned innocent accounts repeatedly in the hopes to stopping bots.  I demand that you review my account personally.  I want you to see that there is no repeat consistent behavior in ToPK.  I had changed builds repeatedly as I was learning the build myself.  I had been farming there for a total of 2-3 days maximum.  I made repeatedly mistakes as I was learning the farm without any assistance.  I did not use macro's at all farming.  The timing of my button presses were unique. Many instances, I had maximized my inventory and had to drop stuff to salvage materials.  All of this points to NO third party program.  No BOT.  So, if you don't make an effort to review my case PERSONALLY, 1) I want a phone number to talk to someone personally on the phone as they physcially review my case with me on the phone and I _WILL_ record the conversation. 2) I want your supervisor's email address or contact information. I have clearly shown that I am willing to work with you on this case.  But clearly, you have no intention in meeting me halfway in regards to this.  I have paid good money and put in well over 1000 hours of my personal time to play this game. There are clear positive evidence that I do not have a 3rd party program aiding me in any way shape or form that goes against the EULA. I am a physician.  I know what it takes to have a positive test.  There is both sensitive screens and specific screens.  You have a very good sensitive test, but you are catching false positives which means you have a very bad specific test.  You need a second test to confirm and make sure you don't have false positives.  This would mean looking to see if inventories are full and player needs to evaluate their inventory.  Things like that. You clearly have a serious problem on many levels. You have technical difficulties. You have not address any of my requests, especially phone numbers for tech support and customer service which I asked for last time. Address my concerns, I hope we can resolve this civilly. I am a physician, a professional. You have been treating me like a child, a cheater, and I don't appreciate it. Sincerely, xxxx

9) In addition to this, I had took random farming breaks. I took different run paths to ball up monsters.  I identified certain golds in my inventory while farming.  There are a lot of things that I did that I don't think a bot would do.  So, I think you really haven't review my account thoroughly, I suggest you take another look.

10) And in case you haven't noticed: I'm keeping the community updated on this problem. You as a service need to find out WHY you are banning innocent players which is inappropriate altogether.  There is a common mistake in your screen that is netting innocent players.  I highly suggest you review your methods.  http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/danger-topk-and-farming-t10449477.html