Ban

Ban is a synonym for the two types of actions that the Guild Wars Support Team may take in reaction to a breach of the Rules of Conduct and/or the Guild Wars: User Agreement.

• Account Suspension (a temporary block on an account)
• Account Termination (a permanent ban on an account)

The overall guidelines that ANet follows are documented on the official site at Conduct Breaches and Outcomes.

Suspension (AKA Block)

An account suspension (i.e. a block) prevents a player from logging in to their account for a limited amount of time. ANet uses a sliding scale to determine the duration of this punishment: lesser offenses will result in smaller blocks and repeat offenses will result in stiffer penalties, up to and including account termination. Common reasons for blocking an account are: use of offensive language, using an unacceptable character name, spamming a chat channel, or scamming.

Some offenses are minor enough that the support team will not impose a penalty unless they are part of a pattern of behavior. For example, an account will not usually be suspended for a first offense of chat-spamming, but ANet is more likely to block accounts for those who do spam chat regularly.

Termination (AKA Ban)

An account termination (i.e. a ban) is a permanent block: the player will never be allowed to login to the account again. Accounts are only terminated for serious conduct breaches, including use of disallowed third-party programs, use of bots, exploiting game bugs, scamming, real money trading, and repeated patterns of behavior that might otherwise result in blocks.

• Since the May 26th 2010 update, Dhuum appears in-game whenever an account is terminated or suspended and kills the player.

Reporting, escalation, and past conduct

Players can report inappropriate conduct of others through use of the in-game reporting feature, through ANet's support site, or via email. ANet investigates each claim individually and decides on an appropriate response for the circumstances, which includes reviewing the past conduct of the account in question. That sometimes results in the appearance of uneven penalties.

• For example, two players might each be reported for failing to complete a trade in good faith. The first, without any marks against their record, might receive a 3-day block. However, the second might have their account terminated because they are a repeat offender.
• Similarly, two players might be reported for spamming a trade channel. The first, with a good record, might not receive any penalty. While reviewing the second account, ANet might notice use of an unacceptable character name and block that account for three days and require them to choose a new name.

Appeals

Account terminations can be appealed directly to ANet by creating a support ticket. A supervisor from the support team will review details of the ban and determine if the proper internal procedures were followed correctly. Only a small fraction of bans are reversed, almost always because the player was able to present a reasoned case that a mistake had been made.

ANet typically responds within three business days (Pacific Time). If there is a delay or if you feel that an error has been made, you can ask for a final review at the official Account Support forum (remember to include the ticket number in your request).

Notes

• Officially, ANet uses termination and suspension, but players (and sometimes even ANet employees) typically refer to both these actions as bans.

See also

• User:Gaile Gray/Support FAQs/Account Security

External links

Legal

• Guild Wars: User Agreement - from the official website.
• Rules of Conduct - from the official website.
• Conduct Breaches and Outcomes - from the official website.
• Naming Policy - from the official website.

Video

• Google search for videos of Dhuum banishing a character.