Feedback talk:Gaile Gray/Archive Support Issues/Nov - Dec 2011

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AutoHotKey and Macros

I looked around and couldn't find anything on this. For simple macros, like using two skills in order when you click one, or swapping weapon sets when using a specific skill, do you still see it as a violation of the EULA/ToS? — Skakid 18:46, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

a search with the keyword "macro" brought up these two from gaile's pages.

User_talk:Gaile_Gray/Archive_Misplaced_Articles_and_So_Forth/July_-_Dec_2007#Macro

User_talk:Gaile_Gray/Archive_Game-Related_Topics/December_2007#Is_a_Click_Macro_Legal

It looks like if it provides you with an advantage over other players then it is forbidden.. but we'll see what others say right. File:User Chieftain Alex Chieftain Signature.pngChieftain Alex 19:19, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I'm talking PvE-specifically. — Skakid 01:19, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Even so, it gives you an advantage that other players don't have because it's not something offered by the game itself. They haven't been very clear about where they draw the line, but I assume Gaile will say "no" on this one because, even if for a split-second, the game is being played by your computer instead of with your own skills. --ஸ Kyoshi 01:45, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Here's a good rule of thumb- if you have to ask, it's best to not risk it. elix Omni 05:00, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Anything that automates the game or gives another player an advantage is disallowed. I think the answers here, and my previous comments, probably fully address the question. -- Gaile 18:30, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

So what about people who bought gaming keyboards/mice with built-in macros? I thought the rule was that you cannot use anything that allows you to move away from your keyboard. If you use a macro to, for example, switch weaponsets while in a fight by pressing Escape+F2 for you, anyone can do it themselves anyway. The difference is you bought a macro mouse for hardcore PvP. Minion 18:43, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

No. "Moving away from the keyboard" doesn't quite cover it, when someone can tab out of the game and still be at the keyboard and posting on Facebook while "playing the game." The process of automating gameplay beyond what the game allows is where things get delicate. The OP asked if I considered using a macro to automate weapon swaps or skill patterns a violation of the UA. Yes, I do, because it gives an advantage, in that one player is doing it all manually and someone else can be sitting back sipping a cup o' tea while the game "plays" through the use of macros. Since the question asked my personal viewpoint, I gave it. :) -- Gaile 19:05, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Perma Ban

Hello Gaile,

I'm typing this message to you in hopes that I can get some help. An old friend of mine directed me towards here because she felt that you could help possibly. Recently I was permanently banned for "Match Manipulation". Not that long ago, one of my teammates emailed support about syncing and the higher power's stance on it; here is the ticket number for said conversation, [Incident: 111206-000717]. Due to that email my teammates and I decided to sync in Heroe's Ascent to get matches late night. We played matches by bumping teams to us and fighting them. We were under the impression that that wasn't not currently being punished due to what was said in the email from GM Jessica. So we continued to do it that night and people were mad saying that we were syncers and were going to get banned and what not. I don't understand how that could have been possible from that email.

Also, while in the Hall of Heroes, there were obviously some three way matches, some with the team of one of our friends playing. In this game, our friend decided to gank for us and help us win, which I am sure is very aggravating to the losing team, but lets face it that happens all the time. A good example is Death Is Energy[DIE] running two guild teams one holding and the other ganking for them to win. Ganks happen all the time. I did not tell the person in our match to gank for us nor did I care. In ventrilo I told my team to just shut up and play and to not suck. I could have cared less honestly if we lost, but it turned out that he did gank, so we won. Everyone on the other team complained and said we were jsut syncing and cheating and stuff, when first off I did not tell the other person to gank or let us win. I did not control that other person, I did not have anything to do with the team that he had. I can't seem to explain that fully to the person I am currently emailing, [Incident: 111209-000016]. I may seem a little rude but it is only the frustration from playing for 6 years and 7000+ hours and spending $100+ on this game only to get banned. I come to you for a final resolution. I was under the impression that the syncing was okay. I also understand the rules of the game, I udnerstand the match manipulation is not acceptable. But i don't understand why I was banned for match manipulation because I did not do it.

I really hope you can help me, I understand you are busy but I hope you can get back to this soon.--Wild Throw Monk 04:03, 16 December 2011 (UTC)Jeff

First, you've submitted multiple tickets, some using different email addresses. Please understand that doing this is counterproductive and delays your response while it saps time that the team could be giving other players.

As to the issue at hand: In your initial contact you asked only about syncing. GM Jessica gave you an accurate response about that subject. However, GM Ara send you an additional response beyond what you asked about, making a proactive attempt to explain the rules against dive-taking (as opposed to the syncing you had asked about) to try to dissuade you from breaching the RoC. She wrote, "As long as everyone involved is playing to win, there is nothing inherently wrong with synchronizing teams. However, if you are doing this so that one team does not play properly or resigns in order to give the other team an easy win, this would be considered match manipulation. In cases of match manipulation, the accounts of all involved are actioned and multiple violations can lead to account closure."

You were not misled by GM Jessica, as you contend. She answered the question you asked. In addition, the team proactively gave you even more information than you requested and if you had only heeded that information your account would not have been closed. However, you chose to engage in match manipulation despite the warning. The case has been reviewed by multiple senior agents (and myself) and I cannot see any reason that the decision would be overturned. -- Gaile 20:01, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

I have not been on here to check this as of late and can't seem to remember my password, but first off, I did not submit multiple tickets, check the ip addresses from those emails and you will see they were not from me. Those were other people in my team that were banned. I sent only one from my school email account.

My problem is that I was not the one doing any manipulation of any sort. I was not allowed to see any proof of the manipulation and I still don't believe it. I am currently under the impression that you all think I was the one playing on all those accounts which is impossible. But due to you all assuming I sent those emails I guess it is safe for me to assume that you all think I ran them all. I only played on one account, that was jas92@adelphia.net. I was only one character, The Trolling Nomad. I was not anyone else in my group and I did not ask anyone else in my group to do anything wrong. I did not manipulate any matches. If you are going to count anyone for manipulation count the person that ganked the other team in HALLS. --Sumjef47 21:34, 5 February 2012 (UTC)Jeff

I don't like to make assumptions, you can be sure of that. If you did not submit the various tickets -- or submitted only some of the tickets, or were involved in only one of the accounts in question -- I believe the team can discover that through additional investigation. Please feel free to refresh your ticket via the Web support interface or through email, and explain what you've explained here to me and they'll give things another look. -- Gaile 03:52, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I sent another and they said they are going to keep it closed. I was wondering if I could get you to take one more look at it, I appreciate the help already from you but I still honestly feel that I didn't do anything wrong. I do understand all of the rules you all have in place and from my personal view I know that I did not manipulate any matches. I am still at a disbelief that two other players were not banned and I feel like I should be part of that list. I led the team yes, I do admit to that. But I can swear that I did not manipulate anything. It was not me and if you check the IP address of the person on the other team that did the ganking you will see it was not my account. I just ask that you take one more look at the emails and the players yourself. I know they are wanting to end this but I mean, it's kinda hard when you played so long and feel that there is a mistake. Sorry for keeping this going but I appreciate you still replying. --Sumjef47 19:12, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Support ticket 110418-000642

Hiya Gaile. I come on behalf of my friend's father, who lost his account early last year. He deploys often (leaving the country for weeks, sometimes months at a time for work), and during one of those deployments, he found he couldn't log in. He tried to explain this to support staff in a ticket - that, given his limited time at home, he wanted to get his account back as quickly as possible, and was willing to provide any information necessary for the recovery. He never heard back from support staff after the initial automated response.
Any way you could check into this? The character name is Fercean Octarus, and the ticket number is provided in the header. -Auron 06:00, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

If this was a recent email, then he might not have gotten help because of this. Apparently they've had some support email problems, so just have him resend the request. ~FarloTalk 16:51, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Your friend's father has been promptly responded to via each of the three support ticket he has submitted about this matter. Each time, he has been asked to provide basic, user-known information that will verify his ownership of the account. However, he never responded with that information and our processes require that we are sure we are speaking with the actual account owner before giving him/her access to the game account. (I'm sure you agree that only makes sense. It's like a bank making sure you really are the account holder before they give you cash.)

Please have this gentleman respond personally to any of the tickets he submitted. I recommend he use the most recent: 110418-000642. Our Support Team will be happy to assist him once they have the info required to move forward. -- Gaile 20:08, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Plea for Help

Hi Gaile,

This is my last ditch attempt to retrieve my long time lost account. I've tried going through support and haven't really reached any satisfying conclusion.

I've tried twice in the past to reset the password to my master account and linked guild wars accounts since they were hacked years ago.

I received the following mail (2009): Someone at xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx has reset your Guild Wars Game Account password for account myemail@gmail.com. If you did not make this change, please contact support immediately at support@ncsoft.com.

I started [Incident: 091130-001357] in which I replied stating I had not requested any sort of password reset on my account. As I wasn't actively playing Guild Wars I forgot about it and when I came to try to log in a few months later I found I couldn't.

I sent in a support request outlining the situation and was told I hadn't supplied enough information to verify I was the owner dispite providing everything except CD-Keys.

About a year later (2010) I tried again, which was [Incident: 100516-003070], in which I sent some of the CD-Keys I found in my house which could have been mine or my brothers, but this was still not enough. I hope you understand that it's been years since I purchased Guild Wars and I never really made a point of storing DVD-Cases and keys for an online game.

I owned this account for a long time and made multiple credit card purchases on it, so I'm a bit annoyed I can't get it back, especially with Guild Wars 2 coming out.

I'm not sure if there's anything you can do to help me or let me know what to do, I realise that it's hard because it's been such a long time but I still own the email addresses associated with the account, and can provide you with further details about the characters on the account (assuming they still exist)

Thanks for any help or advice you can offer.

Hartshill 22:27, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Yo, you used a credit card? Send them the credit card number. Automatic account retrieval, no questions asked. It's worked for at least seven people I know. Granted, you have to know the e-mail address used by the account, but other than that it's the quickest way I know of. I guess the logic behind it is that since you're not supposed to share accounts, the person with the credit card information is the rightful owner. –Jette 00:27, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I've submitted another support request [Incident: 111222-000150] with a summary of all the information including the credit card details, so here's hoping! Hartshill 01:32, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

It's not looking good, i'm getting the same canned responses and impersonal replies as last time :( Hartshill 08:18, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Canned replies are required until someone can actually focus on the request. They're supposed to reassure people ("oh, yeah, we got your message, we're working on it") but all it does is annoy people.

As a side note, listening to people who tell you to give out your credit card information to total strangers is probably a big part of why you got your account stolen in the first place. Don't do that. Furthermore, I believe Gaile prefers to use the official support forums (forum.guildwars.com) to negotiate this kind of thing. This page has been in limbo for a while. –Jette 16:32, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

While I appreciate your comments, please don't assume, I wouldn't have given them my credit card details (which by the way is just the last 4 digits) based purely on some random guy on the internet. They did request it before so all I've done it resend another support request as per your advice. I'm fairly sure I lost my account through having poor security questions & answers. Hartshill 19:30, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry you are having trouble getting back to your account.

Post a quick note on the support forums with a link to this topic; Gaile does read this page, but (as Jette suggests) not as often as she visits the official site. You can also send her an email. However, do not create any additional tickets; that delays the response time (since someone has to coordinate the work for each ticket). You can update the individual tickets (even if they were close,d updating will re-open them) or reply to auto-reply email they send.

We should expect canned replies and impersonal responses for the most part because (a) that allows the team to focus on resolving more issues (rather than spending time crafting emails) and (b) 99% of the activity is going to be standard (e.g. support received your ticket, looked at the issue, escalated to the next level, etc.). The alternative is no response and/or no action, an unfortunate reality of not enough time in the day.

Good luck. – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 20:50, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

(Reset indent) This issue is over :D I got my account back. Thanks for the help/comments. I removed this but it got reverted apparently someone has to archive it, so whatever. Hartshill 01:20, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Glad you got everything resolved in time to participate in Wintersday. (Re: removal vs archiving: our discussion page policy requires that we retain all conversations on the wiki for a variety of reasons. If a topic is resolved, instead of removing it, it's moved to an archive page. On mainspace articles, that can be done by virtually anyone; attributed talk pages (e.g. this one) must be maintained by the relevant user (e.g. Gaile) or their proxy. ) – Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 02:54, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

(Reset indent) I'm glad this worked out ok. It's true I'm more likely to see pending issue on the Guild Wars Support Forums these days, but I try to keep an eye on this page, as well. Thanks to the helpful wiki members who provided assistance and advice! -- Gaile 20:12, 4 January 2012 (UTC)