67 replies to this topic

[1957240624220343550]

So we have seen recent posts about people getting banned without proper explanation by the GM or people who performed the investigation. At first we thought these were isolated cases, but then it becomes a common issue that got many people worried. Accidental ban on one or two cases may be understandable, but why has it happened to a lot of people by now?

 

Can CM Poring or GM Belzeebub (who have been most active recently) release a statement from the management on what is happening in the game?

1. Why are many of these people get banned without clear reason?

    1a. If the reason to this question (or at least to some of these cases) are duped items, why aren't those items in question just deleted and the involved parties notified? Unless the character or account is suspected to perform such activity (i.e. have a large amount of those in possession).

 

2. If you don't mind, can you please share you general method/steps of investigating such cases? Clearly it is not working as intended.

 

3. If you are hesitant to give answer to Q2, can you share what can be done by the players to avoid accidental ban? Please bear in mind that in the current state of the game, it is highly unlikely (and impractical) to not be involved in any trading/transactions, whether it is direct trade, purchase from vendors, or even Rodex.

 

 

People are spending real money (hundreds and thousands of dollars) and time playing this game, and this is a game where players build their net worth and experience (not like some other games where you can just create another account and start again just fine). So, please take this matter seriously and be transparent to us on what is happening so players can play the game with peace in mind.

[ChakriGuard]

People have broken some kind of rules. Its just that. GM has been very professional.

 

Possible cases ...

 

RMT

Scam

Bot

AFK Macro (Fancy word for Bot)

Duped items (Please for god sake, disable RODEX. Duping still continues)

Kill people too much in WoE (Nerf those players now)

Etc

 

If you're truly innocent, just submit a ticket and explain to the GM what happens or what goes wrong. I have to say GM team has been very good and patient. They do catch people who break rules. If you're truly innocent, they will unban you.

 

Btw, I cant stress this enough. Spending money doesnt get a privilege. So if anyone truly violate the game's policies, and they get banned, dont use the petty excuse of their spending $$$ to buy WPEs. I know that most people who spend a lot of money in game do RMT-sell to make money back. In short, they are in fact using iRO to make a living and they are farrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr from whales.

[1957240624220343550]

People have broken some kind of rules. Its just that. GM has been very professional.

 

Possible cases ...

 

RMT

Scam

Bot

AFK Macro (Fancy word for Bot)

Duped items (Please for god sake, disable RODEX. Duping still continues)

Kill people too much in WoE (Nerf those players now)

Etc

 

If you're truly innocent, just submit a ticket and explain to the GM what happens or what goes wrong. I have to say GM team has been very good and patient. They do catch people who break rules. If you're truly innocent, they will unban you.

 

Btw, I cant stress this enough. Spending money doesnt get a privilege. So if anyone truly violate the game's policies, and they get banned, dont use the petty excuse of their spending $$$ to buy WPEs. I know that most people who spend a lot of money in game do RMT-sell to make money back. In short, they are in fact using iRO to make a living and they are farrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr from whales.

 

People do raise tickets and in some cases the conclusion remained the same. The fact that some of them are able to move on does not justify the continued practice of accidental bans. The Company has to do something to ensure that their actions are fully justified and no single account will be wrongly suspended just "based on our investigation".

 

And I wasn't trying to imply that spenders should get some exceptions. I was saying that players have invested a considerable amount of their resource (time and real money) and it is unacceptable to be treated like this. The management should consider this issue as a serious matter since no one wants their money and time just vanish like that for things that they have not done. Just because Terms of Service may allow the Company to terminate their service for any reason doesn't mean that is right and appropriate to do so.

 

This is not a charity organization. We spend because we expect some return. In this case, we spend to support the Company in hope that we get the game contents we enjoy in return, and we expect the developer/management can do their job properly in managing the game.

 

Thank you.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by 1957240624220343550, 24 September 2024 - 04:27 PM.

[Kheilon]

remember all the trades you did the last month or so. i think WP just became trigger happy and banned accounts who did large trades that deemed suspicious. if you know you didnt do suspicious deals for the past month or so, mention this trade and request support to verify using the trade logs.

 

for now, moving forward, you can document your trades using the replay feature, save chat logs (right clicking the PM/chatroom and select "save chat log"), and use the ingame screenshot to present as evidence to support in case something like this happens to anyone in the future.

 

sucks that this happens to innocent people, including people who spend a ton and supporting the game.

 

cheers

[1957240624220343550]

[...]

for now, moving forward, you can document your trades using the replay feature, save chat logs (right clicking the PM/chatroom and select "save chat log"), and use the ingame screenshot to present as evidence to support in case something like this happens to anyone in the future.

[...]

 

This is an example of what needs to be clarified. Is this something endorsed by WP or GM? An official statement would be preferred over response to previous tickets.

 

Do we really have to document every single trade?? There are tons of possible trades (low value items such as Ether Dust, BSB) and middle to high value items (such as cash shop items and MVP cards). And I don't want to treat this game like I'm an accountant. I would probably only record transactions that I think are valuable enough / worth my extra effort. And of course this criteria may not prevent me from receiving illegitimate items from all possible transactions.

 

 

Illegitimate/duped items

Again I repeat, having no knowledge of the source of the items (whether it is a legitimate or duped item) should not be a cause of suspension of an account in the first place. GM could just delete the item, notify us about this issue and also maybe inform us who is the person that we were trading with / we got this item from. Like I mentioned, "affected account" is different from a "suspected account" (the one that GM suspect owned by the person(s) who do the illegitimate activities). You should not just ban any affected accounts.

 

RMT

For suspension due to "RMT", please also clarify the definition or scope of the transaction.

- Is trading items with WP Energy (WPE) prohibited? We need this to be clarified because I know some of my friends who's ever done this kind of transaction within the last 12 months (WPE, instead of KP).

- Is trade with Steam wallet equivalent to RMT? Of course we know that the real "real money" transaction (in which a legal tender / currency is directly involved in the transaction) is bannable. But Steam wallet is not "real money" per se. However, if this is also prohibited, then we will cascade this information to Steam users. So far this one isn't affecting me but it would be nice if we have a clear definition of what is considered RMT. For example: "Anything other than in-game currency, items, or Warp Portal Energy/currency is considered RMT for this matter and is prohibited".

 

 

As far as I know the only guidance regarding this matter that could be found is this thread (https://forums.warpp...and-guidelines/), which does not or may not necessarily prohibit the activities I mentioned above.

Edited by 1957240624220343550, 24 September 2024 - 04:57 PM.

[EdwardEG]

This is the only official statement that was found back on Feb 27, 2024

 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

What I realized from this date onwards, GMs were actually quite active in banning accounts than in previous years

[tlc9711LOgo]

Next time, ima gonna screenshot everything for every item i buy and zeny i trade and make gm verify everything from this onward xD

 

I can see ppl gonna stop trading and buying WP point from now on...i think it will hit their profit so hard for few year. We will see on their next Q3 earning xD

Edited by tlc9711LOgo, 24 September 2024 - 01:59 PM.

[Cinnaroll1200]

Never have I ever played and MMO where I need to take pictures and save chat logs just to buy off a Auction house or market board. I do not know if people realize how over the top this really feels.

Its not enough to just stop trading with other players directly. That would be fine. I can't even use the shop board anymore. Every time I buy something, I have to find the actual vendor in prontera and take a screen shot buying the item, probably should record it, just so I can get the name of the vendor JUST in case it is ever needed.

It would be one thing to verify big ticket items like MVP cards, but it could be anything at this point. I just don't know about interacting with the player economy.

To add even more difficulty, if you report or try to verify any item to the support page, you have to be careful with you who speak to.

There are just too many points of failure here. I want to give a good word and I want to believe but this is a lot of backflips.

Either disable rodex and we all just have to interact while people are online or at least just delete items if someone bought something from a shopping board. I can deal with needing to take screen shots of direct trade and high value items.

Would be really cool if there was an automated system to verify items.

I'm also worried if opening a player shop also poses a risk. Should we not use vend anymore? I just don't know.

[6773131031232342973]

Next time, ima gonna screenshot everything for every item i buy and zeny i trade and make gm verify everything from this onward xD

 

I can see ppl gonna stop trading and buying WP point from now on...i think it will hit their profit so hard for few year. We will see on their next Q3 earning xD

To be honest if you are not guilty, then theres nothing to fear, i have been doing commerce with players for years and i have never ever been banned in game, (in forums yes because i like to dab on nerds), so what a poor statement.

[1957240624220343550]

To be honest if you are not guilty, then theres nothing to fear, i have been doing commerce with players for years and i have never ever been banned in game, (in forums yes because i like to dab on nerds), so what a poor statement.

 

Well all players can say this until they got one. I am also sure I personally have been doing nothing wrong in all these transactions. However, we cannot guarantee ourselves that none of those transactions involved illegitimate items or people who had been doing illegitimate activities. And seeing players who I genuinely think are not involved or not consciously involved in such transactions (I'm not necessarily referring to the last incident posted on this forum), I am quite confident that one or more of these bans are targeted at the wrong account/player.

 

And if you put yourself in their shoes, then you would understand how it feels after you have invested so much time and money and then boom, gone. The worst part is, there is no transparency and you probably have no idea what you're doing wrong (just trust "after thorough investigation, this decision is final....").

 

Of course, you'll have the option to just accept and move on ~~~

Edited by 1957240624220343550, 24 September 2024 - 04:48 PM.

[6773131031232342973]

Or just don't RMT, ez.

[freddym]

If they've been "investigating" you that insinuates time and learning maybe even days....something you've been doing over and over that they didn't like.  So it isn't an "accidental ban" if they've been studying you, also isn't a "ban" suppose to be permanent? That's literally like saying "permanently accidental" 

[Cinnaroll1200]

If they've been "investigating" you that insinuates time and learning maybe even days....something you've been doing over and over that they didn't like.  So it isn't an "accidental ban" if they've been studying you, also isn't a "ban" suppose to be permanent? That's literally like saying "permanently accidental"  :P_err:

 

You bring up a very valid distinction between ban and suspension. I wish I had seen this before I attempted to make a previous post.

There are a lot of suspensions and ones that seem to go on for a very extended period of time. But then there are bans and those are very separate sort of cases.

Though a suspension is tied to an investigation, that extended period of time can very much feel like a ban to players waiting to play the game again. It is an inconvenience that many would rather avoid having happen in the first place over taking lots of pictures and writing tickets for each interaction made in the game.

For the sake of getting rid of bad actors, they cannot reveal everything that is tied to getting suspended as that would make it difficult to catch people that are making the game worse for everyone.

However, I feel like there needs to be a little bit of middle ground here. Otherwise, the GMs are going to be flooded with even more tickets asking for the verification of items and creating even greater back log verification and suspensions.

I'm still really new to this game so there are a lot of nuances I'm just not understanding. I wouldn't have even known about taking pictures of trades or that you could save chats if I hadn't come to the forums to see everyone talking about this.

That is what has gotten me worried. Just reading all these kinds of posts and honestly just wondering what is even going on?

[Icyquartz]

So, this just happened to me this morning. Duped items from the game itself (I’ve already submitted a ticket): https://forums.warpp...d/#entry3050761

[tlc9711LOgo]

To be honest if you are not guilty, then theres nothing to fear, i have been doing commerce with players for years and i have never ever been banned in game, (in forums yes because i like to dab on nerds), so what a poor statement.

 

 

So, this just happened to me this morning. Duped items from the game itself (I’ve already submitted a ticket): https://forums.warpp...d/#entry3050761

 

6773131031232342973 see, your argument is even worst or equivalent to GM than me xD

[worldeditor95]

This game feels more like a job, if i need to screenshot, tidy up and folder them up, do recording of every trade and send ticket for every purchase down to even hundred K zeny purchase just to make myself safe from stray ban bullets.
 

So do we really need to submit ticket for all vendind transaction? Including selling and buying? Bcs i know someone who got banned for months just because he purchased something worth less than 30m on shopping board, (and no im not referring to the 6 month ban, there are way more cases like this than everyone think) 

 

The fact that everyone need to keep a folder of every purchase already reflects the state of the game and how staff handles issues its quite scary, especially lately

 

I also want to address the amount of cases of how GM treated ban cases, i have seen several of cases where GM wont disclose what Terms of Service u violates and their details,  wont hear / entertain any defenses even if u are a victim,  even if u got unbanned (some fortunately got unbanned), they mentioned that by standard protocol they have to temporarily suspend both parties suspect and victim alike

 

HERES THE FUNNY PART, 

 

In the first few emails they mentioned

1. PERMANENT BAN

2. NO DISCLOSURE OF Terms of Service VIOLATION

3. NOT WANTING TO HEAR ANY DEFENSES

 

It literally conflict with each other telling that they only temporarily suspend both parties yet mentioned at first that they are perma banned and its already final GM won't accept any kind of defense. Then could any staff please explain to us how should as a victim (in this example) we can defend ourself? 

 

Some of the cases, the victim even provided screenshots of proof yet it wont hold a candle when it should be the one keeping you safe

 

 

Imagine this

 

1. You farm items, sell them, and received duped / flagged / dirty zeny = ban

 

2. You spend $$ on spending event, sell BSB received duped / flagged / dirty zeny = ban

 

3. Say you managed to receive clean zeny, then u bought some item that are  duped / flagged / dirty = ban

4. Was told to take all screenshots, but when it matters GM wont accept or acknowledge them


i wont discredit any possibilities of player of lying and actually violates Terms of Service and i really appreciate our GM working hard to start banning people who dupe / scam but it must not be done at cost of innocent player, please do it properly before you damage more of community trust, GM Beelzebub please check in with your GM because im not making this up, those ticket really exist and player do treated badly

[ShinRai007]

While I have no issues in the GMs policing the rules and regulations. And recently they have started doing just that. There's an active player base that also needs to be taken care of.

 

Just investigating a ticket and not letting the other party (player) give any clarification / proofs to prove his innocence is highly unfair / not done. For example -

 

1. Player A scams some other Player B

2. Player A then vends / deals out those items which is in turn bought by Player C and D

3. Player B has in the meanwhile reported this issue to the GMs

4. GMs investigate the issue and ban Player A, the scammer.

5. GMs also ban Player C and D, the beneficiaries?

 

Issue is at point 5. How are players C and D supposed to know they are getting scammed items?

 

Solution would ideally be - Let player C and D prove their innocence by showing deal screenshots. Next reverse those deals and return the items back to Player B and the zeny to Player C and D.

 

Right now players are barely spending or doing anything other than normal grinding, because they have lost all faith in the player base. Not knowing who's selling duped / scammed items which would get them banned by the GMs without any way for them to prove their innocence. Why? "Because what you have done (benefited from a scam / dupe) is violating our Terms of Service".

 

You walk on a road and drop / throw your 100$ bill on the ground and walk ahead. Someone comes and sees it and picks it up. You come back and blame him of robbing you and report him to the police? Fair? No...

 

I'll end it by saying, the letter of the law needs to be interpreted based on the case at hand.

 

 

[sanggoro01]

I believe most players who have experienced these issues do keep evidence and track of any trades they've made. However, even with all the evidence provided, GMs often refuse to accept it. Where is the player's right to address their issues when the response they often receive is, "unable to disclose" or "unable to provide further details," etc.?
 

The inconsistent handling of bans is also quite questionable, such as declaring a ban as permanent and then suddenly changing it to temporary. There are numbers of cases where players have been banned after purchasing items through vend. The simple question is: how are we, the players, supposed to know whether an item on vend is duped or tainted?
 

Hopefully ,GM seriously need to reconsider all of these approach before more players lose trust in the game's management.

Edited by sanggoro01, 25 September 2024 - 03:25 PM.

[6773131031232342973]

6773131031232342973 see, your argument is even worst or equivalent to GM than me xD

I can't heard (read) you i'm busy playing Ragnarok Online, what a cool game you should try it, oh wait.

[Drequan]

I am new to this game and do not have any skin in it yet, but I can start with this. I have gotten to know some of the people who have come under fire and they have been very helpful to me as a new player. From what I have seen and experienced they are good/welcoming members of this community. I do not know what is true and what is not but I do have some opinions on some things. 

 

RMT --

-I cannot defend this one. If you get caught doing RMT then you deserve a ban. This hurts the revenue stream for the company that provides this game for us. If they're not making money then they cannot provide us the best gaming experience possible. 

 

-If the GM's are banning people without sufficient evidence. Then shame on them.

 

Scam

-So far I hear of people being scammed due to the game preventing us from trading more than 1 billion zeny at a time.  If you're scamming people...shame on you, but cant the game developers build us a way to trade more than 1 billion zeny at a time to prevent this? 

 

Bot

-Deserves a ban as long as the GM team has sufficient evidence.

 

 

AFK Macro (Fancy word for Bot)

-Deserves a ban as long as the GM team has sufficient evidence

 

Duped items (Please for god sake, disable RODEX. Duping still continues)

-This one seems like the big one that is under scrutiny. The dev team knows this is a bug/problem but is just allowing it to exist and is penalizing players for it? And innocent players are getting caught up in this whole problem? I am a software engineer myself and if we have a bug like this that is impacting our customers it becomes the NUMBER ONE PRIORITY TO FIX. It sounds like this bug has been around for a while... can someone explain to me why this isn't fixed or the mechanism that enables duping of items has not been removed? These kind of bugs are toxic and will end up killing your software, completely, if you allow things to persist like this.

 

 

Edited by Drequan, 25 September 2024 - 04:05 PM.

[shrikarash]

I haven't been a victim to this, But seeing soo many voices raising this issue it's high time we hear some response. Haven't seen a single reply on this issue so far.

And if you are telling me that I need to start taking screenshots and recording every trade, deal, vend purchase just to not accidentally get caught in it... "WHAT THE F??", Why is this my job?

How come a game is inducing more stress into people than irl?

This is a 20+ years old game, and 90% of its population is middle-aged playing because they can't let go and Nostalgia. If one person gets banned accidentally due to a such a stupid situation the chance that he'll quit is very high, you just gave them a good reason to let go of this ancient game. Just few more cases like this and soon we'll have entire guilds, groups and circles quitting cause there's no point playing alone.

I've also been seeing that the rodex issue has resurfaced? I hope you arent expecting non forum members, new players (if we even have any) just magically know what to do when they encounter this situation. They are playing blind unaware that they may get banned at the drop of a hat because of an issue that the devs are unable to fix.

Don't kill this game. No amount of updates, fancy gears is gonna make a group that quit together come back. Even less, spend another dime on this game. Please fix the damn issue, fasttrack these tickets, share the precautions we need to follow to not get caught into this mess.

P.S: Please don't say "Screenshot/recording every trade, transaction, rodex, vend, etc.". I already have one job. I don't need another that not only eats my money but also demands unreasonable things of me.

[worldeditor95]

asking us to screenshot every purchase instead of making it a safer environment for player is not a solution

there are lots of small transaction going on board every minute every day, even if majority of the player agreed to submit ticket to every little transaction they do, ticket website will surely get flooded and suddenly its not a good idea anymore, its just not efficient for the player or the staff im sure both parties have something better to do

 

[LordXeres]

The way GMs have been going about it is a bit wrong. I agree that they need to quarantine as fast as possible and get all the suspected members and not have them leak the info to other players who might be doing the same thing. But Permanent ban is a bit too much without giving a reason. If you suspect someone of some wrong doing then temporary ban them and tell them that more information will given later after GM investigation is complete. But please do give more information so people don repeat the offense.

 

Last time when the duped item accounts were being banned they gave an option to remove or reverse the trades regarding the duped items and zeny. But they were informed why they were banned. Though I know some dupers might have escaped.

 

But now new or returning player base is coming so the game is seeing some popularity, but if this continues you will see everyone leave and then this server will finally die. (ik ik it has being dying for past several years)

[Kutz1989]

I also have questioned in my mind on how the game admins handle the ban cases. For them, it is okay to prosecute innocent players as long as there is a chance that there are some guilty players among them too. 

 

This method or procedure, even if it is just in a game, if we look from a real life court's point of view, is contradictory to the current court practice in making a decision onto a defendant.... 

 

Based on current court's criminal law, "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer," as how it is based on the court's practice of Blackstone's Ratio.

 

Dont get me wrong tho, I do support true guilty players to get caught and be banned, as of course, it is how it should be...But then again, to drag along innocent players into this issue, either it is a temporary ban or a permanent ban, for me it is just an act of cruelty, if i must have to say... Because, just think it yourselves, imagine your own family member got caught and sentenced to death without the right to defend themselves, what would you feel if you know that the family member is truly innocent? Do he/she deserved to die that way just like that? No, is it?

 

So the same can be applied to the players... Innocent players dont deserved to get banned. Apart from letting the players to have the right to defend themselves or know which part of the Term of Services do they have violated, I think game admins need to fix their own procedures of how they handle the ban cases or select which players to get the ban hammer and such.

 

Again, i think sentencing an innocent player into a ban is a cruelty. so from a court practice, it is better to let some guilty players escape if you are vague and dont have the solid proofs of it, instead to ban innocent players when it is also vague and there is no solid proofs of it.

[ChakriGuard]

Please suck it up and disable RODEX. It's RODEX that duped items are being created and people getting banned here and there.

Been saying this for months or a year. Shut it down. Burn RODEX.

Not to mention vile players can dupe items such as BSBs for personal uses and/or RMT sells.

Edited by ChakriGuard, 25 September 2024 - 04:43 PM.