GMs are telling me they are unable to disclose any other information and continue to refer me to an original e-mail that states my violation was “cheating…this includes actions like botting, and exploiting game mechanics”. I’m not appealing the ban. I’m not saying that I did not cheat. I simply do not know what actions I did where and on what toon I did them with. I would very much like to avoid repeating the same action/activities. If GMs or CS are unable to tell me, then who or what echelon can?
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To be blunt on the matter: No one.
The staff won’t tell folks this kind of information as it’d help folks whom want to bypass the cheat detection system better.
Also, the ‘CS lounge’ tag is meant to be for the off topic and only meant to be one on this forum.
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Zenjy is correct. While it would be helpful to know that information for players who genuinely would like to know - so too would cheaters and botters whose job it is to always be one up on gaming companies. That is prime information they would love to get their hands on so that their illegal operations can keep thwarting games to be ahead of the detection software.
Does it suck? Yes. But there just isn’t a way for Blizzard to make that distinction of someone who genuinely wants to know so they don’t do it again in the future and some botter. So they just have a blanket policy of not disclosing anything more than a general category of the reason for sanction. The only exemption is things for obvious chat violations such as language or actionable social behaviors. They can be elaborated as they’re quite obvious, but for cheating/botting and those kinds of violations, they just do not go into detail.
I’m sorry it’s not a better answer, but that is how Blizzard has always operated.
[EDIT] While it is against the rules to speak on sanctions, we do get a teensy bit of leeway here on this forum alone to try and help to educate folks. The easiest thing you can check on your end of things is check to ensure you don’t have have any software conducive to botting on your system. Even if it is for other purposes such as other games or even for work or whatnot - if it’s running, Warden can pick it up whether you’re using it for WoW or not. AHK and the like have gotten people dinged in the past as some of the more notable offenders. If you multibox and use any software or hardware to facilitate that, those are also against the rules (even though multiboxing is allowed, though unsupported - you just have to do everything manually). Another one would be account sharing. If you’ve got a sibling or significant other or best friend who also is using your account. The only person who should ever be accessing your account is you and a minor child (or you and a legal guardian, in reverse if you are said minor child). Beyond that one caveat, no one else should ever be using your account.
We could sit here all day and spitball things as to what it may be, but you (and us by extension) will never know the exact reason.
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Retchet is a friend and a fellow guild member of mine, so I am just here to show my support. I have played quite a bit with Retchet and never have witnessed any sort of exploitative behavior, hacking or botting but of course a friend would say that. I can understand my opinions would be seen as biased which of course they are.
I just wanted to say the information is much appreciated by me as well. I am learning something new having a friend go through all this. It totally makes sense that blizzard doesn’t want to disclose anything so that they don’t aid the hackers and botters in future attempts - but at the same time it came as a total shock to me that blizzard can basically suspend you for a long period of time and you not have a single clue what you did wrong (and may never find out). Is there no possibility that the monitoring software believes you committed this behavior and its wrong? Such as if it were to suspect you of account sharing but you actually weren’t? Could a VPN not falsely flag that and then you have no way to defend yourself because they cannot tell you what you did wrong? This is not like some sort of admission by the way, I am just honestly curious if it is so totally impossible for a system to record information (that may verify you are doing something wrong) but that information be collected in error…
Just for clarification - does the appeal process just send the same logs to a different GM for them to look over them, and therefore no explanation or defense would be necessary or helpful? Simply just re-checking incase of human error by the previous GM? I assume these cases would have to be pretty cut and dry in the logs? Put another way, is there any way to directly communicate with the person whos at liberty to decide the fate of your account, or that doesn’t even happen? I just find it pretty shocking and disturbing and feel as though the same thing could happen to me. I know the obvious response is ‘well don’t hack bot or exploit the system’ but now I fear doing it accidentally as I do not believe Retchet did anything wrong intentionally or knowingly.
1 Like
This is what the appeals process is for actually. If a mistake has been made, the player appeals the account action so that another set of eyes can look at the data collected. If they come to the same conclusion, the account action stands.
However, if they see a mistake was made, the account action is removed.
VPNs don’t tend to cause false flags unless they are being used to cover account access from other countries.
To answer your question about appeals, they are definitely not an opportunity to defend yourself or explain anything at all. They simply look over the data and decide if a mistake was made or not.
And no, you cannot contact the appeals team to discuss it with them. Otherwise, EVERYBODY would be ‘innocent’ and would simply argue to no end.
I hope that helps.
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Perl hit most everything you asked, but adding this here for you guys as well.
Another thing for you and OP to know - you are allowed to appeal and appeal again. But you will eventually hit a point where they will tell you that no more appeals will be accepted and to continue on will invite further account action.
And a final note too - it has happened in the past if there was faulty data used (whether the system they used made the error or the human element did), even when that final warning has gone out, they will come back and retroactively unsanction accounts that were caught up in a misappropriated suspension/ban. This has happened a time or two in larger ban waves so I do try and offer that small glimmer of hope. It’s not to say that this is the case for your friend, but it has happened before.
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I didnt see this covered but im just gona add 2 importantant pieces of information.
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Always apeal otherwise that mark wont go. Away and the next penalty will be worse.
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They dont take guildies coming to your defense into acount thats what apeals are for either the logs were mistaken or they werent.
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The GMs can only do what the Devs and the Powers That Be tell them that they can say or do. I too wish there was some way to at the very least narrow it down somehow, but this has been their policy for as long as I’ve been hanging around (I’m pretty sure it’s been since day one, but I cannot back up that statement with evidence on hand).
Please do look at what programs you may have on your system. That’s at least something you can control and can check on your end. In the meantime, keep appealing until they tell you no more will be accepted. But no matter how things turn out, I do wish you well and all of the best in the days going forward.
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