I got caught in the ban wave. The only thing I do on that account is buy and post auctions on the AH. I play on one screen, work on the other. I’m constantly typing to people, recruiting in channels, and typing in guild chat, as I am the GM of my guild. I have received 0 evidence from blizzard, and only get automated responses. I do not use any automated programs, and have been using TSM since original wrath. Please help me figure out what the ban is for. If this is TSM related, is it bannable now? When blizzard employees themselves use the addon? Can someone contact Gumdrops, the TSM owner so he can let those of us know what to do?
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No, it isn’t bannable. Blizzard is able to disable add-ons from their end if they don’t like how something is working.
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It won’t relate to using TSM. Its used by many thousands of players (including me) and is not a bannable offense.
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TSM operates in Blizzard’s sandbox using LUA. If TSM, or any other addon, does something that Blizzard doesn’t want it to do, Blizzard changes the sandbox. Blizzard has done it before.
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TSM alone would not get you banned unless there was something really extraordinary that you were doing with it. Usually Blizzard breaks the API portions that the addon uses if they don’t want them doing something.
Much more likely that the ban wave is targeting movement of illicit gold through various means. GDKP runs, AH, trading, etc.
If you feel it was in error (and false positives do happen), you can appeal until they tell you that your Bnet account is at risk if you keep going on that specific issue. I would wait a couple days between appeals though. If it is a false positive they usually figure it out and unban folks in a group.
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Problem is, I have appealed but get an automated response and closed ticket. Hopefully an actual blizzard employee sees these tickets and reverses the ban on these accounts that shouldn’t be. This only has happened 2 years ago. Same situation.
A Blizzard worker did look at them. Just because you should feel something work one way, doesn’t mean it will. All you can do is appeal until they won’t do it anymore.
BTW, TSM was never, and had never, got folks banned. Folks tried to point to it a number of times and it never got folks action.
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Just to touch on this a bit. What you received is a template response. CS uses template responses to ensure the replies are consistent across the board. When dealing with something as serious as account actions, the message has to be clear and consistent for everyone.
Also, with the exception of chat infractions, you will not get details as to what they found. All we can recommend is to keep appealing until they threaten further account actions.
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The response and the review are not automated! Each appeal is reviewed by a different human.
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Wait, wasn’t this moved to the UI forums? Why is this in the CS forum again? THe blues here ain’t part of the appeals team, let along who talk about given add-ons.
I don’t think we can answer that (and Blues in here usually can’t comment on it). Historically, add-on usage doesn’t get players banned, but it’s possible that as add-ons change, they start allowing an action that isn’t allowed. Similar to the RP add-ons: using them is fine, but how they are being used.
However, one thing I’m noticing in these threads, is that many players say they run 2 accounts or 2 screens. This tracks with TSM usage (one window to play, one window to scan), so maybe players need to look at how the input commands from one to the other.
Or perhaps there has been a policy change to stop constant scanning and sniping at the AH. No, it hasn’t been against the rules, but with years of feedback, maybe they changed it. But I would think such a change would be communicated.
You won’t. This is information that nefarious people would LOVE to get their hands on.
This is irrelevant. Blizzard employees playing this game are subject to the exact same rules as everyone else.
They did see it. “Actual” employees have been involved every step of the way. They do not take these decisions lightly, nor do they leave it up to “mass reports”, nor do they just go on a gleeful ban wave to destress.
That’s what the appeals process is for. But just because an appeal is put in does not mean it will be overturned. A different employee rechecks the logs, and if the come to the same conclusion, it will always stand.
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It’s not really about logs. There was a huge banwave last year for AFKing in battlegrounds and a lot of people got wrongfully banned. Why? Because the defended objectives or dared to create a new DK and join a BG, which both often resulted in reports. This was quite the controversy and a blue post explained how these bans happen anyway.
It’s not logs and also not employees logging in observing characters to check if they’re actually botting - it’s a database with different metrics, reviewed by data analysts. If your account meets certain metrics that have been determined before (reports are a part of that) you get banned.
So if OP appeals it might very well be the case that there’s no deeper look into the situation. Just another glance at the data with the checkmarks and then the verdict that the ban rightfully happened.
It could very well be that OP doesn’t tell the whole truth and did something that’s against the ToS. But it might also just be the case that they got reported very often by some salty AH players and the fact that they only buy and sell stuff and doesn’t do anything else, paired maybe with weird online patterns or trading gold, might just be enough for a ban.
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Mind linking to such? Because none of that is on this forum.
It’s 100% about logs. They only action based on what they see in their logs, and they only overturn upon appeal, based on what’s in the logs. Not this explanation, or that excuse, or I read this on Reddit, or I just look liker a bot when I play, etc.
No, that’s not what happened. There was a huge banwave, and a subset of players had their bans reduced to two weeks. Upon review, they felt they were too harsh on players doing a certain thing, and they changed they way they interpreted such data.
It was not an exoneration, as most players still served two weeks. There were some false positives, and there were likely some in this ban wave.
But thank you for pointing this out. Because above all, it proves that human beings are doing the actual work behind the scenes, and that the appeals process does work for players who are actually unfairly banned.
No, and this common misconception needs to stop. They have NEVER handled these situations by “logging in and checking if they look like a bot”. That is low-rent stuff. They have much more sophisticated ways of determining. Doesn’t mean they are 100% right, 100% of the time, and that’s what the appeals process is for.
It’s not the case. Please stop making assumptions like this. Mistakes happen, and they will get corrected, but they are few and far between. Not everyone who complains in here is innocent. Blizzard isn’t in the business of banning people for the lulz.
Which is why these threads are not allowed in here. Nobody amongst the playerbase knows the whole situation. Just Blizzard and the player in question, and Blizzard is not going to share details, publicly or privately.
No. Again, stop this. Bans do not happen JUST BECAUSE other players report them. All bans are investigated and applied by Blizzard.
A community’s “vote” might apply when it comes to certain things, like forcing a rename on someone with a borderline name on an RP realm… It is NOT community vote for someone to get suspended or banned. Every single player in the game could report you for cheating, but if you truly aren’t cheating, then not only will nothing happen to you, but you’ll never even know the reports happened.
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This ^^^^
They decided to alter the duration of the very real penalty based on very real data. Blizzard’s data was not wrong and the bans were not wrong.
Blizzard chose to shorten the duration of the penalty after feeling it was too harsh.
False positives happen, but that was not an example of a false positive or response to it. When something is a false positive they overturn it totally an apologize.
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Before this they had the nerve to suggest that players then should better do what the group in BGs is telling them to do and not lurk around defending objectives, because it could get them banned.
No, not really. The suspensions were reversed, not toned down because the players actually did something. In fact they didn’t.
And I didn’t say that. Why do you cut my sentences into half just so you can disagree? Or did you just read the first half and then already started typing?
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Again, these won’t be allowed to remain open if needless speculation and off topic comparisons continue to happen.
They aren’t productive and continue to spiral downward.
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