Sulfuras Allies abuse mass report to auto ban Scarab Lords

Except i have seen the proof 100% with my own eyes, understandable that no one will take my word for it…but i am completely sure.

Your own testimony could be false, you could be lying. You have to prove your own testimony first, which you cannot at this moment seem to do.

I am going to wait for Blizz to eventually comment on this to see what is going on.

What we currently know about the system, as players is:

  • Squelch was put in the game 10+ years ago to help deal with gold sellers. If it gets enough reports, the account was AUTO squelched pending GM review for further penalties. Back then a gold spamming account usually just got banned.

  • The penalty back then for chat violations that involved language and harassment were several day suspensions up to an account ban.

  • In 2016 they added the Silence system. That was something in addition to the Squelch system. It was a new penalty that removed the person from social channels for a period of time. It starts at 24 hours and doubles each time a GM applies a Silence. It replaces the full game suspensions that used to come from people using abusive language.

  • Squelch is automatic - Silence is not. They are similar though so some people do confuse them. Enter the famous streamer test case!

  • Well known streamer in 2016 decided to test automation. Said something totally fine but had his followers mass report the chat line. It did trigger the old automated Squelch system and escalated it to GM review. He (streamer) concluded the whole system was automated because he did not know about the Squelch. Ok fair. What happened when he appealed? He got an actual SUSPENSION for abusing the reporting system. This has been explained many many times since by Blizz.

  • We also know more reports does bump an infraction up in the review queue so it gets dealt with faster.

  • We have never had an automated SUSPENSION system as part of the penalty system. If that has changed then it is brand new.

  • Blizzard REALLY does not like people who abuse the reporting system and it can, and does, result in account suspensions.

I am hoping Blizz does one of the rare posts where they review the situation and provide clarification.

5 Likes

What kind of really obnoxious person names a guild after himself? and who joins that guild proudly?

1 Like

As a 40 account multiboxer, I’m sorry but you’re not stating the truth here. You’re missing important information. Such as: A GM sees the reports and acts on them.

are you kidding? theres several threads trying to get a blue response to the growing issue of entire servers basically running silithus and purposely denying anyone that choose the right to do the AQ quest chain because theyre arent part of the group or simply because they wont pay “protection money” for the right to be there

Wait a minute! Are you saying there is online mafia? WTF? I thought there was only collusion going on. This is an entirely different accusation now. I think we need the Internet Police to address this situation.

1 Like

Realistically, it probably wasnt a case of a truly automated ban - rather, a GM seeing 40-60 simultaneous reports come in on a player and rather than review those reports individually, instead chose to go the speed > accuracy route since thats what blizzard values nowadays, and simply struck down the banhammer without further investigation.

Which really, is no better than a truly automated system and is a symptom of blizzard’s garbage policy on customer support anyways.

I think I linked you the Blue response to this three times already? I thought third time was the charm but I’ll go for a fourth:

That is a different situation to be honest. That is using currently existing game mechanics. Yes, it makes people upset. Yes, if it was extreme enough it could be considered server disruption, but that is up to Blizz.

Keep in mind, this happened in Vanilla too. It was SUPER competitive esp on PvP servers. I say this as someone who participated on the first PvP server in the Americas to open the gates.

This specific thread though, and my comment, was about the REPORTING and account action systems. Having misleading information about them is a problem. It can keep people from reporting, make people afraid of things that can’t actually happen, or maybe think putting in an appeal is hopeless. etc.

Sounds like some people need a 6 month vacation for abusing the report function.

THIS is a far more likely possibility. It is well known that the number of reports prioritizes it in the queue. I would not jump to accusing someone of being unwilling to investigate though. Mostly you do thousands of these things and it is easy to hit the wrong button in the options menu :frowning: People do make mistakes.

In this case, of course, this is a charged issue given the time constraints to the event.

1 Like

An online mafia? that forces people to pay the toll or else…?

i dont think its a matter that individual gms are unwilling. I think the problem is 100% in blizzards hands, where there are too few GMs to handle too many tickets, and there is likely IMMENSE pressure to simply clear out said tickets as fast as possible. The end result? Quality of service suffers and and corners get cut.

1 Like

It would be silly to think that speed does not matter. It always does in any customer response. It is hard to know how many GMs they have right now. They were not impacted in the layoffs last year, so that is good. However, right now with the pandemic, work layoffs, students at home, there is a surge of interest in online games. The GMs support ALL the Blizzard games, not just WoW, so they are obviously super busy. They are also working from home with limited tools (security matters!).

Blizz is aware that the surge in requests for support + the whole pandemic thing is not great. They have a warning up on the Support page about it. Hiring though would be tricky right now -mostly due to the training and security issues. There are a few people who could likely just step in and do it, but those are rare and you mostly find them on the CS forum as regs.

I really do hope Blizz clarifies this whole situation regarding this specific incident.

1 Like

theres several serious concerns players would love to get a blue response on yet it seems nothing is being said at all abusing the report feature is only one of them

another hot topic of course being the rampant and purposeful zone disruption to prevent specific players from doing AQ quest lines for the chance at the black bug mount and all because they are not part of the right guild or groups

I understand that. I also know how frustrating it is for people to deal with the competition.

There is a reason that almost nobody had it back in Vanilla. The same thing happened.

What you want a response to is something in the hands of Developers. Do they want that type of gameplay and outcome. If yes, it stays the same as it always has been. If no, they will authorize GMs to action accounts over it - but with very specific guidelines as to what the Devs consider out of bounds.

This thread though, is not a place to petition for a Dev response to other issues. The issue this thread is about, is a Customer Support issue that impacts all of WoW - and is not dependent on a Dev review and reply.

Not saying you don’t deserve a Dev response, but don’t mix the streams :slight_smile:

As someone that plays on this server it appears that his ban has been lifted and are continuing the questline as this is being written.

1 Like

theres no mixing the streams and it has a bearing on the topic at hand the fact is too many players are abusing the system in various ways to purposely disrupt and interfere with the gameplay of others and Blizzard is doing little to nothing in response

the AQ bug and the mass reporting are both signs of an even deeper problem and Blizzard isnt taking our concerns seriously or havent you noticed all the various threads on these recent issues popping up and not one of them has even so much as a blue comment to let us know theyre reading and listening

They’re not posting in good faith, I’ve linked this Blue response to their concern four, going on five times now: