what did FC say when you asked them why?

I have never and probably never will understand Funcom's methods of interacting with their customers. From day 1 it seems that they almost WANT to drive everyone nuts, like they need to prove they are in charge or something. /shrug, i dunno

Im all for banning true hackers/exploiters, but Funcom's burden of proof is very low.

Simple solution is to play a true PvP mmo like Eve-Online.

Originally posted by Selencia

Simple solution is to play a true PvP mmo like Eve-Online.

Or buy a puppy hours of fun loves you and wants attention then when you're bored of that too drown it in a sack or skin it and make a nice pair ear muffs..

its a win win situation

Originally posted by Sentime

 Have to agree with you there. It took a while to sink in but FC has some serious GM corruption issues.

I wondered what happened to the corrupt CCP GM's/Developers.  Looks like they moved over to Funcom.

While I just canceled my two subs to AOC yesterday, if I had realized that the easiest way to win a PVP fight (since I sort of suck at pvp) is to petition someone I would have used that months ago. 

Its a shame, but I think Funcom has won the award recently for "worst administration of an online game". They make the folks at the F2P games look great.

Originally posted by Brone87

Hi, I play a level 80 Bear Shaman in one of the top guilds on Tyranny. My character is gemmed out with 2h blunt and I do hit like a truck, however I want to state that I DO NOT use any macro programs, hacks or anything of the nature.

Ok so now on to my story of how I was falsely banned. I was in Khes doing the only thing left to do in the game at 80... pvping. I was grouped with a guildmate and some random ranger who was unguilded and I just met. We were fighting 2 to 1 odds and doing fairly well, killing a few then dieing running back and so on for around 20 mins. I then started getting messages from a bear shaman who we were fighting against. He started asking me questions like "How come you do not take much damage" and I responded "Because I stay mobile and double tap a lot". He responded "Ya Right".

So now I assumed this guy thought I was hacking but shrugged it off and continued to pvp. After a few mins longer we became over run and I logged off the game to do real life stuff. An hour or two later I tried to log on the game and on the log on screen I got this message....

http://www.freewebs.com/db_games/Banned.JPG

My character had been banned. I proceed to check my email and sure enough there is an email from funcom. In the email it states I have been banned and the reason is because a GM observed me using "Third party programs in pvp." I hop on vent to tell my guildies and I find out that my guildmate who was pvping with me and had just joined the guild 3 days ago was also banned.

I sit and wait out the 24 hours first time violation and log into the game the next day to /petition questioning my unlawful ban. As I log back in, I see the ranger that I had just met the day before. I send him a tell and I tell him that I was banned... he replies "so was I."

Now my mind was totally blown away... 3 people were banned, a ranger I HAD JUST MET, a guild member who joined the guild days before the ban and myself. I dont know, but WHAT THE HELL ARE THE CHANCES that all 3 of us are hackers and we just happened to group with each other.

Once I found out that not only did my guild member get banned, but some random dude we picked up cause he wanted to help us instead of the douches we were fighting did I fully realize funcom doesn't know wtf they are doing.

I cannot PVP anymore without fear that I will win the fight against someone and they will automatically think that since they cannot do what I do, I MUST be hacking and thus /petition me. Then some GM that has no clue what he is doing will be like ok ya, you say hes hacking? and boom banned.

This game is sooo much fun but the people that are running it have not the slightest clue what they are doing.

I could write so much more about the /petitions with the GMs and the emails I have sent/received from funcom about this specific issue but it would just be an information overload.

However, IF there is someone curious about the emails I have sent in regards to my current situation and FUNCOMs awful response to how I am a hacker yet they provide no evidence then I will.

 

 

This game is beyond playing tbh,

My story of being on the recieving end of HACKERs in AOC just goes to show that a) funcom are dealing with the issue. So the GM was there watching you and your guild mates fight. The probable reason why your enemy decided to carry on, was because the GM was whisping him to SEE if you actually took any damage whatsoever. 

You came on here and said, i dont hack, fair enough, but i know other players (especailly healers) that knew if they Gemmed certain weapons, they would exploit a known bug that made sure you didnt recieve any damage. 

now the other player had reservations about doing damage to you, try from the other side of the coin, IF you were the player being Ganked, and you could not damage the other player, would you carry on or try and get it sorted?

You got banned then you got back into the game, strange, thought the bans were permament. If you are now scared of pvping. LEAVE the game for a break, let the bugs get sorted before going back. 

I got my Dark templar to level 50 then gave up with all the shamans Breaking the game with their invincible shielded gem socketed weapons.

Never heard of weapons gemmed a certain way that they make you invincible. Also I was DIEING fairly often in the 2 to 1 odds fights. The thing was I was lasting 2 to 3 times longer then the Bear Shaman who was whispering me and I am assuming who did the /petition.

Someone asked me what Funcoms response to the situation was. Well they first told me they would investigate it, but I am pretty sure they were full of sh*t... then they said I wouldn't be banned without a purpose. I asked them for Justifiable evidence since I was clearly banned for running "Third Party Programs." They responded by saying a GM witnessed your character moving erratically and thats how they tell people run third party programs....

They have some idiot judge with his EYES who I hear is an unpaid volunteer as there way of weeding out the hackers.... (referring to all Funcom GMs)

They do not take any further steps after the initial glanse to ensure that this isnt lag, the GM isn't seeing things or whatso ever. Your just banned and your up a violation towards the ultimate permanent ban.

Btw my AoC forum account is not working since the ban, coincidence, I think not. A friend was so outraged with the incident he posted something saying GMs are banning innocent people and the thread was quickly closed. The Funcom community manger who closed it said if there are any problems send him a private message. Thankfully my AoC forum account can still send private messages but the dude hasn't responded to me...

My only negitive experience with AOC GMs was when I was sexually propositioned by some guy (I think). When I attempted to report this behavior, akin to "cyber pimpin," the GM never looked into it. I got a message from the same guy/girl/it and he threatened me. "come over to my house and anally rape my mother " and so on.  So I petitioned the GM again. The GM told me I was lying and that it never happened. Told me if I file another petition he would temp ban me for spamming and making fraudulent reports about other players. I won't log on anymore cause every time that guy is on he harrasses me. It started because I apparently killed him "before he was ready" and then told him to "fuck off" when he started making passes at me.

AOC just attracts the weirdest people.

You could just put him on your ignore list... but yes the GMs are more than worthless and this adds to the fact they dont know what they are doing.

he kept signing on as a different char lol

I think my ignore list went from 0 - 12 in a matter of days

I am a patient person and I undearstand that releases suck usually and there are all kind of technical issues. When the customer services sucks, and the interface between players and GMs suck. There is a operational issue which is the most worrysome kind of problem.  IMO, if they can't regulate gameplay fairly that means more and more people will depart for good. You can't have arbitrary bannings and people playing favorites, its simply not good for business but FunCom doesn't seem to worried about us--the consumers who purchase their product. Furthermore, AO (legendary game) was a sucess but not because of FunCom. The PLAYERS kept that peice of shit going after 2 expansions that added very little to overall gameplay. A ruthless grab for more money. However, I was willing to give them the benifit of the doubt on this one but after this experience, I am moving on the WAR when that releases.

I never thought a company could become worse than SOE. 

You aren't from Ebonlore right?

Originally posted by Brone87

Never heard of weapons gemmed a certain way that they make you invincible. Also I was DIEING fairly often in the 2 to 1 odds fights. The thing was I was lasting 2 to 3 times longer then the Bear Shaman who was whispering me and I am assuming who did the /petition.

Someone asked me what Funcoms response to the situation was. Well they first told me they would investigate it, but I am pretty sure they were full of sh*t... then they said I wouldn't be banned without a purpose. I asked them for Justifiable evidence since I was clearly banned for running "Third Party Programs." They responded by saying a GM witnessed your character moving erratically and thats how they tell people run third party programs....

They have some idiot judge with his EYES who I hear is an unpaid volunteer as there way of weeding out the hackers.... (referring to all Funcom GMs)

They do not take any further steps after the initial glanse to ensure that this isnt lag, the GM isn't seeing things or whatso ever. Your just banned and your up a violation towards the ultimate permanent ban.

 

Moving erratically? And that is their proof? Doesnt lag make you, or someone else you are watching, move erratically? I sure have seen that many, many times in many different MMORPGs.

These types of things are exactly why,even if they fixed abunch of crap, I doubt I would go back. had my fill of being violated by SOE thank you very much

Doesn't sound like much fun to deal with, imho.  Good luck getting that resolved.

I can't wait for WAR... so need a new game to focus on to get the bad taste of all this out of my mouth.

Originally posted by markyturnip

I can't wait for WAR... so need a new game to focus on to get the bad taste of all this out of my mouth.

I'd recommend COD4 or bioshock, both quite good games though sadly not MMOs

You know what the worse part about Funcom is?  If you bot in instance and your guild zone, you will NEVER get banned but the minute you pvp you get banned.

I've used C++ hooks and scripts on VB to bot for me and to this day have NEVER been caught.  I have over 40000+ ironsilks, gold, besalt, duskmetal, and every resource you can think of.  The trick is to get a lvl 50 friend to bind you to Oasis and you can let your bot run ALL day w/o trouble.

I've botted 2 extra characters to 80 and no warning from funcom.  Meanwhile, my guildies are getting banned for PvPing in kesh and i'm cheating my ass off and still no ban.  1 1/2 week until my account time runs out, i wonder if i'll get banned by then.

I only started botting when i realized I'm going to quit this game.

Originally posted by Arthousesig

Originally posted by markyturnip

I can't wait for WAR... so need a new game to focus on to get the bad taste of all this out of my mouth.

 

I'd recommend COD4 or bioshock, both quite good games though sadly not MMOs

Neverwinter Nights 1 or 2 are always a good alternative to MMO's.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know how they can afford to ban anyone. Sounds like AoC has already hit an all time EQ low where the game is now run by GMs and anyone that gets in their way are immediately banned for no reason at all.

Originally posted by Grapejuices

You know what the worse part about Funcom is?  If you bot in instance and your guild zone, you will NEVER get banned but the minute you pvp you get banned.

I've used C++ hooks and scripts on VB to bot for me and to this day have NEVER been caught.  I have over 40000+ ironsilks, gold, besalt, duskmetal, and every resource you can think of.  The trick is to get a lvl 50 friend to bind you to Oasis and you can let your bot run ALL day w/o trouble.

I've botted 2 extra characters to 80 and no warning from funcom.  Meanwhile, my guildies are getting banned for PvPing in kesh and i'm cheating my ass off and still no ban.  1 1/2 week until my account time runs out, i wonder if i'll get banned by then.

I only started botting when i realized I'm going to quit this game.

I'd be tempted to ask you how to bot so I can gather loads of resources but then I figured... lol why would I even log into crappy AOC ever again

It's so boring, I can't even be bothered to exploit and bot it

It would seem the game and funcom are both going down in flames... I wonder if it would be worth it to sell my account.

That is typical of Funcom.

We actually had the majority of our guild banned due to so called exploiting.

The actual crime was entering a opposing guild city thru their open gates.  They were dumb enough to open the gates and we went in there killing everything in site.  Then not even 2min later two GM's showed up and basically said nothing....although they did aggro the guards in the city.  So what does the GM do runs towards our group to make the guards aggro on us.  LOL. 

Right after that they opposing guild opened their inner gate and we went in and killed everything in site again.  All the while the GM's are watching saying nothing.

Well to cover our asses we had everything on fraps.  After all the fun ran out we all got disconnected.  And the BAN HAMMER came down on all of us.

So to prove we weren't exploiting we posted on the AoC forums the whole video.  Which within 2 minutes was deleted and closed.  In fact I posted on my other account asking why it was closed and bam.  That thread was closed and I got a ban for the forums until Feb. 2009.... give me a break.

So we replied to our BAN email that we received with the link to the video of us not exploiting and what do ya know... they filtered out all of our guilds account emails to be rejected by funcom's server.  How I know that is I sent a email from another email account that wasn't tied to a AoC account.  And it went thru.  But no reply....no investigation... nothing.

Well it is safe to say the majority of our guild has left AoC and Funcom did us a huge favor and cancelled all of our accounts for us.  Not banning us but actually cancelling our accounts.

So it is safe to say that Funcom is trying to hide all of its issues with customer support and corrupt GM's by closing any forum threads and not addressing any issues that are occuring.  It also looks like they at looking at their player base and selectivly cancelling accounts that they see as a people who are outspoken.

^ Can you link to this Movie sounds awesome story , deffo worth a front page article on this site if its true.