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.

You've been Fun-conned my friend.  That really sucks man, sounds to me like when one person petitions, they just ban without looking into it.

If you have a guildie who is quiting, test it. Stand together doing nothing, report him for exploiting or hacking, see if he gets a ban.

I see more and more stories of people getting banned as soon as anyone reports them, no questions asked.

Heres what happened.

1. The players you were playing against had a GM friend or was a GM (playing a normal toon).

2. They banned you and your friends because you were probably winning too much and they were losing. Sore losers = majority of AoC pvp players now a days.

3. Known fact that GM's are kids. Funcom hires young people to be GM's from time to time. GMs have been caught helping their "friends" cheat, have been caught cybering, being unprofessional, and crooked. They are pretty much corrupt cops within the game.

Move on, Funcom hates you.

I find this to be very very funny i play on cimmeria and there is a guild that has been hacking since maybe first time aocbuddy came out. huge amounts of people have complained about them AND NO ONE HAS BEEN BANNED (except 1 person) but they have at least 6 ppl in that guild that hack and they have done nothing.

The power of petition my friend. Welcome to funcom methodology.

This happened to me on my level 40 necro closer to the release of the game shortly after they buffed pet run speed.   I would get bored from the total lack of pvp mini games on my server and start slaughtering everyone in sight. 

No I don't pray on low level toons, there's no sport in it.  

but can say without ego, while most necros were whining about the class not being powerful enough I was unstoppable with it, and I honestly don't know what they were crying about, it's a good class and crazy in pvp.

I won in a fight against 3 late 40 early 50 level melee classes, because it's retardedly easy to kill them when your a necro bysimply, not standing still, aoe fear bombs and kiting while they die from dots.   After they all 3 died several times and spammed ooc chat saying I MUST BE HACKING.  I logged in later to find out I was temporarily banned.  I don't even know what hack they thought I was using, most of the time I only won by a few percent of hp left.

Haven't logged back in since, I don't care that my ban was for only a day... for what being good.... you can't go around banning people for nothing, you MUST have some kind of proof.  Just bullshit, just bullshit.

I got banned for PvP'ing as a demonologist from the top of a roof. It was not even an exploit, seeing as anyone with a mount could jump up there. Gotta love Failcom

Didn't you guys see the post from failcom before? There are sets of rules in this game.

Example: You cant jump out of guard's aggro while you pvp someone else in town, you cant even run away or zone to lose aggro, simply stand where you are and take it.

You cant jump/climb (even climbing is a function in AoC) to roof or other hard to reach place, if you think you are caster or ranger and love the terran advanage, too bad for you. Acconding to Failcom, it is an exploit.

You must have honor to fight in pvp, just like in Conan lore, what the previous poster said with his necro, kiting is NOT an honorable act, therefore, Failcom will punish you for such an act.................

and the list goes on and on ........

want proof? Do a search in the offical forum.

Well here is the wiki denfintions of exploits for MMO's

Known types of exploits in MMORPG

• Speed Hacking/Teleporting/Subterrain Travel - If character position in an MMORPG is determined by the client side (usually not the case), it is possible for players to send out artificial positional data and be instantly transported to any part of the world or used to speed up traveling speed by increasing positional deltas.
• Holes - Some games may contain accidental holes in the map, allowing the player to get under the map. Holes are mostly harmless, although some use them in player vs. player situations to sneak around and get behind their opponent.
• Botting - A player who runs a third party program to control their character. The bot will kill monsters, loot money, mine ore, collect herbs or gain levels automatically without the player having to be in front of the computer.^[1]
• Duping - Duplicating, or replicating items or money.
• Game Mechanics Exploits / Bug Exploits - There are also other exploits involving the physics of the game, sometimes in conjunction with items. This includes using wall-walking to get into unfinished areas or abilities to make one's character unattackable by mobs or other players^[2] and sometimes are able to attack back.
• Data Mining - This is typically most common around the time that a patch is released on the public test realm of World of Warcraft. Players will try to access files not yet in game and then host them on websites to expose content not yet released (usually new zones, items, and graphics).^[3]

Again it also states exploit definitions vary from game to game. I would think that they would want to keep every paying customer they can right now.  Going be be a lonely in game next month for anyone playing.

Guys, it's very simple. Disable your space bar, always make sure you are on level terrain before any PvP/PvE fight, and make sure the enemy always has a clear line of sight to attack you. Resist the urge to run behind a pillar to avoid ranged - Exploit. Standing on a rock - Exploit, standing on a wall - Exploit, winning at PvP - Exploit (should defeated player decide to spam a petition).

Use your heads. FC don't have to tell us the rules, just enforce them brutally.

Cripes, how simple could it be?

You forgot an exploit.

Remember? The exploit of killing mobs lower-leveled than you for gold? Thats a big exploit right there.

Originally posted by Die_Scream

Guys, it's very simple. Disable your space bar, always make sure you are on level terrain before any PvP/PvE fight, and make sure the enemy always has a clear line of sight to attack you. Resist the urge to run behind a pillar to avoid ranged - Exploit. Standing on a rock - Exploit, standing on a wall - Exploit, winning at PvP - Exploit (should defeated player decide to spam a petition).

Use your heads. FC don't have to tell us the rules, just enforce them brutally.

Cripes, how simple could it be?

Sounds like  Pong with high poly count graphics.

Originally posted by Unfinished

Originally posted by Die_Scream

Guys, it's very simple. Disable your space bar, always make sure you are on level terrain before any PvP/PvE fight, and make sure the enemy always has a clear line of sight to attack you. Resist the urge to run behind a pillar to avoid ranged - Exploit. Standing on a rock - Exploit, standing on a wall - Exploit, winning at PvP - Exploit (should defeated player decide to spam a petition).

Use your heads. FC don't have to tell us the rules, just enforce them brutally.

Cripes, how simple could it be?

 

Sounds like  Pong with high poly count graphics.

...Huh, I thought it sounded like a company with no idea what the game is supposed to be. I also thought it sounded like the forums, GMs in game, and actual developers had no communication and gave inconsistent responses.

EDIT: What do I know though?

This is so sad. Just more reports of a game i really wanted to succeed fail again and again.

I just don't believe that there could be this many haters just making up this stuff. The pvp is the only thing that could have changed my mind about this game and it is just simply broke, from a coding standpoint and a gm ignorance standpoint.

Everyday I think I can't read another post about how bad fc is and then one like this pops up.  My posts get shorter as I get closer and closer to a loss of words...

I hate being negative  about this game considering I still play it but I agree with OP and the other posts so far.

I've seen way too many examples of GM's acting like spoiled children not to.

I sure hope Funcom can pull their heads out  about this issue. It's crazy to see people get warned and even banned over being good at pvp.

I play on Cimmeria and I've seen this crap happen as well. It is unfortunate.

Originally posted by buckstar0814

This is so sad. Just more reports of a game i really wanted to succeed fail again and again.

I just don't believe that there could be this many haters just making up this stuff. The pvp is the only thing that could have changed my mind about this game and it is just simply broke, from a coding standpoint and a gm ignorance standpoint.

Everyday I think I can't read another post about how bad fc is and then one like this pops up.  My posts get shorter as I get closer and closer to a loss of words...

I suggest you hunker down and brace for impact.

You know what? Post in the buddy key thread, give it a shot. "Free Trial" is only $3, hehe.

Do yourself a favor though. Don't post or make an opinion of the game until you have at least 20+ levels from Tortage. The first 20 lvls are great, then kerplunk!

Welcome to the wonderful world of FailCom....dont really need to say anything more..

Yep, best example of Failcom can be seen in this thread

http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=155049

Guest appearances in page 2 and on, yet once they start going to town in all the holes, it gets closed for going "off topic" lol

and honestly, GMs banning people for no reason is definately something I'm not suprised by with how they handle negativity. It reminds me of an episode of Deth Klok, the one when they made that Blood Ocean movie... how did that producer's line go?

"This is one big shit sandwhich, and you know what we do with shit sandwhiches? We eat them, we take a big bite out of it, and smile. Now go out there and take a bite out of it and smile for them"

something akin to that...

If you get upset in-game just go to the pub and participate in a drunken brawl with someone...  Oh wait...  Well it looks really good on DX10...  Oh wait...

Funcom should be trying to keep EVERY customer they have right now because soon this is going to be an empty MMO.  When WAR hits, when the WoW expansion hits, it's going to be one big ghost town.

Things like this are the reason why I canceled my sub....Any developers who mistreat the gamers that play their games should not even be in business at all..in my eyes FailCom is a disgrace to video games...thats just my opinion