http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/runes-of-magic-suspensions-stir-mob

Runes of Magic suspends users for exploit News

News by Robert Purchese

Today 16:43

German publisher Frogster has suspended a number of Runes of Magic players for seven days pending investigations into "exploiting".

Frogster, however, will not say what the investigations are for specifically, nor how many people have been locked out of the free-to-play, micro-transaction-powered MMO. Those caught in the net have been similarly left in the dark.

"We had to suspend accounts for an investigation because we had a case of exploiting," a spokesperson for Frogster told Eurogamer. "Since the investigation is an ongoing process I cannot give out too many information at the moment. We will release a more detailed statement during the next days.

"At the moment we are checking thoroughly how far every user is involved in this case of exploiting," the spokesperson added, assuring us users haven't been banned "randomly".

Interestingly, while suspended users cannot enter the world of Runes of Magic, they can continue to spend real money on diamonds - an in-game Item Shop currency.

The result of these bans is unrest among the Runes of Magic populace, illustrated by a 72-page to-and-fro between customer and company on the official forums.

The disquiet revolves around lack of communication, which the vocal members of the community feel is harming the reputation of Frogster and game.
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For more info Visit:

http://forum.runesofmagic.com/showthread.php?t=74190

 Well, they can't really tell the exploit, or more people might do it, but I wonder what it is.

Hope if they were cheating they get the BANHAMMER!!!

Now that the dust has settled on atleast SOME of this nonsense, I find my confidence in Frogster and especially the Mods, Community Managers, etc extremely lacking.

Long time player. Bought lots of diamonds. Done my fair share of standing up for this game and some of the friendly mods. Not happening anymore.

Don't sell anything to anyone unless you can prove without a shadow of a doubt that the gold they are giving you was gotten in a legitimate way. How do you do this? The Mods themselves say they have no idea, that you couldn't possibly know. But that doesn't matter, they will still suspend you because of it.

An overwhelming majority of CASH in the United States has cocaine residue on it. You don't see the US government (yet) arresting 60% of the population for cocaine possession/use!

Ban the people who dupped the gold. Hang them for all I care. Ban the people you can HONESTLY and COMPLETELY prove were in on it, made a profit from it, etc. But don't punish the people who got caught up in your sweeping net. It really shows a lack of concern for your customers. And in the end, the customers are what you are there for.. A company like this should never forget that.

What else should Frogster have done once they discovered the problem?  Yes, they suspended accounts that eventually turned out to be innocent, but they had to in order to halt further dissemination of illegally gained gold.  What if the suspended players were actively involved in the exploit?  So, suspend to avoid further damage and investigate.  Per Kerensky:

24.07.2009, 21:24

#48

Kerensky Community Manager - EN       Join Date: 31.10.2008

Guys, We have suspended only those accounts that had way more than the average amount of gold and that had taken gold from the actual exploiters. If you think you have been suspeded without proper reason, please contact our support. They will be happy to look into the matter and check your account again. Though it might take a while, they will look into the individual cases. __________________ Rules of Conduct | EU support | US support "As they say in Discworld, we are trying to unravel the Mighty Infinite using a language which was designed to tell one another where the fresh fruit was." Terry Pratchett

Communication during the incident could definitely have been better, but what other actions could they have taken when the problem was so big?  They needed to protect themselves and the majority of players from those causing the problems.

~Ripper

Frogter's actions are only meant to stop the spread of "bad" gold. They are only doing this to stop the economy of the game from going to hell. Yes, there will be innocent players that will be affected and cant play for some time. But the overall game economy will be saved. Similar to how the US government is trying to save the economy before. It will take time, some will be affected and others not.

yea ok ive never had more than 7 million gold... but i also heard different, i heard people were getting banned for RWT... like selling to each other and such...

but im on the artemis server... so maybe its different server to server?

I play on a couple of different servers including the new Indigo PvP server. Since it is a less populated server most of us know someone who was banned. It seemed to be centered around groups of people that were friends or in the same guild, which leads many of us to believe they either found an exploit or they had participated in purchasing gold for money from exploiters. It's sad to see this kind of thing happen because you wonder if those people got caught up in something that could have been avoided. At any rate, the game is still fun, the economy keeps pressing on and expanding and this young game has a lot of potential that won't be ruined by exploiters. I think the developers made a good choice to disable suspected accounts but the info to help prevent further exploitation is lacking at the moment.

Originally posted by Lortha

The disquiet revolves around lack of communication, which the vocal members of the community feel is harming the reputation of Frogster and game.

Yes, lack of PROPER communication is harming both Frogster and RoM.  Enough to kill RoM, no.  But enough to continue the cycle of old players leaving, and new players getting disillusioned in the same exact manner, repeat.

The GMs and GTMs are continuing to become more and more frustrated by the same complains, day in, day out, and are taking out their frustrations on the new 'replacement' players by wielding their only aggressive powers, that of the BAN.  These new 'replacement' players leave due to the abusive actions of the GMs and GTMs, and a whole new generation of new players are required.  Again, these new players run into the same bugs and problems, start to ask questions, and are in turn, run off by the abusive "Support Staff".  Not a pretty picture.

The ACTIVE player base should be growing, but it is shrinking.  The total number of accounts continue to grow, but most of those accounts have become inactive.