Kripp banned from GW2

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/z44ml/karma_weapons_exploit/

Now the question remains...did ArenaNet show 'mercy' here, or was this part of the plan to scare the shit out of people?

Or did someone over there go a little too hammer-happy?

Hm.

Either way...well played, ArenaNet, well played.

...and fuck you for making me actual have to use reddit.

Yes, it profoundly disturbs me that their customer support forum is hosted on reddit, of all places. I hope everyone's aware they hosted child/underage porn and it took the fierce harassment of Something Awful of all places, to get those boards taken down? Awful place, nevermind the atrocious up-vote/down-vote system. It's also ridiculously unprofessional.

And I don't think they made a smart move at all. A smart move would be to ban people privately and give them instructions on how to get refunds or obtain access to their account with a severe warning over the nature of what constitutes banning and exploitation.

A smart move would be to apologize for their rash perma-banning and public disclosure of personal information. I think less of ArenaNet now. Before, I at least thought they were a polite corporation out to make a profit and have a good time. Now I can see that they rule with an iron fist and aren't subtle or smart about how they manage their customers or their product. They've demonstrated that they have no actual plans for dealing with exploits and that they reacted entirely on the whims of a belligerent support manager.

You need to cultivate a plan to deal with things like these and it's abundantly clear ArenaNet was not prepared at all to deal with exploits suddenly cropping up.

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anubite wrote:

Yes, it profoundly disturbs me that their customer support forum is hosted on reddit, of all places. I hope everyone's aware they hosted child/underage porn and it took the fierce harassment of Something Awful of all places, to get those boards taken down? Awful place, nevermind the atrocious up-vote/down-vote system. It's also ridiculously unprofessional.

And I don't think they made a smart move at all. A smart move would be to ban people privately and give them instructions on how to get refunds or obtain access to their account with a severe warning over the nature of what constitutes banning and exploitation.

A smart move would be to apologize for their rash perma-banning and public disclosure of personal information. I think less of ArenaNet now. Before, I at least thought they were a polite corporation out to make a profit and have a good time. Now I can see that they rule with an iron fist and aren't subtle or smart about how they manage their customers or their product. They've demonstrated that they have no actual plans for dealing with exploits and that they reacted entirely on the whims of a belligerent support manager.

You need to cultivate a plan to deal with things like these and it's abundantly clear ArenaNet was not prepared at all to deal with exploits suddenly cropping up.

I'm in this camp. I was sort of on the fence with ANet, but brashly banning the accounts of people who paid good money for it, is not forgivable. I will not be buying anything from them, either. I don't know how easily my $60 investment will be arbitrarily nullified.

Was considering buying gw2 and giving it a go too. Not any more. It's an exploit. Fix it with a patch, not by banning people...

My big issue here is that it was an exploit that easily could have been found with some simple testing.

An exploit that couldn't have been found without thousands of people testing the game and doing all sorts of goofy shit, finding it and taking advantage of it I can understand wanting to punish the people there. But something like bad vendor prices? The developers should take the blow for that one, not the players.

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Charan wrote:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/z44ml/karma_weapons_exploit/

Now the question remains...did ArenaNet show 'mercy' here, or was this part of the plan to scare the shit out of people?

Or did someone over there go a little too hammer-happy?

Hm.

Either way...well played, ArenaNet, well played.

...and fuck you for making me actual have to use reddit.

Pretty sure it was part of the plan, to scare people, doubt they really wanted to perma ban players, that's stupid

I don't care for GW2 at all, don't own it anymore and never will again. However, I really don't care for how ban happy devs are nowadays when people figure out something that offers a lot of reward. I don't know all the specifics of this particular instance but I know I've seen people banned in games for less.
It is especially unfair to people that don't even know they are exploiting until they get banned for it. Or they are receiving some kind of exploited item and get banned just for having it.
Ah well. Yet another reason why I don't play MMOs. The developers constantly have their hands in my experience and I can't just enjoy a game I paid for.

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anubite wrote:

Yes, it profoundly disturbs me that their customer support forum is hosted on reddit, of all places. I hope everyone's aware they hosted child/underage porn and it took the fierce harassment of Something Awful of all places, to get those boards taken down? Awful place, nevermind the atrocious up-vote/down-vote system. It's also ridiculously unprofessional.

/r/pathofexile/

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Panda413 wrote:

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nateedubs wrote:

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ExileDude wrote:

They banned him for advertising an exploit. What's so weird about that?

Exploits and cheating aside, it brought the game publicity, which increases sales.

ANet is not hurting for sales numbers with or without Kripp. His streaming PoE certainly increased revenue for GGG, but when Kripp plays games like D3 or GW2, the game is bringing viewers and profit to him, not the other way around.

I don't mind if you cheat the hell out of your own game. As long as it only affects yourself, you can do whatever the heck you want with it for all I care. And Kripp streaming the game to thousands of people is a nice way to get a lot of much needed publicity, I agree with that. What I *don't* agree with is him teaching people who to cheat and exploit in the game. He's basically teaching people how to ruin the game for everyone else. True, it might not have been a big deal this time, but where do we draw the line between "teaching people small cheats" and "teaching them important cheats"? Godmode? Duping weapons? Respeccing your skills? Making a bigger inventory?

Personally, I think cheating in public is wrong, and *teaching* people how to cheat is very, very wrong. Kripp was teaching people how to ruin the game for everyone else, and should have been banned for a lot longer than he was. Evne if just to make an example out of him.

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piscator123 wrote:

WTF! well kinda feel sorry for him, but im happy he'll be playing more POE in future.

But he won't be playing POE right now (maybe at open beta).

Why? Because as he said he's got a guild going, and he has a responsibility towards others. He is actually a very decent guy from what we can tell through his videos and streams, and he is a very socially aware person.

That last point it seems is completely overlooked by many people who dislike Kripparian. They tend to bundle him with the botters and anti social players who make the experience with online game very unpleasant at times.

He's not that kind of player. He actually has some very good social skills, as we can judge from how he handles sometimes rude interactions from other people on his mumble and how he interacted with Chris in the past.

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anubite wrote:

Yes, it profoundly disturbs me that their customer support forum is hosted on reddit, of all places.

This. However I wouldn't lump in other questionable subreddits in the discussion, it's unrelated.

ArenaNet doesn't make money from subscriptions, they need the largest player base they can get.

Their "community management" is being swayed on Reddit by the least tolerant players that you can find in online games.

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ExileDude wrote:

Personally, I think cheating in public is wrong, and *teaching* people how to cheat is very, very wrong. Kripp was teaching people how to ruin the game for everyone else, and should have been banned for a lot longer than he was. Evne if just to make an example out of him.

That's unfair. He was not teaching anybody to exploit the game. He is simply streaming whatever he plays. A temporary ban and maybe a rollback for a successful streamer was plenty enough punishment.

Both he, his guild, and the viewers would have gotten the message all the same. Instead what I got from it is: you are being treated as a little child. The way they announced his perma ban on Reddit was very unprofessional too.


At the end of the day, the problem here is we have is intolerant players lumping together "cheats/exploiters/botters" with anti-social people/rude/abusive people.

Time and again, when you see these discussions, the two are being happily lumped together why no discernment. Kripps becomes a scape goat for anti-social, rude behaviour, when he does none of that.

When people are very social, and a have a very cool head, but do exploit holes they find, that's a different ball park altogteher from social abuse, and the bans should be treated accordingly.


EDIT: To be clearer, it's the nature of a game, that people are are very good at games, are going to try and "game" the game, so to speak. These players need to be reminded about the consequences it can have on the life of the game in the long run, so temp bans can be warranted.

But in no way is comparable to anti social behaviour which in the end, is what seems to upset social/casual players the most.