Seeking Redemption

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Evilized wrote:

Some of us like to work on facts not faith.

The way the terms of use are formulated in online games like this one, I'm afraid we have to work on good faith. Because in there it clearly says that we do not own our accounts or anything in them, and that they can be deleted at any time without any kind of reason or warning, entirely at GGG discretion. What they said on forum or reddit, facts or not, can't save you if they really wanted to ban you.

So, when we purchase something here, we're pretty much trusting GGG not to abuse those rules.

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raics wrote:

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Evilized wrote:

Some of us like to work on facts not faith.

The way the terms of use are formulated in online games like this one, I'm afraid we have to work on good faith. Because in there it clearly says that we do not own our accounts or anything in them, and that they can be deleted at any time without any kind of reason or warning, entirely at GGG discretion. What they said on forum or reddit, facts or not, can't save you if they really wanted to ban you.

So, when we purchase something here, we're pretty much trusting GGG not to abuse those rules.

There are a large amount of countries where that stipulation doesn't fly though, and the consumer is protected by law from having the rug yanked out from under them. The TOS won't stand above law. Why wouldn't GGG want to make clear what is/isn't allowed concerning their products? No shirt, no shoes, no service. That's all they need to state.

Permanently banning someone on a first offense which had no impact on other customers is not acceptable. Period. This is blatantly anti-consumer. How this is not obvious is troubling.

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notlewdie wrote:

Permanently banning someone on a first offense which had no impact on other customers is not acceptable. Period. This is blatantly anti-consumer. How this is not obvious is troubling.

How do you know you had no impact? Both of the tools you used GGG have said impacted the game and/or website performance at some point.

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Evilized wrote:

There are a large amount of countries where that stipulation doesn't fly though, and the consumer is protected by law from having the rug yanked out from under them. The TOS won't stand above law. Why wouldn't GGG want to make clear what is/isn't allowed concerning their products? No shirt, no shoes, no service. That's all they need to state.

Now, this is me guessing, but I'd assume that the TOS is intentionally vague about what's allowed and what isn't because it doesn't have to be clear. If it was me running this, I'd certainly like to keep some wiggling room precisely because they operate worldwide and local regulation differ. Dunno which country will protect you from getting banned in a game, but mine sure doesn't, maybe some day, but not yet, and we can be pretty sure that GGG won't change the policy until they have to.

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notlewdie wrote:

Permanently banning someone on a first offense which had no impact on other customers is not acceptable. Period. This is blatantly anti-consumer. How this is not obvious is troubling.

It doesn't matter who got affected or not, they said you're getting banned for using a flask macro, you used a macro and got banned. Their ship, their rules. I'd actually be more troubled if they knew you broke the rules and didn't ban you.

Reason to me how it's worth a permanent ban. Permanent ban on a 10 year old account worth hundreds of dollars.

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raics wrote:

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Evilized wrote:

There are a large amount of countries where that stipulation doesn't fly though, and the consumer is protected by law from having the rug yanked out from under them. The TOS won't stand above law. Why wouldn't GGG want to make clear what is/isn't allowed concerning their products? No shirt, no shoes, no service. That's all they need to state.

Now, this is me guessing, but I'd assume that the TOS is intentionally vague about what's allowed and what isn't because it doesn't have to be clear. If it was me running this, I'd certainly like to keep some wiggling room precisely because they operate worldwide and local regulation differ. Dunno which country will protect you from getting banned in a game, but mine sure doesn't, maybe some day, but not yet, and we can be pretty sure that GGG won't change the policy until they have to.

They won't protect you from being banned but they will provide options for those who have spent money on a product and had that product taken away from them for no discernible reason. In this case, having no clear cut policy would likely end up being a negative for GGG in those countries because they could argue that it was not stated anywhere that X wasn't allowed.

I'm not arguing for botting/macroing/cheating/any of the above. I am arguing for a bit more transparency on things that can impact people's lives if they are heavily vested into a hobby and then that hobby suddenly disappears due to reasons they were unaware of. That's all.

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raics wrote:

It doesn't matter who got affected or not, they said you're getting banned for using a flask macro, you used a macro and got banned. Their ship, their rules.

You're right and that is why I have to come on here and fight for what I personally think I deserve. I know what happened on the account and despite the rules I firmly believe I am being mistreated by GGG. I'm looking for a fair outcome because in no other space where I'm paying for goods and services would I expect this kind of treatment.

They can choose to put anything they like into their rules but that doesn't mean it's good for the consumer. Just remember what side of this corporate-consumer relationship you are actually on.

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Evilized wrote:

They won't protect you from being banned but they will provide options for those who have spent money on a product and had that product taken away from them for no discernible reason. In this case, having no clear cut policy would likely end up being a negative for GGG in those countries because they could argue that it was not stated anywhere that X wasn't allowed.

I'm not arguing for botting/macroing/cheating/any of the above. I am arguing for a bit more transparency on things that can impact people's lives if they are heavily vested into a hobby and then that hobby suddenly disappears due to reasons they were unaware of. That's all.

I'm sure that if the part where GGG can ban you at their full discretion was a problem in any country they would either expand their TOS for that country, or would stop offering their service or some part of it, like if lootboxes got banned somewhere.

I mean, if Sony wanted to ban your PSN account the only thing they would have to do is dig up the part where you did a 'your mum' to someone while playing call of duty and they could delete your account on the grounds of spreading lies and slander. That's effectively the same as banning you for no reason, and they could probably ban half their userbase for that.

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notlewdie wrote:

I'm looking for a fair outcome because in no other space where I'm paying for goods and services would I expect this kind of treatment.

See, that's the problem, there aren't any goods, and the rules say they don't even have to provide the service if they can't or don't want to. We all agreed to that when we logged in.

Look, if you were wrongly banned, I'd be on your side because it would mean that GGG is abusing their rules, but they aren't. Hell, I'd personally like if all services could permanently ban all cheaters.

The real problem is that poe flask gameplay is brain dead. You can constantly refill flasks, which last for 4-7sec max, leading to a gameplay of constant 12345 (if ci) or 2345 (if not ci) spam. Utterly pointless gameplay that requires no thought process.

Their vision of having flasks as situational power boosts to our characters has become a nightmare due to powercreep and how fast we kill mobs.

OP was right to use a flask macro and should not be banned for it. The fault lies with the developers.