"We will continue to respond to reports of cross-team griefing or malicious behavior in game. But, our research shows that players often have multiple accounts to play different nations on the same server for non-nefarious reasons. They tend to have multiple accounts to either gain an economic advantage, whether it is to own more structures or to produce nation-specific raw or manufactured materials, or from a desire to be involved with another facet of the server’s community. We feel that these are legitimate ways to play Pirates of the Burning Sea, but they have, until now, been technically against the rules. After much discussion with the developers, community team and FLS management, we’re going to remove the policy restricting players from having multiple accounts of opposing nations, but with some caveats.
You may not:
Participate on both sides of a port battle. If you receive an invite to multiple nations for the same port battle, you may only accept one of those invitations and must let the other one expire.
Use alternate characters to grief other Nations and/or sabotage battles with other players, including shot blocking.
We will consider violations of these rules to be griefing/harassment and we will use our griefing/harassment policies to police any incidents that arise. If you witness any of these occurrences or feel you have been wronged by someone breaking these rules, please file a support ticket and we will investigate. We expect everyone to play fair and show good sportsmanship. Our full policies can be found on this page."
I do believe though, had FLS left the invalid ship PVP flag ruleset in there, this whole cross teaming situation could have been avoided, as no one would have given a damm if someone gave a rate ship to a rat, as long as they were prepared to accept that when ever they sailed it, it would have been perma flagged.
I suppose the question is now, would you consider coming back since FLS has done a policy backflip? http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56226 "We will continue to respond to reports of cross-team griefing or malicious behavior in game. But, our research shows that players often have multiple accounts to play different nations on the same server for non-nefarious reasons. They tend to have multiple accounts to either gain an economic advantage, whether it is to own more structures or to produce nation-specific raw or manufactured materials, or from a desire to be involved with another facet of the server’s community. We feel that these are legitimate ways to play Pirates of the Burning Sea, but they have, until now, been technically against the rules. After much discussion with the developers, community team and FLS management, we’re going to remove the policy restricting players from having multiple accounts of opposing nations, but with some caveats. You may not: Participate on both sides of a port battle. If you receive an invite to multiple nations for the same port battle, you may only accept one of those invitations and must let the other one expire.
Use alternate characters to grief other Nations and/or sabotage battles with other players, including shot blocking.
We will consider violations of these rules to be griefing/harassment and we will use our griefing/harassment policies to police any incidents that arise. If you witness any of these occurrences or feel you have been wronged by someone breaking these rules, please file a support ticket and we will investigate. We expect everyone to play fair and show good sportsmanship. Our full policies can be found on this page."
I do believe though, had FLS left the invalid ship PVP flag ruleset in there, this whole cross teaming situation could have been avoided, as no one would have given a damm if someone gave a rate ship to a rat, as long as they were prepared to accept that when ever they sailed it, it would have been perma flagged.
Policy change or no policy change, I'm still banned. And even if I weren't, what is there to go back to? Apart from a bunch of max level toons, I'd have to start from scratch on the things that mattered to me: The nations I belonged to are gone, the few who still play are spread all over the servers. I lead a large guild, which is currently occupied elsewhere. Most of them quit when I was banned, so I'd have to rebuild the guild in game too. And why should I? Apart from the fact I still feel angry and deeply insulted, the game has changed even further in ways that I consider to be negative.
I'd still like to get an official appology one of these days, but play the game? Unlikely.
I suppose the question is now, would you consider coming back since FLS has done a policy backflip? http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56226 "We will continue to respond to reports of cross-team griefing or malicious behavior in game. But, our research shows that players often have multiple accounts to play different nations on the same server for non-nefarious reasons. They tend to have multiple accounts to either gain an economic advantage, whether it is to own more structures or to produce nation-specific raw or manufactured materials, or from a desire to be involved with another facet of the server’s community. We feel that these are legitimate ways to play Pirates of the Burning Sea, but they have, until now, been technically against the rules. After much discussion with the developers, community team and FLS management, we’re going to remove the policy restricting players from having multiple accounts of opposing nations, but with some caveats. You may not: Participate on both sides of a port battle. If you receive an invite to multiple nations for the same port battle, you may only accept one of those invitations and must let the other one expire.
Use alternate characters to grief other Nations and/or sabotage battles with other players, including shot blocking.
We will consider violations of these rules to be griefing/harassment and we will use our griefing/harassment policies to police any incidents that arise. If you witness any of these occurrences or feel you have been wronged by someone breaking these rules, please file a support ticket and we will investigate. We expect everyone to play fair and show good sportsmanship. Our full policies can be found on this page."
I do believe though, had FLS left the invalid ship PVP flag ruleset in there, this whole cross teaming situation could have been avoided, as no one would have given a damm if someone gave a rate ship to a rat, as long as they were prepared to accept that when ever they sailed it, it would have been perma flagged.
Policy change or no policy change, I'm still banned. And even if I weren't, what is there to go back to? Apart from a bunch of max level toons, I'd have to start from scratch on the things that mattered to me: The nations I belonged to are gone, the few who still play are spread all over the servers. I lead a large guild, which is currently occupied elsewhere. Most of them quit when I was banned, so I'd have to rebuild the guild in game too. And why should I? Apart from the fact I still feel angry and deeply insulted, the game has changed even further in ways that I consider to be negative.
I'd still like to get an official appology one of these days, but play the game? Unlikely.
Linna
I returned to the game in April and left a month ago.
Nothing has changed; don't bother.
I admire FLS's dedication to their game, but it's going down, I'm afraid. Let's hope they have more success with their casual division.
I suppose the question is now, would you consider coming back since FLS has done a policy backflip? http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56226 "We will continue to respond to reports of cross-team griefing or malicious behavior in game. But, our research shows that players often have multiple accounts to play different nations on the same server for non-nefarious reasons. They tend to have multiple accounts to either gain an economic advantage, whether it is to own more structures or to produce nation-specific raw or manufactured materials, or from a desire to be involved with another facet of the server’s community. We feel that these are legitimate ways to play Pirates of the Burning Sea, but they have, until now, been technically against the rules. After much discussion with the developers, community team and FLS management, we’re going to remove the policy restricting players from having multiple accounts of opposing nations, but with some caveats. You may not: Participate on both sides of a port battle. If you receive an invite to multiple nations for the same port battle, you may only accept one of those invitations and must let the other one expire.
Use alternate characters to grief other Nations and/or sabotage battles with other players, including shot blocking.
We will consider violations of these rules to be griefing/harassment and we will use our griefing/harassment policies to police any incidents that arise. If you witness any of these occurrences or feel you have been wronged by someone breaking these rules, please file a support ticket and we will investigate. We expect everyone to play fair and show good sportsmanship. Our full policies can be found on this page."
I do believe though, had FLS left the invalid ship PVP flag ruleset in there, this whole cross teaming situation could have been avoided, as no one would have given a damm if someone gave a rate ship to a rat, as long as they were prepared to accept that when ever they sailed it, it would have been perma flagged.
Policy change or no policy change, I'm still banned. And even if I weren't, what is there to go back to? Apart from a bunch of max level toons, I'd have to start from scratch on the things that mattered to me: The nations I belonged to are gone, the few who still play are spread all over the servers. I lead a large guild, which is currently occupied elsewhere. Most of them quit when I was banned, so I'd have to rebuild the guild in game too. And why should I? Apart from the fact I still feel angry and deeply insulted, the game has changed even further in ways that I consider to be negative.
I'd still like to get an official appology one of these days, but play the game? Unlikely.
Linna
Besides that, in 6 months FLS would do another policy flip, and you'd just get yourself banned, and frustrated, all over again.
It's not as if FLS has ever had a consistent direction with where the game is going.....well, except down.
The problem FLS had at launch was none of the Devs had ever sat down all together and decided on who their market was. You had some who saw their game as being ultra hardcore much like Eve. You had other devs that saw their game as being more casual friendly. The problem was that both sets of devs dragged the game in different directions rather than working together. it also didn't help that the hardcore devs didn't actually PVP in games (as they admitted once) and so really messed up a lot of stuff.
The best example of where the problems with devs pulling in different directions Red Circles V levels. They wanted red circles for PvP so you couldn't be attacked anywhere, but inside the red circle you could be attacked. These red circles were full of 6 man groups of level 50s. Then the game mechanics pushed low level noobs in crap ships through the red circles to do the quests they needed to level. Noobs were ganked out of the game. Remember 'no crying in the red circle?
There was ZERO places for anyone under level 50 to learn PvP. So many many many players never got to experience good PvP as it was always a pro 6man team rolling them.
POTBS could have been a great game, it just needed some decent devs.
EDIT: oh and does everyone remember the whole nightflip problem on Roberts that killed off the highest population server in the game? How the devs for months refused to see any problem, so all the big guilds from 3 nations left in one weeked. 24 hours later the whole nightflip policy changed. A decent devs could have fixed the problem 6 months earlier and had thousands more people still playing the game.
The problem FLS had at launch was none of the Devs had ever sat down all together and decided on who their market was. You had some who saw their game as being ultra hardcore much like Eve. You had other devs that saw their game as being more casual friendly. The problem was that both sets of devs dragged the game in different directions rather than working together. it also didn't help that the hardcore devs didn't actually PVP in games (as they admitted once) and so really messed up a lot of stuff. For those who might not know, I suggest looking up Isildur's "the people who want to gank are waiting for the next big failure to come along", and DrewC's "how to make it not fair in your favor". Oh what the hell, let's go linky: http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17695 (post #6) http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21615 The best example of where the problems with devs pulling in different directions Red Circles V levels. They wanted red circles for PvP so you couldn't be attacked anywhere, but inside the red circle you could be attacked. These red circles were full of 6 man groups of level 50s. Then the game mechanics pushed low level noobs in crap ships through the red circles to do the quests they needed to level. Noobs were ganked out of the game. Remember 'no crying in the red circle?
There was ZERO places for anyone under level 50 to learn PvP. So many many many players never got to experience good PvP as it was always a pro 6man team rolling them. Yeah, and it's just now that they added skirmish, an ideal way to learn about PvP, when this had been planned for over a year. Typical peeveepeer reaction to skirmish: "This will empty red circles!" To which my typical response has been, "what do you have to lose?" POTBS could have been a great game, it just needed some decent devs. EDIT: oh and does everyone remember the whole nightflip problem on Roberts that killed off the highest population server in the game? How the devs for months refused to see any problem, so all the big guilds from 3 nations left in one weeked. 24 hours later the whole nightflip policy changed. A decent devs could have fixed the problem 6 months earlier and had thousands more people still playing the game. I never played on Roberts, and was no longer subscribed when that became an acute problem (July/August, was it not?). However, it's just one example of devs not responding to concerns until it was too late. Superganks were a similar problem of not listening to the community, but my classic example will always be the ecobomb exploit on Blackbeard, which saw a large chunk of the French faction up and leave when the devs refused to hand back the ports it had lost because of the exploit.
In an ultimate display on how bad the communication between the developers and the playerbase still is, I recently received a PM from Misha that rather blew me out of the water. It was very brief, and said she could not find any evidence of my accounts being banned and could I please check.
Well, I checked the ones I still remembered the password of, and I got the message I don't have a subscription and can therefore not log in, and would I like to renew. I do not know what would happen if I did resub (and I'm still not interested in doing so), it might just bring me to a screen again that says 'you are banned from this game and cannot access your characters'. Which is pretty much how I knew I was banned the last time, I tried to switch toons and got that message.
To make this absolutely clear: I NEVER got an official email saying "as per this-and-that date your accounts have been banned for violating this-and-that policy". Three days before my sub ended, I found myself suddenly forum banned for a week - no e-mail about the why of that either, just a pop-up screen. I was at that point logged into the game, and when I tried to change characters, I got the 'you are banned from this game' popup.
We protested, got some BS replies from customer support that yes, we were irrevocably banned, and that was pretty much that. My husband got a reply that (literally) told him to ask ME if he wanted to know why he was banned. He's still fuming about that 'professional' reply.
To this day, I NEVER got any mail from FLS customer support that my accounts's status has been cleared and that I am unbanned. Yet Misha sends me an informal PM saying that according to her the accounts are unbanned. Well, who knows, they might be, but are we supposed to be clairvoyants now??
I wonder if it is possible that you were never really banned but suspended.
is it possible that rather than banning you one person with FLS overreacted and flagged your account wrong? For example Aether could have been given a report and locked your account as you were accused of cross teaming, when they looked into it they realised you really weren't doing anything wrong and unflagged your account.
In Typical FLS style they forgot to tell you all this and then they forgot about it? Why not drop Misha a PM and ask, can't hurt. oh and report back here if you get a reply. This is an interesting story to watch.
I wonder if it is possible that you were never really banned but suspended.
is it possible that rather than banning you one person with FLS overreacted and flagged your account wrong? For example Aether could have been given a report and locked your account as you were accused of cross teaming, when they looked into it they realised you really weren't doing anything wrong and unflagged your account.
In Typical FLS style they forgot to tell you all this and then they forgot about it? Why not drop Misha a PM and ask, can't hurt. oh and report back here if you get a reply. This is an interesting story to watch.
The timeline and the correspondence exchanged indicate this WAS intended as a permanent ban.
- 07/21/08 After a lot of correspondence back and forth I get an e-mail from Aether saying that the solution we had come up with was OK and would fit into their policies. I would transfer ownership of my French account to my husband, he would transfer his Spanish account to me, and this way none of us would own multiple nationalities, thus obeying the strict line of the policy. I had made explicitly clear when I suggested this solution that I wished to continue playing the french toons, and the mail strongly indicated that this was understood, as was the fact that this was the one reason why I didn't cancel all accounts there and then.
- 09/05/08 I receive an e-mail from Aether telling me I am in violation. It says that the attached screenshot clearly indicates one person is using characters from opposing nations. The mail mentions that this was not the deal when our family's accounts were grandfathered in. The screenshot, however, shows me fighting another player, not one of our family's accounts. I am baffled, and send a mail back that I truly don't understand, and that I was not farming my own account, and to just check the chat and combat logs.
- 09/09/08 I receive yet another e-mail from Aether with extracts from the chat logs that show some innocent conversation, that he claims are evidence of crossrealming. I mean SERIOUSLY innocent. Me calling all spanish to copy their toons to test for 1.8, me relaying a tell through diplomacy about someone looking for someone to duel, me telling the guild I'll switch toons when I'm done hauling.
- 09/19/08 I find I cannot log in to the forum (popup says 7 day ban) or to the game (popup says 'you have been banned from this game'. I write an angry ticket. The only reply I ever got (09/29/09) was that they are aware I've cancelled my accounts and that they're closing the ticket. My husband's ticket asking why he was banned too only gets the reply 'ask Linna, she knows'. Linna does NOT know, which is the entire problem here. From the correspondence, it looks like someone jumped to conclusions, and when the conclusions proved wrong, decided to go through with the whole thing anyway for whatever reasons.
The choices given were 1) delete all toons on one account 2) move those toons to another server 3) be permabanned. I told them I opted for 4) cancel all accounts and go play another game. This apparently wasn't acceptable.
The popup I saw did not mention anything about the game ban being temporary. I never got any correspondence about the ban at all, really. You'd expect a formal mail saying 'you have been banned from x for the following reason'. I never got this. I never got a mail informing me the account had been unbanned either. All I know is that Misha sent me a PM saying that according to her the accounts aren't banned. The only way for me to check this is to resub, which I'm not going to do. I already replied to Misha that I can't check from my end for that very reason. Never got a reply to that one.
Frankly, I think FLS need to get a clue about customer service, and about the way player communities work.
Maybe this is an olive branch from Misha then? Aether has left the company I believe now. It also seems he was the one who decided you should be perma banned. Is it possible that while Misha can't go against the deciision Aether made in public and say he was wrong, she can quietly unban your account and give you the option of playing again if you want?
Seems to me Misha might have believed Aether was wrong but as he was the head of the community relations (and of banning it seems) she couldn't do anything. Once he was gone she tried to fix it without publicly saying Aether was wrong.
Maybe this is an olive branch from Misha then? Aether has left the company I believe now. It also seems he was the one who decided you should be perma banned. Is it possible that while Misha can't go against the deciision Aether made in public and say he was wrong, she can quietly unban your account and give you the option of playing again if you want?
Seems to me Misha might have believed Aether was wrong but as he was the head of the community relations (and of banning it seems) she couldn't do anything. Once he was gone she tried to fix it without publicly saying Aether was wrong.
Who's to say. I just know the whole situation is distasteful and caused me and others major grief. I invested a lot in my guild's PotBS chapter and in the community of Rackham, and I'm not willing to do it all over again. And why should I? The game hasn't really improved, and I don't trust FLS to not pull the same crap all over again. Also, me and my guild are having fun in Warhammer and COH/COV, it's not like we're terminally bored.
I buy a Ferrari...I have a real life advantage over you...you are upset...I still have a Ferrari because I work hard and pay for it and can now enjoy going faster than you down the road...you are still upset...I don't care because I left the conversation going 200Mph down the road while you were stuck in your 1994 Geo Metro. The point being...it doesn't matter. If I have 10 million dollars and you make $8000 a year it is still unfair in your eyes. If I want to buy my Ferrari why should the Geo Metro guy hold me back from buying it? Does the government say that since Mr. Geo Metro cannot afford a Ferrari that I am not allowed to get one? They sure don't. I whole-heartedly agree with you Linna and hope you find a great game to move on to.
I buy a Ferrari...I have a real life advantage over you...you are upset...I still have a Ferrari because I work hard and pay for it and can now enjoy going faster than you down the road...you are still upset...I don't care because I left the conversation going 200Mph down the road while you were stuck in your 1994 Geo Metro. The point being...it doesn't matter. If I have 10 million dollars and you make $8000 a year it is still unfair in your eyes. If I want to buy my Ferrari why should the Geo Metro guy hold me back from buying it? Does the government say that since Mr. Geo Metro cannot afford a Ferrari that I am not allowed to get one? They sure don't. I whole-heartedly agree with you Linna and hope you find a great game to move on to.
-Thafireball
That's not the point. Its using it for unlawful and unbalancing activities, such as cross-factioning, which really, really ruins the game for everyone. To limit everyone to 1 account each, even if you could pay for more, makes it more balanced. It's as if you skipped over the WHOLE POINT of the thread.
I am tryiing to see the things from his point of view (FLS) and all is see is the typical corporative lack of ability to have a human relation with humans. Dehumanization.
These guys have his rules, and having exceptions is really expensive, one hand dont know what is doing the other, or remenber promises. Is hard for them, because his structure is corporative.
Sorry to hear that ;< , even though it does sound as u were walking really close to the edge of some rules, it sounds that you have always been pretty honest about it, so not even getting a reason why you got banned is just stupid tbh .
As to breaking the rules: well, the problem is, the rules when I bought the game said it was OK to play that way. Even trading first rate durability to pirates - something I never did - was OK, according to a dev post in Beta, since the same amount of work would go into building it. This system only became problematic when they introduced insurance, and the pirate with the national account would get both the ship AND their money back.
I do want to make a small remark on this part of ur reply. When entering an mmo you do agree in the contract that they may change the rules during the existance of the game, and even though I do understand where you are coming from, this is something that you can not really hold against the developers since an mmo is always bound to change some of their rules in the future.
Actually, there is such a thing as illegal terms of sale. The fact that companies put something like that in the TOS doesn't mean it holds up in a court. It's like selling a 3 year car lease contract for a Ferari, but halfway through saying 'sorry, we're out of ferrari's, so we've changed the contract, see, the small print allows it. You're now driving a ford'.
A real life example of illegal TOS I can mention is this big scandinavian cheap furniture store, Ikea. In the conditions of sale, they used to have this line saying that if the product you bought turned out to infringe any copyrights (read: we've stolen the design and someone called us on it), the customer would be liable in court, not the company. Putting this type of condition in the TOS is illegal, and invalidates the entire rest of the TOS.
Adapting the rules is one thing. Adapting them in such a way that the product cannot be used for its original purpose is another.
Linna
If you think you are able to take legal action on that then do so. Other than that, not much to talk about.
I buy a Ferrari...I have a real life advantage over you...you are upset...I still have a Ferrari because I work hard and pay for it and can now enjoy going faster than you down the road...you are still upset...I don't care because I left the conversation going 200Mph down the road while you were stuck in your 1994 Geo Metro. The point being...it doesn't matter. If I have 10 million dollars and you make $8000 a year it is still unfair in your eyes. If I want to buy my Ferrari why should the Geo Metro guy hold me back from buying it? Does the government say that since Mr. Geo Metro cannot afford a Ferrari that I am not allowed to get one? They sure don't. I whole-heartedly agree with you Linna and hope you find a great game to move on to.
-Thafireball
That's not the point. Its using it for unlawful and unbalancing activities, such as cross-factioning, which really, really ruins the game for everyone. To limit everyone to 1 account each, even if you could pay for more, makes it more balanced. It's as if you skipped over the WHOLE POINT of the thread.
I think you're the one missing the point. It was NOT illegal, and it was - by the developers' own words - not considered to be imbalancing. In actual GAMEPLAY it was not imbalancing. Cross server lot trading, which was ALWAYS totally legal, had a way larger impact on the economy (and potential tax dodging) than multiple nation accounts ever did. And as far as PVP is concerned, I've never seen evidence of crossrealmer griefing. On my server, it was actually a guild griefing their own nation which caused the most PVP related problems.
And as to exploits: the whole dual nationality thing only became a possible source for exploits when FLS themselves made changes, and even then they could have chosen other means to catch abusers, in stead of using 'guilty until proven innocent' and telling all to delete, reroll or move accounts.
Sorry to hear that ;< , even though it does sound as u were walking really close to the edge of some rules, it sounds that you have always been pretty honest about it, so not even getting a reason why you got banned is just stupid tbh .
As to breaking the rules: well, the problem is, the rules when I bought the game said it was OK to play that way. Even trading first rate durability to pirates - something I never did - was OK, according to a dev post in Beta, since the same amount of work would go into building it. This system only became problematic when they introduced insurance, and the pirate with the national account would get both the ship AND their money back.
I do want to make a small remark on this part of ur reply. When entering an mmo you do agree in the contract that they may change the rules during the existance of the game, and even though I do understand where you are coming from, this is something that you can not really hold against the developers since an mmo is always bound to change some of their rules in the future.
Actually, there is such a thing as illegal terms of sale. The fact that companies put something like that in the TOS doesn't mean it holds up in a court. It's like selling a 3 year car lease contract for a Ferari, but halfway through saying 'sorry, we're out of ferrari's, so we've changed the contract, see, the small print allows it. You're now driving a ford'.
A real life example of illegal TOS I can mention is this big scandinavian cheap furniture store, Ikea. In the conditions of sale, they used to have this line saying that if the product you bought turned out to infringe any copyrights (read: we've stolen the design and someone called us on it), the customer would be liable in court, not the company. Putting this type of condition in the TOS is illegal, and invalidates the entire rest of the TOS.
Adapting the rules is one thing. Adapting them in such a way that the product cannot be used for its original purpose is another.
Linna
If you think you are able to take legal action on that then do so. Other than that, not much to talk about.
Of course I think there's ground for legal action. And I'm not the only one who thinks so, there's a law in development in the European Union that may well prevent this kind of crap from ever happening again, forcing the company to pay ALL costs for their products, from box costs to sub fees, if they make retroactive changes like this. And as a reminder: if you sell and market products in the European Union, those products have to conform to EU law.
At this moment, however, there is a simple reality. I'm Dutch. The company is in the United States. I'd have to hire a lawyer with international expertise, which is very expensive, for a case that could drag out for a decade. There's no such thing as no cure no pay here (it's against the law), and I'm anything but rich. So er, right... I'm going to fork over hundreds of thousands to sue FLS over this? Not likely. I'm outraged, not stupid.
Sadly, this is exactly what software companies are counting on us, the users, to do. And all we can really do to arm ourselves against it, is get the stories out, so people can at least act based on ALL the information, and not just the "wow this game is great" viral and other marketing.
What the hell? Is this ever even actually supposed to happen in your average MMO - an INNOCENT customer getting banned for supposed allegations of 'cross-teaming'? What kind of bullshit is this?
Come on game company, you can do better than this. Stop fannying around and trying to scam your own customers. You should be trying to catch the REAL cheaters, the real exploiters. Although, I guess they're just being too damn paranoid.
I've never played PotBS — which, in retrospect, is probably for the best — but I felt compelled to read this thread in its entirety, including every wall o' text.
I checked this forum out of curiosity, because I know PotBS is a declining game, and I wanted to see what people were saying about it now that's it's dropped off the radar. I noticed this thread, and immediately thought it would be the classic hilarious botter rage-post/swan song. Of course, I discovered that Rinna is actually an exceptionally well spoken and intelligent lady with a legitimate case, and that she hadn't just started this thread out of the blue to complain, either (Havohej started threads leveling various accusations at her).
So, I read everything. Fascinating stuff; this is a first for me here at MMORPG.com. I don't have a great deal to say about this incredibly long discussion, except for a handful bullet points:
An official PotBS liason with a special MMORPG.com forum title (e.g., Havohej) starting an antagonistic thread directed at Rinna (or any other PotBS player, for that matter) is very unprofessional and in bad taste.
Having heard both sides, I most certainly side with Rinna, and against FLS/Aether. It's BS to fundamentally change the rules of a premium service in a way that can ruin someone's use of their paid accounts, something they couldn't have anticipated.
Kudos to FLS for at least trying to make a compromise with Rinna after yanking the rug out from under; that is a point in their favor. However, this is overshadowed by the... shady ban circumstances and poor handling of the situation in general.
I lol'd at the stories of groups of players leaving en masse due to nightflips (I had to Google "nightflip") and ecobombs. Rinna's story is similar, her being a prominent Spanish leader; having the rug pulled out from under caused a similar exodus.
In answer to a much earlier poster, yes, FLS should have continued making an exception for Rinna, for any number of reasons. She seems like an extremely reasonable person who actually tried to play passionately and honestly, for one thing, which is enough reason in my book. For another, FLS lost a bunch of subs when she departed, which was rather stupid of them and also hurt the players who left because of it.
In closing, Rinna, I have come to the conclusion that you are awesome. I'm almost tempted to dust off my Rank 40 Magus (I retired right before the Blackguard was released) just to come play with your guild, because finding a person who's well spoken and wise in the crazy world of MMORPGs is incredibly rare.
I also played pre-CU and NGE SWG, by the way, though I never became a Jedi and don't even remember my character's name anymore.
Currently Playing: EVE Online Retired From: UO, FFXI, AO, SWG, Ryzom, GW, WoW, WAR
Warhammer was fun, but the endgame is too broken. Too many of my guild burned out on it, so now I'm taking the whole misbegotten lot to Aion (Asmodean, Vaizel server). I'm totally neutral about the game, but once again, it's something to do while waiting for that ideal game to come along.
glad to hear youre going to try aion linna, i never did trust fls after the game came out with such a broken meelee system and awfull run away if you dont want to die ship pvp meh. consider the triniel server? my guilds on triniel, asmos, we already have some elyos lined up to be eradicated because we dont like them for some reason or another, their elyos after all we dont really need a reason.
glad to hear youre going to try aion linna, i never did trust fls after the game came out with such a broken meelee system and awfull run away if you dont want to die ship pvp meh. consider the triniel server? my guilds on triniel, asmos, we already have some elyos lined up to be eradicated because we dont like them for some reason or another, their elyos after all we dont really need a reason.
Most of the PVPers in my guild play west coast times, so we're headed to Vaizel. Prime time is reckoned 4 PM-midnight of the server time, so that should cover our east coasters too. Wouldn't want anyone to miss out on fortress sieges. Triniel is shaping up pretty nicely though, some great competitive guilds headed there.
I was considering giving this game a try today, ive changed my mind. I hate things such as this, they treat their customers worse then most privateservers of different games do.
Comments
N-N-N-N-N-NECRO!
Playing polished, lag free, feature complete games is carebear. Whining about a game you hate but still play is hardcore man!
Dunno, it's one of those threads that flares up from time to time.
=p
Linna
I suppose the question is now, would you consider coming back since FLS has done a policy backflip?
http://www.burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56226
"We will continue to respond to reports of cross-team griefing or malicious behavior in game. But, our research shows that players often have multiple accounts to play different nations on the same server for non-nefarious reasons. They tend to have multiple accounts to either gain an economic advantage, whether it is to own more structures or to produce nation-specific raw or manufactured materials, or from a desire to be involved with another facet of the server’s community. We feel that these are legitimate ways to play Pirates of the Burning Sea, but they have, until now, been technically against the rules. After much discussion with the developers, community team and FLS management, we’re going to remove the policy restricting players from having multiple accounts of opposing nations, but with some caveats.
You may not:
Participate on both sides of a port battle. If you receive an invite to multiple nations for the same port battle, you may only accept one of those invitations and must let the other one expire.
Use alternate characters to grief other Nations and/or sabotage battles with other players, including shot blocking.
We will consider violations of these rules to be griefing/harassment and we will use our griefing/harassment policies to police any incidents that arise. If you witness any of these occurrences or feel you have been wronged by someone breaking these rules, please file a support ticket and we will investigate. We expect everyone to play fair and show good sportsmanship. Our full policies can be found on this page."
I do believe though, had FLS left the invalid ship PVP flag ruleset in there, this whole cross teaming situation could have been avoided, as no one would have given a damm if someone gave a rate ship to a rat, as long as they were prepared to accept that when ever they sailed it, it would have been perma flagged.
Policy change or no policy change, I'm still banned. And even if I weren't, what is there to go back to? Apart from a bunch of max level toons, I'd have to start from scratch on the things that mattered to me: The nations I belonged to are gone, the few who still play are spread all over the servers. I lead a large guild, which is currently occupied elsewhere. Most of them quit when I was banned, so I'd have to rebuild the guild in game too. And why should I? Apart from the fact I still feel angry and deeply insulted, the game has changed even further in ways that I consider to be negative.
I'd still like to get an official appology one of these days, but play the game? Unlikely.
Linna
Policy change or no policy change, I'm still banned. And even if I weren't, what is there to go back to? Apart from a bunch of max level toons, I'd have to start from scratch on the things that mattered to me: The nations I belonged to are gone, the few who still play are spread all over the servers. I lead a large guild, which is currently occupied elsewhere. Most of them quit when I was banned, so I'd have to rebuild the guild in game too. And why should I? Apart from the fact I still feel angry and deeply insulted, the game has changed even further in ways that I consider to be negative.
I'd still like to get an official appology one of these days, but play the game? Unlikely.
Linna
I returned to the game in April and left a month ago.
Nothing has changed; don't bother.
I admire FLS's dedication to their game, but it's going down, I'm afraid. Let's hope they have more success with their casual division.
Policy change or no policy change, I'm still banned. And even if I weren't, what is there to go back to? Apart from a bunch of max level toons, I'd have to start from scratch on the things that mattered to me: The nations I belonged to are gone, the few who still play are spread all over the servers. I lead a large guild, which is currently occupied elsewhere. Most of them quit when I was banned, so I'd have to rebuild the guild in game too. And why should I? Apart from the fact I still feel angry and deeply insulted, the game has changed even further in ways that I consider to be negative.
I'd still like to get an official appology one of these days, but play the game? Unlikely.
Linna
Besides that, in 6 months FLS would do another policy flip, and you'd just get yourself banned, and frustrated, all over again.
It's not as if FLS has ever had a consistent direction with where the game is going.....well, except down.
The problem FLS had at launch was none of the Devs had ever sat down all together and decided on who their market was. You had some who saw their game as being ultra hardcore much like Eve. You had other devs that saw their game as being more casual friendly. The problem was that both sets of devs dragged the game in different directions rather than working together. it also didn't help that the hardcore devs didn't actually PVP in games (as they admitted once) and so really messed up a lot of stuff.
The best example of where the problems with devs pulling in different directions Red Circles V levels. They wanted red circles for PvP so you couldn't be attacked anywhere, but inside the red circle you could be attacked. These red circles were full of 6 man groups of level 50s. Then the game mechanics pushed low level noobs in crap ships through the red circles to do the quests they needed to level. Noobs were ganked out of the game. Remember 'no crying in the red circle?
There was ZERO places for anyone under level 50 to learn PvP. So many many many players never got to experience good PvP as it was always a pro 6man team rolling them.
POTBS could have been a great game, it just needed some decent devs.
EDIT: oh and does everyone remember the whole nightflip problem on Roberts that killed off the highest population server in the game? How the devs for months refused to see any problem, so all the big guilds from 3 nations left in one weeked. 24 hours later the whole nightflip policy changed. A decent devs could have fixed the problem 6 months earlier and had thousands more people still playing the game.
In an ultimate display on how bad the communication between the developers and the playerbase still is, I recently received a PM from Misha that rather blew me out of the water. It was very brief, and said she could not find any evidence of my accounts being banned and could I please check.
Well, I checked the ones I still remembered the password of, and I got the message I don't have a subscription and can therefore not log in, and would I like to renew. I do not know what would happen if I did resub (and I'm still not interested in doing so), it might just bring me to a screen again that says 'you are banned from this game and cannot access your characters'. Which is pretty much how I knew I was banned the last time, I tried to switch toons and got that message.
To make this absolutely clear: I NEVER got an official email saying "as per this-and-that date your accounts have been banned for violating this-and-that policy". Three days before my sub ended, I found myself suddenly forum banned for a week - no e-mail about the why of that either, just a pop-up screen. I was at that point logged into the game, and when I tried to change characters, I got the 'you are banned from this game' popup.
We protested, got some BS replies from customer support that yes, we were irrevocably banned, and that was pretty much that. My husband got a reply that (literally) told him to ask ME if he wanted to know why he was banned. He's still fuming about that 'professional' reply.
To this day, I NEVER got any mail from FLS customer support that my accounts's status has been cleared and that I am unbanned. Yet Misha sends me an informal PM saying that according to her the accounts are unbanned. Well, who knows, they might be, but are we supposed to be clairvoyants now??
/facepalm
Linna
I wonder if it is possible that you were never really banned but suspended.
is it possible that rather than banning you one person with FLS overreacted and flagged your account wrong? For example Aether could have been given a report and locked your account as you were accused of cross teaming, when they looked into it they realised you really weren't doing anything wrong and unflagged your account.
In Typical FLS style they forgot to tell you all this and then they forgot about it? Why not drop Misha a PM and ask, can't hurt. oh and report back here if you get a reply. This is an interesting story to watch.
The timeline and the correspondence exchanged indicate this WAS intended as a permanent ban.
- 07/21/08 After a lot of correspondence back and forth I get an e-mail from Aether saying that the solution we had come up with was OK and would fit into their policies. I would transfer ownership of my French account to my husband, he would transfer his Spanish account to me, and this way none of us would own multiple nationalities, thus obeying the strict line of the policy. I had made explicitly clear when I suggested this solution that I wished to continue playing the french toons, and the mail strongly indicated that this was understood, as was the fact that this was the one reason why I didn't cancel all accounts there and then.
- 09/05/08 I receive an e-mail from Aether telling me I am in violation. It says that the attached screenshot clearly indicates one person is using characters from opposing nations. The mail mentions that this was not the deal when our family's accounts were grandfathered in. The screenshot, however, shows me fighting another player, not one of our family's accounts. I am baffled, and send a mail back that I truly don't understand, and that I was not farming my own account, and to just check the chat and combat logs.
- 09/09/08 I receive yet another e-mail from Aether with extracts from the chat logs that show some innocent conversation, that he claims are evidence of crossrealming. I mean SERIOUSLY innocent. Me calling all spanish to copy their toons to test for 1.8, me relaying a tell through diplomacy about someone looking for someone to duel, me telling the guild I'll switch toons when I'm done hauling.
- 09/19/08 I find I cannot log in to the forum (popup says 7 day ban) or to the game (popup says 'you have been banned from this game'. I write an angry ticket. The only reply I ever got (09/29/09) was that they are aware I've cancelled my accounts and that they're closing the ticket. My husband's ticket asking why he was banned too only gets the reply 'ask Linna, she knows'. Linna does NOT know, which is the entire problem here. From the correspondence, it looks like someone jumped to conclusions, and when the conclusions proved wrong, decided to go through with the whole thing anyway for whatever reasons.
The choices given were 1) delete all toons on one account 2) move those toons to another server 3) be permabanned. I told them I opted for 4) cancel all accounts and go play another game. This apparently wasn't acceptable.
The popup I saw did not mention anything about the game ban being temporary. I never got any correspondence about the ban at all, really. You'd expect a formal mail saying 'you have been banned from x for the following reason'. I never got this. I never got a mail informing me the account had been unbanned either. All I know is that Misha sent me a PM saying that according to her the accounts aren't banned. The only way for me to check this is to resub, which I'm not going to do. I already replied to Misha that I can't check from my end for that very reason. Never got a reply to that one.
Frankly, I think FLS need to get a clue about customer service, and about the way player communities work.
Linna.
Ahhh, ok.
Maybe this is an olive branch from Misha then? Aether has left the company I believe now. It also seems he was the one who decided you should be perma banned. Is it possible that while Misha can't go against the deciision Aether made in public and say he was wrong, she can quietly unban your account and give you the option of playing again if you want?
Seems to me Misha might have believed Aether was wrong but as he was the head of the community relations (and of banning it seems) she couldn't do anything. Once he was gone she tried to fix it without publicly saying Aether was wrong.
Who's to say. I just know the whole situation is distasteful and caused me and others major grief. I invested a lot in my guild's PotBS chapter and in the community of Rackham, and I'm not willing to do it all over again. And why should I? The game hasn't really improved, and I don't trust FLS to not pull the same crap all over again. Also, me and my guild are having fun in Warhammer and COH/COV, it's not like we're terminally bored.
Linna
I buy a Ferrari...I have a real life advantage over you...you are upset...I still have a Ferrari because I work hard and pay for it and can now enjoy going faster than you down the road...you are still upset...I don't care because I left the conversation going 200Mph down the road while you were stuck in your 1994 Geo Metro. The point being...it doesn't matter. If I have 10 million dollars and you make $8000 a year it is still unfair in your eyes. If I want to buy my Ferrari why should the Geo Metro guy hold me back from buying it? Does the government say that since Mr. Geo Metro cannot afford a Ferrari that I am not allowed to get one? They sure don't. I whole-heartedly agree with you Linna and hope you find a great game to move on to.
-Thafireball
That's not the point. Its using it for unlawful and unbalancing activities, such as cross-factioning, which really, really ruins the game for everyone. To limit everyone to 1 account each, even if you could pay for more, makes it more balanced. It's as if you skipped over the WHOLE POINT of the thread.
Currently restarting World of Warcraft
Good read.
I am tryiing to see the things from his point of view (FLS) and all is see is the typical corporative lack of ability to have a human relation with humans. Dehumanization.
These guys have his rules, and having exceptions is really expensive, one hand dont know what is doing the other, or remenber promises. Is hard for them, because his structure is corporative.
As to breaking the rules: well, the problem is, the rules when I bought the game said it was OK to play that way. Even trading first rate durability to pirates - something I never did - was OK, according to a dev post in Beta, since the same amount of work would go into building it. This system only became problematic when they introduced insurance, and the pirate with the national account would get both the ship AND their money back.
I do want to make a small remark on this part of ur reply. When entering an mmo you do agree in the contract that they may change the rules during the existance of the game, and even though I do understand where you are coming from, this is something that you can not really hold against the developers since an mmo is always bound to change some of their rules in the future.
Actually, there is such a thing as illegal terms of sale. The fact that companies put something like that in the TOS doesn't mean it holds up in a court. It's like selling a 3 year car lease contract for a Ferari, but halfway through saying 'sorry, we're out of ferrari's, so we've changed the contract, see, the small print allows it. You're now driving a ford'.
A real life example of illegal TOS I can mention is this big scandinavian cheap furniture store, Ikea. In the conditions of sale, they used to have this line saying that if the product you bought turned out to infringe any copyrights (read: we've stolen the design and someone called us on it), the customer would be liable in court, not the company. Putting this type of condition in the TOS is illegal, and invalidates the entire rest of the TOS.
Adapting the rules is one thing. Adapting them in such a way that the product cannot be used for its original purpose is another.
Linna
If you think you are able to take legal action on that then do so. Other than that, not much to talk about.
That's not the point. Its using it for unlawful and unbalancing activities, such as cross-factioning, which really, really ruins the game for everyone. To limit everyone to 1 account each, even if you could pay for more, makes it more balanced. It's as if you skipped over the WHOLE POINT of the thread.
I think you're the one missing the point. It was NOT illegal, and it was - by the developers' own words - not considered to be imbalancing. In actual GAMEPLAY it was not imbalancing. Cross server lot trading, which was ALWAYS totally legal, had a way larger impact on the economy (and potential tax dodging) than multiple nation accounts ever did. And as far as PVP is concerned, I've never seen evidence of crossrealmer griefing. On my server, it was actually a guild griefing their own nation which caused the most PVP related problems.
And as to exploits: the whole dual nationality thing only became a possible source for exploits when FLS themselves made changes, and even then they could have chosen other means to catch abusers, in stead of using 'guilty until proven innocent' and telling all to delete, reroll or move accounts.
Linna
As to breaking the rules: well, the problem is, the rules when I bought the game said it was OK to play that way. Even trading first rate durability to pirates - something I never did - was OK, according to a dev post in Beta, since the same amount of work would go into building it. This system only became problematic when they introduced insurance, and the pirate with the national account would get both the ship AND their money back.
I do want to make a small remark on this part of ur reply. When entering an mmo you do agree in the contract that they may change the rules during the existance of the game, and even though I do understand where you are coming from, this is something that you can not really hold against the developers since an mmo is always bound to change some of their rules in the future.
Actually, there is such a thing as illegal terms of sale. The fact that companies put something like that in the TOS doesn't mean it holds up in a court. It's like selling a 3 year car lease contract for a Ferari, but halfway through saying 'sorry, we're out of ferrari's, so we've changed the contract, see, the small print allows it. You're now driving a ford'.
A real life example of illegal TOS I can mention is this big scandinavian cheap furniture store, Ikea. In the conditions of sale, they used to have this line saying that if the product you bought turned out to infringe any copyrights (read: we've stolen the design and someone called us on it), the customer would be liable in court, not the company. Putting this type of condition in the TOS is illegal, and invalidates the entire rest of the TOS.
Adapting the rules is one thing. Adapting them in such a way that the product cannot be used for its original purpose is another.
Linna
If you think you are able to take legal action on that then do so. Other than that, not much to talk about.
Of course I think there's ground for legal action. And I'm not the only one who thinks so, there's a law in development in the European Union that may well prevent this kind of crap from ever happening again, forcing the company to pay ALL costs for their products, from box costs to sub fees, if they make retroactive changes like this. And as a reminder: if you sell and market products in the European Union, those products have to conform to EU law.
At this moment, however, there is a simple reality. I'm Dutch. The company is in the United States. I'd have to hire a lawyer with international expertise, which is very expensive, for a case that could drag out for a decade. There's no such thing as no cure no pay here (it's against the law), and I'm anything but rich. So er, right... I'm going to fork over hundreds of thousands to sue FLS over this? Not likely. I'm outraged, not stupid.
Sadly, this is exactly what software companies are counting on us, the users, to do. And all we can really do to arm ourselves against it, is get the stories out, so people can at least act based on ALL the information, and not just the "wow this game is great" viral and other marketing.
Linna
What the hell? Is this ever even actually supposed to happen in your average MMO - an INNOCENT customer getting banned for supposed allegations of 'cross-teaming'? What kind of bullshit is this?
Come on game company, you can do better than this. Stop fannying around and trying to scam your own customers. You should be trying to catch the REAL cheaters, the real exploiters. Although, I guess they're just being too damn paranoid.
I've never played PotBS — which, in retrospect, is probably for the best — but I felt compelled to read this thread in its entirety, including every wall o' text.
I checked this forum out of curiosity, because I know PotBS is a declining game, and I wanted to see what people were saying about it now that's it's dropped off the radar. I noticed this thread, and immediately thought it would be the classic hilarious botter rage-post/swan song. Of course, I discovered that Rinna is actually an exceptionally well spoken and intelligent lady with a legitimate case, and that she hadn't just started this thread out of the blue to complain, either (Havohej started threads leveling various accusations at her).
So, I read everything. Fascinating stuff; this is a first for me here at MMORPG.com. I don't have a great deal to say about this incredibly long discussion, except for a handful bullet points:
In closing, Rinna, I have come to the conclusion that you are awesome. I'm almost tempted to dust off my Rank 40 Magus (I retired right before the Blackguard was released) just to come play with your guild, because finding a person who's well spoken and wise in the crazy world of MMORPGs is incredibly rare.
I also played pre-CU and NGE SWG, by the way, though I never became a Jedi and don't even remember my character's name anymore.
Currently Playing: EVE Online
Retired From: UO, FFXI, AO, SWG, Ryzom, GW, WoW, WAR
Warhammer was fun, but the endgame is too broken. Too many of my guild burned out on it, so now I'm taking the whole misbegotten lot to Aion (Asmodean, Vaizel server). I'm totally neutral about the game, but once again, it's something to do while waiting for that ideal game to come along.
Linna
glad to hear youre going to try aion linna, i never did trust fls after the game came out with such a broken meelee system and awfull run away if you dont want to die ship pvp meh. consider the triniel server? my guilds on triniel, asmos, we already have some elyos lined up to be eradicated because we dont like them for some reason or another, their elyos after all we dont really need a reason.
Most of the PVPers in my guild play west coast times, so we're headed to Vaizel. Prime time is reckoned 4 PM-midnight of the server time, so that should cover our east coasters too. Wouldn't want anyone to miss out on fortress sieges. Triniel is shaping up pretty nicely though, some great competitive guilds headed there.
Linna
I was considering giving this game a try today, ive changed my mind. I hate things such as this, they treat their customers worse then most privateservers of different games do.