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Stay away from this game
Tingtong1
Member UncommonPosts: 22
Stay away from this company and it's game.
I played this game hardcore for 1.5months only to get innocently banned 5 times!!!! yes 5 TIMES!
I was the GM of the #2 Ranked guild on Emerald with 175 members called "Elysium"
You can read the whole story on my blog since it contains over 70 screenshots of how I played, and even a Youtube video of their GM's manipulating forums filters to discredit a post I was trying to make on the forums to make me look bad. YES REALLY!!
http://aeriagamestruth.blogspot.com/
There are bots everywhere, and all their GM's are focused on banning players who legitly buy cash shop items from players with gold.
Their idealogy is to ban any F2P player who does well in their game without purchasing cash shop items.
If you have any questions i'll be happy to anwer, but STAY AWAY from this company and this game. or DON'T and find out yourself!
Comments
I'd normally be a little more skeptical, but I'm well aware of the reputation Aeria has built for itself insofar as customer service is concerned, so I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt here. Anyway...
I love how they don't even tell you what you did wrong, just the vague 'You have violated the TOS' bullshit. Also, marking replies as spam? Real classy there, Aeria.
The forum filter thing is just priceless though. Wow. I don't think even Nexon's abysmal customer service would sink to those depths.
Not to mention Eden Eternal is a fairly shit game in itself, it has no real content least when I played it, it was like world of warcraft with all the fun striped out of it, and not to mention super grindy. You go to town, finish the quest hub move on, combat was extremly boring as well. I'd not reccomend this game to anyone, unless your just that bored and desperate tbh. Plently of honestly far better f2p games out there. This is just my opinion of a player who played the game for about 3 weeks then washed my hand of it and moved on.
Being a pessimist is a win-win pattern of thinking. If you're a pessimist (I'll admit that I am!) you're either:
A. Proven right (if something bad happens)
or
B. Pleasantly surprised (if something good happens)
Either way, you can't lose! Try it out sometime!
Thanks for the heads up. I was considering trying this game. Not anymore.
Then you shoulda bought a cash shop item!
Besides, people that play F2P games, and dont spend a nickle on them, then complain about their customer service experience is hilarious
Yea but I had a very simple plan with that in mind. I wanted to be "The Successful Player" who didn't need to buy Cashshop Items to be sucessful. I had the time and was dedicated enough.
It's the reason I had so many screenshots in the first place. I was going to make a post and be an example of how it all could be done... I was an example all right....
The reason you are a F2P game is to attract and hook customers who wouldn't otherwise give your game a chance. Most players didn't have the time like I did to sink in the game so they just buy cash shop items to sell for in-game currency or use themselves.
Well, I can understand why the F2P companies wish to ban that sort of successful players
To bad your project went wrong.
But in the end, a F2P game where players dont buy anything will end up with a lot of successful players wondering why their game shut down.
I was the top .0001% of the playerbase, I don't think anyone who played Eden Eternal could say they have made 10,000G/day
I could of just as easily SOLD my gold to some RMT company and bought cash shop items. (The End result would of been the same... BAN!)
However, the mechanics of the game allowed you to buy cash shop items from players threw trade. So I bought $3,000 - $5,000 of cash shop items from other legitimate players for gold. I played the game fairly, and threw the contraints of the ToS, only to be called a "cheater" by Aeria Games Staff. If this company didn't want you to play for "free" then they should charge $15/month like everyone else. I would of happly paid it had I known the account I spent 600hrs on would be banned for "Cheating"
I know this thread is speaking specifically of Aeria (AGE) but I must say this is representative of the F2P market in general. Most of these companies have a reputation for holding back non-paying players and rewarding the paying ones (pay to win). Perfect World (PWE) is also a great example. Alot of thier games are PVP based and are completely unplayable on a competitive level without dishing out hundreds of dollars.
Honestly Im wondering what the gaming community expects here. Did you honestly think that a company made a game free to play? Do you realize the costs of running an MMO (server costs, development cycles, GM and CSR salaries)? The free model only works because it makes more money than a subscription. If it were all about the players there wouldnt be anything on cash shops other than appearance items. A single item that effects gameplay whether its as innocent as an xp potion or as game changing as a best in slot item only encourages players to pay to skip content, not actually play the game. If you want players to pay to win, why not sell max level characters with epic items? Do you realize how much money you can save on developement if you remove all those silly lower levels and itemization that never gets equipped.
This is the time for players to speak up. The industry is in a landslide, all subscription based games are failing (yes even WoW is in decline). Companies are turning to a free model which costs the players more, but makes more for the industry. And of course you see huge support for this model in game forums and sites like this, it makes you wonder who has sold out and who really cares for the community. Players need to join up and fight this free to play boom, or never again with you be able to play an MMO for as little as 15-20 dollars a month. Want to unlock a new class, give me 20 bucks. Want a new sword, 10 dollars please. Want more quests, we dont have expansions just pay as you go, trust us its cheaper......... Is anyone really falling for this anymore?
Solution = Stop playing free to play games that rely on item mall sales.
Suck it up and pay the $15 a month for quality games..
If they didn't want players selling cash shop items for in-game currency. they should have bound it to the buyer any way.. there is no reason to ban someone for your own games mechanic
You spent 100 hours a week playing this game? That is absolutely insane. How are your eyes still in their sockets? How is your head anot caved in?
Really 100 hours a week is very stressing xD.
But, when Slayer skill was add to Runescape renember of playing around that same time 90-100 hours a week to be one of the first guys to get slayer 85 xD.
It was around a 3 weeks doing it, was jobless
, and well the unique bad effect that happen to me, aside dreaming with the game all nights, was that I got 4 kg fat in those 3 weeks (only pizza, bread and fast food junk and delivered at my house).
*now a days can only play at max 5-10 hours a week (got married and she gets mad easily about online game), but was a good time for sure xD.
According to Raptr it was 569Hrs (including beta play)
http://raptr.com/TINGTONG
and I played the game about 7.5weeks from beta so on average 76Hrs/Week. I was hardcore. It's really sad how Aeria Games spit in my face and called me a cheater.
If they didn't want players selling cash shop items for in-game currency. they should have bound it to the buyer any way.. there is no reason to ban someone for your own games mechanic
very true i wouldn't be surprised if they end up doing that. banning some for being hardcore is just nuts. *shrugs*I've been playing eden eternal for a while now and I've also been playing other aeria games. I havent spent a single thing on cashshop items. And yet havent been banned. And I never heard a GM say something about trading item mall items for gold is a bannable offense. Eden Eternal was addicting at first but now that I've gotten farther into it, I enjoy it sometimes and then sometimes I dont. To me, aeria isn't all that bad. It's a company and a company is gonna do what it needs to do to survive. This is the first time I've ever heard of a GM banning a character for not buying item mall items, that right there is just uncalled for.
MMORPGs FTW
Aeria Games is also not above the practice of manipulating their BBB rating.
http://www.aeriagames.com/forums/en/viewtopic.php?t=319617
I just read the title of this thread and could see where this was going. It's the same title that was used for RoM and Allods too haha. I heard of Aeria but I've never played any of their games. I've quit f2p games for this lame reason. The dumb CS. The only game I'm looking remotely forward to in f2p is Age of Wulin.
Honestly I can see both sides of the argument here. However as a player I would naturaly side with you. You were just playing the game very well, you knew what was selling, when to sell it, and how to sell it. You sir are a digital merchant.
However playing the other side (I love to put myself in other people's shoes) you were infact building up tons of in game cash. To most mmo devs this looks suspicious. Here you are gathering up lots of gold... for what purpose? Was there something you were trying to save up for? From what you stated on the blog you were just gathering gold for the sake of it. I don't think they banned you because you didn't pay for anything. In truth you did pay, with real world time. Other people paid for those objects you bought and you paid for them with your time... aka your in game gold. So in a way Ariea wouldn't have made any money if it wern't for you since those who bought item shop stuff bought it for the purposes of selling it on the AH and if you sir wern't their then they wouldn't have bought it because their were no true buyers.
I think plain and simple your account seemed suspicious to them. Some of the objects you were buying or being bought from you could have been bought by gold farmers or bots or what ever. There was no way for ariea games to gain proof that you yourself wern't a gold farmer. They just see an abnormaly large ammount of money on an account without any rhyme or reason and then see some minor connections to known gold farmers and they jump the gun, shoot first ask questions later.
Now as I mentioned before I believe you are innocent and that they are commiting a gaming atrosity against you. Your account should be reinstated and if they have a problem with you buying and selling at such a rate then they need to use their mighty developer skills and come up with a way to hinder you from being so dang uber great at what you do. However the game prides itself on allowing people to play truely for free if they're good enough. The problem is you're a good example of how the game may let you win for free but the company is so paranoid that it jumps at every gold hording account they see.
In short you've reinforced my feeling that P2P is the way to go if only for security purposes. I would never say that it's your fault but perhaps if you love a game so much that you'd commit so much time to, next time you could toss them like $15 bucks worth of item shop purches if only to say "hey dudes, thanks for letting me rock your game's world keep it up and keep the lights on in the office."
I think the truth is, judging from your responses in your ban mails you probably hurt someone's feelings with that "great customer service" comment. Here you are an uber player not paying for their game and then making puns against "Free" customer service. In the end you may have just pissed someone off and they're using your gold as a way to get back at you. It's a sucky situation. Perhaps you could get a lawyer to pick up a case for you.
Like I said before I was more then willing to fork over $15/month for the game, after all I had aquired $2,000-$3,000 Cash Shop AP items. I was seriously considering the 10-slot bags when they came out because I had 15 5-slot bags I could convert. The problem was timing, I couldn't go a week in that game without getting banned and having to file a ban appeal. So you can see why I wasn't eager to spend $15 to say "Good Job" The content was lacking, to me it wasn't even a finished game. The only thing I COULD do was play the Auction House or get Ninja'd in Heroics... and I rather make the gold and buy the items and not waste my time crying over some ninja who took my item.
[GM]Tactics the Product Manager has directly accused me of hacking the game in their shoutbox. The only logical reason I can see is if they uncovered some bug or that made it seem like I had been hacking. Based on my previous bans I think it's a more accurate assumption that they were treating anyone with large sums of gold a gold famer/hacker.
I mean if you really look at it, if you accuse a customer of hacking your game and duping items it speaks volumes about your Company and their staff's ability to code properly. I'm sure other MMO's don't have to worry about items being duped or have to perform 2-3hr server rollbacks because they can't code and test their game properly. Sad part is they are just Copy/Pasting a game already developed in Taiwan.
I could never take my case to court because "My time" is all based on entertainment. You cannot sue someone for being "entertained" poorly. I will however be the biggest crittic on every MMO site, spreading the word on how this company treats their customers. Even if 1% of the people who read my Blog take my advise it will far exceed the $2,000-$3,000 cash shopitems I collected. I will never stop, I will always have spiders looking for Eden Eternal links to spread the word until this game gets shut down.
I think you said it all right their, they did a blanket ban of accounts that had to much gold. In their collective minds they couldn't take any risks. I would say its unethical to blanket ban your case is an extreamly good point of that. Unfortunatly with all our technological advances and all the great gaming entertainment we have, we gamers have almost no rights as customers. I believe there was a blog on this page about how the EULAs and such are written in such a way that we lose all of our rights to complain. In essence when we play MMOs we are truely at the mercy of the devs. That is the problem with MMOs versus offline games. You own your PS3 or Xbox 360 games, but you don't own an MMO. You own the disks you may have gotten when you bought a boxed title but if blizzard shuts down WoW tomorrow their is nothing any of its millions of players can do. Sadly I had my PS3 account banned and Sony won't listen to my pleas to have it reinstated. It was hacked once and someone charged stuff on my credit card (over $250 on PSP games) and I guess a spamer also got into my account. I didn't do those things but because my account was abused or part of an abuse sony thought it was just easier to ban the account and force me to make a new one which is what I did.
It's unfortunate but I've found in the online gaming world it's best to keep your head down. Devs are the tyrants of the gaming world. Some are wonderful and kind and others are cruel and abusive. Sometimes they have to do harsh things to protect themselves, other players, and even you. For all we know gold farmers and such truely were starting to hack your account. Or perhaps their was evidence of other IP adresses logging into your account which made them want to ban your account. Unfortunately their is no way to know what happens to your account when you're logged off. My PSN account is an example of that.
I'm not truely trying to defend Aeria, I think they should review your case in detail, even look at all your evidence and look at the logs. If nothing is found they should reinstate your account and let you play again. It would be nice if they'd do that but as I mentioned they have all the power and we gamers have none. The truth is the fight for gaming rights has just begun (and in some cases hasn't even started). We as gamers diserve the right to protect our investments. I think if its an account you spent money on and they ban it you should get a full refund of all your purcheses. However that is a long time coming... if ever.
No, it's not hilarious. Why should a company SUCK A** just because it's giving a free service which it is possibly profiting from because the cash shop actually is a decent way to get money.
You sir are a moron.
Are you ironic or plain dumb?
When customer service turn into "WE BAN YOU FOR FUN AND THEN DISCREDIT YOU" it's really okay to complain.
Let's say you walk into a bar, the entrance is free and they actually want people to come in there. Let's say you don't spend a NICKLE in the bar. Should the bartender be able to kick you out, then claim you didn't follow SOME rule? What that rule is you don't know, because they don't tell you. But since you didn't pay anything, I guess it's okay that two beefy guards just drag you and throw you into the streets, right? You don't complain, sir. You didn't pay.
Yet another corupt company shafting it's customers/users, they have banned a player
for making the most out of their game for free & they don't like it! plain & simple
They have handled this so badly they give the industry a bad name it's absolutely
disgracful & totally pathetic.
The Deathstar destroyed planets...Lucas Arts destroyed Galaxies
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Played:
SWG | EVE | WOW | VG | LOTRO | WAR | FML | STO | APB | AOC | MORTAL | WOT | BP | SW:TOR
To drop further oil into the fire. Why didn't AG conduct a thorough investigation of your account. I know for a fact that the technicians could've easily looked at your transfers and timing to give the all clear on your trades. You did nothing wrong, but doing the AH game at a time when they decided to go for a mass front against gold sellers.
@Topic of playing the AH game: I would never be able to pull this of due to time restraints, but if it's possible and in accordance with the game's mechanics then it's legit imho.