RE: Customer Service response to suspensions

The play nice policy has changed. It doesn't say anything about kill stealing anymore.

JAy How STUPIT are you! This is a GAME Not Murder

No way! Are you sure? I thought this was real life!

There is no customer service.

re: "play nice" policy change? The KSers are guilty of #2 and #3, and the GMs were provided with petitions, reports and screenshots showing this, and at least this one GM decides not to bother to stop these perps from harassing players. KSing is certainly not playing nice, and it is a form of harassment, and of interfering with the normal playability of the zone. There is NO excuse for this type of behavior and for DB to allow and condone this is just shameful.

lmao. you must be new to EQ...

This is another impudence of daybreak.

First you messed up gameplay on Antonius Bayle for 14 month. You totally ignored the problems until the release of RoS was imminent. Then you lead us to believe that you would mend the server. Of course you failed again (we still have huge lagspikes).

2nd you released a totally bugged expansion. There have been so many errors (110 rezz bug, mercs gain no xp (still bugged), iksar monk xp bug, monks stats bugs ....... shall I go on??????) and for the incompetent programming YOU are responsible for, you punish abritrarily innocent people and let the real exploiters walk away uncharged.

Raidgame on AB is already on the brink of extinction and you start to suspend randomly guiltless players?!?!?! We have endured a lot on AB - you make another move that pushes the server community over the edge. All our three guildies that you have punished despotically for doing nothing wrong are stunned and have threatened to cease playing.

I wonder how you would feel in real life if someone just puts you in chains and prison for 7 days for some crime you haven't commited. And when you try to see the evidence against you, they don't show you nothing and tell you to shut up and just receive your punishment without further quetioning????

Again - you bungled up. You and the real exploiters are the people that should be punished, not the players that happend to do a mission and didn't know that you bugged this very mission.

Take responsibility for your own moronism and release the innocent players.

I am with you on most you wrote in that post.
Especially the raiding part of course.

Yet, how do you propose to tell "innocent" people from "the exploiters", when key point indicators well.. indicate that all of them have "benefitted" from that thing at hand?
I kind of doubt the "innocent" people were totally unknown about any "wrong doing" on their part, when they've repeated a mission (much) sooner than they should have - the concept of lockouts is so wel known that we even have a command for it in the group content - and a whole window for the raid stuff.

Back in EoK we did whole evenings, perhaps starting with Hero missions, then moving on the chardok HAs, labs HAs and perhaps the Droga one in between. this was just because of the lockouts - you had to move on to another mission to get your currencies.
So i find it highly unbelieveable that people would think it "ok" or have no "bad concience" to do certain mission(s) over and over suddenly.
And even though i all for a case-by-case ruling instead of trusting just one Database-Analysis, i don't think i could come up with a better plan to compromize on both punishing the offenders and being as fair and objective as possible.

Wow you really don't read what some people are saying on here Zhaunil_AB.

I had the unfortunate luck of being in a group where the leader of the mission kicked the whole group out of the Overthere group mission before he opened up the chest. I NEVER REDID THAT MISSION AFTER! It was days later that I did another OT Mission. I DID NOT LOOT ANYTHING FROM THAT MISSION THAT NIGHT EITHER. I had NO CONTROL over the leader of that mission kicking my character out of the mission. Because the leader of the mission kicked out my character I got tagged as exploiting that mission when I DID NOT DO ANYTHING WRONG!!!!

AS TO HOW CAN THEY CHECK? That is as simple as a FIND search in their kill logs! They as a company know ever mob that we take out and the time stamps for doing so. They as a company know every mission we have ever joined and a TIME STAMP for doing so. THEY HAVE A WAY TO CHECK AND THEY DID NOT CHECK ANYONE! They went in checked who had been removed from the mission (BY themselves removing or having it done to them by the leader of the mission removing them) and they saw. Oh their character was out of the mission before the chest was opened so OH BOY they exploited the mission. 7 days suspension for them.

I DID NOT CHEAT THAT EXPLOIT!
I DID NOT REGET THAT MISSION NOR DID I KILL THAT NAMED MORE THAN ONE TIME IN ANY GIVEN DAY!!!!
THE LEADER OF THAT MISSION WAS THE ONE THAT HAD TOTAL CONTROL OVER KICKING MY CHARACTER OUT OF IT AND IN DOING SO THIS COMPANY ALLOWED THAT PERSON TO HARM MY CHARACTER!!!!!!!!

LEARN THE FACTS BEFORE YOU GO ABOUT ACCUSING PEOPLE OF CHEATING AND CLAIMING THERE ISN'T A WAY TO CHECK.

Because there are SEVERAL ways that this company could of checked FIND time stamp of KILLING THE MOB who killed the mob before the 6 hour lock out timer? Who got the mission again before the 6 hour lock out timer and did they kill the named? Who got loot from the mission and REDID IT all using their own company records. A simple FIND TIME STAMP ON KILLS / MISSIONS JOINED-LEFT/LOOT RECEIVED OUT OF THE CHEST and they DID NOT DO ANY OF THEM THEY went with the "were they out of the mission before the chest was opened".

There are INNOCENT PEOPLE OUT THERE that were kicked out of the mission by the leader of that mission and they did not cheat that mission and yet they were suspended because that person kicked them out.

WE ALL HAVE NO CONTROL OVER OUR OWN ACCOUNTS WHEN IN MISSIONS WITH SOMEONE ELSE!!!! The way that Daybreak has this set up the LEADER of ANY MISSION has total control over our accounts if all Daybreak is going to go on is when the persons were kicked/removed from the mission to base their suspensions and wrong doings on.

NOW do you get why so many people are seriously pissed and upset over this?

I DID NOT DO A GD THING WRONG AND THIS COMPANY IS PUNISHING ME BECAUSE THEY ALLOWED GAVE TOTAL CONTROL TO A GROUP LEADER OF THE MISSION TO TOTALLY SCREW WITH MY ACCOUNT!!!!!!!!!!!!

TBH your specific case is of little to no interest to me.
I think - no i am quite sure - i was replying to somebody else's post.

"WE ALL HAVE NO CONTROL OVER OUR OWN ACCOUNTS"
Yes because in their logic we do not own them.
As you go on and mention a specific case though, i remember wanting to kick a box as Taskleader and finding i could not, since "the task does not allow players to be removed at this time".
I do not know if that were the case there or not, nor do i care to verify, but well... there would be something constructive for you to spend energy on i guess.

"a find search"... what's that supposed to be, exactly?
you go on a lot of assumptions on which date they have, and for how long.
I too think they have loads of data and since storage is generally cheap i am inclined to believe they even keep it around for quite some time too. TIME is not much of an issue here, for this mission - only perhaps for the other exploitable missions that were mentioned.
Now, you say they got the data.
THEY say they used it and are sure to have hit the right people.
You say you were a false positive.
To verify or disprove that, one would have to know what exact query they've made - i do not know that, but i guess they know their data better than you and me together and i have to trust them to do such things thoroughly and not to take false positives lightly.
PERHAPS, i mean just PERHAPS there were some OTHER things you did that raised flags too!?

"THEY HAVE A WAY TO CHECK AND THEY DID NOT CHECK ANYONE!"
You are probably right and wrong at the same time there.
You seem to believe that they arbitrarily picked some account numbers out of a hat and banned those on a whim.
I am quite sure though that - while they did not check anyone on an individual basis - they did something like
UPDATE account_status
SET membership = "suspended"
WHERE account_ID IN (SELECT ... FROM... WHERE condition1 AND condition2 ... AND conditionN);
The "secret" is to know what exactly was in those conditions that made "false possibles" - as you claim to be - possible.
We can make assumptions and guess, some more educated than others, on what those conditions might have been, but unless they were to post them or were forced to publish them (e.g. as proof in a court), we are unlikely to EVER get to actually KNOW.
So in the end it's their word against yours.
*shrug*
Guess who's sitting on the longer lever?


"learn the facts" lol...
That is asking the impossible, as well... as i outlined above, none of us know which conditions they deemed formed a bannable/suspendable offense.
But you are right:
I read individual posts throroughly only, not the entire rant thread - that i give mostly a cursory glance until something catches my eye.
Such as your "shouting" by capital letters.. good to see that you are proficient with the shift-key!


Your side is, like it or not, quite irrelevant - especially to ME.
I have to TRUST (i hope you are no stranger to the concept) that their choice of conditions did make sense for the case at hand. Claiming they didn't as you do without supplying anything tangible... that is exactly what they write under "excuses not to use" under the suspension-appeal category (and yes i checked that at least, cause i wanted to see what chances people like you have for a reversal and guess what? i think they are rapidly approaching zero. in your case, i would hope they ARE zero - simply based on your obnoxiousness.
Right or wrong - either way you getting angry at me for asking someone ELSE a question that you cannot/did not answer either, won't help you in the least except to vent some steam perhaps.
If me THINKING that "false positives" are not too likely because i like to expect from other people the same thoroughness that i would apply angers you, then so be it. Keep it to yourself though.
As i said, i am not interested in your case, and did not comment on it either. so bark up some other tree!
Forum rules prohibit me stating here what i would like to state so i'll leave it at that.

I am SHOCKED to read this! And i expect the first stone to be thrown by you!

Oh, i "get that" that perfectly well - even way before your post.
As i already posted, it's because some children were caught with their sticky hands in the honeypot.
A perfectly understandable, if immature, human reaction to "i do not get my will!" or "i thought i was brilliant and it turns out i am just a ".
Mostly encountered in pre-school and before though.
I am distraught to find it directed at me though - makes me wanna reach for my ruler for some more hand-slapping...
*muses* Ah those good old times!

That's what you say and i have have to take your word on it at face value, just like i have to take "their" decisions and rulings.
IF - and that to me is a small if - you were truly "innocent", then all i can say to you is that you probably should pick the company you keep more carefully.
And since this answer has gone on for far too long again, trying to take your ranting at me "seriously":
fare thee well!

Hey zhaunil, they make medication for the issues you have. I recommend seeking some help.

Hear that Zhaunil? Better take some meds. You've been officially diagnosed with a mental illness by bratty1212 on the official Everquest forums. Sorry for the bad news. I hope you have good insurance.

I normally stay out of conversations like this, but recent events have changed that.

Today, my wife was interrogated by a GM regarding the Fell Foliage mission. She completed it on December 17th... once. The GM stated his records showed she completed it on December 27th, after the task was dropped. In reality, the task was attempted on December 27th, but the group dropped it after a total wipe, and decided not to re-attempt, and was not completed by anyone. To top it off, the GM then indicated they were asking before the next round of e-mails went out.

I am extremely concerned about this. My wife isn't the best at talking to people in authority, and didn't exactly express herself as clearly as she could have. It also didn't help that the GM was talking "in character"... and played an ogre. My wife is extremely upset right now, just based on the accusations of cheating.

First, the data that the GM was referencing does have some discrepancies that need to be looked at. The SQL query (referenced above) does appear to have some false positives on it. I, too, am curious what it consists of... especially since the GM was contradicting their own statement. How does a person drop a task THEN complete it? Not possible. It also shows a lack of understanding on basic game mechanics.

I think these are fair questions to ask, and if accusations are being made... falsely... we should be able to question the integrity of the data. At first, I assumed people crying "false flag" were just trying to protect face. I am now confident that innocent people are being swept up in this.

Yeah Turlo. At the moment I consider that as a fact. There is innocent people that hasnt done any exploit that they are aware of. And theese people are getting the seven days suspension. Including myself. I think they should only have punish the people who did this mission over and over again. It should be very obvious who truly exploited and who hasnt. And they must see some sort of diffrence otherwise the suspension time wouldnt be diffrence. And they are.

Zhaunil, its not about getting caught with your hand in the honeypot. Its about beeing accused for it when you didnt take any honey. Or you didnt even feel like getting some honey cause you know it makes your mouth sticky and ruin your teeths in the long term. Im on a low carb diet just so you know...

What should they do? The people who got the 7 days suspension should have gotten a warning sent to their email. That their logs indicates that they may have been involved in an exploit during Fell Foliage mission. Or like the old times when you actually had a GM talking with people. But thoose days are gone.

The task was down on the 23rd, so the 27th is impossible.

I am truly sorry that you are punished for an infraction that was apparently not caused by you, but by someone else. But please consider this: DBG has 11 active servers where the fell foliage mission was available and abused by a few. They ran a cross-check through their logs about which groups were involved. I can understand that they didn't follow each group member's log whether they actually benefitted of the exploit, but suspended the group as a whole. How much manhours do you think they can spare to thoroughly check each "positive" if a few "false positives" are mixed in.

If this was your first infraction, you will have been suspended for 7 days, which is annoying, but hardly severe. In case of people who got longer suspensions, this was not the first infraction, which subsequently reduces their credibility about "I didn't do anything wrong" (don't take this personally, I am generalising here).

For everything else, all I can say is "Cling together, swing together". If you don't want to get caught up in somebody else's actions - don't group with them!

Finding that pretty weird, as OT was Down well into 2018.

To Zhaunil_AB

I think it's quite easy to point out a real exploiter. If someone has a kill message of the named cactus 5 times an hour - well.... guess what.

Our fellow guildies had one kill message of the cactus once a day .... hmm. Yes they were truely guilty of exploiting (for the Devs - this is harsh sarcasm - not any confession. AGAIN THIS IS SARCASM).

And to Igniz.

There are innocent people being punished for things they haven't done.

So, your implying they should just take the punishment and shut up about it.

A long time ago in germany we had such a regime that lived by those rules. Fortunately those times are gone. And recommending to eat similar treatment without any objections is truely making me sick.

Thanks Pfaffe, for comparing my post to NS-Germany 1936-1945 ... a suspension of 7 days is quite possibly the same as a firing squad or gas chamber to you. Congratulations on setting a new low record for the common-sense bar.


Auntie Edith sayeth: Be careful, though, whom you compare DBG officials to. You might find yourself be suspended for it Oh, dang ...

Auntie Edith even something more to say: Also, a reason for the suspension was given. It was "Our evidence showed, that you exploited a mission" (take special notice of the word "evidence"). Feel free to appeal your case, DBG will then manually check the suspensions on a case-by-case basis; if the suspension is upheld though, you should probably start wondering what you have done wrong.