DBG has suspended Overrated guild members for not complying with a player-made rotation

Drama helmet on.

Good afternoon.
Earlier today my account, acccount namexxxxxxxx), with a druid named 'Voide' in the guild Overrated on the Lockjaw server was suspended for Violating the Lockjaw rotation. If you'll indulge me for the next few minutes, I'd like to point out how insanely ludicrous this suspension is.
Lets start with the reason that you ban or suspend accounts: "Players are either banned or suspended for violating the End User Licence Agreement and for creating an unfriendly or unfair gaming environment for other player"
So if you will, please link me to the section of the EULA where by creating a character on Lockjaw I agree to a player-made, non daybreak-game, guild raid rotation.
So I got suspended for buying an in-game item, giving it to a wizard, using an in-game spell, and killing mobs in that zone. What if I've never even heard of the rotation? Where is the pop-up that warns me about a Daybreak Games supported player-made rotation that I'm not on warning me that I'll be suspended? Nowhere. Because I was contacted by a member of another guild, MIM, who obviously have a member who is an employee of your company. They are also instantly closing and suspending accounts of my guild who are trying to report this same action. I have every expectation in the world that this same ticket and account will suffer the same fate, hence why I plan to copy the contents if it to as many outlets I can which involve Everquest.
So again, to summarize, I've been banned for playing the game and not agreeing to a raid arrangement made by the biggest guilds on the server to serve their own purpose. There's no requirement that if you play on the server you have to comply to their raid mechanics. What are we expected to do? Sign up or not raid the planes at all?
I expect nothing to come from this, but if you're going to suspend my account then please strip all active subscriptions including credit card information. I have no interest in playing a game where a corrupt GM system that lives inside large raid guilds can control an entire server.

You might ask why I'm posting this here. For visibility. DBG is insta-closing new tickets from my guild members who are creating accounts to argue their suspension regarding the player-made raid rotation.

Incase this thread gets mysteriously closed:

https://www.reddit.com/r/everquest/comments/3jowjd/daybreak_games_has_suspended_overrated_guild/

Have you considered charging back every dollar ever paid to SoE/DBG for fraud?

I agree, player mode rotations leading to suspensions is silly. But, DBG has posted, re-posted and explained that the player made rotations MUST be followed by guilds, and players, including the entire server.

When you agree to the EULA, you agree to DBGs rules and regulations. If a guide comes to you, and says hey, dont do something. And you continually do it, thats grounds for punishment. It doesnt matter the action, this isnt REAL LIFE where theres a court system where you can argue and plead your case. This is Everquest, where DBG is the Judge, Jury and Executioner.

DBG decided upon giving power to the players to make a rotation that would eliminate drama, since they dont have the manpower, nor the willpower to deal with raiding drama that is BOUND TO HAPPEN on a server like this.

Therefore, since the rotation is supported by DBG, when you elect to play their game, youre already agreeing to said rotation, and all of the rules it entails.

Now if you feel the rotation is not fair, or just, you have the power to band together with your guild and gain access to the rotation by killing several different mobs. Then, you can have a voice, and perhaps request and see through changes that you feel would benefit the server.

While i understand your frustration, you will see nothing come of this. Everquest is a dying game, no amount of bad press or whatever you think the outcome of this will be, could hurt it anymore than it already is.

Hey, this is Police Officer McButts. It's currently 9:03, and I've been told that your mother assigned you a 9:00 curfew.

• You have the right to remain silent when questioned.
• Anything you say or do may be used against you in a court of law.
• You have the right to consult an attorney before speaking to the police and to have an attorney present during questioning now or in the future.
• If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you before any questioning, if you wish.
• If you decide to answer any questions now, without an attorney present, you will still have the right to stop answering at any time until you talk to an attorney.
• Knowing and understanding your rights as I have explained them to you, are you willing to answer my questions without an attorney present?

"What if I've never even heard of the rotation?"
What if you followed the rules since you knew about them?
My guess, you would be playing right now instead of posting.

To quote the great Pauly D

Kind of hard to not hear of a rotation being its stickied all over the TLP forums; that being said, is the suspension only for the TLP server - or are you unable to access any server?

I couldn't have scripted better responses from members of the guilds in the rotation.

Was there required mediation in good faith with a 3rd party? The guild leaders in the private thread were all suggesting at least 24 hrs, but even their own mediation has so far taken over a week for a single incident.

Pretty much all the rotation guild leaders and officers have currently got hair triggers. To prevent this happening I have suggested some kind of mutually agreed destruction, so at least if mediation fails there is a penalty for both sides.
My version was more extreme than another suggest version, but neither have really been adopted.

The rotation council are not addressing the root cause with sufficient due diligence, and ultimately what non-rotation guilds will be offered will be far less than what is really needed.

Suspensions should be for all DBG games, afaik. They're not server or game specific.

I agree with you; I don't have a dog in this race but I have noticed that every guild part of a rotation does have a hair trigger and are looking to use any minuscule reason to get another guild suspended / banned, so there really are no innocent parties here. A MAD policy would be quite entertaining and very effective; something to the effect of "Okay, we will suspend this guild - but because you didn't mediate as per suggested by the agreement - we will suspend your guild too". =)

I hope then the determination is made based on who the participants of the illegal raid are rather than every name attached to a guild tag. You could have someone away for a week and come back to a suspended account because of what someone else does; kind of a nasty situation there.

You did know about it, and told MIM that you didn't care and even that you liked vacations! Boo-hoo.

You obviously immediately got the idea, but for those that might not, here is what was my first contribution to the rotation council chat I was added to. It was almost universally criticized, though some elements were used for another version, which has also been pretty much ignored.
I can't post that version as it was in a private chat, and not my contribution.

Players are not aware that if DBG CS is called in by petition, specifically citing the rotation, that that is a call for immediate execution, not for some kind of 3rd party judgement of the situation.

It is totally unfair that people are being suspended without 3rd party mediation, in good faith.

BTW, it's the weekend. DBG don't work on the weekends usually. Especially a long holiday weekend like this one. You probably won't hear anything until tuesday at the earliest.

Every available method was used, including utilizing other guild leaders on the server, and informing the "victim" that he was in violation, that screenshots were being taken, logs submitted, etc.

He did not care and continued on killing. And now he kills no more. OH YEAH AND HE CAN'T BENEFIT FROM DOUBLE EXP WEEKEND!!! Oh noes...


(PS - hi Deymar!)

Croak,

Yes, a third party guild leader was called in to explain the situation to Xaphan, the guild leader of Overrated. He told them he was not going to comply and didn't care essentially. I don't have those logs so I cannot say exactly what was said there. What I can tell you is what he told me. His quote after I asked him if he cared to explain why he was violating the rotation, he stated "Sure, we don't agree with the rotation, we don't agree to it, we're not bound by it."

We're not required to wait 24 hours to call in customer service if one party refuses to mediate. We're only required to attempt mediation. If one party absolutely refuses to mediate, what would you have us do?

To clarify, Daybreak requested we create a rotation and we've done so. They're aware of the rules, and guilds large and small are participating in it. The rotation was not built to suit our purposes, and since it's inception it has nearly doubled in size of participating guilds. We openly welcome new guilds and accommodate them appropriately in their attempts to qualify.

I hope that clears things up for these concerns. Xaphan was warned, it was his choice to refuse mediation, and to violate the rotation. He knew what he was doing, and as a result got his guild suspended. This was not the fault of the rotation guilds.