Auto-ban cause of high mail traffic?

[Caladiel]

Now I hope our clan crafter doesn't get banned either..
They create a crafting system where you have to depend on other people and then they go ban the one person you need to depend on?

This screams insane stupidity in my frank opinion.

Bad publicity is what this will cause for NCsoft if this continious at the current rate.

[Tsukaza]

Banning based on silly logic is not correct, people may not understand it however...

[KaiserxKai]

Want to find bots?

Go stake out the solo dungeon entrances near Nayru temple.

 

I see like 3-5 bot popping out of thin air, entering, and exiting, at in sync.

 

Also consider that bots can grind field bosses like the deva for endless amount of soul shield boxes and they 100% can be scrapped for fusion powder, which can be sold for 2-3 copper on the market in the hundreds (literally).

 

Or they can sell the soul shields for 1 copper each, and since there are up to a hundred bots, they make hundreds of coppers a minute or something.

 

If you as a dev wants to find the main culprit of bots, just gotta stake them out and flag them to recieve 'every single activity' they do.

 

Chances are, at some point they funnel their resources to one account, OR if they are smart and we should assume they are, they funnel into one temporary account to trade to mail towards a player. Assuming they are smart, they won't interact with their own bots but will be watching them.

 

In that case, set up some 'traps' to make their bots not work, and stake them out for a few hours to see how they respond to fix it, you could catch something interesting.

 

These bots utilize channel switching and likes to do things in places people don't go to or notice, the best way to stake them out is outside the game, using a specially created client that works alongside the server, to log anyone who is flagged as a bot, and their interaction with one another.

 

Then code that software to draw a 'interaction map' sorta like a web map.

 

Unless NCSoft is too cheap to bother investing in better 'security' tech and concepts.

 

In the business world, 'security' is considered 'not profitable'... LOL.

[Warfare]

Yeah nice teaching there bro, but point here is not to discuss how we can find bots and such. We just want our guild member back. Also I believe that this auto-ban system fails so badly that it must be removed/rethinked. It is just too easy to ban an account for sending 100x+ the same message in a window, we all know that. Now withdraw Maemi's ban and apologize your poor auto-ban cr4p.

[Tsukaza]

This means only 1 thing, mass banning incoming for guilds that are organized.

[Anjon]

17 minutes ago, Tsukaza said:

This means only 1 thing, mass banning incoming for guilds that are organized.

Or, OR... It was just an honest mistake that will easily get fixed if you just file a support claim and wait patiently.

[Kensho1996]

5 hours ago, Marqin said:

 

Actually some bots are doing this ( already saw bots with that premium star ).

 

 

Lot of bots - people angry.

Banhammer applied  - people still angry.

 

It's not easy to recognize a bot, and autobanning them will always ban few legimate players. Just fill polite complain to support and wait.

HE said the premium for one year .. all premiums get that star i think it is the outfit that is a sign someone has a year long premium ..

 

as for the issue YEAH I do agree that the ban hammer is needed but hopefully IF it is all a valid reason he will be back up and running quickly..

[Tsukaza]

9 minutes ago, Anjon said:

Or, OR... It was just an honest mistake that will easily get fixed if you just file a support claim and wait patiently.

 

2 minutes ago, Kensho1996 said:

HE said the premium for one year .. all premiums get that star i think it is the outfit that is a sign someone has a year long premium ..

 

as for the issue YEAH I do agree that the ban hammer is needed but hopefully IF it is all a valid reason he will be back up and running quickly..

 

Lets hope so, but the situation itself is very unconfortable

[SakiMiyanaga]

4 minutes ago, Anjon said:

Or, OR... It was just an honest mistake that will easily get fixed if you just file a support claim and wait patiently.

I don't get it, in youtube when youtubers get a strike and their channels are taken down because of poor management of punishments dished out by youtube's algorithm, people rally but here, the GMs created an automatic banning program to automatically ban a certain pool of people which included innocent users people defend them. Why? Because you're not affected? I'm sorry but the way NCSoft's support team work, it's vague if this problem will ever be solved. Even after the unban how sure are we that it won't happen again? How sure are we that the GMs would fix the flawed program so that we won't have to waste a day or two (or a week, month, honestly who knows) talking with an unresponsive support team? No we are not. Fact is NCSoft showed that they are willing to sacrifice the experience of innocent users just to get their job done the easy way.

[jwhennies]

why is ncsoft banning so many innocent people but there are so many bots still 

[Anjon]

1 minute ago, SakiMiyanaga said:

I don't get it, in youtube when youtubers get a strike and their channels are taken down because of poor management of punishments dished out by youtube's algorithm, people rally but here, the GMs created an automatic banning program to automatically ban a certain pool of people which included innocent users people defend them. Why? Because you're not affected? I'm sorry but the way NCSoft's support team work, it's vague if this problem will ever be solved. Even after the unban how sure are we that it won't happen again? How sure are we that the GMs would fix the flawed program so that we won't have to waste a day or two (or a week, month, honestly who knows) talking with an unresponsive support team? No we are not. Fact is NCSoft showed that they are willing to sacrifice the experience of innocent users just to get their job done the easy way.

First, this isn't even remotely similar to the way Youtube handles account terminations. For one, the act of actually terminating an account is not automated. Human beings do that after reviewing sets of account flags which ARE automated. The flagging system isn't perfect, which is why humans have to get involved along the way. What's more, erroneous flagging is usually resolved within the same day. Just look to the famous example of Super Bunnyhop who had his account flagged when Konami filed a wrongful claim against him for his Konami vs Kojima video. Bunnyhop was on a plane and the entire incident began, ended, and was resolved before he landed.

 

Second, when Youtube actually does close an account, that account is closed permanently. It's not a ban, it's Account Termination, which NCSoft also employs, but not in this instance. This was just a ban, which may be temporary, under review, or any number of things. It means that NCSoft is aware that this could be a mistake and left the system open to account for that.

 

Expecting NCSoft to implement the kinds of huge, sweeping changes players keep requesting without making a few mistakes is an insanely unreasonable standard to hold them up to, and I implore people do some research into how these kinds of systems function at a basic level before throwing staff under the bus.

[Infidel]

This is the problem with any scripted bot response, and why I always try to criticize those that believe that scripted bot responses are the best.  I've yet to find a scripted bot response that didn't also affect legitimate players. 

 

Auto-ban scripts are probably the worst, gag scripts are better provided they route to a person that reviews them, and allows for players to explain when an action triggers a false positive.

 

Certainly, no autoban script should take effect without first issuing an auto-warning. I understand that devs want to hind their bot searching methods, but when it is something obvious that autobans players, people should be advised they activated a trigger, so they can moderate or back off.

[bandsnewbie]

24 minutes ago, Anjon said:

Or, OR... It was just an honest mistake that will easily get fixed if you just file a support claim and wait patiently.

 

honest mistake...

 

You know i think at one point Star Trek Online put in a chat filter that would ban bots if they put in certain words in their chat advertisements.  But they must not have put much thought into how this would affect legit players.  People would get banned for warning their friends "hey stay away from /\/\ /\/\ <> gold its got keyloggers".  I think i also heard a story about how one person got banned because he was talking to another guildie about some work he had done to his house.

[Kensho1996]

26 minutes ago, SakiMiyanaga said:

I don't get it, in youtube when youtubers get a strike and their channels are taken down because of poor management of punishments dished out by youtube's algorithm, people rally but here, the GMs created an automatic banning program to automatically ban a certain pool of people which included innocent users people defend them. Why? Because you're not affected? I'm sorry but the way NCSoft's support team work, it's vague if this problem will ever be solved. Even after the unban how sure are we that it won't happen again? How sure are we that the GMs would fix the flawed program so that we won't have to waste a day or two (or a week, month, honestly who knows) talking with an unresponsive support team? No we are not. Fact is NCSoft showed that they are willing to sacrifice the experience of innocent users just to get their job done the easy way.

One of the issues are that SO many people are VERY frustrated with the spammers and are calling for extreme measures ..

 

NCSoft IS trying but yes sadly it is catching potentially innocent players .. kind of unfair but we can't have it all ways .. 

 

My major issue with this is that I have seen people complaining about getting no response or the message that the issue will not be responded to which is an issue IF the person is innocent of wrong doing

 

Like the one here MAYBE the game is only flagging mail and not where said items were coming from and we have possible spammers/farmers "working" the market in game making the market unusable by others

 

I stand by my hopes that IF the guy (and any others wrongly accused) is innocent he gets his access back quickly BUT sadly this is also the fault of the gold farmers and ANYONE who buys the gold from them

[SeaxRising]

5 hours ago, Sergiul said:

I`ve seen many bots with premium. And was still wondering how the hell is that possible...

More than likely these premium BOTs are the accounts that people paid these companies to power-level. You contact said company, give them ALL your log-in information, pay them too much money and they're supposed to level you to max. In a LOT of instances they actually take your money AND your account, strip it and spam their website. WHY would these companies even bother wasting money on accounts when people PAY THEM to take their info??

[GnatB]

7 hours ago, Soly said:

Its not about me. He did fill complain but this is unbelievable what ncsoft is doing. From this auto bans, 99% will be innocent ppl.

 

I have to disagree that 99% will be innocent.  And if the system is designed right, getting "unbanned" should be relatively easy... heck, odds are only the innocent would complain, so I wouldn't be all that surprised if they don't even look into the "unban" request, and pretty much rubber stamp it.

[SakiMiyanaga]

55 minutes ago, Anjon said:

First, this isn't even remotely similar to the way Youtube handles account terminations. For one, the act of actually terminating an account is not automated. Human beings do that after reviewing sets of account flags which ARE automated. The flagging system isn't perfect, which is why humans have to get involved along the way. What's more, erroneous flagging is usually resolved within the same day. Just look to the famous example of Super Bunnyhop who had his account flagged when Konami filed a wrongful claim against him for his Konami vs Kojima video. Bunnyhop was on a plane and the entire incident began, ended, and was resolved before he landed.

 

Second, when Youtube actually does close an account, that account is closed permanently. It's not a ban, it's Account Termination, which NCSoft also employs, but not in this instance. This was just a ban, which may be temporary, under review, or any number of things. It means that NCSoft is aware that this could be a mistake and left the system open to account for that.

 

Expecting NCSoft to implement the kinds of huge, sweeping changes players keep requesting without making a few mistakes is an insanely unreasonable standard to hold them up to, and I implore people do some research into how these kinds of systems function at a basic level before throwing staff under the bus.

First, thanks for going through how youtube works, but you're missing the point. It's the over all attitude of letting this incident turn into an 'honest mistake'. While people on the first one do not say it's an 'honest mistake' here in NCSoft, apparently being lazy and leaving it to an automated program is.
Second, yeah that wrongful claim surely got solved fast, how's that connected to NCSoft and this current problem we have again? Oh yes, nothing except if you're trying to highlight how much of a crawl NCSoft's support team works by comparing it to that.
Third, expecting NCSoft to work properly for its customers, as how they should be doing in the first place is not absurd at all. What's absurd is people who are not affected by their lazy practices are defending them as if they have something to gain or lose in the matter. How long has this genre been alive? It's ridiculous to say that NCSoft was not prepared to fight bots and RMT when the practice is older than they are and instead resorted to this bullsh** that encroaches on innocent players too. But yeah, people who are currently doing the arena, or maybe the E. Supply Chain can not possibly share the same concern right now because screw the victims right? Maybe the wait won't be so bad if we had at least a proper announcement about this. But instead what we get is other users telling fellow users to wait with the hopes and speculation that the support team would do its job properly.
Fourth, I'm not saying it's wrong to screw up. Making a mistake is a part of moving forward but when you step on people's toes you apologize and try to make amends as fast as possible. From where I'm standing, it looks like NCSoft chose the lazy route of banning everyone from a certain pool with an automated program instead of properly investigating but I may be wrong, they might have put some effort and some thought about this. But now that the outcome has shown itself to be utter garbage, have they done anything to repair the situation? From where I'm standing? No, they have not, and that's the real problem here.

[Caladiel]

Seeing as they refuse to answer or do anything about their mistakes is telling.
They just will not take responsibility for their error publicly.

I think the only way to get them to pay attention and change their ways is kick them in the chin with a publication on gaming websites from personal experience of affected players. That might be the only way for them to pay attention, if at all.

[WildKitty]

hopefully has been released and back to BNS community :)