Open farewell letter

[Zofinur]

Let me adress some ppl before i leave forever

@Balendros
You got the warning, you decided to ignore them. So you are accessary to what is happening from now on!
Dont just tell you are a senior, act like a senior! Hiding behind excuses is junior-like.

@Jeremy "UO Community Coordinator"
Dont u think 'coordinating' would mean collecting info and provide this to the community would be of great help?
And this time i dont meant 'discussing something private'!

@EA in general
Of course a huge company will win against a single customer in the end.
But is this really the way u wanted to handle a nine years playing & paying CUSTOMER that never got even a warning before?
Train ur employess in communicaion-skills.
Leaving out customers in helpless silence by ignoring them is no solution!

@Community in general
Keep on playing & enjoy the game! Until arbitrariness finally might hit u or ur friends.

@Europa-Community
Thnx a lot for the heads up, and those generous offers to get me back to the game. But as long as EA refuses to take my cash, i can´t accept any of these.
I wont mention any names, but so far i was offered
- keeps
- 150M gift with no questions asked
- 100M "unlimited loan"
- "all that i need"

@Flamers
No need to 'answer' here, i wont be able to read it!

All who did blind trust EA: Wake up! Errors are human & possible.

*sighs*
Remembering my W-o-u-d ...

And finally i want to say *CLICK*

 

[Salty Pete]

u tipe gud

 

[Mish o sha]

Adios

 

[Viper09]

 

[Jactiggy]

I believe that's because English isn't his first language Salty Pete, i believe he's German, though i could be COMPLETELY wrong there, apologies if that's the case.
Anyhow, I wish you all the luck in whatever it is you go on to next Zof.
Take care.

 

[AesSedai]

- Why did it take 3 weeks just to say that?
I have read of a few people unjustly banned over the years; and I have read about most of them overcoming those rare misappropriations.

But how does this 'goodbye' statement persuade me to believe that you were unjustly banned?

Your Stratics account is not tied to your EA account, and so far it doesn't look like you have been banned from Stratics. So, if you please, why should I believe you over EA?
Ahh, therein lies the folly, it seems: EA and Mythic do not talk about these things, so how can we ever know? But then again, why would they ever want to ban an innocent customer from paying them money?
Fare thee well.

 

[Lucy of Kenton]

farewell 'the zof'
maybe one day our paths will cross again

 

[Farscape]

One thing in life you have to remember
Never give up

 

[Hemisphere]

Well, personally I think it's pretty shocking that so many people are so quick to place judgement on someone they clearly know nothing about, based on an EA blanket ban decision!

Since when did people hold such weight in these rulings?

Pretty much everyone who knows Zofinur (and he is well known and loved on Europa) can see these accusations are fairly preposterous, and even if they are justified, surely nobody can argue that every player deserves a fair and frank explanation for their ban.

I personally own a substantial collection of rares, as is a common passtime of UO players (though not particularly one of Zofinur's as I recall), some of which have at some point in time been considered illegal. I always kept myself reassured by paging a GM whenever I was uncertain about something, and would sometimes ask to have everything rechecked just in case (lost a few nice things this way actually but it's always worth it for peace of mind)

If one day I found my accounts permabanned and a message similar to the one Zofinur got, I would be absolutely livid! So would anybody!

I don't know Zofinur well but it's not even like he's demanding to be unbanned, he just wants a SPECIFIC explanation, because the one he recieved is clearly too vague to determine whether the ban was justified or not, and as a 9 year player with no previous marks on his account, no one can argue that he at least deserves this.

 

[Mitzlplik_SP]

Let me adress some ppl before i leave forever

kktksbye

 

[Sarsmi]

It has got to be very frustrating to put in such a big time investment in a game, then lose your account and not ever know why. I feel for you on that score. The blanket banning and accompanying vague email were poorly executed. If they wanted to retain accounts (as shown by only banning the 'guilty' accounts versus other accounts using the same CC) they could have handled this much better.

150 accounts is not many, but apparently too many for each person to get an email tailored to themselves.

I still feel like something got screwed up along the line. Maybe whoever did the bannings didn't do the investigations, and account numbers were mistyped somehow...something.

Anyways, good luck in whatever you choose to do.

 

[Anakena]

I think the main problem is that EAMythic has deleted the "so called evidence" and is probably unable to answer his questions. The biggest problem is not the ban, but the way they handled it :

1° Deleting houses (they should have been OSI owned, waiting for the definitive solution).

2° Asking people who were banned to contact them if they wanted to dispute their banning, while (see 1° above) they had already deleted all the info needed for reconsidering each case. From day one they knew their decision was a final decision, with no appeal : why ask then people to fill a form, knowing that it was useless?

 

[Satanatra]

After all this time, you still cant admit doing to anything wrong at all? How about anything that was unwise?

Do you want us to believe that EA simply decided to ban you at random?

Hemisphere posted saying that he paged GMs whenever he was unsure of something. He asked for clarification. Did you do the same?

I mean if you came here and said somehting like:

well - i had hundreds of checks stacked in my castle. Some of them might have come from dupers OR Im a rares collector and i might have bought one from a duper. or maybe 20? OR perhaps - I was involved with xsharding and gold selling and i guess i should have known that my actions might appear dodgy.

But you dont say anything like that. You cant admit to even one spec of anything that could have resulted in a ban.

As far as i am concerned, you live in denial, and although you are probably not some hardcore duper, (i know a few well respected players who vouch for your character), you havent learned anything from what has happened.

I know people who collect tons of rares and who werent banned.
I know people who xshard constantly and werent banned.
I know people who sells TONS of gold monthly.

None of them were banned. Sometimes it isnt what u do but how u do it.

 

[Hemisphere]

Well Satanatra I was trying to make the point that you can't always know the legality of *everything* you own. I did check with GMs when I was uncertain but, unless you take Zofinur for a liar (which it seems most people do for some reason that I can't make sense of), you can read a list he posted of pretty much every item he could recall owning on the banned account. From what I could tell from a quick glance, possibly the dodgiest thing he owned was a box containing 3 255 stone statues (the little type that look like plain coloured Christmas statues), and despite being created with a bug, these have been legal since like 2000! Maybe that changed recently and they're now illegal again, but that would be news to me, and news to a lot of other people too!

(here's a list of his items from memory, btw: http://vboards.stratics.com/showthread.php?t=95452), again, if you contest what he's written here then you're basically accusing him of lying and covering up the reasons for his ban - if this was the case, what would he hope to gain from petitioning EA for a specific reason!? If they were to come out and say "well actually you had a bank box full of duped ornis and that's why we banned you", then he would be exposed not only as a cheater, but also a liar!

Maybe he is lying, and he was really the centre of a multi-bajillion gp duping circle, but far be it from people who don't know anything about him to make this judgement!

If he really had something honestly dodgy to hide, then why would he be making such a song and dance here on the forums? Nothing good could possibly come of it if he was actually guilty of anything truly worthy of a ban, so irrespective of what we may think or know about him as a player (and those who do know anything only say good things) we can only logically assume that he has/had nothing to hide.

Of course your average U.Hall troll doesn't work like this. Unfortunately neither does EA.

 

[jack flash]

After all this time, you still cant admit doing to anything wrong at all? How about anything that was unwise?

Do you want us to believe that EA simply decided to ban you at random?

Hemisphere posted saying that he paged GMs whenever he was unsure of something. He asked for clarification. Did you do the same?

I mean if you came here and said somehting like:

well - i had hundreds of checks stacked in my castle. Some of them might have come from dupers OR Im a rares collector and i might have bought one from a duper. or maybe 20? OR perhaps - I was involved with xsharding and gold selling and i guess i should have known that my actions might appear dodgy.

But you dont say anything like that. You cant admit to even one spec of anything that could have resulted in a ban.

As far as i am concerned, you live in denial, and although you are probably not some hardcore duper, (i know a few well respected players who vouch for your character), you havent learned anything from what has happened.

I know people who collect tons of rares and who werent banned.
I know people who xshard constantly and werent banned.
I know people who sells TONS of gold monthly.

None of them were banned. Sometimes it isnt what u do but how u do it.

well i fyou read Zof's post history you would have read that MOST of your dumb questions and comments were indeed answered, an example is that HE HAS NEVER XSHARDED

so maybe you should spend less time cracking wise ass comments and more time reading


and to ZOFINOR

once again, sorry mister to see you go, you were NEVER a cheat in my eyes, safe travels to you

 

[Satanatra]

I dont think he is a lyar and havent cracked one wise-ass comment. Personally, i dont think he is a duper or hacker or anything of the sort really.

I do believe that he was involved with things that either:

He didnt know where dodgy (ie buying something that was duped).

or

He didnt know could easily be perceived as dodgy (having thousands of bank checks stacked in a castle).

If you have been playing for a long time, there really isnt any excuse for either one. If you buy and sell enough, then you know the prices and you know the dealers and should be able to smell a rat. If you are unsure - u check like Hemisphere. If you are doing something that might even APPEAR illegal, it is better to be safe than sorry.

He wasnt safe - now he is sorry.

I wasnt asking for/expecting some kind of confession ex: I was secretly the leader of a huge duping ring.. I meant that he hasnt even got to the point of admitting to either the POTENTIAL of his owning large quantities of dupped things (of which he was not the dupper of course) or being quilty of being, at the very least, careless.

 

[A.Entreri]

can i have your stuff?

 

[Nenime]

Whether he was 'good' or 'bad', he was part of the community. I feel sad whenever somebody's leaving - especially when leaving in grief. I wish him the best of luck.
Bye Zofinur *waves*

 

[Hemisphere]

Satanatra, as I linked to, Zof made a list of all the items he had that could have possibly been perceived by EA as dodgy: http://vboards.stratics.com/showthread.php?t=95452 it was 60mil in checks not thousands of checks, certainly not a strange quantity.

Which is why I suggest that the only way he could have been banned rightfully would be if he were a liar, because I'm quite sure nothing on that list is worthy of a ban in anyone's estimation.

 

[Azazel of LA]

*Waves* Dont let the door hit ya where the good lord split ya!

 

[Yalp]

I do believe that he was involved with things that either:

He didnt know where dodgy (ie buying something that was duped).

or

He didnt know could easily be perceived as dodgy (having thousands of bank checks stacked in a castle).

So you think it's ok that he was punished for...

1) Not knowing something was dodgy
and
2) Not knowing something could be perceived as dodgy?

Do you realize how completely asinine that is? At any moment the EA police can punish you without warning for a reason you are not aware of or a deed you did which you were unaware is not allowed.

It is honestly impossible to see your point of view.. or to see where any common sense exists in it.

 

[peanutbutter]

no details?

look, years ago, i got pulled over... and, yes, i was doing something wrong.

inside my tape case (this was before CD's... some of you will understand) there was a small metal item used to calculate weight of... well, whatever you want to weigh. for example, a dollar weighs a gram.

anyway, there was nothing "illegal" in my car, perse... at least, nothing they found. but, i still got a $350 ticket for drug paraphernalia.

why?

because, like EA, the police are the law. often times, they don't simply enforce the law, they bully you with it. the officer even told me that, had he pulled me over in a different part of town, i'd not be getting a ticket. the reason, what he found was NOT illegal by itself.

also, a couple of years ago, i was running into cove to pop some treasure chests (again, very few will understand what that is). i was stopped by a GM who informed me that there was a problem with my quiver of infinity. i told them that i only used it for the 5% defense chance and cosmetics (see, i'm a mage). thankfully, they simply removed the quiver from me, fixed it, and gave it back.

to assume that i would have known to page the GM and ask if my quiver is broken is presumptive. should i page them about all of my stuff... should i have them come by the house every week just to make sure? madness...

but, whether they choose to be nice or not about a situation, EA is the law.

your only line of defense is purely philosophical, but philosophy often falls on deaf tyrannical ears.



GMs 1 / Players 0



end.

 

[Hemisphere]

Peanutbutter, if you're going to compare UO to a police state, then at least make a fair comparison.

If a cop came to your house while you were away, destroyed all the contents and burned the house down, then jailed you for life because of what he said he found there before he destroyed it all - but he couldn't tell you exactly what it was in your house that was the problem, and you honestly couldn't imagine what it could have been, would that be acceptable to you? Of course not.

You got stopped for having drug paraphenalia - you were guilty and you knew it. You can't argue with that. You even allude to having further illegal things in your car - I bet you were quite chuffed they didn't find them. Once again, totally unfair comparison.

 

[Cyrah]

I wish you well Sir.


To those who busted their..... to reply meanly to this man, pfft! Why! If you did not like his words, his spelling, his reasoning, move on.

Why be mean on purpose?

 

[Infiniti]

Let me adress some ppl before i leave forever

Forever is a long time!

 

[kennykilleduo]

This is EA's way of destroying the game further , get rid of vets ,and others will follow.....

They lost me this week for good , I haven't really played in 2 months ( was waiting for last payment to finish).

Was going to move on to WAR but why support a company , who treats there customers theway they do..

 

[ColterDC]

if you contest what he's written here then you're basically accusing him of lying and covering up the reasons for his ban

The internet is full of 2 things.

1. Lies
2. Porn


Stop defending people you've never met in RL, you really have no clue as to what they're doing behind the scenes.

 

[Flora Green]

Good luck to you. Not everyone bows down to EA/Mythic.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

What a silly thread.

 

[Kith Kanan]

sorry to see ya go Zof , must not have been an easy decission , I'm not stopping , not gona give up all the work I put in this game , because EA makes stupid mistakes , I tried to mail Jeremy again again but ofc still have gotten more than a canned msg bout why I got the account banned...

all the best Zof

 

[Der Rock]

Well, personally I think it's pretty shocking that so many people are so quick to place judgement on someone they clearly know nothing about, based on an EA blanket ban decision!

Since when did people hold such weight in these rulings?

Pretty much everyone who knows Zofinur (and he is well known and loved on Europa) can see these accusations are fairly preposterous, and even if they are justified, surely nobody can argue that every player deserves a fair and frank explanation for their ban.




why should we trust player more then EA/Mythic??
ea/mythic think twice bevore they banne a player, BECAUSE they exist from his MONEY
so in the first place i trust ea/mythic in this case.
and 9 years means nothing, time is no sign for reputation, i know a 10 y player who got banned, and he was also a "loved" player on his shard, LOL
in most cases the top criminals are well known and and loved.

 

[Hemisphere]

ea/mythic think twice bevore they banne a player

So you think EA don't make mistakes then? The fact that many bans have been rescinded in the past upon review contradicts this notion.

The very existence of the ban review process is testimony to the fact that the first decision is not always the right one.

The serious problem with how EA has handled this set of bannings (and one that people seem to refuse to acknowledge as being a problem!) is that they deleted the houses and contents of the banned parties on the spot thus making any form of ban review impossible.

 

[Tjalle]

What a silly thread.

What a silly post.

Anyways...

Safe travels Zofinur and hope you will find happiness in some other place.

 

[Uriah Heep]

why should we trust player more then EA/Mythic??

At this point in time, all I can say to this is

LOL

sheeeesh

When stuff goes down, and goes down wrong, and peeps get caught in the wrong, normally they kinda disappear and get quiet, hoping to not draw attention to themselves....

Several of the banned, are still here, still talking, quite a few still playing on other accounts.

EA/Mythic, on the other hand, vanished into some black hole, from which no communication can escape evidently....

Kinda makes me go hmmmmm...

 

[Beefybone]

I can think of only one "I WAS UNJUSTLY BANNED WAAH!" person who actually WAS found to have been unjustly banned, and when it happened Wilki came here and apologized publicly. I suspect someone from EA looked into this, and found the ban justified. And of course they don't say anything when that's the case.

I mean it's not like they've proven unwilling to admit a mistake.

 

[Der Rock]

So you think EA don't make mistakes then? The fact that many bans have been rescinded in the past upon review contradicts this notion.

i wich circumstance got those player unbanned? verbal harrasment or some minor issues?
we cant compare aple and bulb´s here

 

[Uriah Heep]

You should say "Wilki" was not afraid to make a mistake.
He also wasn't afraid to get on here and mix it up with us, lol.
He would give as good as he got, for that he got a lotta respect from me.

And having known a couple of the "bannees" I still wonder about this. Anyway, moot point, i guess, its EA's game and they can do waht they want to it.

 

[Der Rock]

I can think of only one "I WAS UNJUSTLY BANNED WAAH!" person who actually WAS found to have been unjustly banned, and when it happened Wilki came here and apologized publicly. I suspect someone from EA looked into this, and found the ban justified. And of course they don't say anything when that's the case.

I mean it's not like they've proven unwilling to admit a mistake.

yes, my thoughts to,
and i would LOVE to see jeremy here and she would say:
"sorry, u bought 50 valo hammers and short time after u had 150, and hide them quickly on other acc, we tracked the whole situation, so pls dont post ever again that u are unguilty banned, farewell scum"

 

[Hemisphere]

That would be fantastic! And at that point I would also be breaking out the "more drama" emoticons and jeering with the rest of you, but until then such comments are unjustified bile.

Edit: Just to clarify, I don't think for one moment that this will happen, but if it were true then that would be exactly what should happen.

 

[THP]

Its VERY SAD DAY for Europa...

And the posts on here just show how many unkind / kids or total idiots play UO ... that dont play Europa and dont even know Zof...

Shame on all who have bereitted a true Europa player.

A sad loss of europa and a sad loss for UO.

 

[Bobar]

I can think of only one "I WAS UNJUSTLY BANNED WAAH!" person who actually WAS found to have been unjustly banned, and when it happened Wilki came here and apologized publicly. I suspect someone from EA looked into this, and found the ban justified. And of course they don't say anything when that's the case.

I mean it's not like they've proven unwilling to admit a mistake.

As Hemisphere states in another post as they summarily deleted all the evidence what do you imagine the 'someone from EA' looked at to decide the ban was justified?. If they had some kind of record of each ban to peruse then maybe they could justify them. But the total lack of response to those banned and to players on this board for some sort of information suggests that such a record DOES NOT EXIST.

As I have posted in other threads I'm not saying the bans should not have been carried out but I think the way it was carried out could have been better managed. It would seem they were carried out with an arrogant belief that they were incapable of being wrong or of making a mistake.

I guess we will never know, it has been some time now since the bans occured and as for them not proving unwilling to admit a mistake it would appear they are not even willing to say that they were right.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Woops quoted wrong post

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

What a silly thread.

What a silly post.

Anyways...

Safe travels Zofinur and hope you will find happiness in some other place.

What a silly response
To a silly post
On a silly thread

 

[Doomsday Dragon]

Train ur employess in communicaion-skills.

Priceless.

I predict this thread moving to the rants section in the near future...

 

[Hemisphere]

Priceless.

I predict this thread moving to the rants section in the near future...

try writing a few posts intelligible posts in German before you mock someone's use of a second language.

Spelling skills != Communication skills

If you can get the point across at all in a language other than your native one, then your communication skills far exceed those of an average person

 

[Connor_Graham]

I'm not saying anything one way or another toward guilt or innocence, but I will say this:

It's a very simple matter to act completely indignant on the internet, demand proof, then play dumb if/when that proof is shown. If it's no proof is produced, then that indignant act turns into a self righteous one by allowing the accused to point to the failure to produce the proof as evidence of innocence, even though the company has a strict standard NOT to do exactly what he'd asked them to.


Those of you that say he's innocent, don't know that for sure unless you've been at his RL house and have had the opportunity to search his computer and his UO house for illegal programs and illegal items.

Those of you that say he's guilty......same thing.


I'm just glad we won't be seeing the same rant in every single thread every single day anymore. It was getting to be a bit stale.

 

[peanutbutter]

Peanutbutter, if you're going to compare UO to a police state, then at least make a fair comparison.

If a cop came to your house while you were away, destroyed all the contents and burned the house down, then jailed you for life because of what he said he found there before he destroyed it all - but he couldn't tell you exactly what it was in your house that was the problem, and you honestly couldn't imagine what it could have been, would that be acceptable to you? Of course not.

You got stopped for having drug paraphenalia - you were guilty and you knew it. You can't argue with that. You even allude to having further illegal things in your car - I bet you were quite chuffed they didn't find them. Once again, totally unfair comparison.

and you think things like this don't happen in real life?

you should get out more... America isn't the only country and democracy isn't the only form of government...

i did call tyrannical, did i not?

 

[Kith Kanan]

I can think of only one "I WAS UNJUSTLY BANNED WAAH!" person who actually WAS found to have been unjustly banned, and when it happened Wilki came here and apologized publicly. I suspect someone from EA looked into this, and found the ban justified. And of course they don't say anything when that's the case.

I mean it's not like they've proven unwilling to admit a mistake.

OHH MY GOD !!!! your kidding right ?????

 

[Firebird]

Zof, I have waited till the end of your fight to reply.

First and most important, hold your head up high sir, your family on europa and those who have dealt with you for many years know you did NOT willingly do anything wrong.

EA has made a huge mistakes in several of these bans... certainly not all of them but I know in the case of you and another they truly screwed up sadly enough

As to the troll posts thru this thread, just laugh, shake your head and think that some people have less brains or emotions then a rock. ( I would go into more detail but I am trying to maintain)

I truly cannot blame you for walking away at this point, I know you have tried everything you know to try and have put many many years into this game.

With this said, please know you WILL be missed and the unjust service EA has put upon you makes your europa family very sad and very disgusted.

I wish you the best in which game you choose to play next (Wow is very nice btw *hint*)

 

[Aran]

the police are the law

Whoa whoa WHOA there. I keep reading this everywhere and it simply IS NOT TRUE.

The police are NOT THE LAW. In ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM.

The police are merely there to uphold the law, nothing more.





As you were.