what the heck is going on? (account bannings)

[FrejaSP]

When you're 49 years old, have no more kids in the house, have a good income, don't smoke, don't drink, don't gamble, drive an old car, husband drives an old car, and your mortgage has been paid off for many years, maybe you have a little bit more discretionary cash for entertainment than others might. Putting the accounts on a 6-month billing cycle to lower the cost and spread out the payments also helps.

Tina, don't bother trying to explain. The younger generation thinks all bling bling should be touchy feely and have no concept of "mental joy in intangible things."

Stop that BS, I har player sinse dec 1997 without a break and I'm born in 1955 so I do not belong to the younger generation!

I love this game but I hate to see how it had been destroyed of players mising the game economy with their RL economy.

"Honest" players had been crying each time EA try to make the game more healty, changes to resourse spawn and changes to bag of sending comes in mind.

UO is not meant to be a way to make RL money, it's meant to be a RP game!

Keep the good work up EA and to Jeremy

 

[Poo]

Forgive some of us if we aren't exactly trusting of what people have to say about themselves in light of being banned. We've all seen the "Even Mother Teresa looked up to my impeccable qualities" argument before, and half the time it's from people guilty as sin.

There are two sides to every story, and because EA has a policy of not discussing things in public it's impossible to get the other half of the details. I'm not saying that in your case that you are lying, but even the most vehement of arguments is still only one side's version of the events, and as such we have to take it with a grain of salt.

As for what you have stated about your specific plight, I've always been surprised that people don't think more carefully about where gold sellers get their stock. The fact is that dupers/scripters can't realize their goal of real cash until they sell their gold for dollars. They don't care if they sell it directly to the average player, or at a discount to a legitimate gold seller. And since dupers can make as much profit as they desire, it's likely that a large amount of gold on the selling market has some connection to an illegitimate source.

All it takes is one careless or uncaring person in the gold supply chain and suddenly the average player has tainted gold. To borrow a popular phrase: when you trade with someone, you've traded with all the people they've ever traded with. A little bit of vigilance goes a long way.

A little bit of vigilance goes a long way

but short of stopping all selling and purchasing in game what are we normal players to do?

we have no idea what has been duped and what hasnt.
heck, for all i know there is some duper that rides the short bus and he duped a bag full of Night's Kiss's and Bonecrushers.

and you dont have to believe me.
heck, i dont believe myself half as much as i should and shoudnt half as much as i do...... the simple fact of the matter is we have no way to verify the stuff we are buying is legitimate.

and people are being banned for owning these items.
and not 15 of them.
not 10 of them.

they are being caught with 1 or 2 every day items and they are getting banned for it.

again i will say what i said before.
i hold my primary account up on a pedistal and i am in FEAR of what might be on it, because i have 7 developed characters on allmost every north american shard (and a few asian shards) and every one of them is fully outfitted with artys and awsome suits. all of which i purchased from venders with gold i purchased from merchants.
so realistically my account had hundreds of artifacts on it.
hundreds of millions of gold in the banks of all my characters.
and ive worked DAMN hard to make this account what it is!
and now i have to fear loosing it all because i purchased a Berserkers Maul on Napa for 750k 6 months ago????!!!????!!!!????

like really.
there is no justice here.
TELL ME if there is bad items in my collection, take it away and burn it.
but to ban peoples accounts for this is just unreal.

you dont have to believe Tina, heck, ive never trusted those granny types.
shifty eyed they are!
but the thought of what they are doing scares me.


put simply, im considering taking all my gold and all my items on my primary account and trashing it all.
that is the only way i can be sure!
seriouslly.
do i risk my castle and all my developed characters for one check on my blacksmith on Arirang that i havnt logged onto in 2 years?

3am.
just finished a good harrower fight on sonoma.
died 20 times.
but had a hoot.

its time for bed.
but i think we all need to find out what is going on from EA and they need to take a long look at what they are doing.

i believe Tina.
i belive her because i know her.
salt of the earth she is.
and why on earth she hangs around with a loud mouth opinionated person like me is beyond me.
she is my brain to mouth filter, hahahhahaha

anyways.
i think we have talked this to death.
there is nothing we can do except make our dissapointment made known to EA.

im sure from all the posts they will see this.
hopefully one of them will take the time to maybe look at what they did, just to make sure.

i know if im working on the ambulance and someone says to me "ya know... my chest reallllllllllllly hurts"
im not just gonna look at them and think, pusha, sac up, we all have pain.
no. im gonna slap on the stickies and check out the old ticker.
THEN im gonna say "pusha, sac up, we all have pain!"

 

[Fizzleton]

don't you are sometimes sick of how the game is presenting today?

I remember the plain and sound game it once was. No "need" whatsoever to dupe or script, the most evil thing one encountered was "unattended macroing". Well, even "exploits" like noto killing etc. was simply game mechanics, you could counter all those things with the help of more experienced ones or some logic u put in yourself.

Re-Start it. Get rid of the elven thing, of arties and all this bs. Bring back that plain, sound game, where you really could adventure if you wished to, or just have a nice talk to some banksitters in the afternoon. I remember even people playing chess in uo, sitting on a boat in britain next to the bank. restart it on one shard in europe, and maybe two (east and west coast) in us. wipe the whole Item-trash, wipe the chars. I will eagerly give birth to new ones, I don't care for my maxed 120er ones that live in a uo world I don't care about anymore. Make mages need regs again, discard the ninja/bushido bs, dump tokuno. Just get rid of anything that makes people get greedy; find back the way to the core; make uo becoming an adventure again!

 

[Priam_Sonoma]

Poo, this is why I cancelled all 4 accounts that I reactivated three weeks ago. I come back to this game after 5 years away and look forward to reestablishing my house, crafters and game play, and I have to worry about being banned for rare items.

I am just turning around and walking back out the door.

I cannot help but feel that this company wants this game to go away. These are not the actions of people that want a title to continue.

GLARINGLY, I see these bannings and destruction of items and homes INSTANTLY as an "over the top" measure. If you are removing people from a game, you damned well better make sure you are getting the guilty. And you damned well better make sure your definition of guilty leaves no question.

 

[Arabella]

Haha...on that note, I'm going to bed. Us old folks need our sleep.

Ahh Tina, I am so sorry about this , you have a huge hug coming from another Granny.

Tina is one of the most well informed ladies you will ever meet in this game, if you have a question and can't find the answer she is the one to ask! If you needed any help on another shard, Tina was more then willing to help you out.

It is a sad day in UO, if she leaves this game because of this, and I know many many people will truly miss this wonderful lady!

 

[Rosalinda]

Ahh Tina, I am so sorry about this , you have a huge hug coming from another Granny.

Another from another granny!

 

[Lady_Mina]

Sorry to hear about your friend.

She is sadly one of the MANY people who got banned for being in possession of 'duped' items...probably without knowing it.

And i believe there will follow more...
People are leaving in buches...wich worries me.
The UO population is already low..and it's decreasing at a scary speed.
I'd rather see the dupers banned then the buyers/traders.
But ah well guess this is their way to clean out the system...although it seems to do a lot of damage to the community.

It's nearly impossible to avoid getting banned :
-no bulk buys
-avoid runics
-avoid rares
-avoid everything that costs more then 1 mill

I don't why i should keep grinding for money...if i can't spend it without a chance of getting banned.
These days it's better to park your @ss at brit west bank and do nothing all.

 

[Arabella]

What really concerns me is the statement in the banned account email, it looks to me like it was a mass produced email:

"However, you were found to be in possession of a multitude of highly illegal items in Ultima Online. Due to the severe nature of this ToS violation, your account was terminated."

Yea Yea, I know we all agree to TOS, but it gripes me to no end, that EA has all the power and the simple right to dispute a ban, is meet with canned messages by a computer. The dupers and cheaters will be right back at it again, while the good and decent players leave our game

I buy gold, so what as far as I know it isn't illegal. Does that make me a bad person, I hate grinding and it is easier for me to buy my gold. If there was a safety net in game for a person to see what is dupe and what isn't, then I wouldnt be so upset over these banns. But the way it is now, there is no protection out there for the buyer.

 

[Lady_Mina]

From what i've heared , UO has been on Auto-pilot for years.

Responding to people with canned answers.

If you want more details? send in a form...
People send in a form and still get canned answers...or no answer at all.

They get fustrated and look for an answer of a dev on the boards.

 

[Erekose]

stop duping

I was saying exactly the same thing yesterday, and was very skeptical of the 'I am innocent' threads. Then a good friend of mine got banned just for WARNING her guild members that a dupe bug existed and that it was grounds for banning if they indulged. That was because an asshat HERE was PMing a link to a website with the duping information around. She didn't want to see anyone get banned so she gave them a warning. Talking about bugs at all is bannable, so she got banned for trying to do something good.

 

[Shelleybean]

I'm very sorry you had an account banned Tina Small and sorry that you are closing the rest. I've always enjoyed your posts. This situation is a clear indicator that detecing duped wares is not always obvious. If I saw a vendor with a bag of 20 ornaments of the magician I'd be suspicious. But let's say the vendor has 20 various artifacts, all at a reasonable price. If I shopped that way and purchased a few items over a few months, well I don't think I'd be suspcious that they were duped goods. It's unfair to penalize a player in this manner.

 

[Arabella]

I was saying exactly the same thing yesterday, and was very skeptical of the 'I am innocent' threads. Then a good friend of mine got banned just for WARNING her guild members that a dupe bug existed and that it was grounds for banning if they indulged. That was because an asshat HERE was PMing a link to a website with the duping information around. She didn't want to see anyone get banned so she gave them a warning. Talking about bugs at all is bannable, so she got banned for trying to do something good.

Wow, that really suxs, doing the right thing will get ya banned .

 

[Connor_Graham]

It is a sad day in UO, if she leaves this game because of this, and I know many many people will truly miss this wonderful lady!

And I'm one of them. I was shocked to see first thing this morning that Tina had been hit.

Hell, after this.....who needs coffee?.......

 

[Lady Tia]

This worries me. Especially Zofinur's post. You see I have been doing bods for almost since bods were available to do. We have amassed over 4000 (mostly crap smalls). This makes me wonder if I should deposit all of them in the nearest trash receptacle?

 

[Angel of Sonoma]

no doubt in my mind this was handled poorly.

EA is between a rock & a hard place.... dupes have been reported for months & it's blatant. so EA takes drastic measures to appease the masses. yes, maybe they get some of the exploiters but it sounds like a lot of unknowing people got caught in the crossfire too.

no, i didn't get hit by the ban broom but u darn sure can believe i'm thinking 'what if any idoc loot i got was duped' or 'what if the guy who bought my keep paid me with duped gold?'. to poo's point and as many others have mentioned, how do you know??? it could be any one of us getting the ban.

imo, EA should've banned the ones who they had proof positive that they were duping. and delete the items found on accounts where there's no proof of duping.

look at it this way, if u have 21 accounts all with 18x18 house storage, that's a potential of owning at least 45,000 items. what's the likelihood that you're going to own duped items? pretty high i'd think.

the final point is....the customer perception is EA didn't act fast enough. they allowed duping to get to the point where items infilitrated the community. the bannings were a bandaid. and my root cause analysis is 'lack of QA at EA'. someone should have caught this before it ever reached these proportions.

sad thing is the cheaters will probably come back & the ones caught in the crossfire will pack up and leave. should be interesting to watch subscriptions decline over the next couple of months.

tina, i'm sorry to hear you were targeted.

 

[Llams Anit]

Tina Small is leaving.
that is 21 accounts people.
21 accounts!!!!!!

She won't quit the needle is embedded too deep into the arm

 

[Lady_Mina]

She won't quit the needle is embedded too deep into the arm

You never know...

if people get banned they're pissed off and loose all trust in EA.

21 accounts...ouch !

Means she payed 336-340 dollars a month.

 

[Yalp]

I completely understand Poo and Tina's actions. UO has lost a wonderful member of the community in Tina Small. Someone who did not dupe but loved UO. We are all the poorer for it.

As I've said again and again.. being held responsible for buying duped items *without letting us know what is duped* is capricious and arbitrary. It creates a poisonous atmosphere in the game, and leaves the paying customers wanting to "shop" elsewhere.

This is no way to run a business. Customer Service and Marketing should be in panic mode this week at EA. The bottom line of their business is being hit.. and hard.

Unless the master plan for UO is to kill it.... might be the single worst thing they have done to the game.


LORD Yalp of Zento, CTDM

 

[packrat]

Stop that BS, I har player sinse dec 1997 without a break and I'm born in 1955 so I do not belong to the younger generation!

I love this game but I hate to see how it had been destroyed of players mising the game economy with their RL economy.

"Honest" players had been crying each time EA try to make the game more healty, changes to resourse spawn and changes to bag of sending comes in mind.

UO is not meant to be a way to make RL money, it's meant to be a RP game!

Keep the good work up EA and to Jeremy

Hey Jr. EA sales items for real cash. If it weren't meant to be sold, why do they sale thing for real cash? Don't you pay your account for real cash?Get your head out of 1955.

 

[Skylark SP]

Another judgment call. When I played, the gold chests were a fetish of mine. I camped IDOC's for them AND purchased them from vendors. When I quit, I had 120 gold boxes. The account I had prior to the last one, I did the same thing - collected gold boxes. My goal was to own every gold box in UO (yeah, it was a joke among my friends).

No one on here has a right to dictate what is an appropriate amount of anything. Who is anyone to say that someone shouldn't like or save something just because it's an unusual amount?

Seriously...in a game where items never disappear and gold piles up, there are people who have legitimately collected hundreds of the same item because it is a hobby. Presence of items alone should NOT be sufficient to ban an account. There has to be other methods of detecting game-illegal activity, additional evidence.

There are people who are collectors by nature, with game museums to display things they have spent quite a bit of time collecting. Purchasing a legal item off a vendor in the game, regardless of quantity, with game acquired gold, is a legal activity. If the item exists because of an illegal activity, that is a separate issue, and one that the buyer cannot reasonably be expected to ascertain themselves, nor should they be punished for being in possession of the item if there is no link to show their char engaged in activities that produced it illegally.

You are also in a very subjective situation by saying "you should have known". Well, some items are unique that were server birth or event items, but a lot of people do not know about their uniqueness. I have been playing for 4 years and still am learning of items I never heard of from the collector crowd. What I may feel is "common knowledge" about items is not necessarily the same as 10 or even 100 other players' concept of same.

EA has a duty to take action against known violations of its ToS, and no legitimate player has an issue with that, but the problem of duping has been going on so long and is so widespread in scope, it sounds like something has gone amiss in their ability to identify exactly who the "criminals" are.

-Skylark

 

[Vallend]

I too am shocked to see Tina was one of the people caught up in this mess. I have had limited interaction with her, but I always felt like she was a good person and someone who wanted to build a better UO community.

I know the old saying is "Buyer Beware!", but I feel that most of these accounts should of just had the items deleted and not been banned. Yes there would of been a outcry over EA taking away stuff they worked hard for or spent good real money on. Still most of these players would still be in the game though a little angry.

EA went at it the wrong way in my opinion. Like in real life you slap the drug users on the wrist, and go after the dealers who supply them to get rid of the problem. Thats the only way to solve the problem, get rid of the dupers and ALL of their accounts.

I know I have never bought anything that may of been duped or purchased anything for real cash. Matter of fact Even though I have played for years I have never had more then 5 million in the bank. Right now recent events has me thinking about closing my UO account after almost 11 years in game.

 

[Lady_Mina]

More will get caught in this mess...

Tomorow it could be me or you...

Cause who hasn't bought from vendors for the past months?

 

[FrejaSP]

Hey Jr. EA sales items for real cash. If it weren't meant to be sold, why do they sale thing for real cash? Don't you pay your account for real cash?Get your head out of 1955.

There ia a big diff between the owner of the game selling ingame items and someone farming with scripted hunters, miners, lumbers, bodrunners etc and selling their farmed items for RL cash. This parasites add nothing good to the game and are not much better than the dupers.

Now I'm not hitting on Tina as I have no way to know if she is innocent, I'm just tired of seeing the game I love being use to make RL cash, I want the players to be attented and play to interact with others.

 

[RoycroftLS]

Just to play devil's advocate:

The devs and Jeremy have already stated that part of the reason it takes so long for bannings to commence is because they have to do research to make sure the guilty people are guilty. They are well aware of the repercussions of banning someone who is innocent.

Wouldn't they be even more vigilant if they noticed the same person had 20+ accounts open? It's pretty easy to realize that if you ban the person's main account, then chances are they are going to close the rest as well. It would stand to reason that they wouldn't take action and risk losing 20 subscriptions unless they were certain that something was illegal.

Don't get me wrong, if anyone is found innocent upon further investigation, of course they should get their stuff back. But how many times have you watched the news and seen something horrible happen and they interview a neighbor who says "They were the last person I would think was capable of doing something like this." Often times it's the person you least suspect, and they are able to get away with it for so long because no one suspects them.

/just saying

 

[Flora Green]

Sorry to hear about your friend.

She is sadly one of the MANY people who got banned for being in possession of 'duped' items...probably without knowing it.

And i believe there will follow more...
People are leaving in buches...wich worries me.
The UO population is already low..and it's decreasing at a scary speed.
I'd rather see the dupers banned then the buyers/traders.
But ah well guess this is their way to clean out the system...although it seems to do a lot of damage to the community.

It's nearly impossible to avoid getting banned :
-no bulk buys
-avoid runics
-avoid rares
-avoid everything that costs more then 1 mill

I don't why i should keep grinding for money...if i can't spend it without a chance of getting banned.
These days it's better to park your @ss at brit west bank and do nothing all.

Brit bank means they still get our money.

 

[Connor_Graham]

Poo-

I've already offered my assitance on Pacific to Tina if she decides to change her mind down the road, and I want to offer the same to you and your guild. If there's anything I can do to help you out in any way, please let me know.

 

[Lady_Mina]

Get this.. Here is a snap shot of a barbed kit seller.. My modem is acting up so I cant do much because I keep getting booted. I noticed this barbed kit dealer selling kits. He had 5 a few minutes later 0. Go back a lil while later he has 5 again. In two days he has sold over 20. Who gets busted? The ones buying it and the one sales it? He is like the energizer bunny. He keeps going and going...

Look on the bottom left. There is one item in the bag. Now look on the bottom right. Look at the time.
Look on the bottom left on the second pic. 5 items in the bag. Look how long it took him to restock. Now get this. I have been watching him for two day. He has sold over 20 kits. And from what I am hearing he has vendors on other shards.

And this is a nice example of how good EA does their work./sarcasm

There have been pics posted of the Kbit vendor on several shards a few days ago...and this person is still NOT bannedand still restocking.

I think this is kinda disturbing...cause that guy is a mass provider of duped items...and he's still going strong...
And who's getting banned?
Defenatly not the owner of the Kbit vendor...

 

[drinkbeerallday]

With hammers being as low as 15 million gold, it isn't entirely out of the realm of possibility for someone to have a good stock of them. I know I was considering purchasing some more and could have easily scooped up two dozen or more. So I hope they are just not going by the number of hammers someone owned unless it was in the hundreds.

well i wish they would tell us how many a "multitude" is

 

[Amber Moon]

Wouldn't they be even more vigilant if they noticed the same person had 20+ accounts open? It's pretty easy to realize that if you ban the person's main account, then chances are they are going to close the rest as well. It would stand to reason that they wouldn't take action and risk losing 20 subscriptions unless they were certain that something was illegal.

If memory serves, long ago before Mythic was ever involved with this game, there were mass bannings. I seem to recall entire guilds taken out.

And if memory serves, some of these even ended up in RL court. And many were eventually reversed.

The thing to remember here is you can't really take anyone's post on these boards at their word. And unfortunately, this may include under informed community reps from the company.

 

[TheScoundrelRico]

$315 a month on Ultima? Maybe this is a good thing. Being banned may help you get over your clear addiction...la

 

[Connor_Graham]

21 accounts...ouch !

Means she payed 336-340 dollars a month.

She said she pays in 6 month increments, which are 9.99/mo. 9.99 x 21 accounts = 209.79 + Tax. Big difference there.

 

[Demonous]

what pisses me off is that EA people never reply to threads like this, they can atleast admit they did this the wrong way but no they don't... i mean they must have about 70,000 accounts active TOPS and going down by the day, why would u mass ban random people who have multiple accounts and lose more money that way? UO does not attract new players and has not for years, whoever plays are veterans now so they're just screwing themselves over.

Its so stupid the way they set this up, the duper gets off scott free and the people that buy from him get in trouble without knowing they bought dupes, my gf and i are rare collectors and have been collecting for years, how do i know whats duped and what isnt? will i get in trouble for buying duped rares with gold that i legitimately earned?

ok they mass ban a bunch of people over the weekend and demolish their houses, THEN they post on uo.com if you think you were unjustly banned post here... since when have they dropped houses instantly? i dunno about other countries but in the united states the policy is innocent until proven guilty... why would u ban, demolish the house and then have the people send in an email if they think they were unjustly banned... sometimes i think all the EA employees ride the short bus to work together

 

[Zofinur]

tell us how many a "multitude" is

I would guess this depends on the item:

80 * valorite hammers is a multitude
80 * 1M checks hopefully not

60.000 * bronze runic hammers might be
60.000 * bronze ingots hopefully not

 

[the 4th man]

Just read your post about granny.....all I have to say, you guys outta stop bashing EA. Possesion is 9/10's of the law.

If you take the lazy way out, and buy gold and buy pixels and all that other stuff, then you take the chance. I wouldn't know, I don't support dupers.

If granny got popped, she wasn't so innocent*......and if you haven't been popped yet, then no one needs to waste their time going through your junk.

* Don't shop massively in Luna, you're begging for trouble.....

 

[Fizzleton]

tell me the difference being addicted to uo or any other thing you do intensively! I know people spending much more than 200 bucks a month for their hobby. If you have your live besides uo - what she has, since she earns the money for her hobby - the way she lives her time is a descision she has to make.

 

[Fizzleton]

Just read your post about granny.....all I have to say, you guys outta stop bashing EA. Possesion is 9/10's of the law.

If you take the lazy way out, and buy gold and buy pixels and all that other stuff, then you take the chance. I wouldn't know, I don't support dupers.

If granny got popped, she wasn't so innocent*......and if you haven't been popped yet, then no one needs to waste their time going through your junk.

* Don't shop massively in Luna, you're begging for trouble.....

sry, but this is arrogant bs. if u can buy things in uo - what u are allowed to do, since this is what vendors are for - it doesn't matter if u use gold in your bank box that was collected by killing the same mob for ages or by buying it from other folk that have millions to spent for real cash. Cause u are not banned for the way u get the millions in your bank box, but for the items u buy with it! So its EA's fault to supply this game with creepy code that allows duping, not the fault of players getting foul items, since there is no way for them to tell the difference between a duped HOM or a legally aquired HOM that someone puts on his vendor.

Or, Sir, can you tell the difference?

If you want an AOF, and happen to be not so lucky in Doom - won't u think about buying one? Selling maybe your ORNY u got instead to get the AOF? Well; how will the buyer of your Ornament tell the difference of your item to a duped one? And how will u be able to tell which of the AOF's on the vendors are foul and which is not?

I cancelled my accounts today, cause I am fed up with this game and its representatives. I had the impression early in 2007 that things were getting better, but again we are faced with massive duping, a fragile EA's response to it, and blatent exploitation of eg the latest event. It's worse than ever, with less players than ever; good luck to all that still have hope.

 

[Demonous]

im pretty sure hardly anyone duped doom artys, they're nearly worthless these days, people duped high end runics and true rares/event items in mass quantities, as you can see on vendors all around, especially atlantic

 

[Ashyn]

Seriously...in a game where items never disappear and gold piles up, there are people who have legitimately collected hundreds of the same item because it is a hobby. Presence of items alone should NOT be sufficient to ban an account. There has to be other methods of detecting game-illegal activity, additional evidence.

There are people who are collectors by nature, with game museums to display things they have spent quite a bit of time collecting. Purchasing a legal item off a vendor in the game, regardless of quantity, with game acquired gold, is a legal activity. If the item exists because of an illegal activity, that is a separate issue, and one that the buyer cannot reasonably be expected to ascertain themselves, nor should they be punished for being in possession of the item if there is no link to show their char engaged in activities that produced it illegally.

You are also in a very subjective situation by saying "you should have known". Well, some items are unique that were server birth or event items, but a lot of people do not know about their uniqueness. I have been playing for 4 years and still am learning of items I never heard of from the collector crowd. What I may feel is "common knowledge" about items is not necessarily the same as 10 or even 100 other players' concept of same.

EA has a duty to take action against known violations of its ToS, and no legitimate player has an issue with that, but the problem of duping has been going on so long and is so widespread in scope, it sounds like something has gone amiss in their ability to identify exactly who the "criminals" are.

-Skylark

Well said, Skylark.

 

[packrat]

Just read your post about granny.....all I have to say, you guys outta stop bashing EA. Possesion is 9/10's of the law.

If you take the lazy way out, and buy gold and buy pixels and all that other stuff, then you take the chance. I wouldn't know, I don't support dupers.

If granny got popped, she wasn't so innocent*......and if you haven't been popped yet, then no one needs to waste their time going through your junk.

* Don't shop massively in Luna, you're begging for trouble.....

You can't argue with people like the above. They have no clue. I bet he even bought his accounts off of ebay. Or he has his head so far up the third man he cant think straight.

 

[RedDaTeef]

The funny thing is this Tina is portrayed as this little tea-sipping grandma (who is actually 49-not really stereotypical grandma age). She has 17 accts. or so. (this is alot of accts. and this fact alone is somewhat suspicious)
Fact of the matter is EA caught you holding the ball (or the dupes in your case). Multitudes are multitudes, or maybe EA just wanted to ban someone with 17 accts fo no reason....ye right!
If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.
There are many innocent people in prison who claim they didn't do it, and many of them appear to be real nice people whose friends and family vouch for them 100%. Should we believe them?

 

[Eslake]

Maybe I'm looking for reasons not to believe people (at this point, who could blame me), but one thing about this thread has me curious.

The idea that gold was purchased for real $ is pointed to over and over again. But the reason for the ban said nothing about duped checks, it said a multitude of duped items.
I know that checks are actually items too, but they have always made the distinction in the past.

 

[azmodanb]

seriouslly!
"ohh dear is me, ohhh dear, *sipps tea* i think i just moving shot killed that guy, ohhh dear..... what time is it? is it cold in here?"

She sounds like Mrs Butterworth?

Sounds like she had enough items to warrant a ban. Those with 1 or 2 items I am sure are fine, you know how many people bought a barbed kit in the last month or two? That would be many more banning's then are reported.

Older people are some of the worst felons out there, stealing in stores everyday, just because someone is old does not mean they are innocent. Not that your guild mate is a felon, but being old, and sounding like a nice old lady dont mean very much.

 

[Ashyn]

Older people are some of the worst felons out there, stealing in stores everyday, just because someone is old does not mean they are innocent. Not that your guild mate is a felon, but being old, and sounding like a nice old lady dont mean very much.

You're outlook on the older community frightens me.

 

[Llams Anit]

The funny thing is this Tina is portrayed as this little tea-sipping grandma (who is actually 49-not really stereotypical grandma age). She has 17 accts. or so. (this is alot of accts. and this fact alone is somewhat suspicious)
Fact of the matter is EA caught you holding the ball (or the dupes in your case). Multitudes are multitudes, or maybe EA just wanted to ban someone with 17 accts fo no reason....ye right!
If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.
There are many innocent people in prison who claim they didn't do it, and many of them appear to be real nice people whose friends and family vouch for them 100%. Should we believe them?

Let us see

Get married at 21
Have a child at 22
Child has a child at 22 oh no!!!!!!!!!!!!! that would work right?
22+22 can equal grandmother at 44 with 5 years to spare

Now advance math ready?
Get married at 21
Have a child at 22
Child has a child at 22
The child's child has a child at 22 oh no!!!!!!!!!! this works as well right?
22+22+22 can equal a great grandmother at 66

She also stated she had 21 not 17 (as you must have read it wrong), accounts the reason I say this is because well you can't do the math to get a grandmother at 49 but now it seems you can't read either.

No big secret that I really don't care about Tina Small but nope she doesn't dupe she must have bought the illegal items and it seems the items must have been the checks. Don't really know for sure if those are the items. I remember Mrs. Small walking into Old Haven with her young status with the name of Ursula a blacksmith at the time and the only thing she has ever done to have illegal items was probably using real life money to buy in game items.

As I stated before she won't quit the needle is deep!!!!

 

[Yalp]

I think the point of this entire issue is

**** give the players official word (EA, not blowholes on Stratics) on which items are being actively duped... then hold us responsible when our accounts are found in possession of said items*******

there is far and away enough evidence to indicate EA banned innocent accounts.


LORD Yalp of Zento, CTDM

 

[Tina Small]

As I stated before she won't quit the needle is deep!!!!

Watch me, you old fart! This is turning out to be the kick in the seat of the pants I needed to quit this addiction. A true "blessing in disguise."

P.S. Glad to finally find out for sure that the stories of your death were greatly exaggerated. Behave yourself now. And if you want the ring set or any of the houses, track me down and I'll give them to you. It's the least I can do for the person who kept me from quitting when I should have, way back when....

 

[Uriah Heep]

Not that your guild mate is a felon, but being old, and sounding like a nice old lady dont mean very much.

But I like nice old ladies!

And 17 or so accounts? Has nothing to do with anything underhanded, heck, at peak I had 9 running, just myself! Doing a bit of real estate and house holding, co owning a few guildmates to houses so they had a place until they got their own, etc etc.
So back off using the # of accounts as evidence of foul play, that won't cut it.
I wanted to see the dupes/dupers gone as badly as anyone, but I ahve to agree that some of this went over the top. A guild's GM telling the guild in a meeting not to go to <insert URL here> as people were being banned for checking it out. And someone in the meeting actually paged on her?!?!
And the arses banned her?

YOu have REAL dupers laughing and still running around profiteering, and this mickey mouse **** is what you come up with and pat yourself on the back for?

I had seriously high hopes, when I heard this had started...but not anymore.
The dealers, the fences, the dupers, all okay.
The innocent/ignorant (as the case may be) buyer/consumer...bannned

Like the guys using RL analogies said, Lock up all the drug users, and let the dealers run free! *shakes head*

A pox on ye all, for getting our hopes up for progress, and then dashing them once again

 

[Uriah Heep]

A quick note to Jeremy:

I think it would ease the situation quite a bit, if you WOULD release details of the bannings...
No account info, nothing that can identify anyone
But an accounting such as:

Account banned, #1. possession of 72 valorite hammers (duped)
Account banned #2. Possession of 27 duped 1mil checks.
Account banned #3. Possession of 129 hooded shrouds of shadows...

get the drift?

Then we all ahve a clear picture of why, what, and what to avoid to keep ourselves out of trouble...

 

[Llams Anit]

Watch me, you old fart! This is turning out to be the kick in the seat of the pants I needed to quit this addiction. A true "blessing in disguise."

P.S. Glad to finally find out for sure that the stories of your death were greatly exaggerated. Behave yourself now. And if you want the ring set or any of the houses, track me down and I'll give them to you. It's the least I can do for the person who kept me from quitting when I should have, way back when....

Who are you calling old?

As for the other part of this quote I have no idea what you are talking about!
Who died when?
What ring set?
Houses I have

 

[Ashyn]

Watch me, you old fart!