Nevalistis

We do currently offer a profanity filter, Hotfoyou. The words you mention should be filtered by that. You can toggle this filter in your Interface > Chat settings.

At this time, I'm not aware of any plans to separate the filter for independent types of violations. That would be something you might offer feedback on in our General forum, if you'd like to see such a feature added.

02/15/2012 04:37 PMPosted by Shermy

Trade on my server is usually fairly clean, this is because people report the offenders relentlessly.

I cannot stress this enough.

Vrakthris has said this before, and probably more eloquently than I will, but I'll try to paraphrase to the best of my ability. Think of your realm as if it were your neighborhood. When you see something bad, like graffiti or a piece of litter, what do you do with it? Do you help clean it up? Do you report it? Or do you just leave it be?

If you report it, you show your community as a whole that you won't stand for that kind of behavior. The authorities will take action when and where they can. Criminals are dissuaded when they know authorities are active in an area, and authorities are more active in areas where the community is vocal in protecting their neighborhoods.

Our game works the same way. Game Masters are a reactive service - they are generally unable to take action unless they receive a report about the situation. If you see something you don't approve of (or something that violates our Harassment Policies), then please take a moment to report it to us! Our staff is more than happy to investigate and take the appropriate action, though please be aware that they are unable to inform you of actions taken on another account.

The quality of your game play environment is of paramount importance to us, and we're there to help. You just need to ask. >^.^<

Thank you for your kind words, Buron. It's wonderful to hear from our players how their experiences with our Customer Service is, and I want to make sure you know we appreciate the time you took to let us know.

Should you ever wish to leave such feedback for an individual Game Master or Billing/Technical Support Representative, please note that all petitions are now tracked through our Support Site:

https://us.battle.net/support/

From here, you can review past interactions and even fill out a survey for any representative you wish to send positive feedback or constructive criticism. We really love to hear how we're doing, and would be most honored if you helped us improve ourselves by utilizing this system as much as possible!

Best wishes to you!

01/27/2012 03:51 PMPosted by Xtremewifey

all becuz i told them they had no proof of me doing so

This would be the biggest logical fallacy in this thread.

We do have proof. If we didn't, your account would not have been actioned. We gave you a reason for your account action, and no, we will not go into detail. The reason we don't is because those who do bot or partake in other unsavory actions will take that information and use it to their advantage. I'm not saying this applies to you; I'm also not saying it doesn't.

If an account is actioned, we have proof. We've provided you the cursory reason. Actions appear to have taken place under your regular play IP that are not permitted. But that is a matter to only be discussed between you and Account Administration - not the forums.

This seems to have gotten quite a bit off topic, so let's return to the original post and keep it simple, shall we?

When a player feels they have been erroneously actioned, there is but one way to contest such penalties. To dispute an action on your account, you'll need to log into the Support Site here:

https://us.battle.net/support/

When submitting your request, be sure to select the following options:

-I can't play at all because...
-I got banned or suspended and I wish to appeal

I'm happy to hear that you have had a wonderful experience, Shaylasb. >^.^<

Do remember that if you want to provide feedback regarding any interaction you have with our support staff, you can do so by e-mailing [email protected]. We appreciate both positive feedback and constructive criticism, so please never be afraid to utilize your voice with us!

This question has been asked repeatedly. Our answer has never changed.

If you see something inappropriate in trade, or someone violates our harassment or naming policies, report it. We have, in the past, patrolled Moon Guard or other realms where we have received an overwhelming number of reports. However, these initiatives were still related to how many player reports we received.

The bottom line of any harassment/inappropriate actions taking place is that if it is never reported to us, our staff will never know about it or be able to take action. A realm's environment is as good as its community wishes it to be. Inaction on the part of any player is that player's admission that they are okay with that behavior. Reporting it allows us to step in and take appropriate action.

So our stance, like any harassment situation, is that if there is a violation, and it is reported to us, our staff will be happy to investigate and hand out account actions to those that break our rules.

These threads tend to meander onto off-topic territory; as I've already seen evidence of that direction, I'll be locking it.

I'm afraid our Game Masters are unable to intervene in any loot disputes or loot redistributions related to Looking for Raid, Vallure. I believe this was covered in our Patch 4.3 Policy Spotlight.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3992150/

Raid Finder

Our policies for the Raid Finder will largely mirror our existing stances on player interaction and loot distribution. The standard loot distribution method of Need Before Greed has been altered for the Raid Finder to be more restrictive on what loot is appropriate to which players, and as a result, it leaves little room for loot disputes.

If you are unfamiliar with our current stance, be aware that customer support does not intervene with loot disputes. This means that the rightful winner of a piece of gear in a Raid Finder group is the one who is sent the item by the distribution system. To maintain a level of fairness and equality in these matters, customer support will be unable to redistribute loot either as a result of a dispute or at the request of a player who wishes to swap the item to another. As the two-hour trade timer will still be applicable in these situations, players can swap items between themselves should they decide to do so.

Generally speaking, if there is a method with which a player can resolve the issue without Game Master intervention, our staff will be unable to intervene if those methods are not utilized. To do so invalidates the purpose of those features.

This is pretty old hat, but there's a few comments in this thread I want to address specifically.

It is a paying account, why ban them?

This is one of the biggest misconceptions we have, and I genuinely wish we could permanently clear it up. I'll provide a few hypothetical situations (mind you, these numbers are ENTIRELY made up).

Let's say 90% of botters were compromised accounts. This means that 90% of these botters aren't paying accounts; they're stolen accounts, which are generally fueled by stolen credit cards. These payments usually get disputed and taken back, which actually costs us money. If we're looking to make a purely fiscal observation, it makes no financial sense to let these continue (aside from the fact that we don't like compromised accounts to begin with - we want our players to be playing their own accounts safely and enjoyably).

Let's go on the other side of the fence and say 90% of these botters were otherwise legitimate players paying for their accounts, as you purport. When players bot, other players are inconvenienced by this behavior (and trust me, you guys outnumber the botters, even if you may feel it's the other way around). The inconveniences range from normal players having difficulty farming on their own to struggling to keep up with an economy that's being forcibly fluctuated via unfair advantage. When players are inconvenienced in this manner, they submit petitions.

Every petition submitted goes to a Game Master for review. A living, breathing person that is paid to provide customer service looks over it, does what's necessary for the situation (in botting cases, usually forwarding the info on to our exploitation/hacks team), and provides a response. Let's say 1-2 people are inconvenienced by a single botter (in all likelihood, we probably get many more petitions per botter than that). This would mean each botter is inconveniencing at least as many, and likely more, players that are positive to the community (the kinds of players we like and want to continue to play our game). For each botter we allow to continue botting, we potentially stand to lose more than we gain for a single subscription, just out of the sheer inconvenience it causes other players.

Even if you change those numbers around of legitimate players versus compromised accounts - we only stand to lose more if we don't take action on bots (which we do, regularly).

Blizzard needs to step it up. Unfortunately, the bots u see are no longer just hacked accounts...its actual players exploiting the game by using bots to farm when they sleep or are away, therefore when blizzard sends a message investigating the matter they respond as a real player and no action is taken..at least that is my assumption since two of these jerks are still regularly botting Uldum.

This has been stated many times before, but action being taken against botters takes a long time to come about. The reason why is pretty simple, and another player in this thread has stated it quite eloquently, so I'll be highlighting it here:

12/30/2011 02:01 PMPosted by Somalyyn

Blizzard investigates every single bot report. But as they are intelligent they wait until they can patch a hotfix for the bot before they do mass ban waves. This cures the infection instead of treating the symptom.

We don't generally hit bots individually as we receive the reports because it doesn't ultimately solve the issue - they just acquire another account, either legitimately or illegitimately, and get back to botting. Instead, it's much more effective to study the bots, devise the method they are abusing, and break that method. In the process, we also construct ways of detecting the behavior, and create systems in which we can catch those bots and remove them much more quickly.

It's an ever-evolving battle, however. Botters are smart too, and they figure out what it is we figured out, and develop new bots. We start the cycle over again, but it also means we've eliminated a method of exploitation and have to move on to the next. I hope that makes sense - it's a very lengthy process, and for the best intentions of that process (and preventing providing that info to those who would abuse it), I can't go into much more detail.

12/30/2011 01:47 PMPosted by Systam

If they don't whisper u back its a pretty sure sign that they're botting

Not quite. I tend to get anti-social when I'm mining. It gets me in an almost hypnotic groove. >o.o<

All jokes aside, not all players will respond to unsolicited whispers - after all, they know as little about your intentions (unless clearly stated) as you know about theirs. Some just feel like mining for a while, or do it while multi-tasking and reading Facebook or Reddit or something. I may or may not be speaking from experience. /coughs

12/30/2011 03:20 PMPosted by Läkare

how many real people, actual players do YOU KNOW personally that can fly around in the exact same pattern for 48 straight hours...and sometimes in fact weeks continuously without logging off?

And how many real people do you know who will sit at their computers and watch someone commit to these patterns for 48 hours straight? It's not an efficient manner to monitor bots, and we don't have our staff to do it any more than we expect our players to. It's also one of many factors that's considered, and unless you've been personally observing accounts for that long yourself, it's probably not quite working the way you perceive it to be. >^.~< Again, my discretion here is necessary, but suffice it to say it's taken into account.

There are other, better ways to identify bots and fight them. We have a team staffed specifically for this purpose. But it is time consuming, and it regrettably needs to be to be most effective. Bots don't get removed in small numerical batches; when we strike at them, it's usually in the hundreds, if not thousands.

Understand I'm locking this thread because, like the reason the name you are requesting is technically not permitted, calling out a sensitive topic often invites controversy that isn't really appropriate to these forums (or to our game).

There's nothing wrong with taking pride in who you are or what you do. But there's an unfortunate percentage of population that will often take something positive and turn it negative for a multitude of reasons. Whether that's out of a desire to simply be cruel or a method of attracting attention, it's why we don't permit particularly sensitive names in regards to sexual orientation, religion, or politics. All those topics tend to get people's hackles up. Just the same, we respect all views and lifestyles, which is why our Harassment policy strictly forbids any negative bashing of the sort in regards to any of those topics, and many others.

http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/harassment-policy

I hope that provides you the clarity you're looking for. We want both the forums and players' experiences in game to be as stress free and enjoyable as possible. Restricting references to things that tend to be highly volatile and bring out the combative nature in people is an unfortunately necessary step to that goal.

Understand I'm locking this thread because, like the reason the name you are requesting is technically not permitted, calling out a sensitive topic often invites controversy that isn't really appropriate to these forums (or to our game).

There's nothing wrong with taking pride in who you are or what you do. But there's an unfortunate percentage of population that will often take something positive and turn it negative for a multitude of reasons. Whether that's out of a desire to simply be cruel or a method of attracting attention, it's why we don't permit particularly sensitive names in regards to sexual orientation, religion, or politics. All those topics tend to get people's hackles up. Just the same, we respect all views and lifestyles, which is why our Harassment policy strictly forbids any negative bashing of the sort in regards to any of those topics, and many others.

http://us.battle.net/support/en/article/harassment-policy

I hope that provides you the clarity you're looking for. We want both the forums and players' experiences in game to be as stress free and enjoyable as possible. Restricting references to things that tend to be highly volatile and bring out the combative nature in people is an unfortunately necessary step to that goal.

This thread isn't really attracting constructive conversation, which is why I'm locking it.

Our investigations into botting usually aren't done on an individual case basis, Aahriman. The information is sent to our Hacks team so that they can break these techniques and catch the players on a much larger scale. Doing otherwise is ultimately ineffective for most bots, as these usually come from compromised accounts or gold sellers, not legitimate players.

I understand that you may feel as though nothing was done. But without being the account owner, truthfully, there is no way for you to know for certain. He may have gotten a warning, or a short term action, and chose not to tell you about it. I don't recommend questioning him on the topic either.

If you believe he is still continuing this behavior, please feel free to report him again, either via in-game petition or via e-mail to [email protected]. Discussing it on the forums isn't good for you or your friend (or your friendship), nor is it permitted.

This thread isn't really attracting constructive conversation, which is why I'm locking it.

Our investigations into botting usually aren't done on an individual case basis, Aahriman. The information is sent to our Hacks team so that they can break these techniques and catch the players on a much larger scale. Doing otherwise is ultimately ineffective for most bots, as these usually come from compromised accounts or gold sellers, not legitimate players.

I understand that you may feel as though nothing was done. But without being the account owner, truthfully, there is no way for you to know for certain. He may have gotten a warning, or a short term action, and chose not to tell you about it. I don't recommend questioning him on the topic either.

If you believe he is still continuing this behavior, please feel free to report him again, either via in-game petition or via e-mail to [email protected]. Discussing it on the forums isn't good for you or your friend (or your friendship), nor is it permitted.

I think the issue here that's been discussed a few times is that the definition of what is a valuable member of a guild to the guild in question differs from our own definition.

Any guild member is a part of that guild. Leadership of the guild will only get passed to the highest and most recently active player in that guild. If all the high ranking officers were on break, it makes sense to pass it to someone in that guild who is active in the community and is as highly placed as possible.

The policy is there to help guilds progress rather than grow stagnant if high ranking members become inactive, and that's what this situation seems to have entailed. There's not much of a way for our staff to know how each and every individual guild personally operates, and instead, our policies on such things are determined by how the in-game mechanics work. It's not that we don't take other things into account, but that there are personal factors in many cases that may not be practical when investigating these issues.

All the above said, this policy currently is being reviewed, and as some of you know, we are working on a way for guilds to personally handle these situations in-game without the use of our Support Staff. I'm afraid I don't have much more detail to share, but it is a system being considered and looked at, and your feedback will be especially valuable when this feature comes to fruition. >^.^<

This is getting a bit unproductively off-topic, so I'm going to go ahead and lock this.

This is getting a bit unproductively off-topic, so I'm going to go ahead and lock this.