Support NeoGAF

[Ickman3400]

Glad he got banned, dont be a flaming tool just becasue its the internet.....he even admitted he deserved the banning. Why even post something like that then if you know your gonna be banned?

Lesson learned, people need to start learning that certain actions actually have consequences. If this keeps more idiots/trolls off forums then im all for it.

And this is how rights get trampled on, because people talk themselves into thinking it's ok in some way.

You shouldn't lose access to your paid product for being a troll, or for any reason really. EVER.

 

[Vagabundo]

It good to know a little internet outrage can right a small wrong.

 

[water_wendi]

It good to know a little internet outrage can right a small wrong.

As soon as we all get bored and look away theyll go right back to it hoping that new people affected will just give up.

 

[Fantasmo]

Companies these days are spending far too much time trampling customer rights. Not surprised at the outcome, but I'm totally at a loss as to who came up with this and thought it might be a defensible idea.

Banned for trolling is understandable. Banning from play is a whole new level. Imagine I bought a book or dvd and criticized it and I was unable to read/watch it further?

I'm at a loss here...

neomatrixwhoah.gif

 

[Phaethon0017]

I'm in awe that this went down. Just in awe.

 

[blame space]

please

deaf, meager teams bear fearless eagerness. seams mean, easily dreaming lean, wheat permeating beans.

pea, bean; heads reanimated mean deaf treated jeans leak misdealing reactors.

 

[Blizzard]

please

deaf, meager teams bear fearless eagerness. seams mean, easily dreaming lean, wheat permeating beans.

pea, bean; heads reanimated mean deaf treated jeans leak misdealing reactors.

...the hell???

 

[kuroshiki]

please

deaf, meager teams bear fearless eagerness. seams mean, easily dreaming lean, wheat permeating beans.

pea, bean; heads reanimated mean deaf treated jeans leak misdealing reactors.

so, how things going over there?

 

[Neki]

EA redeemed! Now off to buy more EA products before they turn evil again.

 

[karobit]

please

deaf, meager teams bear fearless eagerness. seams mean, easily dreaming lean, wheat permeating beans.

pea, bean; heads reanimated mean deaf treated jeans leak misdealing reactors.

you've sold your soul to the ea devil

 

[Dead Man]

I posted this on a dutch forum, in the Dragon Age 2 for 360 thread.

People there didn't mind this at all, in fact, they applauded EA for taking this action. They said if you don't bitch and whine, nothing can happen to you. They seem to be oblivious what this means for consumer rights.

Goddamn idiots.

Sadly, more people are sheep than not. Even if you don't think it's a big deal, I don't understand thinking it actually good.

 

[ZombieSupaStar]

HAHA a "glitch?", at least own up to being a bad decision (like Blizzard did when they reversed their stance on the BNET Real Names fiasco), but saying "It wuz computer problemz!", what a real bitch move EA. LMAO. Maybe they should by some "grow a backbone" DLC?

Good summary --V

1. Guy pops up after being banned, including his access to game, after a “moan” on their forums
2. Bioware staff justify the ban, talk down to anyone who disagrees.
3. Story continues to build up to a huge shitstorm of PR failure
4. apology: OH, er, sorry guys, it was a system error! Those crazy computers!

Sadly, more people are sheep than not. Even if you don't think it's a big deal, I don't understand thinking it actually good.

Probably corporate cheerleading. Always amazing/sad to see it in action.

 

[Dead Man]

So... now that it has been declared a glitch, it will never happen again, right?

 

[Saty]

I don't see why we should insist on it being an openly knowable policiy on the part of EA that forum bans will prevent game activation\ access to DLC. What good does it do for them?
So a guy gets his access blocked, tells the world, backlash, bad press everywhere, threads like these pop-up and then EA 'folds' in less of a day? EA and Bioware are having a tough month as it is for them to have more on their heads. All these for what? 'Ha! We blocked our paying customer from playing our game. That will teach him?'

Are we to expect the same cycle now for each forum ban? EA gains absolutely nothing to have this a deliberate policy.

 

[Kritz]

Are we to expect the same cycle now for each forum ban? EA gains absolutely nothing to have this a deliberate policy.

It makes company forum moderators feel nice and smug, though. That's something.

 

[MMaRsu]

I don't see why we should insist on it being an openly knowable policiy on the part of EA that forum bans will prevent game activation\ access to DLC. What good does it do for them?
So a guy gets his access blocked, tells the world, backlash, bad press everywhere, threads like these pop-up and then EA 'folds' in less of a day? EA and Bioware are having a tough month as it is for them to have more on their heads. All these for what? 'Ha! We blocked our paying customer from playing our game. That will teach him?'

Are we to expect the same cycle now for each forum ban? EA gains absolutely nothing to have this a deliberate policy.

Haha oh man, do you really think this shit was unintentional etc?

 

[Saty]

I have no reason to think it was anything other than an honest mistake. But if forum bans are generally frequent then we should see many cases like that soon enough.

 

[Kritz]

Haha oh man, do you really think this shit was unintentional etc?

It was probably unintentional in the sense that they never thought anyone would actually complain enough to cause an internet riot (my favourite kind of riot). I'm sure someone at some point realised that it was possible for people to be locked out of their games, but I think it was more a case of incompetence over malice.

 

[speedpop]

Way to backflip like a dolphin who has no spine EA. Fuck me.

Did they even state that they were going to remedy the solution so that forum account bans won't cause you to lose access to the games you bought?

Probably corporate cheerleading. Always amazing/sad to see it in action.

I seem to be noticing it a lot more recently, specifically when it comes to consumer vs corporate subject threads, and I simply cannot understand it. What the hell is wrong with people?

 

[Saty]

It was never meant to lock you out of of the games you bought. Instead to ban his account only from posting for 3 days it somehow affected his ability to play the games.

 

[nib95]

Please tell me this is now remedied and such bannings WON'T affect your gaming?

 

[MMaRsu]

It was never meant to lock you out of of the games you bought. Instead to ban his account only from posting for 3 days it somehow affected his ability to play the games.

Why do you keep insisting this when clearly almost 99% of the people here seem to agree that it WAS intentional.

Quote:
1. BioWare community bans are forum-only and can be for as little as 24 hours. These bans should have no effect on your game, only your ability to use all the features of this website/community. these bans are handed out by BioWare Moderators as the result of our travels around the forum and/or issues reported by fellow community members.

2. EA Community bans come down from a different department and are the result of someone hitting the REPORT POST button. These bans can affect access to your game and/or DLC.

Because the BioWare community now operates under the same umbrella as all EA Communities, community members here have all explicitly agreed to abide by and be governed by both sets of rules. Consider it an added incentive to follow the rules you say you’re going to follow.”
.

Like a different user said a few posts above :

They fucked up, got caught out, rightfully repealed their mistake and threw out a limp-dicked "error" explanation for the whole thing. Again, glad the dude is able to play the game he paid for, but this was clearly no "error" beyond the kind typified by usual corporate hubris

If you think this was really an error I don't see how you could even think that. Once they saw that people where beginning to cause a riot, they retracted their statement.

 

[Wolves Evolve]

The other moral of the story is never post on official forums.

 

[semiconscious]

I seem to be noticing it a lot more recently, specifically when it comes to consumer vs corporate subject threads, and I simply cannot understand it. What the hell is wrong with people?

broken brains. seriously. when genuine, & not just corporate spamming, it's like a combination of cognitive dissonance & stockholm syndrome. companies have successfully convinced many people that any & all restrictions being placed upon them, no matter how ludicrous they may appear to be, are for their own good...

because life is so much easier when you let someone else do your thinking...

 

[Fuzzy]

GAF Admins should blow up someone's house when they ban them. The forum would be a much nicer place if that threat was in place.

 

[Crazetex]

GAF Admins should blow up someone's house when they ban them. The forum would be a much nicer place if that threat was in place.

Sorry, you're going to be banned for this post.

Also, yeah, this seems intentional/la la la insert above pissed-off posts here.

 

[HDgaming42]

Glad he got banned, dont be a flaming tool just becasue its the internet.....he even admitted he deserved the banning. Why even post something like that then if you know your gonna be banned?

Lesson learned, people need to start learning that certain actions actually have consequences. If this keeps more idiots/trolls off forums then im all for it.

400+ posts in and you haven't managed to pick up what this is about? No wonder companies feel they can do whatever they like and there will be no backlash...

 

[Angry Fork]

Sorry, you're going to be banned for this post.

Why? It's not like it's a personal threat or talking about anyone in particular.

 

[Feel the Swift]

I'm in awe that this went down. Just in awe.

Well put.

 

[Chinese Electric Batman]

Someone post the picture of the guy holding his hands up on TV please.

 

[ClovingWestbrook]

Glad he got banned, dont be a flaming tool just becasue its the internet.....he even admitted he deserved the banning. Why even post something like that then if you know your gonna be banned?

Lesson learned, people need to start learning that certain actions actually have consequences. If this keeps more idiots/trolls off forums then im all for it.

Dumbass statement.

 

[PjotrStroganov]

Why do you keep insisting this when clearly almost 99% of the people here seem to agree that it WAS intentional.



Like a different user said a few posts above :


If you think this was really an error I don't see how you could even think that. Once they saw that people where beginning to cause a riot, they retracted their statement.

It was not intentional.
Biowares Fernando Melo says this.

I agree, and I'll cover what I can below.

For some of the other posters - believe what you will.

This was a genuine mistake made by an individual. And clearly there was a failing in the system that actually allowed them to escalate this directly to a full lockdown of the account contrary to how it should flow.

This was never an issue that warranted an account level ban (which, I have to call out is incredibly rare in any case), but normally this would never go beyond a temp ban of the forums with zero impact to games. Trying to portray this as a purposeful or vengeful act 'just because' is immature, not to mention inconsistent with how we actually operate if you care to observe.

As I mentioned before this is a serious issue that we need to fix - as in properly fix, as you suggest. It is not acceptable that something like this happens accidentally, even once.

The purpose of this system is not to feed our egos and dangle axes over player's heads in some sort of power trip - it is there specifically to protect players. To maintain some structure and order to our communities so they don't degenerate into what many other forums look like, and allow you to have a place where you can have a reasonable discussion, or ask a game related question without a some kind of explicit picture being thrust in your face, and yes - in very extreme cases to distance persistent, deliberately malicious individuals from other players IF necessary as a last resort (or at least until they realize it, cool off and get their act together).

Still, that person is supposed to be able to continue to play offline. The goal is to close off the online features where this extreme measure is needed (again, this should be extremely rare). But what we realized with this incident is that while you can completely keep playing offline with an existing game, you can't register a new game since when you login to register the account comes back as invalid. This is new for us, and not intended.

Anyways, long story short (as its late here) - before we rush in with our torches and pitchforks, we need to properly figure out what happened. That will take some time to sort out.

In the meantime, what I've already heard is that the EADM team is going to start working on a fix for game clients to ensure that players will at least be able to register and play offline, even in these rare extreme scenarios. That won't be an overnight fix, but it's a start.

Again, believe what you will.
F.

You can rightfully argue that it shouldn't be possible to have your EA account to be banned becasue of a forum post. It just doesn't seem intentional. A mod fucked up pressing the wrong button and another mod fucked up by using the user agreement to explain what happened.

Explaining that it is possible to play DLC offline also doesn't hold water though, because what happens if I'm forced to do a complete system re-install? I can't back up my dlc right? At least they are looking into that issue.

I personally think it shouldn't be possible to ban account, no matter what you do on a forum. And it doesn't seem that this is going to be fixed.

 

[kuroshiki]

It was not intentional.
Biowares Fernando Melo says this.


You can rightfully argue that it shouldn't be possible to have your EA account to be banned becasue of a forum post. It just doesn't seem intentional. A mod fucked up pressing the wrong button and another mod fucked up by using the user agreement to explain what happened.

Explaining that it is possible to play DLC offline also doesn't hold water though, because what happens if I'm forced to do a complete system re-install? I can't back up my dlc right? At least they are looking into that issue.

I personally think it shouldn't be possible to ban account, no matter what you do on a forum. And it doesn't seem that this is going to be fixed.

I guess you haven't read this part yet.

1. BioWare community bans are forum-only and can be for as little as 24 hours. These bans should have no effect on your game, only your ability to use all the features of this website/community. these bans are handed out by BioWare Moderators as the result of our travels around the forum and/or issues reported by fellow community members.

2. EA Community bans come down from a different department and are the result of someone hitting the REPORT POST button. These bans can affect access to your game and/or DLC.

Because the BioWare community now operates under the same umbrella as all EA Communities, community members here have all explicitly agreed to abide by and be governed by both sets of rules. Consider it an added incentive to follow the rules you say you’re going to follow.”

 

[Shambles]

I don't care what kind of BS excuses they come up with. This mechanism should never exist in the first place and EA should not have the ability to shut off your games regardless of how inappropriate they feel your behavior is. Limiting online abilities is one thing but disabling the entire game shouldn't even be possible. Putting kill switches in your games only pushes more people who are willing to buy the game to pirate it instead.

 

[Joe Shlabotnik]

It was not intentional.
Biowares Fernando Melo says this.


You can rightfully argue that it shouldn't be possible to have your EA account to be banned becasue of a forum post. It just doesn't seem intentional. A mod fucked up pressing the wrong button and another mod fucked up by using the user agreement to explain what happened.

Semantics. Yes, it's possible this is exactly what happened--an EA mod instituted the account ban outside of the spirit of the rule, and a forum mod explained separately it using the Terms of Service. But the larger point is that this is inarguably well within the existing Terms of Service. The fact that EA has to explain what the rule is "meant for" after the fact is the whole problem. Gee, I wonder how the EA mod decided to ban the account in the first place? Probably by reading the Terms Of Service!

If we're forced to divine the intentions of the rules, then the TOS already overreaches.

 

[MMaRsu]

Yea like other have said it was intentional. I don't doubt for a second they were scrambling to fix this and coming up with a good excuse the minute this became public.

I don't care what kind of BS excuses they come up with. This mechanism should never exist in the first place and EA should not have the ability to shut off your games regardless of how inappropriate they feel your behavior is. Limiting online abilities is one thing but disabling the entire game shouldn't even be possible. Putting kill switches in your games only pushes more people who are willing to buy the game to pirate it instead.

Exactly.

 

[dekjo]

The other moral of the story is never post on official forums.

The only one I use is Bethesda's because they have a good mod community. And I've never heard them do something like this (I don't even think they have the ability to), but if they ever did do something like EA did, I'd just use the Nexus forums instead.

 

[MarshMellow96]

Does anyone want to try trolling the EA forums to see if it was unintentional?

It'd be absolutely amazing if it worked.

 

[Chinese Electric Batman]

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/6503413/1
http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/6511276/1#6511550

 

[ghostmind]

Oops, they did it again!

 

[Diablohead]

I have always hated how much power EA has on their online games, servers closing for their games, locking users out of stuff like this, I dread to think what is next on their list.

 

[Fortinbras]

Watch them play the glitch card again...

 

[MarshMellow96]

Amazing..

 

[2San]

Yeah, I'm not buying DA2. Glad my pre-order got canceled.

 

[opticalmace]

So could this then happen to any EA product? Or is this some Bioware-specific thing?

Going to try to avoid their products from here on out if I can. This is absolute bullshit.

 

[Vorador]

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/141/index/6511276/1#6511550

WTF

becouse i said the word r*pe... on a forum about a rated M game.... for 72 hours

I'm not buying a Bioware game again until they get their shit together. This is unacceptable.

 

[stuminus3]

So did any of you use this nonsense as another good reason to forget about Dragon Age and instead pay 1/3 of the cost for the rather awesome Drakensang: The River of Time instead?

Because you fucking should have.

 

[2San]

So did any of you use this nonsense as another good reason to forget about Dragon Age and instead pay 1/3 of the cost for the rather awesome Drakensang: The River of Time instead?

Because you fucking should have.

How's the game storywise? Also is the game story driven? Planning to buy it after exams.

 

[godels rotating universe]

Why is he getting so upset about Bioware doing him a favour?

 

[Chinese Electric Batman]

Why is he getting so upset about Bioware doing him a favour?