Can you provide more detail regarding why my account was suspended/banned, as well as details regarding the action taken (ex: duration of suspension/ban)? Thanks.

Hi there!

I have not been able to verify the account with the information provided so far. Please provide as much of the below information as possible.

What date of birth did you use when you created the account?
List all 20- or 25-digit serial codes for any games you added to the account.

I look forward to your reply.

Cheers,
Adonis
WildStar Support Team

Hello Adonis,
I'm confused... this ticket was submitted from the support site while logged into my account... why are you asking me for verification info?

To directly answer your questions, I don't know what DoB I submitted when I registered my account (I'm sure it was a BS date though). If you can tell me where in my profile I can find that info, I'll be glad to retrieve it for you. Regarding game serial numbers, I'm not aware of any... where can I find that info?

I'm sorry that I'm not much help here, but I'm also utterly confused as to why you are unable to verify my account...?

Thanks,
Strake

Adonis,

I tried to find the information you requested. Regarding the game serial code, I can only find the last four digits from the account screen: -xxxx. However, I was able to find the order number that generated the serial code: xxxxxxxxxx.

I couldn't help but notice that my account profile shows "Account Status: Inactive" and "Playable Until: Expired" - which is rather concerning considering my subscription is supposed to run through October 3rd. Perhaps that's normal when an account is suspended/banned, but when I combine that with the questions you're asking and the fact that the timestamps on the suspended/banned notifications were in the future, I get pretty concerned.

But what I'm really trying to figure out are the following two questions:
1) How long is this ban?
2) Why was I banned?

Thanks,
Strake

Hello,

I have reviewed the details of the past actions on your account. After careful consideration of the information available to us, I am confident in the decision to terminate the account. Please keep in mind that WildStar is a global game with standards of behavior that must be upheld. Also, please be advised that we cannot disclose other information regarding your violation.

You are welcome to submit additional questions, however, we do not want to give you the impression that anything you say or do will reverse or alter the decision to suspend your account.

Regards,
Erika
WildStar Support Team

Erika,

Can you please tell me the duration of this suspension?

I'm rather confused by your comment stating "Please keep in mind that WildStar is a global game with standards of behavior that must be upheld" - what in the world are you trying to imply by this? Now I'm REALLY curious as to the reasoning for this suspension.

Thanks,
Strake

Hello,

Your ticket has been forwarded to me because you do not agree with the previous decision to uphold the action on your account. As the Supervisor for the WildStar Support Team, it is my responsibility to make the final decision in these situations.

After thoroughly reviewing this incident, I have found no errors or inconsistencies in the reviews of your appeal requests nor was I able to find any errors in the decision to terminate the account.

Though we regret having to take these types of actions, we believe it is in the best interest of our service and our community that the account remains permanently closed due to the previously indicated rules violations.

At this time, I must also respectfully inform you that any further questions regarding the account termination may be closed without response.

Regards,
Darian
WildStar Support Team

Hi Darian,

I appreciate you telling me the duration of the ban. In your response, you reference "previously indicated rules violations." I am unable to find where said rule violations have been previously indicated, so, again, I am unable to determine if this action was taken due to something I have done or if it was taken due to something someone else has done (as suggested in the original ban notification).

Going on the assumption that you have taken this action over something I have done, I have to assume it is from my making in-game money off of the crafting system. A crafting system which your developers have repeatedly reviewed and tweaked, each time reducing (but rarely eliminating) profit margins. Given the fact that the crafting system - and many of the recipes in particular - have repeatedly been reviewed by developers and left with intact profit margins, it was only reasonable for me to assume that Carbine was okay with this unusual, but interesting and fun, mechanic.

Furthermore, every single crafting recipe I used to profit from has been reported to Carbine multiple times over the past three months without response. Couple this with the fact that developers have reviewed the crafting mechanics and recipes - it seemed clear to me that Carbine wanted to maintain profit incentives for crafting. Apparently, I was wrong in that determination - but I think it's your responsibility to take into consideration Carbine's own actions regarding this manner. And that consideration should lead to a tempered response, not immediately to the nuclear option.

I've never caused Carbine trouble or interfered with game operation in any way. I played the game I though Carbine was providing us to play. I think it's rash and inappropriate to immediately escalate to the highest tier of punishment without even the slightest of warnings.

In consideration of all of the above, I request that you put an expiration on the ban of my account.

Thanks,
Strake

Hello,

Please note that the following notice was sent at 10:30 am PDT, Tuesday September 16.

This message is being sent to notify you that a violation of the WildStar User Agreement and Rules of Conduct has occurred on your account. Due to this violation the following action was placed on the account:

Account: *********@yahoo.com
Action: Banned
Violation:Exploitation

Please be aware that repeated or serious violations of the rules may lead to more serious measures, which could include a temporary suspension or even permanent termination of the account. I ve included links to the User Agreement and Rules of Conduct below for your reference. If you have additional questions, please let us know.

User Agreement: http://us.ncsoft.com/en/legal/user-agreements/wildstar-user-agreement.php
Rules of Conduct: http://us.ncsoft.com/en/legal/user-agreements/wildstar-rules-of-conduct.php

We can understand your curiosity regarding the details of the exploitation, however discussing our methods could compromise them. We have re-verified the validity of the closure. As this matter has been reviewed by multiple investigators, we will be unable to provide further correspondence on the matter. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Regards,
Andrew "Bunuinox"
WildStar Support Team

Andrew,

It's not your methods that I'm trying to determine. I'm trying to understand what specifically I did that you consider to be exploitation, for two very valid reasons:

1) To determine whether or not what you have called exploitation is something I was doing (as opposed to something someone else might have been doing). There's a reason the auto-gen email contained the following phrase: "It may also be possible that your account has become compromised and you may not have logged in during the violation."

2) To understand what I was doing wrong so that I do not repeat the same mistakes on my other accounts.

I do not think my request is unreasonable, Andrew. On the other hand, "you did wrong but we won't tell you what that wrong was" is. It's difficult to play by the rules when the rules aren't shared with the player... not to mention the heavy-handed response your team has decided on.

I appreciate your continued attention to this matter.

Regards,
Strake

Hello Strake,

We have verified that the activity took place while the account was accessed from a normal play location. The information about possible compromise is generic and included in a variety of Support communications. The only additional information we can provide regarding the exploitation is that a bug was exploited many thousands of times, possibly using automated gameplay. Beyond that, we are unable to discuss our investigation methods or further details of the infraction. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Regards,
Andrew "Bunuinox"
WildStar Support Team

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for the reply. From the detail you provided, it certainly sounds like something I was doing as opposed to some third party. Unfortunately, it sounds like *several* things I was doing, so I still feel left in the dark regarding which of my actions were legit and which were not. I understand that you cannot discuss details of your investigation or of the infraction, but surely you can tell me whether or not specific actions are or are not considered exploitation. As such, here's a list of various things I was doing. Could you point out which ones are considered exploits and which ones are not?

1) Use of the addon "Hephaestus" allows one to both queue and batch crafting tasks. This most certainly qualifies as "automated gameplay." My understanding was that this was a Carbine-approved addon - its use is certainly widespread. Is the use of Hephaestus considered exploitation?

2) Crafting recipes, combined with auction prices and (at times) crafting talents, allow a person to make a lot of in-game gold by selling the crafted material to a vendor. Since developers have reviewed and revised recipes that allow for this, I assumed that such behavior was sanctioned by Carbine. Is crafting then selling to vendors considered exploitation? Or, alternatively, are there specific recipes that are okay and others that are not? Here is a full list of everything I was crafting - all of them many thousands of times, all using Hephaestus. Are any/all of these crafting recipes considered to be exploitative?

Architect: Lopp Hookah, Metal Plank, Red Lantern, Exile Hanging Lamp, Cerulean Tallflower, Large Algoroc Grass Patch, Dry Log, Self-cleaning auto-grill, White Picket Fence, Bulrush - grass only.

Technologist: Basic Medshots, All 5 tiers of reagents, All 5 tiers of relics.

Andrew, I know you feel your hands are tied regarding telling me what I did wrong, but please try to understand this from my perspective - I've been punished, severely, and do not desire to repeat whatever behavior brought said severe punishment. Your comments make it clear that I was punished for something relating to crafting/ While unusual, it seemed clear to me that developers intended for us to be able to make a profit from crafting alone. Was this perception wrong? Or was it using Hephaestus? Or was it something else entirely?

I appreciate your assistance in making sure I understand what is and is not allowed in Wildstar.

Thanks,
Strake

Hi Strake,

The account action was not due to use of any addon or normal item crafting. Let me give some theoretical examples of bugs that, when discovered by a player, should not be repeatedly used by that player:

- A spell grants a stackable buff that is only supposed to stack 3 times. A player finds that by zoning in and out of an instance, they can apply more stacks than intended and one-shot every opponent they encounter.
- A recipe only requires reagents sold by a vendor. The created item sells to the vendor for more than the vendor cost of the reagents, and there's no cooldown on using the recipe.
- Chua can fit through a mousehole in a wall and are untargetable and unreacheable by other players who they attack.
- A doodad fails to despawn and spawns infinite, easily killable monsters that have high-value items on their loot table.

I hope these fictional examples of things that should be reported as bugs rather than leverage for gain help you identify actions that should be avoided in the future. Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns.

Regards,

Andrew "Bunuinox"
WildStar Support Team

Hi Andrew,

Thanks for your detailed reply. Your examples make sense. Allow me to pose a theoretical scenario:

A recipe requires ingredients not available by vendor, but the ingredients are readily available on the commodities exchange. A player figures out that he can craft an item that will sell to the vendor for more than the cost of the raw materials. Said player does so over and over and over. Is this considered an exploit?

Thanks,
Strake

Hi Strake,

Thanks for your inquiry. Buying commodities, making an item and selling it to a vendor for a profit is not an exploit, and not what the account was closed for. Sorry man, really wish I could help more.

Regards,
Andrew "Bunuinox"
WildStar Support Team

Hi Strake,

I know you probably feel like you're getting the runaround. I went to bat for you with my boss and I may be able to do something about the closure if you can help us out with repro steps on the behavior that caused us to close the account. I'm going out on a limb here talking to you about this, because if you are just playing dumb and post all this on Reddit, it's really going to make it harder for us to get authorization to attempt "gray-hatting" anyone in the future. So please, please, please keep this confidential. Please don't ruin it for everybody.

First of all, your account was logged in way too much. Historically, nearly all accounts logged in as much as yours was (20-hour binges, etc.) are doing something inappropriate and damaging to the game. Additionally, in one day we found your account buying back medi-shots from a vendor over 13,000 times... So umm, what the heck where you doing? You were generating so many logs that it was crashing our investigation tools, making the investigation take even longer because we had to keep running and re-running searches for smaller and smaller periods of time, then stitch them all together. The potential for worse exploitation was such that a lot of people (too many, maybe) got involved in the issue and the account was so spot-lighted internally that our hands were tied on closing the account, no matter how little this particular account itself may have improperly benefited from whatever it was doing.

QA has a number of related fixes going into the game, but I'm reaching out to you in hopes of getting additional info so we can verify that there's no economy, vendor, econ buff or crafting bug that we are still missing.

I hope to hear back from you soon.

Regards,
Andrew "Bunuinox"
WildStar Support Team

Hi Andrew,

I appreciate you going to bat for me with your boss. You are correct that I have felt like I was getting the runaround. After a couple exchanges with you, it became clear that your hands were tied - I know how that goes, we all have bosses. There's no need to worry about me posting this on Reddit. I think gray hatting could benefit both Carbine and players to improve Wildstar, I wouldn't want to ruin that for everyone.

I was logged in a lot - as much as possible. In fact, the only reason I ever logged out was due to the game crashing after ~5 hours of being logged in. I'm no fool, I know that extensive login times are a flag for bots and gold farmers and whatnot - I made no effort whatsoever to hide what I was doing as all of my actions seemed to be legitimate. Making profits off of vendoring crafted goods is unusual for an MMO, but it seemed clear that Carbine was okay with small incremental profits from such work.

As for what I was doing regarding medi-shots, it's much simpler than what your note suggests. I bought and farmed all of the standard omni-plasm I could, then crafted basic medi-shots and sold them to the vendor. The technologist talent "miraculous medicines" states that it will refund omni-plasm used to craft medi-shots and boosts. This allowed for no profitability on novice tier and up medi-shots, but it did allow for very small profits on apprentice tier medishots. So I would craft thousands upon thousands of medi-shots and sell them to the vendor, turning a tiny profit over time into a large net profit. No different than what I'd been doing with the many other technologist and architect recipes that I specified in an earlier exchange with you, but a LOT more volume due to the very tiny per-craft profit.

Regarding the buying back of medi-shots - that must be an issue with the logging systems overflowing or something. Nothing I was doing involved buying anything back, and I can't think of a way that I would have accidentally bought back that many medi-shots, given how the buyback option is a rolling window of the last ~15 things sold. The only thing I was doing was crafting medi-shots and selling them. A lot.

Was I aware that there was a high refund rate for materials? Of course! I didn't think it was a bug though, since the one recipe that allowed for profit was very a tiny profit - and therefore in line with other profitable crafting recipes. Other talents used in much more profitable recipes (such as the famous lopp hookah) have proc rates of around 25% for a sizable profit, so a 95% proc rate to give a much smaller profit - for a consumable item to boot - seemed reasonable.

Regards,
Strake

Hi Strake,

Thanks so much for your thorough accounting of the matter. We have restored access to the account. Please note that the playtime on the account did not count down while the account was closed. Please find two 15-day game time codes below, a thank you for working with us on this matter. If something seems like it may be too good to be true, shoot a ticket our way.

8IRB91PC7UY9XBVDAJGH
0OMNN5ZRJFO25LEAZ7BZ

Regards,
Andrew "Bunuinox"
    WildStar Support Team