Broken
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The CS Three Penny Opera Of Ownage
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Random Bits of Lum
- Punching Babies: Why Darkfall Can, Should, And Must Succeed
- Conservatives: Making Hillary Clinton Look Good Since 1999
- The Mordred Problem
- Warcraft Killed The Community Star
- Nihilum/SK Gaming Beat World of Warcraft Expansion, Go On To Establish Peace In Middle East, Save Madonna’s Marriage
- The Real Hitler Problem
about 2 years ago
ok. that was cool.
about 2 years ago
Holy shit that was awesome.
about 2 years ago
The poor scammer. Owned by CCTV
Closed circuit turtle vision…
Its nice to think that people don’t think thier data transmissions aren’t being logged somewhere for future reference. Makes these kind of things far more amusing. There’s that lovely feeling of shadenfreude when this kind of thing happens.
about 2 years ago
A thing of beauty, that.
about 2 years ago
aww i hate when this stuff happens when I’m at work, since by the time I get home it’s already deleted from the forums.
about 2 years ago
Oh, snap !
about 2 years ago
You’re so very late, you poor man. Did you ever get to see the two posts Kiranth made in that thread? The first was the usual tale of woe, and the follow-up was where he tried to pull the “I have a kid” excuse for why he couldn’t wait for a GM in game and how he had only 150g because he, duh, lost his epic mount skill. Obviously, he didn’t bother to respond to why he never answered emails or the fact that he never ever had 5000g in his life.
Check his armory profile. He never did get his epic riding skill. (He’s the human walock, not the Belfadin.)
about 2 years ago
I sure hope Blizzard has all that exactly right… You know cause if the person in question didn’t attempt to defraud anyone and it turned out that the text records were as they were due to a data base bug…
Habeas corpus and all that.
Ah what’s it matter it’s just one customer and there are millions of others to take his/her place. Besides, it sets a good example for the other peasants.
Blizzard should hold more public executions the peasants love that stuff. Hell, no need to even accuse them of anything at all, just tell them in front of the mob what they’ve done and then have at them!
about 2 years ago
Oh, get over it D-One. Is Blizzard supposed to just sit there while people post libel on their forums? There was no room for error in Aurk’s investigation because the liar did not ever have anywhere near 5000g in the weeks before the petition.
This is so far from random executions it’s not even sane. If you could see the original post from that thread, you would see that the OP put forth a chain of events that were clearly misleading if you had the logs to prove it. He even did the whole polite and concerned bit that every other liar on the WoW forums has used. Yes, that’s right. This has all been done before.
And it’s not like Auryk was flaming him. She laid out the facts and let them speak for themselves. You know, the facts about how his petitions kept contradicting eachother and the facts about what he was saying in chat and the facts about how he never had 5000g.
It would take one hell of a database bug to not register the right amount of money for weeks, alter his chat logs, alter his petitions, and remoive his flight skill.
about 2 years ago
You’re right Pat. Not about the libel, part but the getting over it part.
I should know by now that the entire point of a gaming community is to replicate, in as much detail as possible, an Orc society, right down to the cannibalism.
Thousands buy gold everyday and how many are publicly humiliated on the Blizzard forums? He/She/It should have just bought the gold.
Sorry if my reaction isn’t one of, “Super cool OWNAGE!” but one of “Heh, a GM found a mark…”
about 2 years ago
He posted a complaint. A CM replied to his complaint with verifiable and thorough information. Had he wished the reply from Blizzard to remain private there were less public channels available to him.
Had he not posted the complaint there would have been no public reply.
I’m really not seeing the issue here, and as much as people deal with idiot scammers online these days I don’t really see any reason to not be amused when one gets caught publicly.
about 2 years ago
Hell if WoW had public executions I’d sign back up in a heartbeat just to watch them. Maybe they could litter Elwynn Forest with crucifixes of characters with signs around thier necks
“Scammer”, “Gold Miner”, “Exploited Holes in the Latest Dungeon”, “Griefer”.
Heck, even rename the things in the Stockades after people who’ve been banned. It’d be… fun walking in there and then gloating over /g that you whacked the slob who hid up the wall in the BG’s last week out of your threat area with the flag.
Not to rain on the fun “look at the moron” parade, but since that information’s not publickly available, it’s pretty easy for Blizz’s moderation team to cut out the bits that have inconvenient truths in them. Not saying they would do that or anything… but hey… food for thought. Data Protection Act 1997 and Freedom of Information Act 2000 anyone?
about 2 years ago
Yeah, look out for those “data base bugs”. Are you for real, D-One? Do you know how miniscule the chances of there being a database bug that actually stops records from being written are?
Given that the game has been live for 3 1/2 years, I’d say the database engine AND the event logging code has had enough time for such trivial and obvious defects to be resolved.
Accept it. This guy got caught being a douche and Blizzard have every right to make an example of him. Stop being a bleeding heart crybaby pussy.
about 2 years ago
Blizzard’s database is not transparent. There is no independant verification process to which we can prove the CS’s statements. We just have to take their word on it.
Public executions are entertaining, but if anyone finds out blizzard made the wrong move… well, actually nothing will happen. They haven’t been held to standards since the illegal character moves in early ’05.
about 2 years ago
Blizz’s database is not transparent, yeah.
On the other hand, please introduce to me any CS person on the planet who point-blank has ANY time at all to devote to making up a string of loggable incidents on one random dude as opposed to copying a quick summary of a report off the database tools widget.
about 2 years ago
Everyone seems to be forgetting that the person on the receiving end is a paying customer. This paying customer’s armory is public knowledge, by no choice of the customer.
The gaming industry is apparently still very young.
about 2 years ago
They haven’t been held to standards since the illegal character moves in early ‘05.
Um, Freakazoid … you do know that’s kind of a touchy subject with our esteemed host, don’t you?
As for the would-be scammer: Blizzard has a lot better things to do than invent wild tales to embarrass their customers. Blizzard is a business, and there is no business benefit from fabricating that whole log thing to make an example of an innocent player when there are plenty of guilty players they can use.
I know, Wanderer defending Blizzard, look out for flying pigs overhead and send Satan a warm overcoat. But Blizzard, unlike some of its competitors, generally makes fairly good business decisions (now, anyway). If they decided “hey, let’s embarrass one of these people who posts trying to get their stuff back, so they stop doing it”, it makes better business sense to wait a bit until you’ve got one who is lying. Which, given the responses (or lack thereof) by the OP, it looks like they did.
about 2 years ago
Wanderer,
I imagine they banned him and made a public example of him. I’m completely on board with the banning but not the specific added punishment of public humiliation.
I play games online with my son and daughter both of whom are younger than 18 and frankly, I can see a frustrated kid making this kind of mistake. Especially a kid. My children don’t have the means to buy in game currency, which is the common means to advance once frustrated in these games.
Just ban them, no need for their friends to get to see some ownage of them on the Internet as well.
Rest assured Dad will see the banning email and handle the education part about cheating in games and how such things can lead to wasting hours of time and hundreds of dollars.
A new perspective on online gaming? A player’s perspective and as the father of player’s perspective. I imagine Lum’s own child is old enough to play these things?
about 2 years ago
As an ex CS moloch, I love to see little bleeders get munched as much as anyone however I was reading that blue response with my CM hat on thinking ‘How can they make this stuff public?’
Personally I’d have pointed out that Blizzard has access to logs and the full details of the incident while the other respondents in the thread only have the information provided by the OP and left it at that. Wasted opportunities for ownage aside, I can’t imagine any situation where I’d get into it like that on a public forum with a customer (or ex-customer presumably).
about 2 years ago
I’m perfectly fine with this and find it entertaining. I wouldn’t expect Sprint or Time Warner to do something like that, but that’s because they’re not managing a video game.
As far as the mental scarring that being owned online may cause, I’m of the opinion that if your child is 13 or 14 and wrapped up in the game so much it’s causing him mental anguish for being called out publicly for cheating, they probably shouldn’t be playing the game for a while anyway.
about 2 years ago
I have to agree. In general a tougher stance needs to be taken with the trolls that inhabit the official WoW forums. Its too bad that I never visit the place any more but honestly the noise ratio drowns out any serious discussion. Maybe some penalties like permanent forum bans and public humilation will have some effect.
There has to be some happy medium between the wild west of the wow forums and the 1984 dictatorship of the everquest forums.
about 2 years ago
…frankly, I can see a frustrated kid making this kind of mistake.
It’s not a “mistake”. A mistake is DE’ing your epics. This was a choice, a deliberate deception, and one carried out over a period of weeks. It was a plan to try to cheat in a game, followed by an attempt at recruiting unwitting players to support the cheating. Getting on the wrong bus is a mistake. Holding up the bus driver is a choice to commit a crime. So, in an in-game way, was what this guy did.
Rest assured Dad will see the banning email and handle the education part about cheating in games…
The same Dad who didn’t teach his kid that cheating is wrong in the first place?
As for the crushing public humiliation: people know that Kiranth got caught lying, cheating, and trying to steal. Kiranth. Not Billy Smith of 123 Main Street — Kiranth. The character. The account. Not the real-life individual, unless he chooses to tell them. Non-issue.
about 2 years ago
We’re not talking about that, are we?
about 2 years ago
Re: “illegal server moves in 2005″ – I’m not touchy about it. As I said at the time, I had nothing to do with it and found out about it when my website exploded from WoW forum referrals. My wife had no input into it and left the guild in question shortly thereafter.
If I had seekret Blizzard connections I probably wouldn’t be having this hard of a time finding a decent UI artist.
I imagine Lum’s own child is old enough to play these things?
He liked Auto Assault a lot!
about 2 years ago
Well I don’t feel sorry for the guy (nor believe customer service reps have time or even expertise for conspiracies and faking data entries against lone customers)
at the same time I’m surprised it isn’t Blizzard policy to delete these forum posts rather than respond to them. Responding is really a way of sinking to their level and can only get you in trouble. It’s not very professional.
about 2 years ago
Clinton,
The idea of “ownage” being o.k. has to be stopped. It’s unhealthy and doesn’t belong in any society or community.
Young people have a poor concept of consequences and for example they may make very poor judgments about what is and is not acceptable in the name of “ownage”. For example the eight teens in Fla who kidnapped, beat/tortured, and witness tampered a young girl all in the name of Internet ‘ownage”.
For customer support personnel to participate in “ownage”, in my opinion that’s just wrong.
about 2 years ago
The Blizzard posters on the CS board do these exposes all the time. Just look for any long thread with a blue response, and you’ll probably find a funny, but oddly-worded explanation of what really happened to the original poster, followed by a bunch of CS board regulars fawning over it.
Avoid the “<3 <3 MY FAVORITE BLIZZARD CS POSTER <3 <3 WHAT DID YOU HAVE FOR LUNCH TODAY” threads started by said regulars, which, even though they’re totally worthless, never get deleted.
about 2 years ago
OH this is so cool! Too bad I didn’t see his posts.
It is a good place for young people to learn their lessons, better been hung in a virtual world than in court (Can you believe how many annoying young scamers are out there?) make a level 1 toon and you will drawn in the “god-mod/toobox cheats” whispers.
Since kidds nowadays can’t learn responsibility in schools anymore, maybe they can be thought online.
about 2 years ago
“The same Dad who didn’t teach his kid that cheating is wrong in the first place?” – Wanderer
Are you trying to imply what I think you are trying to imply?
Do you have children? Do you have a teenager?
They are not robots. In order to discover who they are, they do things a parent doesn’t want them to do.
Parents do the best they can. Children make mistakes.
about 2 years ago
I can’t see how this could be mistaken by the Offending Player. The reason being, this is not simply 10 gold or even 100 gold that the Player suggested they misplaced or lost, it was 5000 gold. That is an enormous sum of money within the game, and not an amount that someone would simply forget about or lose.
about 2 years ago
You know, when I started reading this thread, I have to admit I wasn’t expecting the “OMG OMG THINK OF THE CHILDRENS!!” response. Not that it’s a valid response or anything, but still :p
about 2 years ago
The response is:
It is unprofessional for customer service personnel to humiliate customers in a public forum.
In particular, hyping the current trend of “ownage” at any cost is particularly unprofessional.
The rest is just ballast.
about 2 years ago
I will give D-0ne props for taking a principled stand completely incompatible with how much of the current Interwebs zeitgeist is being spawned from 4chan.
On the other hand, it’s basically Prokofy’s argument turned down several notches of extremity, so prepare to be perpetually disappointed.
about 2 years ago
In the olde texte worlde days, we used to log absolutely everything, from in-game random numbers generated to every single packet that was ever sent to the players. It’s amazing how being able to tell someone “no, you didn’t lose carrier when you died, because you were still typing when the killer blow was struck” can cut down on user complaints by a factor of 90%.
I recall one attempted scam just after we’d launched MUD2, when we received a phone call from “a customer” complaining that he’d bought our game and the floppy was corrupted. He demanded his money back. He said he was at school and had spent all his pocket money buying our game.
Except, MUD2 wasn’t sold in the shops, it was entirely online, and there was no such thing as a MUD2 floppy.
We took his name and address, passed it to the police, who informed his father. We were told “I don’t think he’ll be doing it again…”.
Richard
about 2 years ago
Yes it is an issue. When you’re facing a civil suit because an ex-customer got fired and he’s blaming it on the fact that his boss was in his raid group and found out that he’d been skimming the guild coffers thus fostering an atmosphere of mistrust in his real-life dealings it can become an issue.
People are not nearly as anonymous on the internet as they think they are. Especially in games like MMOs which are strongly designed around communities and forging relationships with other players.
Like I say, grit your teeth, re-iterate that you have practically infallible logs and a robust investigations policy and leave it at that. If they’re taking the piss, deal with that via your regular CS policy – which should include caveats about frivolous or malicious CS calls.
As someone who works for a place that gets a lot of unwarranted aggro based on the fantastical claims of disgruntled players, I’ve been there and I sympathise but you cannot get personal with people.
about 2 years ago
Even in that far-fetched strawman of an argument its still the ex-customer’s responsibility for doing something dishonest and revealing their real life identity to another player.
There is no character/MMO company privilege. Jsut like you don’t own any of your items. You don’t have any claim to any of your actions in game, they’re free to do or not do as they please with them.
Now there is an argument to be made that it was unprofessional but at the same time the overwhelming majority of customers reading that post enjoyed it and applauded the action. And showing what happens when you try and scam Blizzard is a whole lot more poignant than a dry list of rules. This little outing likely saved them 100s (or more) of CS tickets.
about 2 years ago
Yeah – the pwnd type responses are kind of lame and feel like sucking up to me (woot! Blizz you did such a great job – yay you!) I am on the side of the folks decrying Blizzard’s actions. I’m in a business where we sell time on a system to people and we get reports of “the system ate my time” all the time. We investigate them all, we log everything (people fail to realize that as has been mentioned above) and no, you didn’t loose your time.
We don’t post that publicly to “discourage” (humiliate/inflate our e-peens on our “power”) our paying customers. We inform them politely and professionally of the misunderstanding and apologize for the inconvenience.
“Libel” on Blizzard’s forum is a bit dramatic. The bottom line is Blizzard is held to a higher standard than their teeming masses of customers. Customers are not paid to, well do anything, let alone act in a professional and mature manner, Blizzard is (in the neighbourhood of billions I might add!).
about 2 years ago
Are issues like this routinely resolved publicly on the WoW forums?
about 2 years ago
I don’t think you know what a strawman argument is.
My example isn’t so far fetched and conflating ingame dishonesty with IRL dishonesty is exactly the point I was trying to make, thank you for illustrating it.
In most countries however this would be covered by various actual laws, not simply by a EULA.
Oh well if everyone enjoyed it then I guess it’s ok. Entertainment value should be our guiding moral compass.
about 2 years ago
For all those saying that this was unprofessional and that it should have been kept private, do you fail to note that it *was* private for the first three weeks of the incident? Then, when the customer made a (very nasty and telling) post on the public forums, the CS rep responded with the research that had been done prior to this. The customer (who did not get banned as far as I can tell, but was told that he COULD be banned for this) then proceeded to delete his posts to cover his own tracks.
Frankly, I am of the opinion that good customer service is helping the customers that want help, and denying those that want to abuse/scam you. If the customers that you deny take that public, you respond publicly with the information available to you in the investigation that you have already done. This has a twofold effect of making the customer see the error of his actions and no longer thinking of you as an easy target, and also showing other potential scammers that the investigative process is extensive and complete making any attempts they will make unlikely to succeed. It costs you more time up front, but saves you time in the long run.
I only worked in various types of CS for 8 years however, so maybe my opinion is less important!
about 2 years ago
The main reason not to do public executions is because you look like a bigger asshole when one of the executed turns out to be innocent.
I’ve busted people out on forums for lying, mind you. But it’s no coincidence that I only did it when the subject in question was stirring up a lot of sympathy and news posts. And I never did it on official forums where the player’s privacy was compromised by being easily and definitively linked to an in game persona. On third party sites there’s no provable link, and the stakes are frankly much lower.
I love me a public hanging as a private citizen, so I’m always conflicted over these stories.
about 2 years ago
I like this argument chain. So far I’ve established the following though and will be taking these points and koans away with me from this thread
- People will want to exploit anything they can.
- Logging of all game content is one of those mandatory processes we need in game.
- Some people are very sure that character and publickly viewable account is seperate from identity. This is, in my humblest of researching opinions, total rubbish. But peoples different perceptions of this cause some interesting topics to crop up. Especially anonymous pwning of n00bs.
- pwning is about as useful as a chocolate teapot, but recieves a confusingly large amount of attention.
- It is far easier to rip someone to shreds when you can delete thier posts and ban thier accounts. And possibly edit posts…
- Trust is easily given to the person with blue text you pay the salary of, if only because if we didn’t trust them, we wouldn’t trust the game. And that’s not a good state to be in. Still, all authority should be comfortably questioned if only to maintain a level head and a healthy lack of fanboyitis
- A lot of us want to see people get hanged for thier crimes against the playerbase in game. For everyone who reckons that this is too extreme, or that people could be hanged while being innocent… well… the gameworld already supports ressurection, and if you can do state execution events, you can do state pardons as well. Assuming of course people even get attached to thier characters.
- Lum’s in need of a UI designer. Where do I send my CV and would I need to relocate from the UK?
Anything I missed?
about 2 years ago
Agreed it’s not technically a strawman argument. However you came up with a distorted scenario similar to the situation being discussed but easier to find fault in. Quite like a strawman argument. If there’s a fancy name for that then let me know.
You’re welcome? If a player knowingly and willingly reveals the link between their real life identity and the identity of their character to a third party then I don’t see the issue with the third party then making judgments about the player based on their actions taken with the character. They’re welcome to make the argument that they were “just RPing” but then it’s up to the third party to believe or care about that.
Please direct to where I can find an actual real world law (whatever the country) that states that an MMO company can’t do whatever it pleases with game and chat logs from within its game so long as it does not constitute blackmail, libel, or some other explicitly illegal use that applies to any information.
about 2 years ago
At first I disagreed with D-One, but I have come around to agreeing with him.
The problem with public executions is that the executor usually comes across as sanctimonious assholes. Theres a skill to executions, and basically unless your very good at it, you usually end up with a bloody mess and shit all over yourself.
Your the master of your domain in the official forums, and the temptation to go 11 on uppity jerks that call themselves your customers is pretty overwhelming. Its not the egregious scam pwnage thats the problem. Its the bad habits that you pick up dealing with the scammers that color everything else you do with the rest of the players.
Case in point – just about every SOE bee eater to hold the position of “customer spokesperson.”
about 2 years ago
“Are issues like this routinely resolved publicly on the WoW forums?”
Yes. Like I said earlier in the comments.
about 2 years ago
Ack, sorry, I wasn’t specific enough – I know they do the “public execution”-style takedowns fairly often, but do they resolve routine matters – and resolutions in the customer’s favor – publicly as well?
If they do, then presumably the OP knew that the resolution of his issue was going to be public, and he took the calculated risk that he’d win.
about 2 years ago
I think it’s important to remember why executions are public in the first place – they serve as a deterrent. No one reading that thread (perhaps thousands of people) will think they can get away with a scam like that. Fewer scams mean more GM time to be spent on legitimate complaints.
The other interesting dynamic is the viral effect of the forums themselves. How many customers were pissed off by the bogus story? What happens when the scammer becomes a cause celebre? Do you keep locking threads, while players get all foamy at the mouth over a supposed injustice? Or do you put it down fast and hard, with *incontrovertible*proof (and an implied warning)?
about 2 years ago
How is it an execution? This is more like being sent to the principal’s office. No penalties were actually levied. You can go watch criminal trials if you want. They’re all public by default (though this is for the protection of the defendant). When the prosecutor presents evidence that conclusively proves the defendant is guilty, you can be there and watch the defendant’s public humiliation. If it’s a big trial, a journalist will write all about it and slap in the paper so you don’t even have to go to the trouble of visiting the courtroom. The difference is that in WoW said trials are private by default, and it was the customer’s decision to make it public.
about 2 years ago
Rule by example. Thumbs up to Blizzard from me. If situations like these were more commonplace all over the online gaming industry, perhaps people would start to realize that “internet” doesn’t mean “free of consequence” and behave accordingly.
about 2 years ago
The would be scammer got his just reward. He chose to take it public and a public call-out was justified. The fanboi’s “dancing on the grave” in that post need to wipe their chins.
I understand all the arguments and potential conflicts in the situation, but if one doesn’t trust the game and/or the people running it there are more practical concerns than just getting publicly berated. Several commenter’s have made that point, but if I think the company in question is really lax throughout their organization they ain’t gettin’ my credit card number.
A troubling part of the whole situation is “server roll back”. I’ve been playing WoW since a month after launch and am either blissfully or ignorantly unaware of any roll backs – there were plenty of times the boards erupted with talk of the need for roll backs, but I don’t recall ever noticing one. A search turned up nebulous discussions of rollbacks, but nothing seemed very concrete – other than a note on roll backs in a blizzard support document.
about 2 years ago
This wasn’t a public execution. It was a public suicide.
When you attempt to swap public opinion like that on message board, you’d better have your ducks in a row — and the GM was far from mean or even terse. He just had data backing his claims which was completely contrary to what the original poster was claiming.
Now, sure we can all question the validity of data because Blizzard is obviously a conspiratorial institution out to crush the hopes and dreams of it’s playerbase — but, I just have a hard time swallowing that. Then again, I’m also not wearing my tin-foil an soda bottle hat that keeps out the mind-control rays either.. so I could already be compromised.
about 2 years ago
Wow. Now I understand why my HS teachers say today that while discipline was possible in the schools 20 years ago, its impossible now. Even lightly punishing a small, spoiled child’s cheating unleashes a torrent of “how DARE you make my little Johnny feel bad!” from many people.
about 2 years ago
I was a senior in high school 25 years ago. We had an open campus and did basically whatever we wanted to. I remember being suspended from high school for three days when they changed the smoking policy from the cafeteria to the rear steps and I forgot and light-up in the cafeteria the first morning of the change.
Humiliation is not punishment. Never was, never will be.
about 2 years ago
You know, I’m surprised that no one’s really noticed what this actually *means* in terms of what Blizzard is tracking.
There are references to what appear to be in game chat conversations that have happened over a month ago. This is vastly more troublesome than the fact that someone was trying to scam the GMs. As far as I know there aren’t any codified rules for how Blizzard has to handle chat logs, mostly because they’ve never really said they are logging everything you say in game and storing those longs for at least a month and a half. There are some pretty severe privacy issues with this sort of thing, and considering how much slack Google got over the whole “gmail doesn’t really delete your messages” thing, I can’t see this going over well if people really start paying attention to the fact that it’s going on.
The only valid reason for keeping tabs on player *conversations* is for harassment petitions, and those typically don’t require that logs be kept for this sort of duration. But worst is that there really aren’t any clearly defined rules as to how and when Blizzard can go through the logs of all your seemingly private conversations with other players. And it’s not like it’d be hard to correct that. Delete chat logs after a short period, maybe a few days, put a warning on the harassment petition button that says “By submitting this petition you give Blizzard permission to access your conversation logs pertaining to the situation” and then explicitly prohibit GMs from accessing conversation logs in other circumstances. It’s not data that needs to be accessible in most circumstances, and it needs to very clearly be flagged as such.
about 2 years ago
But then, D-0ne, where’s the complaint? No formal punishments were levied and humiliation doesn’t constitute a punishment to you, so nothing happened. There’s nothing to complain about!
about 2 years ago
Humiliation isn’t a punishment… but it’s still mean. I see plenty of room for him to complain on those grounds. He wasn’t arguing that they shouldn’t be punished, he was arguing that if you’re going to punish them you should actually do it, and not just be mean to them.
about 2 years ago
Eolirin,
When I had a job (part time nights, rules enforcement) in the gaming industry 12-13 years ago we kept chat logs indefinitely. They were easily compressed and we would search them using key word searches to find exploits and cheating and to investigate players. Every text line had a date, time and ID associated with it.
I believe Leet speak came about because of this type of enforcement technique.
I digress. Point is, whatever you type in and these games servers “see it” it is probably stored somewhere forever.
about 2 years ago
D-0ne, that doesn’t mean it *should* be that way.
It’d be akin to the telephone companies storing all of your phone conversations without your knowledge or consent. The law hasn’t caught up to the new medium, but I really see absolutely no reason why internet communications should be treated any differently than telephone communications. Yes, data needs to pass through the game servers, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be stored indefinitely by the game servers.
about 2 years ago
Eolirin, the ToU you agreed to when you signed up for an account says that Blizzard can and will monitor all chat and communication within the game. I’d say that’s plenty of advance warning.
about 2 years ago
Good for the CSR. Making an example out of a cheat in such an amusing fashion is bound to be more effective than any private admonishment.
Maybe if more people were humiliated publicly, moronic behavior would lessen.
about 2 years ago
Chat logs are important for a LOT more than harassment. Yes, one would think that item dupers, for instance, would be smart enough not to talk about what they’re doing in-game when the EULA says they have no expectation of privacy. They do it anyway. Enough of them do so that grepping the chat logs for evidence of exactly how they did it and to find out who else is involved is an important part of an investigation. That can require months of logs. Many times, exploiting only comes to light when the exploiters get greedy, or get bored and don’t care if they’re banned, they’ve had their fun. (Rolling 30′s anyone?) Then those logs become not only a source of information to find out who was involved and how much damage they did, but also potentially evidence in a real-world lawsuit (either as plaintiff or defendant).
I’m rather big on privacy myself, as you might guess from the fact that I’ve been hanging around Lum’s general vicinity since the old days, and still nobody (except Lum) knows my name, age, gender, occupation, location, or really much else about me except that I play or have played a few popular MMORPGs. And this is a blog I trust; there are places I only post via an anonymous proxy. But I have NO problem with a MMORPG logging, and storing indefinitely, anything and everything I say in the game. I don’t have any expectation that anything I say to another customer in a privately-owned virtual world is going to be kept secret from the owners, and I never did. If I was planning to do something unscrupulous, I wouldn’t discuss it in-game, and any in-game coordination needed with my partners in crime would be via code words.
As for this idiot, remember that HE was the one who took the issue to the public forums. Blizzard quietly told him “no, we won’t give you 5k gold.” He tried to rile up public opinion to pressure Blizzard to give him 5k gold. When you tell a lie about me, I have the right to tell the truth to defend myself, and so does Blizzard.
Oh, and IainC, if I’m your boss, and you pilfer from the guild bank and get caught (or brag about it), you’re too stupid to work for me anyway. Really, though, how is that really any different than the guy in question bragging at the company Christmas party that he’s cheating on his income tax, and likewise making himself look untrustworthy?
about 2 years ago
Actually since 2005 stalking and harassment laws have had on-line activities added to them (Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act of 2005) so if you are being stalked IRL, and that person besides trying to call or show up at your house starts following you around on-line, those records would certainly be subpoenaed. So harassment can very well be more than just kids complaining, and thus any company might see a need to keep those records.
Of course, since SOX, usually companies actively delete old information and communication, rather than keep it around. No company wants discovery to turn up anything that will make them look bad, and instead want to delete it. But again, the company would decide to delete it based on their own self interest, not privacy.
Privacy would be something like, employees are not allowed to scan the records except to support help desk tickets, and employees caught doing so would be fired and perhaps prosecuted, depending on what they were looking up. That would be something I’d expect and hope Blizzard does, but not to simply not keep records at all.
But what I’m more curious about Eolirin is why you think it’s acceptable to store this information for a few days but not for a few months (let alone years)? If it’s an invasion of privacy then storing it at all should be a violation, even for a few days. Just like the phone company can not store your conversations at all except under certain circumstances. If the information needs to be retained to investigate harassment, then the timeline is pretty immaterial.
But the difference is you basically have to use a phone to run your daily life, same with snail mail, which is why laws have been written that state you have an expectation of privacy. Conversely, you don’t have to play a game. They tell you up front they are recording everything, and you can choose not to play.
But I can see a point in the future where certain on-line communications will not be allowed to be stored, as our lives become more dependent on the internet. But I doubt it will ever be true for a game, for the simple reason you don’t have to play any games.
about 2 years ago
It is very important to keep logs, we had a system and from time to time people will claim (un-intensionally) they did something and it is great to use the log to figure out what exactly has happened. However that is when our customers are all responsible adults.
However when you are facing millions of customers, if only 0.01% is trying to scam you, there is trouble. Not to mention trying to stir a riot on a public forum.
This is to D-One. If you don’t do customer service, you will never know the feel. When kids tries to scam you, once or twice it is fun, after a while it is just annoying. They need their lesson, and it is good to show the other trouble makers what could happen.
Blizzard does has more power, however it is within their own forums. They could have bad GMs, however the above case there are several GM involved, and I am sure it is not pleasant to go throw huge old files to find the data. Statically 99.9% posible it is the kids’ fault, and even if it is not it is still a lesson well learned (the world is not fair)
about 2 years ago
d-one
humiliation is in fact typically the most successfull component of discipline.
physical pain is transitory, and one can easily grow accustomed to it, howeer humliatory aspects of most punishments are what take it up from ‘ow that hurts grr’ to ‘oh god i don’t want to go through that again’.
for more information google well..let’s see…punishment, BDSM, psycology of corporal punishment….
and little johnny took it public and tried to start a coup against mean old blizzard, and got smacked around verbally for his trouble.
if we’re lucky he cried a bit because he didn’t get what he wanted for once in his life and will reconsider his borderline sociopathic me first ways.
if we’re really lucky johnny will assume that an epic mount with out work was his right and sue.
but most likely it was just some two bit scam artist that will move on to the next scam du jour.
about 2 years ago
Ok, I’ve been that CS guy who wasted an afternoon investigating a complaint that turned out to be a total fabrication. I can sympathise. From a ‘give them what they deserve’ point of view I totally understand the satisfaction of publically outing these people. From a CM and PR perspective though, the negatives far outweigh the positives in my opinion.
Except he’s not bragging about anything. Your example makes no sense and isn’t a valid comparison to the original point. If Blizzard didn’t out him no-one would know, he wouldn’t have been caught. People who cheat on their taxes are breaking the law, people who cheat in a game aren’t.
Humiliation might be a good way to raise your kids, I don’t know and I don’t care. I don’t however think it’s a good way for a corporation to deal with it’s customers. As someone above said, Blizzard is held to higher standards than its customers. if you play dirty then you’re broadcasting a strong message that you might not want to be sending.
As for the argument that this example could prevent a lot of similar cases or increase faith in Blizzard, no it really won’t. People have short memories and there will always be fresh blood thinking they can get away with old tricks. Furthermore those who want to believe that Blizzard arbitrarily deletes gold from player accounts will continue to believe it while the majority of reasonable players will assume that the OP is either mistaken or lying depending on their sympathy levels. All that holds whether or not you smack the guy down publically.
about 2 years ago
I’m seeing a lot of the same attitude in this thread that I saw last year, when Blizzard first published the Armory, and the accompanying April Fool joke about the Tinfoil Hat. Back then, Blizzard was being insensitive about the privacy of their players, and should most definitely give players an opt-out. Because what the players want is paramount! Blizzard must kiss their bottoms and wash their feet for them, they are always right!
Well, no. Sometimes, customers are whiny bitches, who tie up far more than their share of CS time, for no useful reason. Sometimes they are trying to scam you. Sometimes, the customer is just flat out wrong, and you’re better off without him.
Blizzard employees don’t seem to be going out of their way to be unpleasant to their players. Kiranth’s player could have been served up with a banning, for attempting to defraud a GM. What he got instead was a public pwning. I think he got off easy.
And if he quits over this (fat chance), is anyone going to follow him? Is his entire 200+ account guild going to follow him to… well what-ever game they’ll go to? I think not. I can conceive of reasons why “entire” guilds or other communities might leave World of Warcraft, but they don’t involve the “mistreatment” of a player who tried to scam Blizzard’s GM staff.
By the way, the Armory and its peripheral technology is now ingrained into the WoW community. It’s the basis of several web pages and UI addons. I’d love to see a report on how many people quit because “their” characters were published on the Armory. I bet we could count them on a Murloc’s toes.
about 2 years ago
“Sometimes, customers are whiny bitches, who tie up far more than their share of CS time, for no useful reason. Sometimes they are trying to scam you. Sometimes, the customer is just flat out wrong, and you’re better off without him.”
Formulating a policy and a support system backed by all levels of management that would deal with such “sometimes” situations has been the bane of far more organizations than Blizzard. Finding where to draw the line is hard.
about 2 years ago
I fondly recall when admins on MUDs were called Gods, because, well, that was what they were. If you didn’t like the Gods, you didn’t have to play their game.
Professionalism in community management is a decent thing and a good thing, but please let’s not advocate that CMs need to bend over backwards to protect people to a ridiculous extreme.
Players who defraud game companies can also defraud other players; as a player, I prefer to play with people who don’t attempt frauds (as I think most people do).
If this player had sent email and the CM responded via forum – that’s unprofessional. He used Blizzard’s forum to accuse Blizzard of cheating him. The CM responded in the forum in an honest, courteous fashion. Meanwhile, I derived amusement as well as satisfaction from knowing that this was an example people might learn from.
Far better than deleting the post and hiding it all away. Had the CM been cranky or rude, then that would have been unprofessional, but he wasn’t.
So the OP suffered embarassment. Big deal.