Posted by Kendama

You are naive. It would be easy as hell for admins to specifically stalk certain gst competitors and ban them for the smallest thing they do. I know if i was admin, I could stalk nearly anyone and would most likely find something i could ban them for.

yeah bro, because there are so many admins who are great at guild sparring and they care so much about it

Brick, Leah, Yuri, Coco, Xavier, Soren - if you guys haven't seen these GST superstars then you're really missing out
L33T, hasn't sparred in years, probably planning a big return this GST, who knows if he's even still admin
saw Crono with a WAR tag, probably doesn't even have ban rights, still gotta keep your eye on him
rumor has it FP4 even allows Androids to participate in the iDevice GST now because he switched to to an S5

ALL THEY NEEDED WAS THAT EXTRA UNFAIR ADVANTAGE OF BANNING 2 OR 3 OF THEIR COMPETITORS!
they've got this GST in the bag, haha, we've all been bamboozled
Bush knocked down the towers, 420, Illuminati hand symbol, but I'm not a rapper

...
gotta toss you on the ol' ignore list now, I've lost faith in your ability to show human-like intelligence  

Posted by Narcosis

I'm wondering if it's possible an admin could be abusing their power (or perhaps even got hacked?) and I'm also curious if anyone on here was banned recently or knows someone who was banned recently for seemingly no reason. Because this just isn't making any sense to me.

It is possible for a member of staff to abuse their power. It is possible for a member of staff to be "hacked" too, I guess. However, the support ticket system is not moderated by any of the GP team. All tickets are judged upon the proof that is available (logs, system-issued notices, etc) not through the word of the staff member that issued it. People don't get banned for "no reason" and usually the players who claim such just have their accounts associated with someone else (through transferring accounts that they owned to other people, logging on other people's accounts, etc). This kind of scenario has always resulted in the unbanning of the account from what I've saw.

So, if an appeal is rejected then there is going to be proof which supports the ban placed on the player that received it. The GP team and the 'support team' are mutually exclusive and do not work together.  

Posted by Rufus

People don't get banned for "no reason" and usually the players who claim such just have their accounts associated with someone else (through transferring accounts that they owned to other people, logging on other people's accounts, etc).

It might seem that they get banned suddenly and for 'no reason' due to lack of attention in this area on a daily basis. The approach of an event such as this might make a little more vigilance on the part of GP's or higher ups necessary, along with a more strict interpretation of the rules.

Can't think of one time that I have seen the 'report' button in game have any effect but giving some of the less savory characters in the game world a good chuckle. Not to say that it doesn't do anything, but the visible results just are not there most of the time.  

Posted by Rufus

It is possible for a member of staff to abuse their power. It is possible for a member of staff to be "hacked" too, I guess. However, the support ticket system is not moderated by any of the GP team. All tickets are judged upon the proof that is available (logs, system-issued notices, etc) not through the word of the staff member that issued it. People don't get banned for "no reason" and usually the players who claim such just have their accounts associated with someone else (through transferring accounts that they owned to other people, logging on other people's accounts, etc). This kind of scenario has always resulted in the unbanning of the account from what I've saw.

So, if an appeal is rejected then there is going to be proof which supports the ban placed on the player that received it. The GP team and the 'support team' are mutually exclusive and do not work together.

Thank you for providing a helpful response. I have a follow-up query: Is it totally unreasonable for the support team to give the player a reason for why they were banned? Especially when it's a long ban (and the player seriously has no idea what they have done to deserve it). "Inappropriate Solicitation" is a very broad term. My friend did ask for a reason but wasn't given one. Like you said, given that they were unwilling to lift the ban, they must have evidence of some kind of wrong-doing. Why can't they at least give this player a little more information so at least he knows why he was banned for 6+ months. Naturally he feels pretty slighted (to say the least).

He doesn't share his account with anyone or let anyone have access to his account. He's honestly the last person I would ever imagine being banned for any sort of malicious or inappropriate activity of any kind. That's why I was as surprised as he was when this happened, and also why I'm fighting for him. I have no problem putting my forum reputation on the line for him.  

In every situation everyone becomes "mature"  

Posted by Fate*

???..
I don't get your argument??
We're talking about a ban. A very long one at that. How could it be a mistake? Your making an invalid argument that doesn't make sense.

Could be a mistake, I was banned for 4k hors and reason being was "multiple ban" te last few hours boiled done to me being Afk. And when I got this ban it automatically unbanned and then banned me again then unbanned me and banned me again and so on. This went on for a good hour. Lastly I got unbanned and nothing more happened. But it was annoying tho.  

The list of rules and examples of things to get warned/banned for can be found here.

About 5 posts down posted by Xavier.  

Posted by Turd

Could be a mistake, I was banned for 4k hors and reason being was "multiple ban" te last few hours boiled done to me being Afk

literally the exact same thing has been happening to Blood (dude on Alumni roster) for the past year
he gets banned for 2 months for "multiple bans," he comes back, plays an hour per week, then he'll randomly log on one day and he will be banned again for 2 months for "multiple bans"

it happened once again today, and this time he's banned for a year
kid doesn't even play the game enough to break a rule, I don't understand it



every time he appeals he gets the same message that it won't be overturned  

Just payy them 20$ itunes  

Posted by 4-Lom

Can't think of one time that I have seen the 'report' button in game have any effect but giving some of the less savory characters in the game world a good chuckle. Not to say that it doesn't do anything, but the visible results just are not there most of the time.

Around 80-90% of bans issued are from witnessed player-reported situations. I'd say this has more to do with people getting banned close to GST (people within that community reporting more frequently) if that's even a real thing.

Posted by Narcosis

Thank you for providing a helpful response. I have a follow-up query: Is it totally unreasonable for the support team to give the player a reason for why they were banned? Especially when it's a long ban (and the player seriously has no idea what they have done to deserve it). "Inappropriate Solicitation" is a very broad term. My friend did ask for a reason but wasn't given one. Like you said, given that they were unwilling to lift the ban, they must have evidence of some kind of wrong-doing. Why can't they at least give this player a little more information so at least he knows why he was banned for 6+ months. Naturally he feels pretty slighted (to say the least).

Nah, it's not unreasonable; when we first started doing the appeals process we did provide examples of what they were banned for, etc. It just obviously isn't the style of those that are currently doing it, so what can you do?

Posted by Thallen

literally the exact same thing has been happening to Blood (dude on Alumni roster) for the past year
he gets banned for 2 months for "multiple bans," he comes back, plays an hour per week, then he'll randomly log on one day and he will be banned again for 2 months for "multiple bans"

it happened once again today, and this time he's banned for a year
kid doesn't even play the game enough to break a rule, I don't understand it



every time he appeals he gets the same message that it won't be overturned

What you've just described sounds like:

Posted by Rufus

People don't get banned for "no reason" and usually the players who claim such just have their accounts associated with someone else (through transferring accounts that they owned to other people, logging on other people's accounts, etc). This kind of scenario has always resulted in the unbanning of the account from what I've saw.

So I guess not everyone gets unbanned from it.  

id say coincidence