Thursday, May 22, 2008

"Slay Them All"

"Elune (or Hogger, or The Blizz Billing Dept) will know her own."

So, few days ago Blizz drops the banhammer on several hundred thousand accounts, mainly fer suspected botting. One of the accounts were that of Lamaa, one of me Aetherial Circle guildies. TJ's got his particulars. Now, what I knows is, Lamaa's a nice guy. And people whose opinionations I trust is convinced he ain't a cheater. And I knows what all Blizz has told him be a generic TOS violation. No specifics.

Now, I's just a simple orc, so I's well aware of how much I don't know. Mebbe Lamaa had some software he shouldn't have. Mebbe his running on WINE/Linux with a G15 tripped a flag. Mebbe his name were in the wrong database. Mebbe Lamla were the one what was supposed ta get banned, but it got typoed. I dunno, but nobody else will neither unless some unlucky bugger digs through the actual facts, which I's betting ain't happened yet, since his notice didn't say "On March 17 you were detected to be running GlideBot 7000 Verion 2.37a in AV, you BAD BAD MAN." And since there's probably a gazillion others all appealing, and since appeals apparentlies all gots go through the Billing Dept, and since they already gots his money fer the next three months, I ain't expecting anything ta happen fer a long, long time.

And that's what's buggin' me. I got no problem with banning cheaters. I ain't that upset about false positives - is gonna happen. What I is unhappy about is the crappy appeal system. Go through the billing department? They know nuthin' about either the technicals nor the legals. How can they possibly evaluate if a ban is legit? How can they handle all the appeals what is surely coming in? If Blizz wants to be a mature, serious business, they's gots to do a better job of managing they's customers. Dropping the banhammer and leaving it to Elune to sort out the mess ain't right.

5 comments:

Tami Parker said...

QFT

Anonymous said...

Staying OUT of the right or wrong part (I've already been stupid there)...

Billing makes sense in a few ways. First, ya gotta talk to someone. And Billing (and legal) have to be involved at least somewhere in the process. But I'll give you my guess of practicalness ongoing...

Tech support gets CRAPLOADS of stuff. They'd have to winnow this (with thousands of subject headers) from everything else they get. If you've ever worked helpdesk you have an inkling... Anyway, by having these specific issues going to a different department, one which has to be involved anyway, you get less chance of falling into the cracks. (We got an email from you? Really? [rummage, rummage] oh, how embarrassing. Let's just put it into the queue, shall we? No, we can't POSSIBLY jump the queue. Oh, I know you sent it much earlier, but, well, that would be so unfair to those we've already started - and in fact may cause confusion if we interrupt a service agent. You wouldn't like it if your legit complaint was confused with some scoundrel's actions, would you? So trust us...")

gah, been writing too much evil fiction lately. sorry. Still, the basic idea applies.

Anonymous said...

Preach on Brother Ratshag!!!

Anonymous said...

Same thing happened to one of our guildies. He appealed and got a "we don't care and there's nothing you can do to make us care so enjoy buying the game again and starting all over from level 1, n00b" email. Wouldn't tell him how he violated the TOS or give him anything beyond a canned response.

Ratshag said...

@Ego - Heh, Hadda go ask someone less clueless what that meant. Feared it might mean Quit Fuhggin Talking...

@Kirk What Needs a Nickname - Yeah, I agrees what Tech Support ain't the folks to handle this, 'cause they got enough on they's plates already, poor buggers. I would like to see somebody in-place specifically to handle this situation. Somebody whose job it be to separate the "Dude, we got you dead to rights" whiny cheater cases from the "Hmmm mebbe we made a mistake - this should be looked into more closely" cases. I don't see how Billing can do that.

Mebbe Blizz is doing something to go back and check fer mistakes. But if so, they needs ta tell peoples more than "We banned you, but we won't say why. Now piss off."

@Alth - Halleluyahs!

@Mis - 300,000 accounts banned with a 99% accurate system would still mean 3000 good buggers getting the hammer. Blizz is being way too high-handed with all this.