Sammich
19-Aug-2012, 06:17 AM
Please allow me to vent or I am going to put my fist through the wall, again.
World of Tanks is a MMO/FPS type free 2 play game that I have been playing for the past 3 weeks and was having so much fun that I was going to buy "gold" so I would be able to buy a "premium" tank. This joy lasted UNTIL today when I became a victim of their bullshit "automated Team Killer" penalty system.
For those of you not familiar with the term "team killer" it is a person that gets off disrupting games by intentionally killing member of his own team.
30 minutes into playing WOT today, I sighted in on a disabled enemy tank with a damaged tread. I waited for the gun accuracy indicator to reach maximum and the exact moment I fired a lightly armored tank on my team drove right into the path of the shell and was destroyed. This same thing happened again at the end of the game as I tried to stop one of the enemy tanks from capturing our base. The result of the accidental shootings was the "automated system" suspended my account for 24 hours.
In mmos, suspensions are what you get when you do something really bad, like repeated harassment, threats, botting etc. So, I figure this has to be a mistake. I send in a ticket contesting the suspension and I get this canned response:
Dear player,
Thank you for contacting support regarding this matter.
Due to the introduction of our automated system of violation tracking (team damage, team killing), all such offenses will be addressed by the automation only. The system has been customized, tested extensively and is currently working as intended. No player is immune, nor do any players receive preferential treatment from the automation. Even those of us here in the office receive account sanctions from the automated system when our shells go astray.
Unfortunately, you will have to wait out your suspension. We deeply apologize for any inconveniences this may have caused.
Please understand that violating the game rules, regardless of the reason, will be met with sanctions. As you have now personally experienced, violations of this game rule will be dealt with by our automated Team Damage/Kill tracker system.
Once a player has reached a threshold set by the automation for team kills/damage, they are banned; no questions asked. In addition, they are forced to pay a portion of the damage caused and forfeit some experience to their victim. We allow for some team damage to occur before that takes place, and we feel we're pretty generous with the amount allowed, but once it crosses over that line, the sanction is imposed. The first offense is a minor 1 day ban, but habitual violations have an escalating punishment. Because of this, we highly advise that you do not take matters into your own hands as we will be unable to change any actions taken by the automated violation tracker.
We truly do appreciate your interest in World of Tanks and your contribution to our community. We can only hope that you understand that we must be fair and treat all friendly fire cases the same, regardless of the motives.
Additional information on the automated system of team killer and bot user tracking can be found on the following page:
http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/152218-friendly-fire-team-kill-auto-system/
Please feel free to contact us anytime with future difficulties or questions.
Best Regards,
[Name of some nobhead removed]
So in effect, they are saying "our customized, thoroughly tested, working as intended system" is infallible, humans are not allowed to question because they are always wrong. It sounds like someone at that company watched Colossus The Forbin project a bit too many times. "Violating rules" implies wilful intent, which is not the same as doing something accidentally.
Also check out the threat they make: "we highly advise that you do not take matters into your own hands". WTF? Do they think people are going to do turn into Paul Kersey vigilantes or something?
I find out this new system is being discussed in the forums so I go on the thread, post what happened to me and put in some suggestions on how things could have been handled more appropriately. A couple hours later some admin asshole (and that is being nice) comes out of nowhere, calls me a liar because I didn't supply a fraps of what happened and then bans me from the forums for 3 days. If there is one thing that pisses me off to no end is being falsely accused of something. I never forget nor ever trust people that do this to me.
I have heard horror stories about the Russians that run this company are devoid of social skills much less capable of a minimal amount of customer service. I now believe it.
So in the end, I uninstalled off of my computer the piece of crap called World of Tanks. Why anyone would pay real money into a game that has such a hugely flawed program which can arbitrarily issue uncontestable suspensions is beyond my comprehension. My advice is: do not buy any products from or support wargaming.net in any way or you will find out how despicable they really are.
World of Tanks is a MMO/FPS type free 2 play game that I have been playing for the past 3 weeks and was having so much fun that I was going to buy "gold" so I would be able to buy a "premium" tank. This joy lasted UNTIL today when I became a victim of their bullshit "automated Team Killer" penalty system.
For those of you not familiar with the term "team killer" it is a person that gets off disrupting games by intentionally killing member of his own team.
30 minutes into playing WOT today, I sighted in on a disabled enemy tank with a damaged tread. I waited for the gun accuracy indicator to reach maximum and the exact moment I fired a lightly armored tank on my team drove right into the path of the shell and was destroyed. This same thing happened again at the end of the game as I tried to stop one of the enemy tanks from capturing our base. The result of the accidental shootings was the "automated system" suspended my account for 24 hours.
In mmos, suspensions are what you get when you do something really bad, like repeated harassment, threats, botting etc. So, I figure this has to be a mistake. I send in a ticket contesting the suspension and I get this canned response:
Dear player,
Thank you for contacting support regarding this matter.
Due to the introduction of our automated system of violation tracking (team damage, team killing), all such offenses will be addressed by the automation only. The system has been customized, tested extensively and is currently working as intended. No player is immune, nor do any players receive preferential treatment from the automation. Even those of us here in the office receive account sanctions from the automated system when our shells go astray.
Unfortunately, you will have to wait out your suspension. We deeply apologize for any inconveniences this may have caused.
Please understand that violating the game rules, regardless of the reason, will be met with sanctions. As you have now personally experienced, violations of this game rule will be dealt with by our automated Team Damage/Kill tracker system.
Once a player has reached a threshold set by the automation for team kills/damage, they are banned; no questions asked. In addition, they are forced to pay a portion of the damage caused and forfeit some experience to their victim. We allow for some team damage to occur before that takes place, and we feel we're pretty generous with the amount allowed, but once it crosses over that line, the sanction is imposed. The first offense is a minor 1 day ban, but habitual violations have an escalating punishment. Because of this, we highly advise that you do not take matters into your own hands as we will be unable to change any actions taken by the automated violation tracker.
We truly do appreciate your interest in World of Tanks and your contribution to our community. We can only hope that you understand that we must be fair and treat all friendly fire cases the same, regardless of the motives.
Additional information on the automated system of team killer and bot user tracking can be found on the following page:
http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/152218-friendly-fire-team-kill-auto-system/
Please feel free to contact us anytime with future difficulties or questions.
Best Regards,
[Name of some nobhead removed]
So in effect, they are saying "our customized, thoroughly tested, working as intended system" is infallible, humans are not allowed to question because they are always wrong. It sounds like someone at that company watched Colossus The Forbin project a bit too many times. "Violating rules" implies wilful intent, which is not the same as doing something accidentally.
Also check out the threat they make: "we highly advise that you do not take matters into your own hands". WTF? Do they think people are going to do turn into Paul Kersey vigilantes or something?
I find out this new system is being discussed in the forums so I go on the thread, post what happened to me and put in some suggestions on how things could have been handled more appropriately. A couple hours later some admin asshole (and that is being nice) comes out of nowhere, calls me a liar because I didn't supply a fraps of what happened and then bans me from the forums for 3 days. If there is one thing that pisses me off to no end is being falsely accused of something. I never forget nor ever trust people that do this to me.
I have heard horror stories about the Russians that run this company are devoid of social skills much less capable of a minimal amount of customer service. I now believe it.
So in the end, I uninstalled off of my computer the piece of crap called World of Tanks. Why anyone would pay real money into a game that has such a hugely flawed program which can arbitrarily issue uncontestable suspensions is beyond my comprehension. My advice is: do not buy any products from or support wargaming.net in any way or you will find out how despicable they really are.