Greetings,
I have not blogged in a year due to major health issues, which I will not go into detail at the moment. In lieu of this Downtime, I was introduced to a MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) Wizard101. This game was so Very therapeutically important to me, I was able to visit with Family and Friends across the country every day. It kept me going, and gave my mind exercise being as my physical exercise was limited. We could play this game, chat and catch up on a daily basis. I loved seeing my brother every morning before he left for work, to tell him "I Love you and have a great day". When I would see his texts in game, I could hear his voice speaking these words to me, it was very special and kept me going through the pain difficult times I had. Like any good online game, you need to spend money in order to help the game continue to function. We had no problem investing some extra curricular money into a diversion so Dynamic, with animations that made you "star in your own cartoon". It is extremely Kid friendly and therefore his young daughter was enjoying it with us. There are so many aspects to this game, you can never get bored of it, and the things it can teach a young person are absolutely amazing. The value of money, priorities, teamwork, strategy, Math, spelling, social interaction, manners and much more. For safety they have a menu chat for children under 13, they can only "speak" certain premade phrases and can only "see" these phrases spoken back to them... such as "Please may I join?" "Would you like some help?" "Thanks" "You're Welcome" and game specific phrases. For those 13 - 18 years old, the open chat would show yellow as you typed a word incorrectly and would not show that word in public... if you typed the correct spelling you would see it in white and it would be displayed in your text. Rather ingenious we thought, and so approved of this entire concept, we shared with other friends and got them "hooked" on it as well, because as you gain higher levels you need teams to defeat the difficult dungeons.
Which brings me to the subject of the Blog post, in the level 90 world of this game, over the holidays, we discovered four specific housing items that could be collected within the game. No big deal, throughout the game there are many items you discover that you can pick up and either display in your wizards house or sell for gold, or even feed to your pet for it to gain experience. However, these particular items in Azteca (a level 90 world) would give you an infinite amount of these items, you could fill your backpack. We thought surely this was a gift from KingsIsle so that we could make some extra gold (in game currency, used to purchase in game items, with no real monetary value) and that surely we were not the first and only people to find this. Well, KingsIsle waited until after the holidays, when all their players spent extra money on Crowns (in game currency to purchase Special in game items that cost real money) game pack bundles, gift cards, and all the special holiday sales on things we do spend our real money on to have fun in the game; to drop the hammer and suspend and permanently ban Tens of Thousands of players stating that we exploited a bug. Without warning we could no longer play the game, the email sent to us said that we violated their terms of use and they referred us to this post about Account Sanctions for Game Exploitation . Which, as you can see they got so much feedback that first 24 hours from ALL the people impacted by this, that they added another post revealing that they had changed their minds on SOME and "reduced the sentence" of some that had been suspended, some that had been banned were now only suspended, and yet some were still permanently banned without reply to their query's. In normal instances of Permanent Banning, they allow an appeal, HOWEVER they are not allowing ANY appeal in this situation, it is their determination and you have no say.
Upon further investigation, this particular "bug" has been in the game for approximately a year and posts on the forum discussing it on December 25th 2013 had been removed (found in Google cache) There was No warning or explanation of why these items were left in the game so long, only immediate execution of at least 10% of their paying customers. Now many of us have money sitting in our accounts that we will never be able to use again, and they will not refund or provide an explanation of the specific Terms of Use that were violated. Here is the link for their Facebook post, and please take a look at the comments if you have time. I would like to get a census of all the players that this has impacted by being suspended or permanently banned to get a grip on the true number, Please leave a comment if You have been a part of this Entrapment Corporate Greed Scam.
As of this writing my brother still has had no response to his query and has not had a "reduced sentence" to being suspended. At the very least they will never get another penny from me, and if they do not reinstate my brother's account I will most likely give up the game entirely, as I have had only a suspension. Thank you all for listening, I really hope the National Media Outlets pick this up because it is the Biggest case of Bullying I have ever seen, which is also one thing that KingsIsle says they do not tolerate. How Ironic
Much Love and many prayers
wrulf
In memory of: Iridian Wyrmflame, Logan Runner, Allan Bearwalker, and all our brother and sister wizards that have been cut short of their life in the Spiral.
We as fee paying members of Kingsisle Entertainment's game Wizard101 are shocked and appalled to have our accounts banned because we took more than one free offer in the game, a free offer that the game allowed us to take! Do not punish us for your programming incompetence! We are your source of income, don't treat us like idiots! Restore all sanctioned accounts!
If you would Please also participate in the Petition that is available here
Wow - I did not know people were banned for free in game items - I thought the gold glitch was referring to how some can change the amount of gold they have with debugging software. Wow - banned for free in game items like the tomato basket? I feel it would be a bit extreme to ban people for taking advantage of free in game items. The computer technicians from KI that did not fix the problem should be reprimanded not the customers/players that spend their money to play this game.
ReplyDeleteI had 2 accounts banned at first then found out that now it's a suspension when I tried logging in. I have not received any emails concerning how long the suspension is.
ReplyDeleteI picked up enough of the Glowing Mushrooms, found in Cloudburst Forest, to purchase the Red Barn Farm on my small account as the wizards on there are not able to farm for enough gold to get the Barn in a quick manner. It would've taken me months to be able to house the 69 Evil Magma Peas I had purchased, with REAL money. It took me 2 hours of marking the location, porting to my dorm, running to the bazaar, selling the mushrooms, porting back to the marked location and repeating this cycle to make the 125,000 gold necessary to get the RBF. Had I farmed Asrik, in Vestrilund, it would've taken half the time to get the same amount of gold. I still fail to see how this has given me an advantage over other players in the game, as KingsIsle claims to justify these mass suspensions and bans. It took them less than 24 hours to recant and drop permanent bans to suspensions due to the massive influx of complaints within their E-Mails and on their Wizard101 Facebook Page. Even then, an alarming percentage of comments made on their facebook page have been deleted BY them. They not only seek to blame the consumers (players) for a glitch they have known about for over ONE YEAR, but also to silence people who tell the truth and comment on these things. It really is a disgusting show that the members of this company are showing. I even E-Mailed them in October,2013, when I first found this glitch to alert them to it and no action was taken then either. Therefore, because the glitched items continued to respawn, I continued to use the glitch thinking that it was alright after they knew about it and had ampule time to fix it. I, for one, am now going to look for another game to pour my money into. After spending thousands of dollars a year only to be treated in such a manner is uncalled for, unprofessional and quite unfair.
ReplyDeleteThe bans were harsh indeed however, as the other post within Wizard101 stated "If it's too good to be true, it probably is" stands firm. The people who were sanctioned against sat and hit the "x" on a couple of different possible items to fill their backpacks and then sell the items for gold and did this repeatedly. They then turned around and used said gold to purchase items in the crown shop such as castles etc that could be purchased with gold alternatively from crowns. These people did this over and over again. I have seen posts on Facebook groups of people stating they probably clicked to receive the items 1000's of times a week. They did this fully aware it was a glitch and fully aware it was wrong. I have personally been in the game since Beta and came across the same items as everyone else, I clicked to receive my item and when it did not disappear I screenshot it and sent it in as bug and never returned as any UPSTANDING paying game player should have done instead of using a glitch to "cheat" the system. If you are going to do the crime you have to be prepared to do the time, end of story. Now having said that I do however, think KingsIsle went a bit over board and personally I think since they had access to accounts and saw the amounts clicked/received. Anyone who had truly taken advantage of this glitch and was a first offence and never been warned in the past about other issues on their account should have had their accounts suspended for perhaps 2 weeks and their gold rolled back to reflect a removal of all excess gold received from the glitch besides the allowable 1 time click. People who had records with KingsIsle for numerous infractions would deserve sterner penalties such as longer suspensions and yes in some cases for those that are repeatedly causing game trouble, banned permanently.
ReplyDeleteI understand that "paying" customers believe they have rights since they pay for the game, however, the company has rights and expectations for suitable game play as well which is why every game site etc has Terms and Conditions which everyone has to agree to BEFORE playing or utilizing.
I have been playing game for very long time, I play it with 2 accounts, one I purchased with crowns one I sub. When I click on something I collect and move on, I don't give a second thought to weather I can multiple collect. My goal is to play the game and play it only once, which means collecting items once and if I ever see something that is too good to be true, I by pass it and continue play. I have no issues with gold in game as I can sell items from Gardening to make more gold, I can also sell clothing drop for more gold, making gold is easy, even collecting the limited amount 900 stone blocks and selling them, I have never failed to make gold in many ways, so I don't think about it. Playing the game? I am sadden that this happen to many players, especially when KI knew of the problem, they should have immediately stop the glitch, and perhaps taken action on those that totally abused it. Yes clicking 1000 times is really taking advantage of the situation. But KI allowing someone to do this is also allowing it to happen, both are to blame. I am glad this has come to light as I didn't know KI would ban a player for a mistake they created. After all how much programming input does a player have? NONE so it is basically all in KI lap. That said I return to my playing where I only play the quest 1 time and collect an item 1 time regardless of what is offered.
ReplyDelete