Blizzard customer service etiquette

[Askyl]

I find it interesting that people have so many problems with suspensions / bans.

I've always been a decent human being, and never cheated or been rude, and I've has 0 issues in 15 years.

They're either lying or stupid enough to not know they F'd up. I've had Dota 2 friends being banned because of how they act in game. And they get furious when they get banned. They did nothing wrong according to them and us friends have to act polite and agree.

But in secret I wished for them to be banned because they acted so poorly and said really harsh things, every match, to other players.

People are dumb or liers if they get banned, 99.99% (there are always mistakes, but Blizzard usually solves that quick and easy).

[Chaelexi]

There's nothing against the ToS that says you can't go AFK during a battleground, whether intended to get free honor, to use the bathroom, or an actual emergency.

Now I have no clue if OP is full of crap or not, but no one deserves a suspension for simply going afk, regardless now many people report you for it. I wouldn't be surprised if this is automated report bullshit happening.

Difference is if there is a pattern to where you are impacting other players or as you said to use the bathroom or an emergency. In the last 2 you are likely to time out and get booted with the deserter debuff. But when you are doing just enough to leach honor and not actually play the game, if you are reported move your character enough to get into to combat for a second and go back to hiding afk again.....sorry this is not earning rank 8 and you got what your deserved.

[Flarelaine]

This really seems like the OP is trying to pose a hypothetical to drum up anti-Blizzard sentiment from the forum.

Not that it's a hard task.

[Tekkommo]

A guild member of mine got banned. He claims he wasn't botting.

All I know is I received complaints about him (I'm not GM or an officer, I just PVP a lot so I guess people decided to complain to me about it), tried whispering him on many occasions to get no reply, when I told others, they also tried whispering him. He was in AV for pretty much the entire the weekend. I would go to bed, login the next day and he'd still be in AV, ask others who were on if he'd been on long, which he always was.

He admits he was afk'ing, but what I don't know is, would Blizz ban an account if it was you just hitting space bar every 5 mins?

I would expect Blizz to look into each report they get about bots, and look for evidence that it was a bot and not a person playing. But with them being a small indie company who knows these days.

[Kumorii]

He admits he was afk'ing, but what I don't know is, would Blizz ban an account if it was you just hitting space bar every 5 mins?

Maybe times have changed but back in vanilla when I tried to grind Grand Marshal I stood afk in Arathi Basin and did other things, just alt-tabbing at times to not get auto kicked. Players were furious but I never got into trouble from blizzard due to it.

So from my anecdotal experience they won't.

[kranur]

He admits he was afk'ing, but what I don't know is, would Blizz ban an account if it was you just hitting space bar every 5 mins?

Most likely not. But having a software that sends the space bar command for you, most definitely.
Now many "botters" are also stupid so the system doesn't even need to scan for software to determine automation. For example if you hit a button or click at exactly x minutes all the time, it's clearly not you at the PC doing it.

The OP just sounds like your typical case of "cheating". Get caught, the complain on the forums that the CS sucks, obviously no one here will be able to prove anything.

[Tekkommo]

Maybe times have changed but back in vanilla when I tried to grind Grand Marshal I stood afk in Arathi Basin and did other things, just alt-tabbing at times to not get auto kicked. Players were furious but I never got into trouble from blizzard due to it.

So from my anecdotal experience they won't.

Most likely not. But having a software that sends the space bar command for you, most definitely.
Now many "botters" are also stupid so the system doesn't even need to scan for software to determine automation. For example if you hit a button or click at exactly x minutes all the time, it's clearly not you at the PC doing it.

The OP just sounds like your typical case of "cheating". Get caught, the complain on the forums that the CS sucks, obviously no one here will be able to prove anything.

Yeah I think he is lying as well, but I also wouldn't be surprised if Blizz just banned people for x amount of reports.

[FelPlague]

didnt read more than around first page, because i have enough of all that shit. this means blizzards fucked up company as well as some of the fucked up ppl in this forum. also i have enough of that always same shit where nothing ever changes. on both sides.

and yes, you are right (because this will be your possible next answer/question): „then why you posted?“ and as i said you are right. i dont know and chances are good it was stupid. sometimes i think i should delete my account here and just look directly in specific sub forums once in a month or so, instead consuming this whole rinse and repeat shit every day or every second day. but hey, i am obviously also just some stupid inet jerk.

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ah, so i recalled wrong. was it quality assurance ppl instead ? (my brain told me it was a lot of customer services ppl, but now i think it was something with qa stuff. not sure. but too lazy too search iwebz).

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ah ok, thx. so it was QA ppl. i miss remembered. sorry.

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somehow every second poster throws around different numbers 11, 337, 131... maybe thats a code ?

11 is how many were QA. 131 is how many were blizzard. 337 is their total QA staff.
You literallly read it, but pretended like it was random made up numbers.

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well i dont know where he get that 131, but for 11/337 there was oficial list of people and their positions posted couple weeks ago, so that one is correct

131 is the amount of the 800 fired that actually worked for blizzard.

[Ghostile]

Yeah I think he is lying as well, but I also wouldn't be surprised if Blizz just banned people for x amount of reports.

The automated system does ban after enough reports.

Source: guildmates thought it was a fun prank

[Tekkommo]

The automated system does ban after enough reports.

Source: guildmates thought it was a fun prank

That's pretty shit then, during my pvp grind I despised afk'ers, but do they deserve a 6 month ban? I don't think so.

Now bots should be banned, quite shocking they have no program in place to detect them.

[Knaar]

Yeah Bliz should really release a list of programs (or types of programs) that can get you banned.
In other games they allow certain programs to be used, some basic like AutoHotkeys (sometime devs will even help fixing those tools!).
But if i ever forget to unload it and go on WoW, i can expect a ban following up very soon.

Bunch of peopling using softwares for creating games or datamining that can look up codes, compile and uncompile stuff will get banned from Bliz's games because they have these softwares installed. They dont even have to use it. The name shows up in the list of installed software when the spyagent of Bliz does his scan and boom, banned.

[Ghostile]

That's pretty shit then, during my pvp grind I despised afk'ers, but do they deserve a 6 month ban? I don't think so.

Now bots should be banned, quite shocking they have no program in place to detect them.

It's a 3 day ban for first time

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Yeah Bliz should really release a list of programs (or types of programs) that can get you banned.
In other games they allow certain programs to be used, some basic like AutoHotkeys (sometime devs will even help fixing those tools!).
But if i ever forget to unload it and go on WoW, i can expect a ban following up very soon.

Bunch of peopling using softwares for creating games or datamining that can look up codes, compile and uncompile stuff will get banned from Bliz's games because they have these softwares installed. They dont even have to use it. The name shows up in the list of installed software when the spyagent of Bliz does his scan and boom, banned.

Imagine thinking blizzard can scan your installed software.

[Tekkommo]

It's a 3 day ban for first time

Guy in my guild is banned till August lol.

No idea about his history at all, if I am to believe him, this is his first ban and he was only afk'ing, not botting.

[Kumorii]

Imagine thinking blizzard can scan your installed software.

Scan installed software they probably could, but I doubt it. Launchers however, which acts like a anti-cheating tool in of itself, can send data of processes running in memory... not entirely sure and could be wrong tho.

[Ghostile]

Scan installed software they probably could, but I doubt it. Launchers however, which acts like a anti-cheating tool in of itself, can send data of processes running in memory... not entirely sure and could be wrong tho.

no doubt it does a check while lauching to detect anything trying to fiddle with the game client itself.

If blizzard did scan your software and ban according to that, my ass would be on a long break due to having cheat engine installed and I run an injector to change my race in wow.

[Knaar]

Imagine thinking blizzard can scan your installed software.

If it's running (taskbar/icon tray) in the background, even if you are not using it but it's just loaded or partly loaded, yep, bliz's anti-cheat can see it.

[Ghostile]

If it's running (taskbar/icon tray) in the background, even if you are not using it but it's just loaded or partly loaded, yep, bliz's anti-cheat can see it.

Running and installed are 2 very different things.

[Kumorii]

no doubt it does a check while lauching to detect anything trying to fiddle with the game client itself.

If blizzard did scan your software and ban according to that, my ass would be on a long break due to having cheat engine installed and I run an injector to change my race in wow.

I'm sure they have parameters which is why they often use terms such as "use at your own risk" even when it comes to stuff like ReShade who can also work as an injector. Some are whitelisted or it looks for changes in critical data. I assume by changing race you only change the model and keep the racials from the original race which wouldn't be critical information in that regard.

[Ghostile]

I'm sure they have parameters which is why they often use terms such as "use at your own risk" even when it comes to stuff like ReShade who can also work as an injector. Some are whitelisted or it looks for changes in critical data. I assume by changing race you only change the model and keep the racials from the original race which wouldn't be critical information in that regard.

Yeah they have mentioned that injectors like that are something they cannot identify separately, so if they somehow get caught (don't think history knows any cases?) you are treated as any third party software runner.

[czarek]

Call this a whine post or what will you, but i`d like to know people thoughts on this.

So recently i decided that i would actually make an effort to get PvP gear on my paladin, since the golden armor set has been dream of mine since i started 14-15 years ago. After already putting in many, many hours, i was to hit rank 8 last wednesday, and then i log in, only to find my account had been suspended for 6 months.
Curious as to why, i reached out to blizzard, only to get slapped with the "We have gathered evidence that you have been using third party software or similar programs"
At this point i was mad, very mad, since personally i have hated people who use bots with a passion as long as i`ve played this game, then the guy i chatted with said "If you want to, you can appeal your ban at <insert whatever link he sent me>" to which i responded i would very much like to appeal my ban, this is complete and utter BS, to which he replies instantly that "Your appeal has been declined, your account will be playable again when the suspension is lifted"

I thought this was weird, so i still clicked the link, wrote down my thoughts and arguments, and sent them an appeal, to which i got the same response just a couple hours later. Also, like with anyone, they refuse to tell what this so called evidence they have gathered actually is, and from what i`ve heard from others in similar predicaments, they dont really have any, it`s just that when trolls and random a-holes send in reports on you, they just do it on a hunch..

Luke from Linustechtips was in the exact same situation, banned for the same amount of time, for the same reason, but him being famous in the PC world, and being able to throw blizzard some bad PR, they even called him up, and unbanned him..

Is this the customer service people want? Is there even a point to actually getting into contact with a GM or similar? Thoughts?

What actually they proof to you? What kind of 3rd party software? Maybe u have some thing installed on ur PC and WoW secure tool is marking it at bot or whatever "bad thing". And tbh 1st ban in 90% is always few hours or days ban. Perm or long term ban is going on 2nd or in really bright situation :P