109 réponses à ce sujet

[xCaucasian]

Hey everyone, about a month or less ago, I was banned from Mass Effect 3 multiplayer after installing the Earth DLC.
I inquired as usual to 
ME3AccountAdmin@bioware.com, but only recieved the usual copy and paste response.
I decided to wait until after the expected flood of emails from other banned users to respond back. Here is my email:

Hello,
I found out I was banned a little while ago, and have not received anything but an automated message. I find this to be extremely frustrating, but I thought maybe I should wait a while before trying to contact you again.As I said before, I don't no why I was banned. All I ever did was add Mass Effect 3 to my Steam library so my friends could see what I was doing.I also edited my Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 game saves in the past, but I don't think that has anything to do with it, and if it does, I'm sorely disappointed.While checking the forums, I saw that many people were told by EA support that if they wanted to play multiplayer again, they would have to create a new account, and buy another copy of the game; a full $40 on top of the amount I already paid for the Collector's Edition.I don't see how this is fair at all, because console users only have to purchase an online pass for $10.Now, I understand that in some cases, you have to do what you have to do, even though I may protest.If you refuse to lift the ban on my account, then please, help me understand the following:

• How I can transfer my bought games from one account to another (excluding Mass Effect 3 because of the ban), because I refuse to manage 2 accounts
• How I can keep my Collector's Edition bonus material & DLC on the new account
• Why I should spend an additional $40, $30 more than what console users have to pay might I add, to access Mass Effect 3 multiplayer

If this issue isn't resolved soon, I am an Edmontonian, and I will not hesitate to go directly to Bioware Headquarters and file a complaint in person.

Thanks for your time,

Adam Franco
(end of message)

Have any of you actually received an email back from them that wasn't just the copy and paste response?
Edit: Format, typos.

Modifié par xCaucasian, 09 août 2012 - 05:38 .

[IcePure]

My girlfriend seems to be banned for playing in nothing but bronze matches with me (I'm not banned), even with her having a lower score 100% of the time and with us failing on occasion. I'm not sure how they're getting away with what seems to be a random banning procedure without telling people the reason. I wish you luck, I'll update you if they say anything.

[Hellfire257]

This sort of customer support is disgraceful IMO and as a community, we shouldn't stand for it. There will always be legitimate players caught up in this and they will suffer because of it.

"First they came..." by Niemöller rings a bell here.

[Zkyire]

xCaucasian wrote...

Hey everyone, about a month or less ago, I was banned from Mass Effect 3 multiplayer after installing the Earth DLC.
I inquired as usual to 
ME3AccountAdmin@bioware.com, but only recieved the usual copy and paste response.
I decided to wait until after the expected flood of emails from other banned users to respond back. Here is my email:

Hello,
I found out I was banned a little while ago, and have not received anything but an automated message. I find this to be extremely frustrating, but I thought maybe I should wait a while before trying to contact you again.As I said before, I don't no why I was banned. All I ever did was add Mass Effect 3 to my Steam library so my friends could see what I was doing.I also edited my Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 game saves in the past, but I don't think that has anything to do with it, and if it does, I'm sorely disappointed.While checking the forums, I saw that many people were told by EA support that if they wanted to play multiplayer again, they would have to create a new account, and buy another copy of the game; a full $40 on top of the amount I already paid for the Collector's Edition.I don't see how this is fair at all, because console users only have to purchase an online pass for $10.Now, I understand that in some cases, you have to do what you have to do, even though I may protest.If you refuse to lift the ban on my account, then please, help me understand the following:

• How I can transfer my bought games from one account to another (excluding Mass Effect 3 because of the ban), because I refuse to manage 2 accounts
• How I can keep my Collector's Edition bonus material & DLC on the new account
• Why I should spend an additional $40, $30 more than what console users have to pay might I add, to access Mass Effect 3 multiplayer

If this issue isn't resolved soon, I am an Edmontonian, and I will not hesitate to go directly to Bioware Headquarters and file a complaint in person.

Thanks for your time,

Adam Franco
(end of message)

Have any of you actually received an email back from them that wasn't just the copy and paste response?
Edit: Format, typos.

Good luck, hope it works out.

[steej]

welcome to the club.

Igot an email that said the following;

From: ernesttse@bioware.com
To: steg_man@hotmail.co.uk
Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2012 08:58:56 -0700
Subject: RE: Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer - Exploitative Activity Found







Hello,
Multiple members of the team have independently investigated your case and have arrived at the same conclusion. Any further inquiries into this issue will go unanswered.
Regards,
Ernest Tse

Modifié par steej, 10 août 2012 - 03:02 .

[Hyphon]

@steej: What did you wrote them?

[steej]

Hyphon wrote...

@steej: What did you wrote them?

Oh thats the best part.
Following an ignored email i sent this (maybe a bit direct, but the point is that I'm the customer and my questions were not even addressed!)

..you know what?
Here is the FUll chain in chronological order;
---------------------


 
From: EA
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2012 8:53 PM
To: steg_man@hotmail.co.uk
Subject: Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer - Exploitative Activity Found
 

This e-mail is to notify you that your account has been banned from the multiplayer portion of Mass Effect 3 for exploitation. You will still have access to all single player content.

We've concluded that this behavior has a negative impact on the Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer community. The exploitation that took place on this account directly violates the Mass Effect 3/Origin Terms of Agreement and/or Service. As a result we have decided to remove your access to the multiplayer portion of Mass Effect 3.

For more information please contact the Account Administration at ME3AccountAdmin@BioWare.com.
Regards, Mass Effect 3 Account Administration
-----------------------
From: steg_man@hotmail.co.uk
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2012 11:02 PM
To: ME3AccountAdmin@BioWare.com
Subject: Fw: Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer - Exploitative Activity Found
 
Hi,
 
I have recently received an email informing me that access to the multiplayer portion of MassEffect3 has been removed from my account.
I have been a fan of this franchise for many years and as a MassEffect3 Collector's Edition owner am shocked to discover there has reportedly been ‘Exploitative Activity’ discovered on my account and as such have some questions I would like to ask you;
 
Please can you advise me what this actually means?
What activity has been discovered and how exactly does it have a negative impact on the Mass Effect community?
 
I have a credit card linked to the account for purchase of BioWare points. Has my account been breached to have caused this exploit?
If so could have any of my personal details have been compromised?
 
I can assure you I have not knowingly, nor would I chose to, breach Origin's Terms of Agreement.
 
I'm very upset at this news and was very much looking forwards to playing the Earth DLC.
If I can help in anyway by providing profile or save files please let me know. I'm very keen to get to the bottom of this issue.
 
Kind Regards,
stegman 
 
 
"Keelah se'lai"
----------------------
From: Steg Man [mailto:steg_man@hotmail.co.uk]
Sent: Friday, July 20, 2012 5:13 PM
To: ME3 Account Admin - BioWare
Subject: Fw: Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer - Exploitative Activity Found
 
Hello,
 
It has been over 48 hours, please can you give me some feed back on the status of my account?
 
I believe i was wrongly banned from Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer in the recent Ban Wave.
I have not been told why I was banned and am rather worried about the state of my account.
Please reinstate my account?
 
Kind Regards,
stegman 
(aka Steej)
----------------------------
Hello,
I have taken a look into your account and can confirm that you have been banned for exploiting multiplayer. We take cheating very seriously and we have decided that this ban will be permanent.
Regards,
Ernest Tse
------------------
From: Steg Man
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2012 2:05 PM
To: me3accountadmin@bioware.com
Subject: FW: Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer - Exploitative Activity Found
 

Ernest,

Thank you for getting back to me.

I have been a big fan of BioWare and EA for many years.
I've purchased all MassEffect games and DLC (except 2), all DragonAge games and DLC (except 1).
I've purchased Collector’s Edition's, jumpers, hoodies, drinks bottles, and other merchandise from the BioWare store. Also novels and comics books too.
So as you can imagine this is very disappointing news indeed.

I really don’t accept your statement and am not satisfied with your 'explanation'.
I too take cheating in computer games very seriously, so clarify for me what exploits have been detected on my account and advise me how i go about contesting this decision.

If you still feel there are violations on my account, and this ban is indeed permanent, I need you to tell me how you intend to reimburse me for the BioWare points I have purchased and spent in the online store.

Sincerely,
stegman 

 



From: steg_man@hotmail.co.uk
To: ernesttse@bioware.com
CC: me3accountadmin@bioware.com
Subject: Fw: Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer - Exploitative Activity Found
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2012 20:26:10 +0100
To whom it may concern,
 
Please can some one respond to my last email?
 
Also, please explain why you have chosen to deactivate my access instantly when the EA Terms of Service state that any such action will be granted a 30 day warning prior to deactivation.
 
Sincerely,
stegman
.
-----------------------------------------
 From: Steg Man [mailto:steg_man@hotmail.co.uk]
Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2012 4:37 AM
To: Tse, Ernest; ME3 Account Admin - BioWare
Subject: FW: Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer - Exploitative Activity Found
 
Your refusal to reply to or even acknowledge my email is unaceptable!

Please tell me why i have had no reply and what SLA you are working towards.
i.e. how long should a customer wait before expecting a reply.

Further to this my issue still stands.
As my access was removed instantly, I would like to point out that this action is in direct violation of section 9 of EA’s Terms of Service, found here;
http://tos.ea.com/le...TERMS/US/en/PC/

It states that access will be removed “within thirty (30) days of the date such notice is either (at EA’s discretion) provided to you via email or is posted on the applicable product or EA Service or on http://www.ea.com/2/service-updates.”
Section 9 goes on to read;
“EA may also terminate access to EA Services for violation of this Terms of Service, if EA (in its sole discretion) deems that your use of EA Services renders EA Services less safe for others and/or minors or for illegal or improper use of EA Services, Content, Entitlement, products, or EA's Intellectual Property as determined by EA in its sole discretion.”

This is also not the case as I have done none of those things, or at least it has not been explained to me that I have.
Please respond to me as soon as possible, I am very keen to continue using my purchased product.


I look forward to your response..

Regards,
stegman
--------------------------
From: Tse, Ernest
Sent: Wednesday, August 01, 2012 4:58 PM
To: Steg Man
Subject: RE: Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer - Exploitative Activity Found
Hello,
Multiple members of the team have independently investigated your case and have arrived at the same conclusion. Any further inquiries into this issue will go unanswered.
Regards,
Ernest Tse
--------------------------------------------

Modifié par steej, 11 août 2012 - 02:28 .

[steej]

As you can see i was getting a bit wound up towards the end there, but my point stands that my issues were not addressed, and my questions not answered.
The final statement, saying further inquiries will go unanswered, was the icing on the cake for me.

Hence my forum based rants.

[Reorte]

You've paid for the game and been kicked out arbitrarily ("we've decided you cheated, end of, no explanation" is pretty arbitrary). If their customer service doesn't do anything I suppose there's a possibility of this being a Trading Standards issue, although I wouldn't hold my breath. And I'll probably get banned for suggesting it.

[steej]

Reorte wrote...

You've paid for the game and been kicked out arbitrarily ("we've decided you cheated, end of, no explanation" is pretty arbitrary). If their customer service doesn't do anything I suppose there's a possibility of this being a Trading Standards issue, although I wouldn't hold my breath. And I'll probably get banned for suggesting it.

Agreed (on both accounts!)

I need a full answer, or reinstatement this week or this gets knocked up another level.

[Mannar]

My sister was banned too. And i know that she don't use exploits. It's may be strange for support team but ppl who buy BWP for gear up in game, they absolutely DON'T NEED to hack the game. If they think in other way it's sad and all we can do - demand of evidence of guilty, not just words like "i think his a hacker ban him please" and if support team don't have it we can sue them for violation of consumer rights.

Modifié par Madlabba, 13 août 2012 - 11:51 .

[steej]

Sorry to hear about your sis.

As I said, lets give them one more week to respond.
In the meantime lets also check out our legal options.

Modifié par steej, 13 août 2012 - 11:59 .

[Mannar]

All i want to say to those who was banned without any evidence of they guilty ( just bcs someone think that you used exploit) you need to team up. And demand justice! We are all remember that community can force to listen to yourself. And why don't do this again? What else all this forums needed?
P.S. I need to sorry for my english.

Modifié par Madlabba, 13 août 2012 - 12:02 .

[Mannar]

steej wrote...

Sorry to hear about your sis.

As I said, lets give them one more week to respond.
In the meantime lets also check out our legal options.

Agree.

[SeanBahamut]

While I dont believe for a second that all of you were banned unjustly, I do believe BW make mistakes with their bans, and that plenty of innocent gamers have been caught in the crossfire of their manual banning procedure too.

The responses from the team that look into it are simply not good enough. The dont have to tell you why you were banned, but it would be helpful for them to at least state roughly what it is (i.e. "Banned for multiple use of tier 3 glitch. Follow this link to see what constitutes as tier 3")

[steej]

SeanBahamut wrote...

While I dont believe for a second that all of you were banned unjustly, I do believe BW make mistakes with their bans, and that plenty of innocent gamers have been caught in the crossfire of their manual banning procedure too.

The responses from the team that look into it are simply not good enough. The dont have to tell you why you were banned, but it would be helpful for them to at least state roughly what it is (i.e. "Banned for multiple use of tier 3 glitch. Follow this link to see what constitutes as tier 3")

Hmm...I dont like it, but it's better than what I'm getting at the moment, so yeah, I'd take that (with a frown) BUT they'd be hard pushed to convince me that is the case in my situation as i have not cheated (believe it or not).

Makes me think they can't find out why they banned me and out of some kind of Solidarity are circling the waggons to protect someone’s mistake.

Modifié par steej, 13 août 2012 - 02:13 .

[SeanBahamut]

It would be nice to see a thread where someone has actually had a successful ban appeal, just to make sure they do exist!

[steej]

SeanBahamut wrote...

It would be nice to see a thread where someone has actually had a successful ban appeal, just to make sure they do exist!

HA!! 
Yeah right! 

Maybe that tells you something, huh?

Neofelis Nebulosa wrote...
What sort of twisted judgement is that?

Being punished without
them telling you exactly what for when you asked for it is like
convicting someone for "something you did" without any more
informations. They have to tell you what you were banned for, or else
they are punishing you with what seems a total lack of evidence.

You
would be perfectly within your rights as a customer to have them refund
the entire game for you if they can't produce the evidence and they are
still unwilling to lift the ban.

If you then want to keep
playing MP, you can simply open a new Origin account, buy the gme again
with the refunded money and start anew.
But I certainly wouldn't tolerate such obnoxious behaviour.

Indeed.  Thanks for your input.
Please feel free to add a little weight to my campaign.

I'm glad people are starting to sit up and pay attention, you could be next, you know that right?

Whats my proof? 
I dont need any!

Modifié par steej, 13 août 2012 - 02:30 .

[Mannar]

My sister has information, why she have ban. Bcs she played in company with someone who use expoilts. Tell me, how many chanse to see that someone use exploits before map started? I can't do this for example. Sometimes i buy BWP, mostly use ingame credits. They just ban all 4 who played in this team. And nobody, even in live chat can say nothing, just stupid bla-bla-bla, something as you were banned bcs you are banned bcs someone think that you are cheater. Last thing makes me awesome angry. It just like say to bull that him bad bcs he has horns.

Modifié par Madlabba, 13 août 2012 - 04:34 .

[steej]

Madlabba wrote...

My sister has information, why she have ban. Bcs she played in company with someone who use expoilts. Tell me, how many chanse to see that someone use exploits before map started? I can't do this for example. Sometimes i buy BWP, mostly use ingame credits. They just ban all 4 who played in this team. And nobody, even in live chat can say nothing, just stupid bla-bla-bla, something as you were banned bcs you are banned bcs someone think that you are cheater. Last thing makes me awesome angry. It just like say to bull that him bad bcs he has horns.

Feel my rage, friend.
Join me.

[steej]

ok, I'm following this topic on several diferent threads, so I've started a new one here to pull everyone together.
http://social.biowar...653738#13653738

Hopefully if its all in one place we might get some decent responses.

[Loaderini]

 wait a moment. there's a very good possibility that i will be banned for cheating without using any cheat?
ok i'm seriously afraid to touch the ME3 multiplayer again now.

[Bulldoghk]

Just out of curiosity what are in game exploits? I don't play very often so am wondering. Are you talking about classes that can attack through walls or is it something different?