F2P ban ( abuse of economy )

astronalazanka

astronalazanka

Member
Hi days ago i got banned by blizzard for thr reason of i quote "
Offense: Exploitative Activity: Abuse of the Economy" which is like buying and selling gold with real money i think .

Im a F2P account , and i always have been , i have never ever subscribed , i dont have like wow 2 acc which is sub , im pure free to play .

As a free to play i dont have access to trading with other players , mails , auction house , not even messaging or inviting people to party .

In my afew weeks of playing i was so active doing activities like collecting mounts , pets , questing and most importantly collecting and having tmogs , i created many alts in fear of not being able to unlock th3 banks in future so i have like i think more than 20 level 20 and like 5 lvl 11 chars.
I dont even know how blizzard came up with it .
After some thought it accured to me maybe its caused by false mass reporting , and i explain why

I play as horde in draenor realm , recently in newcomer chat i asked afew times if people can summon me to argus and zereth mortis , coz i cant get there coz of my level restriction . And people there were arguing me that i must do quests , no matter how many times i told thrm i literaly cant do the quests coz im free to play and those quests has high requorement , i was being mocked and harrased and i was getting messages like
" if you r too poor to pay 15$ just leave wow "
Or things like that , and i even explained to them its not about not having money , i just love the challenge , anyway it all ended bad with them all ganking on me and mocking me , i have a feeling they reported me .

I was never impolite to them and i regret even asking people for help . I didnt knoe the wow plauerbase are just like that , im used to playerbase of games like genshin and gw2 where people actualy valunter to help each other .

I sent an appeal to blizarf but its been 3 dayd anf no one even checked it .

I have OCD and i cant stress enough , how stressful it was to create 20 characters and make a name for them , it was pure hell .
I was getting insane over overthinking to come up with perfect name and background story .

IS there anyway i can chat to a gm ?

I just want them to check allll my logs and activitiea and see im innocent and its a false accusation .

Im sry for my poor english skill also sry for yapping alot . And thank you for reading this friends .
 
astronalazanka said:
, i was being mocked and harrased and i was getting messages like
" if you r too poor to pay 15$ just leave wow "
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I'm sorry to hear this happened to you. My best advice is to keep at it and eventually you may get an actual person to respond to you. Haven't gotten banned, but I've had the same reaction from other players many times, even people who are initially being nice will often turn on me if I mention what I'm doing at lvl 20. I've had new friends go radio silent after I talk about what I can do at 20 and their response is always, "just level up," or, "just pay the sub," like in your case, they completely miss the point that it's a challenge, and explaining usually goes as well as talking to a wall. The average person just isn't accustomed to thinking in our terms: what we do here and how we play doesn't compute for a lot of people, and what they don't understand they tend to mock. It still surprises me sometimes how hostile people will get about this topic, as if I'm somehow threatening their views, and I'd put a lot of that blame on Blizzard. They're the ones who market the game the way they do, they're the ones who act like max-level is where the game begins, and they're the ones who funnel all the players there. If you talk to random players about higher gear stats, most times they'll get it immediately, but talk about min-maxed low-levels and they don't get it.

I've had to accept this over the years. Another piece of advice is to stop talking about it with others if you can. Try asking friends or guild members or similar people for ports and summons, but stay away from general chat, especially if you start getting harrassed. Of all the MMOs I've played, WoW continues to have one of the worst social communities I've ever encountered. And no amount of making these players click accept on a social agreement to be nice is going to make them better. They come in, they want their gear and their achievs and their mounts, and if something doesn't fit with their view of how the game should be played then they're right and the other is wrong.
 
Dev said:
I'm sorry to hear this happened to you. My best advice is to keep at it and eventually you may get an actual person to respond to you. Haven't gotten banned, but I've had the same reaction from other players many times, even people who are initially being nice will often turn on me if I mention what I'm doing at lvl 20. I've had new friends go radio silent after I talk about what I can do at 20 and their response is always, "just level up," or, "just pay the sub," like in your case, they completely miss the point that it's a challenge, and explaining usually goes as well as talking to a wall. The average person just isn't accustomed to thinking in our terms: what we do here and how we play doesn't compute for a lot of people, and what they don't understand they tend to mock. It still surprises me sometimes how hostile people will get about this topic, as if I'm somehow threatening their views, and I'd put a lot of that blame on Blizzard. They're the ones who market the game the way they do, they're the ones who act like max-level is where the game begins, and they're the ones who funnel all the players there. If you talk to random players about higher gear stats, most times they'll get it immediately, but talk about min-maxed low-levels and they don't get it.

I've had to accept this over the years. Another piece of advice is to stop talking about it with others if you can. Try asking friends or guild members or similar people for ports and summons, but stay away from general chat, especially if you start getting harrassed. Of all the MMOs I've played, WoW continues to have one of the worst social communities I've ever encountered. And no amount of making these players click accept on a social agreement to be nice is going to make them better. They come in, they want their gear and their achievs and their mounts, and if something doesn't fit with their view of how the game should be played then they're right and the other is wrong.
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Ty for your reply , thats why i usualy just dont tell them im f2p , i just tell them im low lvl and i cant level up , i just avoid saying im f2p to not get those judgmented hatered .

What they dont understand is many games r free these dayd , its not a crime to be f2p , its actualy nobodies business , but somehoe i feel like thats how blizard wants it to be , to shame f2p players to be forced to either buy sub or leave the game.

I have a feeling some of those guys who actualy started mocking me are like blizzard employees who just are active in newcomer chat , i might be paranoid though.

But the thing is i never expected people to be this judgmental in a video gale , arent them being judgmented everyday for playing wow , why do they judge others the way others judge them ?

What did i ever do to them ? Steal their low lvl loots ? Make fill a spot in orgrimmar which should be empty .

If anything i help the game feel more alive , i help them queu for time walking faster ( i have 30k time badge ) , i fill the questing area anf make it all feel less dead .

And i by existing make new players feel the game is more alive and get encouraged to buy the game .

Other games do promotions for people to play their game for free.

Tbh im thibking about maybe even leaving wow forever now , coz if i get my account back they might ban me falsely any time they want and this is making me stressed n paranoid .

Its like one of those dictator regims that can do anything without any explaining .
They just banned me out of nowhere .

Banning a f2p player for trading gold .idk if this is ai or real human doing it , if this is ai , this is just dissapointing
 
I agree with practically everything you said. Also the ban feature in-game now is automated to my knowledge, just FYI, so someone with a lot of friends or accounts can easily get someone banned if they don't like them. Also playing too much can signal that your account could be a problem as well, it's absurd, but there it is. These days it feels like players don't want the game to feel alive, they want others to get out of their way so they can grind for their items.
As to why people would be this judgemental in a video game, it's a valid question, and it comes down to a lot of gamers forgetting that the point of all this is to enjoy themselves, and instead they treat the game like a do-or-die situation, and if you're not min-maxing then you're a chain around their ankles. I've been guilty of that in the past as well. It comes down to a loss of perspective generally, and sometimes players enjoy picking on others when they know they can be anonymous. There are some good-meaning-players too, but even the core game design encourages a type of mindset that easily becomes toxic, and that's been there for many years. The difference now is that back in 2004, many players were content to play casually, but now there are guides telling them to do this and get this and so on, and it all pushes the player to treat the game like a second job, while failing to ask the question of why.
This isn't a new thing either: back in 2012 I got bullied out of dungeon groups because my rotation was bad, and that caused me to spend the next several years getting much better at the game only to start doing to others what had been done to me, as I now shared their mindset. And after a time I realized this was a problematic cycle.

P.S. I've seen smaller gaming communities that are easily 10X friendlier and more supporting than WoW's, and a big part of it comes down to game design. If the game is designed in a way that encourages cooperation and positive interaction, it's going to draw those players, and if it's designed against that, same thing. That one's on Blizzard. It's like fishing: you catch what you set bait for. If you put a fly on the hook you might catch an easier-going trout, but if you stick meat on that hook, you better expect piranha.
 
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Your
Dev said:
I agree with practically everything you said. Also the ban feature in-game now is automated to my knowledge, just FYI, so someone with a lot of friends or accounts can easily get someone banned if they don't like them. Also playing too much can signal that your account could be a problem as well, it's absurd, but there it is. These days it feels like players don't want the game to feel alive, they want others to get out of their way so they can grind for their items.
As to why people would be this judgemental in a video game, it's a valid question, and it comes down to a lot of gamers forgetting that the point of all this is to enjoy themselves, and instead they treat the game like a do-or-die situation, and if you're not min-maxing then you're a chain around their ankles. I've been guilty of that in the past as well. It comes down to a loss of perspective generally, and sometimes players enjoy picking on others when they know they can be anonymous. There are some good-meaning-players too, but even the core game design encourages a type of mindset that easily becomes toxic, and that's been there for many years. The difference now is that back in 2004, many players were content to play casually, but now there are guides telling them to do this and get this and so on, and it all pushes the player to treat the game like a second job, while failing to ask the question of why.
This isn't a new thing either: back in 2012 I got bullied out of dungeon groups because my rotation was bad, and that caused me to spend the next several years getting much better at the game only to start doing to others what had been done to me, as I now shared their mindset. And after a time I realized this was a problematic cycle.

P.S. I've seen smaller gaming communities that are easily 10X friendlier and more supporting than WoW's, and a big part of it comes down to game design. If the game is designed in a way that encourages cooperation and positive interaction, it's going to draw those players, and if it's designed against that, same thing. That one's on Blizzard. It's like fishing: you catch what you set bait for. If you put a fly on the hook you might catch an easier-going trout, but if you stick meat on that hook, you better expect piranha.
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Well youre right , do u thibk i should leave wow , or stop playing even if im unbanned , i have a fear they can ban me any sec they want for no reason agaij , i dont want to collect so many things and spend so much time to get banned again
 
astronalazanka said:
Well youre right , do u thibk i should leave wow , or stop playing even if im unbanned , i have a fear they can ban me any sec they want for no reason agaij , i dont want to collect so many things and spend so much time to get banned again
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I can't answer that, only you can. The reality is yes we can be banned at any point, but as the warbank issue showed, we could also lose our stuff even if we aren't banned. Just like real life, what we have in-game is never a guarantee at this point. I've made peace with that, and if I lose my stuff I lose it, but if I feel like playing or going to ironforge or seeing somewhere, then I'll go do that, items or no items. As for fear and anxiety about losing things, being at peace with that possibility can take time and a change in point of view from accumulating items to accumulating experiences. Those don't disappear if and when data gets erased. That said, a lot of players are collectors and there's nothing wrong with collecting if that's what you want to do: it's all about what you want to get out of your time in the game. There is usually more than one way to look at something.
 
Dev said:
I can't answer that, only you can. The reality is yes we can be banned at any point, but as the warbank issue showed, we could also lose our stuff even if we aren't banned. Just like real life, what we have in-game is never a guarantee at this point. I've made peace with that, and if I lose my stuff I lose it, but if I feel like playing or going to ironforge or seeing somewhere, then I'll go do that, items or no items. As for fear and anxiety about losing things, being at peace with that possibility can take time and a change in point of view from accumulating items to accumulating experiences. Those don't disappear if and when data gets erased. That said, a lot of players are collectors and there's nothing wrong with collecting if that's what you want to do: it's all about what you want to get out of your time in the game. There is usually more than one way to look at something.
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Youre right ty ty
 
the looming shadow of bans has always been part of twinking.
a simple blunder like using a group macro for making boosting easier, or simply going too fast in a dungeon can catch you a ban.
hope i don't come across as rude, but that's a risk one has to accept if they want to get into twinking, if one cannot accept that risk, then twinking is not for them.
hope you do well in whatever you choose to do!
 
My ticked was answered today n they say they uphold the ban .... are those all ai generated answers ?

No one even review it ... like how the hell a f2p acc , sells gold for real money like wtf im going insane .

Well after thinking for a while i decided to leave wow , its not worth the stress , its really not , i have ocd n it just torturing me so much .

Just want to thank this community for being supportive n nice to me n patiently replying my questions n stuff . Ill miss you guys .

Bye
 
Sorry to see you go, buddy. F2p accounts have no rights - we are nothing more than indentured servants to Blizzard. I love my free main way moar than my sub main, fwiw - but the sub will always have some dollar leverage against vexatious assholery. I wish you all the best in finding a new niche.
 
astronalazanka said:
My ticked was answered today n they say they uphold the ban .... are those all ai generated answers ?

No one even review it ... like how the hell a f2p acc , sells gold for real money like wtf im going insane .

Well after thinking for a while i decided to leave wow , its not worth the stress , its really not , i have ocd n it just torturing me so much .

Just want to thank this community for being supportive n nice to me n patiently replying my questions n stuff . Ill miss you guys .

Bye
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if you see this, i was banned a while ago for the same thing, they eventually reverted it and offered a small apology, after my first few ticket responses were rude and disrespectful, essentially telling me i had been breaking the rules and i was getting what i deserved -- like i said, eventually they reverted it and said they were actually wrong

a lot of other 20s have gotten this ban and as far as i know the vast majority of them had it reverted, try not to stress about it and keep a little bit of hope, yours will likely get reverted too
 
I think you should keep trying to get unbanned. Whats the worst they can do? double ban you? Even if its just an AI writing back, eventually it should get to a real person who will hopefully give a damn and spend a few seconds looking into it.

I will say though, I feel the last 1-2 years have been kind of a wake up call for people playing this game. I stopped playing private servers after having two shut down on me and losing all my stuff I earned over the years. So I decided to stick with f2p thinking "Well, at least I won't lose my stuff if I just put up with Blizzard's bullshit." and I have learned how wrong I was.

Between guild banks being wiped, the warbank being locked away, and them depending more and more on automated bans, I realize its no different than a private server where you can lose it all at any time. It might be more reliable, but at the same time the game keeps having more and more bugs while Microsoft is forcing AI on its developers and cutting jobs like crazy every quarter. I honestly feel like this is a train closer to derailing more than ever before, but I will still play for now. Just with less time invested and actually trying out other options.

Don't give up. As long as you are having fun playing keep doing so. But also when you feel burnt out, take a step back and play other stuff cause no game is worth it when it stops being fun and feels like a job.
 
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