Does BioWare tacitly approve of guild bank thefts?

[anwg]

If it isn't the responsibility of MMO makers to police things detrimental to their games, then they are going to lose customers.

 

Players have the right to expect a good game experience, and they have a right to expect that things that reduce or eliminate that good experience get dealt with. Trying to excuse EA/BW for not doing something about a player ruining the game for others isn't much better than what the thief did as far as I'm concerned. Players also have the right to take their money elsewhere, and a bad experience is more apt to cause them to do just that...also detrimental to the game as a whole.

 

If players do not take a stand and voice their expectations, or worse try to condone behavior detrimental to the game and place the blame on the victim (regardless of the mistakes the victim made), then they are just encouraging EA/BW to continue to ignore these detrimental actions. No matter how minor some may think it is, it is still wrong and needs to be addressed by EA/BW instead of being ignored.

 

Why should BW get involved? For all we know OP could be full of crap and gave that person full access knowing exactly who it was, and now is experiencing buyer's remorse or lying to cover his ***.

Edited May 29, 2013 by anwg

[Lostpenguins]

I guess I need to point out that I have already pointed out that I pointed out that I already said I was responsible for the loss and that BioWare is not. Learn to read with comprehension. I clearly can't insult you. That would require that you understand what you read and that you do not assume what everyone is saying is what you think they say.

 

You know that when you read the first few words of a post and then the last few words of the same post, filling in the middle on your own makes an *** out of you. Don't worry, tho, because everyone like you has ignored what was said and responded to it anyway. You've plenty of company here on that.

I've seen several of your posts saying that this person deserves to be banned because you were gullible. That's not an exploit. You got tricked. They don't ban ninja-looters in this game. Even if the group talked about it and agreed beforehand that they would only roll need on stuff that was for their class... and then someone rolls need on an item that isn't for them, wins, and leaves group. That's a ninja-looter, not an exploiter, and I'm pretty sure is not banned, are they?

 

You still want BW to take action against the other guy even though you admit that you are at fault.

 

That makes 0 sense.

[danielearley]

Actually as you gave this person full access to the guild bank with no restrictions this isn't theft he didn't steal, you freely opened your doors for him to take what he wants, so strictly speaking there is nothing BW can do for you.

[DarthTHC]

If it isn't the responsibility of MMO makers to police things detrimental to their games, then they are going to lose customers.

 

Players have the right to expect a good game experience, and they have a right to expect that things that reduce or eliminate that good experience get dealt with. Trying to excuse EA/BW for not doing something about a player ruining the game for others isn't much better than what the thief did as far as I'm concerned. Players also have the right to take their money elsewhere, and a bad experience is more apt to cause them to do just that...also detrimental to the game as a whole.

 

If players do not take a stand and voice their expectations, or worse try to condone behavior detrimental to the game and place the blame on the victim (regardless of the mistakes the victim made), then they are just encouraging EA/BW to continue to ignore these detrimental actions. No matter how minor some may think it is, it is still wrong and needs to be addressed by EA/BW instead of being ignored.

 

My ISP dropping me mid-raid is hugely detrimental to my gaming experience. Should BWEA police that?

 

My dog jumping on my mouse arm during combat is detrimental, too. And don't even get me started on when my wife walks into my man-cave topless and I'm in the middle of a great cut-scene.

 

What's BWEA to do about all THOSE things that are detrimental to my gaming experience?

 

Some things BWEA does need to fix, yep. Bugs in the code. Exploits. Speed hacks. Server stability. Client stability. That sort of thing.

 

There are plenty of things that contribute to the gaming experience that are "people" issues. BWEA should stay out of those. People's feelings get hurt and panties get wadded way too easily.

 

I'll go back to what I've been saying. OP screwed up. Admitted he screwed up. Time to man up, learn from it, and move on. Quit asking someone else to fix a problem you created.

Edited May 29, 2013 by DarthTHC

[Bodhisatvavow]

Way to try and insult the people here because you fail to shoulder the responsibility. You were gullible, you didn't take any major preventative acts (such as having that person log on to their officer main and ask you in officer chat first), and yet you want to blame BW.

 

Man up and accept the responsibility.

 

You got played, son!

 

He's shouldered the responsibility, the only problem is BW's lack of response either way!

[jedip_enguin]

El oh el.

[akuratheunseen]

Why should bioware coddle this idiot? I'm sorry he gave enough names of people he saw? You couldn't had asked him to log on to said character he was an alt on to prove who he was? If nothing else ask him for the name of the character he was the alt of? Your not seriously telling me he was able to tell he just happened to know the names of one of your guy's character names so you let him and then gave him access to everything

[Bodhisatvavow]

In which universe does THAT happen? LOL!

 

It's not a theft. Stop calling it a theft. At worst it's deception. Oh no, he LIED to me on the INTERNET! *CRY*

 

Grow up.

 

Deception, then theft...that's what it is, plain, simple...

[Kilora]

Deception, then theft...that's what it is, plain, simple...

 

And, OP was given MORE than enough power to stop this from happening, and he made the wrong choice.

 

BW is not responsible for policing player problems, especially when they are not related to exploits or bugs. No ToS or EUALA breach has been quoted, because I'm 99% sure there wasn't one.

 

No one is saying "good job theif!" -- We're saying learn from this, and don't make that mistake in the future. Why? Because it was a stupid mistake. Personal responsibility goes a long way.

[Bodhisatvavow]

In every jurisdiction with which I am familiar a theft that occurred because someone gave an unknown a key to his house would sit at low priority for so long the paper the report is written on would turn to dust long before someone ever glanced at it a second time.

 

Come on. OP screwed up. OP admitted he screwed up.

 

OP is showing immense weakness of character asking BWEA to fix his screw up. Anyone defending that request shows equal weakness of character.

 

Nobody hacked the game. Nobody compromised someone's account. It is doubtful anyone even broke the EULA / TOS.

 

Someone trusted too swiftly and failed to verify before granting access to whatever was in the guild bank. And he got burned. Lesson learned, hopefully. Instead of crying to the internet and begging someone whose problem it is not to solve the problem, just stop. Grow up. Man up. The OP already admitted his mistake. Move on.

 

OP has not asked for the problem to be fixed, OP just wants an answer either way from BW as to if the actions perpetrated by the thief are actionable. So far BW has had no response to the OP, BW has only said, "Thank's for the ticket"

[DarthTHC]

He's shouldered the responsibility, the only problem is BW's lack of response either way!

 

What is BWEA supposed to respond with? "Hey, we gave you all these great tools to secure your guild bank 7 ways from Sunday and you ignored all that and gave some scrub you didn't even know full access? Wow." *points & laughs*

 

Better they remain silent.

Edited May 29, 2013 by DarthTHC

[Foofie]

We had some guy try to do this to our guild on Po5.

 

He claimed to be an alt of one or my officers.. But the Officer was online and in vent.

 

So we played with him for a bit and reported him immediately.

[Khevar]

Deception, then theft...that's what it is, plain, simple...

It's a CON.

 

Example. When a friend of mine was a teenager he used to go down to the subway station and pretend he was stranded and just needed a couple bucks to get home. Find a friendly-looking parent-type, con them out of a couple of bucks, then move onto the next.

 

That's a con. It's a swindle. it's a trick.

 

it's also a pretty horrible thing to do, preying on someone who is trying to be friendly.

 

But it is different from theft. Giving someone unlimited access to your guild bank is the same thing as saying, "Take what ever you want." Prior to this kerfluffle, it sounds as though every officer in that guild could have raided the guild bank at any time.

 

Would that be "stealing"?

[Bodhisatvavow]

And don't even get me started on when my wife walks into my man-cave topless and I'm in the middle of a great cut-scene.

 

pics or it didnt happen...

[Bodhisatvavow]

What is BWEA supposed to respond with? "Hey, we gave you all these great tools to secure your guild bank 7 ways from Sunday and you ignored all that and gave some scrub you didn't even know full access? Wow." *points & laughs*

 

Better they remain silent.

 

no, take the information from both known guilds that were infiltrated and look into it and respond with more than "thanks for the ticket"

[Jandi]

no, take the information from both known guilds that were infiltrated and look into it and respond with more than "thanks for the ticket"

 

"Infiltrated"? Really? Asking a dummy for gbank access, and receiving it, is hardly a CIA level operation. Jeez people... get a grip.

[DarthTHC]

no, take the information from both known guilds that were infiltrated and look into it and respond with more than "thanks for the ticket"

 

"Thanks for the ticket. You're a dumbarse for giving full access to some scrub you didn't know. Have a nice day."

 

I mean, seriously, we're still begging BWEA to solve problems we created for ourselves? Wonder if that's the same crowd who still has mommy & daddy paying their rent at 30, 40, 45...

[akuratheunseen]

Honeslty people what could bioware do anyway? Nothing, the guy broke no rules the only thing he broke was the trust of the random guild leader who decided to give him access based on him knowing a few names and not verifying that people actually do know the guy. You know why their's no response because theirs nothing to say.

[Andryah]

OP has not asked for the problem to be fixed, OP just wants an answer either way from BW as to if the actions perpetrated by the thief are actionable. So far BW has had no response to the OP, BW has only said, "Thank's for the ticket"

 

They do not comment on specific actions on other players.

 

All the OP can do is /report it and move on. It's up to Bioware to determine any action.. AND it is none of the OPs business.

 

Sorry if that hurts ones sensibilities.. but that is the way MMO companies work. They do not specifically comment on actions on other players. The best you can get would be a broad statement (like a major ban for cause, or a policy statement on certain types of actions), which would be useless here other then to /thread the topic IMO.

 

Personally, IMO, what the alleged player allegedly did is cheezy. But since the guild leadership (who has absolute control and responsibility for cargo access) gave the guy permssions.. they get the cheeze for free. The whine however, must be purchased.....OR.. as in this case.. stomped out of sour grapes and given freely to the forum.

Edited May 29, 2013 by Andryah

[xandax]

While I can sympathize - theft seems a rather strange word to use.

[Darka]

There was a guy on The Hawk trying this, had his name posted. Ended up in our guild, and had sent a request for items to me. I saw the thread, asked him about it, and instead of defending himself just just quit

[anwg]

Actually as you gave this person full access to the guild bank with no restrictions this isn't theft he didn't steal, you freely opened your doors for him to take what he wants, so strictly speaking there is nothing BW can do for you.

 

And by OP's logic, he's the one who actually approves guild bank thefts.

[EricMusco]

Hey folks,

 

I thought it would be important to comment on this issue as it is obviously something that is very frustrating, and quite complex. Although it is our policy to not discuss action being taken against other players, this thread brings up a more general concern of CS action, and so I wanted to explain our philosophy a bit about this situation, and the OPs situation specifically.

 

First, the general rule: We will typically not help guilds restore items that were removed from their guild bank by players which had access to do so. We allow players to police their own guilds and although this situation is unfortunate, it is very difficult for us to action these scenarios. The only time we will action these occurrences is when there is a Terms of Service violation attached to them (such as a compromised account, etc).

 

I know some may ask why that is, and it is a very valid question. The answer wis that it is just a very tricky precedent to set. When do you restore the items to the guild? When was the player in the right for taking the items? What if it was just a guild dispute and players are mad at each other? What if nothing was done incorrectly and a player just has a vendetta against another? There are so many complicated components to these situations that outside of ToS violations, it simply comes down to "guild drama," something that is hard for us to step into.

 

Something that made this situation unfortunately worse was the perceived lack of response from CS. When looking into the OP's situation, what I found out is that their issue was actually investigated and responded to. There is a display bug currently where in rare situations, a player’s ticket will not actually show up as responded to. In fact, they can't even see the response at all. Once we realized that was the case here, I made sure that CS not only responded to the ticket but actually emailed the player directly.

 

In the future, what I recommend everyone do is to simply be very cautious when put in situations like this. Here are some tips I would recommend for anyone (these are things I do in my own guild!):

 

• Do not allow everyone in your guild permission to everything. (recruit's don't need to access your Tier 9 crafting components )
  
• Keep your most valuable items in their own tab, if possible, and only allow those you trust to access it.
  
• Before promoting someone or their alt to a rank that can access your bank, verify their identity.
  
• If you feel your guild bank was compromised due to a ToS violation, such as an account being compromised, contact CS.
  

 

It really is unfortunate when these types of situations happen. We certainly never want to hear of a guild losing some of their hard earned loot! Just remember to use the guild tools and permissions that you have, and be careful who you let access your bank.

 

-eric

[Andryah]

And by OP's logic, he's the one who actually approves guild bank thefts.

 

Good point anwg.

 

OP and officers did tacitly approve of being taken advantage of (stolen from, to use OPs words) through application of irresponsible cargo management practices.

 

Does not mean the alleged offender is not a slug.. just that the GM and officers of this guild apparently feed slugs and then complain to Bioware that there are slugs in their garden.

Edited May 29, 2013 by Andryah

[Alec_Fortescue]

 

LoL, if you would hear what happened to my friend's guild, Empires Finest, on Lord Calypho back in the day... Not just a guild bank theft but a putch by one of hte officers who wanted certain guys out + change in leadership. lol

 

Mind you, it was soon after Explosive Conflict came out. Stack of stabilizers (among things he took) was worth a FORTUNE

Edited May 29, 2013 by Alec_Fortescue