Player banned apparently for no reason

Hello Dear friends,

I’d like to have some support here, I got Banned, apparetly for no reason, no email received, no warning.
So, I need some resolution about that.
If there is a game moderator here that can help me, I would appreciate it.

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Best try the zendesk you should get an answer

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good luck with that

Zendesk

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There is ALWAYS a reason…

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But not always one that makes sense. :wink:

Regardless, any time an administrative action is taken against someone, they should always be told why right upfront with specific details as to what they did wrong. Not only is that good business, it’s just plain common decency. Getting banned with no explanation, whether you agree with that explanation or not, just builds resentment.

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Okay, how? Funcom doesn’t have your contact information. And no, I don’t want to have to give Funcom my contact information just so that people who get banned don’t have to spend a minute requesting clarification.

That’s precisely why this exists:

There’s some room for improvement, though. For example, they could include a link to Zendesk in the notification box that I presume you get when you try to connect after you’re banned.

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Exactly!

That’s fair. They can’t send an email without an email address. But not getting any reason for a punishment is still a huge problem and you shouldn’t have to beg for it. Some improvements need to be made.

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Sorry, no, that doesn’t work and is just petty vindictiveness. Punishments are meant to correct behavior. If you don’t tell someone why they were punished, they can’t correct their behavior. They have to be informed as to what went wrong. Works best when done right away as opposed to letting them stew not knowing until some customer service rep gets around to replying to them.

This is something psychologists have known for hundreds of years. :neutral_face:

It’s not begging. It’s the same process you see in many other industries. Got your AdSense account suspended? You get an e-mail saying it was “found to be in violation of policy” (paraphrasing, 'cause I’m too lazy to dig for an example right now) and good luck getting an explanation what violation you committed.

In that sense, Funcom is doing better than freaking Google, because they give you a way to reach an actual human.

Could they make it so the game displays a customized message when a ban user tries to connect? Yeah, they could. Do I want them to spend their time/effort/money on implementing an in-game feature that somehow grabs the data from wherever it is that I assume they’re keeping it right now? Hell no.

A simple link to Zendesk would be a good enough improvement, but honestly, I don’t think it should be a high priority. I have yet to see one person come to the forums and say “yeah, it was a mistake, they reinstated my account”. That means that either they have a good reason for every ban (i.e. it was deserved) or it’s pointless to try to change their minds. Pick whichever you prefer. I’m leaning towards “they have good reasons” :slight_smile:

Which just means they’ve all got the same problem. “This is how everyone else does it.” is not a good excuse.

:man_shrugging:

It’s not about excuses. It’s about what’s good enough in the real world, where you can’t get “perfect” and have to settle for “good enough”.

The primary purpose of bans is to serve as a deterrent to behavior we (the players) and they (Funcom) don’t want to see on official servers. If it accomplishes that purpose, then it’s good enough. If it doesn’t, then it needs improvement until it does.

Is saving banned people a few minutes of effort to find out what they did wrong the improvement this system needs the most? I doubt it and, to be honest, I don’t care. You’re the one pushing for that improvement, so it’s on you to justify why that’s better than other improvements that could be done.

But how can it be a deterrent if it’s not immediately clear what it was that led to a ban? :wink:

Your kid runs out into the street. Then he comes back in the house and you yell at him. But you don’t tell him why you’re yelling at him or why he’s grounded until three days later. As a result, the punishment and the crime are not linked within his mind. Furthermore, you’ve built up resentment for the three days he spent under house arrest without knowing why.

Like most situations, communication is key. Think about all the times you’ve felt frustrated with a game developer when they seemingly ignore complaints about a balance issue or bug despite it having been reported for several months already. Now think about the frustration you’d feel if suddenly you couldn’t access the game you paid for without explanation.

So yeah, I absolutely think they could do better. Do I think the OP’s ban was justified? Don’t know. Neither does he. That’s a problem in any system.

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And he asks me why I’m yelling. And I tell him.

The point is that if he has to ask, then the punishment is meaningless.

That might be true when it comes to kids. I say “might be”, because I didn’t do any research to see what the experts say, I just treat my kid that way (i.e. tell him what he did wrong).

Thing is, we’re not talking about raising kids. We’re talking about a video game, with limited budget and many possibilities for improvement. “Bans don’t work as a deterrent if people have to click on a few things and type a message” is a dubious claim, let alone good justification for spending effort/time/money on a change.

I think we need to get Chris Evan’s to do a video on this subject directing people to what they need to do in this situation.

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The experts say punishment needs to be psychologically linked to the crime for it to work as intended. Part of that is knowing right away what the punishment is for. Like I said, this is something that has been studied and known for quite a long time. It’s something you learn (or used to) in Psych 101.

The thing is it’s not the process of finding out the reason for the ban perse that is at issue. It’s the timing. If you got a ban and, as you suggested, the notification gave you a link where you can get a response right away listing the reason why then there’s not much of an issue. But if you fill out the form and that response doesn’t come right away, then it starts causing problems. The more time you have to sit there and wonder what the hell happened, the less effective and meaningful the punishment becomes. That’s why ideally you should just be told right upfront what the reason is rather than have to ask for it. If that’s impractical, then the timing should still be reduced as much as possible.

Bans are not punishment. Bans are to remove unwanted players from your server.

While in some cases a server owner may lift a ban if they feel the banned are not the unwanted player, they are under no obligation to do so. The server is the house of the server owner, and they may keep it as they wish. That is their prerogative.

Funcom is the owner of the servers they rent in this case and they may have whatever type of player they wish, the same as any other owner. They may ban for any reason or no reason at all.