[EQ2] 50,000 Characters Banned 12/20/06

[Aethn Anvel]

Opps, kinda let the cat out of the bag over on EQ2 about some info that Scott tossed me in a PM premature. Anyways, Scott posted officially after my premature post to make it official. So im reposting his announcement here for discussion:

Update on Bannings and Cleanup - Developer Roundtable - EverQuest II Official Forums

The question comes up every now and again: "Why doesn't SOE do something about botters/spammers/etc?" Whenever you see someone new doing things like this while playing, I know as well as you do that it's just plain annoying, and it can sometimes seem like we don't do anything about the problem.

Yesterday we did another cleanup round, removing all the characters that belonged to those who've been banned for a variety of EULA violations over the past few months. Usually these are the people who've been found botting, exploiting, spamming, or selling.

The total came out to just under 50,000 characters and scores of guilds that will be rolling off of the EQ2players site over the next day or two as updates to the web site occur.

I'd like to extend my congratulations to the CS investigation team and their management, who do more, faster in keeping this game as clean as they can than I've ever seen in any online game.

There's still more work to do in minimizing the negative impact of botters and spammers, and there always will be. For now, though, I hope you can join me in saying thank you.

- Scott

____
Scott Hartsman
Senior Producer, EverQuest II

12-20-2006 09:06 AM

This tells me 2 things really,

a) SOE is still active and agressive in making sure the game stays viable and healthy even at the cost of the bottomline $

b) banning 50,000 characters didnt close down the game, so all of you naysayers that keep stating time and time again that "10 people play EQ2 and thats it", I think think that if they can ban 50,000 characters and still have a population to turn a profit, that EQ2 is doing very well in terms and subscriptions and growing every day.

[Faelor]

Thats a wee bit o' peoples...

[Ikia]

Impressive, good job at getting rid of the problem children. I am impressed they did that considering it likely cost them a good chunk of revenue.

[Utnayan]

It's 50,000 characters not 50,000 accounts. There is a big difference there.

With that said, I think more people should be giving EQ2 a shot after the EoF expansion anyway. They have made some good progress on a lot of my beefs. Character animations, engine performance, content, art style, story progression/quest progression.

Just don't use this as a PR stunt to get more subs. Right now they can start doing it based on the mertis of the EoF expansion as far as I am concerned. It's a damn good expansion.

A reasonable guess to the banning of these accounts, which I hope they did, given the max number of characters one can have on each account would most likely mean anywhere from 6,250 to about 10,000.

[Gallenite]

Originally Posted by Ikia

Impressive, good job at getting rid of the problem children. I am impressed they did that considering it likely cost them a good chunk of revenue.

I think that most anyone who runs an MMO would agree: In the long run, losing good, loyal customers over the disruption, or worse yet, earning a reputation of being a botting haven costs a lot more, and MMOs have to be about the long run.

[Broham]

Indeed impressive. Although it's funny that Blizzard doesn't really get this much praise when they do their clean-up runs.

I just might have to give EQ2 a shot though, there has been so much praise for them on these boards recently, and well, WoW is starting to get boring for me =p

[Kazgrim]

The line between paid shill and raving fanboi is hard to spot OP. Definitely blurring the line there.

The whole thing comes off as reaction to Blizzard's latest round of bot banning more than anything. Scott, do you mind sharing the actual number of account's banned? Making the distinction for character then trumpeting the 50k number sounds weak to me.

[Utnayan]

The thing is though at some point logistically is it going to be cost effective. You ban these characters/accounts and the loss to them is fairly minimal. They go out and purchase another account which is very cheap these days, and they are up and running again within weeks - and it will take more months from CS teams to investigate when those resources could be going elsewhere. What should be done is to try and automate the detection process as much as possible to give better tools to the CS so it doesn't take so long to go through everything. Although 50k characters, confirming behavior and such, will always take up a lot of man hours. Would be nice to have a fail safe automated mechanism to do that as well. That way funds can be diverted elsewhere where the game needs it.

I do not like these guys as much as the next guy - but it's like fighting the drug war. There is always going to be someone to take their place or pick up where it all left off and grow more drugs.

[Lyrical]

Originally Posted by Utnayan

It's 50,000 characters not 50,000 accounts. There is a big difference there.

With that said, I think more people should be giving EQ2 a shot after the EoF expansion anyway. They have made some good progress on a lot of my beefs. Character animations, engine performance, content, art style, story progression/quest progression.

Just don't use this as a PR stunt to get more subs. Right now they can start doing it based on the mertis of the EoF expansion as far as I am concerned. It's a damn good expansion.

A reasonable guess to the banning of these accounts, which I hope they did, given the max number of characters one can have on each account would most likely mean anywhere from 6,250 to about 10,000.

I think someone has hacked Ut's Foh account. This can't be him.

[Utnayan]

Originally Posted by Lyrical

I think someone has hacked Ut's Foh account. This can't be him.

Nah I always said if SOE came out with a decent product I would give them props for it. EQ2's EOF expansion was a nice step in the right direction, and I can tell the change in scheduling/production that was passed down from the top worked well here. Hopefully they are on the right track now to continue their new method of design/business.

[Elidrin]

Originally Posted by Gallenite

I think that most anyone who runs an MMO would agree: In the long run, losing good, loyal customers over the disruption, or worse yet, earning a reputation of being a botting haven costs a lot more, and MMOs have to be about the long run.

Nice job Scott. One of the things that really turned me off of EQ2 was the constant botting I saw. Of course I say that and I still play WoW... sigh I guess I'm a hell of a hypocrite. EQ2 overall is a great game, just can't fit two MMO's into my schedule.

[Lyrical]

Originally Posted by Utnayan

Nah I always said if SOE came out with a decent product I would give them props for it. EQ2's EOF expansion was a nice step in the right direction, and I can tell the change in scheduling/production that was passed down from the top worked well here. Hopefully they are on the right track now to continue their new method of design/business.

Personally, I love the content in Eof, but hate the combat changes. For instance, I can solo 68 heroics old world, but new world, heroics at 63 bring me to the brink of death every fight.

[Aethn Anvel]

Originally Posted by Kazgrim

The line between paid shill and raving fanboi is hard to spot OP. Definitely blurring the line there.

I am very far from a shill or a fanboi of any game or company. I have posted my fair share of negative and rant topics on nearly every game we discuss here. I dont blur lines. If its something bad, ill post on it. but in turn, when I see something good I will post on that too.

As for EQ2 doing this in response to Blizzard, you cant be further from the truth. I dont think SOE really gives a shit if Blizzard bans accounts or not. I mean damn man, whos the shil / fanboi now making that comparison?

This is in reponse to months of negative posts and general player furvor over the increasing number of obvious farmers and spammers in EQ2 over teh last 6 months. Nothing at all to do with Blizzard or any product the operate.

Nice Stretch though, way to bring the SOE vs Blizzard into the discussion.

Just to point out, I have an active account in EQ1, EQ2, WOW and Vanguard. So yeah, I play most of what we talk about, and yeah I see good and bad in all 4 games.

[Gallenite]

Originally Posted by Kazgrim

The line between paid shill and raving fanboi is hard to spot OP. Definitely blurring the line there.

The whole thing comes off as reaction to Blizzard's latest round of bot banning more than anything. Scott, do you mind sharing the actual number of account's banned? Making the distinction for character then trumpeting the 50k number sounds weak to me.

I would if I had it -- Bluntly, I didn't ask for it. Wish I had. I may ask the DBAs to go back and get it, though.

This had absolutely zero to do with PR, Blizzard, or anything else. This was: "We've banned a lot of people in the last few months, and the leaderboards are all clogged up with garbage. Please clean off the garbage, and tell me how many characters are no longer there, so I can tell people how many fewer people are taking up leaderboard space."

When the number turned out as big as it did, I wanted to congratulate the CS teams very publicly. There you go.

[Eomer]

Originally Posted by Utnayan

It's a damn good expansion.

I saw the devil shopping for ski's this morning, and a pig just flew by my window.