Armour Games and Kongregate - Having Both - Warning before ban?

Discussion in 'General Discussions' started by KuraiKiller, Jan 31, 2014.

  1. KuraiKiller

    KuraiKiller Member

    So my experimental character, Meechakeecha Barbarously Benign Bish Slapping Bard, is now banned from AG. This character has no attack, tons of energy, and tons of defense. Gameplay wise, it does nothing but level up and very, very slowly kill bosses. Almost no hits or punches or ambushes. Most of his fight wins are from people attacking him. Most of his fight loses are from doing daily Fight GP. During FW, at least the last, he had 0 attacks and 1500 heals. During FW, he sits in defensive stance for the entire 4 hours duration he has, except to do his 100 attacks on a completely random target. He offers advice to fellow new players in chat, but otherwise basically keeps to himself.

    He has strived to squad with all of his Kong account's enemies. He is in a separate faction than his Kong account. He is not squad with his Kong account. He does not click assists or help with bosses of his Kong account.

    To my knowledge, the Kong account has not hitlisted or gone after anyone because they have done something to the AG account. In previous FWs, I don't think I have attacked the same targets before, but I may have. I certainly haven't in BA. There is absolutely no relationship between the two accounts, other than me owning both. My Kong account is a jerk who desquads anyone on a whim, and can beat everyone on the server but one. My AG account engages in friendly chats, spends his resources and doesn't fight anyone.

    The cross-platform server was created by Kano with no foresight as to whether players might have accounts on both gaming sites. I had to ask if it was ok to do. I really don't know how or why they didn't think it might happen. They must have known for months about the AG release. Instead of coming out with an actual charter of what is and isn't acceptable, they released a blanket statement of permaban for any type of possible interaction between the two character, with no explanations or warning. Like with all their servers, AG has dwindled in population, going from the roughly 6-10K that played in the first few weeks, to roughly 500-1k, based on World Boss participants since AG was released and what it is now. Obviously they knew this was going to happen, or else they would have released an independent server, rather than linking it with the relatively young Kongregate server, to help boost its activity and economy.

    There is a very hefty Kong versus AG vibe that plays out daily. I personally am squad with very few AG players on my Kong account and love hitlisting them. It's great to have more and more people appearing in your fight range, seeing as mine has a possible 15, most of whom are inactive.

    In my opinion, Kano's policy of permaban with no transparency is crappy. I am sorry, but customer support is seriously lacking in this company. You can't even call them. Melanie is nice, don't get me wrong, but most responses are basically auto-responses that generally say "too bad". Where is the grey area?

    I have worked hard on my AG character, daily, to be the biggest defense player on the server, contrary to my Kong account who has the biggest attack on the server. Then BAM, permaban. Uhh, could you please tell me exactly why? Your general indication of what the issue was is so damned frustrating. I am a paying customer, unlike so many of your other players, and I don't even get an explanation? Not to say that a paying customer should get superior support on a Pay-To-Win game.

    So the last 100 days on AG was a complete waste of my time. Thanks Kano! Sure, you warned us, and I tried my hardest to abide by your rules, but apparently I faltered somewhere. Where? I wouldn't know, because you wont tell me.

    Can you please consider implementing a warning policy before a ban? A 7 day temporary ban should certainly make a player think long and hard about how to proceed with their character when it becomes active again. It's simple, do the temporary ban, and if they send in a support ticket, just TELL THEM EXACTLY WHAT THEY DID. I know you do investigations (most of the time), so you know exactly what they did. They can either correct their behaviour or just stop playing. At least then they wont feel so frustrated and angry about having their time ripped from them. Second or third offense, fine, permaban away. Is that really going to make your lives any harder?

    I realize the whole situation is a sticky wicket that Kano just doesn't want to deal with, but you are robbing your players of their time and energy, and why, because I accidentally attacked a target that my other account had also attacked? Or I wasn't looking at names and put stamina into one of my own bosses? Or both my accounts happened to tap the same target in FW? Or I punched my other account without looking at the name? Or I collected one account on the hitlist with the other account? Or one of the dozens of other examples of possible interactions between the accounts that is not malicious or intentionally trying to gain an advantage?

    I would love it if the Kong/AG server was opened up to allowing everyone two characters that are free to do as they please. It would be just as fair as everyone being allowed a single character. Everyone has the same opportunity. But that is another discussion.

    I don't expect Kano to respond to this at all, but maybe there is some player input. I am not sure if the other platforms suffer from the same dilemma of having a Kong/AG linked game.
     
  2. mi7ch

    mi7ch Administrator

    Hi KuraiKiller,

    Thanks for voicing your concerns on the Kong/Armor account policy. Despite the perceived nebulousness of it, we do our best to not be overzealous because we realize that we created an environment where this type of situation is possible.

    There are however, a few strict cases where we will freeze someone's Kong or Armor alt. I did my due diligence and found that Melanie did respond to your inquiry and gave you a description of why your account was frozen. I'm sorry that you don't like the outcome or the specific reason we froze your Armor account, but when we take action in circumstances such as these we rarely respond with "too bad". As you say, that is just poor customer service.
     
  3. KuraiKiller

    KuraiKiller Member

    I meant to only refer to AG/Kong bans when I mentioned the general response of "too bad". I also meant that the bottom line was "too bad", when you get down to it. A few that I know of that were banned didn't even realize that they had, for instance, attacked the same target on both accounts, and yes, you have banned people for having a few attacks on the same target. Then someone reports them and they just lost their character. They submit a ticket but get nothing. Although you unbanned in exchange for banning the other one. Your policy on bans due to interaction between two characters is "too bad".

    You are right, she did respond, but I was unsatisfied with the very general description. "Your second accounts were removed because they were being accessed simultaniously with your main accounts. This is a concern for a number of reasons, but primarily for events such as the Battle Arena or Faction Wars." I have been accessing both accounts "simultaniously" since the server started and now it's an issue after 100 days? As I am sure most dedicated players that play on multiple servers do, I have each game window opened at the same time, so I don't have to constantly be logging in/out or closing/opening my game windows.

    So Melanie mentioned FW and BA. I don't recall doing anything in either event that was suspicious or raised "red flags". Maybe I did, I don't know... can't you say something like "On January 15'th, 2014 at 13:05:55, Character A attacked Target A, 5 seconds later, Character B attacked Target A".

    I can admit I am being somewhat scathing, but I was not just referring to my own situation in this matter, but also the 15+ others that I personally know about, and what I have heard from their stories.

    Really what I wanted to discuss is not so much getting myself unbanned, even though I would love to hear the ACTUAL reason as to my banning, but more so a discussion about temporary bans, rather than totally destroying the work of one of your players who, from their perspective, may not be doing anything wrong.

    I would like to hear Mitch's and Kano's thoughts on possible temporary bans, with permanent bans after repeated offenses. I honestly thought I had done everything to keep the accounts separate.
     
  4. Survival Streak 0

    Survival Streak 0 Active Member

    It's really hard to not get your other account banned, here's a list of a few things that could get you banned.

    • Common enemies/rivals.
    • Catching bounties you've placed with the other account.
    • Being online with both at the same time.
    • Helping yourself with boss/regular fights.
    • Fighting/punching/hitlisting your other account.
    • Being squad with or even in same faction as your other account.
    • Entering both into the arena, even if you only intend to play one.
    entering both in arena? how come you may be asking well...
    Attack someone and your other account would have less dmg to deal to get the kill, kill someone & your other account is automatically bumped up a rank, die & your other account is bumped up a rank.

    So yeah, if you want to play on both the best advice is keep both absolutely separate and play at separate times which will get tricky during the 3 days calendars.

    I almost forgot...
    this is an awesome idea... when I lost my other account I was totally shocked, I'd kept both games separate, but people I killed with my big account then went and punched my smaller account which gave me common rivals and admittedly I was on both accounts at the same time, but with 3 days calendars everywhere it's near impossible to complete both if you need to alternate the times you open doors...so yeah a warning would've been nice rather than a straight out permanent ban.
     
    Last edited: Feb 1, 2014
  5. Jared

    Jared Well-Known Member

    This isn't 100% true, although it may be true most of the time. Good guidelines to follow in an attempt to keep an account from being banned.
     
  6. Survival Streak 0

    Survival Streak 0 Active Member

    It all seems like some kind of big trap having two gateways to one environment, you can use both, but not at the same time or for the same things.
     

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