LootAlert: Yeah you think it's just innocent and awesome to use, but it is still 3rd-party unauthorized software. Suck it.
Exp/Hr calculators: I've seen one or 2 that reads your exp automatically and such, yeah your ban is deserved. 3rd-party unauthorized.
Macro software for keyboards, mice: Razer, Logitech, etc. That software itself is against the ToS. Whether you used it for macros or not, it is unauthorized 3rd-party software, and not allowed to run while D3 is active.
Mumble: Has a feature that attempts to read a player's location ingame and adjust 3d sound for your voice to correspond to other people's locations ingame. The reading of such memory will trigger Warden and end in ban.
PS3 gamepad on your PC: The software used to make PS3 controllers work on pc = 3rd-party unauthorized. Also features multi-key macro abilities.
And just so we're 100% clear on something. Something doesn't have to interact with D3 to be considered unauthorized 3rd-party software. Google Chrome isnt made by Blizzard, thus it is 3rd party unauthorized.
Winamp.
ITunes.
Anything that isn't Windows and Diablo 3.
Your account will not get cleared this wave.
This wave was targetted at something specific. You banned boys go ahead and exchange phone numbers and figure out what little toy you all used that ended up getting you banned. Then you all start a support group for people who thought that Blizz wouldn't notice or care about using LootAlert or whatever else you were using.
Happy QQ.
Get over it.
@Weunis -- I was also banned mistakenly during this wave (I posted a thread here). And I am trying hard to figure out what bug in the warden would have caused this. Your list is helpful, to give me ideas. I don't use any of the software that you mentioned (LootAlert, mumble, etc). I just have a plain 3-button mouse. However, I do have a G15 keyboard. Its not set up with any macros, I am only using it like any generic keyboard. But I guess it must have some process in memory to process key clicks. Do you think this could trigger the warden? I also frequently alt-tab out of the game, and do other things. I play the game with Skype running. There will typically be one or more browsers running, for various reasons. Plus whatever other programs I happen to be working on at the time (say, MS Word, Git Bash, etc.). And of course there is AVG (my anti-virus program) active as well.
Do you think that any of them would trigger the warden, even though they don't interact with D3 in any way? It seems to me that most people would have the same problem if that were the case.
Following up: I have been reading some of the other threads here about others who had this happen to them.
I do have a G15 keyboard. But I have not used it for any Diablo 3 macros at all (or macros for anything else in a number of years). Possibly their detector is flagging anyone with a G15 keyboard, regardless of whether it is being used for macros or not? I have a garden-variety 3-button mouse, so nothing likely there.
Yes, three tries here and I have given up. I did try calling a couple of times, but I always got "queue is too full, use email". They won't tell me why the ban, and they don't appear to pay attention to anything that I say on the ticket. At this point I don't see anything further that I could do, even if I wanted to play.
When you read this, please keep in mind that this could just as easily have happened to you.
Tuesday afternoon, out of the blue, I get an email from Blizzard saying that my account is banned. No information was provided beyond a vague boilerplate statement about violating the terms of service by use of "unapproved third party software". Not a single word about anything specific to my behavior that caused the ban. I first thought it was a phishing email but no, unfortunately, my account really was banned.
For the record, (1) I have never been contacted before by Blizzard about anything like this, and (2) I have never done anything that I know of that violates the TOS. Certainly I have not used any "hack" programs or anything like that. I do use the d3rawr website to automatically read my public profile for the purpose of calculating effective health and DPS. I would be honestly surprised (and shocked) to learn that that violates the TOS. If it does, Blizzard did not tell me so in the email. You can choose to believe me or not when I say that I have never cheated. But if you were to look at my profile (Gisli-1589), you would see that my gear and levels are nothing out of the ordinary for the number of hours that I have put in. So I obviously have not benefited from the alleged cheating!
I submitted a service ticket to appeal. What I got back was essentially (only slightly paraphrasing) "We reviewed this and will not change the action". The ticket was closed. No explanation given for why my account was banned.
Reading the original form letter notification, the impression I got is that the ban is permanent (they labeled it an "account closure"). However, at the Blizzard forum site I stumbled entirely by accident on a statement at the bottom of the page that said my account is banned with a link to further details. Following the link, I came to a page that said the ban is actually for three days, with a counter on the days and hours left. I don't know if it was always a 3-day ban, or if a permanent ban had been changed to a 3-day ban after the first review. Today the countdown expired... and now my account appears to be permanently banned. (Of course this means that I cannot post this message on the official Diablo forum either.)
Since the original response, I have since submitted two more tickets, explaining that this must be a mistake and asking for information about why my account was banned. The second response was essentially "We have reviewed the account again, we won't change the action, and we won't talk to you anymore." I am paraphrasing for brevity, but this is surprisingly close to what the form letter says. The third response was just "It has been reviewed". Again, I have never been told why my account was banned beyond the vague accusation that I violated the terms of service.
I can only speculate about what caused this. I am guessing that either my account information was accidentally typed by some Blizzard employee in place of an account that they intended to ban, or that their hacking detection algorithm is buggy. I did suggest in my second ticket that their engineers might want to contact me so that I could help them debug the detector. But they showed no interest in that.
Of course, I am disappointed with Blizzard. Aside from the original mistake in banning my account to begin with (I can accept that mistakes happen), the policy of providing no information about why a ban took place is unforgivable, as is the inadequate review process and the poor customer service overall.
Even if the ban had only been temporary, I would not play Diablo 3 again at this point. Besides being offended at Blizzard's policies and the customer service reps' inappropriate behavior, I can never predict if or when when my account will get banned again, since I don't know what to do to avoid the original problem. The game isn't worth the risk of putting up with this again.
It looks to me like Blizzard has taken the business calculation that losing some number of customers due to false positives on the hacking detector followed by poor customer service is cheaper than doing the job properly. After all, they already have my money. Losing me reduces the load on their servers, so that might seem like a nice side benefit for them.
Will doing this sort of thing eventually hurt Blizzard's reputation to the point they choose to reform? Doubtful. People generally don't believe that this could happen to them until they or somebody that they know personally experiences it. I can only assure you that this does happen, and you could be next.
0
@Weunis -- I was also banned mistakenly during this wave (I posted a thread here). And I am trying hard to figure out what bug in the warden would have caused this. Your list is helpful, to give me ideas. I don't use any of the software that you mentioned (LootAlert, mumble, etc). I just have a plain 3-button mouse. However, I do have a G15 keyboard. Its not set up with any macros, I am only using it like any generic keyboard. But I guess it must have some process in memory to process key clicks. Do you think this could trigger the warden? I also frequently alt-tab out of the game, and do other things. I play the game with Skype running. There will typically be one or more browsers running, for various reasons. Plus whatever other programs I happen to be working on at the time (say, MS Word, Git Bash, etc.). And of course there is AVG (my anti-virus program) active as well.
Do you think that any of them would trigger the warden, even though they don't interact with D3 in any way? It seems to me that most people would have the same problem if that were the case.
0
I do have a G15 keyboard. But I have not used it for any Diablo 3 macros at all (or macros for anything else in a number of years). Possibly their detector is flagging anyone with a G15 keyboard, regardless of whether it is being used for macros or not? I have a garden-variety 3-button mouse, so nothing likely there.
0
0
Tuesday afternoon, out of the blue, I get an email from Blizzard saying that my account is banned. No information was provided beyond a vague boilerplate statement about violating the terms of service by use of "unapproved third party software". Not a single word about anything specific to my behavior that caused the ban. I first thought it was a phishing email but no, unfortunately, my account really was banned.
For the record, (1) I have never been contacted before by Blizzard about anything like this, and (2) I have never done anything that I know of that violates the TOS. Certainly I have not used any "hack" programs or anything like that. I do use the d3rawr website to automatically read my public profile for the purpose of calculating effective health and DPS. I would be honestly surprised (and shocked) to learn that that violates the TOS. If it does, Blizzard did not tell me so in the email. You can choose to believe me or not when I say that I have never cheated. But if you were to look at my profile (Gisli-1589), you would see that my gear and levels are nothing out of the ordinary for the number of hours that I have put in. So I obviously have not benefited from the alleged cheating!
I submitted a service ticket to appeal. What I got back was essentially (only slightly paraphrasing) "We reviewed this and will not change the action". The ticket was closed. No explanation given for why my account was banned.
Reading the original form letter notification, the impression I got is that the ban is permanent (they labeled it an "account closure"). However, at the Blizzard forum site I stumbled entirely by accident on a statement at the bottom of the page that said my account is banned with a link to further details. Following the link, I came to a page that said the ban is actually for three days, with a counter on the days and hours left. I don't know if it was always a 3-day ban, or if a permanent ban had been changed to a 3-day ban after the first review. Today the countdown expired... and now my account appears to be permanently banned. (Of course this means that I cannot post this message on the official Diablo forum either.)
Since the original response, I have since submitted two more tickets, explaining that this must be a mistake and asking for information about why my account was banned. The second response was essentially "We have reviewed the account again, we won't change the action, and we won't talk to you anymore." I am paraphrasing for brevity, but this is surprisingly close to what the form letter says. The third response was just "It has been reviewed". Again, I have never been told why my account was banned beyond the vague accusation that I violated the terms of service.
I can only speculate about what caused this. I am guessing that either my account information was accidentally typed by some Blizzard employee in place of an account that they intended to ban, or that their hacking detection algorithm is buggy. I did suggest in my second ticket that their engineers might want to contact me so that I could help them debug the detector. But they showed no interest in that.
Of course, I am disappointed with Blizzard. Aside from the original mistake in banning my account to begin with (I can accept that mistakes happen), the policy of providing no information about why a ban took place is unforgivable, as is the inadequate review process and the poor customer service overall.
Even if the ban had only been temporary, I would not play Diablo 3 again at this point. Besides being offended at Blizzard's policies and the customer service reps' inappropriate behavior, I can never predict if or when when my account will get banned again, since I don't know what to do to avoid the original problem. The game isn't worth the risk of putting up with this again.
It looks to me like Blizzard has taken the business calculation that losing some number of customers due to false positives on the hacking detector followed by poor customer service is cheaper than doing the job properly. After all, they already have my money. Losing me reduces the load on their servers, so that might seem like a nice side benefit for them.
Will doing this sort of thing eventually hurt Blizzard's reputation to the point they choose to reform? Doubtful. People generally don't believe that this could happen to them until they or somebody that they know personally experiences it. I can only assure you that this does happen, and you could be next.