Greetings Inheritors,
Over the course of our service, one of our goals has been to ensure a fair experience for all of our players. In order to accomplish this, we have taken a tough stance on exploits, use of 3rd party software and illegitimate gold trading.
After our recent revision of the stance taken during the ‘Panty Gate’ exploit, we have been reviewing various policies and taking the pre-existing practices within the ArcheAge community into consideration. Whilst we do not wish to return to a state of normalised exploitation and we stand by our philosophy of tough punishments for violations of the terms of use, we have devised alternative sanctions for use of such services.
Going forward, illegitimate acquisition of gold/items through the black market and/or the usage of such services will no longer result in a permanent suspension on the first offense [1]. Instead, a 72 hour suspension will be applied along with a gold & gear wipe of the account on the first offense. A default gear set will be sent back to the account so that the player may continue playing the game without any competitive advantages [2].
Any repeated offenses will then result in a permanent suspension of the account.
[1] Exceptions apply, and a permanent suspension may still be applied on first offense for individual cases where deemed necessary.
[2] Gear removal and sending a default gear set would only be applicable to accounts where the full amount of gold could not be removed.
What exactly will be removed?
Gold and any items that can be equipped and will contribute to gear score may be subject to removal. However, certain items may be excluded from the removal depending on the method of their acquisition.
What about gold or items moved into chests or alt accounts?
We will track all the movement of items and gold and take appropriate action on each account.
What about accounts that were already permanently banned for this?
This change of policy will be retroactively applied to previously-permabanned accounts as well. However, due to the large amount of manual work involved in the gold & gear removal process, it will not be done proactively to every account that was banned in the past. Instead, players can request an unban & wipe by submitting a ticket through our support page and selecting the ‘Account’ form with ‘Appeal a Permanent Ban’ as the category.
Please do note that this option is only available to players that were banned as a result of receiving illegitimate gold, and not to players that participated in the sale of gold/items or made other Terms of Use violations.
Why this method?
A simple gold removal is not always possible as purchased gold is usually spent quickly, it’s also not functionally possible to set a negative balance. Additionally, we wish to ensure the penalties for this remain harsh. We needed a solution that provided consistent and meaningful punishment that remained feasible for each individual case.
What about item XYZ?
Discretion may be applied by the agent that handles the unban request, any items removed are considered final and will not be returned.
When I was banned I missed out on XYZ, can I be compensated for it?
We will not be offering compensation for any missed events or lost time.
We will continue our tough stance on exploiting, botting and cheating in all of its forms, but we will endeavour to look wider and advance/refine the way we apply sanctions in the future.
ArcheAge Team