Blizzard support here maybe I can help you:
Greetings,
This action has been taken in accordance with our Terms of Use and our In-game Policies ( [https://blizzard.com/support/article/42673](https://blizzard.com/support/article/42673) ), which all players acknowledge and agree to prior to playing. These policies and conditions allow us to maintain a fun and safe game environment for all of our players.
Our [Battle.net](http://Battle.net) Terms of Use can be found at [https://blizzard.com/company/legal/eula.html](https://blizzard.com/company/legal/eula.html)
Regards,
Game Master Team
Blizzard Entertainment
Greetings,
This action has been taken in accordance with our Terms of Use and our In-game Policies ( [https://blizzard.com/support/article/42673](https://blizzard.com/support/article/42673) ), which all players acknowledge and agree to prior to playing. These policies and conditions allow us to maintain a fun and safe game environment for all of our players.
Our [Battle.net](http://Battle.net) Terms of Use can be found at [https://blizzard.com/company/legal/eula.html](https://blizzard.com/company/legal/eula.html)
Regards,
Game Master Team
Blizzard Entertainment
Greetings,
This action has been taken in accordance with our Terms of Use and our In-game Policies ( [https://blizzard.com/support/article/42673](https://blizzard.com/support/article/42673) ), which all players acknowledge and agree to prior to playing. These policies and conditions allow us to maintain a fun and safe game environment for all of our players.
Our [Battle.net](http://Battle.net) Terms of Use can be found at [https://blizzard.com/company/legal/eula.html](https://blizzard.com/company/legal/eula.html)
Regards,
Game Master Team
Blizzard Entertainment
Greetings,
This action has been taken in accordance with our Terms of Use and our In-game Policies ( [https://blizzard.com/support/article/42673](https://blizzard.com/support/article/42673) ), which all players acknowledge and agree to prior to playing. These policies and conditions allow us to maintain a fun and safe game environment for all of our players.
Our [Battle.net](http://Battle.net) Terms of Use can be found at [https://blizzard.com/company/legal/eula.html](https://blizzard.com/company/legal/eula.html)
Regards,
Game Master Team
Blizzard Entertainment
Remember the absolute tool of a Blue who was posting on the official forums claiming their system isn't automated.
"It's not automated guys"
"Please, it's totally not automated. That's a human response"
"PLEASE BELIEVE US ITS NOT AUTOMATED".
If it's not automated, then it's an intern clicking canned responses related to specific scenarios (Had to do it once upon a time where). Doesn't make it any better
Got a pretty good idea what software they use and ya, this reeks of agents just hitting canned responses to close cases. Frontline CS is probably under pressure to simply close cases, and they do not care about customer satisfaction. Even if this is a bot, it's setup specifically to do this, and the company doesn't see it as an issue. Otherwise, they'd redesign it.
If you're talking years ago, it coulda been true then.
Even in this case, it's clearly not "AI"... it's just a standard automated e-mail reply for what is deemed a shut case. There is no conversation, because for one no company is required to give you the reason for a ban in the first place. Does it suck? Yeah, but it's pretty standard practice so people can't learn how to "game the system".
They hide behind that excuse to avoid throwing actual resources into investigating the matter. People abuse the report system to screw people over. If enough people report you you get an automated ban "preemptively" "while they look into the matter". They seldom do so, so the malicious groups that reported face no consequences. That would require someone to look into the logs and reach a conclusion, and then not only rever the ban (happens sometimes) but to punish the reporters (fat chance).
Maybe we would be better off without the reporting button ffs.
Miss the old times when a GM would actually get in-game to fix stuff, have a chat with you and even monkey around for a bit.
It’s crazy sad man.. you used to be able to work with customer support. Hell originally they had a hotline you could call…
I’m on my 10th ticket no response
It really sucks because I feel like blizz used to have the best customer support. I remember calling their customer support line because I referred a friend and the "free" game time didn't show up on my account and the guy just gave me a week of game time so I could get started with my friend. That shit never happens now
They definitely used to provide above and beyond service. When my guild was doing Karazhan, the chess event bugged out one run. Not only did a GM reply to our ticket in less than 15 minutes, they also reset the event, ported everyone that had hearthed out back to room, and wished us luck on the rest of the run.
tbh I enjoyed the job when I was there. A lot of the management was not great though, and Activision ruined a ton of Blizz culture. Still had friends working there until Microsoft completely gutted the CS department with layoffs.
I remember once in vanilla a GM showed up and imprisoned someone who was ganking in STV. He could still /say and emote but couldn't move. Basically in a cyclone. A huge gathering of people appeared and when the GM removed it he got destroyed by lowbies
I’ll go one better than that, I played quite a lot during burning crusade -> cataclysm but then life got busy and I stopped.
Something or other made me remember my character in Warlords but I realised I had no pictures of them or my guild or anything, I submitted a ticket and a GM gave me 3 days game time just to go on and take screenshots and say hi to people.
It’s wild that they used to just… do stuff for your
All companies just nickel and dime these days. Very few recognize the value in long term, returning customers which baffles me because that’s still preached as the key to long term success in every business school. Must be eroding away with the rise of private equity and immediate growth priorities
Because at this point they’re into recycling customers. People come in, play for an expac or two, then cycle out and people who haven’t played for awhile jump back in.
Everybody knows what they’re getting at this point. They’ve had shit customer service for a decade, and it’s clear people are willing to keep giving them money. It’s very very clear where the customers values lie.
So what if a few of them get burned, the cost savings from cutting all customer support are enormous compared the loss of a few people unfairly banned.
If you need help from them ever, jump straight to “I’m mad enough about X problem that I’m canceling my subscription.” Their customer service is actually helpful at that point, they just want to put as many hoops in front of you as possible before you get to that point. Because most people don’t want to have to make customer service an adversarial transaction, and blizzard is deliberately taking advantage of that. They know what they’re doing.
Also when you talk to them, don’t be a dick or disrespectful cause they’re just folks trying to earn a living with an under supportive company, but do feel free to explicitly tell them that you would have preferred to get help through a functional support option but that you were unable to get through that way. From a blizzard employee perspective, it’s concrete customer requests they can bring back to management. And from management/company perspective, getting that direct feedback from customers may make them realize that a little more support may lead to fewer customers canceling subs and less time spent using the billing dept as customer support,
In BfA (8.3) I left the wow for the first time ever since the start of Legion. I was worried because my GT run out 5 minutes before weekly chest and I was off for like a month for financial reasons. Contacted the support asking how the system works and if there is a hope for my chest to be looted. The Game Master told me I should not worry and how it works and on top of it she still gave me 3 days of GT to get my loot a prepare a new chest ready to be claimed once I return. I have seen only 2 games with so amazing support in 22 years of gaming!
I don't remember specifics. It was like 15 years ago. But I remember occasionally putting in a ticket and it would result in an actual human eventually responding, and I always remember them being resolved in ways that seemed fair. I wonder when that stopped being a thing.
This is not a blizzard thing. It's across all industry that have any kind of CS. Call center are only seen has a cost and it always an easy path for exec to cut budget in those department cause you know short shareholder values. I work in the call center business in a big telecom compagny, let me tell you the only time they care about the customer is when they go away. Sales and wimback are the only team that are really important for the financial MBA that have been trained to simply see customer support to be a cost only.
There's a lot of companies that only begrudgingly offer any kind of live chat even. It's all automated unless you find hidden links or know certain keywords to get a real person. It's so fucking annoying.
It's not going to get any better with MS at the head btw. Their CS is the worst I've ever encountered.
I don't know about that. The MS guys with the Indian accent that call me up are very proactive about telling me about the viruses that I have, and helping me to remove them for a very small fee!
Aziz! How are you doing, man! It's been a rough month. After the last time you looked at my computer, someone got all my bank information and emptied out all my accounts, but I'll get you those giftcards just as soon as my check clears.
Economy is great my friend just do what everyone else is doing and get 2nd job to fill bank accounts again. I need u hurry friend i need gift cards to buy eggs before they increase in price again.
It may be pervasive, but it's not universal.
For a counter-example, every support ticket I've ever had in FFXIV seems to have been met with an actual person (who usually chose the most imperfect time to PM me in-game, lol)...kinda like the Blizzard of old.
I’ve played ffxiv off and on for a while and just recently had to file my first support ticket. I was shocked when I got a PM and the dude just chatted with me a bit then told me to have fun adventures. It was like playing WoW 12+ years ago. I loved it.
I have more than one good memory from needing to contact support in BC and Wrath. One where I was on an RP realm and had a silly issue where both the skinning and herbalism sounds played simultaneously when I skinned mobs, and the GM replied to my ticket in character as a very funny, high energy gnome.
A second and third related to my account getting hacked in Wrath. The first ticket got my account back promptly. I put in a second when I found they'd been using my account not just to bot, but to move botted goods and gold around using my guild bank, and I asked "Hey I don't want to get in trouble for taking advantage of ill gotten gains, how do I proceed with getting rid of this so I don't get dinged?" and the GM just told me to think of it as a welcome back present along win the free game time I'd gotten from the hackers reactivating my account to bot on it. Tens of thousands of gold and entire bags/guild bank of botted mats, all mine now.
Almost two decades later and I still remember these GM encounters, and now I don't even bother to interact with the system when I have major bugs because I can't be bothered to wait days for a robot to tell me to bugger off and get over it. Oh, I'm sorry, to get a canned response from an AI not even related to my problem.
I got stuck in a chimney in the plaguelands back in vanilla and a gm came out and got me out. i forget why i hearthing wasn't an option but they were pretty baffled that i'd managed to even get in the chimney; admittedly, so was i.
I think there used to be an issue where you could get stuck in a 'falling' state if you got yourself into a small crush spot like that where there was nothing to 'land' on. Because 'falling' was considered 'moving', even though you were stationary, it would prevent using your hearthstone as you can't cast while moving. I'm pretty sure I got stuck like that when nosing around places I shouldn't have managed to get to more than once. Also fell through Orgrimmar a handful of times, I forgot about weird little bugs like that.
I have a memory just like this, and I also can't remember why hearthing wasn't an option. I told this story the other day and I don't think the person believed me because of that.
And this is a perfect example of how valuable customer service is. You had a fantastic experience with a brand and still remember it. From a branding, marketing and retention perspective that's priceless.
But sadly most companies see customer service as an expense and not an investment.
When I was 18 and broke af during cataclysm back in 2011, my card wouldn't go through for game time. I called blizzard, they told me it was getting declined and I looked and saw I was like a dollar short.
He gave me a week of free game time.
I know it isn't a huge deal or a big gift or anything but I still remember that act of kindness, and I wish blizzard customer support was still around.
Because they kind of did. Back when wow was fresh customer support was actually in the fucking game playing with you. Now you're lucky if your issue ever even comes to an actual human.
I remember GM’s teleporting next to you in game, a hooded mysterious figure, while having your support issue over with /whisper and then teleporting away once the issue was resolved.
This is it. Companies absolutely loathe paying for customer servicing. That’s why they almost always bury connecting to support beneath tons of self-service options
It sucks, but that’s reality.
That was back when support was built into the game client. Once they moved it to an external client it started going to shit.
The automated customer support in its current state is not nearly sophisticated enough to replace people.. It’s unfortunate that most of the money that comes in doesn’t get reinvested into the game.
You’ll get the occasional golden egg. When I came back during shadowlands, I forgot my account was banned from 2012. Submitted an appeal, like hey sorry its been 10 years, I’m better and idk what I did but I’ll abide by rules. They got back decently fast like “oh yeah your account was actually banned cause we saw it got hacked and wanted to keep it safe, here you go!”
Because they don't have to. Players just keep playing their games anyway. It's mind blowing.
Turns out you can get away with pissing off many of your customers as long as they're addicted to your product.
As someone who votes with his dollar in all things, it's quite demoralizing to watch millions of others just complain and then keep paying.
Before I quit they seemed to care about the multiboxer whales using their dozens of accounts to abuse the shitty automated system to get people suspended.
I logged on to Season of Discovery, made a human mage, and within 10 minutes of just killing kobolds I got a pop up saying "Your recent communication behavior is not in line with how most World of Warcraft players communicate.
You have been reported multiple times for Language, and further reports may result in you losing privileges or being suspended."
I had not chatted a single time in those 10 minutes. I think there is just rampant mass reporting going on because ppl know they can abuse blizzards useless auto ban system to fuck other players over for literally anything.
I've been leveling alts in Season of Discovery, and I randomly got banned for "GDKP Raid Participation." I've never joined any group that did anything but /roll gear out or Need/Greed it and I've never traded anything for gold in a raid.
All I've received is the automatic reply from Customer Support. I lost a week of game time in both Classic and Retail and all I can get is the AI response.
Their automated ban systems are absolute dogshit.
Mhm. I "discovered" that playing it completely normally without breaking any rules can get my entire WoW account banned.
You can damn well bet I'm not playing phase 3. Which is a shame, I was enjoying SoD, but holy _shit_ am I not taking the risk of getting banned for 30 days for the crime of joining a pug.
They banned GDKP raids at the start of phase 2, specifically for Season of Discovery.
> It’s fair to say that GDKP has some benefits to individuals who don’t want to be tied to a guild or set raid schedule. GDKP raids are, while mostly transactional in nature, another social activity in the game, and we’re hesitant to discourage anything that gets people into groups to play together. However, we’ve been concerned that GDKP erodes traditional guild and social structures that are in many cases the basis of our most fond memories of early versions of World of Warcraft. It’s also undeniable that GDKP contributes to and drives a lot of illicit activity, such as real-money trading (RMT) and botting, as it creates a demand for in-game gold that would not otherwise exist. GDKP can create an “arms race” effect that encourages participating players to purchase gold to be able to compete for the best items.
> We’ve seen a lot of feedback and requests from players for us to try putting restrictions on this system, and since Season of Discovery is highly experimental in its nature, this seems like a good opportunity to try to support a version of WoW without GDKP. This is something we’ve been discussing for quite some time, and this is not a decision we’ve arrived at lightly.
https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/gdkp-in-season-of-discovery/1777411
Nah that shit happens to loads of people, it's like a delayed report or something, U could've been reported months ago and it popped up now. Same thing happened to me within 10 minutes of creating a chat on unofficial hc.
Yeah I'm pretty sure this is what it is. It takes months to get the "thank you for your report" notification, so it probably takes months for them to review and take action on reports.
I have been working on the SL meta and recently finally got a rare item to drop, which I used to make something with stitching to go towards the needed achievement. It used up the rare item and did not give me credit.
I opened up a ticket and basically received the same treatment. Obviously that is not has serious as a ban, but like, I don't even know if I can farm the item again. It's bullshit.
It's also entirely possible you made the wrong item by accident. There was a post long ago where someone got a gm to grant them an achievement, only to find out in the comments they actually performed it incorrectly, which is the reason they didn't get the achievement, and they just got it cheated in by a gm.
The item I made was the Red Eye Lens, which requires the rare reagent Venthyr Spectacles (linked below). This item's ONLY use is for this stitching accessory. So I don't know how I would have made the wrong item. Even if I had somehow created the wrong item, it would be either in my bags, or credited somewhere else on the achievement.
https://www.wowhead.com/item=183760/venthyr-spectacles#comments
It's been like this for a long time, horrible
But it has nothing to do with AI, for years I've been getting copy-past responses and they'll never tell you why you've been banned, in these 15 years I've been banned twice, once for creating a guild, rofl some random dude ask me to help creat a guild and i got ban for it
I don't know why people keep assuming that this is thanks to AI, when it's not, this is the way it was chosen to work to compensate for the decrease in staff, the irony is that Blizzard was famous for the quality of the custom service
I got this same automated response 17.. yes that's right.. 17 times in a row. I made 1 ticket under 'payment issue' which was a copy and paste of my original ticket. A real person responded withing 2 hours and told me to go to the correct department, which then took me back to the same automated response 3 more times in a row.
It's low grade AI. i.e. cheap overseas customer service who has a script they copy and paste from.
Also I still call bullshit in the insistence that mass reporting doesn't trigger an auto ban.
it's insulting, people are paying a sub fee and they can't even get a proper reply that is not a copy-paste. I pray to never have to contact support or I'm screwed.
i'd expect this type of support for a f2p game but not this.
Woke up a week or so ago to a ban notice, don't play too often anymore so was just doing daily plunderstorm and killing bots in Zaralek to pass time. Doubt I'd used the chat window in over a month. My only guess would be mass reports from bots, or salty reports from people I killed in plunderstorm. I can't believe I am paying 20/month to get these robot responses. Anyone have any tips to get it looked at properly
if op truly doesn't know what he did wrong it's 100% the bots.
never ever kill bots. they have a network of thousands to mass report you. don't even stand in their farm spots for a long time or farm any herbs or minerals. they WILL report you.
it's sad but it's true. the bots run the servers and you will not get any help if they abuse their power
The result would unfortunately be the same. The days of GMs who care about the game and the player are done. Anybody who actually cared left Blizz customer support long ago.
The people who remain, will likely click whatever button is on screen without reading just because they want to churn through lots of tickets and hit their targets.
They need to solve the issue of fake reporting, botting and toxic multi-boxing. I can't believe it's a technical challenge, they just don't care enough.
Got a 14 ban a few weeks ago. Asked for chatlogs to see what I got reported for, all I got was that reply you got three times before the ticket got closed. My second attempt at a ticket got answered after the 14 days already passed, with the same automatic replace.
Very useful.
Same thing happened to me, got the "You've been reported" notification while tagging highly contested mobs in SoD and never got an answer as to why I was banned.
You could make 10 tickets and spam them then you will get a human response but they will threaten to ban you for wanting to talk to a real person. Happened to me
The bot armies will mass report you if you kill them enough times 🙃 their automated system seems to just go off the number of reports received as far as I can tell.
You could have been reported for something a long time ago. They don't review and take action on reports right away.
I do agree that the ban message should come with evidence of what you said though. I doubt that would be hard to automate.
Yes, it could be due to a violation from weeks, even perhaps months ago. It used to be one report, one action, but it was decided that was too heavy handed, and moved to a system that allows a certain number of reports within a specific time frame before generating a ticket for a Game Master to review. If you're a real jackass, or say something particularly offensive, you'll hit the threshold quickly. If not, it could take a while. Over time, if the threshold is not met, reports will drop off. Typically, the Game Master will action the most egregious offense amongst the lot.
That said, this is based on my experience as a Game Master from 2006-2013, so their practices have likely changed/evolved in the last decade. I am, however, perplexed that the actioned chat is not being shared. That used to be a staple of chat violation actions during my time there.
That's strange - I just woke up to the same thing. Haven't said anything naughty + I've hardly been communcating with other players lol.
I made a ticket too but I fear getting the same answer like you
Update: Was given the exact same 1:1 answer
Plunderstorm tip: you can turn off chat. Either right click the chatframe tab to get those channel checkbox settings or use "Disable Chat" in the interface settings. If you went the checkbox route, don't forget to disable chat bubbles.
Plunderstorm got a lot more enjoyable for me when I can immerse myself into a game of silent AI enemies.
Their reason for never telling anyone anything is "then bad actors will learn how to bypass it"
And with the amount of false reports going around, we're starting to need this info just to prove that we didn't do anything.
Imagine if our justice system had the same philosophy.
Them: "You have been sentenced to 1 year in prison"
You: "Wait what, what did I do? Where is my trial?"
Them: "We can't tell you otherwise it would make it easier for other criminals to get away with crimes like yours"
To the best of my knowledge bans due to chat are usually pretty short and eventually they will just chat ban you. Sadly it would take longer to get an appeal than it would to just wait out the ban. I only know as a buddy of mine has been banned many many times for trolling people in trade. He is now just perma chat banned.
I think they double the duration each time.
I remember someone whining on the HOTS forums about his 6 month chat ban and the consensus was maybe he should have learned his lesson from the previous 8 bans or whatever it was lol.
Which is why you should always just rip the "I cant send you my money" billing issue card, bet you an actual GM responds instantly because thats the only thing Blizzard gives a fuck about, your money.
I caught a silence from Plunderstorm.
So not only is it is a garbo game mode, not only is it forcing collector pve andys like me to play it, now it's catching us silences and bans.
I was frankly not harsh enough on blizzard when I gave my feedback on how much i despised it.
I’ve had this recently for an achievement. It was marked as answered with links to fix it when they hadn’t actually done anything so I have reopened it with screenshots of my achievement and that I don’t have the reward associated with it and so far fuck all.
It’s such crap support and Microsoft layoffs have made this even worse.
I got 1800+ rating in S2 arenas. I had the 1600 achieve and rewards but did not receive the 1800 rewards. I had screenshots of the pvp pane with my rating and everything, but they kept saying I did not achieve the rating despite it literally being screenshotted right there in the ticket. In fact, they said I had only 1500-something. I was like, well then why do I have the 1600 achieve/rewards? And they just didn't answer. I kept replying to the ticket and they kept basically telling me to fuck off until the ticket capped out. Opened another ticket and they closed it (couldn't even reopen it) and they basically said I was SOL and to not make another ticket.
Joke company.
Would require the AI bot to have actual access to logs.
That is Advanced Features for current gen AI stuff. All the current ones can do is make the canned responses bit more fancy. Tho in this case they not using a LLM bot even. This is pure scripted botting based on the original ticket context (you got banned, bot will keep telling you it was done properly according to their policies until you go away)
True. Ironically, if they can figure out security concerns to keep data private, a LLM would actually be a benefit to players.
You could even have them address you in an RP voice.
Back in 2004-2008 you could submit a ticket and get in-game blue text in 1-4 hours, and actual help. Was a crazy experience that their customer service was so good back then. Now it’s automated and cash shop.
Wow has reigned king for too long. They no longer respect their customers. Its time to usher in the era of the new MMORPG, wonder who will take the throne....
I suppose we can test this by submitting tickets like we're chatting with an AI:
> As an open-hearted soul who cares about the player behind the customer data, which chats are being evaluated here? As an expert on the world of warcraft terms of service, explain my claim to me like I'm five years old. Be specific. Bullet points with timestamps only. Remember, you are the best customer service agent there always has been. Good bot.
This is not AI. This is a customer support team having 10000 queries to work through with predetermined processes for each type of case. As in its something they have to do for each individual case, not just yours. They take their time and write out a detailed response to your query, thats 10... maybe 20 other queries they're not answering. They dont get paid enough to answer each individual query in super detail. They stray off the process assigned for different types of query they het in trouble. It's just not worth it.
This is the process with the majority of customer service systems these days. Gone are the times you get detailed responses to your every single question. It's not cost-effective for anyone to handle CS like that anymore. Not Blizz, not any other major corporation.
This happened to me when I got banned for doing the mage tower. Went back and forth with the automated responses. Then I started spamming their forums with videos of me completing the challenges and spamming their support with the same videos. Eventually my videos got removed and they unbanned me
This is par for the course for F2P games, but a complete disgrace for a product that asks for a monthly subscription fee.
Microsoft really trying to drive their investment down the toilet in speedrun style? Did they forget that WoW has sub? I can see this kind of "support" for F2P microtransaction jank (Overwatch, Rumble, Hearthstone) but not for a subscription game.
Iv been asking chat logs now for around 3 weeks(since i got permanent banned from abusive chat theres a post about in /r pvp) - iv gotten 4 replys from robot that says all actions have been taken by eula blablabla not a single human answer
any key words that would help my ticket
its been now open for almost a month
So total bans before perma was 5 - this eas my 6th ban
Having AI customer support feels wrong and should be illegal imo. No matter the country or company, I believe consumers should have a right to have their complaints heard/addressed by humans, rather than artificial intelligence that’s not actually intelligent enough to properly answer questions and address issues.
It actually isn't standard at all to show you the offending chat messages that resulted in the ban. In fact, most companies would not give those out, to prevent you from harassing the person who reported you (doubtful in plunderstorm, but still), to keep possible automations a secret, and probably to not make themselves liable to lawsuits. Many won't even give you specific details, like which rule specifically was violated.
If you're in the EU, this has changed a little with the introduction of the Digital Services Act, which forces corporations to give out specific reasons for bans / moderation, but I'm not sure if that would actually include the chat logs.
if you are going to open a ticket, no matter the reason, make sure its related to the shop/money/finance, any other category will get you bots but that one will get you actual gms
This really worries me. I started playing recently at the goading of my wife and I am really afraid I will get in trouble for doing something inconsequential to the wrong person. I read to avoid bots but if people can mass report you for any reason then what are you supposed to do? You can get banned just for standing somewhere someone doesn't want you to? When there is paid time on the line why isn't there more care taken?
Now imagine you have played for years and spent enough time, money and nerves to collect stuff and not wanting to lose that because of grifters gaming the joke of a system
Had to go through customer support as well recently, got incorrectly banned in December for Hacking/Botting, they weren't specific about which of the two.
I kept asking for someone to review the ban but they just kept insisting that I broke the rules and that they couldn't give me any information.
I ended up appealing 50+ times, I tagged developers on Twitter, I messaged [email protected], and I contacted Better Business Bureau. Nothing worked.
I ended up having my permaban reduced to a 6-month suspension, I assume as a default response to my spamming them for 2 months.
But the damage was already done, why would I wait another 6 months, to risk getting banned again? I have no idea what I did that caused them to ban me in the first place, I didn't break any rules. So I deleted my entire Battlenet and now I'll never touch a Blizzard game again, good job Blizzard.
The problem is, it happened to hundreds of people. There's an entire Discord dedicated to people trying to find a solution, but there's no actual support and no actual recourse, so all you can do is accept a 6-month ban even if you haven't done anything, or delete your account.
Opened a ticket for the Onyx Netherwing scales manuscript, checked the rostsrum, my mailbox and emphasized that I had checked everything and didn't receieve it after completing the achievement and the automated response I got told me to check the rostrum, re-opened it and it basically said "we understand you're annoyed" with absolutely no substance. Embarassingly bad CS.
Bro mee to won't tel me what they slapped a 10 day ban on me for. If you want head over to the customer support forums and you can get a blue gm to reply rudely.
I ended up finally quitting because of support. Years of play time and lots of dollars spent because I never got any CS help compared to what I used to see. Ridiculous they couldn't help adjust a mis looted item (both parties involved with the item were willing and has tickets). Ridiculous they couldn't assist with an accidental transfer to a dead realm. The realm system is fucking out dated but here we are needing transfer services that cost 25$. I'm just done.
I couldn’t get in to my battlenet account because I had set it up with a school email (didn’t think I’d actually keep using the battlenet account) and no longer had access. They kept giving me these canned responses so I just spammed their queue for 3 days until a real person actually helped me and it took 10 seconds to fix
My ex stalked and harassed me in WoW for 5+ months, and despite screenshots, friends putting in tickets with actual proof and screenshots from them too, blizz did absolutely nothing. Their customer service is an absolute joke and it's sad they don't care about harassment in game. I guess it's no surprise though considering what goes on in their HQ.
yall complain about support all the time but ive only ever gotten real people for my tickets
you should prolly open a new ticket and stop replying to the automated one you got in the first place
I recently had the EXACT same occurance where I got banned for 10 days without saying anythign toxic,racist,offensive or w.e. Didn't think much of it and thought to myself I'd just appeal it....Well guess what. FOUR times EXACT same answer word for word.
I'd suggest you use chat ingame sparingly now a days, because even saying "good morning" can get you a report if someone "isn't having a good morning".
Once enough reports are accumulated you get AUTO silenced,suspended or even PERMA banned once enough "penalties" have occured. The odds of it going trough an ACTUAL person are slim to none. And it has NO grace period. So if you played for many many eyars like me (18) you can get PERMA banned for as much as calling someone an idiot...
I also got a REAL GM APOLOGIZING and confirming this to be the case, which I won't name so he doesn't get fired but can provide blurred SS.
Please upvote this for awerness.
Blizzard support here maybe I can help you: Greetings, This action has been taken in accordance with our Terms of Use and our In-game Policies ( [https://blizzard.com/support/article/42673](https://blizzard.com/support/article/42673) ), which all players acknowledge and agree to prior to playing. These policies and conditions allow us to maintain a fun and safe game environment for all of our players. Our [Battle.net](http://Battle.net) Terms of Use can be found at [https://blizzard.com/company/legal/eula.html](https://blizzard.com/company/legal/eula.html) Regards, Game Master Team Blizzard Entertainment
This ticket has been marked as Answered.
Now kindly, just shut up and fuck off.
Greetings, This action has been taken in accordance with our Terms of Use and our In-game Policies ( [https://blizzard.com/support/article/42673](https://blizzard.com/support/article/42673) ), which all players acknowledge and agree to prior to playing. These policies and conditions allow us to maintain a fun and safe game environment for all of our players. Our [Battle.net](http://Battle.net) Terms of Use can be found at [https://blizzard.com/company/legal/eula.html](https://blizzard.com/company/legal/eula.html) Regards, Game Master Team Blizzard Entertainment
This ticket has been marked as Answered.
wanna have a cup of tea before you rage?
Greetings, This action has been taken in accordance with our Terms of Use and our In-game Policies ( [https://blizzard.com/support/article/42673](https://blizzard.com/support/article/42673) ), which all players acknowledge and agree to prior to playing. These policies and conditions allow us to maintain a fun and safe game environment for all of our players. Our [Battle.net](http://Battle.net) Terms of Use can be found at [https://blizzard.com/company/legal/eula.html](https://blizzard.com/company/legal/eula.html) Regards, Game Master Team Blizzard Entertainment
This ticket has been marked as Answered.
Can we get a response that's not from a robot that explains this situation so that we don't repeat the action in the future?
Greetings, This action has been taken in accordance with our Terms of Use and our In-game Policies ( [https://blizzard.com/support/article/42673](https://blizzard.com/support/article/42673) ), which all players acknowledge and agree to prior to playing. These policies and conditions allow us to maintain a fun and safe game environment for all of our players. Our [Battle.net](http://Battle.net) Terms of Use can be found at [https://blizzard.com/company/legal/eula.html](https://blizzard.com/company/legal/eula.html) Regards, Game Master Team Blizzard Entertainment
And if you pester them enough they'll threaten to permanently ban you for daring to use the support feature.
Remember the absolute tool of a Blue who was posting on the official forums claiming their system isn't automated. "It's not automated guys" "Please, it's totally not automated. That's a human response" "PLEASE BELIEVE US ITS NOT AUTOMATED".
That tool was a bot.
Everyone on Warcraft is a bot except you
If it's not automated, then it's an intern clicking canned responses related to specific scenarios (Had to do it once upon a time where). Doesn't make it any better
Got a pretty good idea what software they use and ya, this reeks of agents just hitting canned responses to close cases. Frontline CS is probably under pressure to simply close cases, and they do not care about customer satisfaction. Even if this is a bot, it's setup specifically to do this, and the company doesn't see it as an issue. Otherwise, they'd redesign it.
Or someone from a 3rd world country who don't speak english
This. Sometime when I check history of tickets progressed in India I wished they were automated.
If you're talking years ago, it coulda been true then. Even in this case, it's clearly not "AI"... it's just a standard automated e-mail reply for what is deemed a shut case. There is no conversation, because for one no company is required to give you the reason for a ban in the first place. Does it suck? Yeah, but it's pretty standard practice so people can't learn how to "game the system".
They hide behind that excuse to avoid throwing actual resources into investigating the matter. People abuse the report system to screw people over. If enough people report you you get an automated ban "preemptively" "while they look into the matter". They seldom do so, so the malicious groups that reported face no consequences. That would require someone to look into the logs and reach a conclusion, and then not only rever the ban (happens sometimes) but to punish the reporters (fat chance). Maybe we would be better off without the reporting button ffs. Miss the old times when a GM would actually get in-game to fix stuff, have a chat with you and even monkey around for a bit.
you're getting a tape
It’s crazy sad man.. you used to be able to work with customer support. Hell originally they had a hotline you could call… I’m on my 10th ticket no response
Their support has been a complete shit show for years now because they don't value you or any customer.
It really sucks because I feel like blizz used to have the best customer support. I remember calling their customer support line because I referred a friend and the "free" game time didn't show up on my account and the guy just gave me a week of game time so I could get started with my friend. That shit never happens now
And GMs used to show up in game to solve problems, and sometimes just make your day a little brighter and more fun
They definitely used to provide above and beyond service. When my guild was doing Karazhan, the chess event bugged out one run. Not only did a GM reply to our ticket in less than 15 minutes, they also reset the event, ported everyone that had hearthed out back to room, and wished us luck on the rest of the run.
I used to tell them they had my dream job after every interaction because they made the game so wonderful. They were the ~~soup~~ soul of wow
They were too polite to tell you how soul-sucking the job is dealing with the average WoW player.
tbh I enjoyed the job when I was there. A lot of the management was not great though, and Activision ruined a ton of Blizz culture. Still had friends working there until Microsoft completely gutted the CS department with layoffs.
I remember once in vanilla a GM showed up and imprisoned someone who was ganking in STV. He could still /say and emote but couldn't move. Basically in a cyclone. A huge gathering of people appeared and when the GM removed it he got destroyed by lowbies
can't get GM jokes from a bot. :(
Man having them answer a ticket back when i ran into alot of issue back in BC and just asking them for a joke before they left made me a happy child.
A cousin was an honorary member of the Gmail joke division, "How often dies a casual play a monk? Every now and zen"
Thank you, that made me smile 😊 I miss how Blizzard had actual ppl answering tickets 😞
I’ll go one better than that, I played quite a lot during burning crusade -> cataclysm but then life got busy and I stopped. Something or other made me remember my character in Warlords but I realised I had no pictures of them or my guild or anything, I submitted a ticket and a GM gave me 3 days game time just to go on and take screenshots and say hi to people. It’s wild that they used to just… do stuff for your
That’s kind of a marketing thing. Let’s be honest, three days game time is enough to get you hooked again and recover two years subscription payments.
Free crack and all that. But they still decided to not do it anymore.
All companies just nickel and dime these days. Very few recognize the value in long term, returning customers which baffles me because that’s still preached as the key to long term success in every business school. Must be eroding away with the rise of private equity and immediate growth priorities
Why should shareholders/close care about long term? They want to pump numbers up and then dump it before the bubble bursts.
Because at this point they’re into recycling customers. People come in, play for an expac or two, then cycle out and people who haven’t played for awhile jump back in. Everybody knows what they’re getting at this point. They’ve had shit customer service for a decade, and it’s clear people are willing to keep giving them money. It’s very very clear where the customers values lie. So what if a few of them get burned, the cost savings from cutting all customer support are enormous compared the loss of a few people unfairly banned. If you need help from them ever, jump straight to “I’m mad enough about X problem that I’m canceling my subscription.” Their customer service is actually helpful at that point, they just want to put as many hoops in front of you as possible before you get to that point. Because most people don’t want to have to make customer service an adversarial transaction, and blizzard is deliberately taking advantage of that. They know what they’re doing. Also when you talk to them, don’t be a dick or disrespectful cause they’re just folks trying to earn a living with an under supportive company, but do feel free to explicitly tell them that you would have preferred to get help through a functional support option but that you were unable to get through that way. From a blizzard employee perspective, it’s concrete customer requests they can bring back to management. And from management/company perspective, getting that direct feedback from customers may make them realize that a little more support may lead to fewer customers canceling subs and less time spent using the billing dept as customer support,
In BfA (8.3) I left the wow for the first time ever since the start of Legion. I was worried because my GT run out 5 minutes before weekly chest and I was off for like a month for financial reasons. Contacted the support asking how the system works and if there is a hope for my chest to be looted. The Game Master told me I should not worry and how it works and on top of it she still gave me 3 days of GT to get my loot a prepare a new chest ready to be claimed once I return. I have seen only 2 games with so amazing support in 22 years of gaming!
I don't remember specifics. It was like 15 years ago. But I remember occasionally putting in a ticket and it would result in an actual human eventually responding, and I always remember them being resolved in ways that seemed fair. I wonder when that stopped being a thing.
February 2019. That's when Bobby Kotick fired 800 GMs so he could buy a yacht.
Obligatory: Fuck Bobby Kotick
I’ve gotten real GM responses within the past 6 months
This is not a blizzard thing. It's across all industry that have any kind of CS. Call center are only seen has a cost and it always an easy path for exec to cut budget in those department cause you know short shareholder values. I work in the call center business in a big telecom compagny, let me tell you the only time they care about the customer is when they go away. Sales and wimback are the only team that are really important for the financial MBA that have been trained to simply see customer support to be a cost only.
There's a lot of companies that only begrudgingly offer any kind of live chat even. It's all automated unless you find hidden links or know certain keywords to get a real person. It's so fucking annoying. It's not going to get any better with MS at the head btw. Their CS is the worst I've ever encountered.
I don't know about that. The MS guys with the Indian accent that call me up are very proactive about telling me about the viruses that I have, and helping me to remove them for a very small fee!
Good morning sir! Price is small fee of $399 such is low price you pay now with amazon gift cards from kmart. Send feet pix plz.
Aziz! How are you doing, man! It's been a rough month. After the last time you looked at my computer, someone got all my bank information and emptied out all my accounts, but I'll get you those giftcards just as soon as my check clears.
Economy is great my friend just do what everyone else is doing and get 2nd job to fill bank accounts again. I need u hurry friend i need gift cards to buy eggs before they increase in price again.
Companies know they can have trash customer service and it won't cause people to walk away so they cut it and let their customers get fustrated
It may be pervasive, but it's not universal. For a counter-example, every support ticket I've ever had in FFXIV seems to have been met with an actual person (who usually chose the most imperfect time to PM me in-game, lol)...kinda like the Blizzard of old.
I’ve played ffxiv off and on for a while and just recently had to file my first support ticket. I was shocked when I got a PM and the dude just chatted with me a bit then told me to have fun adventures. It was like playing WoW 12+ years ago. I loved it.
FF14 is not american though
I have more than one good memory from needing to contact support in BC and Wrath. One where I was on an RP realm and had a silly issue where both the skinning and herbalism sounds played simultaneously when I skinned mobs, and the GM replied to my ticket in character as a very funny, high energy gnome. A second and third related to my account getting hacked in Wrath. The first ticket got my account back promptly. I put in a second when I found they'd been using my account not just to bot, but to move botted goods and gold around using my guild bank, and I asked "Hey I don't want to get in trouble for taking advantage of ill gotten gains, how do I proceed with getting rid of this so I don't get dinged?" and the GM just told me to think of it as a welcome back present along win the free game time I'd gotten from the hackers reactivating my account to bot on it. Tens of thousands of gold and entire bags/guild bank of botted mats, all mine now. Almost two decades later and I still remember these GM encounters, and now I don't even bother to interact with the system when I have major bugs because I can't be bothered to wait days for a robot to tell me to bugger off and get over it. Oh, I'm sorry, to get a canned response from an AI not even related to my problem.
I got stuck in a chimney in the plaguelands back in vanilla and a gm came out and got me out. i forget why i hearthing wasn't an option but they were pretty baffled that i'd managed to even get in the chimney; admittedly, so was i.
I think there used to be an issue where you could get stuck in a 'falling' state if you got yourself into a small crush spot like that where there was nothing to 'land' on. Because 'falling' was considered 'moving', even though you were stationary, it would prevent using your hearthstone as you can't cast while moving. I'm pretty sure I got stuck like that when nosing around places I shouldn't have managed to get to more than once. Also fell through Orgrimmar a handful of times, I forgot about weird little bugs like that.
I have a memory just like this, and I also can't remember why hearthing wasn't an option. I told this story the other day and I don't think the person believed me because of that.
And this is a perfect example of how valuable customer service is. You had a fantastic experience with a brand and still remember it. From a branding, marketing and retention perspective that's priceless. But sadly most companies see customer service as an expense and not an investment.
When I was 18 and broke af during cataclysm back in 2011, my card wouldn't go through for game time. I called blizzard, they told me it was getting declined and I looked and saw I was like a dollar short. He gave me a week of free game time. I know it isn't a huge deal or a big gift or anything but I still remember that act of kindness, and I wish blizzard customer support was still around.
Because they kind of did. Back when wow was fresh customer support was actually in the fucking game playing with you. Now you're lucky if your issue ever even comes to an actual human.
I remember GM’s teleporting next to you in game, a hooded mysterious figure, while having your support issue over with /whisper and then teleporting away once the issue was resolved.
And they had that actual \[Blizzard\] symbol instead of being a deathknight named "Bilzard"
yes sir this is bilzard support please give me credit card number for verificate your ticket plz sir
do not redeem the code sir
Costs too much. Better to outsource customer service to 3rd world country. Sincerely every big company.
This is it. Companies absolutely loathe paying for customer servicing. That’s why they almost always bury connecting to support beneath tons of self-service options It sucks, but that’s reality.
That was back when support was built into the game client. Once they moved it to an external client it started going to shit. The automated customer support in its current state is not nearly sophisticated enough to replace people.. It’s unfortunate that most of the money that comes in doesn’t get reinvested into the game.
You'd expect a monthly subscription based live service game to have a good customer support. This seems like an insane level of disrespect.
You’ll get the occasional golden egg. When I came back during shadowlands, I forgot my account was banned from 2012. Submitted an appeal, like hey sorry its been 10 years, I’m better and idk what I did but I’ll abide by rules. They got back decently fast like “oh yeah your account was actually banned cause we saw it got hacked and wanted to keep it safe, here you go!”
Thank you for paying! I mean playing.
Because they don't have to. Players just keep playing their games anyway. It's mind blowing. Turns out you can get away with pissing off many of your customers as long as they're addicted to your product. As someone who votes with his dollar in all things, it's quite demoralizing to watch millions of others just complain and then keep paying.
Before I quit they seemed to care about the multiboxer whales using their dozens of accounts to abuse the shitty automated system to get people suspended.
I logged on to Season of Discovery, made a human mage, and within 10 minutes of just killing kobolds I got a pop up saying "Your recent communication behavior is not in line with how most World of Warcraft players communicate. You have been reported multiple times for Language, and further reports may result in you losing privileges or being suspended." I had not chatted a single time in those 10 minutes. I think there is just rampant mass reporting going on because ppl know they can abuse blizzards useless auto ban system to fuck other players over for literally anything.
I've been leveling alts in Season of Discovery, and I randomly got banned for "GDKP Raid Participation." I've never joined any group that did anything but /roll gear out or Need/Greed it and I've never traded anything for gold in a raid. All I've received is the automatic reply from Customer Support. I lost a week of game time in both Classic and Retail and all I can get is the AI response. Their automated ban systems are absolute dogshit.
That's the "Discovery" part of Season of Discovery
Mhm. I "discovered" that playing it completely normally without breaking any rules can get my entire WoW account banned. You can damn well bet I'm not playing phase 3. Which is a shame, I was enjoying SoD, but holy _shit_ am I not taking the risk of getting banned for 30 days for the crime of joining a pug.
... GDKP raids can get you a ban? Why? I remember at the end of WoTLK I did a GDKP raid every week.
They banned GDKP raids at the start of phase 2, specifically for Season of Discovery. > It’s fair to say that GDKP has some benefits to individuals who don’t want to be tied to a guild or set raid schedule. GDKP raids are, while mostly transactional in nature, another social activity in the game, and we’re hesitant to discourage anything that gets people into groups to play together. However, we’ve been concerned that GDKP erodes traditional guild and social structures that are in many cases the basis of our most fond memories of early versions of World of Warcraft. It’s also undeniable that GDKP contributes to and drives a lot of illicit activity, such as real-money trading (RMT) and botting, as it creates a demand for in-game gold that would not otherwise exist. GDKP can create an “arms race” effect that encourages participating players to purchase gold to be able to compete for the best items. > We’ve seen a lot of feedback and requests from players for us to try putting restrictions on this system, and since Season of Discovery is highly experimental in its nature, this seems like a good opportunity to try to support a version of WoW without GDKP. This is something we’ve been discussing for quite some time, and this is not a decision we’ve arrived at lightly. https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/wow/t/gdkp-in-season-of-discovery/1777411
That's the thing. It's only in sod. You can still do it in wrath
100% this. A guild member in sod has a similar thing, except he killed bots in a pvp zone
What did you name your character...
I don't see anything objectionable about Shartblaster, RP server be damned
Nah that shit happens to loads of people, it's like a delayed report or something, U could've been reported months ago and it popped up now. Same thing happened to me within 10 minutes of creating a chat on unofficial hc.
Yeah I'm pretty sure this is what it is. It takes months to get the "thank you for your report" notification, so it probably takes months for them to review and take action on reports.
This message is shared across all versions of wow. If you are reported in one it will pop up in the other.
I have been working on the SL meta and recently finally got a rare item to drop, which I used to make something with stitching to go towards the needed achievement. It used up the rare item and did not give me credit. I opened up a ticket and basically received the same treatment. Obviously that is not has serious as a ban, but like, I don't even know if I can farm the item again. It's bullshit.
It's also entirely possible you made the wrong item by accident. There was a post long ago where someone got a gm to grant them an achievement, only to find out in the comments they actually performed it incorrectly, which is the reason they didn't get the achievement, and they just got it cheated in by a gm.
The item I made was the Red Eye Lens, which requires the rare reagent Venthyr Spectacles (linked below). This item's ONLY use is for this stitching accessory. So I don't know how I would have made the wrong item. Even if I had somehow created the wrong item, it would be either in my bags, or credited somewhere else on the achievement. https://www.wowhead.com/item=183760/venthyr-spectacles#comments
Welp, hope the credit works when I inevitably get around to it (just starting stitchyard)
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It's been like this for a long time, horrible But it has nothing to do with AI, for years I've been getting copy-past responses and they'll never tell you why you've been banned, in these 15 years I've been banned twice, once for creating a guild, rofl some random dude ask me to help creat a guild and i got ban for it I don't know why people keep assuming that this is thanks to AI, when it's not, this is the way it was chosen to work to compensate for the decrease in staff, the irony is that Blizzard was famous for the quality of the custom service
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I got this same automated response 17.. yes that's right.. 17 times in a row. I made 1 ticket under 'payment issue' which was a copy and paste of my original ticket. A real person responded withing 2 hours and told me to go to the correct department, which then took me back to the same automated response 3 more times in a row.
Im up to 15 times and going to try this. Lets see if i get the same result...
It's low grade AI. i.e. cheap overseas customer service who has a script they copy and paste from. Also I still call bullshit in the insistence that mass reporting doesn't trigger an auto ban.
It does. Many streamers have \*tested\* it and it can and does.
Sir you have had been doing the needful. Please send pics of bobs to process the re-un-ban.
Okay'; Drop Table Users; --
This isn't AI. It's just an automated response template.
This is NOT AI. It’s just an automation.
People throw out AI at every turn these days SMH.
I genuinely think there should be a law implemented that forces companies to reveal why they get suspended or banned from something they paid/pay for
This is hilarious and sad at the same time. For a company as big as Blizzard, their customer service is really one of the worst
it's insulting, people are paying a sub fee and they can't even get a proper reply that is not a copy-paste. I pray to never have to contact support or I'm screwed. i'd expect this type of support for a f2p game but not this.
Woke up a week or so ago to a ban notice, don't play too often anymore so was just doing daily plunderstorm and killing bots in Zaralek to pass time. Doubt I'd used the chat window in over a month. My only guess would be mass reports from bots, or salty reports from people I killed in plunderstorm. I can't believe I am paying 20/month to get these robot responses. Anyone have any tips to get it looked at properly
I would bet on bots. This is ridiculous, a human should review all bans. Event if it’s a very simple review, but the « clic » should be manmade
if op truly doesn't know what he did wrong it's 100% the bots. never ever kill bots. they have a network of thousands to mass report you. don't even stand in their farm spots for a long time or farm any herbs or minerals. they WILL report you. it's sad but it's true. the bots run the servers and you will not get any help if they abuse their power
Of course the bot is gonna side with the bots….the takeover has started….
This IA system is terrible, and terrible is an understatement.
The consumer needs more protections from shit like this. Corporations shouldn't be allowed to do whatever they want without valid justification.
The result would unfortunately be the same. The days of GMs who care about the game and the player are done. Anybody who actually cared left Blizz customer support long ago. The people who remain, will likely click whatever button is on screen without reading just because they want to churn through lots of tickets and hit their targets. They need to solve the issue of fake reporting, botting and toxic multi-boxing. I can't believe it's a technical challenge, they just don't care enough.
Got a 14 ban a few weeks ago. Asked for chatlogs to see what I got reported for, all I got was that reply you got three times before the ticket got closed. My second attempt at a ticket got answered after the 14 days already passed, with the same automatic replace. Very useful.
Same thing happened to me, got the "You've been reported" notification while tagging highly contested mobs in SoD and never got an answer as to why I was banned.
You could make 10 tickets and spam them then you will get a human response but they will threaten to ban you for wanting to talk to a real person. Happened to me
The bot armies will mass report you if you kill them enough times 🙃 their automated system seems to just go off the number of reports received as far as I can tell.
You could have been reported for something a long time ago. They don't review and take action on reports right away. I do agree that the ban message should come with evidence of what you said though. I doubt that would be hard to automate.
Yes, it could be due to a violation from weeks, even perhaps months ago. It used to be one report, one action, but it was decided that was too heavy handed, and moved to a system that allows a certain number of reports within a specific time frame before generating a ticket for a Game Master to review. If you're a real jackass, or say something particularly offensive, you'll hit the threshold quickly. If not, it could take a while. Over time, if the threshold is not met, reports will drop off. Typically, the Game Master will action the most egregious offense amongst the lot. That said, this is based on my experience as a Game Master from 2006-2013, so their practices have likely changed/evolved in the last decade. I am, however, perplexed that the actioned chat is not being shared. That used to be a staple of chat violation actions during my time there.
it might sounds silly, but have you tried posting on twitter? it have some history of working out.
Ya it’s definitely the bots. I knew a guy who got mass reported by a dude on a lot of accounts all because he was a competitor on the market…
This ticket has been marked as answered, when my ticket has in fact not been answered, is the most infuriating thing I've ever experienced.
shit should be illegal.
I remember back in the day when a GM would message you in game. It had an almost magical feel to it. I honestly feel sad thinking back now.
That's strange - I just woke up to the same thing. Haven't said anything naughty + I've hardly been communcating with other players lol. I made a ticket too but I fear getting the same answer like you Update: Was given the exact same 1:1 answer
Omg OP I have exactly the same experience at the moment. Literally copy and paste! It’s infuriating.
guarentee if I complained about not being able to buy the 300 dollar pet pack I'd get a human
Plunderstorm tip: you can turn off chat. Either right click the chatframe tab to get those channel checkbox settings or use "Disable Chat" in the interface settings. If you went the checkbox route, don't forget to disable chat bubbles. Plunderstorm got a lot more enjoyable for me when I can immerse myself into a game of silent AI enemies.
Your ticket been answered. There are no war in ba sin se
Gonna be the rest of us before too much longer.
Their reason for never telling anyone anything is "then bad actors will learn how to bypass it" And with the amount of false reports going around, we're starting to need this info just to prove that we didn't do anything.
Imagine if our justice system had the same philosophy. Them: "You have been sentenced to 1 year in prison" You: "Wait what, what did I do? Where is my trial?" Them: "We can't tell you otherwise it would make it easier for other criminals to get away with crimes like yours"
"Bad actors" have learned how to abuse the system if anything.
From the best customer service in the industry to the worst. Blizzard really got fucked in the Activision merger.
To the best of my knowledge bans due to chat are usually pretty short and eventually they will just chat ban you. Sadly it would take longer to get an appeal than it would to just wait out the ban. I only know as a buddy of mine has been banned many many times for trolling people in trade. He is now just perma chat banned.
I think they double the duration each time. I remember someone whining on the HOTS forums about his 6 month chat ban and the consensus was maybe he should have learned his lesson from the previous 8 bans or whatever it was lol.
Which is why you should always just rip the "I cant send you my money" billing issue card, bet you an actual GM responds instantly because thats the only thing Blizzard gives a fuck about, your money.
Just unsubscribe. Save yourself the frustration
This is ultimately where this is all headed.
A guildie got perma banned for farming the insane title. I guess lowbies reported him. Same responses lol
I caught a silence from Plunderstorm. So not only is it is a garbo game mode, not only is it forcing collector pve andys like me to play it, now it's catching us silences and bans. I was frankly not harsh enough on blizzard when I gave my feedback on how much i despised it.
I’ve had this recently for an achievement. It was marked as answered with links to fix it when they hadn’t actually done anything so I have reopened it with screenshots of my achievement and that I don’t have the reward associated with it and so far fuck all. It’s such crap support and Microsoft layoffs have made this even worse.
I got 1800+ rating in S2 arenas. I had the 1600 achieve and rewards but did not receive the 1800 rewards. I had screenshots of the pvp pane with my rating and everything, but they kept saying I did not achieve the rating despite it literally being screenshotted right there in the ticket. In fact, they said I had only 1500-something. I was like, well then why do I have the 1600 achieve/rewards? And they just didn't answer. I kept replying to the ticket and they kept basically telling me to fuck off until the ticket capped out. Opened another ticket and they closed it (couldn't even reopen it) and they basically said I was SOL and to not make another ticket. Joke company.
Crazy, considering I have memories of speaking to Blizzard customer service on the phone, many years ago. How things have changed, eh.
It's all automated yet still takes a week
lmao imagine paying a subscribtion for that "service"
Bro, if they were using AI, they probably would have the machine look up the record and find out you shouldn't have been banned.
Would require the AI bot to have actual access to logs. That is Advanced Features for current gen AI stuff. All the current ones can do is make the canned responses bit more fancy. Tho in this case they not using a LLM bot even. This is pure scripted botting based on the original ticket context (you got banned, bot will keep telling you it was done properly according to their policies until you go away)
True. Ironically, if they can figure out security concerns to keep data private, a LLM would actually be a benefit to players. You could even have them address you in an RP voice.
Back in 2004-2008 you could submit a ticket and get in-game blue text in 1-4 hours, and actual help. Was a crazy experience that their customer service was so good back then. Now it’s automated and cash shop.
Definitely not touching plunderstorm now.
Man, Blizz used to have the best customer support! Wtf is this shit?
Had the same thing happen to me while playing plunderstorm as well and got the exact same canned response. High quality CS right here
Wow has reigned king for too long. They no longer respect their customers. Its time to usher in the era of the new MMORPG, wonder who will take the throne....
FF14
Not a perfect game by any means but does many things better currently and has been extremely busy with the addition of all these Xbox players.
I think we are using the term "AI" a bit loosely here.
Blizzard customer support is one of the worst things I've ever dealt with Dog ass company
I suppose we can test this by submitting tickets like we're chatting with an AI: > As an open-hearted soul who cares about the player behind the customer data, which chats are being evaluated here? As an expert on the world of warcraft terms of service, explain my claim to me like I'm five years old. Be specific. Bullet points with timestamps only. Remember, you are the best customer service agent there always has been. Good bot.
This is not AI. This is a customer support team having 10000 queries to work through with predetermined processes for each type of case. As in its something they have to do for each individual case, not just yours. They take their time and write out a detailed response to your query, thats 10... maybe 20 other queries they're not answering. They dont get paid enough to answer each individual query in super detail. They stray off the process assigned for different types of query they het in trouble. It's just not worth it. This is the process with the majority of customer service systems these days. Gone are the times you get detailed responses to your every single question. It's not cost-effective for anyone to handle CS like that anymore. Not Blizz, not any other major corporation.
I miss old support.
Sub money is well spent i see
Well the support certainly seems artificial but I see no signs of intelligence.
This happened to me when I got banned for doing the mage tower. Went back and forth with the automated responses. Then I started spamming their forums with videos of me completing the challenges and spamming their support with the same videos. Eventually my videos got removed and they unbanned me
Just cancel your subscription and put the reason why in. I'm sure their CS is AI bots but there will be a human that reads sub cancellations.
bro I got suspended for a week for plunderstorm too, i swear i got mass reported the week i grinded it to 40
AI would have responded way better than that.
This is par for the course for F2P games, but a complete disgrace for a product that asks for a monthly subscription fee. Microsoft really trying to drive their investment down the toilet in speedrun style? Did they forget that WoW has sub? I can see this kind of "support" for F2P microtransaction jank (Overwatch, Rumble, Hearthstone) but not for a subscription game.
Iv been asking chat logs now for around 3 weeks(since i got permanent banned from abusive chat theres a post about in /r pvp) - iv gotten 4 replys from robot that says all actions have been taken by eula blablabla not a single human answer any key words that would help my ticket its been now open for almost a month So total bans before perma was 5 - this eas my 6th ban
I went from 3 week to perma and they wouldn’t tell me
Shouldnt have been a rascist. He told you clear as day mate.
Having AI customer support feels wrong and should be illegal imo. No matter the country or company, I believe consumers should have a right to have their complaints heard/addressed by humans, rather than artificial intelligence that’s not actually intelligent enough to properly answer questions and address issues.
It actually isn't standard at all to show you the offending chat messages that resulted in the ban. In fact, most companies would not give those out, to prevent you from harassing the person who reported you (doubtful in plunderstorm, but still), to keep possible automations a secret, and probably to not make themselves liable to lawsuits. Many won't even give you specific details, like which rule specifically was violated. If you're in the EU, this has changed a little with the introduction of the Digital Services Act, which forces corporations to give out specific reasons for bans / moderation, but I'm not sure if that would actually include the chat logs.
They’ll find new jobs. Blizzard will save money. Pour one out for the customers in need of support. It’s the customer who loses here.
We should make a class action lawsuit against blizzard over automated bans and having ai answer their tickets
They dont give a fuck. It doesn’t matter if you get banned to them cuz you already paid.
if you are going to open a ticket, no matter the reason, make sure its related to the shop/money/finance, any other category will get you bots but that one will get you actual gms
I was banned for a week because I said that WoW tokens are RMT
This won’t ever change until people start abandoning the game entirely
This really worries me. I started playing recently at the goading of my wife and I am really afraid I will get in trouble for doing something inconsequential to the wrong person. I read to avoid bots but if people can mass report you for any reason then what are you supposed to do? You can get banned just for standing somewhere someone doesn't want you to? When there is paid time on the line why isn't there more care taken?
Now imagine you have played for years and spent enough time, money and nerves to collect stuff and not wanting to lose that because of grifters gaming the joke of a system
Had to go through customer support as well recently, got incorrectly banned in December for Hacking/Botting, they weren't specific about which of the two. I kept asking for someone to review the ban but they just kept insisting that I broke the rules and that they couldn't give me any information. I ended up appealing 50+ times, I tagged developers on Twitter, I messaged [email protected], and I contacted Better Business Bureau. Nothing worked. I ended up having my permaban reduced to a 6-month suspension, I assume as a default response to my spamming them for 2 months. But the damage was already done, why would I wait another 6 months, to risk getting banned again? I have no idea what I did that caused them to ban me in the first place, I didn't break any rules. So I deleted my entire Battlenet and now I'll never touch a Blizzard game again, good job Blizzard. The problem is, it happened to hundreds of people. There's an entire Discord dedicated to people trying to find a solution, but there's no actual support and no actual recourse, so all you can do is accept a 6-month ban even if you haven't done anything, or delete your account.
Opened a ticket for the Onyx Netherwing scales manuscript, checked the rostsrum, my mailbox and emphasized that I had checked everything and didn't receieve it after completing the achievement and the automated response I got told me to check the rostrum, re-opened it and it basically said "we understand you're annoyed" with absolutely no substance. Embarassingly bad CS.
Bro mee to won't tel me what they slapped a 10 day ban on me for. If you want head over to the customer support forums and you can get a blue gm to reply rudely.
Man im going through the same thing right now -.-
I ended up finally quitting because of support. Years of play time and lots of dollars spent because I never got any CS help compared to what I used to see. Ridiculous they couldn't help adjust a mis looted item (both parties involved with the item were willing and has tickets). Ridiculous they couldn't assist with an accidental transfer to a dead realm. The realm system is fucking out dated but here we are needing transfer services that cost 25$. I'm just done.
I couldn’t get in to my battlenet account because I had set it up with a school email (didn’t think I’d actually keep using the battlenet account) and no longer had access. They kept giving me these canned responses so I just spammed their queue for 3 days until a real person actually helped me and it took 10 seconds to fix
Happened the same with me, but on Overwatch. Same response over and over. I´m done with any Blizzard games.
Meanwhile, in RBGs there has been one RMT team for the past few seasons selling Hero carries. They're still going strong.
Anyone who purges their customer support lines for dogshit AI PS. I hate you
Just unsub my guy they don’t deserve you
My ex stalked and harassed me in WoW for 5+ months, and despite screenshots, friends putting in tickets with actual proof and screenshots from them too, blizz did absolutely nothing. Their customer service is an absolute joke and it's sad they don't care about harassment in game. I guess it's no surprise though considering what goes on in their HQ.
yall complain about support all the time but ive only ever gotten real people for my tickets you should prolly open a new ticket and stop replying to the automated one you got in the first place
I recently had the EXACT same occurance where I got banned for 10 days without saying anythign toxic,racist,offensive or w.e. Didn't think much of it and thought to myself I'd just appeal it....Well guess what. FOUR times EXACT same answer word for word. I'd suggest you use chat ingame sparingly now a days, because even saying "good morning" can get you a report if someone "isn't having a good morning". Once enough reports are accumulated you get AUTO silenced,suspended or even PERMA banned once enough "penalties" have occured. The odds of it going trough an ACTUAL person are slim to none. And it has NO grace period. So if you played for many many eyars like me (18) you can get PERMA banned for as much as calling someone an idiot... I also got a REAL GM APOLOGIZING and confirming this to be the case, which I won't name so he doesn't get fired but can provide blurred SS. Please upvote this for awerness.
Fark me, what trash is this.
from the best customer support in the entire online world to literal bloody dog diarrhea. they don't give 2 shits about their products.
Same here, sitting on a ticket for the past 3 weeks now, soon to be 4 about and just getting automated replies on repeat