I saw this on Reddit a few days ago and immediately thought the guys complaining were full of shit. As xboi stated, Blizzard did this when WoW came out and reverted all the bans that were accidental. I don't see why people would assume they wouldn't have done that a second time around if the same issue occurred.

@lanthanide and sacrieur

If you don't have problems with the way blizzard responded, then we have very different expectations of services.
I and many other people, as evident from the ragefest, is not satisfied.
The point remains. If Blizzard handled these situations with more care, these ragefest will not happen or at least not be so overblown. It still hurts their reputation, and it still makes me feel that they're a worse off company than they were before and that I can no longer trust them.

@Oh_man
I hope u actually read the OP post in its entirety.
I've already expressed that it's much more likely that Blizzard has legitimate reasons to ban. It is the way they approach it.

@Ahli and Devlin
Hopefully they will continue their research. Again, we, as blizzard's customer, are lacking any official comments on how blizzard will handle this and future similar events. This puts us in a bad situation, which incites the rage.
In other words, permanently banning people is bad enough, but for a game in which someone has paid for is very drastic. These kinds of actions need to be upheld with evidence, which didn't happen. This causes widespread concerns, which causes people to feel unhappy, which causes them to rage on the internets.
In the end, I think blizzard could've done a better job reprimanding their customers.

We have very different ideas of what we find threatening, to say the least.

It is not Blizzard's job to personally answer and justify to every rager or ban incidence. People make shit up and will lie to get themselves unbanned. They will make a stink in public to get people on their side to rally for them even when they are wrong and know it. It has happened here and I'm sure it's happened at Blizzard; it is not under Blizzard's control what people choose to post around the internet, true or not. Their power to counter such propaganda and negative PR, assuming they actually went around to all public spaces where people talked shit, is still limited because it is company policy not to discuss such individual instances publicly.

They have said they will not ban players just for playing. They have said they will ban cheaters. They have said they will not talk about cheaters they have banned with the public. I do not see any ambiguity regarding how things are handled. Personally, I dislike Bashiok's attitude in some of his posts in that thread, but I don't think he is doing anything wrong.

Which Bashiok pretty much did, see his quote above and its source.
If stating the official policy on not breaching customer-company account action privacy was acceptable, then you can not turn around and say upholding the action with evidence is necessary.
Furthermore, do you really need it spelled out in the rules that cheating and/or hacking is a bannable offense, especially in a competitive multiplayer environment?

Post has been edited 4 time(s), last time on Jul 5 2012, 6:31 pm by Mini Moose 2707.

I disagree. If I pay for a game and I'm told not to cheat on it or I will be banned, and I cheat anyway, then I have no right to complain. If Blizzard accidentally banned people for running WINE (as they did in WoW) then they'd most likely revert the bans (as they did in WoW). If they say they looked into the case and found no reason to unban an account, I trust that's because it wasn't an accident.

I don't see how they could do any other job reprimanding their customers. If they were found to be hacking, they are going to be banned. It's that simple, and that's how its been for years.

I feel like people blowing a few one-sided claims out of proportion is what starts the internet rage. If people took a few seconds to actually think about it and perhaps consider that the people claiming to be unfairly banned are actually lying, then there would be no widespread rage.

Yes, it is not Blizzard's job to personally answer and justify every rage and ban incidence.
However, if they are interested in making a good PR with their customers, they will have produced an official statement/response by now, since this incidence has gone quite widespread (getting into reddit, screwattack, etc.)
Of course, most people know that people make shit up. I'm pretty sure a lot of people know this. So why are they still so upset? It is because we see Blizzard's lack of urgency with this matter. We see it as if they no longer care for our investments and our services.

Most people will think like this: "They banned people - legitimate - but since others have so much concerns about it, is there actually anything else going on?" Many of us know that, obviously, blizzard will not ban us for no legitimate reason. But, since we have paid the company, we expect them to provide us with customer services. The shit-talkers and ragers are producing concerns and doubt in their customers, and you're telling me it is Not Blizzard's PR job to pour water onto this flamewar? I don't know what PR responsibilities there are then. Even if it is their company policy to not talk about individual cases such as these, it is well within their cause to discuss this issue in a community basis in order to take away any notions of doubt among their customers and investors.

Now, I've looked at Bashiok's posts and as well as understand his responses from his perspectives. Cheaters/Hackers should not receive any sympathy, and them making such a ruckus stamps on your morals. You ban them because they cheat, and they come back and bite you, and everyone's on their side.
But you can't continue to treat everyone as if they are or going to be cheaters. Every non-cheating person, even those who have rallied with the alleged cheaters, are (potential) customers/investors. Is it really not the PR's job to coax them away from their concerns and doubts? Is it really not the PR's job to have them side with the company once more?

From that perspective, I see SEN is doing a better job than Blizzard's PR.

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EDIT:
Reprimand customers as in dispelling the concerns of the non-cheating customers.
I trust that unjust banning will be unbanned once they've done their research. However, an official statement of this would be nice (I actually think it was mentioned already... I'm not too sure....... there's no statement about this unban from Bashiok.. everything is speculative from the customers. We're doing the PR's job. OH GAWD!)

So, taking a step back and observing the forums

There is quite a divide. There are more people defending Blizz than people asking more from Blizz - but not by a lot.

I also found that most people who argue against Blizz have the same concern: They want clearer evidence.
There are at least two examples posted by victims of Blizzard's terrible customer services.
One of them describes his/her experience with being banned for a long period of time from WoW for using an iOS program (which "bounces IP Addresses")
The other one talked about his experience in trying to use Blizzard's copyrighted material for his/her own thing and want to monetize it. He tried for a month to contact Blizzard's community services, yet he has not received any replies. (source)

In other words, most people are unhappy about the way Blizzard handles customer services. The myriads of problems with D3 and SC2 reflects their inability to do any good PR.

I stand by my opinion that Blizzard needs to rethink their PR/customer management.
This whole incidence begs the question: "If they had legitimate reasons to ban, then why are they so afraid to provide evidence?"
Again, while it is their policy not to discuss individual issues such as these... I would extrapolate and say this:
If Blizzard wants us to respect their games and their rules, then they have to respect our concerns, our time and commitment to the games, and even our misunderstandings.
The reasoning that cheaters should be banned without sympathy should not affect the rest of the community. Cheaters are Blizzard's problem, not ours. I don't see why they cannot handle this ban with more humility and discretion... *sigh* (at this point, I'm not sure What they can do to rescue it)

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EDIT: All in all, I think we need to be more aware of how the game companies treat their customers. There is a weird notion that game companies can do whatever they want because people will still buy their games. Look at EA's Madden and Call of Duty franchise's utter stagnation as an example.
I mean... if you really like the product, then more power to you. But if others find it hard to digest the company's customer services, why be so adamant in defending the company?

Looking at another example, Bioware's Mass Effect 3 ending.... That was a shitstorm for the ages. While the extent to which this argument has gone (insofar that a lawsuit was made!!) is quite ridiculous, I don't really see why people defend BioWare, saying that it is their game and that the customers should just enjoy it for the way it is. No, we can critique it, and we should, in order to make the companies do a better job next time.
We should stop doing the company's PR job for them.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Jul 5 2012, 9:57 pm by UnholyUrine.

I think Blizzard being pragmatic about the issue is no reason to rage. It would be unreasonable for them to go out of their way and disclose information that's not "belonging" into the public. They would hurt their own credibility. They looked into the issue and made their statement and that's all they have to do at that point.

However I'm not really okay with the harsh penalty they imposed on the supposed cheater(s). They should lift the ban after a few months since imo everyone has a right of a second chance. And even repeat offenders should eventually be allowed to play again after longer and longer bans until it's safe to assume that they'll never stop cheating.
I like to compare that with road traffic regulations. When you run a red light or way exceed the speed limit you'll get your licence revoked. But not forever. Just imagine, one slip and you were never again allowed to drive a vehicle!

tl;dr They gotta keep the penalty proportional to the offense.

Why the hell are you asking the same question again and again? It has already been answered multiple times: Because it's none of your business. They only disclose the details to the account holder. Which is a reasonable point of view, so why are you ignoring it?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 5 2012, 10:34 pm by NudeRaider.

I did not ignore it. I've addressed that point in every single one of my posts
I guess I, and many other people, are not satisfied despite all of that. I probably wouldn't have stated that question again if I didn't see many people having the same concern/opinion.... again i'm not sure what a good solution is for this one.

I actually have a story about a permanent ban of my own. I cheated with runescape because it was boring to keep grinding for a certain skill (agility), and there is a certain area where an autoclicker will allow you to go in and out of a pipe over and over again to gain experience. I got temp banned, and I never did that again, however my acct was pretty much 'flagged'. I got perm banned because I jokingly asked one of my friends for his secondary account's password (big mistake, as I've learned)
Oh wells, it wasn't that big of a deal b/c runescape is free, and I felt i was a bit addicted to it anyway.

For Diablo, tho, I'd be pretty pissed if I got banned from a game I paid for. One guy made a comment that says that when a customer buys a game, it is like signing a contract, and one side of the party cannot outright take away the contract from the other. I don't fully agree with this view, but it is a ... concern.

Then don't cheat?

Right, you keep going back to how pissed you'd be for getting banned and no refund but if they legitimately found these people to be cheating, then they broke the ToS and have no right to demand a refund.

Well no, you still have the game, you're just banned from their service -- which is fully within their rights.

If you wished I'm sure you could modify all of the game files to allow you to play offline -- which I should remind you, is not illegal (and should not be, more importantly).

Nobody else finding a permanent ban for a first offense too harsh?

Imagine a country where you are arrested for a lifetime for shoplifting.

Think of it as being banned from entering a store when you shoplift from it. Quite reasonable in my opinion.

There's nothing stopping you from creating a new account and buying the game all over again.

To expand on Jack's analogy, it's like being banned from a store that has a membership after you shoplift from it -- but still being able to get back in if you pay another membership fee.

This analogy doesn't really work. You haven't paid a fee for the right to enter the shop.
Sac's expansion works in theory although I've never heard of memberships for stores so that doesn't help me judge the situation.

I see. Actually that kinda convinces me. Still an expensive error to commit, but at least the penalty is not final.
Not entirely convinced though when I weigh the price of an account towards a virtual offense that probably didn't cost Blizzard any real money.

Try Sam's Club.

I think their stance has been that they ban cheaters because they affect other players (i.e. people running bots and drastically changing the economy in WoW, or people creating fake duped items in D2, etc.) as opposed to making them lose money. Then again in the case of WoW bans, they do lose money in the form of reduced monthly subscriptions from said cheaters.

In my opinion, for a game like Diablo III they shouldn't completely ban someone for anything but attempting to hack or otherwise abuse the servers. Anything else should only at most have the account banned from interacting with other players (except maybe playing with others in this state).

Punishing offenders by disabling the ability to play and interact with others sounds like a good idea. Afaik if you get banned on Diablo 2, you can still play single player, and I think you should be able to do that in Diablo 3 as well.

Valve has the same policy, even for games where you can't play by yourself. The solution? Either buy the game again, or play on private servers.