AOE3 Forums

sinistre:

I am not a lawyer. Whoever wrote the policy was an employee of MS, who was paid to protect MSFT. That said there could be an argument if there is an over riding obilgation implied by any contract. For example can a policy be arbitrary? 'We think you have been bad so we will ban you and we don't have to tell why we think you are bad.' The implication is that the policy is subjective. In contract law there might be an onus on both parties to be fair; not to be arbitrary.

Is it acceptable to ban innocent people knowing that we get all of the baddies? The good for most outweighs the good for the individual. (I think Spock said it better.) Is the contract between the community of owners or is it between the online service each individual player? Perhaps the counter argument is that although we had collateral damage we got the terrorist, so legally we are OK. Did Mr. Choo write the policy statement? Basic principle: just because a lawyer has provided a written opinion does not make that opinion correct.

 An interesting strategy is to lump oos, double deckers, and map hackers as one group. This is called guilt by association. The case against an account hacker will be much easier to defend than an oos. However, by lumping in the same group people can say: "This is what one of the banned people did, he was a double decker. We have screen shots. Why are people complaining."

By concentrating on the egregious activity, were evidence is clear, it distracts people from discussing less clear cut transgressions.

Another interesting thought is that the company may have identified a problem but does not know how to handle it.  Sync errors are annoying. Is this a problem of cheaters or is it a problem of faulty software. By making a big deal about going after the cheaters, the company is avoiding dealing with the real issue. Is is a 'white hat' protecting the innocent; without have to deal with a difficult problem which is causing lots of complaints and may not have a solution.

Maybe not a legal obligation but there is a benefit to any company to be fair and reasonable. This is called good customer relations.

 

 

WOW! well said!!! you make many interesting points.

After talking to RE yesterday...it is apparent that they do not recognize a problem with their DATA. wally explained that my account has Map Hacking incidents on it. WOW! I don't even know how to do that...where to find the so-called forums for cheaters...nothing. So I went on to explain that there my be other "clues" or indicators" to provdie insight into an account that is cheating. One clue or indicator in a "crime" is motive....what is the motive here? There is no motive for me to cheat. I play the game for fun...my ranking is the same as I tarted...Master SGT...i don't care if I go up or not....I look to play for a good game...a challenge....

After explaining this to Wally...he agreed and believed that I don't fit the profile of a cheater...but the account is "spoiled". We both agreed its frustrating.

What i did not discuss with him was that maybe the "tool" for collecting this data is not accurate. It has my account map hacking....i can 100% say...NO WAY!  So to me its 100% their "tool" is not accuarte in my opinion.

 OOSing we have been victims of....and this is where maybe the they have half truths or false positives. The OOSing gets recorded by their "tool" and then they analyize the data and see who was involved. Occurances or instances get recorded for the accounts involved.

 Here is my opinion on that....Players with a high number of games 2000+ will have a higher number of occurances (naturally?). stands to logic...no? So if they go by raw occurances then even honest players (victims) will have been identified by this tool. What if they were to go by % of games played. i.e. player A has 2000 games and 35 incidents of OOS.....vs. player B who has 200 games and 20 incidents of OOS....player A has 1.75% ...where as player B has 10%....

Another data point should be the time frame of the OOSing....is the  total over the last 4 years? or did the OSSing just start recently. In other words if you put it on a graph is it a slow curve or steady line or is there a SPIKE......spike would suggest that the person recently learned of cheats....the curve or steady line would suggest a systemic problem...

just some thoughts.....I hope RE reads these posts and says "maybe we need to reevaluate...or take a second look....."