Forum Ban Stops Player From Playing Dragon Age 2

[TheGuy(wantstobe)]

Someone sent this link to me, and frankly this is an incredibly worrying precedent -

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/to...ndex/6459941/1

For those that can't see the forums due to work/firewalls I'll copy paste the two relevant posts in question

So.
My other account got suspended yesterday for 72 hours. My suspended v_ware account has all my Bioware games registered to it. My other games are Mass Effect 2, Dragon Age: Origins and Awakening. I have played every game off Bioware since KOTOR, which is my favourite game of all time.

Since I have these other games and off course have played the DA2 demo, my previously unlocked DA2 content is assigned to this account.

When I got the mail I was curieus. I wanted to know what I did that was offensive. The mail stated that I was suspended for inappropriate content. There was no further explenation to what the particular reason was.

On EA Live Chat they told me that that I said: "Have you sold your souls to the EA devil?" (This is a quote, don't suspend me again)

Now, those are the words I said, you can't argue with that. I'm not going to try and sugarcoat that, let me just say in my defense, I have always been a pretty reasonable person on this forum. So I agree that you guys suspended my account from the forums for 72 hours. Btw, this is the first time I got suspended.

What I don't agree with is that I can't activate my new DA2 game.

This is the deal. I just got my Bioware Signature Edition from the store. I allready knew I was going to play it without the extra content since I can't activate my extra codes. What I did not know was that I needed to activate the game before being abble to play it. So now I've got a dead game for 50 euros. Pity.

So for your consideration. Please let someone who payed for his game at least play it.


Arno
x

PS: Don't really know where to post this, since I'm unable to post in the technical support forum because I don't have an activated game. Figured it may get more attention from the mods here anyway. And pm'ing Chris Priestly is just sort of rude.
PSS: No trolling and no flaming. I knew what I did was wrong, the mods were right to suspend me, but being unable to play a game you bought seems a little steep.

The Bioware forum Moderator's response -

Please review the EA Community Terms of Service, particularly sections #9 and #11. There are two levels of enforcement here:

1. BioWare community bans are forum-only and can be for as little as 24 hours. These bans should have no effect on your game, only your ability to use all the features of this website/community. these bans are handed out by BioWare Moderators as the result of our travels around the forum and/or issues reported by fellow community members.

2. EA Community bans come down from a different department and are the result of someone hitting the REPORT POST button. These bans can affect access to your game and/or DLC.

Because the BioWare community now operates under the same umbrella as all EA Communities, community members here have all explicitly agreed to abide by and be governed by both sets of rules. Consider it an added incentive to follow the rules you say you're going to follow.

If there are further questions or concerns, please send them to me via private message. Thank you.

End of line.

What the hell? What the freaking doo diddly hell!? Ea have done some downright anticonsumer htings in the past but this takes the cake. Getting banned on their forums means you can't play their game that you paid for and is played exclusively offline!? Again I say What the hell!

 

[manythings]

It sounded more to me like "BioWare Forum Mod suspends asshole for acting like an asshole".

 

[veloper]

This isn't the first time I heared of this, but his is the first time I see this practise confirmed by an official.

Solution: don't use your first account on forums, if that account is linked to games that require online activation. Make a second one and troll away.

It does stink though and it's dead wrong.

 

[Xaositect]

It sounded more to me like "BioWare Forum Mod suspends asshole for acting like an asshole".

Sounds more to me like "butthurt ***** company stops asshole from playing what he paid for because they cant take him acting like an asshole".

This guys behavior on their cesspool community changes nothing if he has paid his own money for their game.

Personally I think its hilarious to see a multi-billion dollar corporation stooping to this level because it cant take some misbehaviour on its own community.

 

[manythings]

It sounded more to me like "BioWare Forum Mod suspends asshole for acting like an asshole".

Sounds more to me like "butthurt ***** company stops asshole from playing what he paid for because they cant take him acting like an asshole".

This guys behavior on their cesspool community changes nothing if he has paid his own money for their game.

Personally I think its hilarious to see a multi-billion dollar corporation stooping to this level because it cant take some misbehaviour on its own community.

Cesspool community? I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you don't like bioware much.

 

[Xaositect]

Cesspool community? I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you don't like bioware much.

I used to love it years gone by. Had nothing but good experiences in the early BG II days. Even was okay when KOTOR got rolling.

Nowadays you so much as breath a bad word about the game and you get trolled by the local defence force (something the anti-troll mods ingore in favour of only caring about critical views of their games).

Well, at least it used to be that way. From what Ive been told recently, its more evenly split now between haters/apologists.

Bioware as a company? Ignoring these disgusting things, their lies and their ridiculous PR, I dont like them anymore simply because they are making their games worse solely for the sake of greed.

Im sure someone will be ready to conjure up an image of a poor, dirty developer wearing a potato sack struggling to feed his family, but thats bollocks. They were already healthy enough. They just got greedy and wanted more, probably due to them inviting EA to climb up their asses.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

so the moderator simply said, no ur wrong, a can still play the game, just not use the forums.

also, i guess the truth hurts so dont say stuff like that to bioware.

 

[Varrdy]

I think I am being progressively banned from social.bioware.com

OK I barely go there but each time I have, I found my access restricted more and more to the point where I all I can do is purchase and activate DLC (because they'd have to be somewhat daft to stop me giving them money) but now I'm at the point where I don't seem to be able to post on any boards at all and this is a bit of an arse.

Like so many Mass Effect 2 (PC version) owners, I was plagued by the DRM hammer that prevented the game loading because of that bloody "CD-Key" issue. After trawling around eleventy-million messages on the subject, I gave up and downloaded a 3rd-party "No-DVD" hack, just so I could play a game I paid for. I wanted to vent my spleen at EA / BioWare for seemingly ignoring the bazillion complaints about this but found my posting access limits me to...not posting anywhere! Yes I have asked and no I haven't had a reply yet. I dunno how or why this is happening; it's kinda hard to incur moderator wrath when you don't / can't post messages!

Maybe they read my LJ, which is where I tore them a new arsehole over the above issue...

Wardy

 

[Asehujiko]

It sounded more to me like "BioWare Forum Mod suspends asshole for acting like an asshole".

Thanks for showing your inability to read he OP. Bioware has 2 kind of bans: forum only ones that are handed out by moderators and automated ones that also lock you out of ALL your recent EA games that are triggered based on how often somebody hit the "report" button.

The problem here is that one troll with 20 duplicate accounts can voteban somebody out of their ?180(quick estimate based on current local prices, more if he bought everything new) worth of games and the moderator's response is "haha suck it"

And if a single "EA stands for Electronic Antichrist" joke is enough for you to consider somebody an asshole and think all this bullshit justified, please go back to the 16th century.

 

[zhemis]

@Asehuijiko

Is that how many reports it takes? And that department doesn't look into reports, they simply ban based on volume? I don't think this is the issue.

Also it's a 72 hour ban. Not permanent. Also, read the rules you agree to when you click "I accept blahblahblah" Don't just click it as a prerequisite for clicking "create account" (I'm guilty of this, I'm sure alot of people are.

The guy did something against the rules, got called out on it, end of story. His game isn't a $50 paperweight. Three days of punishment and his suspension lifts.

In todays' world, with so many ways to offend so many different people, I'm not surprised that his behavior was reprimanded. It's not Bioware/EA's fault either.

 

[HellsingerAngel]

I don't agree with this. It takes the bigger company to admit they did something wrong or thta they made a mistake or that one insult from a customer is nothing but a drop in the bucket. EA are acting like children about this issue and it's sad to see. What's wrose is that the community seems to have moderation control of which consumers get to play their games because if you ever, ever post on the forums, you can be automatically banned for 72 hours (possibly more) without question.

I'm all for having to abide by a ToS to play a game that impacts the community as a whole, but when you start restricting the ability to even play the game in an offline setting for doing nothing wrong, it makes me wonder what exactly is going on with these companies. There are rights to owning that disk, regardless if he has to sign-up or not. Sadly, no one can really challenge these companies because most people can't afford to.

Dark days indeed...

 

[manythings]

It sounded more to me like "BioWare Forum Mod suspends asshole for acting like an asshole".

Thanks for showing your inability to read he OP. Bioware has 2 kind of bans: forum only ones that are handed out by moderators and automated ones that also lock you out of ALL your recent EA games that are triggered based on how often somebody hit the "report" button.

The problem here is that one troll with 20 duplicate accounts can voteban somebody out of their ?180(quick estimate based on current local prices, more if he bought everything new) worth of games and the moderator's response is "haha suck it"

And if a single "EA stands for Electronic Antichrist" joke is enough for you to consider somebody an asshole and think all this bullshit justified, please go back to the 16th century.

Last time I checked grown ups can actually say things without being trolls. He acted like an asshole and got treated like one. Assholes don't regret their actions until you give them reason to.

 

[Asehujiko]

Last time I checked grown ups can actually say things without being trolls. He acted like an asshole and got treated like one. Assholes don't regret their actions until you give them reason to.

You still haven't read anything related to the discussion. Here, have some more quotes from the OP:

On EA Live Chat they told me that that I said: "Have you sold your souls to the EA devil?"

EA Community bans come down from a different department and are the result of someone hitting the REPORT POST button.

Bioware admitted that the ban was not the result of moderator action but because of some people(or an individual with multiple accounts) not liking a joke and then goes "we changed the ToS, haha, you're fucked"