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NCsoft bans 16,000 Aion accounts

by Kyle Horner on Nov 23rd 2009 5:00PM

One of the continued complaints we hear from Aion players is that bots litter the game's digital landscape, severely reducing the enjoyment of actual flesh-n-bones players. So we feel inclined to shout, "Good news, everybody!" at today's announcement by NCsoft that nearly 16,000 accounts have been banned during a recent unscheduled server reboot.

That's a huge number and certainly nothing to scoff about. This should hopefully alleviate much of the problem, at least temporarily -- and then future banhammers will likely come crashing down.

We hope nobody was caught in the crossfire with today's bans, but if you do find yourself without an Aion account to play and are 100% sure of your innocence, you can create a support ticket. Obviously, this isn't ideal if you're suddenly without your account, so with any luck there aren't any cases of mistakenly banned players.

Source

Tags: aion, ban, banhammer, bans, bots, botting, eula, ncsoft, ncwest

Reader Comments (25)

From what I'm hearing they were suspended not banned. Big whoopdy do.

That's what happened! I was doing the robot dance to impress a scantily clad female mage when suddenly I lost connection and could not log in again. Now I will never know if the player behind the avatar was a female or not.

Curse you robot dance! Curse you!

Too little, too late. I jumped ship 3 weeks ago.

Agreed Dranaerys

Way too little far too late, someone should have explained to the devs at NCsoft that the first month, hell the first 2 weeks are the most pivitol and game breaking weeks of a new mmo.

Just because your game launched in asia years ago doesnt mean it will have the same reception here, and when you update and fix things slower than the movement on the tectonic plates your already dooming your company. Unless aion gets some truely breaking patch or system behind it, expect to see it on the wayside in less than a year

Agreed Dranaerys

Way too little far too late, someone should have explained to the devs at NCsoft that the first month, hell the first 2 weeks are the most pivotal and game breaking weeks of a new mmo.

Just because your game launched in asia years ago doesnt mean it will have the same reception here, and when you update and fix things slower than the movement on the tectonic plates your already dooming your company. Unless aion gets some truly breaking patch or system behind it, expect to see it on the wayside in less than a year

Lineage 2 was the same. Honestly I had no fantasy about NCSoft NA being able to patch anything in within 1 month of discovering a problem.

You might have noticed that the patches that are coming through are issues that addresses Korean gamer's concerns, the fact that these happen to match partially to NA player concerns is just mere happy coincidence.

Would any sane NA player ever suggest that the way to combat resource gathering bots is to create a captcha in game?

Any game that has to resort to banning accounts to fix mechanics of their game shows little promise of being anything more than a clone of a tired game play system. Yawn.

Wait Cameron, are you saying banning the accounts of bots and goldfarmers is a BAD thing? I don't get that. Getting rid of the more unsavory elements of a game is only good. Also, WoW bans goldfarmer bots too, does that mean WoW is terrible too by your logic?

If the bannings continue on a regular basis, then no, there isnt a problem. But likely this will turn into Lineage 2, where they come and go every couple of months with ban waves, and eventually the periods between bannings get longer and longer. NCSoft has a reputation for their actions for a reason.

On another note, I am reading a LOT of innocent players being banned with this move unfortunately. I left the game a month ago now, and I dont miss it honestly anyway. Nothing more frustrating then watching cheaters prosper and my reports getting ignored.

^^^

Notice that no-one above is scoffing?
>.>
lol

Sadly I'll never know if my account was accidentally banned.

well i got a 72 hour suspension for obvious reasons (look at the other aion post) but i sent an email to em today to remind em to lift the suspension which has over run by 3 hours and i have not recived a reply and i am a regular player (untill the boo boo) and it seems they have also suspended a few other ppl i know for "inactive accounts".

ncsoft took there sweet time in dealing with this problem and there banning 16,000 accounts well out of those 16k how many are innocent ppl and from what i've read on the fourms its an easy process to get unbanned such as supplying a proof of purchase and a serial key.

only problem is that a digital copy has neither, its just an email saying "thank you for purchasing aion" and theres no serial key ( well i never recived mine)

just beware of aion, there a bunch of smug gits

I keep thinking of a Hydra when I here this. That is you cut off one of it's heads and multiple heads sprout up in its place. :(

Hmm, interesting math I just noticed.

1,000,000 copies sold with 16,000 banned accounts means that 2 in every hundred players was/is a farmer.

WOW

Far worse than that.

They sold only to shops and retailers (on and off line). The rest is still sitting on the retail shelves --- unsold

So that's 16.000 out of 600K players. That's 2.6 % botters :)))

In present number of players that's 7 to 8%, all others already left?

What a joke this game is.

The bots in the latest culling have been perma-banned, but like in any other MMO more will come because people are stupid and purchase gold which leads to accounts being stolen, card information stolen, and leads to the creation of more.

That said though they have been doing a really great job of dealing with them over the last 3 weeks and they are far less noticeable than before and the regional and game wide channels are rarely spammed any longer. I've seen GMs clear out the plazas on two separate servers of gold sellers several times and to a great amount of cheering of those in the area.

As to the future of Aion check out the following trailer -Customizable housing, Legion housing, mounts (for multiple passengers), combat mounts, full graphics upgrade, metric ton of new epic content, and dynamic weapons.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PAM0wr7cZ8

I don't know why everyone assumes that once you buy gold, your account is hijacked. My husband buys gold for all the mmo's he's played and he's bought me some for games I usually quit 2 weeks later. Anyway, that's not the point, but never ONCE has our account been stolen. What's the point? If you buy their gold and everything's perfect - chances are you'll go back to them again and again. That's a continuous income, and much more profitable for them.
Of course, people are idiots and will go on sites that tell them to give them their info - but that's their own stupidity. Most gold farmers just trade you the gold in-game, so no way they can steal your account.
Also, most accept paypal - so they can't steal your credit card either.
People who say that happens are usually just try to scare others, just fyi.

... oh and swimming under water, under water combat and so on and so on. Really amazing trailer and having been a long time fence sitter as to this title my in-game experiences (to date) and this trailer have given me a great deal of hope as to its future.

Pretty slick in-game footage. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PAM0wr7cZ8

Yes omg omg omg I can't wait for this Aion update!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PAM0wr7cZ8

I just couldn't get into Aion. It felt like a work-in-progress beta than a retail release. Banning some bots doesn't make the game fun.

However, watching that video, I won't rule out going back if they pull that all off. That's a pretty big update though, and it looks like I'd need an upgrade.

We'll see, I guess.

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NCsoft bans 16,000 Aion accounts

Reader Comments (25)

Posted: Nov 23rd 2009 5:44PM Lethality said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2009 5:45PM Anatidae said

Posted: Nov 23rd 2009 5:49PM Dranaerys said

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Posted: Nov 23rd 2009 7:13PM Its Utakata stupid said

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