Ritual

Hey guys, Alright so! Since I've seen many threads regarding this topic, as well as separated questions we've received, I'm here to clarify this issue further on. The answer is simple. If by any chance, you tagged your submitted ticket with "banned account", regardless of the content of it, your ticket will get a reply that your account will be checked once BattleEye is in. So again, this goes for all issued bans and sadly, you guys will have to wait a bit longer. We are sorry for the inconvenience. Rest of the issues should be resolved as they come, and our support members are doing their best to catch up with a large number of submitted tickets. Also a small reminder, support does not look into any tickets during the weekend, and thus all activities on resolving the issues are done accordingly, throughout weekdays. EDIT: If you get message like this and your issue is not about banned account simply reply to the ticket. I have notified support about this thread.

Yes indeed. The BattlEye will be up and running before unbans happen.

Welcome back, @ELECTRIC. Mistakes were made, but most importantly, experience is gained from things like these. I certainly hope that our future communication will be only positive. Thank you for your message, and we are more than happy to know that you are aware of the situation. I wish to see messages like yours more in the future.

Also additionally on the topic of fraud VS cheating in-game. While, again, none is an approved behaviour at the slightest, there is a legal reason behind giving a chance to those banned for breaches like cheats, and those accused of card frauds. Gameplay violations are dealt with as a breach of ToS, and things like those in the future will be automatically dealt with by the BE in addition to other means and there is nothing to worry about. Card fraud is a CRIME, rather than a simple breach. Users guilty of it committed a criminal act that cannot be left to a certain company to decide on whether to pardon or not. It isn't about the company only protecting its interests. It means to honour the law by not allowing further criminal activities under its wing. There is also a difference in the mentality of those cheating and those committing a crime of this sort. Cheaters could have been influenced, reacting under pressure, being unfairly labelled as cheaters, etc. To commit a card fraud, for example, it takes awareness and intent, and it leaves a trail bigger than FairFight logs or GM decisions. So, again, although to some of you it may sound wrong, or you may feel threatened by it, have faith. Something fair and proper is being done about it, and I am fairly sure that the results will be much different from those you might expect @RunicDeath and well, this now means veterans will finally be able to show their skill they were unable to show due to all the breaches, no?

@RunicDeath, as the one that opened this thread, did you get a proper answer and do you want me to lock it? If you wish to leave the discussion flowing, that is perfectly okay. You may report any further derailing in that case.

Alright, fair enough. It may sound counter-intuitive to do so for many reasons but do tell me, regarding publicly admitted cheats as well. How many of those would you know for sure are legitimate, and how many of those are done for the sake of attention? Yes, believe it or not, albeit negative, attention is attention and it is a fair assumption a certain amount of players just thought it was an amusing thing to do. Now, take into consideration the surroundings those players were in. When you go against a foul player(s) for days, weeks, months, what choice do you legitimately have? Some choose to report and complain, some choose to foul play themselves. Now, don't get me wrong I do NOT justify this sort of behaviour, but the environment it came to exist in was already damaged enough to participate in spreading the issue even more. Cheats and hacks for APB are available on the internet. They are among the most popular ones. Why? Because no matter how much of a fair player you are, soon enough you will get sick and tired of getting punished by an unfair advantage so you will do one of two things; cheat yourself, or quit. Of which one of the options is temporarily good for you, and none are good for the community. And with all that in mind, our support is doing a lot of hard work as it is. Going through every single ban to make sure if it is legitimate or not would take so much time that they would never get it done. Have some faith in the way stuff has been dealt with and you will soon see the progress that was anticipated for so long. As I stated before, risk of unbanned players doing damage again is significantly mitigated just by BattlEye alone, while there will be other side means of protection present as well.

I just removed a bunch of posts containing unnecessary banter from this thread. This is a productive post, requiring productive answers. While everyone has various suggestions, you do not get to turn someone's thread into a Spitfest. Fair warning, do not derail people's threads. Reason it started and who started it is none of my concern. Just end it and carry on.

Here is what we currently know about the mass unbanning of previously penalised people. We are aware of the issues that FairFight made for many players, including issuing bans even for legitimate behaviour in some cases. We are also aware of the issue in communication between community and the previous GM team that resulted in many hasty decisions regarding penalising players. Of course, there is always that group of people that were possibly involved in foul activities but as a Criminal Justice major, I have to tell you that there is one important saying. It is better to have a hundred guilty people go free, than to have one innocent unfairly locked up. It is pretty much how situation is around here regarding bans. Everyone is given a benefit of the doubt that they were indeed unfairly banned. There's also a major difference between bans issued because of supposed foul play in the game itself and doing major things like (as our CEO mentioned) card fraud. Proving or failing to prove that you did not cheat and were banned some years ago is hardly constructive and just presents an unnecessary inconvenience for both those accused of it (banned players), and those dealing with it (support through tickets). Besides, it is not on the guilty to prove they did not do it, but on those accusing them to prove they did it instead. It's basic law and one of the basic rights in a situation where ones name is taken in negative context such as hacking, cheating, dethreating, etc. Even false accusations or errors in the banning system are damaging the player's reputation even if they truly did not do it, and we are looking to avoid that from now on. Lastly, there is a good reason why no fresh unbans will happen UNTIL the new anti-cheat system is established. Is there a risk some players truly guilty of foul play will be unbanned? Absolutely. When you previously have a highly dysfunctional banning system, you cannot expect to compensate to the unjustly accused without releasing a few "bad apples" as well. Did they learn their lesson? Maybe, maybe not. Regardless, those that did not, will quickly be sanctioned again much more effectively and quicker than before because of the sole nature of the BattlEye, not to mention new policies for GMs regarding the ways of dealing with such issues. It is not jeopardising the community or opening the flood gates to the massive chaos again. It is restoring this community to what it previously was, with new rules and new ways of dealing with things. That is what we all want in the end, isn't it? Bottom line, yes! We are starting fresh and we mean FRESH. Pointing fingers towards previously "problematic" usernames under rather shaky accusation circumstances is completely opposite of productive and progressive.

(Post being moved to Fan Sites & Communities & Promotion)

Alright, I've read a bit through this thread and decided to give my two cents to it. All of you guys make some really good points, so let's see what we can make of it... First of all, when it comes to why making something in this game. Why make military faction uniforms? I don't know. Some people really like the looks of it. Why does someone else make an anime character, etc.? Pretty much the same reason. Creativity is the key and it is one of the reasons people still enjoy it. Creativity should not be limited because of different tastes. Now, with that in mind, let's discuss the sensitive content issue. Yes, hatred symbols are strictly forbidden, but a certain design of a uniform should not be an issue. Plenty of other things non-related to military that tick people as it is. So that means, while you may not use the exact same insignia on your design, colour scheme of the uniform, shape and such (and I see nothing wrong with you Soviet one you placed as an example) is not a problem. Personally, I would suggest you to perhaps look up the Wolfenstein censorship, and see if their way of doing it will inspire you to create what you will without any sensitive material. Of course, as you said, details there are much different that details in APB, but nevertheless, it is a good example. Good luck! EDIT: I am referring to the German edition of Wolfenstein

(For the convenience of browsing and discussion, I've merged two threads with the same topic in one.)

Well, from what I know, BattlEye is proactive, which means many cheats should be prevented right away rather than waiting for them to happen for something to be done about it. As for banning with BattlEye, other than the regular banning options that go with it (Steam ID and account global ban), we are not quite sure if additional ones will be presented.

That is absolutely incorrect. We do our best to mitigate the damage done to the community that is caused by such players. Launch of BattleEye being as close is exactly why I've said that measures against players reported now (new reports vs old banned accounts) might not be executed right away, but that definitely does not mean we cannot gather evidence and complaints and look into them.

Hey there! Correct. Since the 25th of May, our support is up and running again and you are able to submit your tickets, including reports of foul play and such. It is on you how you choose to present your evidence against the player you are reporting. Concrete and direct evidence count for the best. However, due to large numbers of tickets submitted already, you will be looking at waiting for several days until it would be addressed, and even then, I do not think anything major will be executed against that very player until BattleEye is on. But yes, if you wish to report a person for foul play and have evidence you believe would suffice, you may send ticket to the support nevertheless.

Cheers mate! Hope we have a good time together

This is a second moderator warning on this topic. Do not clog legitimate topics with discussions that are out of place. If it is not related to the topic or the topic gets derailed, your post will be removed again and you will be warned. All free discussion is to be done in proper places. People reading a certain topic expect to see useful posts. Thank you.

As some others have explained to you, detreating is when a player purposely lowers their rank to be at an advantage so they get matched up with lesser skilled players. Now, dropping in rank doesn't mean right away you will be flagged for it. But as it goes, if you drop in your rank just to go back up soon after (because of obviously having more experience to get there), and immediately down again over and over again, then it is a fair assumption you might be doing it for the wrong reason. Basically, the repetitive pattern is what defines it as an offence, I'd say.