The mighty Ban Hammer™ for Star Wars: The Old Republic has finally gone into effect on a larger scale for the first time since launch. Some people praise the decisions while others despise it. A lot of the negativity comes from misinformation or plain false reports. But let’s take a look at banning and determine together, as a team, where I am the only one writing, if the Ban Hammer is justified or not.
The Ban Hammer in its natural habitat (pic atlasobscura.com)
This all came about over the past week with reports of banning players who went to Ilum too early. The misinformation started immediately with several people coming out saying they themselves or hearing of others being banned for simply going to Ilum at a lower level than the expected range (roughly the 40’s). This led to many condemning BioWare for not letting people explore and restricting them to follow a linear path to planets only in their level range. Of course I would be a little upset with this as well – if it were true.
As it turns out, there was misinformation, miscommunication, and/or trolling afoot with regards to this issue. Now I know what you are thinking, “Trolling on the official forums?” Yes, TORWarriors, it does happen from time to time in the rarest of cases. What actually happened was a group of bannings for practices of credit farming on Ilum. There were also instances of warnings and temporary suspensions for players who were not credit farming but were exploiting the chests on Ilum at low levels to artificially raise their credits. These were not just people who went to Ilum with a high level friend, explored, and happened to open a chest along the way. These were people who went there specifically to open chest after chest after chest to build up their wealth.
Ilum – mysterious cache of lightsaber crystals and summer home to the Ban Hammer
A few days later, an exploit was found in the game (a rather hilarious exploit in this writer’s opinion), that let you basically become invincible by using the emote /getdown during combat. The enemy, obviously mesmerized by your dancing prowess, remains constantly interrupted and unable to attack someone so talented in the ways of the Super Bowl Shuffle.
This exploit was fixed within a day of widespread knowledge so you unfortunately cannot try it yourself (nor should you really). With this though, came another wave of people claiming bans or assuming them. As it turned out, there was no Ban Hammer present for this particular infraction, but that didn’t stop the forums from exploding with rumors and conjecture.
With the recent talk of so many bannings, people started coming out of the woodwork with stories of being banned for various reasons, not just the two stories mentioned above. People were being banned for harassing low level players, working the Galactic Trade Network, waving their lightsaber around at social functions, and removing their pants on Hoth (that one is really more for safety though given the cold).
The crack community team led by Senior Online Community Manager and Forum Fire Marshal Stephen Reid set into motion to quash the various reports of banning. Most of these people turned out to be either misinformed or just straight up trolls. While it should have been obvious from the start as a banned person can’t post on the official forums, clarification was still given as to their status.
Dancing your way to immortality
So when it’s all said and done, what are your thoughts on banning? I personally am just fine with it. BioWare is not banning people for playing the game. You need not fear a ban for exploring, opening a chest, trying to get a certain loot item from an enemy, or dancing on a mailbox (Note: Please do not start dancing on mailboxes). If you are banned, it will be for a fairly obvious reason that you should have been aware of long before the ban.
Some feel that banning people for using exploits is wrong. After all, it is BioWare’s fault for allowing an exploit to be in their game. Why should you be banned for doing something that is in the game? Because you know it’s wrong. If I took a bag of cash out of the back of an armored truck, I couldn’t avoid arrest by saying it was the drivers fault for leaving the back open while he went inside. What was I supposed to do, not steal it? Yes! That is what you are supposed to do. An exploit in the game is no different. Just because the opportunity is there, doesn’t mean it is alright to take it.
Many of the detractors also find banning unfair in general and make comments about BioWare’s Gestapo-esque attitude towards players. What many fail to realize is that not only are these people who are engaging in this behavior hurting the rest of the community by causing inflation on the GTN or whatever the case, but this also happens in other games. Some of these people feel that BioWare is the only one that engages in this practice. The truth is, most every game that has some form of multiplayer, MMO or not, has banned people from time to time. Many instances, more frequently and with less communication than happens in TOR.
This is the last thing you see before being banned
So is the Ban Hammer necessary? Yes, in my opinion it is. Everyone should have a fair shake at the game. Farmers and exploiters alter that game for you in a negative way, whether you realize it or not. There are both short-term and long-term implications to all players if these people are allowed to carry on their activities. Soon prices skyrocket on the GTN because the exploiters can afford higher prices while the legitimate player struggles to get enough credits together for something they want. You may be excited to kill a certain boss or explore a certain area, but it is mobbed with exploiters trying to build up their stash.
The game is simply better off without those people, for everyone involved. Again, you shouldn’t be afraid of this. You have to be seriously committed to your exploitative actions to receive a ban so it would be almost impossible to stumble into a ban. The Ban Hammer cleans up the game so the legitimate players can enjoy it together in peace. Banning is not there to stamp out success, exploration, or creativity. It is there to ensure a balanced good time is had by all. And if you are still worried about the dreaded Ban Hammer, remember this simple rule of thumb, if you think you are doing something wrong – then you probably are.
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I was handed a 7 day ban for making a racist/politically charged remark in a private whisper to a gold-seller. I reported the gold-seller, and the ToS department handed me the ban (offense from Dec. 22nd) this morning (Jan 8.) I was really enjoying their game, but the way they rush to defend the delicate sensibilities of a criminal who steals from the players and developer alike is just beyond me.
TOS is clear you can’t use that type of language. So you would get a small ban and its justified. The gold farmer easily got a perma ban. Rule of thumb, keep comments like that out of general chat or whispers.
With all of the hidden nerfs in swtor already, Bioware deserves what they get.
You mean money and success, hundreds of gaming awards for 2011 and a reviews in the 9.6-10 area?
Banning for exploits is one thing. Being a (real life) racist, or harassing someone–sure, ban ‘em. But I don’t know why BW would ban someone for running the GTN. Personally, I haven’t seen or read about that in SWTOR, so I’m not sure what the author is referring to.
But if I buy up a bunch of low-priced items on the GTN and re-post them for higher, that’s the free market at work, and should NOT be a banning offense. Why? Because the GTN is a democratic process–if you don’t like the price, don’t buy it. And because there is NOTHING on the GTN that isn’t also available through other means. That’s why there’s a /TRADE channel.
Not gonna reveal all of my GTN strategies, but I absolutely love it when I find someone listed a STACK of something for what others are selling them for individually. On my server, Corusca gems sell for 5-7k each. I found a stack of 16 on the GTN for 5k. Naturally I bought them all and re-sold them for 5k a piece–a 75k profit that took all of 15 minutes.
I can’t imagine any planet or game where doing something like that would be considered “abusing” the market. It’s just smart play.
Sylin,
The author’s point is that Bioware is NOT banning people for working the GTN, it was just a troll on the forums claiming it happened.
You beat me to it. Thank you Sky!
Tor is fucking boring who cares about bans
If it’s so boring then why come to a website that’s centered around the game? Your logic is beyond me.
Idiots seldom display the capacity to use logic.
Agreed.
Wow, these forums are as bad and the general forums.
I came to this forum because trolling about swtor is actually a damn site more fun than playing the broken crock of poodoo bioware is calling an MMO. biggest crock ever wasted opportunity annoyed wow will still be lazy as they have no competition grrrr had high hopes disillusioned humffff
Anyone have a tiny violin?
As a long-time moderator, I can tell you this: banning pornbots and gold spammers is a lot of fun. Banning real people? Not fun at all. Do mods sometimes make mistakes? Sure. I have. However, the only way to keep the community halfway decent and friendly, and keep the fledgling economy from inflating from exploits, is to take action. Now, people don’t typically get banned right off the bat. Usually, they get warnings first. So if they’ve made it to banned status, they’ve been very, very naughty multiple times, and they are willingly flaunting the rules in order to be abject jerks.
As for getting warned/banned for rude language use? Well, the solution is this: Type all you want into the chatbox. Get it all out. Vent wildly. Just don’t hit ‘enter’. I’ve been known to make socially unacceptable rude gestures at my monitor from time to time. That doesn’t mean I have to actually type it into the general chat (or even a whisper) and then go the final step of hitting enter. My profanity filter thanks you and me for keeping it at least semi-clean.
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Let me guess….raced to 50 because you wanted to be cool and be one of the 1st, but when you got there realized there was nothing to do because the other 95% of the people actually are playing the game on the way to 50.
So what I’m still unclear about is this: Is the rampant base trading for loot drops that’s going on on Ilum across every server considered a bannable/suspendable exploit or not?
If you think “not on my server” all you need to do is travel to Ilum and watch the general chat for a few minutes. The base trading activity is so commonplace that the mechanics of it are openly discussed. I’m not even talking about players from one faction using low level alts to do this. Guilds from both factions are actively working together to accomplish this by agreeing not to kill specific members of the opposite faction…
When questioned about this activity, the response from both sides is usually something like “well with the Imps so far outnumbering the Reps, this is the only way to accomplish anything on Ilum”.
This is becoming an issue internally with some guilds because the defenders of this action claim it’s a “grey area” since both sides are cooperating. Obviously most guilds don’t want to be associated with activity that appears unsportsmanlike but some guilds have a wide spread of levelers and guild leaders can’t be everywhere every hour that the server is open.
It sure doesn’t sound sporting and I imagine this kind of activity is not what Devs intended. I love this game but fair is fair and the SWTOR Dev team needs to take some criticism on this particular subject. Some of the Dev team are MMO vets who should have anticipated this and done something different with the mechanics of Ilum or of SWTOR. It was stated to the Dev team over and over by the gaming press for months (years?) that a game with a two faction system would result in a huge population imbalance (and there are PLENTY of examples of this from other games). Their lack of action on this one issue is a huge fail on their part.