Update on recent action against some ESO accounts

ZOS_GinaBruno

Hi everyone,

We don’t normally publicly discuss actions taken against player accounts, but there was a recent situation that we’d like to give you some clarity on. You probably saw some reports that a few players who participated in regular guild trading were temporarily suspended for suspected gold duplication and all gold was removed from their accounts. We’ve spent a lot of time reviewing this matter over the past week and subsequent investigations have indicated that a potentially defective addon was at fault – it erroneously triggered our anti-cheat detection systems. In short, the behavior on the affected accounts represented normal gameplay, meaning we actioned these accounts (and removed gold from them) in error. This was very much a mistake on our part.

We’d like to own up to our mistake and apologize for the inconvenience this caused for the affected players, in addition to causing any distrust within the trading community. We're beginning to return all seized funds to any players that were affected by this action along with an additional item for the trouble. We are also updating our processes regarding addons and logs associated with addons to try and prevent this from occurring again in the future.

We apologize for the confusion and inconvenience that this action caused, and we acknowledge that we need to update our internal processes to catch these kinds of events before it impacts community members who are playing legitimately.

LeandraC

Which Addon caused it?

And happy for the players that it got sorted out.

themaddaedra

Sounds honest, surprisingly. Glad the situation is being fixed.

MyNameIsElias

Thank you for the transparency with this post. This kind of communication is what makes us feel heard and understood.

JN_Slevin

I will have to say, as much as i feared the last week, it takes strength and courage to publicly open up about this!

With this announcement you have restored so much faith (at least for myself) in this game and its leadership!

Thank you so much ZOS

Nefas

A win for ZOS and the community~

heinousmoz

This post goes a long way to restoring some trust in customer services in what was a troubling time. Thank You.

ApoAlaia

Everyone makes mistakes.

This shows an... unexpected willingness to be mature about it.

I'm pleasantly surprised, thank you for doing the decent thing and clearing the player's names.

mayasunrising

It's been so rare in the decades of been paying MMORPGs to see a company do this. This is just amazing customer support ZOS! Thank you!

cro25519

One step forward for all of us! Glad to see you guys own up to it and work towards fixing it. Rare to see a gaming company do that .

Blobsky

Thank you for your honesty and for listening to myself, those affected and those others who helped protect the trading community - I am so glad that our hard work helped to protect the innocent.

Every credit to you for admitting your mistakes. It is difficult to do, but as you can see, people always appreciate and understand honesty. Mistakes happen!

I look forward to spreading the good news to those I fought to protect

Fiktius

My faith to this game = Restored.
Thank you ZOS!

Arrodisia

Thank you for launching such a thorough investigation, finding the error, and compensating all impacted by this error.
This will greatly contribute to the health and stability of the community within ESO.

Today the bar for customer support in MMO gaming has been raised.
The DEV TEAM has truly amazed me today. Please, keep up the great work.

Wolf_Eye

Thank you for looking into this.

I had heard the rumors going around that people were getting in trouble even though they did nothing wrong, and that was making me nervous to play at times. So I am glad to see that this issue is getting sorted out. Thank you, it's a relief on my mind.

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

Great news that all is in the clear

Softy76

As an affected player I want to thank you for this official statement, excuse and compensation.

But would it have been such an effort to write us one single sentence that there is an ongoing investigation? No comment for 9 days still leaves a bad aftertaste.

BerZerK_Bayern

I am so glad that this has cleared up. I was on the verge of despair.

MarcoPolo184

Thank you for your honesty.

xeniasvoid

Thank you for investigating this personally.

VaranisArano

I'm quite glad to see that this was caught, and is in the process of being fixed.

However, I'd like to point out that this was caught and fixed in part because of sustained community outcry that it needed a greater level of review than what we were assured was given. Specifically, we had a member of ZOS' team assure us that this was investigated by a specialized team on the thread where this issue was first brought up. That was probably true, but as this follow-up goes to show, the community outcry was correct and the suspensions were in error.

Please remember that this is not just a matter of distrust in the Trading community. This is also a matter of distrust in Support, the teams who oversee and investigate your anti-cheat detection systems, and the teams who communicate those decisions to the affected players. It is not good for players when it feels like the only way to get a fair shake from Support is to raise a sustained outcry on other platforms. Unfortunately, in this and another recent incident, that's exactly what happened.

So I hope Support can take notes from this situation about how they can better handle players who are caught up in waves of disciplinary action. Better communication all around goes a long way, and a better appeals process might help players feel like Support is listening to their concerns without rushing off to spread their story on other platforms. If the discipline is correct, great! If the disciplinary action has to be reverted, at least the wronged players will feel like they've been treated with more respect in the process.


- A Note: I have only had small interactions with ESO's Support for questions or a little bit of minor help. In each case, they've been as helpful as they could be!

Sarannah

I wasn't affected, but kudo's to ZOS for making this thread! And ofcourse for helping those affected players out.

VaranisArano

Softy76 wrote: »

As an affected player I want to thank you for this official statement, excuse and compensation.

But would it have been such an effort to write us one single sentence that there is an ongoing investigation? No comment for 9 days still leaves a bad aftertaste.

This is a great example of the type of ongoing communication I'd like for Support to consider taking up in the future.

Olibeau

*claps* Fantastic news, and thank you for being open and honest about your mistakes. Really inspiring stuff

Baertram

@ZOS_GinaBruno As an addon dev playing and supporting the addons since the beta I'm somehow puzzeld what code/addon was in charge here.
I mean I know very much of the official addons "on the market" (from www.esoui.com at least) and I also would say I understand what is possible, and what not (via addons).

So is there any way you guys could communicate to us (Addon devs) please what was the cause here, which addon(s) you have found being in charge, and what needs to be changed so that this won't happen again? I'm pretty sure it was never intended to happen by the(se) addon(s).
Maybe tell ZOS_DanBatson about this so he can pass it onto us in the addon dev chat.

We would be very interested into this information to keep the game + addons stable and support your anti-cheat methods the best possible way, without triggering "false positives somehow" (though I really wonder how addons should be able to try to duplicate gold, if this is not just the name of your anti-cheat methods).

Erissime

Very nice recognition of facts as well as explanation. May the future hold more of these - communication is key to a healthy community.

Ittrix

Walmart recently put me through a bit of trouble. I tried to order food for a week, and their bot cancelled my order repeatedly because they thought it was a scam. When I reached out to Walmart's support, they immediately looked into it, said something *might* be up, and that I should try again in a day because they would monitor and change things to get my order to work.

Had I been told repeatedly that I was a scammer when I asked why the bot was cancelling orders or how I could fix the situation,
Had my posts that I made been deleted asking why my order was flagged as a scam repeatedly,
Had I received that treatment for over a week before I was told something might be up and that they'd look into it,
I would have been enraged.


Sound familiar?
Kudos for owning up to it in the end, but there is still work to be done.
I hope this post is the first of many steps of improvement.

spartaxoxo

This is how customer service is done. I hope this results in greater scrutiny of the appeals process across the board.

I love to see this though I was not effected. It makes me feel good about spending so mucb more money on this game than any other I have played. Thank you!

Ragged_Claw

I'm very relieved to hear this on behalf of the affected players. This does raise the issue of 'guilty until proven innocent' and opening avenues of appeal, since there was nowhere for these players to turn, and posts on this forum and others were met with responses like, 'ZoS doesn't make mistakes, you definitely cheated' etc, and then promptly closed down.

But this communication and transparency is very much appreciated. My suggestion would be to re-frame the intial communication where an account has been flagged from 'final warning, account suspended' type of language, to more of a 'we've temporarily frozen your account whilst we investigate unusual activity'. My reasoning is that this would also cause less flak for the CS (who are after all, only doing what they're told to do) who bear the brunt of angry and frustrated customers. But for now, thanks again for the clarity.

Amottica

It is good to see such an acknowledgment from a gaming company. Hopefully the addon developer fixes their addon.

I will add that gold dipping, and any cheating ruins a game quickly. While it is a major inconvenience to those who were heavily affected by this, it is good to see Zenimax has systems in place to catch illicit behavior and is willing to review such incidents to make sure the actions were appropriate or if the player was behaving properly.

Ratzkifal

Good. Please use this as a lesson and review the entire reporting and punishment process to ensure that the next time an issue like this comes up, it won't even come to false bans in the first place.
The raid group that got banned for reporting that exploit simply because they ended up looting the boss they could have killed without the exploit anyway also should not have received such a disproportionate punishment.

Fandriil

As an affected Player i will say thanks for this good news.