Update on recent action against some ESO accounts

tim77

👍 👍 👍

This topic had the potential to irrevocably destroy a lot.
Very well averted.

FeedbackOnly

Thank you for saying something on the matter. It does help trust, but hoping things like bans are handled with more care. We don't want to afraid we might be next.

NanoTechnicianHQ

Great news, as I'm one to mess about with lua and made some bad mods I can understand that they are very powerful.
Good work!

Jaraal

So what item did y'all get? Or is it a secret?

DreamyLu

I would like to highlight that addons are third party programs, which use - in theory - is at our own risk and for which ZOS has no obligations in case of troubles resulting from using them. So, personally, I find ZOS very fair to care about an issue caused by an addon, because from the moment the cause was identified as being an addon, they could have decided to ignore the issue.

Now on the other hand, fact is that some of the addons are so deeply integrated into game content, that the related activities rely on using those and wouldn't work without them. Trading is a typical case. This puts ZOS in a grey zone regarding limit of responsibility.

I'm not sure about the possible implications in case of bigger troubles. Maybe that ZOS will need to give a thinking about fully taking over and integrating some of the addons, to get back to a clear scope of responsibility.

Dolgubon

Ratzkifal wrote: »

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.

Actually, the bans were because it was streamed. Not because they looted.

LadySinflower

For ZOS to take such serious actions condemning the affected players while shutting down all attempts to discuss the matter in the forums here was very disheartening. Especially so given the fact that we see bots every day running rampant through the game, which is outright cheating, and nothing ever seems to be done about them. Would it have hurt to give the affected players a bit more of an explanation and a better avenue of appeal? Instead the hard line was taken, basically "you know what you did so take your punishment and shut up."

Thank you for owning up to your mistake and making a forum post about it. This goes a long way toward renewing player trust and goodwill. It may have only been a small group of players who were directly involved, but we were all affected once the incident was made public. I, for one, appreciate open honesty from a company to whom I give a great deal of time and money (in the game).

Blobsky

Jaraal wrote: »

So what item did y'all get? Or is it a secret?

So far, the players were not reimbursed at all, but I assume that is because of weekend

Troodon80

DreamyLu wrote: »

I would like to highlight that addons are third party programs, which use - in theory - is at our own risk and for which ZOS has no obligations in case of troubles resulting from using them. So, personally, I find ZOS very fair to care about an issue caused by an addon, because from the moment the cause was identified as being an addon, they could have decided to ignore the issue.

Now on the other hand, fact is that some of the addons are so deeply integrated into game content, that the related activities rely on using those and wouldn't work without them. Trading is a typical case. This puts ZOS in a grey zone regarding limit of responsibility.

I'm not sure about the possible implications in case of bigger troubles. Maybe that ZOS will need to give a thinking about fully taking over and integrating some of the addons, to get back to a clear scope of responsibility.

While I do understand your intention here, I have to point out:- yes, while addons are "use at your own risk" they are not third party "programs." They are third party, ZOS takes no responsibility for them, but they are not programs. They are scripts which use an API made available by ZOS, and they can only use what is available, and made available, by ZOS. If an addon broke something, then it wasn't just "made badly,"** and the responsible code in the API should be fixed, made private, or made unusable.

** There are a lot of badly made addons and they can make performance deteriorate, these clog up memory or otherwise take up resources on the client side. There would (or should) be little to no sign of this on the server side as it's happening only on the client, and certainly shouldn't cause false positives for gold duplication.

xgoku1

The addon boogeyman strikes again.

Please, stop relying on general ignorance of how addons work to scapegoat. If you actually want to be transparent, please tell us the full details of what part of your restricted public API caused your anti-cheat systems to fire. Because it sounds like an incredibly suspect claim.

AddOns aren't viruses, you can't blame them for everything wrong in your game, geez.

VaranisArano

DreamyLu wrote: »

I would like to highlight that addons are third party programs, which use - in theory - is at our own risk and for which ZOS has no obligations in case of troubles resulting from using them. So, personally, I find ZOS very fair to care about an issue caused by an addon, because from the moment the cause was identified as being an addon, they could have decided to ignore the issue.

Now on the other hand, fact is that some of the addons are so deeply integrated into game content, that the related activities rely on using those and wouldn't work without them. Trading is a typical case. This puts ZOS in a grey zone regarding limit of responsibility.

I'm afraid I disagree.

ZOS is responsible for their anti-chest system and any false positives it detects. The gameplay using addons is allowed - as ZOS admits here. Literally, Gina says " the behavior on the affected accounts represented normal gameplay." It IS the responsibility of ZOS to make sure they are not erroneously banning players for gold duplication when in fact, no such thing was occurring.

Addons are not a free "Get out of doing your due diligence" card for ZOS.

It would NOT have been acceptable for ZOS to have discovered that this was a false positive caused by an addon flagging their system, and then shrug their shoulders and say "Whelp, you use addons at your own risk. Too bad. The ban for gold duping stands." and to, as you suggest, ignore the issue.

Investigating further, rectifying the problem, and reversing the bans is exactly what ZOS needed to do. Ignoring the issue would have been deeply unfair.

Dolgubon

xgoku1 wrote: »

The addon boogeyman strikes again.

Please, stop relying on general ignorance of how addons work to scapegoat. If you actually want to be transparent, please tell us the full details of what part of your restricted public API caused your anti-cheat systems to fire. Because it sounds like an incredibly suspect claim.

AddOns aren't viruses, you can't blame them for everything wrong in your game, geez.

Even without any other info on the issue, I'd say it's actually quite a reasonable claim. It's relatively common knowledge that godsend can get you a social ban. Dressing room et al. can get you kicked if you spam change builds. An add-on doing something is generally indistinguishable from any other method of doing things. So it's not difficult to imagine an add-on tripping up other automated systems. General knowledge of how add-ons work does not actually make it more difficult to believe the claim

As far as more info on it, we've asked the Zos add-on person but BC it's anti cheat stuff no idea how much they'll be able to say.

DUTCH_REAPER

Awesome job owning up to it and fixing it. Now do cyrodil server next peeez lol

Avandri

It's too bad we aren't seeing the same kind of transparency and communication with the current Xbox series X/S crashing. Being kicked to dashboard multiple times per hour is just as impactful on gameplay.

xgoku1

Dolgubon wrote: »

xgoku1 wrote: »

The addon boogeyman strikes again.

Please, stop relying on general ignorance of how addons work to scapegoat. If you actually want to be transparent, please tell us the full details of what part of your restricted public API caused your anti-cheat systems to fire. Because it sounds like an incredibly suspect claim.

AddOns aren't viruses, you can't blame them for everything wrong in your game, geez.

Even without any other info on the issue, I'd say it's actually quite a reasonable claim. It's relatively common knowledge that godsend can get you a social ban. Dressing room et al. can get you kicked if you spam change builds. An add-on doing something is generally indistinguishable from any other method of doing things. So it's not difficult to imagine an add-on tripping up other automated systems. General knowledge of how add-ons work does not actually make it more difficult to believe the claim

As far as more info on it, we've asked the Zos add-on person but BC it's anti cheat stuff no idea how much they'll be able to say.

Oh interesting, didn't know that about Godsend. I thought the worst case was getting kicked from too many API calls or something.

rayvijn

Thanks, ZOS, for finding and correcting the mistake!

Eormenric

I love transparency; this is a great addition to building player trust and we would all like to see more of it.

Hvíthákarl

Acknowledging the error is a good sign indeed, but from what I've been investigating about this, the issue that needs to be improved the most on your behalf is how (and how often) you engage with the community when something like this happens. There has been a clear lack of communication on your end and by simply addressing it properly, most of the drama generated around this could've been avoided.

Still, I'm glad to see ZoS owning its own mistakes!

Avandri

Hvíthákarl wrote: »

Acknowledging the error is a good sign indeed, but from what I've been investigating about this, the issue that needs to be improved the most on your behalf is how (and how often) you engage with the community when something like this happens. There has been a clear lack of communication on your end and by simply addressing it properly, most of the drama generated around this could've been avoided.

Still, I'm glad to see ZoS owning its own mistakes!

This seems to be a trend with them. Overall, very disappointing in general.

This community is made up of so many great folks with the same love and passion for the game as zos. We understand things go wrong and as reasonable adults, we'd all be patient while issues are sorted. Where they consistently fall short is how they wait until things get out of hand before they comment or update us on anything. And when they do, share an over generalized, get your BS meter firing, kind of statement.

Schiffy

xgoku1 wrote: »

The addon boogeyman strikes again.

Please, stop relying on general ignorance of how addons work to scapegoat. If you actually want to be transparent, please tell us the full details of what part of your restricted public API caused your anti-cheat systems to fire. Because it sounds like an incredibly suspect claim.

AddOns aren't viruses, you can't blame them for everything wrong in your game, geez.

If you read some of the comments (moreso on reddit) by a couple of the affected players, you'd see that this was their guess before ZOS said anything publicly. The affected persons all realized they seemed to have one addon that was the most likely suspect in common. ZOS just seems to have confirmed their theory.

SirAndy

xgoku1 wrote: »

The addon boogeyman strikes again.
Please, stop relying on general ignorance of how addons work to scapegoat. If you actually want to be transparent, please tell us the full details of what part of your restricted public API caused your anti-cheat systems to fire. Because it sounds like an incredibly suspect claim.
AddOns aren't viruses, you can't blame them for everything wrong in your game, geez.

I tend to agree with this, every time something big goes wrong with the game ZOS is quick to blame it on AddOns.
It does seem awfully convenient to always shift the blame that way.

It is worth repeating that if this is true, it is your *own* AddOn API conflicting with your *own* anti-cheat measures.

Not really something that you can blame on a single AddOn author ...

Lady_Lindel

Well when I first saw this on Reddit, I was gobsmacked by the arrogant response to the player. Now we have the apology. So I see people thinking it is so cool they have apologised, all is forgiven. How about we ask if the apology is because they are losing players at a rapid rate. Remember this game is owned by a billion dollar company. It is a publicly listed company who expects profit. [snip] They are not your friend. They did not apologise because they saw the error of their ways. Think about the number of pvp players who have left, the Xbox players who can't play currently (but don't worry, the fix will be out Oct 6th) The ridiculous housing furniture caps, while they push out larger and larger houses. And now the slap in the face to loyal Eso+ players. This game is hemorrhaging players and they know it.
Looking at the Steam player charts you can see it. Now while Steam doesn't reflect the real player numbers, it does reflect trends. This game is losing players at an alarming rate.

[edited for bashing]

Blobsky

Worth noting that they still don't have their gold back, let's hope Zenimax complete this promise of repair...

Avandri

Lady_Lindel wrote: »

Well when I first saw this on Reddit, I was gobsmacked by the arrogant response to the player. Now we have the apology. So I see people thinking it is so cool they have apologised, all is forgiven. How about we ask if the apology is because they are losing players at a rapid rate. Remember this game is owned by a billion dollar company. It is a publicly listed company who expects profit. [snip] They are not your friend. They did not apologise because they saw the error of their ways. Think about the number of pvp players who have left, the Xbox players who can't play currently (but don't worry, the fix will be out Oct 6th) The ridiculous housing furniture caps, while they push out larger and larger houses. And now the slap in the face to loyal Eso+ players. This game is hemorrhaging players and they know it.
Looking at the Steam player charts you can see it. Now while Steam doesn't reflect the real player numbers, it does reflect trends. This game is losing players at an alarming rate.

And all they need to do is listen to their community of loyal players, across all platforms. We don't want an event every other week. We don't need new content four times a year. We don't need new crown crates and new crown store only houses every month. And we sure as hell don't want you to act like you gave us (your ESO+ customers) something great when you announced the free copy if the Deadlands DLC as your grand mystery prize...c'mon zos, really? We already get that as ESO+ members. What a terrible idea.

What we want is a game that's reliable and that's thoroughly bug tested on all platforms before a patch goes out. That's it. We want a game that works and a team who knows how to handle things. Get that figured out and then consider adding all the new content you want.

I sure hope they know they're losing players at an alarming rate. I'm among those who cancelled their ESO+ membership because they just can't seem to figure this basic stuff out.

[edited to remove quote]

code65536

Schiffy wrote: »

xgoku1 wrote: »

The addon boogeyman strikes again.

Please, stop relying on general ignorance of how addons work to scapegoat. If you actually want to be transparent, please tell us the full details of what part of your restricted public API caused your anti-cheat systems to fire. Because it sounds like an incredibly suspect claim.

AddOns aren't viruses, you can't blame them for everything wrong in your game, geez.

If you read some of the comments (moreso on reddit) by a couple of the affected players, you'd see that this was their guess before ZOS said anything publicly. The affected persons all realized they seemed to have one addon that was the most likely suspect in common. ZOS just seems to have confirmed their theory.

@Schiffy And that one addon was...?

Schiffy

Not a clue as I wasn't directly involved in the whole thing. From the Reddit comments it seems like it was some sort of auto-mail collection addon or feature of an addon. But no one's demonizing addons as a whole. Or even blaming an addon dev for doing something malicious. It was likely a mistake or something that conflicted with a hotfix that no one could have possibly guessed would happen until it was too late.

anitajoneb17_ESO

Avandri wrote: »

We don't want an event every other week

Yes we do. I enjoy frequent events and I'm not the only one.

Avandri wrote: »

We don't need new content four times a year.

Yes we do. I enjoy the quarterly release of new content, and I'm not the only one.

Avandri wrote: »

And we sure as hell don't want you to act like you gave us (your ESO+ customers) something great when you announced the free copy if the Deadlands DLC as your grand mystery prize

I am very happy about the free Deadlands DLC, and I'm not the only one.

Avandri wrote: »

What we want is a game that's reliable and that's thoroughly bug tested on all platforms before a patch goes out. That's it.

No. Most bugs are not game-breaking and I don't want delayed content just because of that. Besides, bug-free software is an impossible thing to ask for.

Avandri wrote: »

I sure hope they know they're losing players at an alarming rate.

One thing is sure : they know perfectly well how many players and subs they're gaining or loosing at any given time - and you don't have a clue about it.

anitajoneb17_ESO

code65536 wrote: »

@Schiffy And that one addon was...?

I could not find that info written black on white anywhere (I haven't researched for ages either but I, too, was curious). But it's an add-on with auto-loot for mail. So unless another addon that I don't know of can do that, I'd say it's Dolgubon's lazy writ crafter. Seems like this option of autolooting mail attachments is misbehaving, or, better said, causes ZOS logs to misbehave if they are used in conjunction with a full inventory. Not Dolgubon's fault in any way.

heinousmoz

There are other addons that loot mail out there and there's no way for us to tell which one might have been the cause or even a conflict between them if more than one was installed was the issue...

Elsonso

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

@Schiffy And that one addon was...?

I could not find that info written black on white anywhere (I haven't researched for ages either but I, too, was curious). But it's an add-on with auto-loot for mail. So unless another addon that I don't know of can do that, I'd say it's Dolgubon's lazy writ crafter. Seems like this option of autolooting mail attachments is misbehaving, or, better said, causes ZOS logs to misbehave if they are used in conjunction with a full inventory. Not Dolgubon's fault in any way.

No one impacted is posting their addons so we can't find a common addon. I would hesitate to name any addon in particular, since there are apparently multiple addons that could have contributed to this.